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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Jan 15, 2007 - 08:40am PT
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interesting story, I've pulled a Guido from time to time...
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 15, 2007 - 10:23am PT
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Riley,
Where did you ever hear that PTSD didn't affect someone psychologically? The psychological effects are, in fact, legion, and include all kinds of crazy phobias, avoidance behaviors, attachment issues, addictions, et al. One of the main interventions in renegotiating shock trauma is "uncoupling" the emotional and cognitive aspects of the trauma, which at bottom is CNS deregulation. Peter Levine and others have been doing pretty involved work with this for about fifteen years now, with excellent results.
JL
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jan 15, 2007 - 11:52am PT
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The ending is actually really brutal, but only if you think really hard about the story's historical setting. Levi is recalling the Alps in the 1920s and '30s during the rise of Fascism and Nazism. By the middle of the twenties, the German-Austrian alpine club had thrown out its predominantly Jewish sections. The huts were draped with Swastikas and forbidden to Jews. In early-thirties Austria, right-wing paramilitaries used the mountain huts as safe houses for terrorist campaigns against Austrian Jews and the government. The language of Alpinism, and the idea of serious risk-taking in the mountains, had been appropriated by both Fascist and Nazi regimes for propaganda and paramilitary purposes.
So when Levi's narrator says of Carlo dying in the mountains, that he died "doing what he had to do: not the kind of duty imposed by someone else, or by the state, but the kind one chooses for oneself," he's making a political point, namely, that it is possible to commit in a serious way to this sort of calling without falling into Nazism or Fascism. In a way, he's trying to reclaim serious alpinism for those who had opposed the Aryanisation of the Alps. That's why the punchline is so grim: In the end, of course, Carlo turns out to be a fictional character, plagiarized from a popular romance about sailors.
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hunter
Trad climber
NYC
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Jan 15, 2007 - 12:01pm PT
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Largo, I don't think radical was suggesting there were no psychological effects, rather he was noting that PTSD, as well as major depression actually alter brain structure. Specifically they reduce the size of the hippocampus and may have similar effects on the prefrontal cortex (though we are still working this out). Of course if you are a neutral or materialist monist, changes in the brain are logical consequences of psychological changes and vice versa.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 15, 2007 - 07:41pm PT
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Largo, I don't think radical was suggesting there were no psychological effects, rather he was noting that PTSD, as well as major depression actually alter brain structure. Specifically they reduce the size of the hippocampus and may have similar effects on the prefrontal cortex (though we are still working this out). Of course if you are a neutral or materialist monist, changes in the brain are logical consequences of psychological changes and vice versa.
We've seemed to drift off course but so be it. I'm somewhat dialed into this material so here goes.
Not sure what you mean by neutral monism, since this and other terms are widely misued. The normal usage suggests that ultimate reality is all of one kind, which makes this basically a reframing of idealism and materialism, which modern cutting edger neurobiology has pretty well blown off as simplistic and totally unproven. Parts of everyone's mind wants to consider something as being created by something else--such as thoughts and depression being created by the physical brain. In fact the feedback loop works both ways: the brain can greatly influence the mind, and the mind can greatly influence the brain.
In other words, Decartes had it wrong.
JL
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
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Jan 15, 2007 - 07:55pm PT
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Philosophy is a big waste of time.
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hunter
Trad climber
NYC
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Jan 16, 2007 - 02:42pm PT
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Well, I am a neurobiologist, though I shan't flatter myself by saying I'm on the cutting edge, though I do work in the area of PTSD and depression. Most experimental neurobiologists aren't terribly philosophical, but the basic philosophical set from which most of us operate is that the material world is the only world and that the mental world is part of that (materialist monism), so mental events aren't seperate from brain events (really body events, since the brain and body aren't so neatly divisable as anatomists would like), so psychology and physiology can't be set against each other as they are in everyday cartesian thinking (which is dualist as opposed to monist). This is essentially what Tony Damasio was on about in Descartes Error. So I think that basically we agree, I just suffer from the effects of too many years of only writing jargon laden scientific screeds. Sorry for the drift.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 17, 2007 - 11:50am PT
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Hunter,
I' (and many others) are not suggesting that the mental and physical world are "separate," or that mental goings on don't have a biological fingerprint. It's just that the old idea of what philosopher's called "absolute materialism," in which matter was considered the "cause" or everything mental, is not sustainable.
Saying that "the physical world is the only world" is in effect saying "the physical world is the only world that is physical, and only physical worlds are real since we can only measure matter." However, consciousness itself seems to be non-local, and that's the fly in the oinment, so to speak.
JL
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hunter
Trad climber
NYC
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Jan 17, 2007 - 12:08pm PT
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Largo,
You are quite right, the experimental sciences are materialist because on the material is measurable and if something isn't replicable and measurable it is merely anecdotal, not science in the strict sense. So, professionally, I'm materialist monist. Personally I'm of the Robert Anton Wilson school: "the universe contains a maybe". Ultimately I think the later stance is the one that fits best with the evidence, or lack thereof. But, back on point, what are the non-local manifestations of consciousness to which you refer? I'll grant there is a small preponderance of evidence for weak forms of ESP, but even these have (untested) explanations that potentially fall within the realm of known science. I'm quite curious what you think, as I can't say as I have much depth of knowledge in this area.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 17, 2007 - 05:08pm PT
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No, I'm not talking about ESP and all that snake oil stuff. Something entirly else. I have no time now but to simply cut and paste some other babble that might shed some light on this.
I wouldn’t use Sam Harris as guide to what I am driving at but he’s taken the time and effort to experientially explore some of the issues and well knows the limititations of an absolutist, brain-based perspective. He states, “The root question of the relationship between consciousness and matter may not be answerable. Or it may not be answerable given our current concepts (mental v. physical; dualism v. monism; etc.)”
What he means here by the word “concepts” is the way we use language, the limit of the evaluating mind to only deal with things and values and aspects, limits our ability to approach consciousness as anything other that another piece of data, a mere function, a capacity, a brain-based agency—and Harris admits the impossibility of this model of investigation bearing definitive fruit that will fit into that particular system. What Harris does not get into is the fact that the material-empirical system, in the hands of those who use it with absolutist fervor—it itself limited.
Going on, Harris writes: “The only claim I have made about consciousness is that it MUST be explored, systematically, from a first-person perspective, and that such exploration can yield reproducible discoveries: one of the most interesting being that the subject/object dichotomy (the ego) is a kind of cognitive illusion. The crucial point is that there is an experiment that a person can run on himself (e.g. meditation) that can be used to test this claim.”
Not quite. Two important points here. First, the subject/object dichotomy is not an illusion in the normal sense of the word. It’s an illusion in the sense that the personality, along with our evaluating minds, are not ultimate functions or fundamental properties, but necessary albeit provisional and timebound states required to live and survive in the material world. They are brain-based, evolved and adaptive, and also indespensible to living in a physical body. Spiritual work is not a matter of transcending personality or that part of our minds that functions only in terms of data processing, reducing physical reality down to measurable bits and reproducable functions. The “work” is to see and understand that these functions operate within a greater field called consciousness, which was neither created nor was it ever “born.”
Harris goes on to talk about the relationship between consciousness and the physical world. “If consciousness really is an emergent property of large collections of neurons, then when these neurons die (or become sufficiently disordered) the lights must really go out. The point I make in my book is that, while we know that mental functions (like the ability to read) can be fully explained in terms of information processing, we don't know this about consciousness. For all we know, consciousness may be a more fundamental property of the universe than are neural circuits.”
The point is, there is no result in neuroscience that rules out dualism, panpsychism, or any other theory that denies the reduction of consciousness to states of the brain. “To my mind," Hasrris concludes, "neuroscience has demonstrated the supervenience of mind upon the brain.”
Here, Harris has all but said that consciousness is a more fundamental property of reality than “neural circuits,” or the physical matter that harbors same.
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James
climber
A tent in the redwoods
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Jan 20, 2007 - 01:00am PT
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The New Yorker hit my classroom a week late (delivery issues). Primo's article is well written and caters well to the upper-east side crowd. The language depicts a strong scene, easy to relate to if you have or haven't been to the mountains. In my view the true story was behind the "bear meat" and more about the fraternity of the mountain.
After I cratered in Joshua Tree, I saw a pyschologist. Primo Levi's writing was discussed in our sessions and his experience with Post-traumatic stress disorder is evident in his work.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Jan 20, 2007 - 10:39am PT
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Largo and buds,
Since this thread has inevitably moved to the Body-Mind discussion, I'd point out and recommend two books that are really important in this field:
Descarte's Error by Antonio Dimasio, MD and
The Feeling of What Happens also by Dimasio.
Jonas Salk says about his work: "Antonio Dimasio's astonishing book takes you on a scientific journey into the brain that reveals the invisible world within as if it were visible to our sight. You will never look at yourself or another without wondering what goes on behind the eyes that you meet."
And the NYT Book Review says: "Crucial reading not only for neuroscientists and philosophers but for lay readers too".
best, PH
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 26, 2007 - 11:06am PT
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"Ok Largo, guys, why do you guys think he based his narration on Heart of Darkness and Conrad?"
Not "based" on Conrad. I mentioned Conrad as another writer who used the "framed" story device effectively. It's an old trick not much used anymore because it's so artificially dramatic. Imagine trying to sell the following lines in today's world:
He holds him with his glittering eye -
The wedding-guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will.
This quatrain--a classic to be sure--instructs the reader that what follows is some kind of blockbuster, so listen up, just as the wedding guest is listening. The Ancient Mariner is a wonderful tale, timeless yet dated in style and form.
It also has one of the greatest lines in American lit:
"And ice, mast high, came floating by . . ."
JL
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scuffy b
climber
The town that Nature forgot to hate
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Jan 26, 2007 - 05:34pm PT
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The framing tale was a favorite trick of Kipling's, as well.
For example, The Man Who Would Be King and
The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows.
A couple of Conrad's biggies, Heart of Darkness and
Lord Jim are narrated by Marlowe.
Did Conrad use any other narrators?
Come to think of it, wasn't Marlowe relating the Lord Jim tale
as told to him by another party?
Largo--how does anything by Coleridge become American Lit?
If you want to read someone who LOVES frame tales, pick up some
John Barth. Most outrageous example is Meneliad, in the collection Lost in the Funhouse.He keeps digging himself
in deeper until he's got seven layers of tale going, and at one
point ends a quotation in all the layers simultaneously:
...blah blah"'"'"'"
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jan 26, 2007 - 05:47pm PT
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It's OT, but the New Yorker did a very nice piece on Yvon Chouinard and Great Pacific Ironworks, roughly in the mid 1970s.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 26, 2007 - 06:37pm PT
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"Largo--how does anything by Coleridge become American Lit? "
ENGLISH lit. My bad. I take like ten seconds to dash off shite on this here site.
JL
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Dec 26, 2014 - 04:50pm PT
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Interesting thread from the year before I found ST. I was just emailed the story under discussion, by an old climbing buddy, & checked to see if it had been discussed here.
I think parts of the story read very well.
This part seems to be a good lead-in for a holiday Friday night.
After we had eaten, we started to drink. Wine is a more complex substance than one might think, and, above two thousand metres, and at close to zero degrees centigrade, it displays interesting behavioral anomalies. It changes flavor, loses the bite of alcohol, and regains the mildness of the grape from which it comes. One can take it in heavy doses without any undesired effects. In fact, it eliminates fatigue, loosens and warms the limbs, and leads to a fanciful mood. It is no longer a luxury or a vice but a metabolic necessity, like water on the plains. It is a well-known fact that vines grow better on a slope: could there be a connection?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Dec 26, 2014 - 05:31pm PT
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It is a well-known fact that vines grow better on a slope: could there be a connection?
The angle of incidence of the sun?
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