Three threes

I know and have feelings about quite a lot of stuff. But nothing comes from nothing. The mental stuff takes shape as thoughts, feelings and moods (TFM) which have their causes in nature, nurture and chance (NNC) and are sourced by individuals from family, community and school (FCS).

The individuals have experiences in the womb as they develop from fertilised egg to new born infant. They then live through life’s stages picking up ideas about how to ‘be’ in a particular natal culture.

In the long early days of our foraging ancestors, life would have been relatively uncomplicated. But the pre-frontal cortex expanded and this gave rise to an ever growing division of labour which made life much tougher – especially after language evolved.

Note that children are no longer thought of as blank slates. Instead we have the notion of neural plasticity and of the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). There can be no TFM without synchronised activity in various parts of the brain. By ‘taking thought’ the brain can influence the mind which by ‘taking thought’ can influence the physical structure of the brain. Mind over matter and matter over mind – a two-way street that is three steps long

• STEP ONE: Signals from the inner and outer environments are received as inputs to the sense organs which encode them and sends them to various modules and networks in the brain
• STEP TWO: There is churning in the mind and brain as new inputs are decoded and matched with short and long-term memories. This allows for both fast reactions (eg reflexes, biases, instincts) and for slower and more thoughtful responses.
• STEP THREE: there are changes in the amount of neurochemicals controlling the extent of reaction and responses to both internal and external stimuli.

SO – nothing comes from nothing and everything comes from something.

Briefly - TFM come from NNC with support from FCS – why are we as we are? The three threes offer an analytical framework for finding an answer.