During my work at a neuroscience lab in Switzerland, it quickly became apparent that neuroscientists understand a lot about neurons, neural circuits, and neurotransmitters but they’re utterly clueless about the mind. By “mind,” I don’t just mean thinking; I mean the entire phenomenological psyche—perception, cognition, imagination, intuition, thinking, feeling, judgement, language, memory, and awareness itself. The ability to be aware of the contents of your mind is a domain that neuroscience knows nothing about.
We can’t find awareness in the brain and have no idea where it comes from. We also can’t identify the location and mechanisms of functions like understanding, decision-making, creativity, insight, and the most important one—agency or control, meaning the ability to direct your awareness. One of the great questions in neuroscience is how we’re able to intentionally focus on whatever we want. The “I” that does this is an intangible, non-material phenomenon that has no relation to neuronal functioning. Who or what is this invisible force that directs our lives? It’s the mystery of all mysteries!
It’s more difficult to select your focus if you’re in extreme physical, mental, or emotional pain but even then you can often place your awareness where you choose. Where awareness goes, experience flows. Unfortunately, we barely utilize this gift. We go through our days letting our awareness direct us instead of the other way around. It’s essential to know that you have the power to direct your focus and use it to process and create your life. You aren’t a hapless victim of brain chemistry. To fully comprehend this, it’s important to understand how the brain works.
If I say, “Wriggle your toes,” you can just tell your toes to wriggle and they do it. How does this happen? We can map the neural signals but we know nothing about how your mind tells your toes what to do. Now, let’s say we attach electrodes to the part of your brain that controls toe wriggling. I can stimulate the electrode, and presto, your toes will wriggle on their own.
If I stimulate the electrode to make your toes wriggle, you say, “My toes wriggled.” However, if I say, “Wriggle your toes,” and you do it intentionally, you say, “I wriggled my toes”—two completely different processes. In the former, electrode stimulation of the nerves was the agent of the action; in the latter, the mysterious force called “I” was the agent.
In the 1950s, Canadian nerurosurgeon, Wilder Penfield, a specialist in epilepsy demonstrated this. Sometimes brain surgery is done while patients are awake so doctors can communicate with them during the procedure. Penfield discovered that when he stimulated various parts of his patients’ brains he could induce a variety of intense experiences.
Stimulate one part of the brain and they’d cry, another part and they’d hallucinate visions, another area and they’d hear sounds or experience long lost memories. The patients described these experiences as vivid and detailed but said they were also acutely aware of being in the operating room having their brains stimulated by electrodes. They had two simultaneous experiences at once, for example, feeling sad while also feeling normal and observing the whole process as it happened. They were totally conscious of the incongruity of the two perceptions, and after the operations they remembered their experience of dual consciousness.
What does this tell us? Wilder could stimulate various types of responses—sensations, movements of limbs, memories, emotions, and so on—but he couldn’t stimulate self-awareness and agency. Patients still knew whether their perceptions were endogenously or exogenously produced. For example, they knew whether a movement was done by them or to them. Awareness and free will were beyond evocation by brain stimulation. This means that the part of you that’s self-aware and decides what to focus on is independent of your brain.
Here’s a simple analogy: Imagine turning on the radio to listen to some music. The radio picks up the transmission from a station 30 miles away and plays the songs loud and clear. Then you turn off the radio and the music stops. The radio is a receiver, filter, and information processor; it doesn’t create or transmit the music. The source of the music is the radio station which exists independently of the radio. Turning off your radio doesn’t affect the music being played at the station; it only stops it from playing on your radio. Your brain is a “radio,” not a “radio station.” It doesn’t create the contents of your psyche but rather filters and processes its information. Neuroscience’s mistaken idea that your brain causes your problems is the same as thinking the music coming out of your radio speakers was created in the radio. Psych meds tinker with the processor and filter but they don’t address the actual problem.
Penfield, began his career as a materialist, meaning that he thought the mind emerged from the brain but this completely changed his viewpoint. He became a passionate dualist, meaning he concluded that the mind and brain are two related but totally different things. Think about it: If ideas were stored in your neurons how could you ever have a new idea? You’d have to just keep recombining old ones. Do you think your brain decides which music it likes or what breakfast cereal you want to buy? Do you think your brain thinks? Your brain does none of these things; YOU do them. Your mind uses your brain to accomplish these things.
The notion that the mind is just a byproduct of the brain is a classic self-refuting proposition. It says the mind doesn’t exist as an independent entity, meaning thoughts aren’t real because they’re just byproducts of brain activity. But this means that this very proposition is mindless because the mind doesn’t exist and therefore propositions don’t exist. This renders the theory meaningless.
There’s also a theory that says the brain and the mind are the same thing, however, this is also is logical nonsense. The attributes of the mind—perception, reason, emotion, etc., can only be described using experiential language. There’s nothing concrete you can touch, see, or measure in the material world. This is the complete opposite of the physical brain which is described in terms of matter, extension in space, physical mass, and so on. Two things can’t be the same if they don’t share any of the same properties. Mental and physical states interact but they’re completely different phenomena. You’ll never find your experience of a breathtaking sunset or an insight into the spiritual meaning of life by examining a slice of your brain tissue. They have nothing to do with each other.
Why is all this important? Personal growth, change, and healing depend on your ability to use your awareness to process your perceptions. Your awareness functions separately from your brain. You aren’t a victim of brain molecules and chemicals. Your mind has the amazing capacity to co-create, choose, know, and transform itself. You’re not stuck in automatic behaviors like many of our animal brethren who live mostly at the level of the physical brain. You can direct your mind, train it, and most importantly, uncover and follow its deeper processes. If you don’t train your awareness but instead refer to your “brain” as the source of your problems, you miss out on your real growth and human potential.
To learn how to process and transform your life issues, listen to my podcast, The Dr. Zwig Show.
