Grandstand | Is philosophy an electric circuit? | The Tunisian Press

By Dr MA BOUHADIBA*

Lhen we look for a definition of philosophy we discover that it is the love of wisdom. It is, in fact, the contraction of two Greek words: love, philosophy and wisdom, sophie.

If one looks for a clearer definition, one finds many definitions that make it difficult to grasp the true meaning of this discipline.

Philosophy has to do with the mind and until then it was difficult to study it objectively. But the technique has evolved, magnetic resonance, computerized tomography, positron, single proton emission, etc. And what we find amazes us.

Philosophy is a human science and my purpose is not to talk about philosophy, but to talk about the scientific aspect which will help philosophers to understand better.

Boundaries are blurring, specialties interpenetrate and dissolve into each other.

Medicine sometimes becomes philosophy and philosophy becomes medicine. The mind is our brain and it is the seat of our thoughts. Is he programmed to be a philosopher?

Policy

It is the study of the political ideologies of government, institutions and the relationships between them.

Does ideology impact our brain and does the brain in turn impact ideology?

This is undoubtedly the story of the egg and the chicken, and to better understand we have studied two ideologies: the liberal and the conservative.

They exist in different areas of the brain. The liberal is found in the anterior cingulate cortex, while the conservative is found in the amygdala.

The liberal ideology uses an area which deals with emotions and which proves to be very active, for example, in the search for social equality as well as in major changes in societies.

Conservative ideology, on the other hand, appeals to a useful area in conflict resolutions. It also appeals to a small area called the insula which is an area that controls the status quo.

Sometimes conservatives and liberals come to an agreement, but for that they use different nervous circuits.

Stoicism

It is a school of virtue and ethics. Seneca, Zeno, Epictetus were the first to say that resilience to adversity, what was called stoic calm, was the secret of happiness.

You have to be free from anger, envy or jealousy and accept that life is made up of sorrows and pains, and control them.

Neurology has studied a particular state in certain patients: they retain all their mental capacities but do not feel any emotion.

Thus, a mother understood that she had lost her child, but had no emotional reaction.

We see this in certain lesions of the ventromedial cortex which is an area of ​​coordination between different neurological functions. People who suffer from it exhibit sound judgment but lack the usual social reactions.

There is a dissociation between the appreciation of the event that affects the person and the emotion that goes with it.

The stoic also tries to dissociate the two by giving less importance to external events and he concentrates more on the values ​​of judgment that he knows how to control. So his emotional involvement is reduced.

Cynicism

It is the school of Diogenes of Sinope who wanted to live like a dog, hence the name kynicos, dog.

A dog bites, urinates and copulates where he wants, he said.

It is a casual, materialistic attitude that wants to be jubilant.

For the cynics, society is corrupting and nature virtuous. They therefore have a reaction of suspicion. It is a defensive attitude that we take when we are hurt, angry or disrespected.

Instead of controlling his anger, the cynic diverts it into a selfish posture and closes his eyes and ears to others.

It takes exactly 0.7 seconds for a person to know whether or not they can be trusted.

The center of trust and distrust is found in different structures of the brain.

The first is in the prefrontal cortex. It is the center of elevated thought, deduction, discernment but also that of empathy. Its neurotransmitter is oxytocin and this takes us to a truly transcendental dimension.

Distrust is in the amygdala and appeals to a more primitive nervous circuit like that of Diogenes’ dog. In this case, the brain closes to reasoning and critical thinking and no longer shows empathy towards others.

The neurotransmitter used is adrenaline, it is a defense mechanism.

Epicureanism

It was Epicurus’ answer to stoicism. He gave it in the form of a long poem of 7400 lines.

For him, misfortune comes from the fear of the gods and their anger. He therefore imagines a material world, indifferent to the gods, based on particles which would come together to form matter (atomism).

All senses of perception are true, so truth is in the pursuit of pleasure and peace of mind.

The pleasure system in our brain is the mesocorticolimbic system, it has the reward center, it is the reward center. It is the product of the evolution of our desires but it is also a center of learning.

Pleasure is a cycle with an appetite phase, a consumption phase and a satiety phase.

Its neurotransmitter is dopamine.

Depending on the object of our desire, different points of the brain light up but the pleasure remains centralized in this system, knowing that if it is harmed, the affected person will be deprived of pleasure forever.

For peace of mind, it’s a bit more complicated.

The right hemisphere detects threats, the left hemisphere acts to control them.

For peace of mind, it is therefore necessary to occupy the right hemisphere, to distract it from its duty as a sentry, always on the lookout.

Psychologists know this well and recommend for this more focus on oneself, to maintain the awakening of consciousness, to give free rein to one’s imagination and to give time to meditation.

Free will

In 1964, two Germans from the University of Friborg received 30 people every day in their laboratory who were asked one thing only: to raise their finger when they wanted, up to 500 times.

They found that in the brain, a potential appeared before their conscious decision to lift their finger.

This potential called Bereitshaft potential was then forgotten for 20 years until an American, Dr. Libett proved in turn that this potential came before the person made his conscious decision. Which implied that humans are not masters of their actions.

A great debate ensued on the absence of free will and determinism of the human being. A debate whose champion today is Yuval Noah Hariri.

This problem has existed for more than 2000 years and this experience, taking our philosopher friends by surprise, they preferred to divert the problem by saying that free will is not really necessary to determine moral responsibility. They then discerned several types of moral responsibilities.

Metaphysical

Aristotle wrote a book called Physics. The next book was called Ta me ta physics, that is to say the book that comes after physics. A simple classification.

The subject of this book was the first cause of things or more precisely existence as such.

It has become a branch of philosophy in which one of the main subjects is the relationship of body and mind.

Are they related? Are they different in nature? A great debate ensued between monism and dualism until 2016 when researchers from Pittsburgh University highlighted the connection between the cortex, the center of cognitive thought, and the medulla of the adrenal gland which produces a hormone that controls the heart, tension, respiration, etc., and which gives a rapid response to stress.

From then on, the proof was made that the spirit and the body are one. It also showed why the mind can cause psychosomatic illnesses, post-traumatic syndromes and revealed the health benefit of meditation.

Conversely, we understand why yoga and pilate calm the mind and are conducive to meditation.

Mind Body is now a branch of philosophy that is evolving very quickly and all major universities have mind body departments.

I will not go further in my approach, because the subject is much more complicated and extends to infinity. My point is simple: it shows what everyone knows but with perhaps new details, it is that the human being is and will always be a whole.

MAB

*Gynecologist doctor

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Grandstand | Is philosophy an electric circuit? | The Tunisian Press


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