Maya is Reality

& Brain Creates It

Maya is Reality
& Brain Creates It

Essays on Brain and Mind

Dr. Alok Bajpai

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Maya is Reality
By Dr. Alok Bajpai
 GOD DOES NOT PLAY DICE
 —ALBERT EINSTEIN

“if God has made the world a perfect mechanism, he

has at least conceded so much to our imperfect intellect that, in
order to predict little parts of it, we need not solve innumerable
differential equations but can use dice with fair success”
 —MAX BORN
 To my father
Late U.C. Bajpai
Father figures
Late Comrade S.D. Tewari
Professor W.H. Abdi
&
My teachers at NIMHANS
For opening my mind.
 Contents

The Ape xiii-xix

1. Fundamental-One or Many? 1-7

2. The Brain 8-14
3. A Beautiful Mind 15-26
4. The Scales 27-31
5. The Context 32-36
6. Development 36-41
7. The Physicality 42-48
8. Oscillations 49-52
9. Time-Space 53-56
10. What is Mind? 57-60
11. What we Know! 61-65
12. Who is Looking? 66-70
13. Within the Universe 71-80
14. The Unconscious 81-85
15. Whose Reality? 86-90
16. The Story of Story 91-103
 17. Thought 104-111
18. Emotion 112-116
19. Love 117-124
20. Stories and Narratives 125-129
21. Dr. Freud 130-137
22. A Detour in Physics 138-142
23. Questions and Statements 143-146
24. Neuronal Networks 147-150
25. Me as a Field 151-158
26. Physics to Behavior 159-164
27. Embedded Self 165-172
28. What is all this Worth For? 173-175

Epilogue – The crux 176-181

Further Reading 182-185
 Abbreviations

REM – Rapid eye movement

NREM – Non–Rapid eye movement
5HT – Serotonin
DA – Dopamine
Ach – Acetylcholine
CEN – Central executive network
SN – Salience network
DMN – Default mode network
ACG and PCG – Anterior and Posterior cingulate gyrus
DLPFC – Dorsolateral Prefrontal cortex
EEG – Electro Encephalography
MEG – Magnetoencephalography
f MRI – Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
PET – Positron Emission Tomography
 The Ape

Erwin Schrödinger’s 1944 book, What Is Life? The Physical

Aspect of the Living Cell was based on a series of public lectures
by him. The audience were warned “that the subject-matter was
a difficult one and that the lectures could not be termed popular,
even though the physicist’s most dreaded weapon, mathematical
deduction, would hardly be utilized”. Though it was meant and
indeed it inspired the interface between Biology and Physics, the
essence was the question itself-life.
Life is a play, a journey, sorrow, love, all that we have
known as human race-experienced, preserved and promulgated
through science, poetry, art and above all memory- personal or
collective. It is beautiful and a burden at the same time but still
the understanding remains a perspective. Life still remains an
enigma!! And it always ends.
But the mind never got deterred by the limitations. It created the
best possible solutions for living. Scriptures, rituals, philosophy,
psychology became the framework of living as is Science, in past
few centuries. But the edifice of knowledge crumbles in the face
of basic questions, that have vexed human mind –Who am I?
What is the purpose of life? What is the drama all about? –but
have eluded a definitive answer.
The mythical stories about genesis to explanatory theories
about creation, whether in East or West, betray the anxiety of God
himself. The Hindu belief system has Gods incarnate who suffered
the same grind as lesser mortals. Buddha cringed, Christ was
crucified, Krishna could not prevent Mahabharata, Muhammad
had to fight battles, and Gandhi was shot.
 Maya is Reality
(xiv)   
Periodically people kept appearing, at least in the recorded
history of five thousand years to give some direction and meaning
to life but the larger mass remained in the same state of uncertainty,
drifting between individual birth and death. Theories piled up,
religions proliferated but nothing changed the struggle and misery
on a permanent basis. The rebirth concept in East tried to alleviate
anxiety as did the philosophy of here and now in West while GOD
remained the focus of acceptance or denial.
Darwin and the later science came to rescue but brought in, its
own share of burden. The technology of last 100 years, industry,
and Capital improved the physical quality of life but did it resolve
the inner anxiety?
The edifice of thought from abstract philosophy to mechanistic
view of the world has taken a full circle, overlapping in quantum
physics. People subscribe to what gives them relief and helps
make them sense of the transitory life. The mythologies, religion,
science all add to this.
Perhaps the Bard of Avon was right but we refuse to participate
in life as mere actors. Humans remain in a cycle of Attachment,
Possession and Expectation but all spirituality talks about
detachment. Gita, the gospel by Krishna, mentions three states and
inclinations of mind in a dynamic existence that probably correspond
to life-Tamas (ignorance), Rajas (action), Sattva (enlightenment).
But where was the mind?
While the eastern thought from Vedas, Buddhism, Zen
and Sufism had varying theories about Mind and soul, often
confusing concepts like Atman(soul) and the superior self,
kept them in a contradictory position. These concepts not only
described life but also exhorted man to transform for this world
or the other. The basic thread was transcendence, barring a few
entirely materialistic theories like Carvakas. Most, if not all, had
understood the interface between the sensory inputs, the use of
intellect to process the information and the dynamical movement
towards a higher self as a goal of life. This is the nearest they
come to Modern Neuroscience and Psychology.
The most detailed process that appeals modern language is of
Buddhism.
 The Ape
     (xv)
But that in no way trivializes the others because modern
Psychology and Psychiatry resorts to rejection in absence of
evidence. Having taken birth in Western philosophy that has
originated in Greece in 6th century BC (Eastern predates it), the
debate has been on the material and immaterial position of mind
and brain, the dualist or monist existence, the reductionist or
holistic approach, that still is undecided. The neuroscience still
draws its basic tenets from it—mind is an emergent property or is
non-computable.
An average person goes about his daily life with his share of
sorrow and comforts without getting into deeper issues but the
search for meaning and peace is omnipresent. Modern man’s mind
oscillates in these paradoxes, even more with the information
overload.
Ask Psychiatry –another invention to deal with the existential
anxiety.
A Psychiatrist with the same makeup of brain and mind,
participates in the daily drama of life, some days actively, on
others passively. Some troubled minds are eased by ‘talk’ and
a few by medication. On closer look, only a few have mental
illnesses, most people seem to be suffering from ‘problems of
living’ and its troubles.
Last few decades have seen unprecedented increase in mental
health problems especially in booming economy like India. The
places in world where hunger is the issue, the cause may be
different but affluent world is not free either. In apparently circular
pursuits, cultures chase wealth and then peace.
Does it mean that it is all in the mind and the only real anxiety is
one arising out of survival threat. But in lack of solace, each has to
go through the “dukkha” as Buddha said. So, the important question
is why are people unable to realize the cause or observe it?
Even if people believe in the great Psychotherapeutic Eastern
belief of predestined happiness and sorrow, no one suffers it with
equipoise, the description of reality as Maya (illusion) doesn’t
make the suffering as Maya.
Is human mind hardwired for anxiety and depression or is it
the conditioning by religion, education, societal rules? Is the ‘self’
 Maya is Reality
(xvi)   
within, free to choose its vector willfully or it is embedded in the
context and just fulfills the images created by society. Whatever
be the reason, cognitive aberrations are the root of all this chaos
in head.
Having lived half a century out of the 50 centuries of recorded
history of humankind and given slightly more than half of it to
Psychiatry and attempting to ‘treat’ people, these questions haunt
me – Why do people not change? Further- If any change is possible
at all? And-
What is the struggle for? The self that survives with an identity
and ego and bears all the trials and tribulations, ends someday.
What happens to all the memories and emotions when one dies.
All the efforts, the history, the tears, the smiles, the titillation, does
everything go waste? Or is there a way to transmit it?
Words may be, but they miss out the beats. Even a digital
record of brain activity when recreated, will not be the person
himself.
In a search for these answers, to help others and myself too, I
started looking at this great drama called life.
There is another reason for this exploration. The world is at
the brink of a major evolutionary leap and this time it is not in
4 billion years of life but decades to centuries. The million year
cycles of Eastern time may have been a fantasy but the desire to
extend life into billions of years is leading us to explore Universe
not only outside in space but deep within brain too. This time the
human brain itself is turning over Mr. Darwin to create Artificial
General Intelligence (AGI).
Pope Francis made a huge attempt to reconcile an ever- raging
debate between theology and Science when he said that GOD did
not have a magic wand to create the world but did so with certain
laws. He indeed tried to redeem some sheen taken off the Creator
by Charles Darwin’s theory of Natural selection. Accepting Big
Bang and evolution to be true he also acknowledged the supreme
creator but it has hardly sorted out the conflict between ‘Intelligent
Design ‘vs. ‘Natural Selection and evolution’. As a possibility of
multiple histories of Universe are being considered even big bang
is being questioned.
 The Ape
     (xvii)
Does it have any relevance to us? Surely, in a big way.
Since Rene Descartes uttered “COGITO ERGO SUM’, humans
endowed themselves with a special position in Universe. Charles
Darwin deflated the collective ego and Homo Sapiens became just
another step, in evolution. We still don’t know whether we are just
a transitory existence in the great evolutionary experiment. The
biggest proof is the way human brain has evolved from a simple
neuron to a complex mass of neurons exhibiting a massive parallel
distributed system, capable of creating wonder and chaos in the
world.
But all those who wish to reject Darwin and believe in
Intelligent design, who think that such complexity of life cannot
evolve without a designer should follow science closely, for
Science boosted up with extraordinary technology of last 30 years
is posing to be the ‘designer’ of life. Homo Sapiens survived
largely within the laws of natural selection and being most fit
outlived Neanderthals and other coexisting HOMO species (a not
so charitable history sowing seeds of violence) yet remains related
to them genetically but who knows the man of future will be like
us or not. The chances are he will not be. He may still remain a
biped or may attain powers to be an amphi-animal but he will have
tremendous powers to alter the functioning of body and mind.
Essentially three fields will alter our lives.
Genetic engineering to conquer and eliminate disease, replace
diseased organs with bionic devices and the great revolution in
Brain Science. Neuroscience at present may not know the exact
origin of consciousness (Humans pride on being conscious
beings!!) but the processes and physics of brain are amply clear.
Human behaviour is a product of nothing but an expression of
continuous electrical and chemical activity patterns in a brain
that reciprocally interacts with environment. Manipulation of
chemical system is already a prerogative of Psychiatry and the
next step would be altering electrical activity to control mind.
In a human experiment, computer interface has been able to
transfer the thoughts between two minds, just by manipulating
electromagnetic fields around brain. How would you feel with
your entire mind being stored on mobile phone? Or having a
 Maya is Reality
(xviii)   
pacemaker inside one’s head with a switch to control emotions
or just able to alter firing patterns in brain to switch in and out of
different realities. If memory, emotions and will are a matter of
brain electrical oscillations than what is unique in each of us. The
effect of existing technology like Smartphone is already showing
its effect on attention span and memory.
Does a future of Zombie await us with everyone having a
master silicon chip and few other processors to control movement
and behaviour? Intelligent design also has an inherent possibility
of WILL and its choices. We have it like never before because for
these times Science has rolled over God and Darwin. Our future
may be different.
The big question is when? and the only technical glitch or gap
is Human Brain.
It may have evolved slowly but surely in a more
comprehensively organized manner and encompasses linear,
nonlinear and quantum processes.
Artificial Neural Networks, computational neuroscience,
Imaging, Electrophysiology till now are working on the
edge but as a mechanical tool Brain will be understood soon
and intervention to alter it may prove successful. The jump
from Artificial Narrow to Artificial general to Artificial Super
Intelligence will require a qualitative leap and we as well as AI
researchers know this.
This attempt is to understand life especially on the interface
of the brain dynamics and its translations to behavior. Because
the source of all that is human, the brain and the mind, is still a
frontier to be scaled by science and it has to be integrated with real
life. Rejecting religion and philosophy to my mind is an extremely
reductionist view. Instead if people are made to understand the
functioning of brain, it may help for a better harmony, the illusory
transformation of mind may become a reality and the anxiety an
illusion. The following writing may raise more questions because
it is not boxed in a certain discipline, rather moves across all that
is life.
The answer sought is the same-the mystery of brain and its
widely woven tapestry.
 The Ape
     (xix)
It may not be the solution but hopefully it cuts down the
trouble.
One piece of self-critique- this writing has emerged from
posing real life vis a vis conceptual thinking from a wide array of
disciplines, hence issues telescope and often move freely in the
wide arena of life, leaving more questions in the wake. I hope they
are the right questions.
These writings grew out of the video course - How the brain
Creates mind? - by the author and subsequent discussions with
bright young minds on various forum.
The Physics of brain and the proposed ideas, in the later
chapters, are a result of intensive chats, informally and formally,
that always evolved into new questions. Some of it may appear
speculative at this point but speculation is not always improbable
fantasy, it is the seed of new ideas too.
I should thank Satyajit Banerjee, Mainak Das, Braj Bhushan,
Deepu Philip, Joydeep , Satyaki -all faculty at Indian Institute of
Technology, Kanpur, India, for feeding me with ideas.
My wife, my God children and rest of my family, along with
my friends often had to bear my monologues but they always
suffer me well.
Thanks to my teachers who taught me Psychiatry and to
patients, who always challenge us to get up and know more.
 Fundamental
One or Many?

Language requires definitions to limit the infinite regression that

can result in explaining concepts. Though the basic structure
is phoneme or grapheme yet these definitions of objects and
processes suffice for communication and thought.
A dictionary definition of fundamental thus is: forming the
base, from which everything else develops, something of central
importance, the core.
But this does not ease out our difficulty. Ask anyone what is
fundamental? And it evokes myriad answers, largely dependent
on the frame of reference one lives in.
For a student, it is different than for a musician, for a mother
it means something else and so forth. But even from these we can
deduce certain common feature e.g.- the need for knowledge to
perform certain acts. Is knowledge the fundamental?
Even knowledge has multiple dimensions and layers.
Exploring fundamental is akin to traversing an inverse pyramid,
the lowest point being the it. That too with the given knowledge
till now. So, a true fundamental will be the singular point of a
pyramid that within it holds multiple maller pyramid at all levels.
inverse pyramid, the lowest point being the it. That too with
the given knowledge till now. So, a true fundamental will be the
singular point of a pyramid that within it holds multiple maller
pyramid at all levels.
inverse pyramid, the lowest point being the it. That too with
 Maya is Reality
2   
the given knowledge till now. So, a true fundamental will be the
singular point of a pyramid that within it holds multiple maller
pyramid at all levels.

Relative Fundamentals

Fundamental
 
In the figure relative fundamentals are domain dependent whereas
the universal fundamental is the tip of the larger pyramid.

Is there a fundamental behind the deepest fundamental?

A process used in Indian philosophy to address this question
was ‘Neti Neti’ meaning - ‘Not this, not this’. Answering few
questions with this approach may reveal the answer partially.
Man created domains like art, religion, even God, technology,
mythology, all will earn a ‘no’ as an answer because they all arise
out of the brain dynamics, call it mind if you please. Than is it
brain and mind, that itself is a product of genes and the survival
through food, air and water – so are these fundamental. Still a ‘no’
because this is related to life.
If life is fundamental then we get into thicker soup because
life itself exists without brain and in various forms like plants etc.
The nervous system and genes may be fundamental for life yet
they are the tip of only a smaller pyramid.
Life itself emerged billions of years after the emergence of
Universe. What was at the core before that?
Though the understanding of Universe before life has also
emerged from the human brain only (we do not know how animals
understand all this), but it leaves us with two systems –one created
by man (System H) with its fundamental understanding for
survival, within a larger system (System U) that contains it- the
larger system has man participating, to explain and understand.
In simpler terms, from the singularity of big bang to evolution
of life to this instance (H ⊂ U)
 Fundamental-One or Many?
    3
The real fundamental is a part of this ‘U’. It leaves us with
two questions –
1. Is fundamental unitary or is it “fundamentals’?
2. Do these fundamentals apply or exist across, multiple
Universes?
The second question is unanswerable with the present
knowledge base and may pass on in the realm of metaphysics but
cannot be entirely dismissed. For the models that we use are from
this planet Earth and extend to the Universe we know, a sort of
anthropocentrism. What if the multiple Universes co- exist and
some other life form has a different model and the fundamentals
are different for them. This has a bearing on the first enquiry.
The understanding of fundamental has been changing as the
human knowledge has progressed, whether through empiricism
or experimentation, algorithmically or heuristically. This very
process of gaining knowledge thus always leaves a superimposed
question of it being an epistemic or an ontic fact. Any conclusive
claim of fundamental knowledge will not be completed till the
second question is resolved.
The exploration of our Universe and its fundamentals does
not exist without an observer even if the ‘moon exists without
someone observing it’ as Einstein believed. That the act of
observation entangles it with the observed is what he did not.
This brings us to Physics and the most effective language of
describing it –Mathematics. It is a peculiarity of human evolution
that the first explorations, mentally were of the vast space around
us –even in the ancient philosophical systems of East - the large,
and then came the small, the atomic. The mesoscopic scale
of human life has been a parallel exposition in philosophy and
psychology but is a focus of physics only in recent times.
But Mathematics had been the language even in ancient India,
Arab and China and continued to be so after Greek thought, rather
modern science continues on this.
‘The unreasonable effectiveness of Mathematics in Natural
Sciences’ as Eugene Wigner called it has truth in it. In fact, the
technological advances are based on the Mathematics but it is
one level up and in no way points to the deeper reality or the
 Maya is Reality
4   
fundamentals. A reverse process of technology assisted exploration
of fundamentals is valid though.
So, if only Mathematics describes the nature, are the numbers
fundamental? But did the nature evolve the numbers before the
fundamentals? Who did it? Numbers do not have an independent
existence unrelated to reality and they interact to explain the
nature. The equations emerging out of tedious and complex
mental work successfully, even if partially, represent the reality
that cannot be visualized. So far for Mathematics, let us look at
the idea of fundamental.
By convention or conditioning of mind, the word itself creates
an image from bigger to smaller (as the pyramid shown above).
Could it be reverse?
The bigger be the fundamental and the smaller an emergent.
Actually, this remained the Physics till the beginning of 20th
century and the end of 19th.
The initial concerns of astronomy were the position of Earth vis
a vis some other planets. Shifting from an earth centric to a Helio-
centric model was a great political struggle for Scientists. Galilean
science was concerned not only about the position but also the
motion- of planets, of bodies and the forces that act on them.
Motion and its dynamics, the forces acting on it, acceleration
– these issues were the fundamental concern when Newton
developed his laws. Calculus had to be invented to explain these
laws, against a backdrop of an absolute space and time, matter
was less important than the forces acting on it.
Gravity and the forces that held the Universe together worked
on matter to keep the world going in what is called as Classical
physics, in retrospect. The cause preceded the effect, determinism
ruled and time was a reversible arrow. This classical world helped
us to reformulate the world for 300 years, the industrial revolution
and the mechanization had Newtonian Physics at its basis. Aided
by thermodynamics and electromagnetism towards late 19th
century the mechanization of human world and life was explained
by energy and fields, whether the stars or locomotive.
The fundamental till 1900 were forces, fields both from
mesoscopic to a macroscopic Universe (a middle to large), the
large was the fundamental- gravity, electromagnetism and heat.
 Fundamental-One or Many?
    5
Light posed a special problem, though proven to be
electromagnetic wave in nature, its composition and behavior
could not be explained. It is light’s relationship with heat that dealt
a blow to the fundamental model.
Planck’s introduction of ‘quantum’ packets of energy –
the photons- while trying to explain ultraviolet catastrophe in
blackbody radiation, shifted the focus to the small and microscopic.
But the big blow was in 1905 when Albert Einstein brought the
fundamental(s) back into discussion, questions that are still not
resolved. In his annus mirabilis he threw away the backdrop of
absolute space and time thus removing it from the fundamental –
an ever-altering relative dimension cannot be the fundamental and
also turned the exploring eye to the micro, through photo-electric
effect. E=mc2 became the new process where mass, energy and the
limiting speed of light became the new fundamentals when talking
of motion at a large scale. The frame of reference-the relativity of
simultaneity –even in the classical mesoscopic world was a new
fundamental way of looking where space and time are entwined.
But this was for uniform motion, in another Gedanken
(thought experiments) he brought out general relativity to remove
gravity from its exalted position of a unifying field. Gravity was
no more a thread over which motion happened rather a result of
mass moving in dimension of space-time.
Einstein’s mistakes also proved to be beneficial in further
explorations of Universe as is the case with cosmological constant.
But the most revolutionary change he brought was the shift to
the quantum world, the indeterminism, nonlocality and the observer
based reality that quantum mechanics brought into the fundamental
understanding of world. He could not accept these and was in
constant tussle with the brigade under Neil’s Bohr’s guidance but
the statistical interpretation of subatomic world was proving to be
fundamental, both mathematically and experimentally. Even his
attempts to disprove Quantum model of world as incomplete (EPR)
gave lead to further consolidation of non- locality as shown by Bell
and experimented by Alain Aspect in 1960s.
Interpretations differed but the utility of relativity and
quantum mechanics for all practical purposes has transformed the
fundamental understanding.
 Maya is Reality
6   
The model of Universe has changed since then- big bang that
arose from an extremely high density, and hot ‘singularity’ gave
rise to both time and space. As the Universe cooled it expanded and
gave rise to subatomic particles, molecules, stars, galaxies all over
14 billion years and is still on. Life on earth arose in the process, 4
billion years back. What brought life into carbon based structures
is a still a matter of debate, but is relevant to being fundamental
only if we look at fundamentals in perspective to biology.
The subatomic particle themselves exist in both matter and
field state. Electrons exist in wave- particle duality and smear
from a point to the whole Universe, their state depending on the
observer’s eye –the measurement. Entanglement between two or
more particles that have existed together at some point of time,
continues even after separation, at large distances. They do not
need a medium to talk, as locality requires. It is weird but true.
Whether the big bang occurred out of some quantum
fluctuation in a pre- state or as a point of pinch off from some
other Universe is still a conjecture.
The fundamental forces – strong and weak nuclear,
electromagnetism have been united in models of quantum world.
What remains is uniting the small with the big, the relativity and
quantum.
While subatomic world is ruled by wave function and the
uncertainty, it has to collapse to be visible and experienced in a
classical world. Thus, cohered quantum states decohere to turn
to reality, still maintaining their entanglements. Universe is no
more a stretched sheet but a dynamic shape that does not have
Euclidean straight lines but curved geodesics. Whether multiple
Universes exist in multiple dimensions as string theory proposes
or the Universe is itself not continuous but made of discrete
packets, created out of the interaction between quantum particles
and gravity. The position determination collapses the momentum
and the space curves itself in a loop. The newest attempt to unite
the small and the big is loop quantum gravity.
So, what is fundamental?
Field, particle, loops or the process of wave collapse,
Decoherence or Is space-time still the fundamental?
 Fundamental-One or Many?
    7
Time may itself be a result of brain dynamics. The bracket
of wave function in which it collapses is a record of event. The
brain may have calibrated itself in billions of years to perceive this
change of some infinitesimal unit of flow that we call time.
Rest is measured against it.
Are the events themselves than the fundamental? From the
subatomic, cellular, subcellular, microscopic, mesoscopic, and the
Cosmic, with all their interfaces are never static. Events mark the
time trajectory or even if we live in a ‘in block Universe’ with all
past, present and future co- existing, the evolution of events is
continuous.
The classical is no more the linearly determined world –
chaotic dynamics has significant impact on the processes at all
levels.
This leaves us with two strands of fundamentals, matter and
process or energy and momentum. They are entwined at very
small (subatomic), can be separately perceived or measured at a
micro to middle scale (human life) , and again the matter and field
(cosmology).
From quantum to classical to general relativity all processes
exist together.
Wave collapse and decoherence in quantum ensembles
pervade the Universe, all the way up, the entanglement is the
interconnectedness. These deserve to be called the fundamental(s)
in a restricted sense but the nonlinearity and gravity at their own
scales have their effects. A unifying fundamental thread, field or
matter yet may be discovered till then it will be ‘fundamentals’.
However probable the reality may seem, physics seeks laws
and fundamental constants e.g. Planck’s, that are independent of
observer and maintain the dynamics of Universe and life within
it. These Laws and Constant would be the same for any observer
from any Universe.
These will be the FUNDAMENTALS beyond the abstraction
of human mind.
 The Brain

Philosophical and scientific debates have been raging since the

time when Descartes separated mind from matter. That this matter
was a substrate, brain, was a natural discovery. Philosophy as a
product, whether of mind or brain, became the common precursor
of Psychology, Physics and Mathematics, and the dichotomy
deepened as the reductionist vs. holistic approaches could not
reconcile.
Whether mind and consciousness are systems that exist
separate from brain? It requires a general to specific way of
looking at life and behavior, the brain with neural activity and
its dynamical interaction with non-neural structures like other
parts of body or in the brain with fluid, cells and blood vessels.
Go deeper and it comes to a single neuron or cell and within the
cell, complex biochemistry, proteins synthesis and genes- this is
the ultimate reductionist level. One can go further deep to carbon
and nitrogen basis of these microstructures and their quantum
processes.
The brain itself has revealed its modular form and broad
divisions into hemispheres that further have specialized areas like
sensory, motor, visual, auditory along with association areas. A
scale further deep, we find 10 11 neurons with 1015 synapses doing
1018 operations per second. Each neuron, the receptor, electrical
activity and signaling within cell body can be explored, with the
deepest level being the genes as a messenger system.
If we raise the hand for waving at someone, the behavior
psychology would call it communication or greeting. Take this
 The Brain
    9
as level 1, finding what is moving the hand-muscles is level 2- a
signal from the nerves. At level 3, nerves get signal from the brain
but at level 4 the question poses itself-why does brain want to
greet this person? It is a social need, that has come out from within
the brain. One further level could be- which area of the brain is
creating the social need. What are the neurons that fire? At yet
deeper level, synapses and neurons connect to each other; further,
which chemical went between the neurons to signal this and the
deepest of it all- which genes actually want people to communicate.
From behavior to basics, this is the range of Neuroscience.
We can pick up whatever we want from the plethora of data
and approaches to study brain. Anatomy, physiology, tract tracing,
brain lesions, imaging, are some of the direct and indirect routes.
Brain damage to certain areas, alter behaviour and was the initial
proof of correlation of anatomy with behavior, it was post-mortem
that revealed it in initial days of research, now it is imaging – e.g.
for a paralyzed arm, a CT scan shows a lesion in the motor area,
on the opposite hemisphere.
Functional neuroanatomy points at the dynamics between
structure and function that entwine like history and geography.
Both can alter each other e.g. people get stuck in some area of the
world and way they live alters the history, but the best example
has been given by computer. Computer has an integrated structure
of silicon chips, it transmits the movement in binary signal, 0
or 1. The software does run it although the hardware is running
the software- for functioning we are really bothered about the
hardware. For some, this is the best analogy, but it has a flaw-
brain is not like computer because once the computer architecture
is laid down, we can keep loading software and keep running it
without altering the basic computer structure.
Brain on the contrary, with every experience, with every action,
keeps altering a little bit here and there. In brain, one can never
take off the software! The software lays the hardware in brain, the
detailed structure is formed by the function. Lot of this function
comes from environmental interaction. Functional neuroanatomy
talks of localization, of networks, brain’s interaction with the
external world, states of mind, memories and anticipations.
 Maya is Reality
10   
Brain has fine-tuned itself in millions of years to make
its owner survive. In most concise definition, it is a parallel
distributed modular structure, but at the same time with hierarchy
in the decision making. Though Psychology has been there for
150 years, this understanding has come in last 30-40 years, in
leaps and bounds, because physics and technology has turned its
lens to this enigma.
In early 19th century Franz Gall brought out an interesting
concept called “Phrenology”, he was the first man to give the
idea that, the functions of the body, of movement, of hearing, of
listening, of watching and all these have a certain specific localized
area in the brain. This was fine, but he went over board and related
these areas to the bumps on the head. It is a taxable quackery now
but the basic idea of functional and anatomical mapping of brain
came from it! Modern fMRI and imaging techniques are trying to
do the same- not the bumps but localization.
But the big fillip came with the discovery of Purkinje cells
in Cerebellum indicating, the Neurons to be the basic unit of
brain. Santiago Ramon Cajal and Golgi, shared the Nobel prize,
for discovering Neurons and their connection in a network.
Golgi called them Syncytia; attached like wall to wall in an
extensive folded mattress, but Cajal said they are not a mattress,
not attached side by side, but are distinct units, each one of them
separately participating in a network, Cajal was proven to be
right. Sherrington meanwhile was working on the reflex action in
neuron.
We all know it, if there is pinprick in the hand, it pulls off even
before we realize. The signal goes from the touch to spinal cord
and back to muscles to avoid the prick. All this in a split second,
only a part of this signal goes to the brain. Sherrington brought out
the concept of synapse, neurons connect through them to complete
the reflex. The basic brain now appeared to be, composed of cells
called “Neurons”, glial cells, which are supportive cells.
Whole brain appears pink but has gray matter covering
white matter in deeper layers, the Gray matter are the bodies of
the Neurons, myelinated axons make the white matter. A typical
Neuron has the body of the cell, dendrites, a Nucleus, a tail Axon
 The Brain
     11
that lands on the dendrites of the next neuron. Dendrites are like
Antenna on which the Axon connect and this whole small thing is
called Synapse. The Axons descend to form the nerves, some very
long, some small, that end in the brain itself. Cortex is considered
to be the brain, arranged in 6 layers. 1011 neurons form a huge
network not only within the brain but through white matter to
cranial nerves and to Spinal cord that gives control of body parts
to brain, both voluntary and involuntary muscles.
These are arranged in functional columns, small mini columns
and micro columns without a distinct sheath around them. The
columns unite to form a region of the brain, the functional areas,
being “Brodmann areas”. Brodmann had used a certain stain to
define areas, numbered from 1 to 56 with different functions
assigned to them These regions further constitute lobes -Frontal
lobe, Parietal lobe, Occipital lobe and then the Hemispheres – left
and right, all functionality is the result of these neuronal networks.
Brain, thus has two halves that look alike, united by a band of
neurons, Corpus Callosum. Right and left brain may have different
function assigned to it, but it has created the myth of right and left
brained people in popular imagination- artists being more right
brain and mathematicians with a better working left brain.
Parietal lobe is where all the sensations from the body reach,
it has a representation of the various parts. Touch, heat, pain all
somatic sensations go here after passing through Thalamus which
is situated in mid brain and acts as a relay centre. Frontal lobes are
situated in the front and have motor areas to control movement of
the opposite side and also language area.
Occipital lobe at the back of the head has the visual cortex
and temporal lobes comprehend speech and memory functions.
Pons and medulla are deeper structure, where the movements of
eye ball muscles, the respiratory muscles and all the involuntary
control of the body is managed.
Often in the initial days of research, damage to a certain area
of brain revealed the function, deduced from the deficit that arose.
Perhaps the single most person who opened up the Pandora’s
box of lesion studies was Phineas Gage in 1848. In an accident,
a huge iron rod, went through his left frontal lobe. He sure would
 Maya is Reality
12   
have died with the type of injury, he survived but not without a
significant personality change. A quiet man that he was, suddenly
became very explosive; given to anger outbursts, unable to decide
or make judgment; probably the damage to the brain had changed
his personality; indeed, damage to the left side of frontal lobes
does it.
Roger Penfield further helped in localization by observing
the movements of various body parts, while applying electrical
stimulation to brain areas during neurosurgery. Paul Broca studied
patients with difficulty in speaking, in expressive speech. A left
frontal area now called Broca’s area was damaged in them due
to stroke, leading to motor aphasia. This is the speech area in the
dominant hemisphere.
If a similar damage happens in temporal lobe, people can
speak but not comprehend. The speech of a person with Wernicke’s
aphasia often appears gibberish because Broca’s area is intact
but comprehension is damaged. This connection was the next to
be discovered and was called conduction aphasia. Imaging has
confirmed this word generation process. The words are seen in
Occipital cortex and heard in temporal but the central coordination
remains in thalamus. This explains the aphasias.
Once people got this basic idea of possible connections
between the areas, the hunt for networks began. Lashley studied
rats to discover that it is not exactly the point of lesion that
causes the problem, it is the size, probably indicating a damage
to connections.
1949 paper of Donald Hebb, brought out the concept of
Hebbian assemblies, what would easily qualify for being a
network theory or a graph theory in Mathematics. He emphasized
on reciprocal connections between neurons through functions that
they are sub serving. As in social networking, each is connected to
the other in six steps, the neurons are connected to each other in
two or three connections but it means 1000 connections for each
neuron, creating a complex network.
The motor system provides a fine example. The parts of
body are represented in the homunculus, connected to Basal
Ganglia, that embedded deep in the centre along with Cerebellum
 The Brain
     13
coordinates movement. The decision and fine tuning is done
by these structures though the motor cortex controls the gross
movement. This does not happen without feedback inputs from
body that have been processed through thalamus.
At any given instance, multiple inputs enter the brain about
position, movement, orientation, balance, sensations etc. Brain
does a fine job to integrate and keep the self, oriented and anticipate
the next moment. How does it manage, is the subject of few further
chapters? Just for a glimpse, examine auditory system. The ear
receives a pressure wave, it goes in the ear to set the tympanic
membrane in vibration that is passed to the 3 ossicles arranged
serially, the frequency and the information is preserved throughout.
This signal is passed to the inner ear to a hairy membrane and
the slightly looped structure called cochlea. The membrane does
a natural Fourier transform, the higher frequencies are caught
at the base, where it is attached to that outer structure and the
lower frequency is towards the end. These fluctuations turn on the
nervous tissue and the signal is transformed to electrical signal.
Similarly, with visual system- light falls on the retina; i.e. a
photon jumps the electron in a protein called Rhodopsin that sets
in electrical current. The left side of the visual field goes to the
right side of the brain and vice versa after passing through the
relay centre in thalamus.
The auditory signal is presented in a tonotopic presentation to
the auditory cortex from here and the visual in a topographic map.
The electrical signal is carrying the required information. The
features are extracted in respective cortex and projected back to
be compared and integrated with other signals from other senses
to generate a composite meaningful response to the external
stimulus. The basic signal in the neurons is electrical that itself is
regulated through neurotransmitters between them. The incoming
signal arrives at the dendrites and the total input is summated
across in a spatial and temporal process to create excitatory post
synaptic potential or inhibitory (EPSPs or IPSPs) that determine
the action potential in the receiving neurons, further propagating
through the neural network eventually translating to behaviour or
emotional expression.
 Maya is Reality
14   
The neurotransmitters are Serotonin, Dopamine, Acetylcholine
and few others that regulate basic to higher processes and form the
mainstay of treatment of mental illnesses. They are synthesized
in the cell body and transported through microtubules to the end
of the axon. Once the action potential reaches at axonal end, the
electrical signal is converted to chemical signal that jumps across
the gap. These molecules bind on the specific receptors on the post
synaptic dendrites to trigger the action potential and continue the
signal transmission.
The action potential itself is the alteration of voltage difference
across the membrane through sodium, potassium and chloride
movement through ion channels and active pumps, that maintain
the outside positive and the inner negative, at rest. Reversal of this
state is the current. Thus, the electrical activity in nervous tissue is
not the physical current due to electron flow.
This electrical activity in neurons creates an electrical field in
the brain recorded from the scalp by electroencephalography(EEG)
and the associated magnetic field in MEG.
Functional Magnetic Imaging captures the activity level of
different brain areas based on the oxygen utilization, that helps
record the activation on a given task. Another way to localize
function. As technology advances attempts to directly visualize
the functioning brain, will help us in unraveling the mystery
further.
This sketch of brain should serve as a initiating point for a
deeper exploration of
What is real? in the rest of the book
 A Beautiful Mind

Anthropology and Fossil Studies have provided vital clues to the

physical history of modern man. Through discovery of fossilized
skeletons in places like Siberia and Africa, these two fields of
inquiry have managed to go back almost 2 lakh years to trace the
history of the modern man, out of the many HOMOs, we survived
- the Homo sapiens. But what Anthropology and Fossil Studies
have still not been able to do is shed a bright light on the human
mind. The working of the mind in those times can be extrapolated
from the tools and lifestyle imagined, but the first record dates
back roughly forty thousand years—to the cave paintings of
Southern France, Andaman and Nicobar, and Bhimbetka in India.
These wall paintings vary from simple to elaborate as a depiction
of their life and remain as the surviving proof of the need for
expression and communication, whatever be the language, as a
window to unravel the mystery of human mind.
But forty thousand years thence, human mind still remains the
ultimate mystery. The entire world, the realities we construct, the
ways in which we perceive life around, and all our responses to
life are channeled through mind, i.e., we understand, whatever we
understand, through the mechanisms of mind, and to unravel the
mind is like trying to grasp the totality of a painting while being
inside of it!
What is mind? How does this function? Are brain and mind
different? These are questions that have provoked more questions
but definite answers at best are speculations. In Human Sciences,
disciplines like Philosophy and Psychology have grappled with
 Maya is Reality
16   
these questions. In Natural Sciences, Biology and Physics (together
with Chemistry) have developed techniques and methodologies to
understand and interpret the functioning of brain.
Brain is the physical organ, made up of tiny neurons, billions
of them, each connected to the other in complex ways, creating a
dense network. And what Biology and Physics grapple with is this
physical organ—the brain. Biology has explored it in a top-down
approach. It sees brain as one whole, and works on the principle of
deficit, i.e., it considers the brain as a sum total of its components
parts—the cerebral hemispheres (the cerebrum), the cortical layer
(the cerebral cortex), the brainstem, and the cerebellum, -the
dysfunction in behavior and movement arising out of damage to
these structures.
Physics, which has a bottom-up approach, operates on
principles. Physics is trying to define principles of brain
functioning. But as of now, both the sciences have remained
inadequate in solving the riddle of the mind.
How did the brain evolve?
The simplest of nervous system like amoeba has movement
and sensation. If we poke an amoeba, it retracts, owing to the
twin faculties of sensation and movement. So, the first faculties
to develop were movement and sensation. Next came emotion
and memory. Birds do have memory. Do they have emotions? At
least the basic emotions like fear and rage have been observed in
birds. Had it not been for memory, birds would not migrate to the
same lake year after year; had it not been for emotion, our pet dog
would not wag its tail at mere sight of us. Along with the physical
senses of touch, taste, smell, sound, and vision, all animals and
birds are endowed with emotion and memory. Who knows even
the plants have some streak of emotions.
What about us humans? We have all faculties that animals
have, we can crawl like reptiles, walk like lions, smell and sniff
like dogs, cannot fly though but all in a restricted range with our
body etc. The Greek philosopher Aristotle, famously divided
the faculties into vegetal (plants), animal (animals), and rational
(humans), with the humans having been endowed with all three
faculties. The plants grow, and some plants even move, animals
 A Beautiful Mind
     17
grow and move, and humans do all this, and more. Humans have
been endowed with all qualities that the process of evolution has
endowed animals with. However, the degree varies. The humans
can smell but fail to perceive smells that are very distant, unlike
the dogs. Animals like cows and dogs have been known to sense
an onset of solar eclipse, much before it is visible to the human
eye. Why this difference in degree? Why can some animal see
farther than others and some run faster? The answer is simple—
survival.
Nature has equipped us with ample faculties that ensure
our survival. In the course of evolution, along with faculties of
emotion, and memory, humans also developed Cognition—the
ability to think, appreciate, perceive, and make meaning out of
life (what Aristotle refers to as the faculty of being rational). We
share with many animals the faculties of awareness, perception,
attention, and, orientation. And while animals do display moods,
it is generally believed that they are more stable in terms of moods
than humans.
We carry the memories of all evolution not only in physicality
but the memory too. My body moves the hands and legs and all
other dynamics, because it unfolds in a similar pattern from genes,
the pattern itself inherited in the coded memory from millions of
years. The experiment within cells and body would have gone
for ages before a fine- tuned result appeared. The basics of brain
dynamics is also the same. The acquired knowledge differs.is it
possible that the memory of eons is also coded somewhere, in the
undiscovered gene or field, after all the Universe still carries signs
of big bang, in a continuous thread. Are we all individual waves in
this vast sea of a ‘foam’ as quantum gravity labels it?
It still gives no relief because we do not know definitely -
what makes human unstable, or at least, more unstable than
animals? The answer could be: cognition. The word cognition has
been derived from the Latin word ‘Cognoscere’ that means ‘get to
know’. While animals are aware and perceive the physical world
to feed, reproduce and survive, largely in tune with nature, humans
attempt to ‘know’ it, and in the process-think. Humans developed
thinking as a step towards processing the external stimuli, and
 Maya is Reality
18   
eventually have knowledge of it. Our entire religious system, the
various myths across the cultures, is based on the human need to
interpret the physical world.
This human endeavor to interpret the natural world (seasons,
cycles, and patterns) has led to the construction of viewpoints and
subjective inferences. A drought or flood (to cite an example) may
be a simple geographical phenomenon, but evokes a deep-rooted
fear of some sort of divine wrath and retribution. But before we
move into the domain of thinking and creating constructs, let us
look into the universality of emotions. All humans experience
emotions, and all emotions are universal. Laughter is a laughter,
across all cultures, and a smile an expression of a positive
sensation, just as crying in most cases is an expression of sadness.
Why are human emotions universal? One explanation lies
in the gene-theory. Probably all modern humans have descended
from one mother—the proto-mother in Africa, her offspring
travelled and propagated the human race, the migrations etched
in mitochondrial DNA. If our genetic makeup determines who we
are, all humans are same on the level of the genes by virtue of
common pool. We all have the same kind of biological instincts—
hunger, thirst, sex, sleep, rage, joy, sadness, playfulness—but
alongside these universal emotions, humans in later stages of
evolution, also developed thought and language.
Even animals communicate in some form of elementary or
complex sounds. But what differentiates the human language
from that of animals is its plurality and complexity, entwining it
with existence.
Cooing of birds is a form of communication. Non-verbal
gestures are communication. But verbal language is far more
complex. To begin with, there is no natural and causal relationship
between the sound of the word, and its primary meaning. For
example, the word ‘Rose’, the sound of the monosyllable has no
connection to its direct meaning—a fragrant flower with a whole
lot of thorns. And next, a word’s meaning is not restricted to its
primary denotation, and instead has a range of connotations,
which are culturally and emotionally defined. The word Rose may
mean beauty, love, romance, softness, fragrance, and so on; or it
 A Beautiful Mind
     19
may mean none of these, depending on what symbol the human
mind associates with the word. Language is based on association,
and meaning is infused in any word through this process of
association. Language thus remains arbitrary. Entire system of
language is based on association of metaphors, and since humans
even think in language (the famous notion of there being nothing
outside of text), all reality becomes subjective, and based on
individual interpretation.
Between this universality of emotions, and subjectivity of
cognition, lies the individual sense of self. If human brain is a
physical organ that is governed by electro-chemical activity, and
if all emotions are universal, why are no two humans identical, or
to put it in other words, what accounts for the individual human
uniqueness?
Let us do away with some categories here before we answer
this question. Some people are good at mathematics; few at
art while others are word smart or naturally more analytical or
intuitive. What accounts for this? One popular theory is of left and
the right brain. Between the left and right, left brain is generally
considered to be a analytical, thinking brain while the right is the
global, intuitive part of the brain. This is a classic dualism. And
while both the parts of brain work in conjunction with each other,
there are theories that some people are left-oriented, and others
right-oriented.
Such categorizations over-simplify the beautiful complexity
of brain mechanism. A brain is contrary to what many of us would
like to believe, NOT in synchrony. Various parts of brain work in
harmony with each other, but there is never synchrony in brain.
Harmony, a simple unifying thought is a myth. Because at any
given point of time, there is multiplicity of activities going on in
the brain, and as such, multiple layers of thoughts bombard our
brain. A person sitting in the meditative posture, trying to focus on
the thoughts, will inadvertently have a variety of thoughts going
on in his brain. Synchrony would mean that there is one and only
one sound, like a solo song performance unaided by background
music. Brain on the other hand works like an elaborate orchestra,
with all instruments working together, an in harmony.
 Maya is Reality
20   
Brain synchronizes only in few conditions. In coma, which is
not a normal condition, some stages of sleep or during epilepsy.
It is only in these states that the brain is focused on one activity,
because in all other instances, it is running in several different
directions. Brain being the field of so much neural activity creates
thoughts that vie for attention. It is a lot like shopping in a mall
with numerous shining glass showcases tempting the mind, all
calling for attention, and more often than not, indecisiveness is
the result.
Attention is the bottleneck in the interface to the world!!
Multiplicity of thoughts in the brain can be unnerving and
exhausting. And that is why humans seek a respite often in external
agents that induce states of synchronicity. What stimulants like
drugs, alcohol, etc. do is that they suppress some activities of the
brain, letting the mind focus on few.
Where is the juncture between the mind and the brain? If brain
is the physical whole, mind is its function. It is the act of focusing
on a particular aspect of the brain. It is the act of being attentive to
a certain thought over others, and in that sense, mind is awareness.
There is so much of activity going on in the brain that one cannot
possibly be mindful of all thoughts and sensations. But whatever
catches your awareness, happens to be on your mind. And thus,
the idiom, ‘What’s on your mind today?’
Our current state of mind determines our mood, and our mood
determines our responses. If we are in an amicable state of mind,
small botherations do not perturb however if we happen to be in
an irritable state of mind, the smallest event can trigger a negative
response. It is all a state of mind! The way we look at things, the
way we perceive them, it is all a subjective perception of the mind,
like having a cloud over the brain, same as cloud in computation.
Our entire belief system is a projection of the mind than.
There are theories that state that humans are born with a
blank slate—mind is a tabula rasa. And as we grow up, we
acquire and internalize social conventions, prejudices, beliefs,
and even values. We are conditioned into believing the things that
we believe in. Even our value system is socially and culturally
determined. Going naked is a taboo in most cultures, at least under
 A Beautiful Mind
     21
most situations. While in some tribal cultures, like the Pygmies
of Africa, wearing clothes is considered not only inessential,
but also idiotic. Let us consider some human responses. Shame
is a response to supposedly embarrassing situations. But this is
culturally determined. What is a matter of shame to one, need not
necessarily be to another. Likewise, our sense of right and wrong
is socially and culturally constructed.
The process of socialization and conditioning starts the minute
an infant emerges from the mother’s womb. And so deeply it gets
internalized that we blindly and ‘mindlessly’ fall into the rut of
conventionality. But all conventions are subjective abstractions
that the mind creates for the purpose of convenience and comfort.
The only definite reality seems to be the physical reality— there
is a physical energy; there is law of gravitation and quantum
processes all the way up, and the four forces which Physics has
defined and the electrochemical activity in your brain, that has
created fixed structures on Earth-beyond that nothing we know
can be stated with surety.
Amidst these physical laws, the tangible brain, there are
theories of the intangible mind. For Aristotle, humans were
endowed with a rational ‘soul’ but later scholars refuted the theory
of soul. While still others posited the idea of body comprising of
fluids (Theory of Humours which was the base of ancient medicine
being one such theory), and later in the eighteenth century, the
Western Philosophical System put forward a mechanistic world
view through the Enlightenment discourse, thus separating the
mind from the body—the classical Cartesian Dualism. Equally
strong are the theories from East. Elaborate theories consider the
mind having its own existence as does Universal Consciousness,
of which a part is human consciousness. Few of these theories
converge with the recent Neuro-scientific understanding, few
contradict. Whether mind and consciousness is an emergent
property of brain dynamics or has a life of its own is still depends
on the point of view.
Brain performs a multiplicity of functions. These functions
occur on two levels—the sequential level of linearity, and the
parallel level of simultaneity. All these processes vie for our
 Maya is Reality
22   
attention. Whether what we choose to prioritize, is determined by
human Will is a matter of debate still. But human Will is also not
as free as some philosophers would like us to believe, more than
often human choices are determined by societal constructs that
have formed our large unconscious that directs behavior rather
than a true conscious decision.
A child gets up every morning, dresses up, and goes to school,
because given the state of society, this is accepted as the most
rational thing to do, but we do not know for sure. What we term
as rationality, is actually very situational. In fact, entire psychiatry
is based on identifying the anomaly—that which is different from
the normative. Kinds of behavior that do not fall into the range
of acceptability are termed as abnormal. French Philosopher,
Michel Foucault has talked about this in his History of Sexuality,
and Discipline and Punish. Before that, German philosopher,
Friedrich Nietzsche has referred to this in his Beyond Good and
Evil. For Nietzsche, the entire sense of morality and righteousness
is based on ‘herd instinct’ or what is understood as an acceptable
and prevalent trend.
Between all these constructs, where is the mind? And where
is the sense of Self? We all have a distinct sense of Self. Our
identities are categorically defined. We, to put it in short, have
a magnified sense of ‘I’. Where does our sense of identity come
from? Amidst so many brain functions, where does the unified
sense of I emerge? Let us tackle this systematically. Brain as a
physical organ performs multiple functions. There is a 40 hertz
gamma wave which arises from deeper structure of brain which
probably unites these multiple functions. What about our sense
of Self? Am I the person who exhibits anger? or the person who
showers love upon another? Am I what my friends perceive me to
be? What am I? At any moment of time, I am my awareness—my
most dominant thought. That is, we are what occupies our mind at
a moment of time.
Next question that naturally arises is—How do I determine
what’s on my mind? Let us go back a little, to the ancient
philosophical systems. In Western Philosophy, the Greek
philosopher, Heraclitus famously said that ‘you cannot step into
 A Beautiful Mind
     23
the same river twice’. That is to say that you and the world around
you is constantly changing, and that selfhood can only be pinned
down to one moment. It is a lot like drops of water in a running
stream. When you try to hold some water in the cup of your hand,
you manage to get just a few drops. The entire stream remains.
And that water in the cup of your hand is your sense of Self, at
least for that moment.
In the Eastern Philosophical system, Gautama Buddha
declared that you are your thoughts. But how does one pin down
the thought? Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychiatry,
posited a three-tiered structure of the brain. For Freud, mind was
a lot like an iceberg. The mere tip that shows above the surface
is the conscious mind, while a vast unconscious lied beneath,
and accessible to the conscious mind only through dreams, or in
moments of the famous Freudian slips. Art, for Freud, was the
manifestation of the subconscious mind. If the human conscious
mind remains oblivious to the significant portion of the mind
comprising of the unconscious, how does one become aware of
the mind in totality? How does one determine one’s sense of Self?
It is a tricky question. And the process of identifying thoughts
submerged in your subconscious is a Catch 22 kind of situation.
My mother scolded me when I was ten, and suddenly after thirty
years, I am reminded of her scolding when an irritated boss or
an annoyed spouse screams at me. Where did the memory come
from? The conscious mind that one is aware of is constantly fed by
the unconscious mind, and hence one cannot escape the mind—
neither conscious, nor unconscious.
There are theorists—Ian Pavlov being a famous example—that
claim that mind is trainable. In fact, our entire education system is
based on the premise that mind can be trained. And thus, in public
schools we see uniformity in clothing, and uniformity in conduct,
together with uniformity in syllabi. As the child is born, the process
of social conditioning begins. If the mind of the child at birth is like
crystal clear water, the process of socialization gradually dyes the
water in various colours, some dark, others bright.
Our social and cultural conditioning creates multiple levels
of filtration through which external stimuli is processed. At any
 Maya is Reality
24   
moment of time, the deep-rooted conditioning exerts a pull, and
multiplicity of brain functions creates a range of thoughts. Our
awareness is determined by what we choose to pay your attention
to. Given a set of situations, humans respond depending on their
past experiences, and their conditioning. And yet, given one
situation, no two individual human responses are the same. ‘A’
might respond to the stimulus X in ways which are very different
from the way ‘B’ responds to the stimulus X. The self itself is a
product of social context, thus limiting the will.
Humans have a tendency to attach value judgements to
all responses and actions. We perceive the world in binaries.
Something is evil because it is not good. Someone is weak because
she is not strong, and so on. Humans always place contexts to
interpret a situation. All binaries are based on received notions
of value-system. Our choices are based on our received value
system. And thus, our choices are not as free as they seem. And
yet it is choices and responses that differentiate one human being
from another.
In fact, every sense of Self is made up of tiny and temporally
determined multiple self. It is a lot like a mural painting made up
of tiny tiles. From afar, the painting looks whole and unified, but a
closer look will reveal that it is made up of many individual tiles,
all placed together, and all appearing to be one whole. Each human
is an individual and unique self because each human is like a
mural, and no two murals are identical. Some may have some tiles
that are similar, but the ways in which all tiles are arranged, varies
from individual to individual creating sense of uniqueness. If we
stretch this analogy a bit further, we can understand individual
human responses as that mortar that holds the tiles together.
Does this leave any scope of the potential of the human mind
to change and exert his self?
Brain functioning is Repetitive and Appetitive. Humans like
to repeat the actions that satisfy a certain appetite, either physical
or emotional. One takes a peg of alcohol. One feels a kick. The
action is repeated the next day, same kick is sought. The action
becomes repetitive and appetitive. This seems like a scary situation
where humans merely seek gratification, and are monitored by
 A Beautiful Mind
     25
societal value system, which like the Orwellian Big Brother, is
always watching them. But in this seemingly dismal situation lies
the spark for change. Brain is beautifully complex, but mind has
the potential to be simply beautiful. If the mind is trainable, mind
can also be untrained.
Brain as a physical organ can be tired or relaxed but it seeks
homeostasis. While brain as a physical organ seeks calmness,
what about the mind? What does the mind seek? A very difficult
question with a surprisingly simple answer—the mind seeks
happiness.
All human endeavors are aimed towards one end—happiness,
bliss, Ananda, joy. The ancient Indian treatise, Natyashastra by the
sage, Bharata , identifies nine different Rasas, or emotional states
of the mind. These include among others, love, fear, anger, sadness,
disgust. But the ultimate -rasa remains Shanta rasa—roughly
translated as peace or bliss. The brain as already mentioned, works
in harmony, but never in synchrony. It is almost like a cacophony,
with so many musical notes vying for our attention. Amidst all
this, what is happiness? Well, first and foremost, happiness is
our response to a situation which we understand as pleasant and
conducive, directly opposed to sadness which is largely induced
by the unpleasant and in so far as happiness is a human response,
it is in human hands to determine it.
In an average day, the pleasant thoughts are balanced by the
unpleasant ones to create a semblance of stable mood states of
being. When pleasant thoughts override the unpleasant ones, we
experience happiness, albeit momentarily. And if one takes into
account all moments of happiness and sadness that pass through
human mind over a period of time, life looks like a never-ending
rollercoaster ride. To some it may be an exhilarating experience,
especially when peaks outnumber the troughs. But what is referred
to as sustained happiness is lot more than momentary joy. It is more
than what one experiences when under a state of intoxication.
And this is where the training of the mind comes in. One
can train the mind to perceive positivity in all situations, and sail
through life gently like a flowing river. One can choose to center
the awareness on positive thoughts. Brain can be trained towards
 Maya is Reality
26   
greater degrees of synchronicity (as already mentioned, absolute
synchrony only occurs in certain stages of sleep, or in coma, or
in epilepsy) by focusing one’s awareness on the current moment,
without any baggage of past regrets or future worries.
Thoughts are like rocks that the brain throws into our field of
awareness. Our awareness is constantly bombarded by thoughts.
Thoughts occur nonetheless. But one can train the mind to let
the thoughts come and go. Thoughts will eventually settle if we
allow them to, much like the autumn storm. While there is no
formula, no mantra, there is a trick—a very simple age-old trick.
Concentrate on the present moment. Let the past and future fade
away. As you flow with the moment, life flows with you, gently,
and often effortlessly.
The beauty of the mind lies in its seemingly infinite possibility
of creation. Except itself (Artificial intelligence may defy this
too), it seems to be capable of creating all, it is the potential of
the mind that has led to all our scientific inventions, discoveries,
art, literature. If humans have managed to harness the elements,
and chart out a history of progress for themselves, harnessing the
human mind is not such a far-fetched idea.
Plutarch—‘The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to
be kindled’.
 The Scales

‘Standing on the shoulders of the Giants’ and peeping far and

deep has made us wiser about the vast expanse of space though
not fully knowledgeable but this is easy! Whether universe has
followed a linear expanding trail to cool itself down or it has
multiple histories, each universe being a shadow or a ‘pinched
off vesicle’ from another or emerged from the black hole of some
other Universe still is debatable. Are there Four or ten dimensions
enveloping us or is it a single layer of existence at best remains a
hypothesis.
The small baffled us till Quantum mechanics and its
‘entanglements’, were formulated mathematically, only to
be confirmed by experimentations later. It still does with its
randomness but comprehending the mesoscopic has been the most
difficult - our own life.
In the last 115 years the models of reality and origins of life
have been revised as they have been in past too, yet right from
Vedas, Upanishads, genesis and various other religious and quasi-
religious propositions the tool to do so has remained the same
–THE HUMAN BRAIN.
Amidst all these debates between reductionist, objective
belief of Science and mythical belief of Hindus that ‘it has always
existed as it is with no beginning and no end’ or GOD that made
the world in six days , one robust fact stands separate–
“The HUMAN BRAIN is the source of all understanding”
and we have just started peeping into the real Giant that
slumbers or roars in each sentient being.
 Maya is Reality
28   
Albert Einstein was once asked to explain special relativity in
simplest way. He quipped that it will take him 3 days to put it in
simplest terms. The shortest update of life and Brain may defy the
word short but it is worth tracking the progress of our knowledge
epistemologically.
It all started 13 billion years ago when all the four fundamental
forces existed in singularity in Planck’s time (10-43) and as the
energy exploded in big bang, space and time was born, galaxies
and planets formed and in a self-cooling effort Universe started
expanding. Billion years later life emerged on Earth (and
who knows on some other planet too) under some sustainable
conditions. What was before big bang? (Coupled with the
Quantum behavior and multiple histories of particles a possibility
of multiple universes renders it speculative).
However, whether life exists on some other planet is yet to be
discovered and the egoistic human may not want it too, like the
religious minds believe that an intelligent designer created life.
It is hard to fathom at this point that such life sustaining forces
coalesced only once and given that we have been around in some
form for a billion years, evolving as per Darwin, the sustaining
conditions must have prevailed till now. Humans separated from
chimpanzees 6 million years back, whether by an evolutionary leap
or a quirky mutant offshoot is immaterial. Unless the conditions
of origin are irreversible and carry in their trail further sustaining
conditions it could well be cyclical or spiral, in turn giving rise to
life in new forms elsewhere every time the forces coalesce in an
iterant process.
This is also important if we consider that human life survived
6 million years and 2 lakh years in its present form where 5 brands
of HOMO existed and SAPIENS survived till this point, even
if the history is not so charitable HOMO SAPIENS pushed by
sheer development of brain, braving the nature. Fire, tools, arms,
he used all inventions and discoveries to kill, loot, grow to move
up in food chain by virtue of being together, inventing, farming,
creating food surplus and making societies.
The brain grew in complexity and dimensions however bound
it was in skull cage in each body, it learned to expand, communicate
 The Scales
     29
and oscillate between ‘I’ and “WE’. Being together and binding
to bear external threats is deeply rooted in us and exhibits every
now and then.
Individual struggle against other individuals, families against
other ones, countries against other usurpers and may be whole
humanity against aliens. Each group unites under threat from
something superior or powerful as selfishness is sacrificed for
togetherness, on the reverse selfishness increases from humanity
to individual under absence of threat. This play probably is the
push to survival and the basic nature and the altruism, charitable
human possibly is an effect of going beyond these instincts
exhibited only by few.
Homo Sapiens still play because conditions have sustained
life but how do they survive the dialectical tension between
basic instincts of a primitive hunter explorer and a sacrificing
community member is a prime question.
The answer lies in a 1.3kg jelly like pink structure called
BRAIN. The history of modern man dates back to 40000 years
and as he turned from Quadruped to biped he attained survival
skills, the most important being Freedom –freedom from the
nature, to which other life forms are bound still. Once he was free,
partially though (death still remaining the limiting factor) he went
on to explore, invent and tame nature and other life forms assisted
greatly by need to express and communicate…the simplest and
earliest forms being the cave paintings at South West France and
Bhopal India. Next logical leap was not surprising …Language.
As words and sentences formed from simple phonemes and
morphemes (something that is evident in child’s development in a
typical example of ontogeny begets phylogeny) the cognition and
behavior multiplied in its dimensions. Brain became an exploratory
appetitive, repetitive tool laced with restricted sensory and motor
abilities as compared to other animals, the tradeoff providing it
with a push to expand mental capacities, to communicate freely
and possibly a WILL.
Though a free will may be a misnomer yet intention and ability
to discern and choose is inherent except for in extreme lack of
intelligence or pathology or at extreme ends of age curve. These
 Maya is Reality
30   
capabilities coupled with memory ability both visual and verbal,
control of emotions through thought and stepping out of self to
connect with the other human being gave birth to Socialization.
This socialization need is Universal in higher order Mammals
but the way human brain has evolved to affect the life of other is
remarkable as other mammals still take their diktat from natural
conditions, only the human chooses to inflict a certain behavior on
the fellow. The growing together has brought human endeavor to
where it is irrespective of constructive or destructive results. Man,
as a collective has created science, religion and mythology in turn
politics, war, harnessing nature and destroying it too, discovered
physical laws, created God and then denied him, expressed
through arts, sports and myriad activities but all motivated by one
push from within, survival instinct and fear of extinction.
The human brain exhibits this at all levels -one just has to observe
around. Numerous theories and experiments from psychology and
mythology from ages have amply pointed at the ‘negatives’ of
human nature- greed, lust, rage, violence, jealousy, anger always
to be counterbalanced by so called positives-altruism love, charity
etc. These are forces acting on human nature and not moralistic
vectors. Human cognition dynamically interacts with these primary
or complex emotions to produce an acceptable behavior when the
individual to community behavior exhibits a similar process.
Most exist in a daily grind of self- sustenance, this varies from
individualistic cultures to the family oriented, the self- including
‘me’ or ‘many’ and people move in a Maslowian hierarchy. The
circle of empathy and sympathy expands or contracts in proportion
to sense of security but any surge of doubt or threat to existence,
perceived or real, can demolish this edifice of connectedness or
goodness.
Human history is a witness to this. Wars have been waged from
within people to the world in response to the threat to survival.
Greed, jealousy, violence, both of deprived and affluent, emerges
in no time if the survival or exclusive position is threatened. This
positioning is all about life.
The realities created by brain (or mind-used interchangeably)
are manifold. The sense organs, perception, emotions and
 The Scales
     31
cognitions keep throwing models of reality, transitory or preserved
in long-term memories, people stick to some of them propelled
by conditioning and circumstances to create Notions. Notions
are the roots that anchor individuals and society. The ritual sense
of belonging, expectations, responses are the threads connecting
to nodes or people. Fear of extinction push people to primal
emotions without realizing the damage to this huge network build
on empathy. Whether this is the chosen mode or deeply reflexive
is still not clear.
Where did it all come from?
As biochemistry unfolded the first gene or an ensemble
it learned to survive in the vast challenging environment by
multiplying and creating copies. Was this intelligent inherent in
it? By the time first neuron evolved having multiple copies or
high numbers was firmly established as reproduction. This was
biology’s response to the threat of extinction.
In the ladder of evolution Motor brain developed first as in
reptiles etc. followed by emotional brain in mammals and the so
called ‘thinking brain being a latest development. Language and
thought evolved alongside cortex.

Motor   limbic    cerebrum (Spinal cord,

Basal ganglia, cerebellum   diencephalon,
amygdala    Cortical structure.)

In overcoming obstacles and through trial –error method, brain

evolved from simple to complex. Both anatomy and physiology
pushed each other akin to history and geography shaping each
other.
 The Context

From a Single neuron in giant squid to hydra to octopus to ape

and mammals to a modular structure in human brain the fear
of extinction must have been hard wired in neural memory and
the neurons bearing this must have survived, the maladaptive
ones disappearing in the process of trials (Edelman’s Neural
Darwinism). No new areas exist in human brain when compared
with other mammals. Than what is human in human?
Is it the size or Encephalization? But rats have the same index
(Cuvier’s index) or is it cranial positioning? Was it the contextual
response that gave rise to complexity?
Natural environment was same for all the species but
manipulation by Sapiens was the response to a restrictive ability
and compromised physical prowess. The boundary condition
being death and its persistent hovering over life challenged brain
to create escape routes that in turn grew its massive neuronal mass.
All human acts at some point of time have evolved as survival
mechanisms. We still unconsciously act to make secure and
eliminate threat to life the parameters of which are under constant
threat to be destabilized.
Individual as well as National histories prove beyond doubt
and as Mahatma Gandhi said
“History is record of discord and not harmony” that human
behavior tends to violence, rage and all so called negative states
and all that is positive has to be practiced. There is nothing gloomy
about it.
The death taboo is so deeply ingrained in human mind that
 The Context
     33
to transgress it remains a hidden agenda of each life whatever
the circumstances. Striving to live propels people to gain power
over others in material possessions or notional power invested
by conventions. This gives an illusory control a false sense of
reality that of being different and thus avoiding the same fate as
others. Gaining immortality is the ultimate quest of man and of
the great or small things he does is hidden the desire to be alive,
most live through their off-springs in a personal sense very few
attain impersonal immortality by contributing to various fields of
human action
But this Ego trip turns futile for each personal body –the fear
proves right.
The original Catch22 is a basic question of life -whether
genes give a damn to the individual life and its musings and
just propagate human lives to keep the species alive or It is the
cognitive push from human species that has modulated the genetic
need to reproduce.
Because if it is the latter it can also explain the freedom of
humans from the cyclical sexual need as in other animals. Poor
amoeba that splits and other asexual modes of reproduction
without pleasure evolved to the cyclical surges in libido, making
animals indulge in sexual activity to reproduce. Nature still
controls their sexuality.
Man as he thought became free and could control his sexual
urges and direct his libido to other pursuits but genes probably
had anticipated this dimension so the cyclical sexuality was turned
to pervasive sexual behavior in humans. Sexuality vying for its
share of attention in a multitasking life, else the purpose of genes
is defeated. Like it or not, Homo Sapiens is twenty-four hours
sexual, the evidence is all around us, the simplest being glamour
industries and pornography in modern times.
The induction of guilt from religion, relegated these urges to
the deeper out of awareness area and came to fore under suitable
conditions when higher cortical centers let loose their inhibitory
control (super ego in Freudian terms) If we believe Freud, libido
is the energy that makes us move and suppressed desires are the
source of psychopathology.
 Maya is Reality
34   
But it may actually be a ‘Genetic Gamble’. Without the
conscious mind realizing, the presence of opposite sex (barring
those who are in biological relatedness –the incest taboo with
exceptions) triggers the brain to anticipate and desire a union
for another offspring. The game does not materialize always as
execution of desire is judged by brain depending on conditioning
and evaluation of risk, reward etc. Most of these do not reach
conscious level being rejected by limbic system, rest are fleeting
thoughts suppressed by higher cortical centres. The risk evaluation
is not always survival but also to the existing connectedness with
society, the brain avoiding acts that delink from the collective
existence. The thoughts and emotions are thus suppressed or
made extinct in the brain or wrapped and presented in a socially
acceptable behavior.
The societal rules also probably developed from the activity
of ensemble of neurons, and the meaning of it felt by group of
people. The individuals experienced and thought alike out of
which emerged a new dimension, the sharing of these meanings
through gestures or words may have formed the first rules.
Whether correct or not they would serve survival purpose and as
other minds explored and followed them conditioning of brain
followed.
The rules in themselves have no value …it is the brain that
looks up at them, processes it and conjures up a reality emerging
as a follower of the notions. The truth and the need of an Individual
may be different but the need to belong is higher (the source of all
rebel is an alternative reality in someone’s head, but no true rebel
can exist!!it is a matter of changing groups).
What makes us so bound to our race when our needs are
individual- ability to empathize, the firing of ‘mirror neurons’
is what makes us understand and feel the others. The growth of
humanity is a collective growth and ‘Man is a social animal’ may
very well be a biological axiom.
No debating that individuals suppress for collective but
beyond the push of mirror neurons the higher centres can always
assert will to overrule, it mostly does not because breaking away
again evokes fear of survival so any model within the head is
 The Context
     35
rejected by brain itself and status quo remains (these processes
are evident in few conditions like autism and schizophrenia where
the internal realities overpower the social model of reality within
the head)
The anxiety of rebel is not everyone’s cup of tea and requires
a brain that can create new dimensions away from those that
condition.
Religion exploited this and introduced ‘sin’ and ‘guilt’ adding
to the inherent fear of extinction as a secondary level process.
The need to be accepted became another layer of burden. Any
violation of tightly compartmentalized rules of existence
(conditioning of brain) mismatches within the head, with the
tightly compartmentalized rules of existence and threat emerges,
the fear pushes the mind back to previous states avoiding any
further conflict.
A few such cycles train the mind and set a pattern of thinking
as brain matures, what we call maturity may well be a conditioned
mind following rules externally. A free mind is uncomfortable for
the mind of the society so the level of freedom keeps varying as
individual and collective minds revise their realities. Nowhere it
is more evident than the way Women have suffered or exploitation
in name of color, caste, religion etc.
People follow the artificially created frames of life for the fear
of unknown and uncertain and brain’s homeostatic tendencies make
them follow the certain…even if it is model provided by others.
The sense of security however illusory makes the brain feel
secure. The insecurity expands from the self to family, community
to Nation to religion and as one goes up the level of conflict
increases. In the name of being correct often violence erupts but
actually it is the reaction to internal insecurity and fear. the above
said structures have been erected too are notional and have no real
basis in biology or geography. Humans may well be just one, in
fact genetic mapping does indicate a common genetic pool yet
separatist approach goes unabated. All tendencies to categorize
life is a futile attempt to have a control over one basic fear -
That of becoming extinct.
 Development

Why does it all happen?

Various disciplines seek this answer. Psychology, philosophy,
physics, spirituality and many others have provided useful
understanding and constructs to interpret behavior but the behavior
is unaltered. The ultimate answers may lie in the way human brain
has developed and the way it functions.
But how?
The answer lies in the way brain develops, in each of us,
through similar unfolding-
The Brain starts developing in utero from a layer of embryo
called neuro-ectoderm and sort of overgrows till 16-18 years of
age when its starts shrinking through a process called pruning.
Just enough for us to sail through life unless it fast paces itself in
some illnesses. Maximum growth occurs in first 3 months in the
womb and electrical activity switches on soon after that (latest
findings indicate that fetus can hear sounds from the environment
and remember them later).
This process is largely controlled by Genetics and modulated
by Epigenetics (any aberration in intra-uterine atmosphere presses
for genetic alteration.) The old nature and nurture debate actually
emanates from Biology! Genes trigger proteins like Nerve Growth
Factors and as synaptic activity starts Neurotransmitters start
building up.
Once switched on Brain never rests till its own death.
But what triggers it? Possibly physical and chemical sensations
from periphery- spontaneous mechanical movement or hormonal
 Development
     37
changes in amniotic fluid - act as stimuli in an undifferentiated
brain.
At birth brain follows a deterministic development under the
effect of external stimuli to primary sense organs. These exposures
are important for entering and passing through the ‘critical
periods’ of brain development as brain integrates these external
influences to direct neuronal growth spurts and differentiation
through synaptic organization.
The growth in fact packs neurons in a higher density state and
it is the pruning that brings it to adult levels after which it keeps
shrinking though retaining its plasticity thus the neuronal mass
may remain the same yet new connections may emerge.
zz The importance of first 2 years of life cannot be
overemphasized. If we define ‘NORMAL’ –it is what the
brain develops in this stage of life without any anomalies
and aberrant influences. Any medical or toxic influence,
genetic mutation or even maternal stress disrupts the
process with repercussions for future behaviour. Though
bound in space and time but brain growth lays down the
blueprint of the future individual.
zz The infant sleeps for more than 18 hours at birth,
80% of which is dream (REM) sleep as recorded on
Polysomnography. As the infant grows adult patterns of
sleep emerge over next 3 years, as does the awake alpha
rhythm by 10 years. The maturing and myelination of
neurons unfolds the behavioral patterns in translation.
zz What are they dreaming?
zz The Hindu may love to believe that it is the past life but
as no verbal record is possible from first year of life, by
the time language comes memory traces are gone, but if
we go by recent theories of information processing during
REM sleep, a plausible explanation emerges.
zz An infant suddenly emerges from a dark, warm and safe
intrauterine space with limited sensations where it is held
secure by placenta with a shock and anxiety of sudden
separation and stress of breathing in open. A cry is a sign
of health and first exertion to live as lungs expand. (Is
 Maya is Reality
38   
this primal anxiety the source of all anxieties, the memory
evoked on further separations in life?)
zz And then a barrage of firsts follows–light, sound, touch
and many more rudimentary sensations that the unformed
brain has to integrate. Extra REM hours probably helps
process all this information and also foster synaptic
growth.
zz By 2nd year language and motor exploration starts and
memory starts consolidating. The time bound development
at all levels – motor, social, cognitive- has a normal range
but even a condition as benign as maternal depression
can disrupt and delay these critical periods that keep
challenging brain till it matures. Severe issues like mental
retardation, cerebral palsy ADHD and who knows may be
autism and future Schizophrenia can result due to it. The
neurons remember after the First Year!
zz From a restricted physical space body becomes
independent following a repetitive trajectory of
development common to all. Sensory inputs and their
assimilation and processing in the brain develops it from
motor to emotional to cognitive structures in their size
and connections. The overgrowth and later pruning also
indicated another dimension, the open pluripotent neural
system has a potential of exploring and interfacing with
world with channelization into any sphere of activity if
left unabated. As the child grows environment through
education and training restricts the freewheeling neuron
assemblies and conditions the brain, evident by growth
trajectories and explained by Freud, Erikson, Piaget etc.
zz The entraining of neurons restricts the degree of freedom
and although Will develops simultaneously yet nurture
restricts its expression. This serves the purpose of
survival, while memory and reward system in the brain
maintain or extinct behavior. A process of normalization,
training the free animal to humanization and fitting him
into the statistical norm is Universal, the manifest may be
different.
 Development
     39
zz “Biology adapts to the culture”
zz In terms of dynamics, free-floating strange attractor and
their phase space are restricted to asymptote that serves
survival and reduction of threat in the interface with
world, by the firing patterns of the entrained neuronal
assemblies.
zz Does the restriction of dimensions and phase spaces
triggers the pruning, as unused assemblies are eliminated?
This in itself would set some deterministic trajectory for
future behavior.
zz Cognitive frames set by nurture embed into themselves
emotional repertoire
zz E.g. authority figure, traumatic experience, double bind
feeling etc.
zz The neuronal ensemble and Central executive areas
(CEA) within brain consistently face the challenge of
choosing conscious rebel vs. unconscious fear of rejection
externally exhibited in many Psychopathologies.
The Neurobiological trail raises few points–
zz Brain learns concepts of authority through social input?
zz Memory of neural assemblies identify the input and
compare.
Emotional centres mitigate the cognitive response or vice-
versa or at a larger reverse scale-Does social behaviour correspond
to the neural mechanisms? Or some intermediate step is missing.
Is Mind training equivalent to neutral network training?
Aberrations or people like Gandhi or even a suicide bomber
is a product of conscious willful training or a different neural
pattern?
However hard we try to be reductionist, any discourse
attempting to explain behaviour and linking it to neurobiology
cannot bypass questions of mind- body, consciousness, free will
etc. Cartesian duality, Hume’s and Kantian philosophy, all posit a
basic question whether mind and consciousness are an emergent
property of brain or an a-priori template exists that takes in the
sensations perceives and fits in to create a model of reality, using
will to act.
 Maya is Reality
40   
The genetics and epigenetics interact to create a basic template
in each body, the common genetic pool determining the normalcy
and brain development while epigenetics and environment does
lifelong modulation of neural patterns.
Is consciousness unitary? Or multiple hierarchical levels on
is it a separate quality of mind. The binding of diverse inputs,
emotions and thoughts into a unitary ‘I’ is a real process in brain.
Is this consciousness or simply awareness? Individual will or
Universal societal will, which one reigns? Does a motor, a limbic
and a cognitive system have its own consciousness?, a-priori state
of neurons and existing patterns remain in a state of potentiality,
on interaction with outside world the sensory inputs are processed
and a composite reality is created, modulated by preexisting
memory and subjective reality.
The brain oscillations controlled by chemical switches at a
default mode network activity level keeps creating free floating
images, thoughts and emotions. Let’s call it a cloud. We do not
know the exact structure of these but we know what they are. Any
interface with outside world or action creates a need to direct this
cloud (or mind) to action or a certain output of behavior, only
to return back to DMN activity, a sort of scalar to vector state
conversion (from free floating to goal directed thoughts).
This could be a linear predictable state or a nonlinear trajectory
creating new dimension within brain, a new state of mind thus
plausibility, possibility and probability determine the desired
dimension has been attained.
Attention and cognition direct this trajectory but the brain has
more processes to attend to. The security is its first priority and
warning signal introduce disruption in smooth flow.
What decides the attractor dimension and choosing one reality
over another alternative reality? Is it free will that is differentially
loaded in different minds?
A will or consciousness seated in Salience network(SN) or
Central executive area that takes over from DMN and when does
it turn from unconscious to conscious?
Does this give some eerie feeling of Quantum turning to
nonlinear to classical models? It could be that crazy!!
 Development
     41
A brief synthesis of the laborious research of past 30 years
using imaging techniques like CT,MRI ,fMRI ,PET optical
measures and Electrophysiology coupled with lesion studies,
mathematical modeling ,computational methods to peep into the
brain shall bring us closer to this question—

HOW does the brain work?

 The Physicality

Eastern thought talked about mind not brain but Western

Philosophy took a material route. From Plato, Aristotle to Galen
and Hippocrates mind was placed in ‘heart’ and ‘ventricles’.
Descartes, Hume, Kant separated body and mind and exploration
of brain as a physical entity still continues.
Da Vinci, Gray and Vesalius detailed the anatomy but
real understanding of brain started with Phineas gage whose
personality changed after brain injury, further enhanced by lesion
studies affecting speech and comprehension, respectively Broca’s
and Wernicke’s aphasias, taken to extreme by Gall in his fantastic
‘Phrenology’ (a modern take being functional imaging).
Functionality was not attached importance for very long
till conduction aphasia opened a window to connection theory.
Cellular anatomy was next to be explored, from Neuropil to
syncytial was considered by Golgi but using Golgi stain, Cajal
brought forward the network structure.
Minimal direct contact exists between neurons as gap junctions.
But how did the neurons talk to each other was the next logical
question. Murray suggested gaps but Sherrington’s experiments
did suggest integrated activation and reciprocation in reflex.
Simultaneous developments in physics were revolutionizing the
understanding of nature- Maxwell’s Electromagnetic theory had
already changed the concept of electricity. Helmholtz learning
from Galvani’s neuromuscular junctions and Volta’s claim of
biological and natural electricity being same provided data on
nerve conduction and its space. Mind was back in the fold of
 The Physicality
     43
material brain. Hodgkin-Huxley model established further details
of action potential.
The next big leap was discovery of Electrical waves from the
scalp surface by Hans Berger giving a gross tool to peep in the brain,
the EEG. The riddle of how networked neurons communicated
through gaps between them, was nailed by Loewi’s discovery of
acetylcholine in an elegant experiment.
Cell assemblies, micro and mini columnar arrangement of the
six layers of cortex and the specificity of cell bodies all became
clear as histological techniques improved (in man as well as
animals, showing remarkable similarity).
Functional models like Hopfield networks gave the basis of
Hebbian assemblies—a functional organization where ‘neurons
that fire together wire together’ – a process where neurons are
connected intra cortically and inter cortically (each having 3-4
connections that saves distance but increases complexity), best
seen in temporal lobe and hippocampus.
Why did the brain evolve in this way?
Let us look at the requirement and response–
1. Response time to survive from predators.
2. Multiple processing pathways to compensate damage and
attend to varied stimuli.
3. Alternative versions of reality
4. Economy of space
5. Whether this was the effect or cause of the brain structure
is moot…
Brain needed speed and the choices were simple–
zz increase the volume of axon to increase conduction but
space constraint would have called for compression.
zz decrease length of wires to decrease delays
The brain acted smart and took the second route for most
paths, added myelin for saltatory conduction in long distances,
evolved direction, multiplied connections and specialized neurons.
Feedback loops, lateral inhibition, and summative activity of
EPSP and IPSP have made us survive till now. Few networks like
McCulloch –Pitts add to the nonlinearity of process.
 Maya is Reality
44   
Maps arising out of sensory stimuli are essentially patterns
formed from neuronal firing and given meaning by higher centres.
The sense organs receive energy forms like photons or
mechanical energy as in sound, the nerve cells convert this
to electrical energy and patterned firing transmits it to primary
cortex that reforms the pattern to transmit it to higher centres. A
parallel process forms similar map in thalamic nuclei like Lateral
geniculate body for visual pathways. The comparison of these
with memory maps integrates the two…emotional centres add
affect to it and either reject or scale up. SN and other areas filter it
to the CEA to give meaning and decide about action. Once action
is done the electrical energy is converted to mechanical again
through speech, action, writing etc.
But what if no action happens with the internally generated
thoughts or emotions! What energy conversion happens than?
And what if the internally generated maps fire spontaneously
without external stimuli …The internally projected maps trigger
an internal reality in what we call hallucinations.
These processes may be operating at quantum level at the
deepest structures and decohere to become conscious. The will or
intent may appear at a certain instance say i.
The free-floating thoughts images etc. at this instance i have
probability but the observer from higher centre (whether free will
or bound to need based external stimuli) leads to wave collapse and
the free-floating structure gains shape and gets a vector to move in
the direction of desired dimension (attractor is the desired state).
If the brain reaches the desired state externally and internally,
feedback loops complete the cycle and return to DMN but if a gap
remains and strange attractors create a new phase space, the gap
is conveyed back to the CEA and SN-a reattempt is initiated with
the whole cycle repeating but lesser degree of freedom, as this i-1
is bound to i-0 and its outcome. Each successive attempt and gaps
between desired phase space and the attained builds up the gap
and each i-x has lesser and lesser df (degree of freedom).
This gap between the two-phase spaces fed back to brain
allows the limbic structures to fire and fill it as the higher thought is
unable to find new alternatives and the limbic system perceives it
 The Physicality
     45
as a threat. Rage, anger, frustration are the product of uncontrolled
firing of amygdala once the inhibitory control is diminished (as
cycles fail to reach desired dimensions, the inhibition decreases
to open up new ways and patterns to succeed) but if the brain
is not trained to fill this gap with higher cognitive emotions the
‘frustration’ expresses with basic emotions.
All this happening in cycles of 10ms to 500ms and conscious
as well as out of conscious processes determine the outcome…
this simple model is actually very complex and involves huge
computation traversing quantum to chaotic dynamics and ranging
from classical to nonlinear expression of cause effect.
Our investigative tools try to comprehend it through
temporal studies (EEG), spatial (fMRI, PET) or behavioural tools
(psychology) but it leaves few gaps–
zz Even if we localize functions through imaging that is a
subtraction from the whole activity, it does not tell about
process,
zz EEG and MEG face inverse problem –surface recording
cannot locate structures deep down and deeper recording
is qualitatively different.
zz We can use this for applied purposes of treatment and
intervention etc. but it will still leave the basic translation
to behavior unanswered–
Why do people do what they do”
Why do they hate and love?
Why they obsess or are paranoid?
Why do they believe what they believe?
The brain trying to unravel itself is the brain that has created
‘Me’ and is trying to peep in itself through me.
Is the I smarter than the brain that created it? How can I know
myself? from within.
The next option is to look into the mind of fellow human
beings to create objectivity but even that is denied because the
mirror neurons effect each observer. The subjective vs. objective
is one of the toughest problems in Brain research.
‘Me’ could have just remained an emotionally expressive
mammal like elephant and dog with memory but without language,
 Maya is Reality
46   
had the newest cerebral hemispheres not come into existence, in
its dual presence, the left and the right, united by corpus callosum.
The cortex creates meaning, controls the deeper emotions
and interfaces with external world through action. The electrical
patterns generated through the continuous oscillatory firing of cell
assemblies generate awareness, memory, and all that is human.
CEN (central executive)—dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and
deep temporal areas
SN (salience)—insula and anterior cingulate
DMN (default mode)—posterior cingulate, inferior parietal
These are some networks that could well be the seat of
consciousness. Reciprocal relationship between Cortical
pyramidal layer and thalamic nuclei determines the brain state and
poses an interesting process.
40 hz Gamma oscillations from thalamus have been implicated
as a binding oscillation integrating various external and internal
inputs to a synchronized wave front (often delta in sleep with
gamma in background though during awake stage the presence of
delta waves (0-4hz) becomes pathological)
Awake brain shows desynchronized activity in different areas,
resting brain has 8-13Hz alpha balancing with gamma but as task
is presented, the gamma is inhibited by feedback loops from cortex
and brain may enter beta (13-30hz) activity or theta (4-7hz) as in
Hippocampus (CA3). Hippocampus exhibits theta waves riding
over gamma during memory formation. These interactions give
us some idea about the time and space dimensions in human brain.
A broad framework is that neurons keep polarized at resting
stage with a continuous Na+ /K+ (sodium/potassium) pump operating
within the cell that keeps the electrolyte balance against concentration
gradients of sodium, potassium and chloride. The outside of neuron
is positive and inside negative. As the excitatory or inhibitory
potential develop at dendrites and cell body under the influence of
excitatory or inhibitory neurotransmitters, an action potential is fired,
changing the polarity. The wave of depolarization spreads on the
neuron till it reaches a synapse where neurotransmitters are released
to attach to receptors on post-synaptic neurons and cause Excitation
and inhibition. Large numbers of neuronal inputs summate to cause
 The Physicality
     47
EPSP or IPSP (excitatory or inhibitory summation). Surface EEG
does not record action potential rather the electric dipole created by
assemblies of neurons.
If a stimulus is presented to brain, repetitive activity is
perceived over 30milliseconds (ms), in less than 10ms. separate
features are not extracted and beyond 100ms they are too separate
to make sense. Hence 30ms -100ms seems to be the frame to assess
the stimuli. Depending on threat perception the brain can initiate
a reflex action between 100-200ms without it reaching conscious
level. Events reach conscious state in 200-500ms.
Though brain is slow as compared to fast computers (0.5
-500Hz) yet it is remarkably efficient in handling complexity
given the diversity of inputs. The selectively pruned and selected
inputs reach the conscious network in a highly refined package
(SN and DMN have done the selection before it reaches CEN),
CEN judges on the action /behavior in 500ms but the subtle twist
is that conscious will can act on what has been presented to it.
So, the unconscious actually directs conscious, through showing
it what it wants to show. True free will than may not be existent.
This time bound process can now be extended to the space
issue. If the energy conversions happen from the stimulus being
presented to sense organs and electrochemical activity in brain
finally converts to action or behavioural output, the conversion can
be explained, whether it is conserved or dissipated (dissipation is
possible as the longer wavelength oscillation have high amplitude
in sleep etc., as the frequency increases the amplitude decreases in
superficial cortex).
But what if there is no action, no change of electrical activity
to chemical and finally mechanical through muscles, where does
the electric firing go and how does it leap into something as
immaterial as thought or emotion. What is its form? What turns
and what is turned into the cloud of thoughts?
If consciousness emerges from this activity, how does
consciousness decide about the activity itself and its future? Does
it watch and predict before the act based on memory? or it is
just the present that makes it decide. Change in pattern is given
meaning but what about meaning itself.
 Maya is Reality
48   
Let us simplify assuming that language is the missing link and
the structure of thought as Chomsky says it is innate.
Brain is hardwired for music but is it for language. No one can
look into a live brain to see if the neural patterns actually resemble
alphabets from a perspective, the discrete letters join together to
give a sense of continuity as the distinct notes create rhythm.
Observe closely as we speak or type it is not only the aural
formation of words, a parallel visual image flashes in the brain
but is the brain watching itself by the creation but from where. Is
it the internal projection back to visual cortex or is it the multiple
screens distributed in widespread memory network that watch the
visual sketch, compare and gives a green signal to speech.
Think ROSE–it will conjure up not only the structure, but
also memories associated with it, the semantics, poetry and
occasionally fragrance too.
Are the glial cells the internal projection screens holding the
maps of language and world? What if these internal projection
systems fire on their own without any stimuli or erroneous message
from CEN and create an alternative reality not corresponding to
real world but just based on integrating stored memory or even
need. Aren’t they dreams in sleep but hallucinations and delusion
in awake state.
 Oscillations

The rhythmic cyclical activity progressing in time are well

established through years of EEG recording, both from scalp and
intra-cortical. Do they mark normal range of states in human mind?
These states though not directly measurable but corresponding
electrical/magnetic fields may be specific to them, happiness
being a different field than sadness on EEG. The naked eye view
of surface EEG fails on this account but further mathematical
analysis does provide some ideas- power spectral analysis ,
nonlinear analysis, attractor dimensions, if analysis, Lyapunov
exponents , Markovian analysis—Some of these tools give an
idea about the phase portraits or state spaces of oscillations, some
of these are universal and form the normal range especially the
higher frequency 4 Hz onwards till 40-60 Hz as evident through
the mirror neurons during interaction may show same oscillations
(does a magnetic field exist between minds?)
Some of these states may last longer but still need oscillatory
activity even the transitory states, receive will/intent or oscillatory
triggers but are these fleeting states reality? The phase space
reached through attractor asymptote lasting for starting from
500ms may continue for more than hours, sometimes months
and years giving a sense of continuity but is it the memory that
keeps firing rather than external reality based phase spaces. The
binding oscillation and memory phase spaces create a sense of
continuity over which ride the transitory trajectories, it is a matter
of experience too. We know that the single self exists beneath the
ever -changing ideas and experience, the collective consensus has
 Maya is Reality
50   
termed it ‘Normal’ for utility as a statistical range and termed the
rest as deviant or abnormal.
Go deep and the boundary breaks – the transitory or sustained
phases receive triggers from some altered Neurotransmitter
levels and repetitive mis-synced oscillations (out of phase with
oscillations directed by external stimuli) creates alternative phase
space leading to a maladaptive pattern of reality , what is abnormal
than ,the process is same …the difference is in the observed
behavior that is maladaptive and probably the mirror neurons of
the observer are unable to trigger a similar phase in their brains..
The resulting disruption has been labeled as Mental illness and no
so called normal person, not even Psychiatrists who claim mental
health, have ever been able to enter the mind of a so-called patient
and realize it in its full drama.
Why do these patients do it even at the danger of increasing
the threat level and dropping out of connected network of Normal?
Do they have a will? Not in the hardcore biologically triggered
illnesses like Schizophrenia, Bipolar illness, Dementia, autism,
mental retardation and few others amounting to 25% of all illnesses
maximally. Their brain puts them at peril by not comparing
these alternative reality phases with those externally bound and
making them extinct, rather potentiating them and switching off
the comparing circuits leading to absence of insight. This may be
triggered by an external event as a precipitating factor initially and
in response to escape or correct the response brain potentiates the
out of sync assemblies that later fragment the binding I.
And the person often has two realities, one of the self and
other of the illness. The severity depending on the strength of these
phasic oscillations and the reality perceived by higher areas. Once
established it keeps auto-generating from internal triggers and the
dimension of psychotic vs. non-psychotic is based on how much
meaning has been assigned to them by CEN/SN on a threat scale.
The meaning is low in obsessions hence the trouble and irrational
ego dystonia. In Schizophrenia, this alternative reality has been
assigned high survival value as compared to other frames and it
appears as loss of touch with reality. Depression and mania have
intense expression of mood states overriding the inhibitory circuits
 Oscillations
     51
and affecting the cognitive structure. These abnormal states are
caused by altered Neurotransmitter levels and drug improve them
through altering the levels to premorbid but not all improve, hence
the search for altering electric states (as Electroconvulsive therapy
or transcranial magnetic stimulation do) is the current focus. In
extreme cases, few wish to alter thought process also.
But a pacemaker can realign the stimulatory switches leading
to synchronized electromagnetic fields, those that fall in normal
range. Silicon chips implanted in brain will compare approximate
normal cycles /attractors /phase spaces to those that are altered
and persistent and keep changing them to normal limit cycles
(as in CPAP in obstructive apnea), e.g. the vector fields of OCD
expanding to more flexible transient field,
zz In Schizophrenia, the internal oscillation creating
hallucination /delusions to be matched with thoughts /
perceptions generated by external triggers.
zz This will be more specific than unknown results of ECT
But this futuristic fantasy has a deep fallacy, it will turn the
human capacity of Will and defining meaning redundant.
After all, the person may not have role in creating this so
called pathological phase spaces but the cortex definitely assesses
and keeps them alive (it must be serving some purpose else nature
would have eliminated it) even if it is escape from discomforting
reality. The patients may turn back and question the basic process
in normal, each of us actually does the same every instance. We
keep choosing and fitting the phase spaces into the basic sustained
frame defining the I.
What is normal about it? Nothing except that most of the
people in a cross-sectional space -time dimension behave in same
manner and have common elements with minor variations, the
behavior is largely acceptable by most in translatable terms. No
real rebel exists as rebel is a matter of choosing one frame over the
other. The real rebels may be the Psychiatrically ill whose mind
has actually created a new dimension.
The neurotics in the old nomenclature were distinguished by
surviving within the normal range of behaviour with mild episodic
or continuous problems with self or society, presently they can
safely be labeled as ‘problems of living’.
 Maya is Reality
52   
Psychiatric classificatory systems will scoff at this because it
reduces their labor to dust but they have done a great job over last
50 years of creating categories whose description fits the labels and
then the person is fitted into it, this serves an applied purpose of
mixing and matching medication. (this explains the proliferation
of Pharmaceutical companies who are bent on creating drug for
each label).
The basic dynamics is important as lot of these states are
transitory and experienced by most. Their cognitive structure of the
sufferer makes them magnify the discomfort in varying intensity.
This may be the feedback loop pointing to the gap between
desired phase space and the attained phase space and the higher
centres perceiving it as a threat, the inability of will to create a
comforting alternative model of reality allows expression of
amygdala firing and the subsequent expression in behavior.
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy aims just at correcting this trigger
of threat perception and magnification but fails to realize that
it may be the will’s decision or CEN’s decision to decrease
the burden of repeated feedback information of the mismatch,
between the initial vector and the attained vector, not able to
control the strange attractors, CEN allows the vector to move in a
different direction altogether as the emotional centres clamour for
its attention continuously.
Neuroplasticity of brain alters the synaptic strength through
prolonged exposure to stress or a short intense exposure can alter
them, subsequent alternating normal and stress induced phase
space consolidate the maladaptive pattern and that is integrated
in the concept of self. The phasic oscillations are integrated in the
background binding oscillation. Only when they cross the 500ms
barrier and sustain beyond it, they cause discomfort.
The mechanisms of life do not exist in isolation from nature
and Universe, in fact they are deeply embedded in space- time (or
may be a generator of space time), whether in 4 or 11 dimensions.
It is time to look into brain through the lens of time. The lens itself
being a real problem because studying brain is like looking in to
itself through its own lens.
Are illnesses than a disorder of consciousness or will?
 Time-Space

The movement of a person from point A to point B without any

external measurement will be perceived by X within his brain as a
displacement and the change in brackets know as time.
X(A) >>>>>>>>>>>> X (B)
Time t0—t1—t2—t3—t4—tn
⇑   ⇓
A—————————–B
Space
Space and time are represented in closely set areas in brain,
inferior parietal and temporal and use the continuous flux from
basal ganglia, cerebellum, sensory –visual cortex, midbrain, to
orient itself in external space and move by the deterministic clock.
But the real representation of space-time is in the process of brain
and that is another enigma. The same processes that we measure
by artificial time create the concept of time and they are bound
probably. One can experiment this by closing eyes and telling
exactly when they feel that 60 seconds have passed… very few
can accurately judge…Or move in an open space blindfolded,
after sometime people report approximate distance moved and the
time taken…that may or may not match but mind computes space-
time as it moves and both do not exist separately.
Space time, Relative Motion, simultaneity, are phenomenon
when speed approaches the speed of light in external space but
at much less than it, can similar phenomenon happen at level of
 Maya is Reality
54   
thought? Does relativity exist in brain and Mind? or is Mind the
time space dimension?
Quantum processes with all its dimensions possibly exist
at a subconscious level…especially observer dependency and
uncertainty (action and its results can never be judged together).
Embedded in a time-space dimension, the real basic connection
between electrochemical activity and the abstract cloud of thought,
feeling etc. may be a basic quantum process. Look at these steps
Photon matter
Photon vanishes energy (electron) Photon

Observer

Non-Local Quantum Entanglement

Compare it with basic brain activity:

PAST

Neurotransmitter Thoughts
+ +
Electrical fields Emotions

Entangled observer is Will

The time perception categorizes at assembly level and

consensus decision making in a classical cause- effect manner
is made to gain a sense of control, but nonlinearity is inherent –
sensitivity to initial condition (we cannot go to the origin of brain
activity but for measurement sake- we should work – this issue is
valid objection to EEG interpretation through higher mathematics,
as only samples are taken, the results being extrapolated whereas
brain is a continuous process):
 Time-Space
     55
1. Entropy (may not be as important as brain is a partially
open system and manages with fraction of energy for such
a complex machine maintaining temperature throughout)
2. Complexity in the sense of taking similar data and
creating new trajectories and dimensions, randomness
and unpredictability.
The brain keeps creating multiple combinations resulting into
multiple realities existing at the same time and only one chosen by
CEN…like M-branes existing in brain. If they start intruding and
getting predominance either subconsciously or consciously, the
confusion occurs when time brings in hidden spatial dimensions
from out of sync firing – memory.
What if time itself is a creation of mind? The external time
keeping contraption like clocks are man-made. Nature is full of
cyclical rhythms. Each process in brain like a state has to evolve
into the next with the inputs in an instance. The next state is the
future and cannot return to the previous and so on. The period
in which these brain states change or evolve is the requirement
of brain to categorize and gain control. This period may possibly
be the time, in the sense we understand- categorization of a
continuous flow into a discrete frames, starting from deep quantum
to apparent classically determined life.
The present, past and the future are entwined like in geodesic
arrows.
This idea may sound against objective proofs but it cannot
be left without a time travel back to a raging debate between the
Physicist, Einstein and philosopher Bergson initiated in 1922.
Time was central to Einstein’s work. It was, however, also the
central issue in Bergson’s philosophy. Their conflicting views on
the meaning of time set the scholars on collision course. Bergson
had no problem with the mathematical logic of Einstein’s theory
or the data that supported it. But for Bergson, relativity was not a
theory that addressed time on its most fundamental, philosophical
level. Instead, he claimed, it was theory about clocks and their
behaviour. Bergson called Einstein out for missing the distinction.
In Bergson’s philosophy, there was something greater to time
than just measurements. Time was so central to human experience
 Maya is Reality
56   
that fully unpacking it meant going beyond mere accounts of
clocks or of even “psychological” perceptions. Instead, time was
intimately connected to the bedrock of what it means to experience
the world. It was, in some sense, the essence of human being and
hence of being itself. For Bergson, that meant purely scientific
accounts could not exhaust time’s meaning or importance.
But Einstein prevailed, even after the Nobel prize on
relativity was changed to one on Photoelectric effect because of
Bergson’s objections. Einstein’s reply—stating that the time of the
philosopher did not exist—was Incendiary (THE PHYSICIST &
THE PHILOSOPHER-JIMENA CANALES).
Whether the phenomenology of human experience evolves
in the brackets called time or all the events co-exist in the 4
dimensions-the “block universe”? Is everything trapped in the
4-D chamber of space-time, of Einstein’s relativity?
Though the debate, tilted in favour of Einstein affected the
thought and philosophy for next 100 years-the issue of subjectivity
and objectivity transcends all the deeper debates in Physics, time
is one of them.
 What is Mind?
&
Its Brain equivalent or are these same?

Science and mysticism (or religion/spirituality) stand on opposite

ends when it comes to the eternal debate. If the technology driven
proponents of NCC (neural correlates of consciousness) believe
that mind is an emergent property of brain activity (yes, they
also believe!!!) the Buddhist and Hindus quote their scriptures
obviously older than Neuroscience that it is the mind, whether
individual or Universal, that determines the brain activity and that
exists beyond the body.
Listening to two great minds of our times may make things
easier—
“EINSTEIN:  The problem begins whether Truth is independent of
our consciousness.
TAGORE:  What we call truth lies in the rational harmony between
the subjective and objective aspects of reality, both of
which belong to the super-personal man.
EINSTEIN:  Even in our everyday life we feel compelled to ascribe
a reality independent of man to the objects we use. We
do this to connect the experiences of our senses in a
reasonable way. For instance, if nobody is in this house,
yet that table remains where it is.
TAGORE:  Yes, it remains outside the individual mind, but not the
universal mind. The table which I perceive is perceptible
by the same kind of consciousness which I possess.
 Maya is Reality
58   
EINSTEIN:  If nobody would be in the house the table
would exist all the same — but this is already
illegitimate from your point of view — because
we cannot explain what it means that the table
is there, independently of us.
Our natural point of view in regard to the
existence of truth apart from humanity cannot
be explained or proved, but it is a belief which
nobody can lack — no primitive beings even. We
attribute to Truth a super-human objectivity; it
is indispensable for us, this reality which is
independent of our existence and our experience
and our mind — though we cannot say what it
means.
TAGORE:  Science has proved that the table as a solid
object is an appearance and therefore that
which the human mind perceives as a table
would not exist if that mind were naught. At
the same time it must be admitted that the fact,
that the ultimate physical reality is nothing but
a multitude of separate revolving centres of
electric force, also belongs to the human mind.”
Given the dialectical tension between the two approaches,
before attempting a synergy we should detour to sum up what we
know, trusting the basic fact that all that is human is a creation of
human mind or brain.
Although Einstein busted the deterministic world view
existing in an absolute space – time and brought in the relativity
both for space time, and the observer in relation to the only
absolute that we know, light ,yet the mesoscopic world of life on
earth still moves by Newtonian classical interpretation, a world
where space and time exist outside in which the man moves. The
Clock and territory, the ‘history’ and the ‘geography’ determine
the dynamics of life in a linear causation with predictable
deterministic equations however the unpredictability every now
and then proves this world -view wrong. It could very well be that
the relativity exists in mind.
 What is Mind? & Its Brain equivalent or are these same?
     59
As the mind moves it senses the changes in brackets called
time or it may be just the movement across frames of reality and
there is no time but the mind definitely keeps orienting itself in
what we call ‘space’. The extension of this quantification and
projection of mind is an external contraption called clock that has
bound the modern life. Even before the clock the mind still needed
categorization of space and time and resorted to the natural cycles
or rhythms or oscillations, the basic being circadian, annual or
basic sleep rest cycle. Watching the vast territorial variation, the
water reservoirs, and the jungle that threatened naturally the mind
trained the man to look at himself separate from surroundings, the
territory of body thus was probably the first sense of space and
then Sapiens went on to divide into house, village , town ……
nations and all other things(environmentalist take it as the root
cause of destructive tendencies of humans ). Observe closely, we
actually make sense of surrounding and life through space and
the creation of permanent structures gives an orientation and
sense of continuity. Even when it changes fast the space and time
represented in memory serves to maintain it. The real time and
the relative time may differ depending on affective coloring but
space representation is distorted only when memory deceives.
Imagine if every now and then the surroundings change and are
unpredictable, the frame changes as soon as memory tries to
identify and retain, whether the sense of time continues separately,
one sleeps in a different locale and gets up in different, life would
suddenly shift to living here and now. Such is the mystery of
reality but we still feel real in this moment!! Because your brain is
making you believe. What? Did I switch to brain instead of mind?
Yes, because that is what we can observe. Let’s discover whether
they are the same or may be the question itself is impossible.
The human brain is 1.3 kg pinkish slippery structure made
of neurons (1011 neurons , each having 10 to 1000 connections
making it 1014 synapses) arranged in a modular organization
creating a massive parallel processing, widely distributed
network operating at a slower speed than computing machines yet
managing complexity at a higher level, creating, predicting and
surviving threats to extinction. From the subconsciously managed
 Maya is Reality
60   
reflex action to higher level thought, from altruism to rage , from
lust to asceticism, from wheel to satellite, from phoneme to string
theory…… range the output of this machine and that too being
self-aware.
The brain evolved in response to the environment and is not
free of the oscillatory behavior of nature. The ever -repetitive
cycles go on and on after being switched on in womb till death. The
circle goes around innumerable times, all neurons participating in
it (the sheer numerical value can boggle the mind itself), it still
can be linear, the circles just have to be connected and spiral so
that both propositions can be true –
“one never steps into the same river twice” (Heraclitus) or “all
time cycles repeat themselves”
zz The repetition itself being a shadow of spiral movement
but if these oscillations are the basis of MIND, what do
we know about them?
zz Research studies in animals and humans and a lot of Guess
and Gossip, have given us a working model of brain from
mesoscopic to macroscopic scale but the microscopic and
beyond that is still elusive. All these techniques look at
the surface and subtract information from spontaneous
or task driven action. Mapping the dynamics through a
rough 70 years of person’s brain is an uphill task. It is
usually done at the peril of ignoring the subjective world
of humans.
 What we Know!

Few facts though emerge as of now—

1. The brain of Homo Sapiens is not unique
2. Organization across species similar (rats have similar
encephalization, but not exactly)
3. The size has nothing to do with the Intelligent human rather
it is the complexity –the ability to assemble diverse inputs,
process, integrate, remember and create another dimension.
4. A single neuron has its own complexity but is further
embedded in neuronal assemblies that go on further
to participate in specialized areas, that can partially
compensate for each other in crisis. The six -layered cortex
is arranged in mini and macro columns for functional
purpose and neurons in Hebbian cell assemblies, even if
not structurally close. This gives specificity to neurons
but most are multimodal.
5. A single neuron in a bottom up approach cannot give a
whole picture.
6. It is not the number of neurons but the vast connected
network that is fine-tuned precisely to sustain life through
protecting, anticipating, correcting and acting in a survival
instinct directed template offered by genes- in simple
word adapting, assimilating and accommodating.
7. Complexity is not being complicated but it is the dynamics
of moving from simple linear, predictable trajectory to
novel unpredictable dimensions. Sensitivity to initial
conditions may not be possible to assess but deterministic
 Maya is Reality
62   
chaos is a reality in brain processes especially if we
include the abstract outputs too. Strange attractors and
phase spaces are the continuous cloud of reality in human
brain where death has been set as a ‘boundary condition”,
resulting from 0.5hz to 500Hz oscillations that never stop
and only alter in illness.
8. Higher level thought and conscious functioning
distinguishes human from just aware animals.
9. Most processes in human mind are ‘out of consciousness’
but the Central executive networks and salience networks
receive a filtered and refined version of sensory stimuli.
They only see what reaches them through the deeper
process and then create perception, meaning and a model
of reality modulated by internal models stored in memory.
10. These complex models keep altering on millisecond
scale (10-500) moving from out to within awareness.
Such frames keep moving continuously within the head
creating change but human brain has a twist in the tale.
11. Brain has calibrated or modified itself from experience
during evolution and still it survives on the interfacing
with the environment and other human beings (through
mirror neurons?) creating neuroplasticity and making a
social being in translation through empathy or reading the
mind of the other all in the interactive space time.
12. Time perception of brain varies from milliseconds ( in
reflexes) to years (memories) but that is from the point of
view of a clock.
13. Relative perception of time is heavily laced and enveloped
in affect. From HOURS of grief to MOMENT of happiness
is what a person feels in day to day.
14. Whether Language evolved from these expressions or
vice versa?
15. Normally at rest brain is still active and oscillating.
Isolated cell assemblies generate rhythms at rest too as
evident in sleep.
16. Normal awake brain is desynchronized with different
areas in different phases
 What we Know!
     63
17. If relationship exists between the power (amplitude) and
frequency, the highest being delta (0-4 Hz) in sleep, its
presence in awake is pathology. The increase in frequency
lowers the power indicating energy dissipation (entropy
in brain)
18. Alpha (8-13 Hz) oscillation is the resting phase rhythm
maximally present in occipital and attenuating on eye
opening and on activity. It has multiple generators and
the frontal cortical alpha couples in a dynamic inverse
relationship with the binding oscillation of 40 Hz from
thalamus.
19. Thalamocortical and hippocampal thalamic cell
assemblies maintain a continuous process of perception,
filtering, retaining and eliminating information leading
to memory formation being modulated by deeper
structures like Locus Coerulus(Norepipherine), raphe
nuclei (serotonin), amygdala, Cingulate structures that
have fewer input but massive projections from limbic to
cortical regions.
20. Theta (4-7 Hz) rides on the background Gamma
on task presentation and memory formation and
potentiation through chemical gating from Nucleus
Accumbens(Acetylcholine).
21. Deeper parietal and temporal areas keep orienting the
brain in time space with inputs from sense organs as well
as cerebellum and basal ganglia.
22. Each creation of reality is a story that we know in 500ms
and to be sustained requires cyclical or linear firing to
create and add new dimensions
23. Sleep presents another enigma, with its cyclical
architecture and varying oscillations in REM and NREM
sleep it creates another reality during dreams. The
function of dreams invites highly speculative theories
ranging from Freudian to AIM from Hobson to survival
need to offloading garbage of mind.
24. All this still does not solve the basic question- What is
Mind?
 Maya is Reality
64   
How do we know what these oscillations create? We have to
move back in time a bit may be 100 years. Even before we peeped
into brain…
“Hold” – a voice from past may ask –all this is inferred
knowledge from surface recording or subtracted from background
imaging and correlated but NO ONE HAS REALLY PEEPED
INTO THE LIVE FUNCTIONING BRAIN.
Did I say correlation but with what? Neuroscience willingly
or reluctantly has to meet its older cousins even at the peril of
displeasing it’s master Physics. These are Philosophy and
Psychology.
The constructs of philosophy and Psychology defining
observed behavior (however normal they are) still are the frames
against which we compare our observed data from brain activity.
WILL, emotions aptitude, attitude, motivation, intelligence ,skills
and many others are measured by psychological testing and these
tasks are used to evoke and engage brain areas as in fMRI.
This raises a fundamental question—a top down approach
assumes an a-priori frame to be observed where as a bottom up
approach fails to create a full picture and is lost in translation,
a computational model cannot feel and be human and reverse
engineering reduces but cannot build.
So either we believe all psychological constructs and find
their NCC or assume that we do not know what we mean by
these constructs and also what is brain creating, we are just being
satisfied not only with our epistemology but also semiology
(even that is a creation of brain- metaphor about metaphor style
as Lakoff indicates) for applied purpose and communication for
survival and growth as we do with language.
The actual conversion of brain’s electrochemical activity
into abstract thoughts and emotions still remains an enigma (as
mentioned before motor action excluded as it converts electrical
energy to mechanical and completes the cycle of EM radiation or
mechanical, thermal energy entering sense organs   electrical
energy gated by chemical NT systems    converted to action
in response or reflex   muscles   action (mechanical) like
writing, speech, running etc.
 What we Know!
     65
What if no action is done and only thoughts float …where
does the energy go even if this energy conversion doesn’t operate
in brain still the actual step is missing leaving the wide gap for
mystics to butt in.
Is there a TOE that connects mind to the objective world? Or
there are as many processes in brain as they exist in Universe in
form of physical laws.
Do these processes and laws exist in brain a priori?
Quite possible because it is the human brain that has discovered
or invented them all to make a meaning of life- be it Mathematics,
chaos, Quantum and more. Possibly brain has imprints of all
these. Whether brain has discovered and determined or these laws
are again a chicken and egg story.
An UTM (unified theory of mind) is difficult because the
reductionist approach of science ignores the philosophical
abstractions and the latter has not evolved a language that can
match equations. Possibly there are no equations for brain and
what we see is a concoction of brain to open a window to nature
of which it is an extension.
Any attempt for UTM should take the metaphorical ability
of mind into account because in its simplest model, brain creates
SYMBOLS to perceive and handle reality, as said mind may be a
just dealing with metaphors. The rest of the drama of human life is
about this (belief, notions, …principles, concepts etc.)
But where do we get the answers from?
From the best lab in the world—our Brain itself
 Who is looking?

“You do not mention the path of the electron at all, Heisenberg.

But yet when you look in a cloud chamber the electron’s track can
be observed quite directly.” “Don’t you think that it’s strange to
say that there is a path for the electron in the cloud chamber, but
there is no path for the electron in the atom? The existence of the
path cannot depend merely on the size of its container. But we
have no way of observing the electron’s path in the atom. What we
actually record are frequencies of the light radiated by the atom,
but no actual path. And it is irrational to introduce into a theory
only such quantities as can be directly observed.” ““Heisenberg,
every theory contains unobservable quantities. The principle
of employing only observable quantities simply cannot be
consistently carried out.” ““Perhaps I did use such philosophy
earlier, perhaps I even wrote it, but it is nonsense all the same.”
You know, people talk about ‘observation’ all the time, but do
they know what they actually mean by that? The very concept of
‘observation’ is itself already problematic.” Every observation
presupposes an unambiguous connection between the phenomenon
to be observed and the sensation which eventually penetrates into
our consciousness. But we can only be sure of this connection if
we know the natural laws by which it is determined.” however, as
is obviously the case in modern atomic physics, these laws have
to be called into question, then the concept of ‘observation’ loses
its clear meaning.” In that case, it is theory which first determines
what can be observed.” (Elbert Einstein to Heisenberg)
 Who is looking?
     67
Einstein, who was a radical rooted in tradition, believed
in certain determinism and that God does not play dice yet he
harboured a deep doubt about observables. They remain the
desire of any experiment and the framework of objectivity.
The reductionist wishes of science claims objectivity to be its
route to truth. But we all know how nature eroded this belief in
last century. Quantum Physics brought in subjectivity through
observer, consciousness and other measurement problems
and however Einstein tried to label QM as incomplete (EPR)
it has not failed till date, rather become more random and
probabilistic with theories like entanglement, Quantum gravity
and multiverses. It did unleash charlatans who picked up the
quantum vocabulary and cooked far- reaching speculations but
the truth stands out. That nature is unpredictable and random
even if within a finite frame.
It is most evident in brain and mind dynamics including
consciousness. Where top down theories choose restricted
observation, and fail to give a comprehensive picture the bottom
up approach immediately creates a humongous complex dataset
that is difficult to connect at times. The insistence of reductionists
and those who ascribe mind and consciousness to an emergent
property of matter called brain, to exclude subjective experience,
what Chalmers calls ‘the hard problem’, has created a peculiar
situation. Large group follows this dictum, equipped with imaging
and electrophysiological tools whereas another small group
still believes that mind is separate from brain and the world of
subjective experience has an entity of its own.
They can still unite, if we do not bother about the content
rather focus on process of the subjective world. After all, even
the data created by our tools ultimately have to be correlated with
what is –human behavior.
Any theory of brain should be able to correlate the physical
process to behavior. Each one has its own history of experiences
but is the process same? The variation in content than can be
explained on the basis of cultural and genetic influences.
Let us try to explore subjective experiences and map it to our
proposed model (Writer’s personal experiences) of self.
 Maya is Reality
68   
The self may just be a phase space represented in a certain area
of brain, interacting with smaller phase spaces created from wave
dynamics of different Hebbian assemblies in other sub areas. The
dynamics is about integrating the huge amount of data inflowing
into brain through sensory organs and peripheral sensations
from body. This data is differentiated and integrated, in an out of
awareness process in 10ms to 500ms, possibly in a quantum to
classical in a decoherence process or classical nonlinear, to create
a frame of reality that adheres to external world for survival.
These sub phase spaces are weighted on the basis of best fit of
action and thought, with the concept of self. The process is limited
by oscillatory cycles that may be inhibitory and eternal fixed
structure.
Some of us would have known what a major trauma or illness
does to body and mind, even a major surgery upsets the flow
and the Self has to readjust to it. All patients hope to return to
premorbid state.
The writer underwent an appendectomy under general
anesthesia. The journey to deeper level is smooth with conscious
brain slowly minimizing its activity as higher networks reduce
firing and the deepest networks sustain breathing etc. The return
to being aware is a rough ride for few. The deepest perceptual
and emotional centres activate before the inhibitory cortex. The
outbursts range from pure emotional to almost psychotic as the
brain returns to baseline. I cried for an hour as told later.
The behavior exhibited is possibly the instantaneous relative
weightage of the emotional, perceptual, or motor inputs. Lack of
motor activity and the late activation of higher network, decreases
their strength and the limbic system has to complete it – the wave
function evolves (? nonlinearly) to a state of uncontrolled emotion.
The exact expression possibly depends on initial condition –
emotional outrage or hallucinations-limbic or perceptual.
V.Ramachandran would love the second experience. A
‘phantom limb’ under spinal anesthesia after a leg fracture. As the
injection went in through lumbar puncture a sudden electric shock
through left leg was felt. As the legs went numb and I watched
the surgery on the screen… I felt both the legs, not in the actual
 Who is looking?
     69
position – that the surgeon just raised and showed me. I was a
dead log- the legs were felt in a folded form over the physical
limp matter. The feeling lasted till recovery and even the sensation
returned in this cloud, the hallucination called leg. The physical
leg recovered last.
The anesthetist told that it is a common phenomenon and
provokes anxiety in people who demand that their legs to be
straightened in spinal anesthesia.
Few important points emerge and can be explained—
zz The basic substratum of neural dynamics is same hence
the basic expression Universal.
zz The phase space called self, as mentioned above, is
receiving continuous data from the body and cerebellum,
basal ganglia etc. that helps the brain area to contour the
self.
zz This data is also used as a weightage in decision making
for action etc. (Libet’s experiment) something that
happens much before real action.
zz Sudden disappearance of peripheral signals from legs in
spinal anesthesia is a perturbation in phase space
zz The memorized assembly of body position and legs
become activated to pitch in as an unidentified, missing
part does not allow the phase space to be complete.
zz The natural position of legs is folded (from the womb!!!)
zz The return to the primitive phase space is a memory
function leading to such perception.
We can choose to ignore the subjective in search of quantitative
data but the complexity of human mind and its interactions will
never allow it to be complete description till they are included in
building the multilayered reality.
The subjective world may well be operating at two levels,
one at the emotional perception, of reward or punishment, of a
feeling of comfort or discomfort arising out of the fit with the
self or preexisting phases. The feedback loops that are created
from the response of the environment to our actions further create
these feelings. This determines another level of subjective world
– thoughts.
 Maya is Reality
70   
The concepts like morality, justice, empathy or even the
destructive ones are entwined with this subjective feeling. They in
their basis have arisen from the feedback from external and their
ability to alter the self-phase. The repeated loops and iterative
firing alters the geometry of synaptic connectivity or neuronal
connections leading to what we know as reinforcement, eventually
to self- organization as memory.
The layers of these learning grow throughout life and
determine the behavior. Each one can only act under the activation
of these firing patterns and subsequent phase spaces that we know
as thoughts and emotions – the robust ones remaining unaltered –
the more the repetition the more in long term memory (like sensory
perceptions and motor skills) – conditioning in other words.
The subjective thus does not have any existence without the
external. The observer and the observed may well be entangled.
 Within the Universe

1. All life is embedded in space-time (4 or more dimensions)

and 4 fundamental forces.
2. Brain of all species perceive space- time from within
or without but categorize it into cycles or a clock like
humans.
3. Genetics directs the vector of life.
4. The initial condition of zygote formation and boundary
condition of death is universal
5. Universal Macroscopic laws encompass Mesoscopic
laws (as on Earth) and Microscopic process of subatomic
world exist in brain and body too, interfacing at all three
intertwined levels.
6. At a gross level, three realities exist – Cosmic (M1) – the
structure of Universe-single or multiple.
Classical laws (M2) – perceived as reality by sentient
beings, however incorrect still maintaining the world of
our forefathers- deterministic, theoretically reversible
in a cause –effect relationship (not in keeping entropy
of closed systems.). Nonlinearity and chaos creates
unpredictability here too.
 Quantum (M3) – Microscopic world of probability,
indeterministic, irreversible, observer dependent
(measurement) –something that Einstein could not accept
even though he triggered this movement.
7. M3 and M1 interact at all levels from electrons,
wave particle duality, uncertainty of measurement,
 Maya is Reality
72   
to deterministic (Schrodinger’s wave equation),
entanglement, space time curvature, special and general
relativity, all within light cone, forming a flow of past,
present and future.
Whether it is linear single history or multiple histories
is a matter of measurement (similar thoughts have
been elucidated in ancient Indian Philosophy). Possible
decoherence at a larger scale of time and space creates a
reality in M2 to further enhance dimensions and scales of
reality in inhabitable world.
8. The brain processes cannot have a separate way of
functioning as measurement tools have been able to detect
/subtract areas and signaling, bordering on M2 to M3
(Bohr’s debate about measurement tools being classical
even if we are measuring quantum)
9. To understand it better let us assume…brain functions at
3 levels –
X, Y and Z where X – conscious
Y – Intermediate.
Z – out of conscious
Movement of any thought from Z to X is approx. 200-500
ms hence
500 ms

timeline

10 ms
(it is never zero because initial conditions
go back to intrauterine life for a given brain)
Let us assume the initial point as NOW but brain does not
start activity now, it is already under the firing potential
from memory and has a history, also the environmental
conditions ranging from temperature to biological
 Within the Universe
     73
needs, and external stimuli modulate it even if we reject
desire, will and other tricks of mind. Multiple frames of
reality exist at this instance and all instances (created by
electrochemical activity in all brain areas). The vague free-
floating images, thoughts, emotions move like a cloud,
even at rest the self exists, and is bound by oscillation and
binding current (cerebral cortex perceiving or watching
this cloud emerging from deeper motor or limbic areas.
10. Assume it to be a system in Quantum state – the thoughts,
emotions emerging out of a continuous decoherence and
repetitive cycle yet in a new state. The vector, phase space
and probability is directed to create an attractor dimension
presented as an ‘I’.
‘NO action at this instance ‘ the higher center decides
to act and inserts ‘will’ or ‘intent’, the free floating
quantum vectors start coalescing towards the desired
dimension .
(from t0   t1   t2
10-30ms   200ms   500ms
unconscious   reflex   out of conscious 
 conscious
Under the observation of will as an observer (free or
conditioned). Certain degree of freedom (df ) exists at t0
11. If the desired phase space is attained the system return
to another cycle (t0+ n) but if it goes to strange attractors
and a different phase evolves (depending on discrepancy
between will and results) the gap feeds back the higher
centres and Will 2 is asserted again. The df at t1 is one
degree or many degrees less depending on changed external
conditions added by limbic activation (predictability vs.
unpredictability). The process is still out of conscious
sphere except when Will 1 reads the gap and decides on
Will 2, the central Centres read the meaning in the feedback
gap, either reason out a cause and effect with a corrected
instruction set to w2 or the deeper structures like amygdala
increase their firing to express their phase spaces by reading
the gap as frustration in the copy relayed to them.
 Maya is Reality
74   
12. Further attempts W2   W3 may reach desired
dimensions but every departure from the original
aim build s up a further activation of limbic structures
perceived as emotions as word and thoughts fail to contain
them –anger, lust and other so called negative or positive
emotions fill the phase space of conscious mind, without
any control by higher inhibitory centres.
13. The process is quantum at rest, with high and pluripotent
probability clouds, with intent or will as an observer.
(i) the deeper neuronal firing moves to decoherence.
(ii) the process switches to nonlinear or deterministic
chaotic dimension to decide the future.
(iii) the feedback loops to cortex and limbic areas
activate them to judge the threat or satiety of this
dynamics to choose further action
(iv) CEN, DMN, SN determine it
(v) This linkage may sound fantastic and amusing and
may be difficult to prove mathematically and more
so experimentally but the real problem of catching
the mind is even more.
(vi) The reductionist approach may stop at measuring
and observing the NCC and write the epitaph that
‘Mind is an emergent property of Brain” but the crux
remains ‘how does the final step happen’ and the
question of subjectivity’(Bohr and Einstein differed
on this). Science does not like subjective so change
it to ‘uniqueness of perception’ but beyond the gross
features of perception, cognitive assimilation and
affective load differs in each brain. Is this the mind?
The form and structure of thought and emotion remain the
elusive answer-even if language is taken to be the format, are
concepts only words. What is the state in which they exist. The
observable is behavior that can corroborate with fMRI and EEG
but what if we do not allow the person to act in response to stimuli,
internal or external.
fMRI AND EEG show spatial - temporal correlates similar
across activities, lighting up areas and power spectra in different
 Within the Universe
     75
intensity but this in no way tells us the internal projection of words
or feelings or images – their shape or content – for that it has to
mechanically convert to action – speech, writing, hitting, running
etc.
The intermediate step thus becomes very important else the
brain activity will never be actually translated to behavior. What we
understand are the tell-tale signs in behaviour, the inverse problem
both in time and space remains. On applied front, technology may
still be able to intervene and alter the activity in brain and make
people feel different-e.g. ECT, RTMS, pacemakers or simply
altering chemical gating through Neurotransmitter modulation by
medication but the paradox will remain.
‘The paradox that living out of misery through technology
will empower to live freely but one has to be dependent on it’.
Given the brain’s enormous powers to homeostasis amidst
various contradictory stimuli and external influences from stress
to drugs, in spite of being a slow computational machine but
perfect in handling complexity, it is a surprise that so many live in
psychological misery and anxiety in turn leading to personal and
social upheave and exploitation. That too when mirror neurons
have played an important role in developing through shared
experience and understanding the other’s mind. Whether it has
evolved to take someone else’s misery? May be not, in spite of
claims of spiritual Gurus, any benefit should be available to all.
The responsibility of research should also be making the world
better so empowering people should not be left to charlatans and
quasi-mystics but a solid foundation of self-training should be
offered.
Very few have trained the mind but most succumb to the
transitory realities created by brain and perceived by mind (illusion
or Maya in eastern thought). Caught between contradictions of real
world and imposed realities coupled with genetic predispositions,
a huge number become mentally ill. Their frames of reality keep
intruding as internal projections and desynchronizing their minds
with the external reality, pushing the mind to anxiety (threat to
survival) or imaginary fixed thought (delusion) or perceived
falsity.
 Maya is Reality
76   
Psychiatry and its offshoots like CBT and Psychotherapy
in their present form have only functional value. Mixing and
matching diagnostic labels that have partial validity with available
modes of treatment works, but sustained benefit eludes because
the fundamental basis of ‘human’ in human is missing and is
addressed from the periphery. The changing cognitive styles
due to technology may be altering not only the future genetic
make-up but also the neuronal network and its capacity vis a vis’
memory, critical thinking, addictive potential, judgement etc. Is it
a movement from HOMO Sapiens to Homo Roboticus?
Keeping this philosophical interlude aside it is worthwhile
to examine the claimants to the mind and the brain- the helping
professions…
Since the inception of recorded history myths, epics, scriptures
were providing a code or template to keep the mind sane. May
be insanity (Vikshipta in Indian texts) was not a counterpoint but
inability to harness emotions as this was the basic undercurrent
of poetry and prose. Though aimed through a wide range, from
Moksha, individual salvation to community behavior as in Quran
and Bible all intended to create harmony in society and prevent
exploitation. Offers for other worldly incentives to benefits in this
one abound whether it is the linear, rational logical approach of
West or cyclical, experiential life of East.
Gita attributed to divine Krishna in deeper analysis does
sound like Psychotherapy. Psychiatry and Psychotherapy are
new entrants barely a century old but to counsel is human nature.
Probably propelled by a temporary inner disruption in homeostatic
equilibrium, sensed by misery in the other, mirror neurons fire,
making us extend help- sympathy is another way to quell your
own possibility of being in that situation. The sense of objectivity
only develops if one does not have sense of threat and helping
becomes the next step. Everyone tends to be a counselor when out
of the orbit of threat but not far enough.
Psychiatry did not emerge out of this rather as a descriptive
process of those who were found outside the normal. Careful
observations created diagnostic categories based on behavioral
ensemble, this pattern still dominates the classificatory systems in
contrast to medical, cause based categories.
 Within the Universe
     77
Initially the insane were restrained in prisons till asylums
appeared and physical straitjacketing was replaced by chemical
straitjacketing with advent of medication that in long run improved
the life of patients. Neurobiology and chemistry helped in
developing specific medication to address specific NT alterations
at synaptic junctions. NT involvement is the intermediate in illness
causation but targeting them restored brain to premorbid levels in
a significant number. Though not perfect but medication remains
the mainstay of treatment in Psychiatry.
The behavior and mechanical transformation still remain the
observable of brain process, the internal existence of reality still
is unmapped. Do the brain oscillations in different states define
the illness? Or maybe OCD, Schizophrenia, autism are a form of
general process defect keeping the person in an alternate reality,
leading to a reverse outward response to internal projection rather
than adequate response to external reality. The boundary of self
becomes either too rigid as in autism or too fragmented as in
Schizophrenia These experiences and frames of reality are not
restricted to these syndromes but whereas they are transitory for
others, patient’s brain sustains them to detach from reality (drugs
like LSD can create similar states ) or the whole cycle of action
and thought as discussed above , the dynamics of subconscious to
conscious is judged erroneously by cortical centres and it keeps
repeating the same cycle without any further achievement of
desired phase. (in lack of sensory stimuli, do these maps of self-
exist in multiple copies constantly comparing and judging) The
transitory changes in these maps return to normal as NT restores
(alcohol and drugs) or longer as in love (falling in love is altered
chemistry leading to loss of control) but in illness it persists
appearing as top down thinking.
Are these minds different with a different brain substrate
or they are being labeled as abnormal, being away from the
statistical norm and we all exist on the same page the difference
being quantitative rather qualitative? Neuro-anatomy and
imaging along with genetics does indicate a possibility of brain
connectivity gone haywire during formation but then it proves
the dimensional approach than the categorical…because we all
 Maya is Reality
78   
have same genetic pool and similar predisposition to network
connecting in an aberrant way. So, it remains for the disruption
in self and to others caused by aberrant behavior and not the
alteration in basic process.
e.g. Serotonin alteration is implicated in depression and
SSRI improve it but it is a certain described brain state whose
oscillatory state differs from normal mood. (though not known)
but we all know how it feels to be depressed. Are the transitory
states of normal depression same as clinical or the reverse- is
everyone who comes under the same oscillatory phase space feels
depressed?
All this is for awake state but what about the other state
of consciousness SLEEP? Do hypnopompic and hypnogogic
hallucinations follow the same pathways? And the dreams, the
visual tapestry dubbed as ‘near psychosis’ by Hobson.
Sleep, the regular periodic retreat from awake state was
considered to be inactive and serving rest to brain till various
stages and REM was discovered. The interplay of 5HT, Ach, and
NE and subsequent oscillatory activity is unabated in sleep.
5HT levels decline from awake to stage4 when acetylcholine
pushes the beginning of REM sleep through PGO waves and motor
inhibition with eye movements preserved (probably evolutionary
defense to be saved from predator and at the same time preventing
acting out on dreams- something that reverses in REM behavior
disorder when people act out on dreams). Fine mechanisms
evolved to protect the animal when the survival antennae are
lowered. From awake alpha the brain goes to high amplitude delta
in stage 4, k complexes and sleep spindles oscillating in stage
2. A certain binding gamma oscillation runs in the background
during delta too possibly keeping the self intact. As REM cycles
4-5 times in an 8 hour sleep the EEG gets desynchronized to fast
irregular activity.
Sleep would have undergone evolutionary changes as the
man changed its habitat to more secure situations but the dreams
maintain the old habit often evoking fearful emotionally charged
images returning to primal fear.
 Within the Universe
     79
Freud has never been validated but his dream work is
nearest to REM’s role in learning, the brain processing the
acquired information (NE system is shut down to avoid new
input during dreaming –the gating of attention). The memory
is evoked and consolidated after integrating new information.
Vivid imagery mimicking hallucinatory state is the hallmark is
self-limiting but still nightmares and REM behavior disorders
betray the emotional intensity. Why is REM episodic with its
duration increasing during the night? Maybe it is an evolutionary
mechanism to alternate with being in touch with environment
during NREM. These REM episodes probably are accompanied
with the switching off, of cortical inhibitory centres that not
only keep check on the automatic intrusive imagery during
awake state but also through attentional gating keep in touch
with reality, (GABAergic drugs increase inhibition and suppress
REM only to cause rebound later). The deprivation of total or
partial sleep shows a selective recovery depending on phase
pressure. Tightly bound to circadian rhythms, the sleep phases
and their significance is yet to be discovered.
Are hallucinations the spilling of dream phase states on to
the awake? The inhibitory pathways miss a switch to control and
push it for a later appearance and the imagery with its emotional
weight intrudes to suppress other reality states. Dreams often
express physiological or emotional needs but a content analysis
of psychotic symptoms shows the same. The cognitive structure,
belief system and need (mood congruent or incongruent), the
pressure of unexpressed or incomplete saturation breaks the
boundary imposed by inhibitory systems or will and perceptual
anomalies follow the same pathway to fill in the gap between
the desired and attained dimension or phase. If true than people
can dream, delude or hallucinate only what is in their minds and
nothing else. Strongly inhibited people due to personality or
conditioning especially moral often surprise with the content of
psychotic symptom exhibiting deep conflicts (sexual or violent
content in a moral or quiet person is too common to be ignored).
(Is sexual expression in such cases emerging from the basic need
for reproduction, a counterbalance to fear of death?)
 Maya is Reality
80   
The Curious Experience of a Rational Mind
A well-known intellectual in his old age asked the meaning of his
experience, as this was being written. He is known for a perfect
balance of yin and yang and a rational person.
He narrated “I was a bit unwell and was writing something
around 5.50 pm and was waiting for someone. I received a call
from someone who asked me whether he was supposed to arrange
a funeral. I asked whose? and the man told my name. I told him
that I was alive”.
He did have a phone call from some number at the same time.
He vividly described but was not sure whether it was imaginary or
real. Most probably he would have dozed off and a REM intrusion
occurred but the content is almost premonitory indicating the fear
of death …
This shows the remarkable capacity of brain to induct fear
and other emotions, weave them in memory or present reality and
create a story almost vividly and real as much. This is the basis of
human story building, all science and art after all a story of reality.
If it is a story than Individuals become important at least a few of
them who had a different narration exhibited in their lives.
 The Unconscious

DREAMS, open yet another window to a basic human process–

that of storytelling. Various stages of consciousness have been
described in ancient Indian texts too – susupta, jagriti, turiya are
well known terms in Indian meditative practices, Oneiros from
Greek mythology is about dreams and even before aboriginal
drawings from Australia originated from dream visions, but it took
3800 years before Freud pointed out the structure of conscious
and unconscious in the mind. Recent evidence emerging from
Neuroscience and cognitive psychology like subliminal perception,
blind sight, affective motivational processing, attentional
competition all indicate a basically out of conscious /awareness
process before it reaches conscious mind. The composite reality
and multiple such frames created in 200-500ms period integrate
with self to create a continuity , the largely inhibitory mechanisms
controlling the expression of brain.
Over decades Freud has been relegated to theory, he may
well bounce back. The defense mechanisms he proposed may
be a foresighted literary expression of basic biology- repression,
projection, dissociation are all possibilities within the complex
dynamic network regulated by NT expressing at a conscious level
as psychological constructs –emotions, attitude, intelligence etc.
The brain grossly stated fiddles with inputs and barrage
of electrical activity, filters, modifies and presents it from
unconscious to DLPFC, CEN, SN, DMN, as a formed visual or
nonvisual image that is given meaning or a story is created to be
believed. The story is itself modulated by memory maps on its
 Maya is Reality
82   
emotional survival quotient before being acted upon or narrated
to outside or to itself.
If the stimulus is sudden, threatening or traumatic, the
conscious part is bypassed and a subliminal reaction ensures
survival, the memory map of which is saved without ever reaching
conscious evaluation.
Nowhere is this process more evident than in the phenomenon –
Dreams. Freud systematized the ‘interpretation of dreams’ in
keeping with his psychoanalytic theory, his basic premise was
‘dreams are wish fulfillment’. All that is repressed and relegated
to unconscious surfaces in a symbolic story through condensation
and other processes to release itself and as a central peg he linked
it to sexuality.
Post-and Neo-Freudians objected to the sexuality but the
unconscious and symbolic remained the cornerstone of even
Jung.
As technology revealed different architecture of sleep, REM
episodes were found to be the dream epochs. What is the role of
dreams? SWS may be restive in addition to circadian rhythmic
activity coupled to stage 3 and 4 but why dream and that too 4-5
episodes of increasing intensity and duration with underlying
activated brain when the dreams are to be forgotten (0.0002%
remembered in an experiment by Hobson.)
Freud’s shadow looms over most theories though not fully /
reverse learning of Crick or memory consolidation-activation
synthesis of Hobson
All point at REM’s role in information processing, eliminating
extra stuff, integrating and forming memory, essentially story
building out of daily input, memory, needs etc. The PGO waves
evoke the cortex to make a meaning but neither AIM by Hobson
nor memory theories are able to answer that we do not remember
the dream itself , how can they consolidate or prune memories or
it is some Unconscious process, the conscious watching its own
visual creation during dreaming.
Evolutionary theories give a survival meaning to REM – playing
dead, or eye scanning to avoid predators or rehearsing virtual reality
or a period of shedding garbage and leaving storage free.
 The Unconscious
     83
Experimental evidence notwithstanding and inductive
approach may be useful to comprehend—
zz Brain is continuously bombarded by stimuli from an
objective world and it has to keep making models through
its neural networks right from within womb. Most
processes are unconscious and conscious mind interfaces
with other people and other realities. These patterns
create various clouds and new dimensions (phase states
or micro-stories) that coalesce to give a sense of single
story in a person that in turn coalesce to family, groups,
nations, humanity etc.
All laced with desires, emotions, needs, threats, attachments
etc. but all that goes in does not express or gets integrated, brain
is not a black hole. A lot is repressed, dissociated and treated
differentially...defense or neural assemblies that are made
redundant. Rest retained in memory that guides. Societal values
arise from mind of few but go on to condition others on moral
basis or survival but sidelining does not mean elimination, the
conscious or inhibitory controls filter action and emotion to
acceptable level. Dreams are wish fulfillment and give meaning to
complex play of symbolic imagery. The internal display of visual
imagery may use the same pathway and appear quasi-psychotic
and fragmented but discourse analysis proves deeper meaning.
Eventually it may serve the basic survival tool - story building
- the stories give interface to each sentient being.
The story is with a twist though-
The same mind that explores and creates a reality in dreams
without guilt or fear and rather disinhibited is beset with a deep
underlying emotion –fear
“Fear is the key”
with consciousness switched off, the brain is exploratory
and prepares for wake hours with certain frames embedded in its
neuronal pattern but the first intention or need after opening the
eye is survival. Since origin, survival remains the basic need of all
probably in response to fear of extinction or simply put –death.
This time bound existence is deeply embedded in the
intelligence of neurons and genes that perpetrate life. It pervades
 Maya is Reality
84   
individual mind, collective mind, societies, nations and human
race. Propelled by the anxiety of survival humans strove to
transgress this boundary condition at all levels. Rest is the story of
mankind conceived in the illusory cloud of dreams and conscious
imagery, the mind emerges to be a strong tool against the harsh
reality giving meaning to life and creating sense of permanency.
Brain also tries to predict and create certainty to make sense
out of the rudderless fear, based on shared or personal experience.
The attachment or addiction to external stuff, material or
religious is just latching on to the appearance of more certain
stuff. GOD though is not material but the symbols give the biggest
security rather offloads the mind of responsibility of misery. This
has been the biggest story of mankind. All others are pitted against
it. At another level man was caught in two levels - one material
attached world of daily soap opera and the other inward directed
religion with its ever-present pressure to change and seek heaven.
Science went in another direction attempting objectification of
truth and providing more external tools to stick to and religion
in a counteroffensive became more ritualistic and fanatic. But a
Universal religion does not exist even though the precepts may
be the same. Is it because of learned behavior and being born in
a certain religious home that people differ or it is an inborn need
that differs in each, hence the need for different religions? Even
science does not have unanimity on most issues.
They both ignore a basic fact though, standing at opposite
ends they forget that in the process of survival the neural mass
has become highly ‘affective’. Violence, rage, lust, love and
other primary or cognitive emotions are inherent to brain much
before the controlling cognitive structure developed and started
rationalizations to actions. The much older and embedded
oscillations that create affect often overrule the rational. The
thought and emotions fitting in to make a story that is a socially
directed and acceptable. (Mirror neurons control the social
interaction….it fails often is a different story). An objectified
NCC and pinning down to electrochemical machine existence is
not HUMAN and a total imaginary story- creating mind that is
blind in faith and fanatic in action is not HUMAN too!!!!!
 The Unconscious
     85
What is the answer? Because of these conflicting realities
and multiple contradictory choices, the ambivalence of decision
making, unable to tolerate the tension of dialectics makes most
people flow without choices. Few choose one end, most remain
confused, some drop the struggle, fewer go beyond. Developing
the intellect to the level of intuition is also a tract of brain but is
it a decision of the mind to direct the cell assemblies with a will.
Then where is the mind?
Sports person, leaders, people like Gandhi, Einstein, Mandela,
soldiers often exhibit extraordinary will. Are they differentially
genetically loaded? Or the state they have achieved is possible for
all. Some of them undergo cognitive restructuring to achieve this
but most are tied to notions provided by society and concepts.
The common theme is freedom from fear, the will takes them
beyond the edge of insecurity. But why does human mind always
need someone or something beyond its own powers? Be it GOD ,
Science ,Prophets or even charlatans .
Is it emanating from the helpless feeling and the fragile
existence, to ascertain that someone else is taking care.
How did Buddha train himself? How did Gandhi become what
he was? Pitting against baser instincts they explored dimensions
to create higher cognitive emotions.
Is the process available to all? The neuronal ensemble and
fields are a product of probability, potential and chosen trajectory.
It may be useful or not but it removes the ambiguity and uncertainty
from the scalar composite reality to a vector potential essentially
sense of movement and direction. Is mind training equivalent to
brain training?
At the other end are those whose will has betrayed them and
the mind is disbalanced.
 Whose reality?

The questions -What is reality and whose? straight away pushes

us to the shadowy arena of mental illnesses.
Schizophrenia an iconic illness keeps the sufferer in two
realities or totally removed from it. Delusions, hallucinations and
other First rank phenomenon create a virtual reality in positive
symptoms whereas negative appear like a burnout with its
anhedonia, avolition, apathy etc. - another state of being where the
brain is physically present but without interfacing with the world
often the positive preceding the negative.
Are the brain oscillatory states same for both and how do they
differ from the so labeled ‘NORMAL”?
Do the previous memories together with the experience of
precipitating stressor and affective input determine the content or
they arise de novo?
Do these states exist in each individual head and just the
meaning and relevant hierarchy differs? (Competing neuronal
assemblies and their versions of reality). In paranoia two parallel
realities exist, one normative and the other psychotic –do the
oscillations differ yet exist simultaneously? Or is it the intrusion
of the latter into the normal that disrupts.
But go wider – in history or contemporary society people have
acted on individual or mass level based on belief systems that
disrupted the existing reality like Aryan Superiority and Hitler, was
he delusional? What about religious violence or belief in GOD.?
If these oscillatory states are same then what is normal? at
least biologically.
 Whose reality?
     87
The poor Schizophrenic mind believes it and is called to lose
insight whereas in affective episodes or panic attack the insight
is retained and the person feels that he is in a different state
wanting to come out of it. But the negative cognitions, anxiety,
mood and their oscillations take over the normative, lasting for
minutes to days. The brain and its compensatory mechanisms
fail to correct this error that it does beautifully in daily existential
mood swings. The more it attempts to correct the deeper the
symptoms become.
Do the faltering NT switches in limbic –cognitive assemblies
create these oscillatory states? or they are pervasive at a low
power state and get expressed in an instance of external stimuli
perceived as stress or threat. As the error reading mechanism
try to diminish these states they paradoxically activate it –
behaviourally expressed as the’ thoughts increase the more one
tries to suppress’. Is it the cognitive structure responsible or the
underlying oscillatory defect?
The ‘helping’ oscillation in an attempt to reduce the firing
of the ‘distorted ‘state excites it more in a ‘reverse inhibition’
(possibly by further reducing the levels of NT) , ‘ignoring’ and
allowing to ‘burn off’ would be a better strategy (? mindfulness).
Nowhere it is more evident than in OCD,-the repetitive
circular firing and the cyclical oscillation in the same phase space
keep the obsessions alive, being redundant to any stimuli. The
patient struggles, ruminates, repeats, tries to push away and resist
the ego dystonic intrusions but as they intensify with each effort,
the anxiety heightens. The psychological basis is the question of
right and wrong or ‘what if’ but it is an extreme presentation of a
universal tendency of mind to attain or predict certainty. Strange
phase spaces and uncertain ambiguous trajectory are not cherished
by higher conscious centers and it wants to create an order out of
chaos. Mostly it fails or is at the mercy of the same force it is
trying to control—the unconscious processes.
All minds obsess and need to create perfections, the OCD
patients just try to do it in chronicity, they lose the irrationality and
resistance almost appearing deluded. Is OCD than a dimensional
disease?
 Maya is Reality
88   
The oscillations of OC and the normative states probably vie
for the same attentional bottleneck (as in Attention Deficit, the
filter fails), the external stimuli that can break the circularity fail
to reach the assemblies and disrupt them because the internally
generated attractors keep them tied. Thus, any stronger stimuli that
can generate a higher power in circuits sensing threat, disrupts the
Obsessive circuit.
SSRIs diminish the firing by restoring serotonin in the synaptic
gap, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy enhances the firing of other
assemblies ignoring these and reestablishing those interfacing
with external reality.
Autism presents a different dimension – is it same as a certain
negative state or a different construct. The disbalance between
excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms and frequency powers at
extremes has been noticed in autism and Schizophrenia.
Autism stands at the opposite end of the over inclusive, top
down thinking of paranoid schizophrenia and is closed, sensory
de-cohered and exists in a bottom up state, responding to
internally generated needs and images Indeed sensory integration
remains a major therapy –essentially harmonizing and averaging
the extreme oscillatory states to a moderate interface with external
frequencies….and to the binding SELF
After all normal is average or vice versa.
Hallucinations pose a different issue. Dreams are near
hallucinations and a quasi-psychotic state but are rendered
physiological because the need to process external sensation is
blocked during REM sleep, the brain can exclusively work on
internally generated images and information.
As we understand, the visual, auditory pathways between
10-500ms, are fired by a sensation, create a pattern, compare it
with the existing patterns through midbrain structures like Lateral
Geniculate Body, limbic evaluation modulates the relevance and
the CEN perceives the meaning and the reaction. The Thalamic
generated 40 Hz gamma integrates the varied assembly firings to
give a unified experience.
Two other processes will be required for an error free
movement in space and time…
 Whose reality?
     89
1. The creation of reality /perception in a 500ms bracket has
to be similar in successive brackets too, for continuity and
meaning. Does one such frame of reality influences the
firing of next bracket to create similar frames …till the
stimulus disappears.
2. Parallel to the main circuit, an internally triggered reality
is compared to the externally interfaced probably to
match affective component or relevance value while
integrating memory. The cortical centers match the two
versions (or many versions) and inhibit the internal frame
while awake unless it matches the other. In dreams the
internal frames are allowed to roam freely. This serves as
a survival process to orient in external space –time.
Indeed EEG/ERP/MEG and nonlinear analysis of hallucinatory
behavior and other psychotic symptoms has shown varied data
pointing to a possibility of error in this mechanism.
The frontal corollary discharges fail to inhibit the temporal
gamma binding rhythm in hallucinations. The attenuation of
gamma indicates the suppression of internal activity and response
to external through attention gateway. But if the mismatch is not
corrected by inhibiting gamma activity then it intrudes the firing
oscillation generated by the internal triggers.
Assume that a pattern Xp is created in the visual cortex in
response to a visual stimulus ‘X’ to the eye. Xp is forwarded to the
higher centres for evaluation of relevance, meaning and response.
But the decussating visual fibers have send a set of information
enroute to the lateral geniculate body to compare with existing
maps and memories ( also to help in binocular vision) . The
forwarded Xp from primary cortex meets or competes with
another internally generated pattern say Xi .
Xi and Xp modulated by emotions integrate over a time scale
<500ms , Xip is presented to CEN or SN based on which the
cortex suppresses either Xi or Xp (the decision based on the need
to respond in action or thought) or Xip works for the instance
. Within 500ms, this frame of reality appears in the conscious
mind, successive 500ms frames create a continuity in space time
or break it.
 Maya is Reality
90   
For the CEN and SN the pattern to be responded to probably
is chosen by the immediacy and threat value as also emotional
weightage. The action or thought (say A or T) create feed forward
loop to modulate Xi or Xp or Xip at instance 0 ,1 2, 3, ……. on a
time scale.
This poses a basic question – if the versions of reality perceived
by conscious brain are transitory frames sewed into a continuous
flow to create a sense of stability and orientation in space-time,
then what is real? The chosen frames that correspond with
external objective reality or the ones not chosen, this mismatch is
the source of psychosis.
The Xi intruding and represented over Xp and the cortex
unable to either inhibit or integrate it creates a reality that can
exist parallel to external or override it…
The delusions or overvalued ideas follow X or simultaneously
arise within the 500ms in the first frame are ambiguous but
subsequent frames of reality fed forward by these thoughts or
emotions or images, modify them to fit in a continuous erroneous
reality (the hard problem remains- how do the neural firing patterns
change to thoughts and what energy jumps cause it or vice versa
the abstract thoughts reverse affecting neural oscillation!)
The concept of normal perception and thought than becomes a
dimensional issue and the electrophysiological parameters should
exhibit a common pathway and process though the content is
determined by erroneous need and interpretation.
 The Story of Story

Why does brain give meaning to sensations and weaves a story of

I or self?
Why does it create memories of experiences and takes frames
of realities to create hierarchical relevance beyond survival? Art,
science, fantasy, dreams, illnesses, creativity –do they have a
purpose.
Whether ‘I’ exists as a unique biological organism on earth
or the shadow of some other me in some other universe or in
the dream of someone else (as Hindus believe to be a dream of
creator-Brahma’s Swapna) Or the ‘me’ is just another experiment
in continuity of species, who has an illusion of will?
‘I’ has a historicity of species and genes but so does an
electron. The experiences and memory serve as nodes and
checkpoint to maintain the flow, that have been established over
millennia to compare against changes in environment. From the
neonate to an adult, experience alters the neuronal network and
creates dimensions that have the basic template but phase spaces
are unique and meaning personal.
Neurophysiological findings address the electrochemical
activity and mechanical action to manage and understand
sensation, perception, motor behavior to further technological
inputs for alleviation of bodily misery but the embodied cognition
still is poorly understood.
Artificial Intelligence may be able to create pathways or
bypass tracts to control or facilitate physiology but what is
uniquely human is beyond a Robot –because the meaning and
 Maya is Reality
92   
emotion is so varied that it is difficult to be predicted by an
algorithm.
The greatest issue being the evolving brain. The brain trying
to understand brain itself while changing patterns and plasticity is
like attempting to catch up with light.
Each mind has its own complex of abstract structures –
thoughts, emotions, needs, desires even while the basic remains
same. Genetics triggers the growth and brain assemblies but
environment shapes what we call a person. A quasi- stable
geography and semi -permanent faces around, largely maintain
the stability of ‘I’ in the brain. Imagine man being fixed and earth
rotating and the scene changing everyday …all sense of I will
vanish. Indeed, Lewis Caroll thought of it in terms of space-time
geometry much before Einstein.
What is the source of this general story and the particular ‘I’ ?
A parallel look at social and cultural factors is essential to
complete and scientific theory. Mythology and metaphors that
people live with are deeply rooted and has conditioned the
experiential and affective brain even if it is ahistorical as compared
to rational, logical history that remains at thought level. People
act more on instincts than rational (Eastern vs. Western thought).
Myth becomes integrated in experience and personal story –God
is a part of life in some cultures (in fact deeply in all) and shares
life whereas atheism is a learned cognitive response. A shift from
cyclical, experiential thinking system to logical, rational and
learned system creates a huge chasm and existential anxiety in
people as is evident in eastern culture.
A case in study is India. The ahistorical mindset that never
put a signature to its creation like eternal Vedas or architecture
had to force itself in creating history and believe an account of
itself given by others (the historical India is still a creation of
European pen!). The collective unconscious or call it culture,
directs the individual and societal story. The modern myths than
are more potent in effecting the minds through technology and
visual capture.
Is it the second break from the past? Being within and without
is a difficult task to direct one’s own story. How does it happen?
 The Story of Story
     93
The conscious brain is presented with highly refined and
modulated frames of reality by the out of awareness processes
and the higher centres keep integrating these frames into a
continuous story, either interfacing with external reality or abstract
imagination, the conscious in turn directing the further frames
being presented to it?
The last step may indicate towards will or intent or it may
be the unconscious that directs the content throughout. If it is
the latter the human creation will lose its signature and lustre of
ambition. Imagine a scientist who cannot be first or an artist who
cannot be different!!
Possibly the ‘will’ keeps the frames in a context, creates
meaning, relevance and evolves the story as in cinema. No wonder
cinema mimics brain, and like non-meaning electrical patterns
create meaning the 24 frames per second create motion. Each
shot of 3-4 seconds professes the story but the director pins and
integrates it to the previous, in hidden or overt symbols to evolve
in a logical narration, the logic itself being a certain resolution.
Mind has multiple shots from reality or imagination and
chooses each successive frame being fired at it from unconscious
to make the reality logical, continuous, rational and unambiguous
ultimately removing threats and uncertainty. The choice is by trial
and error and once made repeats in similar situations (predictable
mainstream cinema) but new stimuli can create a fresh frame to
be inducted sometimes an erroneous selection and story going
haywire. Neural Darwinism has kept the frames similar in most
brains but experimentation in creating new frames continues in
brain in a nonlinear manner. Whether the story is of 4 seconds or 40
years, if the will sustains a theme (personal or social context) the
perceptual or affective may be replaced by thoughts or memories
to be evoked in images anytime later – a sort of interactive and
participant cinema.
Do people have control over their selections and choice of
material to be retained –may be partially? Cinema is much more
conscious.
The erroneous or surprise or misfit selection can trigger and
propagate to alter the trajectory of the narration than intended by
 Maya is Reality
94   
will. The newness of the evolving story is reflected in the social
/psychological/creative or pathological meaning. Indeed, the
borderland is blurred and often creative is pathological or bizarre.
Individual art has often given rise to schizophrenic content.
The mirror neurons of brain than transmit and receive from
the ‘other’ to create shared stories else the recombinant frame
of one mind would not appeal to the other minds. (Mapping of
creator vs. perceiver may reveal similar process)
Each mind than is creative in its own right from problem
solving to creating afresh an empathic art to innovations and it is
a matter of dimension.

How did it happen? - or more from our own story

No story happens without the body so first the physical- evolution
separated man from chimpanzees and from quadruped to biped.
As the Sapiens rose painfully to stand erect, the eyes shifted from
side to front, the vision from monocular to binocular but it had to
pay another price too. The erect posture shifted the reproductive
organ from below to front and low causing pressure on the back
especially females carrying baby (low back pain too!) and the
cyclical sexuality shifted to all time sexuality to keep reproducing
as and when they got time from hunting food and securing life.
(the hind still remains as a sexual attractive part --). The extreme
sensory abilities of vision, hearing, smell and motor wizardry of
jumping and flying had to be sacrifices to remain on earth so the
differential development of brain areas ensued , the decrease in
size of some areas increased the association areas and evolved the
complexity of human brain.
The complexity created cognition, consciousness replaced
extreme sensory abilities, and motor expression compensated by
language and speech. The human brain learned to convert data
to meaning and repetitive, appetitive animal behavior was given
rationale. The threat and stimuli from environment was responded
by action and stress directed to imagery and dreams to prepare for
each coming day and future. Anticipation and planning became
the hallmark of human mind separating them from other cousins.
So however hard people are told not to worry about the unknown
future, the mind still will anticipate.
 The Story of Story
     95
And the human mind learned to turn the frames of reality into
a continuous story of life in which he survived together and alone.
He created fixed structures like civilizations and home and marriage
to give a sense of continuity. While genes pushed to reproduce,
neurons fired to modulate genes by their actions and thoughts by
firing and expressing and making the man act on environment, the
new changes adaptive mostly. Whether he planned it according to
will or was pushed by unconscious processes is a difficult question
because the neocortex evolved late and so did the language, but the
need to express has been a lakh year old, all to achieve one goal,
to survive by predicting future, to remove uncertainty. This could
not have been possible alone and it was important to know and
understand others of same mind. The mirror neurons provided the
triggers and template – the other human being. Knowing the other’s
mind is the direction of self. Man is a social animal is a biological
truth! What is the other thinking or planning often is our frame of
reference in health and illness.
The common stories that have evolved with this empathic
sharing thus cut across culture and have kept HUMAN alive. We
not only walk alike, sense alike, feel and talk alike with some range
of normally accepted variation but we have also been conditioned
to behave alike. Family to tribe to religion for identity, cities to
nations in geography all happens to avoid fear of being left alone
and feeling insecure. All the corruption, misery, violence, sex,
creativity etc. have a common template.

We know the rules now but how did it evolve-to cut the long
story short
For most part of evolutionary history, the animals remained non-
thinking till Homo -species appeared. The first set of neurons
would have fired in the primitive animals in response to external
energy impinging on them. Repetition over millions of years
these firings got established as patterns probably precursor of
perception. As complexity became a necessity to manage size and
energy consumption in brain the structure of brain became what
it is and the limbic brain followed the motor to initiate a flight or
fight mode and affective meaning to action…the feeling of comfort
 Maya is Reality
96   
and discomfort emerged (perceived by variation in oscillation).
The initial perceptions without words possibly were hallucination
like to establish the memory and threat value in brain…dreams
assisting in reliving and preparing for future response. The dreams
are ubiquitous and possible emerged secondary to entropy or the
energy dis-balance that needed dissipation, giving rise to REM
episodes in an otherwise peaceful sleep ..to mimic the daytime
energy state and regulate the firing of neurons triggered in day.
The meaning given to the imagery is probably the need of each
neuron, to express and dissolve its energy in the pattern that
becomes useful for survival. This strategy still is effective even
though the security levels are high but the abstract thoughts
have increased leading to more complex dreams- the proof is the
aboriginal paintings rising out of dreams with simple themes.
The memories formed out of repetitive firing to external
stimulus replays in dreams to consolidate responses –both limbic
and motor in animals and is a slow process Any new training takes
time and long trials still. As new brain areas developed memory
grew in network, widespread and complex, retaining personal
autobiographical cues-some meaning of personal, bonding and
other nonverbal human traits are exhibited by other mammals
too. The Neanderthal may have had some meaning in images and
creativity in tools but possibly dreams would have been of simple
images or survival codes like the brain environment interface using
tools, cohabitation, community, family hunting –the meaning
of self as separated from predators and other natural forces like
thunder, ocean, lightening. May be one of these images and
fear conjectured GOD. Did he appear before language? because
without language these firing pattern remained in the head only to
be expresses through emotions or motor response.
Thus the real leap for Sapiens was LANGUAGE!!
The integrated hallucinatory experience and dream of pre-
language era suddenly would have jumped from a visual survival
tool to a personal meaning. The brain could now separate,
symbolize, label and categorize the experiences, starting from a
different shriek for each to phonemes to words and retain it in
form of memory or neural firing patterns. Evoking the previous
internalizations that could have been in a sequence too as images
 The Story of Story
     97
but the thrill of externalizing and communicating must have
pushed the brain further to evolve language. That the brain had
stories before language is evident in cave painting from 40000
years back. Since language erupted the dreams still continue to
be imagery based but the ability to concoct stories is the push
for development and evolution still both for an individual or
collectively as cultures or humanity.
For a neonate, the initial sensory experience possibly is like a
hallucinatory primitive imagery but in initial few months the infant
responds to visual and auditory stimuli in a meaningful way. A
stable environment in an uncompromised child builds up essential
neurons for threat perception, secure responses and trust whereas
a traumatic 1st year of life induces anxiety (Freud!!!). As the child
develops language and acts on the environment in a reciprocal
fashion, the imagery becomes complex as more and more stimuli
pervade the mind and neural firing pattern move towards further
patterned, predictable phase spaces conditioning the child for
basic survival, for soon these neurons will be forced to develop
new connections and attain new dimensions triggered by the child
exploring the environment. This complex imagery separates from
the amorphous, diffuse hallucinations that are relegated to dreams
and attains content that is meaningful, personal and interfaced
with world.
Rest of the story at all levels is Maslowian. The child’s mind
explores, pokes and receives back from the interaction with live
and inanimate objects to integrate and memorize information to
categorize, label give meaning as it moves from concrete to abstract
thinking by teens/pubertal period all towards one goal-survival
and harmony. The brain wants to feel in control and be certain,
that is not forthcoming till the teen turns to adult. The fallacy of
asking a teen to be mature has caused innumerable misery because
he can think but impulsivity, riskiness and irrationality is yet to
be reigned. The adult world may have divided time and invented
clock to have a feeling of control but the teen is God’s child and
has his own rhythms. Alas parents knew this!!!
The threatening or discomforting patterns that energize
neuronal assemblies are kept at bay during awake hours unless
their entropy is enough to disrupt the resting fire state. These
 Maya is Reality
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suppressed patterns or ignored patterns by the central executive in
brain do not disappear and remain as need or threat emerging in
dreams as fragmented stories about ordinary life or extraordinary
sexual, violent, mystical, creative content (collective unconscious).
Whether the creative dimension is a product of being suppressed
vs. the need to express by cell assemblies and where is this
happening –conscious or unconscious?
The stories in conscious appear impersonal often but nothing
impersonal exists in brain as a single entity and nothing different
of substantial value as a whole because the brain keeps creating
the stories for—surviving in relation to others
zz To anticipate future.
zz To know what the other is thinking
zz To plan future
zz ‘To fool itself into thinking about being different’
zz Believing into the notions and myths created by
generations of human beings.
The visual / auditory/tactile stimuli driven patterns would be
totally primitive if not given words by angular gyrus and temporal
lobes and meaning by higher centres. The open dark space time
continually interfaces with that within the mind to witness and
modulate the myriad forms of emerging stories.
These dynamics can be approached from yet another angle.
The story of ‘I’ as in me or self.
Each I has multiple I’s. The core self, created by genetic
blueprint and being created every instance by neuronal activity
–the basic embodied self- striving for survival is a Universal I (Is
this the common consciousness as told by Buddhists?).
‘I’- core build out of experiences and sensations > nurture >
culture> the ‘I’-conscious that mind thinks that it is (acting ‘I’)
vs.
The ‘I’- other –what others think ‘I’ am, out of their own
existence.
These three versions of ‘I’ continuously interact in the
game of personal and societal rules exploring emotions, actions,
modifications and give expressions to the web of human activities.
Nothing is objective in that sense.
 The Story of Story
     99
What could not be transferred directly or orally, person to
person, went through myths, metaphors, stories, art, cinema, and
internet. What stories click can be understood if we know the brain.
The continuous field of abstraction between human heads
at any instance is space- time and in its transitory frames we
continuously talk about others, even the self is mostly pegged
to others. Small minds talk about people and great about ideas,
is a myth. Evolutionary pressure keeps people concerned about
others and we all are small, the need for being together is prime,
the need for not being left alone makes people sacrifice, adjust
and resort to all compromises (extremes being social anxiety). As
food and security make man wander the predatory threat trained
the brain to communicate. The orofacial changes brought forth
speech and meaning ascribed to these combinations of sound in
different geographical areas and different language emerged as
communication codes. The innate template as Chomsky says may
have been transmitted since then. The codes were given meaning
and symbols emerged leading to metaphors in mind. This seems
to be the core –handling symbols that separates human form other
cousins. What about content?
The social human emerged after millions of trial and error in
group dynamics during evolution-territoriality, aggression, violence
(as a group found in chimpanzees and humans only)sexual hierarchy
and exploitation too- then came family and stability -> competition
between families -> groups /clans , the power struggle for food and
women (to reproduce its members) became an imperative pressure
and so did the need for planning future and hence talking (apart
from hoarding food) but what to talk about?
Complex dynamics made man to sacrifice a bit of self and
its concerns to accommodate the other, mostly related ones (the
emotion of care was already building in neurons) and to reduce the
power struggle the sphere expanded as identities merged in clan,
Nation, caste, color, creed—these instincts have not left us still.
The mind still is in the old habit of thinking about the other-
the cost of sacrificing self is a gain in security while food and sex
remain the basics. The fitness of survival is indicated by power over
others and attracting more numbers from opposite sex. More and
 Maya is Reality
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more, better and better, genes want it and brain obliges to create
behavior that enhances it. Altruism, sacrifice, nonviolence all
act towards saving others in a peaceful existence because in the
survival of the group remains the security of individual so, the mind
cannot do otherwise, it has to talk about people and indeed it does
on the same complex pathways that move within us, nothing has
changed really (unless intelligent design severs the knot, but it will
remain about humans). Power games, sexual games still make us act
though the manifestations may differ. Material possessions remain
the most attractive ends, trace it down to the lowest socioeconomic
strata, next in list is power whether through knowledge or money,
or even sacrifice and religion… all to attract the mate. Has the
violence reduced with thought? Guess is NO. What has changed is
the manifestation and last 100 years history is demonstrative. The
physical warfare has been replaced by economic warfare because
the symbols have changed. The winner’s throne, crown and other
decorative declarations of power and the striving of the loser all has
been directed to one notional symbol invested with illusory power
–currency and hence the violence associated with it. Major energy
is directed towards attaining it and as the modern myths revolve
around it the ordinary minds weave their stories around a carbon
ring called diamond, a gold or a land that one thinks one owns.
Even a scientific achievement or an art piece has worth in money or
change it to award (fame is a compensatory fitting).
The capacity of human mind to deceive itself is infinite…
But the sexual dynamics has not changed, the power games
between genders or intra-gender is aimed still towards having
more. The males want to have as many and keep them as a
symbol of scoring over others but bored at times. Females are
pushed by attaching, caring, bargaining for security, food, sex, all
encompassed in a word called ‘love’.
The male mind even talks too much to cast the net, to allure
like peacock’s tail, even at the cost of carrying the burden of it but
once it gains the partner it turns reticent. Sounds familiar!!—the
universal male-female fights. Failure triggers resentment, bruised
egos, wars and all disruptions. Violence is a return to primitive
instincts breaking all the mythical edifices. What has sustained this.?
 The Story of Story
     101
Talk and talk and talk—even Gossip. ‘Talking too much’ may
be considered pejorative but it works well to prepare, to check and
to vent out simmering violence and rage through jealousy, anger
etc. What does not happen in reality because hitting out against
power may be risky, the brain talks it out, pull the person to
shreds and reduce your adrenaline discharge. Gossip is a faithful
complementarity to fantasy, they keep the world ‘sane’ as Harari
emphasized so well in his book ‘Sapiens’.
Indeed, most Psychiatrist just listen to the patient’s gossip
under the garb of his or her story, symptoms being the symbols of
malaise and discomfort. Possession, assumptions, power games
(even making a waiter ‘wait’ or a driver obeying in attention)
remain the source of autosuggestions about one’s story within,
the rationalizations serving to maintain the ego strength. True
introspection thus becomes very difficult because mind while
indulged in satisfying self, covers the deep pressures with multiple
layers of self-deception or lying to present to a conscious mind
an image of ‘harmonious, caring, sacrificing self who is ethical,
moral and trustworthy…because this remains the ultimate goal
and expectation from others and this ensures survival. Though
morality and ethics may have some basis (like incest taboo
possibly ingrained to avoid inbreeding or may be a cognitive
sensitization –by being together the novelty vanishes) but in face
of threat to this image the buck is passed on to the other, hence the
Universalities emerge during crisis
zz Everyone feels a victim
zz Everyone seems to have the greatest sorrow
zz Everyone does the best for others but never receives
enough
Anger emerges on the slightest turn of events like insult or
deprivation of what the mind thinks is rightfully owned. What
appears as a small talk pervades human mind because the mind in
a continuous process evaluates and processes these damages to an
illusory self –as the inner self still wants to behave like a hunter
(in male) and manipulator (in female) by sacrifice. All the systems
from monarchy to feudal to socialist have evolved between these
dynamics. It raises fresh questions –
 Maya is Reality
102   
Is the hunt for pleasure the basis? Is there a secure man or
woman?
The need to latch to beliefs, objects, persons are just dimensions
to feel secure and hence need for approval from others, belonging
to groups – all other processes arise from these unconscious (or
conscious need), lying, manipulating, most do not even know.
The most spectacular narrative emerging out of the dynamics
of life force and the threatening environment and the ensuing
insecurity in the mind as complexity emerged and man could feel
fear, still goes on- GOD. The genes multiplied and the neurons
expressed but as mind was confounded by powers stronger than
itself mainly nature, and as the first man would have looked up in
the sky and depth of ocean, he would have felt extremely inferior
and insecure. A need for something above and beyond himself
that could ensure survival and reduce difficulty was the precursor
of GOD. Natural forces –water, light, heat etc. became the first
powers to be bowed before, to followed by anthropomorphic Gods,
stones-anything that could give a feeling of hold. The first ritual
would have arisen from repetitive remembrance or act of touching
the power for daily security. Did it all come with language is a
moot question? Language was and is an instrument to thought and
hence belief too.
As the language grew the external rituals became mental too
and GOD entered the mind as an abstraction. The personification
would have come from some individual’s feat in their context,
those that became partially or fully fearless from ‘death’. Their
stories travelled and multiplied in their complexity over ages as in
myths. Myths that are universal.
It is possible that Rama and Krishna (the Indian Gods deeply
embedded in Indian psyche) existed at minor levels and faced the
problems fearlessly and acted to survive themselves and protect
others—needs that still exist. The ordinary minds narrated all this
repeatedly and added superhuman powers to them. Praying to
them always gives confidence to the individual as if something
beyond them will protect them. When one does idol worship, faith
removes doubt for that minute and one’s own mind tells them
hope and solutions, the quality attributed to the GOD. Imagining
 The Story of Story
     103
without an external object remains difficult for most people used
to pegging themselves to a external force hence idols, books and
organized religion becomes important. But in fact, the mind once
freed from doubt and anxiety discovers new ways of handling
problems or reconciling due to its own inherent quality.
All the web of religion is to provide them with external hooks
to believe and that explains the violence in religion. As soon as the
external security is threatened the inner fragile belief system evokes
threat to survival and hence reactionary rage that is evolutionary.
Scientist swear by science and reason, Marxist by Marx, atheist
by denial but all need some belief without knowing that belief
itself is illusory. The search for objectivity has lot of subjectivity,
even scientific observation often is a presupposed belief in some
quirk of reason. True objectivity is not a human quality.
The need for a power outside oneself to feel secure gives
rise to hierarchy in society. Where God is not to be found, KING
substitutes, chiefs, leaders, Principals, healers, Godmen, parents,
and within marriage too, a role of a superior being is invested. The
false belief keeps most people going in their daily life (one reason
for increasing anxiety in modern society is the erosion of traditional
roles). The advent of democracy, equality and the media exposing
the truths of all structures has broken the belief system without
offering alternatives, however exploitative it was, it kept the minds
secure. The reason for rise of money power is the illusion of security
and the easy reach to it where GOD was always out of bounds.
Those who figure out the trick cleverly exploit this human tendency.
Pitting their self -formed principles and theories for convenience,
against human natural tendencies, code of ethics and rules were
attributed as God’s diktat. Religion in its core remains a paradox.
On one hand, it attempts to support and soothe and strengthen but
it keeps insisting that people change never allowing them to remain
what they are. Guilt adds to fear and thus the eternal anxiety. Rest is
the story of getting rid of these two pressures.
 Thought

Where from and where to?

Res Cogitans or the mental substance makes humans the
human they are. ‘I think therefore I am’ has been ingrained and
accepted by the human psyche so deeply that one rarely stops to
question, even science for that matter, what is thought and who
is thinking? We think and give a meaning to self and the world
around us but than what is meaning itself?
Meditation has one of its goal as thoughtlessness and often
the depressed patient complains of too many thoughts, both still
maintain their self and would not wish to be in zero thought state
forever. But when the thoughts start disintegrating in Schizophrenia
or disappearing in dementia, the self is endangered.
On the other extreme, an infant’s thought appears as mystery,
before they learn to express it in language yet it is the formation
of self they indicate. What is the structure and substrate of these
thoughts? Do animals without human language think?
Is the self about thinking? A revisit to the growth of an
individual brain may reveal few answers! Though delineated
previously it is worthwhile reiterating-
At birth, most neurons are at their place in the geometrical
space with few connections formed intrauterine through inputs
like spontaneous movements and spontaneous firing of neurons,
the sounds from environment and chemical environment around
fetus. The brain is active at birth but yet to be formed. The ensuing
periods are of rapid growth of synapses between neurons, towards
forming a network that moves from simple to complex, a parallel
 Thought
     105
processing, modular adult network by early adulthood. The
synapses overgrow and are pruned multiple times in the chit-chat
that goes on between neurons eventually to land up in a functional
–structural state that can make the owner of the brain survive.
Most brains in a cross section of time would be same hence similar
output of behavior with minor variations leading to a concept of
normalcy. How does it happen?
However fanatically the geneticist may have believed that
it is all an unfolding of DNA, the contribution of environment
is established without doubt. The nature –nurture debate seems
to be settled for the time being. As the individual’s identity is
lost in the hierarchy of human social structure, though retaining
individual memory, a single neuron is lost in the network of brain.
The connections become important than a singular unit and the
patterns of firing between these networks determine all that we
feel, think, imagine, perceive and act – all that goes on to make
the self and life.
It all starts in the first few years of life. All that goes in the brain
through the senses, the physical touch, warmth, care , every input
has an imprint in formulating the network connections .Though
the brain areas are specialized for functions broadly as the genetic
blueprint unfolds , with minor changes in each individual (the
genetic makeup is similar in all humans), it is the way connections
function at a micro level that creates the individual uniqueness.
And it is the person.
The initial years form the basic cognitive –emotional
framework that develop from pre-motor to abstract development
over a decade and a half. The environment challenges, the
individual responds or vice versa and the brain grows.
This reciprocal play between brain and environment is
mediated through sense organs and the impact on the brain is
retained as memory, not only as image but also the associated
emotions of pleasure or discomfort, that in itself determines
whether the act is to be repeated or not (through reward centres
in brain).
This physicality is one of the basic frame of survival but is
not limited to it. The self is more than just the physical survival
 Maya is Reality
106   
and here culture steps in. All the influences of parenting, religion,
art, morality, reward, punishment and the subsequent emotional
memory as also the struggle of the brain to assimilate and
accommodate all the data (cultural memes as Richard Dawkins
says) train these networks and a functional hierarchy of frameworks
from basic to highest are formed that determine the movement of
the person in world. What are these frameworks?
At a gross level, they seem to be just electric firing patterns
regulated by chemical neurotransmitters, but these patterns create
an observable motor output through action. The underlying thought
and emotion still are unobservable. Are they patterns themselves
or the magnetic field carries the memory and information of
thought?
Is it possible these layers of firing patterns, keep on a broader
frame, a composite image that is perceived as a self. The concept
of self comes early in life but not too early. Not until few years
of environmental inputs have gone in and the mind has started
interfacing with the context around her. This self seems to
incorporate the stimuli from outside with disruptions, and integrate
within its robust firing patterns, whether it is located in insula, the
area of mirror neurons or deep temporal-parietal lobe that sees the
overall orientation in time and space. These areas seem to be the
most likely candidates. Functional MRI and EEG are being used
to delineate the areas and the process but both suffer limitations
of spatiality and temporality and moreover are indirect evidences.
Does anyone see the pattern within the brain? The homunculus
sitting in the brain is an improbability, as it will require infinite
number of them placed behind each other to watch.
Is the image reflected back upon to a screen (or multiple
screens)?
The brain integrates the external inputs through the senses with
the continually generated internal images to create a composite
image that keeps us linked to external reality. Does it happen in
a certain area? Unlikely because no pigeonholing of memory or
information exists in brain, the various networks simultaneously
participating in the process contributing to making a reality, from
unconscious to conscious awareness.
 Thought
     107
The answer possibly lies in the way these frameworks and
patterns are formed?
As reductionist approach gains momentum and computational
models encourage Neuroscientists to reduce us and himself
from a living experiencing self with a story to a computational
algorithmic robot, some basic issues remain ignored. The story bit
later, let us look at the building blocks.
Given that thinking made us human the most important
question is when did it happen? And almost intricately linked
to this is - what is thought than? Is it language or image or
Mathematics or some unknown entity?
If thought is language than Chomsky’s innate language theory
stands ground as whenever the language evolved the thought
came. In other words, language is not a tool to express thought,
it is thought itself- than be it words, art, Mathematics, dance,
etc. and it evolved in its complexity with the growth of human
mind. For those who think that language evolved as a tool of
communication, several new questions arise.
Imagine a Neanderthal or Habilis or even before that, the
ancestor who discovered fire or watched the circular wheel like
structure rolling down the Himalayas or Alps- did he think?. Even
before imitating and inventing wheel was there a thought in mind
and what was its carrier? Entwined in its existence are ideas like
will, decision, judgement, belief, idea etc. entities that are thought
content.
The words thrown to the world are inputs and feedback through
our senses and activate our aural, visual sketchpad, forming new
word-image, representing the external world symbolically in
mind. The brain excels in handling these associations between the
pattern called word and the object or phenomenon it represents.
The flow of the words in some sequence in time arrow and their
correlation with the external existing reality, however fleeting it is,
creates thoughts. The image and sound are in an incessant play in
the patterns and field of brain but never detached from the context.
Because the metaphor and meaning has to be woven into self,
the thought seems to derive from interactions. Even the words
are from cultural and language inputs that brain picks up during
 Maya is Reality
108   
development. Signifier and Signified, the structure of word and
concept, the creator and the created, entwine in the context.
The detachment often desired by ascetics thus is an illusion
because the thought is nothing but a shared field embedded in time
and space between external objective reality and subjective self.
The brain has to categorize the meaningless letters into words
and further into concepts. The individual meaning and categories
are woven into different meaning across the conceptual framework.
As Lakoff gives the example - warm and cold are categorization
of qualitative temperature, but if used in a sentence like “she was
very warm towards me” – it denotes affection.
Brain has the need to differentiate and categorize, even time
and space, to make sense of this vast Universe in front. But it
also has to be economical, hence in an important process the same
words are used in cross categories creating new concepts. Symbol
handling and metaphor making thus becomes the basic output of
language and world becomes simpler to comprehend. Probably
the sense of control is a solace in an otherwise alert, insecure
framework.
The same basic cognitive conceptual processes are probably
used in Mathematics, the concepts of which arose in brain but it
correlates to the external world in an extremely precise manner,
even helping in anticipation and prediction of future, enhancing
the control over world and helping in technology. Where words
remain vague in prediction and describe the past and present,
Mathematics as a language has served well in buttressing
imagination. The nature revealed itself in same language.
The self can be visualized as a patterned field representing
structure (anatomically in Sensory-motor areas, those when
activated represent certain corresponding areas of body) oriented
in a space time geometry but as a unified body (the sense of bodily
I-that animals also have). The other self is a thought self, an abstract
self that has many ‘I’s depending on context and the interaction,
yet bound to the one ‘I’ enclosed in body. This has been called as
embodied cognition by Damasio and others, essentially it is the
thought and its stream laced by emotions. The essential quanta
of this are words and images. The free -floating quanta at rest are
 Thought
     109
the electrical –magnetic patterns generated out of neurons firing at
rest (whether at quantum or classical scale is a conjecture).
The attentional bottleneck of brain (managed by salience and
central executive network, under effect of need (internal desire
at an unconscious) or external stimuli, triggers a unifying firing
pattern that sequences these quanta and the brain moves another
level up of handling symbol and converting to a meaningful
metaphor or a concrete reality to be acted upon. These bounce
between self and the world including other minds, possible linking
through insula where CEN, self -field, mirror neurons converge.
This is the layer where thinking emerges and all theorization
happens, be it the process to simple or complex emergent thought.
Deconstruction as Derrida says in language or in art, bringing
all perspective together in a frame as Picasso did, whether it is
unifying search of religion or even dissolving the boundary of self
as in ZEN, Vedanta or Sufism is a product of this level of time
scale treatment of thoughts. Even meditation or enlightenment,
the need to free from thoughts is diverting attention from this
coalescing of thought and thus minimizing self.
The more the process is repeated, more the firing patterns
become robust, the self is defined by the unique thinking patterns
behaviorally too. These serve maintain the ego or the personality.
This may be the origin of belief or conditioning explaining the
difficulty in changing the thought process.
Where do the deeper alternative potentialities go? Like
quantum probabilities do they express in other world of dream
or remain to be expressed, every now and then as unpredictable
action or behavior, something we all experience. The physics
needs to be teased out. The biology is the structural –functional
basis governed by genes and neurotransmitters. The proteins
formed under the influence form the basic scaffolding on which
the neurons move and get settled, proteins also create enzymes
and control processes in brain, this process is amazingly similar in
human race and is species specific to create an assembly line living
beings. The range of behavior is remarkably similar thus creating
a concept of normal biology. Yet once in a while biology goes
haywire leading to developmental disorders like autism, mental
 Maya is Reality
110   
retardation or later in life psychiatric illnesses –whether episodic
or continuous- Schizophrenia, OCD. It is possibly the variation in
network architecture at neuronal level caused by faulty proteins
caused by genetic mutations or epigenetic influence. The alteration
in geometry does not alter the electro-chemical transmission and
information transmission but leads to a pattern of self that is
different form the defined normal. However patchy or slow these
people must be having a concept of self, thoughts and emotions
as others. It is the normalized range of behavior they do not fall
into hence being labeled as mentally ill or deviant (paradoxically
the will that is so often denied, is made responsible in criminals).
Drugs control the chemical triggers and restore the original
pattern to self but only when the original self has suffered a
disruption. The developmental issues still have no treatment
except to alter behavior and thus train the neuronal firing and
wiring.
Neuroscience approaches these questions and attempts to
explore with the definitions given by Psychology and immediately
the trouble starts at multiple levels—
zz Brain trying to create a computational model of itself
through itself ignores ‘Will’ of the creator machine and
reducing it to a reductionist calculus is a paradox because
will or intent begins a directional thought if we leave
automatic thought apart.
zz Is this the same ‘Will’ we talk about philosophically or is it
some computational inhibitory/excitatory state explained
by neural patterned firing?
zz If thought is language created by neural dynamics or
language is a carrier of object called thought than what
is the structure of thought. Imaging research does show
that decision- making activity arises before it comes to
the conscious intent areas to act or speech. Does it mean
that thought as described but neural activity is nothing
and just language, images, equations or it is an energy
packet carried in these?
zz But how does this energy packet arise and convert from
electrical activity to a object state or a carrier state?
 Thought
     111
zz Is it quantum all the way up? In a time scale, the possibility
of multiple probability states existing in brain, in form
of patterns at micro ensemble of neurons, that decohere,
on interaction with environment (sensory stimuli, or
internal states of desire/need) to a classical state (with its
nonlinearity embedded in it) , indicates a super system of
brain –environment dynamics ,that keeps these patterns
continually getting modified ,a select few expressing
themselves in response to external trigger?

An intruder
zz If the language of Universe is Mathematical and few
minds have understood it to create the Mathematics as
taught to others (from the brain that has evolved from
nature alongside, in the envelope of same physical laws)
the big question is –Whether the mathematics of Universe
is still evolving or we do not know it fully yet?
zz All brains being similar in processes should be able to
comprehend the Mathematics provided sufficient thinking.
Will it be the same or a new one with every attempt? Or
brains are inherently programmed to be more linguistics
/mathematical?
zz In such case the point is that Mathematics was much
before language.?
zz Is mathematically explaining equal to visualizing and
understanding? Equations fail to explain brain itself or
any other complex systems and cannot be bereft of visual
/language theory.

zz Mathematical computational models with current tools

have assembly approach but brain sure has more enigmas,
the biggest of it is how the brain takes these perceptions
based 500ms frames of reality and weaves it into a story
with self in center yet deriving from others and aimed at
survival existing within and without simultaneously. And
the biggest of all- if thought gives us a sense of being logical
and rational (or the illusion of it!) Where is emotion?
 Emotion

Sentient beings know how emotions can throw all rationality off
the tip. What is logical can be drowned in a surge of emotion,
personal to collective decisions are often taken due to hate or love,
only to be justified later. Freud pointed out correctly that man may
be a rationalizing being rather than a rational one.
Standard textbooks of psychology mention two approaches
mainly –cognitive appraisal of emotions or emotions following
cognition, in simple terms we feel first and think later or vice
versa. Either way emotions in brain processes and decision-
making were ignored for very long in research. It did not make
any difference to nature except for a warped teaching to society
about being rational, thinking and controlling emotion.
The brain never listened, it’s major force –the primary emotions
like lust, rage, sadness, play etc. - and the complex emotions like
love, guilt etc. that arise in social dynamics, kept lacing whatever
man thought. Neuroscientific evidence has brought back the
unconscious in picture even if in a different sense.
The concept of deep may no more be an anatomical
dimension while thinking about conscious and unconscious, or
thought and emotions. The structures involved in emotions are
networks widespread in human cortex and the whole brain seem
to respond in emotional states, even the body through sympathetic
and parasympathetic systems. The emotional centres seem to
have evaluated every output that is projected to higher executive
networks and the meaning and thought is already laced with an
emotion. The matter of what is first - thought or emotion is on a
time scale, so ‘deep is actually early’.
 Emotion
     113
Functional MRI, EEG and network theory have provided us
with data to prove not only the activation of limbic structures
in perceptual and cognitive processing, even cerebellum seems
to have a role. The cognitive and the emotional may not be so
far separated and different in brain and it may be an artifact of
approach. After all amygdala and other networks need expression
too and as the behavioural output needs to be composite in each
frame of activity, it is economical to integrate with thought. A
possibility of a simultaneous formation of thought and emotion
needs exploration in the frame of reality that comes to conscious
self.
To illustrate with an example, sometimes words hurt us. This
feeling of sadness is well entrenched in memory of all. Look at it
objectively—
1. The words are uttered with some meaning and intention
by the speaker.
2. Sets the air in motion.
3. Sound waves /mechanical energy goes into ears, shakes
the tympanic membrane and convert to electrical signals
in auditory nerves
4. Signals travel through thalamus to temporal cortex to be
comprehended
5. Get integrated and evaluated, out of awareness in 200-
500ms, compared with memory, emotional threat value
etc. and a new pattern emerges. The neurons do not know
the meaning they are carrying.
6. The neurons just convey the signal to already preexisting
phase space in thalamic-limbic area. The fresh signal is
integrated, whether it is in phase or out of phase, will
determine the new phase space and its associated emotion.
Is it the field? possibly this mechanism is the hidden basis
of expectation and assumption.
7. Even before listening to the word from the speaker the
brain tries to create a phase space depending on its near
symmetrical (harmonious state). Every vector that is
deviant ,breaks symmetry (eigenstates-//eigenvectors)
and leads to a negative state—
 Maya is Reality
114   
Do We Feel Sad During This Phase?
zz The thought and response in words interact with this
emotion
zz only when the altered meaning reaches the higher centre
and conscious level, we feel bad.
zz It is predetermined from the earlier firing patterns only to
be judged as hurt as a concept
zz The concept hurt is the pattern of a certain configuration,
learned by brain during development and embedded in a
social context.
zz Assumption, possession, expectation, all could play the
role of variables, each represented by a certain field/
pattern and interacting with the input phase.
zz The vector spaces of these patterns/field (? in emotional
center) interact with the fresh pattern/input to create and
activate the concept framework –e.g. hurt (a different
dimension may emerge in different emotional state-we
don’t get hurt by same words always.)
zz The objectivity in human thought is an illusion exactly for
this reason, because the auditory-visual stimuli for object
/person reaches the brain first and excites the preexisting
emotional patterns, possibly expecting the similar
input (safest and most predictable) even if it is changed
(behavior in external terms), the bias doesn’t wean off and
the reactions tend to be the same.
Whichever firing patterns or fields represent this response
to certain external stimuli, are not the only one. If it is a linear
relation the same input should elicit similar feeling, by experience
it is rare. Feeling change and so do reactions, indicating the
existing potentialities/probabilities before the input triggers a new
set of firing. Each frame indicating a different single or multiple
emotions, but the possibility of expression remains till one is
chosen. If a single phrase can induce similar emotion in all people
the linearity can be explained but it differs between and within
individuals. Thus, a quasi-random process may be at work, almost
like decoherence in quantum world. Whether quantum process
occur in the warm brain, in the field around neurons and carries
 Emotion
     115
the pattern /information needs to be investigated. The thoughts and
emotions move faster than the limit of nerve transmission or is it
an illusion –the time scale is in milliseconds, in nerve conduction.
Experientially the thoughts are faster. Is it a quantum process
that is ongoing just below the threshold in the fields created by
electrical activity, in the space around neurons or glial cells? And
the external input acts as a measurement point. The predominance
of one pattern over other still does not resolve the linearity issue.
It sorts of becomes deterministic chaos leading to its own attractor
dimension, the variation coming through the chosen state and
memory inputs. This brings in unpredictability in the final output
to higher-centres and thus action. The predictability of human
behavior is due to a finite range and degree of freedom that is
bound to external structures and people who in turn are bound
themselves, eventually to space-time.
If it is true another complexity raises head - the time arrow.
While spatial representation in brain may be nearly approximated
by visual-auditory inputs time poses a peculiar situation. Is the
wave collapse determined by the future state of existences? - as
an extension of Feynman’s absorber theory. Do the intermediate
states in the Hilbert phase space act as pathways to the final
expression in Universe? Even the chaotic dynamics has attractors
and basins as an end state? Is retro causality at work?
Brain dynamics possibly has an answer to this connection. The
evolution of the brain has been such that, survival of the organism
is the first concern of the brain. In simplest terms it has learned
to take in all information from external world, differentiate and
integrate the signals and bind to create an image/meaning, to be
able to predict and anticipate the next moment, even if it is in the
safest environment. This subjective world is the only interface of
a living being with the Universe and action, thought, judgement,
abstraction, all go on to constitute it. The computational dynamics
of brain has to include this subjective interface for this is the
human. Below this threshold the motor and sensory is more
automatic.
The apparent causal, classical world we live in, is a product
of deeper world of quantum probabilities and chaos, in different
 Maya is Reality
116   
phases of time arrow. In the brain the past, present and future are
created in time frames. The product of the brain, the behavior
working on the world (including other living beings) creates
another set of experience that is fed back to brain and is conserved
as a representation in memory. In the next instance when the
representation is re-stimulated by an external sensory input or an
internal trigger of need or emotion, it integrates the present input
with the past one to project into future.
Which frame or probability pattern will be pushed to the
conscious brain is worked out of awareness, in <500ms, and
almost like a decoherence. The individual neuron collapses its
history in the ensemble of pattern under the influence of being
triggered by input (will or intent?). The previous pattern in
memory and emotions have to create a near approximation for
the best anticipatory move for survival, this is the retro causality,
creating a finite set of responses from human brain. The range
of action and reactions are finite due to physical body and fixed
structures thus, it may be large, restricting degrees of freedom.
Each frame in 500 ms. is thus a snapshot and each is bound to a
previous one, ultimately being determined by the past memory of
outcome.
The future frame has been decided from the past frame, the
most secure one. The mind is embedded in context always.
 Love

Even the SELF could be just a finite pattern of firing. Imagine if

by some mechanism humans are made to live in a layer above
the ground and Earth keeps rotating below but without carrying
us. The guess is that all orientation of self will be scattered as
geography will keep changing below our feet daily. The definition
of self and thought and emotion will never remain the same. This
recursion over million years within brain and environment within
the frame of gravity keeps human life predictable in a broader
time frame. Nowhere else this is more evident than in the simple,
word called Love, commonly felt but extremely multilayered and
complex.
Love, a single word has the power to evoke myriad emotions
and memories. It has vast number of connotations and varied
expressions in metaphors, poetry, painting and performing arts.
The parental, maternal bonding, friendly, Nation, altruism,
humanity, all is subsumed under love. Neurobiological research
along with imaging is busy discovering the anatomical and
chemical substrate for love but it is the romantic love that poses
the biggest dilemma.
Few chemicals are directly implicated in love- oxytocin the
maternal bonding hormone is being developed as a drug for feeling
warmth and affection. Vasopressin too is a bonding hormone.
Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that pushes to explore and
adventure in love while serotonin suppresses. Few others NT
control the behavior through various phases of love.
As researchers in love have noted that in intense phase
 Maya is Reality
118   
of romantic love ‘affection’, soft receptivity, calm sociability,
comfort in cuddling, unbridled excitement, the thrill of falling in
love, obsessive thinking about the loved one, heightened eagerness
and desire, compulsion, electrifying exhilaration, anticipation
that something wonderful is happening or about to happen, the
seeking of intense pleasure, dreaming about the future together,
obsessiveness about the other person, comfort and familiarity,
an ease in relating and talking, delight, playfulness, humor, and
laughter, aggressive lust, passive and open receptivity, sexual
arousal and orgasm, a roaming for adventure, a desire to deepen
one relationship and stay at home, intense interest and absorption
with love itself, a feeling that you can really be yourself, acceptance
of the partner, delight, comfort, secure bonding and attachment,
friendship, fear of rejection and loss, and restlessness, mixed with
poor judgment and clouded reasoning.
The experience of love in Phase 1 is all of these things. All of
these diverse parts of the “love system” are intimately connected, ...
...The big questions of Phase 2 of love are, “Will you be there
for me? Can I trust you? Can I count on you to have my back?”
These questions are the basis of all the conflicts newlyweds
had in my Love Lab. The answer to this question is the basis of
Phase 2’s secure or insecure attachment to the romantic partner.”
(GOTTMAN)
The chemical control is not enough. He goes on to mention in
his book…
“There is a genetic basis for responding to one’s partner’s
emotions. In a 2012 study with newlyweds, Schoebi, Way,
Karney, and Bradbury studied variations in the promoter region
of the serotonin transport gene (5-HTTLPR). At this locus two
principal alleles differentially affect sensitivity to life events.
Short allele carriers are much more sensitive to positive and
negative life events than the carriers of the two long alleles. Affect
was assessed by partners’ self-reports of emotions following two
conflict interactions. The study included many statistical controls
to ferret out these effects. They found that short allele people
were more sensitive to their partner’s positive affect. There was
also a less powerful but significant effect for negative effects that
 Love
     119
signal submission (for example, anxiety). People with short allele
partners showed fewer rather than more dominant negative affect
(like hostility), demonstrating a complementary reaction. There is
also evidence of greater amygdala responsiveness to positive and
negative faces in short allele carriers.” (Gottman)
Does it mean that love can be controlled and treated like
depression or mania during these phases? As Fischer describes
this phase as akin to addiction and its behavioral correlates, the
intensity of emotion and the aberrations of thought nearly make it
a ‘physiological psychotic state’
Samir Zeki in his seminal paper on fMRI in love explored the
neural basis of love and concluded –
“This leads us to postulate that the principle of functional
specialization in the cortex applies to affective states as well.
Romantic love, celebrated throughout the ages as one of the most
overwhelming of all affective states, has been the inspiration for
some of the loftiest achievements of mankind.
Characteristically directed towards a single person, it is a
complex sentiment involving erotic, cognitive, emotional and
behavioural components, which are difficult if not impossible
to disentangle. Hence any study of ‘romantic love ‘ is a study
of a sentiment with several components, some of which, like the
erotic one, can also act independently of the others; the converse
is not true, in that all the above components constitute essential
ingredients of romantic love. Visual input plays a leading role in
arousing and sustaining romantic love and yet nothing is known of
the neural mechanisms underlying this complex sentiment. This,
together with the high position that romantic love assumes in the
lives of most, even if transiently, prompted this imaging study.
Given its uniqueness, we hypothesized that there may be special
systems or pathways for romantic love. Past neuro-imaging studies
of emotions have charted brain areas responsible for producing an
emotional state, or those responsible for recognizing one; here we
concentrate on the former. Negative affective states such as fear,
anger, anxiety” (abstract -ZEKI, Samir)
The areas reflect a preponderance of emotion over cognitive
functions. The areas of control seem to be suppressed and the
 Maya is Reality
120   
reward areas activated to keep the involvement on. This could be
an evolutionary process, ‘a genetic gamble’, that ignites a spark
between male and female and occasionally between same sex. The
sole purpose is continuing the species. All that is flaunted from
peacock’s tail to mating sounds to the power and money in human
society is to attract a mate. The lust and the love still remain the
basic framework in human brain too.
The restriction sense of smell and sound and the political
correctness of gender behavior have camouflaged the sexual
calls but the visual stimuli is still unrestricted. What in the vision
triggers lust and love?
Firstly, it has to be attractiveness, few attempts to
mathematically understand love have applied differential calculus,
game theory and probability, all indicate the possibility of mating
and likeness only after the visual stimuli has triggered attraction.
The fashion industry survives on it.
Is it the geometry of figure that attracts (the proportion of
body parts) or the sense of security that the male status infuses or
simple urge to copulate?
But being madly in love definitely alters brain’s firing pattern,
look at the area insula, also implicated in mirror neurons, the
simultaneous triggering and the pattern of self that incorporates
this pattern of the other, may be creating the behavioural alterations
for a sustained period.
The brain itself may fire till the desired dimension of physical
mating is achieved or it extincts, both states lead to a different
cognitive – emotional alteration.
The phase 2 is less emotional and more conceptual while
separation causes a full cycle of depression (5HT being low while
dopamine is up). The deficiency itself reorganizes with time or
treatment.
So much for love but what about the other Universal —

Violence
The primary emotions and primitive communication pattern of
other mammals and apes on one hand gave rise to Violence as a
group and on the other tamed emotions to give them meaning in
 Love
     121
social context. The sacrifice of self -interest for the group mediated
by ‘mirror neurons’ and the attachment – bonding spectrum by
limbic system (oxytocin hormone as the latest research shows)
evolved man as a social being. The gender role gave it a further
impetus where men did the hunting and women remained back to
nurture kids in lieu of protection and food.
The struggle is nowhere more evident than in the two
processes that engulf all spheres of human behaviour- survival
and reproduction entwined with violence and sex. Individual and
intergroup violence is known in chimpanzees but spontaneous and
planned aggression is rare. It is another uniqueness of human.
The survival related violence of ‘hunter’ existence continued
into the present times of relative safety. From the survival need
of being violent and food gathering of a single person, the groups
tended to become violent towards other groups and not only
humans but to other versions of HOMO species as well. In a not
so charitable history Homo sapiens destroyed and burnt the fauna
to rise in the food chain (the colonial expansionist mind-set till
last century has the similar process of capturing).
As population grew and resources dwindled, the individual
to Nations grouping with intermediate constituents like family,
state, caste, community, religion, all fostered a categorization in
mind expressed as division in real life to keep life certain and
controlled. Here was the paradox—
This required humongous violence and as it became inherent
to human nature a parallel process of empathy made him subdue
and sacrifice aggression for survival within and of the group he
belonged to. The modern human Institutions are just being an
edifice of the basic need of togetherness.
Mind was greedy and wanted to have yet it knew that to survive
it has to be together and that is how Sapiens evolved to arrogance of
‘ruling the world’, as a group eliminating others, within themselves
remaining non-violent albeit with the potential of violence that
contracts itself in a hierarchy depending on intra and intergroup
power play. These dynamics of violence and its potential eruption
vs. the attachment altruistic – empathic – sacrifice spectrum, the
‘we and me’ vs. others has multiple shades with blurred boundaries.
 Maya is Reality
122   
Biology is the cause or conditioning that has entrained limbic–
frontal axis? If we believe Carl Jung, the absence of enemy at
the border leads to shadow wars within in democracy. Whether
Individuals will become peaceful is the question or the epidemic
burst of psychiatric illness itself a sign of introjected violence.
We have to look for the black swans, those who trained
their mind in nonviolence because they prove the possibility.
Prophets, Scientist, artist many could channelize their primary
and secondary rage to creative use for themselves and others but
none did at the scale and systematically as Mahatma Gandhi. He
did not leave a tome of theory but a model of experimentation
that is available to us, thus placing this dialectical drama between
violence and nonviolence beyond the realm of myth into history.
The time is opportune to understand his process before he passes
on to the pantheon; he still is a man with his fallacies and pitfalls
trying to scale the raging tsunamis of emotions with his reason
and benevolence.
He realized that confrontation between emotional urges
and will is waste of energy and the war between conscious and
unconscious can be won only by incessantly modulating the latter
to the tune of will. He experimented at the micro but expanded
to the macro, from an individual to the cosmic. Traditional yet
radical, ascetic yet worldly, political yet saintly, Gandhi walked
many such tightropes in his life simultaneously but his continuous
struggle was in the duel between violence and nonviolence, even
his struggle with sexuality was subsumed in it.
Non-violence as practiced by Gandhi is analyzable as a paradigm
and scientific rigor applied to it, observable and comparable to its
flipside –violence. Whether MG was different biologically? The
answer is unlikely. He was a human like us beset with lust, rage and
all other potentials for secondary cognitive emotions like love, hate,
selfishness and the opposites –sacrifice, altruism, attachment etc. It
is amply evident from his biography and we can safely assume that
he had a brain like rest of us (we missed studying the structure!!).
Whether he had an overgrown insula or mirror neuron assembly and
a shrunken amygdala will remain a conjecture. However, a different
approach might make us wiser.
 Love
     123
He probably without the knowledge of neuroscience imbibed
the idea of ‘mind’ from both Eastern and Western philosophies.
Instead of just a theoretical discussion on Atman (soul), mind and
God, he practiced reaching his concept of God through training
his mind.
It was a continuous conscious effort on his part to limit the
effect of sensory inputs that fuel craving, addiction and desire,
something akin to Buddha. But he did not run away and practiced
in direct opposition to such inputs. Positing his process with the
proposed model, it appears a tough job—being nonviolent in the
500ms frames where age pushes forth. The discomfort borne by
the self and the subsequent friction at each instance, became a
feed- back loop almost training the limbic system and developing
the strong inhibitory forces in dorsolateral prefrontal areas.
Some have labeled the mirror neurons as Gandhi neurons
because in recent history he stands out as a master of Empathy
–the sole goal of this ensemble. Once he was able to remove the
gaps between him and others, by validating the other, he could
inhibit his reactions and accept. The impulse slowly weaned off,
by dual process –controlling input to the unconscious brain by
restricting indulgence and ignoring rage reactions-probably his
unconscious mind became less reactive. Even if not fully it still
exhibited the process.
The rejection of Will or intent is difficult to sustain in face of
such behavior however hard we wish to prove the total unconscious
control or is the will of self itself a product of mirror neurons
and its impact on decision making. Leave Gandhi behind; look
at the process of integrating emotion and reducing its destructive
streak that ravages other men and environment too. The reason
has to be trained to acknowledge emotion and vice versa. Can the
adult conditioned mind do so? Yes, but the real future is kids and
they should be trained scientifically from early childhood not to
indoctrinate nonviolence but to be able to think critically, to be
able to focus on that millisecond gap where rage appears, to step
out of their self and learn that is derived from others.
To expand their consciousness as far as training and
temperament allows to survive and enhance together in a mutually
 Maya is Reality
124   
beneficial way then when the Homo Roboticus appears, Sapiens
will be able to live in the human way. Multiple disciplines have
to come together without prejudice and examine ways to do
this, to enhance empathy. Gandhi may be one way. The desire
to be an intelligent designer shall be fulfilled by bringing in an
evolutionary change in us and then we may not require a GOD.
Will Non-Violence become the next evolutionary step?
 Stories and Narratives

Each mind has the same process of turning frames of perceptual

external realities or internally generated, into a personal woven
story, ranging from problem solving to creating an empathic art
to innovations. Creativity than is a matter of dimension. Even a
motor act or a seemingly impersonal small event that does not
require cognition and is forgotten apparently is whetted, filtered,
processed at the neuronal level and incorporated or rejected based
on its relevance –in dreams and still has to be assessed on its
meaning and relevance.
Subjective narration even if disjointed remains the essential
output of mind
The expression may vary from mundane bare minimum
acts of daily living or highest art/science, the conscious and
unconscious remains the same, the binding of diverse frames of
reality to create a self – the breaking of self and its boundaries
often leads to distortions or illness. The will may assert in the
creative content but the real stuff is out of conscious and is
churned out by various processes –are artist or mathematicians
really aware of all these hidden processes. These ever-changing
split-second frames presented to executive centers coalesce to
give a meaning in a Bayesian or a nonlinear or a quantum process
but are unavailable to awareness hence even if actions are creative
most untrained minds remain unaware and realize it in retrospect
through memory.
A few do train their mind and can peep partially into deeper
level to watch the process—but ‘one cannot have an illusion and
 Maya is Reality
126   
watch it too’ (Gombrich) but that too not in the elementary state,
only after some meaning has emerged, the story in its fragmented
self presents itself for scrutiny and alterations… emotions still are
the unpredictable force. Those who have trained their minds in
detachments and nonviolence pose a special problem –have they
really done it? If yes how far? and when do they really control
in the process on time scale…or is it that they have the same
emotional tsunami but the intent /will makes them dissociated and
hence they appear cool in behavior. The will of the sportsperson
or a Gandhi or Martin King or a soldier emanates from a self
-convinced cognition – belief or motivation- but it does submerge
the contradictory but natural emotions of rage, fear etc.
The ‘Will’ disappears in dreams and the out of awareness
content overflows in the perceptual cognitive arena without any
inhibitory control. The story woven in dreams has self at the center
but fragmented, as we all experienced. Possibly the missing links
are in a further deeper process.
Is there a way to explore and connect the neurophysiological
models of cognition and emotion with the subjective examination
and its subsequent narrative output?
The reductionist, apparently objective measurement approach
often pushes the subjective experiential out, this may be fine in
Physics and material phenomenon but by obfuscating the real
life the result will remain just a model from the lab ,they may
have meaning but meaningfulness will be doubtful and Popperian
falsifiability never proven.
The real test of any theory of brain functioning lies in its
manifestation in real time when the brain interacts with extremely
complex and diverse external factors like stress, culture,
development and across many minds hence the experiential self
cannot be ignored.
Individual or common stories emerge out of recombinant
framework else stories would not appeal each other. The common
stories of human minds for a daily living have evolved through
millions of years for survival and have Universal form, language
being the instrument or a tool? Art too evolved to express and to
 Stories and Narratives
     127
understand the nature around. This basic need for brain still exist
and most of the times brain keeps thinking internally even when
not speaking in reference to self and others (a function of insula’s
mirror neurons?) all towards creating a comprehensible narrative
even in the most miserable conditions. It is about being self in
relation to others!!!
Narrations emerging out of minds have to be explored from
general to specific to understand the emergence of self from the
amorphous we.
How important one’s story appears for others depends on the
position from which it is told and how forceful a myth it creates,
in turn forming the basis of power hierarchy in society ultimately
sewing metaphors into language and creating abstract cues at
various distributed levels…to be retrieved when needed.
These narratives dynamically grow as the individual advances
in age.
From birth till 2 years of are Sensory-motor, innate responses,
action in almost behaviourist mode and underlying neuronal
growth.
Beyond 2 years of age—
zz Pattern networking (Piaget -7 years differentiation of self
and cognitive structuring) but even earlier at 3 years –
affective response and self emerges in the story –play
differentiates self from others.
zz Self centrism moves to empathy as the child grows and
others’ POV is included between 7-10 years – (THEORY
OF MIND)
The narrative expands beyond the narcissistic self but affect
still rules reason till puberty and abstract thinking starts appearing
essentially the metaphorical meaning but impulsivity and affective
regulation is not reigned in till 16-18 when DLPFC (prefrontal
cortex) matures. Concepts of ethics and morality take their roots
here.
Narratives can be assessed at 3 levels
zz phenomenon – experiential
zz psychological-process
zz neurobiological- brain dynamics and networks
 Maya is Reality
128   
Explicit memory, language, non-language, reasoning, all
indicate to narratives. Autobiographical notes from brain damaged
persons show that even when language is deficient as in Broca’s
aphasia, narrative reasoning is preserved possibly the utilitarian
language does not really receive the input from deeper unified
self-narrative.
The language for securing social interaction and survival falls
more in the purview of action and governed by frontal areas. It
dissociates from the underlying ‘INNER VOICE’ that goes on
within the head all the time. The spoken language has to adapt
faster to external feedback systems so the tongue says what the
social neurons push. This gap may be the basis of double talk or
lying, the gap between the faster social language and the inner
slower belief, the story of self, this gap may be the hope of
training the mind and teaching positives, the time resolution being
the limiting factor.
(does an autistic mind has its own narrative?)
The discrepancy between the inner self and the projected
self are the source of liar and the lie but beyond the momentary
lie to escape emotional discomfort and social rejection the lies
emerging from belief or motivated lie may well be unconscious
and the person may be deluded to believe it. All the delusions
may not be illness and thus more dangerous—history is witness
to such turns. The feedback mechanisms indicating the error may
misfire under the false sense of comfort or reward, the rewards
sustain the lie and acceptance externally alters the narrative to
fit in these rewarding acts thus perpetrating further feed-forward
loops and other uncomfortable not so rewarding firing patterns
become extinct.
Corruption or fragmented self, evident in the world are a
product of smeared INNER VOICE or the distorted story of self,
often people realize that their real self is different from the one
they live.
The projected selves clash in the world and in a feedback
loop create multiple levels of needs and desires, a second lot
camouflaging the original one, multiple such versions exist in
each head and multiple selves in turn.
 Stories and Narratives
     129
The story has a robust component but—the body. The embodied
reactions and frames of realities -Sexual self, conditioned self,
need driven self,
All get embedded in the projected story and the gap is left as
such between the original narrative and survivalist. Science does
not address it and is thus filled by religious and quasi spiritual
gurus.
The normal and the abnormal is decided according to the
adjustability of one’s story in the prevailing range. Because the
humans have to survive together so stories keep getting modified
by the impact of the other, be it individual or society hence versions
exist but nothing seems to be original in this sense.
 Dr. Freud

“One of the ultimate challenges for biology

is to understand the brain’s processing of unconscious and
conscious perception, emotion, and empathy.”
 —Eric Kandel

Sigmund Freud though working as a Neurologist shook up the

foundation of Psychology in the early part of last century. His
Psychoanalytic theory was at once enlightening and revolutionary.
Pinning the basic core of human behavior to irrationality and
psychic determinism Freud brought the Unconscious to the fore.
His theoretical model not only remained in the textbooks but also
became a commonplace lingo used till now. Thus, repression and
suppression, libido and Eros, id and ego, all are a part of English
language and are used by any average educated person to explain
behavior.
Psychoanalysis fell out of fashion after the strong emergence
of pharmacology and later behavioral-cognitive models of
human behavior not only out of treatment modules but also as
a theory. Whereas faster treatment approaches in Psychotherapy
replaced the longer psychoanalysis the theory failed on the count
of Popperian falsifiability too, though it always remains as an
interesting discussion and satisfying explanation of behavior even
if unproven. But it seems Freud may have a laugh at the end.
Modern Neuroscience research equipped with an impressive
armamentarium of fMRI, PET, mEEG, High Resolution EEG,
 Dr. Freud
     131
optical imaging and other tools to functionally and spatially locate
brain function, has been able to provide a working model for brain
processes. However peripheral it may be but it does give a peep
into the mystery and bang …..the Unconscious is alive. Before
correlating Freud to Neuroscience, it will be worthwhile to revisit
the basic tenets of Psychoanalysis.

The Topographical Model

Freud (1900, 1905) developed a theory of the mind using an
analogy of an iceberg.
Conscious part made of thoughts that we are aware of is the tip
of the iceberg. The preconscious contains all that can be retrieved
from memory. The third and most significant region being the
unconscious that determines the behavior and is the hidden part
of the Iceberg, acting as a hidden repository of wishes, desires
and all that has been removed from conscious through repression,
due to frightening or painful weight of the thought. These hidden
forces determine behavior through various modifications and
camouflaging through defense mechanisms.
Later structural model consisted of id, ego and super ego
as hypothetical concepts of mental functions. Id operates at
unconscious level on pleasure principle - gratification from
satisfying basic instincts. The Ego and the superego develop
through the interaction between the social environment and the
child to package the id in realistic and socially acceptable manner
for survival and thus are conscious and learned part of psychic
apparatus. Defense Mechanisms are the processes through which
this conversion is achieved. Freud explained health and illness on
the basis of his developmental theory – Psychosexual stages and
proposed that to be psychologically healthy, one must successfully
resolve each stage. Mental illnesses can occur if person becomes
‘fixated’ in a particular stage thus childhood determining the
adult personality is determined.

Dream Analysis
Freud (1900) considered dreams to be the royal road to the
unconscious as it is in dreams that the ego’s defenses are
 Maya is Reality
132   
lowered so that some of the repressed material comes through to
awareness, albeit in distorted form. Dreams perform important
functions for the unconscious mind and serve as valuable clues
to how the unconscious mind operates. The process whereby
the underlying wish is translated into the manifest content is
called dream-work. The purpose of dream work is to transform
the forbidden wish into a non-threatening form, thus reducing
anxiety and allowing us to continuing sleeping. Dream work
involves the process of condensation, displacement, and secondary
elaboration.

Is there a meeting ground?

Neurosciences draws heavily on the definitions provided by
Psychology to formulate its own understanding of cognition,
emotion, motivation, intent, will, and other tasks that experiments
have to invoke for imaging and electrophysiological data
collection. But what it revealed was not in their platter.
Imaging data over last two decades has spectacularly created
at least a superficial spatial map of brain functioning but fails to
catch the temporal process. The EEG and ERP data on the contrary
gives a clue to the temporal procession with scalp recordings and
extrapolating with higher mathematics but the ‘inverse problem’
fails to specify the location. As further research unites the two
approaches in future for more composite models some synthesis
has been achieved as mentioned above.
As Baars says the Brain functions in a Global Work space and
multiple smaller workspaces process and act simultaneously to
produce the ever-fleeting reality as perceived by conscious brain.
Bayesian probability, nonlinear dynamics or quantum process
whatever computation brain uses, it is translated to behavior in
real world in a classical frame and the person knows what comes
to his awareness. Even if we take conscious mind in its strictest
sense to be aware, this still represents a small fraction of the
multilevel processing that goes inside the brain.
Brain operates as a parallel processing system at multiple levels
of cell assemblies that pattern detect, extract features, compare
with preexisting maps or memories, filters the firing patterns
 Dr. Freud
     133
based on relevance and hierarchy decide by limbic systems within
10-500ms and either creates a reflex action without reaching
awareness in 100 ms or presents to the decision making centers in
200-500ms that in turn effect the further frames being presented
to it. The conscious brain does largely not know this process and
even before it chooses, the decision has been taken in the deep
basal ganglia as imaging data has shown. Even in perception the
corollary discharges are known to suppress the internally generated
images for those cued to externally cued images (hallucinations
result when the inhibition of internal imagery fails)
Given this model Freud probably was right. The conscious
brain just sees what the unconscious shows and the decision of
conscious brain is bound to the information presented to it by these
deeper processes at a much later stage. The mind may appear to be
exerting a will but the will itself is bound to the decision made much
earlier. To complicate it further the inhibitory control in tandem with
mirror neuron system guides the socially appropriate behavior that
suits survival and extinct the risk-seeking behavior. Cell assemblies
trained by learned social behavior modulate the reward system.
Superego represents the inhibitory assemblies and the
dopamine driven limbic reward system is represented by the
id and its pleasure drive. Indeed, the basic limbic system has a
continuous need to explore, take risk and express emotions in its
raw form as seen when amygdala fires without frontal control or
the personality changes after frontal damage (Phineas Gage and
many others). Split-brain studies reveal another dimension of
hidden reality and the out of awareness processes. Only when we
realize how the two hemispheres act independently we marvel at
the ability of brain network in creating a conscious unified self.
But as Freud envisaged that the conscious self is just an
interfacing fleeting self, created by the unconscious drives that
keep camouflaging through defense mechanism, the reality of
mind and self as explained by neuroscience is no different. The
choice between multiple alternatives of reality is done at the out of
conscious level in brain and the executive areas like dorso- lateral
prefrontal cortex are presented with few viable frames of reality
that offer best survival and least harm after the default mode
 Maya is Reality
134   
network and salience networks have processed it. What we know
in our awareness is what we need to interact with our environment,
rest all is inhibited or as the old man said – repressed.
This repression forms the basis of dreams. As the inhibitory
control diminishes brain unfurls all that was repressed in form of
images rather as a wish fulfillment according to Psychoanalysis.
Assisted and protected by a paralyzed skeletal motor system
during REM one just dreams and desires rather than acting.
Most theories like Crick’s reverse learning or Solm’s or a
reluctant Allan Hobson’s AIM theory about dreams, all resemble
the dream work elaborated by Freud.
Whereas Freud explained dreams as a wish fulfillment process
modern theories do converge on the information processing
function of REM sleep and dreams being produced in activating
stored signals, filtering, eliminating and resynthesizing. data.
Whether it is to consolidate memory or build a story for survival
or to clear garbage, the process indeed validates Freudian concepts
of consolidation, displacement even if the basic function of wish
fulfillment was exaggerated. The Solms – Hobson debate on
dreaming centers around neurophysiological proof to include or
reject Freud but both miss out an important point. Freud’s dream
work may have been incomplete but few psychological processes
may provide direction for further exploration. Systematic research
of dream content refutes the random signal and psychotic state, in
fact what Freud was suggesting that what goes into unconscious
comes out in the dreams , forget terms like repression if you
wish ,but content analysis brings out that dreams usually include
fairly realistic portrayals of familiar input to brain in daily life
and are reflect people’s emotional concerns and needs, sometimes
inducting bizarre immediate physiological need e.g. the need to
micturate presented as seeing oneself in the act in dream. Indeed,
the anxiety once created in life situations often surfaces in dreams
whether it is conflicts, daily fears or frank PTSD. Ignoring the
dream content in Scientific research has been a fallacy that has
given charlatans a chance to interpret dreams. Further work needs
to incorporate waking ‘Conscious’ with sleeping ‘Unconscious’ in
the neurocognitive framework.
 Dr. Freud
     135
Not only theoretically the brain circuits implicated in dream
production are the instinctual-motivational circuits over Pontine-
limbic – frontal axis.
This vast spatio – temporal ‘unconscious’ is not only
exhibited in dreams and sudden unexpected behavior but also
in what we understand of creativity. Testimonies from artist and
creative people attest to the fact that they often get inspired from
an idea from nowhere. This ‘nowhere’ is the unconscious that is
operational even at a resting state of mind. Both imaging and EEG
data reveal frantic activity at resting state of brain, thought even
when one is not thinking.
Probably this process is the creation of new dimension of
thinking, one that plays at the back of mind in the twilight of’
knowing and not knowing’ - are they the defense mechanism
at work? The failure of these mechanisms is the cause of mental
illnesses according to Freud. We still do not have proper explanatory
models in Psychiatry but is it a failure of inhibitory frontal control or
deeper unconscious processes that fail to present a distorted reality
as in psychosis is a question that still demands answers?
But the real resurrection of Freud comes not in the unconscious
but the developmental theory and his insistence that adult is
determined in childhood. Indeed, the developmental research has
established that brain grows in critical periods and overcomes
environmental challenges till late teens. The importance of
intrauterine and first 2 years of life, when the brain grows in size
and complexity, cannot be overemphasized. This is determined
both by genetics and epigenetic, nature and nurture. Any
aberration or unfavorable condition during this phase lays down
the template for adult abnormality, in behavior or frank illness.
The critical periods require an optimal spurt of growth within
a normal range, though difficult to quantify, yet the aberrations
result in measurable behavioral anomalies and onset of psychiatric
syndromes. The adult story is written in childhood!!

The Future
This attempt at highlighting the possible interface between
Psychoanalysis and Neurosciences is in no way a complete fit and
 Maya is Reality
136   
would have its detractors, rather it is an indicator to a possibility,
that of re discovering the old model and relating them to the new
findings on brain functioning. The battleground is not theory or
basic sciences, it is in the field of mental health and Psychiatry.
The rejection of the Freudian theories came on two accounts –
overemphasis on sexuality and its deterministic nature. Proponents
of free will and human responsibility and later cognitive-behavioral
approaches had to emphasize on the conscious participation of
subject in life even in altering behavior-CBT being a testimony.
But the swirl did not stop here, the determinism bounced back in
Psychiatry through medication. This time man was not a slave
to unconscious but Neuro-transmitters. Paradoxically the success
of pharmacological intervention determined the movement of
Psychiatry as the causation still eludes us.
The basic dilemma still remains, whether it is the will that can
change human behavior or he (strictly in a non- gender sense) is a
slave to Neurochemistry.
The research of last 3 decades has confounded the matter
further while opening up the substrate for future work. The
conscious phenomenology is a result of underlying and largely
‘out of conscious’ highly differentiated, yet highly integrated
neural process. On the temporal scale these frames are presented
at a later stage to the conscious brain.
The biggest question thus is whether the conscious brain in
turn can alter the ‘unconscious’ processing through its feed-back
loops because if they can alter the course of further activity with
or without being aware of it, then it will have deep implications.
All these years cognitive methods have had partial success as
they addressed the conscious part of the process ignoring the largely
out of bound unconscious process, whereas medication altered the
deeper firing patterns of neurons thus changing the brain state, after
which the CBT works. This explains the better effect of combined
medication and CBT in few illnesses. In psychosis, the alteration
of brain activity is out of conscious range and only when the firing
pattern return to premorbid, the person gains insight.
Future research should aim at developing interventions
keeping in mind the temporal journey within brain, from the
 Dr. Freud
     137
chemical triggering to neuronal assembly firing (Unconscious)
to perceiving and experiencing phenomenon at a conscious level.
This small window of 200-500ms is possibly the answer to mind
training. Something that the mystics have practiced in their ways
of training the mind, the short gap between unconscious and
conscious and the repetitive feedback (suggestion). The suggestion
itself arising from the unconscious process is utilized in a feed
forward loop to alter behavior and further act on the small window
to avoid any other behavior or thought getting triggered. The feed
forward and feedback loops in a long stretch of time –space,
extinct the ‘pathological’ firing patterns (nothing is pathological
in firing patterns – it is the relevance that determines!), the typical
example is anger control.
The integration of the determinism and the ‘will’ may direct us
to the real control of behavior and it is time that neuroscience pays
attention to the long-forgotten unconscious that always remains
alive in the artist’s head.
 A Detour in Physics

To recapitulate-from science’s big bang theory till this date of

existence, the evolution of life, even Darwin’s theory provides
an explanatory model of existence. In stark opposition religion
fantasizes on the creation myth –genesis of Bible, ensemble from
Allah and from Brahma’s thought in Hindu thought. All accept a
supreme being who had the thought first and then creation of life.
The thought first!
As we have examined, the thought itself arises in an interaction
of nervous system and environment, so possibly an underlying
physical law governs the creation too.
Whenever the first gene multiplied, it had realized that
multiplying is the best way to survive as the first neuron would
have been alive when it chose to communicate. Reproduction and
reaction, multiply and sustain through connectivity. DNA carries
enough information from evolution and all that is necessary for a
being/species to involve, only in 30% of its content. Rest 70% is
noise, whether it has hidden signal or is conferring an advantage to
human is still not known. But by its unfolding a complex structure
like human brain and body develops in an amazingly similar
manner, though defects appear at regular frequency in form of
illnesses across human race as if to memorize the alternative
dimensions of existence (the trouble or trouble shooter?)
The epigenetics is the imprinting on genome as is on nervous
system that unfold under gene-environment interface. The
functioning of neurons itself alters the genes leading to adaptation,
although a very slow process.
 A Detour in Physics
     139
In an individual, roughly between 42 to 108th day intrauterine,
the neurons have moved into their respective position in the 6
layers of cortex, the older they migrate the higher layer they are
in. The networks start forming through the influence of sound,
movement and later after birth, by all that goes in the brain
through senses. The specialization appears at a later stage to make
a parallel processing, modular, complex network.
The networks are in a hierarchical connection and control
the life and behavior from basic survival framework to highest
abstract thought. From the basic million data points, through the
senses, a composite image reaches the conscious brain in 500 ms.
Even if the decision is taken unconsciously the conscious weaves
a meaning. The survival networks are entrained and intricately
linked to worldly process, with self as an emergent pattern.
This all happens through electrochemical firing patterns and
associated magnetic field.
How does it happen?
We have to take a step back, to the forces and particles. How
these forces and particles interact in creating a human life is a
basic question?
The basic forces governing nature – electromagnetic, weak
and strong nuclear, and gravity are ubiquitous and operate at
different levels to sustain our Universe. Narrowing it to Earth and
its occupants, these forces determine life in a complex interplay of
biology, physics and chemistry.
On one hand are the questions of origin of life from inanimate
elements like carbon, nitrogen, iron, deep in ocean and as
a corollary, the growth from simple to complex organisms,
environmental stimuli interacted with inner organization of
molecules, into organelles and higher organization. Whether it is a
quantum process all the way up or a combination of physical laws
in a timescale, the energy transformations are certain. Eventually
it all converts to electrical-chemical and associated magnetism
within body and thus remains possibly a basic life force.
The magnetic field of basic elements generate their own
field possibly in a quantum decoherence process. Whether this
composite EM field interacts with earth’s magnetic field or gravity
 Maya is Reality
140   
is partially answered, the clues coming from animal and plant
kingdom.
Keystone like crystals have been reported in cells of hornet
combs that move and orient in response to gravity. The symmetry,
balance and orientation of cells in building the comb is directed by
these crystals composed of Iron, Oxygen and Carbon. Similarly,
many sea animals sense and orient themselves in response to
Earth’s magnetic field through their inner chemistry especially
iron based molecules. Photochemical reactions are the triggers to
create radical pairs that are magnetically active.
Silk moth has been shown in work by a group, to have a stable
carbon centric free radical structure that orients to earth’ magnetic
field (50 microTesla), in absence of light too. The silk cocoon
serves as a soft magnetic membrane and has unique electrical
properties. Does this magnet direct the organization of cellular
structure in the larvae and its subsequent growth?
If it does and a similar process exists in humans it will have
huge shift in understanding the human growth trajectory.
Does the human growth in-utero from the neural plate in
zygote to complex brain and other parts happen under the influence
of internal magnetic fields and their interaction with earth’s field?
As light is unable to reach the womb and the chemical triggers
direct the growth and connection but the movement of neurons
on protein scaffolding and their placement in adequate orientation
in space time determines the geometry of neuronal ensemble and
thus the network formation. The extraneous force that may be
directing it, is the magnetic field.
Is carbon structuring the answer?
In the brain, the orientation of 1011 neurons in a dynamically
complex network happens in response to environmental stimuli,
all of which are not photo-stimuli. But each trigger an electrical
firing pattern. The initial years of growth sees overgrowth of
neural network. The magnetic field associated with the electric
firing from a single neuron to the million neuron columns may be
the vector to orient in the gravity engulfed world. The space time
warp however miniscule, created by bodies is a physical reality
relatively perceived by each brain.
 A Detour in Physics
     141
Compare it to heart, robustly placed in the thoracic cage
but from its genesis, both anatomically and physiologically, the
magnetic field surround it through its internal electric generators.

Detour in physics continued…

Universe > earth > subatomic parallels Relativity > classical>
quantum
Whether relativity and quantum have the same rules—
zz Observer dependency.
zz Relative positioning of space and time
zz No absolutes.
zz Are quantum fields similar to gravity or they merge?
zz Space warp by masses and by particles.
That there are no absolutes, indicates that nature does not
compare with any external frame of reference, only extremes show
the relative world while the middle world of existence moves in
classical boundaries.
Though uniform motion is perceived as stationary, acceleration
is dynamics whether in space or energy transition in particles.
Discrete, changes to continuous in the perceived world. On earth
the movement towards centre is halted by surface hence gravity is
perceived, giving a tiring feeling.
Darwinian evolution started soon after earth was formed and
as varied body forms and their complexity entangled in physical
processes, relativity and quantum both would have expressed in
it. Light, color, temperature all effected the formations and their
survival, both as prey and predator, animal cycles still tied to these
variations both in diurnal and life states. But the real enigma is the
brain.
Human brain having same areas as other mammals has
exhibited new dimensions and emergent properties that leaves us
with 4 blocks of existence—
1. The large bound by classical and relative rules.
2. Small- the quantum processes with its probabilities,
observer dependency in measurement and entanglements.
3. The classical world of earth with cause – effect relation,
categorization, sequencing all as a need of human mind
 Maya is Reality
142   
to control life and minimize ambiguity surrounding the
relativity and quantum, but is it all real.
4. The first two unite in quantum field but where does it
leave the fourth
5. Mind and brain -the process by which it all is united or
is it not?
It can be addressed by questions – few eternal, few new
emerging out of research that is at best peripheral at present.
 Questions
and
Statements

1. Is space – time a creation of mind that translates to

objective space – clock time?
2. Does the brain interface with external world for survival
through external senses?
3. Why does it create complexity in humans, it could have
survived with a lesser structure like other animals?
4. Is consciousness unique to humans? Or awareness in
other species is same as consciousness and we just know
how to express it?
5. Is it localized or widespread across brain? Even selective
damage maintains consciousness –though the reality may
change.
6. What directs and unites the modular function of brain?
7. How does each module know its function towards overall
function? E.g. How do the visual/auditory systems know
to create and direct an image to higher centre- (Is it the
structure and vector that propels?)
8. The deeper structures (limbic /thalamic) decide relevance
but are largely accurate in establishing threat.
9. Is the conditioning –firing patterns in Hebbian assembly?
10. Brain plays trick as it tries to explain itself through itself.
When some mind reaches a limit the pat on the back is
also from brain –of dealing with such a complex organ
 Maya is Reality
144   
but that is the limit…. Is it possible to peep into a live
brain by itself?
11. Is observing someone else’s brain the only way?
12. How does it sequence events – the light cone seems to
exist in mind…rest all coexists out there simultaneously?
13. Quantum processes in scale of 10-9 to 10-12 sec may be
possible in Neurotransmitter signaling but EEG signal
happen in range of milliseconds. Is it the quantum
decoherence happening? The unconscious processing
happens between 10ms to 200ms -500ms after a stimulus,
even the decision making, as in Libet’s experiments, the
unconscious decision is taken even before awareness?
14. Is there a Nano- Pico second process before 10ms at micro
level that has the potentialities /probabilities of quantum
nature till it reaches millisecond scale? Is decoherence the
decision?
15. Do chaos /nonlinear processes intervene before turning
to classical world awareness of cause affect?
16. Will is unlikely to interject as a conscious tool for the first
instance. Is will also at the point of decoherence as an
emergent property?
17. Do quantum and relativity merge at level of microtubules
as Roger Penrose suggested or quantum gravity will be
the ultimate knot? Unlikely, as microtubules are separated
vastly and effect secretion of Neurotransmitters at micro
level but the real processes are electromagnetic that spread
wide and coalesce through excitation and inhibition to
translate to behavior, with multiple systems contributing.
18. Human behavior shows connectivity even when action is
absent? Do thoughts flow faster than light (tachyons)?
19. Brain perceives the fixed structures as space and clock to
sequence events as absolutes …and act accordingly but is
it a part of interfacing with aware mind or the inner 1010
neurons also follow this clock?
20. Is it possible that external reality of absolute collapses
the relative time-space warp inside? Time- space seem
to be linked in brain too –ask someone to walk and
 Questions and Statements
     145
judge time and space …they would be almost near in
approximation.
21. The relative motion at unconscious level may be the
multiple frames of reality generated within but one is
selected by higher centres at a time-the best fit to external
space time…-for survival. Where it does not--- illness
results?
22. Like multiple probabilities of Quantum and relative
positions of Relativity brain has these 500ms frames of
reality ranging from pure subjective to pure objective?
The choice may be based on threat perception but how?
These externally driven and internally generated frames
possibly are a superimposed probability wave functions
that follow Schrodinger’s wave equation and wave
collapse translates them to a single frame of reality, the
measurement /observer being intent/attention or internal
assessment of threat /survival value.
What happens to other frames not chosen to act upon? Do they
return to pre excited state or the parallel universe theory applies
(multiple probability values reduce to one measured value in
Quantum, rest are transferred to be expressed in parallel universe
hence multiple copies or alternatives in same world)
The ignored frames turn to emotions – in turn to unconscious
urges art etc. or transferred as vibes or appear in dreams as in a
parallel world.
The observer and observed get entangled thus!!!!
Experience shows that without action or speech communication
still happens. Do Mirror neurons act in absence of auditory/visual
clue?
Even in absence of external stimuli multiple reflections from
memory and maps and abstract thought continue in awake and
dream. Is there enough space for patterns or it is a time dependent
phase change?
1. Is empathy than an electromagnetic field? Each with his
own but all aligned to earth’s magnetic field (10-3 ft as in
alpha wave) during development of brain, thus entangled.
Is it the same vector that directs flow of information?
 Maya is Reality
146   
2. The vector unites the multifold activity in states of a
unified field through controlling attention bottleneck-
less triggered – co existent frames are available for
experience—symmetry of light cone broken?
The modern technology attempting to develop BCI has its
fantastic precursors in Indian mythology where mind could
control distant minds and objects, the modern EEG signals control
robots through magnetic/electric signals. The fantastic weapons
were projections of mind or were they true?
‘An intellect so vast…’’’ as Laplace said that could actually see
all the forces and could concentrate the attentional bottleneck to
alter the magnetic field to curl around Will, was it the imagination
of the writers.
 Neuronal Networks

When the first neuron is formed, is it sleeping? The EEG is picked

up at 20 weeks from an oscillation of large numbers of neurons
but the neurons cannot be electrically silent even at a single level.
Is there a switch that goes on after a certain critical threshold
of neuronal mass is reached? -unlikely because neuronal life is
electrical activity. Possible as the brain grows the earlier neurons
remain active and prepared in a state of polarization, waiting for
the first wave of depolarization. The first step into a network.
Initial recording will be raw spikes and discharges.
The limited external stimuli mainly chemical and kinesthetic,
in the womb serve to form early synapses that almost get into
exponential growth after birth under the influence of environmental
stimuli. The synaptic formation and the assembly distinctions
continue till late teens. Epigenetics becomes all the more important
as early childhood influences alter gene expression, Love, trust,
trauma, illness and many others like noise, all influence the brain
and thus the future story of the individual.
The networks that evolve start from around 100th day intrauterine
under the influence of spontaneous firing, Ca+ , Movement,
Neurotransmitter movement across synapses start forming dendritic
connections. Stimulated by sound, the chemistry of amniotic fluid
and spontaneous movement the networks proliferate, even in
the face of spontaneous cell death. The basic universal sensory-
motor, cortico-thalamic, and the preliminary limbic connections
are already in place at birth. The fetus’s response to stress is well
recorded hence the neuronal circuitry managing it must be firing.
 Maya is Reality
148   
Following birth cry and the subsequent response of the care-
taker is the main interface with the world in almost a reciprocal
relationship. Cry is interpreted variously and the responses vary,
these stimuli further trigger the network formation. The primitive
reflexes and physical-mental play with the baby stimulate
formation of further network both motor –sensory and possibly
the higher emotional-cognitive networks are stimulated.
As the repertoire of activity increases in the first 3-6 months,
adding adaptive, social, motor behavior –the cue related and
spontaneous activity through a feedback system related to pleasure
and pain assessment within the limbic system consolidates the
preexisting networks.
These basic networks are Universal and possibly predetermined
by genetic influence controlling the basic survival behavior but
are hugely modified by epigenetics and environmental influence,
over next 2 years of life. This period marks the maximal growth
of neurons and forms the basic survival network. The emotional
responses originate from the temperament and the security-
warmth from the environment.
Possibly this survival network remains active all the time and
each further network in higher complexity develops in comparison
to it. Each stimulus –response is evaluated in weightage to this
on threat –survival value. Regression of behavior and even the
simple to complex cry in face of threat –crises in adults seems
to be linked to this basic network. All other complex cognitive
behavior forms a hierarchical connected layer of behaviour.
This can explain why training the core behavior of people
remains the most daunting task and religion to psychology fail
at it miserably. The plasticity of neuronal network is also time
dependent –only in the critical period of formation and migration,
it can be influenced once established it often requires shock- a
supra-threshold disturbance to alter it.
The example is memory of fear. Once established due to a
single or repeated exposure, much later in life the exposure triggers
the same fear even before objective assessment of situation is done.
If it is so the whole edifice of psychiatry and mind will have
to be reassessed.
 Neuronal Networks
     149
(Hindu philosophy talks about Prarabdh and Purusharth, the
predetermined and the dynamics, of any individual. Is the seed
of destiny, in the neuro ectoderm that unfolds through neurons
exhibiting temperament whereas environment and individual
response being the latter, making the edifice on which personality
evolves?)
What if at a later stage all that constitutes a person –thoughts,
memory, abstractions, experience, is reduced to an infinitesimal
neuronal node or an EM field and juxtapose to the original node
containing destiny, will it match on specifics or general?)
Can the firing patterns that are unique to an individual be
stored and revisited later to define me including dreams?

The end???
When does life begin? – from conception or with the first heart
beat or the first electrical signal in brain.
And when does the death happen? - with brain death or with
the disposal of body. Obviously, the exact points of life and death
warrant another explanation, different from our clocks.
But what happens to ‘me’ after death. As the body
disintegrates or is burnt, the assembly of atoms that were ‘me’,
releases the space that it was occupying and the molecules return
to immediate environment. These molecules of basic elements
reintegrate themselves in the nature probably in the food chain
later and reappear in some other live structure. Do they carry my
signature? Am I alive or get REBORN in these chemicals?
But possibly few structures like bones that become inanimate
structures rocks, fossils retain ‘my’ signature –that is DNA.
Is ‘my’ possibility always alive?
Or
Is ‘Rebirth’ true –may be not in the same form but fragmentary,
piecemeal existence through carbon and through DNA in food
chain?
But where is the experiential ‘me’? Does it disappear in the
field or inactivity decimates the electromagnetic field? If all the
data in my mind is captured in digital form and downloaded, will
it be me?
 Maya is Reality
150   
The energy reflected from my body in photons are retained
as firing patterns – memory in someone else’s mind and
metaphorically always alive.
The rebirth in Hindu philosophy is the DNA unfolding or the
whole experiential being that expands in a never ending cycle of
contraction – expansion in various forms. Is it material or a field?
This may be the reason that no life is repeated because of the
individual field that reorganizes after death?
The existence of time in an irreversible arrow is because of
the memory (the past) and anticipation (the future) but if it is a
field and a life remains a potential at all instances, the flow of time
ceases and it all exists at the same time.
Or death is just a state transition, if Multiverse theory is
true. Just one copy of me disappears!! After all ‘I’ is a decohered
probability state.
 Me as a Field

Any attempt to formulate a quantitative description of brain will

have to address few basic definitions and concepts.
That brain as a structure and mind as an emergent function of it
is the basic postulate. Mind is not separate though the content and
behavior is embedded in context and conditioning. Few philosophic
traditions believe otherwise and the debate is still unresolved.
Though multiple approaches have been applied to explain
brain dynamics, from quantum to Hamiltonian, Bayesian to
Markovian, Network theory, yet none is able to trace it from the
neuron to behavior. Partly this is because of a top down reductionist
approach where ‘subjective’ is ignored but it is exactly in this
‘qualia’ where the human game is played. Theories thus have
limited value in altering behavior. Any equation(s) that brings this
out has to be complete and should trace the neuronal response to
overt behavior even if in a bracket of time.
Time and space remain the essential foundation in
understanding brain like most systems. The structure of the brain,
the gross arrangement of 1011 neurons into primary areas and
association areas is well explored but at a microscopic level the
network assemblies –anatomical and functional- still need further
elucidation. Functional Imaging techniques (fMRI, PET) have
opened a window to the spatial localization of functions but the
underlying temporal process is unclear. Application of network
theory to fMRI may reveal this.
The activation of certain areas with a given task may be just a
step in the process of creating thought or behavior, the underlying
vector is still unclear.
 Maya is Reality
152   
The reverse problem lies with electrophysiology –EEG
displays the fluctuations in electric field and oscillations in
a time dimensions (on raw data, Event related potentials),
spontaneously or task related but no spatial localization. Study
of magnetic fields (MEG) is a coupled field to electrical activity.
Optogenetics offers a fresh approach to visualize the neuronal
ensembles but all these direct and indirect data still does not
exhibit the brain in its full action.
What are we dealing with? Are we trying to explore the
electromagnetic field within brain or some new physics?
Let us try to visualize just a part of the problem- how the brain
incorporates the sensory inputs in to the existing self? The ‘self’
or ‘I’ is of course the identity of the individual and everything that
goes into the brain has to be assimilated and accommodated in it for
a coherent survival. It has emotional state and the representation
of the past in memories, encoded in synaptic alterations induced
through repeated long- term firing in certain areas. The body
itself has representation to integrate sensation in parietal cortex
and in motor cortex for movement in a finely laid, organized
network. These areas continually receive inputs from periphery
and maintain the Self.
From the sensory input till the response from the brain, is a
vector in a larger space that includes the object or sensation, its
image in the brain, the neuronal networks and outward action or
inward thought/emotion.
‘The signals being a vector’.
At any given instance, signals from the various sensory
organs arrive at the brain to keep a track of external environment
and orienting the body in space time. These signals may be in
any energy form but are converted to the modality of brain i.e.
electrical signals with chemical control between neurons.
These are converted into a composite Trigger information
state. This trigger information is a state embedded in a higher
dimensional space, namely an ‘n’ dimensional space where n
corresponds to signal state in each individual sensory organs
(sensory state) e.g. Signal state in nerve related to: Sound
amplitude, sound pitch, sound tone, light amplitude, colour,
warmth, cold, etc.
 Me as a Field
     153
Out of all these (n) numbers of sensory state only a few e.g.
say only (n-k) may have actually been triggered by an outside
event at a given time t. we however consider that all these (n-k)
values are embedded into the full (n) dimensional space.
Therefore, at time instant-t, the trigger state recorded by the
brain due to an external event or stimulus is a vector ~[T(t)》of
(n) dimension. In this (n-k) have been fired and the remaining k
are the neutral state values. After creating [T(t)》 vector the brain
does a mirror transformation where at instant ‘t’ the vector
[T(t)]-> vector [a(t)] which is a higher dimensional vector
(n+m).
The vector [a(t)] contains the weights given to each component
of the vector [T(t)]at time t i.e. it has n components (here one
has to develop a rule for filling the (n) components of vector
[a]depending on external event which triggered (n-k) sensory
component most strongly and remaining k components weakly).
The (n) components of [a(t)] vector are deterministic components. 
The remaining (m) components of the (n+m) dimensional
[a(t)] vector are the emotional weights or memory weights given
to pre-existing state of the person at t-◇t ie. at the instance, just
before time t.  These (m) components are an indeterministic part,
a state characterized by fluctuations like a paramagnetic state with
fluctuating spins.
During subsequent processing, the brain takes forward for
processing is the (n+m) dimensional [a(t)] weight vector.
The vector [a(t)] has two part a deterministic(sensory) part of
dimension n at time t and a non-deterministic (emotional state)
part at time t-◇t of dimension (m) There are interactions between
the deterministic and non- deterministic part (self consistently
solving differential equation iteratively) as the vector [a(t)] is
processed in the brain in order to get the new weights vector at
any later time t1 i.e. [a(t1)].
At any instant t1 the state of a person is [x(t1) =《a(t1) × T(t1)
(reaction in response to event). Is this a collapsed wave-function
state?
The question is what is the equation which take the [a(t)]at
time t to evolve it to the next instance at t+◇t, [a(t+◇t)], via the
 Maya is Reality
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interactional links between the fluctuating and deterministic parts
of [a(t)]. Is it possible that due to this interaction, correlations
develop deep in the (m) dimensional fluctuating state?  The result
of interactions would lead to a non- linear equation which has to be
solved by self consistently. The interactions between deterministic
and non-deterministic parts would modify the [a(t+◇t)] state and
hence final response of a person i.e. x(t1) in reaction to some
event, a few instances in the past.
For self, consistent solving of differential equations one needs
some minimizing principles. Are there such general minimizing
principles governing the time dependent equation for [a (t)]?
There is also the question that if all of the above is true then
the brain is aware of an absolute time instant (namely which time
of day or night) and also concept of a duration or time interval?
How small a duration is time interval? Can the brain distinguish
and hence use for its calculation? Is it at best the reaction time of
few millisecs. or could there be something far smaller?
Solving a nonlinear differential equation to deduce vector
[a(t)]at any time would mean we would need to need initial
conditions of the weights vector i.e.[a(t=0)].
Does this mean memory is just a register of the weights vector
values stored for important events?
Alternatively, the brain may not be an equation bound
dynamics rather a comparator process, where each of these phase
spaces is compared and integrated with the phase space called
self. This Self has both, internal embodied inputs as well as the
environmental, contextual inputs in memory from feedback loops-
each further input is modified in best, harmonious fit. Is all this,
really a field from the neurons to environment, probably that gives
an illusion of an independently existing mind?

On a Time scale
Sensory input (finite–human sense organs have evolved within
a certain range e.g. 20hz—20000 Hz, visible light spectra…) -
deterministic signal (t0)
The general purpose weighted (on multiple varied inputs)
signal before reaching the primary specialized sensory cortex
 Me as a Field
     155
interfaces with nondeterministic quantum states(t-1)) in deeper
centres (thalamus – coordination centre for sensory inputs,
amygdala-emotional hub, limbic system) .The composite signal (I
a >) keeps firing as a mirror wave (I ai >) is send for detailed image
reconstruction to primary cortex ,
The feature extraction happens between 30ms to 100ms
(<10ms object will appear as a blur …. >100ms- disjointed )
A confirmation (I aij j > ) wave is send back to rejoin the standing
wave – 100ms—200ms .
The new wave function (ai + aij) >200ms is active till the higher
centre acts /decides/creates meaning . (200-500ms).
Thus the signal wave is converted to a complex wave-function
through inputs from memory, emotions, different senses and firing
from the stable pattern constituting self (these patterns may be
multiple states representing different dimensions of a single bound
‘I’) but it is not only the thought and abstract cognition .
Libet’s experiment indicate that the decision about any action
is taken 200ms before the brain becomes aware (the will and
intent may be bound to this final wave function, and actually the
awareness point may be the will). The decision to act, physically
or mentally, is embedded in this wave function and requires input
of orientation in time and space, the distance of object, and fine
tuning of body muscles.
The basal ganglia tucked deep in brain are the decision making
centre for movement and cerebellum (having 50% of cortical
neurons,it has massive connections to emotional areas and cortex)
that fine tunes balance and movement, through mostly inhibitory
control, effect the emotional-cognitive phase space. The final I a ij
> is a vector directed to external space with embedded sub-vectors
altered by operators from motor , sensory , affective areas.
A disease process and damage to any of this alters the wave
function in totality as do drugs that alter chemical switches and
subsequent excitatory/inhibitory control.
Assuming that the ultimate purpose of the brain is survival
and that it does by learning from the past and anticipating/
predicting the future. Thus, an irreversible time arrow is created
in brain. The brain also has to keep rooted in external reality.
 Maya is Reality
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The thoughts themselves are nothing but a composite frame of a
phase space emerging out of emotions, sensory inputs, preexisting
nondeterministic states like quantum probability, in a coherent
vector, due to the activity of Hebbian assemblies at baseline.
The rich reciprocal connections between primary cortex and
extended limbic structures like PFC, amygdala, Anterior cingulate
/Posterior Cingulate, insula continually evaluate these frames on
threat value, reward value to anticipate and predict the next frame.
The body signals are pushed to brain 24x7 and they feed into a
pattern of self, the basic firing pattern probably in insula or deep
parietal (seats of self -perception, and all new frames have to
be integrated in it).Even in REM sleep when external inputs are
shut the internal Non-Deterministic phases are freed of inhibitory
control and external drive ,the phases seem to follow an infinite
trajectory, attempting to integrate the information that has seeped
in, to integrate in self. The pattern of self itself has multiple phase
spaces derived from all the inputs that have gone in from external
world, while the networks were being formed, the education,
religion, training. Any new input can trigger any of these- mostly
predictable because inputs are fixed and finite, but a new phase
space and the frame presented to higher centre may be new. The
cognitive thus is transitory because it ceases after action has been
decided at CEN, the basic phases remain in a quasi-stationary
state bound by the larger phase space of self. Is that the Hilbert
space containing all vectors of brain? The further thought itself
is a feedback inducted into basic state. No thought can exist in
vacuum and all human thought thus is embedded in context!!!
These quantum like states decohere, on being perturbed by
sensory inputs, the nonlinearity comes from the connections.
Though the neurons that fire together may wire together but they are
not spatially bundled, it is a functional connection. Each neuron in
cortex is connected to 10 to 1000 others, making it an intertwined
connection. One neuron can contribute to many assemblies or
one assembly can have inputs from other. The trigger is dendritic
input and Post synaptic potential (EPSP and IPSP), this is the
sensitivity to initial condition inducing a nonlinear trajectory.
All the information connected to the presenting stimulus is thus
 Me as a Field
     157
reactivated briefly in less than 200ms, thus forming a new attractor
dimension.
Once this is pushed to CEN in 500ms, decision is taken for
action and the system is back to baseline state for the next frame.
But the brain does not always act on external stimulus. The
basic survival needs that emanate from brain after the finely
tuned feedback from body regarding glucose level, electrolyte
levels, blood flow, respiration, and cardiac rhythms are through
largely hypothalamus and limbic structures controlling autonomic
nervous system. The emotions and thoughts related to hunger,
thirst, sex, sleep create a different phase space that involves body
too and often override the basic states.
As in sleep, during REM the weightage of external finite
signal is 0 and the nondeterministic signal is 1, the trigger of these
basic processes are chemical switches and their differential levels
that oscillate. The induction of sleep is a changed pattern of sleep
between thalamus (reticular activating system) and cortex. The
spikes of firing that arise from Pons make PGO waves indicating
REM sleep.
Similarly, the dopamine and endorphin regulated reward
centres in the limbic structures have a significant weightage in
determining action or pursuing a target /object—exploration,
adventure, reward punishment…almost fooling the self through
their proportional weight in final wave, sometime through need,
rest through fulfilling the withdrawal need to maintain the feeling
of reward.
This explains the addiction, irrational behavior, risk taking etc.
Probably the limiting factor for these probabilities driven,
nondeterministic states is the externally driven deterministic
sensory input but also the inhibitory firing from the higher centre
that determines action, judgement etc.
This connection has species- specific connection but largely
suppresses the free - floating internally generated imagery giving
preference to the near approximation to external reality.
But where does the external reality lie –in fixed structures, in physical
laws, in people and their minds? The individual brain has layers of hierarchical
patterns varying in complexity out of which emerges all that is human –art,
 Maya is Reality
158   
science, literature – and cultures share it, passing it on to generations as
memes, according to Dawkins. Genes and memes act to create an individual,
who like a single neuron embeds in family and society, and subsequently in
humanity’s every endeavor and connection. Language, and shared symbols
seem to be the medium but within brain, possibly the mirror neurons have
shaped humanity (Mirror neurons represent a distinctive class of
neurons that discharge both when an individual executes a motor
act and when he observes another individual performing the same
or a similar motor act). These neurons were first discovered in
monkey’s brain. In humans, brain activity consistent with that
of mirror neurons has been found in the premotor cortex, the
supplementary motor area, the primary somatosensory cortex, and
the inferior parietal cortex)
The signals from the observed trigger a similar activity in
the observer, routed through the sense organs but almost a mirror
pattern of firing not only in motor action but emotions, empathy,
mimicking etc. We may be just a monkey that mimics.
Does this mean that the wave function and subsequent phase
space extend from an individual mind to the Universe? And the
reality of mind is information contained in a field around the
neuronal network?
So is brain embedded in a - metastable Hilbert space within
which quantum decoherence and nonlinear dynamics determine
the output in individual behavior, operated upon by limiting
factors as time, space (in form of geometrical arrangement of
neuronal circuits), external finite inputs, inhibiting influence of
executive networks, the inter-people dynamics itself creating new
phase spaces within brain, collectively, thus creating the unity
(fractal like phenomenon in behavior).
Is there a TOE that connects mind to the objective world? Or
there are as many processes in brain as they exist in Universe in
form of physical laws.
 Physics to Behavior

Following even the simplest finite input vector through the senses
and its final out put to a meaning and subsequent action on it by
an individual brain is a highly confusing and complex process.
From an individual to group it becomes even more unpredictable.
Philosophy to religion and mathematics are still attempting the
same, few basic principles are understood at level of neurons
explaining the electrical properties but the mass dynamics
is elusive, because it is this what creates a human with his
subjective world (AI and machine may ignore this but the present
configuration of what is human cannot ignore it).
The Robot may function on iterations and may develop
some new dimension through combinatorial dynamics yet it will
not have the self to constraint and regulate and experiment with
aberration (even they are finite range --- medical science thrives
on it.)
As the initial condition in a given brain may go back
somewhere in the first 3 months intrauterine (the days of migration
of neurons to 6 layers of cortex) and the boundary being the death
of brain (total lack of electrical activity), any attempt to calculate
the variables affecting any internal or external trigger will be
impossible as the light cone of past (memory), present and future
trajectories will have to be brought in…
Hence it has to be any instance t0.
The whole process may thus be put in a flow chart of space-
time.
 Maya is Reality
160   
The frame
External world—time space—fixed objects—people
Sensory inputs – finite range and quality --- at t0 (compared
to animals, range is restricted e.g. auditory -20-20000hz , visual
– visible spectrum of light but the instinct to match capability is
preserved ? Source of fantasy and imagination emanating from
improbable states /dreams)
Energy waves (electromagnetic—visual
Pressure—sound, touch
Chemical-olfactory, taste)
Conversion to electrical activity in neuronal networks in
nerves –cranial or somatic, gated by neurotransmitters in brain.
A general Purpose signal ‘D’ at t1 (w1+w2+w3+…….wn)
where w are the weights of various sensory modalities from 0 to 1
(in timescale 10ms >30ms>100ms).
-coefficients of - intensity relative phases discrimination
(emerging out of preexisting states at baseline t-1)
These non-deterministic states (ND) exist as quantum
probability states emerging out of baseline firing in Hebbian
assemblies, that sustain the body.
Integrated with a stable robust hierarchical firing pattern
that constitutes the self in certain areas of brain (insula, inferior
parietal) having massive reciprocal connection with all parts,
representing body and thought.
These ND states may be following- ‘Sum over paths’(Feynman)

D+ND = ΨI (wave)

Mirror Ψim forwarded to primary sensory cortex for feature

extraction and primary image formation (Xe). The wave carries in
the massive connections between emotional centres like amygdala,
cingulate, to assess on threat, fear.
A confirmatory wave with feature extracted image Ψic is send
back to the standing wave ΨI

ΨI + Ψic == Ψ final  (superimposed states)

(<100ms)
 Physics to Behavior
     161
The ND creates the Xi (internal imagery ) continuously being present
in unconscious mind ,awake or sleep, the default mode network
(DMN) the source of the feeling that mind always works.—an
artist’s delight .

ΨI + Ψic == Ψ final /// Xi + Xe = Xfinal (near approximation to reality)

Ψ final - is pushed to Central executive network for –action,

speech , interface with world in behavior - Thought +emotion
(200 –500ms)

The time scale varies on a scale of 10 ms -30ms-

100ms(sensation- feature extraction- reflex action ,out of
awareness) to 500ms (frames of reconstructed reality pushed to
conscious -)
Extending to minutes for immediate problem solving for
survival on threat/pleasure- humans and animals) to hours (short
term to long term planning, anticipation and prediction for security –
a feature of Human mind).
The uniqueness emerges on a longer time scale, days to months
(abstract –conceptual thinking- Mathematics, science, art). These
phase spaces have originated in the immediate scale but the larger
SELF is not able to integrate and keeps it sustained, probably in
association area, creating a task negative state –back of the mind.
The brain possibly is continually generating solutions, to keep the
self integrated.
Each sub phase space should ultimate limit in the larger Self.
This can explain the effect of psychedelics and illnesses
where the self is broken through chemical switches altering firing
patterns and lead to abnormal experiences, though each mind will
create this aberrant perception, thought from its own existing
states – but symmetry breaking leads to these.
The oscillatory wave functions are maintained through
hypothalamus, and other reward/punishment centres and range
from diurnal to monthly (in form of estrous changes in female),
from hunger to hormonal cycles e.g. growth hormone in stage 3
and 4 in children, thyroid stimulatory, in turn linked to sleep cycle.
 Maya is Reality
162   
The twist
The decision to act is taken around 200ms (Libet’s experiments)
at the time of formation of Ψfinal , before it reaches awareness –
precision /planning is done out of awareness by weighted signals
from cerebellum and basal ganglia (continuous inputs from
periphery to orient in time-space in relation to external objects)
--the action itself is a vector that evokes reaction from external
world ,that reenters through senses again as a FEEDBACK loop.
These recursive loops reiterate by, D+ND and next Ψfinal in
next 200ms to 500ms frames.
Possibly these points in time act as measurement indices that
decohere the baseline quantum states and are perceived as will/
intent.
The ∆ t acts as the bifurcation (sensitivity to initial condition)
introducing a nonlinear chaotic process through dendritic
connections (each neuron receives 10-1000 inputs, excitatory or
inhibitory, that are spatially and temporally summated recruiting
neurons), this dynamic geometry decides the next attractor
dimension.
Each Hebbian assemble has many neurons from other
assemblies too, conversely each neuron may be in multiple
assemblies. It increases the possibility of dimensions to almost an
infinite range. (e.g. word ROSE can trigger various dimensions of
rose in mind – word, smell, emotions etc.)
The recursive loops are finite due to limit of external inputs
and inhibition from CEN to constrain the attractor dimension/
Eigen states, for keeping it in match with the dimensions of
external world.
Thus, a phase space may extend from an individual assembly
to Universe –a large Hilbert space. The frame of action is a problem
solving, predictive phase from deeper preexisting potential phases
for problem solving ---ultimately for survival.
The perceived reality by humans in an apparently classical
world with determinism and a continuous flow turns out to be a
persistent illusion. The deeper layer of existence is discrete and
quantized in time frame, as is the space in which it survives (loop
quantum gravity or string theory intend to prove this exactly!!)
 Physics to Behavior
     163
How is meaning derived out of these phase spaces?
One possibility is that each of this phase space has to integrate
and collapse within the larger phase space which is complex
multilayered and contains a range – from basic survival (emanating
from genetics –structure and function) to higher cognitive (culture
and environment) as the baseline phases.
Self binds the inputs and all Ψ have to be resolved in its
reference. The anticipated input and solution have to be the best
fit in the Self.
Misfit pushes the action frame again and again with restricted
degrees of freedom as each attempt is bound to the previous. As
task is achieved the system bounces back to baseline though the
phase has been altered. The baseline itself in a different state and
is no more the same.
With each attempt, the weightage of decision emanation from
SELF decreases. If the feedback created completion the decision
weight is 1, incompleteness decreases it to 0 in few attempts, this
allows other weights like emotions –anger, frustration, sensation.
to fill the signal and achieve the status 1 (all areas are firing and
need expression)
The decohered state and nonlinear firing subsequently pushes
a frame dominated by emotions or anxiety.
This is most prominent in survival timescale of seconds to
hours. The abstract misfits are relegated to association areas for
conceptual thinking like Mathematics etc.
The Self, thus becomes an established pattern of firing in
neuronal assemblies creating a quasi-permanent phase space
against which all inputs are compared and probability of next
instance is calculated [possibly in a Bayesian process], learning
by error and prediction, perceived as reward and punishment , in
centres within brain.
The thought itself is a composite of motor-sensory, emotional
wave functions cohering and decohering in a larger space. Does
the self, constitute only me or others in me?
The self thus acts on world and often evokes expected
reactions, recursive cycles, behaviourally manifesting as similar
patterns throughout life. These patterns /phase spaces constitute
 Maya is Reality
164   
the sense of unity and security in a given brain and any change
induces threat, insecurity till it is reintegrated. The longer the
process, higher the anxiety. Habits die with difficulty and mind
training is tougher once the patterns of self are established.
The sense of agency, of the will of this self may not be a
primary vector rather the feedback from the environment to the
action (generated in the unconscious brain) creates the perception
of it being appropriate or not. Subsequent corrections in the same
phase space for the best fit creates the sense of right--- these
societal reactions have evolved in millions of years through the
same process and form the basis of morality. Without being in a
dynamical relations or feedback loops no sense of right or wrong
will emerge.
Even at a very concrete level the body signals create a
physical limit to the self and any breach in it takes time to be
integrated in the inner representation, sometimes creating somatic
hallucination. Phantom limb, the feeling of the amputated limb,
thus is phase space from within body (VS Ramachandran).
The multiple networks /assemblies are in constant flux and
inputs used to create meaningful dimensions, an example of this
mixing is synesthesia, input in one modality creates sensation
a different - “seeing the sound”. The creative synesthesia is
exhibited in phonetic training of children, the phonetic sound
creates an image of spelling and word.
 Embedded Self

Let us start from outside, the facial expressions corresponding to

emotions is a complex interplay of facial musculature, a finite set
creating multiple configurations mapped to different emotional
states perceived within.
The basic emotions are states arising from early networks
and the information is passed through genes that unfold them
throughout growth periods. These states exist from primates to us
and are phase spaces in the SELF, earliest emotional phases are
the basic survival frameworks. The grids of further frameworks
evolve and give rise to complex emotions like love, guilt, altruism,
jealousy–love and bonding exist as undifferentiated states while
growing up – but socially embedded emotions are a result of mirror
neuron activities. They not only pick up anticipation of movement
and precise motor predictions but also convey information and
emotional states of others (theory of mind!!!).
Further triggers are compared to the phase space called SELF
that continuously compares them to meaning and existence in world.
Take jealousy – a child early in life has a narcissistic view of
world and all input feed to it under constant fulfillment of desires.
Any discrepant input leads to unconstrained emotional outbursts
as the self-phase is not separate. As inhibitory networks develop
under the inputs from the social structures like education, religion,
--eventually what we call as conditioning. The basic ‘self ’ forms
by 20 years of age approximately.
The emotional states are more discrete and context related by
now. The input from mirror neurons is continually compared with
 Maya is Reality
166   
preexisting SELF and are used for decision making that is best fit
for survival, empathy thus is an adaptive best fit in the context (Is
it possible to train the mind for empathy ?-expanding the phase
space –is a good decision )
But self also has to keep making decision for being unique
and separate from rest of the world hence the sense of possessive
and completeness is essential. The misfit in this caused by any
wave function leads to jealousy and frustration.
Self -phase << >> phase space-others

External objects /// representation of a

(material/mental)   different self

Comparator mismatch  ===  threat to self

Incomplete representation of other is threat — action (mental/ physical) to
map the phase to other

Bifurcation — jealousy — negative emotions — recursion till the

  sense of completeness emerges
Anxiety /inspiration/emulation/mimicking –to feel completion
of phase from ‘other’ = competition /range of behavior--- If external
markers (knowledge vs. wealth /fame vs. money) change, the Self
feels threatened and the cycle of negative emotions sets in.
What happens to this phase space called self if the body
disintegrates in death, or functionally in trauma, anesthesia,
brain damage or drug induced, in life time? Hypothetically If the
assemblies are disjointed and diverge to move apart, like particle
moving away, will the self /mind feel the pain and emotional surge
just in the instance before evolving to non- self. The memories
and attachments felt by self should no more exist if the assemblies
do not get functionally activated unless structurally reassembled.
All that was dear in life just proves to be ephemeral.
Any theory with its minimal framework should be able to
explain multiple real-life phenomenon, even before being tested
 Embedded Self
     167
on Popperian falsifiability. Let us attempt to see whether this
model can map the dynamics to behavior.
The inhibitory networks are the main source of constraining
the inner generated phase-spaces, to keep the behavior in touch
with reality but these states are allowed in imagination, dreams,
and expression through creativity. These networks train under
social and contextual influences and that explains why growing
children have less constraints and more imagination because the
brain networks are still under training.
This inhibition also fails in many mental states that lead to
overt behavior that are termed as abnormal. Psychiatry in its
present form diagnoses on the basis of description of behavior and
its pattern, that have been established across cultures. The causes
are multifactorial but no definitive etiology has been established
except for few symptom clusters that arise out of underlying
physical illnesses and termed organic. It does not mean that
mental states and other illnesses are not physical, though they
were termed functional for a very long time. Functional meaning
having no physical substrate of illness. All the research inputs
have just been able to shift this belief in clinicians to a slightly
more respectable acceptance that brain is the basis yet the mind is
still unknown.
The normal and abnormal is decided on the basis of a
persistent, disruptive, deviant behavior and often compared with
the majority but the self, that is embedded in the context has a
physical basis. As Carl Jung said – “Whatever irritates you about
the other person is a window to your own mind” – is nothing but
the Self that has developed in context.
But What is real? The range of normalcy vis a vis abnormality
thus becomes a matter of predominant phase space and relative
weight of emotion, thoughts, action or any other input. These
mood states like sadness, happiness, rage can be transitory and
are usually overlapping and can be the best fit for survival but
a given phase space can be the prolonged attractor dimension
lasting for days to months. A new best fit has this phase space
and others feeding on to it, behaviorally it reflects as an altered
mood state in spite of external world remaining the same. The so-
 Maya is Reality
168   
called insight is the awareness: lack of insight is internal imagery
(phase) assuming full weightage, the labels arising out of societal
process. The phases arising internally are discrepant to self and
the disturbance is a mismatch in solution.
The reality thus is the phase space and solution seeking by self -
embedded in external reality, thus making detachment impossible.
The seeking of apt solution can create discomfort and pain in the
self-image and the attention mechanism seek a comfortable phase
space. That often works as safety valve without inducing real
sustained change. Very few reach an altered self-transformation.
The sense of detachment often suggested in spiritual practices is a
misnomer as SELF- space is an extension of larger phase mediated
through mirror neurons. Even the compassion and empathy cannot
be a one-way street. If one does not feel the emotional state of others
how can one really transmit and comfort. One can just choose to be
less reactive for all that spiritual and religious practices can teach.
Transcendental may be another name for it. Organized religion
provides an external framework for most people as minds seek to
categorize and classify, to avoid ambiguity and uncertainty. From
time to religion is all about choosing a position and alleviating the
fear by belonging to a system. The very few train their mind to be
equipoised and see the continuity and are the Buddha and Gandhi.
Another group drops out of the struggle and becomes what we call
mentally ill.
The paradox arises here –without really knowing the causes,
Psychiatry serendipitously, discovered treatment. In fact, lot of
neurotransmitter research followed after seeing the impact of
chemicals on brain. These drugs alter the levels of neurotransmitters
through receptor agonistic and antagonistic activity, altering the
EPSP and IPSP, through chemically gated channels, ultimately
restoring the firing patterns to original. Though a huge variability
is seen in response to medicines with individual factors acting
as modifying input from within. Exactly for the same reason
mentioned previously – the brain and behaviour are embedded in
context and external inputs.
The delusions and hallucinations in some one, with
Schizophrenia are coming from the information from his own
 Embedded Self
     169
head, the internal baseline phase space that rides over the external
reality.
The chosen frames that correspond with external objective
reality or the ones not chosen, the mismatch is the source of
psychosis. The Xinternal intruding and represented over Xexternal and
the cortex unable to either inhibit or integrate it creates a reality
that can exist parallel to external or override it.
The delusions or overvalued ideas follow X or simultaneously
arise within the 500ms in the first frame is ambiguous but subsequent
frames of reality are fed forward by these thoughts or emotions or
images modify them to fit in a continuous erroneous reality. Self,
in face of repeated inputs from the internal phase space integrates
it and the person starts behaving in a sort of two worlds. one in
reality- to survive but at risk to harm because of the make belief
world. The thoughts can range from overvalued ideas to delusion
and hallucination can be in unimodal, multimodal or cross modal.
Hypnopompic or hypnogogic hallucinations are considered
normal as internal imagery is temporarily expressed and anyways
the dream follows in sleep. So are illusions a normal interference
in perception. The concept of normal perception and thought
than becomes a dimensional issue and the electrophysiological
parameters should exhibit a common pathway and process though
the content is determined by erroneous need and interpretation.
The internally generated phases attain a value of near 1 and
the external input driven near zero thus projecting the inner state.
Indeed, continuous hallucinatory state or delirium disorients the
person, because the self relies on the wave function from within
and the time-space is distorted. These firing patterns are restored
with treatment as dopamine levels are corrected or the brain itself
evolves to another state with psychotic symptoms integrated.
This phase space of self is the uniqueness of the person as
each one has reached through a nonlinear process.
Emotional states are the wave functions that gain a significant
weightage and represent the behavior overriding the inhibitory
control as the best survival behavior. But beyond a certain time
period they tend to alter the behaviour, being labeled as illness or
mood disorder.
 Maya is Reality
170   
Similarly, anxiety or panic is felt as all unnecessary sensations
creeping in conscious mind. Thousand sensations have definite
weightage and if all represent together the nonlinear trajectory can
be uncontrolled. The inhibitory processes keep them suppressed
but a misrepresented cue or a misfit wave function can trigger
all of them to surface, in a hunt for best survival strategy. This is
perceived as fear –the basis of anxiety.
The tools for investigating brain thus remain an indirect
measurement of brain activity at a larger ensemble level – EEG,
fMRI, PET , MEG are all classical tools but their timescales are
far removed from the basic quantum/ nonlinear processes.
The treatment strategies subsequently are based on medicines
that alter the levels of neurotransmitters or electroconvulsive
therapy that transitorily alters and syncs the brain activity through
current input (probably resetting the phase space but exact
mechanism is not known). Repetitive trans-cranial magnetic
stimulation is new technique that uses magnetic field for deep brain
stimulation by altering the brain firing patterns. Both ECT and
RTMS are more effective in mood disorders especially depression
probably because the mood state is a larger phase space and if
its weightage overrides the other components, the correction by
electric /magnetic manipulation restores the relative balance.
The exceptions often prove the rule and peculiar phenomenon
in brain may be the window to what is normally hidden from
awareness. Sleep paralysis is a rare disorder where person is
unable to move after waking up and in full alertness for few
seconds, a small touch restores normalcy. Often it is accompanied
by anxiety provoking hallucination of someone present in the
room. Its pathophysiology may offer some insight into brain
dynamics. Though not clearly understood but it is considered to
be a parasomnia arising from an overlap of Rapid Eye movement
(REM) phase sleep and waking. The paralysis of the muscles in
REM phase is a protective phenomenon to avoid acting out on
dreams, after arousal the brain enters awake stage while the muscle
paralysis continues. But the exogenous stimuli are perceived
so it is easy to arouse from sleep paralysis –just a touch would
do (sensory inputs are blocked and it requires higher intensity
 Embedded Self
     171
to arouse in REM phases, probably to facilitate information
processing from within).
These overlaps are possibly due to time lag of cholinergic-
serotonin pathways that fragment the motor and cortical
components of REM. But more interesting are the associated
phenomenon- hallucinations.
Commonest is feeling of an intruder in the room (the incubus),
and vestibular motor sensations. This possibly arises from a
disturbance in the multisensory processing of body and self at
the temporoparietal junction(TPJ) During sleep paralysis there
is a desynchrony between motor-execution and feedback from
limbs (proprioception) which results in massive deafferentation
(conflicting efferent and afferent neural conduction).
The Parietal lobes are likely to play a pivotal role in this
body image distortion during sleep paralysis. Especially the
right superior parietal lobe (SPL) is involved in the construction
of a neural representation of the body. According to this theory,
the perceived intruder is the result of a hallucinated projection of
the genetically ‘‘hard-wired’’ body image (homunculus), in the
right parietal region. This hypothesis is broadly consistent with
the laboratory finding that causing a functional disturbance in the
Temporal -Parietal Junction through electric stimulation can induce
an illusory shadow-like person mimicking one’s body postures.
The intruder and incubus hallucinations highly correlate with
one another, and moderately correlate with the third hallucination,
vestibular-motor disorientation, also known as out-of-body
experiences, which differ from the other two in not involving the
threat-activated vigilance system.
A functional disturbance of mirror neuron circuits can
also interfere with the feeling of being anchored in one’s body.
According to this theory, sleep paralysis leads to disinhibition
of the mirror neuron system, paving the way for hallucinations
of human-like shadowy beings. The de-afferentation of sensory
information during sleep paralysis is proposed as the mechanism
for such mirror neuron disinhibition.
Amygdala and its intensive connection get triggered too and
the hallucinations along with body paralysis is considered to be
 Maya is Reality
172   
threatening, that triggers a  hyper-vigilant state in the midbrain.
The threat-activated vigilance system is a protective mechanism
that differentiates between dangerous situations and determines
whether the fear response is appropriate.
The possible presence of a robust phase space called self
in deep parietal/temporal and insular assemblies is the self-
representation against which all other phases are compared and
evaluated on decision or threat, as we have said. This phase
space extends and is embedded in the external phase space and
integrated through mirror neurons (? Insula). These phase space
has extensive connection to the areas evaluating emotions and
also the binding of sensory inputs, even those of movement and
balance. Continuous inputs keep this phase space representing
SELF intact even in REM phase where external sensory inputs
are minimized, the internal bodily orientation is preserved through
vestibular nuclei and the emotional states of the dreams are being
evaluated on threat etc. The inputs by mirror neurons helps this
phase space to be distinct yet related to outside and the other.
Normally as the sleep phases transit, the physiological changes
phase-sync with it. But due to the misbalance of neurotransmitters,
a phase lag may precipitate in the wave function or a fragmentation
may de link the cortical activity with bodily functions. The
phases thus generated are discrepant and the SELF perceives a
weird signal – heavily weighted with inner brain generated wave
functions but an almost zero weighted motor signal. The absence
of the motor is an almost a physical break, it is immediately
perceived as threat, triggering vigilant reaction. The phase space
of Self has to reconstruct the image –representation to respond to
threat perception. The lack of clear input from its own body, an
image is made from the internal inputs of mirror neurons and its
own phase space- the emotional weightage and the image together
create hallucination of presence.
 What is all
this worth for?

I gave a video course on Neuroscience -“How the brain creates

mind” - the current understanding of brain dynamics. One of the
students posed the most important question on the forum –what do
I do after knowing the brain and mind/?
This question pushed me to offer another level of course –
Cognition, transformation and lives- how to use the knowledge
and thought to transform – few models of personal change like
Buddha and Gandhi point us the way. The course may have satisfied
few but the question still plagues me – “whether understanding
the brain really helps the mind?” Even if we find the equation of
transformations in the brain, will the misery of life reduce?
Consider the Universal sensation of pain-
Pain is felt in the organs of injury or lesion but it is actually
the brain state. In a sort of reverse projection once the signals
from the pain receptor reach brain, a phase space is created in the
represented area in parietal lobe and thalamus. Though telling it
to the patient does not relieve but brain in evolution has evolved
other smart techniques. The phase spaces trigger emotional centres
that are superimposed with pain, instantaneous weightage of the
other phase space increases, reducing the expression of pain. The
alternative phase spaces serve as distraction but it means that all
the labels of positive and negative states of mind are just labels for
description but actually redundant.
Similar emotional states can change through superimposed
phase spaces in, an out of awareness processing. Probably this
 Maya is Reality
174   
is where science meets spirituality- Buddha and Krishna have
emphasized this at a conscious level, whether to achieve GOD or
salvation.
Mind needs to be focused, refocused, reoriented -neuroplasticity
can modulate the structure but phase spaces may be linked to the
reward punishment systems. Whether treatment strategies should
involve phase space alterations through pacemakers, drugs or
training of mind?
This brings back the question that I put at the beginning –do
people change? Some may believe that ‘the more it changes the
more it remains the same’. Indeed, macroscopic history indicates
that the external circumstances change but basic human behavior
grossly remains the same. Beset with insecurity, fear, violence
in a precarious balance with positive emotions human beings
do try to adapt to the changing reality, out of the need for best
survival. Continual interaction with people, natural or socio-
political changes propel this process, for good or bad, making
even morality a relative issue.
Brain just does it for us. It gathers more information than
required, sometimes to the point of overload, because it wants to
be prepared to handle any surprise, to be in control and reduce the
threat to survival. The signals to be used are embedded in noise, yet
it does remarkably well in filtering. The world of survival moves
in a time arrow of past to future but brain manages information
in a two- way process. Cues from past and present are used to
anticipate and predict the next moment and behavior altered in
tandem, of course the process does get aberrant.
So, change at deep level is permanent within a finite frame, but
the variation it creates in human spectrum of behavior is complex
and amazing. Each has a unique meaning making capability. This
interface of meaning making and its components of emotion,
cognition and conation is the real fleeting cloud.
Buddha realized it when he said ‘Sabbam aniccam’ and
‘Sabbam anittam’ - all is uncertain and transitory, the fleeting
reality and the Vedanta mentioned is as Maya (illusion).
The world is a creation of Maya probably means that this
interface between mind and external world, the meaning that the
mind makes of the world, is Maya…we live in it.
 What is all this worth for?
     175
Maya is Real!!!!!
At least Nick Bostrom, the AI philosopher believes it that we
are living in a simulation, exactly the same way we are creating
life for machine. The Innovator Elon Musk emphasizes that once
the virtual reality expands, it will become indistinguishable from
reality. Whether we have always lived in a virtual reality created by
someone else (even God!) is a belief in Indian religious systems…
it does absolve of anxiety.
In 2017 -18, are we at the cusp of another evolutionary leap, as
the human brain would have pushed to create neo cortex, millions
of years back-to think, to abstract, for insight -this time to make
it Universal, like a huge cloud from one skull to another. Nothing
private about it. As AGI should be able to do all that a Human brain
does, what will remain individual and personal, is the simplest act
of locomotion, perception and sustaining the body (though these
are the most complex process-millions of data inputs are processed
in minimal time to perceive and act for safety). The thinking ability
will always be in a connected loop with knowledge nodes through
gadgetry (internet still does but we have a will to shut it off).
But if we listen to Ray Kurzweil, our brains will have a hybrid
mind in a not so far future. He points at law of accelerating returns
– the fast pace of technological development and anticipates a
state where Nano-bots will be embedded and integrated in neural
networks within brain. A trigger to thought or problem- solving
need will have these bots gathering information from the huge cloud
of database, language resources and algorithms already stored, and
create a solution. What the brain was doing through mirror neurons,
learning by observing other human beings, experiencing and
memorizing, will be done by these networks in the digitized cloud.
The ultimate desire to be immortal may come true if all that
the human mind holds is turned to information bits and stored in
a silicon chip, in a gadget that can respond to photons and sound
waves – who needs a body than?
Getting weird! – enjoy reading till the bots do it for you…
 Epilogue – The Crux

The average life of most people is about travelling amidst the

contradictions posed in the world, that condition the mind as
well as keep challenging life. Vacillating between choices people
have a sense of movement ,often choosing one over other but the
opposite never disappears and sometimes surprises the agent by
its existence.
The dialectical tension is resolved by anxiety filled survival
but few minds drop out of this stress possibly leading to illness.
Very few rise above this to view these contradictions with an
equipoised eye - Sambhaav – as said in Indian thought. While
becoming a Stithapragya is a matter of higher intellect and
intuition, dropping out is more impulsive.
Why is it difficult to achieve this mental state and even more
to stay there? It requires total objectivity, an ability to be in the
exact now in the event horizon. But the brain already laces the
frame of reality with emotions, memory based on fears, needs
etc. even before it reaches the conscious mind for judgement. The
present thus ends up entwined with past, biases that creep in or the
fear of future.
The mind needs to be aware of the unconscious pressure vis
a vis the reality, the ability to feedback to alter the next 500ms of
frame-something that requires being aware each second.
The emotions and their attachments split in that fraction
leaving pure objective view.
Is it a utopian desire or has some one really been there, in life?
The philosophies of various periods and places have dealt
 Epilogue – The Crux
     177
with this, by conceptualizing these opposites e.g. good-bad, right –
wrong, truth-falsity etc.
These provided a framework and guideline to people, a
direction to achieve and balance life or at least feel the balance,
reaching an asymptote of being at a higher level, of equipoise.
The modern Western Philosophy originating in Greece had a
linear approach and through examination and questioning made it
into concepts that had to be effortfully lived and trained into. The
Eastern philosophies differed in their experientiality.
Though Indian thought from ancient ages provided code of
conduct in Vedas and tried to answer questions about life through
abstract questioning in Upanishads but the philosophical issues
are largely imbibed and expressed in epics like Ramayana and
Mahabharata. These epics are available to all and the narratives
have remained the mainstay of surviving through the struggle of
life. All the contradictions do not exist outside of life and some
state to be achieved but to be lived through and evolve.
The concepts in Indian life thus do not hold that much
importance as is to strike a perfect balance, a point of perfect
order arising out of disorder and chaos. A trajectory leading to an
attractor dimension metaphorically.
The mind does have a glimpse of it but remains at a periphery, it
may even pass through this point but doesn’t stay. Some do achieve
a state of mind ,of perfect order but this requires almost severing
the connection to the routine world of experience and contradiction.
The point of crossing into this threshold itself may be a high
energy breakthrough, almost like into vacuum and emerging into
some new undefined dimension.
A God may be just this, one who can sustain this symmetry
-no ethics, no philosophy but exact momentary living that is
connected to all the future moments.
Krishna, Shiva, may be real or not but they epitomize this.
Gandhi, Buddha, Ramakrishna reached near it. As did Einstein
and few others.
Most just retract before breaking through because mind
experiences insecurity and anxiety of vacuum and the fear of
losing and just dissipate the energy. These cycles keep going.
 Maya is Reality
178   
Probably this is what Buddha called Nirvana and detachment.
One continues to live in the same world but on a plane, a state
of attached detachment with a different perceptual and cognitive
process. Sometimes ideas are followed, mostly not and friction
may ensue but the new plane of existence does not alter.
Something in brain changes and external influences do
not matter much, it surely is an existence beyond attachments,
insecurities and fear.
Is it achievable for all or is it required for all? The need to
know reality pushes everyone.
But is there any objective reality beyond the awareness,
perception and projection of mind/brain especially when it comes
to spiritual issues.
The different altered mental states carry with them new
awareness from inside the brain, from the complex frames
that arise from deep ensemble of neurons in a collective firing,
involuntary or willfully.
One chooses to meditate and the attentional mechanisms filter
and restrict inputs, the brain keeps including internal inputs and
thus the varied sensations and perceptions in meditation. The
cosmic connection that spiritualists seek is their own mind and
whatever has gone into it from the external world. The travel to
Universe is the image of Universe in their own neuronal networks.
No One is sitting out there.
The most important factor is will or intent to do it, involuntarily
Cannabis and LSD can also induce these mental state.
There is no Universal state and each mind has it’s own upper
limit to cross. The limit is the number of inputs, both from external
senses and the internal thought processes, imagery etc., that have
to be filtered by attentional mechanism.
It is about focusing to avoid energy dissipation and when the
bottle- neck called attention comes to singularity, the mind feels
another dimension as if emerging after vacuum oscillation.
The vacuum is thoughtlessness … the word ‘detachment’
probably has been coined to just explain this phenomenon, even
if for a fraction one does not realize the emotions, insecurities,
sensations etc. but to remain is difficult.
 Epilogue – The Crux
     179
The mind training is all about reaching that threshold as
the thoughts laced with emotions etc. is being generated. Is it
humanely possible?
Possible because of two reasons
The brain networks have developed in context and the output
appears as conditioning (difficulty in freeing from conditioning is
a common complaint !!!) and they fire in response to contextual
triggers, even if they fire all the time and keep creating decohered
states (for survival)
Secondly thoughts themselves may be discrete but because of
continuous generation, they are in a superimposed state (remember
thoughts may actually not just be words as we know, they have
weighted emotions, images, sensations in it else all words would
just be flat and ineffective)
Between these superimposed states, just being in the
fractionated second of thoughtless is a matter of precision. The
mental state of thoughtlessness, so desired by people is seen in a
flash but to be in it, is illusory.
The best people achieve is sitting in quiet, reducing the external
inputs, focusing and then after many attempts what one feels is a
simpler frame of reality from inside, may be less complex –that
itself is a semblance of thoughtless (watch the prerequisites for
meditation, tapasya etc. --- all to reduce external inputs. We know
now why Himalaya was a preferred destination?)
But the real test would be while in the cacophony of world
and being in the exact point.
Is it possible?
If it is not, all that people know and believe is a matter of faith,
theory and solace.
This is where education steps in.
Education is to train minds to be in a framework of society but
even before societal rules were formed knowledge was imparted,
it was skill set for survival. Once food and physical survival was
ensured, creativity, art and technology were explored.
But the process was one of training the neural networks,
from simple survival to complex inventions. A range of normal
behavior was accepted in society that arose from evolution of
 Maya is Reality
180   
brain itself reciprocally affected by societal rules, teachings,
cultural modifications- the aberrations always existed.
These evolving templates were passed in genetic blueprints
along with mutating genes. The micro alterations lead to
breakaways from prescribed behavior be it mental illness, crime
or normally accepted eccentricities.
The so-called conditioning, triggers thoughts in each being, a
life -long process, but thoughts themselves are an assimilation of
words, images, perceptions -all that goes in to the brain, expressed
or unexpressed. It is the meaning that is given to these building
blocks. Shared meaning is what makes word powerful else they
are just electrical perturbations.
But what is it for?
The natural instinct for survival expressed in hunter tendency,
seeking physical comfort, wealth, power, knowledge – contraptions
of the mind to override the deep sense of insecurity and fear of
extinction. Animals have it , human give a rationale to it and trap
themselves in a never ending cycle of illusions. The mind keeps
pushing itself beyond the threshold in each sentient being.
The attachment or the known does not allow it easily, the brain
does not want to suffer the anxiety of unknown – the immediate
moment thus is sacrificed for the past memories that mingle
with the instance to determine future that itself is predictable.
This process in the brain creates hierarchies of the illusion itself
expressed in the power play in society. Notional power is invested
in people who are high up in an imaginary scale of material
success. Else Who is great? -all are doing their job.
The impact of one’s work may vary. But does a large scale
impact change anything-at best temporarily, the mind returns
to the basic framework and new scale is invented. It seems a
sustained change is an entirely individual process that requires
sustained tweaking with the brain networks and remodeling them.
The tower of Babel may have windows but the staircase is
hidden.
Rarely an individual who is at the threshold of crossing his
own limit meets an external stimulus that can be a person, a piece
of art, music, writing that just brings the epiphany.
 Epilogue – The Crux
     181
The truth that tears through the veil of conditioned networks
and the cloud of reality at brain-world interface. The next instance
is most difficult to live in
Being there yet unaffected—only then objectivity appears,
else it is about moving from one comfort zone to another.
Without this all is same, no one is greater than the other. It’s
a matter of differential attachments.

Should people strive for it?

Yes, if gives them relief mentally.
What should they strive for?
For a state where one exists without a feeling of being trapped
zz Of not being insecure
zz Of being minimally disturbed to small threats to existence
zz Of balancing emotions to external reality
zz Of being aware of ephemeral momentary existence
zz Of an entangled existence with the world
zz Of a sense of flow
All are spiritual in this sense and all are striving.
The trick is not looking up to divinity but delving into your
own brain to retrain it
It is not a flight up….it is a dive deep.
 Further Reading

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