[Neurons] 2024 Neurons #48 THE BRAIN - MIND CONFUSION --- AGAIN

Sun Nov 3 21:49:39 EST 2024

L. Michael Hall

2024 Neurons #48

November 4, 2024

A Deep Dive Into Expertise #5

THE BRAIN MIND CONFUSION

-AGAIN

I just finished reading The Immune Mind: The Hidden Dialogue Between Your
Brain and Immune System (2024) by Monty Lyman, M.D.   The book describes the
current state of  neuro-immunology and lots of recent discoveries in the
neuro-sciences.  Overall I appreciated his systemic thinking about body,
brain, immune system, and microbiome.  He speaks often and elegantly about
the problem with the Descartes' dichotomy of mind-body; body-brain, etc.  He
focuses mostly on inflammation as one of our biggest biological problems and
how it undermines the immune system as our "defense system."

As a storyteller he relates the history of how we got to where we are in
terms of brain and body anatomy and discoveries regarding the immune system.
He notes that "the brain and the immune system live parallel lives." (17).
He described in detail the discovery of meningeal lymphatics and "the immune
highways between brain and body." (25).

"Your skull is not just a crash helmet, protecting your brain from the
punches, falls, and bites of the macroscopic world.  It is also an immune
watchtower, surveying the brain for microscopic threats." (28).

"If the brain and the body are intimately connected, we are only just
beginning to decode their language and listen in on their conversations."
(37)

Now in spite of all of the good stuff in the book especially at the end
about eating, sleeping, exercising, playing, etc., Lyman makes one big
mistake.  Namely, he constantly confuses the brain and the mind.  For the
first three chapters he mostly described the brain and the nervous systems
and how they work, including the immune system.  He constantly used the
phrase, "our body and brain" (35).  Then he began substituting "mind" for
brain and continued that false equation throughout the rest of the book.

(You can see this on pages 66, 69, "the many ways our gut microbiota can
communicate with our mind" 82, "mind, immune system, and microbiome's three
parts of the same process" 89,  anti-NMDA encephalitis is a case of the
immune system attacking the mind" 100, 103, 107, 109, 111, "between brain
and immune system- between mind and body" 142, italics added, etc.)

When it came to defining terms, he did an excellent job on nearly all of the
terms he introduced.  He even wrote, "We need to define our terms."  And he
did a thorough job defining "depression." (p. 116-7).  But shockingly he
never defined "mind."  Instead he just assumed that it is the same thing as
the brain.  Now why would he make that assumption?  As a physician and
psychiatrist, his focus is on the body, the physical, and the medical, not
the psychological.  And since the brain "thinks" he seems to assume, "ah,
that's the mind."  He also equated the effect of neuro-chemicals to changes
in mood to those chemicals making the mind do what it does. "Endotoxin has
proves a great way of studying how inflammation affects the mind" ( 38).

"We now know the brain and the immune system are tightly enmeshed, and this
enables the immune system and the mind to achieve the common goal of
surviving and thriving in a microbial world." (48, italics added).   

At one point, Lyman does mention the mind and the functioning of the frontal
lobe and it's role in personality, self-control, etc. (76), yet he makes no
distinction here from his previous uses of 'brain.'  His big mistake comes
from his equation: "Remember psychology is biology" (149).  To say that is
an over-statement is an under-statement!  Psychology emerges from biology,
but is not the same.  Later he diagramed his model with 3 items: Immune
system - Microbiome - Brain (183).  So where is the mind?  Sadly, the "mind"
is missing here!

Does the brain "think?"  It depends on what we mean by "think" doesn't it?
The brain certainly processes information.  Most of this information
processing and transfer occurs outside-of-consciousness and we not only are
not privy to it, we cannot become aware of it.  Bateson and Korzybski
described this abstracting and cognizing of the brain as occuring below
conscious awareness.  In this the brain does a lot of unconscious learning
and remembering which enables us to function as we do.  So like Korzybski
(and NLP), Lyman writes, "our brain generates a model of the outside world
which it constantly builds on and updates." (50)

It's the brain working outside of our consciousness that screens sensory
information and abstracts what it perceives.  He's 'right on' when he
writes, "The brain is not primarily there to think; it is to serve a complex
and fragile body in an ever-changing world." (54).   But then he really
misses it when he says, "humans always seem to be seeking novelty and
uncertainty."  That's because he fails to distinguish between primary,
automatic, and reactive "thinking" and the ability to be conscious of our
consciousness (thinking about thinking). 

The distinction that both Korzybski and Bateson made, and all of the
theorists in the field of Meta-Cognition, is that between the levels of
thinking.  All thinking is not the same.  Thinking can and does occur on
multiple levels.  Certainly the brain "thinks" unconsciously when it (or the
immune system) does the following:

"The brain can powerfully perceive infection..." (57). "Your brain is
constantly interpreting your body..." (59).  "You could say that your immune
cells are listening to your thoughts" (61) well that's going too far!

But the brain does not do conscious thinking, that's the role of the mind.
The mind, based in the brain and completely dependent on the brain, arises
as an emergent property from the brain.  In other words, you are not your
brain.  You have a meta-awareness that allows you to be
aware-of-your-awareness-that's the first meta-state we all have. This arises
from the reflexivity mechanism or your self-reflexive consciousness.  How
does that work?  Ah, the big mystery that has, and continues to, mystify
philosophers especially those in the field, 'the philosophy of mind' (yes,
that's an entire field in the narrow area).

Lyman quotes many neuro-scientists throughout the book and most of what he
presents is really good and valuable.  But as I've mentioned before- NLP is
not about literally "running your own brain" even though we use that phrase.
Yes, we take care of our brain by eating right, sleeping sufficiently,
exercising, etc. and stimulating it intellectually.  But NLP and
Neuro-Semantics is about managing our mind, controlling our consciousness,
and in that way increase our IQ and our EQ.

The bottom line: The brain is not the mind.  With the brain we "think"-the
intelligence within our body, our nervous systems, our immune system, etc.
processes information and does so apart from our consciousness.  With your
mind, you consciously think (at least we hope you do!).  You are able to
become aware of the results of your brain's processing and aware of your
conscious thinking and because of that, you can become mindful and you can
live mindfully.

The brain is mysterious enough and this book is about demystifying the
brain's immune system that distinguishes self and not-self.  The Mind
-however- now that's where the mystery really lives.  And when all of the
mysteries of the brain are finally revealed, there will still be the
mysteries of the mind.

Training Announcement:

              Want to explore the mind?  Join me in Bali Indonesia for The
Meta Place.  Contact mariani_ng at meta-mind.com  for details.

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, ISNS

738 Beaver Lodge

Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA

meta at acsol.net

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