Harnessing the brain’s categorization power to re-wire itself- A possible solution to mental illness!!
Free yourself from negative thoughts and patterns by knowing your mind-brain connection. Reality vs. Illusion series…[Concluding part 4]
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
-Pablo Neruda, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
Knowing our mind-brain connection is essential to fix our life when things go wrong!
We can’t avoid the topic of consciousness while trying to understand the mind-brain relation. Consciousness studies have a huge volume to their account. The available literature is quite exhaustive to date. Remotely, consciousness has remained a subject matter of discussion on the philosophical side, but in some past decades, it has entered mainstream science as an emerging ‘New science.’
When both fronts are explored, it is found that consciousness has two contents: phenomenal content and cognitive content. The former is all that we subjectively feel as a conscious experience, and the latter is generally how we interact with the environment (objects and living entities) and think, plan, and will within our minds.
For example, when you see your loved ones, you get a particular subjective conscious experience/feeling about them. That’s the phenomenal content; when you interact with them, let’s say verbally, then the cognitive part is in action.
Scientifically, it is more popular with the terms ‘Phenomenal consciousness’ and ‘Access consciousness’- PC and AC, respectively [1]. There have been some debates on how they are interrelated. For all practical reasons, they have a strong relationship, as shared by many authors [2, 3, 4].
AC elicits emotions/feelings that are felt as phenomenal conscious experiences (PC). For example, when you eat an apple for the first time, the brain registers it through the cognitive/psychological process called ‘categorization’- “the process through which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, classified, and understood.” [5]. Accordingly, they are labeled, organized, and stored in memory to be easily recalled later [6].
The brain will categorize an apple differently from an orange. Next time you see the apple, the cognitive processes become active, and your previous experience (s) about the apple are refreshed. You get a particular subjective experience about it- taste, related events, etc. That’s the phenomenal part.
Our cognitive mind can intermix various categorized entities when we imagine or dream, eliciting numerous conscious experiences. For example, you might have seen gold and the Rocky Mountains and categorized them separately. Still, nothing would stop you from dreaming or imagining a golden mountain, thus enjoying a different subjective experience. So, whether awake or in sleep, PC and AC go together.
Now, imagine a life where our minds are not equipped with this cognitive categorization ability. Everything that passes by is then experienced just as some unspecified and non-recognizable flow of events. Even the simplest of tasks would make no sense. One may try to strike a nail with a rose instead of a hammer (give it a try…). Life couldn’t exist!!
However, the downside is that our mind does not treat every object uniquely; therefore, it categorizes them. But why?
Well, same answer-information overload. Technically known as ‘cognitive load.’
“Our minds are not capable of treating every object as unique; otherwise, we would experience too great a cognitive load to be able to process the world around us.” [5]
Therefore, categorization makes storing, computing, recalling, and thus living simpler. But that comes with a cost. We miss out on unique details about objects, people, or ideas that we encounter. The mind/brain sets them aside as if they are rubbish.
Nor are our verbal reports or descriptions of our inner experiences that precise. We know we always happen to miss out verbally on some details- the nuances, subtleties, etc. while describing an exact personal subjective experience. This is very vital in cases of crime reporting by witnesses. It was found that verbal memory (describing and memorizing it post-event) is less accurate compared to visual memory (just the subjective experience encountered) used to identify the culprit in an identification parade[7].
So, we miss the unique details about the environment/events and our inner experiences when expressed through language. All we live is just a blurry snapshot of life; nevertheless, we still make sense of it.
It’s fine as long as things go well. But when we have an emotional breakdown or a trauma, let’s not sense hopelessness.
Analysis:
As AC elicits PC, if we take care of our cognitive content, the emotional aspect of our lives can often be handled well.
We may not be able to increase the biological capacity of our brain to receive and process lots of information. Still, we can definitely choose/shuffle the contents of that constrained cranium.
Neuroscientific studies have revealed that our brain has amazing flexibility, technically called ‘neuroplasticity’ or ‘synaptic plasticity.’ Our categorization, learning, and memory are due to this brain plasticity. When you try to learn a new skill, the brain’s neural networks learn to wire accordingly. Soon after you master it, that becomes second nature, for example, driving. Without this cognitive capability, no one can learn anything. Thus, it helps us learn new things, relearn when we forget or are out of practice, and even unlearn something [8, 9, 10]. They are not hard-wired. They can be re-wired. [Medically reviewed by Dr. Devesh Sharma, MD]
So, don’t take your cognitive categorization that seriously when you are on the low side. Nor does our brain capture all the details in one go. So, we have many chances to revisit the situation and gather new data and insights to modify our perception of it. Let’s not be in this illusion that nothing can be done. If we don’t take advantage of this brain’s feature, the dark side will always overpower us.
“Use it or lose it”. -John B. Arden
Interpretation:
When we experience an object or idea for the first time, the brain registers it as a surprise. According to the information theory applied in neuroscience, the brain immediately tries to reduce that surprise, which is seen as a disorder of its internal state. The brain’s goal is to minimize this disorder [11].
This can happen in two ways: addressing the issue (surprise) [11] or ignoring it. In one way, the brain addresses it by categorization, which helps quickly settle the issue as the brain encodes it, generates a model about the causes, and pushes the information to our long-term memory to be used the next time it encounters the object or idea. This is technically called predictive coding or predictive processing [12]. A prediction error detected in such coding in the next encounter is a surprise when the internal generative brain model does not match the sensory data received [12].
The brain uses two concepts to reduce the surprise: active inference- acting on the environment, and perceptual inference- updating the brain generative model [12]. For example, when you feel thirsty on ordinary days, to quench your thirst, you fetch a glass of water (acting on the environment). This is a case of active inference. If you are fasting from water, instead of acting to quench the thirst, you simply update or modify your internal mind states (change of conception) to avoid being affected by such a surprise. This is the case of perceptual inference.
However, the brain processes new information to a certain limit, as discussed in my previous article on the ‘Continuity Illusion. [13]’ Above a certain threshold, the brain starts ignoring it, which would otherwise lead to overload. This is another way to reduce the surprise.
If it fails to address the surprise, it won’t survive, as the external environment will appear strange. If it does not stop processing at one point, the brain’s cognitive ability will malfunction due to overload, thus proving detrimental to its survival.
So, the organism equipped with this amazing brain always tries to take an optimal path for survival.
Here comes the human bias. Once we have categorized something, we become biased because we can’t use it effectively to live unless we settle on it. For example, you see a German shepherd for the first time and mark it in your memory. Next, when you see a wolf, you may categorize it as a dog-like creature- having fur, a tail, and four legs. If someone says German shepherds and wolves are different, you may argue by saying, no, it’s dog-like due to such and such reasons. Although many alternative categorizations can exist for this example, you would have your own bias. This could lead to a personality trait.
Therefore, being biased in life could be natural, but it’s always gentle to reverse and give a fresh look if needed.
Conclusion:
Our brain is equipped with a lot of plasticity, providing alternative ways of thinking and feeling the way of life. Many of the psychological (mental) problems can be resolved by drug-free Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), mental counseling, etc.
Let’s reflect and explore this idea and break free of any negative emotional lockup.
“To find health is the object of the doctor. Anyone can find disease” (Still, 1902, p. 72)[14]
Happy re-wiring!!
Thanks once again for reading. Feedback and comments would be much appreciated.
Glossary
Information Theory in Neuroscience: Information theory conceptualizes information as a reduction in uncertainty in one variable when another variable is known. In other words, if learning the state of one variable reduces our uncertainty in another variable on average, then the first variable provides information about the second variable [15].
CBT: Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment approach for a range of mental and emotional health issues, including anxiety and depression. CBT aims to help you identify and challenge unhelpful thoughts and to learn practical self-help strategies. These strategies are designed to bring about immediate positive changes in your quality of life. CBT focuses on changing unhelpful or unhealthy thoughts and behaviors. It is a combination of 2 therapies: ‘cognitive therapy’ and ‘behavior therapy.’ The basis of both these techniques is that healthy thoughts lead to healthy feelings and behaviors [16].
References:
- Block, N. (1995). On a confusion about a function of consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 18(2), 227–287. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00038188
- Frigato G (2021) The Neural Correlates of Access Consciousness and Phenomenal Consciousness Seem to Coincide and Would Correspond to a Memory Center, an Activation Center and Eight Parallel Convergence Centers. Front. Psychol. 12:749610. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.749610
- Overgaard Morten, 2018 Phenomenal consciousness and cognitive access Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 373: 20170353 http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0353
- Dehaene, S., Naccache, L., Cohen, L., Bihan, D. L., Mangin, J. F., Poline, J. B., et al. (2001). Cerebral mechanisms of word masking and unconscious repetition priming. Nat. Neurosci. 4, 752–758. doi: 10.1038/89551
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- Moore, Sarah. (2019, December 02). What is Synaptic Plasticity? News-Medical. Retrieved on March 03, 2024 from https://www.news-medical.net/life-sciences/What-is-Synaptic-Plasticity.aspx.
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