Behind the Scenes of The Brain Show

by Zeev Nitsan

  Is our mind a mirage—a phantasmagoric result of perception tricks? Loops of perceptional representations that are formed within our brain, one inside the other, and that mutually feed each other? Some believe that the conception that sees our inner part as the “mind” derives from this highly complex pattern of weaving.

  Thus, for example, the delivery room of the sense of self, according to the theory of brain researcher Rodolfo Llinás, is formed in the space of mutual connections between the thalamus, basal ganglia, and cortex.

  The marvelous exchange act of the brain from material to spirit echoes in the words of mathematician Paul Erdös, who once defined a mathematician as a machine whose purpose was transforming coffee into algorithms.

  In the eye of Buddhists, the issue is reflected in the argument that, as a flower that grows in the garden reflects the continuation of the matter and the atoms that compose it have existed from the very first days of Earth (though they have undergone different incarnations in the evolutionary process, to the point where they incarnated as a flower), so, similar to entities in the materialistic world, the cognition of an individual must also derive from a continuum that originated in the past.

  Skeptic Mind

  Some might say that the attempt to use the self to see “beyond the self” is doomed to failure, and, despite the scientific craving that has lasted for years, it seems that it is impossible to separate the process of observation from the observer. Possible support for that can be found in quantum mechanics as well. A poetic metaphor for that might be that we are both the poet and the poem, and the poem defines our nature as poets.

  In a similar sense to the meaning used by Carl Sagan when he said that we are stardust looking at the stars and exploring their secrets,[56] our mind is a creature of our brain, and we use it to explore the brain as being the interrogator and the interrogee simultaneously; some might claim that there is built-in failure in that.

  Some think that one of the substantial characteristics of cognition is that, by its nature, it is incapable of explaining itself—the limitation of self-knowledge is built into our cognition. In other words, our nature prevents us from fully comprehending our nature, including understanding the manner in which the flower of spirit blossoms on the bedding of materialism.

  Philosopher Gilbert Ryle claimed that body and soul do not exist on the same reference plane, thus their conceptualization and investigation in similar tools of analysis are doomed to failure.

  The personal experience is formed in the first-person universe; science is a resident of the third-person universe. Robert Frost once said that poetry is what is lost in translation. Some claim that, in a similar manner, the “poetry of cognition,” which is experienced in the first person, is lost in the attempt to translate it into a third-person description in the language of anatomy and biochemistry.

  Is our mind an immeasurable aspect of the physical universe?

  Some believe that among brain functions there are immeasurable qualities, not only with respect to measurement modes known to us today, but also in a more comprehensive sense, and that the understanding of cognition exceeds the ability of conceptual understanding of the human brain, exactly as we do not expect a lizard to understand grammar rules or a goldfish to understand the principles of thermodynamics. Mysterianism is a philosophical approach that represents a softer version of the anti-romantic saying about the limited ability of human intelligence. Mysterianism suggests that the human mind is not at the evolutionary stage that enables it to understand how cognition grows from neural activity, though it is not a supernatural phenomenon. This approach, as opposed to the one that preceded it, does not totally deny the future potential of human intelligence to cope with the riddle.

  Will We Be Able to Know Our Mind?

  Metaphysics—the kingdom of the things we cannot get to know by means of observation and experiments—is the space in which numerous hypotheses regarding the essence of the mind and the body–soul alchemy that is formed in the workshop of the brain take place.

  Science is empirical (based on experiments) and quantitative, whereas metaphysical approaches are qualitative and, though they are sometimes characterized by a great power of explanation, they usually cannot be quantified or proven by means of an experiment.

  Science is suspicious of metaphysical hypotheses, and often justifiably so. But metaphysical “axiomatic” hypotheses are hidden, like corpses of the unlucky rivals of Mafia members, in the “concrete pillars” that constitute a basis for the scientific method, even if only implicitly. Thus, for example, there is a hypothesis according to which reality manifestations are real in and of themselves, regardless of human acknowledgement. Thus, trees in the forest will make a sound when falling down, even if nobody hears this sound. So also is the assumption that reality manifestations have some kind of orderly regularity that can be traced.

  The dispute that is based on the question of whether the ontological existence of phenomena depends on or does not depend on human consciousness that experiences it seems like a metaphysical dispute. In this spirit, for example, there are contradictory arguments that claim that mathematical entities are only expositions (ideas) of physical entities in human thought and, on the other hand, the notion that one plus one will remain two also after the death of the last person on Earth.

  Insights that were perceived as metaphysical and unexplainable empirically in certain periods of time might be either confirmed or refuted as time goes by—for example, the insights regarding the essence of time and space. Contradictory positions were introduced by Newton, who claimed that time and space are absolute, and Leibniz, who claimed that time and space are relative.[57] The issue that seemed irresolvable, irrefutable, and unconfirmable was classified at the time as a metaphysical issue. This issue has undergone conceptual metamorphosis with the emergence of the theory of relativity, whose common inferences are compatible with Leibniz’s position. Will the riddle of cognition, characterized nowadays as a metaphysical issue, be empirically illuminated in a pattern similar to the question of time and space?

  Some define the constant search for the secret of the mind as “spiritual pilgrimage.”

  According to William James, a philosopher resembles a blind person who looks in a dark room for a black cat that is not there. Some might cynically say the same thing about “soul hunters”: they search our brain for an abstract entity that is not really there.

  Is our mind—a non-material entity—the production of a material organ—our brain?

  Is there an “autonomous, perceiving entity” in our brain that operates the constant channel of perception in our consciousness? And does this entity include a unique component that contributes the essence of consciousness? And who perceives it? And who perceives the perceiver?

  Is the pattern of perception a type of matryoshka doll, which contains smaller and smaller matryoshka dolls that are contained within one another? Containment in a pattern that gets smaller and smaller is referred to as endless regression, and it is one of the familiar logical failures that researchers of consciousness are dealing with.

  The discussion that relates to the issue of the mind sometimes seems like a semantic, undecidable argument that relates to the meaning of the concepts rather than the facts.

  There are situations in which cracks are revealed in our worldview, which usually seems whole. Even the most rationalistic people among us have difficulty with applying cold, scientific methods when it comes to researching the high spheres of the human mind.

  The body–soul unity approach often meets fierce internal resentment, which usually derives its strength from the lands of emotion.

  It seems that the mysteries of the mind will remain a “terra incognita” (unknown land) for years to come. Some say, “We will never know,” while others make do with saying “We do not know yet.”

  Epilogue

  For those who have forded the river of words and made it to the rear bank of this book, I truly hope you have al
so found some insights that might be useful for your daily life.

  In the spirit of the philosophical, existential view, we should create a purpose for ourselves for our short cadence on the planet. Our brain enables us to design this purpose and pursue it. A complete understanding of the human brain’s pattern of action is a remote objective, and some claim it is unachievable, like an asymptote to which one can draw closer and closer but is never able to reach completely, though additional knowledge and information about this magnificent organ bring us closer to the objective. And I do hope you are, indeed, closer to it now.

  * * *

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