Neuropsychological Foundations of Conscious Experience by Jason Brown, A Review by Sander Kales, D.O.

The sequence in this review is the same as the Microgenetic and Morphodynamic process described by Brown and his own Ontogenesis. It will start with the philosophy because it will give us a general starting point. From there we start in the physical Outside world with Pathology, and the brain processes, both in functioning and in growth, while Brown’s work has been as a neurologist with patients who have brain damage. Working with patients always requires a psychological insight, so this is our next phase in discussing this book while it corresponds with the world Inside.  This review will end with a view on time, so more on a Quantum level.

The brilliance of Brown for me lay in the bringing together of the Outside World (Neurology: processes in the brains and growth of the Brain) and the Inside World (Psychology). Brown is a great analyst, also concerning his own experiences, as in dreams. The bringing together shows up in that he realized that the processes that can be seen in Morphogenesis, or on a cellular (Body) level, also can be seen on a psychological, or Mind level. So we start off with his Philosophical views, or to state in his terms: “The Whole”.

Philosophy, Microgenesis and Process Theory 

As William James states: “Philosophy is more a matter of passionate vision than logic, the logic coming afterwards to justify the vision” the same goes for his development of Microgenesis Theory. 

An important insight of Brown, he describes as follows: “The shift from process to substance theory was one from continuities, transitions and internal relations to logical solids, discrete brain areas or components. 

For substance theory, being is the source of becoming. For process theory becoming is the source of being. For microgenesis and process theory, the mental evolves with the physical by an expansion of proto-psychic features”.  In other words, how do things or thoughts come about and not what are they.

So in this book, the focus is continually on process/ development/ growth, and not on, can we pinpoint this function to this structure: “The whole is not constructed from the parts but is antecedent to them”. Now we will see where the development of this theory started.

NeuroPathology

Brown describes a couple of cases in this book. For the reader this gives a daily reality to the theory. That is the reason to start from here, and we can see that the diagnostic skills of Brown are to be reckoned with. “A patient of mine with a retrograde amnesia did not recall being in an accident in which his fiancé was killed, nor did he show an affective reaction when he was repeatedly told what happened. As recall improved, he developed nightmares for some days prior to the return of sufficient recall to ask what occurred in the accident, at which point, when told, he was overcome with grief. The nightmares, however, were not directly about the accident; they reflected the anxiety that forecasted the recall. The symptom is not a bizarre occurrence unrelated to the normal, but reveals preliminary or “pre-processing” phases in the elaboration of normal function”. 

So early on Brown realised that he should look at the process of conscious experience and not on the fragments or presentations. “In this respect the symptoms of brain pathology are fragments of unconscious phases that are usually inaccessible to waking cognition. One of Freud’s more important insights was the recognition that psycho-pathological symptoms are not additions but uncoverings”. 

Brain Processes

He than sets about to look at the brain processes that take place, from a Process Theory viewpoint. “The activation of neurons by external stimuli does not mean neurons are responsible for the perception of those stimuli. Levitan (2006) gives the example of regions in left hemisphere shown to be active in the perception of musical structure that are also active in the perception of sign language”. He than states that it is not just at the neurons but also in the localisation in left and right hemispheres and Antero Posterior within a hemisphere. 

“Some writers have looked at the shift from the simultaneity of spatial cognition to the successivity of the temporal in speech or action. This has also been framed in terms of a shift from the (spatial) right to the (temporal) left hemisphere (e.g. Teuber, 1958) or from posterior to anterior brain processes in language”.

Also on the brain stem level he sees a phylontogenetic development, where a tremor is basic and voluntary movements develop on top of it. “A simpler observation is that a voluntary movement such as lifting the finger develops at the cyclical peaks of normal resting “tremor”. This indicates that unconscious rhythms or oscillators underlie voluntary action, as in the respiratory timing that frames an utterance”. 

So we see here that Brown focuses on process rather than on functions:

“Most imaging studies localize functions rather than display mental or neural process. This is no doubt true for most, if not all, studies that purport to map brain areas to cognitive function. 

A single process is iterated at multiple phases rather than multiple processes acting at different loci”. Here we see a clear break with current popular research where fMRI studies appear daily stating that fear is amygdala, decisions are Pre Frontal Cortex, etc.

A brain state is that configuration of neuronal activity generating a mental state. A mental state is a virtual duration that corresponds with an epoch of brain activity. Identification of the mental state with the brain state does not apply just to its vegetative core but to every phase in transition. 

So we see a shift from Brain State towards Mental State.

Interesting here is that Phylontogenetic older information comes from organs and Autonomic Nervous System (Vegetative system) “The transition from limbic to neocortical formation is the forward direction of microgenesis”. This information arrives at the brain. Then it continues towards Limbic System and ends at the Cortex, traversing the same path as the Phylontogeny.

Corner (1) also describes the phylontogenetic development of sleep. The REM is the basic activity level of nerves, which develop every moment. On top you have successive states (Sleep stages 1-4 through Dreams to a Waking state).

From this view we can understand his remark: “The preponderant opinion is that the precursors of consciousness do not extend “all the way down” but that consciousness arises at some level of neuronal complexity”. So at some point in this traversing the Phylontogeny consciousness arises.

Let us have a closer look at this Phylontogenetic development. It was a realisation from Brown that brain mental processes show the same pattern as Morphogenetic development. This viewpoint that Phylontogeny takes place on different levels and not, like Darwin stated, on the level of the human being, is supported by several authors: Kupiec (2), Corner (1). But also in the analysis of the development of cities, sand dunes, etc. “Microgenesis exhibits and extends to cognition the pattern of growth in morphogenesis”. 

Morphogenesis.

Brown sees this pattern also on the smallest level: the cell: “Mitosis is the model of individuation as complexity grows from within. Some have argued that the tension between the active and the passive in cognition traces back to the biology of approach and avoidance in unicellular organisms (Schneirla, 1965), which evolves to grasping and withdrawal, extro- and introversion, and even aggressive and dependent personality types”. 

What does this Morphogenetic process entail? It is a balance between live and death: Growth and Apoptosis. Also on a genetic level this takes place (Kupiec(2)). Again we see the underlying process. “In a mature cognition, the endogenous constraints of the just-prior act are comparable to genetic influences on growth, while the exogenous constraints of the external world (sense-data) are comparable to the effects of the micro-environment on gene expression. Polygenes and timing mechanisms limit the degrees of freedom in the growth process, increasing the likelihood of a given outcome”. 

The development can be seen as the growth of the tree, where in the trunk you see all the growth circles. One is on top of the other. “The similarity of the process of growth to that of cognition becomes clear when we consider morphogenesis not as an open end linear succession but as a recurrent pattern, in which new form is laid down over antecedent structure. This shift in perspective helps us to see how the same process that is responsible for the growth of the brain continues as the process that is responsible for behaviour”. 

Interesting is that a Process Theory like Microgenesis Theory introduces time as a new component, from 3D towards 4D (Heterochrony is the rate or timing of this process). 

As Beloussov (3) describes: “to understand a landscape we must not just understand the structures that are there, but also its history in order to analyse it”. So Brown states: “Behaviour is four-dimensional morphology or structure over time. Memory is the obvious link from structure to function. Early in development, the persistence (recurrence) of brain structure is a kind of organic or “physical” memory. The “permanence” of a learned or remembered item is the structural aspect of thought”.

In Morphogenesis it is not just time that is important, but also the axles. Grid patterns are laid down first, before further development. This can be compared to the development of roads before a city develops. “The development that goes from archaic to recent in evolutionary structure corresponds with the transition from axial to distal innervation, from bodily space to the external world, from symmetry to asymmetry, from low frequency kinetic rhythms that mediate inter alia walking and respiration, to higher frequency oscillators or harmonics that mediate selective kinetic patterns such as those involved in prosody or asymmetric limb movement”.

Asymmetry is a new field of study, which Quantum Physicists started and which now comes to the Biological Sciences. More and more literature appears on Left Right asymmetry in the body.“The dissolution of the self and the inter-penetration with the other accompany a retreat from asymmetric and deliberate limb movements to automatic and symmetrical axial motility. Focal voluntary actions are replaced by rhythmic impulses”. The body strives for symmetry while it is not symmetrical. A symmetrical face is seen as more beautiful.

Fractal development, like the Mandelbroth set, is well known in the Biological science. Brown: “Growth does not lay down a fixed anatomy, but rather morphology is the behaviour of a developing brain. Microgenesis entails a single fractal-like process. The remedy is a concept of brain and psyche in terms of fields or fractals instead of cities and highways”.

There are two morphogenetic processes which shape growth:

• parcellation or pruning (The equivalent of parcellation in growth, or surround inhibition in physiology, is the whole-to-part or context-to-item transformation in cognition) 
• neoteny lay down “force lines” that become the process of cognition. It is a selective retardation or prolongation of a juvenile stage that can be a springboard of evolutionary growth.

Brown’s personal Development

As we have seen that Brown’s development as a Neurologist was getting to know first the structures in order to analyse the development. This same approach he took to analysing Psychology (Psychoanalysis) and also his own dreams. So here we see an analysis of the inside world. His personal experience with dreams is also a factor in the development of Microgenesis Theory.

I awoke and could only remember the first two lines of what seemed to be a wonderful poem. The lines were: 

Run thee a poem in thy time ‘ 

Pay not a fare to the rhyme or the meter. 

However brief, this was not at all a poem I could have written awake. 

The interpretation of the dream tells us more about the dreamer than the content that is interpreted.  We study the reality given in mind, not a reality mind can perfectly measure.

The difference between Brown and colleague’s is that he approached it from a Process and Morphogenetic point of view. “Consciousness is always preceded by, and enfolds, an unconscious transition, so that an attenuated mental state could exist without realizing consciousness. For most psychologists it is the other way around, i.e. experience first passes through consciousness in order to be revived in the unconscious”. Let us look more closely at this Inside World:

World Outside – World Inside

Here he comes up with a good example: “Consider brain and perception like a celluloid film and moving picture. The celluloid is felt to be more real than the movie because it does not represent something other than what it is, whereas events in the film have no actual correlates. We might think a documentary is more real than an ordinary film, but we are still looking at images, not “real” objects. Since all films (and objects) are images, it is not the imaginary or perceptual quality that counts for the unreality. There is a presumption that some mental objects – ideas more than dreams, words more than ideas, objects more than words – are more real than others. Independent of whether or not the self is illusory. We refer to the mental objects as a footprint. We are in error, we should say, it has the shape of a footprint”.

“To exist and to be real are different states of affairs.  When psychic experience does not conform to the physical world, survival is in danger”. 

In this dialogue between Inside and Outside world, Brown states that a Self develops: “The sense of causal power in the infant who reaches for a rubber ball is perhaps no more than the behaviour of a cat that reaches for a rolling ball of wool. Further individuation of self and object leads to greater autonomy and a feeling of a self opposed to inner and outer contents.”

When we look at the psychological “development” that Brown mentions, there are of course different points of view. As Brown describes a development from Core to Outside world, and states that it is unidirectional, Indian Philosophy (i.e. Swami Rama(4)) describes a movement where it is a circle coming back: from core to consciousness and back to the core. Through Self-Reflection, dream analysis we get to know our Core. In India the path also entails that one can stay in this state, and not in an outside state/ phase.

So to follow this path back inwards we start with perception, through consciousness, Ego, Dream state towards Self and finally Non Self. Again this is another point of view than Brown while he states that the movement is unidirectional (from Core towards Consciousness) and ends in the Non-Self (Outside World). 

Dream

So the dream state, like in Psychoanalysis is a chance to see the unconscious processes. It is a natural state. But:“A delusion is intermediate between the pathological symptom with its delimited interpretation and the dream as a natural phenomenon relating to one’s life. The thin line that separates the passive intention of dream from the active volition of agency is a point in the passage of internal to external mind”. This means that it is the shaping of the outside world that determines if we experience a dream state or a delusion. In the dream there is no outside perception and we experience the dream in an awake state. In a delusion there is outside perception but we experience it in a dream state.

Brown continues: “Given the relation between inner speech, hallucination and perception, the relative depth of realization in perception and action, or the dominant segment of the actualization, determines whether a verbal image is apprehended as voluntary, passive (hallucination), or mind-independent (perception)”. 

The next stage which we encounter on our path inside, is the ego.

Ego: I and me

“The distinction is embodied in the unconscious and timeless self of the “me”, and the conditional or temporal self of the “I”, one constant and authentic, another transient and adaptive. In the child the “me” precedes the ‘I’. The agent – the “I“ – is inferred from the activity of thinking. The state is not divisible into a self, an object and a direction. Without the object, there is no self. The “I” is always “I am (think, want, etc.)”. The ‘’I’’ does not exist without a verb or relation.” 

Here it is a matter of how we define the “I” and the “me”. Like the Ipad, or Iphone, one can also take the I as the Core and the “me” as the outward development. Interesting here is that in the Indian tradition of Vedanta the whole meditation is on “Who am I” (Nisargadata Maharash(5)). Also Eckhart Tolle (6) describes, while in deep depression, the realisation that I want to kill myself, made him realise the “I” is different from the “myself”. Is it Ego and Self? Again there are many viewpoints possible on this.

Fact remains that more and more research shows that most of our behaviour is an Inside Out development. Core drives and experiences determine our perception. For instance, when holding a heavy object we experience a conversation as heavier, than when holding a light object.  

So: “A person can either mistakenly believe his act is intentional, or unknowingly act intentionally”.

Next phase on our way to the Core is the Self:

The Self

“The relation of the self to inner objects is introspection or reflection. The relation of the self to outer objects is exteroception or perception. In perceiving an object, the self, indeed the entire perception, is generated with the object”. 

Again we encounter here the matter of defining Self. “There are two categories of the self, a deep core or unconscious self aligned with values, implicit beliefs and character, and a liminal, conscious or empirical self that adapts to momentary needs and future expectations.

Core self and its drive-representations, which are then derived to an empirical self and its conceptual feelings, then to images, and to objects and external space”. 

Also there is the fact of Inner Speech. “In passing to a perceptual development, inner speech dissociates from the self of agency, and actualizes in voices distinct from the patient”. 

Psychology: Drives

When we go deeper down into ourselves we arrive at, what Brown calls the Core Self. This is where the basic drives are. In the work of Stephen Porges (7) we come across the same Phylontogeny, but then for the Autonomic Nervous System. We start with Visceral sensations, which correspond with the Enteric Nervous System (Reptilian, Freeze), than up through the Sympathetic Nervous System (Mammalian, Fight/ Flight) up to the Parasympathetic Nervous System (Communication). Here we see again a “rising up” of information from deeper levels towards the surface. Again from a Process Theory point of view, the same Phylontogeny. This information reaches the Brain Stem, where for Brown his Microgenesis starts. So we could assume that it is the interoceptive experience from the body, and its memories, where the Core feelings arrive from. 

Brown:” The initial phases of the mental state arise out of an instinctual core – the inherited repertoire of drive categories - then pass through a phase of affective and experiential memories that shape conceptual feeling in the direction of perception. Instead of perception laying down memory, memory lays down perception. The transition from self to world is from contents that are memory-like to those that are perception-like, from the personal past to the impersonal present. A memory is an incomplete perception, and a perception is a memory specified to an object”. 

Also: “We come to understand that feeling is not applied to objects but develops into them.  Generally Feeling is more intense at early phases of drive and desire, less so at distal ones of object and word-production. Moreover, feeling is felt as a pressure behind or directed to the object, not in it”.

Psychology: Non-Self

At the point where we go even further down into our Mind, we come to a point where Indian Philosophy places the Non-Self. Brown names the Non-Self the experience outside oneself “The end-point of the outward-going development is non-self (other, object)”. When we get to this core, according to Indian Philosophy, this is where our convictions, and even deeper our universal feeling of connectedness, bliss, the feeling of divinity is located. Brown states:”This is where Conviction (non-self) replaces the need for choice and decision. It is closer to drive, desire and the core self, often bound up with the self-concept. The continuance of the core due to the overlap of initial phases explains the “persistence”, i.e. recurrence, of implicit beliefs and values, or character, while the rapid vanishing at the perceptual surface “clears the slate” for the next perception”.

The Trilogy that is common in Osteopathic Philosophy is that of Body – Mind – Spirit. So Spirit is the deepest level in ourselves, according to Indian and Osteopathic Philosophy. Brown: “Soul and other forms of spirit are not of mind or matter. They inhabit a nether world between the cognitive and the physical. The common belief in spirits indicates that it is not necessary to have a body (or any substrate) to infer a mind”. 

But we can see that there is not much difference in Brown’s point of view and these philosophies. “To be selfless is not to be without a self, but to revive the other in the self before it individuates. 

When such relatedness occurs with full absorption and abolition of self and a disappearance of the self, is a kind of death from which a return to life and consciousness is possible. 

To be worthy is to be selfless. Self-denial is a mode of active passivity that is the primary condition of submission. In Buddhism, as in most religions, self-denial is central. It is the timelessness of the category that inspires the belief that individuals persist after death as souls, or as ideas in god’s mind”.  

Quantum Physics

When we arrive at this core level within ourselves, the question arises if this is also on a deeper physical level. Fantappie (8)states that if we go beyond 200 Angstrom, we arrive at the Quantum level in ourselves. At this level Newtonian laws do not apply and Quantum Laws come into play. Also at this level Time is not the lineair unidirectional movement we are so familiar with.

Brown:“In organic systems the becoming of the organism is unidirectional. In basic or elementary physical entities the becoming may be reversible or isotropic. The becoming or directionality of the mental state is fundamental to its existence, its being”. 

Also on Quantum Physics and Time: “In my view, subjective time is neither particle, nor wave but in some sense both; wave-like in an actualization over the temporal extensibility of elementary physical entities or brain states, and particle-like in the modularity of the state once it actualizes”.

Time plays an important role in Microgenesis Theory, and Brown, like Bergson, studies Time from a phenomenological viewpoint. First of all there is the important fact that a becoming of consciousness takes place at a fast rate, so that we experience everything as a continuum. Brown uses the following example: “In a movie continuity requires a frequency of around 40 milliseconds per frame, which is close to the estimated duration of a mental state, thus the rate postulated for the replacement. This rate is likely governed by a pacemaker and is relatively constant. Think of the mental state as having a duration of about 50 to 100 milliseconds. The present does not have a fixed duration. James wrote of fuzzy boundaries. In meditation, the present may expand in states of confusion, it may contract”. 

Pacemakers have been identified in the brain, both in Brain Stem and in Hypothalamus, comparable to the AV and SA knot in the heart. It could be hypothesized that this pacemaker generates an electrical signal that travels through the body and returns to the Brain stem where the becoming of consciousness further advances. We have to keep in mind that information is not just transferred through electrical signals, bit also through electromagnetic fields, light, sound, etc. A new mental state thus comes about every 40-100 milliseconds.

“The acceleration and deceleration of events in pathological cases, as in the speed of a film projector, might reflect the frequency of replacement. Subjective time does not exist until the process is completed. The existence of a thing depends on the duration over which it actualizes. A tree that exists for a millisecond is not perceived at all. Sustained recurrence creates objects, novelty in the recurrence creates events. All objects are events in which change (recurrence) is more or less imperceptible”. 

“The future is not what the present moves into, it is another present that the past deposits”.

Also the origin of Time comes from symmetry. Feynman (9) also elaborates on symmetry being the origin and dissymmetry the end point. “If the Inception of the mental is simultaneous, and temporal order occurs at the conscious endpoint, simultaneity and seriality refer to earlier and later in a single epoch. Less coherent music, the less a sequence can be anticipated, the less revival is facilitated”.

Teleo Dynamics

Terence Deacon (10) describes three levels, starting with Physics to Morphodynamics and ending with Teleodynamics. This means that there is a direction giver. It is hypothesized by several authors (Lazlo(11), Haisch(12), Sheldrake(13), Fantappie(8)) that  on a Quantum level time is reversible and thus can inform the past. Brown states: “In a process approach, objects are states of flux that only appear to be solids. The flux is not random or chaotic but has a direction. In the mind, possibility is the ground of freedom and fact is the final stage of belief. In mind, the progression is from potential to actual, in the world, from cause to effect. A transition from the voluntary to the involuntary in the passage outward to objects”. 

To conclude: “That a model of the real should grow out of fantasy, that objects are recognized before they are consciously perceived, that the world is an extension of the mind, that succession in time is generated out of simultaneity”. 

In this book we see that Brown has done an excellent job on bringing the Outside World and the Inside World together. The dichotomy of Descartes is slowly fading away, and we are becoming more and more a unity, and can experience ourselves as a whole. Also the difference between our perception of the other and ourselves can significantly change. In this sense we can see the world more and more as ourselves.

References

1. Michael Corner, Sleep Evolution, 2011, 
2. Jean Jacques Kupiec, The origin of Individuals, World Scientific, New Jersey, 2009
3. Lev Beloussov, The dynamic architecture of a developing organism, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1998
4. Swami Rama, Science of breath, Himalayan Institute, Pennsylvania, 1979
5. Nisargadata Maharesh, Who am I, The Acorn Press, 1973
6. Eckhart Tolle, De nieuwe aarde, Ankh Hermes, 2005
7. Stephen Porges, The Polyvagal perspective, Biological Psychology, 2006 
8. Ulisse Di Corpo, Syntropy (Luigi Fantappie), 1996
9. Lawrence Krauss, Quantum man, Richard Feynmann’s life in science, Kindle, 2011
10. Terence Deacon, The Remergence of Emergence, Chapter 9,
11. Ervin Lazlo, Science and the akashic field, Inner Traditions, Vermont, 2004
12. Bernard Haisch, The God Theory, Weiser Books, San Fransisco, 2006
13. Rupert Sheldrake, The presence of the past, Park Street Press, Vermont, 1988