Thinking and Instinct

 

Thinking is comprised of chemical processes producing physical reactions in neocortex neural pathways. These events lead to strengthening of associations between adjacent neurons reinforcing the likelihood that they will be used again should the need arise. In this model synapsis are prone to replicate since the basic structure of the neocortex does not change radically from day to day, while it also allows for the principal of plasticity.

The mind is a function of the human brain organ. It processes information. It does so at the rate it is received by my senses.  This rate may be seen as posing a number of limitations.  We know of two opposing phenomenon namely mental overload and boredom. These occur in the neo-cortex at a rate determined by an individuals memory functions. Information arriving faster than the mind can make sense of is supplemented by processing in the amygdala that reconstitutes information and fits its results into a framework developed over time and often referred to as the reptilian brain.

Human instinct can account for this contingency for re-occurring thought which translated means,” a thing you observed but did not immediately make use of.” This theory assumes the existence of a residual experience. Something added up inside or outside of the process and it became clear. It works the same way as thinking does; it is triggered by some input and it translates into some form of activity whether it be a behavioural reaction or a cognitive one.

Equate it to the war room where there are many screens with activity being monitored and suddenly a messenger enters and exclaims that a certain item (maybe something that went off the radar and is no longer being tracked) has been identified as an enemy submarine.  The report originated in an auxiliary area of the brain where further analysis is effectuated. This report might be based on a sudden memory of a similar movement observed but not given much heed at the time, but it was strong enough to leave a slight impression. We may have needed this second observation to reinforce our sense of possibility.

In the case where the observation was identified positively previously it would not make sense to suggest it was not on the books so to speak.  The senses would provide the rational for initiating a tracking reflex, not a thought process. Here we have reiterated the difference between our instinctual senses and our later developed intellect. In other words we may perk up our ears but not yet make that mad dash to the thicket.

How these higher functions develop is a function of evolution and our ability to avoid natural selection taking us as its prey. What happens in the molecular level of the brain may be a mystery but it might suffice to say there was a survival mechanism in it.

For a more indepth analysis I suggest you consider survival. What is it? If you say I am surviving, what exactly do you mean? For example, take a dream, it does not survive waking. Take your career, it does not completely survive being fired. But you may retain aspects of each. You may reconstitute them into a new form and for the purpose of this treatise, your thoughts cannot survive being refuted by new information.

This ability to rehash sensual data may have benefited the early hunter gatherer.  For example: while foraging for food our hunter-gatherer sees a bush with some berry growing on it. The need to eat may spur the tasting of said berry, combining that with the existing knowledge of cycles of plants the combined information makes that berry somewhat identifiable. If the berry episode was positive, or even if not, there was some new entity that might be allowed to survive. It would be the thought that a certain berry was such and such.

The brain develops some more and our hunter lies awake in bed and considers the options for obtaining more of that berry, or that fruit or that potato. All the processes occurring in that part of the brain go toward survival of the memory.  Memory assures survival of the purpose and with that we can say the intact individual is on a survival path.

 

But the reoccurrence factor in this case is somewhat autonomic. Behaviorists are somewhat concerned with dividing the brain functions into a part that is not conscious, one that is sort of accessible memory but not yet formed into physical memory, and the part that is conditioned reflex.  The more we can unearth from our subconscious the fewer mysteries we will be burdened with. There may be a requirement for analyzing the existence of alter egos.  We can read about experiments that show that personality can be non-singular. These alternative “I" exist in the mind of an individual who has certain disorders, maladaptation or quirk. For example: if I were to break away from what I am currently preparing to write about so I could expand on this new theory of schizophrenia it would require that I place some thoughts on pause while I pursue some others. The activity associated with my thesis would split and I would have to decide, whether through a voluntary decision-making process or a process that was not voluntary, which path my mind will proceed upon.

 

What else matters? We can put the figurative
lego back in the box every evening and start anew to recreate our world each day. Yesterday has not survived, it was destroyed through the unmaking of the lego project. There is a new knowledge and it is that there are options we have not yet explored. We have broadened our experience to new levels and it may make a difference today.