Author: James Vornov

I'm an MD, PhD Neurologist who left a successful academic career on the Faculty of The Johns Hopkins Medical School to develop new treatments in Biotech and Pharma. I became fascinated with how people actually make decisions based on the science of decision theory and emerging understanding of how the brain works to make decisions. My passion now is this deep explanation of what has been the realm of philosophy, psychology and self help but is now understood as brain function. By understanding our brains, I believe we can become happier, more successful people.

How the Mind Controls the Brain

The study of the brain is really only about 150 old. And as recently as 100 years ago there were arguments about whether at least the cerebral cortex was intrinsically specialized or was some how able to assign any task to any part. We’ve made a tremendous amount of progress to the point that many neuroscientists are willing to talk about human behavior in terms of the brain, leaving consciousness and mind out of the equation.

This attitude generally called materialism or functionalism is placed firmly within the scientific tradition of studying only that which can be weighed and measured. While I’m a neuroscientist and professionally interested in the advancements of brain science, I’ve always found this disregard of mind troubling. Its as if the most important part of human experience is being ignored or, worse, just explained away.

I’m reading Michael Gazzaniga’s Human: The Science Behind What Makes Your Brain Unique. Its full of great insight into brain science as one would expect from one of the leaders in the study of higher functions of the brain. But in the latter half of the book, as he tackles the tougher questions, I get that old feeling that mind is being dismissed as being some how unreal and not worthy of study. There’s this dichotomy created between “instinct” and these unexplained “rational” agents that he seems to want to make the part of the brain that we experience as mind.

For example, Gazzaniga has a nice discussion of the data showing that the mind frequently makes up reasons for actions after the fact. This post-hoc rationalization by the mind is especially true for emotions triggered in a way that avoids conscious awareness of the input. Normally, emotionally charged stimuli like disturbing photographs go to all parts of the brain simultaneously, so the mosaic of the brain acts in concert. Our minds are normally in sync with our feelings.

One dramatic example is the split brain patients that Roger Sperry and then he, Gazzaniga, studied. These patients have had surgery for severe, uncontrollable seizures. In an attempt to stop the spread of seizures, the major connection between the right and left half of the brain was surgically cut. Sperry described how these patients can appear to have two minds in one brain. If, under experimental conditions, information is presented to half of the brain only, the other half doesn’t have access to the information. So if half the brain is asked to do something, for example peel and eat a banana, the other half of the brain doesn’t know why. When asked, the ignorant other half makes up plausible rationalizations, saying for example, the banana looked tasty.

In normal volunteers these effects can be studied with presentations of pictures for a very short time, too short to percieve consciously. They register and can provoke feelings that are not available to conscious perceptual systems. So the subject rationalizes why an emotion is being felt. It seems likely to me that this kind of rationalization occurs in people with mood disorders. Even if the mood is generated internally, one will tend to explain it based on external events.

Some one who’s depressed will walk through life seeing many things as depressing just to rationalize why they feel sad.

Materialists like Gazzaniga want to use this kind of data to convince us that all there is is brain. These mental agents in the brain are just some kind of internal explaining agents, which of course makes the brain the motive force for an individual. The mind becomes like some kind of narrator trying to make sense of it all.

Yet there’s a very telling phenomenon called reappraisal that shows that mind does affect emotion. It’s a two way street.

An external event can trigger a strong emotion. For example some one yelling and shouting stirs up all kinds of feelings in us. But as soon as we realize that the shouting is not at us, but at some one else, the emotions melt away quickly. When you realize that the police lights in the rear view mirror are just passing and not pulling you over, the fear turns to relief. There’s almost a limbic decay constant you can feel as the feeling evaporates over a few seconds.

As john Searle points out, materialists have an easy time going from brain to perception, but a much harder time seeing mind affecting brain, mind being causitive. The problem is that because they dismiss mind as being unreal, they are left with this strange residual of consciousness that we all percieve, we all think is causative in the world, but doesn’t seem to really exist. How can something that isn’t real do anything? These strict materialists end up sounding like dualists because they recognize brain and brain events only. The mind is unexplained except for being some kind of hidden brain process.

Adopting the attitude that mind is real, embodied in the brain, allows one to see the role of mind in the world. And there is a fascinating interplay between the mind and perception of the world, both external world and the internal world of body signals like hunger and fear.

My D7000 Choice

Thom Hogan is out with his D7000 review. I think that he’s right that most pro D300 users probably would not be buying a D7000.

Nikon D7000 Review by Thom Hogan:

“So, no, unless they need a DX backup body I don’t think the average D300 user is going to be interested in the D7000. Really. I mean that.”

However much I liked the D300 ergonomics and image quality, I always found it too big and heavy. The D7000 is smaller and lighter, especially with a small prime on it. I just had my old 20mm f/2.8 repaired by KEH, so I’ve got a really nice light and small kit. Even with the bigger Tamron 17-105mm f/2.8, it’s much more my style than the D300.

The D300 will actually go up for sale on eBay since it still has some value.

Back in Business



Dark Woods, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

My photography efforts have taken a bit of a back seat to my renewed interest in writing. But I have my older Macbook Pro (15″ 2.2 Ghz Core 2 Duo) up and running again as a dedicated machine.

I have to hand it to Apple. The video on the machine had died. I brought the machine to the Towson Apple Store on Sunday afternoon, getting a Genius Bar appointment immediately. They sent it off for repair, $310 flat rate for logic board replacement. I had it back early Wednesday morning. Video fixed and the video problem on wake from sleep is now resolved.

If I have a complaint, its that Apple fixed earlier machines with the Nvidia card but stopped at a serial number prior to mine when I was clearly having the same problem. However I feel like the repair price was fair for a 3 and a half year old machine.

There’s now support for the D7000 RAW captures in Aperture and as Thom Hogan has said, the conversions are near the equal of Nikon’s own Capture NX2 without the hassle.

The updated edition of Vincent Versace’s “Welcome to Oz” has arrived and I’ve only had a few minutes so far to flip through it. As you can see here, he’s so right about bringing darkness into photos using a clipped curve. Here I’m highlighting a central tree, trying to create a believable reality.

The image isn’t quite there, but as Vincent says, quoting Vince Lombardi, Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. You first have to practice at practicing.

A Predictive Theory of Reality

Truth is what works. -William James

William James may have been America’s greatest philosopher. His philosophical approach, one he dubbed, “Pragmatism” underlies my approach here. During the Enlightenment, beginning with Decartes, philosophy struggled against simple, materialist views of reality. Just about every possible view of reality between simple materialism and complete acceptance of mental phenomenon. And of course the dualism of Descarte, accepting both as reality.

William James rejected these continental theories in favor of an approach that arose from a more naive point of view of a psychologist and experimentalist. Doubting everything, James took the scientific view that predictive ability was the value of any theory, whether in psychology or in philosophy.

Taking this pragmatic view of evaluating the truth of a theory, we look only at its predictive value. The more generally a theory can predict, the more true it is. If it misses some cases or is not generally predictive, a truer theory can be found.

If metaphysics is a theory of reality, what can be predicted? I’m working towards a systems based metaphysics that takes complexity into account with probability. This view predicts that knowledge of reality is derived purely from interactions with the systems around us, but that knowledge is ultimately limited by our perspective and system complexity. Getting outside of a system and having a longer, broader view is needed to transcend the limitations.

Embracing Uncertainty

How do you abandon the illusion of control and embrace uncertainty?

We could be less anxious and less stressed if we gave up trying to control the uncertain future. Living in the now, choosing actions that increase the chances of a favorable state of affairs can be challenging and stimulating.

The uncertainty we live with every moment is hard to grasp. In fact, we tend to simplify the world down to something less complex and more manageable. But the simplicity and gain in control are illusions. So we stress about what will really happen.

Uncertainty is lack of predictability. Predictable situations are comfortable because we know what’s almost certainly going to happen. Surprises are just that- unexpected and unanticipated.

We know we can’t predict the future in part because  our knowledge of the world is generally incomplete. Since we don’t know what’s around the corner or what other people are thinking, that part of the world can’t be predicted.

Even with perfect knowledge, the world itself would remain unpredictable. The result of any particular choice is uncertain because it can result in a wide range of outcomes. We never know whether we made the right decision even in retrospect because we only know what happened after that decision was made. Speculating about what a different decision would have brought about is not very useful, because again the outcome can only be guessed at and never known. There are two many complex interactions and unintended consequences. Once the choice is made, the result is largely out of our control.

Interestingly, giving up the illusion of control is a core belief in religious and spiritual movements. Recognizing a greater power like God or Fate that controls the world is a great aid in abandoning illusions of determining outcomes. I don’t think spirituality is necessary to adopt an attitude of embracing uncertainty, uncertainty arises naturally in the world. But the attitude of humility gained by recognizing a power greater than ourselves seems to help in this embrace of uncertainty. Adopting this mental stance in making decisions provides reward in the  releases from the fear of unanticipated outcomes. It also provides a space for God or Fate to act even in a seeming clockwork world of cause and effect.

After all, the only truth certain is that the world is uncertain and truth can’t be fully known.

The Devil’s Triangle: Fear, Uncertainty, Control

The great goal of Deciding Better is to escape the trap of fear, uncertainty and control.

Decision making is hard when the outcome is uncertain. What’s so bad about a little doubt? Joined to uncertainty are two interacting factors: Fear and Control.

Uncertainty provokes anxiety. When we don’t know how things will turn out, the emotion of fear comes into play. It gets us ready for fight or flight. This is anxiety, a neurochemically induced cognitive state. It’s a deep seated brain mechanism with great adaptive utility. A little fear can be a very good thing at the right time.

The problem is that we experience this fear constantly. Then we call it stress and anxiety. Our big brains help us see how uncertain the world really is. I talked about it the other day in a discussion of what makes decisions hard. Decisions aren’t only hard, they provoke fear because of the associated uncertainty.

So what’s scary about uncertainty? Ultimately, its having to face a loss of control. When we’re masters of our environment and in control, we know what to expect. Lose that certainty and we lose control. Causing anxiety and stress.

Deciding better must include embracing uncertainty without engaging the other two sides of this triangle of fear and control. At least not any more than necessary.

The more we understand about the world and its complexity, the more profound our appreciation of how unpredictable the world really is. We are never really in control of outcomes and we are truly powerless to bend the world to our will. We can powerfully influence the world through our actions, but we can’t control anything other than how we choose to act in the moment.

I believe this is at the core of why what Stephen Covey called the world’s “wisdom literature” emphasizes humility and releasing the illusion that we’re in control of the future. At the same time, Covey started with his First Habit, “Be Proactive” as a step in controlling ourselves rather than controlling the world.

Emergent Behavior of Links and Clicks

One of the most interesting chapters in Mark Bernstein’s The Tinderbox Way is on links- both in Tinderbox and on the Internet. Mark provides a personal and historical overview of the approaches and attitudes toward linking beginning with the early days of hypertext and leading up to our current environment.

Linking evolved, guided by the users of the net in a way suitable for navigation within and between sites for readers. It’s  now adapted and grown to enable search advertising and the social networking systems.

What’s interesting to me is how difficult it is to show the utility of linking in a Tinderbox document. One ends up pretty quickly with a spaghetti plot of links between boxes. Mark provides some illustrations that look interesting but don’t seem to mean much at all as a map. There’s actually a site that collects these pretty network pictures: Visual Complexity.

As I read Mark’s discussion, I was struck by the similarity between these links and the interconnections of metabolic pathways within a cell or the interconnections between neurons. Mapped, we see spaghetti. But there is an emergent behavior from the network that only arises from the functioning of those interactions. On the web perhaps these are communities of shared interest.

We need a large amount of computational power to visualize the emergent network. Its easier if its geographical:

Via GigaOm:

If there’s one thing you get when you have close to 600 million users the way Facebook does, it’s a lot of data about how they are all connected — and when you plot those inter-relationships based on location, as one of the company’s engineers found, you get a world map made up of social connections.

We’re used to seeing maps as geographical metaphor. Maps of meaning are not well developed as mental models. I submit that Google’s algorithms for advertising and ranking are providing semantic functions that are such maps. The actual movement of people through the network as measured by following user clicks across sites is another even more important map. The data is massive and difficult to display simply, but the emergent behavior can be detected and used.

What makes decisions hard?

Lets start out with the simplest possible definition of a decision. In as situation with multiple possible courses of action, the choice is the behavior performed.

Animals do things that are remarkably purposeful and directed even with simple nervous systems. I think especially of animals that alter their environment to suit their own purposes. People build buildings, birds build nests, ants, bees and termites cooperate to build large and complex communal nests.

Its not hard for ants and birds to choose how to build these structures. They seem to do it based on internal rules that are pre-built into to the nervous system. I imagine there must be good and bad places to build an anthill, but the colony isn’t particularly bothered by the decision. They just get to work as group without blueprint. There is uncertainty about the final quality of the structure, but it doesn’t make deciding hard.

An architect has much harder decisions to make in choosing where to build a house, what kind of house should be built and how it should be built. In some of these decisions that need to be made, the number of potential pathways is large, but not all of the options are available. The home buyer wants a colonial, not a modern house. The range of potential choices is immediately restricted. Alignment of structures along north-south lines has well established rules and limits choice more. There are building codes that force choices.

The limitations on house building arise from bias, established practice- knowledge of what will happen depending on choices made. Its crystal clear that only layouts for colonials will yield colonial houses. You’ll never end up with a modernist cube.

But there are tons of hard decisions here as well. A single or two zone heating system? Well there are differences and cost and potential comfort. The cost is clear, but the benefits are much more uncertain. How will the areas of the house be used? Maybe three zones are really needed. Should the floor-plan be modified for energy efficiency? Maybe a heat-pump for some areas and area systems for others? And gas, electric? Hydrothermal?

Picking just one detail, we can wander out into a decision space where nothing is clear. Trading off cost and value is subjective and ultimate benefit hard to predict. Now start looking at interactions of this one decision with all of the others that need to be made, decisions get even harder. How many windows, insulation types create structural decisions that need to be made.

Decision making is hard because the choices are complex, the results of particular choices are uncertain and may have unintended consequences later on that we never even thought about.

Decisions making is hard for us compared to ants and birds because of our ability to contemplate the complexity and imagine a future we can’t control.

Revisiting Searle’s Chinese Room

This is a retraction. I no longer think that John Searle’s Chinese Room is trivial. It is a powerful demonstration of the failure of materialism to provide an adequate explanation for consciousness.

The Chinese Room is Searle’s most famous argument against materialism. He asks us to imagine that we are in a sealed room, communicating by text with the outside. We have a manual that allows us to respond to questions in Chinese even though we have no knowledge of the language. Or if asked in English we respond in the usual way.

Thus, we’d be answering English or Chinese appropriately. The outside observer can’t distunguish how we’re coming up with replies. But inside, the two are totally different. One is done mechanically, by rote, the other is done with awareness and thought. This is analogous to the observation of a person, obviously. Is there a mind responding or just mechanical response without consciousness?

Materialism says that only the physical exists. But such a view cannot account for the difference between response by some one who understands and mechanical responses. This seemingly most scientific and rational approach fails to admit the simple fact- we know that there is such a thing as awareness and consciousness because we experience it constantly. Any theory of mind that fails to account for it is incomplete.

Dualism accounts for consciousness, but in its separation of mind from material, it loses all of its explanatory power and becomes unacceptable.

Here’s what I wrote in the comments to Aaron Swartz’s description of the argument:

Searle’s Chinese Room experiment is a trivial misdirection. He focuses on the man in the room matching symbols rather than the creator of the semantic and syntactic translation rules. That designer was conscious. The man in the room is working unconsciously. When I speak my mouth and vocal cords do the translation from nerve impulses to sound patterns but it is entirely unconscious. You have to follow the trail back into the brain where you get lost because consciousness is an emergent property of the neural networks, not a property of the machinery at all.

posted by James Vornov on March 15, 2007 #

I don’t actually remember whether I wrote that before or after I read Searle’s The Rediscovery of the Mind, but at some point I did come to agree with him. The simple way out of the problem is to admit that mind does indeed exist. As evidenced by my comment, I had already decided that mind was real and it was emergent from brain activity. Interestingly, using different terminology, I think that Searle’s points out the same irreducibility in the later book, The Mind.

Clipping Curves

Leaf with reflection, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

My primary photographic mentor is Vincent Versace. His book “Welcome to Oz” is a relative short book, written in an unusual style that more workshop than manual, but it is full of techniques that permit manipulation of light within photographs.

I’ve had many influences over the years both as models of how to pursue this art and as technical inspirations. Vince is pretty accessible through his Flickr group in particular.

I’ve been struggling to suppress light in photographs. His advice has been to clip the light end of the curve in photoshop. And he’s right. It achieves the goal of lowering contrast and killing the brightest highlights. In this image I burshed back the darkness over the central leaf to have it emerge from the darker background.

Thanks Vince.