Apocalypse Neuro: Why Our Brains Don't Process the Gravest Threats to Humanity

[Angry Floof]

Apocalypse Neuro: Why Our Brains Don't Process the Gravest Threats to Humanity

Our brains are incredible little mushboxes; they are unfathomably complex, powerful organs that grant us motor skills, logic, and abstract thought. Brains have bequeathed unto we humans just about every cognitive advantage, it seems, except for one little omission: the ability to adequately process the concept of long-term, civilization-threatening phenomena. They've proven miracle workers for the short-term survival of individuals, but the human brain sort of malfunctions when it comes to navigating wide-lens, slowly-unfurling crises like climate change.

Humans have, historically, proven absolutely awful, even incapable, of comprehending the large, looming—dare I say apocalyptic?—slowburn threats facing their societies.

Can we overcome this? Is neuroplasticity up to the task?

 

[fromderinside]

Apocalypse Neuro: Why Our Brains Don't Process the Gravest Threats to Humanity

Our brains are incredible little mushboxes; they are unfathomably complex, powerful organs that grant us motor skills, logic, and abstract thought. Brains have bequeathed unto we humans just about every cognitive advantage, it seems, except for one little omission: the ability to adequately process the concept of long-term, civilization-threatening phenomena. They've proven miracle workers for the short-term survival of individuals, but the human brain sort of malfunctions when it comes to navigating wide-lens, slowly-unfurling crises like climate change.

Humans have, historically, proven absolutely awful, even incapable, of comprehending the large, looming—dare I say apocalyptic?—slowburn threats facing their societies.

Can we overcome this? Is neuroplasticity up to the task?

Well some species of plants seem able to 'predict' long term weather cycles by various means. That is they have mechanisms which, together, produce fruits and genetic product at times most useful for propagation and attraction of useful species to those ends in cycles across tens even hundreds of years without brains at all.

 Epigenetic mechanisms may be part of what is used for these either predictable or cyclic transitions.

What appears to be the real challenge is whether evolution promotes such capabilities to realizing the  maximum power principle or attaining the highest effieciency of energy use at the moment

 

[Loren Pechtel]

When faced with a substantial current cost and a lack of certainty it's a lot easier to deny the threat than accept that we have to pay the cost.

 

[DBT]

Our overall way of doing business, economic systems, our lifestyles, etc, achieves a momentum of its own, so is not easily reined in or changed in any significant way. We just shovel more fuel on our runaway train, all the while repeating the mantra; growth, growth, growth......

 

[rousseau]

Is it that we can't process it, or that sub-consciously most are aware there's nothing they can do anyway, or that the threat's progress moves so slowly we see no reason to panic until someone actually shouts in our face 'panic'?

 

[ronburgundy]

Is it that we can't process it, or that sub-consciously most are aware there's nothing they can do anyway, or that the threat's progress moves so slowly we see no reason to panic until someone actually shouts in our face 'panic'?

Yeah. The fact that the quoted person knows climate change is a threat is because the human brain can process such threats. Most people just don't care enough to do anything about such a long term threat with uncertain consequences, and those that deny the threat are just engaged in active self delusion because they have biased motives to pretend it isn't true.
The human brain is even better at finding excuses to deny the truth as it is at discovering it.

 

[Angry Floof]

We're also talking about subconscious, instinctive responses. Knowing about climate change is not a subconscious, instinctive response.

Immediate conditions get the attention of subconscious, instinctive responses. They are the most powerful responses in our repertoire because they don't require conscious knowledge. They respond to sensory input, but they also respond to things we imagine. The problem with that is that the frightening disasters that we can imagine and scare ourselves with relating to climate change are not associated with anything immediate in our environment.

Unless you've been personally hit by a tsunami, big shit like that might scare you but those powerful subconscious responses are not going to know what environmental or behavioral factors to associate with it.

When you react reflexively to throwing away a plastic bag due to your animal brain grokking that association to the threat to the species, then you might say you've overcome this cognitive blind spot.

Something else to consider: in a very real sense, humanity is one big organism, but it's one without a central brain. Knowledge in some individual heads doesn't mean shit to this behemoth organism unless a large number of its cells are reacting in sync to the same threat.

 

[ryan]

But we are doing something about climate change. And I am even shocked at how much people go out of our way to help maintain the environment, especially people with no kids. I mean; what's in it for the person, with no kids, who goes out of their way to recycle or be environmentally conscious when it will have zero impact on their lives. It's practically altruistic.

 

[rousseau]

We're also talking about subconscious, instinctive responses. Knowing about climate change is not a subconscious, instinctive response.

Immediate conditions get the attention of subconscious, instinctive responses. They are the most powerful responses in our repertoire because they don't require conscious knowledge. They respond to sensory input, but they also respond to things we imagine. The problem with that is that the frightening disasters that we can imagine and scare ourselves with relating to climate change are not associated with anything immediate in our environment.

Unless you've been personally hit by a tsunami, big shit like that might scare you but it's not going to know what environmental or behavioral factors to associate with it.

Yea that, and I'd add that our ability to actually do anything about it is actually very low, and most people instinctively know this.

Like.. 'ok I should stop driving a car', but how am I going to get to work? If I can't get to work how am I going to feed my children? And even if I did stop driving a car, would that even change a microscopic fraction of our economy that's already intrinsically tied to carbon based fuels? The result is that behaviour doesn't change.

The psychological dynamic behind it is summed up by 'the prisoner's dilemma'. If every entity in the world could magically cooperate toward better environmental outcomes, they'd do it, but a lot of the behaviour needed to make a difference risks short-term survival because of an inability to cooperate. If entity [a] can't collaborate with all of its competitors to make a difference, then it's moral behaviour does nothing but hurt itself. The result is no behavioural change.

The only true option to combat climate change is effective legal regulation, and even then this is difficult without disrupting our economies. It's happening, and we've set goals, but the goals are ferociously unrealistic and for the most part it seems to be too little too late.

 

[Angry Floof]

You keep talking about subconscious responses as if they are conscious thoughts and behaviors.

 

[rousseau]

You keep talking about subconscious responses as if they are conscious thoughts and behaviors.

Even if they are sub-conscious they might be more realistic than a consciously thought out plan in this context. Someone can be a mouth breather, but their instinctive logic can still do a pretty good job at keeping them alive, at times. I'd say the brunt of our day to day decisions are actually instinctive and most of us turn out pretty well.

Go to any random parking lot in North America and ask someone why they still drive a car despite Global warming, and most of them will spew out the same answer I gave you above, even if they've never vocalized it before. This is because most people live in economies that are reliant on the carbon industry and as individuals they can't really do anything about it. In many, many cases consciously changing their behaviour is actually counter-productive and harmful to them in the short-term, often to a degree that isn't sustainable. This is the core of the Global warming problem.

So basically what I'm suggesting is that whether or not we process global warming as a threat is irrelevant, what's relevant is that we've spent the last century building a carbon-reliant economy that is too slow to change.

 

[Angry Floof]

Yes, individuals do fine running on subconscious drivers. That's how brains work and that's what's described in the article. Yes, our human-made systems and constructs do not reflect nature until nature hits us where it hurts.

It doesn't hurt yet in spite of what we know. The question is, what can change the habits of a species of billions who are individually acting on present moment responses within abstract constructs that do not reflect the reality of nature?

 

[another1]

My theory is that people secretly want to die. Secretly to themselves and to the world, they want that. The world is such a recycling factory of stuff and lower animals seem to instinctively know their place. Humans feel they are separate from the process. I don't know how that makes other animals lower but Okay. I think humans are genetically suicidal and they are too complex in their emotions to identify the problem. I call it a problem but it may be exactly how it is supposed to be. The strange thing is having the capacity to understand how wrong we are but no ability to change ourselves and our desires.

Watch a legit apocalypse weather video online and try to be anything other than entertained. Seriously, like how is imminent death not a complete rush? Your own death in the immediate sense is always scary but everybody dying due to an unstoppable force of nature is thrilling. Don't say it isn't. The psychologicals could be in that we know how horrible we are, and without the gumption to end it ourselves, we anticipate the inevitable and yearn for a flaming crack in the earth to swallow us or whatever.

I don't know anyone who isn't totally preoccupied with stupid shit. Preoccupied to the point of forgetting their one deepest desire, which is to die. Maybe on subconscious levels we know that to die isn't what it appears to be, so we welcome it. I don't know much about sleep but we almost die every time we sleep and we don't remember it. Some doc told me there three chemicals that come out when we sleep, and if one is off balance, we die. Like, we come so close to dying every night and when we wake up, we crave that feeling of death. Maybe we want that feeling we get when we sleep and we know we need to die to achieve it. I feel it sometimes. Like a narcotic buzz that happens when I start to drift off. That has something to do with it but I don't know.

I haven't spawned any biological children and I take measures to prevent that from ever happening. I don't know the feeling of creating a baby but I know it must be amazing. People who have children change chemically. Once their little satellite or whatever is connected to a new life, they are different as a person. They still do not care what happens in the world as a whole, but their immediate reality changes drastically. People with children to protect must be miserable. Good God I can only imagine the stress. The state heightens some instincts but dulls the peripheral vision and makes a person stop caring about bigger things because smaller things are so necessary to do.

 

[rousseau]

Yes, individuals do fine running on subconscious drivers. That's how brains work and that's what's described in the article. Yes, our human-made systems and constructs do not reflect nature until nature hits us where it hurts.

It doesn't hurt yet in spite of what we know. The question is, what can change the habits of a species of billions who are individually acting on present moment responses within abstract constructs that do not reflect the reality of nature?

Yea I guess my answer translates to it being a social problem, not really a biological one.

At an individual level people are capable of conceiving the future, but are either a) not being made aware of the gravity of the problem or b) slaves to the condition of their society despite their awareness. For these people to change they need to be given the conditions to change while still surviving and pro-creating, because they are always going to do what is most immediately beneficial for them.

At a group level we can't react to something until we actually know it's happening (in this case way too late), and to shift the global economy away from Carbon takes massive political and financial effort.

 

[fromderinside]

After reading the above I've come to the conclusion that we really don't know what is the threat of global warming to life. I say life because unless it is at that level that things impact parsing out lessor threads conflict with other threads resulting in life changes rather than life disappears.

If we are talking about an event of a magnitude of changing to a Venus like environment, one that is incapable of supporting water, then we are talking about threat to all life which would be serious. Anything less one should expect something coming out the other side that works quite well in whatever life suitable environment results.

That is an entirely different question because we may only be talking about the extinction of man and like species or something similar. Man can't recognize such change because it isn't really relevant to life. Why work in something that is beyond what makes a species more fit than others? As long as man can get by, and that doesn't mean modern man with his modern technology, just some environment where men will still be top dog.

I argue that man can be top dog if he retains language and tool building capacities without the cities, farming, mining, and other capacities, including knowledge building. In the meantime other species will probably evolve to compete with us in this brave new world.

That, however is another story.

So put away your Freud-a-lators, semi-science speculations and the like. Focus on what we have that is permitting us to ignore oceans rising (we did it before about 60-80 thousand years ago), temperatures changing, oxygen mix changing, etc. We got where we are because we adapted to all that. We are multidimensional survival, fitness, machines. What is it about the current situation that threatens oxygen, temperature, sea level beyond what we've survived. There, you might find something to which we should be sensitive. So far I don't see it.

If you are only worried that we won't have what we have today you miss the entire point of evolution. Its important to us but its small change in the bigger picture.

Finally climate change is a fact of nature. Man aided climate change is just a wrinkle. Only if man aided CC reduces to possibility of life continuing on earth should be something to which humans are probably attuned. Thing of a huge meteor or a failure of earth's crust or something similar as what man is pushing the world toward then come on back and we'll have a nice cup of tea and a very rational discussion. Discussing personality models built by drug addicts just doesn't interest me.

 

[rousseau]

After reading the above I've come to the conclusion that we really don't know what is the threat of global warming to life. I say life because unless it is at that level that things impact parsing out lessor threads conflict with other threads resulting in life changes rather than life disappears.

If we are talking about an event of a magnitude of changing to a Venus like environment, one that is incapable of supporting water, then we are talking about threat to all life which would be serious. Anything less one should expect something coming out the other side that works quite well in whatever life suitable environment results.

That is an entirely different question because we may only be talking about the extinction of man and like species or something similar. Man can't recognize such change because it isn't really relevant to life. Why work in something that is beyond what makes a species more fit than others? As long as man can get by, and that doesn't mean modern man with his modern technology, just some environment where men will still be top dog.

I argue that man can be top dog if he retains language and tool building capacities without the cities, farming, mining, and other capacities, including knowledge building. In the meantime other species will probably evolve to compete with us in this brave new world.

That, however is another story.

So put away your Freud-a-lators, semi-science speculations and the like. Focus on what we have that is permitting us to ignore oceans rising (we did it before about 60-80 thousand years ago), temperatures changing, oxygen mix changing, etc. We got where we are because we adapted to all that. We are multidimensional survival, fitness, machines. What is it about the current situation that threatens oxygen, temperature, sea level beyond what we've survived. There, you might find something to which we should be sensitive. So far I don't see it.

If you are only worried that we won't have what we have today you miss the entire point of evolution. Its important to us but its small change in the bigger picture.

Great post, thanks.

Even if life on earth were to disappear completely.. does it really matter in the long run? Like really really? There's inevitably pockets of life all over the universe that will be going on until whatever happens to the universe.

All I know is that I'm glad to have been born in the 1980's.

 

[another1]

If it is a social problem, the condition you mean could be independence. Not having children would come to mind. No procreation. The clutter of bs that comes with trying to survive, accumulate trinkets and protect everything stifles the brain. I don't know anyone who can juggle like that. People can't find the time to become intelligence studying intelligence. They should, and they should work to upping even that state of mind. That should be common sense and it is undoubtedly said in varying accents.

I also think that internally we know our lives are so short that we siphon psychic energy from the compartments of awareness like world demise, and put the siphoned energy into things like my car is broken. Nature is going to kill us someday anyway and worrying about it is just a ritual to say yeah yeah I know, I'm so interested and concerned. It is really mechanical and it has no impact. Kind of like an assembly line machine churning out coiling streams of aluminum that shine for a while and get swept up.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That is an entirely different question because we may only be talking about the extinction of man and like species or something similar. Man can't recognize such change because it isn't really relevant to life. Why work in something that is beyond what makes a species more fit than others? As long as man can get by, and that doesn't mean modern man with his modern technology, just some environment where men will still be top dog.

I argue that man can be top dog if he retains language and tool building capacities without the cities, farming, mining, and other capacities, including knowledge building. In the meantime other species will probably evolve to compete with us in this brave new world.

1) Without the technology our tool building will be pretty much limited to early stone age--because we can't get any better building materials.

2) It's unlikely that a competitor to man will arise. Over the eons the sun has been warming and Earth's CO2 level dropping in response and that's almost over. 99% of the capacity to counter the solar warming has already been used up--once that last 1% is gone the mercury will inevitably creep up--something that favors small rapidly-reproducing species over large, long-lived, slow-reproducing creatures. Such creatures are not suitable hosts for intelligence. (And even then we already used 90% of the time where the Earth is suitable for multi-cellular life.)

So put away your Freud-a-lators, semi-science speculations and the like. Focus on what we have that is permitting us to ignore oceans rising (we did it before about 60-80 thousand years ago), temperatures changing, oxygen mix changing, etc. We got where we are because we adapted to all that. We are multidimensional survival, fitness, machines. What is it about the current situation that threatens oxygen, temperature, sea level beyond what we've survived. There, you might find something to which we should be sensitive. So far I don't see it.

We haven't been around for the extremes the climate can throw at us. The coldest would certainly wipe us without technology (and it took out most life on Earth. It was so long ago that we don't have a good record, though.) The hottest was more recent, we have a better record--of a near-total lack of fossils. Most of the Earth was uninhabitable. This would actually be harder to defend against because you can bundle up against the cold but nothing but a cooled suit can protect you from wet-bulb temperatures above 95F.

Finally climate change is a fact of nature. Man aided climate change is just a wrinkle. Only if man aided CC reduces to possibility of life continuing on earth should be something to which humans are probably attuned. Thing of a huge meteor or a failure of earth's crust or something similar as what man is pushing the world toward then come on back and we'll have a nice cup of tea and a very rational discussion. Discussing personality models built by drug addicts just doesn't interest me.

Sticking your head in the sand won't make it go away.

 

[fromderinside]

Finally climate change is a fact of nature. Man aided climate change is just a wrinkle. Only if man aided CC reduces to possibility of life continuing on earth should be something to which humans are probably attuned. Thing of a huge meteor or a failure of earth's crust or something similar as what man is pushing the world toward then come on back and we'll have a nice cup of tea and a very rational discussion. Discussing personality models built by drug addicts just doesn't interest me.

Sticking your head in the sand won't make it go away.

Didn't say do that did I. OK extremes exist we cant survive as you point out. What is it about current trends that give us pause to consider those as relevant? Then what can we do about those as humans, perhaps even through sacrificing ourselves to such as nuclear holocaust, to put earth on a life supporting path again.

See, my point is unless we can point to what are potential life killers in today's trends we're talking coffee table talk about human quality of life and little else.

You post some extreme markers which 'almost' eradicated life. What in current trends do you see as man's responsibility to cease and desist specific activities that likely threaten such again? Like I wrote I don't see it in man's behavioral effects on earth conditions. All I see is the potential for ending existence of man beyond a stone chipping top predator.

I don't subscribe to life must become more complex, more technologically competent, to persist.

 

[ronburgundy]

You keep talking about subconscious responses as if they are conscious thoughts and behaviors.

You're right that indirect and long term threats will not trigger a subconscious threat reflex. That isn't the problem. Most of the useful behaviors that people could be engaging in to reduce the long term threat of climate change are not "subconscious responses" but conscious and deliberate actions. There are no reflexive responses that would be helpful. We don't need people literally running and hiding in the bushes from gas pumps. We need them voting for people who prioritize long term solutions, make lifestyle changes that reduce their direct and indirect consumption of fossil fuels, etc..

The problem is that even our conscious assessments of threats and behavioral responses to them are not merely limited by cognitive abilities but are variably limited by people's emotional and pragmatic biased motives for denying the reality or refusing to do anything about the reality that their own subconscious mind actually accepts on some level. Many people who deny climate change probably have subconscious associations and knowledge that implicitly supports the reality of climate change but their conscious mind overrides this and they actively engage in self-deceit and suppression to avoid the conclusion and actions their mind would otherwise favor.

IT isn't unlike that young earth creationists, many of whom have the knowledge and associations that without their active suppression would lead them to accept evolution. Their emotional defensiveness and aggression toward doubters is a byproduct that this awareness of the reality of evolution is just below the surface and thus anything that enables it is a threat to their consciously preferred alternative.