Schwartz, following Stapp, suggests that "mental force" in a way not yet understood, allows the mind to bias what happens in the brain. That is, at the point where a decision is to be made, the brain is delicately balanced between two cascades, one which would have the action go forward, and one which would inhibit it. Even if the effect of the mind is very tiny, if the brain were in such a delicately balanced state (imagine a nickel balanced on its edge) it could push it in one of two ways. Diehard materialists scoff at this notion, arguing that mixing quantum mechanics and consciousness is an attempt to conflate two separate mysteries.
I am very much on Schwartz's side, because the most profound event of my life involved the application of mental force, as Schwartz would call it. I suffered from chronic eye pain over a period of eight years, which grew to the point where I could no longer do my job. I saw a parade of eye doctors, until an ophthalmologist at UCSF (the same institution where Libet did his research) suggested that the volume of pain I experienced was the result of my heightened attention to minor signs of irritation. At that moment, I heard an inner voice--the voice of my mother, yelling at me, "Stop reading! You'll ruin your eyesight. You'll go blind by the time you're thirty." She used to say this frequently, and planted in my mind the notion that I could "ruin my eyes." Following this epiphany, I realized that my chronic pain was psychosomatic. After building for 8 years, it faded away permanently in 48 hours, once I had reframed my thoughts. Somehow, my mind had influence over the volume of pain I experienced.
There is an established theory which explains my experience. The gate control theory of pain holds that the nervous system contains "gates" which control the level of signal allowed to pass from pain receptors to the central nervous system. The more attention paid to pain signals, the wider open are the gates. It's easy to see in evolutionary terms why it makes sense to allow the body to turn up the volume of pain signals from wounded areas. In my case, the power of suggestion caused me to turn up the volume on everyday irritation of eyes that were essentially healthy. My experience was not precisely that of Schwartz's OCD patients, but it was similar. It is too easy to dismiss experiences like these as "all in the mind." They are in the mind, but that does not mean they are imaginary. What runs through the mind flows into the body.
Article comments
1 - Lee Kent Hempfling
You should now read 'The Brain Is A Wonderful Thing' available at the URL to see how the brain works and how it is possible to misconstrue what the mind is in order to make claims such as are made in the book referenced in your article.
2 - seesir
interesting book and commentary. why should this artificial dicotomy continue? brain affects mind; mind affects brain! or whatever other terminology one wishes to use. there used to be the mind/body dicotomy. (hopefully that is diminishing.) why not accept rational viewpoints and try to integrate them? we are at the threshold of great things regarding the functioning of our brains. let's not get sidetracked with unnecessary philosophical talk.
3 - Eric Olsen
fascinating Rick, excellent job nad very glad you got theeye problem resolved. Ideas are energy and that isn't nothing.
4 - Ellis' REBT Cognitive Therapy
This of course, makes perfect sense (the mind affecting the brain's structure, I mean); if learning changes you, which, in a way, is the very definition of learning, obviously (?!) the brain and/or nervous system (and/or endocrine system?) has to have changed...
5 - Darin
I found the book illuminating and exciting because the implications of the thesis, if it were accepted by a diverse range of researchers in various fields related to the brain and mental functioning, can open new lines of study and research that may help people who would otherwise suffer needlessly from neurological malfunctioning. I myself reject Platonic and Catesian dualism, but frankly, the philosophic debate is less important than having the means of helping people, however important one thinks that debate is. Of course, if you outright reject Schwartz's thesis, then the very possibility of beginning new research will be ruled out and any hope of helping people remains straitjacketed simply because scientist's a priori biases take precedence over charity!! And that's really sad.
People are always more important than ideas. And the scientist who feels his ideas are that important betrays the very philosophy that gave the foundation for his or her ideas in the first place, namely humanism. To me, that's an egregious inhumanism and makes me wonder if science has become wholly superfluous by it's utter detachment from real human concern and by a bloated sense of it's importance as seen in the idealogical priorities of the scientist qua philosopher.