CHAPTER 1 - Understanding the individual

 Deciphering the Traits of the Brain

There are several approaches to deciphering traits of the brain:

• It is possible to explore the human brain by observing human behavior as we do in everyday life, and as an author does when he tries to 'get under the skin' of the characters in his books.
• An author, like many other people, may learn much through observation. But to really understand the other person, we need better tools than just observation. It is very difficult to understand people because everyone maintains their privacy as though they were wearing masks behind which they hide their thoughts. Moreover, we have a tendency to judge others through our distorting cultural glasses, making it more difficult to see the real character of the other persons. That is why observation is not the best tool to understand how others are thinking.
• One can use scientific instruments to explore how brain cells communicate and perform various tasks. But there are some difficulties in such an approach. Scientists tend to pinpoint their study on one specific aspect and neglect the overall picture of a brain’s function. Live person research techniques are very new; therefore there is not yet enough data on how our brain works. Thus the way in which scientists are trying to decipher brain activity does not yet provide an understanding of how a person thinks and feels.
• Philosophers have been puzzled for centuries trying to solve the mind-body dilemma, without reaching any conclusions upon which they can agree. The reason is partly that they do not have enough data on which they can rely on. It is funny strange that they raise doubts about everything, except for that intuition-based assumption that claims we have mental consciousness. On that unfounded basis, they have built circuitous explanations that are sometimes bizarre and unconvincing. With all due respect, it seems that they complicate things only to reach an impasse.

When we are faced with an impasse, one should look for a different perspective that will override it, instead of banging our heads against the wall.

It is possible to explore the reasons for the brain’s evolution from its function as a basic control center to its current state by learning which features the brain developed to overcome its limitations in the face of the challenges to our survival.

Let me explain this approach: when we want to understand how a river shapes its route, we can examine the chemical and physical impacts of molecules of water on the molecules of the ground, and measure the amount of erosion and the direction of the channel being formed. This is the scientific approach in brain research.

This is, of course, a less practical method compared to the simple way of examining the obstacles causing the water to flow in a certain direction, and finding the route of the river, assuming that water flows along the easiest route. Similarly, we can examine the obstacles that the human brain has been forced to face, and see how evolution bypasses these obstacles while determining the paths of the brain’s development.

We will focus on the features of the human brain that help people in their struggles to survive when facing the challenges of a changing environment.

These features provide us with a clue that can assist us in understanding how other people feel and react.

Sometimes we find that even complex and inexplicable processes obey very simple laws.

When scientists sent the first rocket to the moon, newspapers published articles full of admiration at the scientists' success in achieving such a precise trajectory of the rocket, explaining that any deviation of even one-hundredth of a degree would cause it to miss its relatively small target.

Of course, these are comments of journalists who understand next to nothing of technology. It is very easy to guide the rocket right to the moon or to aim a rocket precisely into a specific window as a matter of fact. All we have to do is to use closed-circuit camera control which can focus on the target, and allow real-time correction of the rocket’s flight path. When the rocket is close to its target, the target is seen to be larger, and it is easier to correct its flight path in order to hit the center of the target.

That is an example of what looks like a complex operation can, in fact, be very simple. In the same way, we look with amazement at the complexity of a species in nature, and of the complexity of the human brain in particular, and find it difficult to understand how such complexity was formed. Many people, therefore, tend to attribute such complexity to a divine act.

But is there no simple explanation? Is it indeed the work of a divine being? There is nothing magical about aiming a missile at a target thousands of kilometers away. Similarly, the development of the human race is not a divine miracle.

The Power of Evolution

Evolution is the key to deciphering the secrets of the brain.
We already know that our brain developed from the simple control center to become the marvelous complex machine it is now. This took place over many years of evolution.
That is why we should devote some time to laying out what is the evolutionary theory.
Darwin showed how long-term evolution occurs; it is driven by several simple rules, the primary one being the principle of the 'survival of the fittest'. In other words, those that have the best traits for survival have a greater chance to reproduce (because they survive longer than others), and their descendants will inherit those traits.
It is obvious, right?
In the course of cell division, mutations occasionally occur. If these mutations occur during the formation of a baby they can alter its features. If a mutation led to the development of a feature that promotes survival, that feature will be carried down to the coming generations. Traits that diminish the ability to survive will be eliminated by virtue of the simple fact that this particular offspring will not survive for very long.
In the most general terms, evolutionary principles are valid for any entity that meets these two conditions:

• It has the ability to develop traits to improve survival in a harsh environment and fierce competition with other entities with limited resources.
• It has the ability to reproduce and form similar entities which will continue to show the same traits.

Various species tend to acquire similar basic traits to improve the ability to survive, but they differ in detail in order to match their specific needs. This is due to the fact that what was the most simple and most effective way for one species to develop survival traits can also be suitable for others.

For example, various species use their hearing abilities to survive, but the sensitivity of the hearing differs from species to species.

This is true also for the brain. For example, researchers have recently found that some animals, including bumblebees, have feelings and an imagination resembling those produced by our brain. We usually apply the rules of evolution to living organisms and plants, but evolution can be applied to any entity that complies with evolutionary criteria.

This is true for plants as well as for other reproducible entities such as communities, technology, or economic systems.

This basic concept explains the development of species. Currently, evolutionary researchers know how to track the paths of development for many species with ever-increasing precision.

Nonetheless, the theory of evolution presented by Darwin was far from complete. Even Darwin himself understood that some natural phenomena did not fit his theory, which encouraged him to try and develop it further?

We might call Darwin’s original views “the private evolutionary theory” and the expanded version “the evolutionary theory of everything” thereby using parallel terms found in physics, where physicists aim at developing the “Theory of Everything.”

The Evolutionary Theory for Everything may include the following areas:

The private evolution – this is defined by the development of species through mutations, which cause selection over the course of generations. This is Darwin’s original theory.

The evolution of communities – this is defined by the development of communities. Communities grew, developed, split to create new communities and finally stopped existing in their original form. The first clue to this kind of evolution was due to altruism. Altruism does not sit well with Darwin’s basic theory. If a person is willing to give up his own life for the sake of the community, then clearly altruism will be gone as well according to Darwin's theory. However, we see that the trait of altruism still exists. The evolutionary reason for this lies in the survival of the larger entity, the bigger being, the community. People give their lives for the community in the same way as human cells die for the sake of the human body.

Fast evolution – this takes place when traits are modified within one generation.

Evolution of non-organic systems – this occurs when the principles of evolution are valid for anything that can reproduce and has to compete with others. This is true for organic molecules at the beginning of life, and it is true for the development of various other systems. These include technology, political systems, and economic systems. In this book, we will focus only on the evolution of human life, with an emphasis on the evolution of the brain, and the evolution of communities with an emphasis on cultures.

Private Evolution

The most common application of the evolution principle is the evolution of species. This was the only application for many years. Only in recent years have evolutionists given some thought to other evolutionary phenomena.

Orthodox Darwinians, such as Richard Dawkins, have explained that even minute advantages gained by the mutation in one member can, in the long run, change the whole species.

This explanation is valid in some cases, especially when there is a severe environmental change. But this explanation suffers from superficiality.

Small improvements by a single mutation can be dismissed for two reasons:

• The time required for spreading this small improvement may cause it to disappear by including? it with the majority of...what?
• Another greater improvement may cause the loss of? this small improvement.

Evolution of Communities

Among the sophisticated ways found in nature to enhance the chances of survival, forming communities is one of the most common. A community -- or 'herd' in the animal world -- when acting in unison creates a bigger being, stronger than each of its individual members.

Mankind excels at forming very large groups, by using culture to ease the bonding of people with the group.

All kinds of communication have managed to reinforce this bonding.

One cannot discuss human evolution without taking into account the impact of culture.

A cultural group can be considered as a large living being, and the people forming it as cells of that being.

All these cultural groups try to survive in a hostile environment, competing with other cultural groups.

A family is such a small group. Together, many families can form communities such as those of the ultra-Orthodox Jews. All various Jewish groups may form a nation, the Jewish people.

The complex structure of communities will not be discussed here as all we need to know regarding the issue at hand is the impact of the community on the individual.

When the other person lives in a closely-knit group, such as the group of ultra-Orthodox Jews, or anarchist groups, there is no need to understand every individual within the group.

With a few exceptions, the identity of the individuals is the same for all members of the group. All we have to do is consider the characteristics of the group, in order to understand how each individual within it thinks and reacts.

But within groups with a looser ideology, people have a mix of self-identity and group identity. In this case, we have to understand the mechanisms of individual thinking together with the features of a herd instinct.

This ability of mankind to connect on the basis of a sophisticated culture is also one of the major obstacles in our ability to understand the 'other' person of a different cultural group. In this case, we need to understand the nature of that different culture.

 There will be a more detailed discussion on this subject, in the following chapters.

Rapid Evolution

The reason underlying my belief in the existence of rapid evolution is the immense advantages it has in a rapid adjustment to changing circumstances. If such a development is possible, I am confident that it became possible during the long history of evolution.

Some hints of rapid evolution can be found in a relatively new research field called epigenetics. Epigenetics deals with changes in adult characteristics, caused by environmental stress or learning. It was found that under such conditions an adult can change locations order of genes, and switch them on or off. These changes determine many qualities, without changing the genes themselves.

Barbara Hoon, a research botanist, found that a plant subjected to severe physical conditions could change in an epigenetic way in order to survive. These changes are inherited by their offspring. This phenomenon is not limited to plants but also exists in animals. This is actually an example of an evolutionary subsystem that generates features of the species without having to wait for many generations of evolution by the screening of genetic mutations. The exact mechanism by which the epigenetics functions are not yet known but its existence can be seen in many phenomena.

Inheritance depends on the order and placement of the genes in the DNA (which is basically the same as programming) as well as the content of the genes. Perhaps the location of the genes is more easily inherited.

This is also the way in which stem cells differentiate into specialized cells. Perhaps in the same way cells can mutate in the process of division to become different cells.

Undesirable examples of such mutations are cancer cells.

Researchers such as Igor Kobltz'ik have confirmed this phenomenon but this research is still in its infancy.

The mechanism of inherited knowledge can be most important for humanity. The invention of the internet has enhanced the ability and the range of easily reached vast knowledge items; the problem is the limited capability of the human brain in absorbing this knowledge. If somehow we can control epigenetics then some information, as well as more important learning techniques, can be engraved in the newborn. Think of the advantage that the newborn would have if he or she were to possess the knowledge of a language.

An example of a rapid change (a change within one generation) can be seen in some species of fish which are able to voluntarily change their gender if there is a shortage of the other gender.

It is possible that this mechanism can explain the inheritance of features for which no specific gene was found to be directly responsible.

An example of such a feature is the mystery of maintaining our body shape.

Body cells die all the time and new cells are created by division mechanism. It does not take long before all our body cells are renewed, but still, our body does not change much. How is our body shape maintained even though all our cells are replaced?

We know that every cell in our body has our full DNA code; does it contain the information about the shape of our body? The body-shaping gene has not yet been discovered if that is the case. Epigenetics is active in every cell division. The idea that one’s shape is governed by epigenetics can explain the resemblance of offspring to their parents. Epigenetics keep our shape intact when we suffer from minor injuries.

Research carried out by evolutionists such as Wiesel (Axel Visel) can unravel the great mystery of controlling one’s body shape. Perhaps we will understand more concerning rapid evolution as the result of these studies. There is a chance that these studies will find additional mechanisms for the rapid evolution beyond epigenetics.

During cell division to create more cells, mutations can occur. The mutations can alter some of our features for better or worse.

An example of such mutations can be seen in the age spots or bumps on an old person’s face. These changes are maintained despite the death and the division of the original cells that created them. Perhaps mutations during cell division are 'inherited' by the new cells created by the division of the old ones.

For rapid evolution to be realized, the changed features have to be inherited by the offspring. We do not know yet how this is done and can just speculate, but there are some hints as to what direction we can check.

Research on rapid evolution should check whether the organs that produce sperm or ova can be changed by the epigenetic mechanism. One should focus on blood fluid cells or other fluid cells that reach all other cells in the body.

In a research lab, a vein of an old mouse was connected to one of a young mouse. In this way, they both had a common blood system. It turned out that the old mouse received some features of the younger mouse. His organs acted like those of a younger mouse. Even his memory improved. In fact, he seemed younger. On the other hand, the young mouse showed signs of becoming older.

It has been shown that blood reaching every cell in the body, plays a role in rapid evolution.

In this context it is worth remembering some studies done on worms: this proved that the memory of a baby worm that had been fed on a ground-up mature worm could receive the memory of the mature worm, thus indicating that food can be part of the rapid epigenetic evolution. Another example of epigenetics in food is the changing of a bee; when fed by royal jelly, to be a queen bee, it becomes capable of laying eggs and growing to be much larger than the ordinary bee.

We will not discuss this form of evolution in this book, because it has no direct impact on the understanding of the 'other' person.

Evolution of Different Systems -- The simple but ingenious principle of evolution is also true for systems which we do not consider as living identities. Evolution can be seen in systems such as economics, politics, technology, and even the evolution of ideas.

Here is an idea: evolution can occur on stars in the universe. There can be an entity which can develop, reproduce, and compete with other entities in a harsh environment. It is not necessary for an entity to be based on carbon or in any other way resembling any entity on earth. Then this entity satisfies the criteria of life. With this definition of life, there is probably life in outer space!

In this book, we will discuss only the evolution of the individual brain, and the evolution of cultural communities.

We will illustrate how cultural communities are born, how they develop and eventually die (or disintegrate to become other smaller communities).

We'll also discuss the influence of the community on the individual persons which are the building blocks of this community.

 The Brain is Me

“Some people think a man is just a machine. The only difference between a man and a mill is that one is driven by blood and the other by water.” – Horace Mann

The basic premise of this book is that we are our brain, and the essence of the other person is his brain. Specifically, it is our conscious part of the brain that we consider as the real us. Consciousness will be discussed in detail later.

When only the brain of a paralyzed person is functioning, he is still a person. No one disputes the fact that Stephen Hawking is a person, even though almost no part of his body functions – apart from his brain. In contrast, a person suffering from Alzheimer's, even with a totally healthy body, is not functioning as a person.

I am relating to the entire brain and not just to our consciousness that is usually considered as 'ourselves'. As we will see shortly, consciousness is no more than a small part of our existence. Usually, consciousness is nothing more than a screen on which our brain projects the results of its calculations: in other words, the image of reality, memories, thoughts, and feelings. We cannot say that consciousness is who we are, just as we cannot say that a computer screen is a computer. Look under the table: there you’ll find the computer.

My claim that, basically, brains work in a similar way for all people derives from the fact that the brain, much like the body, was developed over millions of years, in which humans were concentrated in a small area of the African Savannah. Throughout this entire period, this small group of humans shared challenges and dangers, fighting with other creatures over limited natural resources. The human population explosion occurred only over the last few hundreds of thousand years, a relatively short period in evolutionary terms. It is therefore natural that the brain developed similarly.

The brain’s basic mechanisms developed into their current form since the brain’s hardware is based on slow electrochemical communication. It is much slower than a silicon-based computer but, more important, it is much too slow to cope with the challenges of real life. In answer to this situation, intricate algorithms were developed.

We might assume that the brains of all people use the same basic algorithms.

Understanding these algorithms is necessary to comprehend how the human brain works but it is not enough since these are not the only mechanisms involved in processing data in the human brain. In addition to these algorithms, human communities over the years have developed many additional layers of mechanisms, unique to each community. Above those layers, there are the selectors of character and life experiences unique to each person.

It is not enough to evaluate only the basic functions of brain algorithms if we wish to successfully assess how the other feels and acts.

Understanding these algorithms will, however, bring us closer to understanding the other person.

The similarities and differences among people can be viewed as similarities and differences in the world of computers. Every computer company’s product is different, even though they are all structured from a CPU (central processing unit), some memory components, and binary signals that link these various elements. One company’s computer uses hardware comprising elements more or less linked similarly to another company’s product. But they differ in their database, operating systems, and the software applications.

In the same way, the basic structure is the same for all people.

Like computers, humans differ in their database usually termed as “stereotypes” or patterns, operating system, which is our character, and software applications which are our “worldview”.

By understanding how the basic mechanisms in our brains work, and which factors influence reality images structured in our brains, we can take a great step toward understanding the other person, and estimate on which facts this person based his conclusions.

If we learn something more about his worldview and character, we'll have a better chance of guessing how this person reacts.

It is important to emphasize that understanding the other does not imply agreeing with his way of thinking, or adopting his hierarchy of values.

Evolution has shaped the human brain over millions of years during which humans did not have the technology and culture that we know today. It is a great wonder that our brains can cope with the challenges of modern life. It seems that nature has refined our brains to make them multipurpose and flexible, enabling us to adapt ourselves even to an environment that has changed enormously.

The Limitations of the Brain

Before taking a look at the brain’s limitations, one should stop and admire its amazing abilities.

Anyone who has ever seen a clown balancing a stick on his nose, an acrobat catching a fellow acrobat on the trapeze with split-second timing or a baseball player hitting the ball pitched at a speed of 100 km per hour cannot help but marvel at the human brain’s sophistication in controlling our body.

We wonder how the brain can calculate the baseball’s orbit, given that it takes a few tenths of a second to reach the player, compared with the time it takes for the process of receiving the information, calculating, and moving the baseball bat to the exact position.

The answer is practice. A brain is a learning machine. It learns to anticipate where the ball will hit from the way in which the pitcher holds the ball. An untrained person cannot come close to the performance of a veteran baseball player who has spent hundreds of hours in training.

Actually, a great deal of our automatic actions is the outcome of just such a process. An infant practices for hours before being able to walk confidently on his legs. The circus acrobat walks the tightrope confidently only after hours of training.

As much as the brain’s physical control over the body is stupendous, its intellectual capabilities are even more staggering. The cultural and scientific development of the human race is the outcome of the human brain’s abilities. The brain’s wonderful performance is due to the many years of evolution during which it was refined.

It is impossible not to be impressed by the force of the water that shaped the Grand Canyon. Although it is difficult to imagine how water can carve out the rock so deeply, it is clear that this is a natural phenomenon resulting from many years of erosion.

Even though it may be difficult for us to grasp, that was the case with our brain. It has become refined over millions of years. Our difficulty in comprehending this brings many to attribute this development, mistakenly, to God.

To demonstrate the brain’s vast ability, let us observe the process of facial identification. Any child can identify faces better than the best of computers of today. Identifying faces is a complex task performed by the human brain speedily and effectively. This skill is particularly predominant in humans and primates since they are social creatures for whom it is important to identify others, and what their intentions are. In a fraction of a second, we identify gender, age, and intention, after only a quick look at the face. If that face is familiar we can even attach a name to it, and recall our shared history.

Researchers have found that various brain sectors are involved while looking at a face, depending on our relation to whom we are looking at.

For example:

• Familiar faces immediately increase activity in the visual area of the brain and the amygdala. The latter is part of the limbic system.
• Pretty faces cause an increase in activity of the neural system, the degree of reaction depending on the observer’s sexual preference.

These findings indicate that faces arouse associations, memories, and feelings, in addition to image processing by our visual systems which are responsible for identifying facial outlines.

We are good at identifying faces belonging to people with whom we share some history because we are emotionally connected to them, and we know them well.

In a study of functional imaging conducted in the USA, subjects observed three types of faces: family members, celebrities, and faces of strangers.

Faces of people with whom the subjects were personally acquainted caused increased activity in two areas of the brain which mediate recall of information from memory. Looking at a familiar face causes spontaneous recall of many details linked with the person to whom the face belongs. Additionally, unlike an unknown face that we have not yet evaluated and may yet be clarified as dangerous, a familiar face does not require us to be on guard. This causes a decrease in defensive activities focused on the amygdala.

An additional study scanned the brains of mothers while they were looking at the faces of their children, and compared it to the same mothers as they were looking at unfamiliar children. The findings indicated that looking at images of their own children activated the limbic system (the amygdala and the insula) and areas in the frontal cortex in mothers. The neurological activity in these specific areas enabled mothers to love, be concerned about, and protect their children.

The emotional link between mothers and their children is based not only on neurology but also biochemistry, in the form of oxytocin, a hormone released during birth and breastfeeding. This hormone is also released both by men and women during sexual relations. Some claim that due to its vital role in the survival of one’s offspring, its release during female orgasm causes many women to fall in love with the men with whom they have sexual relations. In other words, this gives rise to the inability of women to separate sex from love. It indicates also a biological link, in addition to being the closest social link, between people. We will delve into this more when discussing the impact that social relations has on the individual human.

Besides being a command center for activating our bodies, our brain is also our entire being. It controls our actions, our thoughts, and our emotions.

Now it is time to discuss the brain's limitations.

The limitations of the human brain are due to the slow electro-chemical communication and to the limited space of the skull in which it is housed.

The speed of synapses firing in the brain is far slower than the speed of man-made electronic computers. More important, the speed at which our brain calculates cannot cope with the speed of events to which humans had to react in order to survive.

The skull in which the brain is housed further limits the number of cells to do the job. These limitations led to the need for clever solutions that would allow the brain to cope with reality.

This relatively slow calculating speed is partly compensated for by the brain’s parallel computations: multiple processes can take place among the brain’s neurons. In this situation, the brain is more like the Internet network than the standalone computer. Many people can work simultaneously on servers across the Internet, and receive faster service than by using a single, central computer. This is the case even though the speed of communication is lower than that of the central computer system.

For the purpose of deciding on a course of action at the speed needed, we will make use of estimations instead of certainty, and activation of the existing database (stereotypes) in the brain, instead of restructuring conclusions each time anew.

Unfortunately, this course of action also leads to errors in perception causing misunderstandings among people.

The use of preconceived responses, (or stereotypes) to stimuli received via the senses can cause judgment failures.

The 'database' engraved in our brain is, in part, inherited genetically and in part acquired by learning. Logically, if I act on the basis of my database, the other person will act on his different database, resulting in different outcomes.

 We have to take into account these differences in modes of thinking when we try to understand the other person.

Structuring the Picture of Reality

No person is identical to any other. Some are tall, some short; some are slim while others are heavy, and there are many skin colors. Yet we are all instantly able to perceive the difference between a human and a monkey, a primate, even though we share some 98% genetically identical traits with the monkey. It is obvious that some elements are shared by all humans, which allow us to distinguish ourselves from every other living creature.

Similarly, no human mind is identical to that of any other yet we can identify basic cognitive abilities shared by all humans. Later in this chapter, I will attempt to outline these abilities.

We still do not know precisely how the human brain works. But much can be deduced when we take into account the brain’s physical limitations, the latest brain research, and our own observations. This way we can discover the solutions which evolution has found to enable the brain’s functions to cope with the challenges of reality.

1. When another moving toward us at high speed, we must be able to come to a decision very quickly, based on the limited amount of data that has managed to reach our brain from the senses. What action should we take? We must be able to decide whether that being is a tiger charging toward us and we must flee, or is it our beloved wife running toward us joyfully, and we should run forward with outstretched hands, smiling.

The brain makes use of data based on multiple clues: speed, sound, silhouette and more to reach this decision.

Research shows that even if we observe, for example, some dots moving on a screen arranged in a specific way, we can deduce that the figure on the screen is dancing happily. The brain’s ability to assess events based on very little data relies heavily on cumulative prior experience.

We can describe the brain’s function as a vast database arranged in a table, where the first column contains a list of events. The brain searches through them until it finds one that matches the initial information being fed in by our senses. When an event is found, it acts as a trigger to read the relevant line where all the attributes and reactions are written. The brain activates the registered structured reaction found in that line of the table. Of course, the real function of the brain is much more complicated but this analog gives some understanding of how the brain acts.

In an experiment conducted to verify the way in which the brain works, it was discovered that it does indeed draw on the appropriate line in the table even if when what is registered there sometimes clashes with objective reality. In this study a banana was displayed under colored lighting, altering the banana’s color. Nonetheless, the researched subjects always indicated with the conviction that the banana’s true color was yellow, and did not relate to its altered color. The reason is that the banana was identified in the human brain, triggering the relevant data and found that it is listed as being yellow. The brain immediately projects this information onto our consciousness visualization. However, this was not the case when the researched subjects saw a square of yellow paper illuminated to change its color. In this case, the brain of the researched subjects does not find any engraved data for a specifically colored square since a square could be any color. The square’s altered color, changed by lighting, can, therefore, be easily identified.

Some years ago the USA was buzzing over a case in which two police officers killed a Hispanic man in Los Angeles. The man was not armed. He had attempted to extricate some identification papers from his jacket, but the police officers mistakenly thought they saw him drawing out a pistol.

Researchers presented students with clips showing different people, some of whom drew out a wallet and others, a gun. Students were requested to state whether they saw a wallet or a gun, and were given the same short period of time to decide as the police officers had. The students tended to ‘see’ a gun in the hands of African-Americans and Hispanics with greater frequency than when related to whites.

This proves the power of stereotypes embedded in our minds. The stereotypes in the students’ minds linked specific populations to violence. When the need arose to reach fast decisions, the brain was forced to resort to stereotypes rather than rethinking. If the brain had had enough time to process information, the outcomes might have been different.

We can understand just how strongly our brains rely on stereotyping by the way in which we relate to the food we were raised on or the familiar landscapes of our place of birth. If we were raised in a normative family, we will love the food, and feel nostalgic over our way of life. All these are engraved in our brain. Each of us has his/her relevant reaction listed in the 'table' in his brain. When the brain receives the appropriate association for that listing, it immediately brings all relevant data to the surface.

The database of stereotypes in our brains is not the only source that helps the brain to shorten the processing time. We absorb information from the environment through our senses, which are more or less identical in all of us. Nonetheless, different people may process that information differently. We can compare this to a couple watching an opera. The man may focus his opera binoculars on the women in their gorgeous gowns, while the woman gazes at the handsome tenor on the front of the stage.

To reduce time even further, the brain directs the senses to get the information it considers of greater importance first. Movement is absorbed faster than a stationary object. Sharp items, which may be dangerous, are more readily processed than blunt objects.

Our brain also filters out environmental noise to get strictly relevant information. When we listen to our friend speaking, our brain mutes the voices of others around us; thus it does not have to waste time dealing with irrelevant information. There are more algorithms the brain uses to save time. For example: in a study conducted to understand how people read books, it was found that we do not read the written content, the words, in the order in which they are written. The brain commands our eyes to run down the page, skipping words we know well, and then return to reading the less familiar words. In this way, the brain can accelerate our understanding of the written content.

After crunching the information from the senses as described, the brain processes the filtered information, using its database to understand what is going on.

What the brain understands as reality is not necessarily exactly what our eyes see. It is a combination of the information pouring from our senses and our engraved database.

When activities within areas of the brain are monitored when people are looking at pictures, they are found to be just like activities within the same areas when the people imagine those same pictures. This proves that our consciousness “sees” the image produced by the brain rather than the image seen directly by our eyes.

Each of us creates different images when watching something since we direct our senses differently and our databases are not the same. This is why people argue over facts. They “see” different facts.

If we are to understand the other person, we must be able to assess what he 'sees' in his mind, even though it may be very different from what we perceive as reality.

The brain’s information processing system contains roughly three main stages. Each of them operates somewhat differently in each of us, which also makes it necessary to understand how the other person’s brain relates in each stage. The stages are:

• Data collection.
• Data processing and visualizations to determine the appropriate reaction.
• Additional processing to plan long-term strategies

When the brain decides on the proper reaction, it kicks into action its body control mechanism, which was the core of its original being.

The Brain as a Documentary Director

In the previous sector, we learned that the other person does not necessarily see the same reality that I see. Nonetheless, people are certain that their vision of reality is indeed the true one. Thus, if I can 'see' something with my own eyes, and hear the sounds it makes, you cannot tell me that, in reality, there is something else.

It is like the case when a manager relays a hand-written document for processing. His secretary sees only the text whereas the graphic artist focuses on visual aspects of the document. Yet neither of them sees the full picture.

If we want to understand what is on the other person’s mind, the true reality is not important. What is important here is to comprehend that different people base their conclusions not only on different interpretations of facts but on different facts even if they look at the same reality.

The reason that the images of reality reaching our brains do not faithfully reflect reality is due to the limitations of our senses, as well as the limitations of the brain itself.

Our senses are limited in terms of frequency (the range of colors we can see, or the range of sounds we can hear), and their sensitivity. Our senses are limited especially when compared to those of other living creatures. Our vision is not nearly as good as that of an eagle; our sense of smell cannot match that of a dog, and our sense of hearing is very much less sensitive than that of a bat.

Moreover, we find it difficult to absorb extremely large numbers, unfamiliar sights, extremely long or short periods of time, or very long or extremely small distances.

We also have great difficulty with anything that is not intuitive.

On top of this, the brain guides our senses to see only the facts that match our point of view.

Those limitations forced the brain to rely on evaluations, rather than construct a full picture of reality.

The way in which the brain operates as described above has been extensively researched these last few years but is not yet fully understood. In any event, it matches the evolutionary logic of what should be the course of operation.

When examining the iris of the eye while the subjects observe a picture, researchers were surprised to find that it homes in on the important points in the picture, such as faces or interesting objects, which are scanned rapidly several times while we gaze at the picture. The eye never scans the entire picture. The brain receives individual pixels and places greater emphasis on central points that relate to our daily lives. A human face will involve some fifty percent of the data processing, while the rest of the picture will receive only marginal attention.

We are accustomed to thinking of our eyes as a camera lens, shooting the video film of reality, and of our brain like a video camera computer constructing the scene. In fact, the eyes translate the images into electrical-chemical pulses, which run along the nerves to the brain’s processing centers where they are processed according to algorithms engraved by the arrangement of synapses, and finally produce some visual experiences. Here are two examples that show how wrong the concept of a video camera is:

• When matrices of needles were activated by a video camera to press on a blind person's skin, that person could experience the image. The resolution of the image depends on the number of needles serving as pixels in the picture. This experiment proves that we do not need the eyes as a camera lens to see.
• It is a known fact that we see a picture in its correct position even though the image projected onto our retinas is upside down. This shows that the brain processes the image before presenting it to our conscious experience. In experiments, people wear eyeglasses with lenses that reverse the images. Initially, they did, in fact, see upside-down images, but the brain quickly learned to re-position them correctly, and the subjects then saw the image as though they were not looking through inverting glasses. Once the glasses were removed, these individuals again saw things “upside down” for a while until the brain re-corrected itself once more.

I prefer to view the process of reconstructing the model of the real world as the more complex creation of a movie. What we 'see' on the screen of consciousness is not the picture of reality. It is the modeling of reality carried out by the brain’s subconscious. In this way, we can view the brain's subconscious as a documentary director with a fixed agenda, creating the documentary with clever manipulation of the camera (the senses). The process of creating the film in this example is carried out in three hierarchic stages, which match those of the brain’s hierarchy of data processing:

• Shooting the film – collecting the data from the senses.
• Editing the photographed scenes into the film’s plot – data processing for shaping the narrative of reality.
• Completing the film adding effects – editing the narrative of reality to decide on the action needed with the aid of visualization that we can see.

Consciousness is that part of the brain that we tend to identify as “myself”.

A more detailed discussion on what is 'consciousness' will be presented later in this chapter.

At present, it is important to note that our consciousness sees only the reality that our subconscious, acting as a film director, projects onto it – which may not necessarily be the true reality.

 Having said this, let us continue in presenting in detail the analogy of the brain’s subconscious as a documentary director.

Shooting the Film

Very much like a documentary director, the brain guides the senses acting as its cameraman, as to what should be filmed and what should be left out of the frame. This is rather like the way in which some news reporters manipulate the facts to fit their political views.

In many cases, the brain of a person writes the 'screenplay' which, in our analogy, is his worldview agenda. In such cases, the 'actors' in the real world seem to act according to that person's specific worldview/screenplay leading to a misinterpretation of events.

If reality is analogous to a documentary, our dream is like a Disney fantasy animation film where nothing is based on data from our senses and yet it seems very real to us.

Dreams or chemically-induced hallucinations are further proof that we perceive reality not as a video film but rather more like a screenplay compiled by our documentary director/brain.

In both cases, the documentary and the fantasy films of our consciousness accept the virtual images as the true reality. Whether in a dream or experiencing reality in our waking hours, we feel the same in both cases. The sensations of sight, hearing and smell are identical in both cases despite the fact that, in a dream, there is no sensory stimulus arousing them. Sometimes we experience a kind of a 'dream state' even in our waking hours while watching a good movie or reading a compelling book or just day-dreaming.

In real life, as in movies, there are 'video cameras': our eyes and ears, recording video images. But do they really record the physical world? When we see two actors talking in a moving car, is that car really moving, or do we just have that impression because the moving view is projected onto the background?

Similarly, when we sit in a train and another train is moving parallel to us, we get the impression that it is our train that is moving.

There are many more examples of delusions to convince the skeptics that we cannot rely on what our eyes see, or what our ears hear.

We do not truly see reality, but rather interpretations of reality. This is also true for the other person.

In a movie the film director creates a scene, using flesh and blood actors to represent reality by playing roles according to his instructions. Our brain instructs our senses for the same reason. Different people will create different “scenes” based on the same reality, thus perceiving reality differently.

Like a good journalist, the brain makes use of every tidbit of information available as it deciphers data in an optimal manner. And, like that journalist, it ranks its sources of information based on their reliability, while rushing to submit his story in the time before the deadline.

Harry McGurk conducted some research and found that our sense of sight is far more reliable than our sense of hearing; this is known as the “McGurk Effect” A video was shown in which the lips are mouthing different words to what viewers hear; the brain rejects the data coming from the ears in favor of the visual information we see with our eyes, causing viewers to 'hear' what the moving lips are forming.

This effect is so dominant that even a researcher, testing this effect, admitted that he “hears” the movements of the lips even though he is aware of the manipulation, and knows what the actor is really saying.

The “McGurk Effect” demonstrates the sophisticated way in which the brain operates to get the most reliable information. And, again, it shows that what our mind perceives is not exactly true.

Some researchers claim that the brain uses only some ten percent of the input sensory information in order to understand reality. In light of this fact, it is odd that judges place such weight on the testimony of eyewitnesses. Should any judge rely on ten percent of the truth of the testimony of an eye-witness?

The brain completes the other ninety percent by referencing its equivalent to 'database' and its strong 'assessment algorithm'.

In the magic tricks involving a 'disappearing ball', a magician throws the ball into the air several times. He will then simply continue to repeat the same movement, but keeps the ball in his hand. In controlled experiments examining the direction of vision, the eye indeed sees that the ball did not leave the magician’s hand, but the brain believes its database which has recorded that when the hand makes a certain throwing movement, the ball has been tossed upwards. For a while, we 'see' the ball in the air, very much like we did in the previous instances until enough data from our eyes convince our brain that this is not the case, and the ball seems to disappear.

This proves that, for the brain, what it finds in its database is considered more reliable than the actual information flowing to it from the senses.

This mode of action exists in order to overcome the slow operation of our brain in our struggle to cope with fast-moving reality events. It prefers to use data that already exist in our database rather than the slow in-pouring data from our senses.

An ancient hunter would not be able to throw his spear and kill a fleeing hare without that marvelous capability of the brain to imagine the creature’s path of flight, much like it did in the 'disappearing ball' magic.

Data Processing

We have seen how the brain can manipulate and integrate information coming from all our senses by cross-referencing information and merging it with the existing database. This database is sometimes called stereotypes.

Using the analogy of writing a document for the manager, the secretary makes use of the dictionary – like our word database -- to correct spelling errors, while the graphics editor focuses on an image database like our visualization algorithms.

The database engraved into the liberal brain, which helps people feel they should be thankful, rather than murdering their savers.

Therefore it seems unfeasible that the extreme Muslim population would be so ungrateful but to our great horror, reality does not match its anticipations. The database -- or should we say the stereotypes -- engraved in the Muslim brain, regard any non-Muslim as an infidel. An infidel should be submissive toward the superiority of Muslims. That is why it is natural for second-class humans such as the infidel Americans, to help the Muslims and no thanks are in order. In their mind, infidelity is the worst crime and should be punished by a humiliating death.

Thus the different stereotypes engraved into the minds of people in these two cultures lead to this misunderstanding.

The word stereotype has a bad connotation but still, we are all using stereotypes in the practice of reacting fast enough despite our slow brain.

It is important to know how that stereotypical database is constructed. Here is a suggestion as to how it may work:

• Stereotypes structured in the infant ’s mind as part of genetics. In this way, the infant “knows” how to snuggle into its mother’s breast, how to fear the hissing of a snake and many more things. Almost all people share these stereotypes since they were assimilated over the long period of the brain’s evolution, relative to the short time-frame of human history. These stereotypes are also common among other animals.
• Stereotypes engraved through education. This mechanism engraves stereotypes via imitation of other people in the same community, or by formal education. Usually, these stereotypes are engraved at a fairly young age. The less individualistic a person is, the more readily he will share the stereotypes of his cultural group. These stereotypes are typical in a specific cultural group but may be different from those held by members of other cultural groups.
• Stereotypes learned by individual experience, either learning a specific task, or simply automatic accumulation of life’s experiences. For example, pilots are trained to make speedy, instinctive decisions via the engraved automatic responses into their minds. With experience, they accumulate many more engraved stereotypes. These stereotypes can vary from one person to another. It is difficult to assess this type of stereotype in any specific individual without knowing him well.

There may be other ways in which a stereotype is engraved in our mind but for the purpose of this book, these are sufficient.

Intuition, experience, database, patterns, and stereotypes are all terms describing brain mechanisms used to help us make fast decisions, as they draw on reactions engraved in our brains.

Few people will admit that some of their decisions are based on stereotypes. The term, “intuition" is a milder term for the same thing. Every person thinks that his thoughts and actions are based on logic and ethics. But when it comes to judging other persons, he is sometimes convinced that they are acting according to their primitive stereotypes, engraved in their minds through brainwashing.

This reminds me of an old radio game in which participants were asked to define the same characteristic from three different perspectives: me, you, and him. An example would be:

I know how to manage my money well.

You’re a bit thrifty, but he? He’s downright miserly!

We can project this example in multiple cases in our life. Such as:

I am in favor of having foreign residents pass a suitability test to ensure that they feel comfortable in our environment.

You prefer neighbors of your own kind, but he? He’s a xenophobic racist.

When it comes to using stereotypes, we can apply the same format:

I function logically and ethically.

You are rather sentimental and use intuition, but he? He’s a racist who acts and thinks according to stereotypes because he has been brainwashed.

It is well known that we have a blind spot in our eyes, but the black holes in our brain are ignored. We should not ignore them. To avoid falling into such a hole, we must adopt a habit of “hovering” above ourselves to be able to locate such holes and avoid them. Only an individualist can manage this because he can free himself from the bonds of stereotypes when others rely more on stereotypes stored in their brains, and rarely take an objective look at them.

The evolutionary reason for blocking original thoughts is that we have to unite with our community and we do this better when our way of thinking is aligned with that of the others. We think better of ourselves than of the others because one of the functions of the brain is to keep ourselves in a tranquil state as far as possible. Our brain will not recoil from any means toward achieving this goal: it will distort vision and memory, invent stories that glorify us. It justifies everything that we do but is very critical toward others.

We must identify our own stereotypes and discard them, as we judge others. We should also learn and take into account the stereotypes of others. For such a task we should learn what are our own stereotypes as well as those of the others.

All this should be considered in addition to assessing how the other sees reality as discussed earlier in this book.

 It is like taking off our distorting glasses, while removing the mask that the other person is wearing. Only then can we recognize the true face of the other.

 Additional Data

Next, our brain: The film director sits down to finish the movie. The raw film is edited.

The film editor adds text, titles, music, and other effects to narrate a story.

Similarly, the editor inside our brain uses our engraved database and shape extensively with the help of algorithms, developed by many years of evolution reality narrative ready to be presented on the screen of our consciousness. In addition, the story projected is modified to match our worldview since, if it does not, we would feel uncomfortable.

Other parts of our brain can now apply logic to the movie visualization and conclude what action is necessary. Sometimes our subconscious adds emotions to this dish, in order to force us to override logic if necessary or shape decisions in the right direction.

We have to keep in mind that the sole purpose of the brain is to enable us to choose the best way to survive, and not to draw the most accurate picture of reality. Those two are not always identical (but causally related). Thus our private film director – the subconscious brain -- processes data in a way that will best serve us survive the dangers that we face.

It may be possible in the future to implant “pictures of reality” into our consciousness through means other than the subconscious brain. The fierce competition among computer companies in the business of computer games leads to ever-higher quality screen images. This race has been proven to contribute to computer technology.

We might surmise that, at some point, one of these companies will find the way to project images directly onto our consciousness screen. Such a day may not be far off. We already have interfaces that link digital computers to the human brain. Such displays allow the implanting of a visual and vocal display, as well as aromas and even emotions. All these elements are implanted in our consciousness only by the brain.

The Brain’s Mechanisms and Tools

We first make our habits, and then our habits make us. – John Dryden

As evolution progressed, the brain developed various tools to assist its functioning.

These exist primarily in what is known as the subconscious. The tools fall into these categories:

• Decision-making.
• Memory.
• Mimicry.

The part of the brain generally known as awareness or consciousness employs additional tools:

• Imagination.
• Suppression.

The brain structure is very complicated and not yet fully known, but those are the main categories relevant to the topic of this book.

The Decision-making Mechanism

“Pretend that there is a machine whose structure makes it think, sense and have perception. Then we can conceive of it enlarged, but keeping to the same proportions, so that we might go inside it, as into a mill. Suppose that we do: then if we inspect the interior, we shall find there nothing but parts which push one another, and never anything that could explain a perception. Thus, perception must be sought in a simple substance, not in what is composite or in machines.” - Gottfried Leibniz

The purpose of understanding the other person is to predict how he will react in thoughts, emotions, and actions, to events.

This is what this book is all about.

A person's reaction is based on the assessment of the reality made by his brain. The brain applies decision algorithms and makes a decision, either logical or emotional, and then issues orders to the muscles to carry out the decision.

The decision-making hierarchy is as follows:

• If the incoming data fit into the pattern of urgent danger, the brain immediately issues the response engraved in that pattern. It does not wait for more data to accumulate before issuing commands to the muscles. There are simpler forms of reactions that do not involve the brain at all. They are issued by the nervous system to cut response time even further. They are therefore known as reflex reactions. Consciousness is reported only after the response.
• When the incoming data fit an immediate action pattern category, fast action is needed but the situation does not involve danger. In such a situation, the brain reacts and simultaneously informs the consciousness part of the brain. The consciousness is not aware of sub-conscious operations; it thinks that it is its own decision, and invents some story to justify this decision. Responses of this kind were the subject of Libet's famous experiments.
• Another type is the emotion-based decision or intuitive decision. These are none other than decisions made by the subconscious forcing the conscious to carry out this decision. Numerous studies have proven that each emotion is related to a certain chemical. These chemicals (or hormones) induce the phenomena we experience as feelings. The exact procedure is not yet clear to science. It was found that oxycontin was known as the “love hormone”, affects our decision-making by causing a blurring of our rational thinking and suspicion, thus heightening trust in the other person. In this way, the subconscious forces one’s consciousness to make decisions that defy logic. This behavior is typical of people in love.
• And the most familiar form is the decision-making that follows a conscious logical path of reasoning.

If we are to understand how the other person feels and reacts, the two last types of long-term reactions are of importance. Emotion-based decisions may also sometimes seem to have a logical basis but, again, one person’s logic may seem Pavlovian to another individual.

An old philosophical question asks whether we have free will, or are our reactions like the decisions made by a computer.

It’s difficult to see a dictated reaction as an “independent decision”.

The issue of free will arises following an experiment conducted by the brain researcher, Benjamin Libet, in 1983 in which he showed that the subconscious knew what a person would decide even before he knew it consciously. Thus, it is not our consciousness that decides, but our subconscious and our consciousness merely justify the decision after the fact, adopting that decision as though it, the consciousness, had done it.

Evidence of such behavior comes from experimental work in social psychology. It is well established that people sometimes think they have witnessed an event, or have taken a decision that they really did not take. They invent some reasons and make their reports as though they had reached a decision because of those reasons.

You may check this for yourselves. Think about whether there is a different explanation for the one you gave for an action you carried out. Did you ever choose a longer path toward your destination and, in retrospect, justify it with some reason or another?

Sometimes the brain translates a decision into emotion by injecting chemicals, or through some other way. The brain causes the release of endorphin, which causes pleasure, as a way of increasing encouragement; it may cause the release of other, different, chemicals to produce disgust, fear and so on. This is how it pushes the appropriate reaction into consciousness, and the brain area responsible for consciousness invents the narrative appropriate to the feeling. The ability of consciousness to invent narratives, which seem to us to be the unchallenged truth, is also presented in trials which examined people with a split brain. When an image was shown to the left visual field (the left half of the picture was shown to both eyes) they invented a narrative to explain the image. The reason is that the image in the left visual field was processed by the right half of the brain, but in the absence of a fully functioning corpus-callosum, the information could not reach the speech center which in most people is in the left area of the brain.

The procedure examined by Libet is not typical of all decision-making. When a snap decision is called for, the consciousness understands this as gut feeling or intuition. When an even faster action is needed, the brain operates instinctively and bypasses consciousness completely.

Consciousness, however, is not an ornament that nature has given us. Remember that we already noted how, according to evolutionary theory, every trait has a function, otherwise it would not survive into the future generations?

Consciousness therefore also has a function, beyond creating narratives. Its purpose is to plan and decide in the long term. For this reason, it uses both imagination and analytical capabilities. Sometimes it reaches a decision and forces the subconscious brain to cooperate. When a discrepancy occurs between the decision made by the subconscious brain and that of consciousness, we feel uncomfortable. In extreme cases, the brain will veto an action that the consciousness wishes to execute and causes that action’s cancellation or raises obstacles to seeing it through. People explain such experiences with reasons such as “I just couldn’t get my legs to move.”

Think about the way in which we, as humans, can set off into an imaginary future. Think about the human capacity to consider results and consequences, weigh alternatives, plan in advance and invent technologies.

This ability to foresee is very helpful not only for the human but also for other animals. Indeed we find animals such as lions or dolphins that plan a coordinated attack on their prey. No creature, however, apart from humans, has such a long-term planning capability. Frequently though, the subconscious takes control over consciousness and we experience an unexplained desire for something. In such cases, we simply say we couldn’t withstand the temptation, or as Oscar Wilde claimed, “I can resist everything but temptation”.

Still, humans rely on logical decisions and do not succumb to temptations much more often than other species.

Apes do not excel at withstanding temptation. When a reward intended for the future, one forty times greater than an immediate reward was offered, chimpanzees managed to restrain themselves for no more than eight minutes, while gorillas held back for two.

This gives an edge to the human race over other species.

It should be noted that the brain never stops the process of evaluating data. After the decision is made and an action is taken, the brain stores all data for future use in similar conditions enhances the patterns used or newly created and traces the success of its decision to conclude whether such a decision was advisable.

The process used for the decision is learned and can be applied to reactions to different events. When success is repeatedly achieved, the brain can shift a decision-making process from the conscious to the unconscious or even to a reflex decision process.

There are no separate parts of the brain dealing with each kind of decision; rather the brain functions in a continuous way by using the same elements over and over again for the economy and easy function. Just like many processes in nature.

The Mechanism of Memory

The amazing abilities of the human brain’s insight and wisdom are closely linked to our ability to remember. Many brain researchers have delved into seeking how memory works. There are many questions regarding memory functions: where it is positioned, what the brain decides to remember and, specifically, how memory functions. The mechanism of memory function is not yet fully understood but there is sufficient knowledge of how it influences our thinking.

Studies of the human brain are the most fascinating field of all but, despite extensive research, the brain remains a riddle in many ways.

The development of F-MRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machines allows the locating of electrical brain activity while the brain performs various tasks. Nonetheless, the concealed aspects are still far greater than the revealed; and our understanding of brain function and our knowledge of it, though expanding, remains minimal.

But to understand the other person, however important it is to know how exactly memory functions, it is more important to note that the brain discards chunks of memory, and implants other, erroneous, memories.

Anyone who knows something about how computers function is awed at the brain’s ability to recall events. For a computer to remember the same number of events that a man can remember in his lifetime, it needs huge memory banks to store those huge amounts of video clips, audio files, and images, as well as other information such as the smells, emotions, and thoughts which accompany each event. This would require a tremendous amount of memory storage, which would be difficult to compact into something as small as the human skull.

And this is not the only drawback. It would be difficult to retrieve the memory of an event as quickly as the brain does when all we have at our disposal is slow “hardware” that relies on chemical processes and neural pulses.

In DVD technology terms, we would need in the vicinity of 500,000 DVDs just for the images, taking into consideration that a good computer these days has memory storage equivalent to some 70 DVDs.

How is it, then, that our brain does not keep growing? In fact, the brain actually shrinks with age, even though it has to store more events each year.

The answer must be that the brain does not actually store the memory of events, but structures the display of each specific event each time anew, from the raw material using algorithms. We have discussed the amazing abilities of the brain to construct visualization by using minimal data bits from our senses. The same techniques with the same algorithms are used here when the brain reconstructs visualization from memories.

This mode of brain function also explains how we can experience dream events that seem as real as wakeful reality. In the case of dreams, the brain links to a narrative and builds the appropriate display just as it does when following sensory stimulation. Why it does so, and which narratives it chooses to build are not important issues for our objective of understanding the other person.

Memory structured in the human brain influences the individual’s behavior and thoughts. It is important to realize that memory is not a true copy of what occurred in reality, but rather a new structuring of images each time something from the past is remembered. Life experiences impact the content of the brain’s database, which is constantly updated with each event. This explains why, each time we reconstruct a memory, we may receive a different memory of the same event, based on the updated data bank.

Native Americans, on first seeing the Spanish ships far off at sea, had no data bank of memories to call on, never having seen such big ships before; therefore they simply ignored them, lacking the data with which to carry out a comparison. Only when the Shaman called their attention to these images, did his people take note.

The brain compares images of reality from the senses and compares them to existing images learned from previous experiences and events. Therefore it needs to process only the differences. If I meet a person after a separation of ten years, I shall most likely be able to identify that person despite changes in his appearance. I'll probably be able even to remember our shared experiences, and recollect details such as smells, sounds, and emotions relevant to that situation, even if I cannot recall every single detail. That shows how marvelous is this brain of ours.

Our brains are instruments of learning. They learn by focusing on specific points and/or experiences or events. The more time that passes without drawing on a particular memory, the deeper the images are buried in the archives of our life experiences and it is more difficult to remember.

 To conclude: the clever methods are used by the brain to recollect allow long-term memory with relatively few resources involved, but they can also lead to the storage of incomplete and inaccurate memories.

 The Mechanism of Mimicry

Mimicry is one of the more common mechanisms that nature uses to promote learning.

An infant learns to speak by imitating the sounds made by adults. The meaning of those words is learned later.

An artist learns painting techniques by copying famous works of art.

Mimicry is also an important talent from a social perspective. In Part 2 of this book, we will see how strong our need is to belong to a group. We imitate the behavior of others in our group partly to avoid controversy; hence they are more ready to receive us as a member of that group. In our world of labeling and branding, mimicry is the entry card into the community. In a psychological study where the researcher imitated the actions of the researched subjects, the researcher’s opinions were more readily accepted than those of another researcher who purposely sought to be quite different from the group. Advertising to promote commercial brands uses our desire to be accepted by the community; it urges us to mimic popular community icons and models, claiming that they use that particular brand.

Numerous psychological studies have proven that a significant part of human learning derives from mimicking others. This is, in fact, the most basic learning method among children from early infancy onward.

Learning begins with observing others, followed by copying their behavior. We then watch the response of others: if we get encouragement, then this behavior is reinforced; if not, it is avoided.

The stages in mimic learning are: first focusing attention on the subject, then retention, followed by the motivation to imitate, and finally translating what we have learned into actual behavior.

Learning through mimicking is explained well by Bandura in his Social Learning Theory. But there is more to mimicry than mere learning. In the process, we express our need to belong and integrate into the groups in our environment.

Mimicry is strongly influenced by social motivation and social pressures applied by the group on the individual.

The human race excels in advanced cultures. Much of this is due to its talent for mimicry that plays a crucial part in the first stages of forming a group culture.

Learning through mimicry is easy because by copying a paradigm the brain does not have to develop reactions.

Research has shown that the brain releases dopamine - the pleasure chemical -- each time it identifies a pattern. This is why we enjoy Mozart, with its repeated and easily identified patterns.

Formal education is also based quite strongly on mimicking. Children mimic their parents and teachers. Many people with clearly-defined political worldviews are children of parents with the same worldviews. However, in our current Western culture where the connection between parents and children is less strong than in the past, children may find alternative models to emulate.

Parents and teachers try to educate their children through personal example to be good and to do well. The problem arises in the definition of “good.”

For parents in Thailand, “good” may be equated with being nice to other people For some extreme Muslim parents in ISIS, “good” may be killing whomever they see as the infidel.

In the Arab world, it is good to honor the elderly whereas the elderly are more frequently scorned in Western civilization.

The desire to educate the younger generation is, in part, a subconscious desire to integrate the children into the community by ensuring that they acquire the values and habits of the community in which they are being raised. This is why Muslims feel threatened by the open channels of communication offered by Western technology. They fear that their children will emulate the models they see on TV or the Internet, rather than remain true to their own social norms.

Dictators understand the importance of education in consolidating their subjects under their regime.

MaoTseTung was involved in the education of the Chinese population to the point of obsession, which led to the famous Cultural Revolution.

Hitler established the Hitler-Jugend, the youth movement for the same educational purpose.

In democratic communities, we also find emphasis placed on education, and for the same reason: to integrate the young into the community by adopting its values and customs.

Summarizing, mimicry holds several diverse goals:

1. Learning. Certain types of mimicry are for the sake of learning new skills. When that is the purpose of mimicry, people focus on their goals rather than on the behavior of the model. This is an individualistic learning method involving partial mimicry although, sometimes, there are children who, uncertain of their ability to complete a task, will mimic more precisely the actions of their role model.
2. Cultural mimicry. People may mimic others for social reasons. They may mimic the behavior of others in their social group, especially if those others are figures of authority. This phenomenon can also be seen among children who copy the behavior of their kindergarten teacher. Social mimicry of this kind can also be a form of communication, in which the individual mimicking wishes to convey the message: “I am worthy.” Occasionally, mimic is done unintentionally. We are all familiar with the phenomenon of a mother feeding her child, and simultaneously making the movements of eating with her mouth. We may be familiar with the sense of looking at someone in great pain and feeling pain ourselves. Two very common unconscious responses are yawning on seeing someone else yawn, and smiling in response to seeing someone smile at us.
3. Integrated social and learning objectives. Mimicking can, in some cases, contain the dual purpose of learning and social acceptance. The best example is how we learn to behave in the group to which we belong. Infants and kindergarten-aged children tend to mimic the actions of adults in their environment rather than the actions of other children.

Thus, if we are to understand the other, it is worth our while understanding an individual’s sources of mimicry. The chances are high that a person will behave and think like the others in the group.

 Misconceptions Inherent in the Brain

In previous sections, we showed how no one truly sees the real physical world.

This is not crucial in order to understand how the other person thinks and feels. It is more important to assess the picture of reality that the other person has in his mind. That picture does not have to be the picture that we have.

We are all structured, in fact, from the same “assembly line.” Consequently, some people can intuitively decipher the minds of others and find out what makes them tick.

Artists such as Escher, or magicians, have found ways to deceive our vision while making use of the way in which the brain interprets the signals received through the eyes.

Composers found ways of creating musical pieces that arouse our emotions ranging from sadness to joy, from freezing horror to rhythmic dance. They do it simply by putting sounds in a certain order and rhythms to make the desired pattern. They intuitively understand how the brain reacts to the patterns of certain sounds to produce the chemicals that arouse the emotion.

Romantic movies repeatedly employ the winning formula that makes viewers shed tears, just as Hitchcock found the formula for creating tension and fear in his films.

Similarly, swindlers and marketing experts (both of which I regard as con artists), as well as specialist negotiators and politicians have all found how to manipulate human weaknesses to their advantage.

If you press “the right buttons” anyone will produce the desired reaction.

Even though people in diverse areas of interest, as noted above, have found ways of manipulating the brain, they are capable of doing it only in the narrow field of their own expertise.

Many humans lack an understanding of the human brain’s mechanisms, partly due to a lack of knowledge, and partly to a lack of awareness.

In most cases, a lack of understanding is due to typical errors of assessment.

Primarily, these are:

• The illusion of equality.
• Focus on the individual, disregarding the influence of group culture.
• Acceptance of another group's narrative.

If we can avoid those pitfalls, other persons can be better understood.

The Illusion of Equality

A common error among those wishing to understand others is the premise based on a liberal interpretation of the principle formulated during the French Revolution: “All people are equal”, (even though in the French Revolution they meant ‘equality’ in the sense that all people deserve equal rights and obligations, not identity). Thus if all are identical, then the other person should feel and react just like them.

This mistake is common among liberals in the Western world; they feel that people with a different culture, given the same liberties and economic status, will behave just as they do. This mistake is also typical of other cultural groups as well. The Muslims are convinced that all people would share their feelings of submission to Allah if they were being introduced to the principles of their faith.

For all of them, it is clear that their values and way of life are what all people should be aspiring to. If anyone has different aspirations, values, and behaviors, he is simply mistaken or still needs to develop.

The Muslim scale of values differs from that of the liberals. Submission to God – which is the meaning of the word “Islam” -- and honor are at the top of the values, higher than the sanctity of life, and certainly far higher than the standard of living, both of which are at the top of the values of the liberal community. That is why each cultural group has difficulty in understanding the other.

Khomeini, the leader of Iran, acts on the same premise that all people are equally God’s creations, and therefore he cannot fathom why they are not all Muslim. To him, it is as clear as daylight that everyone should be a Shia Muslim and live by Sharia laws.

The lack of understanding on the part of leaders is noticeable because it carries danger; but we, the common people, also make the same error. Do men understand women for example in regard to the latter’s obsession overshoes?

Have you ever noticed that in social gatherings, men and women tend to form separate groups, with each group discussing different subjects?

We can observe that different people think and react differently although basically, our brains operate in the same basic manner. To say that people are equal and therefore react similarly is simply a mistake deriving from wishful thinking rather than reality.

Using computers as an analogy, clearly, a computer running graphics applications will show on its screen something very different from the screen of the computer running a word processor, even though both computers are similarly structured and function on the basis of identical principles.

Persuading oneself to believe that all people think and feel similarly leads to an erroneous assessment concerning the feelings and reactions of other people.

This premise must be avoided!

 No two people are equal or, as Levinas put it, “The face of the other is always what I am not.”

Group's Culture

People have difficulty understanding abstract concepts. It is far easier to relate to a specific individual and identify with a specific example.

Thus, when attempting to understand the other, one relates more easily to personality traits and tends to dismiss the role that a group trait plays in his behavior, groups being abstract entities.

TV news editors know this well, therefore they usually prefer to present the personal angle in the news stories. Events relating to a specific individual will usually be more interesting and easier to understand. General concepts are more difficult to assimilate for most people and are therefore also perceived, generally, as boring.

The human brain has greater difficulty in displaying empathy for some undefined entity rather than for a specific known individual. Hundreds of refugees were drowned trying to reach Europe, but the narrative that tugged at everyone’s heartstrings and became a symbol of this mass migration, was that of one drowned infant’s body washed onto the shore.

It is a mistake to disregard the cultural community to which a person belongs since it influences that person’s thoughts and reactions. Abundant studies show that people modify their behavior when they are in a group. No in-depth study is needed to see how a person’s behavior changes when he is in a group. Look at the worshipers leaving the mosque on Friday mornings, shouting slogans as one voice. Observe football fans supporting their team with enthusiastic chants, or swearing at the referee with words they would never dream of using at home.

Occasionally the influence of the group is not limited only to the time in which the individual participates in the social activity but, more broadly, affects that person’s view of reality, opinions, and actions in the long-term.

Understanding what the other sees and how the other may react, requires learning about the perceptions of reality and values of the group to which this other person belongs, and assessing the “herd impact” on the individual.

Infants tend to be egoistic because they are still struggling with life, and have no resources to share with others. Once they grow up a bit, they tend to show tribal tendencies as they wish to receive the patronage and protection of the group. They will obey the rules and customs to the letter. They wear the clothes of the tribe, speak and behave as expected in that specific group. These extreme behaviors tend to become modified in maturity.

Mature individuals are in part very personal, and the other part belongs to their cultural community.

 Understanding the other optimally means learning about the nature of the communities to which the other person belongs, while simultaneously learning about the nature of the individual at the personal level, evaluating the degree of influence those groups have on the individual. It would be a mistake to try and understand the other person without learning about his community. It would be a mistake to study the behavior of ants without understanding the functioning of the nest as a whole. A single ant is just one element in an entire community of ants.

Accepting Narratives

The most dangerous error of all would be to accept unquestioningly the narrative of other cultural communities.

The purpose of a narrative is to solidify our cultural community and prevent other cultural communities from tempting us, as in the story of Odysseus, to leave their group and join the sweet tempting Sirens. Our cultural community covers our ears to prevent us from hearing the sweet singing of other cultural community's narratives, by pointing to the false facts in these narratives compared to our own. But this is done by other communities as well.

Those who are open to hearing other narratives can, like the sailors in the story, lose their will to return to their own cultural community.

There are people accepting the narrative of the other to the point of merging into the other cultural community. It begins simply enough with a desire to learn about the other people’s way of life which is, in essence, vital to understanding the other person; or it may spring from a wish to be open, tolerant and accepting.

Learning about and/or accepting the other way of life, means lowering our own cultural defenses that distinguish us from other groups. Doing this admittedly allows for a better understanding of the other person, but it also carries the danger of adopting the beliefs and values of the other culture, by being exposed to the power of the narrative.

It is important to learn other narratives. But we have to keep in mind that narratives are meant to tempt people to join in.

If we become too intimate with the narrative of another culture, we may become caught up in the charms of that rival group, and may forget that there is no close link between narrative and reality as narratives are biased. We may forget that we belong to a different group and that we should be heading for our homeland, rather than being tempted to join to some strange cultural island by following the voices of strangers singing, even though they have the sweet voices of the Sirens.

The tendency among Western liberals to contain the Muslim narrative in the name of multiculturalism may reduce the ability to survive in Western culture. Muslims have proven to be smart enough and very experienced at deceiving the others. Their culture allows deceiving when necessary to advance their cause – this is called 'Takiya'.

They push the right buttons and activate Western public opinion. They push the button of wretchedness, the button of openness and compassion; and they never hesitate to push the button of open hatred towards the Jews, the hatred that has been with the Christian West for many long years.

The walls of Muslim culture are high enough to make it difficult for those imprisoned behind them to exchange their Muslim narrative for a Western one.

 The Conscious Part of the Brain

 The Study of the Human Soul

The greatest mystery that philosophers have tried to decipher for centuries is the mystery of the relationship between the physical world, the body, and consciousness, the soul.

Although intuitively, the 'conscious self' is considered the entity that we know for sure to exist, we have to question this intuition; it seems that is what philosophers have failed to do.

Are we sure we understand why we have decided on one course of action and not on another? Are we sure that what we see, really exists?

Do we know why a joke brings a smile to our face, and why rhythmic music moves our feet to dance?

But first let us present two basic assumptions of nature and evolution theory:

• The first is the continuity of evolution. From the simple to the complex, from bacteria to humans, this continuity has been well established by biological researchers that have almost completed the missing links of the evolutionary tree.
• The second assumption is that simple creatures, those at the bottom level of complexity, have no mental consciousness.

If we assume that there is no mental capacity of molecules, and if we add the assumption of continuity from the simple DNA molecules to the complex human being, then we should ask how and at what stage, mental consciousness emerges?

We can attack these basic assumptions in the same way as I attacked the premises of the philosophers in the previous paragraph. But there are two differences between the nature of these premises and the premises of the philosophers.

The first difference is that instead of faith in intuition that cannot be proved, continuity can be demonstrated by an evolutionary tree. The ancient creatures were very simple and it is reasonable to assume that they did not possess any mental power. If mental particles are to be found in the future, one still needs to show the relationship between the function of the brain, mental thoughts, and feelings. The existence of mental particles, if they exist, can not explain how we feel pain when hit by a hammer. In this case, the original philosophical difficult problem remains.

The second difference is that, in the end, the reasoning based on these assumptions, explains the difficult Mind-Body philosophical problem. If we have a simple way to explain a phenomenon, then convoluted explanations are not necessary.

It is as when we want to understand how the river channels meander, we can examine the chemical and physical effect of water molecules on soil molecules, to check the amount of erosion and direction of the water particles flowing.

This is similar to what neuroscientists are trying to do when working on the painstaking study of synaptic functions.

A reasonable person assumes that water flows in the easiest way and checks to see whether there are obstacles causing the water to flow this way.

Similarly, we examine the obstacles forcing the evolution to find ways to circumvent them and determine the way human think.

Many people in the world, whether holding secular or religious views, intuitively believe that humans have a soul that is different from the physical body. All religions are based on the idea that a soul enters the physical body at birth, and is released by the body on death.

Humans hold a sense of self-perception, which can also be called the “mind” or “consciousness”. This is the closest that secular people get to believe in what others would call the mental aspect. The accepted view is that the mind, or our consciousness, distinguishes us from every other living creature, and certainly from the plant and inanimate worlds.

Exploring the mind is as ancient as humans themselves. Philosophers have grappled with this concept since the earliest times. Even if we do not believe the stories of paradise and hell, in some far recess of our minds we want to believe that, when we die, we do not simply cease to exist; and that some mental aspect of us will survive. That mental aspect carries different descriptive terms.

Soul – is the name for and used by religious people and poets.

Spirit – is the term used in horror stories.

Soul mate – is the name in romantic stories.

Conscious state – is the term used in the world of medicine.

Mind or consciousness – is the name among psychologists and philosophers.

No matter what it is called, is it scientifically possible to prove the existence of such an evasive entity? It is interesting that a subject so essential to human existence is not researched more by scientists, but left to philosophers, religious leaders, and writers.

Is human unique?

“For Man has no Preeminence above the Beasts”

Ecclesiastes 3:19

Is there any difference between humans and animals, or between animals, plants, and inanimate?

In the game “Human, animal, plant, object...” even children have no difficulty in providing answers that fit the correct categories, intuitively realizing that I am living but a plant is not; I can move but stone cannot; I can feel but the animal cannot.

But is intuition always right? The human race has made plenty of mistakes in the past, based on intuition, such as the “fact” that the sun moves around the earth, and only Galileo’s persistence eventually proved that intuition wrong.

When we discuss that mental element that perhaps exists within our physical bodies, we need to be even more suspicious of what our intuition whispers in our ear. Our egoistic interest makes us think we are unique, and that something distinguishes us from the stones along the pathway. Are animals truly different from humans? For many people, this concept is so uncomfortable that monkeys are protected by legal rights in some countries.

Researchers have found that animals do indeed have a range of emotions. Crows, for example, have intelligence that enables them not only to use but even to make tools. They and many other creatures have cultural behavioral codes in a community. This indicates that there is no significant difference between humans and other creatures. In Peter Singer’s book entitled 'Animal Liberation' he claims that “all animals are equal,” which is also the title of the book’s first chapter. His book is like a Bible for animal rights activists.

 For most people it is even more difficult to accept that there is no real difference between living creatures and plants. But this is not the case with botanists. In the book; “What A Plant Knows” Professor Daniel Chaimovich shows that plants have an abilities to discern; these abilities are similar to senses. They see, move, smell, and communicate with other plants, are sensitive to touch, and even feel pain. Worth watching is the lecture given by Professor Stefan Mancuso on plant intelligence: http://www.ted.com/talks/stefano_mancuso_the_roots_of_plant_intelligence

Plant's revenge I love meat. Give me meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and I'll be happy. So what am I doing here in the greenhouse? I wiped my forehead. It is hot, humid and stuffy in the greenhouse. It seemed to me that I am in a tropic land soon the noon raindrops will fall thick and warm... Suddenly, as if they had heard my thoughts, the showers opened from above and fill the air with shards of hot water making it difficult to breathe. I wanted to run away. Too late! Down the lane, my skinny wife appears. She walks on her matchstick legs, armed with a big smile of self-satisfaction, pleased she was able to overcome my resistance and bring me here. "Do not move. It'll stop in a minute." She said. I blame Dr. Bezalel for this awkward situation. Is he really a doctor or a charlatan posing as a specialist? Two months ago she went to his clinic and became a devout vegetarian. Bezalel diet method includes refraining from eating meat. Two onions and tomato for breakfast, lettuce salad with green leaves from the incubator near his home, and fruit with yogurt for dinner. A strict diet under the supervision of the new diet guru. My wife has a long history of moving from one guru to another. Everyone promises a weight loss of 20 pounds in two weeks as if she is not thin enough. After two weeks, and then another two weeks, and another... She manages to lose 2 pounds in a mere two months. Only to gain it back within the few days' breaks between one Guru and the next. Dr. Bezalel said she had to bring me along to his Institute: "Diet is not about food alone. It is a way of life; it is an effort the whole family should do together." Yeah right! He earns more if the whole family comes to the Institute. My wife complies. She was rocking me every day, accusing that she cannot successfully lose weight because of me: "Come just for one day and you will fall in love with this way of life." I gave in. Who can endure the pain and the tears of a woman who cannot get into clothes two sizes too small? Now I'm going to sweat greenhouse, urged by my wife to pick tomatoes, pull some carrots, pick a cucumber, and cut them all into the salad. "Are you not hungry? Don't you like to eat a juicy, nutritious salad? " Yes, I'm hungry, and I feel like eating a nutritious juicy steak. "No, I'm not hungry," I said. "You skipped breakfast. Here you'll get a delicious salad." She said and started to pull, pluck vegetables in the greenhouse. In the greenhouse's sweaty silence, whispers and moans were heard, which soon formed words of despair and pain. I looked around to see who it was. I saw nobody; we were alone in the greenhouse. My wife has become tired and sat down to rest on the edge of the center well, under the dense bush. She looks with satisfaction at a variety of vegetables and leaves piled at her feet: "Well here we are, I am tired. I'll rest a little before, pulling a few carrots, and I'll cut a few leaves for decoration." She leaned back, sinking into the soft branches, and closes her eyes. Sure she was tired after walking 5 miles obeying the commandments Dr. Bezalel when in her stomach were only a few leaves of the lettuce she had eaten for breakfast. I stood there, looking with disgust at the pile of plants slaughtered, wiping the sweat off my brow, wondering how I got married to a girl with such obsessions. Now the whispers could be heard more clearly: "Here is the cruel uprooter, who cuts off our lives at their peak!" And before my amazed eyes, the branches closed around her, pulling my wife into the well. Yoram Har-Lev

Now we can move forward and ask how the inanimate is different from animals and plants? Scientists still have not successfully created life in the laboratory but are very close to doing so. The researcher, Stanley Miller, has already shown the possibility of lab work creating the molecules that comprise the basis of life. Within a closed setup of pipes and test tubes, Miller prepared a mixture that imitates our ancient chemical soup. The electrically charged the mixture as though it had been struck by lightning, and heated it to the level of a volcanic eruption. In short, he formed an ancient world in a bottle. Surprisingly, in the paste that was formed, amino acids, nucleotides, and sugars could be found, the same components that form life, which are the building blocks of DNA and of enzymes that activate our bodies.

It is for a good reason that scientists and philosophers alike have difficulty in defining life. There is no definition that clearly differentiates the animate from the inanimate: perhaps because there is no real difference. There is a continuum of development in the atoms comprising the molecules which, under certain conditions, link with other molecules to create what is considered the foundation of life. They also know how to replicate themselves; in other words, to propagate.

While the process is not yet completely clear to scientists, there is no reason why scientists cannot create life in the laboratory. Of course, the issue of economics would come into play since it is simpler and more pleasurable to create life in the conventional, tried and true methods.

But the difference between animate and inanimate objects is also blurred in other ways:

Crystals will multiply in a saturated solution. Does that mean they are alive?

Viruses and seeds can become dormant when environmental conditions do not allow development and will reawaken when those conditions alter. Does that mean they are animate or inanimate?

What about the DNA molecule? It is inanimate but it can multiply and its offspring inherit its traits; does it live? The seed is inanimate as well but can produce life when provided with the proper conditions.

Numerous traits attributed to life can be found in a system that practically everyone would mark as inanimate, such as a village that develops over time into a metropolis. If there is no difference in principle between humans, animals, plants and inanimate objects, perhaps the researchers, Arthur Tansley, and George R. Price are right when they claim that we are nothing more than sophisticated machines equipped with organic computers.

Death occurs when a critical part of this machine is broken beyond repair (depending on today's medical knowledge). In addition, there is a self-destruct mechanism that limits the number of cells reproducing.

Their view has been proven in many studies. Nonetheless, those supporting this claim must still explain the nature of consciousness, and what we sense as the mental phenomenon. They need to explain the following points:

Can a machine feel love, this very same emotion about which generations of poets have sung?

What are the emotions of envy, loathing, and others, which writers describe so well?

How can a machine become depressed and pay a fortune to psychiatrists for ridding them of the depression?

Do not all the above attest to the existence of a mental element in addition to the physical body, as claimed by philosophers from the dualism school?

Scientists respond that emotions are primarily chemical media which the brain, or what is called the subconscious, use to drive other parts of the brain responsible primarily for planning future actions as part of our need to ensure survival. So who is right?

In contrast to those who believe in the soul and those who believe in some other mental essence such as consciousness or mind, arguments can be offered that endorse the view that a mental entity exists separate from the physical body.

Studies have shown that it is possible to cause confusion in the human mind through chemical substances such as drugs, through electrical pulses, and hypnotic suggestions. The question that needs to be asked, then, is how can a non-physical entity, such as a mind or consciousness, be influenced by physical materials such as chemicals? Other studies have shown that those same traits attributed to the mental in humans also exist in animals. Does this mean that animals have consciousness or a soul? Perhaps they have a partial consciousness? How do the findings of these studies balance against the beliefs of religious streams which claim that humans are indeed of a higher level than

  animals?

Philosophical Approaches

We are not conscious of our brain’s activities, except those that exist in our mind. Thus we assume intuitively that the consciousness is who we are. The philosopher, René Descartes, expressed it in his famous claim: “I think therefore I am”. Although he meant this as a bare proof of the one thing he could be sure of, many take it for granted as a proof of the existence of their consciousness that is their own being.

There are not many philosophers who doubt the very existence of consciousness that is the mental 'me', relying on our intuitive 'inner sense’ and 'privileged access' to the mind.

But is intuition reliable?

There are a few philosophers who began to doubt it. The philosopher, Gilbert Ryle, argues that we learn about our own minds, not by inner sense, but by observing our own behavior. Therefore we have no direct knowledge or proof of the existence of consciousness.

In their research, Gary Klein and Daniel Kahneman discovered that intuition is no more than the fast retrieval of past memories regarding the solutions to the problem at hand.

In other words, intuition is nothing but the sum of the experience accumulated in our lives plus that experience of our ancestors engraved in our genes.

Intuition is not really a feeling although we feel it in our guts. It is just a ready-made paradigm based on experience which the brain draws on whenever it has to make a quick decision.

When asked, experts on any subject can give an 'intuitive' answer engraved in their brain by study and experience. This is an automatic response, something between a conscious decision based on logic and the operation of an unconscious reflexive response.

It is a fact that many intuitive ideas were proven wrong when we learned how things really work. Flashes of lightning are not really arrows fired from the bow of Zeus. Gods do not really shower rain in answer to our prayers.

Thus, in my opinion, intuition is a very bad adviser, especially on such an intimate subject as the essence of our self.

Recent scientific research has shown that most of the activities we associate with mental consciousness are actually carried out in our subconscious mind, hidden from consciousness. These activities include many of our thought processes and a large number of the decisions we make.

We also know that visions and feelings can be produced by chemical substances such as drugs) which circumvent our senses.

All these add up to the conclusion that the phenomena we tend to think of as our mental consciousness are really produced outside the conscious mind if there is one.

That said, it leaves us with two options:

One option is that part of our 'self' is hidden in our subconscious rather than in our consciousness. Or alternatively, accepting that at least some of the phenomena we associate with consciousness -- such as cognition and emotions -- are not what characterizes our consciousness. This contradicts the intuition that emotions are the essence of our “mental self”.

The second possibility is that the existence of our “mental self” is nothing but a graphic visualization that our brain generates. Hence what we think of as the conscious mind is nothing but a part of the entire physical organic computer we call a brain. I know that this is a very difficult concept to comprehend. It will be discussed later in further detail.

Logic is an algorithm acting much like computer software algorithms. Imagination is not different from the existing visualization algorithms used in computer graphics software. Emotions could be another form of data illustration. Until now, there was no need to use such visualization algorithms in computer software.

Many studies reinforce the latter alternative rather the first intuitive option.

On this subject, philosophers can be divided into three main points of view.

One, which claims we are nothing but material, without any other substance, is known by several terminologies: materialism, physicalism. The predominant philosopher holding this view is Spinoza. This approach is supported by many scientists and researchers.

A second approach is that of dualism. This term describes the concept of the existence of a mental entity such as the mind, alongside the physical entity of the body.

A third group believes that there is nobody at all, nor is there a world around us and everything we see and sense is the outcome of our imagination. Everything is mind. This group is known as idealists. Intuitively, this claim sounds no less unfounded as that which claims we have no mind. How can a claim possibly be made that we lack a body? Can we not touch and feel our body?

Before we refute any claim outright, it is worth remembering that even when we dream, we seem to be in the real world. And don’t we dream all the time? Scientific research shows that we do not see reality as it is, but imagine it according to what our brains have structured and presented as reality (see previous sections). Different brains present different realities.

As odd as it sounds, our technological community is striding toward the world of the idealist philosophers, a world in which the individual does not see reality; rather he sees life through the smartphone he is holding; in other words, a virtual world, since our real-life interaction with other people is becoming increasingly rare. There is less importance to real people, and what has become important is the image which they project to us, and we in turn project back. Technology changes the way in which we see reality. Technology isolates us, positions us behind glass screens which alter reality, and enables the use of Photoshop to further enhance or otherwise alter what we see, the shape of female models in particular.

But we are not yet in a totally virtual world. The global village, which seemingly unites all humanity but actually isolates us from reality, is just one current and exciting direction that may yet be diverted by a wave of technological culture that will carry us in a very different direction. Basically, though, reality does exist and it will find a way to penetrate the glass screen.

To understand the other person, which is the purpose of my discussion in this book, there is no need to discuss the philosophical stream that claims there are no other persons around. That leaves us focusing on two streams and having to decide between them: are we machines without a soul but with mental consciousness, as the materialists claim, as do many scientists involved in brain research. Or is there something more to us, as claimed by the dualism philosophers and our own intuition?

In the next passages, I intend to propose a theory that explains the possibility that what we experience as consciousness is nothing more than a trick of the brain to make good decisions and there is no mental part in the consciousness, any more than there is a mental part in computer software. But this thought – which is difficult to swallow -- will be discussed later in detail.

Let us look at this from the angle of the evolution of living things. We see a continuum of life, beginning with single-celled creatures, such as viruses, which are somewhere between the living and the inanimate crystals; we continue to more complex single-celled beings such as bacteria, and on to increasingly complex beings. If a soul exists, the question, then, is: at what evolutionary stage did it enter living beings? Does a virus have a soul? Does a wolf? Or do only humans have souls?

Dualist philosophers also need to address questions such as: How does the soul enter the body? Where does it reside? What happens to it on death? For people who believe in the divine, creationists who do not believe in evolution, the answer is simple: “God gives humans a soul” and takes it back when the person dies, storing it either in Paradise or in Hell depending on the individual’s behavior. In the Far East, there is a strong belief in reincarnation. Very few souls actually achieve nirvana, a type of paradisiacal state. The remaining souls return to other bodies for another cycle of life.

I have neither the interest nor the ability to argue with beliefs using rational claims. My interest is more in secularists who are proud of their views, based on reason and have answers to these questions. Anyone who thinks that life developed through evolution, from simple to complex, must cope with these questions. No one would claim that a bacterium has a mind but anyone who has ever owned a dog will testify that dogs definitely have many traits such as feelings, loyalty, and intelligence which we attribute to consciousness.

Where do we draw the line between a living creature with consciousness and one without? Are people who fight for animal rights correct in their views? They are currently fighting primarily to avoid killing animals that we use as food, but will they fight tomorrow for the rights of worms, and the day after that for the rights of germs?

The answers offered by monist philosophers and an increasing number of scientists is that humans, like any other form of life, our physical bodies alone, which exempts us from determining the evolutionary stage at which the soul enters the body simply because there is no soul.

Scientists use research to support their claims that emotions are not really “the mirror of the soul” but chemical manipulations of the subconscious, which is primarily in the brain, activating another area of the brain that they call consciousness which, in turn, drives us to implement what needs to be done. If the human brain makes use of such manipulations, why do the brains of other animals not do the same?

A branch of psychological evolution called the “Theory of Mind” (TOM), investigates the understanding that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are different from one's own. Another field of research called “Social Neuroscience” deals with emotions in the context of interaction with others in the community. According to these theories, emotions are not merely the brain’s manipulation of consciousness but are also the human’s manipulation of the other. Thus, scientists finally reached conclusions that have been clear to poets and writers since very early times.

Believers in the soul think that human thought and action are dictated by this soul, which entered it through reincarnation, according to Far Eastern beliefs, or, according to other beliefs, by divine intervention at the time of birth. If they are right, it will be difficult to understand the thoughts and reactions of the other, as who can understand a soul?

People who believe in souls therefore often resolve the need to understand behavior with countering remarks such as “black soul” for wicked folk, and “pure soul” for those of their own group. Usually, people with these views do not bother to understand the other. There is little point in predicting reactions by something as divine and incomprehensible as a soul.

I am aware that the soul and the spirit are emotionally charged terms, linked with faith among many people, sometimes even among those who do not define themselves as religious. The claim that we do not have a soul hurts our pride as humans, who wish to be superior to those of the animal, plant and inanimate kingdoms. Consciousness is a term that serves to describe that aspect among secular individuals who also believe that they are superior creatures, different from all others. In this sense, consciousness is a mental entity of awareness; only the human race is blessed by it. But there is no proof that consciousness exists, other than human intuition, which claims that it does.

We have already seen that intuition is not always right: remember, some time ago human intuition maintained that the sun revolved around the earth. In my view, intuition can be considered a kind of storage by the brain of experience and assessments rather than some kind of mysterious conscious entity. Many studies support this view, but for intelligent readers, no research is needed. Have we not found, from personal experience, that in every field in which we have accrued knowledge and experience, we can offer better intuitive responses than people without the same degree of experience? Intuition holds a place of importance and cumulative experience should not be belittled, but we must not rely wholly on intuition to determine between various worldviews, nor should we rely on the intuition of others.

An important question explored by philosophers is whether we are actually only describing the way in which we perceive the world around us or the world per se? This, too, is linked to the issue of whether reality is a true situation in which we live, and which we can study, or whether it is our limited means for perceiving and defining the extent, which is not a real world. The German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, dealt with the issues of existence in his book “Time and Being.” Heidegger was actually exploring the existence of consciousness, and claimed that, in three ways, the being of humans is essentially different from that of objects:

• Human existence is in a state of constant movement.
• Human existence “knows itself.”
• The human “knows” that he is in the world.

These three aspects are advantages concerning what a person knows of himself, compared to what the same person knows of the other. Heidegger suggested a response to the question of “What is the entity?” by exploring human existence.

Beyond these philosophical sophistries, Heidegger touched on the problem of the brain acknowledging reality (or, Man, in his formulation) even without the knowledge currently available on brain research.

What is more important for us is that he touched on the problem of understanding the other.

An individual “knows” what is happening in his own life, which is his advantage over the other. But this is simultaneously a disadvantage since that same person cannot know what is happening in the brain of the other. Similarly, the other has no idea what is happening in the brain of the first person. As far as understanding per se, things are even worse. We saw that the human brain is constructed to presume what reality is, not taking a picture of it. Nor does the individual know what is happening in his brain, since more is concealed from consciousness than is revealed. Should the view that says, “This question and others like it have answers, but we don’t know them yet” not be given a fighting chance?

Philosophers are considered clever people, and no small number of them supports the concept of the existence of consciousness but to what degree can a fellow human’s conclusions be relied on, no matter how wise that person is if the conclusions are not based on facts found in recent research on the brain?

A philosopher from ancient times who did not understand how lightning works might have concluded that Zeus was angry because of mighty flashes of lightning, of blinding light, crossed the skies. Could this not be the arrow from some god?

In the same way, scientists, those modern rebels, might conclude from the Big Bang theory that a god caused it. But the same degree of respect should also be given to the view that a scientific explanation exists for this theory even though we still do not know what it is. What would they say if an answer were found to questions that have no seemingly logical conclusion? What if people who believe in gods and frequently ask “Okay, but what was before that? Who caused the initial phenomenon?” were provided with an answer at some

the future point, explaining the Big Bang, and humanity would understand better the issue of cause and effect; and what came first, an issue already alluded to in quantum theory.

Countering the beliefs in consciousness, strong claims can be made in favor of the view that supports the existence of consciousness as an entity separate from the physical body. As already noted, studies have shown that it is possible to sow confusion in the human mind through chemical substances such as drugs as well as electrical pulses and hypnotic suggestions. The question, as also noted, is how a non-physical entity, such as consciousness, can be affected by physical materials such as chemicals?

Science fiction writers and new age philosophers discuss whether computers may receive consciousness at some point. My answer is clear. If consciousness is not disconnected from the physical body, and the sense of consciousness is not tangible but is, rather, a manipulation of the brain, then this question does not exist. Computers cannot just wake up and become conscious. A computer can be programmed with reactions that appear as emotions. In such a case, can we say that the computer has a soul?

Another question, linked to the above, is whether we actually decide for ourselves. Science fiction presents the image of a possible mode of human existence where computers with a mind to decide for themselves and eventually take control of humans. This option is actually very logical. It is the result of computer programs that operate independently at all three levels typical of humans: data collection, deduction, taking appropriate action based on a hierarchic scale of laws embedded into the program.

If computers are indeed to be programmed that way, then silicon-based computers that operate a thousand times faster than the human brain and have no storage limit will indeed overcome humans. Currently, they are only less refined than the human brain in parallel performance evaluations and sophisticated algorithms.

When computer techniques become more refined and reach the capacity of a human brain in these areas too, computers could easily control humans… on condition, of course, that they are programmed to do so. At present, computers collect data independently, deduce, and take appropriate action, but only in very clearly defined areas of activity.

Some computers are also able to learn: in other words, they can program themselves, much as the human brain learns. In fact, all the components are already there. There have even been computer accidents when bad programs caused a loss of control. The International Stock Exchange crashes are one example, where automated reactions by computers operating too speedily bought and sold shares.

So, yes, we can program computers to appear to have a mind, feelings, and the ability to learn and even create. There are already computers able to produce original artwork which museums and galleries display. Computers, then, possess the features that we equate with “mind.”

Nonetheless, we know that a computer is not a living creature and does not have a soul.

Why is it not possible for humans to be merely another kind of machine, highly refined over millions of years of evolution? As we have already seen, serious doubts have accrued over there is no consciousness. Moreover, we must always remember our own tendency to attribute the matters that we do not understand the category of intangible. Perhaps that is why gods were invented, serving human needs alongside the mind.

The functioning of the human brain is one of the wonders which we still do not fully comprehend, and therefore explains our tendency to attribute the aspect of intangibility to it, by claiming that it involves consciousness. However, brain research has advanced a great deal in recent years and we understand far more and have explanations for increasing numbers of behaviors which, in the past, were considered reactions of the mind.

People tend to say “I feel anger/love/fear… therefore I clearly have consciousness.” We have already seen, however, that what we feel, see and smell are just products of the brain. What we see does more or less match reality, which can be sensed, but there is still no real connection with reality. Sometimes, what we see can be just a dream. Sights and emotions are just the way in which our central computer, that is, our subconscious, connects and activates that part of the brain responsible for long-term planning. The part of the brain that we mistakenly call mind or consciousness looks at the monitor on which images and feelings are displayed and operates according to the data it sees.

Subjective experiences such as fear, anger or pain are like images or aromas. They are just forms of communication between the subconscious and the conscious mind, both of which are parts of the brain. Perhaps there is no need for the feeling of pain in order to activate the fight-or-flight response, but it is needed to plan how to avoid pain in the future. Perhaps there is no need for anger in order to attack an opponent but the memory of anger will guide us on how to behave with that opponent in the future, and perhaps alleviate the fear of fighting a strong opponent.

If, as explained, the consciousness is not a separate entity and is only a part of the brain, and if it is possible to transfer the brain to a computer, as suggested by Raymond Kurzweil in his book, “The Age of Intelligent Machines,” would that same computer be said to have a mind? That would depend on what we define as mind or consciousness.

Computers can plan and calculate stages in advance. Remember “Deep Blue,” the computer that beat the world chess champion? It can also be programmed to recognize itself. But will it have feelings? Will it use imagination? The computer has no need of such traits in order to execute its tasks. Reactions can, of course, be programmed into it that emulate emotions, but it has no need for emotion to force one part of itself to execute decisions from its central part: it has direct pathways for doing that. It has no need for imagination. It can rely on algorithms for planning. Silicon computers operate differently from humans, who function as organic computers.

 Perhaps it will be possible to build a replica of an organic computer, that is, a brain, but it is simpler to create another human in the old co-productive manner between man and woman. It is also a more economical method; in fact some say that there is even an advantage in it over the production of humans. The economical method may also ensure an improved ability in humans, as Kurzweil suggests.

We are Machines

As you have seen, serious doubts accumulate against there being a mental entity alongside the body. We must always keep in mind our tendency to attribute matters that we do not understand the category of the intangible. Perhaps that’s why gods were invented. Perhaps that’s why the soul was also invented. Since brain function is one of the wonders that are not yet fully understood, our tendency has been to attribute the intangible to it in the form of consciousness or soul. However, brain studies have advanced greatly and we find a growing number of explanations for reactions previously not understood and now deemed mental.

The discourse on the essence of consciousness serves as the basis for the claim that humans are mere machines with comprehensible actions; or at least, it is possible to learn which buttons to press in order to receive the desired reaction.

You may justifiably ask why I am dealing with the issue of the existence of consciousness in a book seeking to explore how to understand the other. My answer is that we must understand what consciousness or the mind is if we are to understand how the other thinks and operates. But if consciousness is nothing but a part of the brain, then it is important to understand the entire brain, and not just part of it, if we wish to understand how the other feels and reacts. Whether you believe in mind or soul, and in a God who breathed it into the human body, you can check whether the way that thinking mechanisms in the human brain allows a deeper understanding of the other. We cannot understand the mystery of how the other feels and acts without understanding the mechanisms activating the brain, which produces those thoughts and reactions. If a soul existed, who could begin to understand the thoughts of something as divine and intangible as the human spirit?

Thus we will now take our next step forward based on the premise that we are nothing but sophisticated machines equipped with an organic computer.

It is not too nice to discover that, is it? We’ve been accustomed to thinking that we are superior creatures with consciousness, almost gods. If we are thinking machines, we have the ability to understand how this sophisticated machine functions and to assess how it might react if we press specific buttons.

Personally, it scares me to see people who know how to press those specific buttons in order to produce the reaction they wish, whether it is the preacher in the mosque, the smart marketer or Western advertising agencies.

I realize that the idea of us being thinking machines is difficult to swallow.

One can reason that if we are just machines, there is no point in life.

That is not the case!

I recommend you to use your ability to suppress selectively to enable you to enjoy good music, to be excited by a pretty painting, laugh when watching a witty passage in a film, and let the hormones of love rush through you, as you hug the people you love.

The fact that we are machines does not have to keep us from enjoying life, rather to improve them by understanding how our brain and that of the other operates.

What is Consciousness?

Let us start from the beginning.

The initial evolutionary justification for the existence of the brain is to control our organs.

The brain has no central control center; rather it is more like the internet.

In the early stages of evolution, the brain had control only over the internal organs that were vital for the existence of the primitive creatures but as soon as sensory organs evolved, the brain used this information to direct the body as well.

Hence the brain has evolved to be what it is today.

Is the existence of mental consciousness separate from the physical brain really necessary?

Consciousness is usually defined as the way in which we experience things:

• We experience the physical world as it is reflected through our senses.
• We experience feelings and emotions.
• And, above all, we can think.

It is obvious that we experience all these, and yet I claim that consciousness is just a graphics display.

 Let us investigate those experiences.

What we 'see' in our Mind

Once primitive life could distinguish between light and shade, its control center developed into a brain using algorithms that triggered the body to approach or to hide from the light in an effort to avoid danger or to find food. When the sense organs evolved further, even more, sophisticated algorithms were devised enabling the brain to assess the direction and speed of the movement of shadows seen by the primitive eyes, and to draw the right conclusions.

The eyes translate the light reflected from objects into electrical signals. These signals pass through the nerves into the brain. Similarly, our ears translate sound waves into electrical signals, and so do all our sensory organs. The brain has information only in the form of electrical bits.

Therefore it is clear that what we 'see' is just a graphic representation that our brain generates.

The large investment in brain resources to display 'graphics' was justified by the desperate need to act quickly despite the slow organic brain computation. I use the term 'graphic' in a loose way in an effort to indicate the images we 'see', 'hear' and so forth.

Our brain can understand images by comparison with already-known images (or patterns), more easily than trying to make sense of a sequence of bits in our synapses.

It is much more difficult to decide whether a shadow is a "friend or foe” using electrical pulses, rather than examining the graphic patterns of those pulses. You can try it yourself. Try to compare the percentage of various sectors of voters just by looking at the numbers. Then look at the relevant pie chart. Which is easier to understand?

In the previous sectors, we discussed how the brain uses patterns to find a quick match to the new information from the senses. Here is the exact same mechanism. The only difference is that the brain creates 'pie charts' when faced with new and difficult situations.

When the same situation is well known, the brain can make decisions without that graphic aid and we do not 'see' the images. That is why we do things automatically.

Our brain uses graphical presentations only when we face unknown situations. In this case, the brain has to calculate the decisions needed. A decision for the same situation encountered many times in the past, as in the case of experts, is made automatically without the graphical presentation in our subconscious. Thus the difference between conscious behavior and an unconscious one for the same situation is the graphic representation. The graphic representation is necessary for a quick calculation in the first case, and not needed when practice and learning have engraved the right decisions in our brains' database.

When an acrobat first learns to walk along a rope, he must see the rope to know where to put his next step. A veteran acrobat walks the rope without the need to look at the rope.

Another example concerning our daily life experience is the following: When we drive along an unknown road, we pay full conscious attention and 'see' the road but when we drive along our well-known route home, we drive automatically without really seeing the road.

One has to ask; if visualization of the road vanishes from our conscience, is it not proof that these visualizations are graphic representations, only for the sake of making fast decisions by comparing them to known patterns?

For new situations, the brain algorithms show what the philosophers like to call a "Cartesian theater" - the picture of physical reality created by the combination of information gathered from all the senses with the additional help of the brain's database. This presentation is not made for some obscure entity called consciousness, but rather for other brain zones responsible for making decisions and reactions. One can call these brain areas – "consciousness" but it is not what the philosophers mean by the term “mental consciousness”.

 There is no problem of time synchronization of information in-pouring from various sources. The presentation is made only later by other algorithms. 

Feelings and Emotions

Now we should explain the nature and role of feelings and emotions, as philosophers tend to present them as a major argument in favor of mental consciousness.

Feelings and emotions are not intended to aid quick decisions; rather, sometimes, our feelings even contradict our logical decisions.

Emotions are designed to obscure and distort visualization and defy logic, changing decisions made in the brain.

But, still, this is the only visualization, even if distorted.

Love, for example, causes one to turn a blind eye, to ignore the faults of the beloved.

Patriotic feelings make us sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of our community, ignoring the logic of self-preservation.

The empathy of a new doctor to his patients' suffering disappears when the doctor is more experienced. This phenomenon shows that here, too, feelings are only graphic representations that disappear whenever they are not needed.

This can be partly explained by the brain defending the doctor's mental health but apparently, it is again a balance between the need to encourage the physician to act, and not burden him too much to be able to function automatically when this representation of feelings is not needed.

A new teacher feels very excited in his first class but feels no excitement when this is no longer a new experience. Again it indicates that this feeling is only a graphic representation that the teacher is aware of only when needed.

Here too, we have the same phenomenon of feelings that vanish from our conscience whenever we are faced with a well known one. It proves that feelings are graphic representations too, and not some mysterious mental phenomenon.

Thoughts

Still, we have to explain the process of thinking. Thinking processes are the strongest arguments for consciousness.

To do this, one should analyze what we really do when we "think".

Usually when we think, we "imagine" possible courses of action or chains of events, either visually or verbally, in order to activate the desired response or decision.

To do this, we use the same algorithms created originally for presenting the physical reality as seen by our senses. The use of mechanisms evolved to solve a problem is a very common and efficient way in which the evolution acts.

Then we apply an algorithm of logic to decide on which course is best for us.

Thus thinking is a visualization process as well, combined with logic algorithms.

While a new chess player has to invest careful thought into every move he is going to make, the expert chess champion playing with him uses intuition and answers in swift moves, not consciously aware of the reasoning for his moves. Here, too, is another affirmation of the conscious thoughts as a graphic representation that is not needed when the brain is familiar with the situation.

To conclude:

Philosophers doubt everything except their intuitive belief in the existence of conscious awareness. It is amazing to watch their faith in what intuition tells as intuition has been proven wrong many times (no one believes now that the sun revolves around the earth). In the case of our consciousness, we have to be even more suspicious because of the known deceptive nature of our subconscious. We tend to believe that we are better and in command -- which is not the case.

The phenomenon of a conscious effort (in all the ways in which consciousness is usually defined: the image of reality, feelings, and thoughts), turning into a lack of awareness, strengthens the thesis that there is no consciousness as the philosophers define. These are just visualizations algorithms, intended to make quick decisions by inspecting meaningful patterns. Visualization is not mental consciousness.

The Role of Feelings

Feelings have two main functions:

• Individual related functions
• Community integration functions

Individual related functions.

The brain activates the production of hormones that affect the internal organs, such as streaming adrenalin and accelerating pulse rates, in situations of distress and anxiety situations. We are aware of those changes and interpret them as feelings.

The reason for our awareness of feeling is perhaps to better engrave this situation for future use. When we are afraid of something the recollection of that feeling will make us more cautious if we are to face that situation again and that recollection will pump the same hormones again.

Community Integration Functions

 Some logical decisions benefit the individual but are anti-social. Emotions help suppress such decisions in favor of integrating into the community. Charging an assault on the enemy higher up the hill, despite the obvious logical decision to stay in the trenches, is one example of this mechanism. Moral code feelings, (or cultural codes) prevent us from taking something belonging to someone else or, in other words, stealing. This is one example; others include feelings of friendship, solidarity and love. Some of the feelings act upon our inner organs and produce communicating phenomena. The emotion of love, for example, causes the expansion of blood vessels and produces blushing for the other to see. The same goes for the dilation of our pupils to signal empathy to our loved ones.

“Mind and Body” Dilemma

“A theory is the more impressive, the greater the simplicity of its premises” - Albert Einstein. 

Philosophers pondered on the mind-body dilemma problems for centuries without reaching any plausible explanation to this question.

It is remarkable that the philosophers are skeptical about everything except the question of our awareness. René Descartes based his philosophy on what he thought as an unquestionable fact that he could think. In other words; he was aware of his thoughts. Thus he took his awareness for granted.

Can we really base our awareness on itself?

In the following paragraphs, the concept of awareness will be questioned.

The thesis presented in this article does not take the existence of mental consciousness for granted. True, we think, feel and visualize images. But this does not prove the existence of a mental entity. These images can be the product of chemical activity affecting the functioning of the cells in our brain.

We can watch graphic representations such as our visual images on the screen of a computer, showing the results of calculations of the software.

It is possible to assume that the images that appear in our mind are illustrative of calculations of the brain, just like the pictures on the computer screen. This assumption is supported by the following observations:

• We know that we do not 'see' the physical reality, but rather the processing of information coming in through our senses in the form of electro/chemical bits.
• Our ability to learn is not unique. There are already computer programs that know how to learn and improve themselves. In the same way, our creative abilities are not unique either. There is software capable of creating paintings good enough to be displayed in a museum, and composing music good enough to play in concerts. All those wonderful achievements are done with no mental consciousness in the computer.

I do not rule out the notion that there is something beyond the physical world, of which we still do not know enough; and maybe we will never know. But it seems to me that the evidence supporting the view that we possess mental consciousness is much weaker than that supporting the opposite view.

Libet's research has shown that at least some decisions we make are made by our subconscious. Still, we are fully convinced that we consciously made those decisions, even if we are aware that the experimenter knows before we do which decision we will take, proving that the decision was made without our conscious knowledge.

There are also several other studies proving the existence of these phenomena of false stories that the mind tells with inner conviction, explaining what it perceives as being the truth.

This phenomenon can be the basis to doubt that the rest of our mental experiences are nothing but such false tales.

On one hand, we have experimental evidence that the origins of what we were accustomed to thinking of as "mental abilities" are the subconscious. On the other hand, no one can show any proof of the existence of any mental soul.

My thesis argues that what we experience as the "first person" mental consciousness is nothing but the manipulation of our unconscious brain graphics. The reason for this is that our brain is more comfortable with graphics than with crunching data because graphics are easier to understand. This makes sense, as we already know that most of the data crunching in our brain are created with the help of known patterns engraved in our database.

To conclude - The arguments for this thesis are based on the following:

• If the source of the symptoms resides in the hidden part of the brain, we cannot associate them with consciousness.
• There is no reason for the evolution of mental consciousness. In fact, some people maintain that cockroaches will survive longer than we will.
• Computers follow the same characteristic operations which we attribute to consciousness without having mental consciousness.
• But most important – this thesis solves all problems of body-mind in an easy and elegant way.

We have only to conclude that we are all just organic machines – and there is no soul involved.

Now, if we are machines and not some mysterious beings made of clay and soul by a divine entity, the problem of understanding seems solvable. Machines, we can understand!

Here is a happy thought: If we are machines, then it is possible that we can live forever, like those antique cars still on the streets, their proud collectors driving them in a parade. All it takes is maintenance.

The Function of Consciousness

In the previous sections, we concluded that there is no mental consciousness as a separate entity from our brain. But it is convenient to speak of those parts of our brain as “consciousness”. Herewith we shall discuss the role of that part of our brain – our consciousness.

Returning to the analogy of the brain’s functions as the work of the movie director, I likened consciousness to the screen on which the final narrative is projected.

However, this is not a precise representation because if consciousness were merely the screen there would be no reason for it to evolve, and devote such vast brain resources to it. The complexity of consciousness and the resources allocated to it indicate its important role in human survival.

As befits the evolution tradition, that part of the brain we call consciousness holds several functions, the most important being long-term planning. In this area, humans far surpass any other creature. This is where human superiority really comes into play.

So far, we have focused on the way in which the brain absorbs and processes information and even reacts immediately. In order to improve our ability to survive, it is worth planning for the long term, rather as a good chess player calculates many moves ahead.

Long-term planning requires running several possible courses of action and reactions by using our imagination. In this way, from all the possibilities that we can foresee, we can choose a course of action.

The same creative imagination is used by writers, composers, artists, and anyone involved in artistic endeavors or inventions.

Our preferred course of action is not always based on logic. Sometimes we let our feelings take over. Most of the time, our choice of reactions has to best fit our values even if they do not agree with logic or feelings.

The other person does exactly the same thing, although his logic, feelings, or scale of values may be different. Even if that other person has reached the same conclusions at the data processing stage, his reaction would probably be different from mine.

For example, Arabs who believed that Al-Qaeda terrorists brought down the Twin Towers reacted with joy, handing out candy to everyone, while we were deeply saddened by this same event.

That part of the brain that we identify as consciousness is equipped with traits that assist us with planning for the long-term. Among those traits are:

• Imagination - This allows us to imagine or consider various courses of action, enabling us to choose the most appropriate ones.
• Suppression and Invention - These functions allow us to suppress information that may depress us, and hinder our functioning. It allows us to ignore our mistakes, and live in peace with ourselves without harming our functioning.

In the analogy of the content editor versus the graphic artist working on the same document, the graphic artist is not concerned about spelling errors, and the content editor is not interested in the details of the visual layout.

The other person can hold a consciousness of the contents quite different from mine. His consciousness encompasses emotions, values, and worldviews that are different from mine; therefore he can pick a different course of action from a wide range of actions available. Each of us believes that his choice is the correct one.

The brain organizes the visualized information in such a way so as to reinforce this belief.

This mechanism makes us very tolerant of our own mistakes, but we are less forgiving towards the other person.

It is important to acknowledge this vital mechanism in the brain as the other person's brain plays the same trick on him.

He will ignore his own mistakes but, at the same time, he will show uncompromising harshness toward us. We should take this into account when we assess the way in which the other person thinks.

Imagination

Our toilet at home did not stop flushing water. I drove to the hardware store and asked the salesman to help me. He looked up and gazed vacantly at the air in silence, for a minute. I could see the wheels in his brain spinning while he was trying to figure out what the problem might be, using his imagination. Then he stood up, and handed me a rubber sealing ring, saying that the existing one must have been worn out. Back home, I swapped the old ring for the new, and the toilet worked again as it should.

We have the ability to imagine situations by running them through a set of scenarios as the salesman did in this case, and find solutions to problems.

This visualization is so powerful that a student afraid of a test, may run a scenario of failure in his mind, and that scenario is sufficiently vivid so as to cause physiological reactions such as vomiting.

Every one of us has some degree of imagination. Research shows that even some animals have imagination. The scope of imagination differs from one person to the next. There are different kinds of imagination: one person may have a visual imagination whereas another has an auditory imagination.

Each type of imagination is distinguished by its complexity: a two-dimensional imagination is less complex than a three-dimensional one which, in turn, is less complex than a body moving through space, while the most complex imagination is conceptual imagination.

You can easily check how developed is your visual imagination is. Let us say there is a white wooden cube, painted black on all six sides. Imagine cutting it into 64 smaller cubes of equal size. A two-dimensional imagination can answer the following: How many of these small cubes will have only one black side?

A three-dimensional image can answer the following: How many of these small cubes will have no black paint anywhere?

A person with a highly developed visual imagination will be able to imagine a three-dimensional object moving through space along various trajectories.

There is a story that Einstein discovered the theory of relativity by imagining “riding” a light beam.

In my work as an electronics development engineer, I found that the best and the easiest way of checking whether an electronic circuit I had designed would function properly was by “operating” it in my imagination even before the technicians had assembled it.

The highest level of imagination, in my view, is that of philosophers who examine complex philosophical questions.

Imagination was developed as a mechanism that the brain uses to project images on the screen of consciousness but it is also useful for many other purposes. In fact, it is very important for various human activities except perhaps when we merge with the group and lose our individuality.

Imagination is needed for planning the future, telling stories, and even making love. Contrary to common belief, imagination -- like any other ability -- can be taught and developed.

A novice chess player has difficulty in moving chess figures in his imagination and predicting his opponent’s moves but experienced players can imagine several moves ahead and find solutions that enable them to outwit their opponent. Excellent players have a developed imagination that enables them to plan their strategy, by anticipating several steps.

One of the advantages of planning ahead by using one’s imagination, is the speed at which one can check a course of action, irrespective of time constraints in the real world.

It is also possible to imagine combinations that do not exist in reality, such as dogs with wings, or smiling clouds.

It is impossible, however, to imagine completely contradictory traits, such as white shadows or something completely unknown, which is why many of the aliens in science fiction books have humanoid traits.

Very few people can think out of the box, and imagine, or invent new things.

In cultural groups where the component of “the herd” is dominant, it is rare to find new ideas.

Nobel Prizes in the Muslim world, where the concept of “the herd” dominates, are rare; however, in the much smaller group of the Jews, in whom individualism is a trademark, there are many Nobel Prize winners.

Imagination is an important feature in humans for all areas of life if they function as individuals. On the other hand, imagination disrupts the ability to identify with others and, therefore, can be bad for the community.

We can find many types of imagination, and each one has its own level of intensity.

Many people possess a visual type of imagination but some people have an auditory imagination.

Gregorio Allegri composed religious Gothic music - “Miserere ” - it was considered secret music and no one was permitted to copy it. It was played just once a year in the Pope’s church, and the score was kept under lock and key. Leopold Mozart attended one such performance; his phenomenal memory and perfect auditory imagination enabled him to reconstruct the music, revealing this music to the world.

Imagination is linked to memory. It is clear why visual imagination is necessary, not only for future planning but especially in order to see and present reality on the screen of consciousness.

The question of interest, then, is why would an auditory imagination be needed? Perhaps the need lies in the preparation for verbal communication?

The magic of music, which can make us jump up and dance when hearing one type of music, while another type lulls us to sleep, is still a mystery.

What is so unique about harmonious music that moves us? Does a disharmonious noise indicate danger? Is it a worldwide perception, such as perceptions of beauty? To what degree are certain sounds linked with specific symbols learned, such as the very different ranges of keys and rhythms of the Western, Eastern and Asian worlds? Those are questions to which we do not yet know the answers.

Scientists tend to invest deeply in examining physical features, and far less in traits of the brain such as imagination.

But for the purpose of understanding the other person, it is important to investigate the brain’s mental characteristics such as imagination.

Suppression and Invention

Some people are vegetarians because they think that animals, like people, have feelings and should be protected.

Vegans are extreme vegetarians, who abstain from eating or using any animal products.

Members of the Jain faith in India are even more extreme. They choose total veganism to the point that they avoid wearing clothes which may trap and accidentally kill insects; they cover their faces with masks that prevent them from breathing insects in.

I wonder what vegetarians would do if they were to be convinced, like many researchers, that plants are as alive like all other creatures. Would they avoid eating plants as well?

In my opinion, some vegetarians are motivated by a vivid imagination, combined with their inability to suppress the pictures of the living creature being slaughtered in order to provide them with the meat on their plates. Usually, people are able to suppress unpleasant situations.

Suppression is vital for our peace of mind, and sometimes even vital for our existence. People sometimes suppress disturbing facts in the process of understanding reality and therefore reach erroneous conclusions. We have to take this into consideration when trying to understand the other person.

We all know that feeling of “That won't happen to me.” Bad things happen to others. It’s the way our brain protects us from disquiet and fear.

We suppress the possibility of death. We suppress health issues that lurk in the future. Without this suppression of facts, we would never leave the house or risk driving a car.

Of course, suppression of facts must be balanced if we are to survive. Excess suppression can cause loss of caution.

Beyond the role of the suppression trait in our fight to survive, this mechanism holds an additional role in our functioning within our cultural community.

Suppression and invention traits are active when:

• Dismissing inconvenient data from our senses, and inventing facts that are not there.

• Suppressing those of conclusions that do not match the worldview and the invention of alternative narratives.
• Eliminating unpleasant situations from our consciousness, by manipulating our memory, and substituting pleasant but false scenarios.

This mechanism of suppression and the invention of facts are most noticeable in our attitude toward death, and our behavior when we are in love.

We suppress our fears by ignoring death.

We suppress faults and invent the virtues of our loved one.

But we also suppress many less important things.

Without suppression and invention, it is difficult to live alone, and even more difficult to adjust ourselves to our community.

Unfortunately, the mechanisms of suppression and invention make it more difficult to understand the other person if we do not know which facts he based his responses.

Survival requires us to fight and even sometimes to kill the enemy. Our nature prevents us from hurting the members of our own cultural community, which is why the enemy has to be excluded from our community. The way it is done is by suppressing similarities of traits we share with the enemy and inventing threatening facts, which help to demonize the enemy as a group.

We suppress everything in the enemy that might be respected and invent an image of an utterly evil enemy.

This is what the Nazis did to the Jews, presenting them as sub-human.

This is also what Shia Muslims do to Sunni Muslims and vice-versa. Each of these groups depicts the other as infidels.

Racism is another extreme form of DE-legitimization of the other.

The same mechanism, but not in the same intensity, acts in the way in which the political right wing perceives the left wing, and the left wing perceives the right-wingers. This mechanism works also when there is a need to exclude a person from the community. DE-legitimization is the way to overcome our inherent nature to protect those who are like us.

A reverse phenomenon also exists in which we include someone in our group. An example would be the personification of pets which, in our brains, become legitimate members of our group. There are people who love their pets even more than they love other people in their community. As an example of dehumanization, I offer a quote by a left-wing woman, reacting to an article on creativity. Dehumanizing members of the right-wing within her left-wing community, she wrote as follows:

“Creativity exists primarily on the left. There are very few right-wing creative people. There is a biological explanation that links right-wing views to inferior brain structure... We cannot argue with facts.”

The notion that creativity is somehow related to political views, or that political views define a different species defies logic; however, the above claim shows that even an apparently intelligent woman can hold such views.

 Every person adopts the facts that strengthen his worldview; and he can even distort facts or invent other facts, for this purpose, as did this woman.

Can Person behavior be changed?

“Some people change when they see the light; others, when they feel the heat.” – General Schwarzkopf.

Friday night. Our friends are sitting in our living room discussing politics.

That is, the men are yelling out their views on the latest news, while the women in another corner of the room are conversing in low voices.

While my friends with leftist views present their claims, my other friends are busy looking for the best possible way to refute these claims. When one of them finds a particularly successful argument, he cannot restrain himself from pouring out his opinion but interrupts whoever is speaking at that particular moment. In their turn, my friends on the political left do exactly the same thing. Neither side can understand how others fail to see the obvious truth that they are supporting.

The debate comes to an end when my wife gets fed up with all this screaming; it is obviously leading nowhere. She serves coffee with her famous cake. It is so delicious that all my friends have nothing to say except to compliment her. And for a while, there is a peaceful flow of friendly conversation.

I do not remember a single argument in which one side managed to persuade the other of the rightness of their argument. Can you, dear reader, point to any success in convincing the others in a debate?

The question is this: Why cannot two intelligent people agree, especially when the facts leave no doubt?

Could it be a lack of civilized debating habits?

I believe this phenomenon has deeper roots than the lack of ability to conduct a civilized argument. In the USA and Europe, supposedly the epitome of civilized debate, this phenomenon exists just as it does in our sweating Levantine country.

Apparently, it all stems from the way in which our brain perceives reality. We learned in this chapter that our brain is a slow organic computer. It uses its computing ability to fit incoming data to known patterns. No time is spent in calculating the fresh data: on finding an approximate match, it has a ready reaction. Later, when it gets more information, it can modify the decision, and even alter the patterns to match more accurate future data. Patterns concerning ideas are called stereotypes.

Different stereotypes, databases, are engraved in our brain.

Stereotypes are considered as a bad trait lodged only in the minds of other persons that do not belong to our cultural group, as a result of brain-washing. We are never guided by stereotypes; we use logic.

But is that really the case?

Let's see. Are you reading editorials and articles written by people with views different from your own? Or do you prefer to read and watch those media outlets you're used to -- the media that strengthen your views, and make you feel good? Don’t be ashamed to answer “yes” because that is, after all, how our brains work.

So… does that mean that our stereotypes' databases cannot be changed?

The answer to that is that it is possible. But it is a long tough road. It is very difficult to disconnect ourselves from views repeatedly drummed into our consciousness and to set out to build new ones.

Golda Meir’s government was elected yet again, right after the colossal failure of the 1973 Yom Kippur war, a failure that cost more than two thousand lives. What caused the electorate to choose the same leaders, the people who had already brought heavy losses to the small country, even when that government’s blunders were brought to the surface in the protest movement. I remember my father saying: “Who would you want us to vote for? A right-wing party that will cause war?” He was not conscious of the irony in his words; it was the left wing government which had just brought that awful war on the country!

The stereotype of a right-wing party's identification with war and a left-wing party's identification with peace was embedded in his brain causing him to reject the real facts. That is why the same government was re-elected.

It took another couple of years for the right wing to win the election, showing that at least some people had changed their views.

Now we can understand why no one could persuade the others in our Friday night argument.

The reason that we ignore the claims of the other group is that it’s difficult for us to accept that our stereotypes could be wrong. Our cunning brain, operating beneath the radar of consciousness, convinces us that we are always right.

Can we outwit our brain and change our opinions?

Yes, it is possible, but it is very difficult.

In that context, General Schwarzkopf once said: “Some folks change when they see the light, others when they feel the heat”.

It is much more difficult for older people to change their views because their brains have been locked. Children, who are still free of preconceived notions, can change their minds more easily.

In every group, there are some people able to free themselves from the chains of their earlier views and accept a change.

In a consolidated community, especially in religious groups such as Muslims, it is even more difficult for people to free themselves than in the Western community.

Where are you, dear reader, in this regard? Are you willing to admit that perhaps you're mistaken and that there could be something in what your rival is saying? Are you willing to read articles by people whose views oppose yours? Perhaps, in that way, some facts presented from a different angle could pass through the filters of your brain. Are you willing to accept the idea that it’s possible to see things in a different way?

In many Hollywood romantic movies, we find the woman trying to change her lover's behavior to suit her ideas. It never works.

When it comes to religions such as Christianity or Islam, the goal is always to change a person from being an “infidel” to becoming a “believer.”

The need to change the individual often derives from the need to understand the other. We understand someone like ourselves better than others.

The need for a community to convert someone from the other cultural group derives from its wish to bring everyone into their own community.

I do not like this kind of proselytizing, either at the individual level or at the societal level, but I acknowledge that it is the outcome of survival mechanisms existing both in the individual and in the community.

If a scientist comes along and proves that God does not exist, would believers stop believing in God?

Whoops! I’ve now probably just lost all readers who are believers. Let’s look at this from the opposite direction: If there’s a scientist who proves that there is a God: would all non-believing secularists become believers?

Whoops! I’ve now probably just lost all the rest of my readers.

You, the few readers who are willing to continue reading, and allow me the chance to present an interesting angle on how the brain functions, have proven that you have enough openness to help yourself understand the other person.

How many people do you know who have changed their opinions?

For a person to change his views of his own volition, he must be willing to release the strong conviction of believing everything projected onto his consciousness, even though he identifies the consciousness with himself. This requirement to release one from what is going on in the consciousness is a particularly tough thing to do.

People can change their views if an external force is stronger than their belief; one such force could be the power of a charismatic figure that they admire. The same mechanism is in action when public opinion dictates the ideas of a cultural group and erases the individual's previous views.

People change their views themselves when they experience a personal crisis or a seminal event. Very few can change their world views by following a logical process.

However, technology and accruing knowledge have led to the development of tools and methods, which can change people’s ideas. These tools include mass media, educational methods (even to the extent of brainwashing) and Internet tracking on the individual's behavior. And of course branding and advertising, which implants in our subconscious the need to buy products, or to behave in a certain way. 

Examples: The requirement to be thin, to love a specific song, or to wear black.

Throughout history, various persuasive methods have been used intuitively, but the progress of technology in this field has made it easier to control our way of thinking.

That is a very scary thought.