Heart, Mind and Spirit

[Carol]

Our hearts are probably far more important to how we feel emotionally and what we think, our choices, and what we hold to be true than many people have thought.  Ever since Rome, western culture has tended to be materialistic and biased for materialism linguistically and in its linear logic system, and we might benefit from opening our minds to our feelings and other perceptions of reality?     

http://www.religionandpsychiatry.com/Pub...Salem.pdf/

Introduction The concept of mind is of central importance for psychiatrists and psychologists. However, little attention has been paid in most formal textbooks to this important issue, which is usually studied under the section of ‘Philosophical aspects of psychiatry/psychology’. The practicing psychiatrist should have some working model of the mind to help him understanding his patient’s problems (Salem, 2004). This review discusses some aspects of the components of mind, which is only one step on a long road. In many cultures throughout history, the heart has been considered the source of emotions, passion and wisdom. Also, people used to feel that they experienced the feeling or sensation of love and other emotional states in the area of the heart. However, in the past, scientists emphasized the role of the brain in the head as being responsible for such experiences. Interestingly, recent studies have explored physiological mechanisms by which the heart communicates with the brain, thereby influencing information processing, perceptions, emotions and health. These studies provided the scientific basis to explain how and why the heart affects mental clarity, creativity and emotional balance. In this review, I shall try to summarize and integrate the interesting findings in this area. 

[C C]

[...] it was assumed that the autonomic nervous system and the physiological responses moved in concert with the brain’s response to a given stimulus (Rein, Atkinson, et al, 1995). The heart and brain However, following several years of research, it was observed that, the heart communicates with the brain in ways that significantly affect how we perceive and react to the world. It was found that, the heart seemed to have its own peculiar logic that frequently diverged from the direction of the autonomic nervous system. The heart appeared to be sending meaningful messages to the brain that it not only understood, but also obeyed (Lacey and Lacey, 1978).

[...] Research has also revealed that the heart communicates information to the brain and throughout the body via electromagnetic field interactions.

[...] Another component of the heart- brain communication system was provided by researchers studying the hormonal system.

[...] Data indicate that when heart rhythm patterns are coherent, the neural information sent to the brain facilitates cortical function. This effect is often experienced as heightened mental clarity, improved decision making and increased creativity. Additionally, coherent input from the heart tends to facilitate the experience of positive feeling states.

[...] Research has shown that the heart’s afferent neurological signals directly affect activity in the amygdala and associated nuclei, an important emotional processing centre in the brain.

[...] A very interesting research finding has been that the heart is involved in the processing and decoding of intuitive information (McCraty, Atkinson & Bradley, 2004). Previous data suggests that the heart’s field was directly involved in intuitive perception, through its coupling to an energetic information field 3 outside the bounds of space and time (Childre & McCraty, 2001). Using a rigorous experimental design; there was evidence that both the heart and brain receive and respond to information about a future event before the event actually happens. Even more surprising was that the heart appeared to receive this intuitive information before the brain (McCraty, Atkinson & Bradley, 2004).

The last part, at the very least, would be what the mainstream would react to as woo. Also, if this paper was preceded by a survey of heart research that was guided by a theistic preconception or interpretative agenda... Then that goes against the supposed or touted impartiality of science. (Actually science has a prescriptive commitment to methodological naturalism rather than it literally being completely non-biased in terms of its preset philosophy of operation.)

The heart does have reciprocal effects upon the brain (below) that are recognized in terms of medical conditions and situations. But how much the establishment would be willing to run farther and deeper with some of the proposed connections above remains to be seen.

The heart and the brain: an intimate and underestimated relation

EXCERPT: [...] A relatively underestimated example of the heart’s effects on the brain is the link between dysfunction of the heart and the brain. This may become a very important health care problem in the near future, as both cardiac dysfunction and progressive loss of cognitive functioning are prominent features of ageing. The apparent lack of appreciation of the link between cardiac and brain (dys)function is probably due to the monodisciplinary approach by cardiologists and neurologists and by the reductionist approach of modern medical research.

Yet it is time for a more integrative view to the heart-brain connection as recent data indicate that cardiovascular conditions contribute to cognitive impairment. Pioneers in the field recognised the importance of this link and organised the successful first international conference on the Heart & Brain in Paris in March 2012. This conference aimed to ‘consolidate the hybrid field of neurocardiology or cardioneurology: the strokologist will teach the cardiologist about the brain and the neurologist will learn how the heart is affecting the brain’.

Neurologists and neuropsychologists also increasingly appreciate the importance of vascular risk factors and cardiovascular diseases on cognitive function. In a preface to a recent special issue on vascular risk factors and Alzheimer’s disease in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Jack de La Torre stated that: ‘the significant association between cardiovascular diseases and an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease offers the possibility to markedly reduce incident dementia by early identification and appropriate medical management of cardiovascular risk factors and diseases and could be a monumental step forward in reducing the worldwide prevalence of dementia, which will rise from a current 35 million to 60 million people in 2030’.

Thus this special issue of the Netherlands Heart Journal is very timely by providing different perspectives into the intriguing, intimate and clinically increasingly important relations between the brain and the heart. It describes the important role of the autonomic nervous system in ventricular arrhythmiasm and in psychological distress and its potential role in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, either by electrical neuromodulation, vagal stimulation, denervation or music. It also provides insights on the reduction of cognitive functions after major forms of cardiac surgery, on cardiovascular risk factors that affect cognitive functions in the brain and on the effects of exercise training on cardiac and cognitive function. It highlights the importance of the baroreflex in the heart-brain connection, and potential pathophysiological and molecular mechanisms of the effects of cerebral hypoperfusion and cognitive function.

[Carol]

Thanks for the reply CC.  I might be hopeless.     I am sure you are technologically correct, and I admire you for that.  I have noticed a lack of participation in the things that interest me.  I am finding I really don't care about what is to me totally cold science.  I rather follow the studies that say the heart and feelings are important.  That more is transmitted in our genes than DNA.  

I am wondering if knowledge of history is not a good mix with science?  I so know it was Galileo's peers who caused him grief.  There are too many stories of people making discoveries and being ignored and ridiculed by their peers.  Besides, I am into fun exploring the mysterious.  I am not attempting to be a professional who needs approval from peers.

[Syne]

I rather follow the studies that say the heart and feelings are important.

It's sad that some people would rather be willfully ignorant if it allows them to maintain their self-affirming biases.

[Carol]

Would you like me to find fault with you?

No one can know everything. That is absolutely impossible. We all have our preferences in what interest us. Stephen King became a very successful writer without knowing science beyond a common knowledge of it. We all are unique and have our place in life and things go pretty well when we respect each other and work in harmony. Whenever you have a thought of science fact that adds to a discussion please post it, but your criticisms can only put people on the defensive without adding anything of value to the discussion.

I also want to point out what I have posted is science. Not everyone agrees with it, but being as the church of old, acting like an authority over what people can and can not think, is certainly a bad thing. "Authorities" have been wrong too many times, for us not to question what they think they know.

[C C]

[...] I am finding I really don't care about what is to me totally cold science.

Science doesn't deal with transcendent possibilities to begin with. So what continually either puzzles or intrigues me is why so many people go the route of trying to defend their extra-natural or fringe beliefs and predilections in the context of science. And why they appropriate items from science and try to use them in doxastic frameworks which they were not intended for (i.e., that's a route of futility or a recipe for eventual disaster / disappointment).

Doubtless some of it is the result of their belief traditions positing interference in the phenomenal world from whatever _X_ in the ancient past. So they feel those accounts must be defended with a rival concoction of pseudoscience (like creationism or ID). But that doesn't really explain those who are not ideologically shackled to older dogmas.

Immanuel Kant: In mathematics and in natural philosophy human reason admits of limits but not of bounds, viz., that something indeed lies without it, at which it can never arrive, but not that it will at any point find completion in its internal progress. The enlarging of our views in mathematics, and the possibility of new discoveries, are infinite; and the same is the case with the discovery of new properties of nature, of new powers and laws, by continued experience and its rational combination. [...] Natural science will never reveal to us the internal constitution of things [this is a reference to "things in themselves" or the original intent of such, not physics affairs like atoms which the neo-Kantians conflated such with in the 19th century], which though not appearance, yet can serve as the ultimate ground of explaining appearance. Nor does that science require this for its physical explanations. Nay even if such grounds should be offered from other sources (for instance, the influence of immaterial beings), they must be rejected and not used in the progress of its explanations. For these explanations must only be grounded upon that which as an object of sense can belong to experience, and be brought into connection with our actual perceptions and empirical laws. --Prolegomena To Any Future Metaphysics

I am wondering if knowledge of history is not a good mix with science?  I so know it was Galileo's peers who caused him grief.  There are too many stories of people making discoveries and being ignored and ridiculed by their peers.  Besides, I am into fun exploring the mysterious.  I am not attempting to be a professional who needs approval from peers.

https://aeon.co/ideas/opposition-to-gali...-religious

EXCERPT: [....] Galileo gave no clue that the ‘booklet’s’ author was complimentary to him, excited about new telescopic discoveries, encouraging further telescopic research, and wielding solid arguments against Earth’s motion. [Johann Georg] Locher was forgotten, while Galileo’s caricature [of his work] became accepted as history, and applied to the entire debate over Earth’s motion.

That is unfortunate for science, because today the opponents of science make use of that caricature. Those who insist that the Apollo missions were faked, that vaccines are harmful, or even that the world is flat – whose voices are now loud enough for the ‘War on Science’ to be a National Geographic cover story and for the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to address even their most bizarre claims – do not reject the scientific process per se. Rather, they wrap themselves in the mantle of Galileo, standing (supposedly) against a (supposedly) corrupted science produced by the ‘Scientific Establishment’. Thus Locher matters. Science’s history matters...

[Carol]

Whoo, wait a minute. What is "their belief traditions"?

Are you assuming I believe something rather than I am questioning what is to be believed?

I forgive Galileo for whatever errors he made, but I do not forgive his peers who protected their authority by preventing Galileo from having freedom of speech.

[Syne]

Would you like me to find fault with you?  

No one can know everything.  That is absolutely impossible.  We all have our preferences in what interest us.  Stephen King became a very successful writer without knowing science beyond a common knowledge of it.  We all are unique and have our place in life and things go pretty well when we respect each other and work in harmony.   Whenever you have a thought of science fact that adds to a discussion please post it, but your criticisms can only put people on the defensive without adding anything of value to the discussion.  

I also want to point out what I have posted is science.  Not everyone agrees with it, but being as the church of old, acting like an authority over what people can and can not think, is certainly a bad thing.  "Authorities" have been wrong too many times, for us not to question what they think they know.

Go right ahead. My faults will no doubt be solely about how I make you feel. And I'm positive that you'd immediately regret going there. The benefit of not allowing personal bias to lead your thinking is that, when you are confronted with facts, you don't instantly put your finger on the scale. People who do favor their biases are always bringing up "authority" as a bogeyman, even when no one has made any appeal to authority. It's just a red herring that allows them to keep their comforting biases, right along with strawmen that anyone claimed to "know everything" or that the ignorant can't be successful in less rigorous endeavors. It's always obvious when someone is just throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks in lieu of trying to cite sources of which we could discuss the pros and cons.

Yes, I can see why you'd want to elevate speculation to the level of science, but your desires don't make it so. And you have to accept that if you genuinely wish to have intellectually honest discussions with other adults. Why aren't you finding at least one point, looking up the cited source, and making the case that any of this is true? My guess is that you don't really want to be intellectual, you just want to feel intellectual.

No one is telling you how to think. Some of us just wish you would.

[Carol]

Snye, someone hacked into my computer and I am taking it to shop to get fixed. Someone ran a red light and hit my car, and have I to get the police report and fill out DMV forms and figure out how to get my car fixed.

You made it clear you would not kindly to me posting what I think your faults are. Please, stop pointing out what you think my faults are, and focus on the research in the OP, or don't post here at all.

[Syne]

Snye, someone hacked into my computer and I am taking it to shop to get fixed.  Someone ran a red light and hit my car, and have I to get the police report and fill out DMV forms and figure out how to get my car fixed.

You made it clear you would not kindly to me posting what I think your faults are. Please, stop pointing out what you think my faults are, and focus on the research in the OP, or don't post here at all.

Nice sob story. While I have no doubt that it may be completely true, I fail to see the point of interjecting it here, other than as an attempt to draw sympathy. Why would you even expect sympathy from strangers? And why would you expect it to have any weight in a discussion you assert is science?

I said, "Go right ahead" and post what you think my faults are. It won't bother me none, but you might not like the criticism it opens you up to. You know it's hypocritical to tell me "don't post" after stating, "I do not forgive...preventing...freedom of speech."

Here's a good refute of the base assumptions of the OP study: https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/ene...doscience/
And even just on its surface, if the heart has influence because of its 40,000 neurons (nerve cells), then the gut (dubbed the second brain) has way more influence because of its 100-500 million neurons. It's all pseudoscience.