The Brain and its subconscious functions

The Brain and its subconscious functions

The brain is an organ of the body, and like all organs, it is designed to perform one or more specific tasks. One of the brain’s primary tasks is to be the control center for the entire physical body. Our heartbeat, digestion, temperature and all the ‘automated’ processes taking place to keep us alive are controlled by the brain. It accomplishes this much like a computer by processing both internal and external sensory information. The brain also provides us with the interface of conscious awareness, what scientists call ‘self awareness.’ The inputs from our five senses are ‘processed’ in the brain and displayed on a ‘view screen’ for us to observe and interact with.

Although the brain’s processing of electro-chemical information is fairly well understood, no one knows how the brain allows us to be aware of our self. In fact, the brain has no specific location where memory is stored, so how our brain records memory is still a mystery.

This gives us two aspects of the brain to consider, the purely physical electro-chemical process and the elusive memory and self-awareness processes. We will begin with the mechanics, the purely physical aspects of the brain.

Our brain is made up of billions of brain cells, which use electricity to communicate with each other. Since brain cells are alive, they are always generating electrical signals; they are never ‘off’ or shut down. The combination of millions of neurons sending signals all at the same time produces an enormous amount of electrical activity in the brain. This activity can be detected and mapped using sensitive medical equipment such as an EEG.

The most common map of these patterns is:

State	Frequency	State of mind
Delta	0.5Hz - 4Hz	Deep,dreamless sleep
Theta	4Hz - 8Hz	Drowsiness and the first stage of sleep and dreaming
Alpha	8Hz - 14Hz	Relaxed but alert
Beta	14Hz - 30Hz	Highly alert and focused

We do not ‘shift’ from one brainwave pattern to another. The electrical activity in the brain is generated by living cells that are never ‘off’ and are always sending electrical signals. All the brainwave patterns are present all the time, but only one pattern is dominant at any given moment.

            The brain stem is commonly called the reptilian cortex and is something that we humans share with all other animals. The brain stem is responsible for regulating the automatic body systems such as heartbeat, temperature, digestion and so on. The brain stem is also responsible for the rudimentary self-preservation response of fight or flight and is the seat of our aggressive impulse. Reptiles and amphibians don’t develop a brain much beyond this rudimentary stem, so amphibians like the frog live their entire life depending on the “auto pilot” decisions made in the brain stem.

As an example, a frog’s ‘decision’ to eat is based on the presence of three kinds of visual information available in the immediate surroundings: 1) Is it moving? 2) Is it near enough to reach? 3) Will it fit in my mouth? If the visual information processed in the frog’s brain is ‘true’ to all three, the frog will attempt to eat. A frog’s ‘decision’ to flee in response to visual information is much the same: 1) Is it moving? 2) Is it bigger than I am? 3) Is it too close? If this visual information is processed as ‘true,’ the frog will jump into water and dive to the relative safety of the bottom. What is important to note from this example is that the frog cannot decide how to react. Every move is pre-determined by the signals processed by the “auto pilot brain.” The second layer of the brain is called the limbic system and is responsible for our emotional life. The limbic system is involved in the creation of memories; it appears to add emotions to memories during their creation and to make emotions available to our conscious view screen during memory recall. The final layer of the brain is known as the neocortex or ‘rational’ brain, the area of the brain where pure logic and reason can be conducted. From a purely physical perspective, this is where our view screen or ‘monitor’ of awareness resides.

Brains and Computers

We can gain a fair understanding of the physical processes in the brain by comparing it to a computer. A computer is an electronic device that contains programs and process information from both internal and external sources. For example, our computer may have an internal email program, a word processing program and a graphics program residing internally. When we want to check our email, we launch our email program with the external keyboard. Our computer processes the input, launches our email client, connects to the external mail server and publishes the results in an ‘output’ on our monitor so that we can interact with on a conscious level.

            A computer can process information in just one program at a time. A computer may appear to be running more than one program, but it is actually switching very quickly between all the programs that are active and checking for input from external sources. The switching, called ‘interrupts’, is built-in and checks for input from the automatic programs like keyboard, mouse, monitor and such along with programs we have open and running like word processor, email and so on. It happens so quickly that we don’t normally see it happening. What is important to know is that the computer can process only one program in at a time.

Like a computer, the brain contains processing ‘centers’ with programs for our senses of sight, sound, taste, touch and smell along with inputs from all the internal organs down to the cellular level. But unlike a computer, the brain is a living, electro-chemical organism, so its processing centers cannot be turned off. Our brains continually process the billions of ‘bits’ of information contained in the sight, sound, taste, touch and smell information in our immediate surroundings.

We know less about how the brain works than anything else in our physical world. One of the most puzzling challenges we have is that the brain has no physical location for memory. In fact, there is considerable evidence to support the concept that memory is not in the physical brain at all! We’ll discuss these aspects of memory in later on.