Self Comes to Mind

the map in the course of her scientific wanderings, she would guess immediately what the map was supposed to stand for. We know this is not possible yet, although new imaging techniques are making good strides in that direction. In studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in humans, multivariate pattern analyses demonstrate the presence of specific patterns of brain activity for certain objects seen or heard by the subject. In a recent study from our group (Meyer et al., 2010, cited in Chapter 3 ), we were able to detect patterns in the auditory cortex that correspond to what the subjects heard in their “mind’s ear” (without any actual sound being heard). The results directly address the question posed by Dick Diver.
    The biological development of mapping and its direct consequence—images and minds—is an insufficiently heralded transition in evolution. Transition from what? you may well ask. Transition from a mode of neural representation that had little overt connection to the thing represented. Let me give you an example. First, imagine that an object hits an organism, and an ensemble of neurons fires in response. The object might be pointed or blunt, large or small, handheld or self-propelled, made of plastic or steel or flesh. All that matters is that it hits the organism on some part of its surface, whereupon a neuron ensemble responds to the hit by becoming active, without actually representing the properties of the object. Now imagine another ensemble of neurons that fires upon receiving a signal from the first ensemble and then makes the organism move from its stationary position. Neither ensemble actually represented where the organism was in the first place, or where it should come to a stop, and neither ensemble represented the object’s physical properties . What was needed was a detection of the hit, a command device, and the ability to move. That’s all. What seems to have been represented by these brain ensembles is not maps but rather dispositions , know-how formulas that code for something like this: if hit from one side, move in the opposite direction for X number of seconds, regardless of the object hitting you or of where you are.
    For a long, long time in evolution, brains operated on the basis of dispositions, and some of the organisms so equipped did perfectly fine in suitable environments. The dispositional network achieved a lot and got to be more and more complicated and wide-ranging in its achievement. But when the possibility of maps arose, organisms were able to go beyond formulaic responses and respond instead on the basis of the richer information now available in the maps. The quality of management improved accordingly. Responses became customized to objects and situations rather than being generic, and eventually the responses became more precise as well. Later, the dispositional, nonmapping networks would join forces with the networks that created maps, and as they did, organisms achieved an even greater management flexibility.
    The fascinating fact, then, is that the brain did not discard its true and tried device (dispositions) in favor of the new invention (maps and their images). Nature kept both systems in operation and with a vengeance: it brought them together and made them work in synergy. As a result of the combination, the brain simply got richer, and that is the kind of brain we humans receive at birth.
    Humans exhibit the most complicated example of that hybrid and synergic mode of operation, when we perceive the world, learn about it, recall what we have learned, and manipulate information creatively. We have inherited, from many prior species, abundant networks of dispositions that run our basic mechanisms of life management. They include the nuclei that control our endocrine system and the nuclei that serve the mechanisms of reward and punishment and the triggering and execution of the emotions. In a welcome novelty, these dispositional networks have been brought into contact with many systems of maps dedicated to imaging the world within and the world around. As a consequence, the basic mechanisms of life management influence the operation of the mapping regions in the cerebral cortex. But as I see it the novelty does not stop here, and the brains of mammals went one step further.
    When human brains decided to create prodigiously large files of recorded images but lacked space to store them, they borrowed the disposition strategy to solve