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Aristotelian mnemonics, vis-a-vis fear
tags: fear, Aristotle, the human brain

Okay, kids. Have we heard of Aristotle? Not as a throwaway reference in a movie that let you know this was a smart guy, but really understood who this guy was? If not, he's worth more than a google. Aristotle was probably the first scientist in the ancient world. The guy studied everything and wrote about everything. He wasn't always right, but sometimes even the way he looked at problems provided a really intriguing diagram of the workings of the mind.

For example? Memory. Aristotle held that memory was a function of the rational soul, and was the ability to perceive the difference between an event in the past and a phantasm, that is, a mental picture that is so strong it is imprinted on a part of the mind or body. He believed imprints happened all the time, much like we think residual hauntings occur in a house or a landscape, and that memory occurred only when the stimuli from the imprint was too complex to be interpreted all at once. Because it's so complex, it cannot be accessed immediately, but when it is, it will have all the mental anxiety of the moment in which it was imprinted.

Doesn't it sort of sound like our brains are haunted? Moreover, even though it displays a rudimentary knowledge of anatomy (appearance imprints on a fluid body part could refer to human CNS, I suppose) and non-specific language as I have here translated it, doesn't it sound right?

How about this one: Fear is pain that comes from anticipating evil. Big, bold, heavy words, right? But I think this is about as true as anything this celebrated scientist, thinker and philosopher ever said. Think about the words.

Fear is... Fear is a big thing for me, as long-time readers know. I have been accused of being obsessed with it. We know what it is, as a physical response. In a situation where there is a threat, real or perceived, the amygdala triggers the so-called fight, flee or freeze response (Want the full details of all the cool things the brain does to make this happen? I'll go into it later) and when the threat is perceived to be gone, the amygdala also stores the memory of this threat and how it went down in the mPFC, which means that conditioning someone to fear is extremely easy to do.

Fear is... anticipating... There are lots of ways the mind can be taught to fear something. It can be a method to protect a child from fire or from wild animals. It can be an ancient, inherited neurological reaction as to the shapes of poisonous creatures, or tribes which in the long distant past might be enemies. It could be subliminal fear stirred up by the media, or a trauma from the past. When we're afraid, we anticipate the damage that can come from this threat. Maybe we believe we'll lose something important, maybe we expect to be hurt or even killed.

Fear is... anticipating evil. Evil is a big, heavy word in this day and age. People toss it around as if that will strip it of its luster, of the palpable slap of landing it on something real, but it doesn't. Evil is a label we put on something we fear, something with such power to manipulate this fear in us that we do not believe we can confront it. Certainly, in the mythos, good fights evil, but do any of us truly see ourselves as purely good? Would we trust someone who thought so of himself?

Fear is pain... To make someone truly afraid is to strip all their options, all their defenses. The response becomes so physical that one no longer controls one's own mind, one's own body. When you make someone truly afraid, it's as if you put your fingers inside their brain and began to puppet it around. Even when the stimulus is gone, it can be called up with merely a snap of the fingers... that phantasm, that memory of helpless heart-pounding dread.

Fear is... kind of nifty.