Wrote parable on your Mountain Path article, is this summary OK?

Hi Gary,
After reading "Where Does This I Arise?" in the recent edition of The Mountain Path...I appreciated the information so much that I felt to write a parable depicting the information you presented. I also thought to include a summary of your article at the end. I'm hoping you'll review that summary (below) for accuracy.
Thank you very much for your article and your assistance.

Centers responsible for performing specific functions, such as linguistics, memory and visceral activities, are located throughout the brain. Yet science has not found a singular, permanent center for an individual controller from which the perception of “I” arises. Instead, this perception has been identified to stem from, or perhaps even be created by, the many “memory storage sites.”

These sites, scattered all over the brain, become active only when a function is being performed in them. Consequently, the
location of the “I” perception is in constant flux. These sites are collectively referred to as the “secondary” or “symbolic consciousness.” Because of its relatively low processing capabilities, it has only simple calculating and reasoning abilities. Yet it pretends to mastermind all of the functions performed in the brain through the familiar “voice in the head.”

The secondary consciousness appears to have a relatively recent evolution, originating for survival purposes; it can respond quickly to situations because of its capacity to follow only linear progressions and handle just a few tasks at a time. Beneath, or often concealed by, the secondary consciousness is a grouping of centers that make up the “primary consciousness.” It is comprised of a massive processor with enormous storage capacity in which many tasks can be performed simultaneously.

This consciousness is the complex problem solver, source of creativity and long-term memory that communicates through the intuition. It is responsible for spatial and concrete results and has been proven to solve problems eight seconds before the
secondary consciousness is aware that they have been solved. Subsequently, the secondary consciousness takes credit for the result even though it had nothing to do with it. Because the secondary consciousness assumes the position of intermediary for the primary consciousness, it is generally believed to be the only consciousness.


G. Hi, great that you have found the article in The Mountain Path useful and have written a parable about it.

Your summary comments are very good. i would suggest that...where you refer to "memory storage sites", you add "and functional selfing/I, me, my sites".

As you mention, many different "I"s are used in holding and indexing memories, so the "I" is all over the place. There is no particular site for memory storage, unlike what happens w/a hard drive. As the brain uses "disbursed/local" rather than "central/fixed" storage, it retrieves and reassembles memories (often not perfectly) when it needs them.

Where and if, something is stored depends on which neural networks were involved and whether there has been involvement/emotional investment in keeping that memory for later use to hopefully protect body/mind. Research on memory @ the Univ. of CO @ Boulder by Depue, et. al in Neuropsychologia, 48, 13 of Nov. 2010 and in 2007, found that the auditory, visual and parietal (movement) cortexes can all be involved in memories. The hippocampus (handling and disbursing) and amygdala (emotional content) are normally involved in memory making as well.

Research has shown that memories are "enhanced" by the brain's adding in recent inputs presumably to increase the "learning" from a given event. The "executive, planning, control" functions in the prefrontal cortex do this memory enhancement. Research on "9/11" memories indicates that basically no one has the same memory of that event now that they had on 9/12. Almost no memory more than a few years old is correct in all details, due to enhancement or retrieval errors. Police, attorneys, friends, and the media can also influence what is the current memory, rather than the original one. The current article of Scientific American Mind is focused on memory.

Adding "functional selfing/I,me,my sites" is also useful as there are about 11 different sites that do the apparent actions of "selfing". These are shown in the...best paper on the subject, done @ Harvard in 2010 by Andrews-Hannah...

Later you say "These sites are collectively referred to as the “secondary” or “symbolic consciousness.”"..."memory" areas aren't really IN "secondary consciousness" but are available for secondary consciousness to access. Secondary consciousness is like a "whiteboard" or Graphical User Interface (GUI) on which a few (7 +/- 2) different elements/images are being processed, and reprocessed, and reprocessed... as we obsess on a particular issue. This is shown in this figure from my 2010 SAND talk.

Similarly with the functional "selfing" areas - secondary consciousness can access and use them, rather than their actually being IN secondary consciousness...

IMHO, it is great that (the editor) and The Mountain Path are open to including articles with content like these. IME, for many folk, it makes the process of self-inquiry so much more powerful.