Behind the Scenes of The Brain Show

by Zeev Nitsan

  Some others find peace and acceptance in the saying that the circumstances of our life and their ending are only the way the universe acts.

  Despair

  Certainty is the end of hope, and in the absence of hope despair usually takes the reins. Under such circumstances, our brain produces a behavioral repertoire that does not exist under different life circumstances.

  Despair, as an existential state, is a powerful human ethos facing our ephemeral materialism, or, as other might claim, the casualness of life.

  Despair of the Present Detached From the Burden of the Past and the Promise of the Future

  When a person is looking from the deck of his life ship and feels as if he were the captain of the Titanic right after hitting the iceberg, his brain comes up with action options that could not have come up in any other scenario. In the same spirit, there is a controversial saying, ascribed to a Jesuit monk: “When we live on the verge of despair, we truly live.”

  An Awakening Experience

  At a young age, we feel that the scenario of the end of our material existence is a possibility, and those who internalize the fact that it is not a possibility but, rather, a certainty experience a conscious awakening. This conscious awakening is a “metanoia”—a perceptional change, a breaking of the “glass ceiling” of the perceptional conceptualization ability and acquisition of a more complex perception that substantially changes the perception of life.

  Metanoic experiences might take place, inter alia, following brain injury or “revelation experiences”—i.e., following a structural change or perceptual change that naturally induces a structural change. This phenomenon demonstrates, yet again, that insights and thoughts have a structural and functional manifestation, which means they are wired and engraved in a three-dimensional neural structural pattern and a unique electrophysiological action pattern. Many people among those who experienced near-death experiences undergo metanoia, each of them in an individual, unique pattern.

  The Silhouette of Extinction

  The silhouette of extinction walks stealthily by our side from our very first steps on the path of life. During childhood we come across flowers that bent their heads and whose petals have withered; we come across aquarium fish that float motionless on the surface of water, or a puppy that did not make it to the other side of the road. There is the kind elderly woman, who used to offer cookies to us, who has suddenly disappeared. As years go by, the trail of people whom we used to meet in life’s paths and are no longer with us becomes longer and thicker. The fact that life is ephemeral makes it more valuable.

  The shadow of death is cast over many of our thoughts. The sorrow of our finality is soaked in us, hides and reappears, alternately, in front of the eye of our consciousness.

  Uninvited thoughts regarding the finality of life jump on the stage of our consciousness, especially when the markers of finality reappear: the end of a day, the end of a season, the end of love.

  We all resemble impermanent refugees, with respect to our presence in the world, and the entire world resembles one big refugee camp.

  When we march along the expected procession of generations, we first part from the parents of our parents’ parents (if they were lucky enough to have great-grandchildren), from our parents’ parents, from our parents, and then there is nothing more that separates us from death.

  Usually, we are remembered for the blink of an eye and then forgotten for good. The ones who are remembered for a longer time enjoy another brief moment. When we look at the “waterfall of generations” in retrospect, we can see that most of us retain the memory of our parents, a little less the memory of our parents’ parents, and beyond our great-grandparents a dark hole gapes, in which the characters are faceless and nameless and are referred to only as part of family folklore, if at all.

  Some imagine their final departure from life as a prodigious death that weaves heroic tunes in the gloomy requiem, but most of the time we are doomed to fail in our attempt to plan the rules of encounter with the figure in the black cloak that carries the scythe. The circumstances of our departure are unexpected and soaked in thick layers of capricious randomality.

  Death is an eminent sociologist that grants its favors equally to all human creatures, and, at the same time, it is amazingly creative. Each exit door from the hall of life is custom made for each person who uses it, as described by the writer Ivan Turgenev: “Death is an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.”

  In a case of a person who does not die abruptly, the journey toward death is a totally personal journey characterized by inherent loneliness.

  A sense of missed opportunity is mixed in the cocktail of senses related to departing from life. A familiar part of it is regretting not doing something now that it is too late to do it.

  The sense of a satisfactory life, as each individual defines it, however, is in correlation with a lesser sense of missed opportunity.

  The philosopher Martin Heidegger defined death as no chance of a second chance.

  In Greek mythology, the Cyclops got a horrible punishment—it was informed of the day it would die. In reality, when a terminal patient is informed of the estimated death date, this knowledge might increase his suffering to the point that any chance of reasonable living is abolished.

  We all live on borrowed time, but in the case of people whose life is in danger, like those who suffer from serious diseases, the overturned hourglass appears on the screen of their consciousness much more frequently as the sense that closing time is near and the sun is lower in the top of the trees and about to set.

  In the evolution process, marvelous sand castles, such as the human brain, are created. These castles are probably doomed to be washed away and vanish. The wastefulness of this process is both magnificent and horrible.

  The invisible, but highly realistic, sword of Damocles is always hanging above our heads.

  As a semi-macabre quip, a website called the “Death Clock” introduces four questions to the surfer and, according to the answers provided, an estimation of death date is made. The date on which my birth certificate expires—prematurely, no doubt—was set by the website as the fourteenth of March, 2040, which means I have sufficient time to revise my will.

  Our life expectancy according to the Death Clock website is an interpolation to a value between zero and 122 years and 164 days, which is the longest human life expectancy according to Guinness Book of Records. Let us hope that each one of the readers of this book will increase the top limit of this interpolation with a satisfactory quality of living.

  Chapter 9: A Beautiful Mind

  Human Intelligence and the Intelligence of the Ones that Share the Planet with Us

  Some people claim that animals have a basic sensory awareness that experiences world manifestations in their raw version and that they do not have the tools for a more sophisticated processing, which is considered the preeminence of man.

  It is also believed with regard to the ability to foresee the future, which is probably a mental skill that is almost unique to human beings. It seems that most animals—and some claim even all animals, except for man—live with the perception of “eternal present,” of stimulus and reaction, of the here and now.

  It seems that it is more correct, however, to say that many of our mental skills, as human beings, are on the same spectrum as the skills of other animals. These skills reached their peak in the performance of the human brain, but they are not unique to us and should not be viewed as features of “binary manifestation.” In other words, one should not conclude that these skills are fully present in humans and totally absent in animals. These mental skills have probably appeared gradually throughout evolution, rather than flickered at once, in the brain of the Homo sapiens. It seems that our species is lucky, since these skills have crossed a certain threshold from which the capabilities constantly advance, as in crossing the threshold of a singularity point.

  From a phylogenetic point of view, we are lucky. The Homo
erectus brought about the gift of erect body, and the Homo sapiens brought about the gift of improved intelligence. Our exclusive status as the most intelligent creatures in the known universe brings along a heavy burden of responsibility, however.

  As a species we tend toward teleological solipsism: the past led to our creation, the future will be created by us—and, according to this spirit, we often judge the intelligence of animals based on anthropocentric features (which derives from perceiving humans as the center of the world).

  The writer Isaac Bashevis Singer once made a claim that is like a punch in the soft belly of emotions: “For the animals in the food industry, each day is an eternal Treblinka.”

  We are obliged to constantly improve our conduct with respect to animals that are used, or whose products are used, in the food industry. We must treat them with ultimate compassion.

  Reality perception might differ among different organisms based on the functions of their nervous system, in which the reality-indication mechanism is assimilated.

  Intelligence exists in animals in a hierarchical pattern rather than in a binary pattern of either existing or being absent. A practical conclusion might be that we must treat the ones who share this planet with us respectfully, because we are their older siblings (in the sense of having a more “mature” intelligence), and because many species demonstrate intelligence; and it seems that some of them also have awareness, as it is defined in broad circles, and also due to their own value, regardless of any comparison.

  Being Dr. Dolittle—Speaking the Animal Language

  Creating a communication interface between the human brain and the brain of animals is sometimes possible through using the grammar rules of the “animal language.” An event that illustrates this took place in 2005, when the building of the department of brain sciences of the research center in Cambridge, England, became a battlefield for birds. Every day about ten birds flew toward the new, grand glass front of the building and were knocked to death. The reflection of the bushes and trees on the glass front prevented the birds from perceiving it as a lethal barrier. Attempts were made to prevent the phenomenon; a scarecrow was placed in front of the building, but this solution failed. One of the employees adopted a “bird-like” worldview and, based on this perspective, cut cardboard pieces in the shape of a large vulture and attached it to the glass front. The attempt was successful—the cardboard vulture managed to keep the birds away and prevented them from crashing into the glass front. Adopting the grammar rules of the biological language of the birds helped convey the desirable message.

  The Wonders of Nonhuman Intelligence

  There are numerous examples of astonishing performances in the animal kingdom. The secrets of these performances are partially beyond our grasp.

  The bees create the cells of the beehive in a shape of a hexagon as a genetic dictate, which is based on significant energy saving and a cost-benefit effect.

  Bees’ mastery of the secrets of the dance that is designed to pass information among them regarding the location of available sources of nectar is innate. The “choreography on the way to the flowers” is ascribed to a gene that produces protein—“the dancing protein.” Once this protein gets to the bee’s brain, it grants it the ability to communicate through a dance, which gives its sisters accurate navigation instructions to the spring of sweetness.

  Salmons have extraordinary navigation skills. They swim thousands of kilometers in the ocean and find their way back to the exact location of the stream of their birth.

  Another amazing example is the example of the monarch butterflies that embark on a multigenerational journey across thousands of kilometers toward a specific forest in Mexico where they make love.

  The butterflies start their journey in spring time, in a grove located in the center of Mexico. At the beginning of the journey, following their mating, the females lay eggs on the Asclepiadaceae’s leaves and then start their journey. Their destination is a forest in southeast Canada, at a distance of four thousand kilometers—a place they have never been to. The caterpillars hatch, fed from the leaves that are toxic to other types of insects, and turn into cocoons. Ten days later, a butterfly emerges from the cocoon, and the next generation follows the mothers. Without any tour guide, they find their way to their destination. The female generation mates, lays eggs on the way, and the grandchildren later join the journey. When autumn comes, the offspring of the fourth generation embark on a journey in the opposite direction—from southeast Canada to the grove in Mexico. Although this generation has never encountered the glory of Mexico, the butterflies land in the same forest from which the parents of their parents’ parents left on their way to Canada. The amazing, multigenerational navigation is ascribed by scientists to an innate skill that is concealed in the brain of the butterflies, which is as tiny as a pin. This organ serves as a compass, and it seems that it enables navigation while relying on the outline of the magnetic field of Earth.

  People who keep pets are sometimes amazed by the amusing behaviors of their nonhuman friends that seem to reflect thinking. A friend of mine told me that when his dog wishes to go out, it peeks through the main door; if it sees that it is raining heavily, it immediately runs to the back door and peeks outside, as if checking whether it is also raining in the backyard, or, perhaps, whether this door leads to a drier reality. Change of place does not necessarily mean change of luck…

  The neurons that build our brain are not substantially different from the ones that build the brain of the chimpanzees or the brain of sea snails. The difference is found especially in the function as a whole. One of the differences between a human brain and the brain of the chimpanzee, which is considered to be the most intelligent animal, derives from the activity of the stopper gene. This gene determines the number of divisions of neurons and, by that, their overall amount in the brain. In humans, the stopper determines about a hundred divisions, which results in an amount of about ninety billion neurons in a human brain on average. The stopper gene in chimpanzees dictates an earlier stop of division, which results in the fact that the size of a chimpanzee’s brain is about one-third of an average human brain. The quantitative aspect is also translated into a qualitative aspect. The difference is intensified in the sense that it results in an exponential gap in the number of links between the neurons.

  The presence of “soul sight” among the hominina (the super-apes) is controversial, although there is evidence for the presence of some of these skills among the high perimeters.

  Being a Person—What Makes Us Human?

  Out of the three billion signals that compose the human genome book, less than 1 percent (about fifteen million signals) is different from the chimpanzees’ genome book. It all started when our evolutionary pathways were split about six million years ago. The recipe that generates a human being is more than 99 percent identical to the recipe that generates a chimpanzee. The tiny, 1-percent difference is responsible for the “preeminence of man.”

  With regard to volume: One kilogram of brain tissue distinguishes the human brain, which weighs, on average, 1400 grams, from the chimpanzee’s brain, which weighs 400 grams on average. The preeminence of man is embedded in this kilogram and its unique wiring.

  Generosity is not necessarily in correlation with the brain’s volume. The bonobo, a subspecies of chimpanzee, has a remarkable friendly and pleasant temper, from which humans can also learn a thing or two.

  As for the range of our behaviors as humans, we are at limbo (a place between heaven and hell, according to Christian tradition)—in the midst between animal-like and divine.

  In this sense, it seems that we are “bipolar” creatures. Our personality and the memes that settle in our brain as a result of environmental impact will determine the direction we take—thus the importance of transforming the “correct” memes, which will make the pendulum of our behavior, as human beings, turn toward the pole of superior characteristics and, as a result, deter us from offensive behavior tendencies.<
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  Human Brain and Digital Computer

  The view of the brain as a machine first appeared in the seventeenth century, when many intellectuals tended to explain various world phenomena in mechanistic terms.

  The contemporary brain version derives from the view of the brain as a machine, and the terms are taken from a very complex machine (according to the contemporary view): the modern computer.

  Silicon intelligence: The computer is a machine intended for formal operation of symbols that are reflected in two digits: zero and one (the appearance of the quantum computer causes a “quantum leap” with respect to the difficulty in explaining its modus operandi). Information processing in temporary calculation machines is done at the configurational layer rather than the content layer of information. The ability to process information according to contents is the “promised land” of artificial intelligence, and it is still a vision for the future.

  Complexity is a field in computer science that assesses the effectiveness of solution manners to a certain problem. The coping approaches are assessed primarily according to the time period necessary to solve the problem, in accordance with the required processing resources. A similar approach is often adopted when assessing the coping of our brain with mental challenges.

  A neuron that transmits a bioelectrical signal requires five milliseconds for reorganization before it is ready for the next transmission. In other words, the top limit for the pace signals’ creation in the neurons is about two hundred hertz (two hundred signals per second). Modern computers are capable of carrying out billions of actions per second, which means that their speed is at least five million times higher than the speed of the neurons in our brain.