Science of the Spirit
Tsukuba, Japan -- We laugh when we see Homer Simpson falling asleep while driving, while in church, and while even operating the nuclear reactor. In reality though, narcolepsy, cataplexy, and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder are all serious sleep-related illnesses. Researchers at the University of Tsukuba led by Professor Takeshi Sakurai have found neurons in the brain that link all three disorders and could provide a target for treatments.
REM sleep correlates when we dream. Our eyes move back and forth, but our bodies remain still. This near-paralysis of muscles while dreaming is called REM-atonia, and is lacking in people with REM sleep behavior disorder. Instead of being still during REM sleep, muscles move around, often going as far as to stand up and jump, yell, or punch. Sakurai and his team set out to find the neurons in the brain that normally prevent this type of behavior during REM sleep.
Working with mice, the team identified a specific group of neurons as likely candidates. These cells were located in an area of the brain called the ventral medial medulla and received input from another area called the sublaterodorsal tegmental nucleus, or SLD. "The anatomy of the neurons we found matched what we know," explains Sakurai. "They were connected to neurons that control voluntary movements, but not those that control muscles in the eyes or internal organs. Importantly, they were inhibitory, meaning that they can prevent muscle movement when active." When the researchers blocked the input to these neurons, the mice began moving during their sleep, just like someone with REM sleep behavior disorder.
There should always be a line that, once crossed, signifies to someone that the ostensibly good or noble thing they currently support has soured or, as the case may be, gone completely bad. We all know the history of the twentieth century (or, so I delude myself into believing). Certain features of the Woke ideology, even if only on its extreme fringe, show shocking potential for being a totalitarian nightmare unfolding before our eyes, especially because so many good and decent people so vigorously (and viciously) support it all of a sudden. Even the rapidity with which it is spreading is disorienting, and thus alarming.
I realized the importance of establishing a "Woke breaking point" the other night while discussing the bizarre defenses of our current era with a brilliant friend. We were talking about the people in our lives who have hit their Woke breaking points and those who haven't. It struck me that many of the people in my life who remain sympathetic or outright denialist about the excesses of the Woke (Critical Social Justice) movement haven't grappled with the possibility that it isn't quite the noble and necessary cause that it sells itself to be.
What I realized is how very helpful it is for people, rather than becoming confrontational, to encourage their Woke-sympathetic friends to start identifying and naming what their non-negotiable lines will be. People's lines will — and should — vary, but as things get increasingly extreme, they will also get crossed more and more certainly. Knowing the line has been crossed, however, takes knowing there is a line and where it is.
This week on MindMatters we interview Dr. Simon about his work and the frameworks that have helped thousands to understand their relationships, as well as provided assistance for those wishing to look into the mirror of their own weaknesses, narcissism and failures of character - reminding us that while it's valuable to see the egregious behavior of others, it is also crucial to be able to recognize and correct our own failings.
Dr. Simon's website: drgeorgesimon.com
Running Time: 01:29:00
Download: MP3 — 81.5 MB

FILE PHOTO: Police officers move crowds in Soho on November 4, 2020 in London, England. Non-essential businesses, including pubs and restaurants, will be forced to close from Thursday, Nov 5, following a new national lockdown in England.
We have to face facts: most people simply accept the mainstream narrative, and with the prospect of the magic spell of a vaccine in the offing, there is little incentive for them to change their minds. The thinking of the great majority of our fellow citizens can be summarised as: a few more months of this and then it will be spring, things will be back to normal, and we can forget about all of this.
Why is it that so few of our fellow citizens seem willing to even listen to arguments which we find so convincing? There are undoubtedly lots of reasons, but I think it is at least in part due simply to a failure of strategy on the part of sceptics. That is, we have made arguments that are either factual or which appeal to our love of liberty. Neither of them has had much traction amongst the populace at all.
First, the problem of making the factual case. I am an academic, somebody who discusses ideas and encourages students to investigate and debate facts for a living. So this has been a very bitter pill for me to swallow indeed, but the reality is that most people are just not actually interested in finding out the truth for themselves. They are much more interested in conforming with what they perceive to be what one could call the 'moral truth' - the prevailing moral norm. The prevailing moral norm of 2020 is: lockdowns are the ethically right thing to do because they keep vulnerable safe from dying. To argue against that moral norm is, by definition, both immoral and abnormal. This is the most salient factor in governing behaviour in our society right now.
Comment: In precise terms, they have created a paramorality - one that looks moral but in fact is not, because it has no basis in reality.
When I started reading more energetically, I focused on practical, how-to style self-improvement books. The Power of Habit. I Will Teach You To Be Rich. The $100 Startup. Popular books that promised to teach me a "hack."
Eventually, I grew bored of books that could be condensed to a blog post and pursued higher level books. Peak. Seeking Wisdom. The Monk and the Riddle. Books that provided a broader understanding, a richer context for their ideas.
Sandeep Roy, a doctoral candidate with a major-applied focus on clinical psychology at the University of North Texas, explained the correlation between the two.
"My interest in the relationship between pathological personality traits, such as those captured by psychopathy, and prejudicial tendencies originated from my experiences working with offenders in the Arizona correctional system prior to graduate school," said Roy.
Comment: The four traits identified above fit into the 'dark triad' of psychopathy
- New study finds sexist beliefs are associated with narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism
- Narcissists, psychopaths, and manipulators are more likely to engage in 'virtuous victim signaling' - study
- Dark Triad traits and entitlement linked to both authoritarian political correctness and white nationalist beliefs
- MindMatters: Dark Triad Politics: The Psychology of the Far Left and Alt Right
- Liberals narrow-minded as conservatives study finds - 'just as averse to listening to opposing viewpoints'
- Yale graduate credits conservative values, not a victim mentality, for his success
- Being a foster child made me conservative
- The failure to stand up for conservative thinking is leading us into a new cultural dark age
- Study finds conservative YouTube content leads to 'de-radicalization,' not radicalization
Explaining the biological basis of human consciousness is one of the greatest challenges of science. While the loss and return of consciousness, as regulated by drugs or physiological sleep, have been employed as model systems in the study of human consciousness, previous research results have been confounded by many experimental simplifications.
- One major challenge has been to design a set-up, where brain data in different states differ only in respect to consciousness. Our study overcomes many previous confounders, and for the first time, reveals the neural mechanisms underlying connected consciousness, says Harry Scheinin, Docent of Pharmacology, Anesthesiologist, and the Principal Investigator of the study from the University of Turku, Finland.
The theory of an authoritarian personality was introduced in the 1930s in an attempt to explain the mass appeal of fascism and right-wing ideologies. It came to life in the wake of a sharp rise in the popularity of fascist movements in many European societies in the inter-war period.
At the time, many European ideologists and intellectuals were deeply inspired by Marx and Freud. Marxism predicted that the great depression would translate into a vast shift in working class conciousness, materialising into a global socialist revolution. Of course, this didn't happen. The economic crisis resulted instead in mass support for nationalist and fascist movements that were often deeply anti-Semitic.
The rationale behind the above deviation from the Marxist prophecy borrowed some Freudian theoretical mechanisms. 'People are authoritarians' was the given 'explanation': under certain threatening conditions 'authoritarian characters' are emotionally and cognitively vulnerable to the appeal of fascist and nationalist ideologies.
During the 1930s a score of Jewish Germanic intellectuals mainly (but not at all) associated with the Frankfurt School (e.g., Wilhelm Reich) were committed to point at the psychological and socio-economic conditions responsible for the making of the Authoritarian personality.
More and more researchers across specialties are questioning our current definitions of depression. Biological anthropologists have argued that depression is an adaptive response to adversity and not a mental disorder. In October, the British Psychological Society published a new report on depression, stating that "depression is best thought of as an experience, or set of experiences, rather than as a disease." And neuroscientists are focusing on the role of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in depression. According to the Polyvagal Theory of the ANS, depression is part of a biological defense strategy meant to help us survive.
Comment:
- Immobilized by chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia? The Polyvagal Theory and movement restriction
- The polyvagal theory: New insights into adaptive reactions of the autonomic nervous system
- Stephen Porges - The Polyvagal Theory explained
- MindMatters: First Sight, Polyvagal Theory, and Contemplative Practices
Comment: It looks like James Lindsay, coauthor of Cynical Theories (with Helen Pluckrose), has read Andrew Lobaczewski's Political Ponerology. By our estimate, he's one of the first prominent academics to do so, and to write anything substantial about it (though without citing it, unfortunately). Given his background tackling Critical Theory, he's the right guy for the job, and his treatment below is well worth reading. We have added a few comments correlating some of his ideas with the terminology in Lobaczewski's work.
Many of the greatest horrors of the history of humanity owe their occurrence solely to the establishment and social enforcement of a false reality. With gratitude to the Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper and his important 1970 essay "Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power" for the term and idea, we can refer to these alternative realities as ideological pseudo-realities.
Pseudo-realities, being false and unreal, will always generate tragedy and evil on a scale that is at least proportional to the reach of their grip on power — which is their chief interest — whether social, cultural, economic, political, or (particularly) a combination of several or all of these. So important to the development and tragedies of societies are these pseudo-realities when they arise and take root that it is worth outlining their basic properties and structure so that they can be identified and properly resisted before they result in sociopolitical calamities — up to and including war, genocide, and even civilizational collapse, all of which can take many millions of lives and can ruin many millions more in the vain pursuit of a fiction whose believers are, or are made, sufficiently intolerant.
The Nature of Pseudo-realities
Pseudo-realities are, simply put, false constructions of reality. It is hopefully obvious that among the features of pseudo-realities is that they must present a plausible but deliberately wrong understanding of reality. They are cult "realities" in the sense that they are the way that members of cults experience and interpret the world — both social and material — around them. We should immediately recognize that these deliberately incorrect interpretations of reality serve two related functions. First, they are meant to mold the world to accommodate small proportions of people who suffer pathological limitations on their abilities to cope with reality as it is. Second, they are designed to replace all other analyses and motivations with power, which these essentially or functionally psychopathic individuals will contort and deform to their permanent advantage so long as their pseudo-real regime can last.
Comment: Further reading: