Thinking the philosophical, social and political dimensions of neuroscience.
Little bit blog, little bit article; like the neuro-humanities, it's somewhere in-between.
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What worries about the validity of fMRI can teach the Neurohumanities/Social Sciences
The so-called “neuroscience revolution” (Wolpe, 2002) has not escaped media attention. Numerous popular news articles proclaim how brain research produces “revolutionary changes in understandings of individuals and society” (O’Conner & Joffe, 2013) and can validate or invalidate the big and small of our everyday lives (Jack, 2014). Even so, neuroscience has not been immune from criticism.
In 2013, The New York Times declared that a “neuroscience backlash is now in full swing,” arguing that skepticism and dissatisfaction arise from “attempts to explain practically everything about human behavior and culture through the brain” (para 1). Likewise, a 2013 book entitled, Brainwashed: The seductive appeal of mindless neuroscience declared a false “mystique” around the brain and outlined the “deceptions of neuroscience” in the popular press. More recently, a study by Anders Eklund and colleagues (2016) raised the red flag of skepticism in the press once more. Covered by numerous popular press outlets (New Scientist, 2016; ScienceAlert, 2016; Wired, 2016), the Eklund et al. 2016 study potentially invalidated years of brain research employing a specific type of statistical analysis from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. As the New Scientist (2016) reported, “It’s another blow for neuroscience.”
Reviewing the decades of bombastic claims surrounding the wonders of brain research, some scholars critical of neuro-reductionism, neuro-fascination, and neuro-everything might be a bit tempted to snicker, tempted to watch smugly as neuroscience wades through a sea of unfulfilled expectations while headlines decry meager empirical capacities. The Twitter response was certainly massive; I saw comments ranging from lamentation to confusion to amusement. The words “bunk,” “hot mess,” “oops,” were not out of the ordinary, offering the general impression that some were waiting for, or perhaps wanting, this moment.
But we should not be smirking.
We should be cognizant of our own limitations and supportive of scientific researchers whom are in the process of conducting the necessary work of validation and technological negotiation, i.e. science. So, instead of carrying on about neuroscience’s limitations, I will, at least on this occasion, address what the Eklund study might (self)reflectively say to me about the limitations of the neuro-humanities and neuro-social-sciences.
Image source: Leibniz Institute for Primate Research
Where did all the research go?
I am not asking how some neuroscience studies managed to have an overlooked statistical / technological flaw. I am, rather, asking how Eklund and his colleagues' discovery could be experienced as any sort of psychological reconfiguring after years of critical social scientific and neuro-humanities discussions about processes and practices in the neurosciences. I am tempted to wonder (as a thought experiment, not fully as a cynical response) what happened to the many limitations already pronounced, i.e. the warnings about small sample sizes (Button et al., 2013; Farah, 2014), the failures of cross-cultural comparisons (Mateo et al., 2012), the insufficiency of behavioral explanations from brain data (Sprevak, 2013), the complexity of forming an image from brain scan data (Dumit, 2004; Gibbons, 2007; Haueis, 2012), the experimental over-reliance on socially constructed categories (Fine, 2010; Jack, 2011), the injection of mis-leading metaphors and conflation of brain findings with ideas already familiar to us (Gruber, 2014; 2016), the explanations of behavior that conveniently cooperate with capitalist discourses (Choudhury et al., 2009; Johnson, 2011)?
To be fair, some people never trusted neuroscience (See: Zambo & Zambo, 2011), and many did read the criticisms published by scholars working in the critical neurosciences and neuro-humanities. But if we can use this opportunity to self-reflect, then we might consider possible limitations on our own work.
Do we adequately address non-academic audiences?
Do we grasp the vocabulary of the neurosciences, its tools and practices, understanding how they fit into a socio-historical positioning of the brain?
Does our critical/cultural work need to be more fully engaged with the neurosciences? Should we do more to engage the mathematical and statistical processes?
Do we need to resituate our approach to critical neuroscience and/or cultivate affective investment in the success and advancement of the neurosciences?
As always, there are many angles to explore and aspects to interrelate, but we could take a moment to recognize that the recent intellectual challenge, the fuel currently propelling critical thinking about the constructions of neuroscience, came from within the neurosciences, not the humanities, not the social sciences.
OK, And? (Why change comes from within)
As interdisciplinary scholars, we have no good reason to be celebrating any damage done to the neuroscience’s validity or appeal. It may be ever so slightly tempting to do so from within the hope that future generations will read neuroscience more critically and ask questions about the social construction of science and the processes of interpretation. However, we can instead critique ourselves and pose a challenge to do more, seek new ideas; I hope to develop new integrations with the neurosciences even in the midst of, if not in spite of, my own criticisms and the new ones now emerging.
For me, a neuro-humanities and neuro-social sciences cannot (I mean should not) be easily divorced from the neurosciences and cannot adopt a critical stance absent tangible engagement. It does not suffice to point fingers from afar. If the Eklund et al. (2016) study and the massive public reaction/discussion surrounding it reminds me of anything, it reminds that change usually comes from within.
And why is that? Because those on the inside have a kind of knowing - an intimacy with process, a touch on the heartbeat - an awareness of the social course of things, a familiarity with the people involved, an attunement with the materials and practices needed to see why things tend to work the way that they do. Outside voices are, undoutedly, needed sometimes and sometimes the clearest. But criticisms of the sort we make - social, theoretical, and philosophical - will, I am convinced, be made most compellingly from partnership.
Here we can go further. I want to re-state a version of Stephen Ramsay's (2011) somewhat controversial 2011 comments about the Digital Humanities. He argues that the Digital Humanities must be invested in 'building things' and, in his view, DH "involves moving from reading and critiquing to building and making" (para 4). I think we can say that there is, likewise, something that distinguishes those in the 'neuro-humanities' or 'cognitive humanities' or 'critical neurosciences' from those scholars otherwise situated in literature, rhetoric, cultural studies, sociology, etc. For me, this gets back to a familiarity with neuroscientific practices, with hands-on experience and with forming partnerships/projects with the people doing brain experiments. Would we expect a Digital Humanist to be unaware of programming languages, clueless about algorithms, having never tinkered behind the screen? I don't think we can expect good critiques to emerge from a distanced perspective, or maybe it is fair to say simply that the field will remain "under-theorised" (as Ramsay notes) without a "passionate enthusiast" intent on some form of 'building.'
At this point, I wonder if a scholar in the neuro-humanities or critical neurosciences could have ever constructed a critique of fMRI based on statistics or computer software programs. Maybe a few. But answering the question by admitting that I certainly could not tells me 1) that disciplinary limitations are real and 2) that I, nevertheless, need to be more engaged and do more learning about the machines and processes involved.
Broadly, and perhaps more comfortably, I think we can start by seeking new concepts that eradicate clean divisions and resituate conversations - on this note, I was recently inspired by Angela Willey’s (2016) recent paper wherein she encourages “thinking creatively, capaciously, pluralistically, and thus irreverently with respect to the rules of science”; she speaks passionately about the difficulties in pursuing a (New Materialist) realist imperative, reminding us not to conflate “matter” with scientific production even as she proposes that we try to re-think key ideas like “matter” and “life”—find a way to mesh and play in-between ontological exploration and epistemological construction. Again, here I will say that doing this might require some intimate knowledge of practices and extensive conversations with neuroscientists. But I'll get off my high-horse for now and end with this: how we reimagine ideas central to scientific philosophy is open to discussion, but what is clear is the need to discover the limits of our existing work and aim for greater impact right at the heart of matter/matterings/making.
Sharing
Buy a Coca-Cola
From the shop
Right next door.
Sip it quietly
At the bus stop
Where the old bitty
Sits most the day
Alone.
Spend a dollar
Maybe
On a bag of chips,
Hold your breath -
Would she like
To have one?
Get a kick
Out of her grin.
All gums.
But doesn't matter -
Next time
She lumbers
Around the corner
Holding two
Blue Ribbons.
and Methodological Invention
We’re never completely free from what Max von Manen (2007) calls “theoretical, prejudicial and suppositional intoxications” (p. 11). I read Latour with glee and find myself snickering now at Derrida’s incessant obsession with language. Heidegger was a Nazi, and Ellul just wants to save the world. We’re taught these things and move with the tides.
We’ve turned (many of us) with the “bodily turn,” the “New Materialist turn,” and of course, the “neuroscientific turn” and the “affective turn.” In the humanities, some of these turns move together methodologically - to extend or challenge our methods - and do not merely reposition objects-of-analysis.
Given interswirling attention to the body, affect, and neuroscience, I feel now compelled to focus intently on personal, sensous reflection as a method or, at least, to consider in retrospect how impressions and gut reactions energize or alter evaluations. As many of us move away from looking solely at texts, we might taste-test “pathic practice” or “pathic knowing” (von Manen, 2007); this is a consultation with our impressions, a communion with the involuntary body, yes, a construction after-the-fact, a re-shaping of affect, a poetic knowing put into words.
Steven Shaviro is great at this, and I always enjoy reading his work. Here's an example where he watches films to see "what it feels like to live in the early twenty-first century" (2). I think we could use a bit more of this re-/comm-/union among physical and psychological states in rhetoric and critical-cultural theory. But what I like about the reference to phenomenology in context of this discussion is the way that personal exploration and reference to one's own experience is already assumed to be inherently valuable.
“Not unlike the poet, the phenomenologist directs the gaze toward the regions where meaning originates, wells up, percolates” (von Manen, 2007).
When I consider the daring (and intimate / vulnerable) proposition to use my gut reactions and slowly simmering feelings as a means of intellectual exploration and theoretical invention, I keep returning to one text for guidance: 'Mirror Neurons and the Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity' by Dieter Lohmar, 2006. This wonderful text intersects with - and now seems to increasingly inform - my own work. Mostly, I have focused on ways that “mirror neuron” (MN) research inspires the humanities and is used for practical and legitmization purposes. Along these lines, I see value in what Lohmar is attempting here - how he interrogates MNs from within his own field area, as opposed to exclusively applying the neuroscience data.
To be brief: Lohmar uses experience to interrogate the most popular interpretation of MNs as providing a “simulation mechanism” in the brain (note: MNs are often described as special cells that “mirror” other people’s movements in order to help us “understand” those movements. See Gallese, 2009 or Iacoboni, 2008 if you must). Working from his own intersubjective reflection and personal experience, Lohmar questions typical deployments of so-called “understanding”—he distinguishes multiple possible levels of what we can call our “understanding” of others. And in this way, he expands and challenges MN interpretations.
Lohmar thinks about MNs using his own everyday experiences as a mode of questioning. He proposes that when we "understand" we could possibly be identifying in a “weak” or “low-level way” or in a “way similar to” as well as feel so strongly that we engage “all dimensions of experience” and, thus, "understand" more fully and differently (p. 10-11). Here, Lohmar wonders about the range of human feeling as it relates to understanding others, responding to MN interpretations based on how he himself can feel.
Other scholars also use their everyday experiences to question MN interpretations. Gregory Hickok (2014), for instance, suggests that understanding the actions of others does not require 'mirroring' neurons (since we understand lots of actions we haven't seen or performed). Hickok also takes issue with the view that MNs help us grasp what others intend to do (this view originates from the observation that MNs only seem to fire when people perform goal-related actions like eating; (see Umilta et al., 2001)); Hickok, rather, asserts that we usually do not actually "understand" the intentions of others by watching them (since, in his experience, he can't tell whether a person intends to fill a glass or empty a pitcher of water when pouring water out of a pitcher) (Hickok, 2014, p. 136).
For now, as far as this essay is concerned, I suppose the take-away from Lohmar's article is this: “The past interpretations of mirror neurons research derive mostly from a third person perspective, which focuses on what can be observed ‘from the outside’… the first person perspective should also be consulted in the interpretation of neurophysiological findings” (Lohmar, 2006).
I now sit and wonder how this "first-person perspective" can better inform my own work - how I can feel through my own impressions to question interpretation and build additions to theory. And I wonder how difficult this will be.
...
Tonight, I am playing "brain games" on my Mind Games app. I am told the games will exercise my “brain’s attention,” help me to practice my “processing speed,” and increase my “cognitive flexibility” (“Mind” 2016). I reflect on those key words: attention, processing, flexibility.
I want to say something about the persuasive power of ambiguity, how those words vaguely draw upon popular discourses (and fears) of so-called "abnormal" brains and brains deteriorating from old age or too much hypertrophic media. I wonder if this obsession with maintaining one's own brain, having a normal brain, or shaping a fast, attentive brain is why I am playing these games. Then another thought strikes me: feeling an increase in so-called "cognitive flexibility" could happen in any number of ways, and yet, I might be prone to give credit to the brain game, despite any evidence that the game actually had an effect; putting together IKEA furniture, hell, driving my car more often could possibly make me feel more 'flexible.' But it wouldn't be until playing the games religiously that I would consider this and feel prone to give the credit to the game.
Perhaps, I feel cyncial about this whole brain game thing. So maybe I really want to say something biting about the drive to make our brains mirror Capitalist production in an age of new media — the drive to physically become the 'plugged-in,' savvy corporate intellectual who is ‘always on,’ willing to work faster than others, charged with a self-love that ties self-fulfillment to aptitudes, mental speed and productivity.
Whatever the case, I must eventually confront the plain facts of an algorithmic frying pan to the face: I am rubbish at unscrambling shapes. My score: “38%.” I am now dead-set on doing better, and I dedicate to playing this damn game until I conquer “Unscramble.” I play. I play again. I play again. I play again. Again. Again. I punch a pillow. I realize that I may never overtake the glorious 50% threshold in the game that proclaims, “You are better than most people your age. Thus, you are smart. You are not a loser.”
I sigh and plop on the couch. I entertain the idea that my intense feelings of disappointment (and anger at the app for scoring me so low on "Unscramble") derive from a structural and yet intimately embedded social ideological mantra that says, 'keep up and improve' - and I have just failed to do exactly that.
I pull up my confidence like a pair of suspenders and mutter congratulations to myself about my great score in the 'Anticipation' game. "86%." Not bad. Super job, actually. I really delve into playing mind games now. I remember how I'm really good at making French baguettes, really good. I dig a cold piece of pizza out of the fridge. Then I remember my Other score. The sad one. I sneer and drink down my theoretical intoxications, including a fastly expanding disdain for that vicious trickster Neuro-essentialism, which makes me believe I-AM-THE-BRAIN-IN-THE-NEURO-DISCOURSE (Racine et al., 2005).
I suddenly think that being fantastically amazing at everything would be boring. I want to be 'abnormal.' All of us should be really bad at some things. And, after all, isn't being different the key to, well, anything these days? Stand-out. Be an 'individual.' Find a unique 'brand' for your personal ident--ugh. yuk. (I always feel somehow soiled after saying the word 'brand.') I contemplate how much of the appeal is infantile.
I reflect on the totality of my embodied reactions and feelings to/with Mind Games. I see in retrospect how Neuro-essentialism feels and functions psychologically. This is the point. Large structural, institutional discourses combine with personal habits, emotional wavelengths, and obsessions. This is why, I am convinced, new insights and evaluations of theories about our human life derive from learning to see how wild worlds of spinning strange affects, enculturated emotions, irrationalities, asymbolic movements of the body and guided performances mesh in a landscape of social expectations.
I do believe, now, that playing these games - feeling through them on the level of interaction - has deepened my "understanding" of why we might want to play them, why they are so popular, and why we might choose not to play them. Now I think: “Perhaps, I am practicing ‘cognitive flexibility’ after all."
Poem: 'Pathic'
Pathic in
Phenomenology
is the touch of power blue
in a baby's room. Pigeons
in the park, the smell
of a cigar
long inhabiting
my father's jacket.
I wonder if
we will ever walk
the park again.
Are raindrops
hard-wired to splash?
I beg the sky
to tango
with the smell
of an orange peel, write
a garbled piñata
that really breaks people's hearts. But
then I think: who am I
to know
if or how
Persian rugs
snuggle by the fire.