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Perspective  
Nature of Human Thought

Almost all of us, sometime or the other in our life, have gone through the experience of feeling that somebody is following or watching us. Whether it is a human being or an animal but it makes us turn our neck to see what it is and investigate. Similarly there have been innumerable instances where people and animals have sensed danger much before it strikes them. What is the nature of the signal that tells our mind that somebody is watching us or there is a lurking danger and how is that signal generated and sent from the pursuer's brain? In other words what is thought and how is it generated and transmitted?

Since time immemorial mankind has thought, discussed and written about the origin of
human thought. The religious writings are basically a discussion on it. The greatest treatise on it has been Patanjali’s Yoga Darshan, which to my mind is still one of the most definitive and scientific writings on the control of human thought. Patanjali’s book on Yoga Darshan is the oldest book on Yoga. It is believed that Patanjali wrote his book some time in 300 BC. In it Patanjali describes how through the practice of Yoga, thought can be controlled to produce concentration and how this concentrated thought can be used to gain physical and spiritual powers for a person's ultimate enlightenment.

The book consists of 195 sutras (Sutra is a Sanskrit word meaning precise maxim) and is divided into four sections. Each section consists of about 40-45 sutras. The first two sections give precise instructions on how to control thought through yogic practice. The third section tells how one gains mastery over natural forces through thought control. This section therefore deals with how a Yogi (person who practices Yoga) can acquire superhuman powers of omniscience, telepathy, clairvoyance, mind reading etc. The last section talks about how with yogic practice and superhuman powers a Yogi can remove the memories of past births and make his/her mind powerful enough to clear it of extraneous impressions so that she can be liberated from the cycle of birth and death.

Interestingly enough sage Patanjali does not say how the thought originates and what is the nature of its generation but gives details on how to control it for achieving mastery over natural forces. Recent developments in brain research make it possible to make an attempt to understand thought, mind and consciousness.

Generally human thought has been considered by philosophers, religious leaders etc. as nonmaterial in nature. However, a result (thought) produced by a physical brain has to be physical in nature and governed by physical laws. May be these laws are not fully understood presently and hence an attempt is being made to throw light on what these laws could be. Most of the concepts presented are heuristic and intuitive with very little mathematical formulation.

There are many studies conducted by scientists all over the world to find out how the brain works. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques, which are non-invasive in nature, are normally used in mapping the brain. Recently scientists have started using functional MRI (fMRI) for sharper images. Thus fMRI scans are taken of the brain under different stimuli which show up on the computer screen as maps of blood flow in the brain. Scientists then say that the place of maximum blood flow is the area where thought of a particular nature is generated. They also say that memory of that particular stimulus exists in that part of the brain. However, we are still not sure what the exact location of memory is and there are conflicting theories about whether fMRI really shows all the neuron activities for a particular thought. Besides fMRI may also interfere in the thought process since it produces magnetic field, which is tens of thousands of times stronger than the earth's magnetic field.

Nevertheless almost everybody agrees that a thought is produced when the brain neurons fire. How many neurons fire for a single thought nobody knows. We can however make a heuristic statement that firing of neurons produces a structure like a hologram which can be called a thought.

There are close to 100 billion neurons in the brain (the exact number is an unknown quantity). Neurons are special cells found in the nervous system of animals. Each neuron may have thousands of branches called dendrites or axons which connect it to other neurons and thus there could be a minimum of 10¹⁴ units (100 billion X 1000) taking part in the neural activity. Recent scientific evidence suggests that besides neurons another type of cells called glial cells also take part in communication. Glial cells outnumber neurons by nine to one and can modify the signals transmitted by each neuron. Thus the number of different combinations for memory production are
mind-boggling.

Most of the time a fraction of these neurons fire for “mundane” or every day thoughts such as; what is the color of a shirt, open the door etc. etc. However, for a very deep thought, in which a person may be concentrating on a single subject for a long time, it is quite possible that the whole brain is active and thus close to 100 billion neurons are firing to produce that single thought. The number of neurons firing may also decide how long the brain focuses on a single thought and its intensity. A deep thought in which a person contemplates and reflects on a particular object very intensely and almost goes into a trance-like state is called “Sanyam” in Patanjali Yoga Darshan.

According to Patanjali the whole basis of Yoga is to achieve Sanyam and its use on any object results in its complete knowledge. Interestingly sage Patanjali has devoted 25% of his book on how the deep thought can interact with matter and produce wonderful physical powers for the Yogi. To my mind he is the final word on the control of deep thought and its use to discover Universal Consciousness and hence it will be arrogant on my part to say anything more on it than what Patanjali has already written in his book. We will therefore focus on the structure of deep thought and its production and to point out at appropriate places how this structure and its attributes tally with what Patanjali has written.

In order to explain thought, which is a hologram or a geometric structure, we will take help of the concepts of energy-based dissipative structures, chaos theory and synchronization or emergence of spontaneous order. All these concepts show how order is produced from chaos, especially when a large number of variables interact with each other. This interaction produces a geometric structure from seemingly chaotic behavior of these variables.

Dissipative Structures

Dissipative structures are based on the theory developed in the early 1970s by Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine. These are energy-based structures and their shape and size depends on the quality and quantity of energy supplied to the system. For example, if water is heated in a utensil from below, then according to classical thermodynamics the heat energy will produce random motion of the water molecules and this process will continue till the “heat death” of water (total evaporation of water). In actuality, at a certain temperature and amount of energy input, convection sets in. These convection currents (also called Benard cells) form energy structures which are geometric in nature
and take the heat from below and dissipate it above to the surface of water. These structures are developed in systems which are far from equilibrium and hence very chaotic, and materialize suddenly when critical conditions are reached. One can extend this analogy and think of Christ, Buddha, Einstein etc. as such structures and that they appear when conditions in the world are favorable (i.e. “chaotic”). The far from equilibrium condition takes place only when huge amount of information gets embedded in the system. The dissipative structures are like crystallization of information.

The other concept from chaos theory is that of “attractor”. Chaos is a characteristic of
dynamic systems and has innumerable definitions. I will use the definition given by Edward N. Lorenz (the father of modern chaos theory). He refers to chaos as processes that appear to proceed according to chance and hence are random even though their behavior is in fact determined by precise laws. For example, in the convection of water heated from below, if we sit on a single molecule or a cluster of molecules of water and chart its course as it goes from bottom to top and then comes back down, then we will see the picture as shown in Fig. 1(a). The water molecule is hit by other energetic water molecules and thus its motion is zigzag and very random. If we superimpose this picture on that for the next cycle then it will be like Fig. 1(b). If we do this thousands and millions of times then we develop a structure (or a band) in which the water flows from bottom to top as seen in Fig. 1(c). These are the convection cells.

Thus the random motion of these molecules evolves into a structure, as though they are “attracted” to the band and the structure is called “attractor”. This is the dissipative structure that we have talked about before. With increase in heating, which results in temperature rise (and ultimately the water comes to a boil), this structure changes shape and hence the water goes up more vigorously and with greater speed. Thus the structure is geometric, energy-dependent and dissipative in nature (dissipates heat) and is a function of the quality and quantity of energy input to it. The seemingly chaotically moving water molecules now have a definite path (convection pattern) in which they move.

Both chaos theory and Prigogine’s dissipative structures have similar characteristics. They both show that in systems which are far from equilibrium and very chaotic, structures appear suddenly. These structures in the case of water are in four dimensions (three of space and one of time). However, for a very large number of variables (like a billion neurons firing in brain to produce thought), they could be in any number of dimensions greater than or equal to four. But the main thing to remember is that they are energy-driven and dissipative in nature.

– Continued

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