The hardware/software analogy of the BPS theory

That is a bold claim...

Sigh. It is not the lack of literal meaning that is the problem, it is the lack of meaningful application. There is no parallel to executing software on a body.

 

No bolder than a student textbook and common observation maybe?

Brains contain arrays of integrating units called neurons. All human biology students get taught that and we have hundreds of papers on the maths of the integration in individual cells.

Human brains instantiate logic. Turing use the term 'computer' to mean a person that computes, in the sense of drawing logical conclusions from input data. Solving pairs of equations for instance. The computations must be done by neurons because that is the only place where there are input-output relations in brains. Koch and Segev analysed the maths of how a single locust giant neutron computes that an object is getting nearer from retinal inputs.

 

When it comes down to it, the hardware/ software analogy is self serving. It sounds good as a concise catchphrase and has built into it the idea that CBT is a way to rewrite the software program.

It leaves patients satisfied because most people don't understand how computers work anyway. And it takes the eye away from the biology which makes no sense whatsoever.

I have genuinely tried to figure out what they mean. I accept that an epileptic seizure is a cascade of electric charge which we have drugs to control. The pseudoseizure does not have this so what exactly happens in the brain to give a seizure like effect. This is the interesting question biologically especially when they claim that they occur in people who also have epileptic seizures.

To say it is caused by emotions does not answer any questions, just moves it back. How do emotions affect something that we do not know the biology of? You just end up with 2 questions instead of one. If CBT truly is effective then how does it affect the unknown process? Yet another question. There are no answers ever given.

You can say it is pragmatic, what works, works but they admit that it only helps a few people with FND so why not look at the biology and maybe help a few more?

It makes your head ache.

 

Yet another word that has been stripped of all meaning in this context. Absolutely nothing in the psychosocial model is actually pragmatic. It's a belief system that has its roots well over a century back and the ME model is mostly recycled tripe from the psychosomatic model of peptic ulcers.

Pragmatic:

The psychosocial model is 100% hypothetical, not even rising to the level of theoretical as it has been fully falsified in both research and practice. It specifically dismisses testimony and the lived experience of patients, replacing it with an assumptions-based vague explanation.

The only argument that can be made for anything "practical" is anecdotes, which despite their large apparent number always fail to realize in trials and are a hallmark of pseudoscience when used in the promotion of fully-formed model.

 

Oh God that made me laugh, it really did. I saw it all in my mind like the monty python dead parrot sketch
https://www.bing.com/search?q=monty...d8b6f5bd2&cc=GB&setlang=en-GB&plvar=0&PC=LCTS

this

 

Some emotions are well proven to correlate with certain physical effects: sweating from fear/anxiety; needing the loo if terrified; blushing if embarrassed; etc. The assumption invariably is that the emotion causes the physical effect, but if so - by what mechanism? What if, instead, the emotion and the physical effect are both caused by some other physical trigger? No causal connection between emotion and physical effect at all, just correlation.

Apologies if this has already been said, and I've not picked up on it.

 

Biologically, emotions are part of the sympathetic nervous system which sends out hormones and signals that work the body without conscious involvement. It is this instantaneous reaction that gives them the loophole to fit FND but they forget that it is a circular system. Signals come IN to the brain as well as out.

If you have an overactive thyroid because of an autoimmune disease the body floods with adrenalin. This makes you feel angry, restless and irritated but also anxious. The brain assumes there is something outside causing all this adrenalin and will search for the answer.

They use this system and the plasticity if the brain as a background for their theories and I think there is an acceptance of them because of it. I have no problem with the idea of stress, increased adrenalin and cortisol and so on, causing physical problems which can be lessened by CBT or just relaxing. Think lowering blood sugar by eating less biscuits.

But they assume a healthy physical system and so believe you must be eating too many biscuits if you see what I mean. No one tests for diabetes.

But that all assumes an intact physical system

 

The problem is they don't use such (eg measurements of cortisol or catecholamines) in a systematic manner. You can't just measure cortisol once, along with a questionnaire and jump to some sort of generalised conclusion. There is a lot more involved, especially if you are trying to invoke parallels of bio-psycho-social systems with other complex systems.

 

This is exactly it.

I can only speak from my experience and from the interviews I listened to on curable from other people using the app, as well as things I picked up during the PRINCE trial.

In the app - they specifically have a bit all about education of “pain science” which they apply to MUS. They say this - that things like migraines, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, back pain neck pain etc whatever else they purport to treat, basically are caused by things like nerve endings firing, blood pressure, heart rate, things that basically leave no trace and do not change the system (ie your body). Therefore, none of these are harmful and can be rewired by changing these pathways (nerve endings firing, heart rate reducing etc).

This is the message I got in PRINCE trial also. Certainly from the questionnaires. I can see there’s a whole debate about software hardware but for the people actually going through this programme and this sort of “education” it only serves one purpose - to inform you that nothing bad is happening to your body, no damage either short term or long term, so stop focusing on your symptoms, and you can reverse it.

Also agree wholeheartedly with this point as well. My mum has FND and I said this exact same point to her a couple days ago.

 

Notice also what all of these have in common (along with convulsive vasovagal syncope)?

They are all acute phenomena that have short timeframes, they are not equilibrium processes, they are not self-sustaining.

 

Classic line from a computer game. Something like, murder them, because reasons. (Borderlands 2)

 

The problem is the brain has layers of adaptive architecture that is integral to the neuronal structure. Its dynamic, not static, in things like visual processing and many other parts of the brain. To make the software/hardware distinction you also have to adopt the view that hardware is the same as software, and then obfuscate issues, which is why I guess the BPS crowd like it: brain and mind are the same, but mind is more important ...

 

Actually the BPS view is that brain and mind are different and interact. Which is exactly what Descartes said, despite the fact that the BPS people think they are denying 'Cartesian dualism'. It is the biomedical approach that says that brain and mind are both biological.

 

My take on this is they vacillate on this view, and retreat to the position I stated when pushed. They do not necessarily believe it though.

I think they reason along the lines you discuss a lot of the time too, if not pushed. Their position is not consistent.

However, they most definitely are the new breed of dualists on body-mind theory. They have repeatedly claimed that mind and body are the same or equivalent, but you cannot pin them down on details. I used the line "brain and mind are the same, but mind is more important " because it highlights two conflicting views that they operate in. I think its mostly a smokescreen so they can focus on mind.

They sometimes comment that the mind and brain are both biological, but never take it seriously. Instead they take the view that mind is paramount, brain secondary, in a lot of discussion. The tactic seems to be to acknowledge all sides, and then claim only their view is important. Its a variant on the balanced reporting tactic.

Stated views and views taken in discussing their hypotheses and models are not always the same. They rely heavily on the vagueness of their claims. They switch claims and explanations on the fly.

Finally they also discuss social aspects, and then relegate them to offhand comments so they can focus on mind. Only social factors that impact mind seem to be important. Somehow they rarely discuss how social factors impact biology, an example of which would be meal preparation and eating habits and H. pylori spread.

 

I suppose you could imagine some modern hardware/software system, and then imagine a system that instead evolved to fulfil the same functionality. The evolved system would doubtless be structured very very differently to the man-made one, even though it fulfilled the same functionality. The notional sub-systems and boundaries imposed by the delineations of modern engineering disciplines, are constraints evolution would clearly be unfettered by.