The short book Neurobiology of Human Values was edited by J.-P. Changeux, A.R. Damasio, W. Singer and Y. Christen (all of whom are senior and influential neuroscientists) and comprises 12 essays, each composed for The Symposium by several contributors. Organized by the Foundation Ispen in Paris on January 24, 2005, The Symposium was one of the first events seeking to provide an overview of the neurobiology of human values.

Man has been contemplating the basis of his own ethical and aesthetic values for centuries. Many scientists and researchers have avoided this field of investigation; in the name of seeking an objective truth, it has been assumed that the scientific approach should naturally avoid normative truths such as feelings and consciousness. Until very recently, such a mindset has kept such issues in the hands of philosophers, moralists and theologists. It has even been said that the purpose of moral philosophy is to protect us from science. Before having taken this class, I must admit that I was of relatively the same mindset. However, the rise of neuroscience and other similar disciplines has thankfully made it so that a more objective and experimental approach to the issue of human values is available to us.

In her two essays published as a single work entitled Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors in 1990, cultural critic and intellectual Susan Sontag, a cancer survivor herself, aptly presents the varied and convoluted metaphors surrounding illness. Focusing on tuberculosis, syphilis, cancer, and later AIDS, Sontag wishes to demystify these diseases. Speaking from diverse perspectives, including academic research, nonacademic observation, and personal experience, she strives to dismantle such myths which exert profoundly damaging consequences for those troubled by disease. Moreover, Sontag contends that the latter two illnesses are popularly viewed as an individual and/or even as a societal blight or punishment. In turn, she reduces illness to what it is at its most essential level—nothing more than a disease—in the case of cancer, a malignant tumor caused by the abnormal multiplication of cells, and, in the case of AIDS, the retrovirus HIV which destroys white blood cells and debilitates the immune system.

I am going to finish my thesis. I am going to finish this paper. I am going to pass the MCATs (wonderfully, might I add) when I take them in a week. Why all the self-affirmations? Perhaps this seems like the ramblings of a senior who is ready to move on with life, but I might actually be helping myself to do better on each of the above. What makes this possible is the glory of positive thinking. The idea that we can think positively about accomplishing a task, or just about life in general, and consciously affect our unconscious. We can actually will ourselves to do better, through the power of our I-function.

Against Depression Critique

What if van Gogh had taken Prozac? This is the central question of Against Depression, or at least the question that led Peter Kramer to write this book. After the publication of his book Listening to Prozac, Kramer noticed that at every stop along the book tour someone would inevitably ask this question. At first he brushes it off, annoyed, but eventually he comes to a realization—people do not have a full understanding of depression as a disease.

“Creativity is seemingly a mystery, for there is something paradoxical about it, something which makes it difficult to see how it is even possible. How it happens is indeed puzzling, but that it happens at all is deeply mysterious” (Boden, 1). Margaret Boden is a fan of hyperbole to the end of tantalizing her readers into probing deeper into her text. She spends much of the book wondering aloud if mysteries such as creativity are beyond the reaches of scientific exploration. If she truly believed that, I doubt she would have set out to write this book in the first place. Though her prose is circular in reasoning and highly repetitive, Boden offers interesting commentary on the inner workings of the creative mind, especially when viewed within the context of Neurobiology and Behavior topics of discussion.

Dr. Robert Benson discusses the powerful health advantages of the relaxation response in his book titled, The Relaxation Response. Through mental training techniques Dr. Benson demonstrates how to elicit the relaxation response and how to absorb the de-stressing effects it has provided for millions of individuals. Dr. Benson believes that Medicine is a tripod, balanced by three healing resources: medications, medical procedures such as surgery and self care. Regular practice of the relaxation response is believed to significantly strengthen the third leg of the tripod. After reading Dr. Benson’s book, I was both intrigued and enlightened by several of his ideas, theories and arguments. However, I was also hesitant and critical of certain claims that were presented.

Last night I dreamt that I had slept through my alarm clock. The red numbers flashed 10:15am. I had missed breakfast and class had already begun. I had to scramble to get ready. I couldn’t find my toothbrush. I couldn’t find the right books. I couldn’t find my key. Then I woke up to the sound of my alarm. I awoke to a different reality that seemed more real than the one I was previously in, and yet in the moment of searching for pens and book bags that disheveled, frantic world seemed alarmingly real. Why had I dreamt of oversleeping? What caused that dream to occur? Who or what controls and creates my dreams?

After having read the book Illness as Metaphor and AIDS as Its Metaphors, by Susan Sontag, I have developed a very different perspective on the concept of diseases. In her novel, Sontag describes the social stigmas associated with terminal diseases such as tuberculosis, cancer, and AIDS, and how the effects these stigmas have on patients with terminal illnesses. Initially, I thought of sickness and infections very objectively. I perceived them as abnormalities that needed to be treated as soon as possible, and once they were dealt with they would not have any further implications. I never processed the idea that the social perception of sick people had such an influence on the lives of individuals with terminal illnesses.

Introduction
Have you ever heard of the rumors regarding the hidden sexual imagery in Disney films? Some of the rumors include a phallic castle on the cover of the original The Little Mermaid, Aladdin saying “good teenagers take off their clothes” in a scene in Aladdin, along with many others in films ranging from The Lion King to The Rescuers. I actually looked into a couple of the scenes referenced in an online forum regarding the topic (7), and lo and behold, they are true. I must have watched the films over a million times as a child and again with my nieces and nephews, and have never noticed any of this before. Why would the producers want to include such inappropriate imagery in such a widely cherished children’s film? Can these images have an affect on our everyday lives or more importantly the behavior of our children?

  Near-Death-Experiences: Transcendental Apprehension or Cognitive Mayhem? 

“I will not however tell you a story of Alcinous, but rather of a strong man, Er, son of Armenius, by race a Pamphylian. Once upon a time he died in war; and on the tenth day, when the corpses, already decayed, were picked up, he was picked up in a good state of preservation. Having been brought home, he was about to be buried on the twelfth day; as he was lying on the pyre, he came back to life, and, come back to life, he told what he saw in the other world…”   -Plato, The Republic, Book X, 614b