Sunday, January 17, 2010

Can Human Nature Be Changed? Pt II

http://www.brainwaving.com/2009/12/30/can-human-nature-be-changed/


  • What is the meaning of the transcending of the ego. Is it merely a physical reaction of the cells and their processes?

And here we come to the nub of the matter. Consciousness is, whatever else you can say about it, a product of the brain metabolism, the oxidation of glucose. It is produced in the brain cells. It is not a cloud or mysterious vapour from the outer universe. It arises in the brain and nowhere else. When the heart stops beating that is the end of it. The “effortless awareness”, the “impersonal and untroubled consciousness”, which Huxley describes, is a state of mind in which the Ego is transcended. What does this actually mean? Let me explain

  • You can think of the Ego, for all intents and purposes, as the speech system. It is in fact responsible for keeping that system in operation. By controlling the distribution of blood in the brain it ensures priority to the centres for talking, listening, reading and writing. The way it controls the blood distribution is by having a grip on the arteries in the brain; by constricting those leading elsewhere it concentrates the blood in the speech centres first and foremost.
Brain functions - the brain as sponge.It is as if the brain is a sponge with a limited amount of water in. To concentrate water in one part you must squeeze the sponge and, in so doing, restrict the supply to the rest of the sponge. In the brain of the adult only about 5% of the cortical layer is in function at any one time. There is not enough blood for more than that to function at the level of consciousness. For the function of a brain cell to become conscious it requires a certain volume of blood to reach it. Below that level it will survive, remain in existence, but its specialized function will not reach consciousness.
  • When it is combusted with oxygen in the brain it releases the energy stored in it as consciousness, another form of energy, or light. Glucose and oxygen reach the brain cells in the blood. So the consciousness of a function, say the smell of coffee, depends on a sufficient blood supply to that centre (the olfactory in this case).
  • The speech centres are the latest to have evolved in the brain. They are situated in the cortical layer right at the top, as far away from the heart as you can get. What Bart realized was that by adopting the upright position man was placing himself in the position of a hostage to gravity. The heart had to pump the blood up into his brain in direct defiance of that universal force. There are two fluids in the brain, blood and water (actually cerebrospinal fluid (csf), but essentially, for the purposes of the present argument it is water).
  • Blood is heavier than water and the csf is produced and circulates only inside the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord), so it has squatters’ rights, so to speak, – it has nowhere else to go – whereas the blood obviously circulates around the entire organism. The result of this is the loss of some blood from the brain relative to the horizontal position. As the blood drains away, it is replaced by the lighter csf. The parts of the brain that will suffer most from this are obviously the parts farthest from the heart, which would include the speech centres if the Ego mechanism had not evolved to preclude this eventuality.
  • This loss means the loss of a degree of consciousness, since there will be less blood available for the brain cells and therefore less of them will be able to function at the conscious level. Mythologically, this loss has been called the Fall of Man. We have fallen from a state of animal grace. The “knowledge of good and evil” comes with self-consciousness, a result of the creation of language.

    Consciousness as a physical process merely is explained as blood supply to the brain, a premium put on cerebral spinal fluid as it has nowhere else to go. This explanation eliminates all extraneous mystical influences impinging from without in the cosmos at large.So it seems, and consequently is wanting as an explanation insofar as it limits to the physical processes alone.



  • And yet the man or mystic on the Clapham omnibus would in all probability
    be shocked to have their “union with God” reduced to a matter of muscle and
    blood! (I speak not absolutely literally here, because strictly speaking blood
    vessels are not muscles, but they can be constricted to control the distribution
    of blood, so it comes to much the same thing.)
    And here we come to the nub of
    the matter. Consciousness is, whatever else you can say about it, a product of
    the brain metabolism, the oxidation of glucose. It is produced in the brain
    cells. It is not a cloud or mysterious vapour from the outer universe. It arises
    in the brain and nowhere else. When the heart stops beating that is the end of
    it. The “effortless awareness”, the “impersonal and untroubled consciousness”,
    which Huxley describes, is a state of mind in which the Ego is transcended. What
    does this actually mean? Let me explain.
    The Ego is the agency through which
    the central nervous system directs the blood to the parts of the brain in
    action. Which parts those are depends on whether the Ego allows the blood to get
    to them or not. You can think of the Ego, for all intents and purposes, as the
    speech system. It is in fact responsible for keeping that system in operation.
    By controlling the distribution of blood in the brain it ensures priority to the
    centres for talking, listening, reading and writing. The way it controls the
    blood distribution is by having a grip on the arteries in the brain; by
    constricting those leading elsewhere it concentrates the blood in the speech
    centres first and foremost.
    It is as if the brain is a sponge with a limited
    amount of water in. To concentrate water in one part you must squeeze the sponge
    and, in so doing, restrict the supply to the rest of the sponge.
    In the brain
    of the adult only about 5% of the cortical layer is in function at any one time.
    There is not enough blood for more than that to function at the level of
    consciousness. For the function of a brain cell to become conscious it requires
    a certain volume of blood to reach it. Below that level it will survive, remain
    in existence, but its specialized function will not reach consciousness. It
    will, as it were, remain in the dark. Consciousness is like a beam of light
    which can be directed onto the function of a cell, or a collection of cells, a
    brain centre. Without that light directed onto it the particular function
    remains unconscious. We are not aware of it. The light is the effect of the
    oxidation of glucose. Glucose is the encapsulation of sunlight in a plant
    through the process of photosynthesis. When it is combusted with oxygen in the
    brain it releases the energy stored in it as consciousness, another form of
    energy, or light. Glucose and oxygen reach the brain cells in the blood. So the
    consciousness of a function, say the smell of coffee, depends on a sufficient
    blood supply to that centre (the olfactory in this case). It will then light up
    and we become aware of it. Alternatively, if we are concentrating very hard on a
    piece of writing, for example – say, studying for an exam – we can completely
    repress all other perceptions, including the smell of coffee, to keep totally
    focussed on the meaning of the words.
    The speech centres are the latest to
    have evolved in the brain. They are situated in the cortical layer right at the
    top, as far away from the heart as you can get. What Bart realized was that by
    adopting the upright position man was placing himself in the position of a
    hostage to gravity. The heart had to pump the blood up into his brain in direct
    defiance of that universal force. There are two fluids in the brain, blood and
    water (actually cerebrospinal fluid (csf), but essentially, for the purposes of
    the present argument it is water). Blood is heavier than water and the csf is
    produced and circulates only inside the central nervous system (the brain and
    spinal cord), so it has squatters’ rights, so to speak, – it has nowhere else to
    go – whereas the blood obviously circulates around the entire organism. The
    result of this is the loss of some blood from the brain relative to the
    horizontal position. As the blood drains away, it is replaced by the lighter
    csf. The parts of the brain that will suffer most from this are obviously the
    parts farthest from the heart, which would include the speech centres if the Ego
    mechanism had not evolved to preclude this eventuality.
    This loss means the
    loss of a degree of consciousness, since there will be less blood available for
    the brain cells and therefore less of them will be able to function at the
    conscious level. Mythologically, this loss has been called the Fall of Man. We
    have fallen from a state of animal grace. The “knowledge of good and evil” comes
    with self-consciousness, a result of the creation of language.

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