on brain conscious experience and human agency t-211

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P R I B M K H 1998) Onbrain consciousexperience T-2nand human agency. In D. Loye (Ed.) The ~ v o l u ~ i o n a r ~Outrider: The Impact o fthe Human Agent on Evolution.EssaysHonouring Ervin Laszlo. Westport CT raeger pp. 67-91.

6On Brain, Csonscio~s xperience, andHuman AgencyK R L PRIBRAM

Abstract Key wordsNeuropsychologist Karl Pribram tells of what Brain, brain and behavior, plans, Plons and the20th-century brain research and psychology Structure o fBehavior, cognitive science,from the ti me of Freud and Wil liam James into feedback, feedforward, Freud, excitation, neuralthe 1990s has discovered about the basic inhibition, images, holographic processes,equipment for the active mind we humans consciousness, unconsciousness, Willi ambring to evolution. James, intention ality, attentio n, volition,

feelings, emotion, motivation, perception,frontolimbic forebrain, transcendentalconsciousness and spirituality, Laszlo squantum-vacuum field theory.

Western tlrought ltasalte rnnted betrveett trvo views of hun tnttity s relntiotr to rlte Uuiverse: O ne viewltolds tlte huntan orgatrisnt to be passively sltnped by tlte environtrret~t.The otlter erltpllasizes at1active role, nianipul ati ve and selective trot otrly of artifacts b ut of sense data as well. Recetrt rteuro-psychological corrtributiorrs to behavioral science poin t to a restrrgerrce of tlre lattcr vierv, empha-sizing once again the dignity of tlre lrutrtarr ns a scientific as well as a political and Ittrtrrartirtic tenet.

(Paraphrased f ro m Pribr am, 1963, pp. 101 1 11)

The Issue. Over th e past two centur ies, since the pioneering observations of FrancesGall 1809-1969), it has bec om e co m m o n know ledge that there is a special relationbetween b rain tissue an d th e variety of conscious experiences. Gall initiated theprocedure of c omparin g the locus of brain pathology with aberrat ions of behav-iors of th e patients whose brains he examined-a procedure which is con tinue dtoday in t he active field of clinical neuropsycliology. Gall inau gura ted the view tha tthe faculties of m in d are based in brain fu nction. Whe n Gall applied for admissionto the French Academy of Science, his view was counte red by N apoleon , w ho feltthat evil would be stampe d ou t by appropriate social innovation see Pribram ,1969).

Tho ugh on the whole we today accept the special relat ion between brain andconscious experience, we are no t at all agreed u po n the basic natur e of t h e relation-ship nor , any more than in 1800 upon the co t~se quences u r undcrstandirlg of this


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natu re m ight have for ou r unders tand ing of ourselves as agents in ou r relation toou r physical environm ent an d in o ur relation to others.

Despite such app arent disagreements, brain research hns show n tha t physicaland social environme nts become enmeslied by sensory and neural processes tomake u p o u r conscious experiences. l 'l iis chapter reviews sonie of this research asI have experienced it. l 'he d ic tio ~l ar y efinition o f experience is to try. Th eresearch findings reported here have certainly tried me, an d I am seriouslytrying to collate an d comm unica te them so others can also experience them .

Perhaps the most trying of these collat ions is to br ing them into har mo ny withthose presented by Laszlo regarding qua ntu m- vac uum field theo ry and its imp acton the hum an condi t ion . Section 5 of this chapter d oes at least take a step in thisdirection.

Section traces my journey of a half-century of research, with special emp hasiso n t he co nc ept o f plnrts nsgrrides to action an d irnnges (especially i~ rir ~g esf ndt iev e-r-rlertt) as ilre origins of tllcg~ride s. ection gr ou nd s this research as it enta ils strltesof nlindas these were described in the works ofW illiam James, Franz Bretitano an dSigm und Freud. Section organizes my research results regarding the topicsattention ottd volitiorr, which relate states to conte nt an d co ntent s t o states. Section

dea ls with research in perception-the corltetrts of consciousness, especially withthe distinction between an allo- arid egocentric appreciation of a corporeal meversus a narrative I composed of episodes and events. Section 5 provides atranscendenta l synthesis.

11 Sources of a Model of rain Functions in Conscioeasa~essSome Case HistoriesA patient has a tu mo r removed from the occipital lobe on o ne side of his brain . hesurgery leaves him unable to re port the sight of objects presented to h im o n theside opposite the removal, yet he can correctly point to th e location of th e objectsan d even correctly respond to differences in their shap e (Weiskrantz, Warringtonet al., 1974; Weiskrantz, 1986 . Even when repeatedly told tha t he is respond ingwell, he insists tha t he is not aware of seeing anything a nd is only guessing. This iscalled blind -sight.

A similar occurrence follows a stroke or ot her injury to the parietal lobe. Nowthe arm and hand on the s ide of the body opposi te to the in jury per form auto-matically without the conscious part icipation o f the person. O ne such patientcalled he r abse nt-fro m-c onsc ious ar m Alice, a nd noted that Alice doesn't livehere anymo re (Prib ram and Bradley, 1997).

Another patient has the medial structures of the ternporal lobes of his brainremoved o n both sides. He perform s well on tests of inl ~li edi atemem ory such asrecalling a telephone nu m be r just read out loud t o h im, l3ut a few rliirii~tesater is


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not only unable to recall the n u ~ n b e r ut th e fact that I lc had heard a ~im nlbe r reven that he had been examined. Even after 2 years of regular exposure to anexaminer, th e patient fails to recognize her as familiar (Scoville a n d M ilner, 1 957 ).Yet, this same patient, when trained to res pon d skillfully to a comp lex task o r todiscr iminate between objects , e tc ., can b e sh ow n t o m aintain such performancesover years despite the disclaim er on his par t th at he was ever exposed t o such a tasks(Sidman et a\. 1969).

Still another patient with a similar but more restricted bilateral lesion of hertemporal lobe has gained over a hun dre d p ou nd s o weight since surgery. She is avoracious eater, bu t w hen asked wheth er she is hu ng ry o r has any special appetites,she denies this , even when appre hen ded in the m idst of grabbing food from o the rpatients (Pri bra m, 1965).

This is not all. A patient may have the major t racts connecting his cerebralhemispheres severed with the result that his responses to stimu li presented to himon opposi te sides are t reated independently of one another . His r ight side isunaware of wha t his left side is doin g an d vice versa. Th e splitting of th e brain hasproduced a split in awareness (S perry, 1980; Gazanig a, 1 985 ).

More com m on in the clinic are pat ients wh o are paralyzed o n o ne side du e to alesion of the brain s m o to r system. But the paralysis is manifest especially wh en th epatient atte mp ts to follow instru ction s given to him o r which he himself initiates.When highly motivated t o perform well-ingrained responses, as wh en a fire breaksout or as part of a m ore general action , the paralysis disappears. Only inten tiona l,volitional contr ol is influenced by the lesion.

Observat ions such as these have set the problems that brain scientists need toanswer. Not o nly d o they dem on stra te the inti mate association th at exists betweenbra in and hum an experienced co~ ~sc iou sne ss ,hey also ma ke it necessary to takeinto account th e dissociation between consciou s awareness, feelings, and inten tionson the one hand and unconsc ious, au tom a t i c behav ior al p e r f o r m a nc ~~ sn theother.

Perhaps i t is no t to o surpr ising therefore that a division in a ppro ach to themind-brain prob lem has recently occu rred. Wh ile behavioral scientists an dneuroscientists have, for the most part, eschewed a Cartesian dualism in anat tempt at r igorous operat ional and scient if ic understanding, some thoughtfulbrain scientists an d philoso phers have inveterately main tain ed a dualistic stance(Popper a nd Eccles, 1977). brief review of my o wn struggles with the problemmay be helpful in p osing so m e of the issues involved.

lansThe struggle began mod estly with a re coun ting in th e late 1950s an d early 1960s ofcase histories such as those used above. These were presented as an ant ido te to th eradical behavior ism that then pervaded experimental psychology (Pr ibram,195911962) . Th e formal p roper t ies of a m ore en compas sing view were presented in


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terms of a co mp uter pro gra mm ing analogy in Plrrrts orid the Strtrct~rre fBeIravior(Miller et al. 1960) un der the rubric of a Subjective Behaviorism. Th e analogyhas since beco me a fruitful mo del o r set of mo dels kno wn as Cognitive Science,' 'which, in contrast to radical behaviorism, has taken verbal repo rts of subjectiveconscious experience seriously into account as pr o b le ~ n reas to be investigatedan d d ata to be utilized.

Computer programming has proved an excellent guide to urlderstaridi~lg ndexperimen tal analysis. Further, a host of co ntrol engineering devices have beenkn ow n to serve as mode ls for the bra in scientist. Of special interest here is the dis-t inction that can be m ade a mo ng such models between feedback and feedforwardoperations, a distinction that is crit ical to our understanding of the differencebetween automatic and voluntary con trol of behavior.

Feedback organizations ope rate l ike thermostats-for examp le, Canno n's(1927) familiar homeostatic brain processes that control the physiology of theorganism. More recently i t has become established that sensory processes alsoinvolve such feedback organ ization s (see Miller e t nl., 1960 an d Prib ram , 197 I, chs.3 4 an d 1 1990 for review). Th us, feedback coritrol is on e fun danle ntal of brainorganization.

But anothe r fund amental has emerged in the analyses of brain funct ion. Thisfundam ental goes by the nam e of feedforward, or inform ation processing (see,e.g., M cFarland, 1971, ch. I). I have elsewhere (Prib rani, 1971, ch. 5,1 98 1 ; Pribrarnan d Gill , 1976, ch. 1) detailed m y own und erstan ding of feedforward m echan ismsan d the ir relation to the feedb ack con trol . Briefly, I suggest tha t feedbacks are akinto th e processes described in the first law of therm ody nam ics ( th e law of con serva-tion of energy) in tha t they are error processing, reactive to ma gnitu des of cha ngein the co nstraints that describe a system. They operate to restore the system to th estate of equilibrium. By contrast, feedforward organizations process informationtha t increases the degrees of freedom of the system.

Th e man ner by which feedforward is accomplislled is often portrayed in term sof Maxwell 's demon and Szilard's solution to the problenl posed by thesedemons, that is, how energy can be conserved across a bo un da ry (a system of

con straints), a bo un dar y that recognizes certain energy configurations and letsthe m pass while denying passage to o thers (see Brillouin, 1962, for review). In sucha system the energy consumed in the recognition process must be continuallyenhanced or the demo nV n fact tends to disintegrate from the impact of rand omenergy. Feedforward ope rations are thus akin to processes described b y the secondlaw of thermo dynam ics, which deals with the a m o u n t of organization of energy,no t i ts conservation. Inf orm ation has often been called n eg-entropy (see, e.g.,Brillouin, 1962; Pribram, 1991, Lecture 2), entropy being the measure of theam ou nt of disorganizat ion o r rand om ness in a system. In the sect ion o n vol i tionwe will return to these concepts and apply them to the issues at hand .

19th-century psycl~ophysicists nd psychophysiology dealt directly with feed-forward operat ions.T hus H elmholtz (1924) describes the mechan i sm ofvol1111tar-y


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control of cye nlovelnen ts i l l t e ~ls ol a paral le l i r l~ler vat io ~if tlle riiuscles o ~ l l teye an d a screen up on which the retinal inp ut falls so that volun tary eye move -ments are accompan ied by a corollary corrective in nervation of th e cerebral inp utsystems. W he n th e eyeball is pushe d by a finger, this corrective innervation islacking, an d the visual world jum ps abo ut. Brindley an d M erton (1960) performedthe critical experim ent: Whe n the eye nluscles are paralyzed a nd a volu ntar y eyemovement is undertak en, the visual world ru shed by even thou gh t he eye remainsstationary.

Of especial interest is the fact that Freud (189511966) antic ipat ed this distin c-tion between feedback and feedforward in his delineation of primary andsecondary processes (Pri bram an d Gill, 19 76). Freud distinguished three types ofneural mech anisms that con stitute pri m ary processes. O n e is muscular discharge;a second is discharge into th e blood strea m o f chemical substances; ancl a third isdischarge of a n euro n on to its neighbors. All three of these neural mech anismsentail potential o r actual feedback. Muscu lar disch arge elicits a reaction fro m th eenvironment an d a sensory report of the discharge (kinesthetic) to th e brain. Theneurochemical discharge results, by way of stimulation of o the r bod y chemicals towhich the brain is sensitive, in a positive feedback, wh ich Fre ud labels the gen-eration of unpleasure. (T his is the origin of the unpleasure-later th e pleasure-principle.) Discharge of a neuron onto its neighbors is the basis of associativeprocesses that lead to a reciprocal increase in ne ural excitatio n (cathe xis) betweenneurons (a feedb ack), which is the basis for facilitation ( a lowering of resistance) oftheir synapses (lea rning ).

By contrast, se con dary o r cogrlitivc processcs are based o n a Ilost of hierarc liic-ally arranged neural m echanism s that delay discharge throu gh neural inh ibition.These delays convert wishes (the sum of excitatory facilitations) to willedvoluntary acts by allowing attention (a dou ble feedback that match es the wish toexternal input-a do ub le co mp ari son process that allows co ntr ol to be exercised asin setting a thermosta t by ha nd ) to o pera te a reality-testing mechani im. Thus , anattentional conscious comparison process is ah essential mechanism allowingvoluntary cognitive ope ratio ns t o occur.

For Freud a nd 19th-centu ry Viennese n eurology in general, consciousness andthe resultant voluntary behavior was a functi on o f the cerebral cortex. Th us thegreater portion of brain, which is noncortical, regulates behavior o f which we arenot aware-behavior that is auto ma tic an d unconscious. W ha t then d o we kno wabout cortical function a nd conscious awareness?

magesThu s plans are not enough. s indicated by the case histories described earlier,today's neuroscientist shares with 19th -cen tury neurology the necessity to under-stand the special role of the brain cortex in t he cons truct ions that c onstitute co n-sciousness. Freud tackles that problem by distin guis hing the qualitative imaging


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properties of sensations from the more quantitative properties of association,memory, and motivation. The dist inctiot i ren lai~ is valid ot le today: 111Plor~s udthe Strzrcture oj ehn vio r tlie s u n ~ s f these tests, the col~ iparis otls etrveeri in pu tan d report o f the consequences of oper ation s, are called iti~ages. Horv tlleti aret ~mag es constructed y tl ie brain cortex?

Images are produced by a brain process cliaracterized by a precisely arrangedanatomical array that maintains a topograpliic isotiiorpllisni between receptorand cortex but that can be ser iously damag ed o r destroyed ( u p to 90 percent)wi tho ut im pairi ng the capacity of tlie retilaitlder to functio n in lieu of tlie whole.These characteristics led m e to suggest in th e m id- 1960s (Prib rani, 1966) that i t iadd ition to the digital com pute r, brain tiiodels need to take into acco unt the typ eof processing performe d by optical systems. Such optical inforniatiorl processingis called holography, and holograms display exactly the satne sort of itnagingproperties observed for brain ; namely, a precisely aligned process th at distributesinfor mat ion. In the brain the anato mical array serves tlie futictiotl of paths of lightin optical systems and horizontal n etworks of lateral inhibition pe rpen dicu lar tothe array serve the function of lenses (Pri bratn , 197 1 Pribraril t ill., 19 74 ).

I have proposed specific brain fun cti ons to be respotisible for the orga niza tiotiof neural holographic-like processes (P ribr am , 1971, chs. 1 a n d 2) . 'I'his proposalinvolves th e grad ed electrical pote ntial changes-changes in polarizatiotls-thatoccu r at junctions between tieurotis arid in their dendrites. Inhibitory interactions(by hyperpolar izat ions) in horizontal networks of neu rons that d o not generateany nerve impulses are the critical elements. Such inhibitory tietworks arebeco min g mo re and m ore the focus of investigation in the neurosciences. For in-stance, in the retina, they are responsible for th e organizatiori of visual processes-in fact, nerve impulses d o no t oc cur a t all in t he initial stages of retinal processing(for review see Prib ram 971 chs. 1 an d 3 .The p ro i~osa lhat image coristructionin m an takes place by me ans of a neural holographic-like process is thu s spelled ou tin considerable detail, and departs from classical neuropliysiology only in itsemphasis on the imp ortance of com putat ions achieved by a web o f reciprocalinfluences am on g graded, local polarizations, wh ich are well-established neu ro-psychological entities. N o ne w neurophysiological pritlciples need be c onsidered.

For the mind-brain issue, the holo graph ic mod el is of special interest becausethe im age that results from the holo grap hic process is projected away frorii theholo gram that pro duces it . We need therefore to be less puzzled by the fact that o urow n images are not referred to eye o r brain, bu t are projected i nto space beyond.Von Bekesy (1967) has performed an elegant series of exyeritnents t hat detail th eprocess (lateral inhibition-the anal ogu e of lenses in optic al system s) by wh ichsuch projection c ome s ab out . Essentially th e process is similar to th e on e thatcharacterizes the placement of auditory images between two speakers in astereophon ic music system.

From this fact, it can be seen h ow a bsur d it is to ask question s concerriing thelocus of conscious experience. Th e brain procesces or-gatiize orrr exl le ri ~r ~c r-


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but that experiet ice is not o f t l ~ e a i n po ce ss per se but of the resultant of itsfunction. On e would n o m ore f ind "consciousness" b y dissecting the brain thanone would find "gravity" by digging in to tlie Earth .

Over the past decades importa nt advances have oc curred in o ur und erstandingof brain holographic-like processing. Research results have sho wn tha t th e bestmathematical description of the process is holonomic rather than purelyholographic-that is, the analogy with a patch or strip holo gram serves better thanthat of an undivided, un lin ~i te d ologram. In a patch hologram the holographicsurface is mad e u p of patches of hologran l spatially orde red with respect to o n eanother. Each patch is bou nd ed an d is thu s described by what D enis Gabor (1946),the inventor of the hologram, described as a "quanturn"of informatio n. The brainprocesscan therefore be conceived as an info rma tion process in which th e units arequanta of information (Pribram and Carlton, 1986; Pribram , 1990).

Another development has been a system of prog ram min g that derives fromholography and simulates the properties of neural processing. These "neuralnetworks" imp lem ent parallel distributed processing (P DP ) in curren tly availablecomputers (Rum elhart and McClelland, 1986). Con] puter program ming an doptical holography thus provide rnetaphors, analogies, a n d m odels of processesthat, when tested against the actual functions of the pr ima te bra in, go a long waytoward explaining how hu ma n voluntary an d imaging capabili ties can becom edifferentiated from unconsc ious autom atic processes by the hu m an brain.

2 Dimensions of Conscious Statestates of irrd

What we mean by conscious experience is most readily illustrated by asking thefollowing question: would you say that your pet dog is conscious? Why, youanswer, of course he is. We all attr ibut e awareness to orga nism s when they m in dtheir environment, when they appear to pay attention. The behaviorist philo-sopher Gil bert Ryle 1 949) made note of this when he poin ted o ut th at the Englishterm "min d" is derived fro m minding-and William Jam es in his Pri~tciplesofPsychology 190 / 1950) asks whethe r in fact we need the term "co nsc iou sne ss~ ~since what we m ean by i t is so intinlately interwoven with atten tion a nd its limitedspan. We ordinarily distinguisli consciousness from unconsc iousness m uch as dothe physician and surgeon: when someone responds t prodding (e.g. , bygrum bling "Oh leave m e alone Can't you see I'm tryin g to get so m e sleep ") weattribute to him a conscious s tate. Wh en, on the o ther ha nd, his response is anincoherent thrashing abo ut, we say he is stuporo us, and if there is no response a tall, we declare him com atos e.

Note that we are no w distinguishing between various ne rvou s system states thatfor the most part are subcortical and that are coordinate with such states of


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especially manifest in a clearer ex ter ~la liz ati o~ l the sources of conscience-thegods no longer speak within the person to guide individual ma n an d wo ma n.

Ever clearer distinc tions between personal a nd extrap erson al objective realitiesculminates in Cartesian dualism an d Brentano's '(inten tional inexistence, whic hwas sho rten ed by Husserl to intentiona1ity. It is this reading of the subje ct-o bje ctdistinction that p hilosop l~ers rdinarily mean when they speak of the differencebetween conscious a nd unco nsciou s processes.

Bren tano de rives his analysis from the sc holastics a n d uses intentionality-theaboutness of perceptions, that experience is ab ou t something-as the key co n-cept to distinguish observed from observer, the subjective from the objective. Ihave elsewhere (Pri bra m, 1976) somewhat s implif ied th e argum ent by tracing thesteps from the distinction between intentions and their realization in action, toperceptions a nd their realization as the objective world.

How is Brentano's distinction between subject and ob ject related to the dualismof Descartes? Brain m us t always be a p ar t of th e objective world even if it is theorgan critically responsible for tile subjective-from whic h in tu rn th e objective isconstructed. Bren tano is perfectly clear on this poin t a n d suggests that the st udy ofintentional consciousness is the province of the philosopher-psychologist, no tthe brain physiologist. However, clinical neuropsychological experience a mp lydemonstrates that brain physiology does in fact have someth ing to say even ab ou tintentional consciousness. T he case histories presented at the ou tset of this pa permake Brentano's general point perhaps more strongly than any philosophicalargument: minding is of two sorts, instrumental and intentional. However, asthese and oth er case histories show, neuroscience h as a great deal to say about bothinstrumental and intentional consciousness, more in line with James's formula-tion than with Brentano's. O f special interest is the fact tha t a pup il of Brentano's,Sigmund Freud, as an outstanding neurologist, also became in his psycho-analytical investigation the champion of the distinction between conscious andunconsciousness processes in dete rmi nin g everyday and pathological behavior,but did not follow Brentano's dic tum that i ntentio nal consci ous experience be leftto philosophical investigation. Instead, he op ted for an investigation in psycho-logical science (Pribram and Gill, 1976).

onsciousness and Uticortscions StcltesInstrumental determ inants o f consciousness are riot what Freud or most philo-sophers have mean t by the term. Freud h ad tra ining bo th in medical practice andin philosophy. Whe n he emphasized the im portan ce o f uncon scious s tates, was heapplying the medical definition or the ph ilosopl~ ical?Did he mean ins t rumentalconsciousness to beW th e nconscious ? Most interpreta tions of Freud suggest tha tunconscious states operate without awareness in the sense that they operateautomatically, muc h as do respiratory and gastroi~ltestinal rocesses in so me onewho is stup oro us or comatose. Freud hinlself seem s to have promulga ted this view


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by suggesting a horizontal spli t between co~i scio us, reconscious an d unco n-scious states with repression ope ratin g to push tneniory -rnotive struc tures in todee per layers where they n o longer access awareness. Still in Freud's ProjectforScient$c Psycliology m em ory -m oti ve str uc tur es are neu ral programs-located inthe core port ions of the brain tliat access awareriess by their co nnectioris t o cortex.Wh en the neural program becomes a secondary process, it comes un de r voluntarycontrol, which involves reality testing an d thu s consciousness. To use language asan example, on e ni ight well know two Int iguages but at any o ne t ime Uc onn ecton lyon e to cor tex, and thus t lie othe r remains u~icons cious r id unexpressed.Th e l ink ing of intentional cotisciousness to cortex is not as naive as it firstappears . As the recently re ported cases of We iskra ~itz t nl. (1974; Weiskrantz,1986) that introdu ced this chapter have show n, blind-sight results wh en patientsare subjected to unilateral removal of th e visual cortex. As note d, these patie ntsinsist they cann ot see anything in t he field corltralateral to their lesion, bu t w he ntested they can locate and identify large objects in their blind hemifield withremarkable accuracy. Furthermore, there are patients with unilateral neglectfollowing parietal lobe lesions (see Pribrarn anci Bradley, 1997; Heilman andValenstein, 1 972, for review). Neglect pa tien ts often can get around using theirneglected lim bs appropriately. Th us, blind-sight indicates that a cortical system isinvolved in determining an nllocetttric, objective world while somatosensoryneglect indicates, as William Jatn es suggested, tliat an egocerltric subjective asp ectto consc iousnes s is also organized by a braiti system. I-l.M. he patient described inthe intro duction wh o sustairied an atiiygdala Iiippocarnpal resection, has beentrained in opera.nt tasks arid tlie effects of training have persisted without de-crem ent for years, despite protestation s from the patient that he doesn't recognizethe si tuat ion arid that he rem embe rs nothing of th e training (Sidrnan et nl. 1969).In monkeys w ith such lesions we have show n almos t perfect retention of t rainingafter a two-year period, retention that is better than that shown by urioperatedcontrol subjects. These monkeys and H.M., the blind-sight and neglect patients,are clearly conscious in the medical inst rum enta l sense. W ha t has gon e wr on g istheir ability to reflect on their behavior and experience, an inability within theimpaired sphere of clearly distinguishing personal from extra-personal reality.Th is leaves them with impaire d cotisciousness in th e pliilos oi~her 's ense: behavio ran d experience are no longer interltional.Th e thrust of contem pora ry psychoanalytical thinking , as well as that of experi-mentalists such as Iiilgard (no ted abov e), is it the direction of interpret in g theconscious-unconscious distinction in the philosophical sense. For instance, Ma tteBlanco (1975) proposes that cot~ scio usne ss e defined by the ability to make cleardistinctions, to identify alternatives. Making clear distinc tions tvould include b eingable to tell person al fro m e xtrap erso nal reality. By contra st, uriconsc ious processeswo uld, acc ordi ng to Ma tte Blanco, be composecl of itlfitiite sets where para doxreigns anci opposite s tnerge into sa~n eness. Wh en infinities are being co m pu te dthe ord ina ry rules o f logic cto no t liold. 'l'lius. dividing a lirle of irifiriitt letigtli


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8 Karl Pribratrrnoted, Gilbert Ryle (1949) has rem ind ed u s that in fact the term "n iind"is derivedfrom "minding," th at is, atten din g.

For a half a century my laboratory (as well as man y oth ers) has been investi-gat ing the neural mechanisms involved in at ten t io ~i . comprehensive review ofthese data (P r ibram a nd McGuinness, 1975, 1992) discerned three suc h control-l ing processes: one deals with short phasic response to an input (arousal andfamiliarization); a second relates to tonic readiness of the organism to respondselectively (activation a nd select ion) ; an d a third (effor t and com fort) acts to co-ordinate the phasic (arousal) and tonic (act ivation) tneclianistns. Separate neuraland neurochemical systems (Pr ibram, 1977a, 1990; Pr ibram and McGuinness,1992) are involved in the phasic (arousal) and tonic (activation) processes: thephasic centers on the amygdala; the tonic, on the basal ganglia o f the forebrain. Th ecoo rdin ating system (effort) critically involves the hippocartipus, a phylogen etic-ally ancient pa r t of the neural apparatu s.Evidence (reviewed by Pribram an d McGuinness, 1992) f rom the analysis ofchanges in the electrical activity of th e brain evoked by brief s ensory stim ulati onhas show n tha t the arousal an d act ivat ion systems operate o n so me m ore basicprocess centered on the dorsal thalamus, the way-station of sensory in pu t to th ecerebral cortex. Brain electrical activity evoked by sensory stimulation can beanalyzed in to com po nen ts. Early co nip on en ts reflect processing via systems thatdirectly (via the thalamu s) con nec t sen sory surfaces with cortical surfaces. Latercomponents reflect processes initiated in the thalamocortical arid related basalganglia systems that ope rate downw ard o nt o the brain stem ( tectal region) , intur n, influencing a thalamic "gate" th at mo dulates activity in the direct sens orypathways. It is the activity reflected in these later co mp otien ts of th e brain electricalactivity t ha t con stitu tes "activation.')

The thalamic "gate" is, however, also regulated by input from the systemcentered o n the amygdala-the arousal system. Th is system, when stim ulated,produces a n effect o n th e "gateVopposi te o that of the act ivation system.Th e evidence also indicates that the coordin at ion o f pl iasic (arousal) an d tonic(activation) at tent ional processes of ten de ma nd s "effort ."When at tent ion mu st be"paid," the hippo campa systeni becom es involved an d influences the arousalsystem rostral ly through frontal connectior is with the amygdala system andinfluences the activation system caudally via conne ctio ns in th e brain stem . Payingattent ion becomes conscious in the intent ional sense. Th us at this juncture therelation of atten tion to intention as used in the ordin ary sense-that is, volitionan d will-comes into focus. Again, William J ame s had already po inted o u t that agood deal of what we call voluntary effor t is the m aintaining o f at tent ion or therepeated retu rnin g of atten tion to a problem until i t yields solution .

William Jarnes had apposed ~ v l l o e r ~ ~ o t i o r it14 motivation (which he called


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11~ n s t i ~ i c t ) .lere, once ag ain , bra in scietitists Ililve Ilacl a gre at d eal to say. Begin-ningw ith W,~ lter annon 's (19 27) expcrinlelltally based critique of Jam es, ollowedby Lashley's critiq ue of C an no n (1960 , to the anatomical ly based suggest ions ofPapez (19 37) an d their Ino re curren t versions by M acLean (19 49), brain scientistshave been deeply concerned with the processes that organize emotional andmotivational experience an d exp ression. Two m ajo r discoveries have acceleratedour ability to cope with the issues and placed the earlier mo re speculative acco untsinto better perspective. On e of the discoveries has been th e role of the ret icularformation of the brain stem (Ma gou n, 1950) an d i ts chemical systems of brainamines (see, e.g., review by Barchas t r l l . 1982; Pr ibram an d M cGuinness, 1992)that regulate states of aler tness and m oo d. Lindsley 195 1) proposed an act ivationmechanism o fen lot ion an d motivat ion on the basis of the init ial discovery and hasmore recently (Lindsley an d Wilson, 1976 ) dctailed the pathw ays by which su chactivation can exert con trol over brain processes. Th e ot he r discovery, by O lds an dMilner (1954 ), is of the system o f brain tracts th at, wh en electrically excited, resultsin reinforcement (increase in probability of recurrence of the behavior that hasproduced the electr ical brain st imulat ion) o r deterrence (decrease in probabil i tythat such behavior will recu r).In my at te mp ts to organize these discoveries an d ot he r data th at relate brainmechanisms to em ot ion , I foun d i t necessary (a s had Darw in, 1872) to dist inguishclearly between those d ata th at referred to experience (feelings) and those thatreferred to expression, and fur the r to dist inguish ernotion from no ti vat ion ( re -viewed by Pribr am , 197 . I'hus feelings were found to encom pas s bo th em otion aland motivational experience-emotional as affective (arou sal an d familiarization)and mo tivation a s centered o n a reacliness (ac tivation an d selection).

The wealth o f new data and these insights obtained from the m ma de i t f rui tfulto reexamine the Janlesian posi t ions with regard to consciousness an d u ncons ciousprocesses (Pribranl, 1981). I found James in e r ror (a ) in his overemphasis on thevisceral determ inatio n of em otion al exper ience (at t i tudinal factors dep end ing o nsensory feedback tio m the som atic ~iiusc'tl latitrc crc i~lcludecl y ja ~n es 1ut notemphasized) and ( b ) in his failure to take into con siderat ion the role of expecta-tions (th e representatiorial role of th e organ ization of fam iliarity an d , therefore,novelty) in the organization of emotion s. O n the oth er han d, James had r ightlyemphasized that emotion al processes take place pr imari ly within the organ ismwhile motivat ion a nd volit ion will reach beyond into the organism's env ironm ent.Further, I found that Jam es was almost universally m isinterpreted as hold ing aperipheral theo ry of ernotion an d m ind. Throu gho ut his wr i tings he emphasizesthe effect that p eripheral stinluli ( inclu ding tho se of visceral origi n) exert on b rainprocesses. The con fusion co mes ab ou t because of James's insistence tha t e mo tionsconcern bodily processes, that they sto p sho rt at the skin. Nowh ere, however, doe she identify emotions with these bodily processes. Emotions are always theresultant o f their effect on the brain . Janie s is in fact explicit o n th is poin t w hen hediscusses the natu re of th e inp ut to the brain f rom the viscera. ie poin ts o u t two


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possibilities: emotions are processed by a separate brain systeni, or they areprocessed by the sam e systems as are perceptions. l 'oday, we know that b ot h pos-sibilities are realized: pa rts of tlie frontol itlib ic forebr ain (especially tlie atnygdalaan d related systems) process visceroaittononiic bodily inp uts, and the results ofprocessing bec om e distrib uted via brain stem systenis that diffusely influence th eperceptual systems (Pr ibr am 196 1,19 91).

The distinction between the brain nlechanisrns of triotivation and will are lessclearly enunciated by Jam es. He grapples w ith tlic problem arid sets tlie q uest ionsthat mu st be an swered. Cla rity did riot coriie until tlie 19GOs, whe n several theori sts(e.g., MacKay, 1966; Mit tlest aed t, 1968; Wa ddin gtot i, 1957; R. Asliby, personalcomm unication, 1970; McFarlatid, 1971; Pr ib ra ~n 971 began to poin t ou t thedifference between feedback, liorlieostatic processes on the one hand and pro-grams, which are feedforward, homeorlietic processes, on the other. Feedbackprocesses depen d o n e rro r processing an d are tlierefore sensitive to pertu rbat ions.Feedforwards, by contrast, process in form ation .

Clinical neurology had classically distinguished the n~e clian isrns tivolved involuntary frorn those involved r ~nvolutitary behavior. The distinction rests o nthe observation th at lesions of the cerebellar henlispheres impa ir intention al (vol-unta ry) behavior, while basal ganglia lesions result in disturba nces of involunta rymove men ts. Dama ge to the cerebellar circuits is involved in a feedforward rath erthan a feedback nieclianistn (as already described by Rucli i t i the 1951 StevensHclrtdbook ofExperirrterrtu1 Psycllology, alt ho ug h Ruch did no t have the term feed-forward available to hin i). I have exterided this conclusion (Pribrarn, 197 1) o n t hebasis of microe lectrode analyses by Eccles et nl 1967) to suggest that the cerebellarhem ispheres perf orm calculations in fast- time; tha t is, they extrapolate where aparticular m ovem ent would en d were i t to be continued a n d send tlie results ofsuch a calculation to the cerebral mot or cortex, where they can be compa red withthe target to w hich the move metit is directed. Experinierital analysis of tlie fun c-t ions of the m oto r cortex had show n that such targets are coniposed ofMIm ages fAchievement constructe d in part o n the basis of past experience (Pr ibr am , 1971,chs. 1 3,14 an d 16, 1991, Lecture 6; P ribrarn et nl. 195511956,1984).Just as the cerebellar circuit has been show n to serve intentio nal behavior, thebasal ganglia have been show n t o be iniportatit to itlvoluntary processes. We havealready noted th e involvement of these structure s it tlie control of activation, thereadiness of organisms to respond. Lesions in the basal ganglia grossly amplifytrem ors at rest a nd marke dly restrict expressions of niotivational feelings. Neuro-logical the ory has lo ng held (see, e.g., Bucy, 1944) that these dis turbances are du eto interference by the lesion of tlie nor ma l feedback relationships between basalganglia a n d cerebral cortex. In fact, surgical retnovals of ni oto r cortex have beenperform ed o n patients with basal ganglia lesions in o rder to redress the im balanceprod uce d by tlie initial lesions. Such resection s have proved re ~n ar ka bl y uccessfulin alleviating the often distressing contin uing clisturbances of involunta ry mo ve-m en t that ch aracterize these basal ganglia diseases.


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to d o with it are sytlonytnous. In slio rt, altertiatives, saniple size, clloice, co gn iti o~ i,inforniation in tlie Sh ann on sense, mid rneanirig are closely inter\voven concep ts.Finally, wh en agtlosia is severe i t is often acco tiipanied by wh at is tern ied neglect.Th e pat ient appears no t only no t to knoiv t l ia t l ie doesn't kno w bu t to actively denythe agnosia. Typical is a patient onc e hntl wh o repeatedly \lad difficulty in sittingu p in bed. I pointed out to lier tl iat her arni Iiad beconie etitangled in the bed-clothes-she w o i~ ld ckno wledg e tliis mon ietltarily, otily to lose tliat arrn on cemo re in a tangled envirot iment . Part of the perception of h er body, her corporealconsciousness seenis t have beconie extinguislied.

In monkeys the disturbances produced by restricted lesions of the convexalintrinsic cortex are also produced by lesions of the parts of the basal ganglia(implicated in activation, readiness) to which those parts of the cortex project.Further, recent expeririletits have shown that the neglect syndrorne can beprod uced in monkey s by lesions of the dopa niine rgic nigrostriatal systetii (Wrig ht,1980 ). Th is special co nn ect ion betw een intrin sic (recall tha t tliis is also called as-sociation ) cortex and the basal ganglia furth er supp ort s the coriceptiori that thesesystems niake possible, o n the basis of use, the distinc tion between an eg ocentricobjective corporeal self ( th e nie ) a nd an extraco rporeal allocentric experience(see Prib ram , 1991, Lecture 6 for detailed expo sition of ho\v this process ope rates) .However, this objectively experienced me can be sharply distinguish ed from asubjectively experienc ed I. An excellent revie\v of the hist ory of diffe renti atingthis corporeal objective me from a subjective I can be found in Herm ans e t I/.,(199 2).Th e next section develops the relation bettveeti brain processing arid theMI.

Narmt iv e Cor~.ccior.rsr~ess-TheFrorltolirrtltic For.eltt.tzirlAs is well kno\vn, frorital lesions were prod uced for a period of tinie in ord er t orel ieve intractable suffer ing, compulsions , obsessions, an d end oge nou s depres-sions. W he n effective in the relief of suffering an d d epression , these psychosurgicalprocedures revealed in hu ma ns the no w well-establ ished functional relat ionshipbetween frontal intr insic cor tex an d the l imbic forebrain. This relat ionship wasestablished by research undertaken in nonhuman priniates as a result of clinicalexperience (Pri bram 1950, 1954, 1958). Further, frontal lesions can lead either t operseverative, compu lsive behav ior o r to distractibility in m onkey s, and this is'alsotrue of h um an s (Pr ib ram et ol ., 1964; Oscar-Berri ian, 1975) . Th us , a fai lure to b eguided by the outcomes or the consequences of a pat ient 's behavior can beacc ou nte d for-as well as its opp osit e: tlie alleviation of obsessive-compulsivebehavior . Extreme forms of distract ibi l i ty and obsession are due to a lack ofsensitivity of a selective readiness process to feedback f ro ~ ti onseq uences. Both

the results of exp erim ents with mo nke ys (P ribra ni, 195911962) arid clinical ob -serv atio ns attest to tlie fact tliat subjects with frontal le sions, tvliether surgical,traumatic, or neoplastic, fail to be guided by consequences (Luria t ill., 1964;Konow and Pribrani , 1970) .


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Cor~seqirrrrcesaseile outcorries of'bcliavior. the tradi tion o f t he experirneritalanalysis of behavior, conse quences are reirlforcers that influerlce t he recurrence ofthe behavior. Conse quences are th us a series of events (Latin ex-verlire, out -c om e) ,outcomes that guide action and thereby attain predictive value (confidenceestimates). Such consequences-that is, sequen ces of events tha t for m their ow nconfidential context-become in hu m an s, envisione d eventua lities (P rib ram ,1964,19 71,1991, Lecture 10 arid Append ix G).CortFder~ce mplies fa~n iliarit y.Experiments with monkeys (Pribram et al. ,1979) and hu m an s (Luria et nl., 1964) have show n that repeated arousal to a norienting stimulus habituates; that is, the orienting reaction gives way to famil-iarization. Familiarization is dis rup ted by limbic (amygd ala) and frontal lesions(Pribram et al., 1979; Luria et n l . 1964). Ordinarily orien ting leads to repeateddistraction a nd thus a failure to allow consequences to form . W hen the process offamiliarization is disrupted, the outcom es-of-behavio rs, or events, become in-consequential. W hen intact, the fam iliarization process is seg men ted by orientin greactions in to episodes within w hich confid ence values can be com e established.

In such an episodic process t he develop ment of confidence is a function of co-here nce~ nd correlat ions a mo ng the events being processed. Whe n coherence an dcorrelation s pan multiple episodes , the orga nism bec ome s corrirnitted to a courseof action (a prior inten tion, a strategy), which th en guides fu rther action an d isresistant to pe rturba tion by particular orienting reactions (arousals). The organ-ism is now competent to carry o ut the action (inte ntion -in-a ction , or tactic).Particular outc om es now guide compe tent performance; they n o longer produceorienting reactions (Bro oks, 1986; Pr ibr am , 1980).

This cascade that characterizes episodic processing leads ultimately to co nsider-able autonomy, or confidence in , the com mit ted c ompete nce. Envisioned eventsare woven into coh eren t subjectivity, a story, a narrative, th e m yt h by which 1 live.This narrative comp oses an d is comp osed of an i nten tion, a strategy that w orks forthe individual in practice, a practical guid e to ac tion in achievin g stability in th eface of a staggering range of va riations of events (Pr ibr am , 1991,1992) .

Consciousness is manifest (by verbal repo rt) wh en familiarization is pertu rbed ;an episode is updated a nd inc orporated into a larger contextual schem e (th e nar-rative) that includes bo th the familiar and novel episodes (P rib ram , 1991, Appen -dices and D). Consciousness becomes at tenuated w hen actions and their guidescohere-the actio ns bec ome skilled, graceful an d aut om ati c (Miller et al., 1960).

5 BraasceadentaB ConsciolasnessThe Spir itual Mature of HumankindTranscending conscious and especially unconsc ious d eterm inan ts of experiencewas thecentral concern of phil osop hers an d psychologists in th e late 1 9th century.Freud is famous for his formulation s of the im po rt of un conscious processes an d


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their emergence in niytliology (e.g ., the Oe dipu s Syndrom e); Jung was devoted toexploring the collective uncons cious; an d J a~ rle s ublished an essay o n religiousexperience. The esoteric trarlitiorl in Western culture and the tliystical traditionsof the Far East are replete with i t ~ st a~ ic esf uncotnn lon s tates tha t p roduce un-common contents. These states are achieved by a variety of techniques such asmeditation,Yoga, or Zen. Th e conten ts of processing in such states appear to differfrom o rdina ry feelings or perceptions. A mo ng others, experiences su ch as the fol-lowing are described (see Morse t d . , 1989 an d Stevenson, 1970, for review). O n etype of experience is kno wn as the oceanic, namely, a merging of corporea l andextracorp oreal reality. An othe r is kn ow n as out-of-bod y ; naniely, corporea l aridextracorporeal realities con tinue to be clearly distitiguished b ut are experienced bystill ano the r reality: a nleta-me. In still an ot he r type of experienc e the I be-comes a tran sparent experiencing of everything everywhere an d there is no longerthe segmentation into episodes, nor d o events become e nmesh ed in a narrat ivestructure. All of these experiences have in com tno n a transcende ntal relationsh ipbetween ord inary exper ience and som e m ore enco ~np assin g rgan izing pr inc ip le.

It is this relationsh ip that is orditiarily term ed spiritual. As will be dev elop edbelow, the spiritual conte nts of corisciousness can be ac cou nted for by the effect ofexcitation of the frontolitnbic forebrain (involved in narrative construction) onthe dendritic rnicroprocess, which characterizes cortical receptive fields in thesen sory extrinsic systerns (involved in th e cotistr uctio n of objective reality).

In addition to the gross corre spo nden ce between dend ritic receptive fields in thebrain cortex an d the org anization o f sens ory surfaces that gives rise to the overallcharacteristics of processing in the extrinsic systems, a nlicroprocess tha t d ep end so n th e internal organiza tion of each de nd riti c field com es in to play. Th is interrialorganization of dendri t ic f ields embod ies, anlo ng othe r characterist ics, a spectraldom ain: dendri t ic f ields of neuro ns in the extr insic cortex are tuned to l i~i i i tedbandwidths o frequencies of radi ant energy (vis ion) ,so und , an d tact ile vibrat ion.I have reviewed this evidence extensively on a number of occasions (Pribram,1966, 1971, 1982, 1991; Pr ibr am eta[. , 1974).Perhaps the m ost dram atic of these data are those ~vti icl i er tain to vision. Th ecortical neurons of the visual system are arr ang ed as are th e oth er sensory systemsso as to ref lect more or less isomorphically the arrangement of the receptorsurfaces to which they are conn ecte d (th us, the honlurlculi that Wilder Penfield(e.g., 1969) an d othe rs have m ap ped o n to th e cortical surface of the extrinsicprojection systems). However, within this gross arrangern erit lie th e receptive fieldso f each of the neurons-a receptive field bein g dete rmi ned by the functionaldendri t ic arborization of that n euro n th at makes contact with the r l lore per ipheralparts of th e systern. Th us the receptive field of a ne uro n is that pa rt of th e enviro n-me nt that is processed by the par ts of the systenl to which the ne uron is connected.Each receptive field is sensitive to approx imately an o ctave (ra ng e from on e-ha lf toone-and-a-half octaves) of spatial frequency. It is this frequency-selective micro-process tha t operates in a hologt-apliic-like m an ner .


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Processing can th us be conceived as opera ting som ewllat l ike the prod uct ion ofmusic by means of a piano. The sensory surface is analogous to a keyboard.Keyboard and strings are spatially related to provide the organization o t heprocess. When individual strings are activated they resonate over a limitedbandwidth o f frequency. I t is the com binat io n o f the spat ia l arran gem ent a nd thefrequency-specific resonance of the s t r ings that m akes the prod uct ion of m usicpossible.The gross and micro-organizat ion of the cort ical neurons in the extrinsicsystems resembles the organization of a multiplex o r patch hologr am. patchhologram is characterized by a Gabor elem entary func tion, which Gab or called aquantum of inforrnation (Gabor, 1946; Pribr arn, 1991, Lectures 2 a n d 4) . Tech-

nically, wh at is kno wn as aUG auss ian nvelope constrains the otherwise unlimitedsinusoid described by what is known as a Fourie r t ransform to make up theGabor funct ion. Experiments in my laboratory (Spinel l i and Pribram, 1967;Pribram t nl., 198 1) have show n that electrical excitation of frontal a nd limbicstructures relaxes these Gaussian con straints , which inhib it reception. Whe n thisoccurs dur ing ord inary excita tion of the frontol imbic systems of the forebrain,processing leads to narrative co nstru ction (for details see Pri bra m, 1991, Lecture10). When frontol imbic exci ta t ion becomes overwh elming, experience is deter-mined by an unco nstra ined holograph ic process.

Holograms of the type involved in br a i~ i rocessing are com posed by convert ing(e.g.,via Fourier tra nsf orn latio n) successive senso ry images (e.g., fram es of a mov iefilm) into their spectral representations a n d patchirig these mic rorep resen tationsinto orderly spatia l arrangements that represent the original tempo ral or der ofsuccessive images (see Bracewell, 1989, for a n excellent brief review ). W he n suc hconversions are linear (as, e.g., when they emp loy th e Fo urier t ran sfo rm ) they canreadilybe reconverted (e.g., by the inverse Fourier tra nsf orm ) int o mov ing sens oryimages. Th e spectra l dom ain is pecul iar in that inform ation in the G abor sensebecomes bo th distr ibuted over the extent of each receptive field (each qu an tu m )and enfolded within i t. Th us sensory-image reconstruct ion can occu r from anypart of the total ag gregate of receptive fields. Th is is wha t gives the ag gregate itsholographic, holistic aspect. All input becomes d is t r ibuted and enfolded, in-cluding the dim ens ion s of space an d t im e arid therefore causality.

This timeless/spaceless/causeless aspect of processing is instigated by fronto-limbic excitation that practically elimina tes the inhib itory s ur ro un ds of receptivefields in the sensory systems (Spinel li and Pr ib ra ~ n 967; Pribram t d l . 1981),allowing these systems to fu nct ion holistically. It is this holistic typ e of processingthat is responsible t;)r the ayp'lrent extrasensory di ~i ie ns io ns f experience tha tcharacterize the esoteric traditions: because of their enfolded property theseprocesses tend to s wa m p the ord ina ry dis tinction s such as the difference betweencorporeal an d extraco rpo real reality.

The ordinary dist inct ions resul t from an en hanc em ent o f the inhibi tory sur-rounds of the receptive fields when the systems of the p oster ior cortical convexity


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become activated (Pribram t R I . 1981). As a consequerice, th e sensory systembecomes an information-processing system in Shannon's sense: choices am on galternatives becom e possible. This is com para ble to t he process called theUc ollapseof the wave function in qua nt um physics. By con trast , in the esoteric traditions,consciousness is no t limited to choices an lon g alternatives.

Instead, this type of conscious experience shares with unconscious states theattri but e of infinity suggested by Matte Blanco (1975). An intrig uing a n d relateddevelopment (because it deals with the specification of a more encompassing,t cosmic order) has occurred in qua ntu m physics. Over the past 5 years it has be-com e evident that there is a l imit to the accuracy with which certain me asurem entscan be ma de when others are being taken. This l imit is expressed as an indeter-minacy. Gabor, in his description of a quantum of information, showed that as imilar indeterminacy descr ibes com mun icat ion . This leads to a u ni t of m ini mu muncer ta in ty , a maximum amount of informat ion that can be packed for pro-cessing. Th us there is a convergence of o ur u nderstan ding of the micro structure o fcomm unication-and therefore of observation-and the mi cro struc ture ofmatter. Th e necessity of specifying the ob servation s tha t lead to inferring thesemi nute properties of m atter has led noted physicis ts to write a represer~tatiorl fthe observer into this description. Some of these physicists have noted thesimilarity of this specification to the esoteric transcendental descriptions ofconsc iousne ss. Books with suc h titles as Tlie Too of Physics (C ap ra, 1975 ) a n d TheDan ce of the u i Masters (Zukav, 1971) have resulted .

Laszlo's Qu antu m-V acu um Field the ory 1 995 ,199 6) fits int o this tradition. Aswith physicists, he acknowledges the critical role of observation in all scientificinvestigation. Obse rvation is a cotiscious trying at unde rsta ndin g, as indicated inthe introduction to this chapter. Thus tnany physicists, as well as Laszlo, haveemb raced a broade r definition of consciousness tha n just o u r experience of it.Thes e scientists, therefore, take o u r transfo rmativ e, holographic-like e xperiencethat transcends the space-t ime coordinates of ordinar y appearances as furtherevide nce for such a cosmic un ifying field.There is, therefore, in the making a real revolutiorl in Western thought. Thescientific an d esoteric trad itions have been clearly at o dd s since the t im e of Galileo.Each n ew scientific discovery a n d th e th eo ry dev elope d fro111 it has, up unt il now,resulted in the widening of the rift between objective science and the spiritualaspects of h u m a n n at ur e. T h e rif t re ac he d a n l a x i ~ i ~ u t ~ io ~ v a r dhe end of the 19thcentury. We were asked to choose between Go d an d D arwin , an d heaven an d hellwere shown by Freud to reside within us an d no t in o ur relat ionship to th e naturaluniverse. The discoveries of 2 0th- cen tury science briefly note d here, bu t reviewedextensively elsewhere (Pribram, 1986, 1991 , d o no t f it this mold . For once therecent f indings of science an d th e spir i tual experiences of hum ank ind are con-sonant. This augurs well for the upcom ing ne w milletiniun~-a science that com esto term s with the spiri tual nature of hum an kin d niay well outs tr ip th e techno -logical science o the in i~nct l ia te ast i l l its contt.il? r~tiono I i~in ian elfare.


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ote1 There is thus a large element of beh avior in anitnals as well as h um an s that falls un de r this

definit ion of unconscious . Only to the degree to which n on hum ans s how intent ional ity , thusthe abil ity to discr iminate themselves f rom their environ ment , would we infer that they areconscious. In ad dit ion , as I have claimed, there is a cuddliness criterion to be applied

(Prib ram 1976), by which, as mo re elegantly stated by Searle (1992), we m ea n t o take intoconsideration the form of the embod ime nt of the creature to wh om we at t r ibute conscious-ness.

ReferencesBarchas, J.E., Ciaranello, II.D. Stolk, J.h.l ., and Ham bur g, D.A. (1982). Biogenic am ines an d

behavior. In S. Levine, Ed., Horrrlotles arrli behtlvior (p p. 235-329). New York: Acade mic Press.Bekesy Vo n., G. 1967). Se~lsoryr~ltibiriotl. rinc eton , NJ : Prin ceto n U niversity Press.Bracewell, R N. 198 9). T h e Four ier Tr an sfo rm . Scierlrific Atrtericarl, 86-95.Brillouin, L. 196 2). Scierrce a n d itlforttlatiotl tlreory, 2nd ed n. New York: Ac ade mic Press.Brindley, G.S. an d M ert on , P.A. (19 60). T he abse nce of position sense in t he h ut na n eye. Jortrnal

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