Origin of I

There is a temptation to herd the cows of other people. In this case neuroscience as expounded by Humphrey (1992) and by Amthor (2012). But, rather than accurately summarise their ideas as a set of one-pagers, I hereby (a) acknowledge their influence on the related stuff that is appearing in the attention centre, and (b) record the emergent stuff as it flows in from the unconscious.

Why are there mindbrains?

Ultimately to plan movement towards what is desirable and away from what is undesirable. In simpler living things the stimulus response link is automatic and everything is concrete and practical. In more complex living things (ie multicellular animals) there is a black box between the stimulus and the response. The black box is the mindbrain and it allows some flexibility in the response. Woolly speculation enters the scene – is this where free-will becomes possible?

The human one is the most highly evolved example of a mindbrain. By mammalian and primate standards it has a hugely expanded cortex which serves to coordinate and integrate the activities of the ancestral reptilian and amphibian parts.

Evolution has also provided the human mindbrain with a unique capacity for language. This promotes the woolly and speculative activities inside the black box to a much  higher level. The physics and chemistry of the sensory systems remain much the same as in other mammals but the manner in which their inputs are coded, interpreted, and integrated is on a higher order of magnitude.

In nature there is no doer and no doing but nothing is left undone. “Sitting quietly doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.”

In the unconscious part of the human mindbrain there is a huge amount of activity geared towards controlling the various life processes – nutrition, respiration, excretion, irritability, reproduction etc. Food is digested and absorbed, oxygen is inhaled and carbon dioxide is exhaled, the body temperature is kept at a steady 36 degrees, minor wounds are repaired etc. And ‘I’ have no control over these involuntary processes. There is no self-conscious doer but nothing important is left undone.

Organic beings with a human mindbrain, a community and a language tend to ‘believe’ that ‘they’ are discreet entities that they call ‘me’ or ‘I’. This is the ‘self’ that is part of the idea of being ‘self conscious’. We are not born with it fully formed. The graph shows a 3+1 development process through time.

1. Zygote, embryo, new born
2. Infancy, childhood, adolescence
3. Maturity
4. (optional) transcend the self