Special review article
Mindscape: A convergent perspective on life, mind, consciousness and happiness

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2009.06.022Get rights and content

Abstract

What are mind, consciousness and happiness, in the fundamental context of life? We propose a convergent perspective (coupling evolutionary biology, genomics, neurobiology and clinical medicine) that could help us better understand what life, mind, consciousness and happiness are, as well as provides empirically testable practical implications.

Section snippets

Life, mind, consciousness and happiness: a theoretical framework

“It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance”.

-Charles Darwin

What are mind, consciousness and happiness, in the fundamental context of life? Diverse answers have been provided by scientists and philosophers. The answers to date may not be fully explanatory and/or practical enough in nature. We propose that a theoretical framework(Crick and Koch, 2003) encompassing a convergent perspective (coupling evolutionary biology, genomics, neurobiology and clinical medicine) could help us

What is life?

“Simplex sigillum veri (Simplicity is the hallmark of truth)”.

-Latin proverb

We would like to propose, in a hardly original but perhaps more explicit fashion, that life is about reproducing genes (G) and providing a proximal (u) and general (U) umbrella for them, to ensure their survival, propagation and thriving. The necessary and sufficient condition for an entity to be considered alive may be for it to have the capacity to reproduce and propagate parts of self encoded in the genetic material (

What are mind, consciousness and happiness?

“You do not win battles by debating exactly what is meant by the word battle. You need to have good troops, good weapons, a good strategy, and then hit the enemy hard. The same applies to solving a difficult scientific problem”.

- Francis Crick

We propose that the mind can be viewed as a composite of mechanisms that have evolved to achieve GuU objectives. The latest genetic, neurobiological and clinical evidence suggest that normal mental functioning and psychiatric disorders can be classified in

Whole-organism effects

“Studies at higher system levels are likely to inform those at the simpler level of the cell and vice versa”.

- Paul Nurse

Does the mind have effects on the rest of the body, or do similar mind-like mechanisms occur in other parts of the body, at different levels (Nurse, 2008)? The answer is probably both. There is emerging evidence that genes involved in somatic disorders and brain disorders overlap (Torkamani et al., 2008), and that peripheral blood biomarkers can provide a window into brain

Environment effects

“The brain, like an evolutionary garden, consists of myriad regions and neural patterns linked …by large scale connection patterns and complex interactions—regional and global. These patterns are selected during behaviors that are adaptive”.

-Gerald M. Edelman

The environment can be favorable or not to the organisms' life objectives (GuU). It is perceived by the mind (anxiety, mood, and cognition) as it impacts the brain and the whole organism, which adapt to it. Pleasure and contentment (reward)

Addictions

“Indulge yourself in pleasures only in so far as they are necessary for the preservation of health”.

- Baruch Spinoza

GuU achievement can be subverted by addictions. From the perspective described in this paper, addictions can be viewed as interactions with the environment that hijack and modulate pleasure/pain mechanisms. They are maladaptive shortcuts to feeling good (pseudo FES), giving an illusion of GuU achievement (pseudo GuU) without achievement of real GuU objectives.

Addictions modulate

Lifescape and Mindscape

“The orgy of fact extraction in which everybody is currently engaged has, like most consumer economies, accumulated a vast debt. This is a debt of theory, and some of us are soon going to have an exciting time paying it back — with interest, I hope”.

- Sydney Brenner

The above ideas and paradigms can be modeled using a three-dimensional spatial representation of the life landscape-Lifescape, and of the mental landscape–Mindscape. The three dimensions for the Lifescape are G, u, U. The three

Applications

“For a scientist, it is a unique experience to live through a period in which his field of endeavour comes to bloom — to be witness to those rare moments when the dawn of understanding finally descends upon what appeared to be confusion only a while ago — to listen to the sound of darkness crumbling.”

- George E. Palade

We propose that Mindscape is a useful visual representation model. It can be used on the clinical side to understand psychiatric and, more broadly, medical illnesses (Table 1). As

Role of funding source

Nothing declared.

Conflict of interest

ABN, NJS and DRS are scientific co-founders of Mindscape Diagnostics, Inc.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank members of our laboratories for useful feedback and discussions. ABN would like to acknowledge the early inspiration provided by G. Edelman in matters of the mind, and past clinical mentorship provided by H. Akiskal for affective disorders, J. Lohr for cognitive disorders, M. Schuckit for addictive disorders, and S. Stahl for psychopharmacology.

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