Why Am I Me And Not You?

1. Key Quotes:

Via our brains Nature enables observing itself! That is Nature's most remarkable quality! My Statement.

...the brain, and the brain only, is responsible for, and is the seat of, all our joys and happiness, our pain and sadness; here is seated wisdom, understanding and the knowledge of good and evil. Hippocrates, fifth century BC.

We are all ‘Being and Becoming’-—Steven Rose, emeritus professor of biology and neurobiology at the Open University and Gresham College, London.

Your mind is your greatest asset, Maria Shriver, founder of the  (American) organisation The Women's Alzheimer's Movement.

The human brain is the most complex structure in the universe. Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist, City College of New York.

2. Scope.

Part 1.

Me and my brain; sensory perception; conscious awareness; reaction, memory, and recall; physics, chemistry and biological systems; and why, finally, every individual is unique, never to be repeated, including you the reader and the fallible author.

Part 2.

How do you get from a breakaway cloud of hydrogen somewhere in space just under 5 billion years ago to the writing of this series of articles?

Unlike the front cover the only constant in the Universe is change. Short articles explore change at interacting different levels: the Universe; sub atomic particles; the origin and the evolving Earth; the first cells; the branching of plants and animals; DNA: hominids to humans; the fossil records; out of Africa; communication.

3. Key Points:

Brief explanation of these key points:

The original list was constructed from email exchanges between my daughters and I on or before December 2021, embodying our ideas. Stephanie's comments are in red followed by my added remarks sent back to her. Other ideas tend to occur so the list is subject to change and has extended since then.

Items 1-7 refer mainly to the wider context in which we live. (See Part 2 Contents).

1. Change is the only constant.  At every level the real universe consists of changing situations, it is how we and the environment exist. It is not possible for a static situation to exist; both the living and inanimate things are changing into something else. The only constant is change.

I like this idea a lot. It’s actually very comforting. I often use a phrase – this too will pass. But not just when I feel bad, also when I feel good. Surprisingly liberating, and enables you not to cling on to anything, but just to appreciate what is in this moment.

2. There is no such moment as now, which implies a static situation, because causes and effects are not simultaneous, they are sequential. Change provides stimulus and leads to consequence(s).

This is interesting. So why do we talk about the idea of now? If you broke it down to the smallest fraction of a moment, is that now, or is nothing ever static, not even for the minisculist of moments in time?

No. What you doing is freezing your ever small moments like cutting out the single frame in a film strip. You are comparing one static with another, and this is what I'm challenging...static does not exist because even as I write some change is occurring, blood is flowing in my veins, not in fits and starts (I hope not!) but as a result of pressure, and again, what it all boils down to is that events, situations, are sequential. Newton thought gravity acted instantly, consistent with the idea of a now, but Maxwell, Einstein and others in the 19th century showed that gravity is, like light waves, a self propelling phenomena and the result of an original situation which itself arose out of previous conditions, and so on. If the only constant is change then now is impossible.

3. Space is not empty. Aether as a 19th century concept describing the content of outer space may not exist, yet space is filled with sub atomic particles and radiating energy we can detect and dark energy and dark matter which we cannot (yet) but only infer. Therefore space is not empty; Aether is as good a name as any.

I agree with this.

4. There is never nothing. Something out of nothing denies all the physics we think we know. The Big Bang came out of something, not nothing. Even sub atomic particles which pop in and out of existence require a stimulus or a state of being to do so. Does dark energy/dark matter play the missing link?

Sounds like you're saying that the concept of nothing isn’t valid. There is never nothing.

Exactly.

5. Time doesn't actually exist. A mile is not real in physics even if you measure it. Neither is time. Both are invented standards, not real physics, but do enable comparisons and thus promote learning.

I like this. Would it be better to say that a mile doesn’t exist until you try to measure distance. Why do we need to measure a mile or time anyway? To communicate?

Yes, you could put it that way. It is all about comparing, and thus contributes to learning. As a silly example, if I and a beam of light are triggered into action going from A towards B then we all know the beams will arrive much sooner than I do. So light can travel faster than I can, and a snail even slower than me...it is all about comparing and thus learning something about the relationships that exist in our world. Thus we create standards for comparative purposes but these standards are not actually real in physics although almost universally treated as such, particularly in the case of Time the so called fourth dimension. Time is just another version of comparative statics on whatever scale you choose to use. Time doesn't actually exist.

Later, you added: Interesting reading your responses. I had an overriding insight/reflection at the end of reading your points.

If you take human beings out of the equation, then time, distance, a mile, a gram, (even the concept of physics itself) etc etc wouldn’t exist. Nature doesn’t need to compare, or judge to exist or communicate. It doesn’t seek to understand, it just is. It just is as it is.

Great way to put it, concise, to the point, and very convincing! It is a neat summary. See the end for the rest of your comment.

6. The tools we use are messengers. They are not the message. We use tools like mathematics and language as messengers but they are crude and not the message. For example, using mathematics to define time allows forward and backward projections...hence the Big Bang theory, but the real physics of the universe is about sequential constantly changing situations which is a one way process from previous to next.

I like this

Added Sept 2023: the one way process may be linear (the assumption hidden within the invented concept of time) it might be circular (as suggested by Penrose) or apparently random. But the change will always be from previous to next and this implies that the conditions contained within previous stipulate what is possible next.

7. Infinity and zero are mathematical inventions. They are not real, especially when applied to actual situations, unless you define what you are calculating. If you do so how can you generalise?

Not sure I fully understand this point. I’m half there but not completely.

If you take the definition of pi as a means of calculating the properties of circles, spheres etc., then you can use 22/7 and be completely deterministic. But if you divide 22 by 7 you get 3.142 the decimal places repetitively cycling for ever, never resolving and coming to an end and that's what mathematics regards as infinite. Infinity, put another way, is simply a projection of a mathematical assumption where the assumption either is ill defined or contains within it the mechanics of no resolution, like pi, above. Zero corresponds to nothing, no thing. It is another mathematical convention which does not exist on its own but only in a manufactured context. Thus 3a-3a = 0. The a can be apples for example, so all we are saying is that if you have 3 apples and they are removed you no longer have any apples. Trivial because it does not take account of the context, how they are removed or what else you might have. So by defining the equation above you severely limit what it means. In the cosmological context there is nothing out there meaning really that there is no air like we breathe, but in reality there are constant flows of sub atomic particles, of fields of energy, e.g. gravity, of electromagnetic energy and all of it in motion, and so on. How can you accept the idea of zero/nothing, if you also accept the only constant is change? If you apply change to zero you destroy it because if it has changed it is no longer zero. Therefore, like all paradoxes, at least one of the premise's is wrong/bad, and in this case it is the idea of zero itself. In the end everything boils down to energy and a scientific basic is you cannot destroy energy, only change the form it takes, ideas that were developed by several European scientists in the 19th Century. Nature must be limited in this way as well.

Items 8 and onwards refer to Part 1:—Me and My Brain.

8. Genetics defines us a birth but we can determine our future, within limits¹.

Interesting. Genetics play a part in our future but they don’t determine it

You have added something here which I hadn't considered.

9. Consciousness and awareness are not synonyms. A clearer definition opens many doors.

(See 5. Conscious Awareness) Awareness is an example of emergence.

Yep I remember you talking about this and I agree

10. Sensory perception does not operate in isolation, one input at a time. It is BECAUSE our senses deliver information simultaneously and are remembered as perceived, i.e. as linked, that the learning process is enhanced and is the key to growing awareness.

Yes I love this. That’s why a smell can transport you back somewhere as much as being in a certain environment can trigger memories you hadn’t thought about until you were in that place. The smell of petrol reminds me of sitting on the roller on Whitchurch cricket ground with you. And picturing myself in Whitchurch cricket ground reminds me of collecting conkers at the parsonage next door to it.

She was five years old at the time.

11. Emotion and memory are inextricably linked.

Totally agree, But can you have memory(ies) without emotion?

A machine can be programmed to follow a set of instructions without any emotional content, obvious example is a computer. But animals exercise judgment based on experience and they do this by a process of examination of memory including the memory of previous reactions and emotions. They then react and remember this event as well. I’m not sure if emotion is essential for memory to exist in animals, probably it is because they react to threats which leads to fear and reaction.

12. Having two brains enables the emergence of meaning. You have two brains. Both are parallel processors and slightly differently organised, with massive communication links between them. The consequence is the enabling of internal debate and then a resolution, the emergence of meaning.

Do you mean the rapid emotional reactionary one? And the more slower processed rational one?

No, I didn't mean this. I was referring to the two different pathways a stimulus takes to each brain and the consequences of their interaction. Both have an amygdala and a hypocampus, and both can create new neurons and are involved in constructing memory.

13. Machines, including computers, do not react emotionally to their environment. Animals do.

Yep

14. Machines, including computers, do not have volition. Animals have.

Yep

15. Nearly everything we can do is based on our genetics and learning. Keep on learning.

Yep. (what isn’t learnt? Automatic bodily actions like breathing? And digesting?)

Even these biological actions can be controlled by learning, from babies learning to control their bladders and bowels to adults able to reduce stress by meditation, to pensioners who can influence their life long acquired mindsets to cope with their physical changes due to ageing.

16. The human spirit is an illusion, but we do have a learned mindset at any particular moment.

I really really like this idea of mindset as a term of human spirit

17. Free will is largely an illusion; we have all been processed by programmed learning, set by our environment. Yet imagination and emotion enable volition, so outcomes can be changed. Note, memories are not fixed, like a photo.

Yes, I really like this.

Added Sept 2023. Within the environment are epigenetic influences. These modify the expression of genes, as recognised by the labelling of pseudo genes, present but inactive within an animal.

18. You may consider the world as it just is but you can seek understanding.

Yep. Understanding and questioning.

19. To the extent you understand you may achieve desired change...but there are many variables.

Not sure I understand this one. I’m half there...

Well, one often thinks a given situation may be understood but there can be many layers of understanding. So, if you are judgemental (and we all are) and want to change a situation it may be possible but the actual outcome of what you do depends just how good your understanding actually is and the consequences of that initial outcome could be very far reaching indeed, and not predicted.

20. Happiness is a short lived, peak sensation, like drug induced euphoria. Seek dynamic content.

This is a good take on happiness, I agree. It is like any emotion, temporary.

Yes, but we do remember and recall.

21. Philosophy is no good unless it starts with a blank sheet. Doesn’t often happen.

I like this. Because what you’re saying in earlier comments is that we are not and nor will we ever be blank sheets (re point 15). We are a product of the dynamic relationship between our environment and our gene and therefore will never start with a blank page.

Exactly. Philosophers, past and present, are the product of the age in which they live, and produce accordingly.

22. Don’t generalise if you’re only a foot soldier. Pinker and Chalmers, et al, please note.

Don’t understand this one, but perhaps needs more context

Yes, it does. It is actually a pun. Pinker, because he knows something about language states that language is the source of our intelligence which is complete rubbish and totally misunderstands the nature of brains. Language is the messenger we are lucky enough to possess which enables me to communicate my ideas to anyone else who understands the same language. Chalmers is a philosopher i.e.  philo, one who gabbles words, and sophist, one who spouts nonsense, who completely ignores the progress that neuroscience has made and talks of Tofu like matter of the brain as a lump rather than as a hugely complex organ which is starting to be unravelled in the context of the environment in which it has evolved. Both, like foot soldiers, see only the dust of battle and not the directing minds behind each side.

Added after this exchange:

23. With emotion, two or more senses linked together promote the creation of meaning and contribute to mindset.

24. Emergence is a law of nature, a consequence of its dynamics, to which humans are subservient. Emergence means complex organisational structure(s) growing out of simple rules.  The outcome of the emergent process is probably unpredictable.

25. The wider context is always relevant, acting on many levels from the sub atomic to macro environments. Therefore cannot ignore the impact of Quantum Theory, the resulting Physics and Chemistry which also act on many levels, including changing environments, and the impact these have on Evolution.  Key issues in the search for the origins of reacting living and reproducing biological forms seem to be self assembly (e.g. lipids, cell membranes,), and Emergence (e.g. central nervous systems, enlarged brains enabling awareness, reproduction via genetic transmission). Putting these together as a sequence of inter reacting changes (not a theory of statics) is the challenge.

26. AI=Artificial Intelligence of AI=Actual Ignorance? Computers, digital processing is actually based on static concepts. An obvious example is the use of spell checks when using a word processor. Mis spell a word (as in red letters here) and, depending on the language you have specified, a list is suggested from which you can choose. That is, only you can decide which is correct, and that depends on your own understanding. It reflects my own schoolboy dilemma when told to look up a word in a dictionary. How can I do that if I don't know how it is spelt? Thus Mis" yields 24 alternatives, ranging from Sis to Zip but fails to provide the correct answer in this context (which of course is Miss) because it does not have any understanding. Until AI can recognise context and thus meaning it is not intelligent at all but very ignorant!

4. INTRODUCTION².

Consciousness is linked to life: surely obvious. (It dictated the author’s starting point.) Not, apparently to everyone.

From Prof. Anil Seth’s Newsletter of Christmas 2023: looking ahead, to 2024:

"Looking ahead, a good part of my research will be focused on exploring the possibility that consciousness is tied to life, and is not simply a form of ‘information processing’ – a slightly heretical perspective, especially amid the boosterism surrounding AI³."

Seth’s quote copies my own starting point (a definition of Conscious Awareness)  some 20 years ago. I sent him a copy in 2022. His newsletter of 2023 (see quote above) stimulated the following notes (also emailed to him in January 2024, no reply yet) which have turned out to form a useful introduction to what is to follow.

Consciousness linked to life.

The inherited genetic code defines the animal, its central nervous system within which is contained its species sensory profile, and its ability to make and recall detected data.

As a result each individual animal has a sensory profile very similar to all other members of the same species.

The sensory profile potentially enables each animal to detect physical data about its environment.

Prenatal detection of some data occurs. Touch is thought to be detected first, and then sound, but the full potential sensory perception of the animal, as genetically defined, only occurs post natal.

From the beginning of post natal life there are periods of being awake, i.e. actively conscious, enabling the detection of physical data from the environment via the animal’s sensory profile. The nature of an initial impact is largely physical.

Being conscious in this way does not, of itself, convey understanding. However, the impact of the physical detection on the animal triggers one or more widely variable reactions.

Defined by its genetic inheritance, memories are formed of such impacts and reactions.

Subsequently when again physical data is detected that has been received previously a link (mechanisms debated)  to memory is activated, which includes the previous reaction generated.

The present reaction is available for comparison to the remembered reaction and this too depends upon the sophistication of the central nervous system as genetically defined.

The dynamic combination of conscious sensory perception, memory and recall, enables comparison and prompts an act of volition, to identify what is similar or different in the present occasion, and whether to react as before. The outcome is therefore part of a learning process.

Consequently, the acquired knowledge, via memory, of both the physical nature of the data and the linked reactions to it creates more reaction and in this way influences both present perception and any action that is stimulated.

The dynamic accumulation of these experiences is termed learning, leading to awareness which is therefore a dynamic subjective quality, based upon the animal’s lived experience. It is dynamic because the living is a process of change and subjective because it depends only upon the unique experience of the conscious individual.

Conscious Awareness.

To be consciously aware requires the ability to perceive sensory information (the conscious element, limited by your sensory profile) and the state of your awareness, the extent to which the nature of what is being detected is understood, (limited at any one moment but ultimately unlimited. One can always learn more!) Your sensors detect information; your brain, through learning, based on your lived experience, attaches meaning to that data. It is not objective, it is subjectively based on your recalled lived experience. In other words, conscious awareness is an emergent, and emerging, subjective property of the brain⁴.

So too has been the writing of these articles.

For example, when I started I would not have been able to write a response stimulated by the Seth quote above as I have here.

The articles have not been planned as one might envisage a textbook, knowing what to put in in advance. I started years ago simply by asking Why am I me? and quickly discovered that there was, and still is not, a widely accepted definition of what is meant by conscious awareness. As others have done I felt it was essential to create my own definition, if only to put whatever turned up into a context I could understand, and, perhaps rather fortunately, based the attempt on the idea of separating the nature of consciousness from awareness.

Separating consciousness from awareness immediately opened a number of enquiries, namely the nature of sensory perception which consciousness enables. Understanding requires learning and thus the need for memory and recall to enable learning to take place. Awareness then reflects the degree to which understanding has been obtained. Awareness is not absolute or flawless.

Why not? What distorts the data received? Identifying the nature of distortion leads to physical effects, as in the hearing mechanism, to emotional reactions which introduces psychology.

So as each article opened up issues periodically they were explored  It was not realised that what was going on was a growing, emergent process but, however valid or flawed the outcome might be, that was what was occurring. Subsequently there was feedback, amending and hopefully improving but not substantially changing the original.

Exploring what seemed to come next eventually lead to the realisation that what had emerged was the answer the initial question, Why Am I Me and Not You? The journey was not planned in advance and even the method adopted gradually evolved. Issues raised were followed up, step by step, until rather suddenly and thus surprisingly, it was realised the whole series fitted together as if initially planned. That was an exciting moment.

In summary a series of individual enquires, each arising from present to next under the heading Me And My Brain has been an emergent outcome, not predicted, and probably unpredictable, driven by volition not evolution. These articles, as Conscious Awareness suggests, have become an emergent and dynamic, but subjective outcome of enquiry.

5. Conscious Awareness—What Is It?

Separating consciousness and awareness opens many doors.

A clear and unambiguous definition of what is meant by being conscious is offered—it is dependent upon your species sensory profile. Similarly a clear and unambiguous definition of what is meant by awareness is also suggested—it is the degree to which the information you detect or receive is understood. In other words, conscious awareness is an emergent, and emerging, property of the brain⁵.

This clears up quite a long standing problem. In the field of brain studies much confusion has been created by a lack of clear and agreed definitions, as pointed out in an article in the journal Nature as late as the year 2000⁶. The use of the terms consciousness, awareness, and the constructed phrase conscious awareness, is a glaring example of this lack of clarity.

As Prof. Ian Glynn puts it⁷ Dictionary definitions of conscious awareness are almost ludicrously circular: consciousness is the state of being conscious; to be conscious is to be aware, with mental facilities awake; aware means conscious or knowing, awake means not asleep, and sleep means being in a state of which one of the characteristics is that consciousness is nearly suspended...

Glynn is right and the circular definition is due to confusion and to the truly inept statement to be conscious is to be aware. A newborn human is conscious, but is it aware? A newborn antelope is conscious, but is it aware? In each case, hardly, depending on what you mean by aware.

Well it does help to talk the same language, to agree on what you mean by a particular term, like  consciousness or awareness. Yet there is no consensus view⁸ and as a result we lack confidence that different authors are comparing apples with apples and not with some other and all too often individually imagined exotic fruit. How is it possible to assess the value of contributors if each has their own definition, or worse, a blurred nonsensical definition as Prof. Glynn pointed out, as to what is meant by conscious awareness? Or, more recently, as the journal New Scientist in its articles on the subject of consciousness⁹ virtually repeated what could have been written 30 years ago, being completely unable to distinguish and to recognise, then as now, the difference between being conscious and being aware. Instead a variety of complicated and unnecessary issues are introduced which only further muddy the academic waters.¹⁰

Sometimes it helps to separate issues as has already been implied above by referring separately to consciousness and awareness. Apparently ridiculous ideas can also be useful.

So consider: Assume you are you (easy) but you’ve lost every single memory you ever had, even those you don’t know you’ve got, (very hard); even that you ever had memories.

Of course, in such a state you could not be reading this. You would not even know that words are abstract symbols, representing meaning. You would have no such concept in mind. By the assumption of no memory we have removed a critical element of the brain’s learning. The main point here is to see what consciousness looks like before processing and learning takes place. So, if you are awake and your in built senses are functioning, then you can see, smell, taste, feel (limited, for the moment to the physical sense,) and hear.

This is Arlo¹¹, born 7th Dec 2019

Without memory Arlo won’t know what any of his senses are detecting. A newborn baby does not have a database built in at birth, (like clip art, or a dictionary, to which it can refer). Lacking memory you too are rather like an adult baby. Lacking memory neither do you know what your senses are detecting. But you (even in your assumed reduced state) and Arlo are both conscious and so a definition of consciousness can be presented:

Consciousness: Is the ability to detect sensory data from external sources, or from within the body itself. It is the ability to receive information.

In the absence of memory, prior to any reaction you may have and before any feedback from elsewhere in the brain, (that is from the other senses, or from processing,) this definition of consciousness is an entirely physical relationship.

Within any given species the nature of consciousness, the ability to receive sensory data, to detect the information that is out there, is broadly the same.

The Species Sensory Profile.

Applying the same assumption to animals other than us, that is no initial memory, they too are conscious, but on a different scale. For example bats have a radar system that can detect signals we cannot (unless we cheat by using electronic devices). Dogs can hear higher screeches than we can but can’t see red, rats emit squeaks, warning of danger in frequencies the human ear cannot detect and birds have magnetic sensors enabling them to navigate, which we do not. Each living entity has its own sensory profile, some elements of which it shares with other species, and some it does not.

The Species Sensory Profile, when worked out, will describe at any particular moment, the sensitivity to physical sensory data of every living, or once living, entity. Within very narrow limits your species sensory profile will define your sensory limitations. If your profile doesn’t closely match that of homo sapiens (as Arlo, above) then you’re something else.

We can also, tentatively, conclude that the Species Sensory through Consciousness Profile limits memory. You cannot remember what you cannot experience. Since learning depends upon memory it follows that the species sensory/consciousness profile limits what can be learnt. (At this stage we can exclude cheating by using technology, e.g. tools such as reference books or electronic and mechanical gadgets).

Every individual, like Arlo, has to learn to interpret the sensory information received. The ability to do so depends not only on time sensitive development processes, (for example, as in the case of vision,) pre-determined in your genetic make up, but also upon what has been previously learnt.

If this were a textbook then it would be appropriate to point out that although your conscious state depends upon your sensory profile the two are not necessarily the same. Within any species some individuals are born with one of more of the usual sensory abilities impaired, such as Arlo, whose vision has not developed as  it should, or another individual who may be wholly or partially deaf. Such conditions have a very significant impact of the way the emerging brain subsequently becomes organised. Therefore one can distinguish between the species sensory profile, the sensory capabilities that the members of that species normally possess and the sensory consciousness a particular individual within that species actually possesses.

An individual’s level of understanding depends upon the sum of all experiences to date, the reaction to each of them, and includes the presence or absence of past learning. So it is easy to see that our ability to process raw data, which all our senses deliver collectively in a given moment (See Donald Hebbs' circuits in later articles) received as a consequence of being conscious, depends upon the extent of our learning at any particular moment. From here a clear and unambiguous concept of the idea of conscious awareness is easily formulated.

Conscious Awareness.

To be consciously aware requires the ability to perceive sensory information (the conscious element, limited by your sensory profile) and the state of your awareness, the extent to which the nature of what is being detected is understood, (limited at any one moment but ultimately unlimited. One can always learn more!) Your sensors detect information; your brain, through learning, based on your lived experience, attaches meaning to that data.

And that’s it. A clear and unambiguous definition of what is meant by being conscious has been achieved—it is dependent upon your species sensory profile, and a similarly clear and unambiguous definition of what is meant by awareness has also been suggested—it is the degree to which the information you detect is understood. In other words, conscious awareness is an emergent, and emerging, property of the brain. Your brain. No-one else's. You and it are one and the same, and unique.

Many doors are opened so this is just the start of the story. To further explore the nature of consciousness, as defined above, the next step is to look at each of our senses in turn; seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching and how they interact and relate to each other. There is a neuroscience issue here, called the Binding Problem.

6. The Species Sensory Profile.

Sensitivity to physical data of living, or extinct species.

Within any given species the nature of consciousness, the ability to receive sensory data, to detect the information that is out there, is genetically based and is broadly the same. Each living entity has its own sensory profile, some elements of which it shares with other species, and some it does not.  For example bats have a radar system that can detect signals humans cannot (unless we cheat by using electronic devices). Dogs can hear higher screeches than humans but can’t see red, rats emit squeaks, warning of danger in frequencies the human ear cannot detect and birds have magnetic sensors enabling them to navigate, which we do not have.

The Species Sensory Profile, when worked out, will describe at any particular moment, the sensitivity to physical sensory data of every living, or once living, entity. Within very narrow limits your species sensory profile will define your sensory limitations.

The following articles identify the physical or chemical nature of what can be perceived, describes how detection is achieved in humans and comparative information on living entities other than humans.

Note that, as pointed out in the article Conscious Awareness, the species sensory profile is not necessarily the same as the consciousness profile of any particular individual who may have limitations resulting from a variety of causes, for example being born deaf, or with abnormal vision.

Initially suppose the brain is regarded as a (general) processor, able to detect sensory data. For want of a better analogy, it has not yet been programmed. Programming begins as it develops in the womb. Gradually, as it grows, the brain takes control of the physical body. To that extent it is already learning and remembering, modifying itself as it grows. Subject to its genetic make up and the environment provided by the mother, which will dictate the precise nature of this control, the brains of all individuals in a given species are practically identical. At least two senses become operative before the moment of birth; babies react in the womb to sound and touch. Taste and smell are probably indistinguishable and underdeveloped, but the receptors are there, genetically determined. Vision is not yet activated.¹² Following birth the ability to perceive very much depends upon the environment in a critical period during post natal development.

Mind Set

The brain is therefore not a static organ. It is dynamic, it is always changing. It has to develop the ability to interpret sensory stimulation and it does so, both in terms of physical detection and through the gradual process of acquiring understanding. Connections and pathways are altered, some inhibited, some proliferating. At any one moment the nature of these connections and pathways is the state of the physical brain. (If it were possible to map all the neurons and connections between them it would, for a brief moment, describe the physical brain. Moments later and a modified map would be needed, for the original would have changed). What it all means depends upon what has been learnt, which pathways are activated by a particular stimulus and which, although present and available, are not. Understanding then reflects the state of the mind based on your memory and learning at any particular moment and represents your mind set. The circumstances, your environment, your focus of attention all contribute to your particular mind set. Given that all these factors are variables means you have many possible mind sets to invoke. Please note, though, that your understanding does not necessarily represent some actual truth. What you understand depends on your previous learning which, like mine, can be flawed.

In short, both the structure of the physical brain and what is understood through a long process of making connections, which one might term a particular mind set at any one time, are dynamic and developing continuously. In this sense the mind and the brain continuously inter react, each changing the other. Except in the context of probing the characteristics of sensory perception BEFORE processing (and thus learning) takes place it makes little sense trying to separate mind and brain. All that is achieved is another non problem to solve. This answers Chalmer’s hard problem

The Binding Non-Problem.

It is self evident to everyone that our senses, though separate and distinct, operate simultaneously. Imagine, for example, standing on a cliff top, looking westwards  across the ocean, and admiring the fascinating colours revealed at sunset as the sun slips slowly below the horizon. Perhaps a companion lays a hand on your arm, entranced as you are. Perhaps a demanding child shouts for attention as together you breathe in the fresh, sea air, so different from the smog of many towns. Reluctantly you turn away but later, any one of those stimulants, the air, the child’s shout, the visual beauty, even the touch of your companion’s hand will recall all the other elements of the scene. Perhaps some will be dominant and only after that dominance will the others be recalled. But recalled they will be. And what does this tell us, namely that as each sensory element was activated so simultaneously they lay down memories which are linked together at the same time. It cannot be otherwise. How else could a future stimulus enable us to recall all the others laid down during that striking moment on the cliff top?

Yet some seem to think an alternative explanation is needed to explain how the memory of our sensory experiences are bound together. They call this the binding problem, but we do not need to solve the binding problem. The necessity is avoided because we simply do not perceive, think, learn and recall in the manner implied. What has been overlooked is that in trying to understand how an individual sense works, say hearing (it doesn’t matter which) it is considered and analysed in isolation. As the other senses are examined, each in isolation from the others so in each discipline it is wondered how these senses combine to make a coherent picture. Hence the binding problem. But if one reverts to reality and not academic isolated research (however necessary that approach may be) the answer is obvious. All our senses operate continuously and so the memories laid down are linked in that process.¹³ To recall one, especially if that one had a strong impact, is to recall some or all of the others.

There is another consequence to the simultaneous perception of our senses. If two or more stimuli are associated and remembered there is the opportunity for growing understanding. A crude example is the witnessing of the slamming of a door. You see it and you hear it. The next time you see a door moving you may well remember the previous occasion and wonder if you are about to hear a strong noise. Ah, it doesn’t happen. Why not? (This is the crucial step which you might not take immediately, but eventually...) Ah, the door was moved much more slowly this time...and so on. In other words it is BECAUSE our senses deliver information simultaneously and are remembered as linked and any differences to remembered events noted, that a Why? is stimulated.

This is the short answer, based on the definitions offered above and on the continuity of our sensory perception. For more see 8. Much Binding which is the next article.

It is worth remembering that the generation of reactions to what we perceive operates