2 Depth of Change (After Seligman, (1994:244) Surface Structure

Panic Curable

Specific Phobias Almost Curable

Sexual Dysfunctions Marked relief

Social Phobia Moderate Relief

Agoraphobia Moderate Relief

Depression Moderate Relief

Sex Role Moderate Change

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Moderate/Mild Relief Sexual Preferences Moderate/Mild Change

Anger Mild/Moderate Relief

Everyday Anxiety Mild/Moderate Relief

Alcoholism Mild relief

Overweight Temporary Change

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Marginal Relief

Sexual Orientation Probably Unchangeable

Sexual Identity Unchangeable

Deep Structure

We can see through Seligman’s research the three classifications of change in the context of the human sciences. It shows a continuum of change similar the sandpile model in chapter 2 that he classifies from unchangeable (DS), through moderate to mild change / relief (MS), to curable / changeable (SS).

MIND

In the emerging theory of living systems mind is not a thing, but a process. It is cognition, the process of knowing, and it is identified with the process of life itself. (Capra, 1997:257).

At present there are no generally agreed upon theories of mind. John Searle (1998) reviews six theories in his book The Mystery of Consciousness, but agreement at this stage is probably premature anyway for such a young discipline as cognitive science. Some of the theories of mind see it first emerging with the appearance of human beings, others see it emerging with mammals: for example, Edelman (1992) sees mind as ‘emerging only at

Mind and body, perceiving and living, [as] equally self-referring, self- reflexive processes already present in the earliest bacteria (Margulis & Sagan, 1995:32).

As the complexity theory of human nature being developed here is primarily interested in the patterns across the physical, life and human sciences, it utilises what is known as the Santiago Theory of Mind. The Santiago Theory was developed independently and at the same time by Gregory Bateson and Humberto Maturana. The Santiago Theory of Mind sees mind as the basic process common to all life:

Living systems are cognitive systems, and living as a process is a process of cognition. This statement is valid for all organisms, with and without a nervous system (Maturana in Capra, 1997:97)

The process of intiffegration mimics the basic process of mind as it is and although I am not, at this stage, claiming it is exactly how the process of mind works, it works through a very similar set of steps.

Constrained Mind (psychology)

Most neuro and cognitive scientists agree with the philosopher John Locke, whose position was that ‘… there is nothing in consciousness that is not an analog of something that was in behaviour first’ (in Jaynes, 1993:66). I and they would also agree with Damasio when he says:

… that the body, as represented in the brain, may constitute the indispensable frame of reference for the neural processes that we experience as the mind … The mind had to be first about the body, or it could not have been’ (1994:xvi).

The mind of a human being emerges out of its physiology: it is constrained in how it can develop by the genes which constrict the number of temperaments of which there are only four or five basic types (Bowles, 1990:389; Hofstede, Bond & Luk, 1993:25). The different relationships between the organs of the four or five basic human body types then give rise to a basic personality. This emergent deep structure personality is then honed and shaped by the different parental, familial and peer group contexts it experiences on the more surface structure levels, eventually becoming differentiated from that (family or context) from which it emerged.

Language

Symbolic representation processes have added a new level to this evolution like process. Their power of condensing representational relationships, and extended flights of virtual reference, creates a whole new landscape in which the evolutionary process of mind can wander (Deacon, 1997:485-9).

No discussion of mind in humans is complete without at least mentioning

language, as it is the emergence of language, and the use of symbols, that has given us the extraordinary power to run the process of mind abstractly for our own purposes. Language is the emergence of the explicit ability to

communicate abstractly, the basis of human perception and judgement,

thereby differentiating the process of mind itself through the lens of a schema. The cells that we humans are constructed of have been communicating with each other for billions of years; the ability to be able to communicate

abstractly emerged from processes already implicit as cognitive mechanisms in the most complex system we know of - the human brain:

… the selection process governs … the complex circuits responsible for higher functions, such as language and problem solving, and that, indeed, these were built into the brain as the result of millions of years of evolution (Gazzaniga, 1994:5).

Deep Structure Stability (processing systems) and Surface Structure Vulnerability (behaviour)

What Gazzaniga is getting at is that the Deep Structure cognitive mechanisms, that neuroscience agrees are present in the brain as specific processing

systems, such as those used for language and problem solving, are what evolves - not behaviour. The more Surface Structure behaviour is then free to remain flexible and culturally adaptable, by not becoming locked in or implicit in the organism, thereby allowing for a wide range of varying behavioural responses, culturally adapted, to different environmental, contextual or cultural challenges.

As Pinker has observed: ‘Language is not a cultural artefact that we learn the way we learn to tell the time … it is a distinct piece of the biological makeup of our brains … people know how to talk in more or less the sense that spiders know how to spin webs’ (1994:18). Language is simply the emergence of an abstract cognitive mechanism, a specific information processing system, that

emerged hardwired, or implicit, in the human organism. The evidence is based on the finding that our primate forebears possess similar cognitive mechanism in their brains. Language could emerge from hardwired implicit mechanisms because it has obvious advantages that allow a greater flexibility of

behavioural responses to environmental perturbations / challenges. And when viewing the essence of evolution as change, language, if nothing else, has allowed humans to accelerate the pace of change in many areas of our environment to our advantage - however short term that may prove to be. As Deacon confirms:

By internalizing much of the physical trial and error, and even internalizing abstract models of physical processes that can be

extrapolated to their possible and impossible extremes, we are capable of what genetic evolution is not: forethought. Representational processes are the substrate for ‘final causality,’ that everyday use of imagined ends to guide the selection of present means. Symbolic processes have freed this process from the bounds of the immediate present and possible (1997:458-9).

Humans, the animals with the ability to use mind abstractly, can sort through vast amounts of ‘environmental’ data searching for regularities, mapping the patterns in order to better exploit our environment. Just as the earliest

prokaryotes (bacteria) did in a much simpler way: ‘Mind and body, perceiving and living, are equally self–referring, self-reflexive processes already present in the earliest bacteria’ (Margulis & Sagan, 1995:32).

Identity Maintenance

It is the human deep structure, or our growing sense of self, that part of us that stays familiar throughout the changes and gets interrupted through repeatedly bad contexts, that we attempt to preserve. In this way the

organism will work to preserve the early, initial contexts (DS) be they good or bad as behavioural responses to their present context. The self can be said to be that which emerges through the phases unscathed and built upon by the successful negotiation of the stages. The sense of self is generated by the familiarity of the DS of our metabolism as:

The central characteristic of an autopoietic system is that it undergoes continual structural changes while preserving its web-like pattern of organization [connectivity] Capra, 1997:213).

Self then works to preserve the DS context of learned behaviour that it identifies, or becomes one, with.

To survive means to maintain our basic personality, which paradoxically may take great change to our identities over the length of a life cycle in order to come to terms with our personality. Just as the sandpile attempts to preserve its deep structure at each phase transition, so does the human being. Indeed, the deep structures of both are preserved by the surface to mid level changes we experience all the time. So we can say that the basic paradox of life is that: we must constantly change in order to maintain our sense of self.