The brain, Common sense, Consciousness and Emotions.
An essay by Jenny Lejhag NV3 spring term of 1999
Introduction
We all think, act and feel. But how? We collect impressions from our surroundings constantly, we process the data and when we need it, we pick it out and use what we have learnt. For long time we have all agreed that these processes take place in the brain. But what makes the brain able to do this? Also, what is the difference between things we carefully think over and things we do not even know our brain is deciding, but it does anyway. We, as we call ourselves, human beings have a more complex brain than all other animals. Question is, if we use it as much as we could, or could we cope with much less? How come we have a bigger brain, it has to have some kind of reason. So lean back and read, which is something you have taught your brain to do...
How the brain works.
We can not really explain how the brain works, but we do know that it is built up by neurones which communicate via junctions called synapses. Neurones are very simple and are thought of as switches. A normal human brain consists of 100 billion neurones and 60 trillion synapses. We have two brains, the left and the right. The left brain is dominant for language and speech and the right deals foremost with visual and motor tasks.
When the brain works, the neurones get a signal, which they either send forth to the other neurones it is connected to, or it does not. Depending on how the signal goes, we react in a certain way. When we learn something new, there are new synapses built between neurones, but also in the same way, when we do not use a connection, it decays. The brain "learns" what response is appropriate to a given stimulus. The human brain is actually so complex, that we do not now anything more complex in the universe (but, we do not know very much about the universe...). Actually, the human gene is simpler.
When we are born, our brain is partially built, but only so that we can survive infancy. Then, our brain develops and builds more and more connections between the neurones, but this is based on learning, not genetics. Especially during our first two years the number of synapses increase tremendously. The brain is an evolutionary system and is therefor sometimes called the "Darwin Machine". Different parts of the brain have evolved at different times and probably for different purposes. These parts have adapted to each other and other organs and finally become one organ. Perhaps, there have been pre-humans with other brains, but they have been sorted out by natural selection.
Common sense
If our brain would be completely logical, we would not work. That would imply that the mind would need exact information about every single event. If our brain worked like this we would have no chance of surviving. Therefor there has to be something else, that does not need exact information. This process also has to be very fast, in case of emergency. In such a case common sense takes over and determines what we do, what we think does not matter. Though, in many cases we have learnt to stay calm and not let common sense decide, while common sense often makes us do things we later regret. Classical Logic can be very wrong, especially using the logical OR operation. If one statement is true and the other is false, they are together looked upon as true. An example of this is the statement "my name is Jenny or 3 2 = 2", which is considered true, even if only one of the statements is really true. Also "every unicorn is an eagle" is true (!), while there are no unicorns. Classical Logic proves theorems by proving that the opposite of the theorem is false. To see to it that none of these faults will appear, we are equipped with common sense. Common sense tries to verify a theorem with proofs.
We rarely have to find the perfect solution for a problem and we seldom have to figure out the best option. We do not have to, while any option leads to the desired outcome anyway. An example of this is that if we are out of gasoline, we pull over at the next gas-station, we do not go around and try to find the cheapest. Sometimes there is no time to consider alternatives. What if a gazelle stopped to figure out the best way to run from a lion? It would be caught by the lion. Artificial Intelligence has been around for a while, but these machines are really not very intelligent. These machines are in fact stupid, but only common sense can decide what is stupid. There are actually some sentences that we use often in everyday life. Examples are: "Is everybody here?" (those who are not, can not tell...), "Does everybody understand English?" (those who do not, can not tell) and "Which is the shortest river?" (you can always find a smaller one in your bathtub or something).
Consciousness
We know pretty much about how our brain generates reasoning, memory and learning, but we do not know much about something that is around almost all the time, our Consciousness. We can actually doubt everything else, even our own bodies, but not our consciousness. Everything else could be an illusion, but consciousness allows us to imagine that it could be an illusion. It is hard, though, for a conscious being to understand what consciousness is. Even if we understand the brain, it is not sure that we understand consciousness anyway. Some claim that consciousness is the only thing there is.
Along with consciousness a number of other phenomena occur, such as the self (awareness of being), bodily sensations (pain, pleasure), emotions (anger, happiness, fear, love), phenomenal qualities (red, tall), thinking, cognition (reasoning, memory, learning) and perception (awareness of others, of the world, of time). The question is, if there is consciousness and nothing else, are these phenomena above only imagination too, or are they parts of it.
To consciously think something over, is a slow process. Therefor we also have an unconscious, which is much faster. The unconscious deals with things that have become highly practised and therefor they become automatic. These two work in parallel, but only one at a time. Some believe that the same process that creates conscious, also creates our subconscious, i.e. our dreams. Jonathan Winson even thinks that first the brain started dreaming, before it did anything else, then the dreams took over the brain and became the mind. So maybe, Winson thought, is the mind only one long continuous dream.
Emotions
All beings that think, also feel, at least the scientists think so. Emotions are a product of evolution, while emotions help us to make decisions fast in crucial situations. Emotions simplify the goals, the needs and the situation, with only one emotion. An example of this is if you are hungry, then your goal is to eat, your need is food and the situation takes place by an apple-tree. The emotion that simplifies the whole process is then "desire apples". Emotions arise from the relationship between the individual and its environment. Though, emotions are not permanent, they depend on both biological and social variables. This explains why emotions change through life. It also explains why different people react differently to the same incident. The emotional memory is stored in the amygdala, while the declarative memory is stored in the hippocampus and the cortex. The emotional memory only has simple links between cues and responses, it does not figure out what caused the cue.
The reason why adults can not remember childhood traumas, is because the hippocampus is not yet fully developed as a child, and therefor no memories are stored. Though, the emotional memory, which gets stored in the amygdala, that matures earlier, still remembers the feelings.
To fool the memory.
Recently there have been cases in court, where people have taken back all what they have earlier said. The people that are testifying are now adults and have accused someone for sexual abuse when they where children. They withdraw their accusations, because they have realized that they are false. It all begins with an appointment at a psychiatrist, because the patient is depressed. Psychiatrists often think that the main trauma lies in the patient's childhood, and begins to ask questions. These questions are often leading and able to answer with yes or no. The psychiatrist can also tell the patient to let the imagination to run wild, to figure out what has happened. The more the patient thinks about, what may have happened, the more she thinks she remembers. The "memories" are fuzzy and unclear, and that makes the patient even more sure that it is real memories from childhood. If the patient "remembers" being abused, she can accuse someone of being the perpetrator falsely.
Research, made by Elizabethe F. Loftus, shows that it is fairly easy to implant a false memory. The memory should though be about something that happened in childhood. The test subjects were told about three events that is supposed to have happened when they were small. Their parents had given the information about two events that are true to the researchers. Then the researchers added one more memory, that they had fabricated. The subjects were then asked if he or she remembered anything about the three events. Half of the subjects were after two weeks asked questions like "Do you remember when....?", "How did you feel?", "What colour had the...?", etc. After an additional two weeks all subjects were again asked if they remembered anything about the three events. Those who had been asked more questions did not "remember" the false when they were first asked, but the second time (after 4 weeks) 20 percent did. None of the others remembered the false event at all. The subjects describe the false memory as somewhat more fuzzy than the true ones. One explanation to this is, that the subject can not separate the sources. Elizabeth F. Loftus criticizes psychologists that routinely ask the wrong questions that trigger false memories. But at the same time they can not whisk away the possibility, that the memory is accurate.
Conclusions
We have a brain, that consists of neurones and synapses, that sends and receives signals endlessly. Or at least we think we do. It could be a joke made up by our mind, our consciousness. We have emotions, which are probably real, but it is not sure the reasons for the emotions exist. Common sense also exists, and I hope that the reason for it all is that we really do exist. We, the human beings, have a big brain, that we do not use (read somewhere that we only use 10 %...). The explanation is that our brain has evolved for al long time for different purposes, and now we just do not need certain parts. We can though fool our brain to connect synapses, and make ourselves believe that something that did not happen did happen. I hope no one abuses this knowledge to manipulate people.