Judit Kis-Halas: People feel abandoned in a huge, bureaucratic medical care system. Photo by Inga Külmoja.

Judit kindly agreed to share some of her research insights in a podcast interview (listen below), so we headed to the blooming UT Botanical Garden to sit down and talk. The garden buzzed with life, causing us to pause several times and look for quieter spots; in the end we found ourselves far by the riverside. Hopefully all those external sounds of life in our recording aren’t too distracting and you will enjoy hearing the birds singing – quite in line with the animated world concept – and, above all, enjoy Judit’s story and explanations.

Our starting point was a big ‘why’: Why in the contemporary world of advanced, high-tech medicine and science do people still turn to traditional healing and witchcraft?

According to Judit, medicine is deemed insufficient, as patients fail to see through to the process of the medical cure and don’t understand what is going on. As medicine has become so high-tech, scientific, and difficult to comprehend, people don’t feel involved in the healing process. Contemporary magical practices compensate for this, offering active participation and explanations.

Also, healing practices are holistic, aiming to restore the wholeness of one’s body, mind, and spirit. They offer an alternative to people who feel abandoned in a huge, bureaucratic medical care system.

Judit researches contemporary magic through fieldwork and participation; she paid her first research visit to a diviner in her neighboring village in Hungary, presenting herself as a folklorist. ‘Healers took me as a disciple’, she said, explaining that they found such a framework to let them share their practice. However, sometimes the roles switched, and Judit found herself treated as a patient.

In addition to old traditional ways, contemporary healers often apply different energy healing techniques. Again, these are based on holistic principles and belief that everything in the world is animated through some kind of energy; thus, the cure should focus on restoring energy balance. Other New Age techniques include reiki healing, psychotronics, psychic surgery, breathwork, different kinds of massage, laying on of hands, and so on and so forth. The best healers are equipped with a variety of techniques and are able to select the most appropriate method for each individual patient.

How does one become a witch or a healer? Judit says that while they mostly look like everyday people, there are some common ways of entering the world of magic. This can come through disappointment with the Christian worldview or with consumerist society values. In many cases, a crisis in one’s private life initiates a quest for a new path and brings people to magic.

Somewhat paradoxically, in Judit’s view the aim of contemporary magical practices is not a spiritual quest, but one to improve one’s self and gain better quality of life, driven by  rather commercial and individualistic values.

Listen to the podcast interview on magic:

Tuhala Witches’ Well in Estonia starts ‘boiling’ in spring. Image credit: EAS.

While Jolie’s ‘faulty’ gene is very rare, the risks of developing many other, much more common diseases can be evaluated based on personal genetic data. Let’s take diabetes, suggests Professor Andres Metspalu, Director of the University of Tartu’s Estonian Genome Centre. Currently one’s risk of acquiring diabetes is predicted based on a person’s age, sex, weight and blood sugar; however, all of these factors show diabetes risk once one is overweight and has developed an intolerance to glucose, which means pre-diabetic. A genetic test could reveal diabetic risk much earlier, e.g. at 25 years of age.

Whether this risk is realised or not depends largely on one’s weight. By knowing about this risk and keeping body weight under control, a person can postpone the disease by ten years or so. This means a healthier and happier life for the person, but also substantial financial savings for the state.

UT Professor Andres Metspalu: 75 percent of people change their lifestyle when told about personal genetic risks. Photo by Andres Tennus.

4P Medicine

According to Professor Metspalu, modern medicine is a 4P Medicine: It is preventive, personalised, predictive, and participatory. This means that we are responsible for our health.

The research shows that 75 percent of people change their lifestyle when told about personal genetic risks. The only universal advice that doctors can give regards smoking, which is known to reduce life expectancy by 10 years on average – all other health advice is personal.

Given that 75 percent of the Estonian population approves of genetic research (which can be a problem in many other countries), this is a unique opportunity to improve our national health.

Estonian Genome Chip

Metspalu’s vision for Estonia is nothing less than remarkable. He foresees that in the next seven years, Estonia should build up a database to accumulate genome and health data for the Estonian population. With the database in use, its data volume and value would grow over time. Details of a patient’s treatment might be of great help when deciding on the best cure for her relatives with a similar disease in the future. Also, drug prescription would rely on genetic information rather than trial and error as it mostly works now – different individuals require different drugs and doses.

In the first two years, an Estonian genome chip should be developed. The European genome chips currently available take Western Europeans  into account and do not include all gene variations that Estonians may have. Computations show that the genes of ca. 5,000 people have to be sequenced in order to discover most gene variations. So far, 100 genomes have been sequenced in Estonia.

The next step is validation of the Estonian genome chip. This is very important for automatic analysis of personal gene cards in the future.

In 2014 a national health inventory should be carried out in Estonia. First the genes of persons aged 35–65 should be sequenced. This comprises 450,000 people and should take about three years. The technology and know-how to do this work are in place – in addition to an existing robot and scanner, three or four additional machines have to be bought.

On the patient’s side, the procedure couldn’t be simpler. During one doctor visit in a period of three years, a patient would give a blood sample (which he or she might need to do for other purposes anyway). The sample is then sent to the lab where the personal gene data is extracted and added to the E-health database, accessible to the family doctor for future use.

How good is genetic research?

The Estonian Genome Centre has researched Estonian gene data for three years now. As a result, approximately one hundred scientific articles have been published. Andres Metspalu confirms that ‘the spine is in place’, and researchers are able to predict health risks based on genetic data – not all risks equally yet, but this is improving fast.

He compares the ‘gene hunt’ with fishing: ‘Today, our gene-catching net has big loops and is able to catch bigger fish only. However, it gets tighter every month and soon every sprat will be caught’.

What is the cost?

According to Metspalu, development of an Estonian genome chip is a one-time cost and could be covered by EU structural funds. The annual cost of genome sequencing for additional population after the national health inventory would cost ca. 1.5 million euros and should be covered by the Estonian Health Insurance Fund. If we also include training costs for doctors, then the overall cost of the whole programme until 2020 will be ca. 60 million euros. In comparison, the planned annual budget for health services in Estonia is currently 900 million euros.

The programme is an investment that will save both lives and the state’s significant funds. Still, Metspalu emphasises that although money tends to be the one and only measure for everything, we can’t underestimate the positive impact on society when the emotional and physical burden caused by diseases is diminished.

Why Estonia?

When asked about countries that could set a path for Estonia to follow, Professor Metspalu is determined: Estonia should set an example for Europe. He reasons that in speaking of Finland, the system would be more difficult to implement because medical faculties are spread across the country and it would be very hard to achieve a consensus. The USA is too big for this – all developments are implemented locally. A hospital in New York employs almost as many doctors as all of Estonia.

Thus, Estonia could become a good model and set an example of a functioning personalised medical system in Europe: ‘We have a good starting position and all prerequisites: E-health, digital prescriptions, ID cards, other IT solutions, a biobank, know-how, equipment and a positively inclined population. Also importantly, we have a plan and laws that allow us to implement the plan. All we need now is goodwill and government decision’.

This article is based on Sigrid Sõerunurk‘s interview with Professor Andres Metspalu, published in the Estonian-language UT magazine.

Writer’s block is most commonly believed to affect professional writers only. The truth is, however, that all writers are prone to writer’s block. Consequently, as studying at university involves a lot of writing, mainly used as a form of knowledge assessment, a lot of students suffer from writer’s block.  Surely you can recognize those moments when you are sitting down behind your computer, a blank page facing you, words do not come, your mind is blank, the assignment keeps running through your mind, and the deadline is approaching fast. You have no idea where to start, what to write, and most of all, whether, if you manage to put something on paper or not, it is going to be correct or not.

In order to cure writer’s block, it is important to understand what causes it. The most common reason why students are struck by writer’s block are: anxiety, which is a result of a lack of writing practice, inability to self-assess the requirements and quality of their writing, poor writing assignment descriptions, and the simple question “Where and how do I start?”. The following guide offers both insights into the writing process as well as useful tips how to cure and avoid writer’s block.

1. Start early

To understand how the cure works, it is important to understand the writing process itself.

As any writer knows, whether they be expert, experienced or novice writers, writing takes time. Yet, too often do I see and hear about student writers who, just before the submission deadline of the paper, pull an all-nighter. The reason for this all-nighter might have been the block, but more likely, the all-nighter resulted from a mixture of procrastination and incorrect writing strategies (perfect ingredients for writer’s block). Another reason is that student writers (and teachers) often view a writing assignment as a product, and not as a process.

According to research in the field of writing studies, the writing process refers to different ways different writers apply different strategies to different writing tasks. In other words, writers (even the greatest of them) apply strategies that guide them to complete their final written product. Writing is, as a result, the same as any skill, it needs to be learned and it needs to be practiced, over and over again, time and time again. Ask any professional writer, or any academic writer for that matter, how many drafts their text have undergone and you’ll discover that the product is a result of endless revisions.

Thus – start early, you’ll have time to write and plenty of time to re-write as many times as necessary. You are going to be less anxious about your work when you are literally not counting the last hours and minutes to the deadline.

2. Freewrite

As writing is a skill that needs to be learned, it is important to find time to practice and start feeling comfortable with putting words on paper. Freewriting is a great way to beat the block. Take a timer, set it to 5 minutes and write down anything that comes to your mind during those 5 minutes. Write about the assignment, write about the things you know, write about the things you don’t know but would like to know. Write about your frustrations with the assignment and the things you like about the assignment. Don’t pay attention to style, spelling, or structure. The purpose of freewriting is to spew. Once the timer ends, you could go back and read through the things you wrote down and you start thinking about tidying up, drafting, organizing and planning your writing.

3. Draft and outline

Drafting your text basically refers to the multiple stages you will go through while developing your writing. This means that you have to start early (see above). Writing does not have to be linear, in other words, you do not need to start at the beginning. Let the text unfold itself and when you draft you can take any part of your text and revise it, check it, delete it, and develop it. Expert writers never write their text linearly, they always go back to different parts of their text to make changes. Another important aspect of drafting is to develop a strategy: outline your text thoughtfully. You should have gathered enough ideas about what to write, you have enough research and evidence to include in your text. The next step is to organize your thoughts and materials and you’ll see that the writing process itself will go much faster and a lot easier.

4. Talk about your writing

As with most problems, one of the best cures is talking about the problem. If you are studying at a college or university, check whether there is a writing centre or writing consultants who can assist you with the writing process.  Who better to talk to than people who understand the problem and can provide solutions. Brainstorming with others usually generate great ideas (or bad ones which you can rework to become good ideas).

Writing is, contrary to common belief, a social activity. You have to remember that you are never writing for yourself, but always to an audience (unless you are keeping a diary). This means that your audience has to be able to understand your rhetorical elements. So what should you do? Ask your roommate, your classmate, your relatives to read your text. More often than not can other readers give valuable suggestions how to improve your writing and provide useful insight into the quality of your text.

Remember that those people you are sharing your writing with are commenting on your text not as a form of assessment of your writing, but to assist you in the process of revising your writing. This, again, highlights the importance of making writing and the writing tasks a social process.

5. Clarify your writing task

At the beginning, I mentioned that poor writing assignment descriptions can cause writer’s block. The problem with a lot of the writing assignments you receive at university is that they do not always provide you with enough information about writing requirements. Teachers often assume that students at university know how to write, or they believe that students should know how to write. In addition, teachers will assume that you understand the writing assignment. Despite the fact that teachers recognize that some students have problems with writing, they also do not see it their task to teach you how to write.

When you receive an assignment and you are uncertain about the requirements, contact your teacher, and ask your teacher to clarify the assignment: what type of text are you being asked to write, how is the text evaluated, will you receive feedback during the process. Quite often, a discussion with your teacher can lead your writing in the right direction.

Alternatively, if you think contacting your teacher is not an option, start writing a letter to your teacher and start ranting about the topic and express your feelings (see freewriting). What you’re doing is starting a debate about the topic with your teacher and like the freewriting cure indicated earlier, you’ll end up with some ideas how to proceed. Remember to not send this letter to your teacher!

6. Choose your location

Another simple cure for writer’s block is location. The best location for writing is the one that offers the least distraction. Some writers need to have a specific spot, mood, or atmosphere. Writing definitely does not depend on these, but if they create a mood for writing, by all means, find it and maintain it. Location might be important for a person’s mindset but if you are still surrounded by distractions, location will cause the block. Thus, perhaps, more important than location is to shut yourself off. Turn off the Internet and turn off your phone; focus on your writing, and when you are ready to share, turn it all back on.

7. Write, write, write

As writing is not a skill one is born with (some people just like writing more than others and therefore practice writing much more than others), you have to seek out learning opportunities. The tips provided above should help you to solve writer’s block, but as you’ll have new courses next semester, and the following years during your academic pursuit (and beyond), you won’t be able to escape writing tasks. Therefore, use every writing task as an opportunity to learn more about your writing skills. Use the writing process and seek out feedback from others (including your teachers). Most importantly, come and drop by the Centre for Academic Writing and Communication (AVOK). Our peer writing consultants are there for you.

Centre for Academic Writing and Communication

Finally, you may not be aware of it, but the University of Tartu recognizes the importance of academic writing and as a result, has developed a Centre for Academic Writing and Communication (AVOK) which aims to support both students and teachers in the writing process. This type of centre is not unique; most universities in North America and the UK, and a growing number of universities in Europe support a writing centre. You’ll find trained peer writing consultants who are there to support you by offering you the best insight how to proceed with your writing task and how to get past your writer’s block.

In most cases writing consultants will talk to you about your writing assignment, the problems you’re facing with writing, and the types of strategies you can use to organize your writing. In addition, our writing consultants will read through your text and offer advice how to improve your writing. Of all the cures that are offered here, this is the most effective one and is based on our understanding of the writing process. Check our website for more information, drop-in hours, and make an appointment with one of our writing consultants. You can find us at the following address, Jakobi 2-131, or contact us by email: avokeskus@ut.ee.

In the Eurovision press centre in Baku.

At around 06:50 on Wednesday morning I woke my entire house up with a triumphant cheer. It’s not every Australian who would react such a way to the qualification of Estonia to the final of the Eurovision Song Contest, nor for that matter would many Australians be awake at that time watching it live. For most Australians, Eurovision is a quirky, cheesy thing that for one weekend a year shows us just how strange Europe is and reminds us that countries like Moldova and San Marino exist. For me however it is my life, my biggest passion, to a certain extent my job and it is because of Eurovision that I ended up as an exchange student in Estonia.

The first time I saw Eurovision I was a relatively naïve, sheltered 16 year old living in the rural city of Albury-Wodonga in south-eastern Australia. I had never thought about most of the countries who took part in Eurovision that year, and a few I had not even heard of.

From the moment the show began I knew this was something special and one of the three songs I loved most from that evening was the Estonian entry − ‘Eighties Coming Back’ by the Vaiko Eplik fronted band who were then called “Ruffus”. Here was a country that I can only remember ever hearing about once before in my life (A singular mention from my grandmother’s bridge partner, a woman from Latvia) and I was intrigued. This is what Estonian music sounds like? It’s so cool! That flag is really pretty! Where is Estonia anyway?

With Kreisiraadio guys who performed ‘Leto Svet’ at the Eurovision.

The next few years my journey into Eurovision love became deeper and deeper as I researched the history, made contacts, left my hometown and found other likeminded friends and eventually travelled to Serbia to see the 2008 running of the contest where Estonia hit rock bottom with the dismal ‘Leto Svet’. But Leto Svet was needed, because it caused a shakeup which resulted in Estonia’s Eurovision selection show Eurolaul transforming into something much cooler and Eesti Laul was born.

As I saw it, with the creation of Eesti Laul, the focus of the competition had changed. It was no longer about selecting a song for Eurovision. Estonia had gone wrong for years by trying to pick something they thought Europe might like, but now it was more self-centred. It was about picking something Estonia liked, and that was cool. The result was the ethereally and completely enchanting Urban Symphony ballad ‘Rändajad’. It is because of this song that I became obsessed with Estonia. To me, it was the most beautiful language I had ever heard and I wanted to hear more. I started listening to the Estonian songs of the past and one by one I fell in love. Keelatud Maa, Mere Lapsed, Kaelakee Hääl and even the ill-fated Nagu Merelaine, I fell in love with them all.

Now these days I’ve spent enough time in the alleyway outside Zavood at 03:00 to know how ugly Estonian can sound, but to me it still sounds like the absolute perfect language for song. I knew I had to get to Estonia, and when in my first week at University in February 2010 I discovered that we were partnered with University of Tartu, I immediately set to work making my dream a reality. Around the same time I began working as a writer for a Eurovision news website which allowed me to interact, predominately by email but occasionally Skype with those who were taking part in Eurovision. I was in Eurovision fan paradise!

Upon arriving to Estonia I was hit with a sobering realisation. Nobody liked Eurovision as much as I did, Eesti Laul wasn’t considered as cool as I thought it was and most people thought I was entirely strange. In the halls of Raatuse 22 I was famous as “That Australian guy who loves Eurovision”. This didn’t deter me, and my “Eurovision Parties” in which we’d all gather to watch an older edition of Eurovision became a bit hit and I learnt my next lesson: People pretend they don’t like Eurovision, but they all love an excuse to party and watch it anyway.

In my second semester I had the pleasure of reporting on Eesti Laul from actually within Estonia, meeting several of the singers in person. This further cemented my love of Estonia. Who else can say they’ve eaten breakfast foods with August Hunt’s Norman Salumae? Had coffee with Mia? Lost at football to Loss Paranoia’s Vilho Meier and been teased by Paul from Mimicry? And it was not just Estonia that I got to report on, but I got to go to Belarus’ Eurofest, Latvia’s Eirodziesma and Finland’s Uuden Muusikin Kilpailu too.

With Ott Lepland after the Eesti Laul final.

Predictably when Ott Lepland eventually won Eesti Laul, I fell in love with the song and was fully supporting the Blue, Black and White. On the day of my 25^th birthday I travelled to Azerbaijan and many people who couldn’t figure out whether I was Estonian or Australian. “Estralian” I told most people, to further exacerbate the confusion. One of the greatest moments for me was travelling back to my hotel after the final and Estonia’s 6^th place. My taxi pulled up aside a car full of Estonians, so I wound down my window and started waving my flag and they did the same; we ended up driving down the Baku Boulevard next to each other for about five minutes cheering and waving flags, much to the annoyance of my very tired colleagues who I was sharing the taxi with.

So Eurovision led me to Estonia, and Estonia cements my love of Eurovision. In the end I even found a few Estonians who share my love of Eurovision. Granted one of them was my friend’s 16 year old sister, but I suppose there are worse things in the world than having the same music taste as a 16 year old Estonian girl.

So when Birgit takes to the stage in Malmö this Saturday evening, I will once more be decked out in my Estonian colours with a flag in my hand and another draped over my shoulders feeling a sense of pride for a land that I have been so inexplicably been drawn to. So aitäh Estonia, for allowing me to join in your beautiful culture, for allowing me to indulge myself with your Eurovision journey and for allowing me to share you as my adopted homeland. I may have ‘Australian’ printed in my passport, but Estonia is always in my heart.

EDU BIRGIT, EDU EESTI!

Estonia’s first satellite, student-built ESTCube-1, rocketed into orbit on 7 May 2013 at 5:06, thus making Estonia the 41st nation to have a man-made object in space.

Launch of ESTCube-1 on Vega. Photo: ESA–S. Corvaja, 2013

]]> http://blog.ut.ee/led-by-students-estonia-becomes-41st-space-nation/feed/ 0 http://blog.ut.ee/anti-ageing-lifestyle-keeps-you-young-for-longer/ http://blog.ut.ee/anti-ageing-lifestyle-keeps-you-young-for-longer/#comments Tue, 16 Apr 2013 07:36:28 +0000 Kadi-Kai Eljaste http://blog.ut.ee/?p=3069 Continue reading →]]> Kadi-Kai Eljaste is a student of the international master’s programme in Wellness and Spa Service Design and Management at the University of Tartu’s Pärnu College.

Everyone can stay healthy, full of strength and energy, but only by asking a little more from ourselves than we normally do, leaving behind the laziness and stepping out of our comfort zone. This is the perfect time to look inside and ask yourself: Am I taking care of my body, mind and soul well enough?

Wintertime in Estonia and its short days brings a depressed and tired look to lots of faces. We struggle with stress that often deepens upon the arrival of dark days. This situation is familiar to many of us and it may occur because of the inability to live within the same rhythm with the seasons. People should reach the understanding that now is the time to slow down the pace of life and take a deep breath.

The development of health care in Estonian society is similar to many other countries, where the main focus is rather on dealing with consequences than finding or preventing the cause. A preventive, or proactive, mentality still needs to be introduced and understood.

It can be challenging to explain to your senior management why it is important to take time for yourself, arrange consultations with psychologists, do exercise or visit nutritionists, when you look healthy and feel well.

Image credit: Kadi-Kai Eljaste

Let lifestyle prevent ageing

During my internship at Longevity Wellness Resort in Portugal, I experienced a situation wherein a seemingly successful, healthy and nice businessman arrived at the spa reception. He had just received his personal spa programme, according to the concept of the La Clinique de Paris Total Age Management, and stated that the only therapy he did not need was the stress management conducted by a psychologist. This gentleman tried to politely refuse one vital part of the programme, but the spa manager explained that stress management is a vital part of preventive health behaviour, which is too late to acquire when the stress levels have taken over and you are about to reach a breaking point.

It is useful and beneficial to learn some techniques for stress management, so you are able to keep yourself healthier and prevent burnout. This is especially useful if your life is more stressful than normal. To some extent, in each one of us lies a part of that senior manager who doesn’t fully realise the importance and impact of proactive health care. Sometimes learning a few stretching exercises, breathing techniques or mind release tasks can benefit more than you would have thought at first hand.

Nowadays we often immediately expect quick and visible results, this is also true in health care. But health is a long-term investment which needs constant care and oftentimes we can only see the effect when we grow old. We often don’t have time to think of how we would have benefited years after from the exercise done today or skills learned to take care of ourselves. It is natural behaviour to act only when a reason occurs.

When we think we will be mentally and physically as capable as in our early years, we are mistaken.  One day it feels like a short warm-up in the gym is not enough, when lifting weights are too much, or at other times we are short of stamina while running and it generally feels we could have returned to exercising much earlier. In addition to the musculature, the whole body is going to age. Our decision is if we would like to delay the process.

Age management is possible

According to Doctor Rainer Arendt from the Dolder Grand Spa Hotel in Zürich, our body parts age at different times, which is a natural part of every individual’s lifespan. Ageing can be normal, delayed or rapid. Due to the current lifestyle, ageing tends to be either fast and untimely or at best normal. To age successfully there is an option for everyone – the ‘better ageing’ concept which is supported by philosophy, science and evidence-based therapies. Anti-ageing medicine brings us the latest biotechnological inventions like cell and stem-cell therapy to solve premature signs of ageing and health issues, and restore a person’s youth and energy.

The anti-ageing life philosophy is an opportunity to extend the general lifespan and impact the number of years lived in optimal health. Our desire to stay young, beautiful and energetic is as natural as the process of ageing itself, but on top of that the societal pressure directs people to lead an anti-ageing lifestyle.

During my study tour in Zürich I noticed that health management is affordable and seems to be more important to the wealthy population. For example, successful men who desire to become as rich as possible work through enormous pressure and at the same time are ageing at a rapid pace. These men are now in need of services that can help them maintain beauty, vitality, and postpone ageing. This demand can be driven by the fear of losing the chance to enjoy all the acquired assets of wealth, and is very reasonable, as they are in a high-risk health group. Beside the personal interests of any one individual, the anti-ageing lifestyle as a part of the preventive medicine also serves the aims of the European Union public health care development.

We are living in an ageing society where by 2050 there will be two elderly people for every child, so the situation is critical. The lifestyle of the elderly is entirely different from what society has been focusing on until today. In anticipating the collapse of the health care system, it is crucial to pay more attention to prevention and the possibilities for enabling a healthy lifestyle – to delay the ageing of society as well as prolong productive lifespan.

Taking time for personal growth

Better ageing includes an individual’s mental, physical and spiritual well-being. This  philosophy promotes preventive health tests, consultations with health professionals and therapists, as well as perpetual learning and getting used to healthier habits. The age management philosophy will create a personal comprehensive and holistic anti-ageing lifestyle. A delayed ageing process can be reached by following the age management concept, which requires a sincere interest in oneself and in achieving one’s well-being, as well as readiness for life-long learning, and formation of new values and attitudes.

Previously, less attention was paid to one’s mental and physical well-being, and as a result it is more complicated to start on the road to successful ageing. The anti-ageing lifestyle is a simple and straightforward philosophy of healthy living, but is also a systematic and purposeful activity. It requires people to step out of an individual comfort zone and take time for personal growth.

While gathering information for my master’s thesis in Zürich, I realised that the age management system works upside down in our modern European world. The process begins from aesthetic changes, which gives a person a fresh look and impression of regained youthfulness, supporting further discovery of inner self.

I discussed this topic with the Executive Cirector of the Zürich Prevention Centre, Barbara Köhler. An example of a 50-year-old divorcee who has lost her job is common in our society, and in their praxis as well. By using aesthetic adjustments, like eyelid surgery, liposuction or wrinkle-filling injections, they gain motivation to take care of their health more than ever before. Only after aesthetic changes they believe in finding inner motivation and strength to start a healthier diet, exercise, mental training and all the other necessities to stay young and vigorous. It is often said that beauty starts from inside; however, for some reason people still do not think so or just do not behave according to their principles.

The successful ageing concepts teach us the optimal and beneficial way to lead a healthy life. The achievement of mental and emotional well-being will be the prerequisite for the achievement of optimal physical health.  Only then the need for aesthetic changes should be considered, as the first two steps already influence the appearance of the person.

To bring some changes in life it would be good to become aware of yourself: What is going on in your mind and spiritual health; what physical condition your body is in and what could be the best training options for your personality; and anything you’d like to improve in appearance to increase self-confidence and well-being. You may want to measure your biological age to get an understanding of how have you been doing until now and also revise your nutritional habits, sleeping habits, work-rest pattern and all the other limiting factors that influence reaching optimal well-being.

Jaan Aru is a doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt and a researcher at the Talis Bachmann Lab in Estonia, where he investigates how the neural machinery of the brain produces conscious experience. See more about Jaan’s research interests.

When I open your skull, I see neurons and the web of their connections. I can measure fluctuating membrane potentials, neurons firing, neurotransmitters being released to the synaptic cleft, ion channels opening, etc. You are a machine – a very complicated machine, but nevertheless a machine.

Yet from the first-person perspective, from the inside, you do not feel like a machine. It feels like something to be you, to be afraid, to feel joy. You have consciousness. How do these two perspectives – the machine and the subjective experience – fit together? How does the neuronal machinery create consciousness of oneself and the surrounding world? Our current laws of nature give no explanation for the question as to how matter could become mind. Although consciousness is “everything we have and everything we are”, we do not know how it is produced by the neurobiological processes in the brain.

Neural correlates of consciousness. Image credit: Christof Koch / Wikimedia Commons

The problem of consciousness is not only a problem for one graduating neuroscientist; it has been acknowledged to be one of the toughest challenges for modern science by many esteemed researchers. To express it in the words of Erwin Schrödinger, a Nobel Prize winner and one of the founders of quantum mechanics:

“The world is a construct of our sensations, perceptions, memories. It is convenient to regard it as existing objectively on its own. But it certainly does not become manifest by its mere existence. Its becoming manifest is conditional on very special goings-on in very special parts of this very world, namely on certain events that happen in a brain. That is an inordinately peculiar kind of implication, which prompts the question: What particular properties distinguish these brain processes and enable them to produce the manifestation? Can we guess which material processes have this power, which not? Or simpler: What kind of material process is directly associated with consciousness?” (Schrödinger, 1958/2012)

Consciousness – not a scientific problem?

The problem of consciousness has emerged into the twilight of experimental research only over the last decades. In the 1980s some scientists began to relate neurobiological mechanisms of the brain to the experimental results of cognitive psychology (One of these pioneers belonged to the University of Tartu – Bachmann, 1984). Prior to that the “c-word” was banned from serious scientific discussions and, indeed, some resistance can be felt even up to this day. The main argument for not treating consciousness as a scientific question often went something along the following lines: “Consciousness is subjective, but science is objective; therefore, studying consciousness is a waste of time”.

Today not too many scientists hold this view, as it has been understood that: 1) it would be strange to study objects that are millions of light-years away or that are so tiny we cannot even see them under the best microscope, yet not to study consciousness; 2) science is about trying to figure out how to measure phenomena that were considered unmeasurable; 3) objective science can be done on conscious experience (in more technical terms, “The requirement that science be objective does not prevent us from getting an epistemically objective science of a domain that is ontologically subjective” (Searle, 1998)).

So how can one measure consciousness? It cannot get much simpler than that – one just has to ask the subject what he or she perceives!

Studying consciousness experimentally

Consider a typical experimental setup for studying consciousness: binocular rivalry. During binocular rivalry, different images are presented for the two eyes (such as with the help of glasses with polarized filters just like those that are now used to view 3D movies). Despite the fact that different stimuli are presented to each eye, the subject has at any given moment conscious experience of only one of them and the subjective experience changes during the viewing of these two stimuli, so that sometimes one image is perceived consciously and sometimes the other. Importantly, everything is objectively the same during the whole viewing epoch – the eyes “receive” both images all the time. What changes is the conscious experience: sometimes the content presented to the left eye and sometimes the one presented to the right eye is consciously perceived.

Such phenomena offer a neat way to study the neurobiological mechanisms of conscious experience: by dissecting objective stimulation (which stays the same all the time) from subjective perception (which changes), we can locate these neurobiological processes which go hand in hand with changes in subjective experience. For example, neurons early in the processing pathway react to both stimuli, not minding that one of them is not consciously perceived, but neurons higher up in the hierarchy are activated only when one or the other stimulus is consciously perceived.

The hard problem of consciousness

Using binocular rivalry and many other experimental paradigms, researchers have tried to find these neuronal mechanisms that underlie our conscious experience. Such research has been performed for two decades and a variety of experimental results have been produced. Many prominent theories about consciousness exist and some of them have made their way to neuroscience textbooks.

Yet, there is no consensus about how consciousness is produced in the brain. Some leading scientists are confident that consciousness is manifested in the activity of a neuronal global workspace, others feel that conscious perception requires long-range synchrony between different areas of the brain, and still others propose that consciousness is grounded on feedback activity sent from the higher cortical areas back to the lower ones.

There are three fundamental problems with all these theories. Firstly, the results supporting these theories are collected with measurement techniques that are not specific enough to reveal neural processes that underlie any conscious experience. A specific conscious experience (for example, the taste of a morning coffee) is presumably related to a spatio-temporal activation pattern encompassing millions of neurons, but we are currently not able to measure a neural ensemble like that.

Secondly, the majority of results supporting these theories are collected by contrasting conditions with and without conscious perception, but it has been argued that such a contrast is not specific enough to reveal only these neural processes that directly contribute to any conscious experience. Rather, such experimental contrast will also result in neural processes that precede and follow conscious perception.

Whereas these two first problems in principle can be solved and will be solved by having better measurement techniques and by creating more specific experimental contrasts – the third problem is more fundamental.

Let’s say in ten years we have found the neural correlates for the conscious experience of a morning coffee – neurons in areas X, Y and Z are firing in the pattern titi-taa-titi-taa-tum-tum-tum. Have we solved the problem of consciousness? Have we understood how consciousness emerges from the neurobiological processes? Most likely no. The third problem is that the brute fact of “the neural correlate for the experience of a morning coffee is areas XYZ firing in titi-taa…” does not explain why this neural activity pattern is accompanied by conscious experience (of the morning coffee). Indeed, why should any neural activity pattern be felt consciously from the first person perspective? This is the hard problem of consciousness.

Information-integration theory of consciousness

It seems that the only sensible way to try to solve the third problem, the hard problem of consciousness, is to come up with a theoretical understanding of why the work of certain complex systems in this Universe is accompanied by conscious experience.

Giulio Tononi has argued that we could understand consciousness with the help of information theory. His information-integration theory of consciousness is based on two axioms: 1) consciousness is informative – each conscious experience rules out billions of other possible conscious experiences; 2) consciousness is integrated – each conscious experience is unified. These axioms led Tononi to propose that “consciousness corresponds to the capacity of the system to integrate information”. According to the theory, information integration is accompanied by consciousness just as an ion is accompanied by electric charge.

There is a lot of hype surrounding Tononi’s theory because such an information-theoretic framework could help quantify and therefore measure consciousness. And only by quantifying and measuring consciousness can we answer whether an octopus is conscious, whether my laptop or smartphone is conscious, whether human babies or baby dolphins are conscious, or whether the non-communicative patient lying in the bed is to some extent conscious.

Despite the high expectations, there are two problematic aspects of the theory. The first is practical: although in principle the information-theoretic framework makes consciousness quantifiable, it is not yet possible to measure this quantity for complex biological systems.

The second problem is more fundamental: how can we know if this theory is correct? How could we know if this theory is even a step in the right direction? The two axioms described above are very intuitive, but that is also their problem: they are nothing more than intuitions supported by thought experiments. The theory is founded on these intuitions, but if one of them is misleading (or one crucial intuition is missing), the whole information-theoretic formulation of the theory is simply wrong. And we all know that our intuitions can be erroneous – consider, for example, the long-held belief that the Earth is flat.

What’s next?

Tononi’s theory might be wrong, but his work shows that we indeed need to have a theory of consciousness that explains why certain brain states are associated with consciousness. Experimental results are necessary and they are required to have a good theory, but it is unlikely that any experimental result by itself can explain how conscious experience arises from neural activity. We need a theoretical understanding of how conscious experience fits with the fundamental laws of nature.

However, it might be that at the present point in time it is still too early to commit to any theory, because our experimental facts are simply not good enough to provide meaningful constraints for a good theory. But I guess this all belongs to the normal scientific progress – not having a theory, generating some experimental facts, coming up with an early theory that is most likely wrong, collecting better experimental results, refining the theory, gaining still cleaner experimental findings, and ultimately understanding the phenomenon in question.

Thus, although sometimes the problem of consciousness seems too big for a small man like me, I am not overly concerned – if our measurements and experiments get better and our theories more refined, we might indeed one day understand how the machine inside the skull generates conscious experience. Science for the win!

See also Jaan Aru’s Estonian-language blog about the problem of consciousness.