In his new book, The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Our Conscious Brains, neuroscientist Joseph Ledoux assigns himself the simple tasks of explaining how consciousness developed and redefining how we create and experience emotions.

Obviously, I'm being facetious. There's nothing simple about these tasks, yet in Ledoux's capable hands the reader is led, step by step, through the past four billion years of life on this planet. Consciousness, a phenomenon responsible for your ability to read and understand these words (as well as much, much more), often feels like a given, yet that's only because human life is short and evolution is so very long.

Ledoux writes about history splendidly. In his last book, Anxious (which I write about here and here), he investigates the development of nervous systems, entertaining the prospect that anxiety and fear are not innate physiological states but rather assembled experiences that can be sorted through and overcome. Throughout the book he overturns common assumptions about behavior and cognition.

Ditto Deep History. Ledoux writes that consciousness is "often a passive observer of behavior rather than an active controller of it." This conflicts with the assumption that every decision we make is of our own volition. He also argues that emotions "are cognitively assembled states of autnoetic consciousness," products of the same processes experienced via higher-order circuitry. Emotions are not separate from thoughts; they too are created in our nervous system by the same mechanisms.

From a 30,000-foot view this makes sense. Humans did not arrive on the planet whole-cloth. We are constructed from parts that started self-assembling billions of years ago, the consequence of billions of years of chemistry, biology, and physiology. Deep History is an engrossing investigation of the human condition through the lens of ancient evolutionary history.

No single summation could suffice to cover this book's depth and complexity, nor should itsome arguments take time to unfold. Below are five fascinating passages pulled from the brain of one of the most thoughtful neuroscientists alive.

Survival precedes behavior.

It's easy to believe there's a reason for every action, yet reason comes after the survival instinct. Humans do many things for seemingly strange (or no) reason, only later attempting to explain the cognitive process that led to the actionfilling in a psychological gap rather than actually defining the event. The mind likes to insert itself in places evenespeciallywhen it's late to the game.

"Behavior is not, as we commonly suppose, primarily a tool of the mind. Of course, human behavior can reflect the intentions, desires, and fears of the conscious mind. But when we go deep into the history of behavior, we can't help but conclude that it is first and foremost a tool of survival, whether in single cells or more complex organisms that have conscious control over some of their actions. The connection of behavioral to mental life is, like mental life itself, an evolutionary afterthought."

Neuroscience is, relatively speaking, still new.

It is common to assign certain brain regions as responsible for the creation and/or management of functions, which is a bit misleading. As far as neuroscience has advanced the field is still in its infancy. Brain scans track blood flow; that does not mean specific functions are limited to that region. (Of course, as Ledoux's friend and mentor, Michael Gazzaniga (listen to my interview with him here) has shown in his work in split-brain patients, localization does matter in certain regards; Ledoux even co-wrote a book with him on the topic.)

"Functions are not, strictly speaking, carried out by areas, or even by neurons in areas. They come about by way of circuits that consist of ensemble of neurons in one area that are connected by nerve fibers of axons to ensembles in other areas, forming functional networks. As with other features, the wiring pattern of sensory and motor systems is evolutionarily conserved across the vertebrates."

Don't get comfortable.

We like to believe ourselves to be separate from our environment. This is a false assumption. Life has always been about the interaction of species within their environment. Humans are no different. As everyone on the planet is experiencing the consequences, to varying degrees, of climate change, Darwinian fitness matters. Those trying to coast by on previous standards might find themselves in a rough situation.

"What works in a given environmental situation is determined by natural selection, but as the environment changes, or the group moves to a new niche, new traits become important and previously useful traits become detriments."

Pain is a state of mind.

Ledoux writes that pain and pleasure are often treated as emotions, but that's not quite true. There are no specific receptors for fear, joy, or anger. By contrast, certain receptors are activated when experiencing pain or pleasure, yet even those are subjective. For example, certain painful sensations are required for one person's erotic pleasure, while in others those same sensations might be translated as traumatic. Even chronic pain, it turns out, can be overridden at times.

"If a person with chronic pain is distracted by a funny joke, he does not experience the pain while laughing. The nociceptors are still responding, but the subjective pain is not noticed."

Humans are unique. So is every species.

Many people believe Homo sapiens represent the apex of the animal world. Some even believe we have a divine mandate to lord over other species. In reality, we are a quick blip in the long history of species. Ledoux points out factors that truly make humans uniquelanguage, autonoesis, complex emotions. He also warns against the dangers of anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism. Fitness means adapting to the environment. Over the course of the last century we've arguably accomplished the opposite.

"Differences, while important in defining a species, do not endow some with greater value than others in the vast scheme of life. We may prefer the kind of life we lead, but in the end there is no scale, other than survivability, that can measure whether ours is a better or worse kind of life, biologically speaking, than that of apes, monkeys, cats, rats, birds, snakes, frogs, fish, bugs, jellyfish, sponges, choanoflagellates, fungi, plants, archaea, or bacteria. If species longevity is the measure, we will never do better than ancient unicellular organisms."

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Stay in touch with Derek on Twitter and Facebook. His next book is Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy.

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5 important features of your brain, according to a top neuroscientist - Big Think

RICHMOND, Va. Virginia has executed nearly 1,400 people in its 412-year history more than any other state. But as a new Democratic majority prepares to begin the legislative session, some see an opportunity to end executions in Virginia.

A bill to abolish the death penalty has been filed by Del. Lee Carter, a Democrat from Manassas, and several additional bills are expected.

The push is backed by Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, along with some powerful voices: loved ones of murder victims. Thirteen family members sent a letter to the General Assembly in November asking lawmakers to abolish the death penalty.

Rachel Sutphin, the daughter of Cpl. Eric Sutphin, who was fatally shot in 2006, said she felt no closure or solace when her father's killer was executed in 2017.

A lot of people, they want families to have this moment that heals them or makes things completed. And for me, it did not," Sutphin said, describing her reaction to the execution of William Morva.

It was instead, more hurt," she said. I felt, well, now there are two people dead."

Eric Sutphin, who worked for the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, was shot while participating in a manhunt for Morva, an escaped prisoner who had shot and killed a hospital security guard. Sutphin was shot when he encountered Morva in Blacksburg.

Rachel Sutphin, who was 9 at the time, said she wasn't aware of Virginia's death penalty until much later.

In 2016, she wrote letters to then-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe urging him to commute Morva's sentence to life without parole.

Morva was executed In July 2017. No one has been executed in Virginia since then.

No death sentences have been imposed in the state since 2011, and only three people remain on Virginia's death row. Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the state is second only to Texas in number of executions, at 113.

Carter said the new Democratic majority gives death penalty opponents the best chance we've had in a very long time, but he acknowledges that entrenched attitudes toward the death penalty in Virginia could make abolishing it difficult.

Unfortunately, there are still people in both major parties who are still in the mindset of the 1980s, 1990s, tough on crime, more punishment, more punishment, more punishment," Carter said. "But if the death penalty worked as advertised as a deterrent then we wouldn't need to use it.

Even with the slim majority Democrats hold in both the Senate and House of Delegates, the push to abolish the death penalty could have an uphill battle.

Republican Sen. Ben Chafin said he thinks it's unlikely an abolition bill will pass.

The General Assembly has crafted over many years careful categories of crimes that can potentially receive the death penalty, Chafin said.

Those crimes are the most heinous of crimes," Chafin said. They're the unthinkable types of human behavior that truly those who commit them deserve to receive death and not be incarcerated at the taxpayer's expense for the rest of their lives."

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said 21 states have abolished the death penalty, but it often takes years of drawn-out political battles. He said repeal could be more difficult in the South, where many states have a long history of executions and ingrained attitudes about the death penalty.

From a symbolic perspective, abolition in Virginia would have national significance because it would be the first of the Southern states to voluntarily repeal capital punishment, Dunham said.

"The change in the composition of the legislature brought about by the blue wave may be enough to put abolition over the top. But even then, success is unlikely unless there is a bipartisan component of it."

Republican Del. Rob Bell said he understands the feelings of crime victims' family members who do not want to see the death penalty imposed. But he said he would not support a blanket repeal of the death penalty.

The thoughts of the surviving family members are always important, and in cases where no family member wants it, the prosecutor could decide not to proceed that way," he said.

Here, what's being proposed would take it away from all families, those that want it and those that do not."

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Opponents Push to Abolish Death Penalty in Virginia - The New York Times

This past summer I wrote about the case of Michelle Carter, a minor who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for verbally encouraging her boyfriend, Conrad Roy, to commit suicide. Carters case established a rather unique legal precedent in the state of Massachusetts. As I explained at the time:

Although states can and do criminalize assisted suicide, Massachusetts had no such statute at the time Carter was convicted. Moreover, although assisted suicide was/is a common law crime in Massachusetts, as with many state statutes, the common law wasexplicitly tailored around doctor-prescribed suicide. Accordingly, Carters case is inapplicable to all Massachusettss law relating to assisted suicide because unlike doctor-prescribed suicide, Carter neither provided the means nor physically participated in the act. In fact, it was the older Roy alone who would research the method of suicide, obtain the means to do so, and in the end, physically carry out an act he had attempted multiple times before. In other words, it was Carters speech alone that formed the basis of her conviction, but not for the crime of assisted suicide as many might think. Rather, Carters conviction was based on a common law standard of behavior categorized as wanton and reckless verbal conduct constituting involuntary manslaughter.

Creating a category of verbal conduct within common law involuntary manslaughter allowed the Massachusetts courts to argue Carters speech belongs within thesupposedly but not really at allwell-defined and narrowly limitedspeech integral to criminal conductfederal exception to free speech protection.

In Carters petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn her Massachusetts involuntary manslaughter conviction, her attorneys focus on the argument that the common laws verbal conduct standard lacks any clear, meaningful, and constitutional way to determine the line between criminal and permissible encouragement of suicide. In fact, the Massachusetts Supreme Court acknowledged in its decision of the Carter case that not all instances of encouraging suicide are the same. Accordingly, Carters federal petition argues any family member who encourages a sick loved one to die with dignity, or to avoid what they view as unnecessary suffering, exists at the mercy of a Massachusetts prosecutor of being charged with involuntary manslaughter.

The obvious danger with laws that offer no clear indication as to whether citizens have broken them or not is that prosecutors/government can apply them with bias, using them as a pretext to target dissent for example. More important to consider, however, is the fact that vague laws have recently been overturned by a bipartisan majority of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Massachusetts legislature is at least now attempting to define the parameters of its newly established involuntary manslaughter verbal conduct standard to include instances where the will of 1 person is substituted for the wishes of another.

The common law standard established by the Carter case is currently being played out in another Massachusetts court room with the case of Alexander Urtula and Inyoung You. Similar to the Michelle Carter case, the defendant, Inyoung You, is being portrayed by the prosecution as some kind of monster who verbally established complete control over Urtulas suicide. Further complicating the issues of personal responsibility is the substantial evidence that both the suicide victim and the defendant in both the Carter and You cases suffer(ed) from some form of psychological disorder. In the You case, Mr. Urtulas friends had at one point tried to intervene in the relationship by observing that You, not Urtula, needed professional help.

When it is discovered that a criminal defendant suffers from some form of neurological disorder, not only do our moral intuitions often change, the law can strive to change as well. Objective, scientific reasons have been put forth for why our morals and laws should shift in such circumstances. As neurological scientist Sam Harris has explained, brain disorders appear to be just a special case of physical events giving rise to thoughts and actions, and that above all luck, or lack thereof, is the ultimate factor in every human decision. Therefore, according to Harris, even when it comes to the most disturbing or repulsive examples of human behavior:

We should admit that a person is unlucky to inherit the genes and life experience that will doom him to psychopathy. That doesnt mean we cant lock him up, or kill him in self-defense, buthatinghim is not rational, given a complete understanding of how he came to be who he is. Natural, yes; rational, no. Feeling compassion for him would be rational, however or so I have argued.

We can acknowledge the difference between voluntary and involuntary action, the responsibilities of an adult and those of a child, sanity and insanity, a troubled conscience and a clear one, without indulging the illusion of free will. We can also admit that in certain contexts, punishment might be the best way to motivate people to behave themselves. The utility of punishment is an empirical question that is well worth answering.

I would question the legal and moral utility of the criminal punishment in both the Carter and the You cases, not discounting any opinion as to the abhorrent nature of the behavior by each. That is not to say nothing should be done, just that having law enforcement and the criminal justice system tackle this particular harm with incarceration by utilizing difficult to define verbal conduct standards seems inapt.

Unfortunately, there is ample evidence law enforcement and the criminal justice system is substantially burdened by being one of the primary regulators of mental health patients in this country. Of course, to alleviate the current burden on law enforcement would first require exercising the moral will to defer even repulsive behavioral cases from criminal mechanisms, to ones more tailored to alleviating harms due to mental health. As preposterous as state funding for metal health infrastructure might sound to some, given how much we currently spend on locking mentally ill patients up, and if trillion dollar a year budgets and historic tax (tariff) increases are now things conservatives budget hawks in Congress support, we eventually might get around to funding a mental health system capable of addressing the harm.

Tyler Brokers work has been published in the Gonzaga Law Review, the Albany Law Review, and is forthcoming in the University of Memphis Law Review. Feel free toemail himor follow him onTwitterto discuss his column.

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The Law Of Personal Responsibility And The Illusion Of Free Will - Above the Law

It's well-trod advice: To eat, work, or play moderately is the healthiest way to live.

In fact, humans have been contemplating this concept for much of history. One of the phrases carved into the Ancient Greek temple of Apollo at Delphi was meden agan, or: "nothing in excess. Aristotle believed that every virtue falls in the middle of two extremesexcess and deficiency, something he called "the doctrine of the mean." Confucian texts refer to zhongyong zhong translating to "bent neither one way or another," and yong to "unchanging": Consistent moderation.

So why is it that after centuries of championing this approach, we abandon moderation every New Years Eve, flinging ourselves toward extreme resolutions? We seek to eradicate habits altogether, or to start intensely doing something new. I'm no longer going to eat added sugar. I'm going to go to CrossFit every day. I'm not going to use my phone before bed ever again.

This is probably one reason why about 80 percent of people give up on their resolutions by February. "I strongly believe this is the case, because people go from 0 to 200 miles per hour in setting their goals," said Marco Palma, the director of a human behavior laboratory at Texas A&M University.

How might Aristotle make a New Year's resolution? This year, try a moderation challenge. This would involve identifying the things in your life you want to change, and instead of quitting them entirely, intentionally continue to do thembut at a lower frequency.

Shayla Love

A moderation challenge would seek to make a resolution that falls somewhere in the middle of the two extreme ends of the spectrum for a certain behavior. Easy right? Actually, no. What makes moderation such difficult advice to follow is that it's vague. What is the mean between no exercise and The Rock's workout regimen (and the excess of cod he consumes)?

Studies have found that people tend to define moderation in ways that justify their current behavior. If one person has dessert once a month, and another eats it every other day, they might both define moderation as their individual intake of sweetseven if those amounts are very different.

I went in search of more precision.

Peter Gollwitzer, a professor of psychology at NYU, studies how people translate goals into action. He said that people often confuse goals with plans. Making a goal gives the illusion of taking action, but it's a plan that allows us to achieve our goalsnot the goals themselves.

"For instance, people have the goal to save a certain amount of money every month, each month," he said. "Then they say, 'Now I have a plan.' Nope, they don't have a plan. They only have a goal.

A plan needs to be specific. How will you accomplish saving that amount of money? When and where will it happen? Gollwitzer said if/then statements can help. Like: If I go out to eat, then I will not buy a drink or appetizer. Or: If I get my paycheck, then I will put $200 into my saving account.

Ultimately, moderation is just a feature of a goal, not a plan. You have the same old problem again," Gollwitzer said. "You have a goal, which is to be more moderate, but you don't have a plan on how to implement that action.

Moderation, by definition, decrees that there will be moments when you dont stick to your resolution. So plan it out. It may feel counterintuitive to plan to eat junk food if your goal is to stop eating junk food. Or, to splurge if youre trying to save money. But as long as it's intentional, it may help your resolution in the long run.

A study from 2016 found that it's not harmful to have what researchers called planned hedonic deviations," or scheduled pleasurable detours from your resolutions. They found that continued abstinence and inhibition from a habit could lead to irresistible urges and cravings, so it may be good in the long run to behave 'badly' on occasion, when it is planned."

It is critical that these deviations are planned in advance, so that going against a resolution doesnt make you feel like you messed up. (That could trigger a what-the-hell effectwhen you think, "Oh, what the hell," and double down on whatever youre indulging in. Its also referred to as a failure cascade.)

In the study, hedonic deviations accounted for 15 percent of the subjects overall activity. Lets say you want to refrain from drinking during the work week, as youve been finding yourself coming home each day and pouring a glass of wine that turns into two or three. 15 percent of 5 weekdays is .75, which we can round up to 1. Perhaps when you first make your resolution, you plan that if it's a Wednesday, then youll take a break and deviate from your resolution and have one drink.

Once you decide how frequently youre going to have a planned hedonic deviation, you can create other if/then statements that suit your lifestyle or needs:

If it's a Friday night, then I will have 2 drinks with my friends.

If its date night with my partner, then I will have a dessert with them.

If its Sunday morning and I'm tired, then I will skip the gym, sleep in, and read the paper in bed.

The study found that the deviations in advance didnt derail people from achieving what they wanted.

This kind of intentional moderation better lines up with how our self control works too, Palma said. In the past, some thought self-control was a resource that could get used up, like a battery losing charge, while others theorized that if you practiced self-control, you could get better at it, and exerting it was a positive thing.

In 2018, Palma did a study to see which of these theories were more accurate, and found them both to be somewhat true. Testing people in a self-control task, he found that it was possible for them to burn out and deplete their self-control resources. But when people took a self-control break before they reached that threshold, they were able to improve their overall levels of self-control, and have more self-control later.

Palma said it revealed that self-control is like a muscle. If it's worked out safely, and in moderation, it can get stronger. If it's over-exerted, it can be injured or too sore, and be out of commission.

If we overdo it by setting too-high goals that are too extreme, then we rapidly get to a region in which we're starting to look at this fatigue effect of self-control resources, and they start to deplete, Palma said.

Achievement begets motivation, not the other way around. Another study similarly found that people are more likely to keep their resolutions if they feel an immediate reward from their efforts. The most sustainable way to consistently feel a sense of accomplishment, Palma said, is to have moderate plansand not trigger the failure cascade.

Why does moderation feel like failure? Because we're programmed to believe that more is always better, said Alan Cohen, an epidemiological researcher at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec. And therefore, doing less is bad. This is a concept called linearity, which Cohen summarized in a graph:

Courtesy of Alan Cohen.

This feel intuitive: Isn't more money always better? More good health? But, in truth, we may only be seeing a piece of the bigger picture.

Courtesy of Alan Cohen.

Doing something to the extreme often isn't worth it. Infinite increase doesn't necessarily lead to infinite rewardthe benefit could plateau at a certain point. And it could even be harmful: An extreme focus on healthy eating can veer into an eating disorder, or too much exercise can lead to injury or exercise addiction.

In addition to making it easier to commit to our goals psychologically, moderation can help remind us that keeping a small amount of what we're trying to get rid of won't kill us.

One of my resolutions is typically to be less stressed. Yet, a small amount of stress might actually be good for me. There's something called Yerkes-Dodson Law, which says that an optimal amount of stress can boost concentration, and provide the body with levels of adrenaline and cortisol that are helpful, rather than harmful.

Of course, there are certain thingslike highly toxic substance or cigarettesthat are always harmful. But the kinds of vices people often seek to give up on New Year's are more mild: sugar, lazing around on the couch, alcohol, stress at work, or spending money. Intentionally moderate resolutions could help us to not see the world in black and white, or enforce the idea those habits are unilaterally bad.

To be less stressed in a moderate way, I could recognize that there will be times that I'll likely be stressed, but not view it as a what-the-hell moment and give into the anxiety. I can remember that a small amount of what I'm trying to quit isn't the end of the world, and I'm not a failure for eliminating it completely.

I could also plan an if/then situation for 20 minutes each day. If I come home from work feeling frazzled, then I can set a time for 20 minutes and go hog-wild with worry. Fret about how my apartment is embarrassingly dusty, dwell on how I dont have enough Twitter followers, wonder if I texted a new friend something stupid, and marinate on how everyone noticed me toppling over in yoga class this morning. Then, when the timer goes off, I walk away.

When I have my planned freak-out each day, I'll know that I'm not only working towards my goals, but acting virtuously, according to millennia of human thinkers at least.

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If You Want to Change Your Habits, You Have to Plan to Mess Up Sometimes - VICE