Empirical Introspection and the Comparison Process
By Herb Wiggins, M.D. Clinical Neurosciences; Discoverer/Creator of the Comparison Process/COMP Theory/Model; 14 Mar. 2014
“Progress in physics is always preceded by an epistemological advance.” — Albert Einstein
“Least energy rules.”
Contents
1. The Comparison Process COMP) as the basis of recognition and cognition, arsing in brain cortex, working in tandem with LTM. The COMP hallmark is recognition. seen in all major classes of advanced animals.
2. Territoriality as recognition and the COMP.
3. Lower life has biochemical forms of the COMP. Reproduction is a complementary form of it.
4. COMP creates language and meaning, COMP as universal decoder.
5. Empirical introspection (EI), insights from medical practice which prove this.
6. Basis of empirical introspection in the sciences, and scientific medicine
7. Pain and EI.
7b. Dreaming, dream interpretation and introspection
8. Reading, creating dictionaries, indexes, phone books, all empirical introspection. (EI)
9. That which is real inside of us is what we all have in common. That which is real outside of us is what we have in common with what exists in the universe outside of us.
10. Measuring as a form of the COMP
11. Confirmation of the existence of EI and the COMP: 100′s millions of times.
12. The commonalties of the creativities.
13. The source of creativity of computer programming.
14. Mathematical creativity and the COMP by Empirical introspection
15. Creativity as a form of recognition. Seeing inside the minds of creative people using the COMP
16. The LEP and origin of feedback systems.
17. The massive capabilities of the COMP, endless, unlimited.
18. Stabilities and their importance.
19. Empirical Introspection of movie making.
20. The dopamine boost built into the COMP
21. Problems of modern society related to loss of the secret of the dopamine boost and attempts to replace it with drugs, raves, etc.
22. The ubiquity in brain of the dopamine boost structure/function; Our solutions to problems are inside of us and also outside.
1. One of the Comparison Process’ (COMP) major tasks is recognition (although it is a multiplicit, complex system with many other capabilities), that is, Re-knowing, and lies at the basis of cognitive activities in the brain. The COMP in the cortex is able to create a memory of stable events, existing both within and without the nervous system. It can then compare any future event to the stored Long Term Memory (LTM) event for further processing. The function is identifying or calling up the LTM event and comparing it to that which is being seen, thought about, or interacted with to establish similarity, identity, a match, or common characteristics, associations, and/or relationships, connections. This is some of what the COMP can do. But the basic task is the recognition function. It can do this endlessly, without limitations over time. It is how we recognize speech, the sounds we call words. It is how we recognize written words. It is how we communicate with each other. Indeed if humans were not social there would be no need for words much at all, beyond a few vocalizations and grunts, etc. which many animals, including our nearest relatives have.
The recognition function is a major hallmark of the Comparison Process. Whenever recognition is seen that marks a COMP being used. We see this is the major kinds of animals, from our nearest relatives the great apes, through the primates, the rest of the mammals, the birds, reptiles, down to the fishes, all of which display an ability to recognize their fellow species, for purposes of mating and protection if heard/flock/schooling kinds of species. They have territories as well, and must recognize landmarks, scents and other features, including the sun for navigation, and moving about.
2. Territoriality of itself must necessitate the use of recognition. This means that all known animals have it, in some form or another, even down to the lowly anemones, who know self from not self and are capable of defending territory. It’s necessary for reproduction as well, surely a convincing argument for the presence of recognition in all known species above the level of sponges.
But even sponges recognize self from not self. The experiment where red and white sponges were gently broken down into their constituent cells, and then in a nutrient sea water bath reconstituted themselves once again into red and white sponges shows this.
In the immune system the cells of the body know self from not self. And it is constantly on the hunt for foreign proteins and chemicals which can disrupt function. This is a biochemical form of comparison process, just in the same way sponge self-recognition was.
The higher animals know each other, and they know where their nests/dens and territories are, they know family from outsiders by sight and scents, and they know food and dangers and predators, too. These are all recognition and necessarily imply in each animal showing those characteristics, the recognition capacity which results of their own, analogous to ours, COMP. It is a universally used process from the highest animals in the great apes down to the lowliest sponges and very likely lower.
The bacteria and algae know food, and they have protections against attacks, too. And because those very likely date back at least 3.5 Billion years, these biochemical recognition methods are very, very ancient. They extend through the entire chain of life, from the very lowest to the highest, and unite in a very real way, all life.
3. Our means of reproduction using DNA/RNA replication of the basic building blocks of the genes, the nucleotides, also is a form of the comparison process, where when the DNA or RNA polymerase during replication detects a thymidine, it adds on an adenine and vice versa (uracil in RNA, which distinguishes RNA from DNA), and the same with guanosine/cytosine pairings. It must recognize each of those nucleotides, biochemically, and then complementary processes add on the one of the other.
When the cell reproduces it duplicates the DNA chain, while it also is creating more proteins using RNA to replicate the gene sequence by complementary processes and that then goes to the ribosome where 3 DNA bases are coded (codons) into a specific amino acid, which chains build up the basic, essential proteins/polypeptides of the cell, without which the cell would not survive metabolically or structurally. These are yet other Comparison processes, albeit biochemical on the part of the DNA/RNA polymerases and their transcriptions and then creation by a similar comparison process into proteins, etc. From the very start of life to the very present, the COMP in one form or another has been essential for all life. It binds all life together from the lowest to the highest, and is a unifying characteristic of all life. That is the Comparison Process, be it replication of DNA/RNA, be it protein/polypeptide synthesis, be it knowing cellular life from other cells, be it the immune system, be it recognition of other species or self and same species, be it territoriality, and be it the highest known form, human, higher primate cortical cell columns and cortex, the Comparison process of the brain.
4. It’s very clear then with this kind a ubiquity, in animal behaviors alone that it should be found in human brains. But there it has been able to create language, by simple recognition of words, meaning by comparing those words to each other in unique contextual forms. And in creating every single kind of language, which can be translation and related using the comparison process into every other kind of known language. The COMP is a universal decoder of language and it allows every person on earth to develop their own unique ways of stating those languages, as well, our idiosyncratic speech patterns, unique to us all, that our fellow humans can identify each of us by, too. All the myriad ways of all of the languages, each stated in unique, individual ways, but each the same. From simple to enormous complexity. Understanding this fact allows us to enormosly simplifiy the complexity around us into unifying principles/observations. It sees through the “buzzing, blooming confusion” and orders it.
It has allowed us by trial and error comparisons to translate and understand the Rosetta Stone and many other extinct languages, too. It allows us to decrypt the newspaper cryptograms and more complex codes,. It has allowed us to decrypt the genetic codes as well, and even to decode the universe’ events into the natural laws we have found. It does not just create language and recognition, but it also much more.
5. It allows us to create an empirical introspection into the very innermost workings of our minds. Because the COMP is the major function of the cortex, in almost every case it gives us the critical insight into what to look for. In the medical field, this is a common practice. It’s very simply done, and it’s empirical introspection, where the mind can look at the mind. Where the mind can comprehend and study by observation the workings of the mind body and nervous system. Where we can detect and apprehend thoughts, themselves. And the exact internal, mental processes leading to language and its use.
Take the scientific method and confirmations for instance. There are scientists who find an interesting observation and they carefully describe and then publish their findings. If other scientists can observe and find the same events, then it is considered confirmed. But why that? Because the universe is what we all have in common. If others see the same events we see, and record them, it’s likely those are real and existing outside of ourselves and we are not just seeing what we want to see. We use double blind, carefully controlled, prospective studies to be sure we are not looking at what we want to find. For that reason, confirmation of events is the sine qua non of sciences. If and when others observe and describe the same acceleration of masses in earth’s gravitational field, then the 9.8 m/sec squ. value becomes established as the case and scientific, empirical truth is found. This is how it’s done. That establishes carefully done observations as true and real.
Let us extend the same method to empirical introspection. Here are some basic examples of how it’s done. When a person comes to the doctor for numbness and tingling of the fingers, we know the anatomy and the function of the nerves in the hand/arm which are clearly, provable related to those tinglings. If the thumb, forefinger, middle finger and part of the thumb side of the ring finger tingle, or are numb, we know it’s the median nerve, because that’s what has been carefully and confirmed to be the case in unlimited numbers of humans so far studied. Unless the person is medically sophisticated they would not know this and when a person states the truth, we can tell. By comparing their symptoms which they sense, to that which we know to be the case about nerves and so forth, we KNOW it’s a median nerve problem. That means we have looked by examination and history into those person’s minds and found that their statements correspond/compare to real, existing events. That is provably empirical introspection is it not? This can be done with almost all of the nerves in the body, everyday, in every nation where there are good medical professionals. It’s a fact. It’s common to all humans. There are other tests such as the electromyogram which can also independently confirm what the patients says is going on. This is valid, empirical introspection
Let’s go further to a more difficult problem, looking at pain. People can have pain in certain parts of their bodies, and we know what is commonly seen by building up huge databases of medical information. Suppose the person reports a bad, throbbing headache, periodically, which her mother also had, and a sister has, too. Further, the headache are often presaged by spots in the eyes, or scintillations of light, which are called scotomata. We do an exam, find no neurological abnormalities, compare the signs/symptoms to our differential diagnostic tables, and make a working diagnosis of migraine headaches. Often then we do tests to see if there are brain structural abnormalities, hypertension, etc., which can cause similar headaches. We give a triptan medication and if the headaches are frequent, a med which will likely prevent a lot of them. If the triptans work and the headaches abate, then it’s very likely migraines. This method can be extended to other kinds of pain, as well. This yet again, is another empirical introspection into the senses, the most difficult one of all, pain. But we have tests and many other ways of telling what is real and what is not.
The same is true of foot pain, back pain, chest pain, etc. The same can be easily extended to the vision, and touch sensations, too. We can even investigate loss/absence of gravity sense, also. This is all empirical introspection, because we know that all humans have characteristic states and conditions which they report by introspection which correspond very well to known anatomy and common reports. Because we all have these organ systems in common. Just as we all have events in existence in common. It’s the similar analogous process to scientific investigation, observation and reporting, and is used very day all over the world. What we have in common is real, within our bodies or without. That’s the key. A trained observer, the medical professional, relies upon his OWN introspective, trained methods, to make a diagnosis of a condition reported by the introspection of the patient. This is completely legitimate and practical. It’s not just that introspection of the patient, it’s also the introspection, and recognition of the condition by the medico, which is at play here. And it’s valid and reliable. It’s not perfect, but nothing in this world is. But it works and is practical.
7b. Dreaming and dreaming states
The problem of dream interpretation is the problem of introspection. How do we know what dreams mean has been the bugaboo of the entire field since Freud’s “The Interpretation of Dreams”. Most of it simply is not believed because of lack of substantiation for his approach. A great many New Agers also talk about dream interpretation with an equivalent lack of credible substantiation.
But there is a way and in the clinical neuroscience it’s been used for years. How do we know that dreams exist? Because of the Rule of Commonality (RoC). We know that pain exists in people for the same reason, everyone knows about it and has realistic appreciation for those injuries and related problems such as migraine headaches with also do exist. The same is true of pleasure and other findings, introspective.
But in specific cases? That’s a tough one. When a patient comes in with numbness, either persistent or intermittent in the hand, we can tell if it’s real or not by several techniques. First, does it correspond (compare) to real sensory nerve distributions or not? If hand/glove kind it’s not always clear. With a careful exam we can detect numbness and tingling with specific methods and find on electromyograms (EMG) whether or not the reports of numbness have a concomitant injury shown by increased latencies and slowed nerve conduction speeds. The above can provide realistic and SPECIFIC determinations that the individual complaints are real. That is, the introspective reports are the case.
But how can we do this in dreams? We know they exist, but reports of dream content are colored by length of time elapsed between the dream and report, emotional factors such as social concerns about appropriateness, etc. But occasionally there are real cases where we CAN show this. I’ve been a field biologist for over 50 years. My observational skills are developed.
I have two cases. This first where a recurrent dream of walking along a weathered wooden pier with planks missing, and the green water below with waves sloshing against the piles and at times almost close enough to get my feet wet. In each case over 40 years, I was simply terrified I’d fall into the water and get drowned. In each case of these repeated nightmares, I was usually stressed by situational problems at work, etc.
But the key was, we were showing old family movies of the time we ere in St. Pete, FL., and on one of them it showed a movie of that same pier, same color water (all my dreams are in color) and at once I recognized that that was the source of the dream. I’d walked on it with my father, and had been terrified. But I’d forgotten the event.
This was clearly Freudian repressed memory, because for some 45 years it wasn’t clear WHERE the dreams had come from. Within a few weeks, that dream tried to recur, I just said while dreaming, this is that old memory and I won’t have this any more. And did not, and haven’t since.
Once the source of the terror was found, and realized what it was, in tandem with Freudian neurosis abatement observations (which argues that those are real and existing by the RoC), the dream stopped. It has never recurred, either. I had a similar dream with a swaying elevator, and once figured out, some 10 years later, when riding on the SAME elevator, the recognition came on me that THAT was where it had come from. It tried to recur, and I abolished it the same way.
That dreams can appear to be remnants of older memories many times, which we seem to have forgotten, not just repressed, seems to be the case. The fantastic elements of dreams, events appearing, disappearing and so forth, are simply NOT real and unexplainable.
However, for this one. I can fly sometimes while dreaming. I lift up off the ground and take off. Sadly, no one who’s ever seen me having one of these dreams has reported any levitation of my body!! But the one thing I do recall is that the flying was always very slow. I’d get caught up in wires, etc. and thinking about it, it takes a LOT of processing power to fly, esp. very high, because then the complexity of the surrounding scenery would take a LOT more processing power to recreate that. I am NOT a hang glider person, tho I have no fear of flying at all.
In this case of flying dreams, they are completely synthetic and cannot possibly compare to any real memories at all. In the case of lucid dreaming reports, the persons can also get control of their dreams and create fictional activities, too. Therefore it’s hard to believe the dictum that ALL dreams are a result of memories, only. Those memories might provide a groundwork, but the mind can build on that, actually. We know this because the scene changes in dreams are NOT real because things simply appear and disappear in violation of physical laws. That is magical thinking, which isn’t real any more than one can fly or cause objects several meters from one, to move into one’s hand. That my dreams have done a lot of.
However, I was using computers about 1995, and at the time moved up from a low baud of a few 100 to a 2400 baud rate of screen scrolling. It exceeded the ability of my brain to follow by a factor of several times. But bless my brain it DID try to keep up, tho never really succeeded. Within weeks of that time, tho, my flying dreams ALSO sped up, markedly and I wasn’t getting slowed down or tangled up in wires again Since then, continuing to use faster and faster computers, I can fly a LOT faster and higher, too, even to this day.
Probably, visual processing speed in my brain sped up to its maximum by using the new high speed modem. And my dreams got faster. One suspects that using computers has speed up the the brain processing of we humans, where such is possible, too. As speed of intellectual processing is related to 85% of IQ, because the IQ tests are timed, therefore this creates a reasonable conclusion from my dreaming of flying, that computers may in fact speed up our brains and make us proportionately smarter, in that respect.
These are the ONLY realistic interpretation of dreams I’ve ever been able to make. Should OTHERS have similar findings, then we can begin by the RoC, to learn more about dreams. Until then it’s a lot of speculation as Father Freud first formally showed us. We must have a LOT more testable data to compare with before we can more reliably decode and understand our specific dreams.
8. Let us now extend this introspection to the recognition processes we see when people read a dictionary or thesaurus or map, etc. Do we not have and see the same activities in all persons who refer to those lists and texts? Do we not see the same process which creates those texts and indices and the taxonomic Tree of Life of all the species which exist? Each of which can be read by anyone, using the same process. Of course we do. The Comparison process is what we all have in common, be it reading a text, finding a word in a dictionary, or finding something on a map, or the creation of the map, besides. This yet another kind of empirical introspection. It’s valid, and meets the criteria for validity. it can be done again and again and provably is the same process both in using the dictionary and creating it. The same, Comparison Process each time.
9. This is confirmation of the existence of the COMP in our brain cortex, that it’s a higher function, as well. Because when those areas are ablated by strokes, trauma or other damage, those reading, speech, and comprehension functions are gone. The structure/function rule of the brain has been shown to be true without limit, so far. For every function of the brain, there is a corresponding structure which creates that function. There is the speech center for talking and reading and writing. There is a right inferior temporal lobe for face identification. There is the visual cortex for interpreting signals from our retina which reproduces with extraordinary accuracy events which we look at in all their shades and colour frequencies and corresponding colours. The same is true of the other senses. Same is true of our feelings. We all have these in common. We all have the same emotions in common and all of these can be related to a structure in the brain.
We all have consciousness in common. This is the awareness and knowledge of that which is around us and inside of us. Ideas/words express this knowledge carefully and fairly accurately too. We have those words in common do we not, in one language or dialect or the many others? This establishes those ideas/words/images as real and existing in our brains/minds. The reports are real, both those inside and outside. The words and knowledge are the same. When we say something, we know it, and can communicate it. And in all of these cases, the Comparison process is working. The writing and the reading of those words is of the same origin, the COMP.
We have our consciences in common, located mainly in the frontal lobes, by which we internalize society’s restrictions and acceptable activities. We compare that to what we do and what others do. In the laws of nature, we compare the behaviors and descriptions of events in existence outside of us, comparable also to the same structure of moral laws, which we use daily, all of us in common. The Legal laws are the same. The templates/forms/structures of logic, math, and others are of the same kind, readable and creatable and modifiable by the COMP.
10. In measuring it’s all Comparison Process. This has been proven time and again, for everyone. Anyone can take a ruler or tape and measure lenghts and distances. Anyone with any training can read a map. The COMP is real because of these unlimited, repetitive, confirming facts. The organization of the Tree of Life by these endless COMP events, that of the periodic table of elements, that of the Hertzsprung/Russell diagram (which organizes into a coherent whole the trillions of observable stars, each a confirmation of that comparison/correspondence to the HRD), that of the repetitions of the same measurements of time and calendars, and our words, images, and the written words which exactly correspond/compare to those mental ideas/words/images. This same commonality of use by the same/similar variations on them, shows they are real.
11. The 100′s of millions of telephone books and dictionaries. The endless listing of street addresses, and the 100′s of millions of maps and templates of all sorts. Endless in its variations, and all real and existing, as the that single, simple Comparison Process existing in all of our cortices which does the thinking, information processing and understanding and speaking and reading. Each and every one of the 34 million known chemical compounds (of an estimated quadrillions possible, (mostly in what’s left of the rain forests) has been named, classified, organized and indexed by that. Is that enough evidence, or are we dealing with what the British justifiably call bloody mindedness?
The Comparison Process is confirmed by these events in the millions and even billions of examples. If several thousands show it, 100 millions show it beyond all reasonable doubt. And any variations among us in reading/writing those lists, is simply the endless variations on a common theme.
12. Let us take creativity. Because we know what to look for, the COMP, we can see inside the minds of those being creative. They have often told us how they did it, from Kekule to Einstein, whose 5 discoveries created Relativity. We know that Newton found the spectrum and realized what it was by comparing it to the rainbow. We know that Newton AND Leibniz both found the calculus, slightly different forms of it, but essentially the same. What were the insights and creativity which led to both of their insights? They’d be comparison processes very similar to the insight of Archimedes whose text showing the calculus from 2300 years ago we now have, also. Compare those 3 men’s insights. That is the mathematical form of Creativity using the COMP.
We have brilliantly creative computer programmers. What are the exact means by which they create new programming techniques? How did Borland create resident pop-up programs? What were his insights as to how to do that? Take every major advance in programming and find the ways in which those insights arose, and compare and cross check them with the number of very similar creative advances made by other programmers. In this way we can again look inside the heads of the programmers for the COMP which creates the creativity of programmers. And then we can model that using a computer system, and create a creative computer, which creativity can proceed at speeds of millions of times faster, than we whose COMP works at about 100-200 msec., compared to a potentially unlimited speed of the quantum computers now working.
14. Gauss, Riemann, and Lobatschevsky almost simultaneously created non-Euclidean geometry. So did a 12th Century monk, but thought it was so silly he didn’t continue it. ALL FOUR found the same thing, that the parallel line axiom was NOT necessary to build up a consistent geometry. and so developed that from which the modern space/time geometry is used in physics today. This is a very similar comparison process creativity in four mathematicians. The same is true of the rest of mathematical creativity and describes how Ramanujan and all the others performed their creative magic.
The same is true of scientific creativity, or verbal creativity, of creative writing. The COMP model extends itself by logic and by proxy to every other field of the sciences and arts, and music, as well.
15. Because we see that these creativity events are ALSO recognitions of the value of that which is created. Creativity is a form of recognition. The recognition by Darwin and Wallace, that on remote isles, a single species tended to diversify into many species and when those diversified enough it’d lead to every species known developing from previously existing forms, that is, evolutionary model which is now scientific fact. Evolution has been confirmed literally 10 millions of times. If evolution is confirmed by those many instances, then how much more confirmed is the comparison process in our brains by the 10 billions of times it’s confirmed every day when 7.5 million humans use it?
We can see inside our own brains/minds this kind of COMP which created the same findings by different men at different times. That commonality of events, which is the key to empirical introspection. We can actually get inside the heads of our most creative people now and see how their minds are working. We can SEE the creative acts. We can see the organizing power of the Comparison process as it organizes each and every part of our dictionaries, our maps, our indices, our everything. Organizing to create knowledge. Organizing to create prediction and control in our consciousness and our consciences, as well as control of industrial production, agriculture, etc.
16. It underlies the Least Energy Rule because that is a COMP. Compare the outputs and costs of each method being studied by the LEP. The least energy one is favored, by the COMP, which is yet an LEP, too.
It’s the feedback loop you see, the original one. It processes and creates a product, which can be endlessly and consistently fed back in, to create more output. Each fed back in. The Comparison Process even explains, uniquely, and cleanly, the feedback systems. How’s that for practicality and utility?
It organizes, unifies, simplifies and yet allows all complexities and endless variations within itself and those to be more clearly understood. Simple, yet complex. Easy, yet surrounds itself with endless variations of incredible size and complexity, which hid/hides and camouflaged(s) it from us for 1000′s of years.
17. It’s all very similar, we see now. Simple, powerful, endless in variations, and because it does a very great deal with only a little, it’s least energy rule obedient and complete amenable to thermodynamic analysis. Because it does the same in every field, it’s a huge simplification, but allows endless complexity to be developed, and understood and explains in details those endless variations on a theme, be it living forms, be it mathematics, be every language and the dialects, be it visual arts, music in all its endless variations of rhythms, styles, scales and modes, and even fashions and design of cars, architecture and much else. It even explains each human’s, each living form’s genetic and personality and behavioral uniqueness and yet commonality with all other living species, alive or extinct. It does a LOT with a little. It’s efficient.
18. What are stabilities, the Djed of the ancient Egyptians? Those are maintained similarities, samenesses. We see this in trees, rocks, stars, matter, and the repeating, reiterating process by which those are built, maintained and broken down. Stabilities are created by the Pauli Exclusion Principle and chemical bonding. Stabilities are Least Energy Principle forms. CO2 and H2O are stable because they are least energy. No chemical energy can be obtained from those molecules. And upon those stabilities of water and carbon dioxide molecules, plus nitrogen and trace elements, all life has been built, within the endless cycling of CO2 and H2O molecules’ stabilities.
The COMP is also a LEP stability, the most common denominator of our mental processes. That is why the cortical cell columns are almost exactly alike. That is why but for the motor cortex, the micrographic examinations of the 6 layers of the entire cortex, except for their neuronal synaptic connections to each other and cortical cell columns(which demonstrates their unique functions of visual, language, sensation, hearing, musical, emotional, etc., cortical functions) are almost exactly the same. That is why the electroencephalogram over every single piece of cortex reveals the same alpha, beta, and theta activities. It even explains the 14 and 6 EEG activity over the motor cortex which lacks layer 4 and has Betz cells instead.
19. It’s been easy to analyze films using the Comparison Process as well. We can use it to see inside the heads of the directors, producers and script writers, and how they are inside the head of the audiences. How they are using humor, surprise, action and creativity to entertain and enthrall their audiences so they keep coming back again and again to watch the movie in the theaters, on the Internet, or by buying a DVD at home or with friends.
20. This is why the COMP will succeed, in the long run. Not only is it backed up by the LEP, but it’s also reinforced by the dopamine boost. Once individuals rediscover this ancient boost and use it creatively for inspiration and better lives, and given the positive feedback nature of the COMP/dopamine system in our cortices, not much is going to stop this process. In the long run on earth and the rest of our universe, least energy rules.
When creativity and understanding are understood, as they now are, this will create, potentially a renaissance in the arts and sciences which can dwarf anything yet seen. In each of us, this massive, repetitive, endlessly/unlimited process is active. Understand it, learn how to boost and inspire yourselves. This creative Spark of Life exists within all of us. It’s the Gotterfunken, the veriest spark of God Himself, the “chi”, the Atman, the feeling of Enlightenment, those mystical feelings and states. And any of us can learn to call it up, learn to use it for ourselves and others. It’s very powerful and underlies all good leadership, all loyalties, all inspiration. It in its best forms it is love incarnate, be it agape, eros, philias, maternitas, or love of country, or our pets and possessions. It underlies the “AHA” or Eureka emotions of discovery/creation. It underlies our jokes and witty entertainment. It underlies all those feelings of awe, of astonishment, of childlike wonder. All the goodness of life itself.
21. We find that our modern societies we have a great many problems to solve. What better than to use the Comparison Process to solve those? It’s there within all of us, immanent, and working. Is this not a good solution? Everyone has the potential to do it. Because everyone has those same, cortical cell columns, the same structures and the functions, the COMP and the dopamine releasers built in.
We find the drug addictions, which are simply attempts to feel better, to replace that “loving feeling” that good feeling which has been lost. These are many of the emptinesses of modern society, the malaise. We’ve “lost that loving feeling” and we can’t quite “get it back”. It’s the dopamine boost. In the societies we find the young turning to raves, and rock concerts and sex, and other self-destructive, damaging activities. Because the dopamine boost secret has been lost. People turn from the main stream churches to fundamentalism, to the exciting church services of the same, where that has been preserved. When most church services were once exciting and rejuvenation experiences, they are now too often boring and not re-inforcing, because they do NOT boost the dopamine in those who attend them. Staid, quiet, laid back and not interesting. They’ve lost that loving feeling. and just can’t get it back.
22. Yet it’s there inside each of us. Everyone has dopamine in their brains/bodies. Everyone has the Comparison Process which can release it in all the myriad ways. Dopamine boost is innate in our very natures. It palpably, provably drives the emotions, it inspires, it creates love. The dopamine boost we feel when with friends and loved ones. That’s the self-reinforcing system created by our minds/brains. Reinforce it, make it become part of the LTM, and you can have it any time you need it. That’s the key, regardless of how we find it, let the outcomes be good in the long run, and by their fruits we will know the best ways. The answers are there, our COMP is set up to find them. Here inside and within each of us are the solutions to our problems within and without.
Let a Revelation in understanding create a Kuhnian Revolution.
