Heartfelt Wellcome, a new Renaissance

Remember the story of Babel? Each inhabitant spoke only a language of his or her own. Zero communication. Confusion. So you could hardly be blamed for thinking that a symposium involving poets, authors, exhibition co-curators, one cultural historian, one professor of psychiatry, one professor of cardiology, one social psychologist and a Senior Lecturer in Intelligent Autonomous Systems (robotics) all interacting with the general public might result in similar chaos. Not so. The outcome was profoundly stimulating and often amusing. Like a child visiting a sweet factory, I left sated but hungry for more. This affair of the heart took my mind on a trip. A renaissance experience in fact.

Renaissance, some may say. Too late. Been done. Lots of paintings, sculpture and inventions: Leonardo, Galileo, Michelangelo, Caravaggio and all the other ‘o’s. Oh, they would be right, I suppose – in a philistine sort of way – but they’d be missing the point. The significance of the Renaissance lay not simply in the genius of such people, but in the confluence of many strands of knowledge and human endeavour, which eventually brought about a seismic shift in civilisation. That’s how I’m using the term, to indicate an innovative beginning that could perhaps lead to enormous benefit in our lives.

The Heartfelt Emotions symposium on 7th and 8th September 2007 was the culmination of Wellcome Collection’s The Heart exhibition in their recently upgraded Art Deco headquarters at 183 Euston Road, London NW1. The symposium linked the heart, as an ancient and enduring symbol and as a functional organ, to the changing significance accorded to emotion in literature, the history of medicine and science. But the discussion went deeper than this, exploring what it is to be human. Initially, we considered some of the ways in which we, often unconsciously, invoke the heart image in everyday conversation. Our hearts can be heavy, light, good, warm, cold, hard, in things – or not, worn on our sleeves or broken to name but a few, each of which terms is shorthand for a complex emotion.

So rich indeed was the eclectic cornucopia of intellectual stimulation that it has taken me several days to process and mentally file the goodies received. I have scarcely begun to attribute weight to and reconcile/juxtapose the various offerings.

I should declare at this point – as if it were not already obvious – that I write as an uneducated outsider. That is to say I represent the Great Unwashed as opposed to Science, Academe or the Arts. Any opinions here expressed are those of an enthusiastic amateur with no connection to the Wellcome organisation. The events are described from my own notes, and taking notes is not one of my stronger points. Indeed it has been accurately observed that I might have been more successful at note taking had I first mastered the skill of walking and chewing gum at the same time. I therefore apologise in advance for any errors, omissions or crass misinterpretations.

Fortunately the Wellcome Collection has an innately human ethos, welcoming the involvement of anyone – academic, professional and layperson alike – with a genuine interest in the human condition. The Collection’s eccentric, sometimes bizarre, mix of science and art unites in spirit the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment, twenty-first century technology and Edwardian integrity. How do they fund it? The parent organisation, the Wellcome Trust, employs an investment portfolio worth more than £13 billion, based upon the foundation set up by Sir Henry Wellcome in 1936, to fund research and other humanitarian activities to the tune of £500 million per annum. Perhaps best known of the Wellcome Trust funded projects is the Sanger Institute, which sequenced one third of the human genome, but they also fund research into malaria, diabetes and many other ailments.

The Heartfelt Emotions symposium commenced on Friday 7th with a reading of the Victorian ‘novella’ Modern Love (1862) written by George Meredith. It did seem a strange way to begin such an event but then how can one judge? When has there been another such event in modern times? Were it not for a light-hearted interpretation by the affable poet David Harsent, the marathon fifty-sonnet reading could well have become turgid. But David won through in style and with good humour thus preparing us for the main event on Saturday, chaired by broadcaster and writer Claudia Hammond.

The Saturday session opened with an introduction by co-curators James Peto and Emily Jo Sargent to their intriguing exhibition The Heart, which recorded and explained the significance of the heart in medicine, myth and literature from the time of the ancient Egyptians to the present day. The exhibition included many original manuscripts and artefacts, from papyri to works by Voltaire, representing subjects as diverse as religion, medicine and popular music.

Fay Bound Alberti, a cultural historian specialising in the history of emotions in medical and cultural history, then introduced us to the early medical practice of classifying illnesses and patients and according to the Four Humors, which seemed strangely analogous to our modern understanding of the effects of hormones and endorphins.

Next Hugo Critchley, Professor of Psychiatry, discussed the connections between brain and body and how the degree of awareness of one’s own bodily responses, in particular heartbeat, may determine the intensity of emotion experienced and empathy felt. Technologies such as functional MRI are helping to locate brain areas that correlate to body responses. Heart rate is one crucial body-brain feedback factor, which dictates susceptibility to emotion, although context dictates the nature of the emotion. Thus, in an emotionally susceptible state the facial expressions of others for example are more likely to influence us. So, if our emotions do affect our decision-making one old adage appears to be true: our hearts can rule our heads.

Poets Louisa Young, David Harsent and Elaine Feinstein discussed Friday’s reading of George Meredith’s ‘intensely romantic, tragic, bitter and darkly funny’ novella, Modern Love. David ventured the tongue-in-cheek opinion that ‘some [of the fifty sonnets] were killers, some were fillers.’ The poets discussed poetry in general and the expression of emotion in writing; how those under emotional stress find writing cathartic. Poetry is so often influenced by sadness that David, with a wry smile, quoted John Berryman: ‘Take the worst thing that doesn’t kill you [and write about it] and you’re in business.’ Elaine observed that poetry has to be honest and tough, and that its form gives writing control and shape. They quoted Ezra pound as having said: ‘Make it new,’ which sounds like more good advice for writers in general. Other memorable David Harsent quotes were: ‘Happiness writes white,’ ‘Iambic pentameter is the heartbeat measure of English conversational speech,’ ‘All writing is rewriting,’ ‘Writing must have music, beat,’ and ‘Sentimentality is a greater danger to the arts than censorship.’ Art, they concluded helps us to see life in a different way.

Professor of Cardiology, Martin Cowie, gave us an intriguing medical perspective on broken hearts. He referred to evidence indicating that not only do emotions – particularly love and loss – have powerful effects on the body but major stress such as bereavement can indeed increase the risk of heart problems and death. Death rates are 50 percent higher in the three months following loss of a spouse, the effect being greater in men than women, although the causal mechanisms are not yet understood. It is not a modern phenomenon. Analysis of statistics from as far back as 1880 produces similar results. Other interesting titbits of information included the fact that women in general have ‘a better understanding of health’. And that young men react badly to adverse news about their health, possibly because their self-perceived invulnerability appears threatened. Professor Cowie quoted Alfred Lord Tennyson: ‘I hold it true, whatever befall; I feel it when I sorrow most, ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’

Claire Cassidy, a social psychologist, discussed ‘collective emotion’ based upon her recent studies of one of the largest crowds on earth, those attending the Ard Kumbh Mela Hindu festival in India. She said that although we think of emotions as being private, in fact the expression of emotions is necessary to make our social world meaningful. Whereas earlier studies concluded that in crowds man becomes a barbarian, free from individual responsibility, Claire pointed to current thinking that we do not in fact lose ourselves; we simply adopt one of many personalities we all possess, according to the context in which we find ourselves. In a context such as the Hindu festival this can be empowering and positive, serving to support and validate the individual.

The final speaker, Dylan Evans, author and lecturer on robotics, in his amusing talk ‘Why Spock could not evolve’, discussed the consensus appearing among scientists that emotions are in fact vital to intelligent action, not harmless luxuries or at worst hindrances as previously thought. Evolutionary considerations have influenced this reassessment. Had we employed the cerebral cortex for all decisions we would have been in danger of ‘analysis paralysis’ or looking before we leap for so long we never leapt at all: faced with a sabre-tooth, fear made us run – evolutionary good call! Tempted with love, we could have weighed up the pros and cons with cold objectivity, but would that have assisted the spread of humanity? In this connection, Dylan quoted Yates: ‘If you are sensible about love, you are incapable of it’. He then gave us some background on ‘emotional robotics’ experiments that simulated human facial expressions. Human subjects received emotion expressed on cartoon-like faces favourably, but on robots whose appearance was too close to reality they hit ‘the valley of the uncanny’ and were disturbed. In conclusion Dylan speculated on the evolutionary function of various higher emotions, including a sense of humour.

Claudia Hammond, among her concluding remarks, picked up on the poets’ advice that one should write from heart to hand and then rewrite, rewrite and rewrite again. She also alluded to a point made by Dylan Evans and speculated on the possibility that in the future mankind could evolve entirely new emotions.

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How would I sum up what I gained from the symposium? I can’t do it justice, not yet. Possibly I never will, there are too many ideas buzzing around in my brain and every new idea sets yet another in train, like the first shot in a game of billiards. All I can offer at present is the following collection of random notes and reflections:

Pondering the similarities revealed between ancient thought and modern knowledge I can’t help but feel that humanity may have moved in vast circles in order to advance by small increments. Perhaps the helical geometry of our DNA is also a fractal image of our route map? If so we were bound to revisit our past experiences. On each return some of us will have observed truths as recorded by our forebears but from a different perspective. Our destiny – as a species and as individuals – may lie in a paradox: we must travel far in order to discover ourselves.

The archetypal human journey might be: Early man acts instinctively. Action results in experience; experience + survival becomes learning; learning + communication becomes information; information + communication becomes education; education + communication + deliberation becomes knowledge; knowledge + deliberation becomes understanding, and understanding + experience becomes wisdom.

Since first becoming aware of our mortality we humans have hidden like fearful children behind some figurative father. One consequence of our enlightenment has been the realization that Daddy has gone. We are alone and responsible for our actions. The youthful cream of mankind’s few short millennia, the survivors of countless survivors, shall we continue to squander our heritage like drug-crazed Vandals? Or do we have the will to harvest the wisdom of the ages, become responsible adults and take our place in the Universe? It is no longer sufficient to ask; “Are we there yet?” We have arrived. This is childhood’s end.

We have made a mess of our first few millennia but it is not the super-heroes of fiction we require to sort it out. We need gatherings of ordinary souls acting without ‘ego’ for the benefit of the greater ‘self’, an agglomeration of diverse experience without any agenda or ambition other than the conversion of information to knowledge and knowledge to wisdom for the greater good of our species and our planet.

Before the Victorian era, organised learning was generally the province of the privileged and the wealthy. At times it might have been theoretically possible for one person to possess every book in existence, and to read them all. Today it is unlikely that a person could read the printed output of a single year in their entire lifetime, such is the burgeoning of ‘information’. And then there’s the Internet… If we are not to degenerate into superstitious morons under this overload and the malign influence of those who stand to gain by our confusion we shall require knowledgeable guides to see us through the fog of information and disinformation.

In short, the Wellcome Collection’s Heartfelt Emotions symposium seems like an excellent model for a New Renaissance. My gut feeling is that such meetings of informed minds – with associated exhibitions and facilities – to guide us in the use of our powerful, but vulnerable, technological research tools may be precisely what is required at this point in our history.

Further information on the Wellcome organisation, its activities and events may be found on: www.wellcomecollection.org or www.wellcome.ac.uk