Spending time with the Breaking Ice theater based diversity, equity, and inclusion program gave rise to a question: How might new insights about how the brain works might help us better understand the how and why of our continuing struggle with difference? Here is what ensued. 

LISTEN TO Breaking Ice Chapter 1

LISTEN TO Breaking Ice Chapter 2

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Notable Mentions

Breaking Ice is the award-winning program of Pillsbury House Theatre that for over 20 years has been “breaking the ice” for courageous and productive dialogue around issues of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. A diverse company of professional actors portrays real-life situations that are customized to meet the goals, needs and culture of each unique organization we serve.

Pillsbury House and Theater is a groundbreaking “new model for human service work that recognizes the power of the arts and culture to stimulate community participation, investment and ownership.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: was a Hungarian-American psychologist. He recognized and named the psychological concept of "flow", a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity.[1][2] He was the Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University. He was also the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College.[3]

Sources

Question 2: How does our environment what we think and believe? 

1.Lobel, T. (2014) Sensations: The New Science of Physical Intelligence, Simon & Schuster.

2 Eagleman, David. The Brain: The Story of You. Pg., 105, Vintage Books, 2017

Question 4: Why are stories important? 

3.Hamlin, JK, Wynn, K & Bloom, P (2007) “Social evaluation by preverbal infants.” Nature, 450(7169), 557-59.

Question 5: What is empathy and what does it have to do with artmaking?

4 Eagleman, David. The Brain: The Story of You. Pg., 143, Vintage Books, 2017

5 Ibid.

Question 11: If human cooperation and connection are so important, why do we struggle so with difference? 

6. How do children develop a sense of self? - The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/how-do-children- develop-a-sense-of-self-5611

7. Toddler | Preschool & Daycare | The Montessori Centre St Lucia. http://www.themontessoricentre.com/toddlers/

8. Eagleman, David. The Brain: The Story of You. Pg., 143, Vintage Books, 2017

Question 13: Why is play so important to human development? 

9 Asma, Steven The History of Imagination, pg., 84, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2017

10 Asma, Stephen, The Evolution of Imagination, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2017

Question 15: How Can human creativity help us out of this mess?

11 Boyd, Brian, On the Origin of Stories, Harvard University Press, Boston, 2010

Brain Dance for Breaking Ice

In our last two episodes, we shared the story of how Breaking Ice, a theater company working out of an arts-based social service agency called Pillsbury House and Theater in Minneapolis joined up with a large healthcare system in St. Louis to provide a powerful boost to their diversity equity and inclusion program.

Now when I returned home from my time with Breaking Ice in St. Louis, I saw an obvious connection between what they were up to and my growing interest in neuroscience of all things. Specifically, how new insights about how the brain works might help us better understand the how and why of our continuing struggle with difference. Long story short, I decided to share some of what I was learning from my humble exploration of brain science in hopes that it might connect and possibly contribute to their efforts.

And, despite its nerdy nature, after finishing our two Breaking Ice episodes. I thought it might be worthwhile sharing what I passed on to breaking ice with you, our listeners. So I hope you enjoy it.

I'd also like to say that some folks may think that what I'm about to share here regarding neuroscience, and art, and the human struggle with differences, as a way of avoiding the terrible and enduring truth of our racist past. So, let me be clear. I know that science was complicit in fomenting the lie of white supremacy. I'm also under no illusion that neuroscience is going to change the fact that our white supremacist history has an everyday presence that demeans and damages millions of Americans and threatens our future as a nation. I further know that truly equitable community-making and anti-racism are multi-generational quests that require moral courage and character, and are certainly not science projects.

Finally, if what you hear leaves you provoked or intrigued, I encourage you to follow up with your own exploration with this fascinating subject.

Welcome to Change the Story / Change the World, and a special episode of what we're calling Brain Dance for Breaking Ice.

Once again, my name is Bill Cleveland.

Part One: Dear Breaking ICE

Dear Breaking Ice: You may recall, I am in the process of writing a book called Bright and Dangerous Sparks: Imagination, Story, and the Human Struggle with Difference. The time I spent with you in St. Louis is part my research for, what I hope will become one of the book’s chapters. My motivations for this project are complicated. Part of it is a sense of personal responsibility, to my kids and grandkids, to my fellow humans. Another is a combination of the angst and anger over our inability to recognize and understand the stakes at hand. Here is how I see it.

One of the most persistent themes of the human story has been the constant struggle for power and control. Throughout history, this inexorable human impulse has taken many forms—war, enslavement, repression, propaganda… The common element, of course, is that they are all grounded in fear. Today, increasingly powerful tools and strategies are being used to capture our imaginations to influence what we think, what we believe, and how we behave. Chief among these is the fear of “the other,” which is being provoked with greater frequency and effectiveness, producing heightened levels of mistrust and conflict among people and communities.

As an artist, and as a teller of stories about artists and their work with communities, I sometimes describe myself as being in the imagination business. I have come to believe that the imagination is the most powerful aspect of what it is to be human. Our ability to conjure new ideas, complex narratives, even entire worlds, outside the constraints of time and place, both distinguishes humans as a species, and is essential to our survival.

There are many who say that the fate of the world depends on what we humans do next. Given our destructive capacity, I am inclined to agree, surely with regard to the future of the human race, if not the globe. There is also a consensus that we are digging ourselves into a hole, ecologically, and socially. I am certainly not alone in thinking that digging out will require a revolution of thought and deed— in essence a new set of stories powerful enough to change beliefs and behaviors.

To do this, I believe we will need to harness the power of the imagination in new ways, with new urgency, and much greater focus. Through my work over the past 40 years, as an artist, educator, and researcher, I have been exploring how the power of the imagination and story helps us make collective sense and meaning of our world. I believe that imagination and story are our most dangerously neglected natural resources. If we are to change the meta narratives that provoke humans to destroy each other and the planet we need to better understand how they come to be and how they work for both good and ill.

In the story we are all living I believe that Breaking Ice is one of the “bright” sparks. Through this work you are not only in the imagination business, you are also in the mind changing business. And by “mind changing” I don’t mean switching brand loyalty or voting patterns. I mean, through your work you are literally helping to re-wire brains. I have come to believe this because another of the “bright sparks” I have encountered are new discoveries about what is going on in the human brain and how it influences what we think and believe. When we visited in St. Louis, I was hoping to share some of this learning. Here is some of what I wanted to pass on

I call it Notes from a short journey into the frontiers of neuroscience and evolutionary psychology for creative change agents, or 15 questions about art, creativity, and the human struggle with difference.

Question 1: What's up with wiring in the brain?

Well, Our brains do have something like a wiring system. . And the amazing thing about this is that our wiring system modifies based on our experiences. The neural connections that make these modifications possible are called synapsis. Synapsis connect and communicate chemically and the more we practice an activity, the stronger these connections become. This building process is reinforced through a chemical reward called dopamine that is released when an activity “goes well” The more we practice something, the more the wiring builds to support a particular behavior.

At the end of the day, our most practiced skills become written into the microstructure of the brain. Well-honed skills require less conscious attention from the prefrontal cortex, parental cortex, and cerebellum. This is a continual process. As wiring proliferates in support of a specific activity the conscious effort, memory, hand-eye coordination, the syncing needed, recedes. We are always writing/building and re-writing/reinforcing the brains circuitry.

Question 2: How does our environment affect what we think and believe?

Okay. I think most people would agree that feeling in control. Is important. But, we're not as in control as we think. Believe it or not. Something as simple as our level of physical comfort can impact what we think of as deeply held attitudes. The temperature of a drink, the comfort level of a chair in a theater or an unpleasant smell have been shown to impact expressed feelings and judgment about loved ones.1 I believe it is critical that we consider the potential downside of this knowledge in the hands of someone who wants to manipulate behavior and beliefs.

In his book The Brain: The Story of You, David Eagleman describes “crushing ambiguity into choices” as one of the brain’s primary functions.2 Pretty much, everything we do requires hundreds of micro-choices that are continually being undertaken by the brain. As such, the brain needs to move quickly and efficiently through these sequences, most of which are happening in the background. Many of the "decisions" we make emerge from a kind of abattle that is being waged among different parts of the brain in various combinations.

Question 3: How does the imagination impact what we think and do?

So I'm not going to try and define the imagination here, but here's the description of what some scientists think is going on. Our imagination allows us to consider and weigh possible futures. Humans are unique in that we can consider options that haven't yet occurred. In doing this, our brain rehearses and tests different potential decisions exploring various causes and effects impact the potential rewards. Our decision-making process is always trying to make the choice with the greatest future reward. It is important to recognize though, that what we imagine is not real and our fabricated landscape is subject to all kinds of distortions.

Our imagined projections of what might happen in the future are based mainly on past experience and our current world view. More importantly, our past experiences with the accuracy of our predictions have a significant influence on future decisions. This is, even more, the case because the endocrine system makes our good and bad predictions memorable with corresponding increases and decreases of dopamine. When we make, what we experience as a "good" decision, the brain's pharmacist dispenses a reward, conversely, when we err, the feel- good endocrine dispensary is shut down. This “error corrector” reduces prediction error.

Unfortunately, if the feedback mechanism we are operating in is distorted or biased in some way, then this built navigator can lead us terribly astray.

Question 4: Why are stories important?

Well, we are predisposed to impose story constructs (social narrative) on the world as we perceive it ---as it comes to us. This is basic to our ongoing need to quickly identify the potential threats or benefits of our interactions with other human beings. These assessments are continually being undertaken by brains as they that have evolved as a survival strategy. This capacity to recognize and use social narratives to make decisions appears very early in human development.

In an experiment one-year-old babies watch a "play" with two bears and a duck. One bear is helpful, and one bear hinders the duck's efforts to open a box. Afterward, the babies get to choose the which bear to play with. They overwhelmingly choose the helpful bear.

So some of you are probably scratching your head and asking about now, What's the big deal here. A bunch of kids fell for a bear that was nice to a duck. So what. Here's what, 12-months after being born, some very small humans whose brains will not be fully developed for another quarter century not only watch that little bear/duck soap opera, they also absorbed and drew conclusions, and made a choice based on what they learned from the story that unfolded in front of their little eyes.

So, at this point, I'm sure you can tell I'm turning into Bill the editorialist again. I think the words, story and storytelling have suffered the same fate is words like art and community. Nevertheless, we use them and confusion ensues. So it might be helpful for me to say what I mean by “story.”

Although I think storytelling in the traditional sense is a venerable and powerful art form, when I speak of story, I'm talking much more broadly. From my perspective, the story is the most complex and powerful form of human information, sharing and communication combining the complexities of human consciousness and character with time, and place, and events built on, and reinforced by, a foundation of assumptions about the way the world works.

Tom Atlee, one of the sponsors of the Story Field Conference describes it as “the frame that defines what we think is real acceptable and possible and directly shapes our lives and world often without our even being aware of it.” He's in alignment with my friend, David Korten on the seminal power of story in his belief that when you change the story field of a culture, you change what is real, acceptable, and possible.

I.E., Changed the Story / Change the World

Question 5: What is empathy, and what does it have to do with art-making?

Okay. So We all know that people show emotion through their facial expressions. When this occurs, a brain-function called facial muscle mirroring allows us to recognize and empathize with the feelings of others. Interestingly, those with the micro muscle paralysis caused by Botox injections are less able to identify emotions accurately.

With this in mind we can think of theater as an empathy exercise machine. An important aspect of acting is the ability to physically project a character’s emotional state. Watching others in pain, in a real or theatrical situations stimulates the parts of the brain that reflect the emotional impact of the pain or pleasure response associated with a given situation.” This amazing capacity is called empathy.”4

Here's how David Eagleman. In his book, the brain, the story of you describes empathy. I Quote

To empathize with another person is to literally feel their pain. When this is happening, your brain is running a simulation of what it would be like if you were in that situation. Our capacity for this is why stories, like plays, movies, and novels are so absorbing and so pervasive across human culture. Whether the story is about people you know, total strangers, or made up characters, you experience their agony and their ecstasy. You fluidly become them, live their lives, and stand in their vantage points. When you see another person suffer you can try to tell yourself that it’s their issue, not yours, but neurons deep in your brain can't tell the difference.”5

Unquote.

But the capacity for empathy has not evolved simply to facilitate human connections. At its core, empathy has evolved as a necessary, social survival strategy for humans. The ability to tap into the feelings and motivations of other humans helps us predict what other humans might do next. It helps us discern in a given moment whether that person is friend or foe, most importantly whether they pose a threat. This capacity has played an essential role in our ability to navigate the complex social landscape that is unique to our species.

Part Three: Everyone Is a maker.

Well, As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explains it, “flow” is a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. The experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even a great cost for the sheer sake of doing it.

Another way of putting it is that When we are well-practiced, we enter a state that some call "flow." Flow is another term for a neural state called hypofrontality, during which parts of the prefrontal cortex momentarily become less active. This focuses consciousness on what is happening in the flow state and dampens the part of the brain that attends to abstraction and planning. Many artists know how to call up a flow state as an essential part of their creative practice.

But, despite what we think when that creative lightbulb flashes and “new” ideas or concepts manifest in our mind's eye, these notions are often not as fresh or spontaneous as we imagine. These insights are a product of the brain’s continuous working and reworking of possible next steps and new combinations in the background. The job of this organ (the brain) is to gather information about the world and steer your behavior appropriately. It doesn’t matter if your conscious awareness is involved or not, and most of the time it is not. Most of the time you are not aware of the decisions being made on your behalf. And most of the time, you're not aware of the decisions being made on your behalf by your brain

Question 7: What is pattern recognition, and what does it have to do with the stories we tell?

Okay. Humans love patterns. Our brains are particularly good at recognizing patterns that are important to our survival. Threat patterns, food-related patterns, patterns that communicate safety, nurturing, opportunities for procreation, kinship, empathy, and social bonding. Paying attention to these patterns is so very important that our endocrine system has evolved a strong set of rewards and reinforcements to focus our attention on them to the exclusion of other potential distractions. These reinforcements are a potent mix of neurochemicals with names like oxytocin, dopamine, adrenalin, norepinephrine, and serotonin.

Great art, compelling art, art that moves us succeeds because it concentrates and plays with the world’s profusion of intersecting patterns. Art that is intriguing, entertaining, and captivating, art that teaches and transforms is art that reveals multiple layers of interrelated patterns in meaningful ways. The best theater, the most successful plays involve intricate, yet indelible patterns of character, plot, intention, and outcome, that touch us in ways are both familiar and surprising.

As this is happening, some aspect of an ever-present set of existential human questions inevitably gets nudged. (who am I, who are we, where do we come from, where are we going) And when this happens, when the work touches us in this way our endocrine drugstore also kicks into high gear, reinforcing our sense of fear, or exhilaration, or connection. When these kinds of experiences become more common, more focused or intentional, when they start to inhabit us, when the stories you tell become infectious, like the stories of Rosa Parks, or David, and Goliath, they have the potential to modify our neural circuitry over time. Like I said, you are in the mind changing business.

Question 8: How are empathy. Imitation. And improvisation connected?

Infants "spend two-thirds of their waking life looking at their own hands in action.” This touching/movement learning experience not only sets the wiring for our own bodily understanding it also provides the neural mirror for recognizing and understanding the same movement in others. In essence, our bodies help us comprehend other bodies.

Most kinds of improvisation, especially social group improvisations employ these unconscious associational communications. Performing artists rely heavily on the body-mind loops (somatic-cognitive loops) we are talking about here. If we're in a musical improvisation together or a collective building project, or a hunt, my simulation system reads your body automatically and unconsciously and helps me see, hear, and feel, where you're going. In real time, my behavior adapts to your behavior and vice versa, and this helps us corner the animal, build the crescendo of a chorus, or whatever. Thinking with the body is intuitive, associational, collective problem-solving.

Part Four: The story of us

Well, humans are not stealthy. We are not keen-eyed. We don't blend in very well, and we most definitely aren't very fast. But we do know how to plan and work together. Some think that our big brain and opposable thumbs gave us our evolutionary leg up. But we would have been a footnote in biological history if we had not evolved the power of cooperation. Actually, there would be no footnotes or what we call history if our brains had not evolved to support and reward our ability to collaborate.

The field of Social Neuroscience studies the brain’s relationship to human cooperation and connection as an evolved human survival trait. This is important because most of what we know and can do comes from others. Among social neuroscientists, there is a growing appreciation that art-making and the development of language emerged in humans as a principal means of provoking this essential cooperation. They are speculating that what artists do in the world, on stages, in studios, in the streets, around the proverbial ritual fire has, in essence, provided the heartbeat for the evolution and growth of the human community.

Question 10: It seems obvious humans are wired to connect, but why?

Well, kinship connections, familial bonding, and tribal community bonding are all evolved behaviors called use sociology that stimulate and reinforce the cooperation necessary for humans to survive and work together.

Human isolation, being left out socially, causes the brains pain matrix to activate. This is a naturally occurring adverse stimulation that reinforces social bonding.

Question 11: Okay, If human cooperation and connection are so important Why do we struggle so much with difference?

Well, around the age of eighteen months, children begin to perceive themselves as separate and apart from the other humans around them, particularly their mothers. This is an essential aspect of the emergence of a consciousness of self and identity. Toddlers’ ability to think about themselves from the perspective of a second person also marks the start of their acquisition of what’s called self- concept– stable thoughts and feelings about the self.

Between their first and second birthdays, children will be able to produce simple self-descriptions and evaluations such as “I am a good girl," which will become more complex over time. 6By the time a child is around eight-years- old, they will have a relatively stable idea of their own personality traits and dispositions, and whether they feel like a valuable and competent person.7

Bottom line. Repeatedly casting groups of people in a negative light as “the other” can effectively train our brains to respond to them as if they were things, not people, literally objectifying them.

It is ironic that the exponential expansion of choice and diversity of data sources seems, in some cases, to have produced the same kind of propaganda bubbles that have functioned as principal social control strategy of authoritarian rulers. In the extreme, this opens the door to the kinds of “unthinkable” behaviors that manifested in Nazi Germany, Nanking, Ruanda, and Bosnia. David Eagleman describes the how these neural information feedback loops can become dangerously jammed.

On the flip side, when we provide visceral experiences that allow people to experience things from the perspective of others, like breaking ice, we can increase our capacity for empathy.

Part Five: Creating.

Question 12: What is curiosity?

When we are young a lot of our play is physical testing and problem-solving. As we get older, it migrates more and more into the realm of thinking and the imagination.

It’s interesting that the word KABUKI comes from an obsolete Japanese verb that means to be playful or to lose one’s balance. An essential aspect of our playing is practice for when we really lose our balance, for when we are truly lost, or confused, particularly when we need to figure things out together to survive. Another way of saying this is that our curiosity is driven by the need for clarity in a mysterious world. So, when things seem out of whack --we crave clarity. To get clarity, we trigger the persistent probing questioning strategy that we have been practicing all along. The great thing is that questions always beget more questions which, in turn, feeds the exquisite cycle of imagination and learning and invention beyond the realm of mere survival.

Interestingly when this cycle stops or is disrupted, we go into the odd state, we call boredom. Evolutionary psychologists have concluded that “boredom” is actually an emotion that evolved specifically to reactivate curiosity when it wanes. This is because being curious is critical to human survival.

Question 13:. So why is play so important to human development?

In his book, The History of Imagination, Steven Asma 9describes how extensive play during our extended childhood gives humans a safe space for the development and growth of emotional intelligence. For pre-linguistic humans, this is where imitation, exploration and experiential learning proliferated. Both physical and social skill development are intrinsic to group child play. This is also where pretending, role-playing, and imaginative play can be explored with minimal jeopardy

Pre-sapiens (500,000 years ago—Middle Pleistocene) were collaborators in their hunting and probably used a gestural mimic intensive communication system to facilitate that. Movement and imitation are foundations of what we call theater which Asma sees as a primary vehicle for conceptualizing future actions and outcomes as well as the sharing (and learning) of information and ideas. Asma calls this “embodied imaginative work.” “

Many evolutionary psychologists see this period as where our predecessors begin to conceptualize the separate and distinct consciousness of their fellows." This “theory of mind” capacity to differentiate me from you, or us from them, which develops in human children around the age of two, signals the emergence of the “other.” When it became ritualized, Asma also believes that this imitation behavior also marks the origin of ceremonial dance as a stimulus for group identity and cohesion.

Question 14: How does fear impact the stories we create to make sense of our rapidly changing world?

Fear’s central role in the survival game is probably why it packs such an incredible punch. Of all the brain/body entanglements I've talked about here, the dynamics of the fear response are by far the most potent and complex. Here's a short description of what happens when it gets triggered from Kristin Domonell at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Fear evolved in humans to protect us when you're scared, your brain sets off an elaborate and coordinated response, even if there's no threats. These physical changes from deep inside your brain all the way to the muscles in your legs happen in seconds. [00:39:00] That's because of your sympathetic nervous system or your fight or flight response.

It's part of your autonomic nervous system, which manages reflexes like breathing, digestion, and your heartbeat. Fear kicks your fight or flight response into overdrive. Your adrenal glands secrete adrenaline. Blood flow decreases to your brain's frontal lobe, which is responsible for logical thinking and planning.

Your amygdala, a more animalistic part of your brain takes over your heart rate and blood pressure increase. You breathe faster and your muscles tense up. Your pupils dilate so you can see the threat more clearly. Blood flows away from your extremities, making your hands cold and clammy and making you feel flushed and sweaty. Your digestion slows down.

Now, back in the days when poisonous snakes and hungry lions slithered in Rome, that kind of trigger was likely an everyday experience, and surely helped keep our early ancestors from harm's way. These days though, that same response is much more likely to manifest in the jungle of our imaginations than in the untamed wilderness. And, as I said at the top of this missive, increasingly powerful digital tools and strategies. [00:41:00] are being used to elicit those triggers to influence what we think and how we behave.

Unfortunately. One of the dominant narratives being pushed here is the looming threat by a fictional beast known as the ‘other.’ Confronted by this menace, the brain is just doing its job by not only switching on flight or fight, but also switching off whatever critical thinking capacities were there before the story of this illusory beast showed up in the mind's eye. We all know how humans fared when the threats they faced were real. But the jury is still out with the challenges posed by the new world of fake news, conspiracy theories and AI fabrication.

At this point. The picture is not pretty. And, actually, it's a bit scary.

Well, this of course is a threshold question. Here's what makes the most sense to me at this point? Evolution is essentially a creative process. It's a recurring cycle that provides for the accumulation of successful novelty, which after many, many iterations of random trial and error produces a more efficient wing, a longer neck, or a bigger brain.

But these kinds of generate, test, regenerate cycles aren't just evolutionary. We see the same repeated patterns as people grow physically, and learn and mature over their lifetimes - layer upon layer upon layer. If we look hard, we see it again, deeply embodied in our own human systems from the third trimester on our brain synaptic network begins a lifelong adaptive wiring and rewiring project in response to the demands of a continually changing world.

Now, these kinds of repeating patterns should be very familiar to artists. Generate, test, modify, adopt, adapt, regenerate, repeat — that's pretty much what artists do over and over spurred on by curiosity, and imagination. In fact, in his great book, On the Origin of Stories, Brian Boyd also characterizes the generate, test, regenerate, sequence represented in human art-making as, a Darwin Machine. He goes further to assert that this art-making Darwin machine that we all have is designed in part to support the evolution of human [00:44:00] creativity.

But wait, didn't art, innate human creativity give birth to art. Well, maybe not. Boyd and many others find evidence that starting as far back as 60,000 years ago, the creativity we use every day to solve problems, make art, and share stories emerged as a primary driver of the neural development that drove the growth of our big brain.

So that's what I passed on to the Breaking Ice folks. If anything, I think it reinforced much of what they've learned from their experience, making art in service, to changing the stories, and beliefs, and behaviors of the communities they've worked with over the past 30 years.

As I said at the top, this is my take as a lay person, exploring a very complicated and fast changing brain science landscape. If you're interested in digging deeper into these findings and ideas I encourage you to check out our show notes. Which includes a bibliography of the sources I consulted during my research.

And if you haven't yet listened to our two part series on the history and work of Breaking Ice please check out our two previous episodes, number 73, and 74 on the show's website and in our show notes.