Fig. 20

Limbic system - the physiology of emotion, the visceral activity, the receptionof olfactory impulses (whence rhinencephalic system). The zone of the limbic system referred to as hippocampus ensures contact or loss of contact with the external world; associates characteristics of various signal sources and sends them to the reward or penalty areas of the hypothalamus; is involved in motivation. Hypothalamus - regulation of the chemical state of the body, of the arterial pressure, of the endocrine system; together with the limbic system, it plays an important role in emotional and motivational phenomena. Thalamus - prior processing. Cerebellum - computer-like, automated regulator of motions. Reticulated formation - choice of behavior programs, decision-making role, regulation of wakeful and restful states. The bulb and the pons - reflex control of the cardiovascular system, of breathing a.s.o, transmission canals to the brain and the cerebellum. Mesencephalon - control of visual, auditory reflexes and of whole-body reflex for maintaining position in space; is involved in the equilibrium keeping mechanism.
The limbic system ensures the survival of the individual and of the species and determines adequate behavior to this purpose. On the scale of species evolution it representsthe old brain. Paul D. Mac Lean⁷⁶ considers that the more evolved large brain first appeared⁷⁷ in reptiles ( Fig. 21) about 250 million years ago, ensuring the basis instincts and a minimal social communication. This basic brain is also present in mammals, man included; it has a separate chemistry, and it is quite "rigid" in adaptability. Further studies⁷⁸ revealed that about 150 million years ago the mammal brain was augmented with the limbic system thus appearing the paleo-mammal brain (Fig. 21) ensuring our emotional inheritance. This brain that was 3-4 times larger than the reptile brain ensured new behavior patterns, especially the care of descendants. Some 50 million years ago a new process of brain development began by the appearance of the neo-cortex. Some 20 million years ago the most developed brain system was to be met in dolphins and whales, but their development was arrested there.

Fig. 21

The man continued to develop his brain abilities, such that from 5 million years ago until 250,000 years ago his brain trebled. Since then the size of the human brain remained practically unchanged. Once the limbic system was developed for a better protection of the descendants and a common protection by collective life, the further development of the brain was targeted (H. Jerrison⁷⁹) towards a less subjective approach to the environment, for obtaining the possibility of an objective assessment of the surrounding world. It is believed that about 3 million years ago man developed the speech ability, or at least a kind of speech ensuring a few rational stages in making the first tools.
The general unity that the various types of animal brain display seems to give human brain no preferred position. If by beingness one can prove a contact with a deeper reality, then this contact should also be found in other mammals. At the beginning, when man's reasoning powers were still weak, while the proper rational mechanisms were not yet functioning, man developed the mythical thinking. As hand tools were developed, and work and speech were becoming part of everyday life, rational mechanisms developed. It might be possible that beingness can be realized via the limbic system (paleomammal brain, or even reptile), but awareness can only be possible when neo-cortex intervenes with its rational activity. The brain surface (neo-cortex) contains specialized areas corresponding to sensorial functions, to motion activities, to speech, etc., but also unspecialized zones like the frontal lobes dedicated to thinking. Neurologists consider that the frontal lobes determine human personality, initiative, coordinated work, organizational abilities, creative activity⁸⁰. The frontal lobes coordinate the brain activity towards reaching a purpose, connect the affectivity with the intellect to create motivation, ensures profound intellectual processes. Their removal showed that they do not seem to have a specific emotional or intellectual function, apart from changing the motivation, the capacity offollowing a purpose. It is believed⁸¹ that the frontal lobes (thatcover almost a half of brain surface and a large number of brain's 10⁹neurons) are not fully utilized and that they represent a large reserve for solving complex problems. The frontal lobes come into play when complex abstract thought processes take place, but once these are over, the results pass into memory; from there they are taken for the current intellectual utilization, on a reduced scale but more active from the point of view of speech and action. It is possible that the triggering of an will action should be connected with the frontal lobes. It is also considered that the frontal lobes generate the motivation for sociability.

Brain organization shows, no doubt, its machine-like character. Each of us bears this machine and in general we do not know with what parts of the brain we work in each moment. Is it possible to observe our own brain, to put into action at great intensity a certain portion of the brain by an act of will ? Or to establish consciously certain connections between its various parts ? Apart from introspection do we have any other way to actively intervene into its functioning ? But introspection itself may provide some avenue for active intervention. It was experimentally discovered that man can control the EEG waves ofhis brain, by observing their recording and then bringing themat the level of the alpha waves⁸². Additionally it might be possible that the conscious activity be connected to the unconscious automatisms of the central nervous system, thus consciously modifying the "automatic controls" of the organism.

Biology and Psychology in Relation with Awareness 64