Default Mode Network
Article
Default Mode Network is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between April 23, 2021 and August 18, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as “Wright emphasizes how advanced meditators have an oddly quiet Default Mode Network – that’s the part of the brain active in normal people when they’re not doing anything in particu”; “the Default Mode Network – that’s the part of the brain active in normal people when they’re not doing anything in particular”; “the importance of the Default Mode Network”. It most often appears alongside Alpha, Andres, Anil Seth.
Metadata
- Category: Concepts
- Mention count: 3
- Issue count: 3
- First seen: April 23, 2021
- Last seen: August 18, 2023
Appears In
- Your Book Review: Why Buddhism Is True
- Book Review: Rhythms Of The Brain
- Your Book Review: The Mind Of A Bee
Related Pages
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- Alpha (1 shared issues)
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- Andres (1 shared issues)
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- Anil Seth (1 shared issues)
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- Astralcodexten Com (1 shared issues)
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- Being You (1 shared issues)
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- Ben Kuhn (1 shared issues)
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- Bhikkhu Bodhi (1 shared issues)
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- Brown noise (1 shared issues)
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- Buddha (1 shared issues)
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- Buddhism (1 shared issues)
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- Buddhist philosophy (1 shared issues)
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- bumble bees (1 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
So for Wright, feelings are the glue which attaches awareness to thoughts. Can enlightened people think, then? Unclear. Wright emphasizes how advanced meditators have an oddly quiet Default Mode Network – that’s the part of the brain active in normal people when they're not doing anything in particular, responsible for mental "chatter." Phrased as removing mental chatter, enlightenment sounds nice. But I think instead of Greg, the guy with a hole in his brain. Are we so sure that the Default Mode Network is just the useless appendix of the brain? In fact, there have been studies connecting the DMN to creativity. Should we really risk putting a metaphorical hole through the part of our brain responsible for creativity? Now maybe advanced meditators' brain just does creativity some other way, but when was the last time you heard of a super creative or inventive enlightened person? Aren't they all just quietly running meditation centers somewhere?
Inline links: studies
(After the retreat, I also had one of my largest bursts of creativity, writing the third chapter of my dissertation at record speed. It’s about beauty and meditation, and you can read it here. So much for the importance of the Default Mode Network.)
Inline links: here
Andres suggests all of this is a good match for oscillatory coupling between brain regions, which he says “dissolves internal boundaries”. To give a fake toy example: suppose that you have some brain region representing the normal conscious self (maybe the default mode network), and some other brain region representing some part of the unconscious. When we say that these are “different brain regions”, we don’t just mean anatomically, we mean that they’re oscillating at different frequencies in a way that makes them less than fully communicative with each other. If two brain regions are oscillating at almost the same frequency, they will tend to link together - that is, if one area is 1.9 hertz, and another area is 2 hertz, then probably the 1.9 hertz area firing will trigger neurons in the 2 hertz area to fire (since they are almost ready to fire anyway), and the 2 hertz area will decrease to 1.9 hertz and the two areas will “merge” into a single 1.9 hertz rhythm. And if two brain regions are oscillating at frequencies that are near-multiples of each other (for example, 2 hertz and 4.1 hertz), then something similar will happen, with the 2 hertz region triggering the 4.1 hertz region every second peak, and eventually they will settle into an entrained 2 hertz vs. 4 hertz oscillation with the same peaks. Buzsaki says that in the brain you tend to see only surviving rhythms that are irregular multiples of each other (he says “the natural logarithm 2.17” - I don’t know if this is a typo for e = 2.72 or if something else is going on).
Suppose that - and again, this is a fake toy example - your unconscious is oscillating at 1 hertz and your default mode network is oscillating at 2.17 hertz. Then you meditate, you slow your default mode network to 2 hertz, all of a sudden consciousness and unconsciousness are nice multiples of each other, they reach oscillatory synchrony, and they achieve higher levels of communication with each other.
This would also provide an explanation for drug trips where people lose their sense of self in a more negative way. There is some oscillatory region (again, the default mode network would be a good guess) that usually communicates coherently. If you screw up all of your local pacemakers and connections that usually maintain that rhythm, all those parts of the brain will get on their own separate rhythms, not really communicate with each other, and you will lose the sense of yourself as a coherent entity. If you’ve ever had this happen to you, this story might sound frighteningly familiar.
Humans have a pattern of brain activity known as the default mode network, which occurs when our minds wander, or we daydream. Insect brains also exhibit patterns of activity akin to having a default mode network. None of this necessarily means insects ‘think’ or that they have ‘attention’ in the same way that we think and pay attention to things. But it all suggests that they might have similar processes that generate similar, if maybe more rudimentary, forms of those experiences.
Inline links: default mode network, having a default mode network