AN EXPLANATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS Generally speaking, the brain stores and processes Information. The information it stores is related to the individual's life experience. The life experience originates from events that took place in a Present previously lived by the Individual, that is, the life experience refers to the Past. Through the senses, information contained in the relevant environment of the Individual is captured. From what is perceived, and making use of life experience, the brain assigns meaning to what is perceived. As well as assigning meaning to what is perceived, the brain generates alternatives for future actions (Projection of the Future). The information that is captured from the environment activates memories (neurons) that previously participated in a life experience. In this way, an association is established between yesterday and today (Pavlovian conditioning). The actions of the Individual take place in a certain environment, which requires the brain to construct and manage a mental correlate of the relevant environment of the Individual. The genome of every living being contains information that has been acquired throughout the evolutionary history of the living being. By the way, the ability to store and process information is limited, both from the genome and the brain. The ability to "learn", whether from a plant or a living being with a brain, is related to the ability to store life experience, a life experience that can be used in the future by the living being to give meaning to what it is perceived in the Present. The living being with a brain constitutes an evolutionary milestone of proportions. Thanks to the brain, evolution acquired a new rhythm. Indeed, the speed of the genome to "learn", and to store life experience, turns out to be extremely slow compared to the learning speed that the brain grants to the individual who possesses it. In this sense, the brain radically expands the expectations of action of the living being. Behind the action of every living being there is an obvious purpose to alter the future conditions of its relevant environment. The mental correlate of the relevant medium has been like a kind of "photograph" that tries to conveniently represent the conditions of the medium from the meaning acquired by what is perceived. Coupled with the mental correlate, action expectations arise, which constitute projections of probable future states of the environment. Being limited, both the ability of the senses to capture information from the environment, and the brain's ability to manage said information, it is not surprising that the aforementioned "photograph" is not only incomplete but blurred in some areas. A mental mechanism known as "Attention" makes it possible to direct perceptual resources to certain segments of the environment, and make a certain area of the relevant mental correlate of the environment less "blurry". Although the process of capturing information takes place in the Present, the brain has the ability to conveniently maintain memories (groupings of neurons) previously activated via perception, which administer information from segments of the relevant environment that are not being perceived in the Present. . Through this process some segments of the "photograph" are "updated". Thus, for example, if by turning my head to the right I stop seeing what is happening to my left, that does not mean that what I stopped perceiving a moment ago is no longer part of the mental correlate of my relevant environment. In turn, the brain has the ability to project, in time, the state of said segment of the environment. If in the previous example, before turning my head to the right, I observed that my dog, a hundred meters distant, was running towards me, my brain will project such an event in time. Although as the seconds go by, such a projection will become more and more diffuse, less accurate, it will not for that reason cease to be present, in said segment of the mental correlate of my relevant environment, my dog. It is evident that this "Actualization of the Present" is due to the brain's ability to project future states of the environment. At the same time, it is clear that a certain degree of uncertainty is implicit in Updating the Present - and in the Projection of the Future. All living beings with a brain have the ability to project eventual future states of their relevant environment, a projection in which uncertainty is present. In the life experience that my dog has been storing in his brain, there are "latent", as non-active memories, the biographies of a number of entities with which my dog has interacted throughout his life. His life experience in which these entities have participated, through their daily lives, has characterized these entities, his brain generating a kind of utilitarian biography of each one of them. The vast experience of my dog's life, in which I have participated, allows him to carry out, when I get home, an adequate reading of my state of mind, which determines his actions. Indeed, a glance is enough for him to see that I am grumpy. Then he lowers his ears and lies down on the floor. If I'm in good spirits when I open the door, he pounces on me as soon as he sees me. Your brain, according to what it perceives, activates convenient memories, which refer to information with meaning contained in the biography that it possesses of me. For the brain of a child listening to the story of Little Red Riding Hood for the tenth time, Little Red Riding Hood is a “very real” entity, which is part of its Present, and of the world of matter. The child often interrupts his mother's story to ask her about some details. They are questions of the type "Does Little Red Riding Hood have siblings? Do you eat all the food? Do they punish her when she is not obedient? " etc. The fact that the child's eyes cannot see Little Red Riding Hood, nor their ears hear her voice, does not prevent their brain from “placing” such an entity in the mental correlate of their relevant environment. When his mother tells him "Little Red Riding Hood woke up, got dressed, sat down at the table and had the breakfast that his mother had prepared for him, consisting of a cup of milk and a bread with jam", for the child's brain each one of the aforementioned events happens as they are described through language, and it is clear that the dozen seconds it takes for his mother to describe the above does not correspond to the “real time” that would elapse between awakening and a “real” Little Red Riding Hood finished having breakfast. In the material world, it would take Little Red Riding Hood a few tens of minutes to carry out the aforementioned succession of actions. In practice, the language that her mother uses expands in the child's brain the mental correlate of her relevant environment, in which the actions described take place, one after another. In this sense, human language allows a very particular “manipulation” of time / space that the child's brain manages, acquiring -time / space- a malleability that turns out to be one of the pillars of what differentiates us humans from all other forms of life. By the way, in the brain of a child who is able to follow the story in the aforementioned story, many other latent entities “inhabit” such as non-active memories (set of neurons). The child's brain has a biography of her siblings, her parents and grandparents, her friends, her dog, etc. According to what the minor perceives, the memories associated with said entities are activated, conveniently. The functional architecture of the human brain evolved to be able to give meaning to the words it hears, and expand, through its use, the "dimension" of the mental correlate of its relevant environment, a relevant environment where entities and events that are not necessarily part of the material world. To get an idea of the degree to which the human brain has evolved in terms of expanding the mental correlate of its relevant environment, it is enough to mention that between birth and four years, a child hears between ten and forty million words, many of them which allude, -in the Present in which the minor is living-, to entities or events that are not part of the world of matter. It is convenient to stop for a moment on the above; ON AVERAGE, A CHILD HEARS THE ORDER OF 17,000 WORDS A DAY. Although the brain arose to administer a body located in a material world, which required the brain to administer a mental correlate of the relevant MATERIAL medium, the administration of human language results in the incorporation, in the mental correlate of the relevant medium, of some segments of said correlate, which are not part of the world of matter. This characteristic makes the difference between the human brain and the brain that other living beings possess. (keep going)
(continuation) The life experience of the minor is expanding the biography of the entities that his brain stores. The memories that store information related to the entities they represent are capable of being conveniently activated according to the information that the minor captures through their senses in the Present that they are living. If I tell my dog the story of Little Red Riding Hood, my attempt to get him to incorporate the events that the story describes into the mental correlate of his relevant environment will be in vain. Although it seems that my dog's brain is only capable of managing "realities" based on facts that have a place in the world of matter, the truth is that when I say "cat, cat" to my dog, he runs off and barking towards the patio, without necessarily the cat that usually rests on the wall that separates my place from that of my neighbor is there. By the way, when I said "cat, cat", my dog's brain incorporated into the mental correlate of its environment relevant to the meaning that my dog's brain assigns to the word "cat." Some time ago, when I was in the yard with the dog at my feet, I noticed that the neighbor's cat was walking on the wall and leaning on it. Then I went towards the cat, in such a way that it was in the field of vision of my dog, and when I realized that my dog saw it, I yelled "cat, cat." It was enough for me to repeat the above on two other occasions to ensure that from now on, every time I say "cat, cat" my dog runs into the yard and barks at a non-existent cat. The previous example makes it clear that under certain circumstances, my dog's brain can also incorporate, in the mental correlate of its relevant environment, events or events that are not part of the world of matter. A substantive part of "the magic" of human language consists in its ability to alter the mental correlate of the language receiver, thanks to the common meaning that the sender and receiver give to the word that is used, without necessarily being part of the world of matter what the language that is used alludes to. I mentioned earlier that at four years of age a child has heard between ten and forty million words. A sidereal figure without a doubt. Although many of the words that the child hears refer to something that is happening in their material environment, a not inconsiderable proportion of them refer to elements or events that are not "contained" in the world of matter, or if they are, they are not part of the information that your senses capture, other than through the language you are hearing. The mental correlate of the relevant environment of an adult human is, metaphorically, a "photograph" that represents countless events that have no place in the world of matter. In practice, more than a "photograph", the mental correlate of the relevant medium in practice turns out to be a kind of successive frames that are being produced by the brain through successive "photographs" that represent successive presents. Among the many entities managed by the brain of a child who has learned the use of language, there is a very special one. I mean "Pedrito". Pedrito is the name that the child was given, and it is an entity that is continually referred to, using language, by those around him. "Pedrito is good", "Pedrito eats all the food", "Pedrito is messy", "We will go with Pedrito to the beach tomorrow", etc., etc. Although on many occasions the language of third parties that the child hears refers to a Pedrito that the child's brain associates with his own body, in others, the language of third parties refers to a Pedrito who will perform, performed or is performing actions that they do not correspond to the action that Pedrito's material body is performing at that moment. At four years of age, the minor has an extensive biography of the Pedrito entity, as a result of the language that third parties have used to refer to that entity. The Pedrito entity is diagrammed by the language of third parties, and just as for the child's brain, Little Red Riding Hood is given to carry out “very real” actions (any adult knows that the actions of Little Red Riding Hood only have a place in “immaterial worlds and timeless, and that such an entity only exists in "imagination"), the Pedrito entity is also given "transit", thanks to the language of third parties, through "timeless and immaterial worlds". In practice, thanks to the language he hears when he is referred to, a strong association is established in the child's brain between the entity Pedrito and his material body. However, a total fusion between this entity and its material body is never generated, since sometimes the language of third parties alludes to actions of a Pedrito that are not the actions that the child's material body is performing at that moment. It is important to reiterate that the brain is a tool that emerged to manage the individual's material body, a body that is only given to carry out actions in the world of matter, in the Present in which it inhabits. When third parties refer to actions that Pedrito performs, and the child is not performing such actions, obviously the child's brain does not associate such actions with the actions that their material body is performing. Hence, although over time the child's brain establishes an increasingly close association between the Pedrito entity and the minor's body, a complete fusion between the Pedrito entity and the minor's body never takes place. From now on, we will call the Pedrito entity, which is initially diagrammed and “comes to life” in the child's brain through the language of third parties, “the Being”. By its genesis, the Being is a child of language and Affection. It is a "child of Affection" inasmuch as it is diagrammed by those who interact with the child. Although at birth the human brain has the architecture to "house the Being", it is not born having the Being. The biography of the Being is initially outlined through the language of third parties. Just as it is the language of third parties that "gives life" to Little Red Riding Hood, it is the language of third parties that gives life to the Being and initially builds its biography. In the first years of life, for the child's brain, the action of the Being depends on third parties. In practice, it is evident that Being is "a child" of "how my peers see me." It is they, third parties, who, through the language that they use in the presence of the child to refer to him, are initially diagramming the biography of the Being, an entity to which it is given, thanks to the language that third parties use, not only to carry out actions that correspond to the actions that the minor's material body is performing, but can also carry out actions in immaterial and timeless scenarios that are not part of that segment of the mental correlate of the environment that represents the conditions of the material environment in which the minor is found. As mentioned, the Being is valued by the brain as an entity that is given to carry out actions in timelessness and immateriality through the use of language. Although such a condition makes it impossible to achieve a total fusion between the material body that manages the brain (a material body that is a slave to Matter, matter that only exists in the Present) and the Being, in practice, with the passing From time to time, in a waking state, the Being becomes always present in the mental correlate of the relevant environment of an adult human who administers language. We can affirm that the interests of the highly material individual dog are represented in the brain of a dog (not in each of its cells). In this sense, metaphorically, there is an "individual dog" that "lives" in his brain, a necessary condition that must be met for there to be a harmonious relationship between the dog's body and the actions that the dog's brain is programming. With similar criteria, we can affirm that a convenient representation of their body lives in the brain of every human being. We will call this representation “the monkey that inhabits us”. In turn, as we have observed, the domain of language that characterizes us, gives rise to the existence of the Being in the adult human brain (Note: the metaphorical monkey must not be confused with the homunculus that in the human brain represents, to some degree, our material body) Although the Being begins as, for the child's brain, one more entity among several others, with the passing of time it becomes always present in the mental correlate of our relevant environment. For example, a button: just waking up in the morning we perceive its presence. We usually refer to him with the term "I". (keep going)
(continuation) When they ask me “What did you have for lunch yesterday?”, Such a phrase activates memories that diagram a segment of the mental correlate of my relevant environment in which the monkey that inhabits me participates as an observer of what happened then. Being in some respects similar to the participation that my body had when I was a child "I observed" what Little Red Riding Hood was experiencing when I then heard the story, there are some notable differences between the two cases. Indeed, when I heard the story, for my brain everything was happening in the Present. Not so when they ask me "What did you have for lunch yesterday?" The question refers to the past, a past in which my body intervened, a body that is associated with the Being, a Being that, with an adequate life experience, my brain "locates" in the time / space of "yesterday having lunch" . By the way, for my brain, it is not my body that is transferred to the past. For my brain, my body can only perform actions in the Present, the same brain that has no problem in placing the Being, anywhere in time / space. The monkey that inhabits me “observes” the action of the Being, and knows ( in the particular dimension of "knowledge" administered by the monkey that inhabits me) what I then had for lunch, when memories were activated that diagram the scene in which I lived yesterday, and I answer: "Yesterday I had beef stew with cooked potatoes for lunch." By the way, if after having told the child (for the tenth time) the story of Little Red Riding Hood, her mother asks her “What did Little Red Riding Hood have for breakfast”? , the child will have no problem answering “a cup of milk and a bread with jam”. For the child's brain, it is Little Red Riding Hood who is having breakfast at that moment, an entity (Little Red Riding Hood) with which the child's body does not identify itself. On the other hand, for my brain, "it is I" who yesterday had a beef stew with cooked potatoes for lunch, an "I" in which the close association between my material body and the Being is manifested. My material body is not given "travel to yesterday". Such "travel in time / space" is carried out by my Being, an entity that at times seems to merge with my material body giving rise to an "I". Human language expands to a superlative degree "the size of the photograph" that represents the mental correlate of the relevant environment of the individual. It should not be surprising that the Neurosciences end up confirming that the Neocortex (that segment of the brain that is extremely developed in humans in relation to other mammals) "houses" the mental correlate of the relevant human environment. Not for nothing is the neocortex associated with "the brain of rationality." We make use of Reason every time language is integrated into our mental correlate of our relevant environment. That is, we make use of Reason every time we use language. Just as a “very real” Little Red Riding Hood is integrated into the mental correlate of the relevant environment of the child when he hears the story, for the monkey that inhabits us, the Being is part of the mental correlate of the relevant environment of the individual, a mental correlate where by the way not only do the events that occur in the world of matter in the present in which it is inhabited have a place. Consciousness is not an Entity. The term Consciousness refers to the action of the Being. The monkey that inhabits us is the one who “observes” the action of the Being. It is the Being, not the Consciousness, who possesses the character of Entity. The word Consciousness is a term that human beings have used, whose meaning has been confusing, until now. The monkey that inhabits us is the one who selects the words we use. In this sense, it is an extremely skilled monkey. In turn, the monkey that inhabits us does not select all the words that our brain processes. Indeed, our brain does not choose the language we hear, or the text we read. What we hear, or what we read, "mobilizes" the Being, which reinforces the idea that it is not possible for our brain to establish a total fusion between the Being and the monkey that inhabits us. Our brain knows how to make the distinction. As mentioned before, we use Reason every time we use language. The use of human language allows us to transfer life experience to our peers, and from generation to generation. Just as the brain constituted a significant evolutionary milestone, with Language / Reason / Being, evolution entered a new dimension in terms of acquiring life experience, and thereby increasing the potential for action of the human being. This was the consequence of the emergence of an entity capable of carrying out actions in "immaterial and timeless worlds". Without a doubt, Being - a "by-product" of human language - turns out to be a masterful "evolutionary invention." This, inasmuch as, with the Being, evolution managed to break with the historical bond that bound the Individual, and his actions, with the world of Matter. By integrating the action of the Being into the mental correlate of the relevant environment of the monkey that inhabits us, the action potential of the human individual is extraordinarily expanded. The wings of an eagle, the fins of a fish, the eyes, the heart, etc., are tools created by evolution that are at the service of the individual's action. If we review the history of evolution, it is easy to realize that, the greater the power of an evolutionary tool, the greater the degree to which the individual's actions depend on the use of said tool. In practice, "the power of Being", as an evolutionary tool, turns out to be so significant that humans identify with its actions, and we tend to misrepresent the actions of the monkey that inhabits us, whose actions we associate with our "unconscious actions" , without dimensioning the role that corresponds to him in our daily life. (keep going)
(continuation) For the monkey that inhabits me, Being is as real as it turns out to be real, for the brain of a child, and for the child, Little Red Riding Hood. It is common, and quite normal, that in the actions that we humans perform, there are “conflicts” between the interests of the monkey and the interests of the Being that inhabits our brain. In practice, we live permanently pretending that our actions solomonically combine the interests of both. Unlike a monkey, for the human being the "how they see me" my peers weighs significantly. The Being arises from "as they see me" my peers, and in this sense it is a child of Affection. Along with Being, Reason emerged, perhaps the most powerful tool that evolution has created. Humans tend to misrepresent what happens in our "unconscious world" by privileging the action of the Being, the Conscious action. In practice, if figures were to be used, the “volume of information” that our brain manages and that refers to our “unconscious world” is considerably higher than the volume of information that gives rise to our “conscious reality”. We must not forget that it is the monkey that inhabits us who selects the words we use. Indeed, an instant before we make use of a word, our brain has already decided to use it, and as long as said word is not pronounced, or "thought", we do not consciously know about it, and the consequences that its use entails. A few years ago, neuroscience revealed this fact, and panic spread, as it became evident that what until then we called "free will" did not exist, as we knew it until then. We are not given conscious access to the "knowledge" administered by the monkey that inhabits us. Like the word "Consciousness", the term "knowing" has a fuzzy, and sometimes ambiguous, meaning. The knowledge of the Self refers to "conscious knowledge". For its part, the monkey's knowledge refers to “unconscious knowledge”. Both knowledges are immiscible. The "knowledge" that manages every living being with a brain, refers to "the reality of the individual." This reality is given by the mental correlate of the relevant environment of the individual. For the living being with a brain, there is no better representation of what happens in his relevant environment than that which his brain builds in what I have called "the mental correlate of his relevant environment." The brain of an eagle that watches a rabbit run knows how to distinguish between the action of the rabbit and the action of observing the action of the rabbit. The brain of the eagle does not make the running action of the rabbit its own. In the same way, the human brain knows how to distinguish between the action of observing the action of the Being, and the action of the Being. The monkey that inhabits us, “observes” the action of the Being, does not make it its own. What we know as Theory of Mind refers to this, without explaining what is behind "putting oneself in the place of." Compared to other living things with a brain, our action potential is superlative. Not for nothing have we been humans, and not monkeys, who set foot on the moon. We owe it to the Being / Reason / Language trilogy. Just as the action of an eagle depends to a superlative degree on the action potential provided by its wings, the action of the monkey that inhabits us is conditioned in a superlative degree to the action of the Being. Humans, as a consequence of the Being that comes to inhabit our brain, need, to a superlative degree, to be recognized and valued by our peers, which implies “putting a brake on” the interests of the ancestral monkey that inhabits us. This in no case leaves out the interests of the monkey. In practice, our actions are the result of a brain process in which both the "reality of the monkey" and the "reality of Being" have a place, the latter seen, and interpreted, by the monkey that inhabits us. Anyway, for our brain the reality of the monkey is not the reality of the Being. The reality of the Being arises from the ability of the monkey that inhabits us to "put itself in the place of" the Being. This capacity has been recognized, by specialists, as a hallmark between human beings and other living beings with a brain. The human brain is not confused, and although it is common for these realities to overlap, to a variable degree, for our brain the Being is an entity different from the monkey that inhabits us.
Excellent talk!
AN EXPLANATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Generally speaking, the brain stores and processes Information. The information it stores is related to the individual's life experience. The life experience originates from events that took place in a Present previously lived by the Individual, that is, the life experience refers to the Past.
Through the senses, information contained in the relevant environment of the Individual is captured. From what is perceived, and making use of life experience, the brain assigns meaning to what is perceived. As well as assigning meaning to what is perceived, the brain generates alternatives for future actions (Projection of the Future).
The information that is captured from the environment activates memories (neurons) that previously participated in a life experience. In this way, an association is established between yesterday and today (Pavlovian conditioning).
The actions of the Individual take place in a certain environment, which requires the brain to construct and manage a mental correlate of the relevant environment of the Individual.
The genome of every living being contains information that has been acquired throughout the evolutionary history of the living being. By the way, the ability to store and process information is limited, both from the genome and the brain. The ability to "learn", whether from a plant or a living being with a brain, is related to the ability to store life experience, a life experience that can be used in the future by the living being to give meaning to what it is perceived in the Present.
The living being with a brain constitutes an evolutionary milestone of proportions. Thanks to the brain, evolution acquired a new rhythm. Indeed, the speed of the genome to "learn", and to store life experience, turns out to be extremely slow compared to the learning speed that the brain grants to the individual who possesses it. In this sense, the brain radically expands the expectations of action of the living being.
Behind the action of every living being there is an obvious purpose to alter the future conditions of its relevant environment.
The mental correlate of the relevant medium has been like a kind of "photograph" that tries to conveniently represent the conditions of the medium from the meaning acquired by what is perceived. Coupled with the mental correlate, action expectations arise, which constitute projections of probable future states of the environment. Being limited, both the ability of the senses to capture information from the environment, and the brain's ability to manage said information, it is not surprising that the aforementioned "photograph" is not only incomplete but blurred in some areas. A mental mechanism known as "Attention" makes it possible to direct perceptual resources to certain segments of the environment, and make a certain area of the relevant mental correlate of the environment less "blurry".
Although the process of capturing information takes place in the Present, the brain has the ability to conveniently maintain memories (groupings of neurons) previously activated via perception, which administer information from segments of the relevant environment that are not being perceived in the Present. . Through this process some segments of the "photograph" are "updated". Thus, for example, if by turning my head to the right I stop seeing what is happening to my left, that does not mean that what I stopped perceiving a moment ago is no longer part of the mental correlate of my relevant environment. In turn, the brain has the ability to project, in time, the state of said segment of the environment. If in the previous example, before turning my head to the right, I observed that my dog, a hundred meters distant, was running towards me, my brain will project such an event in time. Although as the seconds go by, such a projection will become more and more diffuse, less accurate, it will not for that reason cease to be present, in said segment of the mental correlate of my relevant environment, my dog. It is evident that this "Actualization of the Present" is due to the brain's ability to project future states of the environment. At the same time, it is clear that a certain degree of uncertainty is implicit in Updating the Present - and in the Projection of the Future. All living beings with a brain have the ability to project eventual future states of their relevant environment, a projection in which uncertainty is present.
In the life experience that my dog has been storing in his brain, there are "latent", as non-active memories, the biographies of a number of entities with which my dog has interacted throughout his life. His life experience in which these entities have participated, through their daily lives, has characterized these entities, his brain generating a kind of utilitarian biography of each one of them. The vast experience of my dog's life, in which I have participated, allows him to carry out, when I get home, an adequate reading of my state of mind, which determines his actions. Indeed, a glance is enough for him to see that I am grumpy. Then he lowers his ears and lies down on the floor. If I'm in good spirits when I open the door, he pounces on me as soon as he sees me. Your brain, according to what it perceives, activates convenient memories, which refer to information with meaning contained in the biography that it possesses of me.
For the brain of a child listening to the story of Little Red Riding Hood for the tenth time, Little Red Riding Hood is a “very real” entity, which is part of its Present, and of the world of matter. The child often interrupts his mother's story to ask her about some details. They are questions of the type "Does Little Red Riding Hood have siblings? Do you eat all the food? Do they punish her when she is not obedient? " etc. The fact that the child's eyes cannot see Little Red Riding Hood, nor their ears hear her voice, does not prevent their brain from “placing” such an entity in the mental correlate of their relevant environment. When his mother tells him "Little Red Riding Hood woke up, got dressed, sat down at the table and had the breakfast that his mother had prepared for him, consisting of a cup of milk and a bread with jam", for the child's brain each one of the aforementioned events happens as they are described through language, and it is clear that the dozen seconds it takes for his mother to describe the above does not correspond to the “real time” that would elapse between awakening and a “real” Little Red Riding Hood finished having breakfast. In the material world, it would take Little Red Riding Hood a few tens of minutes to carry out the aforementioned succession of actions. In practice, the language that her mother uses expands in the child's brain the mental correlate of her relevant environment, in which the actions described take place, one after another. In this sense, human language allows a very particular “manipulation” of time / space that the child's brain manages, acquiring -time / space- a malleability that turns out to be one of the pillars of what differentiates us humans from all other forms of life. By the way, in the brain of a child who is able to follow the story in the aforementioned story, many other latent entities “inhabit” such as non-active memories (set of neurons). The child's brain has a biography of her siblings, her parents and grandparents, her friends, her dog, etc. According to what the minor perceives, the memories associated with said entities are activated, conveniently.
The functional architecture of the human brain evolved to be able to give meaning to the words it hears, and expand, through its use, the "dimension" of the mental correlate of its relevant environment, a relevant environment where entities and events that are not necessarily part of the material world. To get an idea of the degree to which the human brain has evolved in terms of expanding the mental correlate of its relevant environment, it is enough to mention that between birth and four years, a child hears between ten and forty million words, many of them which allude, -in the Present in which the minor is living-, to entities or events that are not part of the world of matter. It is convenient to stop for a moment on the above; ON AVERAGE, A CHILD HEARS THE ORDER OF 17,000 WORDS A DAY.
Although the brain arose to administer a body located in a material world, which required the brain to administer a mental correlate of the relevant MATERIAL medium, the administration of human language results in the incorporation, in the mental correlate of the relevant medium, of some segments of said correlate, which are not part of the world of matter. This characteristic makes the difference between the human brain and the brain that other living beings possess.
(keep going)
(continuation)
The life experience of the minor is expanding the biography of the entities that his brain stores. The memories that store information related to the entities they represent are capable of being conveniently activated according to the information that the minor captures through their senses in the Present that they are living. If I tell my dog the story of Little Red Riding Hood, my attempt to get him to incorporate the events that the story describes into the mental correlate of his relevant environment will be in vain.
Although it seems that my dog's brain is only capable of managing "realities" based on facts that have a place in the world of matter, the truth is that when I say "cat, cat" to my dog, he runs off and barking towards the patio, without necessarily the cat that usually rests on the wall that separates my place from that of my neighbor is there. By the way, when I said "cat, cat", my dog's brain incorporated into the mental correlate of its environment relevant to the meaning that my dog's brain assigns to the word "cat." Some time ago, when I was in the yard with the dog at my feet, I noticed that the neighbor's cat was walking on the wall and leaning on it. Then I went towards the cat, in such a way that it was in the field of vision of my dog, and when I realized that my dog saw it, I yelled "cat, cat." It was enough for me to repeat the above on two other occasions to ensure that from now on, every time I say "cat, cat" my dog runs into the yard and barks at a non-existent cat. The previous example makes it clear that under certain circumstances, my dog's brain can also incorporate, in the mental correlate of its relevant environment, events or events that are not part of the world of matter.
A substantive part of "the magic" of human language consists in its ability to alter the mental correlate of the language receiver, thanks to the common meaning that the sender and receiver give to the word that is used, without necessarily being part of the world of matter what the language that is used alludes to.
I mentioned earlier that at four years of age a child has heard between ten and forty million words. A sidereal figure without a doubt. Although many of the words that the child hears refer to something that is happening in their material environment, a not inconsiderable proportion of them refer to elements or events that are not "contained" in the world of matter, or if they are, they are not part of the information that your senses capture, other than through the language you are hearing.
The mental correlate of the relevant environment of an adult human is, metaphorically, a "photograph" that represents countless events that have no place in the world of matter. In practice, more than a "photograph", the mental correlate of the relevant medium in practice turns out to be a kind of successive frames that are being produced by the brain through successive "photographs" that represent successive presents.
Among the many entities managed by the brain of a child who has learned the use of language, there is a very special one. I mean "Pedrito". Pedrito is the name that the child was given, and it is an entity that is continually referred to, using language, by those around him. "Pedrito is good", "Pedrito eats all the food", "Pedrito is messy", "We will go with Pedrito to the beach tomorrow", etc., etc. Although on many occasions the language of third parties that the child hears refers to a Pedrito that the child's brain associates with his own body, in others, the language of third parties refers to a Pedrito who will perform, performed or is performing actions that they do not correspond to the action that Pedrito's material body is performing at that moment.
At four years of age, the minor has an extensive biography of the Pedrito entity, as a result of the language that third parties have used to refer to that entity. The Pedrito entity is diagrammed by the language of third parties, and just as for the child's brain, Little Red Riding Hood is given to carry out “very real” actions (any adult knows that the actions of Little Red Riding Hood only have a place in “immaterial worlds and timeless, and that such an entity only exists in "imagination"), the Pedrito entity is also given "transit", thanks to the language of third parties, through "timeless and immaterial worlds". In practice, thanks to the language he hears when he is referred to, a strong association is established in the child's brain between the entity Pedrito and his material body. However, a total fusion between this entity and its material body is never generated, since sometimes the language of third parties alludes to actions of a Pedrito that are not the actions that the child's material body is performing at that moment.
It is important to reiterate that the brain is a tool that emerged to manage the individual's material body, a body that is only given to carry out actions in the world of matter, in the Present in which it inhabits. When third parties refer to actions that Pedrito performs, and the child is not performing such actions, obviously the child's brain does not associate such actions with the actions that their material body is performing. Hence, although over time the child's brain establishes an increasingly close association between the Pedrito entity and the minor's body, a complete fusion between the Pedrito entity and the minor's body never takes place.
From now on, we will call the Pedrito entity, which is initially diagrammed and “comes to life” in the child's brain through the language of third parties, “the Being”.
By its genesis, the Being is a child of language and Affection. It is a "child of Affection" inasmuch as it is diagrammed by those who interact with the child. Although at birth the human brain has the architecture to "house the Being", it is not born having the Being. The biography of the Being is initially outlined through the language of third parties. Just as it is the language of third parties that "gives life" to Little Red Riding Hood, it is the language of third parties that gives life to the Being and initially builds its biography. In the first years of life, for the child's brain, the action of the Being depends on third parties.
In practice, it is evident that Being is "a child" of "how my peers see me." It is they, third parties, who, through the language that they use in the presence of the child to refer to him, are initially diagramming the biography of the Being, an entity to which it is given, thanks to the language that third parties use, not only to carry out actions that correspond to the actions that the minor's material body is performing, but can also carry out actions in immaterial and timeless scenarios that are not part of that segment of the mental correlate of the environment that represents the conditions of the material environment in which the minor is found.
As mentioned, the Being is valued by the brain as an entity that is given to carry out actions in timelessness and immateriality through the use of language. Although such a condition makes it impossible to achieve a total fusion between the material body that manages the brain (a material body that is a slave to Matter, matter that only exists in the Present) and the Being, in practice, with the passing From time to time, in a waking state, the Being becomes always present in the mental correlate of the relevant environment of an adult human who administers language.
We can affirm that the interests of the highly material individual dog are represented in the brain of a dog (not in each of its cells). In this sense, metaphorically, there is an "individual dog" that "lives" in his brain, a necessary condition that must be met for there to be a harmonious relationship between the dog's body and the actions that the dog's brain is programming. With similar criteria, we can affirm that a convenient representation of their body lives in the brain of every human being. We will call this representation “the monkey that inhabits us”. In turn, as we have observed, the domain of language that characterizes us, gives rise to the existence of the Being in the adult human brain (Note: the metaphorical monkey must not be confused with the homunculus that in the human brain represents, to some degree, our material body)
Although the Being begins as, for the child's brain, one more entity among several others, with the passing of time it becomes always present in the mental correlate of our relevant environment. For example, a button: just waking up in the morning we perceive its presence. We usually refer to him with the term "I".
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When they ask me “What did you have for lunch yesterday?”, Such a phrase activates memories that diagram a segment of the mental correlate of my relevant environment in which the monkey that inhabits me participates as an observer of what happened then. Being in some respects similar to the participation that my body had when I was a child "I observed" what Little Red Riding Hood was experiencing when I then heard the story, there are some notable differences between the two cases. Indeed, when I heard the story, for my brain everything was happening in the Present. Not so when they ask me "What did you have for lunch yesterday?" The question refers to the past, a past in which my body intervened, a body that is associated with the Being, a Being that, with an adequate life experience, my brain "locates" in the time / space of "yesterday having lunch" . By the way, for my brain, it is not my body that is transferred to the past. For my brain, my body can only perform actions in the Present, the same brain that has no problem in placing the Being, anywhere in time / space. The monkey that inhabits me “observes” the action of the Being, and knows ( in the particular dimension of "knowledge" administered by the monkey that inhabits me) what I then had for lunch, when memories were activated that diagram the scene in which I lived yesterday, and I answer: "Yesterday I had beef stew with cooked potatoes for lunch." By the way, if after having told the child (for the tenth time) the story of Little Red Riding Hood, her mother asks her “What did Little Red Riding Hood have for breakfast”? , the child will have no problem answering “a cup of milk and a bread with jam”. For the child's brain, it is Little Red Riding Hood who is having breakfast at that moment, an entity (Little Red Riding Hood) with which the child's body does not identify itself. On the other hand, for my brain, "it is I" who yesterday had a beef stew with cooked potatoes for lunch, an "I" in which the close association between my material body and the Being is manifested. My material body is not given "travel to yesterday". Such "travel in time / space" is carried out by my Being, an entity that at times seems to merge with my material body giving rise to an "I".
Human language expands to a superlative degree "the size of the photograph" that represents the mental correlate of the relevant environment of the individual. It should not be surprising that the Neurosciences end up confirming that the Neocortex (that segment of the brain that is extremely developed in humans in relation to other mammals) "houses" the mental correlate of the relevant human environment. Not for nothing is the neocortex associated with "the brain of rationality."
We make use of Reason every time language is integrated into our mental correlate of our relevant environment. That is, we make use of Reason every time we use language.
Just as a “very real” Little Red Riding Hood is integrated into the mental correlate of the relevant environment of the child when he hears the story, for the monkey that inhabits us, the Being is part of the mental correlate of the relevant environment of the individual, a mental correlate where by the way not only do the events that occur in the world of matter in the present in which it is inhabited have a place.
Consciousness is not an Entity. The term Consciousness refers to the action of the Being. The monkey that inhabits us is the one who “observes” the action of the Being. It is the Being, not the Consciousness, who possesses the character of Entity. The word Consciousness is a term that human beings have used, whose meaning has been confusing, until now.
The monkey that inhabits us is the one who selects the words we use. In this sense, it is an extremely skilled monkey. In turn, the monkey that inhabits us does not select all the words that our brain processes. Indeed, our brain does not choose the language we hear, or the text we read. What we hear, or what we read, "mobilizes" the Being, which reinforces the idea that it is not possible for our brain to establish a total fusion between the Being and the monkey that inhabits us. Our brain knows how to make the distinction.
As mentioned before, we use Reason every time we use language. The use of human language allows us to transfer life experience to our peers, and from generation to generation. Just as the brain constituted a significant evolutionary milestone, with Language / Reason / Being, evolution entered a new dimension in terms of acquiring life experience, and thereby increasing the potential for action of the human being. This was the consequence of the emergence of an entity capable of carrying out actions in "immaterial and timeless worlds".
Without a doubt, Being - a "by-product" of human language - turns out to be a masterful "evolutionary invention." This, inasmuch as, with the Being, evolution managed to break with the historical bond that bound the Individual, and his actions, with the world of Matter.
By integrating the action of the Being into the mental correlate of the relevant environment of the monkey that inhabits us, the action potential of the human individual is extraordinarily expanded.
The wings of an eagle, the fins of a fish, the eyes, the heart, etc., are tools created by evolution that are at the service of the individual's action. If we review the history of evolution, it is easy to realize that, the greater the power of an evolutionary tool, the greater the degree to which the individual's actions depend on the use of said tool. In practice, "the power of Being", as an evolutionary tool, turns out to be so significant that humans identify with its actions, and we tend to misrepresent the actions of the monkey that inhabits us, whose actions we associate with our "unconscious actions" , without dimensioning the role that corresponds to him in our daily life.
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For the monkey that inhabits me, Being is as real as it turns out to be real, for the brain of a child, and for the child, Little Red Riding Hood.
It is common, and quite normal, that in the actions that we humans perform, there are “conflicts” between the interests of the monkey and the interests of the Being that inhabits our brain. In practice, we live permanently pretending that our actions solomonically combine the interests of both. Unlike a monkey, for the human being the "how they see me" my peers weighs significantly.
The Being arises from "as they see me" my peers, and in this sense it is a child of Affection. Along with Being, Reason emerged, perhaps the most powerful tool that evolution has created.
Humans tend to misrepresent what happens in our "unconscious world" by privileging the action of the Being, the Conscious action. In practice, if figures were to be used, the “volume of information” that our brain manages and that refers to our “unconscious world” is considerably higher than the volume of information that gives rise to our “conscious reality”. We must not forget that it is the monkey that inhabits us who selects the words we use. Indeed, an instant before we make use of a word, our brain has already decided to use it, and as long as said word is not pronounced, or "thought", we do not consciously know about it, and the consequences that its use entails. A few years ago, neuroscience revealed this fact, and panic spread, as it became evident that what until then we called "free will" did not exist, as we knew it until then.
We are not given conscious access to the "knowledge" administered by the monkey that inhabits us.
Like the word "Consciousness", the term "knowing" has a fuzzy, and sometimes ambiguous, meaning. The knowledge of the Self refers to "conscious knowledge". For its part, the monkey's knowledge refers to “unconscious knowledge”. Both knowledges are immiscible.
The "knowledge" that manages every living being with a brain, refers to "the reality of the individual." This reality is given by the mental correlate of the relevant environment of the individual. For the living being with a brain, there is no better representation of what happens in his relevant environment than that which his brain builds in what I have called "the mental correlate of his relevant environment." The brain of an eagle that watches a rabbit run knows how to distinguish between the action of the rabbit and the action of observing the action of the rabbit. The brain of the eagle does not make the running action of the rabbit its own. In the same way, the human brain knows how to distinguish between the action of observing the action of the Being, and the action of the Being. The monkey that inhabits us, “observes” the action of the Being, does not make it its own. What we know as Theory of Mind refers to this, without explaining what is behind "putting oneself in the place of."
Compared to other living things with a brain, our action potential is superlative. Not for nothing have we been humans, and not monkeys, who set foot on the moon. We owe it to the Being / Reason / Language trilogy.
Just as the action of an eagle depends to a superlative degree on the action potential provided by its wings, the action of the monkey that inhabits us is conditioned in a superlative degree to the action of the Being.
Humans, as a consequence of the Being that comes to inhabit our brain, need, to a superlative degree, to be recognized and valued by our peers, which implies “putting a brake on” the interests of the ancestral monkey that inhabits us. This in no case leaves out the interests of the monkey. In practice, our actions are the result of a brain process in which both the "reality of the monkey" and the "reality of Being" have a place, the latter seen, and interpreted, by the monkey that inhabits us. Anyway, for our brain the reality of the monkey is not the reality of the Being. The reality of the Being arises from the ability of the monkey that inhabits us to "put itself in the place of" the Being. This capacity has been recognized, by specialists, as a hallmark between human beings and other living beings with a brain. The human brain is not confused, and although it is common for these realities to overlap, to a variable degree, for our brain the Being is an entity different from the monkey that inhabits us.
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