Am liking how you have used available brain-science facts with the apparent
aim to arrive at a simplifying, yet unifying, explanatory reasoning about
how we work.
And I think you have succeeded very well.
Most people keep themselves pleased (or free of psychological pain) by
noticing, picking out, and pointing out to others, what *they perceive* as
being loose ends and new or since long existing but not yet fitted-in but
relevant (at least as it seems to them) facts or observations and
interpretation.
Just one reflection (one that is non-critical of your "conjecture"):
To me it seems important to recognize that "the novelty reflex" is at the
base of everything we do that involve neurons; and, that this non-learned
kind of reflex (the existence of which does not depend on any prior
conditioning) are joined and 'supplemented' by "reinforcements"
(LTP-changes) of neurons whose activity is at the essence (or essential part
of) what might be described as our perception of and "actending to"
primarily opportune (directly or indirectly procreation promoting) and
primarily adverse (frightening or painful) aspects of our "Total Situation".
["Actention" (and thereof "actending") is an amalgam of the words "activity"
and "attention" one that combines emphasizing the implicit '"focusing" and
"paying" aspect-meaning' of "attention" with the word "activity" _meant in
the sense of_ any particular motor or muscle-work involving behavior
(and/or) emotion (and/or) mental (cognitive) preoccupation.]
["Total Situation" = The constant weighing together of our presently
received environmental influences, our personal past "conditioned-in" (and
in our parents and grand-parents epigenetically imprinted transmitted and by
cultural/social-interactive transmission passed on) experiences combined
with all our phylogenetically established predispositions.]
IMO one can loosely (but well :>) consider the basal ganglia to be "a
central actention-switching station", and the TRN to be a central
pain-perception filtering device, and the frontal lobes as being an
especially ambiadvantageously adaptive (and evolved/naturally selected to
that effect) "super system configurating" (to borrow from someone who is
very famous in bionet.neuroscience circles) functure.
In any case, what is carried out by our brain (or nervous system) together
with the rest of us (other functional cells and cell structures) and our
influential surroundings is (as I see it) an "actention selecting service".
And so, in that sense, I am more than happy referring to ourselves as having
an "Actention Selection System" (as an alternative to calling it the brain
or nervous - or central nervous - sytsem).
It is also seems valuable to me, not just from an evolution pertain
theoretical perspective, to use a concept (in this case a conEPT) that
reminds us of that we are using vital energy (or, more generally, finite
'brainbody resources') when we attend (actend) to "this or to that" and "in
one way or another".
Finally, I contend that it is worthwhile to look at and understand ourselves
and our brain, metaphorically, as a competition (that goes on at different
more or less interdependent levels or "divisions") between differently
weighted (by our phylogeny and prior experiences) "actention modules" (many
which are get acquired as we grow and learn), by means of (in a general
sense) "lateral (intermodular) inhibition".
P
<rscan from nycap.rr.com> wrote in message
news:1173641442.409858.179100 from n33g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> This paper describes a nervous system while it thinks. Thinking is
> described as the interposition of synaptic events beyond minimal
> reaction time. If anyone is aware of groups or sites where similar
> things are talked about, please let me know at
>>rscan from nycap.rr.com>> or in this group.
>> Ray
>>> If anyone is interested in how the brain comes to think, they might
> try
>>http://home.nycap.rr.com/rscanlon/brain/brain.htm>
