To what extend would such a process be useful
to our movement supposing that we were able to build a robot following
Arbib's model, a robot that would adequately function in the existing
surroundings ? It is obvious that we can not search for such a
phenomenon in the chemical underlayers of the synapses; rather
we should go towards more complex, organizational aspects. But
from what level of complexity onwards would the integrative
function and our awareness appear ? The nervous hologram
could explain the distributed, multiple character of memory, as
compared with the machine-like pattern of information. If it were
only for the memory it would not bring about any new, integrative
aspect. Although nervous holography is not so far experimentally
confirmed, nevertheless the idea of such subtlety and complexity
inside the nervous system is worth extending in other directions.
Why could not such a complex system generate an unknown yet material
field, say a nervous (or mental) field ? Since a field
is a continuous phenomenon, it would be able to produce the integration
of the physically discontinuous image recorded on the retina and
in the brain. Why could we not associate to the brain a wave,
a field, in the same way in which we did this to the electron,
and in general to the entire matter ? It is true that the electron
wave is not quite real, that is is just an image used to explain
otherwise difficult to explain properties, but it justifies the
electron having wavelike properties in behavior. The wavelike
behavior of the electron is real in connection with a number of
experiments, but the electromagnetic wave is a concept that allows
one to mathematically describe such behavior and to generate an
imaginated, transempirical, physical sense.
The quantum mechanics mathematical description
of electron movement is that which consolidated the idea of the
electron wave. Without the success of the mathematical treatment
what significance would have had the concept of electron wave?
If we were to associate a wave to the
brain in order to explain its integrative properties in relation
to the discontinuity of the information machine (and in general
of the surrounding world) we could reach an explanatory concept
similar to that of the electron wave. Such a concept would
explain the real behavior of the brain in the same way in which
the electron wave lead to the representation of the electron real
behavior. In order to explain the integrative activity of the
brain we would associate to it a field, a wave. If this action
is proved useful to understanding and mathematically modelling
the brain processes, then nobody will question the usefulness
of this concept and the physico-mental images resulting from it.
Suppose that the use of such a brain wave
concept will lead to a successful explanation of the integrative
properties of the brain (we disregard for the moment the psychic
states). Will we then ask ourselves why such a description is
possible, just as we did in connection to the quantum mechanics?
Such question will go hand-in-hand, reflecting philosophically
deeper realities that we have not reached so far.
What is continuum in our universe ? In fact
all bodies are discontinuous, the universe itself is discontinuous
when viewed in relation with the particles of which it is constituted.
Space and time have no meaning without bodies and movement, but
they are considered by us as continuous. But we cannot be sure
that space and time are continuous, or that they are as we observe
them just as we are entitled to believe that beyond space and
time there might be another coordinate that we cannot observe
directly (as we cannot observe directly the sub-micro-cosmos that
is hidden inside the electron).
In our continuous universe the electromagnetic
wave is continuous, although it also presents a corpuscular aspect
in a number of processes that could not be explained otherwise.
A radio antenna radiates corpuscles (photons) and it is just possible
that our image of the electromagnetic wave is due to our property
of "continuification", i.e. explaining by continua a
series of processes that would otherwise be unexplainable. And
it seems that it is the discontinuum that is primordial
in the Universe; whereas the continuum is brought in by
us, by our brains and by those of the animals. But the fact that
the continuum is "brought in" by our brain does not
mean that it is necessary a subjective factor, since it can have
objective roots in the depth of the material world.
Only brains can notice the continuum, since
all the other interactions between the Universe substances are
done on the level of the elementary constituents of matter, i.e.
discontinuously. The continuous macroscopical shape, the macroscopical
pressure, the macroscopical force, have meaning only in connection
with the living beings. It is no wonder that in antiquity one
would attribute to things qualities similar to those of man before
starting a rational, scientific description of such things and
forces. And further, by our penetrating with mind and special
experiments inside the microscopical and sub- microscopical world,
we are trying to understand it in terms of our macroscopical images;
to this purpose we might modify, adapt, such images to correspond
to a reality deeper than the macrocosms. And sometimes we have
to imagine and to invent completely new models.
If we were to bring the continuum in
confrontation with the objective surrounding reality then a question
will arise: is this continuum, something Kantian, a priori,
that will finally stop us from understanding the ultimate depths
of the existence, or is it derived from something just
as material and natural as the rest of the Universe ? In the first
instance it will mean that our assertion, though it opens a conceptual
way to understanding the integrative activity of the brain, it
needs be augmented with the idea that the macroscopical property
of continuous vision is a mere limit of our knowledge ability
(since it will have no real counterpart in the surrounding reality).
But this would contradict the existence of other living creatures
having the same properties, and basing their functioning on macrocosms,
feeling in the same way everything that is macroscopic in the
Universe. Therefore we think that continuum is some principle
to be found somewhere in the existence, and not a subjective attribute!
IV. The Mental States
The integrative activity of the brain supposes
not only the transition from discontinuous to continuous, but
also the generation of the mental, psychological states (Fig. 19).
It is true that the states of logical thinking, of affection,
motivation and will, have certain known areas in the brain, but
these areas are machine-areas working with machine-language. But
the generation of the psychological states is so far unexplained.
Fig. 19
Biology and Psychology in Relation with Awareness
63
