Researchers Discover 'Anxiety Cells' In The Brain

It is quite current, for example, with the pharmaceutical approach to emotions, viewing emotional reactions as pathological and not looking for the causes of widespread reactions to modern life. This is current and worse than it was ‘in the past’. Even members of the scientific community are starting to call this industry on its unjustified confidence and not demonstrated ontology. Fukishima was not long ago and while they do not mention it much, the problems are still spreading from that an not solved. Monsanto controls its own oversight via revolving door with government.

See, the problem right now, and not in the past, is that technology gets more and more global. In 1900, the biggest technological fuck up was very local. Today, big fuck ups can be global and are easily regional.

They are hardly wary. Just look at the way they let their children use mobiles and surfing devices, despite the fact that we KNOW these things reduce empathy.

So, you are just speculating wildly. Fine. I can’t argue against something that does not exist that you promise will be foolproof. I do think the idea is problematic.

Or we could see if lifestyle, societal strutures, social constraints, workplace environment and culture, approved addictions (like digital devices) are causing the problems, instead of pathologizing individual RESPONSES.

All knowledge and technologies has a double-edge and has been abused in the past by many.
My point is such exploitation and abuse at present are not as easy for abusers or the ignorant as the past.

True but the increased in awareness is also more global. More countries are now more aware of say global warming and even

Even an Island existing somewhere in Pacific Ocean is able to voice their concern and attracting attention for the whole World. In the past that Island could have simply disappear and no one would give a damn.

Why not?
Research are continually done and results published for consideration.
Usually the results and finding take time to be implemented and accepted by the masses.

Note the problem of sugar and calories in drinks which research [long ago] has shown these are very detrimental to health especially children.
But note the recent results;

Pepsi vs Coca-Cola: U.S. Soda Sales Decline For 12th Consecutive
Diet sodas sold by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo posted steep volume declines in 2016, dragging down demand for the total carbonated soft drink category as consumers buy more bottled waters and other healthier beverages.
fortune.com/2017/04/19/coca-cola … oda-water/

Habits die hard! But many other positive changes are taking effect very slowly & gradually in time after years of complains and recommendations by experts.

That is rhetoric and deceptive.
I did not state nor imply ‘speculating widely’.

‘Speculated’ in this sense is forecasting and extrapolating based on existing trends and empirical possibilities.

You are always defensive and thinking of the worse.

Note it could be as simple as this instead of brain surgery to tweak the neurons;

I mentioned what I consider to be current,ongoing abuses, so this response is not relevent.

There is very low awareness of the dangers of gm products, and nearly none about nanotechnology, robots and AI. Yes, the first and last appear in newspapers, there is no public debate and there is no effective government oversight. Industry controls oversight. Yes, there is awareness of global warming. I do not see industry changing much at all.

Asked regarding cellphone use and other digital media use by c hildren. For the same reasons that tobacco took so many decades to actually be cut back on: industry lies, industry has powerful direct and indirect ways to control media. Humans are addicted. The programmers used the most recent knowledge of cognitive addiction to get people addicted. So the users are addicted but no one mentions this. The health and emotional effects are kept out of media or appear only when matched by bought industry advocates.

Research is often sponsored by industry and better marketed with their money. Other research is marginalized.

I am not making the argument that all technology is bad, far from it. My point was and is that technology is rarely evaluated in holistic ways. This doesn’t matter with many products, but it does with some and many of these can have global detrimental effects.

Precisely like your fantasy treatment for anxiety. It is conceived as if we are modular creatures and as if the direct effects - in the emotions of the patients - are the only ones. What side effects? What feedback are we cutting off?

What concerns me about your thinking is that you seem utterly unaware that there might be a wealth of side effects of cutting anxiety out of humans. We evolved this reaction for good reasons. It may very well be telling us that society has problems. It’s like cutting out our eyes rather than making the environment less ugly. It’s like giving drugs to more than half of the population because they are stressed and anxious, instead of using this information to develop society. We do this now and it is not good. What it does is make us fit a fucked up society rather than fixing society to fit us.

You were speculating wildly. You said it was some future fool proof treatment.

I don’t know if it is language issues or something else but I find you do not quite respond to much of what I write, do not seem to understand many things, repeat the very types of assertions you have already made as if they need no back up. It’s frustrating and, as I’ve said before, comes off as bad faith arguing. I don’t know if it is or not or how much, but I am again going to try to ignore you.

My thesis is ALL humans has the potential to commit evil acts of a range of degrees and a percentile are born with an active evil tendency.
Exploitation for profit [corruption, petty crimes, casual lies, etc.] are low-degree evil acts and lots of people are doing that without being aware they are committing evil acts [low degrees].
As such it is natural that there is a wide range of evil acts [GM, medicines, drugs, technology, etc.] being committed by various peoples. Problem is such acts are so normal that the majority do not sense them as critical evil acts like terrorism, wars, mass rapes, and the likes.

BUT note, within ALL humans there is also a potential for morality that will drive humans to address and deal with evil acts. Note the research of morality [Nature] on babies who are not yet influenced by the ‘Nurture’ factors.

The limitation is this inherent moral drive is a very later evolution relative to the up to 4 billion program of ‘evil’ humans has inherited from past ancestors.

This is why the moral impulse on average is slow to catch up with the range of evil acts by humans. But the trend is the dynamic moral impulse will prevail over the stagnant ‘evil’ impulses within the brain/mind of humans.

What is critical is for humanity to expedite the process by increasing the force of the impulse of the inherent moral drive.

Hope you get this point re my optimism that good will prevail over evil, it is a matter of time and this is evident by positive trends that is ongoing over the history of mankind [peoplekind??].

Note my explanation above why I am optimistic good will prevail over evil in time.

Note my explanation above. It is instinctive and natural for the majority to exploit and abuse for various reason but eventually good will prevail over evil, albeit slowly.

I agree technology is often not evaluated in holistic ways. The reason is because the ‘evil’ impulse is more dominant than the moral impulse and holistic impulse at present.
The thrust of most of my posting here is to improve and expedite the moral impulse and holistic impulse.

Nope, you missed my point.
There is no way we can get rid of anxieties and other emotions [primary or secondary] within humans.
Note I quoted Aristotle’s on being wise with ‘anger’
viewtopic.php?p=2693727#p2693727
which is applicable to any other emotions.
So my point is humans must develop skills to manage, regulate and modulate their emotions, i.e. including anxiety as a secondary emotion, thus promoting equanimity.

You were speculating wildly. You said it was some future fool proof treatment.
[/quote]
I am speculating rationally and wisely but not widely [irrationally and the impossible].
It is wiser to ensure solution are fool proof, i.e. no side effects and other dangers.

English is not my mother-tongue but the problem is most likely with grammar but not context.

Discussion in a forum like this is very limited thus frustrating especially when the topic gets to the more refined levels. As such there is a need to volley to a fro many times. Note my discussion with Iambiguous where he repeated many many times the same thing and I have to do the same.
My only complain with such discussions is only when the other side starts to attack ad hominen and with all sort of off topic condemnation. As long as the mood is amiable, I will go along as long as I am interested for various reasons.

The brain’s activities in creating homeostasis of all bodily functions is a prime source of physics that can be distorted as metaphysics. Mechanical functions of the brain are just that–mechanical, not implications of theist or atheist beliefs. Anxiety cells in the brain are there to report malfunctions in the physical realm, not to support mythologies in the mental. The brain’s primary function is supervision of the body, including its physical self.

We are social mammals. Anxiety regarding social stuff part of the limbic system perview. Snuff anxiety and…well, we don’t know the side effects or really primary long term effects. It would not surprise me if some people were like socio and psychopaths if you shut down their anxiety. And, of course, mild forms of being ruder, less aware of what others might be thinking or doing, etc. It is not a coincidence that psychotropics have some of the longest lists of side effects and adverse reactions. Emotions are CORE to us. Mess with them in the modular thinking, shutting off anxiety nerve, raising this single neurotransmitter non-holistic type thinking is like doing ecology with Newtonian physics as if it was a billiard game.

‘Mechanical’ [actually biological] functions of the brain are those related to instincts, e.g. primary emotions.
Anxiety as a secondary emotion is not a ‘mechanical’ [instinctual] function of the brain rather it is more psychological than ‘mechanical’ [instinctual].

Anxiety = psychological
Religion = psychological
Therefore there is a link between religion and anxiety.

Note how anxiety are involved at different levels of the human psyche;

  1. Anxiety of mortality [subliminal or explicit] will push a person to religion in a fundamental perspective and
  2. religion can also cause anxieties in a religious person in another perspectives if did not conform and has guilt.

Note:

The last para above should include the primal existential angst [due to certain terminality] that general anxieties [subliminal or explicit] which compel the majority to establish religions and believe in a religion.

Why do you think you have such an overabundance of anxiety cells, Prismatic?

If existential angst is not the experience of all humans, then those who make a religion of its effects must amount to a smaller group of paranoid fundamentalists. One size does not fit all.
Scientists should stick to doing science and leave metaphysics to the philosophical and religious mythologists.
Anxiety cells are there to address the need for homeostasis of functional parts of the brain/body.
The human experience that does suggest religion is the teleological determinism of evolution.

DNA wise ALL humans has the potential for existential angst and this potential is activated in a range of degrees.
The majority of humans has a high activation of the existential angst at the subliminal level and they turned to religions to soothe the inherent unavoidable existential angst.
Those who do not turn to religion will turn to other secular activities or drugs to soothe the brain pains arising from the inherent unavoidable existential angst.

Science is Science and it cannot be Metaphysics nor religion. A scientist is a person who MUST wear the Scientific ‘Hat’ when doing Science. Thus Science has never meddled with Metaphysics nor religion. That person has to wear a specific religious hat if that person were to adopt a religion or a parent-hat when he is bring up his children.

If a Scientist study the behavior of those who are into Metaphysics or religion, they are not doing Metaphysics nor religion per se, rather they are doing Science and in conformance with the rules of Science.
For example Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist studies the brain patterns of those who are doing religions. What is wrong with that?

Anxiety cells are discovered by Scientists and that is Science, not religion.
But from a philosophy perspective, we can wear the philosopher’s ‘hat’ to use such scientific knowledge as basis to rationalize the correlation between anxiety cells and religion and therefrom attempt to link it to causation.

That is only part of the story. The anxiety emotion has a wide range of effect [positive and negative] on the human systems.
A feeling anxiety could push person to seek medical help when they see symptoms of disease within themselves. A person could also feel anxious arising from empathy for another person.

Nah, it is an empirical fact not all humans are religious.
It is also a fact the trend of religiosity within humanity is going down since 100 years ago.

Note the chart below re USA [a google quickie] and it is the same for the whole world.

The discovery of anxiety cells in the brain may be science at work; the religious and/or philosophical implications made from the studies are not. This is the problem with translating normal chemical functions as conscious ideas. If you knew the processes involved in such a translation, you would be close to devising a robot that could pass the Turing test. The function of brains, again, is to achieve homeostasis of all physical/mental functions. To assume they do more than that is to assume ideas science has not yet begun to prove. The studies are like those in search of a “Grandmother” neuron or "God "gene. You have to know what consciousness entails before you can describe its origins in the physical world by assigning thoughts to bodily functions. This would include knowing the influences of genes and memes on what one believes to be true.

That not all humans are religious does not reinforce the notions that DNA causes existential angst, that brains create religions or that existential angst is the impetus behind the creation of a religion. So, how do atheists handle the supposed universal condition of existential angst? Would you say that Niebuhr, Tillich, Lewis, and Schweitzer., et al., suffered from existential angst or were those sufferers just the founders of the religions and their followers?

Note the OP,

The research did not mention anything about religion.

However from my philosophical perspective, I see a link between the above and religion.

From the above it is noted, anxiety[existential based] caused religions.
Therefore when we know how to turn off the anxiety cells we can turn off religions.
QED.

But obviously the actual processes are very complicated but the above indicate there is possibility it can be done in the future.

OK - one of the function.
When the existential crisis activate instability, the brain’s anxiety cells [and other functions] trigger a state of anxiety to compel the self to find solutions to maintain homeostasis of its mental state. The solution to maintain homeostasis [mental] is believing in a religion.

But because theistic-religions create and generate terrible evils and violence, we have to do something about it. One solution is to deal with the related anxieties with non-religious alternatives so that we can eliminate all religious-related evils and violence.

My thesis is this;

The existential angst is handled via the inhibition of the impulses from the existential-angst neurons.
The non-theistics deal with it in the following;

  1. Non-theistic religions - Buddhism, Jainism, etc.
  2. Using their rational minds and critical thinking
  3. Occupied themselves with secular thoughts and activities
  4. Occults
  5. Drugs - hallucinogens
  6. Opioids
  7. Gangs [tribal], criminal activities, etc.
  8. Various non-theistic approaches

The above approaches are usually combined in various degrees and forms.

As I stated ALL humans has the potential for existential angst.
If the above are religious [theistic] then their existential angst would be definitely be active in various degrees.

Note in GENERAL a baby and those up to a certain teenage age do not have an active existential angst in the brain that would drive them personally on their own to religions in its various forms and degrees.

So “turning off” anxiety cells and bypassing the brain’s natural checks and balance systems is a good thing? I don’t know many scientists who would believe that even if it could be done. You either do not understand homeostasis or you do not see its physical/mental complexity. Tampering with such mental/physical, natural processes smacks of a Nazi agenda.

The bolded portion was my guess. Unfortunately lay science and corporate approaches to change often involve an avoidance of dealing with complexity. Now of course he says it will be foolproof in his fantasy future - but he does not seem to understand that we are ecological systems.

Somehow you are stuck with either on or off [black or white] without taking into account gradations and contexts. You have to check your impulsiveness in jumping to see the worse [Nazi, frankenstein monsters, etc.] whenever you come across issues like the above.
We need to understand ‘turn off’ do not mean completely shut off.

Note Aristotle’s re anger which is applicable in this case;

We cannot get rid of the anxiety cells but we can modulate it as in the above.
Note there are tons of research on the subject of impulse-control.

Note in real life the Buddhists [since 2500 years ago], other Eastern spiritualities and various self-development programs are targeting on impulse controls with great results. Their limitations are that they operate on a black-box approach.

The discovery of anxiety cells will facilitate greater improvements in impulse controls related to anxiety-religion connections to facilitate greater precision in taking the necessary corrective actions.

Don’t insult my intelligence on this basic point.
Actually you have a shortfall of knowledge as I had provided and shown above.

That is the problem with most theists, they have a very sensitive ‘thermostat’ to sense anything that is not within their knowledge database as a threat. Then they will associate the new ideas [even justified] as Nazi, evil, satanic and all sort of ugly and evil terms to shut the others off. Such tactics do not work because the truth will always prevails.

I was hoping you will give more solid and sound arguments to counter my approach or views.

Note I am into the idiot-proofing [fool proofing] business and have done extensive research and practical in this area. So I know what I am talking about regardless whether we are talking about machines, robots or humans. The difference is just a matter of degrees not either can or cannot be applied.

Wasn’t it you who suggested that turning off anxiety cells in the brain could rid us of those religious feelings you seem to despise?

“Turn off” was not my word. It was the article in the OP which used the term ‘turn off’ which do not mean a complete shut down. If that is the case, it would be more efficient to kill off all the anxiety cells. ‘Turn off’ is never meant to be a complete shut off.

The term I normally use is ‘modulate’ and in relation to quote from Aristotle re anger.

In the case of anxiety cells we have to look into it in greater details to ensure we avoid other side effects before we implement anything in relation to the existential crisis.

Have you read the works of Damasio and others of the likes who specialize in ‘emotions’ and they show that emotions are critical necessity for life.

When Emotions Make Better Decisions - Antonio Damasio
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wup_K2WN0I[/youtube]