brain structure - early days

Having recently re-read Daniel Goleman's (2013) “Focus – the hidden driver of excellence”, I am aware of not being focussed at this present moment - the brain state is high level monkey mind with the robot on autopilot.

I have also recently re-read Matthew Lieberman's (2013) “Social. Why our brains are wired to connect”. With his team he has invented social, cognitive neuroscience (SCN).

Both books attempt to graft the new findings of neuroscience to what went before. Given the novel brain scanning machines the notion of the neural correlates of conscientiousness (NCC) are observable facts rather than speculative hypotheses.

There is the inevitable churn of the unconscious as it processes thoughts, feelings and moods (TFMs) which come from both inside and outside.

I have not yet bothered to figure the details of brain structure. There are millions of neurones and billions of synapses making and breaking connections. And it is well to remember that the system evolved ie without forward intention. It is thus functional but higgledy/piggledy. And it is still an infant discipline with new insights appearing all the time.

For the moment I loosely monitor what is going on so as to answer such questions as :-

Why do brains exist?

When did brains begin to evolve?

What makes the human brain so clever?

Who are the main people in neuroscience?

Where do they work?

How are they funded?

AND

What are the neural correlates of my doodles?

What patterns can be identified?

Why does the ability to produce them exist?

Why does doodling give rise to a non-egoic frame of mind (flow?)