The Consciousness Soul Link

For the average person, a consciousness soul link can be a strange concept. But, it has a real life existence in the nervous system. To be very practical, just now and then (say, when you feel guilty), consciousness mirrors the turmoil of the soul. These are not mystic abstractions.  The incredibly subtle concepts of consciousness and soul can be better understood, when we view the nervous system as an entity, which recognizes infinitely complex patterns. 

Imagine that the “soul” identifies with the prefrontal regions (PFR), the most advanced intelligence within the nervous system. You know your soul as your "inner self."  It is the deepest wisdom within you.  Pattern recognition enables different regions within your brain to become  both independent and cooperative.

Their conflicting viewpoints can manage your personal experiences and behaviors.  Imagine pattern recognition and understand the evolutionary logic of these systems. You will then experience the reality of your consciousness and learn to empower the deep wisdom of your soul.

• Science has identified the neural correlates of consciousness - the active nerve cells, which grant you a conscious awareness of sensory perceptions and of emotions.
• Benjamin Libet's experiments suggested that you become aware of an action only after the nervous system has made its decisions and acted. Consciousness follows an action.
• Your prefrontal regions, PFR, is historically young, but is the seat of your common sense, your rational human brain. It is your soul, your inner wisdom. PFR exists and competes with a mammalian and a reptilian brain within the nervous system.
• The system hands over control of the whole system to the most powerful emotion, enveloping you in a specific level of consciousness. When emotions have been stilled, PFR takes charge.
• As Kezwer advised, use your mind as a research laboratory. As a pattern recognition entity, a simple exercise can enable your system to recognize your PFR.
• The Buddhists discovered that the attention of PFR can still emotions. Their texts also confirm the existence of PFR, a rational unemotional mind within the system.
• With PFR in control, you can attempt to reach your highest level of consciousness.

Can An Algorithm Be Controlling The Mind?
I am not a physician, but an engineer. Way back in 1989, I catalogued how the ELIMINATION approach of an AI Expert System could reveal a way by which the nervous system could store and retrieve astronomically large memories.  That insight is central to the six unique new premises presented in this website. 

These new premises could explain an enigma.  A physician is aware of thousands of diseases and their related symptoms.  How does he note a symptom and focus on a single disease in less than half a second?  How could he identify Disease X out of 8000 diseases with just a glance?  

First, the total born and learned knowledge available to the doctor could not exist anywhere other than as the stored/retrieved data within the 100 billion neurons in his brain.  The perceptions, sensations, feelings and physical activities of the doctor could only be enabled by the electrical impulses flowing through the axons of those neurons.  The data enabling that process could be stored as digital combinations.

Second, combinatorial decisions of neurons cannot be made by any entity other than the axon hillock, which decides the axonal output of each neuron.  The hillock receives hundreds of inputs from other neurons.  Each hillock makes the pivotal neuronal decision about received inputs within 5 milliseconds.  Axon hillocks could be storing digital combinations.  It could be adding each new incoming digital combination to its memory store.  The hillock could fire impulses, if it matched a stored combination. If not, it could inhibit further impulses.  Using stored digital data to make decisions about incoming messages could make the axon hillocks intelligent.

Third, combinations are reported to enable a powerful coding mode for axon hillocks.  Olfactory combinatorial data is known (Nobel Prize 2004) to store memories for millions of smells.  Each one of 100 billion axon hillocks have around a 1000 links  to other neurons.  The hillocks can mathematically store more combinations than there are stars in the sky. Each new digital combination could be adding a new relationship link.  In this infinite store, specific axon hillocks could be storing all the symptom = disease (S=D) links known to the doctor as digital combinations.

Fourth, instant communication is possible in the nervous system.  Within five steps, information in one hillock can reach all other relevant neurons.  Just 20 Ms for global awareness.  Within the instant the doctor observes a symptom, feedback and feed forward links could inform every S=D link of the presence of the symptom. Only the S=D link of Disease X could be recalling the combination and recognizing the symptom.

Fifth, on not recognizing the symptom, all other S=D hillocks could be instantly inhibiting their impulses. The S=D links of Disease X could be continuing to fire. Those firing S=D link would be recalling past complaints, treatments and signs of Disease X, confirming the diagnosis.  This could be enabling axon hillocks to identify Disease X out of 8000 in milliseconds.

Worldwide interest in this website is acknowledging its rationale. Not metaphysical theories, but processing of digital memories in axon hillocks could be explaining innumerable mysteries of the mind.  Over three decades, this website has been assembling more and more evidence of the manipulation of emotional and physical behaviors by narrowly focused digital pattern recognition.  It has also been receiving over 2 million page views from over 150 countries.

The Consciousness Soul Link
How Do You Become "Aware?"
Imagine that the firing of specific nerve cells can make you consciously aware of specific sensations.  When one group of those cells fire, you feel touch; for another, you see a pixel of light. Your awareness comes from the firing of a vast and identifiable group of nerve cells.  Billions more fire in the nervous system, without your being conscious of their activities. Those other neurons support millions of internal processes, without your awareness. This very moment, while you become aware of the significance of the words you read, you have no awareness of the complex multi-stage process, which converted the black pixels on this page into a meaningful concept.

Imagine a neural organ, which acts as a conductor of the inputs to consciousness. While the impulses of one hundred billion neurons power the nervous system, current research points to a single organ, the claustrum, which acts as a “conductor,” which coordinates the highest cortical levels of the system.  Thoughts "emerge into subjective experience" from the combinatorial firing patterns on the claustrum screen. The activity of this "screen" generates your conscious awareness.  Just as the control panel of a power station grants you awareness of the essential workings of its major subsystems, imagine the claustrum to be the screen, which creates your awareness.

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When do you Become Aware?
Imagine the second component of the consciousness soul link - the soul. Imagine the soul to be the prefrontal regions (PFR), the "ghost who watches," a material soul within your mind. When PFR is the soul, consciousness is its awareness. Awareness follows the processing. The brilliant experiments of Benjamin Libet uncovered those fleeting milliseconds of processing time, which differentiated the activities of PFR from the arrival of conscious awareness in the claustrum.  He studied subjects who voluntarily pressed a button, while noting the position of a dot on a computer screen, which shifted its position every 43 milliseconds.  The noted moment of depressing the button was the moment of conscious awareness; the exact instant the subject thought the button was pressed.

Each time, Libet had also timed the beginning of motor neuron activity in the brains of his subjects. He discovered that awareness occurred 350 milliseconds AFTER the beginning of motor activity. The nervous system had set in motion the motor impulses to press the button before the subject consciously thought he made the decision and pressed the button.  Conscious awareness was data about an action already initiated from the system. Imagine a distinct difference between the mechanics of the system and conscious awareness.  That time delay is the clear evidence of the existence of  separate mechanisms for conscious awareness and system processes.

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Who Is The Wisest Of Them All?
In the consciousness soul link, PFR, the soul, is historically young. There is a reason why some people suggest that animals do not have souls. The highest human level intelligence residing in the prefrontal regions of the human cortex appeared only after millions of years of evolution. It is a rational subsystem with substantially increased processing power, achieved through development of the outer layers of the cortex. The process transformed this, the investigative part of the animal brain, into a massive reservoir of common sense, with a wisdom which could comprehend the wonder of the universe.

The Consciousness Soul Link
What Is The Historic Process?
Its evolution began millions of years ago, when nerve cells linked together to create life's early intelligences. Those simple networks of neurons, without specialized brains, originally controlled primeval animals through simple motor responses. Those lowly creatures merely moved about and swallowed, or expelled food. Those humble mechanical systems for survival developed into more advanced circuits in the reptilian brains of snakes and birds, motivated by the elementary pangs of hunger, anger and fear. Further developments led to the subsystems in the mammalian brains of dogs and cats, governed by more complex social feelings. In the consciousness soul link, the PFR, the dispassionate soul, exists at the apex of your triune brain. These control systems compete. Being a part of this competing hierarchy of intelligences, your calm soul, PFR, your highest intelligence, is often overwhelmed by its primitive lower levels. At such times, you may complain "My spirit is willing, but my flesh is weak!"

The Consciousness Soul Link
Do the Intelligences Compete For Control?
In the consciousness soul link, the soul, PFR, competes with lower intelligences. Your computer has separate programs, which manage word processing and spreadsheet computations. They are groups of codes, located in different memory locations, which utilize the same circuits. Similarly, imagine that your mind contains coded memories, which can only be contained in cubic miles of 500 page books. It contains strategies from battles fought millions of years ago. It contains your experiences over a lifetime. It is a network, which accumulates knowledge and acts intelligently. It contains strategically oriented intelligences, which choose to be angry, or fearful. From its experience, it will decide whether fear, anger, or common sense (PFR) is the best response to solve the immediate problem. If fear takes charge, your words will be wary. If angry, you will speak sharply. If PFR takes charge, you will become reasonable.

The Consciousness Soul Link
How Does The System Decide?
Imagine a situation, where intuitive decisions of neural circuits switch controls between various entities. Thus “Free Will” will not be the will of an ethereal soul, but the decision of one out of several control systems. As Libet discovered, the system makes your decisions and informs you. Your action will be the output of one of several powerful and competing intelligences. Your free will is supported by a fail safe limbic system, which protects you from making foolish decisions.  Those restrictions on your free will enable you to be morally responsible, when your mind is calm.  Effective mind control is all about enabling PFR, your soul, to make your decisions.

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Is It Possible To Recognize Your PFR?
Lynda Buck discovered that when the olfactory network evaluates molecules in the air, its outputs are signals, which identify an odor. Similarly, the output signals of your somesthetic association region indicate recognition of a touched object. If that region is injured, you lose that skill. You will not be able to identify a pair of scissors by touch, with your eyes closed. You will still feel the scissors, but you will not know what it is. Your nervous system has myriad such recognition regions, which enable it to perceive and identify complex patterns of molecules as the smell of an orange, or as former President Clinton. Just as you can identify an odor, you also know that it is your eyes, which reads these words. In the same way, the system can identify the “mystic” presence of PFR. Your prefrontal network can listen to internal signals and identify PFR. An awareness of your soul can enter your consciousness.

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What Does Glen Kezwer Advice for Self Study?
With a little effort, your consciousness can become aware of the presence of your soul. Glen Kezwer advocated using your mind as a research lab to study experience. "The cost to the government exchequer and the people is nil, no research grants need be applied for, no progress reports are necessary and there is no need to be concerned about the renewal of funding. There is also no pressure to publish papers, technical reports or books on the experiment." Imagine new and original viewpoints.  Follow the Kezwer example.  You can identify a pair of scissors by paying attention to it. So also, your attention can identify PFR.

The Consciousness Soul Link 
How Do You Identify Your PFR?
You have the unique ability to question the system and receive answers.  Lie down in silent darkness and pay attention to your body. Your kinesthetic system will inform you of the position of your body. Your sense of touch will give you a feel of the bed. No other sensations will be present. As you watch this silence, you will become aware of a silent observing entity, seeking to recognize any possible sensory input. At the highest level in the hierarchy, including your body, thoughts and feelings, become aware that you are curious.  It is constantly evaluating received patterns to recognize their import. That entity is PFR, which occupies your prefrontal regions as a massive recognition system, with access to your memories, sensory and emotional inputs and recognition messages.

Unlike simple computer programs, the PFR is an immensely wise intelligence, with its own thoughts, urges and longings. The PFR has the ability to move your muscles, or direct your attention to any part of your body. Numerous other intelligences (your fear, or anger) have the same ability.  Lying in the dark, you can ask a question and receive an answer from the system. As Libet had discovered, there will be a time lag. Your awareness of the answers follows processing by the system.  Your PFR functions  from the prefrontal regions within your nervous system.  Its existence has been inferred for centuries. Ancient cultures speak of a particular viewpoint, a level of consciousness, which defined “This is who I am.” You too can discover the PFR within you.

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What Happens When You Discover Who You Are?
The great sage J.Krishnamurthi recommended watching your mind as the essential path to a still mind. The investigative role of PFR has a stilling side-effect. Myriad specialized networks compete for the attention of your mind. They recognize the impact of events to suggest alternate patterns of behavior required to meet threats and opportunities. Many emotions compete for control.

When you pay attention, neural channels highlight the focus of attention and still other activities. Being a key tool for survival, investigaton requires an unemotional approach. So, nature further stills emotional activity, when attention is directed to a new stimulus. When you watch your mind, PFR takes over and the system stills emotions. Just as emotions more often than not dominate your behavior, PFR, your soul, can take calm control. Since emotional signals have an urgent priority, the achievement of PFR control is difficult.

Historically, the Buddhists have learned to still emotions and have practiced the skill for centuries. They describe the achievement of a state, where the ups and downs of life appear to be as neutral as “birds in the sky.” People don't usually think that poverty, or sickness can feel like a "bird in the sky." Immersed in their emotional levels, they do not experience this view. But, the Buddhist description reflects the special state of mind of an PFR level of consciousness. When the amygdala, a lower animal intelligence, takes charge, you are blinded by an angry level of consciousness. Only when the system is controlled by the PFR level of consciousness do you experience a calm common sense view of the world. If you are troubled by anger, or despair, discover "who I am," and truly know yourself. It is this understanding, which leads to peace of mind.

The Consciousness Soul Link
What Is Your Best Option?
Let your soul guide you. Across millions of years of history, nature largely mechanized your responses to situations; to caress gently with love, or to strike hard in anger. The ability of the system to categorize events and behavior with precise subtlety is its ultimate achievement. But a large residue of irrational impulses remain as a left over from past ages. Hope lies in stilling those absurd urges of the mind. When your mind becomes still, with PFR in control, your behavior follows a more rational path. The actions you take will be the best you can to achieve your goals.

But, your soul is much more than your PFR. Nature has already created a potential for the best in humans through positive emotions. Nature is not a cold, calculating evolutionary process, but one, which has evolved concepts, setting the highest principles attainable by humans. When your PFR accepts the nobler emotions, you will not be a cold participant in the world, but a warm, compassionate and loving person. This website offers you a practical path to empower your soul!

This page was last updated on 31-Dec-2013.