{"id":26,"date":"2025-04-07T00:25:48","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T00:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.halltennis.com\/?p=26"},"modified":"2025-04-18T04:20:48","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T04:20:48","slug":"ambulatory-brain-surgery-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.halltennis.com\/?p=26","title":{"rendered":"Ambulatory Brain Surgery next"},"content":{"rendered":"

Begin forwarded message:<\/p>\n

From: <\/strong>Halltennis@aol.com<\/p>\n

Subject: Ambulatory Brain Surgery next<\/strong><\/p>\n

Date: <\/strong>June 30, 1997 at 17:30:05 EDT<\/p>\n

To: <\/strong>WWTennis@aol.com, MTennis391@aol.com, joe@joe10.com, skt@vista.com, mcquaide@vista.com, Wmbruffin@aol.com, LMF99@aol.com, jimp@digitoy.com, BEATBARD@aol.com, TIFFHOOKS@aol.com, shwiller@fwb.gulf.net<\/p>\n

Hey,
\nHaving had to deal with a misfiring neurological system all my life, which
\nhas given me intermittent fits of clarity from time to time, how that
\nsystem does it also claims my attention.
\nHere are some notes on one of my favorites, a condensation of pages and pages
\nof stiff prose–stiff to appreciate, that is. Some of it may fit if you try
\nit on.<\/p>\n

Jaynes’ theory of human thought development has four separate theorems:<\/p>\n

1. CONSCIOUSNESS IS BASED ON LANGUAGE. To clarify this thought requires a
\nlong, difficult discussion.<\/p>\n

2. THE BICAMERAL MIND. That is, preceeding consciousness, here was a
\ndifferent mentality based on verbal hallucinations.<\/p>\n

3. CONSCIOUSNESS WAS LEARNED ONLY AFTER THE BREAKDOWN OF THE BICAMERAL
\nMIND. Roughly about 1000 bce.<\/p>\n

4. THE RIGHT BRAIN AND LEFT BRAIN HAVE (OFTEN?) DISCRETE OPERATIONS TO
\nPURSUE AND RELATED DIFFERENTLY IN THE BICAMERAL MIND PERIOD. The right
\nhemisphere processes information in manner that synthesizes, etc.<\/p>\n

TO START THINKING ABOUT THIS, first distinguish between a) what is
\nintrospectable and b) the other neural abilities we call cognition.<\/p>\n

A GOOD PLACE TO START IS THIS QUESTION.
\nQuestion: I am perceiving you, looking at you. Are you trying to say I am
\nnot conscious of you at this moment?<\/p>\n

Answer: Yes. THAT IS WHAT I AM SAYING.
\nYou are conscious of the rhetorical argument you are making, not of me. If
\nyou turned away and looked at the wall, you might well be conscious of me as
\nyou spoke (after you decided what you were going to say).<\/p>\n

(Consciousness and perception are not the same thing.
\nNeither is cognition.)<\/p>\n

Consciousness is not all language, though it is generated by language and
\naccessed by it.<\/p>\n

GENERAL RULE: There is no operation in consciousness that did not occur in
\nbehavior first. What are the operations in consciousness? Here:<\/p>\n

In our (western) culture it (consciousness) has several important features:
\n1. Mind-space is a primary feature. It is the place where we sense our
\nintrospecting to be going on.<\/p>\n

2. The analog “I” is another feature.(Not the same as the bodily “I”) The
\nanalog “I” moves about within the mind space, goes from place to place, does
\nanalog things, has thoughts, makes speeches, senses past, present, future.<\/p>\n

The test of consciousness is the analog “I” narratizing in a functional
\nmind-space. That is, introspecting. Exactly as described by Descartes,
\nLocke, and Hume.<\/p>\n

Add two more:<\/p>\n

3. Concentration. The analog of sensory attention.<\/p>\n

4. Suppression. We desist from annoying thoughts. The analog of
\nrepugnance, disgust, or turning-away-from.<\/p>\n

Another tricky feature of consciousness is called conciliation or
\ncompatibilization–call it conscilience (a new word). We do this most
\nfrequently in dreams or in the creativity of art where we juxtapose the
\nunrelated (things that cannot possibly have anything to do with each other)
\nand come up with both of them making a new thing.<\/p>\n

Consciousness is not simple. Think of having imaginary conversations,
\nimagining scenes, imagining action–jumping a fence, monitoring fatigue or
\npain or hunger, or imagining music, or an idea for a painting.<\/p>\n

THE OLD, PREHISTORIC HUMAN MIND WAS DIFFERENT.
\nThe brain structure was, perhaps, a little different.
\nAt least, it worked differently.
\nIn times of stress, verbal hallucination brought into focus a response to the
\nproblem.
\nA lot of people still do this:
\n“I talked with god. He said take up the Book. I did. It solved my
\nproblem.”
\nThere is some evidence of a genetic basis for humans to have and use
\nhallucinations.<\/p>\n

There are two ways of seeing this:
\n1) People always had both kinds of mind because consciousness began as
\nlanguage began and gradually consciousness won out over hallucination.
\nIntrospection prevailed.
\n2)Theocratic agriculture fostered population explosions everywhere, and
\npopulation density fostered social complexity and social chaos. This made
\nhallucination an impossible mechanism for problem solving.<\/p>\n

Number Two suggests a lot of social violence. We call it war. Remember?<\/p>\n

Jaynes suggests a number of transitions, changes, as we developed
\nconsciousness:<\/p>\n

Mating became Mating & Sex.
\nAnger became Anger & Hate.
\nExcitement became Excitement & Joy.
\nAffiliation became Affiliation & Love.
\nShame became Shame & Guilt.
\nFear became Fear & Anxiety.<\/p>\n

In Classical Greek, in the sixth and seventh centuries bce, they developed
\nthese new words:<\/p>\n

Gnosis, a knowing.
\nGenesis, a beginning.
\nEmphasis, a showing in.
\nAnalysis, a loosening up.
\nPhronesis, an intellection, thinking, understanding, or consciousness.
\nLook for this in the Iliad in vain. Find it in the Oddessy.<\/p>\n

This subject matter is hard to talk about because of the confusions arising
\nfrom polysemy, and from the other homonymic or multireferential associations
\nof memory.<\/p>\n

Questions like this: “Are we not confusing here the concept of consciousness
\nwith consciousness itself?”
\nJaynes’ answer is that we are fusing them, not confusing them. They are the
\nsame. “Mention” and “use” can be identical. The concept of baseball and
\nbaseball are the same thing, he says. When you talk of money, you are
\ntalking about money. Or law, or good, or evil. –he says, Or Jaynes’
\nconcept, he says.<\/p>\n

THE ORIGINAL STORY OF OEDIPUS, REX.<\/p>\n

He slew his father and unwittingly wed his mother, they had several children,
\ndiscovered the taboo incest, felt badly about it, recovered and lived happily
\never after as King and Queen of Thebes.<\/p>\n

THE REWRITE (what consciousness can do)<\/p>\n

Four hundred years later, Sophocles rewrote the story and had Oedipus punish
\nhimself blind and have a miserable death at Colonus.<\/p>\n

Another tale of dealing with shame, and guilt (the product of introspection
\nand guilt–consciousness):
\nHerodotus tells the story: Phrynicus staged the first Greek, Classical
\nTragedy: “The Fall of Miletus.” The play decribed the destruction of that
\nIonian city by the Persians the year before, in 494 bce. The people of
\nAthens were so shocked, they could not function for days. The city came to a
\nstandstill. Phrynicus was banished in perpetual disgrace. The play was
\nburnt. (The messenger was punished.)
\n6\/3\/97<\/p>\n

OTHER READINGS AVAILABLE–IN PRINT NOW<\/p>\n

THE INVENTION OF MEMORY
\nThe Invention of Memory, a new view of the brain, Israel Resenfield, Basic
\nBooks, NY.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by J. W. Lance, Prof of Neurology, Univ of New South Wales,
\nSydney, Aust.<\/p>\n

The author buys “Neural Darwinism” (see propounder Gerald Edelman, Rockfeller
\nUniv. In NY, Nobel Prize in
\nphysiology or Medicine ’72): “In sleep, when the neuronal maps are released
\nfrom the restraint of sensory order, memory traces combine in fragments to
\nform dreams.”<\/p>\n

…Cannot determine precisely where and how memories are stored.<\/p>\n

Registration of memory is localized, the recall of past events is not. We
\nare far from understanding the mechanics of memory.<\/p>\n

UNSTABLE IDEAS, temperament, cognition, and self, Jerome Kagan, Harvard Univ
\nPress, Cambridge.<\/p>\n

The reviewer is R. M. Restak, author of THE BRAIN and THE MIND.<\/p>\n

He says: In order to illustrate the difficulties presented by commonly
\nemployed yet deeply ambiguous words, Mr. Kagan takes up “self” and
\nconsciousness–two prominent and “unstable” ideas that hinder rather than
\npromote dialogue and communication. “Although each of us may feel that our
\nconsciousness is among our most significant characteristics and the most
\nimportqant determinant of our behavior, such an assumption is neither
\nempirically proven nor logically commanding,” Mr. Kagan says provocatively.<\/p>\n

Consciousness plays its most useful role in mental life during times of deep
\nuncertainty about how to proceed, he believes, when an event occurs that
\ncannot be handled by one’s usual behavioral repertory. But these occasions
\nare exceptional. For the most part, in his view, “consciousness can be
\nlikened to the staff of a fire department. Most of the time, it is quietly
\nplaying pinochle in the back room; it performs when the alarm sounds.”
\nWhat is meant by self is even more difficult.<\/p>\n

The belief that anger, jealousy, competitiveness, violence, incest are the
\ninevitable remnant of animal heritage conflicts with the logic which says
\nthat the structure and philosophy of society are the source.<\/p>\n

Emphasizing biology gives us an easy “out.”<\/p>\n

MORE MORE MORE<\/p>\n

COPY OF SOME NOTES FROM REREADING JAYNES, SECOND EDITION:<\/p>\n

First hypothesis:
\nConsciousness is based on language.
\nConsciousness is not the same as cognition.
\nConsciousness is not the same as perception.<\/p>\n

(Consciousness is our
\nperception of cognition plus our cognition of perception.)<\/p>\n

‘I'(make an arrow)(I see a table).<\/p>\n

There is no operation in consciousness that did not occur in behavior first.<\/p>\n

Analogy deals with similarity between relationships.<\/p>\n

The bodily I (self) moves through physical space.
\nThe analog “I” moves through mind-space.<\/p>\n

P. 450:
\n“…we narratize the analogic simulation of actual behavior, an…(aspect of
\nconsciousness)….”<\/p>\n

The basic connotative definition of consciousness is thus the analog “I”
\nnarratizing in a functional mind space. The denotative definition is, as it
\nwas for Descartes, Locke, Hume, what is introspectable.<\/p>\n

Concentration (arrow) analog of sensory attention.
\nSupprerssion (arrow) analog of repugnance, disgust, or turning away from.<\/p>\n

Conciliation (arrow) concilience:
\nmaking things compatible with each other.
\n–most important in dreaming.<\/p>\n

Modes of conscios narratization: (p. 452) Perceptual, verbal, behavioral,
\npsychological, musical, imagining.<\/p>\n

File it for a while.
\nL–h.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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