top of page

How gene and brain mechanics determine and limit the formation and functioning of our existing mental processes 

In our quest to have a tangible grasp of mental processes we have managed to broadly understand the rationale of their emergence and structural constituents, their critical role in Nature and human life and the problems/conflicts they are producing and facing. But this understanding of our existing mental processes would be incomplete without comprehending the genetic and neuronal architecture and mechanics which produce and handle the entire variety of our mental functions and formations. Without a sufficient knowledge of how genes and neurons together make our mental complex, our thinking about mental processes will not be able to move on to an engineering plane, where it can be put to use for their internal restructuring.  

​

Up to now ‘how the mind with its huge variety of processes and functions arises from the brain’ has been a contentious area in current scientific discourse, with a mosaic of theories and ideas searching for some credible and adequate answers. This search also includes forays into the role of the genetic process in the making and functioning of mental processes. Thus, we find innumerable and at times conflicting ideas and explanations about the possible mechanics of the emergence of mental images and functions, including consciousness, out of the brain-neuronal processes and the role of genes in this process. In view of the work already done in this area and our own observation of animal and human mental processes, we also find a critical and indispensable connection between the genetic, brain-neuronal and mental processes. Which informs us that mental processes cannot be seen in isolation and any serious and comprehensive understanding of how they are formed and function is not possible without an integrated understanding of all these three processes and their relationship. We find a historically evolved three way partnership between them in which they are continuously interacting, interdependent and have interconnected functions. The biological and more specifically genetic process has been the substrate for the production of the brain-neuronal processes, which were an indispensable intermediary for the further maturing and elaboration of the biological process and more importantly for the production of developed mental processes in animals and human beings. Similarly, mental processes were critical for the stable survival and further development of the biological process. Living things, starting from unicellular organisms, could not survive and evolve without some form of mental processing. Thus, one finds layers (historical and current) of integral connections and interdependence between them. Let us try and unravel these connections and trace the steps of mental process formations beginning from the genes. 

 

‘Mental genes’ making the building blocks and structure of mental processes via the neuronal processes. Apart from factual knowledge acquired through mapping the genomes of post-brain species including humans, if we look more deeply at the complex design and structure of the brain’s neuronal network—in terms of individual areas/parts and also as a whole—we can safely infer that many genes would be involved in the making and functioning of this entire complex. And since different areas/parts of the brain evolved piece meal so their genes must also have evolved correspondingly. 

​

Thus in advanced or complex life forms with a developed brain (required for stable and efficient functioning) a variety of different and specialized genes evolved for all the different stages of the making and functioning of the brain. These ‘brain genes’ (as they are called in scientific literature) are involved in the formation and working of individual neurons and their varieties, their components like microtubules, tubulins, etc., and also other components of the brain. And then the making of highly complex networks between neurons within and amongst different areas, including connections with other components of the brain like glial cells, etc. This process would be similar to the making of the rest of the body by separate groups of genes and also individual genes. For instance, we find separate (not one but many) genes for the making of bones, and further specialized genes for the different types of bones. Skin as a biological component has separate genes but within it the skin of different parts like the palm of the hand, cheek, etc., have their own specific design, and therefore separate genes. The same is the case with all other biological components of the body.      

 

As an aside we would like to mention an interesting comparison between brain and body genes which is also corroborated by scientific findings. Despite the fact that a large number of genes are making and managing our complex bodies and their myriad components, more genes are active in the formation and functioning of the brain. Probably because the discrete components of the brain processes, especially the neuronal network, are far more than those of the body. Apart from the above mentioned body and brain genes, which are basically associated with reproducing the biological structure of a living form, we would like to introduce here another form of genes existing apart from this known category, which we refer to as ‘mental genes’. These would be non-biological templates containing the design software for the formation of mental processes. The rudimentary form of these genes must have evolved in unicellular life forms like paramecium, etc., which exhibit purposeful and intelligent behavior. But it is with the emergence of brains and their complex neuronal structure that these mental genes become a mature template for generating developed mental functions and processes. In our view post-brain mental processes are the product of a more developed already existing (in unicellular forms) mechanism evolved by the brain in which specific neuronal components called ‘microtubules’ connect with non-biological processes to produce the building blocks of mental processes and then assemble them into specific mental formations according to mental genes. 

​

The above tells us that mental formations arise as a third step in a chain of processes starting from genes. The first step is the mental gene or the basic design template for the making of mental processes. The activation of microtubules in neurons or the mechanism which produces mental processes is the second step. And the third step is the emergence of mental processes out of that process of activation. In our view after the activation (through internal or external stimuli) of neurons the subsequent processes starting from cognition onward are not in terms of neuronal processes. All these are mental processes, which cannot be reduced to the neuronal substance. Mental processes have mental building blocks which are made by neurons in accordance with the template of the mental gene. Just as biological templates (or protein coding genes) make proteins the basic directions and design of our mental formations is coming from the pattern/template existing in the mental gene. It is in accordance with these templates that the mental building blocks are produced, and then organized into specific mental formations. 

 

We know today that the simple biological gene is made up of two parts. One is the code or template for the making of the particular proteins which go into the formation of a biological component, say a bone, and two, the regulatory part which determines when the protein making template is to be used. Thus every gene or genes involved in the making of our different biological components (nose, hand, skull and so on) will be made up of these two basic parts. The actual processes involved in making the substance of some biological component and then the specific requirement and assembly of that substance are undertaken through software involved at every step. For instance, while making a bone the relevant genes have to activate their connections with other relevant (for the making of the bone) things which then undertake the required work of actually making the bone. So between the genes and the making of the bone there are numerous stages requiring the activation of a series of software of all those essential connected components like glands, blood, etc., needed at every step.  Similarly, mental genes would be providing two types of instructions/codes to neurons. One would be to make the substance of mental processes, which is not a protein. There would be the basic design code embodied in a software for activating the microtubules and tubulins of neurons in a certain way to make the substance (building blocks) needed for mental formations and functions. Then there would be another set of instructions (not rigid and exact) for the software of microtubules to implement the actual making of mental formations from that substance in accordance with the basic design template in mental genes. The latter process will require coordinated working with other software of relevant components (like tubulins) connected with microtubules in mental process formation. This will be a multi-step dynamic process involving interaction and coordination between many levels of components and their software because hundreds of mental formations have to be produced. And just as the bone was a different thing from the biological gene similarly the end product in this case i.e. the various mental process organizations are also a completely different thing from the mental gene and its basic software.  

 

important thing to note is that the formation of any ‘thing’ or ‘phenomenon’ in Nature involves many steps. Even ordinary nonliving things like machines are made in many steps and not one step. Thus the making of mental processes is also not a simple, linear and one step process but has many steps and every step involves its own set of components and software. 

 

To sum up, we must not simplify the issue of mental process substance and formation by reducing it to just some form of a neuronal process with an indirect connection with genes. If we compare the given dimension of the complexity of mental phenomena like our ideas and our experience of producing and working with them, with what we know of the genetic and neuronal processes we will realize that this simplification is irrational. There would be a need for further post-neuronal processes designed by mental genes and arising out of the neuronal process. There is no doubt that the neuronal processes, especially microtubules and tubulins, are an integral connection between mental genes and mental processes but the building blocks of mental processes and mental formations made from them are not neuronal processes. 

 

The possible mechanics of formation of mental building blocks and our existing variety of mental processes/functions from neuronal activity

 

Many approaches and theories have so far been proposed to explain the emergence of consciousness and mind from the brain and its neuronal processes. And the possible mechanisms implicated in the generation of consciousness and mind range from more macro activities at the level of groups of neurons in different parts of the brain to electromagnetic force fields generated by neuronal activity to micro quantum action in the microtubules and tubulins of neurons. The approaches which propose these mechanisms have innumerable versions, variations and also practical off-shoots. While acknowledging and taking into account the already existing indispensable ground work on this issue we would like to suggest another possible mechanics of mental process formation from the brain.

In our view the biophysical substrate in the brain which generates the mind does not exist at the level of the neuron but within one of its components, the microtubule, and its subunit, the tubulin. More precisely, at the level of the dynamic electromagnetic fields of microtubules generated by the electric polarization of their tubulins due to oscillating electrons within them. The motion of these fields would be in various directions and thereby have the capability of interacting with other massless magnetic energy fields within their range of interaction. These strong electromagnetic fields of microtubules would have the capability of harnessing the interactions with these massless energy fields and thereby producing compound and complex fields with greater energy than the original electromagnetic field.  

​

These compound magnetic energy fields would be another new hybrid phenomenon in Nature made up of the post-big bang electromagnetic fields generated by microtubules, combining with a variety of massless magnetic energy fields originally coming from the pre-big bang period. Since there are billions of tubulins so we will have a corresponding number of these hybrid energy units also. When these hybrid units, acting as building blocks, interconnect and then interact amongst themselves on the basis of a genetic programme (or sometimes randomly also) they give rise to second stage complex compound structures and their innumerable organizations having their own functions and capabilities. We are proposing that these second stage structures are actually mental processes, i.e. cognitive processes, emotive process, idea and feeling processes, problem solving, intelligence, memory, etc. 

It is these mental organizations which acquired enough energy and capability to interact with the complex bio molecular structures within living forms. And then through the growing interaction between these new mental formations and biological processes in accordance with the dynamic of Nature’s logic developed mental processes emerged in higher animals and then humans. 

 

We can see a clear parallel of the above process, in the interface between a piece of silicon and electric current wherein through an interaction between two different kinds of forces a third thing emerges, i.e. the transistor, which is neither a silicon atom nor electricity or electrons but becomes a new building block from which a variety of new formations/products arise. Over the last sixty years we have been adding to and developing the function of a transistor and today its complexity has reached a point where we have advanced integrated circuits that we have been using to store memory, make software and connect the two via a logic processor. So now we can write our own questions and get processed answers in the form of pictures, figures, audio, text, graphics, etc., which is displayed on LCD and LED screens. Biological evolution has done something similar. The process of making mental building blocks and their different organizations constituting our diverse mental functions and processes is a lot like the innumerable functions and products we got out of advanced ICs. Just as we have play-stations, Photo-Shop, weather projection/forecasting simulations, super computers, other computer guided systems, artificial intelligence, ad infinitum, similarly there is a whole variety of mental processes that have been installed during the evolution of living things. 

​

The first layer of mental processes that emerges in evolution is the cognitive capability or the process of evaluation and processing of recorded sensory data from perceptual organs (process of perception) and its conversion into ‘mind pictures’ (sound, touch, tactile, olfactory picture, etc). It is with this layer that the basis for asking questions (arising out of biological processes) and the means to answer them emerges in living things. Once the software for the cognitive process has been installed then comes a mental data processor which processes cognitive data (mental pictures) in accordance with the questions being asked. These questions arise out of the pain and pleasure experience, which is also a cognition dependent upon sensory data. We would not be able to experience pain or pleasure unless and until we are able to cognize it. Where cognizing pain or pleasure means picturing its location and experience. What is implicit in this form of cognition is that along with pain and pleasure, we have also installed the software of preference for pleasure over pain, and an aversion to pain. So now we are combining external (cognitive fund of the world outside of us) with internal cognition (of pain and pleasure) and processing that combined cognition to address our questions.  

 

This process inevitably gives rise to some questions which cannot be easily answered so then another mental process of reasoning develops, which also works on the basis of the classified information accumulated by the cognitive process. Once the process of reasoning starts functioning then while asking questions we stop proceeding directly to the use of our biological tools; hand, feet, teeth, etc., and start accessing our emerging reasoning capabilities before doing that. This leads to better and more efficient answers and conclusions from the standpoint of the like/dislike process and survival of the form. And since these conclusions have to be implemented hence at a parallel level the mental process of Will and its software are also evolved. Thus what we are calling mental processes constitute all these functions/processes and software made up of mental building blocks. In human beings all these basic mental functions and software become highly complex and in fact a lot of new mental processes and software are formed, especially after language. 

 

The above enables us to see mental processes at a more tangible level, and in 3D rather than just as some mental functions of ideas, feelings, thinking, etc. So we can experience their existence and observe their mechanics as reality. This should bring us closer to their objective reality as a phenomenon in Nature. Viewing mental processes as hybrid computational processes with their discrete stages of formation and functioning specified by mental genes is not something very remote from us and outside our mental grasp.  Once we get to understand how the structures of these hybrid units are formed and interact then seeing the mechanics of mental processes becomes easier, and we have a tangible phenomenon with which and on which we can do engineering. This also enables us to credibly connect mental processes to human actions. The issue we have always confronted is how the interaction between mental processes and heavier carbon based molecular structures took place. And until one explained this interaction there was always room for magic or getting stuck in human nature. But with this new understanding, as one more step ensuing from the already existing steps, one finds a credible operating connection between these evolved mental processes and our biological existence within the framework of Nature’s logic. 

 

The need to revisit the existing mechanics between our mental processes and mental genes 

​

Once we start viewing our mental processes in the above light we will realize that the real issue we confront today is that our existing mental processes are decisively and fundamentally not only products of our mental gene templates but also limited by them, as all their basic designs and formats are coming from these templates. So the problems of our mental processes exist at this level. Which means we need to revisit the mechanics of the existing connection and interaction between our mental processes and mental genes. We have been creating new mental templates since we began thinking and inventing new functions and processes like computers, particle-colliders, language, writing, and so on. Through doing this we have been going beyond our mental genetic templates but in reality these are just more advanced applications of our gene based mental processes. We have not been able to autonomously generate new mental functions beyond the structural and functional parameters of mental genes. So in a sense we can travel much further down the same road but we cannot yet make a new one. In addition, we are not yet able to switch off (at the fundamental and not behavioral level) those mental templates and their products which are counter-productive i.e. which produce conflicts, irrationalities and pain rather than harmony, rationality, and pleasure. Nor have we been able to create new ones with new capabilities, which would be a requirement of the pursuit of a developing pleasure cognitive program in us, which wants to avoid the pain process that is multiplying because of the rationality limitations of our existing mental templates. At present this is where we are as individuals and as a species. What we are looking for is another process to partly replace, as and when required, the existing mental templates with their modified or improved models and to inhibit or rather erase conflict producing templates and install harmony producing ones, which can create new and better mental functions and processes. We need that level of tangible communication, between our existing mental processes and mental genes whereby we can generate mental building blocks for making mental processes required for the above task. 

 

For contemporary man, it is the above question of pleasure pursuit that he needs to address. In other words how he can take this quantum leap in the redesigning and development of his mental processes. It would be a quantum leap because of its qualitative results. An individual will no longer remain as he has known himself but become what he would like to be for the sake of his new growing pleasures. This is what we are looking for and that too in a repeatable mode, where many people can take that leap within themselves and then guide others to move towards taking that leap. It is this process that will set the stage for the emergence of another plane of civilization.

​

 

Notes

​

i. Broadly speaking, we are referring here to the process of dismantling of pre-existing and making of new mental formations and functions.

​

ii. Here we are reducing the biological to the genetic process because the pre-gene early biological forms would have kept on disintegrating until they evolved the gene. So the survival, stability and further development and maturing of the biological process was not possible without the genetic process. Hence our zeroing in on the genetic process. 

​

iii. “… In the brain as a whole, there may be as many as 100, 000 different kinds of neurons….” (Marcus, 2004, p. 71)

​

iv. Starting from their rudimentary primitive forms in eukaryotic cells. 

​

v. To give an example, some genes individually and in collaboration with each other would be making both specific aspects and structures and then complete sections of neuronal networks in a certain area of the brain say the visual cortex, or the auditory or olfactory areas, etc. 

​

vi.Of course we know that many genes which are expressed in the brain are also expressed in the body. The same gene or the same gene cluster/group can be expressed in more than one area. So we find a mix of both specialized genes and some unspecialized all-purpose genes in the human body and the brain. 

​

vii. It has been proposed that almost one-third of our 20000-24000 genes are active or expressed in the brain. And this is the highest proportion of genes expressed in any part of the body (Retrieved from: www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/neurons_intro/neurons_intro.php). This should not be surprising considering that “In the brain as a whole, there may be as many as 100,000 different kinds of neurons, each contributing to a different aspect of mental life..” (Marcus, 2004, pp. 71-72). In addition there is a total of a 100 billion neurons which have trillions of connections between them and then we have glial cells which probably outnumber the neurons and are also now being implicated in processing. So it is logical that a lot more genes are involved in the brain than the body.  

​

viii.  “Paramecia swim in a graceful, gliding fashion via coordinated actions of hundreds of microtubule-based cilia on their outer surface. They thus seek and find food, avoid obstacles and predators, and identify and couple with mates to exchange genetic material. Some studies suggest paramecia can learn, escaping more quickly from capillary tubes with each subsequent attempt (Gelber, 1958). Having no synapses or neural networks, paramecia and similar organisms rely on their cytoskeleton for sensation, locomotion and information processing. The cytoskeleton organizes intelligent behavior in eukaryotic cells.” (Hameroff, 1998)

​

ix. A mechanism, to be elaborated in the forthcoming part of this chapter, which began to connect biological processes with non-biological states existing in Nature and produce a new compound form and its different formations—the mental processes. And then for their stable construction and functioning proper templates got installed in genes, which became specialized ‘mental genes’. As mentioned elsewhere the biological processes were incapable of functioning on their own without processing equipment i.e. mental processes. And these mental processes could not be made up of biological matter because of being far too complex, variable and having too many functions and that too in layers. And due to these growing non-biological processes the DNA would have gradually evolved corresponding non-biological mental templates for their repeatable formation and stable functioning. We know that in Nature there are no inherent barriers between one variety of phenomenon and another; they are interactive and their dynamic is integrated. So we need not have a purely biological view of DNA. It could very well have a non-biological component existing alongside it and also interconnected and interacting with it. 

We are not suggesting anything out of the ordinary here as the brain already incorporates nonbiological processes like electricity and electromagnetic energy in the biological process. It is only that the nonbiological processes that we are proposing would be some other massless energy forms, which would include pre-big bang forms alongside new combinations of these forms after the big bang. It is these forms which today are probably an integral part of the new post-biological (mental) processes arising in living things.

​

x. They are neither made from not exist in the form of neuronal components like microtubules, tubulins and even electrons within tubulins. 

​

xi. But like the biological gene it is not a fixed and exact blueprint or recipe. 

​

xii.  As Gary Marcus puts it “… Each gene actually has two parts: the protein template, which is widely known, and a second part that provides regulatory information about when that template should be used.” (Marcus, 2004, p. 59) So if we observe any gene today we will see it divided into protein coding regions and then non-protein coding regions. And it is acknowledged today that these non-protein coding regions and their counterpart non coding RNAs are playing an important role in the regulation of gene expression for protein making.     

​

xiii. Of course it goes without saying that the specific information content (the code and the regulatory part) of the genes involved in the making of one variety of bone will vary from the content of those involved in the making of some other variety.  

​

xiv. The genetically made and specified set of programs (set of instructions) for individual and collective functioning of biological components/parts.

​

xv. Software made up of programmes existing in mental language and not mathematical terms.

​

xvi. The properties of dynamic things like complex life forms, are a function of the software or programmes. Their properties get embodied in genetic software and their programmes. And that becomes a requirement of the stability and sustainability of their complex form. Whereas in static nonliving things there are only properties. Since there is no issue of preservation of form there hence no need for any software and programmes.

​

xvii. To broadly inform the reader of the hitherto discourse in this area we would like to share three types of ideas representing some of the acknowledged theories on the mechanics of the emergence of consciousness and mind from the brain. The first set of ideas propound that neuronal complexity on its own can account for consciousness and mind. According to Gerald Edelman (2000) the complexity of the brain and its neural connections is enough to explain consciousness and mind. So he rejects the mind as another substance over and above the body and brain. In his view, consciousness and mental constructs arise spontaneously from the dynamic activity or signalling patterns of widely dispersed (in different areas of the brain) and differentiated but interconnected groups of neurons. Thus local properties of neurons cannot explain consciousness but only their collective synchronous and coordinated action. For him conscious thought is generated by the brain and its mechanisms but is concerned with ‘meaning’, which goes beyond energy and matter. And our focus should be on this immaterial part of the mind which arises out of a complex material basis. 

Then we have the field models of consciousness and mind which view them as manifestations of energy fields in the brain. Johjoe Mcfadden (2002), a molecular Geneticist, thinks that information encoded in electromagnetic fields is something we are all familiar with and acknowledge. Hence in his view a mental concept would be held in the brain not as a neuronal firing pattern but as a complex electromagnetic force field (Cem-field) corresponding to that concept, generated by superimposed electromagnetic fields of individual neurons. For him therefore, one part of the mind (unconscious) is matter based i.e. neuronal networks and their firing patterns and the ‘conscious mind’ is an energy field. Both these parts are equally real but only have different physical manifestations. 

The third type of ideas arise from the quantum approach to consciousness and mind. Roger Penrose (1994) proposes that the neuronal organization of the brain is important but what is essential for consciousness is the cytoskeletal underpinnings of neurons, especially their component ‘microtubule’ and its subunit called ‘tubulin’. In his view as far as consciousness is concerned the real action lies at the level of these microtubules and their tubulins. But the activity at this level which generates consciousness, in his view, can neither be explained by classical physics nor by conventional quantum mechanics. It will require a new theory and physics which we do not yet have. But his take on it is that consciousness would be a result of some non-computational processes arising from a large-scale quantum coherent phenomenon within microtubules coupled to more ‘macroscopic behaviour’ or in other words classical processes at the neuronal level. So consciousness would be a manifestation of this large scale (in microtubules of neurons extending across a large part of the brain) quantum coherent and entangled state, generated by quantum oscillations within microtubules due to the electric polarization of its tubulins, and its involvement in the interaction between quantum and classical levels of activity. In his view this level of quantum activity continuously influences neuronal activity like synaptic strengths and even other organs of the body. So it is at this internal level inside the neuron that we need to look for the physical foundations of the mind.

​

xviii. The work on Artificial Neural Networks and Quantum Computing has been based on these neuronal and quantum theories. And the practical findings in these two disciplines have in turn, improved the theoretical work on the brain and mind being carried out in Brain Sciences, Cognitive Sciences, Consciousness Studies, Cognitive Science, Psychology, Quantum Biology, Neurobiology etc.  

​

xix. Originally coming from the pre-big bang phase of Nature and but worked upon and modified by subsequent magnetic fields generated by post-big bang forms of energy.

​

xx. It would be pertinent here to provide the reader with a brief history, which we have logically pieced together, of the emergence and evolution of these two types of magnetic fields (pre and post big bang) whose interaction became the hybrid building blocks of mental processes. The massless magnetic fields with which we are concerned arose in the second pre-big bang period of Nature. The origins of these fields was in the first pre-big bang period, which we will not go into at present. We would like to start from the second pre-big bang period in which these massless magnetic fields started interacting and it is the accumulation of these interactions which eventually produced weak particles of various kinds with their magnetic fields and then began the third pre-big bang phase which eventually led up to the big bang. The post big bang has its own phases where first you have atoms and their associated magnetic processes and then the second phase of organic molecules and eventually the third phase of biological forms which in turn produce another form of magnetic fields in the microtubules of neurons. In our view it is the complex and dynamic interaction between the magnetic fields of this third post big bang phase and those of the second pre-big bang phase (which have been worked upon by the successive levels of magnetic fields and are no longer what they were in the pre-big bang phase) that produced the hybrid building blocks of mental processes.     

​

xxi. According to Penrose there are some 10^4 tubulin dimers per neuron (Penrose, 1994, p. 366). So if we have a hundred billion neurons then one can see how many tubulins there would be. 

​

xxii. In our view the evolutionary process of Nature would have come up with these new mental building blocks or hybrid energy units after practically checking out an unlimited variety of permutations and combinations of different energy forms and rejecting the ones which would not work. That is, energy forms like molecules, atoms, electrons and other heavier energy processes. The speed needed for mental processing, and the sheer magnitude of the bits and pieces of cognitive data which had to be processed was only possible with some very light and massless energy forms. Thus Nature came up with this practically massless hybrid building block which could work very fast. It is massless because of being a product of energy oscillations of the electrons (not electrons themselves) combined with the variable oscillations of massless pre-big bang energy forms. So it is no doubt a concrete thing (having energy, functions and mechanics) but due to being a very low energy component it has no mass and consequently no resistance/friction which is why it can work very fast. 

​

xxiii. We know that one of the fundamentals of Nature’s logic is that its dynamic must be directed at discovering more efficient and stable forms. Hence the evolution of the hybrid mental building blocks and their numerous organizations into functioning mental processes.  

​

xxiv. The evolution of proper mental infrastructure in developed animals and humans, like the various perceptual and cognitive functions, like/dislike or emotive process, memory, evaluation, problem solving, intelligence and the layers of corresponding mental software, is a consequence of this interaction between specific mental formations and biological processes. It has been a two way interaction where both have been impacting (positively and negatively) on each other. And also reinforcing their mutual growth. 

​

xxv. Computers and computer based artificial life forms lack a pleasure pain cognitive system of their own. Their existing classification system is what we have installed in them based on our likes and dislikes and the questions we have. Consequently, they do not proceed on the basis of there being a prior cognition of pain and pleasure before there can be a classification. But in the computational processes of biological beings, the pain pleasure cognitive process and its classification was critical and a prerequisite.  

​

xxvi. A richer understanding of the advanced computational processes in computers and AI will enable us to better understand the variety and mechanics of our developed mental processes. The following link of a recent article will inform the reader of why we are suggesting that understanding AI will help us in this regard. (Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/science/brainlike-computers-learning-from-experience.html?_r=0). Of course we acknowledge that computer chips are a crude thing compared to mental building blocks and processes, especially human mental processes in their full flight and glory as feelings, ideas or imagination. 

​

xxvii. We are not here referring to only verbal questions which the human species is capable of asking. But to the issues/needs arising out of the biological process which were like questions for the living thing which had to then come up with solutions or answers to those issues.  

​

xxviii. In the first step, the questions and answers will be in terms of whether we like or don’t like something and whether we want it or not. Then comes the stage of asking higher level questions like ‘how’ do we get something, or avoid it. And this stage of ‘how’ in turn has many further layers. And this process goes on developing in complexity as species move up the evolutionary ladder. 

​

xxix. Without this pain pleasure cognition there would have been no questions. 

​

xxx. If this reasoning is going to be a tangible process then it must be in terms of the cognitive process. So before this reasoning process a software has to develop which first classifies things as discrete and separate entities and then does a further classification in terms of the properties of those separate things and then stores this accumulating data in a memory bank. 

​

xxxi.Not particle or heavier energy based but a combination of the pre and post big bang magnetic fields, as explained earlier.

​

xxxii. We would like to clarify here that by computational processes and systems we only mean a system which has the ability to receive an input of data in its own language and form, whatever that is. And then using its own internal paradigms and equations it is able to convert that data into its logical implications or in other words its meaning and thereby produce an output. So we are not talking of any rigid mechanical system carrying out mathematical computations based on mathematical algorithms. A mental computational system will be made up of its own programs and software operating in terms of its own internal language and its 0s and 1s.    

​

xxxiii. Our verbal intelligence and then intellectual functions have acquired a level of autonomy which goes beyond the existing mental templates and have been able to undertake inquiries which do not find corresponding stimulants in the existing templates and go beyond their confines. But these have to co-exist with the programmed mental processes and are most of the time polluted and pulled back by the dominant programmed mental processes. So there is a contradiction and continuous tussle going on within the mind of contemporary man between his autonomous verbal intellect and the rest of his mental processes.

​

xxxiv.  By ‘rationality limitations’ we mean that for producing pleasure for ourselves we find it necessary in our limited rationality to cause pain to another person or persons. In other words, we produce pain for another person, and thereby create pleasure for ourselves. Our existing rationality has this kind of limitation. And this limitation operates both in the individual and social dimension.  

​

​

bottom of page