We have a brain, but also a mind. When we respond to the environment, which is all the time, stimuli are processed through a series of cascading levels. The first level of processing is the spinal chord reflex arc which processes stimulus in the simplest way. The withdrawal of an arm in response to potentially damaging stimulus, like a sharp point is an example.
We also respond at a higher level with higher level reflex arcs which are also unconditioned but which take place at the brain.
Then there is the conditioned response as Pavlov found, he could link the sound of a bell with the response to the smell of food.
The next level is operant conditioning (Skinner) where a random unconditioned act brought up by noise in the central nervous system is rewarded and is thus attached to the reward. This is the sub-intellect.
In the intellect a recorder of events is running and there is an intellectual processor that inspects this memory and works out consequences of future actions or external events. We call this our mind.
So when a baby is born without any conditioned reflexes or intellectually stored information, it makes random motions and records their effects as recorded by its senses. In this way a model of the environments response to the babies movements is built up.
Then each time a child is presented with an environmental condition and it wants to satisfy a tissue need the child computes by an intellectual process (called reasoning) the movements needed to reach the wanted condition from the original condition. Reasoning is entirely non verbal and may be apparently the child "imagining" doing the actions first and exploring a path. The child does this by accessing the recorded data of the previously made random movements and environmental responses.
Anatomically the circuit looks like an internal reflex arc connected to the open loop. This is the frontal lobe. People who have their frontal lobes cut off cannot reason or make any plans, have no predictive ability and thus have no intellect. They are probably unconscious.
The frontal lobe has subdivisions and one seems to be a register that stores temporary information. It is in the top front part of the brain. People who have this cut out cannot remember short term things like "which day it is" or if they have completed a planned act. It also effects internal processing where intermediate results need to be stored. This effects there ability to sort out what to do. These people are not unconscious and are aware of their deficiency. It is a really terrible defect to have as they are continually muddled and cannot even do the shopping or make a relevant shopping list as the cannot remember what they have in the cupboard.
Some doctors ablate this "pre-fontal" area because they say it makes patients "with it" however it is a crippling defect. Some doctors do it to people "just because they are 90". It does not prevent worry or "thinking" but makes the patient never come to a conclusion as the keep loosing track of their "thoughts". Nor can they remember any immediate information after the stimulus has been removed. And they often become bad tempered.
It is known that normal people can plan what to do, then guess the consequences then work out what to do to avoid a pitfall (what the hunted animal might do) then calculate what to do about that, then guess what the animal will do about that and the decide on a course of action. That is three steps of forward planning and two steps of reverse planning. An ape can only do two steps of forward planning and one step of reverse planning. People nearly always outwit an ape as a result. Other mammals may not be able to any reverse planning at all and can only do one step ahead, in other words the immediate step from present circumstances.
We seem to be able to make plans of hundreds of steps, we do this by subdividing the task so that our limited processor can cope, like "I want a copy of Chalie brown" Chunk 1 Solution: "I must go to London to buy a book" chunk 2, Solution: "How do I get to London", Go to Tottenham court road (that's where Foyles is) I can work out how to get to Foyles when I get there, are you turn right out of the station and right again and then walk until you find Foyles.... How do I get to the station: I go to Tooting, and how do I get there by 293 bus, I need the fare, oh I need money to buy the book, oh I have a credit card, oh have I got enough credit, oh I paid it off last month. Now I have to put wash, put my clothes on and go, making sure I have the money, do I have to work today, no its Saturday I can go. Go.
Loads of iteration with only the three forward steps and the two reverse steps, but I had to remember the overall plan and each of the intermediate steps in order to make that plan. Each step of which is extremely complex, but I already know how to do that, so I store ready made algorithms like buying a ticket, I have to work out the navigation of the ticket hall and the layout of the station all within the over all plan and if a route is blocked I can choose another like going on the bus, or even go by another rail link part of the way.
If I do not know what to do I just do a random action that is connected to the environment set and see if it works, In cases where I'm in the planning stage these random trials are internal and I try things in my mind using generalizations about the behaviour of my environment.
Loads of storage is required and an extra segment or two may be required for this.
This would indicate that man has five segments in his frontal lobe and an ape only three, other animals, only have one.
Cutting off any of these five segments will reduce the foresight of a person, in the extreme as with May* all her frontal segments have been cut off and she only stands and stares unless made to do something by a simple reflex action. Joseph* seems to only have one segment left so he knows he needs money to buy food for an immediate tissue need but does not always have the foresight to make sure he has enough money first. No further foresight is possible.
These segments are called discs in the spinal chord and each one is a brain. It has an input an output and some processing power. If you look as one of these spinal discs there is a cortex and a medullary core, as in the main brain. The spinal disc has projection areas each with its cortex where processing goes on. Each has a memory, a comparator, stack, and a system that outputs a signal that is a logical difference between the wanted position and present position of a limb. This output is the action that is executed. The wanted position in this case is usually received from signals above as well as from local processing and the present position comes from local signals.
The brain is the same and each disc contains (at least) eyes or vestigial ones and visual processing, the comparator, the differencor-generallisor, memory and stack, and as well as a sensorium and motor areas. The extra 4 discs in man allow him to work out the consequences of his immediate actions, guess what to do about that, then compute the consequences of that and what to do about that, the few people who have 7 discs in their head are not understood my the people with 5 and they are not understood by those with 3 and those are not understood by those with one. It is likely that those with 7 segments are a genius.
It is possible that there is only one memory in each disc and the first arc of the brain contains the main long term store and each of the extra discs contain only the short term memories.
Some patients have their frontal lobe cut off because their psychiatrist does not believe the account of an event given by a patient and doctors make arbitrary decisions as to what it true. Usually the psychiatrist thinks a crime has been committed and the story is the patients cover. The illness is defined as the patient telling untrue statements without knowing they are doing so. Unfortunately it is very difficult for any person including the psychiatrist to make that sort of value judgment. (See the Story of Maia).
It is my opinion that the brain should not be operated on for these reasons and only physical conditions such as tumours or injuries should treated with brain surgery.
See my book on intelligence
My brain does not seem to be working now, I cannot think ahead well enough. Those Psychiatrists are evil, I just keep repeating myself. I think I can do a one step plan.
Those people who have their frontal lobe cut off can think and plan, depending on the degree of damage, but cannot move or speak, and some cannot see of hear or know about their bodies. It is a fate worse than death and should never be put on anyone. Outsiders cannot communicate and so do not know about this fate and so think the persons mad ideas have been "cured". No they are still there they are locked away inside. Those that have their brain cut out are dead. Remember, psychiatric thugs, that it is the person saying those "delusions" so by cutting out the delusions you are cutting out the person.
Chris.
24/12/2011
Note: A bit about this part of the brain. From another web site
What is the function of this inferior parietal area? We studied both the inferior parietal and prefrontal association areas of Einstein's brain because such regions are known to be concerned with "higher" mental functions. These regions do not directly receive primary sensory information but rather, as their name implies, they "associate" or analyze inputs from other brain regions. The association cortices are the last domains of the cortex to myelinate, indicating their comparatively late development. Lesions in the inferior parietal regions result in gross impairment in writing, spelling and calculation. One mathematician with a lesion in the inferior parietal area found it difficult to draw or write formulae and could not use a slide rule. Another lost the versatility of imagery and the capability for complex thinking.
From:
Why Einstein's brain?
www.newhorizons.org/neuro/
diamond_einstein.htm
Neuroanatomist Marian Diamond discusses the research she carried out on
Einstein's brain and offers some background information.
* Not his real name.