Reading Rainbow and My Brain into a Hole

I was determined Friday night. I relaxed, staying in so that I could wake up at 8:00 AM and attack one of the old LSATs I'd picked up. But lo and behold, I didn't go to sleep until 3. Why? It was a sort of crippling fear that once I took the test for real, if I did well, there'd be no turning back. However, if I bombed it, I'd be down about the whole affair.



Nevertheless, I rolled out of bed around 10, and decided to do half an LSAT. I compromised with myself. Well, I did OK on the difficult section and TANKED the reading comprehension part. I thought they put reading comprehension on there to boost your score. Free points. I tried to forget about it, meeting my parents and nephew for a paddleboat ride in the park. I even decided to have some drinks and party it up that night, mainly because I hadn't gone out and partied hard in months. So, by some drinks I mean a barrel full of them.



The next day, after relaxing at a pool party, I dried out and started to think about what might have caused the lapse. Was it my new medicine? Was it the fact that I didn't drink coffee that morning? I decided I would have to take several more tests, under all different circumstances, much like the research done around here.



But then I realized something. It was just a problem of focus. Lately, every time I read words, I'll see something that my mind will use as an excuse to blast off tangentially, like a salvo of missiles. What caused this, I wondered. My first instinct was to blame it on my medicine, an easy target. When I admitted that isn't a side effect of this medicine, I thought, well I should just get some Ritalin, that'll drill me to the page. Then I realized that I probably shouldn't start a law career by purchasing illegal prescription drugs.



I started to think, as anyone close to Neuroscience would, about what could actually be causing my brain to do this. I actually monitor eye movements in tracking exercises and my brother in law, Mike, does in San Diego, as well. Here, a dot appears on a screen and the subject has to find the dot and touch it. I've casually observed the eye movements, and the one striking thing is that the subjects always look at more things than you expect. They are constantly scanning the screen for dots.



Mike's company has shown how people view webpages and radar screens. They view everything, showing the same quick scanning as our subjects. After reflecting on this, I thought, I'm probably just typical of your viewer today. We've been trained by television to look in the backgrounds of TV shows for details, clues. On the internet, our eyes try to catch the headlines and the pictures, all in a series of swoops.

So I resigned myself to the thought that maybe, in order to reverse this, I'd have to make some personal changes. If I stopped watching as much TV, playing as many video games, even reducing internet use, I'd be able to curb my "casino attention span." Last night I tried to read for hours on end, everything well constructed, just like the passages on the test. My brain hurts today, and it's not because of alcohol this time. Instead, I had tried to get the square peg of my brain into the round hole of reading skill. And as everyone knows, the only way to get a square peg into a round hole is by... pushing really really hard.

To Catch a Predator, not Stop a Predator

In honor of TV Turnoff Week 2007, I'm going to write about television.

I watch "To Catch a Predator." It is an entertaining show, as you get to see a terrific comedy of errors every episode. What appeals to me most, however, is what lies beneath the dramedy. Sure, they usually lock up a few bad guys and ruin a few marriages, but, as an engineer, my thoughts tend to drift towards the net effect of the whole exchange. For instance, you put in a pervert, a decoy, a wiseacre host and hidden cameras. What's the net effect? A caught predator, not a stopped predator.



Think about this. Recently scientists have found that a few men with frontal lobe brain trauma had completely lost their sexual inhibitions. One had a tumor obstructing his frontal lobe, which, after removal, resulted in him being a perfect citizen. However, when the tumor returned, simultaneously he resumed his disinhibited ways.



So lets assume these predators have lost a good chunk of free will in these situations. They are unable to control their addictions. Do we see them going to a shrink and then getting a brain scan? No, NBC just shows them handcuffed in the van, which appeals in that end-of-the-thriller-movie way. But what happens when they get out? Will the icy glare and rapier wit of Chris Hansen stop people from doing what they're addicted to? Hell no. In which case, all that comes out of the dirty stew that NBC creates for ratings is the public humiliation of perverts, the catching, not the stopping. Which is cool, except if the perverts never had control over it before. The best way to treat a problem is at its roots, not at the end of the chain.



At the thrift store this weekend, I heard a worker talk about his ghetto pass, that he'd use to get drugs. He works for the Salvation Army, which means that he probably is in rehab for his addiction. It made me really happy to hear that someone was getting his life in order. Maybe someday when "To Catch a Predator" does that I can go back to watching it for laughs.

Another article about the brain and free will from Neurophilosophy