Consciousness-Convergence-Zones
Created | Updated Apr 27, 2006
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1
----- "Which did you get wrong?"
----- "The one about convergence zones."
2
----- "The one that says there really are anatomical sites in our brains where all our perceptions go to unite and become consciousness?"
----- "Yeah. That's the one."
3
----- "But it's so easy."
----- "Easy when you get it. Hard to handle when you don't."
4
----- "What don't you understand?"
----- "It doesn't explain where the image of her comes form."
5
----- "Image of her? What her?"
----- "Her. The girl over there. The one by the balustrade."
6
----- "Where?"
----- "Over there. Right there. Here. Let me point your eyes. See her now?"
7
----- "No."
----- "Don't you see her?"
8
----- "No. I don't even see the balustrade. Do you?"
----- "Yes. Of course I do. Expensively crafted mahogany. Dark wood. Lots of dollops and frills for the feel of the human touch."
9
----- "But there is nothing there."
----- "She is there. And she wears a plaid skirt. Pleated too. Neat folds into neat edges."
10
----- "I see only darkness there."
----- "Dark sweater is what you see. I see her swell. She wears a woolen knit for warmth. See her auburn hair?"
11
----- "I tell you I see nothing there."
----- "Very light touch of lipstick, I see. So bright her eyes are. Glistening with liquid. Is it love? Or has she been crying? Concentrate with your mind. Do you see her now?"
12
----- "I tell you there is nothing there. Not even a shade."
----- "She is no shade. She is leaning on the balustrade. The balustrade is oak."
13
----- "I thought you said mahogany."
----- "No. I said oak. The balustrade is oak and of a light brown shade. The light bounces from it. It does not penetrate the wood. I see her smiling too. A strange smile. Kind of tearful. Don't you see her?"
14
----- "No. I don't. But I see you do. And in great detail too."
----- "Oh, then, never mind. It must not be of any import to you."
15
----- "No. It's not. I can't help you with her. But I can with the other. Lemme plot it out for you."
----- "What for? It's all too late now."
16
----- "So? Can you tell exactly how late is too late?"
----- "I've no idea. Do you?"
17
----- "At least I know it is not now. So it can't be too late now. Not here. Not between us. Try to understand it. Maybe next time you won't get caught with ignorance bleeding into your open palms."
----- "Alright. Go ahead."
18
----- "First, understand that there is more than one."
----- "More than one what?"
19
----- "More than one site that bonds. More than one place that binds. Plurality is the key word here. The binding up again of all the real world pieces the brain processes is done in a plurality of places. Got that?"
----- "Got it. Yes. What should I do with it?"
20
----- "Hold it in your head and think about it."
----- "Okay. I'm thinking."
21
----- "Prove it."
----- "How?"
22
----- "Tell it back to me again."
----- "What's to tell? The bonds that bind take place in separate anatomical sections of the brain. That's it. Isn't it? Specific locations?"
23
----- "That's it."
----- "What else?"
24
----- "Now this. These sites are called convergence zones."
----- "Why?"
25
----- "Because streams of information and bits of data from all other areas of the brain converge onto and into these locales. Into these specific locations."
----- "Into all of them?"
26
----- "No. It gets a little tricky here."
----- "Why?"
27
----- "Because the locales are arranged into lower level zones and higher level zones. The streams of representational information feed into the lower level zones. There they combine with each other."
----- "Then what?"
28
----- "Then they leave."
----- "Where do they go?"
29
----- "They go to the higher zones."
----- "And what do they do when they get there?"
30
----- "They create the mind."
----- "Do you mean those higher level zones, those specific sites, are what raise up consciousness from the non-existent? Is it as simple as that? To create something from nothing?"
31
----- "Not something from nothing. There are inputs from the real world. So there is something. And no. It is not just the higher level sites alone. It is the whole of the hierarchical architecture, acting in some sort of divinely inspired unison, that does the trick."
----- "You didn't tell me what determines movement from lower to higher zones? What is causing those decisions to be made?"
32
----- "Simple. The complexity of the task is what does it. The more complex the task the higher through the convergence zones in the brain the processing of it moves."
----- "Small task, low convergence? Big task, high convergence? Is that what you mean? Is it as simple as that?"
33
----- "Yes. Consciousness occurs when the higher convergence zones fire signals back to the lower levels so that the whole architecture lights up in synchronous activity."
----- "They all oscillate at once, right? Doesn't that throw you? Isn't that the same as the oscillation theory?"
34
----- "Sure. Compatibility is a virtue, isn't it. This theory meshes nicely with the oscillation theory."
----- "So which one is right?"
35
----- "Forget right and wrong. We are not moralists. Tell me. Can you imagine?"
----- "Of course I can. I come fully equipped."
36
----- "Then imagine a dark room."
----- "How big is it?"
37
----- "As big as a dream."
----- "Am I in the room or am I outside?"
38
----- "You don't exist yet."
----- "Then I must be the only creature who can dream and not exist. I think, therefore I am not yet. By the way, is anyone else in the room?"
39
----- "No."
----- "Is there furniture?"
40
----- "No. Just candles."
----- "How many?"
41
----- "Ten billion."
----- "Then that must be why the room is dark. Right? No one around to strike a match and light them."
42
----- "There is no one around. Yes. But no matches would be needed anyway. The candles are all electric."
----- "I see. So then the room is dark because there's nobody to throw the electric switch. Right?"
43
----- "Not right. Nobody is needed to toggle a switch. And there is no switch to be toggled. The candles light themselves."
----- "Why?"
44
----- "They are reactive."
----- "Reactive? What causes them to react?"
45
----- "Events from the outside world."
----- "How do these events get in?"
46
----- "There are slits everywhere in the walls and in the floor and in the ceiling."
----- "Then why is the room dark? I should think events would be slipping in willy nilly. The candles should all be lit by the very next now."
47
----- "No. The slits are not always open."
----- "What causes them to open?"
48
----- "The affect of the outside world. Let us say when they get warmed up enough they open and admit events."
----- "How many candles does one event light up?"
49
----- "I don't know. Not so very many. It would depend on the importance of the event."
----- "Let's say an important event enters this dark room. How many candles does it light up?"
50
----- "If it leads to consciousness, it lights up at least ten thousand candles. Though not all in the same section of the room. They are scattered throughout it. But ten thousand candles is enough for thought to take place. But only for a moment."
----- "Only for one moment?"
51
----- "Yes. They flicker synchronously for only about 100 milliseconds."
----- "Then what?"
52
----- "Then the next ten thousand light up, state their thought, and switch off again."
----- "What does this intermittent candleshine represent?"
53
----- "The work of the neurons in your brain."
----- "And this is consciousness?"
54
----- "Not really. Most of this flickering architecture is working at a non-conscious level. Walking, bending your elbow, extending your calf muscles, all these are non-conscious flickerings of the candle-neurons in your brain."
----- "Is this what you mean by lower level zones?"
55
----- "Yes. Haven't you ever had the experience of being lost in thought while doing some routine task, such as driving yourself home from work? Then, when you arrive, you wonder how you got there in one piece."
----- "Was I non-conscious while I drove? Did the car drive itself?"
56
----- "No. You were conscious. But you were not vividly conscious of the action of driving."
----- "Why?"
57
----- "Why what?"
----- "Why was I not vividly conscious"
58
----- "I have no idea. I am not privy to your thoughts."
----- "Was I dreaming?"
59
----- "I tell you I don't know. Ask me possible questions, not impossible ones. All I can say is you drove the car at a semi-conscious level. Analyze the days of your life and you will see this happens quite often. These lower level bindings of external world events by the brain probably account for all automatic and non-conscious activities."
----- "So, when I do a repetitive and routine task and am not conscious of doing it, I am not conscious of being conscious. But nevertheless I am conscious. Is that right?"
60
----- "Yes. You are conscious. But not vividly so."
----- "Yet, when I do a task and am conscious of every one of its particulars, I am also conscious. Only now I am vividly conscious. And this is because I am conscious of being conscious. Is that, too, right?"
61
----- "Yes. Vivid consciousness is always conscious of itself. It may require a different level of binding. One that involves attention and the use of short-term memory. And vivid consciousness may have a chemical basis."
----- "Meaning what?"
62
----- "The synchronous firing and oscillation of neurons may cause a release of chemicals that produce the short-term memory. This may be what allows the holding of 5 or 6 things in the mind at once. This may be what causes the sense of being conscious."
----- "Vivid consciousness is then a chemical high and nothing more?"
63
----- "That may be right."
----- "The self in me is then a result of chemical action in my brain?"
64
----- "Why does that surprise you? We are creatures of carbon. Are we not? Matter can break your bones. Can it not? why should it not also be able to build your mind?"
----- "My mind and my thoughts are then simply the result of a synchronous firing of a small portion of my brain. Is that right?"
65
----- "It would seem so. One piece of your brain becomes the ascendant you inside you. The you that you think you are. Truly a case of the part becoming greater than the whole."
----- "And so, thought is no more than the process of building a mirror in the mind. And no glass-smith is needed. The mirror builds itself in reaction to stimulus from the external world."
66
----- "You are crackling with cognition there. I find that a good metaphor. Sensory imagery from the real world enters your brain, you see. And it affects and works on little pieces of your brain."
----- "Like a windstorm chiseling away on the crusty slope of a magic mountain, huh?"
67
----- "Yes. Shaping little sections of its surface. Making them smooth as glass."
----- "Embedding little mirrors willy go nilly on the slopes, huh?"
68
----- "I give you yes again. For that is what they are. Little mirrors. They gulp all the images reality throws at them. And the refract that imagery through the individual prism that is you. The you your past experience has created."
----- "And then?"
69
----- "And then they re-focus the whole shebang together again to build one big mirror."
----- "Isn't it already built? Am I not the accumulation of little mirrors and the prism that refracts?"
70
----- "No. Vivid consciousness requires more. It needs the large mirror that reflects back onto its little brothers."
----- "Again, through the prism?"
71
----- "Yes. Always through the prism of your past. The little mirrors re-reflect again onto the big one. And so on. And again so on. And so on ad infinitum. Till all the brilliance of self awareness is achieved."
----- "A self which is transient and temporary?"
72
----- "Yes."
----- "A self imprisoned in a prism?"
73
----- "Yes."
----- "And is that all there is? Am I no more than a constructed mirror of the world?"
74
----- "There could be more."
----- "Surely there is more."
75
----- "There could be chaos."
----- "Give me chaos. I thirst for it."
76
----- "Know then that the physicists admit the physics of one water molecule does not yield an acceptable explanation of the hurricane."
----- "So?"
77
----- "So perhaps the properties of a single neuron cannot illuminate consciousness for us. Perhaps all we can say is that consciousness arises from a claustrophobic cooperation among and between networks of worker neurons."
----- "And what else?"
78
----- "And no more. That is all. Chaos leaves us there. It leads us nowhere we can map."
----- "And so, no more?"
79
----- "No more from chaos. But there are other illusions in the arsenal of the mind magicians."
----- "Show me one more of their tricks."
80
----- "Think of two things."
----- "What two things."
81
----- "Any two things. Make them as different as possible. but they must relate to the real world."
----- "Alright. I am thinking of them."
82
----- "What are they?"
----- "Right and wrong. They not only live in the world. They are in constant confrontation for the conquest of it. And they are more different than night and day."
83
----- "Good and evil would have been a more classic dichotomy. But we'll fly with your choice a while."
----- "Now what?"
84
----- "Bring those two concepts to the same place in your brain."
----- "Why?"
85
----- "Because it is place and not time that binds the inner reality your mind constructs. It is not how long you think of something that causes an inner conflagration of thought. But where, in your mind, your thinking takes place. "
----- "You propose a special piece of my brain to be my mind?"
86
----- "I propose nothing. I do no more than report. The mind magicians are the ones we speak of."
----- "And what do they propose?"
87
----- "They propose a mind map. A dynamic routing scheme."
----- "I see. They must be China-men building a railway through my brain."
88
----- "Perhaps. Or perhaps they are Indians carving out a trail of tears. A poisonous pathway through all your fears."
----- "Where does it lead?"
89
----- "To a place from which consciousness commands all thought."
----- "Does it have a name?"
90
----- "Of course. They have a name for every one of their theories. They call it the Pulvinar Nucleus. It is a screening room in which consciousness lives during the time it exists."
----- "And is this Nucleus the nest where right and wrong will meet and marry?"
91
----- "Yes."
----- "Will they produce offspring?"
92
----- "Impossible to answer. The evidence is not all in. There is no way of telling now. Perhaps they will annihilate each other. He said the only certainty is that the self temporarily lives in there."
----- "Always?"
93
----- "No. I told you this self is a sometime thing. When it becomes conscious, it lives. And when it lives, it lives in there."
----- "In where?"
94
----- "I told you. The place to which you took your right and wrong. It lives in there. He says its name is the Pulvinar Nucleus."
----- "I think you're just pulling on my left leg."
95
----- "Why would I do that?"
----- "Perhaps you just want me to fail again."
96
----- "Distrust will make dust of you yet. Everything I've told you was exactly what he said."
----- "Is the mind then a temporary state? Is it some sort of spiritual possession of the brain by a Cheshire mind? Is it a spirit who arrives, takes up residence for a mental night, does something thoughtful and concise, and then goes happily poof into oblivion until called up again?"
97
----- "Perhaps."
----- "This temporality does not fit my frame of mind. I cannot have the self in me disappear at all those times when I'm not using it. What about my dreams? Who dreams the dreams I do not remember when awakened?"
98
----- "I know nothing at all of them. And I'm sure I want nothing from them. Why not just keep them to yourself?"
----- "I will. And I reject it all."
99
----- "Reject away. Rejection suits you well. This theory fits in nicely with suppositions that the emotions cause the mind to reach existence. Wouldn't that be a help to you?"
----- "Help to me? How help to me?"
100
----- "I mean with her."
----- "Ah, then you lied before. You do see her."
101
----- "No. I didn't lie. I don't see her at all. she's the girl who isn't there. That's why I say this theory can be a help to you."
----- "How help to me?"
102
----- "A help to you with her. After all she isn't there. Therefore she must be an emotion. An urge within your secret psyche. Deep urges create psychic pain. Emotions result from either physical or psychic pain. It is emotion which creates the mind."
----- "That doesn't sound so scientific. Did he say that?"
103
----- "No. I said it. I'm saying it now to you. It's my own idea. But it's still a good one. Not everything has to come from him, you know."
----- "So. Now I'm to believe the mind is an emotional thing."
104
----- "Yes. an emotional sometime thing. All the candles in the candle-room flare up bright as hell when emotion enters."
----- "And die down again when emotion cools?"
105
----- "Right."
----- "Rot."
106
----- "It may be rotten. But it's rooted in truth."
----- "Why?"
107
----- "Because the mind can never be found when we look for it. It has to be a temporary state of being. So I asked myself, what happens at all other times? And I found my answer waiting in a quiet corner of my thoughts."
----- "What did the answer tell you?"
108
----- "That there is usually no mind at all."
----- "And what else?"
109
----- "That there is no self when there is no mind."
----- "And what else?"
110
----- "That there is usually no sense of consciousness because it is just a part of the mind."
----- "And what else?"
111
----- "That the brain is almost always in complete and autonomous control of the body."
----- "And what else?"
112
----- "That only when a significant threat, one not encountered before, enters that candle room we spoke of..."
----- "You mean the one where groups of ten thousand neurons alternate activity so to create random thoughts?"
113
----- "Yes. That's the very one. When a new threat, or even just a new interest, enters this room, millions, perhaps billions, of these neuronic candles come nervously to light and focus on the invader."
----- "And so?"
114
----- "And so, the mind reaches existence."
----- "And how is the threat perceived? If this brain in me is constantly concerned with its own autonomous activity, how can it then see something which lies outside its parameters of control?"
115
----- "The threat is an abnormal event, don't you see? One that the brain does not already have categorized within it. It cannot compute a response to it. The threat causes the brain to flare up in an agonized response."
----- "And that response is?"
116
----- "The creation of the state of mind."
----- "So, now I'm to believe my mind reaches being only when I am threatened?"
117
----- "Not at all. The threat need not be a threat. It need not even be a new and abnormal event. It can simply be something the mind, in one of its previous temporary states of being, had flagged within the brain as bearing some special import."
----- "Ah. I see. A wake-me-up-when-it-happens message to massage my ego."
118
----- "Something like that."
----- "Your insight leaves me breathless."
119
----- "It should. And it should help you with her."
----- "How help me with her?"
120
----- "Because mind reaches definition here as a state of complete attention. That's the only thing that can explain it."
----- "Explain what?"
121
----- "That you see her and I do not. You are in a state of mind about her. And so you see her. I am not. And I do not."
----- "What rot. You're wrong."
122
----- "Not rot. He's the one that's wrong."
----- "About what?"
123
----- "About where the mind is. We all want to know whether a physical parameter contains the mind. I think this proves the brain contains it globally."
----- "Not in any one particular piece of brain?"
124
----- "No. Not."
----- "Not in the Pulvinar Nucleus?"
125
----- "No. Not. For here we have a true ellipse. The brain gives rise to the mind. The mind controls the brain, yet is contained by it."
----- "I see. Ouroboros, the snake."
126
----- "Or the worm."
----- "Not chewing on..."
127
----- "No. Not."
----- "...but analyzing its own tail."
128
----- "Yes."
----- "And this helps me with her?"
129
----- "Yes."
----- "I think not. I think when limited minds look at truth for a very long time and they do not blink, truth will magically transcend itself before their eyes and become a lie."
-
1
----- "Which did you get wrong?"
----- "The one about convergence zones."
2
----- "The one that says there really are anatomical sites in our brains where all our perceptions go to unite and become consciousness?"
----- "Yeah. That's the one."
3
----- "But it's so easy."
----- "Easy when you get it. Hard to handle when you don't."
4
----- "What don't you understand?"
----- "It doesn't explain where the image of her comes form."
5
----- "Image of her? What her?"
----- "Her. The girl over there. The one by the balustrade."
6
----- "Where?"
----- "Over there. Right there. Here. Let me point your eyes. See her now?"
7
----- "No."
----- "Don't you see her?"
8
----- "No. I don't even see the balustrade. Do you?"
----- "Yes. Of course I do. Expensively crafted mahogany. Dark wood. Lots of dollops and frills for the feel of the human touch."
9
----- "But there is nothing there."
----- "She is there. And she wears a plaid skirt. Pleated too. Neat folds into neat edges."
10
----- "I see only darkness there."
----- "Dark sweater is what you see. I see her swell. She wears a woolen knit for warmth. See her auburn hair?"
11
----- "I tell you I see nothing there."
----- "Very light touch of lipstick, I see. So bright her eyes are. Glistening with liquid. Is it love? Or has she been crying? Concentrate with your mind. Do you see her now?"
12
----- "I tell you there is nothing there. Not even a shade."
----- "She is no shade. She is leaning on the balustrade. The balustrade is oak."
13
----- "I thought you said mahogany."
----- "No. I said oak. The balustrade is oak and of a light brown shade. The light bounces from it. It does not penetrate the wood. I see her smiling too. A strange smile. Kind of tearful. Don't you see her?"
14
----- "No. I don't. But I see you do. And in great detail too."
----- "Oh, then, never mind. It must not be of any import to you."
15
----- "No. It's not. I can't help you with her. But I can with the other. Lemme plot it out for you."
----- "What for? It's all too late now."
16
----- "So? Can you tell exactly how late is too late?"
----- "I've no idea. Do you?"
17
----- "At least I know it is not now. So it can't be too late now. Not here. Not between us. Try to understand it. Maybe next time you won't get caught with ignorance bleeding into your open palms."
----- "Alright. Go ahead."
18
----- "First, understand that there is more than one."
----- "More than one what?"
19
----- "More than one site that bonds. More than one place that binds. Plurality is the key word here. The binding up again of all the real world pieces the brain processes is done in a plurality of places. Got that?"
----- "Got it. Yes. What should I do with it?"
20
----- "Hold it in your head and think about it."
----- "Okay. I'm thinking."
21
----- "Prove it."
----- "How?"
22
----- "Tell it back to me again."
----- "What's to tell? The bonds that bind take place in separate anatomical sections of the brain. That's it. Isn't it? Specific locations?"
23
----- "That's it."
----- "What else?"
24
----- "Now this. These sites are called convergence zones."
----- "Why?"
25
----- "Because streams of information and bits of data from all other areas of the brain converge onto and into these locales. Into these specific locations."
----- "Into all of them?"
26
----- "No. It gets a little tricky here."
----- "Why?"
27
----- "Because the locales are arranged into lower level zones and higher level zones. The streams of representational information feed into the lower level zones. There they combine with each other."
----- "Then what?"
28
----- "Then they leave."
----- "Where do they go?"
29
----- "They go to the higher zones."
----- "And what do they do when they get there?"
30
----- "They create the mind."
----- "Do you mean those higher level zones, those specific sites, are what raise up consciousness from the non-existent? Is it as simple as that? To create something from nothing?"
31
----- "Not something from nothing. There are inputs from the real world. So there is something. And no. It is not just the higher level sites alone. It is the whole of the hierarchical architecture, acting in some sort of divinely inspired unison, that does the trick."
----- "You didn't tell me what determines movement from lower to higher zones? What is causing those decisions to be made?"
32
----- "Simple. The complexity of the task is what does it. The more complex the task the higher through the convergence zones in the brain the processing of it moves."
----- "Small task, low convergence? Big task, high convergence? Is that what you mean? Is it as simple as that?"
33
----- "Yes. Consciousness occurs when the higher convergence zones fire signals back to the lower levels so that the whole architecture lights up in synchronous activity."
----- "They all oscillate at once, right? Doesn't that throw you? Isn't that the same as the oscillation theory?"
34
----- "Sure. Compatibility is a virtue, isn't it. This theory meshes nicely with the oscillation theory."
----- "So which one is right?"
35
----- "Forget right and wrong. We are not moralists. Tell me. Can you imagine?"
----- "Of course I can. I come fully equipped."
36
----- "Then imagine a dark room."
----- "How big is it?"
37
----- "As big as a dream."
----- "Am I in the room or am I outside?"
38
----- "You don't exist yet."
----- "Then I must be the only creature who can dream and not exist. I think, therefore I am not yet. By the way, is anyone else in the room?"
39
----- "No."
----- "Is there furniture?"
40
----- "No. Just candles."
----- "How many?"
41
----- "Ten billion."
----- "Then that must be why the room is dark. Right? No one around to strike a match and light them."
42
----- "There is no one around. Yes. But no matches would be needed anyway. The candles are all electric."
----- "I see. So then the room is dark because there's nobody to throw the electric switch. Right?"
43
----- "Not right. Nobody is needed to toggle a switch. And there is no switch to be toggled. The candles light themselves."
----- "Why?"
44
----- "They are reactive."
----- "Reactive? What causes them to react?"
45
----- "Events from the outside world."
----- "How do these events get in?"
46
----- "There are slits everywhere in the walls and in the floor and in the ceiling."
----- "Then why is the room dark? I should think events would be slipping in willy nilly. The candles should all be lit by the very next now."
47
----- "No. The slits are not always open."
----- "What causes them to open?"
48
----- "The affect of the outside world. Let us say when they get warmed up enough they open and admit events."
----- "How many candles does one event light up?"
49
----- "I don't know. Not so very many. It would depend on the importance of the event."
----- "Let's say an important event enters this dark room. How many candles does it light up?"
50
----- "If it leads to consciousness, it lights up at least ten thousand candles. Though not all in the same section of the room. They are scattered throughout it. But ten thousand candles is enough for thought to take place. But only for a moment."
----- "Only for one moment?"
51
----- "Yes. They flicker synchronously for only about 100 milliseconds."
----- "Then what?"
52
----- "Then the next ten thousand light up, state their thought, and switch off again."
----- "What does this intermittent candleshine represent?"
53
----- "The work of the neurons in your brain."
----- "And this is consciousness?"
54
----- "Not really. Most of this flickering architecture is working at a non-conscious level. Walking, bending your elbow, extending your calf muscles, all these are non-conscious flickerings of the candle-neurons in your brain."
----- "Is this what you mean by lower level zones?"
55
----- "Yes. Haven't you ever had the experience of being lost in thought while doing some routine task, such as driving yourself home from work? Then, when you arrive, you wonder how you got there in one piece."
----- "Was I non-conscious while I drove? Did the car drive itself?"
56
----- "No. You were conscious. But you were not vividly conscious of the action of driving."
----- "Why?"
57
----- "Why what?"
----- "Why was I not vividly conscious"
58
----- "I have no idea. I am not privy to your thoughts."
----- "Was I dreaming?"
59
----- "I tell you I don't know. Ask me possible questions, not impossible ones. All I can say is you drove the car at a semi-conscious level. Analyze the days of your life and you will see this happens quite often. These lower level bindings of external world events by the brain probably account for all automatic and non-conscious activities."
----- "So, when I do a repetitive and routine task and am not conscious of doing it, I am not conscious of being conscious. But nevertheless I am conscious. Is that right?"
60
----- "Yes. You are conscious. But not vividly so."
----- "Yet, when I do a task and am conscious of every one of its particulars, I am also conscious. Only now I am vividly conscious. And this is because I am conscious of being conscious. Is that, too, right?"
61
----- "Yes. Vivid consciousness is always conscious of itself. It may require a different level of binding. One that involves attention and the use of short-term memory. And vivid consciousness may have a chemical basis."
----- "Meaning what?"
62
----- "The synchronous firing and oscillation of neurons may cause a release of chemicals that produce the short-term memory. This may be what allows the holding of 5 or 6 things in the mind at once. This may be what causes the sense of being conscious."
----- "Vivid consciousness is then a chemical high and nothing more?"
63
----- "That may be right."
----- "The self in me is then a result of chemical action in my brain?"
64
----- "Why does that surprise you? We are creatures of carbon. Are we not? Matter can break your bones. Can it not? why should it not also be able to build your mind?"
----- "My mind and my thoughts are then simply the result of a synchronous firing of a small portion of my brain. Is that right?"
65
----- "It would seem so. One piece of your brain becomes the ascendant you inside you. The you that you think you are. Truly a case of the part becoming greater than the whole."
----- "And so, thought is no more than the process of building a mirror in the mind. And no glass-smith is needed. The mirror builds itself in reaction to stimulus from the external world."
66
----- "You are crackling with cognition there. I find that a good metaphor. Sensory imagery from the real world enters your brain, you see. And it affects and works on little pieces of your brain."
----- "Like a windstorm chiseling away on the crusty slope of a magic mountain, huh?"
67
----- "Yes. Shaping little sections of its surface. Making them smooth as glass."
----- "Embedding little mirrors willy go nilly on the slopes, huh?"
68
----- "I give you yes again. For that is what they are. Little mirrors. They gulp all the images reality throws at them. And the refract that imagery through the individual prism that is you. The you your past experience has created."
----- "And then?"
69
----- "And then they re-focus the whole shebang together again to build one big mirror."
----- "Isn't it already built? Am I not the accumulation of little mirrors and the prism that refracts?"
70
----- "No. Vivid consciousness requires more. It needs the large mirror that reflects back onto its little brothers."
----- "Again, through the prism?"
71
----- "Yes. Always through the prism of your past. The little mirrors re-reflect again onto the big one. And so on. And again so on. And so on ad infinitum. Till all the brilliance of self awareness is achieved."
----- "A self which is transient and temporary?"
72
----- "Yes."
----- "A self imprisoned in a prism?"
73
----- "Yes."
----- "And is that all there is? Am I no more than a constructed mirror of the world?"
74
----- "There could be more."
----- "Surely there is more."
75
----- "There could be chaos."
----- "Give me chaos. I thirst for it."
76
----- "Know then that the physicists admit the physics of one water molecule does not yield an acceptable explanation of the hurricane."
----- "So?"
77
----- "So perhaps the properties of a single neuron cannot illuminate consciousness for us. Perhaps all we can say is that consciousness arises from a claustrophobic cooperation among and between networks of worker neurons."
----- "And what else?"
78
----- "And no more. That is all. Chaos leaves us there. It leads us nowhere we can map."
----- "And so, no more?"
79
----- "No more from chaos. But there are other illusions in the arsenal of the mind magicians."
----- "Show me one more of their tricks."
80
----- "Think of two things."
----- "What two things."
81
----- "Any two things. Make them as different as possible. but they must relate to the real world."
----- "Alright. I am thinking of them."
82
----- "What are they?"
----- "Right and wrong. They not only live in the world. They are in constant confrontation for the conquest of it. And they are more different than night and day."
83
----- "Good and evil would have been a more classic dichotomy. But we'll fly with your choice a while."
----- "Now what?"
84
----- "Bring those two concepts to the same place in your brain."
----- "Why?"
85
----- "Because it is place and not time that binds the inner reality your mind constructs. It is not how long you think of something that causes an inner conflagration of thought. But where, in your mind, your thinking takes place. "
----- "You propose a special piece of my brain to be my mind?"
86
----- "I propose nothing. I do no more than report. The mind magicians are the ones we speak of."
----- "And what do they propose?"
87
----- "They propose a mind map. A dynamic routing scheme."
----- "I see. They must be China-men building a railway through my brain."
88
----- "Perhaps. Or perhaps they are Indians carving out a trail of tears. A poisonous pathway through all your fears."
----- "Where does it lead?"
89
----- "To a place from which consciousness commands all thought."
----- "Does it have a name?"
90
----- "Of course. They have a name for every one of their theories. They call it the Pulvinar Nucleus. It is a screening room in which consciousness lives during the time it exists."
----- "And is this Nucleus the nest where right and wrong will meet and marry?"
91
----- "Yes."
----- "Will they produce offspring?"
92
----- "Impossible to answer. The evidence is not all in. There is no way of telling now. Perhaps they will annihilate each other. He said the only certainty is that the self temporarily lives in there."
----- "Always?"
93
----- "No. I told you this self is a sometime thing. When it becomes conscious, it lives. And when it lives, it lives in there."
----- "In where?"
94
----- "I told you. The place to which you took your right and wrong. It lives in there. He says its name is the Pulvinar Nucleus."
----- "I think you're just pulling on my left leg."
95
----- "Why would I do that?"
----- "Perhaps you just want me to fail again."
96
----- "Distrust will make dust of you yet. Everything I've told you was exactly what he said."
----- "Is the mind then a temporary state? Is it some sort of spiritual possession of the brain by a Cheshire mind? Is it a spirit who arrives, takes up residence for a mental night, does something thoughtful and concise, and then goes happily poof into oblivion until called up again?"
97
----- "Perhaps."
----- "This temporality does not fit my frame of mind. I cannot have the self in me disappear at all those times when I'm not using it. What about my dreams? Who dreams the dreams I do not remember when awakened?"
98
----- "I know nothing at all of them. And I'm sure I want nothing from them. Why not just keep them to yourself?"
----- "I will. And I reject it all."
99
----- "Reject away. Rejection suits you well. This theory fits in nicely with suppositions that the emotions cause the mind to reach existence. Wouldn't that be a help to you?"
----- "Help to me? How help to me?"
100
----- "I mean with her."
----- "Ah, then you lied before. You do see her."
101
----- "No. I didn't lie. I don't see her at all. she's the girl who isn't there. That's why I say this theory can be a help to you."
----- "How help to me?"
102
----- "A help to you with her. After all she isn't there. Therefore she must be an emotion. An urge within your secret psyche. Deep urges create psychic pain. Emotions result from either physical or psychic pain. It is emotion which creates the mind."
----- "That doesn't sound so scientific. Did he say that?"
103
----- "No. I said it. I'm saying it now to you. It's my own idea. But it's still a good one. Not everything has to come from him, you know."
----- "So. Now I'm to believe the mind is an emotional thing."
104
----- "Yes. an emotional sometime thing. All the candles in the candle-room flare up bright as hell when emotion enters."
----- "And die down again when emotion cools?"
105
----- "Right."
----- "Rot."
106
----- "It may be rotten. But it's rooted in truth."
----- "Why?"
107
----- "Because the mind can never be found when we look for it. It has to be a temporary state of being. So I asked myself, what happens at all other times? And I found my answer waiting in a quiet corner of my thoughts."
----- "What did the answer tell you?"
108
----- "That there is usually no mind at all."
----- "And what else?"
109
----- "That there is no self when there is no mind."
----- "And what else?"
110
----- "That there is usually no sense of consciousness because it is just a part of the mind."
----- "And what else?"
111
----- "That the brain is almost always in complete and autonomous control of the body."
----- "And what else?"
112
----- "That only when a significant threat, one not encountered before, enters that candle room we spoke of..."
----- "You mean the one where groups of ten thousand neurons alternate activity so to create random thoughts?"
113
----- "Yes. That's the very one. When a new threat, or even just a new interest, enters this room, millions, perhaps billions, of these neuronic candles come nervously to light and focus on the invader."
----- "And so?"
114
----- "And so, the mind reaches existence."
----- "And how is the threat perceived? If this brain in me is constantly concerned with its own autonomous activity, how can it then see something which lies outside its parameters of control?"
115
----- "The threat is an abnormal event, don't you see? One that the brain does not already have categorized within it. It cannot compute a response to it. The threat causes the brain to flare up in an agonized response."
----- "And that response is?"
116
----- "The creation of the state of mind."
----- "So, now I'm to believe my mind reaches being only when I am threatened?"
117
----- "Not at all. The threat need not be a threat. It need not even be a new and abnormal event. It can simply be something the mind, in one of its previous temporary states of being, had flagged within the brain as bearing some special import."
----- "Ah. I see. A wake-me-up-when-it-happens message to massage my ego."
118
----- "Something like that."
----- "Your insight leaves me breathless."
119
----- "It should. And it should help you with her."
----- "How help me with her?"
120
----- "Because mind reaches definition here as a state of complete attention. That's the only thing that can explain it."
----- "Explain what?"
121
----- "That you see her and I do not. You are in a state of mind about her. And so you see her. I am not. And I do not."
----- "What rot. You're wrong."
122
----- "Not rot. He's the one that's wrong."
----- "About what?"
123
----- "About where the mind is. We all want to know whether a physical parameter contains the mind. I think this proves the brain contains it globally."
----- "Not in any one particular piece of brain?"
124
----- "No. Not."
----- "Not in the Pulvinar Nucleus?"
125
----- "No. Not. For here we have a true ellipse. The brain gives rise to the mind. The mind controls the brain, yet is contained by it."
----- "I see. Ouroboros, the snake."
126
----- "Or the worm."
----- "Not chewing on..."
127
----- "No. Not."
----- "...but analyzing its own tail."
128
----- "Yes."
----- "And this helps me with her?"
129
----- "Yes."
----- "I think not. I think when limited minds look at truth for a very long time and they do not blink, truth will magically transcend itself before their eyes and become a lie."
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