Workings of the mindbrain

My mindbrain is working all the time whether I am asleep or awake. But I am aware of only a very small amount of what is going on (less than 1%?).

To be aware of something is to be conscious of it. To be conscious is to be conscious of something. In essence it is to be conscious of those workings of the mindbrain that are channelled into the ‘attention centre’ where ‘I’ can be aware of them.

Ordinary consciousness is mainly concerned with the ‘executive functions’ and is thus about quickly reacting and slowly responding to internal and external stimuli. This involves linking to related memories and making judgments (good, neutral or bad) in advance of acting.

Self consciousness is mainly focussed on a socio-cultural context and involves communication about status in the family and group hierarchy.

The unconscious refers to those workings of the mindbrain of which ‘I’ am not ‘aware’. This is possibly more than 99% of what goes on in the mindbrain. And it would appear that most of what I come to be conscious of in the attention centre is but a shadow of what has already taken place in the unconscious.

Upon reflection ‘my’ self-consciousness has to conclude that ‘my’ mind has a mind of its own. This deep mind is subject to causes and conditions rooted in my nature, nurture and serendipity.

quantum through to cosmos

A 20 story compilation with references to the cosmic zoom from Quantum to Cosmos click HERE

Witnesses – outer and inner

Human beings are social animals. We evolved to operate in groups of about 50 to a 100. Our brains and nervous systems are hard wired with meta-cognitive instincts and intuitions (nature) which provide a skeleton to be fleshed out by enculturation and education (nurture).

There are as many patterns of culture as there are cultural groups. So there is plenty of variation on which natural selection can operate. The groups that survive are those where the members, on the whole, are committed to the status quo and buy into the notion of us (good) and them (bad). Success will be built on parochial xenophobia associated with territorial control of resources.

If there is to be long term sustainability of the cultural group there is need of a lunatic (paranoid?) fringe of creative revolutionaries to bend and twist the traditional ways of doing things. They will be effective as norm crackers and paradigm shifters. The hegemonic elites will seek to maintain their privileged positions using systems of brutal or elegant power to deal with the expanding horizons of citizens in this increasingly globalised world.

In these modern times we are all members of several cultural and sub-cultural groups. We are hard wired and socially encouraged to fit in and there are forces that help us along the way. One of the main forces for conformity is the authoritative witness. The idea is that there are people (forces) watching and judging (witnessing) all our thoughts, feelings, words and deeds. The thought police!

When we are infants our parents and siblings are outer witnesses. Then there are your neighbours – with rural and urban variations. And, as we spread our social wings, there are many more real witnesses and potential judges - doctor, minister, teacher, policeman, bouncer, councillor, counsellor, therapist, social worker and lawyer. And, if you have been conditioned to being Christian, there will be the imagined Jesus and his Dad and maybe a host of angels or devils. At a more mundane level there is CCTV almost everywhere. Big brother is watching you.

And then there are two types of inner witness.

You can always imagine what the outer witnesses might be thinking and be channelled this way rather than that as a result. In extreme cases your can have your long dead mother whispering in your right ear and the omniscient God or devil whispering in your left ear. These tend to be conservative forces that confine you to a relatively parochial world view.

The other type of inner witness presents the possibility of existential enlightenment and freedom from parochiality. This inner witness is associated with mindfulness meditation. It is ‘as if’ there are three ‘yous’.

• The first is the unconscious source of the thoughts and feelings that are projected into the attention centre. The mind that has a mind of its own.
• The second is the self-conscious you (self or ego) that experiences the thoughts and feelings and can be overwhelmed by them.
• The third is the witness who is cool, curious and non-judgemental and notices what is going on. This inner witness knows that the thoughts and feeling are mind made rather than objectively real. This allows a blissful state of non-attachment to develop.

While we are awake our sense organs are busy ‘noticing’ what is happening in the external environment. Having noticed things and events we can then judge them as good (eg food), as bad (eg predators) or as neutral (neither good nor bad). And we can then react or respond by seeking to acquire or avoid the thing or event. (the fight or flight response). The process can be captured in four linked action verbs:

When there is ‘noticing’ there are limits. For example, as humans, we cannot physically ‘see’ beyond the range of visible light and we can be mistaken in what we think we see (eg a snake which turns out to be a rope.)

There is also the problem that it is not the eye that sees. The many light sensitive cells in the retina react to different aspects of that which is ‘seen’. That which is sensed is coded into on/off electrical signals which are routed to a part of the brain that can decode them. And there are associated signals passing between the visual part of the brain and other parts – especially memory.

‘Judging’ implies comparison, is a key aspect of ‘learning’, and involves memory – short, medium and long term. Sights, sounds and smells etc are relayed by electrical code to their specialist modular areas such that, following an inter-modular synthesis, a ‘situation’ can be identified. It will be holistic and multi-sensory. This situation can then be used as a search template which highlights similar items from the various memories. A comparative judgement can then be made about whether the present situation is good, bad or neutral.

Reactions are fast and do not involve much cognition – act first, think later. Responses are slower and involve a more thoughtful review of the evidence before reaching a conclusion and developing an action plan – please engage brain before opening mouth. In either case the result involves electrical signals influencing the contraction of muscles and the release of a wide range of chemicals.

Elegant power happens when the ruling elite convinces the subservient masses that the inequities in the system are due to a law of nature or an act of an omniscient supreme being who works in mysterious ways. It is not so long ago that people believed in the divine right of kings (and queens?). There are still people who are conditioned to believe in supernatural beings. That is the outdated stuff of myth and magic. In that way lies inflexible and small minded bigotry.

But there is an increasing number of open minded world citizens who bear compassionate witness to what goes on in their mindbrain. It is a mode of thinking, feeling and being that goes by many names. A useful name is mindfulness. And the essential force lies in cultivating the inner witness who finds liberation, flexibility and peace.

Grace and grudge revisited

There were two robust ‘objects’ in the attention centre this morning. The first was energized by household activity performed with grace rather than with grudge. The second was a comment from a friend about the large amount of autobiographical details in my posts.

I was vaguely aware of having written about such things in the past. I have been blogging for more than ten years.

The first blog dealing with ‘perception’ was called ‘Existential Soft Rock - mental re-construction through just sitting - be still and know’. It was live from 2002 till 2013 and had 507 posts. As of today it has had 32531 pageviews. This gives an average of 64 pageviews per post.

The second and current blog is called ‘Changing Minds - thoughts about the thinking and feeling processes and the dis-ease that comes with thinking outside the box’. This began in 2013 and to date has 279 posts and 9321 pageviews.  This gives an average of 33 pageviews per post.

I searched on the two blogs for [grace grudge] and found the following three posts:

In the Mood
“When I am in the mood for something I do it effortlessly and with good grace. This contrasts with doing things with a grudge because I have to. So what might it take to avoid the drudge of grudge and be more often in the mood?” [more]
07 March 2008


Thrilling Stilling
“I used to be a Scottish Presbyterian workaholic and busy-ness freak.  There was no time to lose as the devil finds work for idle hands to do.  These days I remain Scottish but I am more relaxed. I made time to stand and stare. I found ways to be still and know how my mind works and about who 'I' am. So how was this managed? In two words – just sit.” [more]
18 July 2008

What makes your heart sing?
“When your heart is singing you enjoy what you are doing and willingly go the extra mile. You are kindly disposed towards everybody and everything. You act with grace rather than with a grudge. You are happy and smile a lot. So what is the root of that hallowed state of coronary operatics?” [more]
20 September 2010

I am now several years down the road. There are still wafts of grudge concerning various topics – for example doing my accounts and filling the tax form. The grudges are often slow to go away but I can now step back and observe them and this removes the worst of their sting. But there is still a tendency to laziness and procrastination. It would make sense to deal with the topic and thus get it out of mind - but I still tend to leave such things to fester; and I ruminate about them.

I accept the autobiographical comment. But it is not driven by ego. Very few of my stories are based on hard, peer referenced data. The stories are subjective and it therefore seems necessary to establish credibility by outlining the nature of the subjectivity, ie its causes and conditions in terms of nature, nurture and serendipity.

Reality is contextual. And each thought moment brings a new context. In this particular moment there is the feeling that I might be getting better at graciously accepting the flow and not bearing grudges.

the everyday sublime

stephen batchelor

To experience the everyday sublime one needs to dismantle piece by piece the perceptual conditioning that insists on seeing oneself and the world as essentially comfortable, permanent, solid, and mine.

It means to embrace suffering and conflict, rather than to shy away from them, to cultivate the radical attention (yonisomanasikara) that contemplates the tragic, changing, empty, and impersonal dimensions of life, rather than succumbing to fantasies of self-glorification or self-loathing.

Stephen Batchelor, The Everyday Sublime

A shifting vocation

My vocation is teaching and the facilitation of learning: but what this involves has changed through time and work in six different countries.

I began teaching science and biology in schools. Then there was curriculum development and teacher training in a range of subjects. Next I helped set up an Education Advisory Service dealing with leadership, management and administration in schools. But, along the way, I lost faith in the ability of the formal education system to change the world.

My energy shifted to using plain language to produce materials that would help adults to better prepare themselves for participation in their governance – especially regarding the Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme (PRSP) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) which were being promoted by the IMF and the World Bank for a while. [Note 1] But, along the way, I lost faith in the willingness of the power elites to pay any attention to what ‘ordinary’ people had to say.

My energy shifted to being objective about the more emotionally sensitive (spiritual) aspects of multi-stakeholder processes (MSP) (ref Minu Hemmati). In terms of holistic development policy I developed the acronym STEEPLES (Social, technical, environmental, economic, political, legal, ethical and spiritual.) (for details see http://sites.google.com/site/steeplessrds/ ).

To cut a long story short I have not yet totally lost faith in the ability of ‘mindfulness’ to enable policy makers to engage in cognitive retraining and to be aware that their world views are not absolutes. They will thus be able and willing to renounce their limiting viewpoints for the greater good of humanity, the environment and the planet.

I am writing this story to address a negative thought that came to my attention this morning. Namely that I dumb down everything that I put my mind to. My main retort is that I help to point to the insubstantial nature of facts, ideas and concepts and the way in which they become hypotheses and then theories. These are mind-made entities seen from a particular point of view, there is no abiding reality.

But there is churn in the mindbrains of policy makers, freelance philosophers, media makers and ordinary people. World views and the language in which they are expressed change. Many new words are created but only a few are fully adopted, and old words drift out of fashion. This creative process happens in individuals and in groups. No culture sits still. The Dinka of the South Sudan are changing their ways and language as are my subcultural group of Doric speakers in the NE of Scotland. Both are building new nations – all change!

As a facilitator of lifelong learning I find Taoist philosophy to be inspirational. “The reality that can be described is not the real reality.” “The beginning of wisdom is in knowing that you do not know.”

I am also inspired by the scientific method which includes the duty to attack a colleague’s point of view. If the assertion survives the attack then it will be stronger. If it succumbs then it is good to cut it down before it can do damage. Ideally the scientific cut and thrust would be calm and mild mannered. But scientists are also human beings. Debate can often get acrimonious. So what is to be done?

In a word – mindfulness. Think about thinking. Notice what you notice. Be self reflective and find that there is no self. And it is said, “No self, no problem”.

I have been practicing mindfulness meditation off and on since my late teenage years and I have devoted more time to it since I retired. The main message is that what matters is not what you intuitively think and feel when you are on automatic pilot. What matters is that you should be calm and curious and ever willing to listen carefully to ‘other’ points of view.

My vocation involves changing minds. It has three sympathetic and increasingly consilient (ref E O Wilson) thrusts:

• In terms of western philosophy I highlight the hard academic question “How can we know?” (epistemology) rather than the softer one of “What do we know?” (ontology).
• In terms of eastern psychology I highlight the need to be still and know that my/your ‘self’ has no abiding reality. So ‘truth’ and reconciliation is possible,
• In terms of global science I highlight the structure and function of the evolving human mindbrain as promoted by neurology and evolutionary psychology.

SO – there are a lot of ideas in a short collection of words. Do they facilitate learning? Do they help promote freedom and enlightenment? Or is there too much dumbing down?

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Note 1>  I wrote about the MDGs in the much read ‘No more broken promises’ http://www.srds.co.uk/mdg ) (144,712 page views as of today since April 2003). 345 returns from Google search for [“http://www.srds.co.uk/mdg”]  References  include http://www.gameonscotland.org/Images/LearningJourneyRightsValuesGoals_tcm4-748706.pdf

Life’s likes and fights

As I gallop from womb to tomb there is stuff that I like and other stuff that I fight against - and the pattern changes through time. It will be more or less the same for other people but with different  details.

This morning I happened to visit George Monbiot’s website (he has a degree in Zoology!) and I was impressed with the way he prepared his ‘About George’ page (see http://www.monbiot.com/about/). So I have adapted his technique to be better suited to my present situation. Amongst other things I do not include simple items like (a) shopping, cooking and eating and (b) managing the self catering accommodation in my spare cottage.

The following lists deal with ‘things I like doing’ and with ‘things I try to fight’. The lists were originally quite short but new ideas popped up in the attention centre while I did other things. It is still not complete but I found it to be a useful activity in terms of the ancient advice to ‘know yourself’ – at least in the way things stand at present. You might like to try making your own list.

Here are some of the things I like doing:

• being: sitting quietly doing nothing;
• mindfulness meditation; especially with the Sangha;
• living in renunciant retreat;
• being in my unkempt, walled garden;
• appreciating light, warmth, and white clouds passing through a blue sky;
• keeping up with cutting edge thinking – especially about neurology, evolutionary psychology, and linguistics;
• noting how my world view changes in light of the courtship between eastern and western modes of thinking and feeling; the psychology of perception;
• letting the unconscious churn out blog posts; the muse in flow;
• writing about the more interesting and potentially universal thoughts and feelings that pass through the mindbrain - and making them available globally through the internet;
• using plain language techniques when writing;
• interacting socially with various groups – the Northern Lights Sangha, the Keith Parkinson’s Support Group; Portsoy Past and Present Community Group;
• interacting socially with various good friends – mainly from a distance;
• taking and editing photographs;
• making music (but this is no longer so easy because of the Parkinson’s);
• using the internet in support of most of the other things;

Here are some of the things I try to fight:

• Elegant power and its inequitable, and environmentally unfriendly hegemony
• Big government and small minds
• Parochial xenophobia and unthinking consumerism
• Wasting time – being on automatic pilot
• Waves of workaholism and procrastination
• Debilitation due to Parkinson’s Disease

Renouncing your Weltanschauung

Everyone has a world-view but many people are not conscious of having one. It is a comprehensive personal philosophy of the universe and of humanities relation to it. It is often referred to using the German word Weltanschauung

My Weltanschauung has its roots partly in the hard wiring of my brain (nature), partly in the processes that encultured me (nurture), and partly in a host of life’s serendipitous happenstances (chance).

The enculturation process can be viewed as a good thing (eg education) or a bad thing (eg brainwashing). In this age of globalization it might be good to avoid patterns of enculturation that result in xenophobic parochiality and in extreme them/us thinking. It might be good to encourage openness to and curiosity concerning other sub-cultures, cultures and their main ideologies.

Political science recognizes four main ideologies. They are shown below on a matrix with the horizontal axis going from political left to right and the vertical axis going from authoritarian at the top to libertarian at the bottom. This gives the four main ideologies of anarchism, socialism, fascism and liberalism. But the matrix is over simple. For example there are other authoritarian ideologies such as Marxism, communism, and religious fundamentalism. (For more detailed classification systems see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum )

The grander point about ideologies and Weltanshauungs is that people are prepared to kill and die in their name. This suggests that they serve some serious purpose. Presumably it has to do with a person’s sense of identity and their cognitive consonance. A popular and well endorsed world view offers relief from doubt, uncertainty and change.

Thich Nhat Hahn does not use the word Weltanschauung but he is very much aware of the concept. The first three of his fourteen mindfulness trainings tackle the problem of dealing with opposing world views. I have commented on the mindfulness trainings at some length elsewhere  so I will present only the first three here.

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The First Mindfulness Training: Openness

Aware of the suffering created by fanaticism and intolerance, we are determined not to be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. We are committed to seeing the Buddhist teachings as a guiding means that help us learn to look deeply and develop understanding and compassion. They are not doctrines to fight, kill, or die for.

We understand that fanaticism in its many forms is the result of perceiving things in a dualistic or discriminative manner. We will train ourselves to look at everything with openness and the insight of interbeing in order to transform dogmatism and violence in ourselves and the world.

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My  earlier comment:

Individual human beings are conditioned in parts by nature, nurture and serendipity. Both the conscious and the unconscious mindbrain are conditioned. The conditioning fits the individual to operate in a hunting and gathering group of 50-100 in the African savanna. The conditioning process creates a world view rooted in myth and magic and normally includes a distinction between ‘me, us and them’.

The conditioning process has resulted in a wide variety of forms throughout history and geography. At the positive end of the spectrum the conditioning can be thought of as broad-minded and open-ended education and training; while at the negative end it can be viewed as narrow-minded and limiting indoctrination and brainwashing.

THEY are war-mongering, intolerant, idolatrous, dogmatic, fanatics and zealots irrationally bound to theories, doctrines and ideologies that are rooted in dualistic myth and magic. In short, they are parochial xenophobes. Note – there is a lot of this about. In evolutionary terms it is fit enough to survive.

WE are peace-loving, tolerant, flexible, reasonable and rational. Our world view is rooted in the experiential monistic concept of interbeing. Along with the rocks and stones and plants and animals, we are all citizens of planet earth. In short we are global co-operators and environmentalists. Note: this way of understanding things is catching on (eg green politics and MBSR). How might we work towards making this viewpoint fitter?

At the personal level there is the bad news and the good news. The bad news is that often while on the cushion, the darker side of my nature and nurture enter the attention centre. The good news is the fact of neural plasticity – it is never too late to change your mindbrain. Notice what arises, label it and let it go. More good news – having experienced and understood the bad stuff in myself I am more inclined to be compassionate towards other people who have still to get on top of their bad stuff.

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The Second Mindfulness Training: Non-Attachment to Views

Aware of the suffering created by attachment to views and wrong perceptions, we are determined to avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. We are committed to learning and practicing nonattachment from views and being open to other’s insights and experiences in order to benefit from the collective wisdom. Insight is revealed through the practice of compassionate listening, deep looking, and letting go of notions rather than through the accumulation of intellectual knowledge.

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My earlier comment:

In the late 1960s I was conditioned into thinking and writing like a scientist (Zoologist) and later (1980 and 1986) as an academic. My worldview was a creation of those times.

I read Thomas Kuhn’s 1962 book -“The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” and thus knew that we were not dealing with ‘truth’ but rather with ‘the best working hypothesises in the light of evidence presently available’.

I also absorbed the scientific spirit of evidence-based, critical thinking where it was my duty to try and discredit the findings of fellow scientists. If the findings were insecure then it was for the greater good that this should be demonstrated. If the findings could withstand attack by the fiercest of adversaries then so much the better.

It sounds like a cool, rational process but emotions could run very high in opposing camps – scientists are also human beings and prone to cognitive biases. Groupthink is another ever present danger. Older and influential scientific brains often find it hard to shift with the paradigm and they come to be surrounded by careerist sycophants. “Max Planck … sadly remarked that ‘a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.’” Passions can get the better of reason!

But the non-attachment to views brought about by mindfulness is a guiding star in the methodology of both meditators and scientists. And the methodologies lead to very similar insights and understandings related to (a) the workings of the mindbrain, (b) the psychology of perception, (c) the politics of environmental stewardship and (d) the commitment to life-long learning.

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The Third Mindfulness Training: Freedom of Thought

Aware of the suffering brought about when we impose our view on others, we are determined not to force others, even our children, by any means whatsoever – such as authority, threat, money, propaganda, or indoctrination – to adopt our views.

We are committed to respecting the rights of others to be different, to choose what to believe and how to decide. We will, however, learn to help others let go of and transform narrowness through loving speech and compassionate dialogue.

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My earlier comment:

We all hold views. The views we hold depend on our conditioning. Our conditioning is part rooted in our nature which is hard wired into our genes as a legacy from our ancestors. It is also part rooted in our nurture which involves the formal and informal myths and magic associated with our family and community during early childhood and then with our friends and fellow workers and bosses when we mature. And finally our conditioning is rooted in serendipity – in chance occurrences that are deemed fortunate or otherwise.

I was not born as a completely blank slate. But my nature is now intimately mixed with my nurture which is rooted in rural Scotland in the 2nd half of the 20th century. There are no completely correct views and those that exist can change. To some extent I grew out of my natal nurturing through living and working in seven different countries. I worked in the beginning as a teacher (sit down shut up and listen) but I gradually evolved to be a facilitator of learning (never mind the views of others, be mindful; what do you think and feel – and why?).

Is there a difference between human nature and Buddha nature and if so what is it and when did it evolve? And how does dog nature, fish nature or even plant and rock nature fit it?

The answer lies in the concept of consciousness which links to awareness. Rocks are not aware of what goes on around them. Plants are aware of, and react to, changes in their environment but they are not conscious of what is happening – they are on automatic pilot like robots. Fish and dogs are aware and reactive but, arguably, they are not self conscious.

Only humans are conscious of being conscious and some are more conscious of it than others. There are two levels of self consciousness (a) the impoverished which is characterised by the idea of “I” want” and (b) the elaborated which can gently ask “Who or what is the “I” that wants?” – and – “Why does it want this rather than that?”.

The historical Buddha said that he was different from others in that he was aware of and awake to what was going on both inside and outside of himself. He embodied mindfulness. He saw the impermanence of all created things and he could thus be effortlessly renunciant of the viewpoints of himself and others.

“We will learn to help others
to let go of and transform narrowness
through loving speech and compassionate dialogue”

“Tread softly for you tread on my jokes” (Malcolm Muggeridge)

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As I get older I spend more time being mindful of what is happening in the present moment. This leads to my being able to treat thoughts and feelings lightly and to know that they are mind made. On those occasions when they rush in and capture most of the attention centre there are small spaces where the ‘observer’ can make a stand and thus quickly defuse the situation.

Something along the lines of, “Ah, hello my little friend anger – and what kind of mischief are you up to today?” OR “hello my little friend lust – now is not a good time - so fade away.”

My default weltanschauung has a strong flavour of anarchy which takes in the concepts of elegant power and its hegemony. The spirit of Antonio Gramsci was part of my conditioning as was Paulo Friere.

My self image is as a facilitator of learning aiming to help people set themselves free of narrow parochialism such that they can be part of the global community of mindfulness practitioners.

If you would like to join then you will have to go about renouncing your weltanschauung.

Questions of consciousness

The soft questions have to do with the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC).  The idea is that any subjective ‘thing’ that ‘appears’ to the mind (consciousness) will be associated with an objective activity in the brain. Neurologists now have a variety of brain scanning systems that make it possible to identify NCCs.

Note that the reverse is not true. There is an enormous amount of activity in the brain which does not register in consciousness. This raises questions about the decision making process that determines whether or not a brain activity will be made available to consciousness.

The hard question of consciousness deals with the physics of NCCs. Granting that the correlations exist, how does objective brain stuff (biochemistry) become subjective mind stuff (consciousness) and vice versa.

Note that this line of thought reflects the long standing philosophical problem of mind/body dualism. It also reflects the more populist notion of ‘mind over matter’ and its partner ‘matter over mind’.

Your mind decides that your arm should be raised above your head and it happens. That is magical. Even more magical is when your mind decides that somebody else’s arm should be raised above their head. This requires noises (words) to come from your mouth, pass through the air, and enter the ears of the other. There are then several rounds of coding and decoding in various parts of their brain that lead to a decision about whether or not to act.

Adolf Hitler was a talented speaker. His voice could make thousands of people raise their arms in Nazi salute. His mind was a prime mover behind the institutionalised gassing of Jews.

Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) was a talented speaker. His voice made thousands of people sit quietly and thus get to know the workings of their mindbrains. His mind was a prime mover behind the institutionalisation of mindfulness meditation.

I am minded of the UNESCO Constitution which includes the timeless realisation “That since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.”

Facts will ding

Robert Burns 1759-1796

In 1786 Robert Burns reckoned – “facts are chiels that winna ding,/An downa be disputed” [‘facts are fellows that will not be overturned,/And cannot be disputed’].

I disagree with our national poet about this.

Facts exist in particular mindbrains and as such are subject to ongoing cognitive churn. They are thus readily overturned, disputed and subject to reinterpretation. There is nothing substantive about them. The biologist Stephen Jay Gould captured the deeper point in 1986 when he said, “The facts of nature are what they are, but we can only view them through the spectacles of our mind.”

But the supposedly hard nosed academics in the 20th century did not factor in the neurology and the evolutionary psychology behind thought and meaning in the collective, human mindbrain. The subjective nature of ‘truth’ was swept under the carpet.

Here are a few quotes that give the intellectual and objective flavor of the times:

(1912) Bertrand Russell - “We are driven back to correspondence with fact as constituting the nature of truth. It remains to define precisely what we mean by 'fact', and what is the nature of the correspondence which must subsist between belief and fact, in order that belief may be true.”

(1949) Albert Einstein - “I despaired of the possibility of discovering the true laws by means of constructive efforts based on known facts. The longer and the more despairingly I tried, the more I came to the conviction that only the discovery of a universal formal principle could lead us to assured results.

(1952) Albert Einstein - “I think that only daring speculation can lead us further and not accumulation of facts.”

(1975) Paul Karl Feyerabend - “Facts are constituted by older ideologies, and a clash between facts and theories may be proof of progress.”

(1975) Paul Karl Feyerabend - “Not only are facts and theories in constant disharmony, they are never as neatly separated as everyone makes them out to be.”

(1987) Thomas Sowell - “Facts do not "speak for themselves." They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theory or visions are mere isolated curiosities.”

From this viewpoint it is as if facts existed and had objective locations in time and space.

Facts were talked about as if they were ‘things’ belonging to the category of ‘abstract’. The analogy was that as bricks make up a wall, so facts make up a theory.

I was encultured to that mechanistic scientific paradigm. I spent four youthful years training to be a Zoologist and my first Master’s degree dug the hole deeper.

However, the second Master’s degree opened doors to phenomenology, post-modernism and cultural relativism. It sparked an ongoing enthusiasm for thinking about thinking and for trying to avoid the conundrum of a mindbrain studying itself using a language that may not be up to the task.

These days I give the subjective unconscious a free rein to figure what is going on with the mindbrain wherein facts are chiels that div ding.

Verbal soup

There is always a need for people who stand out from the crowd by being out of step.

Psychologically they create cognitive dissonance by evoking uncommon sense and counterintuition.

Sociologically they are norm crackers and paradigm shifters.

Politically they expose the hegemonic nature of elegant  power and tend to promote subsidiarity if not outright anarchy.

They promote revolution by being radical rebels.

Language evolves

Language evolves. Old words and concepts go extinct and new ones arrive.

It is now 100 years since WW1. English and the many other European languages have changed in that time – especially in terms of politics and technology.

Here, for example, are a few WW1 words in chronological order -

Prussian military power, the Kaiser, the Boche; Triple Entente, enlistment, rationing, the front, trench warfare, chemical warfare, armistice, demobilization.

Nurturing Attention

There is a psychological and scientific technique that can bring about improvement in your sense of well-being, your ability to work with difficult feelings, and your likelihood of enjoying the rest of your life.

The essence of the technique is to keep paying attention to a particular thought, feeling or event. When attention drifts to the past or future, as it will, notice, and put it back on the chosen target.

The technique involves systematic attentional training. This involves focusing the mind and brain time after time and thus stilling the routine chatter.

The technique has been ‘discovered’ in many times and places and dressed up in a variety of exotic cultural costumes.

The omnipresence of the technique suggests that hard wiring must be involved.  Experienced practitioners explain that there is nothing that needs to be added. The task rather is to pull back the veil and wipe the dust from the mirror so that your light can shine. Enlightenment for the rest of your life!

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Goleman, Daniel (2013). Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence. Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine  www.NICABM.com

Awkward consciousness

People think about consciousness in many different ways. At the most basic level it equates with being sensitive to changes in your environment.

Single celled organisms like the Amoeba are aware of some environmental conditions (eg light, heat, chemicals) and react by moving towards or away from them. Some flowers track the sun during the day and fold their petals at night – so there is stimulus and response. But in these cases there are no sense organs or brains. So there is sensitivity but should we think of this as conscious activity?

When ordinary people talk of consciousness they are usually referring to self-consciousness which involves being aware of your own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc. Note that there is a non-egoic frame of mind which might be labelled as self-less-consciousness eg when musicians are in the groove, athletes are in the zone, poets hear their muse, and artisans flow.

Most of the activities of the mindbrain are not apparent to self-consciousness or self-less-consciousness and they are labelled as the unconscious. The unconscious has many modules and is in a constant state of flux so as to monitor changes in the internal and external environments and to organise reactions and responses to those changes.

There is also the concept of the sub-conscious. This can be thought of as a buffer zone between the conscious and the unconscious. It can be visualised as a channel through which the mind feeds the brain which in turn feeds the mind.

It is interesting to note that Buddhism recognises four type of consciousness – Mind, sense, store and self (manas) The following notes are based on http://archive.thebuddhadharma.com/issues/2006/summer/consciousness.html

Mind consciousness is our “working” consciousness that makes judgments and plans; it is the part of our consciousness that worries and analyzes … The brain is only 2 percent of the body’s weight, but it consumes 20 percent of the body’s energy. So using mind consciousness is very expensive. Thinking, worrying and planning take a lot of energy.

We can reduce the amount of energy needed by linking mind consciousness to mindfulness. Mindfulness keeps us in the present moment and allows our mind consciousness to relax and cut back on the energy used in worrying about the past or predicting the future.

The second type is sense consciousness, the consciousness that comes from our five senses. We sometimes call these senses “gates,” or “doors,” because all objects of perception enter consciousness through our sensory contact with them.

The third type is store consciousness which is the deepest and has three meanings. The first meaning is of a place, a “store,” where all kinds of seeds and information are kept. The second meaning is that store consciousness doesn’t just take in information, it holds it and preserves it. The third meaning covers the sense of processing and transforming.

Store consciousness can process information without much effort. So if you want to save your energy, don’t think too much, don’t plan too much, and don’t worry too much. Allow your store consciousness to do most of the processing.

Store consciousness can operate independent of mind consciousness. Store consciousness dictates many of the things we do, because it continuously receives, embraces, maintains, processes, and makes decisions without the participation of mind consciousness. So, as practitioners, we can’t rely on our mind consciousness alone; we have to rely on our store consciousness as well. Decisions are being made down there.

In store consciousness there are elements of ignorance—delusion, anger, fear—and these elements form a force of energy that clings, that wants to possess. This is the fourth type of consciousness, called manas, which can be translated as “cogitation.”

At the root of cogitation is the belief in a separate self.  This consciousness, the feeling and instinct called “I am,” is deeply seated in store consciousness and holds the idea that there is a self that is separate from non-self elements.

Whether we’re driving, manipulating a machine, or performing other tasks, many of us allow our sense consciousness to collaborate with store consciousness. This means that many things can happen without the intervention of mind consciousness.

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First there was sensitivity and then consciousness and now consciousness of consciousness and of unconsciousness.

SO consciousness is an awkward concept – but well worth unpicking.

>>>>> More … ‘Consciousness is an enigmatic beast.’ Scientific American Editors (2013). The Secrets of Consciousness (Kindle Edition.)

A little knowledge

Reality is complicated. So is the way we try to understand it. The way includes feelings, moods and motivations (intentions) and also thoughts, words and deeds. And these have to do with how we view and understand our inner and outer environments.

Our knowledge and understanding of the inner and outer environments is rooted in (a) nature -inherited modules in the mindbrain (hard wiring) and (b) nurture - inputs channelled through our various sense organs ie visible light, audible sounds, types of taste and smell, types of touch.

We understand reality using our mindbrains which have evolved through reptilian, mammalian, primate, hominid and now human stages. Our contemporary mindbrains have to deal with our being social animals who now use language. New adaptations have been and will be tweaked from existing and aging heritage systems – the stone age mindbrain contemporises?

As language users we clump and categorise reality into manageably sized things and events linked by cause and event chains. We tend to populate our realities with agents and patterns (Shermer).

Classic examples of classification include (a) the binomial system of Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) – he arranged plants and animals into seven levels - Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species, and (b) the periodic table of the elements drawn up by Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907 – his system predicted the existence of elements that were unknown in his time.

The above examples are standing the test of time. Other more common sense examples have now been relegated to that dustbin of history called myth and magic – eg

• arranged marriages
• atoms are indivisible 
• children should be seen but not heard
• every cloud has silver lining
• female genital mutilation
• heavier than air machines cannot fly
• honor killings
• human sacrifice to placate the Gods
• if a pregnant women eats boiled eggs the baby will be born bald
• intelligent design
• nature red in tooth and claw
• seeing is believing
• the divine right of Kings
• the lord helps those that help themselves
• watched kettles never boil

With the recent advances in neurology it is becoming clear that most (99.99%) of what happens in the mindbrain is confined to the unconscious; or to put it the other way round – self consciousness accounts for only about 00.01% of mindbrain activity - and most of that is after the fact of unconscious churn which is laden with cognitive bias and heuristics

A cognitive bias is a pattern of deviant thinking where inferences about other people and situations may be drawn in an illogical fashion. Cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality. But then again, some cognitive biases are presumably adaptive. They may lead to more effective actions in a given context, eg by enabling faster decisions when timeliness is more valuable than accuracy, as illustrated in heuristics.

A heuristic is a mental shortcut that helps us make decisions and judgments quickly without having to spend a lot of time researching and analyzing information. Heuristic methods are used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution via mental shortcuts to ease the cognitive load of making a decision. Examples of this method include using a rule of thumb, an educated guess, an intuitive judgment, stereotyping, or common sense

Most people exhibit what Hanson calls Negativity bias.  This is about pessimism and Velcro for the bad as opposed to optimism and Teflon for the good. This may be adaptive. Those who are easy going and freewheeling are more likely to be lion lunch than those who are restless and panicky.

According to Kahneman we are prone to thinking fast and slow and fast is the most common. Fast is adaptive in emergencies while slow is better when there is time for deep reflection. Fast thinking is riddled with cognitive biases and heuristics and much of it is intuitive and instinctive. Slow thinking is tougher as it involves paying more attention to the real evidence while analysing, planning, implementing and evaluating. When you are running on fast thinking you are on automatic pilot, when on slow thinking you are less habit bound and more authentic.

But it is not easy to be authentic rather than to be a creature of blind habit. We are both hard wired and culturally conditioned to run this way rather than that. There is, however, the option of mindfulness which involves being awake to and aware of what is going on in those parts of the mindbrain to which there is conscious access. By bearing witness to the stream of thoughts and feelings that are channelled through the attention centre we can realize that the mind has a mind of its own and that therefore our view of ‘self’ needs reworking.

BUT none of the above is cast in stone. There is neural plasticity which allows the brain to change the mind which in turn changes the brain.

I am minded of the Taoist insight that the reality that can be described is not the real reality. Reality is complicated, awesome and endlessly fascinating. Arguably if the mindbrain has a purpose it is to be conscious of its consciousness and thus to fathom reality in a way that ensures its survival in a post stone age, globalised world.