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BRAIN-MIND MAGAZINE, VOL. 2, NO. 1, WINTER 2013
Turn Slogans into “Science”?
D. W. Mabaho
Abstract—Juyang Weng’s two letters to Obama amount to a
lack and misuse of neuroscience knowledge, impoverishment and
confusion in logic, as well as tailoring and misreading of historical
facts. It is an example of ideological slogans disguised under the
term “science”.
Index Terms—brain-mind, checks of government power, history
J
YANG Weng wrote two letters to Mr. Barack Obama [2],
[1], referred to as Letter 1, Letter 2, and collectively the
Letters below. The reader has reason to examine: What are the
latest results of the brain-mind science that were used as the
basis for reasoning? How did he derive US foreign policies
from the brain-mind sciences? How did the facts support his
conclusions?
I. L ACK AND M ISUSE OF B RAIN -M IND K NOWLEDGE
The latest results of brain-mind and related fields cited by
the Letters fall into the following four major categories:
1a: The brain blinded us: We feel good only when we
experience events that we have experienced earlier. Human
behaviors depend on experience.
If we understand the above as the metaphor for “all minds
are not only groupish in nature, but also partially blind because
of a lack of experience and knowledge,” namely, humans often
have illusions, misunderstandings, and are not fully aware and
fully capable, then I certainly agree. Everybody knows that
humans have limitations and are not God. Therefore, this did
not say anything.
However, if we judge according to the surface meaning of
the words, then I do not agree. We are the products of our
brains. Without the brain, we do not have existence. If what
we feel and what we think are all blind as they all through
the brain, then the conclusion “the brain blinded us” itself is
a product of the blind brain. A (the bold letters in this article
correspond to the remarks in Weng’s rebuttal paper next.)
1b: Human behaviors are meant to primarily seek interest
and avoid harm. Then, there is entertainment and exploration.
Threats hinder rational thinking.
If we interpret the above as a human reacts based on instinct
when his individual survival is under threat, then I agree.
When one is drowning, he does not rationally think whether
he should try to surface or swim to the bank.
Unfortunately, this agreement does not give us knowledge
and enlightenment. If we judge according to the surface
meaning of the words, namely there is no way to think
rationally under a threat (even if probably not urgent), then
I do not agree. If “threat hinders rational thinking” can hold
true, then it is hard to imagine that under the threat of al-Qaeda
The original of this article was in Chinese, translated into English by Juyang
Weng and commented by Weng in the following article in the same issue.
the US President and his advisors instinctively choose to flee
or drop an atomic bomb and no longer analyze who they are,
where they are, and what they will do, so as to design counter
measures. The statement that serotonin blinds the brain only
indicates that the author does not understand the effects and
mechanisms of serotonin. B
1c: The properties of the brain’s self-organization: “no cell
is more powerful,” “no absolute rights or wrongs,” “no fixed
ideal,” and “no government cells.”
What is the power of a cell? What is the “brain selforganization’s right or wrong,” “brain self-organization’s
ideal,” and “government cell”? Outside the window there is
a tree. Under the tree, there is a dog. All the leaves have
similar power. No absolute right or wrong, no fixed ideal, and
no management of leaves. C
Alternatively, assuming that the brain in 1c is a dog’s brain.
Can the same discussion in 1c be drawn from the latest
research results of brain-mind and be used as the basis of
reasoning in the Letters? D
Apparently, the author deliberately made up those confusing
concepts for the political statements in the later two columns
in Table I. E
1d: The mechanisms of a brain are partially innate and
are partially acquired through experience. We are selfish and
groupish.
This is correct, but unfortunately this is also well-known.
The elevation of common sense to the status of latest brainmind research results does not make the arguments more
convincing.
The author promised this: “exhibits a computational framework that is surprisingly powerful in explaining the causality
of brain behaviors and international events.” However, we
have not seen the framework nor its power, only the latest
results that are claimed to be correct but are actually false,
confusing concepts and some well-known statements, as well
as surprising brags. F
II. F ROM B RAIN -M IND S CIENCE TO F OREIGN P OLICIES
2a: Threats caused the brains to be “blinded by serotonin”
and so wars result.
Letter 1 apparently confused two different threats: a human
individual (or animal) facing urgent survival threats versus
a group facing long-term or permanent survival threats. Regardless of whether the selection mechanisms for fleeing or
fighting are correct or not, we cannot regard that human groups
use the same mechanisms while they are facing economical
or military threats. Furthermore, we cannot regard that the
choice by the group is due to serotonin. This is because
between brains and wars, there is at least there is a link called
“group intelligence.” However, the author did not say anything
BRAIN-MIND MAGAZINE, VOL. 2, NO. 1, WINTER 2013
about how the brains (and serotonin) affect or construct group
intelligence. How does the group intelligence adopt the choice
of war? He “scientifically” talked that a dog bites a cat because
serotonin blinded the brain. Therefore, the US invading Iraq
is also because that serotonin blinded brains. In addition, for
a dog biting a cat, the one being threatened and brain-blinded
by serotonin is the cat instead of the dog. Attributing the war
to the cat instead of the dog is a typical logic of robbers. G
The conclusion of this reasoning is “the best way to convert
an enemy is to make friends with him.” If this was indeed
true, then there would not have been World War II: The
appeasement policy of Minister Neville Chamberlain aimed at
making friends with Nazi Germany. Consequently, the policy
was not the most effective but was totally useless; If the
author’s conclusion was valid, then the US should abandon
fighting against terrorists and should not hunt down Ban Laden
— it should make friends with them, but most people would
not agree. H
2.b: According to the properties of brain self-organization,
we should check government’s power, let markets regulate,
and reduce government’s interference.
For Table 1 in Letter 2, the author compared the constitutions of US and China with the properties of brain selforganization. He reached the conclusion that the US Constitution is more like brain than the Chinese Constitution and,
thus, better. The US Constitution is indeed good, but why
is it that the more like a brain the better a constitution?
The author did not say even a word about that. Suppose
that the man is the highest in evolution and therefore the
self-organization of human brain is the most advanced and
so governments should imitate it. However, the listed four
principles of self-organization do not have anything unique to
the man: All biological brains have such properties. As soon
as the author finished “brains blinded us” he taught us that our
constitution should be like a brain. If human society indeed
should have those four properties, then there should have been
no constitutions and governments at all. I
The logic confusion is still continuing. “Deregulation and
allowing markets to self-regulate are consistent with our new
knowledge about how the brain self-organizes — any government rigid intervention is always not optimal.” During the
periods of ancient Greek, Roman, and the (Chinese) planned
economy, the governments had to allow market to self-regulate
to some degree. Does that mean that they were all consistent
with the brain self-organization? Economic reality gave birth
to different economic theories and solution methods such as
liberalism and Keynesianism. Politicians often use reduce or
increase interference to cope with different problems, proving
that it is not true that the less interference the better. The
common sense of economics told us that it is inevitable
for a government to interfere when the market malfunctions.
Even the most extreme liberal economist will not think that
a government should deregulate toward “no cell is more
powerful” and “no government cells,” to be consistent with
the brain. J
2c: If we have knowledge and information exchange, then
there will be development without wars and international and
domestic problems are easier to resolve.
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While science advances in modern history, almost nobody
does not worship knowledge. However, at the same time,
awareness about the limits of knowledge and science is also
becoming common sense. In the past, over simplified treatments of complex problems faced a dilemma: To Weng, this
is no evil human; there is only a lack of knowledge. It seems
that Adolf Hitler together with the members of Nazi Party and
Osama bin Laden together with his followers were as innocent
and lovely as infants, as they do not have any evil only a lack
of knowledge. K
The letter author is used to simplification in solving problems. For example, “this was not due to an evil motive inside
the Chinese government, but instead its lack of knowledge,
... Such knowledge or the lack thereof is the root cause for
the difference in the current and future levels of development
between US and China.” According to the author, resources,
talents, traditions are all not a problem. Having “such knowledge” is sufficient. As another instance, “Make true friends
with the governments of China, ... and other nations. ... to
more thoroughly check-and-balance the government power ...
If this fundamental problem is solved, all other problems,
international and domestic, will be easier to resolve naturally.”
If absence of external threat is sufficient to check government
power and then easily solve international and domestic problems, then US (without threats from foreign governments and
checks-and-balances of power have been in place for over two
hundred years) should not have any international and domestic
problems. The author of the Letters proposed his position
according to latest results of brain-mind knowledge but he
was not aware of the oldest results: The recognition of the
complexity of brain-mind and the world. L
III. V ERIFICATION BY FACTS
3a: Richard Nixon’s goodwill Gesture and the results
The President Nixon’s ice-breaking visit to China was
indeed the key initiative for normalization of the China-US
relation. It also generated far-reaching impact on the change
of the China’s later roles in international platforms. If this
visit has some influence on China’s reform and open-door
policies from 1978, then it has absolutely nothing to do with
the disintegration of the former USSR and the Eastern Bloc
and the recent events in the North Afirica. Furthermore, the
statement that the success of East Bloc leap forward “was
not triggered by a military defeat, but instead, a goodwill
gesture from the Western Bloc” is a belief on the mythical
effects of “goodwill gesture”, just like 5000 year old Egyptian
mythology. M
“Only without any threat, as Richard Nixon has shown
through his China visit, can a brain consider possible reforms
in government policies” is a complete fiction. During the years
of recent Chinese reform, the US military presence around the
Chinese continent is only a “goodwill gesture”? The earlier
Chinese reforms in history were consideration of governing
policies typically under threats. N
3b: Compromise (Friendship) and its consequence
The fist example is the 1688 Glorious Revolution and the
Industrial Revolution as a consequence. The basis of an industrial revolution can be attributed to economy, scientific and
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technical advances, as well as ideology and religion. Of course,
it also includes the political system (the Glorious Revolution
as the a basis). It is not that only the constitutional monarchy
can result in the industrial revolution. Besides, with regard to
the establishment of the British modern political system, from
1215 Magna Carta and 1265 parliament, it had lasted at least
hundreds of years by then. Important stages should at least
include the struggle between the royal House of Stuart and
the British parliament, which ended with the failure of the
King. If we say that the Glorious Revolution established the
base of the political system for the Industrial Revolution, we
mean that the Glorious Revolution is an important milestone
event. However, the author deleted from the consequence the
colonial history accompanying the Glorious Revolution and
the later development. O
The second example is the US-Japan Treaty of Amity and
Commerce whose consequence is the Meiji era reform. The
Black ships opened Japan is indeed a start. P After the Treaty
of Kanagawa, in 1958 including the Treaty of Amity and
Commerce and the Ansei Five-Power Treaties are then the sign
of the collapse of seclusion policies. Q Indeed it is due to those
treaties that angered the population, causing the Boshin War,
which successfully overthrew the ruling Tokugawa Shogunate.
Therefore, the great powers (US was taking the lead) broke
open the Japanese door — not any upfront compromise —
and became the external cause of Meiji reform, the collapse
of Tokugawa Shogunate and Meiji era. Contrary to Letter
author’s worshiped route, it is the collapsed the decentralized
Tokugawa Shogunate and return of the centralized imperial
power. This process is not peaceful either. Especially, why did
you not select the later Russo-Japanese War with Russia, the
first Sino-Japanese War with China, and the invasion by the
Japanese militarism in WWW II as the consequences? From
Black ships opened Japan to Meiji reform, and WWW II, what
this example of compromise has proven is contrary to “more
robust and faster regional and global development.” R
The 3rd example is the China’s open-door and reform in
1976. The outcome is GDP growth. The sustained and highspeed GDP growth is no doubt an important outcome of the
open-door and reform in China. However, now even among the
low-intelligence group among the government there have been
many people who understand that GDP speed is not the whole
story. If the GDP is a major metric of a success or not, then the
author has a dilemma: If one agrees with open-door and reform
because of the GDP growth speed, then this is the bankruptcy
of the theory of checks-and-balance of power. If we can see the
income polarization and wide-spread corruption, this example
does not help. It looks that the choice of the author was: only
see what he needs. S
The 4th example was the disintegration of USSR and its
outcome was the GDP growth. In terms of GDP growth only,
the Chinese GDP growth rate from 1950 to 1978 was not lower
than of Russia. We can see that the author’s criterion that treats
the disintegration as a successful example of compromise and
success does not hold. Suppose that we add other criteria such
as income polarization, the reduction rate of illiteracy and
poverty, the speed of development in science and technology,
etc.. Then it is ridiculous to pick the China in 1949-1978 as an
BRAIN-MIND MAGAZINE, VOL. 2, NO. 1, WINTER 2013
inferior example and the Russia after USSR integration as a
successful example. Compare again the reforms in China and
Russia. According to author’s criterion of checks-and-balances
of government power, then Russia is better than the single
leading party system in China. Then, I do not know how you
explain that the GDP growth speeds of the two countries are
so different. T
3c: Bloody wars and the consequences
The first example is the French Revolution whose consequence is the Napoleonic Wars and its defeat. There have been
many supporters of the French Revolution, praisers focused
on the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,
which propagated the thoughts of liberty and democracy; its
abolishment of the French Feudalism and shock the Feudalism
over the entire Europe, and promoted the development of
capitalistic economy in Europe and the entire world. The criticizers denounced its un-controlled democracy and emphasis
on extreme equality. The revolution not only failed to provide
for us an idealist model for realizing political democratization
but also the long-term negative effects of the construction of
rationalism. Yet, it is rare to include the Napoleonic Wars and
its defeat as the negative consequence. The Napoleonic Code
made history. Napoleon Bonaparte’s promotion of capitalism
in Europe was also well recognized by public. U
The second instance is the Chinese Civil War from 1945,
whose consequence is the period of isolation and the Cultural
Revolution. I do not know why the author did not use GDP
numbers as criteria. Of course, he could not see the almost
doubling of average life expectancy and drastic reduction of
illiteracy. Opinions differ as to whether the period of isolation
is a disaster, but the Cultural Revolution is doubtlessly a
tragedy. However, since the Chinese Communist Party came to
power in 1945, why is the consequence does not span the entire
period of over 60 years? Is it the magic of Richard Nixon that
transfer this Communist Party to another Communist Party,
or the author once again altered the history according his
needs? When discussing bloody wars and their consequences,
the author listed the French Revolution but even forgot the
well-known American War of Independence. What about the
consequences of the American War of Independence and the
American Civil War? If he faced those two wars, I am afraid
that he would have had incremented multiple “scientific”
fallacies. V
3d: Financial Crises
The Wall Street greed described by the author was so innocent. “ ... opened up its 1.4B population, a huge inexpensive
labor market ... , to the total of only 1B population in the
highly developed nations. ... many US jobs have moved to
the emerging market. While more US home owners lost their
jobs and could not pay their mortgages, the subprime crises
arrived in 2008.” Originally, the culprit was China. It was those
cheap migratory workers and farmers who caused the worldwide financial crisis! It looks like that all economists in the
world would have to lose their jobs and got hematemesis, if
the president Obama believes this statement because of his
lack of economical common sense. W
What is more ridiculous is: “to friendly exchange information with Chinese government about how to raise the
BRAIN-MIND MAGAZINE, VOL. 2, NO. 1, WINTER 2013
average income of 1.4B Chinese population... Only when US
government is a true friend in the eyes of Chinese can the
Chinese government quickly understand why ending government rigid control alone is not only safe but also sufficient
to make China prosper faster.” Everybody knows that the
current average income of Chinese mainly was not determined
by the government. The Chinese government perhaps could
make rigid decision to raise the average income, but the
author immediately request the Chinese government to “ending
government rigid control ”. Therefore, to control is wrong,
and not to control is also wrong. Regardless, as long as the
US government is a true friend of Chinese government, every
problem is resolved. X
IV. W HAT M ULTI -D ISCIPLINE B ROUGHT TO US
As an outsider of neuroscience, neural biology, cognitive
science, philosophy, politics, economics, and international
relations, the author of the Letters can provide “a perspective
that goes beyond a traditional expert” for such objects. This
is his rights, and an attractive thought. However, his theory
mismatches the common senses of those sciences and even
totally opposite to them. He could not provide the corresponding logical reasons either. Thus, the result of the multi-angle
perspective is not rational cognition from more comprehensive
and richer field of view. Instead, the result is the incoherent
talk and misread and misuse of historical facts caused by confusion and illusion. The author indeed exceeded his promise
to: “provide a perspective that goes beyond a traditional expert
in economics or international relations”, because not only an
expert in economy or international relation, but also any one in
neuroscience, neural biology, cognitive science, philosophy, or
politics, probably does not have the courage to put forth such
perspectives full of confusion and fallacies.
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As a person who lived in China and US, and has visited
China often, it is indeed possible to step back from the
viewpoint of a typical American to gain a wider field of
view, to examine some major problems facing US and other
countries. Likewise, living in US since 1983 and working in
the field of intelligence science hopefully provides me a field
of view wider than many Chinese. Nevertheless, this is only
a possibility or hope, not a guarantee. Another possibility is:
He does not understand US nor China, even simply absorbed
the worst parts in Western culture and Eastern culture. From
the Letters as example, we have seen, unfortunately, the latter
possibility has become a reality. Y
In fact, what the author wanted to say is very simple:
The US Constitution and the checks-and-balances of its government power are superior, but those of other courtiers,
especially China’s, are inferior. The amity of US toward other
government can teach other governments so as to guarantee
US interests. As to neuroscience etc. it is nothing beyond
something apparently right but actually wrong. The remainder
is all disguise of several true statements under academy or
even science. Yet, his absolute loyalty to US interests is indeed
beyond doubt. Z
R EFERENCES
[1] J. Weng. The 2nd open letter to the US president Obama: Why US should
be friendly with every government? Brain-Mind Magazine, 1(2):13–15,
2012.
[2] J. Weng. Open letter to the US president Obama: Is the US foreign policy
scientifically shortsighted? Brain-Mind Magazine, 1(1):3–4, 2012.