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Propositions

by Georg Schulze

176 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-2007; ISBN 1-4120-1630-4; US$19.25, C$24.95, EUR16.25, £11.26

Propositions advances five fresh perspectives: on motivated behaviors; the functions of sleep and dreaming; the rise of agriculture and civilizations; the growth of civilizations; and the structure of procedural justice.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpts or Table of Contents      catalogue info

About the Book In Propositions five theoretical models are advanced about different aspects of human behavior. These deal with behavior from that at the level of the individual to that at the level of a society. The primary aim of these theoretical models is to spur and advance the debate on these topics. Author Georg Schulze brings a fresh perspective to these topics enabled by a variegated background spanning engineering, psychology, and biotechnology. In the first model, a theory of motivated behaviors is advanced. The theory claims that most behaviors serve as adjuncts to homeostatic processes. When homeostasis cannot be maintained, behaviors are activated to help restore homeostasis. Learning and memory allow these behaviors to become ever more sophisticated such that, over the long haul, homeostasis can be effected with minimal cumulative disruption. Hence pre-emptive and anticipatory actions come to be employed and these may seem to produce behaviors in the absence of physiological deficits. A detailed explanation is given of how to apply homeostatic concepts to physiologically regulated variables and how regulation errors trigger higher brain centers to effect conditioning (amygdala and hippocampus), planning and anticipation (ventral tegmental area and prefrontal cortex), and the conversion of hedonic states into drive states (nucleus accumbens) to produce behaviors of appropriately calibrated intensities given the prevailing internal and external conditions. In the second model, the nature and function of sleep and dreaming are addressed. The thesis is advanced that sleep is induced to reduce excitatory activity in cortical neural circuits when the risk of damage increases due to activity-dependent or injury-dependent oxidative stress. Sleep simultaneously permits synaptic remodeling to occur in these circuits to facilitate subsequent high levels of activity without risking overexcitation. Remodeled circuits are synchronized and reintegrated with other neural circuits employing theta waves. The transient activation of remodeled circuits during the synchronization and integration process produces dreaming. In the third model, the prehistoric human response to global and local climate changes is detailed. It is suggested that semi-global droughts during the early part of the Holocene synchronized the development of pristine civilizations around the world. These droughts had a sudden onset and lasted for several generations. They caused forager groups to converge on shrinking regions (refugia) with limited resources forcing them to adapt new technologies, including agriculture. When the droughts were over, these groups had lost some of their previous forager-related knowledge making it difficult to resume a foraging lifestyle. Hence many remained sedentary and practiced agriculture. This put them at a relative advantage when subsequent droughts again dislocated foragers to refugia. Foragers arriving at such refugia were relatively poor, hungry, and possibly unrelated to locals, hence a natural stratification ensued that contributed to the development of early states. In the fourth model, the rate at which ancient states developed is modeled. This rate is assumed to be closely tied to the rate at which knowledge grows and depends, amongst others, on population density, education level, and transportation speed. In the fifth and final model, the structures of procedural justice and scientific theories are formally compared. It is shown that procedural justice can be modeled analogously to scientific theories. The comparison is followed by a discussion of the implications of this model, including the prospects of a partial automation of the judicial process.

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About the Author The author, Georg Schulze, has a background in chemical engineering, physiological psychology, biomolecular chemistry, and neuroscience along with interests in anthropology and sociology.

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Sample Excerpts or Table of Contents

Sleep
Summary

The evolution of cortical structures with recurrent and reentrant connections has vastly increased the computational power of the brain. This increased ability came at the cost of an increased level of oxidative metabolism of the organ and an increased potential of incurring oxidative damage, especially during periods and in circuits characterized by high levels of activity. Metabolic products generated during such periods produce sleep pressures on the one hand, gated by circadian activity and melatonin levels, and induce the remodeling of synapses on the other. When synaptic remodeling has been completed during slow wave sleep, the remodeled circuits are tested and integrated with existing neural circuits via a process of progressive synchronization and interfacing that produces dreams during REM sleep. Testing is terminated upon successful synchronization and the waking state results. According to this view, the primary purpose of sleep is to protect cortical circuits against oxidative activity-dependent damage, and it does so in a two-fold manner: by reducing cortical activity and by remodeling cortical circuits during this period of reduced activity to sustain new patterns of activation more effectively.

Key words: REM sleep; slow wave sleep; dreaming; synaptic remodeling; excitotoxicity; synchronization, NF-kB; oxidative stress

Rise of Civilizations
Summary

Slow climate changes have long been thought to influence human social evolution. The social dynamics produced by rapid climate changes, however, may be of greater importance. Rapid climate changes of multi-generational duration occurred globally, semi-globally, and locally and some appear to have had a 1500 year frequency. Sudden wide-spread droughts displaced large numbers of people to refugia. Some refugia were constricted and, where they did not collapse, they experienced abrupt increases in population densities and resource stresses, forcing the adoption of agricultural methods to secure food. In constricted refugia, people lost some of their nomadic skills over a few generations and could not easily resume earlier lifestyles, hence remaining sedentary or adopting a modified former lifestyle. When in subsequent centuries another wide-spread drought displaced people who recolonized earlier territories to refugia again, some refugia had local, adapted, hold-over populations. Compared to locals, refugees were unskilled in agriculture, needy, and mostly unrelated to locals. These disadvantages produced a natural original stratification.

Key words: paleoclimate, sedentism, agriculture, social stratification, pristine civilizations, resource stress, drought, population densities, refugia, synchronous development, global climate changes

Motivated Behaviors
Summary

A model of motivated behavior is proposed linking physiology and behavior through the generation of hedonic states. Multiple homeostatic mechanisms maintain a diversity of physiological variables within safe ranges. When these mechanisms fail to maintain homeostasis, regulation errors result that are relayed from controller sites to the locus coeruleus. The latter, a physiological alarm center, affects higher centers including the amygdala. The amygdala associates current exteroceptive and interoceptive stimuli (conditioned stimuli) with the alarm states (unconditioned stimuli) arriving from the locus coeruleus. These associations are committed to memory via mediation of hippocampus and cortex. Information with predictive value of future alarm states are identified and labeled by the ventral tegmental area. Once labeled, similar future stimuli can activate the amygdala and hence generate psychological alarm states that are communicated back to the locus coeruleus to trigger physiological responses. Alarm states (locus coeruleus, amygdala, ventral tegmental area) are transmitted to the nucleus accumbens and calibrated in passing from shell to core to generate drive states of appropriate intensities. Subsequent behavioral activation occurs via the basal ganglia. Successful behaviors diminish regulation errors and associated alarm states. Declining alarm states create positive hedonic states that vanish when equilibrium is reached. Unsuccessful behaviors may increase regulation errors and heighten distress. During development, physiological stress/relief forms the basis for psychological stress/relief through conditioning with an expanding array of stimuli and time horizons leading to increased sophistication of behaviorally augmented physiological regulation. This sophistication may reach such intricate levels that the original physiological conditions become obscured.

Key Words: motivation; hedonic states; homeostasis; conditioning; drinking behavior; locus coeruleus; amygdala; nucleus accumbens; ventral tegmental area; hippocampus; cortex; basal ganglia

Justice
Summary

Although science primarily searches for truths as manifested by universal laws and justice for truths as pertaining to individual events, the formal structure employed in the validation of scientific theories is identical to that employed in procedural justice. This correspondence has enormous implications, for it suggests that approaches utilized in one field of endeavor may be adapted for application in the other and vice versa. In particular, for jurisprudence, it indicates the natural outlines between the structural elements of the judicial process and so enables the task of fair process to be subdivided in a meaningful manner. A method or methods can then be devised for each of the subtasks to permit their successful completion. This raises the possibility of virtually completely automating the process of justice and allows this objective furthermore to be incrementally approached based on the prior identified structural elements. An approach to obtain such automation of the judicial process is presented.

Key words: procedural justice, jurisprudence, scientific theory, automation

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Catalogue Information

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