Reflections: Metamorphosis

My imagination has taken me down several weird roads. I can’t help it. I vividly indulge in thoughts that are absolutely useless, and sometimes frighteningly weird. I have woken up to face several mornings with a sinking feeling that I have to get up to another monotonous day when the birds and the squirrels scurrying and chirping away near my window have such a free and happy life, filled with sunshine. Of course, this is primarily just my early morning grogginess, but I would still drift off in sleep and imagine how life would be if I were a little bird - the ecstasy of flying and sailing in the wind, of being above the clouds and the tips of trees, looking down upon the earth, and leading a simple and delicate life. But then, would I also look forward to eating worms, and no longer have any appetite for foods I currently love? Would I still be the same person inside - with thoughts, feelings and ideas that were part of me as a human? How much will I be a bird, and how much will I still be “me”? And other such round-about questions on the distinction between the mind and body, soul and consciousness.

Honest to God, I didn’t know about Kafka’s Metamorphosis then. In his story, the protagonist, Gregor Samsa, wakes up one morning and is jolted by a rude shock - his body is turned into a revolting cockroach-like-beetle-like insect. While I dreamed of turning into a cute little bird, Gregor Samsa lived the nightmare of being an unsightly insect. Kafka discusses the changes this transformation brings about in Gregor’s behavior, and in his family’s consideration and treatment of him. Gregor’s family struggles to accept their son’s fate, but revulsion keeps winning over affection. We are strongly programmed to associate physical appearances to the person inside. We have been wired to be repelled by pesky insects, to act on the impulse to drive them away from us. However, if we are forced to acknowledge that the despicable being is indeed the person whom we love, would we still treat it with the same sentiments?

As a nice test to this question, I tried to imagine how I would react, if, by some cruel spell, my loved ones were turned into giant lizards (frogs are more bearable on my scale). And I screamed inside. As shallow as it might sound, it would take me concerted efforts to get over my revulsion. It would be even more difficult if I started to see their human traits erode in their new body form. Then what could be/should be left of their identity that still made them the being I loved in human form?

This is the fundamental question of our existence. We are pulled by so many deterministic forces, that when it comes down to defining that little unchanging, unique speck in us, it elusively keeps breaking down and slips away. Inside a bird, I may be dominated by the instinct to peck at worms and relish it, but then what part of me would remain the same no matter what I was turned into, regardless of the instincts I’m plugged into? Is there even such a part of me that’s so resilient and unique?

I have always believed in dualist philosophy of our mind and body. I view the mind to be independent of the body, although both interact with each other. However, I’m slowly reconsidering such a sharp distinction. I still can’t reconcile to the reductionist idea of relating all aspects of our mind and body to the physical being. But some parts of the mind/personality seem to be reducible to the physical states - down to chemicals and ions.

I am reminded of Somerset Maugham’s view on the mind-body philosophy, which I am just paraphrasing - Imagine a scenery amongst the woods. A little brook runs through the trees. The brook could be the mind, and the trees, the body. The brook sure has properties of its own, independent of the trees and the forest, while the forest stands on its own, independent of the brook. However, the two merge in ways that make the scene unique. And over time, the brook flows in a certain path, in a certain pace and rhythm, because of the nature of the undulations and terrain of the forest. And the forest slowly erodes to accommodate the brook. Viewed thus, the brook and the forest coalesce neatly with one another that they cease to exist separately. This is perhaps the most reasonable explanation of the mind-body dilemma at this point. The body and the mind are each theoretically independent, but they interact so closely with one another, that the harsh boundaries blur and they bleed into each other, creating a personality and a mind that can only be utterly unique in a certain body.

I’m not sure if this is one of the subjects that Kafka tried to explore, but these are my reflections on the story. Apparently, Gregor’s transformation is literally a “negative transfiguration, the inversion of the Transfiguration of Christ..”, and is supposed to hold religious connotations and symbolism. But, they all go over my head.

This slip of a book conveys an interesting thought experiment on our mind-body interaction.

Reflections: Genome

The Human Genome - the internal code and recipe that has been opening scientific gates to unravel the secrets behind our creation and existence, is undoubtedly a breakthrough in Genetics. In this wonderful book, Matt Ridley takes us on an enlightening scientific tour on the myths, the revelations, the controversies and the future of the study of Genetics. Since the human genome comes packaged in 23 separate pairs of chromosomes, the book is organized into 22 chapters, with each chapter focusing on a certain chromosome (the X and Y chromosomes have been paired as one chapter). In each chapter, Ridley discusses a certain theme that corroborates with an important gene (or a sequence of it) present on the particular chromosome that forms the chapter.

Before discussing about the content, the first thing that I need to rave about is Ridley's writing. When I first glanced through the book, I was frankly intimidated, for I'm not a biologist and I found more than 300 pages to be covered with walls and walls of small-lettered text. But despite such a daunting appearance, Ridley's laudable writing was not in the least bit didactic or dense. There was never a paragraph when I felt the writing was droning, nor did I zone off - which speaks a lot about the deft writing. In contrast, the book was very entertaining and extremely engaging! Ridley also infuses some characteristic British satire and humour, which I very much appreciated! Yes, this book is targeted for "lay men" and non-biologists, and yes, the content must appear a little watered-down to a student of Genetics, but for me it contained the right amounts of technical detail and Ridley managed to coherently convey the science and arguments with fluid eloquence.

In each chapter Ridley discusses some scientific history concerning the gene/chromosome/disease, and presents some very interesting studies in evolutionary biology and other fields such as neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology to buttress the findings in genetics and to steer clear the misconceptions. Some of the chapters and experimental findings were familiar to me, but nonetheless, the exact scientific reasoning behind them was very enlightening. For example, it's almost hearsay that psychological stress results in a higher probability of illness and coronary diseases. But previously I didn't know that certain gene sequences induced the brain to release the chemical cortisol, which in turn brought down the immune system, making us more susceptible to contract an illness. The other aspect that I really appreciated was the stimulating discussions on nurture versus nature's role in our behavior and biological response. Ridley maintains a balanced outlook, neither promoting genetic determinism, nor trivializing the effects of nurture (or social determinism, as he calls it), and individual psychological dispositions. In the chapter dealing with stress, Ridley brings out the concept of dualism (which is the belief in an entity called the mind, interacting with the body). A person who psychologically responds to his environmental stimuli by creating more stress for himself, makes the brain secrete more cortisol, which in turn reduces his immune system's potential to fight diseases. Contrary to the reductionists' stance that biological determinism alone determined our behavior and health, in this case, psychological behavior and our individualistic response to our environment, result in influencing our biological activity. I appreciated such balanced discussions, despite the book's core dealing with a heavily reductionist-approach to science.

The other chapters that really enthralled me were those on X and Y chromosomes, Eugenics and Free Will. Never before did I learn that there was sexual antagonism between the X and the Y chromosomes! It appears to be such a paradox to all that we have heard about natural selection and survival! Procreation and survival have been deemed to be Nature's biggest concern, but it appears that the X chromosome that statistically outnumbers the Y chromosome, attempts to destroy the Y chromosome through mutations that might generate a protein sequence, which would destroy the Y chromosome! (gross oversimplification on my part in explaining this, but bear with me). It's like a hacker having found the password to an enemy's account, creating a virus to destroy the account! But some mutations of the Y chromosome escapes the destroy sequence and hence the male species gets saved. This hypothesis is alluded as a sweep in evolution every once in a million years, wherein through a new mutation of the Y chromosome, a slightly different variation of the species comes into existence! And, I didn't know that the Y chromosome is responsible for the formation of the placenta in the embryo, to act as a parasite on the mother and ensure the progeny is being taken care of! Have you EVER fathomed such mother-child antagonism and distrust from the male chromosome! There are some very interesting hypotheses on homosexuality surrounding this antagonism between the X and Y chromosomes. Similarly, peacocks apparently didn't have such exquisite plumes a few hundred generations back. Females seem to be progressively resisting the "seduction" of the males, due to which the male peacock needs to produce more and more beautiful and convincing techniques to attract the female, thereby growing more beautiful plumes. If this resistance to males keeps increasing, there may be a point when the species would obliterate themselves. This theory has been incredibly astonishing to me! Hopefully I didn't misunderstand his writing, for it still seems such an antithesis to the fundamental characteristics of Nature.

The chapter on Eugenics was quite thought-provoking as well. The historical significances, such as many western countries, including the U.S., having passed laws to sterilise more than 100,000 "mentally defective" and "feeble-minded" people to prevent them from having defective children, who would bring down the overall quality of the human race appalled me. I had heard of the Nazi's atrocities but never did I know that many other western countries participated in such pro-eugenic revolutions. Churchill's famous quote has been, "the multiplication of the feeble minded is a very terrible danger to the race". Apparently even writers such as Bernard Shaw and H.G Wells were pro-eugenic. It brings out the age old debate between Utilitarian principles of morality towards the bigger society, versus the individuals' rights. While I can understand the concern of those in support of Eugenics, I can't digest the idea of the state, or the government deciding and dictating on how we should "breed". It really brings to light the dangers of our obsession with ensuring "perfect human beings". Starting from Down's Syndrome and schizophrenia, the definition of "mental health" can turn as subjective as "feeble minded", or "low IQ". I commend the fact that Ridley did not shy away from such discussions concerning the uglier side of Genetics, and the dangerous possibilities that the future holds.

The last chapter on Free Will was a very fitting end to the book. Ridley argues that social determinism, parental influence and environmental determinism, all play as much a role in deciding our "internal program", than mere genetic determinism. Despite such mechanisms of determinism acting on us, the concept of Free Will, however trivial it may appear, does exist. I liked his line of thought that, acting random is not necessarily exercising freedom. We human beings do follow a determined predictable path - it's deterministic that we eat and sleep everyday, yet the nitty-gritties such as when and how still rely on us. Just because we are not random, doesn't mean our deterministic life is fatalistic. Yes, in the end "Free Will" does seem to be reduced to a tiny subset of actions, yet as Ridley puts it, "Freedom lies in expressing your own determinism. If freedom is what we prefer, then it is preferable to be determined by forces that originate in ourselves and not in others." This statement has been very convincing to me.

Having raved so much, I have one tiny quibble. While initially, the organization of the chapters really helped me wrap my head around the concepts, it broke down towards the end. Ridley just picked a theme and in a convoluted manner tried to relate it to a part of a gene sequence, after which he focused primarily on the theme, rather than on the chromosome or the gene. For example, I found the disconnected discussions on Cancer a little confusing and jarring; oncogenes and tumor-suppressants were discussed in a different chapter, while telomerase had it's own chapter. Their interactions were not discussed. Instead, a dedicated chapter on Cancer would have worked better. Obviously there is no single gene present on a chromosome that can explain concepts such as Cancer or Intelligence, so I can understand the complexity and difficulty, yet I think it would have worked better if he had picked relevant themes and organized the book in terms of those, rather than sequence them based on chromosomes.

Despite my nit-picking on the organization (which probably stemmed only because of my vested interest to learn about cancer), the book is extremely educative, engaging and stimulating. It opened new lines of thought that I had never previously considered and it has changed my perspective on evolutionary biology. And Matt Ridley now ranks as one of my favorite scientific writers!

Ephiphenomenalism

Ephiphenia was a strange planet. It looked much like Earth in appearance, but it's inhabitants held one majorly different view. The Ephiphens had long before "discovered" that their thoughts did not affect their actions. They were convinced that thoughts were the effects of bodily functions and not the other way around. They explained that although thoughts often preceded actions, there was no causal link between the two. One's body and brain might suggest that the stomach needs food due to bodily alerts and functions, but the thought of going out and eating, is just a consequence not the cause. So is the Ephiphens' claim... are we humans any different? (Source: Ephiphenomenalism was coined by T.H. Huxley, in an 1874 paper, "On the Hypothesis that animals are automata and it's History", republished in Method and Results: Essays by Thomas. H. Huxley)


That's a fundamental question. Are thoughts just byproducts of bodily functions, or are they the ones that drive us? Ephiphenomenalism is a class of dualism (acknowledging both mental and physical states), that ascertains that although mental states exist, they are merely caused by bodily functions and have no influence on the physical states, the body and the world around us. Such a way of thinking minimizes our perception of free will. Many philosophers, most notable being Spinoza, held such a view on the philosophy of the mind, mainly stemming from the belief that our perception of free will is a mirage. He claimed that humans are very much like automata because we are constantly driven by nature's law. In reality, the number of options available to us to exercise free will is quite small. There are societal constraints which we can probably fight against (with the risk of losing acceptance), but there are natural constraints on our body and circumstances that minimize freedom in it's true sense. One can't just fly out, can't abstain from food and other basic needs, and these basic bodily necessities are the one that seem to drive us, and influence our way of living.


Ephiphenomenalism also obviates the need to dwell on, give importance to, and understand consciousness and thoughts. The biggest hole in dualism is the missing link of explanations as to what happens between thoughts and actions. If one did hold the view that thoughts drive us, the basic questions is how are thoughts translated into actions? If there is an abstract space of mental states, how do these non-physical states interact with the physical brain, and how do such thoughts get converted to actions? No one knows. Hence Ephiphenomenalism then comes in as an explanation that dismisses thoughts as mere byproducts, and argues that studying thoughts is a futile process. This is supported by behaviorists like Pavlov, Watson and Skinner who focused on understanding behavioral responses to stimuli, completely bypassing mental states of cognition. But this still doesn't explain the causal link between input stimuli and behavioral response in cases such as computation and problem solving. How do we problem solve? How does rationalism take place? Ephiphenomenalists argue that computation takes place in the level of brain states (as in the case of a computer, wherein computation takes place at the level of physical states of chips and processors).


But anyway, enough of history. This is a chicken-egg problem in itself, which continues to have "empirical proofs" of research on both the supporting and the opposing teams. To me, this view is against rationalist view of thinking. It strips humans from the ability to reason and act on such reason. Most of the problems we encounter are not necessarily driven only by the need to hunt/gather food (and other such known primordial needs), or compute/problem solve by crunching numbers. We form complex opinions, solve problems and make decisions that are novel and unprecedented, and it seems overly simplistic to attribute all of them to neural connections in the brain and other bodily functions. Yet I am also aware that neuroscience is striding confidently with more and more research under it's belt to prove that our actions and thoughts can be linked to neurons. I don't deny that. Obviously if there are cerebral deformities or damages, one can clearly see how mental states, thoughts and actions get affected.


While I do concede that some thoughts can arise out of bodily functions and neural connections, I don't agree that these thoughts cannot interact again with the brain/body to influence actions. This subset of thinking is called "interactionism", wherein one believes there is a constant interaction between the body and the mental states. Where do "will" and "motivation" arise from? When the body is screaming from pain, when the brain is tired and wants to sleep, where does determination and will sprout out of and push the body to perform? Will that be called as the plain effect of adrenaline or dopamine? How do patients with paralysis find the energy to wake up their limbs and motivate themselves to walk again? Can will and motivation also be reduced to physical states in the neurons? And is it our bodily need to ask such epistemological questions and find answers? What is my body gaining out of such thoughts? Surely there are no direct implications of such thoughts. Not today, maybe not tomorrow, but my collective self and my actions in the long run will be influenced by such thoughts through indirect decisions and ways of life. Where do creativity and innovative ideas come from? Is painting a picture a mere result of neurons firing away and due to excessive chemicals of a certain kind? Surely there has to be some sort of interaction between thoughts and such actions...


In the end, both realms of theories are not decidedly proven; each theory has been multiplying into trickles of sub-classes, each combining a little bit of both theories and adding a slightly different view. We have a long way to go to scientifically prove/disprove all the hypotheses. While it's indeed hard to study an abstract non-physical entity, dismissing it altogether cannot be a solution. Do you believe in your thoughts influencing you?

Colorful Senses

Mary is a scientist who has specialized in Vision and Colors. She knows everything there is to know about colors and vision; how we see objects, how light gets reflected, what neurons in the brain decipher the perceptual signals, what are colors, their wavelengths, their nature, their combination, etc. Anything you need to know on colors and vision, Mary has the answers. Yet, Mary herself is an achromat - she has no color vision. She views the world in just two colors; black and white. The cones in her eyes are not defective themselves; the part of her brain responsible for processing the color signals are defective. Of course, with advances in neuroscience and surgery, this can be fixed. Mary is all set for her surgery, curious to know how the world would look, bathed in all the colors she has meticulously studied. Hmmm... why would a scientist who has expansive knowledge of all colors, wonder how the colors would look like to her? Seems like despite knowing everything there is to know about colors, she still doesn't know quite a few aspects about these colors... (Source: "What Mary didn't know", by Frank Jackson)

This is quite a classic hypothetical scenario used by dualists (those who believe in two entities- mind and body, interacting with each other) to spark a debate with the physicalists (those who believe in only the existence of a body and try to explain/reduce mental states through physical states). I am a dualist (else I wouldn't be using the word Mind all over my blog;)). I do believe in an entity that is separate from a physical body, and assert that not all mental states can be reduced to physical states. Therefore I'm sure to bring in my biases as I put forth my views, but argue with me to help me question my biases :)


It's one thing to know about the physical attributes of perceptual stimuli but it's another aspect to feel them for yourself. Mary might know everything about the color green, yet when she sees a palette of colors, she needs her sensory stimuli to know which color is green. Beyond the work of her sensory stimuli (which is reducible to physical states), is a mental state - a feeling that is associated with the color green. This feeling is impossible to be measured and is highly subjective. This subjective qualitative experience of perceptual stimuli is called qualia.


A related aspect is the inverted spectrum problem. My visual experience of looking at green, might be your visual experience of looking at the color red. This can extend to many other experiences. Pain, happiness, taste, smell etc. I can read everything about a vegetable I have never tasted - I might have heard that it tastes sweet, crumbly and hard to chew... yet I wouldn't know the exact taste of the vegetable, and neither would I know what sweet and crumbly are, unless I've experienced them. I can ask millions to gather more adjectives, yet the essence of the taste cannot be verbalized, neither can it be expressed in physical terms. It is a combination of sensory experiences, that are quite subjective. With advances in Neuroscience, one can probably understand the neurons that fire when people eat an apple and can compare that against thousands of samples to statistically prove similarities in patterns. Yet, there is noway for us to prove that the quality of feelings associated with the neurons are the same.


Consider another example - we measure the activity of neurons when a standard bob pin is poked (using a uniform pressure) into 100 individual's arms (let's make this experiment clean by considering a homogeneous sample of same age, same, gender, same weight). The pain measured via the neurons being stimulated might look similar, yet if we are to ask the participants' rating of their pain, it is going to be highly subjective! There is no way to verify person X's feeling of the pain, with person Y's feeling of the pain! Don't they say it's all in the mind?! There are some brave souls out there going through surgery without anesthesia (in the name of hypnosis, but that is a tangential topic).


There is active research on transferring tactile sensations from expert to novice through haptic devices that try to replicate and simulate force-feedback sensations as experienced by the experts. Yet only a diluted extent of parameters are feasible to be measured (and precision is another issue). But let me not get too emphatic. With progress in neuroscience and haptics , maybe qualia can one day be expressed in physical terms. But the impossibility of verifying qualia against different people (unless we transpose from one body to another), still leaves the stone unturned.