Self Comes to Mind

Here the framework hypothesizes the equivalence of mental states to certain states of regional brain activity. The framework assumes that when certain ranges of intensity and frequency of neuron firing occur in small neuron circuits, when some of these circuits are synchronously activated, and when certain conditions of network connectivity are met, the result is a “mind with feelings.” In other words, as a result of the growing size and complexity of neural networks, there is a scaling up of “cognition” and “feeling,” from the microlevel to the macrolevel, across hierarchies. The model for this scaling up to mind with feeling can be found in the physiology of movement. The contraction of a single microscopic muscle cell is a negligible phenomenon, whereas the simultaneous contraction of large numbers of muscle cells can produce visible movement.
A Preview of Main Ideas
     
I
     
    Of the ideas advanced in the book, none is more central than the notion that the body is a foundation of the conscious mind. We know that the most stable aspects of body function are represented in the brain, in the form of maps, thereby contributing images to the mind. This is the basis of the hypothesis that the special kind of mental images of the body produced in body-mapping structures, constitutes the protoself , which foreshadows the self to be. Of note, the critical body-mapping and image-making structures are located below the level of the cerebral cortex, in a region known as the upper brain stem. This is an old part of the brain shared with many other species.
II
     
    Another central idea is based on the consistently overlooked fact that the brain’s protoself structures are not merely about the body. They are literally and inextricably attached to the body. Specifically, they are attached to the parts of the body that bombard the brain with their signals, at all times, only to be bombarded back by the brain and, by so doing, creating a resonant loop. This resonant loop is perpetual, broken only by brain disease or death. Body and brain bond . As a result of this arrangement, the protoself structures have a privileged and direct relationship to the body. The images they engender regarding the body are conceived in circumstances different from those of other brain images, say, visual or auditory. In light of these facts, the body is best conceived as the rock on which the protoself is built, while the protoself is the pivot around which the conscious mind turns.
III
     
    I hypothesize that the first and most elementary product of the protoself is primordial feelings , which occur spontaneously and continuously whenever one is awake. They provide a direct experience of one’s own living body, wordless, unadorned, and connected to nothing but sheer existence. These primordial feelings reflect the current state of the body along varied dimensions, for example, along the scale that ranges from pleasure to pain, and they originate at the level of the brain stem rather than the cerebral cortex. All feelings of emotion are complex musical variations on primordial feelings. 17
    In the functional arrangement outlined here, pain and pleasure are body events. The events are also mapped in a brain that at no instant is separated from its body. Thus primordial feelings are a special kind of image generated thanks to the obligate body-brain interaction, to the characteristics of the circuitry accomplishing the connection, and possibly to certain properties of neurons. It is not enough to say that feelings are felt because they map the body. I hypothesize that in addition to holding a unique relationship to the body, the brain-stem machinery responsible for making the kinds of images we call feelings is capable of richly mixing signals from the body and thus creating complex states with the special and novel properties of feeling rather than mere slavish maps of the body. The reason why nonfeeling images are also felt is that they are normally accompanied by feelings.
    The foregoing implies that the notion of a sharp border separating body and brain is problematic. It also suggests a potentially fruitful approach to the vexing problem of why and how normal mental states are invariably imbued with some form of feeling.
IV
     
    Brains begin building conscious minds not at the level of the cerebral cortex but rather at the level of the brain stem. Primordial feelings are not only the first images generated by the brain but also