Part I
(It will eventually merge into Gurbani)
For some, the pursuit to understand “Who am I” may be an irrelevant endeavour or an exercise in futile; for many other curious minds, especially those with interest in psychological and sociological disciplines this fascination may be just the beginning. For them search for an answer to this fascinating question (Who am I?) could lead to more intriguing pathways to understanding various aspects of human experiences, psycho-social behaviours and personal idiosyncrasies in human interactions and social relationships. No wonder, Jim Carrey called this as “The most fascinating problem in the world”.
In my quest to understand this elusive “I”, I soon discovered that there are several thresholds that one needs to cross as the veil of its elusiveness appears to be layered with concepts of psychology, sociology, neurology, physiology, philosophy, biochemistry and perhaps physics. Having virtually no or perhaps very little background in these academic disciplines, my initial recourse for my exploration was to follow my intuition and embark on the journey with whatever I felt intuitively right hoping others with knowledge and expertise in these disciplines will help clarify, modify and reinforce these ideas or perhaps refute them. I also thought, these intuitive ideas will provide opportunity to selectively dig deeper into other academic discipline at least to understand and seek clarity of ideas from those disciplinary perspectives that intuitively appear appealing in this pursuit.
Although, for the large part, ideas and thoughts presented in this narrative were formulated intuitively, significant effort has also been made to drill down and understand the underlying process of human physiology. As such, even if this is purely a theoretical/philosophical exercise and many arguments that are hypothesized are based on intuitive reasoning, considerable effort is made to draw from what we have learnt from advances in neuroscience and the role that the basic chemical constituents of human body -- the amino acids – play in genes and DNA. It may also be the case that many of the hypothetical statements made in this explorative discourse will remain theoretical because the controls that may be required to empirically validate some of these hypotheses may not be feasible especially as it relates to the cerebral activity and neuroanatomy. For the most part, it is an intuitive journey!
Intuition, by definition, is an inherent feeling/ability to know something without evidence, or without any conscious reasoning. All inventions and discoveries from incandescent light bulb by Thomas Edison to the Theory of Relativity by Albert Einstein started from an idea that germinated first at an intuitive threshold in the human psyche. In general, intuitive ideas lead to theories, theories lead to experimentations and finally to validations or falsifiability.
We as humans are as complex as the cosmos in which we live. Aside from the matter that we are made of, we are constantly subjected to social, physiological, psychological, neurological, and various other processes that operate both sequentially and simultaneously in the human body. Because of the intricacy and inter-dependency of these numerous processes operating simultaneously, some of the ideas and thoughts presented in this paper cannot be isolated and controlled and thus are not amenable to any social or scientific experimentation. For these reasons, many of the ideas that are discussed below are purely intuitive and relate to key aspects of human existence such as what are thoughts, ideas, dreams, fears etc. that flow out of this primary pursuit to understand “I” -- the locus of our being where the operational control of all our thoughts, actions and physiological and biological processes reside. Perhaps this is the very first hypothesis with which we start this intellectual exploration; the hypothesis being: “I” is the locus of operational control for all our thoughts, actions and physiological and biological processes. It is not our intent to prove this hypothesis to be true; we have taken this as a “truth” and it is this truth that is the impetus to understand “I” unless some can refute this hypothesis with some material evidence.
We all are born with our unique genetic footprints; what we become as human beings depends upon the psycho-social environment in which we grow along our unique life trajectory. We are born with our genetic endowment that is at the core determines how we respond to the external world of psycho-social environmental influences at each moment in life. The key interface that connects our innate inner core as human beings and the external world in which we exist, is provided by billions of sensory receptors that bring in information in the unfathomable cerebral complexity of neural pathways in the human brain.
The human Brain -- a 400-gram piece of mass -- an astonishingly complex structure densely packed with close to 80 to100 billion tiny biological machines with an astounding working potency that controls almost every aspect of human behaviour that may or may not be known to man today. It is simply a complex network of neural pathways where all the action takes place and it is where the answers to most of our intriguing questions (thoughts, ideas, dreams etc.) including the most fascinating problem in the world – who am I -- reside. Whatever happens in our brain in terms of cross-communications across neural pathways through electro-chemical impulses give rise to thoughts, ideas, dreams, fears, emotions, intuition, cognition, extra-sensory perception, near death experiences. These are all self-constructs -- our own individuals’ creations -- based entirely on the “neural manipulation” of sensory receptors that the brain initially receives from external stimuli over one’s lifetime. Nothing is metaphysical; what we see, feel and experience is limited by two key factors: the potency of our sensory information and the effectiveness of neural communication across the neural pathways. For example, our sense of smell cannot gather information that some animals can gather. In both, humans and animals, the information is there but because of difference in the potency of sensory receptors, it would be thought of a miraculous ability for a human who has developed this higher level of sensory potency to sense things that others cannot sense.
Although immense neural activity takes places incessantly in the brain over one’s lifetime, the brain itself remains simply a dark chamber; it does not have any sound, smell or screen on which images are formed. There is only electro-chemical activity.
If our existence and functioning as human species depend upon the “neural manipulation” of sensory information that brain receives from external stimuli, it is then incomprehensible that all the neural manipulations that define the implicit working of the human brain can carry on randomly without an underlying uniformity, however implicit it may be. As human species, there is profound uniformity in physiological constitution, physiological functions and physiological responses; and therefore, it is improbable that the implicit neural functioning of the human brain carries on randomly. If the underlying neural manipulations were to take place randomly, our behaviour, emotions, cognitive and perceptive reactions and interactions would be chaotic, unambiguous and unimaginably more unpredictable than many who we know are afflicted with such mental disorders as schizophrenia, epilepsy, crosstalk. All mental health disorders are due to some disruption in the NORMAL flow of information across neural pathways for whatever reason. It is normality in the flow and interaction of neural information that defines and sustains NORMAL human existence, as we know. Like uniformity in physical, physiological and biological processes such as circulatory and respiratory systems, the “internal neural manipulations” in all human brains take place continuously, consistently, uniformly, and involuntarily, and efficiency that varies depending upon our unique genetic makeup that is embedded in each brain cell – - the fundamental building block of a neural pathway. The answer to such questions as: who am “I”, what are our thoughts, ideas, dreams and consciousness and how do they emerge all reside in the operational mechanics of the brain called Internal Model.
The cumulative total of all the sensory information that brain receives directly from external stimuli is the total capacity of the brain’s “Internal Model” at any stage in one’s life. It is this “Internal Model” that brain uses to predict reality around it. It is in this process of prediction that we as individual go through a process of hallucinations until a point that the reality we are hallucinating converges (i.e. matches) with “real” physical entity one is observing or experiencing. The hallucinations stop either when the internal model has all the necessary information to predict “reality” and its prediction matches exactly with what it is observing/ experiencing through its senses or when the “Internal Model” has updated itself with the pieces of new sensory information that is coming in at the given moment to enable it to predict the reality as it exists.
It is not because of our brain; it is because of the Internal Model that we exist and function as human species. The functioning of all our physiological, psychological and biological processes is directly or indirectly linked to the Internal Model – the sum total of all our sensory information and its neural manipulations. The answer to the question “Who am I?” also resides in this Internal model so are the answers to many other key questions (such as what are thoughts, ideas, dreams, fears, emotions, intuition, cognition, extra-sensory perception etc.) that are of interest to curious minds.
The neuroscience has validated the predictive behaviour of the Internal Model through experimental observations and there is a consensus that our reality is actually ‘inside out” and not “outside in”. Also, there is consensus among neuroscientists that “we are constantly hallucinating”. All these neuroscientific observations align with the intuitive framework that is proposed below regarding the content and evolving structure of the “Internal Model” about which there has been considerable reference and consensus among neuroscientists. Unfortunately, though, neuroscience has remained silent on its structure for a good reason – the workings of a live human brain cannot be subjected to experimental controls and validation. Even if an attempt is made to seek validation of any of the hypothesis listed below in the formulation of the Internal Model, with a mammal’s brain, the difficult remains how to identify, isolate and control neural interactions and their cross-influences in a live animal’s brain to refute what is being hypothesized. The only way to disapprove a hypothesis in such cases where a subject (like a live brain) cannot be subjected to experimental controls is by falsification. That is, to present a case or scenario that refutes the stated hypothesis.
One of the hypotheses listed below speaks to an outstanding and an intriguing question: What are human thoughts and how do they emerge/form in our brain? Deepak Chopra, a medical doctor, a well-known author of numerous books and a motivational speaker with frequent appearances on PBS TV channel has thrown an open challenge to anyone to explain the biological basis of an idea or a simple thought in brain. He framed his offer with a valid scientific research restriction. He demanded that any argument responding to his challenge be scientifically valid, peer-reviewed and falsifiable. But there is a fundamental flaw in his imposing this requirement of scientific validation – he presupposes that the answer to his elusive question resides in the confines of science that exists today. If the answer to his question resides, as I propose, outside the present domain of scientific know-how and; I also state with unmitigated personal belief that the scope of the present scientific validation procedures and protocols tools is likely not sufficient to provide validation that Dr. Chopra is seeking. The answer to his elusive question can still be scientific but the current knowledge of science must rise to a level that would encompass the answer. The answer that we provide in this framework resides outside the current scientific and neuro-scientific domain of knowledge that the humanity knows at the present time.
No doubt, such restrictions, as imposed by Dr. Chopra, are accepted standards in scientific research and are valid expectations but could delay the scientific validations of the proposed research findings for decades or for centuries. For example, the validation of the Higgs mechanism took over 50 years until particle physicists were able to construct LHC, the largest, most technologically sophisticated machine ever built to scientifically validate Higgs mechanism. Following this validation, Peter Higgs received 2013 Noble Prize in Physics.
Turning to Dr. Chopra’s expectation, the arguments presented or hypothesized in this paper regarding origin of thoughts, ideas, dreams etc. would be falsifiable only when the neuroscience or science, in general, has advanced to a level where it is able to identify and selectively control the flow of electrochemical signals along neural pathways in a live human brain to empirically validate or refute the arguments presented below.. Although route to falsification is available, it is unlikely that such empirical validation is possible in the foreseeable future.
The origin of a thought or an idea is in brain – it is a result of a complex interaction of billions of tiny biological machines. With 84 to 100 billion neurons, a human brain has a potential capacity in the order of 2^ 100 billion ( read as 2 to the power 100 billion) neural pathways with each pathways involving more than a million neurons. This number is close to 2.5 followed by 30 trillion zeros. How big is this number? It will take about 930 years to write this number if someone starts writing it non-stop, day and night, 24 hours a day! This is potential capacity of our brain in terms of potential neural pathways.
It is in this backdrop of neural complexity that, we set out (in the follow up post) to formulate the proposed framework of Human Brain’s Internal Model and answer some intriguing questions including the one that Dr. Chopra has posed.
