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How the Brain Works analysis of mind/brain/behavior
Eugene B. Shea
Finally, because a picture is worth a thousand words:
I quote all these sources (with emphasis added) to show the consensus of evidence that the RF/RAS is Bruner’s inhibitory system; that the RF, “like a vigilant secretary,” with the power to inhibit, automatically makes it our stimuli selector and the instrument of all our repressions; that, capable of selective muscular activation, the RAS also selects and implements responses to selected or self-imposed stimuli; forms the silent sovereign manager of all our vital functions; is now thought by some scientists “to be involved in higher mental processes;” and lastly, to remark that, remarkably, this is all they have to say about this remarkable element in the brain. All of these authors then go on to discuss other parts of the brain, with apparently no curiosity about how the RF is able to decide what and what not to inhibit—how it decides which of the great multiplicity of available sensory stimuli it will select for our attention and/or further processing.
From all the evidence, the human and animal RF/RAS
can only be characterized as a computer/servo-organism
which receives all incoming sensory data, scans and prioritizes
that data for further processing in accordance with its programs, and, through the Reticular Activating
System, generates
and controls Responses or Response-Impulses
“appropriate”
to its iterations of the data.
It is a second major thesis of this article, representing a new paradigm of the brain, that in all sentient beings, the Reticular Activating System, given RF-selected or self-imposed stimuli, uses the whole brain to generate and implement responses in an effort to maintain physiological and biological homeostasis; in social beings to also try to maintain stasis of bio-sociological needs; and in humans, to also try to maintain stasis of our uniquely induced psychological, emotional, and volitional states.
What then, are the programs on which the RF/RAS is operating? Well, as we have seen above, the RAS is known to control all our vital functions, respiration, pulse, sleep/wake cycles, etc. But the chimpanzee, without higher powers, also gets an immediate response to a disequilibrium in any of its biological, physiological, and bio-sociological needs, its Social-Animal Needs. Responses to these Needs must also be generated by the RAS.
And since we are social animals whose DNA is 99+% identical to that of the chimpanzee, we must assume that our basic RF programs are the Social-Animal Needs (SA-Needs) we so obviously share with the chimpanzee―Needs which are continually moving into operant and quiescent states. Functioning as priority-interrupts, any Need can be primary at any given time.
So it is the Reticular Activating System which motivates children and chimps to imitate others, to seek belongingness, which makes us sleepy when we are tired, and generates an instant mind/body fight-or-flight reaction to a threat, etc., etc. Of course, both animals and humans learn from experience and improve their performance, so the RAS must have access to all of the organism's Memories, in order to generate the best, or most common precedent response for need gratification or fear assuagement.
Both animals and humans know things they have experienced. Those who have had a bad experience with a skunk, instinctively avoid them in the future. And we both learn rapidly about experiences which involved our SA-Needs.
But as noted earlier, we have some metafaculties absent in our “cousin” the chimpanzee. One of the most important of these is the power to commit ourselves. The animal is committed by any RAS-generated response strong enough to pass the action gate in the prefrontal cortex. A hungry chimpanzee cannot postpone a meal, but we can.
We have the power to commit ourselves to a purpose or to an act, including the focus of our attention.
(Many philosophers and theologians have defined commitment as the act of love. This may sound strange, since we can commit ourselves to another's welfare or to his or her downfall. But in either case we are enamored of a purpose, have identified ourselves with that purpose, and this they say is an act of love.)
And we all commit ourselves concurrently to a number of purposes from an innumerable number of options. Aldous Huxley describes it best: [The Perennial Philosophy, p 40] Our metafaculty of commitment enables us to commit ourselves to purposes or acts having no relation to—even directly contrary to—the social animal needs we share with the chimpanzee.
We are also endowed with the metafaculty of intellect, the power of knowing or believing. We can adopt knowings or beliefs based on our experiences or on assumption, inference, deduction, induction, syllogisms, or the reports of others. Unfortunately we can also adopt beliefs based on false reports, false assumptions, false syllogisms, etc.
And we humans have an insatiable metaneed, in our insatiable need to know. Unlike simple animal curiosity, we want to know who, what, where, when, how, and why about everything. Aristotle said, “ We must know.”
Herein lies one of our
major human problems: in our need to know, we readily adopt literally thousands
of beliefs―accept as facts―things
we don't know, haven't witnessed, and can't prove, but have been adopted based
on inference, reports of others, etc. This led Joseph Jastrow to conclude that “the mind is a belief-seeking rather than a fact-seeking apparatus.” We have an inordinate need to know, causing us to avidly adopt beliefs by the scores of thousands as we mature. Even things we know as facts act as beliefs, as do all our doubts, disbeliefs, memories, values, and our self-adopted “needs” additional to the SA-Needs.So starting at birth (or possibly in the womb) we each haphazardly develop a unique “Love/Belief System” in the brain, comprised of thousands of things we believe, and an ever-changing group of purposes or people or ideas to which or to whom we find ourselves committed.
Now m ost of us think we see and hear things in their pure form, which are then evaluated against relevant elements of our Love/Belief Systems.
But our instantaneous, involuntary reactions to contradictions of our beliefs or derogation of things to which we are committed, and positive reactions to their support, are autonomic, and those responses must therefore have emanated from the RF/RAS.
As William James wrote many years ago: “It is clear that between what a man calls ‘me,’ and what he simply calls ‘mine,’ the line is difficult to draw. We feel and act about certain things that are ours very much as we feel and act about ourselves. Our fame, our children, the work of our hands, may be as dear to us as our bodies are, and arouse the same acts of reprisal if attacked. . . In its widest possible sense, however, a man’s Self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body, and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and his works, his land and horses and yacht and bank account. All these things give him the same emotions. If they wax or prosper, he feels triumphant, if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down - not in the same degree for each thing, but in much the same way for all.” We humans uniquely respond autonomically to hundreds of circumstances other than those related to the Social Animal Needs, but significantly related to our Loves and Beliefs, and must therefore have been selected and and flagged by the RF for interpretation and response by the RAS prior to entering consciousness.
So we have for example, the “cocktail party phenomenon,” the instantaneous, involuntary shift of our attention when a loved one’s name is mentioned, even in a babble of sounds. Or when someone criticizes our church, or our children, a feeling of antipathy is instantly generated, and one or more of our perceptual defenses are brought into consciousness. We autonomically generate the same reaction we would to a kick in the shins.
All our sights and sounds come to us preselected, preevaluated, and processed before they fully enter our consciousness. Favorable stimuli are rushed intact to our consciousness; but stimuli in conflict with elements of our Love/Belief Systems are, failing complete repression, modifed, justified, rationalized, to make them conformable to elements in our Love/Belief Systems.
If someone says, “I like your looks,” that expression is rushed to our consciousness. But, “I don’t like your looks,” comes to us perhaps as, “He’s a moron.”
Further evidence of RF/RAS interchanges: Haven't we all heard snippets of words or glimpses of something which instantly registered as "important," without knowing what it was until the stimulus was replayed in our consciousness for identification and cognition?
And doesn't really bad news take seconds, minutes, hours, days, sometimes weeks to fully penetrate our consciousness? The RAS is also the brain’s shock absorber.
Can these responses also be a function of the RAS, or do they involve some other brain function? Obviously the RAS autonomically selects and implements responses to our vital functions: respiration, heart rate, digestion, arousal, adrenalin level, etc. And if we share the Social-Animal Needs, it's easy to understand how the RAS would generate an instant response to a threat of pain or isolation or the taking of one’s food. But although again, the RF/RAS is the only viable candidate, how could it also pick out from the environment and generate instant responses to the sound of a loved one’s name, or a diminution or enhancement of his “reputation and his works, his land and horses and yacht and bank account?”
The answer lies, I believe, in the fact that Dr. Gary Lynch of the University of California
at Irvine has proved that “learning involves a physical change in the
circuitry of the brain.” When we learn something, new synapses are
formed in our brains, or existing connections are strengthened, sometimes in as little as ten minutes. (Aside:
perhaps in geniuses and idiot-savants, much faster?)
Certainly it is not then an astonishing hypothesis infer that if I love someone, that person’s name becomes wired into or near my Reticular Formation, and the RAS generates a response whenever that name is mentioned; or if I believe in a given political party, feelings of anything from cognitive dissonance to hatred will
be generated
when I hear that party denigrated.
The point is that all of our Loves and those Beliefs with
an emotional
or affective component, are not additional
processed differently, with some representation in or
very near the Reticular Formation,
with the Social Animal Needs, they represent the principles or programs―literal instincts―
which determine how
all the data is handled.
Therefore, until some other sensor and response generator of each of these brain actions is identified, what better candidate than the Reticular Formation and Reticular Activating System? Why would such a marvelous system be limited to sensing and issuing responses to physiological,/biological, and SA-Needs, and not include, as I suggest in this article, our uniquely induced social, psychological, and volitional states of disequilibrium?
I suggest that the RF/RAS is most likely the entire organisms’ equilibrium sensor and balance restorer of all biological and physiological functions of all sentient beings, including the Social Animal Needs and central and peripheral nervous systems in animals and in humans; and further, that in the human it is the RF/RAS, programmed with our Loves and Beliefs, which generates responses in an effort to maintain stasis of our uniquely instigated emotional, psychological, and volitional states.
In addition to all its other functions, the RAS works continuously to bring us equanimity, i.e., Peace.
Based on our autonomic responses it is apparent that the human RF/RAS has taken on responsibility for the Love-Belief System, the hundreds of significant conscious and subconscious Loves and Beliefs which we all adopt or with which we have been introjected, since infancy. This transformation of the RF, together with our uniquely human metafaculties, makes of each of our brains what we know as the mind.
So here is Bruner's inhibitory system, the centralized, indefatigable, quintessential sentinel of the brain, the Reticular Formation, and its associated Reticular Activating System, the de facto manager of the brain, as it says in the illustration above, “deflecting the trivial, letting the vital through to alert the mind.”
But vital and trivial are subjective terms, different for each individual.
How does the mind know what is vital and what is trivial to each of us,
if not in the way this article describes? As noted earlier, I can find no
serious literature which addresses this question. The answer is yes—everyone knows that each of us sees and hears things differently. The classic movie Rashoman tells of three witnesses to a crime, each of which describes it differently. But now we have the neuronal processes responsible for the fact that we all, to one degree or another, live in different worlds, each in our own unique world.
The RF/RAS is programmed by all the conscious and subconscious elements of our unique Love/Belief Systems, and all of our operant Social Animal Needs (some of
which―sex,
power, social involvement, etc.―can be greatly magnified
by becoming objects of our Love), and
it selects, evaluates and generates responses to all
our stimuli accordingly. Since the RAS is both our stimuli and response-selector, we are all seeing and hearing the world―experiencing and responding to it―through our Reticular Activating Systems. Think about it. This means that we are each wearing a unique set of diffracting lenses over our eyes and filtering earphones over our ears which select, evaluate, and generate responses to what we see and hear before they reach consciousness. We are all exactly like pilots, each flying on our own uniquely programmed autopilot.
Our
operant SA-Needs, always accompanied by significant elements of our
Love/Belief Systems, create for each of us the unique world in
which we live, generate all our emotions, shape our behavior, and explain the creation of LeDoux’s
“synaptic self” - how our
brains can
become
who we are.
The shocking conclusion we must draw is that the RAS operates exactly like the U.S. government! Like the government, it is a vast and incredibly complex bureaucracy, comprised of scores of open and secret bureaus, departments, and branches, staffed by hundreds of bureaucrats―whose tenors often overlap or conflict, and with very imperfect communications between them―each competing for the “boss’s” attention, each with some priority interrupt authority, each mindlessly trying to enact its own limited agenda, and to justify and expand its authority by welcoming data which validates or contributes to its purposes and rejection or repression of that which does not―an appalling, but unfortunately, a compellingly exact analogy. Can cognitive dissonance, and its associated anxiety, be far behind?
We are all living in a post-hypnotic trance, induced in early infancy. ― R. D. LAING
Now if this was the whole story, we would be restricted to a chimpanzee-like stimulus/response existence, and the behaviorists would reign unopposed. But of course, we aren’t and they don’t; and the reason lies in our uniquely human metafaculties. I n addition to the metafaculty of intellect and committing ourselves, we also have the uniquely human faculty of metacognition.
Cognitive psychologists, e.g., Merluzzi, et al., have long recognized the faculty of metacognition, which they say “refers to the ability to monitor a wide variety of cognitive enterprises, . . to monitor one's memory and comprehension, or knowing about knowing or an awareness ot one's own cognitive machinery and the way it operates.”
And neuroscientists Baars & Gage recognize metacognition as
“the ability to know our own cogitive functions, and to
be able to use that knowledge.”
Both metacognition and commitment are manifest in the well-known Benjamin Libet experiments, which clearly illustrate the pre-conscious (i.e., sub-conscious) nature of RAS-generated response-impulses, as well as the subject’s metacognizance and veto- or alter-power over those response-impulses. and looked particularly at a signal called the ‘readiness potential’ that always appears just before a movement. Using special timing techniques, he found that the readiness potential begins about half a second before a subject begins to move a hand. This is expected, since brain activity must begin before the brain issues a command to the muscles. What is surprising, however, is that the subjects do not become aware of deciding to move until only about two tenths of a second before the movement begins, some three tenths of a second after the brain activity began.
. . . to Libet [this] says that the intention to act arises
from brain activity that is not within our conscious awareness. . .
the brain initiates the impulse to act and the conscious self
subsequently becomes aware of it. Libet also finds that his
subjects are able to veto the impulse to act during the few tenths of
a second after a subject becomes aware of it. In this sense,
consciousness becomes a gatekeeper for intentions generated by the
brain, letting through only those that somehow meet an individual’s
criteria. This experiment offers proof that, having committed ourselves to an act or procedure, the RF/RAS then generates the appropriate response- impulses to the PFC,
This begs the question, what specifically are the “cognitive functions” of which metacognition makes us aware? I contend that these are processes of the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Any sensory signal interpreted by the RF as significant, or to which we are paying attention, is brought to uncomprehending consciousness in the thalamus and control of the RAS. The RAS forwards the signal immediately on to the cortex for identification - what is it? where is it? - and a search of the cortex for all relevant memories and responses, which are forwarded to the PFC for execution or resolution. Now in both human and chimpanzee, these responses, if unambiguous and uninhibited by associated memories (see feasibiity analysis below) are forwarded through a “pass” channel of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), premotor cortex, and motor cortex, for initiation of the response. (The PFC doesn’t “light up” for unambiguous, uninhibited, or habituated responses.)
In other words, the much-vaunted prefrontal cortex is simply RAM, random access memory, which does not store memory, but provides current work-space for ambiguous, conflicting, or inhibited response-impulses, their associated memories, and sensory iterations from the thalamus, until, in the animal, one response prevails and penetrates the PFC gate to motor neurons to enact a response. Naturally, if the threat abates, the PFC is restored to inactive RAM. The frontal lobes do not decide which response will be executed, any more than a neuron, receiving both excitatory and inhibitory impulses, decides when to fire.
But this “simple” PFC function―also active, but notdeterminant, in humans―has led most neuroscientists to ascribe our unique executive powers of reasoning, analysis, and decision-making to some yet-to-be- discovered genie-like capabilities of the PFC and cortex, simply because they are larger
The fact that this weighting function of responses in the PFC is not determinant in humans is seen in the Libet experiment: we have metacognizance of response-impulses, and commitment power through direct thalamic channels to the frontal lobes―a metapower executed by the RAS from a consciously generated image contradictory to that of the RAS-generated response-impulse, and a commitment to its execution.
This brings us to our third metafaculty, the faculty of imagination, the ability to create and manipulate words, images, ideas, and symbols in our consciousness. Most all philosophers agree this is a uniquely human faculty, though of course many scientists disagree. Baars & Gage take imagination for granted, suggesting several exercises of the reader’s imagination. I don’t think the matter is debatable.
So, except for overpowering responses, e.g., avoiding a flying
object, if
a RAS- or self-generated response is even slightly ambiguous,
conflicted, or inhibited, and does not require immediate implementation,
we can either allow it to be executed, or we can imagine the effects of those responses, review alternative responses and their potential effects, select a preferred response, and
implement
that response by commiting
ourselves
to its execution, i.e.,
opening the PFC gate to action.
And we can will to do things we only imagine, to generate actions independently of RF/RAS impetus, even things we've never done before. How is this accomplished? How do we Will something to happen?
Let’s
suppose I decide to go to the grocery store. First, I
visualize, Imagine myself at the store, and of course
I must Believe/Know it can be accomplished (the brain automatically runs each of our
images of intent
Creative Will is the concurrent use of our metafaculties of imagination, belief, and commitment.
How does the brain do this? I submit that when furnished with a clear picture of a result, a feasibility-check resulting in belief in its attainability without conflict with more important SA-Needs, Loves, Beliefs, or purposes, and a commitment to achieve it, the RAS is presented with a disequilibrium: “I’m here - I intend to be there.” In response the RAS, holding that purpose until it is accomplished, takes it to the cortex where it searches out relevant neuronal motor sequence memories― subroutines―and forwards each in turn to the PFC where all are given a subconscious “pass” to the premotor cortex and to the motor neurons which, subject to continual subconscious sub-subroutine adjustments ―steering, braking, accelerating, based on thalamic sensory input―take me to the store, leaving my mind free
for daydreams.
Although it required a lot of innovation, the parts of Gutenberg's printing press were all in existence when he decided to build one, and his RAS led him to the pieces of a solution. The parts necessary to make an automobile were all in place when Henry Ford decided to make one. And for Bill Gates to build a personal computer. History is rife with examples of people who accomplished the seemingly impossible through a firmly held image of intent.
Returning to the functions of the PFC, it is not only
ambiguous responses to situational stimuli which must be resolved in the PFC.
Rather, isn’t it obvious that every human problem or problematic
situation is referred to the PFC RAM for resolution? As Baars &
Gage point out, “... the frontal lobes are critical in a free-choice
situation, when it is up to the subject to decide how to interpret an
ambiguous situation.
Aren’t most of us always operating on a dozen or two perpetual purposes? Like the people described by Huxley and James above, aren’t we always concerned with such things as longevity, good health, welfare of loved ones, our love lives, spiritual lives, reputations, possessions, career progress, financial security, social acceptance, projection and protection of our idealized self-image, observance of our “shoulds,” consistency of our Love/Belief systems, validity of our religious and political persuasions, etc., etc.?
These are purposes to which either the environment or our imaginations
continually provide relevant stimuli to our consciousness. But
because they are all purposes which can never be completely resolved and
are often in conflict, the
RAS can only engender ambiguous, conflicting or inhibited piecemeal
solutions. So
most of us are flooding our poor PFC'S almost every waking moment. No
wonder our PFC’s occupy such a large portion of our cortex! And why so
many of us live “lives of quiet desperation,” and cognitive dissonance. (Here's an interesting research project: Subjects
have been equipped with a beeper which sounds at random times during
the day, with instructions to make note of their thoughts when it goes
off. They've learned how often we think about various subjects.
But now they should add instructions that subjects should also note what
they were doing when the beeper sounded. I believe this
would clearly prove that during the majority of the day, our actions were on RAS
management while our thoughts were occupied elsewhere.
Most unfortunately, as we “mature,” many of our RAS-generated responses―which must include all our emotions―tend to become conditioned responses, and it’s usually much easier to accede to these responses with the attitude, “That’s me; that’s the way I am." Most of us become reconciled or resigned to these specious synaptic selves, and allow our brains to “become who we are."We need a new paradigm of the human brain, as a brain which starts out physiologically and functionally identical to that of the chimpanzee,
We must also conclude that the thalamus, home to consciousness of humans and all sentient beings, constitutes the Command and Control Center of the brain, and the RAS as the de facto Manager of the brain. The RF is its sentinel. The inaptly named Reticular Activating System should now be considered the brain’s Command and Control System; and until some limits to its jurisdiction are delineated, the RAS must be seen to exercise its influence throughout the entire brain and body. All other elements of the brain would then represent the subsystems or “tools” of the RAS. Their functions― constantly contributing new sensory input and feedback to the RAS iterations, recovering memories, fleshing out the details of percepts, generating and controlling emotions, physical and vocal reactions, etc.―are only enacted when innervated by responses from the RAS/RF iterations, or purposes enacted from thalamic consciousness through the RAS, but originating in the person’s Will.
Sadly however, even our best intentions, originating in our consciousness, must take a reverse path through the RAS to reach the muscles which will carry them out, often a tortuous feasibility check, where they are very often displaced. They just don't get done. And since our DNA has no significant differences from that of the chimpanzee, and since DNA is known to determine all the biological and physiological characteristics―all the capabilities―of the organism, and since we are putting men on the moon and living in homes with all the accouterments of comfort and safety, while chimpanzees are still living in trees, isn’t it also obvious that in addition to a larger but physiologically identical brain, must we not be uniquely endowed with a non-biological element, an element whose metaneeds and metafaculties enable us to use, override, and even reprogram the Reticular Formation?―an element which acts as Chief Executive Officer to a RAS Chief Operating Officer as it were?―the element whose faculties enable us to generate an infinite variety of responses?
These concepts enable us to understand, from a
systems standpoint, how the brain works
and explains not only human behavior powers of the self-image, suggestion, hypnosis, positive thinking, meditation, etc., and even some physiological, biological, genetic, and chemically induced pathologies.
For example, all the mood-altering drugs, from crack to marijuana, act primarily on what are called the monoaminergic neurons, all of which are located in a few discrete nuclei in the Reticular Formation.
But of course drugs can and often do yield bad trips when the relaxed RF releases to consciousness or into action some inhibitions, passions, or painful or shameful memories which, operating normally, it keeps repressed.
Also, ten years ago, one of the obvious derivatives of
this concept was that a malfunctioning RAS could yield schizophrenia,
and indeed, recent autopsies of a small population of chronic
intractable patients who had lived as schizophrenics showed neural
anomalies in the Reticular
Activating System!
This article, Copyright © 2002 by The Shelton
Group,*
The Immortal
“I”
Psychology, Neurology, and The Perennial Philosophy
by Eugene B. Shea Originally published by University Press of America See theimmortali.com
* Revised and updated 2007, 2008, 2010Text information on this web page is protected.
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