Seriality, science and fiction

In 2000 I wrote a book called "Physics of the Mind" which I published as a free ebook.  I was interested in a very simple question:  How can the brain of an organism distinguish what has happened before from what has happened after? When two events have happened, they are both placed in the past, the one that has happened before and the one that has happened after. But one has happened “before” the other. I suppose that it is extremely important for an organism to remember not only the two events, but the exact sequence too. I could recall that in the Pavlov’s typical conditioning it is fundamental that the conditioned stimulus is administered before and the unconditioned stimulus after. Furthermore, without this clear-cut sequence it is not possible to establish a relationship of cause and effect. The cause and effect principle is fundamental for the human logic, and it is interesting to notice how it has the same restraint as the Pavlov’s conditioning: nobody would think that a cause happens after his effect. The whole book was an attempt to give a reasonable response to the problem of the before and of the after.

I have reached the core of the theoretical conflict that I think I can see: on one side the brain’s inclination to serialising the events, on the other side the “parallel” explanation at a cellular level. Obviously to overcome this conflict, maybe apparent, many theories can be thought up and coming data can clear the question up.

The description of the dog’s behaviour during the experiment of the Pavlov’s reflex (building a time-oriented system) represents a good starting point to understand how the CNS works, if we will do some simplifications

In the classical Pavlov’s experiments, from the biological point of view the dog does never react to the conditioned stimulus, the sound, but to the food, in fact it  salivates. The Pavlov’s reflex is an anticipation mechanism through which the dog can foreshadow the future and anticipate his moves. Its CNS is not only a mirror of the world, but a “crystal ball” where he can reasonably foresee the future according to its experience. The dog succeeds, in spite of the appearances, in having the response before the stimulus.

Is it possible to assume the existence of temporal valves in the brain tissue? I have tried to think them up. What is more I agree with Hebb on the idea that the time relation must turn out in a space relation, as something (electric excitement) that moves from a direction (seat of the conditioned reflex) to another (seat of the unconditioned reflex).

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A few years ago I decided to write “Sogni” a science fiction novel about dreams.  Sogni tells of a Swiss clinic of the Morpheus S.A. where psychiatric patients are treated by entering their dreams and removing pathological elements.

When I started writing the novel the first thing I did was obviously reread Sigmund Freud's "The Interpretation of Dreams", a text I had read as a student over 40 years ago.

I found in the book a reference to Rider Haggard, one of the most popular novelists of the early 1900s, to be clear an author of cultured but popular novels; we could call him the Dan Brown of the early 1900s, due to the enormous success of his works.

Writing my novel I thought of a scene from the Matrix movie. Morpheus, one of the main characters, says:

"Matrix is a virtual world elaborated on the computer to keep us under control in order to convert the human being into this."

And it shows a battery. Simple, very clear, effective.

In the scene that follows from the novel “Sogni” (Dreams), the medical director of the Morpheus group explains my ideas during a seminar. I present my scientific hypotheses in fictional form.

 But today my task is to show you the theory of time valves, the intuition that made the shared dream possible.

You all know that a vision of the brain based exclusively on neurons has definitively waned and has been replaced by the glia-neuron complex and by the interaction of large masses of cells. How do the billions of brain cells coordinate with each other? Through brain waves and temporal valves. What is a time valve? Simply this.

Pablo puts his hand in his pocket and takes two 8x2 lego bricks, one white and one red. He shows them on the palm of his hand, then fits them together.

- Lego has a fundamental mechanism that allows the bricks to fit together and which is based on the distinction between above and below. Everyone has played with Lego as a child and knows how the pieces fit together.

Pablo separates the bricks, shows the two faces, then brings them back together in various ways but there is only one that can fit them together. When he put them back on again he puts them on the table.

- Lego is based on the distinction between above and below, the functional organization of the brain is based on the distinction between before and after. It seems very little, but it is the basis of everything. The theory of temporal valves is extremely simple and refers to a classic of psychology, Pavlov's conditioned reflexes. Biological logic is based on the ability to remember exactly the right succession of external stimuli to identify a sequence that allows us to predict the future. The theory of temporal valves says that brain structures must exist that have this function. The brain is a machine for predicting the future and intelligence is nothing more than a measure of the efficiency with which this task is performed. Dream therapy changes the brain connections that bind memories together.

[...]

- Are temporal valves cellular structures or a function?
- This is not yet clear on an experimental level. The theory of temporal valves is a complex theory that also has other implications, for example it clarifies that the nervous system integrates computation and memory into a single system. If you want to understand the brain, forget about computers. In the biological brain there is no hard disk and microprocessor. The theory of temporal valves translates the logical principle of cause and effect into biological terms. According to this theory we do not memorize external objects but only the sequence of sensations induced by these objects. Dreams bring order to our memories to let us have all the information necessary to live our next day. Dreams serve to predict the future.
- Are there other neurotherapy methods? Is sensory stimulation with visual archetypes the only way forward?
- No. Our branch in St. Petersburg is experimenting with a dream technique through literary archetypes. Science has always drawn heavily from literature: The Interpretation of Dreams and Jung's writings were influenced by She, a novel by Haggard on immortality.

 

Rider Haggard

I believe that literature has played an important role in the development of psychiatric and neurological theories. If Freud chooses to quote a dream in which Haggard's novels appear, he does not do so by chance, I believe instead that it is a recognition of the capacity for psychological analysis of literature.

The protagonist of you, Ayesha, has been the subject of study by Carl Gustav Jung, who has given his interpretation.

Carl Gustav Jung - Sigmund Freud 

In the novel “Sogni”(Dreams), I presented my ideas more effectively than when I used scientific language. There is no doubt that presenting a scientific hypothesis within a literary work may seem an extravagance, but today about 2,500,000 scientific articles are published every year, of which about 600,000 are biomedical topics. At a conservative estimate, there are 100,000 articles in Neuroscience per year. Some scientific journals - certainly not the most serious - have accepted the publication of scientific texts written by software, without any relationship with real research and processing. The classic partition between abstract, discussion, conclusions and bibliography has become a grid on which any algorithm can write an article, as another algorithm can compose music.

The problem is no longer publishing, the problem is being read. For this reason, perhaps it is time that emphasis is also placed on the literary qualities of a scientific text and its ability to effectively communicate ideas and perspectives.

 Marco Bonafede

 (Literary copyright reserved)