The “Ecological Unconscious”

Posted on February 17, 2010 by Josh

A recent New York Times articles asks :”Is There An Ecological Unconscious?“

Aside from citing a bunch of studies and trying to draw general conclusions from them (which is an incorrect use of science, by the way, for a great discussion of this, see John Sifferman’s most recent blog post), the author describes the field of ecopsychology, from its inception to present attempts at connecting individuals’ psychology and environment.

I dare you to look inside...

The article cites a study by Marc Berman, at the University of Michigan, whose study “The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting with Nature” describes attentional gains after participants have walked through a setting full of “nature” (in this case, the Ann Arbor Arboretum…is that redundant?!).

But what is “psychology?” Until that question is answered succinctly, all “psychological” studies are potentially redundant and misleading.

No one has ever answered that question in concrete terms. Wikipedia says that: Psychology (lit. “study of the soul” or “study of the mind“^[1]) is an academic and applied discipline which involves the scientific study of human (or animal) mental functions and behaviors.

But what is the “mind?” (let’s leave questions of the “soul” out of the discussion for now). Apparently it’s a combination of “mental functions and behaviors.”

Again, Wikipedia says that “mind” is: the aspect of intellect and consciousness experienced as combinations of thought, perception, memory, emotion, will and imagination, including all unconscious cognitive processes. The term is often used to refer, by implication, to the thought processes of reason. Mind manifests itself subjectively as a stream of consciousness.

But where do all of those things come from?

These guys must know...if they're helping "mind"

Most of psychology, if you’ve ever taken a psychology course (or several) addresses “mind” as a thing separate from physical reality. Theorists make up their own paradigms of mind and mentality, of “mental functions and behaviors.”

The terrible redundancy can be seen most clearly in the field of Child Psychology, or Child Development. There are five or ten competing theories of child development at different stages of maturation. All are right, most are completely redundant with one another. Many (if not most) create definitions of the child’s developmental process that are obviously derived solely from the researcher’s personal experience…no “objectivity” there (the question of “objectivity” is quite another question entirely).

This redundancy seems extraordinarily silly to me. For one, can’t we all just get along?! But for another, where does this “mind” come from? I mean, “mind” doesn’t just exist on its own, apart from the physical body…apart from “behaviors.” Does it?

I think the development of the field of psychology stems largely from the Cartesian mind/body dualism, and an underlying belief in “human supremacy” in the Order of Things.

Foucault me.

That is, human beings always believe that they are somehow specially different, better, “more special” than anything else in nature. We always try to find qualities that separate us from the “lower animals.”

But, one by one, all of those arguments have been disproved. I’ve heard them all – human beings have language (all animals have language); human beings are creative (ever see a spiderweb?); we use tools (ever see an ape catch termites with a long blade of grass?); we are self-conscious (debatable, and impossible to prove that other animals are not also self-aware/conscious)…etc.

The list goes on, but always with the same result – we are no “better” than anything else this planet has produced, we’re simply “different.”

This led, in combination with the Cartesian separation of mind from body, to a belief that our thoughts were somehow separate from our bodies, from our “physical” selves.

“Ecological Unconscious” or “ecopsychology” is one attempt to put those things back together, but it has skimmed over one of the most important questions – “When studying psychology (the mind), what exactly is it that we are studying?”

In reference to this, I’d like to cite a 2007 study by Japanese researchers (following up on several earlier studies of a similar nature). The study is called “Psychological effects of forest environments on healthy adults: Shinrin-yoku (forest-air bathing, walking) as a possible method of stress reduction,” and, similar to Berman’s study, looked at the effects of walking or sitting in a wooded environment on physiology.

Needless to say, the effects were drastic, and positive. Physiological markers of stress (salivary cortisol, resting heart rate, blood pressure, etc.) decrease in a “natural” environment.

Do the participants’ “psychologies” change? Undoubtedly, yes.

I guarantee that changing your breathing will change your mind.

You see, for me, “psychology,” or “mind,” is just a product of the physical body. Sure, at some level it also becomes the product of the interaction of itself (recursive thought) and anything else (mind-to-mind, mind-thinking-about-itself), but without the physical body, there is no mind.

How can I assert this? Well, you can “change your mind” by changing your body. If you’re feeling blue, go out for a run. It will change your mind.

So when fields like “ecopsychology” spring up, or talk of an “ecological unconscious” begins, I wonder why. Why is it that we want to separate our physiology from our thoughts (or vice versa)? Why is it that we hold onto this belief that there is some “magic” happening in our gray matter?

While it is magical that we have such a complex brain, the brain is not the mind. The entire body is your brain. To quote George Leonard:

Some researchers in the comparatively new field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) argue that the interplay of peptides with peptide receptors on the surface of cells throughout body and brain carries considerably more information than all previously discovered brain mechanisms combined. Imagine a pharmacy with well over a hundred potions that can be mixed in all possible combinations and proportions, and you can begin to understand the power of this chemical information system.

So don’t speak of an “ecological unconscious” as something separate from your body. Don’t speak of nature as something separate from your body. You are continuous with your habitat, with your environment. This is why people living in cities get chronic diseases associated with urban environments – associated with pollution. This is why people have the same diseases as their friends.

Everything “external” to your body can and should be considered your “external organs.” There is nothing you see that does not affect your physiology on some level. There is nothing you hear, smell, touch, that does not do the same. At the same time, there are many things that you cannot sense in any way that are affecting your physiology…that are “creating your mind” – the invisible pollutants in your environment, the trees you do not notice that supply you with oxygen, the microbiomes that inhabit your body.

Stop separating your unconscious from your physical self. And stop separating your physical self from the totality of your environment. When you do that, you regain control over who you are and how you behave.

Only then can you finally say that you have a “mind.”

The Social Ecology of Science

Posted on February 8, 2010 by Josh

My good friend Aaron Schwenzfeier asked me if I had read any books that talked about the information from my last entry – about the continuity of an animal with its habitat. The rest of this post is my response, with some modifications.

The short answer is no, I haven’t read any single text that shows this continuity. The closest I could come would be something like Lynn Margulis’ works, or James Lovelock’s and others’ works with the Gaia hypothesis.

In a world where everything needs to be validated by “science,” it’s no sufficient to use common-sense to combine the different principles you’ve learned into a coherent whole.

Please don't drop the ball!!!

Breakdown

The “animal-as-continuous-with-habitat” is an obvious thing, but who’s going to write about it? What science would you cite? I’m not sure there is much. There are some studies coming around about the importance of environment with regard to physical activity, even health (for instance, the Framingham study that correlates social group with obesity) but they’re few and far between. It’s hard to quantify. And that’s what science wants – quantities. Qualities are still derided.

The other part, “eat in season, locally,” is the same thing – continuity with environment. But dieticians can’t quantify that, again. They can count calories, vitamin content, etc. They can count other things (OCD), but they can’t count the effect of eating things from other places than your natural geography.

Activity levels waxing and waning with the seasons is as old as life itself. All animals do this, not just human animals. The squirrel hides nuts away for the cold winter, builds a large layer of fat to keep itself warm, etc.

Is there a way to measure that, though?

Meow...it's THIS big...

Happiness

Finally, how do you measure happiness? A few studies have tried, and they create “scientific” versions of happiness – with plenty of “categories” to rate different aspects by. Is that how happiness is made? What about the feeling of safety and security that comes from living within your tribe? How would you measure that.

And even if you could, what would happen? What if you realize, through the course of your research career, that a feeling of happiness and safety was all that really mattered? What would you say? How would you say it? How would a message like that be taken by your scientific colleagues? By the general public?

The other thing, and perhaps the biggest impediment to getting real answers about things, about the true “optimal state” of the human animal, is revealed by this question – Why does science measure what it does, and not the other things? What is guiding science? Who gains from scientific research?

An ounce of gold, or a pound of lead?

You’re in The Cul-tcha

Culture dictates all. So, what does our culture value most? Money. Our culture is built around the flow of money. An economic depression is the most terrifying thing imaginable in our society (other than a nuclear holocaust).

I’d go so far to say that much, if not most, of science is guided by money. You need funding to do science. So you have to do science in a way that gets that funding. If you can get funding for a particular research design and not another, you’ll choose the design that gets you the money.

Who is paying that money? I would hazard a guess, again, that much, if not most of the money being donated to the pursuit of science is being donated by people who want to make more money from that science.

They are pursuing science for the sake of money. Not for the sake of discovering “truth.”

A few examples of this, taken from the ideas in my post:
The studies done on continuity of animal with habitat are largely from zoo populations – trying to discover how to keep zoo animals alive. Why would you do that? What is a zoo for? What does a zoo tell people who visit it? How does a zoo treat animals? I’ll let you answer those questions for yourself.

Studies of diet largely focus on quantity of micro/macronutrients and the physiology of the body. Almost none involve the fact that that body is not a “physiology” without its habitat and social environment. There is no isolated “body” to study…it doesn’t exist alone, in a vacuum. But, further, and again – What is the purpose of dietary research, and to what ends is that research put? Who gains from dietary research?

Our measurement of chronobiology has largely been to discover how to handle “shift workers,” and make them healthier and more productive. There is some research on circadian and ultradian clocks, but it isn’t integrated into anything else. It’s just “science.” Another problem, I guess, that should be mentioned. Science for science’s sake is even less effective than science for money’s sake. It may produce amazing information, but what happens to that information, if it is done in a culture that is separate from the main flow of science? It sits there. It doesn’t get used or analyzed, or integrated into the big picture.

Studies of happiness and culture are similarly isolated from other science. There has bee a trend in the past ten years to combine scientific zones of study, in fields like psychoneuroimmunology, or social ecology, etc. But they aren’t really making themselves heard that strongly.

The myth of production – GNP by Naess

Posted on October 16, 2009 by Josh

In the spirit of the other “culturally-focused” posts recently, I was going to post a section from Arne Naess’ book “Ecology, community, and lifestyle” on the topic of Gross National Product (GNP), and the flaws inherent that concept.

However, it’s a long section. Instead, I highly recommend that everyone read that entire book. It’s great from a variety of perspectives.

Allow me, instead, to sum up the main points. These come from pages 110-120 of the book.

First I should note that the United States stopped using GNP as a main indicator of economic health in 1992. We now use GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and other measures. As we’ll see, though, the new measures are just as suspect as the old.

Naess’ first point is one that any “counter-culture” seeking to change established policies needs to make economic arguments to validate its claims.

Our world is now based on economics. Making claims like “the economic policies we disagree with should go away” is like telling the warden of the jail you’re in that he should simply unlock your cell and walk away.

1. Production is making real objects by means of other real objects.

This point is especially interesting in light of the “internet economy” and stock market-based indicators of fiscal health. Neither of those things are “real objects made by means of other real objects.” They are conceptual entities based on agreed-upon rules. They’re games, not products.

2. GNP + imports = consumption + gross investment + increase of stocks + exports

Naess points out that “good stands for the value of all goods and services which are used as production factors.”

3. The history of GNP

GNP really came about after WWII when many nations were trying to rebuild their economies, and people needed an agreed-upon method of measuring “progress.” The problem is that growth far outstripped the way GNP had been designed to measure things, and quickly became vacuous.

4. GNP is value-neutral

“The GNP does not give any guarantee of the meaningfulness of that which is created.”

This is probably the biggest reason why GNP does not correlate with quality of life measures.

5. GNP is “Gross National Product”

The term “gross” means the full distribution, regardless of degree. To paraphrase Naess – if 95% of the people live in abject poverty, and 5% live in extreme opulence, the GNP shows everyone as having the same standard of living.

6. GNP demands consumption

Naess’ next point goes to the point I made in my last post. First, any self-reliance necessarily reflects a decrease in GNP. Eat at home more, lower GNP. Roll your own cigarettes, lower GNP. Etc.

The second point here, though, is very important. That any advertising or campaign that decreases consumption is contrary to GNP. To use the example Naess uses – a vigorous anti-smoking campaign will result in fewer people buying cigarettes. Which will decrease GNP.

7. GNP favors “hard and long” technology

GNP tends to favor concentrated areas of industry/industrialization, which require transportation costs as well. Transportation becomes part of GNP, which increases its overall value. The more products need to be transported, the greater the GNP becomes.

GNP, therefore, disfavors “soft and near” technology, or distribution methods.

7. “GNP growth favours wants, not needs”

“In GNP there is no place for distinction between waste, luxury, and a satisfaction of fundamental needs.”

Economic growth does not reflect the satisfaction of basic needs. It is not designed to fulfill basic needs. It is designed to fulfill its own ends (or the ends of the people holding the levers).

The outcomes of all of these points are that:

“GNP growth supports irresponsible and unsolidaric resource consumption and global pollution.”

Now, as compared to GNP, which is defined as “the value of all goods and services produced in a country in one year, plus income earned by its citizens abroad, minus income earned by foreigners in the country,” GDP is defined as “is the market value of all final goods and services made within the borders of a country in a year” 0r, the equation – GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports).

The difference is the inclusion of money made/invested from abroad in GNP, which is not included in GDP. You can probably see what little difference that distinction makes, based on Naess’ points above. Production (as production-in-itself, value-less) reigns supreme in either measure, and results in the same mitigation of measures of health, happiness, or meaning in a society.