The Brain, A Decoded Enigma Part 22

X2: Inside a "symbolic" society, larger and larger groups of people who cannot keep the pace with the symbolic orientation appear. These take refuge in fundamentalisms (antiglobalisation, ecological, religious movements, etc).

X3: It looks like there is a degradation of the technical quality of individuals, already at birth, especially in the "symbolic" countries.

X4: Many persons from "image" countries have very good symbolic orientation and are accepted and desired in the "symbolic" worlds. However, these persons do not have a structure of basic models compatible with the symbolic world, as they are coming from an image world, and thus, they cannot contribute to the strengthening of the structures of the symbolic-type societies.

Let's see now some possible problems to which masonry is obliged to react. Let's take e.g. X1. On long term, it could cause a break up of the world. Part of the world should become a ghetto. If this happened, then masonry would have the tendency to control this process, which is considered as inevitable. If ghetto-isation of the world were considered inacceptable, masonry should find and implement a solution excluding it.

Discussion a.s.sociated with X1...X4 should finalize in long-range models, based on which masonry should act. We can see from here that masonry is the only organisation, which could work with this cla.s.s of problems. States have too short-range models and above all, the representatives of the states are not preoccupied by such basic problems.

As the cla.s.ses of problems of types X1...X4 are extremely complicated when a.s.sociated to specific external realities, the prediction is that masonry has serious difficulties connected to its own structure of personnel, as well as with the ways of action in future.

It can also be supposed that presently some members of the masonry could not accept anymore that some goals are attained beyond their lifetime limit. If a large enough fraction of the masons think this, then the character of masonry will change.

Let's see a cla.s.s of problems we could group under the name "Irak syndrome". This is about the fact that image countries do not adopt and respect the democratic-type structure, as it is understood in the symbolic countries. This would not be big deal, if these countries were poor. If they have natural resources for sale, those countries might be tempted to act dangerously for other countries, as there is no public control on what is happening. These countries may become, at the limit, a danger for human civilization.

This cla.s.s of problems is far beyond the capacities and goals of cla.s.sical masonry. However, as this syndrome will exist, for long time from now, masonry will have to act somehow to keep the connection with the external reality.

ETA 29: Problems a.s.sociated with movie making

I have seen on TV a scene presenting a vehicle entering a street. The scene starts with a general view of the street. The vehicle enters the scene from left to right. During the sequence, two persons appear in the foreground who watch the movement of the vehicle. The problem is that the eyes of those persons follow (we suppose) the vehicle, moving from right to left. If the operator had not changed position, the eyes of the persons should have moved from left to right, as predicted by the general model, created during the previous scene.

Let's see what happened. The vehicle was recorded entering the scene from left to right, then the operator crossed the street and took some images of two persons watching the vehicle, and moving their eyes from right to left. This can produce confusion in the construction of the model. In a more complicated situation, the presented data would have been confusing and would be understood in fragments, stimulating the schizophrenic tendencies. It is reminded that, when the information cannot be correlated, the brain will "switch" from the construction of a normal model to a story-type one.

This is not an insignificant problem. If the scope of the presentation were transmission of information to help build a model a.s.sociated to the recorded external reality, other rules to shoot a movie would exist, which should be different from the ones used nowadays.

People do not seem to be disturbed by this cla.s.s of problems. They might be disturbed only if they want to reconstruct the normal model based on spread data. In this case I consider it as a form of induced schizophrenia (XS1B), as clearly correlated events are presented as unconnected.

Thus, in a movie, as local models appear in a succession, they are related inbetween each other, in the frame of a story-type model, instead of been used to create a single normal model, a.s.sociated to a unique external reality.

The perception based on story-type models is a primitive way of understanding the external reality, and it is unfortunately a typical way of the "normal" man in the civilized world. Understanding this problem contains implicitely the solution. Of course, education in school will have an important role.

This problem (reflection of external reality in story-type models) appeared as an effect of overwhelming the brain. What happened is an avalanche effect: the presentation of a situation is confusing and, as such, the brain builds a story-type model. The structure of story-type models is consuming a lot of resources of the brain and determines more and more limited allocation of resources to building other normal models. The reduced capacity to build normal models causes that normal presentations are not detected and appreciated anymore. Even if the presentations were normal, it would be perceived through story-type models and so the circle is closed.

Reflecting the external reality in the form of story-type models is a special kind of fundamentalism. This conclusion should worry everybody.

The solution should be a strict control on the form of spreading the information, so that information could only be presented within the general frame declared at the begining. Thus, any specific information will be integrated in the general model. This is what is already happening in positive sciences, while, e.g. in newpapers, information is presented without any connection to the past, without any prediction of the future evolutions and even without presenting the context in which the information should be integrated.

ETA 30: Optical perspective and the quality of construction of image models.

The succes in constructing image models in the case of photography and movies depends on the optical perspective of the objects. The perspective is given by the angle under which one can see the subjects. This angle is given by the ratio of the maximum dimension of the image to the focal distance of the lens.

Example: for 35mm cameras (used typically) the 50 mm focal distance was found to give the same perspective as the eye.

It is important to know that in order to reconstruct correctly a 3D model, the perspective has to be the normal once as the eye is calibrated for its normal perspective. This means that YM models have been already built and recorded based on the normal perspective. If the perspective is changed, the M-models will not find the correct position of the YMs. Thus, the YMs have to be modified and this is an extremely complicated operation. In this case the brain prefers to build fragmented ZM models (several ZMs a.s.sociated to pieces of the primary M-model). This also could favorize a form of induced schizophrenia (XS1B).

This problem appears e.g. when we watch a scene recorded in a place where we have been before and which we know. If the perspective is not normal, it is possible that we do not recognize, or recognize only with great difficulties, some elements and sequences which we should recognize easily.

ETA 31: Some times aggressivity may fight XS1-type schizophrenia.

The aggressivity is defined as a stronger than average tendency to activate ZAM models. An aggressive person has the tendency to easily activate models that act on the external reality.

Let's see some typical situation in common external reality.

Example 1: People who go to supermarkets have easily noticeable schizophrenic tendencies during shopping. This is understandable. Each product seen will activate at least one model, so, in a short time, the brain is overwhelmed by the mult.i.tude of models activated at the simple identification of the ent.i.ties of the external reality. They need to correlate, in addition, the offer (price, quality..) with their (usually) limited financial resources. The effort of the brain is very big, so that little energy is left to take into account the surrounding people. Those who are in a hurry (have precise models to execute) will perceive the ones overwhelmed by the problem as "sleeping", blocking the flow.

However, as we have seen, schizophrenic tendencies are, up to a point, understandable. The local-schizophrenia given by a main problem which preocupies too much the brain could be fought by the aggressivity of the others (if it existed). When, for instance, the others disturb too much or too often the "sleepy" (as in the supermarket example) the latter will be forced to redirect part of their resources to respond to the many external perturbations. To do this, they need e.g. to build several concept (simplified) models for the products, and this is evolution (everything non- essential is discarded).

Thus, the aggressivity of the others can fight local-schizophrenia as it has been described above. If enough people will be aggressive with those attained by local schizophrenia, the result will be that the shoppers will have more precise ideas and will decide faster. Anyways, an aggressive environment will attenuate to disappearance local-schizophrenia with beneficial effects on everybody.

Example 2: the same type of local (temporary) schizophrenia appears when driving in busy city traffic. Many will be overwhelmed and will react slowly with excessive caution and this will upset the other aggressive drivers. If there are enough aggressive drivers, or if the law favours those drivers, then the "sleepy" will be either self-removed from traffic, or they will join the tendency to aggressive driving. The effect would be an increase in fluency and hopefully fewer accidents.

Connected to this paradox (aggressivity diminis.h.i.+ng the number of accidents) the pros could be: the "sleepy" upset the aggressive. The aggressive could thus produce accidents. If the "sleepy" will dissapear, the risk of accident will be decreasing significantly because of less sources of irritation. If the "sleepy" will vanish from traffic the occasions of the aggressive to show aggressivity will decrease. This can be explained by the fact that, if the one in front of me knows that I am aggressive, he will not risk to drive "lazy". Also, if I have an aggressive driver behind me, I will not risk to be aggressed, so I will drive more dynamically, without hesitation. The result is not only more fluency but also the diminis.h.i.+ng of the effect of aggressivity.

We have shown how XS1-type schizophrenia could be fought by aggressivity, if the law favoured aggressivity e.g.

Let's see the reverse. A schizophrenic population reacts slowly and based on too short-range models to the permanent perturbation a.s.sociated with everyday life. The dynamic individuals will be discouraged by an inert society and so they will "contribute" to the general bad status of the society.

ETA 32: s.e.x

MDT considers that there is no principial difference between male and female brains. The differences appear only related to the technological implementation of the beings, in general.

From the general theory we know that one of the basic design requirements of the beings is to survive unconditionally forever. This requirement is the goal of several image models of the PSM. In the technological implementation known, the living beings have a limited lifetime and the above condition is completed by reproduction.

Fulfilling in optimal conditions the reproduction in the animal world means the selection of the best individuals for reproduction and blocking the reproduction of the less performant, based on the available image models in PSM.

The models a.s.sociated to s.e.xual activities are in PSM and, of course, they are image models.

In case of humans, we remember that image models have dominated life until about year 1800, after which symbolic models have begun a strong ascension. As a consequence, s.e.xuality, up to 1800, was based exclusively on image models (for the average person only), while after 1800, s.e.xuality was influenced, more and more, by symbolic models (based on logical a.n.a.lysis).

For humans, as based initially on image models, s.e.xuality modelled the man very differently from woman.

It should be noted here that the term "Man" means for the majority of us "a man" (male), which is not correct. The explanation for this confusion resides in the dominant position of the man in a society based on image models.

Reluctantly leaving behind the cultural environment based on image models, present s.e.xual life is strongly influenced by symbolic models. In a symbolic model environment, there is no s.e.xual difference. This could be expressed by saying that, in a symbolic society, there are no discriminations based on s.e.x. All humans, independent of being male or female are equal, because this results from the a.n.a.lysis on symbolic model.

As already said, s.e.xuality is a.s.sociated with image models, and changing the structure of basic models, from image to symbolic, has produced strong perturbations in the approach to s.e.x.

In the present technological implementation of humans, the dominant position of the man is evident. This is the source of the present crisis of s.e.xuality. A woman, knowing that she is equal or, many times, even superior to the male partner, will have difficulties in implementing her s.e.xual life. Due to this problem, the number of non-usual s.e.xual behaviour is high.

In this approach of evaluation of the problem, we will talk only about the "normal" situation, i.e. the situation which should be dominant in s.e.xual issues in a society dominated by symbolic models.

Both men and women have to build a structure of symbolic models, in which the models explicitly related to s.e.x (image models) should be controlled based on logic.

The basic statements of this symbolic model should be the following:

1. There is a perfect equality between men and women, including the explicit s.e.xual interaction.

2. Faithfulness to a single partner is not an important feature in a structure dominated by symbolic models. On image models, faithfulness to a single partner, only for humans, is necessary and results implicitly from the way of choosing the partner ("pure love"... i.e. the partener is included in the PSM as an image model).