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03 - The Third-Person View of The Mind
03 - The Third-Person View of The Mind
The Third-Person
View of the Mind
Introduction
The third-person view of the mind is from the outside, the
objective world of science and medicine. It is how we are
observed by those around us. The disturbing part is that our
colleagues tell us, "Sorry old chap, but your mind is nothing
but electrochemical activity in three pounds of meat." This is
how science sees consciousness, nothing but the operation of
the human brain. To make this even worse, the method of
reduction tells us that brain activity is pure Information,
something so abstract that it can be transmitted over a
communications channel or stored in a computer memory. The
goal of this chapter is to present the evidence for these stark
conclusions.
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24 The Inner Light Theory of Consciousness
organs and the muscles together. This is where the brain comes
in. Its function is to receive information about the environment
from the senses, decide how to move the body to achieve
survival and reproduction, and control the muscles to carry out
the planned action. Figure 3-1 illustrates this role of the brain
as the link between the senses and muscles.
Incredible as it may seem, all of these functions are carried
out by a single type of building block, the nerve cell or neuron.
Neurons come in a variety of shapes and sizes depending on
where in the nervous system they are located. However, all
neurons have the same general structure and operate in the same
basic way. As shown in Fig. 3-2, each neuron has a cell body
containing a nucleus and other components needed to keep the
cell alive. Two kinds of projections extend from the cell body,
the dendrites, where the signals enter the neuron, and the axon,
where the signals exit. To allow the signals to jump from one
neuron to the next, the end of each axon is positioned next to
the dendrites of its neighbor, forming a connection called a
synapse.
The neuron has a unique property that allows it to transport
and process information. In the jargon of biology, neurons can
fire. It works like this. The membrane around the neuron is
capable of moving charged particles (ions) into and out of the
cell. This pumping action results in the cell becoming a tiny
battery, with the inside of the cell negative and the outside of
the cell positive. The neuron remains in this condition until
something stimulates one of the dendrites. For example,
neurons in the eye are sensitive to light, and neurons in the ear
are sensitive to sound. Neurons in the brain and spinal cord are
only sensitive to the firing of neighboring nerve cells. When
the dendrites receive sufficient stimulation, the cell membrane
briefly flips its electrical polarity. For about one-thousandth of
a second, the inside of the cell becomes positive and the outside
negative, and then the cell returns to its normal condition. This
brief polarity flip is called an action potential. Once the action
Chapter 3: The Third-Person View of the Mind 25
FIGURE 3-1
The function of the brain. Animals
must move in their environment to
survive and reproduce. This requires
senses to provide information about
where to move, and muscles to carry
out the movement. The function of
the brain is to connect these two.
26 The Inner Light Theory of Consciousness
FIGURE 3-2
The neuron. The nerve cell, also called the neuron, is the basic
building block of the brain and other nervous pathways.
Stimulation of the dendrites cause the neuron to fire, sending a
brief electrical pulse from the dendrites, through the cell body,
and down the axon. This electrical pulse is called an action
potential, and can be transferred from one neuron to the next
through a connection called the synapse.
28 The Inner Light Theory of Consciousness
FIGURE 3-3
Neurotransmitter release. Action potentials do not jump directly
from one neuron to the next. Instead, when an action potential
reaches the end of the axon, chemicals called neurotransmitters
are released into the synaptic gap. These chemicals then initiate
action potentials in the neighboring neurons.
Chapter 3: The Third-Person View of the Mind 29
FIGURE 3-4
Circulation of neural activity. Patterns of action potentials are
sent from the senses to the brain where they enter the already
circulating patterns of neural activity. Portions of this neural
activity exit the circulation to control the muscles.
fires. When you see the person’s face at a later time, it causes
a similar pattern of neural activity. However, this time the
modified neural weights already match the pattern of activity,
a condition that the brain interprets as recognition. Present day
science has a general grasp of how this can occur in neural
networks, but a poor understanding of the details. For instance,
little is known about how the synaptic weights are modified,
and even where in the brain memories are stored. These are the
challenges of twenty-first century brain research.
Now let’s turn our attention to the actual human brain, as
shown in Figs. 3-5 and 3-6. Different areas of the brain are
responsible for different tasks; however, the tissue in each of
these areas is of the same construction, an intricate maze of
interconnected neurons. The outside of the brain is called the
cerebral cortex, or gray matter from its appearance. This is
the site of the most sophisticated activity in the brain, the
densest part of the neural network interconnections. The
complexity of the cerebral cortex is the single most important
difference between the brains of humans and lower animals.
Inside the cerebral cortex is white matter, which is used to
transport neural activity from one part of the brain to another.
It appears lighter than the gray matter because its axons are
covered with the fatty myelin sheath, reducing the time for
action potentials to move between locations. An important part
of the white matter is the corpus callosum, a huge pathway that
connects the left and right halves of the brain. More about this
later.
Since the brain’s function is to connect the senses with the
muscles, it is not surprising that each location on the cerebral
cortex has one of three general duties: (1) sensory, the analysis
of signals from the five senses, (2) motor, the preparation of
signals that go to the muscles, and (3) association, the
processing needed to connect the first two. For instance, the
rearmost portion of the brain, the occipital lobe or visual cortex,
processes sensory information from the eyes. Likewise, touch
and pain are processed in the sensory cortex, a narrow vertical
Chapter 3: The Third-Person View of the Mind 33
FIGURE 3-5
The human brain. The outer layer of the human brain, the cerebral
cortex, is where the most complex processing occurs. It is divided
into many different regions, each performing a specific task.
FIGURE 3-6
Cross-section of the human brain. Interesting regions include:
ventricles, fluid filled holes in the brain; pineal gland, incorrectly
believed to be the seat of consciousness by Descartes (Chapter 7);
thalamus, a relay station for passing signals between areas; and
substantia nigra, which is destroyed in Parkinson’s disease.
36 The Inner Light Theory of Consciousness
1. “Do you see what they see?”, Brad Lemley, Discover, 20, Dec.
1999, pp 80-87. Also, search the web for many on-line references.
Chapter 3: The Third-Person View of the Mind 39
The Evidence
By definition, the third-person view of the mind is from the
outside, what is seen by an external observer. And what this
external observer sees is brain activity, incredibly complex
40 The Inner Light Theory of Consciousness