The Rhetoric of Emotions by Robert Perinbanayagam

Author:Robert Perinbanayagam [Perinbanayagam, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781351475129
Google: TD4rDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-07-05T04:32:48+00:00

Quantum Effects and Mirror Neurons

If we place the claims made by Schwartz, Stapp, and Beauregard about the relation of mind and matter and that of David Bohm about the dialectical relationship between mind and matter in conjunction with the findings of neuroscience regarding mirror neurons, we have a picture of the dialogic actions—actions that convey attitudes, and not just attitudes, but attitudes drenched with emotions—we can conclude that these attitudes and emotions, to the extent that they are continuous and persistent, will have a profound effect not only on the selves of the agents but also on their brains. In the interactional world in which human agents live, they then cannot escape the contingencies of their emotional attitudes. Their everyday lives will in fact be characterized by a continuing chain of mirroring neurons as they interact with each other in ongoing dialogues, which in turn will have quantum effects on each other’s mind and eventually on the brain.

These mutual inputs into the minds and brains of human agents are indubitably carried as actions mediated by symbols—linguistic ones. The language that is performed in the interactions between human agents is, however, neither a flat nor a neutral medium. It is, rather, a medium that is used to convey complex meanings of variable significance, a medium capable of subtleties and nuances and ambiguities, indeed an uncertainty of signification, until read and given a response. If symbolic action by one agent is going to have an impact on the other as has been shown, then the effect will be variable insofar the meanings of the input will depend on the interpretation. On the gross-level alone, a hostile action on the part of an agent will have a particular effect as opposed to a friendly one. In other words, the symbolic actions that Mitchell et al. describe (verbal stories, cartoons, competitive games, etc.) have an emotional charge and should, as per their own argument, have variable effects as part of the mirroring process. Needless to say, in these symbolic actions Mitchell et al. presented to their subjects, they had characters interacting with each other with varying cognitive and emotional attitudes, which, ex hypothesi, should have variable effects on the brain. They have in fact argued that their “data suggest that activity in some brain regions, such as the medial PFC, specifically subserves social-cognitive representations about specific aspects of other people including their mental and behavioral characteristics” (2006, 68).

If stories and cartoons can have this effect on the brain, then routine everyday conversations should have a similar effect—indeed, a more profound effect, insofar as they occur between people who have some kind of emotional relationship, to begin with. From this argument, it is a logical next step to inquire what would the consequences be to the brain if in the course of dialogic interactions one party consistently and systematically receives positive and encouraging and validating inputs or, conversely, hostile and intimidating inputs without having the power to resist them?

Indeed, into this picture of agents interacting,

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