BEHAVIOR DESIRE AND CREATIVITY

What is a conduct?

A stone falls down the hill. In ancient times, this fact could lead to its being assigned

to the stone a desire to move, or a capacity for it as something immanent to the

stone. In Latin the expression vis, which can be translated as potency or virtue, makes

reference to that capacity, as today one can call vis comica the capacity of a

clown to make people laugh Aritoteles believed that the stone is directed towards the earth
because it is

it was his “natural place” from which he had been forced to leave. But in any case there

"something" inside the stone that makes it fall. After Newton to that something

we call mass.

Animism, which we suppose reigned in the thought of prehistoric antiquity,

it consists precisely in assigning a soul to all things. A soul that desires,

moves, that tends to... Religions transformed that primitive animism into a

Divine will, in laws dictated by God. It is true that humanity abandoned

that Renaissance way of thinking, but nevertheless it was not a change

easy, it had its martyrs and it had its comings and goings. Even now we have

in language, a fossil of that way of thinking, what is the semantic ambiguity

from the word law. A law may be prescriptive as in human legislation, or

descriptive as the so-called natural laws1, such as the law of gravitation

Prescriptive laws should have been created, because there are people who are

willing to transgress them and their transgression implies some kind of punishment, instead

no one would think that the law of gravitation can be transgressed and if that were the case it
would be

considered a miracle (the king of the planet in "the little prince" ordered

wisely to the sun that rises every morning, reconciling both senses of the
word law)

With complex systems, such as living beings, things change a lot, if we put

a seed in a sprouter, we observe that the stem tends to grow upwards and

the roots downwards, the botanist then speaks of tropisms: positive geotropism

in the root and negative in the stem, which does not clarify much more than animism the

plant behaviour. Until we can be able to demonstrate speeds of

differential reproduction in the cells of the different parts of the plant, which

generate the tropisms and in turn we can find the chemical substances involved in

the process, that is the way the scientist operates, and if he cannot explain further,

suspends judgment until someone can come up with an answer on a higher level

high. Among unicellular animals such as the Paramecium, its microscopic vision shows in

initially an apparently random movement, however biologists can

find well-defined patterns which they call tactisms, equivalent to the

plant tropisms, so they speak of chemotactism, phototactism, etc. The explanation

of tactisms is not as simple as that of tropisms, it is no longer simply

differential growth, here you have to find, for example: the average increase

of swimming time in the direction marked by an increasing gradient in the

nutrient concentration, and look for its cause in a higher level explanation, and

like this until momentarily suspending the judgmentIn more complex animals, the study of
behavior becomes more and more difficult,

Since here we have to deal with more complex behaviors, let's think about

a bird building a nest, or a spider building its web. the ethologists

describe these behaviors, which they call instinctive or innate, but once again they are

biologists who have to give a high-level explanation, but, in this case, the

stay of trial comes more prematurely. Progress is being made, such as

example the identification of pheromones in the organization of collective behavior

of social insects. But now we are faced with the challenge of understanding the

function of a mass of specialized cells that form organs, to which

generically we call Brains (In Lower animals they can be only ganglia

or clusters of nerve cells). The morphological description of brains has already

a long and honorable tradition from Ramón y Cajal to the electron microscope, without

However, their functional interpretation is still in its infancy.

Let us think, for example, of the cerebellum, a separate formation of the brain that, in the

human, has the size of a tangerine and without which we could not coordinate

complex movements such as the golf swing.

The anatomical architecture of this

organ shows an arrangement of nerve cells (neurons) and their connections

(synapse) admirably organized, crying out for a functional explanation,

as happens, for example, with the clouds that, although chaotic above, maintain their

base always at the same height, there has to be an explanation !!!!. This type of

Regularities have always been the engine of explanations, whether they are scientific or not.

Currently we can explain scientifically and at a high level the height of the bases

of the clouds, but with the cerebellum neurophysiologists tread carefully,

creating and testing models.

It is true that great progress has been made in the

localization of functions in the brain or in the temporary activation of the various

regions of it, but the mechanism at the cellular level remains elusive. In this

At the moment there are two main lines of research, one tries to mimic the

brain functioning through crude but perfectible simulations in

computer, an activity linked to the so-called "artificial intelligence" and the other,

consists of mapping the entire brain at the level of individual neurons and their
synapse, but I must remind the reader that the human brain has more neurons than

stars there are in our galaxy and that the number of connections between them is a pair

orders of magnitude larger. To get an idea of brain complexity

I recommend this video of Sebastian Seung

https://www.ted.com/talks/sebastian_seung#t-188653

As has happened many times in the past, gaps in explanations

scientific sciences have covered them, momentarily, the philosophers and, when these do not

encourage, it is irresponsible essayists and science fiction writers who

they take the post It is in this context that I am interested in considering the present

rehearsal.

The desire:

Let's consider two dogs, a male and a female in heat, the female is large

while the male is a cuzco that does not exceed 25 centimeters in height, I have

seen a similar case in the hospital yard, it's marvellous, the male circled and

turns without showing signs of fatigue or discomfort while the female was fully

willing to collaborate with the efforts of her suitor, after a while,

perhaps an hour or more, thanks to an unevenness, a kind of step that limited a

garden, they were finally able to match their genitalia. Is this activity a phenomenon

instinctive? Surely yes, it has an instinctive basis of genetic origin, the dog does not

he has to learn that he must ride a female in heat, the scent of the female in

Estro is a powerful stimulant that drives the behavior of the animal. But, it's in the

DNA instructions that it must find a gap to achieve intercourse? I dare

to ensure that no, DNA is a long molecule but it is not infinite, while they are

infinite situations that a dog can face to achieve bonding with a

femaleSo what's up? That has appeared again among the engines of the

behavior of the animal? The answer is: desire, this is something new, but for
that the desire leads to the solution of the problem must be complemented with a

old behavior going back to the paramecium this is the exploratory behavior. I will analyze

a little more closely these two phenomena to try to suggest that in them resides the

foundation of creativity.

The exploratory activity of the paramecium is as random as the movement of the

molecules of a fluid, the appearance of a tactism resembles the case that the molecules

Molecules were charged and subjected to an electric field. There is nothing

especially mysterious in this, but consider the more complex case of a

hen to which a wire fence separates her from her food, the hen remains stretching the

neck to see if it reaches the corn? Well no, I have seen them in my native house when we had

chicken coop, the animal passes its head repeatedly through the wire exploring a sector

about 30 cm on one side and the other and if you are lucky you find a step, but it does not extend
its exploration further even though the end of the fence is only a

a couple of meters, for a reason it has the fame it has.

This point is crucial for our speculation, the hen temporarily puts her

head of the immediate target, corn, to try elsewhere, this behavior suggests

that there is some device in the bird's brain that is hierarchically imposed on the

immediate impulse towards food, I am going to call this device a "generator of

random behaviors” or “the explorer”. Nor the dog to get attached to the

female follows a stereotyped behavior, but rather a random behavior that

it is the one that finally allows you to find the appropriate step.

But now let's look at the other term in the equation, desire. Desire is experienced

that is, it corresponds to a state of consciousness, here we are going to avoid getting into

shirt of eleven rods, the opinions of neurophysiologists and philosophers range from the

denial of consciousness up to panpsychism, and by the way I recommend the

TED talks by Dan Denett and David Chalmers on the subject, which can be found
find by following this link

https://www.ted.com/talks/david_chalmers_how_do_you_explain_consciousness?lan

guage=en

The Darwinian paradigm forces us to find a survival value for each trait.

of living beings, the existence of consciousness and desire does not escape this obligation

whatever the way in which they were arrived at. It's our bulky brain

the one that apparently allows the emergence of consciousness, and must have a strong

survival value to justify the use of 20% of the energy consumed by

In our body, one fifth of all the energy generated by our metabolism is

spend on the brain

Returning to our determined dogs, reproduction is the

most precious goal of evolution, almost the only one, and here it is evident that the effort of

both to achieve intercourse, is supported by desire, this has the advantage of

obstinately persist until the object of desire is obtained, and with

it the satisfaction, the reward, instead in the simple reflexes the lack of success

utility in the behavior induced by them does not influence the behavior at all

later.

There is a group of regions in the mammalian brain that are directly

related to emotional phenomena: fear, anger, desire, satisfaction and

reward, it is called the limbic system and it is made up of structures with names

rare as Hypothalamus amygdala, tegmentum, hippocampus, cingulum, cortex

supraorbital etc. Today we know that these structures are also involved in the

decision making, in the words of Wikipedia: The main functions

of the limbic system are the motivation for the preservation of the organism and the

species, the integration of genetic and environmental information through learning,

and the task of integrating our internal environment with the external one before making a
behavior .. Almost nothing ..

But let's get down to business, troubleshooting. Is this an activity that is done

more evident in mammals and reaches high effectiveness in primates and cetaceans,

although it can be extended to other orders, it seems that octopuses are quite

smart To continue with the analysis, we are going to use that rare form of empirical to

only one, which is introspection. We are faced with a problem, for example the

that a character from Isaac Asimov proposes to a robot ”if a chicken and a half, they put

an egg and a half in a day and a half, how many eggs will nine hens lay in nine

days? ”2 The first thing we notice, excuse me I notice, is a certain resistance to willing

to attempt the solution, a kind of laziness, which is strange because the effort is not

It will involve the movement of a single muscle. Once decided to face the problem

I begin to analyze the elements of the problem, to see 9 x 9 = 18, plus half a chicken,

plus half a day plus half eggs, etc.

All these are contents of consciousness,

but of course the solution is not yet a content of consciousness, as might

be?. It is not about consulting Wikipedia, it is not there (however it is in the book

of Asimov and I really still don't know how he got to that number) but if the problem

it is original it is not anywhere in the universe. The search for the solution is

active, we scrutinize our data, but there is no case. I await the solution like who

expects it to rain, the arrival of the same will occur if it occurs, after

a latency time of indeterminate duration, and if it is a problem that must be

resolved through the so-called lateral thinking, perhaps it will never arrive or that

appear, some time later when we have forgotten about the problem and have relaxed

our attention therein, I am going to quote a writing by Henri Poincaré.

"To invent is to choose among all the possible variations in a certain area, but the

word choose may not be entirely accurate. It makes one think of a buyer before whom
offer a large number of samples, and who examines them, one after the other, to make a

choice. Here [in mathematics] the samples would be so numerous that all of life would not be

enough to examine them. It is not so in reality. Sterile combinations are not even

present to the mind of the inventor. Never, in the field of his consciousness, do they appear

combinations that are totally useless, except for some that you reject but have, do not

However, some of the characteristics of useful combinations. Everything happens as if a

inventor were an examiner for the second grade who should only ask him

to candidates who have passed the previous exam.”

2 Isaac Asimov “I Robot”

3 To the reader interested in this type of problem, I recommend Martin Gardner “AHA, Paradoxes
that

make you think” 2007 EDITEC

Interesting right? Now I will try to establish a parallel with an activity

different psychic, the evocation of memories. They ask you: Who acted the

leading role in "The name of the rose"? Memory is not a content of

conscience you have to send for it and depending on your age this can be an arduous

process. Like solutions and inventions, the answer can come hours

then while you're cooking some fried eggs.

For something the old Plato said

that ideas (for example in mathematics) were remembered (anamnesis) from a

knowledge we had of them in a previous state of the soul, before the fall into

the prison of the body But it is only an analogy, the memories, although we cannot

recover them, we know that we know them, whereas inventions do not exist until

that we create them

The fragment from Poincaré that I quoted above leads us to a phenomenon that is today

commonplace in neuroscience, the autonomy of the brain, psychoanalysts

they used to, well excuse me they usually call it, the unconscious, but of course, they distinguish a

intermediate stratum which they call the subconscious, where the neuroses hide,

well, I don't believe in that, although it can be useful in therapy, I believe that everything that is

outside the conscious field is purely material autonomous brain activity and

point. But BEWARE I am not alone, Freud himself tried to give a neurological basis,

to his theories.

When we talk about our ME, we talk about the "self" and the brain that sustains it,

Well, in my opinion, they are one and the same thing, two sides of the same coin. The

The best analogy I can think of is the one established by Sassure between the sign and the

concept, between the arbitrary phoneme "tree" and the concept of the tree, as

we know through sensible experience, both are inextricably linked, they are two

faces of a coin without thickness. The brain is the only material object in which

appropriate animism.

Experiments have been developed that question free will, since they demonstrate

that there is an electrical activity in the brain, previous in up to 5 seconds!!! To

decision to perform a motor act. What is mysterious about it? Of course, if he

material substratum of consciousness is the brain, we should not be surprised by the

“delay”.

Many examples can be cited, my favorite is Federer's

returning the serve of a great server, Cilic or del Potro, in no way

can Federer consciously process all the variables involved

during the serve in tennis, will it be open or to the T or to the body? The ball leaves the

racket at 200 km per hour, however even if it is an ace, we will see the receiver

move in the right direction, not to mention when the return sends the ball to a

place that will cause an effort from the opponent and that will cause him to end up losing
the point, without a doubt Federer's brain has acted autonomously, on

taking into account the handicap of the nearly 200 milliseconds that

it takes the nerve impulse to get from the motor cortex to the limbs. Yes

Federer believes that he did it consciously, it seems to me that it is pure illusion. I know anyway

You deserve it, great Roger!!!.

Poincaré's introspective conclusions suggest that there is a cerebral instance

autonomous, and by that I mean material, not conscious, that develop the process

creative, and it is not the only case, I would like to mention that of Schubert. Schubert was myopic,

well, I slept with my glasses on, and I had paper and pencil on the night table to

to be able to write down the musical ideas that occurred during the dream before they occurred
to him forget, brain autonomy.

But if the creation is largely unconscious, what is the mechanism by which it

achieve?. The one who achieves it is the autonomous brain, but let's not forget that it is part

indissoluble from our self. I believe that desire and the explorer intervene in the process

the two great engines of novelty.

There is a desire that promotes creation, for me there is no doubt, I put for

witnesses to all artists, physicists, mathematicians, writers, poets, chess players,

comedians and so on. Everyone without exception suffers as they ponder on achieving the phrase,

musical, literary, or mathematical content that satisfies them, and some have compared their

achievement with an orgasm, often, as was the case with Poincaré, they discard ideas

good but do not fully satisfy them, the autonomous brain sends them and the

conscious portion of the brain evaluates them, dismisses them, or trembles with joy at the

revelation.

So far the merely phenomenological, but what happens in the intimacies of that

an organ as wonderful as it is unsightly If we discard Platonic idealism, or the

Spinoza's5 pantheistic theory that reality and we are only attributes of

God, and that is why reality is intelligible to us, we must, as methodological atheists

, reach the conclusion that the solution comes from chance and the

selection .

It is our old acquaintance, the explorer, in charge of generating variability, of

answers that surely are recombinations of previous ideas, certainly never

something can come out of nothing. The magnitude of the task may well be within

scope of the most complex structure in the universe The really amazing thing is

how the brain proceeds to select the most plausible answers. Which are

What parameters do you take into account in the selection process?

what follows is totally conjectural, I propose that perhaps it is guided by the parameters of novelty
and coherence with what is already accepted, it is a difficult balance between the new and the
tradition, the

novelty may not serve a utilitarian purpose, in fact this is almost never the case in art and in

basic sciences, however some propaganda clips are really creative, and

some inventions respond to practical needs

But I dare to postulate that

the primary purpose is enjoyment, the satisfaction of the desire to create. I wish that accompanies
the

human being since prehistory.

Is the above pure delusion or is there in the organism something similar to the process of

variability and selection? Well, there is, in the immune system, although we have

a large but limited repertoire of antibodies against the most common antigens

and stable, there are a myriad of antigens in the world with which you may never

we have come into contact with, some of them did not exist before and product of recent
mutations (let's think about the flu) once again the huge but

limited capacity of our DNA prevents us from having an antibody for each antigen

present and future.

Well, our immune system, from only 300 DNA sequences that are

recombined like who mixes the cards can generate more than 18,000,000,000

different forms of antibodies, each of these is exposed in only one of the

immune cells (B lymphocytes), when an antigen, bacterial, viral or poison,

matches its shape to unite with the cell carrying the antibody, it divides

frantically for cloning, their daughters carrying the same antibody allowing

attack the intruder.

Random generation of variation and selection, which on the other hand is one of the

mechanisms by which the multiple forms have been generated, which we admire in the

Nature, the only creator of novelties until the advent of culture.

Carlos A Campitelli Olavarría February 4, 2018