Building Bigger and Better Brains
~ An Excerpt from the New Book ~THE WAY THINGS ARE:
by John F. Brinster (a.k.a. "John F. Brain")
The Changing Perspective of Human Existence
INTRODUCTION
The following is an excerpt from the Pulitzer Prize- nominated book, The Way Things Are, by retired Princeton physicist, chemist, and neuroscientist John F. Brinster. At Princeton, he was a colleague of Einstein, Pauli, Feynman, Wheeler and Oppenheimer, working on instrumentation issues while they developed the A bomb and H bomb. Brinster also worked with Wernher von Braun at White Sands, New Mexico. He is considered the father of radio telemetry, which made possible remote-space communications with satellites, space vehicles, and lunar installations.
A relentless entrepreneur, Brinster built and sold several high-tech businesses before "retiring" in the 1980s to focus on education and the study of neuroscience. He helped staff Princeton's psychology department and procure equipment for mapping the human brain. One of the discoveries he is associated with is that learning is stored as tissue in the brain -- that memories are, in fact, matter.
More information about the book, The Way Things Are, and author John F. Brinster follows the excerpt. I hope you enjoy this provocative look at the potential future of neuroscience, and that you seek out the author's equally compelling theories on a variety of scientific discoveries as contained in his new book.
Building Bigger and Better Brains
by John F. Brinster (a.k.a. "John F. Brain")The recent confirmation of neurogenesis in humans -- namely, that new neurons are formed even at an advanced age -- is one of the most exciting discoveries of modern times. It may have a far-reaching effect, not only on future research, but also in the possible development of substantially improved mind function.
Up until recently, it was thought that once neurons died a natural death they were never replaced. It has now been confirmed that certain parts of the brain retain the ability to generate new neurons throughout adult life. Experiments with monkeys and rats have shown surprising activity in neurogenesis. Examination of human brains after death have confirmed this activity. It is significant that neurogenesis is found particularly in the hippocampus, where considerable learning is known to take place. The latest work suggests that neurogenesis may also take place in the neocortex, where much of memory is thought to be stored. Perhaps future research will make it possible to employ some form of neurogenesis technique to enlarge capacity or correct defects in various ways -- even in the adult brain.
Fresh new neurons appear to allow more rapid neural function. Neurogenesis might be further applied for rapid learning processes and, hopefully, for the faster use of memory. It has been determined that certain events appear to require brains to make new neurons and that other events prevent the process. In animals, stress, fear, and social subordination have been observed to negatively impact neuronal growth, while freedom and exercise stimulate it. Is this not an important reason for funding more extensive research in neuroscience?
~ No Ghosts in This Machine ~
Most humans will never know or understand the complex electrochemical mechanisms that take place within their own bodies. However, it is this reality of human function which is everywhere promoted in this book. Even more importantly, it is the only means by which Man can contemplate his relationship within himself and with his fellow Man, or, indeed, his relationship with the outside world. Although we must continue to leave it to science to provide a detailed interpretive relationship between this intricate biological function and its meaning in everyday familiar terms, everyone should be aware that such processes exist in every experience, in every thought, in every memory; that they influence every step of behavior that may be exhibited. This important area of neurology must be considered as we wonder why we think and feel and believe the way we do, as well as question how and why we are subject to the creation, retention, application, and modification of thoughts and ideas.
However demeaning it may seem to suggest that human neural functions are not very different from those in an electronic black box or computer, it is a cornerstone of human reality. Now that we know and understand these mechanisms, we should not allow ourselves to fall victim to magic and mystery or to ethereal philosophical and spiritual interpretations, merely because of the perceived complexity of these mechanisms. We should not call on quick answers and explanations suggested by emotion and imagination simply because they may be easy cop-outs that do not require a hard view of reality.
In the present state of human development, there may be many who do not wish to have any such understanding, who would be more comfortable with mysterious, spiritual ideas, as in earlier attempts at human interpretation. Those intellectuals who tend to look beyond present-day science to loftier philosophical explanations may feel the need to express the function of the human mind in more ethereal (or confounding) terms. In doing so, they may be moving away from reality, and may eventually have to descend to more solid biological ground. Indeed, the operation of neurons represents all concepts and all expressions, whether people agree with or shy away from such an explanation. Whatever is said, these underlying mechanisms will remain the reality of how everything works -- indeed, the way things are.
~ The Mind in Motion ~
Throughout one's lifetime, the human characteristic of consciousness, functioning day and night, starts the day with aroused electrical operation of the mind. At the start of the day, one can actually feel the action of the mind putting the day in order and, in perspective, the action of the mind in sensing and operating motor neurons that activate muscles for appropriate movement. Although it may require a cup or two of coffee, one can feel many of the various combinations of all the controlled and automatic serial and parallel operations of the body. It is like having a cerebral motor running with neuronal clutch engagement, and perhaps even neuronal shifting to different speeds of operation.
It is possible to trace some of the neuronal circuitry, if not the exact paths, certainly at least the connections among groups of related neurons. The complex processes of sight and sound, for example, can be traced through their respective pathways into the brain. The path from vibrations of the air through the aural networks is reasonably well understood. In the case of voice and language, there are well-known centers that deal with translation into conscious sensations, which become understanding through the learning processes. The mind knows what all these things mean through prior experience, not through specific signal conversion.
From a scientific standpoint, the eye and optical neural systems are complex and well developed, as though they were designed and manufactured by scientists who knew what they were doing. These systems are the result of evolution over millions of years. Nature is, indeed, an exact designer through long-term adaptation. For the most part, organisms would not exist if they did not work perfectly. When will it be possible to introduce the genes of a hawk for perfect sight? The scent of a dog for perfect smell? The hearing of a cat for increased detection? We may be able to do this when we learn the full biochemistry. The operation of a single brain and mind is technically the most interesting of all functional descriptions, but it is only a portion of the human story.
~ Tethered to the Senses ~
One of the most important mechanisms of the mind is that of the intercommunication of multiple minds and their related sensory understanding. However technically complex it appears to humans, it employs the same electrochemical principles mentioned earlier. Whatever the form of communication, the stimuli must be organized and interpreted. Communication is limited to the specific known senses with which we are familiar. The existence of real extrasensory perception (ESP) is not possible -- not as far as the operation of the modern human mind is concerned. In current technology, there must always be a physical path from sensory cells to the brain. There are no invisible communication links such as with electromagnetic waves in space and sound in the air. Of course, people who do not understand this often speculate about some fabricated phenomena of an unusual form. There is no way within known science in which waves or even modulated waves of any sort can be detected and interpreted directly.
Human thoughts are private, even with respect to alleged communication with spirits. No known technology can tap into those thoughts. This is essentially true for private prayer, which originates and is retained only in the mind of its source unless deliberately and publicly expressed. There is no possibility that private prayer can reach any mind or spirit but that in which it is generated. This does not mean that such prayer will not register as such within the originating mind, and in so doing, provide much of its intended benefit; but the process is certainly confined to its source.
My explanation of the mechanisms of the mind applies only to those contained within the complex of the human brain. Not only is no spirit likely to be involved, there is no mechanism for communication with any spirit outside consciousness itself. To those who feel that there must be "some yet unknown form" of spiritual communication, I can say that their views will not be shared by their distant progeny.
~ Downloading the Mind ~
Those of us who have been involved in instrumentation and data handling have often contemplated the possibility of direct recording of the contents of the human mind. Though extremely complex in concept, to some extent this may be possible with appropriate advances in technology, no doubt well in the future. After all, the "engrams" of learning are all physically there waiting to be detected and integrated, as is done by brain sensation. Futurists sometimes think in terms of emptying an aged mind and imparting its contents to a new, younger mind. The new mind could then add to it rather than spend major time in relearning it.
Needless to say, this is far from present-day reality. Details of form and location and the possible detection in a useful format in such a distributed biological structure do not yet have any practical significance. If, indeed, remembering is the sensation produced by the neuronal function equivalent to the similar function which originally deposited the engram, any interpretive task would be enormous. Nevertheless, I believe it to be within the capability of a future human mind to devise a way to do this. It probably will be pursued as soon as the electrochemical and biochemical memory mechanisms are better understood.
~ Getting Inside Someone's Head ~
It is interesting to consider the matter of human communication, which is usually limited to audio or visual means. Of course, communication through feeling is also possible in mechanisms such as the well-known Braille system. Audio information can readily be converted to visual form, and vice versa. If one considers communication between two people as involving any or all of these processes, one must conclude that such communication is, technically speaking, an amazing ability of the mind.
There is frequent interplay of stimuli derived from sensing cells, creating physical memory representations. These memory elements can be utilized in the normal course of functioning consciousness, and variously combined with other stimuli taking place in real time. If two persons are in such communication, the effects are taking place in the brains of both parties. In essence, this means that in such a human relationship, there is an effective exchange of communication, much being in the form of physical elements of memory which may actually reside in each other's brains. Can you imagine that characteristics of another person and his neuronal contents are, in fact, represented physically in your own brain in this manner or, conversely, yours in the brain of another?
Most people are not overtly aware that all information which reaches the mind and goes into memory in this manner does so through the many human senses and that, in doing so, it stimulates the brain to produce the growth of neuronal branches, very much like the sprouting roots of a miniature tree. These fine neural processes actually reach out and touch others. They make many connections, sometimes appearing in extremely large numbers. This is indeed what we call "learning," and it most often results in a more permanent neural effect called "memory."
Memory, then, represents a physical form of retained knowledge and experience within one's mind. Again, can you believe that everything you know is represented by physical elements in your head? This physical representation of learning is broadly called an "engram." All the people you have known are represented in your head. It was more than a half-century before Christ that Cicero suggested, "the life of the dead consists in being present in the minds of the living."
~ Better Living through Chemistry ~
At various times in this book, I have stressed the role of the human mind in both interpretation and application of the way things are. The mind is so constructed that its "user" tends to think of it only as a "vision" or a "window" without physical basis. For the purposes of this book, it is necessary to bring it down to biological reality. Think of the eyes as sensors, reflecting some stimulus. Neural response to that stimulus is mediated by action of memory and other neural structures which have been established through education, training, and experience. However many neuronal elements may be involved, the process is entirely electrochemical, very much as the action of a computer is electrical in nature. Learning tends to "sensitize" circuits to respond in certain more favorable ways. It is the long-term building of appropriate mediating circuitry through education that, in my view, will eventually serve to better separate "animals" from "humans."
Whatever new theories of mind structure and function arrive in the future, they will not change the principles, purposes, and effect of this book. The concept of electron motion in an atom, verified by many indirect measurements, is an assumed theory, for one can only contemplate its character in a vision of the mind. Yet a current of those electrons moving through the cable of a heavy power circuit can produce immense heat to disintegrate metal, or magnetic forces to operate the largest machinery. Only traces of subatomic particles like electrons can be seen, but the mind of the theorist can well visualize the structure and function of the complete atom and describe it computationally.
Similarly, it is not easy for the human mind to understand how life is completely chemically based and, therefore, how developed life actually functions in its entirety. Yet the trained human mind is already becoming accustomed to visualize matters of great complexity, and even matters of the invisible. Over time, this vision and capability will be acquired universally. The trained mind is beginning to be able to break down life into its component parts and modify it, and grow it back together in a new, more desirable form. It is devising new parts and refurbishing old ones. Neural circuitry will be more fully understood and may even be modified to human advantage.
~ A Positive Mindset ~
My view of human reality as presented here is a basic one. Even long before humanity existed, the universe and our own terrestrial world had cycled in space for an unimaginable length of time. Nothing was added to the planet to produce humanity. It was the spontaneous combination of its own molecules which, three or more billion years ago, combined to become living chemical entities, out of which humans appeared only relatively recently as the latest form.
Living material is just another form of reacting chemistry of the Earth. Humans have been part of the cold Earth only for a relatively short time in cosmic terms. It has taken most of the time of a few million years of human life to even reasonably understand how humans themselves are constructed and function and, indeed, how they manage to think and do what they do. The process of human understanding, in itself, has had to be developed as part of the evolved mechanisms of the mind. It has also taken a similar length of time for humans to understand the expansive material world in which they have involuntarily taken up residence. It has taken all this time, but alas, the deed has now been reasonably accomplished. We are now beginning to know reality and the way things are.
Is it not amazing that the natural arrangement of molecular chemistry which eventually formed the human brain and mind has allowed us to think all these conscious analytical thoughts and that we only now find ourselves finally on the brink of knowing how it all works? Meanwhile, even without understanding over those millions of years, that same mind, often amid violent conflict, has allowed humans to experience emotions that continue to contribute to the quality and appreciation of life, along with reason and logic that tend to preserve and protect us.
How the mind has dealt with information and knowledge in just the past decade or two suggests what the future may hold. When you view the whole picture of past humanity and contemplate its dynamics objectively, you get a glimmer of the long-range predictions I have suggested. The human mind is always cognizant of a desire for improvement -- for progress, understanding, comfort, happiness, survival. It intuitively sense the requirements of evolutionary continuity. The eventual improvement of human relations lies squarely in the function of the mind, increasingly guided by educated understanding.
In my view, the natural trend of the mind of Man is positive, constantly more and more referenced to reality. With substantial progress in global education, all minds can -- and eventually will -- share the same knowledge. Knowledge and discipline themselves will serve to unscramble those areas of the mind that represent conflict and difference, the emotions that tend to lead Man astray. Minds will share a greater capacity and will be capable of even more sensitive emotion, while at the same time being modulated by correspondingly greater reason and logic.
~ Bigger and Better Brains ~
Within the past year or so, research has disclosed that "stem cells," as precursors of neurons, can be replicated or cloned. These stem cells are said to be found in fetal areas and in bone marrow, as well as in adult brains. One then wonders when such cells might be artificially assembled in a manner as to increase the capacity of the human mind, the principal object being sorely needed improvement of reason and logic. This would be tantamount to adding more circuit boards to the human computer. It would be an alternative to the process of injecting appropriate laboratory-created "smart genes" in the fertilized egg soon after conception. Perhaps Man will find a way to do both. Are we toying with Nature at great risk? Are we assuming the responsibility of some imagined governing spirit in these processes? I believe that through the improved function of his expanding mind, Man will become increasingly responsible for Man.
It has long been clear that this is precisely such a direction that the mind of a modified new human species, or that of a superhuman species, must take to satisfy some of the past social ills and deficits and learn to eliminate the differences and conflicts among members of the human world. Is it largely a matter of more active recognition of underlying human reason and logic, which already exists but which remains unapplied? As in all scientific fields, massive amounts of data are constantly building with respect to the understanding of the human mind. Man will therefore periodically jump beyond such data to effect amazing new discovery. This type of writing cannot be done without great anticipation and expectation. Is that not the nature of the human mind which I have described?
But, alas, it is the function of the human mind that is exclusively responsible for human conflict, and it is only the human mind, however constituted, that can and must ultimately find natural correction in a more ideal world. Indeed, those minds that best represent world leadership must first rise to set the stage for the great continuing human drama not in the sky but here on Earth. An improved globalized world would lead men to seek the peace as it was in the beginning before men. The human mind would then no longer search in vain for meaning and purpose, for it would then be aware of the earthly human position and its relationship with appropriate behavior. However, before Man can progress from this day forward, he must have an understanding -- indeed, a conviction -- of the way things are.
About the Book
THE WAY THINGS ARE:
The Changing Perspective of Human Existence
by John F. Brinster (a.k.a. "John F. Brain")
Published by Xlibris Corporation, 493 pages, 2002.
Softcover: ISBN 1-4010-3516-7, $24.99
Hardcover: ISBN 1-4010-3517-5, $34.99
E-Book: ISBN: 1-4010-3518-3, $8.00
Available through the Princeton University Bookstore,
http://www.pustore.com, Amazon.com, and other online stores
One of the great scientists of our era speculates on the implications of recent discoveries in the areas of biology, chemistry, physics and, especially, neuroscience. Writing under his childhood nickname, "John Brain," Brinster attempts to clearly articulate in simple terms what we know for certain about the world we live in. His book contains numerous amazing discoveries and controversial conclusions, including:
- Learning involves the creation of brain tissue and, in fact, memories are matter.
- There is no such thing as extrasensory perception (E.S.P.) -- at least as far as human beings are concerned.
- Human life does not begin at conception.
- Anti-social behavior is in great part the result of brain development progressing in geographical isolation, and will lesson with increasing globalization.
- A groundbreaking theory of neurocultural evolution -- the real dynamic force behind accelerated human development and progress.
- Life was not created by any supreme being, and there is no life after death.
- The biochemical origins of heterosexuality, homosexuality, pedophilia and other sexual behaviors.
- SWEEP -- a proposal for universal, global education to propel human advancement and the welfare of mankind.
- The possible use of computers to regulate body chemistry, possibly leading to a new species of "superhuman."
In The Way Things Are, John F. Brinster provides an irrefutable summary of current scientific understanding of human existence and the workings of the universe. His clarity and continuity are astounding, just as his optimistic predictions for future human development are reassuring. The Way Things Are is the most important book of science to appear yet in the new millennium. Get your copy today.
About the Author
JOHN F. BRINSTER was born in Butler, New Jersey, in 1921. President of his senior class at Butler High School, he first attended Drew University as a chemistry major before transferring to Princeton University, where he graduated Magna cum Laude in 1943 with a degree in physics. While at Princeton, he engaged in research efforts support the U.S. war effort, including research into the atomic bomb, missile and aircraft instrumentation, and armor-piercing artillery.
The War Manpower Commission rejected Brinster's application to become a naval officer and assigned him to Princeton University with the task of developing a new field called radio telemetry. Brinster's discoveries made possible the later creation of methods of collecting information from satellites, space vehicles, and lunar installations.
Brinster was employed by Princeton University in project research and as a laboratory manager. He collaborated there with many of the greatest scientists of our time, including Einstein, Feynman, Pauli, Wheeler, and Oppenheimer. Brinster was appointed to the V-2 Panel, a group responsible for utilizing missiles captured by American forces in Germany. He worked at the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico with Wernher von Braun, and was involved in the beginnings of the U.S. space program.
In 1947, Brinster founded the first high-tech company in the Princeton area. Called the Applied Science Corporation of Princeton (ASCOP), the company developed systems for instrumenting aircraft, missiles, and space vehicles. This was only the first of several businesses started and later sold by Brinster, who retired in the early 1980s to focus on education and neuroscience.
Brinster took a leading role in building the Psychology Department at Princeton University, where he recruited faculty and helped purchase equipment for mapping the human brain. He organized several major national neuroscientific meetings, including one on the physical formation of memory.
Brinster spent over three years preparing the manuscript for The Way Things Are, a comprehensive document dealing with many different related fields and primarily concerned with the origins of the universe, life on Earth, and human development. He resides with his wife, Doris Ayres Brinster, in coastal Skillman, New Jersey, where he is currently at work on a new manuscript which further explores the theological implications of The Way Things Are.
Copyright ©2002 by John F. Brinster. All Rights Reserved. Please feel free to duplicate and distribute this file as long as the contents are not changed and this copyright notice is intact. Thank you.