Our brain’s odyssey

We are conceived in the darkness of our mothers. As our brains grow, they become encased in a skull and hence has its entire existence in darkness associating with the environment entirely via the electrical signals received from our five – or more – senses. The question then arises, do we all perceive the world in the same way?

An ancient primitive creature floating in the sea responded to stimuli by wriggling. These responses have been honed by evolution and are meaningful in that they contain information regarding what part of the body is affected and what impact it has on its biological well-being. The brain learns to extract meaning from these wrigglings (access to food or comfort, etc) and control them when necessary (not attract a predator). It has learned to keep the information while ignoring the action.

Modern humans receive for more information than the brain can conveniently handle, so a lot of that data is simply not passed on to the brain. How often have we searched for an object only to find it right in front of our eyes? We are also aware that when a group of women are domiciled together, they will adjust their periods to that of the dominant female.

When any small group of people live and work together, they will form a unit which is a lot more effective (group dynamics). This means that signals are being passed subconsciously which are picked up by each individual and stored suggesting that there is a communication between people of which we are not consciously aware.

Solitary people who live far from others tend to have shorter lives and are less happy than those who have regular association with humans as a general rule. The exception is those who are able to meditate or contemplate, creating a mental environment where their brains are constantly active. Even Tibetan monks who put themselves into a state of near death do so through the use of their minds.

This suggests that most of us need to be near others, and thus could indicate that there is some kind of ‘aura’ surrounding each individual which communicates with others at a subconscious level. This sounds a bit way out, but consider being in a dark space and ‘sensing’ someone else is nearby even when we cannot hear them. Maybe we do have a sixth sense.

In the allegory “The Cave,” Plato describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners’ reality, but are not accurate representations of the real world.

The shadows represent the fragment of reality that we can normally perceive through our senses, while the objects under the sun represent the true forms of objects that we can only perceive through reason. Three higher levels exist: the natural sciences; mathematics, geometry, and deductive logic; and the theory of forms.

Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are actually not the direct source of the images seen. A philosopher aims to understand and perceive the higher levels of reality. However, the other inmates of the cave do not even desire to leave their prison, for they know no better life.

However, many animals such as elephants and parrots can be shown to have self-awareness and yet they do not possess philosophy. Many animals can sense magnetic fields and see into the infra-red and sense sound at much higher frequencies than we can. An amoeba is able to avoid eating itself, so at a basic level is able to distinguish itself from other things.

People who have received no education perceive their environment just as well as those who have been to university – some would say better: a New Guinea tribesman living in the jungle can tell at a glance which plants have reached the degree of ripeness which makes then edible and no longer poisonous while not being aware of computer theory.

If a dozen people see an accident there will be twelve differing interpretations of it depending on their previous life histories. All will have seen the same occurrence but will process that information differently. Some people are much more sensitive to noise or tastes or smells, for example, or have better sight but more importantly one person’s “music” is another person’s “dreadful racket”.

So what does this tell us about how our brains interpret out environment? We are all different: black, white, yellow or red we decipher or decode the incoming data in ways determined by past experiences – ours and those around us who, whether we like it or not shape our thought processes. We need other people in order to interact with the world around us effectively otherwise we are bound to our own history and incomplete imagination.

Our brains have plasticity – they are able to compensate for damage and re-route data normally processed in one part to another where, after suitable learning, it can be used as before. This means that as we grow older we can still learn new concepts and adjust to our environment. We would not have existed for so long had our brains not been able to recognise and adapt to our environment relatively accurately even though they do have to rely entirely on electrical signals from our senses.

The majority of people never achieve their full potential because they are unaware of it. When a person is placed under hypnosis, they can be motivated by suggestion. The brain can be tricked unto making them feel pain, happiness, sadness or even to lose the ability to move a limb. Our brains can be used to enable us to do things we would never think of in the normal state of existence.

Some monks who meditate a lot are able to withstand freezing temperatures, hold their breaths for extended periods and some say even levitate. One reason our institutes of higher learning do not teach meditation at this level is that it takes a long time to achieve success and the result cannot as yet be monetarised although it has been analysed by both American and Russian military.

Religion tells us that faith can move mountains and maybe this is true. Before Hillary climbed Everest it was considered impossible. This year a woman did it twice before the end of March.