That is what the uneducated mind would see. On the other hand, a mind well versed in the physical process of the human body, especially the brain, will know something very perplexing; all the way through, the continuum of physical laws has no gaps, no cuts, no mind-law substitutes. This means that the mind is totally irrelevant from all the processes between stimulus and behavior. The human organism could function perfectly fine without a head to think for it. How paradoxical! You would think that you do what you do because you will yourself to-but no-your behavior is just as determined and inflexible as the natural laws of matter and energy. Even more absurd, your mind is continuously run by these laws. That's so ridiculous! Mind is not matter, dammit!
For this reason, I have a theory to solve this problem. It also solves another problem for us: What are natural laws and how do they work? It's really a bizarre theory, I should warn you. I usually think of my theories as way too bizarre at first, but since they work so well to solve intellectual stumbling blocks, I usually hold onto them, and eventually they adopt familiarity with me.
The mind is not a simple thing. It is, yet it isn't, a unitary experience. That is, it has a colorful assortment of components: thoughts, emotions, sensations, memories, pleasures and pain, etc. But at the same time, they are collective of one another. That is, matter exists in space and so can be separated; mind, on the other hand, can not. Mind is not spread out in any spatial array, so it must all be contained or "overlapped". Therefore, even though these different components have different locations in the brain, these are only their matter-based counterparts. The experiences themselves meld into one, like colors mixing, and so are unitary (see theory of central-self).
But regardless, behavior is determined by the natural laws of physics acting in biology. And if all this time, man kind has been deceived by the very awareness of his own mind and will that these physical laws produce by running the brain, then maybe we can at least save a piece of our challenged understanding: All activity and operations of the mind correspond to those of the physical brain. If we can't say they cause our behavior, we might be able to say they happen along side, in perfect sync all the way, with whatever does.
This has a multitude of implications. For one, not only does the mind occur parallel to the brain, but its content- that is, the type of components it will consist of-must be determined by how the brain operates. This is obvious when we consider the subjective experience of drug use. You change the brain, you change the mind. If the brain is a network of neurological circuits, then I suppose brains in general could come in many shapes and sizes depending on the form the neurological network takes. Therefore, so could mind. I'm sure all people have speculated on what it would be like to experience new colors never seen before, or emotions unheard of, perhaps four dimensional space, reaching eternity, or maybe a sixth sense. But these are just hypothetical additions to the general categories of emotions, sensations, thoughts, colors, etc. I question whether anybody's ever speculated the existence of entire categories never yet imagined? Let me put it simpler: I generally separate the mind into three categories: thought, sensation, and emotion. We have these experiences only because of the brain structure we are permanently stuck with. However, should we find organisms with totally different and weird brains, it might be the case that their experiences don't fit into the aforementioned categories at all. Perhaps we'd have to class the experiences found in theirs in all funky and new categories unimaginable by our limited insight. This might help to satisfy any confusion over matters of irrational behavior observed in people unlike us. Men and women fuss over the mystery of the opposite sex, but really it can be explained quite simply by suggesting that they experience things incomprehensible to the other gender due only to the fact that our brains work differently. Same goes for criminals with serious clinical disorders, or simply individual differences in the normal sectors of society. Differences in animal behavior can largely be understood by this reasoning. But this reasoning is good only insofar as the nature side of the nature-nurture controversy is concerned. One's unique psychological make-up, different only in past experience, is contained in the same brain as you and I have. It is not that much of an exception to the rule, however. One's repertoire of experience contributes to his/her personality and unique style of behavior by way of forming the cognitive network he/she deals with day to day. Now, a cognitive network also has a biological association, so it is no exception to the rule. The cerebral cortex, or the thinking brain, is a lot more malleable than the rest of the brain. That is, while the visual cortex, limbic system, hind-brain parts, and other lower-function structures are more or less rigid and permanent, the cerebral cortex, at the neurological level at least, can produce, change, and deteriorate its circuits in as little as minutes. What we call assimilation, accommodation, and forgetting are the psychological counterparts of these physical processes. So even nurture has a place to join in this theory. We can't say that one's cognitive network is just as natural or basic as vision say, or language comprehension, but there is without a doubt operations in the brain to go along with it (see theory of auto-awareness).
A second implication is that we would be wrong to assume a priori that any experience we have is an absolute reality. I know it would be very comfortable to take the mind as it comes; what we see and feel, we do because its there; an enemy makes us angry because he/she is a bad person; we know X because X is undebatably true. Now, with this theory, we are reminded, for once so emphatically, that it's all in the head. It's hard to think that we can never really read anything into our minds with certified validity, but when we consider those hypothetical and alien categories of mental experience produced by different brains, we can't help BUT to think of those minds as meaningless blotches of experience pertaining to nothing about the outer world. The question that it comes down to is this: Is the mind's function to bring about awareness of an absolute reality, or is the reality we are aware of just a meaningless and randomly organized set of experience-elements with no association to the outer world?
So what reason have we to be confident in the accuracy of our awareness? For one thing, evolution theory predicts that those who are fit will survive, and fitness includes healthy behavior as well as a good body. Awareness of reality is a definite prerequisite of healthy behavior. For example, if I was attracted to everything that repulsed everyone else, such as poison or bodily injury, what would be my chances of surviving? Next to nothing. So if we've survived up to this point in history, our minds should be quite accurate. However, that is only true insofar as the theory of evolution goes. What if that's wrong? It dons on me that if our minds are inaccurate, then the theory of survival of the fittest, even if reviewed from all angles endurably without detection of the slightest flaw, might also be just as erroneous when we consider that it is only a product of the human imagination. Therefore, if the theory is accurate, our minds are accurate, and if our minds are accurate, then so is the theory. At least that works for the mind as a whole. If neither one is as accurate as we would like to believe, then maybe we should revert back to the idea of the immortal soul given to us by God.
Yet it gets more complicated than that. You see, we've got to keep in mind that whether accurate or inaccurate, we are not solving the problem of whether the mind is a window through which we are aware of reality or as meaningless and random as the mechanical tissue that it embodies. The mind's accuracy and its meaningfulness are two separate dimensions, and can be combined in all four ways. An accurate and well tuned mind is truly aware of the real world. An inaccurate but well tuned mind is mistaken about the real world but can be corrected. But when the mind is not in tune with the real world, it can not be corrected and its accuracy takes on a whole new meaning. In this latter case, accuracy would mean, if we take the theory of evolution, the ability to respond to as many stimuli as possible in a survival preserving way. Such a mind does not need to "know" what's out there, just as long as what's out there elicits actions with corresponding mental experiences that allow the organism to survive. The more sensitive it is to the abundance of events out there, the greater the content validity of its awareness of reality. The better its responses allow it to survive, the greater its construct validity.
It's easy to make this transition from tuneness to dissociation for things such as emotion or sensation. An emotion will tell us whether a situation is a good one or a bad one, scary or safe, whether a person deserves praise or punishment. We all know, however, that these are subjective views and that emotional opinions, or how you feel about something, is really a quality of the beholder and not the actual situation. So of course it is not tuned into anything real. If hatred for one person was said to be inaccurate, would that make love more accurate? No, because these are how one feels about the person, not a fact about the person. Same with sensation. Take color for example. Although most people share the same experience of the color of an object, a majority does not make one stance right. Besides, how do we know it is in fact the majority. If I see yellow where you see blue, we will both refer to it by the same name and hence believe that we are both seeing the same thing. But what would the real color be? In fact, color is not a quality of the object. Color is only a certain frequency of radiation. Therefore, we can say that colors correspond to something real out there (i.e. the radiation), but we can not say that colors are indeed the thing that's out there. We can say this about any mental experience. Something real out there corresponds to our awareness of it, but it is not what we are aware of. Something causes mentality, but not that which mentality sees as its cause.
This is far from easy to conceptualize when it comes to thought. Emotion and sensation are easy because we can think of examples that exploit their illusions-that is, the thought component of mind can examine the emotion and sensation components, and it seems that when one component evaluates another, the other loses its ability to convict validity of itself. However, a thought can not examine itself. A flash light can illuminate any object besides itself. Nevertheless, a thought can examine another thought, but only in the form of mental models (see theory of mental models). In fact this is the only form of which it can examine any experience. Now, this would make it extremely difficult to falsify. A thought can not contradict its own logic, so there is no way that we can look at thought under the same light as we can emotion and sensation. The logic with which our thoughts are processed seems to us in tune with reality. It is not impossible to conceptualize though; when logic leads to the conclusion that its own self may be an invalid system, like what we are arguing here, we can accept this conclusion even without any valid logic system to replace it. However, this leaves us with somewhat of a paradox. See, the tool we used to arrive at this conclusion was logic itself, so if it purports that logic is invalid, it becomes a self-nullifying argument. I deal with this dilemma further in another paper, but for now the point I'm trying to make is that this is what makes thought so impervious to this way of looking at itself.
As for the theory of evolution, I can think of a few ways by which our contemporary ways of thinking and behaving might wipe out our race, therefore serving to justify, according to survival of the fittest theory, how the human mind may be inaccurate. Four things to be exact: 1) Overpopulation, especially with advances in medicine which prolong the life span and diminish death rates. 2) War, with advancing technology and increasing masses of military personnel. 3) Pollution and destruction of the ecosystem with more technology. 4) Malnutrition, as in fast foods, junk foods, more drug use and less exercise. If our race is destined to become extinct by these methods or any other, the line of argument thus far followed leads us to conclude that our minds aren't as accurate as we'd like to believe.
I can think of a third implication: There must be something special about the brain parts that possess our mind components, for a fair portion of the brain seems to be responsible for autonomic bodily functions (heart, breathing, digestion), and even unconscious processes. Why aren't these brain parts conscious? What if they are? But if they are, what creates the boundaries between them and the known mind? For that matter, what can and can not possess mind? Is it possible for absolutely any physical operation to produce experience? The experience in question would be determined by the laws of nature again, and specifically what exactly is going on physically to the embodiments. It can't be as simple as to say every body has its own individual mind, because where you draw the line exactly between what constitutes one whole body and another is completely arbitrary and relative. Besides, as we discussed earlier, mind components are supposed to converge into one. According to this, we are all supposed to be one with the universe.
I could choose one of two avenues to pursue. 1) There is something about the mind's corresponding brain parts that produces consciousness, or 2) experience is something that accompanies every physical operation, and that there is some boundary between the mind's corresponding brain parts and the rest of the physical universe. I have plenty of theory to pursue 2), satisfactory theory, which even leads to an explanation for what natural law is and why it exists.
Let me start off by saying that an experience can be determined by what the body or system does. "I do X, therefore I experience Y." Human beings have separated minds because they act like they do. The way this segregates human minds from the rest of experience out there has two possible explanations which may both be playing a role.
If they were all joined together, we'd have inconsistencies in physical nature. Let me show you: All the components of mind are joined together. When I see a friend, my mind doesn't tell me that I see lines, colors, coordination, and that I hear tone, pitch, voice, and that I feel comfort, recognition, excitement, and that I know this and that fact about my friend, etc. all independently of one another. All these components, I experience together as one collective experience: My friend is here (oh joyous occasion). However, I know these individual parts exist in the whole. My mind can analyze itself. The thought component has that ability, not by experiencing each component directly, but through automatic stimulation by them. The limbic system has links to the cerebral cortex, and so do all the primary and secondary association areas. So when they are stimulated, they in turn stimulate the cerebral cortex. The result is we know about them, and there would be no possible way for us to know about them if they didn't send electrical signals to our thinking brain parts (even if they were, themselves, physically active). See, another description of the thought component is the "knowing" experience. Here is where we have the ability to know and believe things; both mean to think. What happens when you stimulate a brain area naturally or artificially (with electrodes)? The same experience happens. We don't sense the difference whether or not we know what gives us the experience. So, whether I present you with sharp pains to the epidermis or I stimulate your tactile association cortex, you will feel exactly the same unpleasant sensation. Why should it be any different for thought? Any one neuron of the cortex, if fired, elicits an experience, a thought of some sort, regardless of where the impulse came from. The only reason why we can have such a variety of thoughts is because we have so many different sites on the cortex, each triggered by a different source. Every single neuron in the occipital lobe produces a different experience of vision in terms of location, color, contour, orientation of lines, length of lines, corners, thickness of lines, grading, and even motion. Each pathway leads to a different target in the cerebral cortex, and so we can "know" the different sensations that bombard us. There even comes a fork in the path where the course of the impulse depends on whether the stimulus is familiar or new. This experience, we call recognition. All the different emotions connect to different sites so we know what we're feeling, and even different cortex neurons hook up to other cortex neurons so we know what we're thinking.
The catch is, there is only so many sites in the cerebral cortex, and so there is a limit to what we can know. That limit is contained in the immediate world around us-the world which we can sense, analyze, and judge-but remote things, events which occur behind walls and out of sight, facts for which we lack the necessary premises, we are out of touch with. Therefore, their experience counterparts likewise are out of contact with us. But if anything from beyond the mind as we know it were part of the collective, you would think we'd know of them too. This would mean a site of cerebral cortex would be activated by this secluded event. Such a phenomenon would break major laws of physics. For example, how can my brain be stimulated by a tree falling on the opposite side of the world? It can't, and so I can not be aware of it.
At first, one might conclude that, according to this, it may sometimes be impossible for some experiences to be compatible with others, and therefore won't form a collective. One example, besides thought, is opposites. I find it hard to imagine how such dichotomies as pain and pleasure or black and white can coexist in the same collective. Of course, opposites are produced through two mutually exclusive physical events, at least in the brain they are. Two connecting neurons, both inhibited by the other when excited, is an example. Therefore, this really isn't a good example of incompatible experiences since matter won't let them coexist anyway.
But really, we are misjudging the nature of these experiences if we conclude with this right away. If one were to invest a little deeper into thought, one would discover a subtle but crucial detail that we overlooked. I said the reason the human mind does not join onto a universal collective is because we can only know a limited number of things. Now, to know, in this context, is regarded as an experience, and rightfully. One must realize, too, that by joining experiences, we do not change them. It may seem that they change, react and become something more than what they were separately, because we are using our own minds as a reference example. The components of human mind have causal links-that is, we start with primary association areas (sensation) and those bring about changes in secondary association areas, higher functional regions, and eventually leave great impact on thought and emotion. But this change in experience due to the joining of reactant experiences is more of a novel experience rather than a changed one. For example, if I see someone wearing a blue shirt and orange pants, these two experiences have separate locations of function in the occipital lobe. But I can become aware of the simultaneity only because these two brain-events cause one additional brain-event, namely, activity in the cerebral cortex. As a result I experience awareness of a guy wearing kind of clashy clothing. In other words, this awareness is not due solely to he coexistence of two visual experiences. These two experience may form a collective with each other, but this not the awareness of the freakishly awkward style of dress. These two visual experiences produce an additional thought experience, and that is the awareness in question.
What's the point I'm getting at? Bare with me. If these visual experiences didn't call for a cognitive experience, would they remain separate or would they join but without knowledge of their coexistence? Does the universal-collective occur unconsciously? Well, for all the reasons why there is a collective in the first place, lack of awareness of it is no excuse for dismissing it. Think of it this way. Sensation will lead to cognition, but cognition doesn't lead to sensation, right? That is why we can think of what we see, but can not see what we think (disregard introspective "seeing"). In other words, even though sensation does not know that the rest of the mind is one with it, the rest of the mind does. It does not know because its function is not to know, its function is to sense. But since the rest of the mind's components are not material to be sensed, it will never sense them. All the same, the rest of the universe (the experience therein), is not material to be "known", so we are all one with everything but unconsciously. This doesn't mean, by the way, that all experience ahead of but adjacent to the human mind (i.e. that produced by efferent signals to muscles and the reactions beyond the body that they cause) knows that we are connected to it. The cognitive component does not sense its own thoughts, and likewise the rest of the universe does not "know" about the human mind.
Another question arises: What sets the boundaries for the tail of the mind? The tail I'm referring to is sensation. Why does thought acknowledge a whole slew of input coming to it only so far and then severs consciousness of anything further. I mean, one could trace a whole chain of physical events that lead to the activation of a thought neuron, but it seems like the mind is only interested in identifying the source of this chain once it's entered the nervous system. Any antecedents before that, it seems to evade joining a collective with. Essentially, I've already answered this question by making the reader aware that every neurological pathway linking to the cerebral cortex has its own designated site, and the cerebral cortex only has capacity for so many of these sites. But I brought it up again to make a critical point: One thought per incoming signal is how it is; but it doesn't matter how the signal gets there. Just as long as the cortex is activated by it in the right spot, we will be aware of its presence. So how do we ever know if our sensations are genuine? What if we're a brain in a vat? What if we're a lab experiment with wires and stuff all hooked up to our heads? What if our whole reality as we know it is a simulated world? We'll never know. But we believe that what we see is what we get, just as long as those cortex areas keep up this illusion. Can we really say that we only see what we see because we think we do? We only believe, but no telling of whether or not we are, in this reality. Is that a fair assumption? Well, there's no doubt about it, indeed we do believe in the authenticity of our world, but what about the sensation apart from our awareness of it? Doesn't it exist in the collective? What do we say about the experience in the primary association areas alone and apart from conscious awareness of them? Their existence now depends entirely on whether these brain parts exist too! And if they don't, we aren't really seeing what's in front of our own eyes as clear as day light. We just believe we are. Is the whole mind contained in a single neuron? Why not? After all, sensation may not be the only deception; one neuron, who in all confidence believes it knows the content of the other thought-neurons surrounding it, has only to be fired in any way possible to have this conviction.
When I first realized this myself, I thought I was going too far. However, I couldn't just abandon it, for it was perfectly logical. There is a solution though. If what we're saying is that the mind is only a very simple experience, the belief that itself (or world) exists, contained in as small a package that such an experience would permit (one neuron or even less), then all the other experiences in the mind as we know it would be illusions. This also implies that the mind is composed of no other beliefs, or in other words, the mind only exists when we are in the process of experiencing this belief. If we so chose to keep our minds on other things, it would disappear entirely until we returned to this belief. But it occurs to me that this belief would have to bring with it the experience of what it believes in. That is, if I believe I'm licking ice cream, then I would have to experience licking it. See, even if we say that the actual sensation of licking ice cream that gives rise to the belief in it is non-existent, then because of our belief in it, we are enshrouded by the illusion of the sensation. But an illusion is no different, in any way, than an experience of it, for we are experiencing the illusion which must mean it comes in a sensory form. So since this is an experience, maybe one and the same with the belief, the belief is not alone as an experience. It now appears that beliefs always come with an experience of the content of the belief. Thus, according the rule of correspondence mentioned above, something must exist in the real world to be associated with all experiences within it. That rule again: the correspondence rule says that what we experience is not really what's there, but there is something real that corresponds to it. We conclude two things from this: 1) That there is something more than a single neuron or less producing the mind, and 2) beliefs are experiences that can't be produced by something as a single neuron or less. But this brings us back to our original problem: How do we get the same belief and sensation out of a variety of possible operations? And if beliefs can't be produced by a single neuron or less, what does happen when we have a single neuron or less even from the believing part of the brain?
This leads into the second explanation of why the human mind is separate from the collective. See, even if we admit that the experience of sensation can be caused by anything out there, natural stimulation of the neurons or artificial or anything else, because we have a correspondence rule, this means that all these operations produce the same experience: sensation. You would think that for every different operation, there comes a different experience, wouldn't you? The truth is, the only reason why we experience sensation as we do is because it doesn't matter what we are stimulated with, as long as we behave the same (I do X, therefore I experience Y). An experience is determined by the behavior of its embodiment remember, so concerning the whole mind collective, it is how it is because, at this scale, we are talking about the behavior of the whole organism, not individual neurons.
But what about when we split the mind-collective into its parts? Why then would sensation not be differentiated due to any difference in how it is stimulated? One rule to go by in this theory is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I mean, if you took separate experiences X, Y, and Z, and fused them into a collective, each one would become something else, like experiences A, B, and C. Apart, they are one thing, together they become totally different on top of collective. Here's why: Consider a simple thought process. An operation of arithmetics: 29+43=72. Now, there's obviously some wheels turning in the head before the answer is derived. First one sees the figures 29 and 43, then mental calculations are carried out, and then 72 is reached. And so, there is a series of neurons in a chain that are fired, representing the thought process. Let's say there is circuit A-the calculations of 29+43-and circuit B- the conclusion of 72. What leads circuit A to B is a matter of physical laws, but what leads the premise 29+43 to 72 is a matter of logic. First the mind recognizes the situations it is presented with (29+43) and it realizes "If there is 29 as well as 43 items, then in total there must be 72." Now, physically, the process does not stop here. If this were a question on a math test, the next step after calculating the answer would be to write it down on paper. This is the third step. However, mentally, there is no third step-no third experience I should say. The writing of 72 on paper is an act of will rather than a continuation of the mental logos. A physical system always goes through physical steps, and at the last step, where the system must pass its effect out into some other system or surrounding super-system, the experience is a conclusion to execute some act. In other words "I experience Y, therefore I should do Z." In our example: I know the answer is 72, therefore I will write 72. This phenomenon is especially pronounced in emotions or pain and pleasure. "I'm scared, therefore I'll run away," or "I'm in pain, therefore I should relieve myself." And before the act of will, all the conclusions in the series are conclusions of other experiences as you well would guess. But these conclusions and premises must be of a particular order so that it can lead to the act of will. That is, a certain conclusion can be reached only if the proper premises are there. Another thing is that you can not introduce unwarranted conclusions, acts of will or otherwise, somewhere in the series where it does not belong. An act of will can not follow immediately after the presentation of 29+43; the intermediate conclusion of 72 must mediate them. Now, what so chooses where a system should begin and end? Why should circuits A and B collectively comprise a system where will is the end result. Is not the effect circuit A has on circuit B an act of will belonging to circuit A alone? It can be, but on one condition: The experience circuit A has that leads it to conclude "I should activated circuit B" is not "I experience 29+43." The math doesn't add up. Just because you have 29 added to 43 does not mean you should activate circuit B. Something else must lead circuit A to that conclusion. Therefore, experience components become different things when they are individual systems apart from the collective. Our minds are separate from the universe-collective because they belong to a particular system, namely the human organism. So all sensation that we experience must be in line with the behavior of the entire human system no matter how it is delivered. But the method of delivery does determine the experience of the sensation system when considered on its own. This is unlike the first explanation in that it does not purport that our individuality is an illusion of knowledge; we really do have individual minds because we are not part of the universe-collective. It does imply however that our minds incarcerate a common body with the universe-collective, our bodies, but where the universe-collective is concerned, this body is an infinitesimal component of the larger system. And it requires more than just a single neuron or less to make the human organism behave, so it can not contain the human-mind. Since the second explanation resolves more than the first, we will grant the second one more merit, but without disregarding that the first one made some very good points.
I hope the above is not too overwhelming for the reader. I’ve found often a-times, while rereading it, that this section of my paper has the potential to leave the reader dumbfounded, scratching his head. Therefore, I take it upon myself to epitomize what we have argued thus far. We started out with a problem, and we ended up with two problems. Fortunately, two solutions were offered. The first problem was the one-with-the-universe problem in which the question was asked “If all possesses some kind of mental experience, what keeps the human mind separate from the universe?” To that, the reply “We actually are all connected but unconsciously,” was provided. However, this lead to another problem, the one-neuron-or-less problem. You see, it follows from the first solution that in order to really be conscious of the experiences we’re having, a cite on the cerebral cortex must be fired, but then there are some situations in which this criterion is met, yet we remain completely oblivious to its source. For example, if I hear the doorbell ring, someone at the door has indirectly stimulated my cortex through the auditory system. So if I know about it, why am I not one with his/her mind, let alone automatically know who it is? It’s not that the first solution fails to rectify this problem, for it deals with it just as effectively as it does the one-with-the-universe problem. However, it leaves us with the second problem: “How then can we truly know that there really is someone at the door? What if all I am is one neuron whose associated experience is the belief that someone is at the door?” Before actually resolving this, I tell the reader to rest assured, because according to a few principles (i.e. the correspondence rule), being one neuron or less is impossible, but I don’t exactly explain how just yet. The second solution is “If we took one neuron or less on its own, even if its function was to produce the experience of belief in something, that experience will become something completely different. It would become something that would make sense according to what the neuron does alone physically.” Now, this solution serves to resolve both dilemmas, whereas the first solution can only effectively rectify the first dilemma, therefore the second solution was deemed superior.
Yet there is another problem to consider here: the problem of temporality. In a nut shell, the problem brings attention to the fact that sensation occurs before cognition. Our primary association areas are activated a short time before the final cognitive areas are. Therefore, it would be wrong to say that the mind is collective. In order for experiences to converge, they must be present at the same moment in time. But this does not disrupt any of my theory. All this means is that we see things before we recognize that we see them, and even that occurs before we can think elaborately about what we see. It may not seem so though. It may seem as though it all happens simultaneously. Two things: 1) the electric signal in the brain travels so fast that when we consider the experiential aspect of this process, we find there is no room in time to distinguish between the steps in the process. It happens too fast to notice. 2) We can revert back to explanation one for this. We would say that what we believe we see is actually what the visual system picked up a fraction of a second earlier, and what the visual system is picking up right now is part of the mind collective (whether or not it is something else when considered on its own) but unconsciously, and will become conscious in microseconds. Now this is not so bad, for it does not entail a monstrous questioning of the authenticity of the reality around us. It just says the perceived world is real, but a little bit behind schedule. Besides, at the speed of these impulses, by the time the message reaches the cognitive centers, the visual system-or any sensory system for that matter-will probably still be picking up the very same information that it started with; hell, the very signal that it sent to higher functional areas may not have died down yet. So the sensory experience we end up believing that we're having is indeed still there in the sensory regions. And as I said just a second ago, the experiences of the sensory regions are together with those of the cognitive regions, only unconsciously, but the cognitive regions are probably conscious of an identical experience. Shouldn't we say, therefore, that the experience the being believes he/she is having is the same experience his/her sensory areas are having? Sure.
From these precedents, I have developed three traits of any mental experience: 1) Any mental experience will occur unconsciously. Now, it would be proper right now to distinguish between two types of unconsciousness: 1) lack of experience, or 2) lack of awareness of the experience. Of this first trait, I mean the second one; that is, there is no cognitive recognition of the experience in question. The being simply has the experience, and takes it for what it is, but does not "know" that it is having it. True, this is counter-intuitive to how we experience our own minds, but I'm speaking here about individual experiences on their own, not collectives. And anybody familiar with the concept of "second order thoughts" will realize that even thoughts themselves can (actually always) occur without awareness of themselves. 2) All experiences are taken to be real and about the outer world. No experience recognizes its meaning as arbitrary and dissociated from reality. This second trait can be based on the first one. 3) Experiences make sense to the beholder. There is no doubt about the validity of any experience, nor should it feel anything less than common sense whatever it may be. Even such an emotion as confusion should follow this rule. Confusion is based on two conflicting notions, or two facts that don't make sense to each other. Alone, they follow this rule, but they contradict each other when placed face to face, but that is not the confusion. Confusion is a third experience whose function is to acknowledge and confer that they are incompatible. Since this is true of the first two experiences, the confusion-experience is correct and makes sense, therefore abiding by rule 3. The actual conflict experienced in confusion is only discomfort, otherwise known as pain (emotional or mental pain in this case) which is just another one of the many experiences we all feel as human beings. We can say that rule 3 is based on rule 2, but there is more to it than that.
I promised you guys that I would explain the reason why we have these natural laws, and I have not forgotten. Recall when 29+43 lead to 72? Why did it lead to 72? For one thing, this was a pretty broad step, taking 29+43 and concluding right away that 72 was up and coming. There are many intermediate steps that we overlooked, many neurons and parts of neurons we assumed but didn't mention in circuits A and B. For instance, seeing the question could lead to recognition of what we're staring at, which then could lead to counting each number one at a time until the math test taker reaches 72. Then we could say "That's why 29+43=72" and we would be right. But of course we could always repeat "why?" about these smaller, intermediate steps too. In fact, no matter how many times you could analyze deeper, more meticulously, outlining simpler and simpler steps, causing the whole problem to seem so astronomical, you could always ask "why?" Why in your counting process does 56 follow 55? There comes a point where no longer are premises and conclusions linked with in-between experiences. Some things are just given, axioms, a priori presumptions. Why does pleasure warrant preservation and pain warrant avoidance? Just because of what pain and pleasure are. It's a natural law of mind. It does not change, it does not tolerate dispute. It just is that way. This natural law of mind is actually the third rule above. Now, in this case, we don't exactly question how this law works in the same way we question physical laws. With physical laws, we can imagine violations. With laws of mind, we can not. If it is a square, it has four sides. If all grass is green, and all men are grass, then all men are green. If 29 is added to 43, I get 72. These are just common sense. We even experience this law in situations not so fundamental. We never ponder over why we hurt those who make us angry. To us, it is only common sense that when you are angry, you lash out. Also take this example, a favorite of mine: What's the most common answer when friends question our tastes for a certain tune or a certain dessert? "Because it's a good song," or "Because it taste good." Never "The music appeals to me," or "Because I personally like it." We never wonder why we ourselves prefer our favorites. In fact, we often wonder why others don't. It's the common syndrome of old age: "When I was your age, music had quality. These days it's just irritating noise." Well, of course, I do realize, that often enough we know this. We know a lot of our preferences are a matter of personal taste, and not a characteristic of anything out there. But this is an experience, that of cognition, that studies the other experiences, that of love for music and food (and everything else). This cognitive experience, however, follows rule 3 perfectly, causing us to fail to understand and find boggling why anyone else wouldn't realize this fact. This cognition we don't question; it may be about something pertinent to rule 3-and in fact testing it-but neither that something itself nor the cognition break the rule. This law is followed because whatever the experience, meaningful or some meaningless blotch of mind-material, makes sense. It seems that when we broke our mathematical problem down, 55 and 56 were found to be irreducible-or elementary-experiences, and therefore the property of 56 proceeding from 55 is due simply to what 55 and 56 are (what the experience of them is like). It was an intrinsic quality about them.
Now, we could attempt this reductionistic process with physical phenomena too. Why does the Earth orbit the Sun? Because the forces of the Sun’s gravitation counterbalance with the centrifugal forces of the Earth’s momentum, thereby causing the Earth and Sun to move in harmony with each other. But what causes the Sun to have a gravitational pull?…What causes space-time to warp in the locus of matter? This latter question is rather difficult to answer. I don’t know why space-time does this. Nor do I know why subatomic particles have charges, nor do I know what they are. What makes physical bodies impermeable to one another? What preserves their state of existence? What makes energy work? What is it? For that matter, what is the space-time continuum? I don’t know, nor do I think there is an answer (perhaps Einstein had some answers but none had ever fallen on my ears). These fundamental laws of physics are the counterparts of those axiomatic, elementary, irreducible mental experiences mentioned above. The only difference between these and natural laws is I don't understand them! It must be the earnings of experiences for being such good disciples of rule 3 that they have the privilege of being perfectly comprehensible. The third rule applies to mental life only, not physical phenomena. There comes a point in the reductionistic process when these phenomena come up against a brick wall. We are left having to make up a concept called “natural laws” because they don’t seem to reduce anymore. What they need is a luxury like experiences have, something that serves as a self-sustaining basis. Well, why not just use elementary experiences to fill the gap that “natural law” tries to fill? Why not say that the physical world operates the way it does because, to it, it makes sense to, it has a life force driving it, it wills to?
The will of any physical system is determined to happen because it is common sense to do so according to its experiences. In this case, we designate experience to be a link between cause and effect. Remember that experiences do not embody objects, they embody systems. When a rock breaks a glass, the experiences change before and after the transition from cause to effect. The rock doesn't change, so the experience is not to be found there. An invariant object on its own is not a cause or an effect. Two or more objects in the process of doing something, which is a system, possess mind. And the state they're in are causes or effects, no objects themselves are. When one state leads to another, it does so because it wills to do so. Natural laws are also known for repeating themselves. It would seem that they should, considering when one is presented with a certain set of premises, one always comes to the same conclusions. Any day a natural law doesn't keep a perfect record is the day when axioms and common sense no longer serve their purpose in the mind.
The reader is well aware that experiences morph in unpredictable ways as a function of time. He/she may ask "what would you say determines the path along which all these experiences flow? Surely, you can not simply leave it up to rule 3)." I'd say, remember that you can think of experiences in two ways: random mind-blotches or meaningful cognitions (or sensations, emotions...). All you need to do is to remember the latter view is still valid. And there is yet another paradigm: either mental experiences or physical brain-operations. Again, the latter, with all its natural laws, shows how the "flow" of experiences can be determined.
When we step back and look at the universe in a global model-that is, the universe-collective-we notice the state of everything perpetually changing into new states. And since this universe-collective is the mind that comprises all, there is no outer world that it can caste its will onto. There may be an outer world that it perceives, but it has no will to interact with it. It only experiences; individuals and components behave using will, but not the universe-collective. It is an ongoing series of premises and conclusions, the ultimate statement, one that we as humans will never grasp. Is this a God-being? We are a part of it. We were created by it. It is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. Does it experience contentment? Does it experience ultimate answers? Is it Nirvana? Such experiences would describe such a state of being, wouldn't they?
Now what about looking at the universe at microscopic levels: the fundamental systems of the smallest particles. Each carrying either a positive or negative charge, their only behavior is to repel or attract. Therefore, you would think when experience is reduced to its finest elements, we have pain and pleasure. The reason why those two poles are experienced in the human organism is because our brains elicit approach and avoidance behavior. Particles do the same thing, so they must have the same experiences. The universe-collective really has nothing to avoid or approach since it is all that there is to be, so pain and pleasure must be an alien concept to it.
It would be so nice to travel beyond the human-mind and experience the minds of other beings. It would be even better to return with complete memory of it. Alas, such a feat is paradoxical because memory corresponds to a certain pattern of neurological activity. I guess they could be faked, being 100% representative, but that could be done even without having to undergo the actual experience. But anyway, I must say that this theory possesses me. I obsess over it! I simply find it no less than fascinating. It brings to mind so many possibilities: other worlds to experience, a super-reality above ours that exists beyond experience, how closely this sounds like Buddism, the things we can say about the psychedelic experiences of drugs in light of this theory. We say that you "trip out" on drugs, but what is life itself but a unique trip all its own. We've just become so familiar with it, it seems so banal-the opposite of trippy-but just think about it for a minute. I mean, how much more crazy of a trip can you get than life itself when you compare it to the alternative: lifelessness. I mean, imagine, if you will, "waking" up from an unconscious state of being, like that of a rock, and suddenly entering life. How could you fathom that wouldn't trip you out??? How much less of a trip than life is it to simply feel time slow, or lose the ability to pay attention or think clearly due to the effects of cannabis? Furthermore, if life is a trip, what kind of trip is the "right" one? Might there be people who roam the Earth in a high state just like pot or acid just because that's the natural level of chemical production in his or her brain? I'm sure you remember a few "clueless" people who are "off in space" from high school, don't you? Think about it. What makes their reality any less real than yours? If a hallucination is said to be a drug induced effect, then we'd have to call a "true" vision a neurotransmitter induced effect. Here's some more food for thought: life beyond death. According to my theory, consciousness never actually extinguishes upon death. Because brain matter continues to exist beyond death, the mind just goes through a wild metamorphous. Physical operations there indeed continue to go on through the process we call decay. I wouldn’t even say this process is less vigorous because, if you think about it, this is microscopic activity, just as it was in life all the same. I would be curious to know whether the next plane we pass onto is a state of individuality as life itself is experienced to be, or a genuine consolidation with the universe-collective.
Other inspirations that this theory gives off for me is in the arts. For example, I imagined a story one time about an anonymous book writer who publishes a book. Someone reads it, and somewhere along the way, the book expresses specific ideas or thoughts that have a unusual effect on the mind. Somehow, by having the reader conceptualize certain ideas, images, and thoughts, those conceptualizations form a very rare and unique combination in the mind that has hardly ever repeated in history. When brought together, following rule 3 all along, they cause the reader to get engulfed into a bizarre state of altered consciousness. I would have the character go through a trippy mind warp for a couple minutes, creating an adrenaline rush in the character and audience, and finally when the experience is settled, it is like no other he had ever had. I would want the character to experience something like the voice of God. Something like “Congratulation on discovering the hidden guide to human life. What you have just uncovered is…” I would explain this phsyically too. There would have always been a hidden bundle of neurons deep in the brain which brain mapers have not yet discovered. Nor had it even been tampered with by neighbouring neurons. It had always been awaiting a very specific combination of neurological activity to trigger it. This man did it. But anybody could do it. This tiny little nucleus is there in everybody's head. Anyway, I would have all sorts of people suddenly becoming so involved in his life, trying to get their hands on that book or trying to protect him from dangers he's not even aware of, trying to seriously mess up his mind, etc. These people I’d imagine would come from government agencies, underground organizations or religious cults, subcultures of youth and rave, even spiritual forces. Overall, it would be an action packed, sci. fi. adventure. And there is so much more than this that my theory has helped me to concoct in this schizophrenic little mind of mine. With this theory, I never think of life as meaningless. I think part of what keeps us going in our endeavors is a sense of mystery in our lives, our reality. We foresee some kind of purpose or meaning that we continue to strive for in the hopes that some day, it will be revealed to us. It would surprise me if someone did not see how this theory could supply such a sense of mystery. It’s almost a religion. It very well could be! I know my spiritual faith is kept alive by falling back on all these possibilities. It keeps me wondering: Is God behind all this? Is it all virtual reality, like in The Matrix? Are there ways to tap into other realities? Does my car engine, my home computer, my blender, or my toilette really have a mind of its own when I use them? What the hell would they be like? Can we really say that dreams, drugs, and even culture are modalities through which we can traverse to other universes, each with their own set of unique substances, logic, natural laws, and phenomena? How much can we really enhance our own mental capabilities in our own reality? Simply fascinating.
