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Autonomic Action

ants organic action machines

The next step after the emergence of the cell is autonomic action. Single-celled organisms are active, after a fashion. Ants are living action machines, with no brains to process feeling as we understand it. Our autonomic actions, such as breathing and heartbeat, predicate what follows.

Life invites us to act. Most of us work or go to school, have responsibilities and spend much of our time serving others. Even those who live a meditative life must practice their teachings, not to mention eat and do those things necessary to survival. Our actions are the means by which we give back some measure of good and experience it for ourselves. However, before we get to ethical action, we need some building blocks.

The three domains of ethical Being correspond roughly to three regions of the brain. The brainstem, which develops first, is the primary but not exclusive seat of autonomic action, such as breathing, eye movements, blood pressure, heartbeat and swallowing. Many areas of the brain are activated in anticipation and experiences of pain. In significantly premature neonates, mother’s voice and heartbeat sounds appear to enhance development of the auditory cortex in the neonatal brain, strongly suggesting that the brain is building neural connections in the cerebral cortex at that stage of development. The medulla oblongta and pons, in the brainstem, control autonomic breathing but the cerebral cortex can exercise control over voluntary breathing. Consciously directed breathing control techniques can produce desirable changes in parasympathetic nervous system activity (autonomic) and the central nervous system, and improve emotional control and psychological well-being. We can exercise control over our eye movements. Autonomic swallowing is controlled from within the medulla oblongata but we can choose when and whether to swallow. After a few months outside the womb, a child may be able to bring food to his mouth but not yet handle a fork or a pair of chopsticks with any efficiency. These skills develop gradually, and what starts in the brainstem does not remain confined to the brainstem.

Autonomic action and purposeful action are profoundly different from each other. Doing advanced mathematics, making music, taking political action, mating behaviors and many other human activities are substantially processed well above the brainstem.

The difference between autonomic functions and purposeful actions can be analogized but not perfectly compared to the different approaches to life that we take in early childhood, versus the approaches we take in adulthood. In infancy, the midbrain brain and cerebral cortex have not yet developed sufficiently to produce or recognize an emotion like those associated with loyalty; over time our emotions develop and become more complex. In the first two years after birth, the brain develops quickly. Still, in infancy and childhood, most humans are not yet capable of performing advanced calculus; by adulthood and with the development of the cerebral cortex, that capability may be present. A newborn infant can be seen largely as a creature of the brain stem, acting with some emotion and little thought. Throughout childhood, learning progresses and that order shifts, so that by adulthood, the dominant model is to think first, process our emotions, then act. By adulthood, our actions are informed more fully by the parts of the brain that process thoughts and emotions, as well as by those that allow us to act purposefully. 

Autonomic actions are neither ethical nor unethical. Very young children are not held to be responsible for their actions. Purposeful actions have an ethical quality but before we get to those, we are well-advised to consider their foundations in the brain. Early child development theory recognizes that children learn by acting, and so do we adults; yet many of our actions, both as children and as adults, are informed by our thoughts, sensations and emotions, rationally and reflectively considered.

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Long before human beings evolved, other organisms were busy. Early in the evolutionary history of animals, organisms were essentially all action. Ants, for example, have no brains as such, mainly a smaller organ, which biologists call the mushroom body. These tiny mushroom bodies house no emotional center and no thought processes as we know them. To say the least, we have no reason to suppose that ants are self-aware. Ants are almost purely organic action machines.

Perhaps the single greatest work on this fascinating species is Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson, The Ants (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1990). This massive work won a Pulitzer Prize in 1991. I offer it as part of a human(ist) narrative because it tells a part of the story of our evolutionary history and because it illustrates how these tiny creatures, virtually without thought or emotion, function effectively because they can act.

Despite having one of the most rudimentary information processing mechanisms in the animal kingdom, ants are "among the most highly social of all creatures," according to the front flap of the hardcover edition, which goes on to say: "The study of ants has produced many basic insights into the origins of altruistic behavior, the use of chemicals (pheromones) in communication, the functioning of caste systems and division of labor, and other important phenomena of social organization."

The point is that seemingly complex behaviors can be products of little more than a few chemicals and a precursor to a brain. The authors also explain how ants comprise the database that allows myrmecologists (biologists who study ants) to study "biological organization." On page 3 of their hardcover edition, they write: "Although it is virtually impossible to dissect a higher organism into its constituent parts for study and then put it back together again, alive and whole, this can easily be done with an insect colony." The authors go on to explain how dividing ant colonies can replicate the process of mutation, allowing scientists from entomologists to human psychologists to gain additional insights into the means and background of social organization and other behaviors. While caution is in order regarding any comparison between ants and humans, a study of the story of ants does provide valuable information for understanding animal behaviors such as social organization and the evolutionary process that makes it all possible.

This magnum opus is superbly written. Review after review praised it for its accessible narrative style. May this brief and meager introduction induce the reader to peruse this marvelous account of a small part of the story of life on Earth.

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Music: Composers, artists, and major works

“Music can powerfully evoke and modulate emotions and moods, along with changes in heart activity, blood pressure (BP), and breathing.” There are several kinds of autonomic action. This section will focus on six of them, as they are expressed in music, and as music influences our autonomic actions – which is the cart, and which is the horse? 

The rhythm of the beating heart is audible in the second movement (Adagio) of Beethoven’s Symphony 4, and in the second movement (Andante) of Fauré’s first sonata for violin and piano. Zoltán Pongrácz composed a work for electronics, called Mariphonia, in which the sound of a heartbeat is apparent several times. Jazz artists have used the heartbeat as a foundation for their work, as on Pharoah Sanders’ album “With a Heartbeat” (2003) (50’); in keeping with jazz traditions, the musical references are subtler in Whit Dickey’s “In a Heartbeat” (2004) (62’) (listen closely to the bass), and Kerry Politzer, “In a Heartbeat” (2022) (57’) (focus on drums and bass). Some New Agers advocate using a slow heartbeat for meditation, and also Reiki, yoga, healing and spa. Others observe that the sound of a heartbeat tends to soothe babies, who recently were close to their mother’s heartbeat. A failing heartbeat is discernible in the opening bars of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, the fourth and final movement (Adagio lamentoso - Andante) of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony (“Pathetique”), and in Richard Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration (Tod und Verklärung) – listen especially to the bass drum, less than a minute into the work. Listen to the shift from the dominant key of B-flat Major in the fourth movement (Alla danza tedesca – Allegro assai) to C-flat Major in the fifth movement (Cavatina) of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13: musicologist Stephen Whiting surmises that the shift to a darkened mood reflected Beethoven’s heart problems. Whiting’s colleague Zachary D. Goldberger hears the same dynamic in Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 26, though he admits that the sadness in the work may reflect only a metaphorical heavy heart. 

In 1980, Kate Bush made a cheesy video of her song “Breathing”, in which she presented herself as a fetus in the womb as she sang about breathing out and breathing in. If a fetus breathed in, it would intake amniotic fluid, and drown. By analogy, if wind musicians and singers relied on autonomic breathing alone to perform, they could not produce music. They use controlled inhalation and exhalation, and breath control, to play their instruments and sing – most of their breathing is purposeful, not autonomic. Rafael Mendez went so far as to perfect a special breathing technique that allowed him to perform Paganini’s Moto Perpetuo on trumpet, for more than four minutes, without noticeably inhaling – that was an example of purposeful breathing at its finest. Rahsaan Roland Kirk played wind instruments through his nose, quite purposefully. Sometimes, wind musicians make breath sounds part of the music; that, too, is purposeful. Musicians and composers cannot treat breath in the same ways as they treat heartbeat. Attempts at making quasi-music videos for sleep that involve breathing are not as effective as similar videos in which the main sound is the heartbeat. However, Hans Zimmer used breath sounds on his soundtrack to the film “Interstellar”. It can be done but it is not as commonly composed or performed as is music about the heartbeat: breathing is too integral and central to music-making to allow that. 

Making music about brain waves would be challenging, because no one hears them. Buttressed with scholarly research and support, New Age advocates make music that they claim produces alpha waves, such as by releasing Serotonin, which stimulate the brain and aid in its development. Mozart’s music has been shown to influence brain activity (in large part, perhaps, because researchers focused their attention on his music), as have Indian classical ragas. Neurologist Oliver Sacks recounted how he listened to Bach’s Mass in B Minor, and to Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, while undergoing a real-time MRI study of his brain activity – the study confirmed his experience that Bach lit his brain up like a holiday tree, which Beethoven left it quiet. Composers can write music that stimulates the brain – produces feelings ranging from serenity to anger – but music about brain waves is not common.

However, there is some music about creatures whose entire being is essentially a set of brain waves:

I am not aware of any music about autonomic reflexes. Sometimes we can hear a stomach or the intestines rumble or gurgle. Most people do not call that music. Perhaps there is music about digestion. I will admit, I did not spend much time looking for it.

Now, you could say, we arrive at the heart of the matter. There is a vast body of music about sexual arousal. We may seek it out, or seek to create conditions that will produce or stimulate it but arousal itself is an autonomic function. Bawdy blues singer Bo Carter was straightforward about it, Mae West teased about it, Britney Spears sold it, Engelbert Humperdinck mastered it, Michael Jackson was brilliantly casual about it, and Tom Jones overdid it.

Felix Mendelssohn, A Midsummer Night’s Dream , Op. 61, MWV M13 (1826) (approx. 45-56’): Shakespeare had nailed it, and Mendelssohn set it to music. Four young people, two men and two women, venture off into the woods, and fall asleep. The fairy Puck sprinkles dust in their eyes, causing them to be hopelessly infatuated with the first person they see. The Queen receives the same treatment, and becomes enamored of an ass. It is a perfect metaphor for raging hormones. Best recorded performances are conducted by Paray in 1959, Klemperer in 1960, Previn in 1977, Ozawa in 1993, Harnoncourt in 1993, d’Avalos in 1994, Chailly in 2013, Gardiner in 2017, Iván Fischer in 2017.

Benjamin Britten, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 64 (1960) (approx. 124-151’), is Shakespeare’s play as an opera. Audio-only recorded performances are by Harwood, Harper  Veasey (Britten) in 1960; McNair, Asawa & Lloyd (Colin Davis) in 1976; Bowman, Jones, Watson & Herford (Hickox) in 1993; and Piau, Zazzo & Yerolomou (Ono) in 2015.

The sex drive is at the heart of perhaps the majority of operas, especially these three – and it does not end well.

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Music: songs and other short pieces

A blog post presents “16 songs with a heartbeat”. See the post for notes about where the “heartbeat” appears:

This source list twenty songs about breathing. Below and the titles and links to the ones that best present the idea musically. Notice the forward incorporation of a heartbeat in several of the tracks:

A list of popular songs about sex would be too long for this site. Instead, refer to a Spotify list, Oprah’s list, this list, or this list.

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