Self-Improvement

There are a variety of ways that our Central Nervous System (CNS) senses and interacts with our environment. There are nerve endings like Free Nerve Endings, Pacinian Corpuscles, Meissner’s Corpuscles, Muscle Spindles, in addition to sensory organs, like taste buds and olfactory buds (taste and smell), rods and cones in the retina (vision), cochlear cilia in the vestibular system (hearing, balance). (Douglas B. Webster, Neuroscience of Communication, 1999)

The signals detected by these sensors are transmitted into the CNS by the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS). The Spinal Cord and Brain stem are segments of the CNS that generate and regulate a lot of our instinctual behavior. Heart beating, breathing, sleeping and reproduction are generated in the brain stem. The endocrine system is also closely enervated by the brain stem. The flow of neurotransmitters in our nervous system and hormones and other chemicals secreted by endocrine glands all over our bodies, generate our survival instincts.

The Cerebellum is attached to the back of the brain stem and is involved in proprioception. Proprioception is our awareness of our body, its position and things like touch, heat, cold, pain and balance. Our vestibular system is also very involved in our sense of balance and position.

The Diencephalon sits on top of the brain stem. The largest, most central part of the Diencephalon, the Thalamus, is involved in memory and learning and is directly connected to just about every other part of the brain. It is not necessarily where are memories are stored, it’s just involved in the organization and coordination of our memories.

The limbic system is part of the Diencephalon. The Limbic System, along with the Endocrine System, generate our emotions. Emotions are our motives.

Humans have instinct and emotion in common with the animal kingdom. Our Cerebral Cortex is much larger than any animal cerebrum. It is much more sophisticated. Intelligence is related to the efficiency of the connections, both within and between different cortexes throughout our central nervous system.

The outer layer of our cerebrum is organized into columns. Individual cortexes have many columns and there is usually no hard boundary between cortexes. Neurons within the columns synapse with each other and with other columns and other cortexes deep inside our brain. An idea is a holographic cluster of neurons from many cortexes firing in cascading sequences. Some are connected to the peripheral nervous system, others are more local. Ideas usually involve both thought, generated in our prefrontal cortex, and feeling, generated in our limbic system. If the idea involves motion of any kind, then it will involve sensory and motor neurons with axons that synapse with the spinal cord and the peripheral nervous system.

The Mindful Brain

The idea that Daniel Siegel writes about in his book, The Mindful Brain (Siegel, 2007), about the brain, mind and relationships forming a trinity of human consciousness, is an interesting perspective of our interdependence. Not only do our neurons resonate with each other, our brains resonate with each other as well.

Our brain, our mind, and I like the idea that our relationships are essential facets of our consciousness. We are all merely the vessel, in which our soul is making spiritual progress. Education, and especially divine education, is a very significant aspect of human consciousness. It is the difference between animals and civilized human beings. We are not born civilized, we learn how to be civilized.

Those mirror neurons, the idea that the human soul is a reflection of the names and attributes of God, our relationships with other people and our physical environment are all features of our culture, which is a feature of our human consciousness.

Siegel’s idea about human consciousness having 8 senses, is another interesting idea that makes a lot of sense:

Our five senses perceiving our environment
Our sixth sense perceiving our body and its functions
Our seventh sense perceiving our mind
Our eighth sense perceiving our relationships

I believe that human beings have a ninth sense:

Our perception of God.

Siegel writes that most of our self-awareness and executive decision making process occurs in and around the anterior cingulate cortex, located right behind the central prefrontal cortex area, between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system. In other words; between the center of our forehead and the center of our brain.

The idea that blind people can learn to see with their hearing faculties, helps me realize that these faculties of hearing and seeing, etc., are facets of our awareness, which is actually independent of our bodies. Our bodies, including our central nervous system are like a womb that we eventually grow out of.

Chi may or may not refer to our soul. It seems like a donut shaped toroid. It flows through us in both directions out the top of our head and down through our feet. It comes around like a magnetic field all around us and it radiates out in every direction to infinity. All the souls of all the people are in constant intimate contact with each other all the time.

Emotions of Normal People

I read another book during 1992 or so, called The Emotions of Normal People (Marston, 1928). It’s one of my favorite descriptions of human nature. I don’t necessarily agree with everything Marston says, I just think it’s an excellent description of human nature.

I was just getting into my own personal recovery and I read hundreds of books about human nature. Many of them were written by the original explorers and discoverers of human nature and psychology, such as Abraham Maslow, BF Skinner, Karl Jung, Ivan Pavlov, Charles Darwin, Richard Leakey, James Watson and Francis Crick, etc. These are some of the stories I read during my early recovery, living on the streets of Denver Colorado. I thank God for Narcotics Anonymous and the Catholic Workers Soup Kitchen in Denver during the 1990s. They kept me alive.

Emotions are our motives. The Emotions of Normal People describes an unusual circular structure of emotions, kind of like Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Marston starts by describing the millions of neurons firing in cascading patterns, in order to cause such actions as walking to the store.

When a person is in a normal state of consciousness, walking along going to the store, they’re in the state of consciousness called dominance. If they come to an obstacle, such as a river, and have to walk along the river to find a way across, they’re in the state of consciousness called compliance. Once they get across the river and proceed toward the store, they return to the dominance state of consciousness.

If a person wants to go to a particular movie and their date doesn’t really care for that movie, or is neutral about it, the person who wants to go and is asking the other person to go with them, is in the state of consciousness called inducement. The other person, who agrees to go to the movie in order to satisfy their companion’s desire, is in the state of consciousness called submission. Of course, individuals always on a spectrum of dominance and compliance, inducement and submission. Their state of consciousness is constantly moving back and forth and around on the spectrum of motives, depending on what is going on.

Dominance and compliance are components of our appetite. Inducement and submission are components of love. And then, in turn, love and appetite are components of the most central human emotion, creativity.

I like this description of human nature because, I like the circle of equal partners better than the hierarchical pyramid, and I believe that the Biblical assertion that God created man in the image of God, implies that man is creative. And that is the first thing the Holy Bible says about man.

The 443 page book, The Emotions of Normal People (Marston, 1928), goes into a great deal more detail, and the states of consciousness do not exist completely independent of each other. They’re a spectrum of emotional conditions flowing in, around and through every cell in our bodies and all of our thoughts, words and deeds, and radiating out from our central nervous system, influencing and being influenced by everyone that we interact with.

Have you ever noticed how motion, emotion, motive and motivation, etc., are all so semantically related? The Emotions of Normal People is a story about how our central nervous system generates our emotional condition, which is our motivation and hence our motion, our behavior.

Our emotions cause our behavior. We civilized human beings regulate the expression of our instincts and emotions, with our intellectual and spiritual faculties. Instincts are probably generated in our brain stem, emotions are generated in our limbic system and thoughts are generated in our prefrontal cortex.

Creativity

Creativity is the most primal instinct. Creativity is what the one unified field is doing. All the forces and particles in natural history are made of creativity. All natural history is governed by natural law. Natural law is created. The divine Rule of Law is revealed. Natural law is actually a subset of the divine rule of law. God makes all of the rules.

All instincts are forms of creativity. Procreation is creating another individual living creature. All life must make an effort to survive in natural history. That effort is creative.

Self-Preservation

Scientists looking into a micrope at a drop of water have noticed that single-celled creatures like Amoeba will run away if you poke it with a needle. That is empirical evidence that self-preservation is one of the most primal instincts of all life.

Procreation

Once you get to multicellular forms of life, sexual reproduction becomes another, very primal instinct. Sensation, self-preservation and procreation, instinct and emotion are the foundation of human consciousness.

Family is definitely related to procreation. It is a much more advanced, civilized ecosystem in which we can express our procreation instinct. All kids need love and affection (Perot, 1992). Kids need a mother and a father. The presence or absence of the father has a very important influence on the mother and the baby. If mom feels safe and loved, that will influence the chemistry of the womb, which influences the development of the baby. The presence or absence of the father also directly affects the baby. The attitude and actions of the mother and father are very important influences on each other and on the baby.

Productivity

Human beings are not born civilized. We learn how to be civilized. At first, we learn by observing our parents and other people. We eventually start seeking the truth. We study and learn the rules. Natural laws and the divine rule of law. We can build machines that fly by understanding and following the natural laws of aerodynamics. We can build civilizations by following one common law.

We learn how to use our prefrontal cortex and our executive decision making faculties to practice self-discipline. We channel the expression of our more primitive instincts and emotions into productive activity, instead of selfish, destructive, bad habits. We follow the one common law, language and civil laws, to create civilization.

Everyone needs to understand and practice one common law in order for civilization to exist. The most primal set of laws we need to follow is the rules of our one common language. This enables us to understand and communicate with each other and to think. We think in our language.

Self-Discipline

Self-discipline is a far more advanced form of self-preservation. Our executive decision making capacity is located in the anterior (front) one third of the outer cerebral cortex of our brain. It includes the language processing and mathematical capacity in the left hemisphere and the artistic imagination in the right hemisphere. We think in our language in our prefrontal cortex. The anterior cingulate cortex, deep inside of our brain, between our cerebral cortex and our diencephalon, relays information to and from our executive cortex, to and from our limbic system, and throughout our body.

Our executive cortex enables us to respond to our instincts and emotions voluntarily. This is the biological nature of freewill. Freedom is lawful, not lawless. Freewill needs to be regulated in order to be real freedom, equality and justice for all people everywhere. This is why language is such an important and primal feature of human consciousness. God reveals the divine rule of law. Humans study the Word of God. That divine education transforms primitive hominins into civilized human beings.

We used to have clergy people read the Word of God and then tell us what it says and means. Now, we teach everyone how to read and everyone reads the Word of God for themselves. Like Manna from heaven, we have to read the Word of God every day. That is how it works. The divine education teaches us how to be civilized every day.

The Bab and Baha’u’llah revealed the Word of God. Abdu’l Baha and Shoghi Effendi are authorized to interpret the Word of God. They have all lived and recorded detailed instructions about how to be a spiritual person and how to build the Kingdom of God on earth. We, the people of earth, read the Word of God. Divine education influences us to always improve ourselves and help others.

Reward Deficiency Syndrome

I just finished reading the website for Reward Deficiency Syndrome (Blum, 1990) again. I want to write and include a story about this here, because it is the most reasonable explanation that I’ve found, during more than 20 years of research about drug abuse, addiction and other obsessive compulsive behavior.

I’m not a neuroscientist, so my description is not very detailed, thorough or perfectly accurate. It’s just an introduction to the idea, with the intention of inspiring further research, if this idea applies to your circumstances.

There is a cluster of genes, on I don’t know which chromosome, that codes for the expression of dopamine receptors in the pleasure centers of the central nervous system. Alleles are different versions of the genes. A3 and A4 are very rare. About 75% of all the alleles of this particular gene are A2. About 25% of the alleles are A1. You inherent one allele from each parent and therefor, you can have A1A1, A1A2 or A2A2.

Experimental observations have proven that, in a synergistic relationship with thousands of other genes and our environment, individuals with the A1 alleles are more likely to suffer from a wide range of pathological pleasure seeking behavior, such as drug abuse, all kinds of sexual disorders, gambling, overeating and obesity, aggression and Borderline Personality Disorders, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, ADD and ADHD, Tourettes Syndrome, etc.

Apparently, people with the A1 alleles have either more or less D2 dopamine receptors in their central nervous system. This causes a sense of dis-comfort or dis-ease and contributes to regulating pleasure seeking behavior. D4 dopamine receptors apparently regulate novelty seeking behavior, which also seems familiar, when I think about my personality and my life.

The receptors are molecules, embedded in the membrane of the post-synaptic neuron, which the dopamine molecules fit into, like a key in a lock. The type of receptor, D2 or D4, and the number of receptors, influences the effect the dopamine molecules have on the post-synaptic neuron.

Just think, if the dopamine docks with a D2 receptor it will have one effect. If it docks with a D4 receptor it will have another, slightly different effect. Sometimes neurotransmitters moderate the influence of other neurotransmitters, ie., will increase or decrease the effect of other neurotransmitters. Once the chemical balance reaches a certain threshold, the post-synaptic neuron fires. It’s a lot more complicated than it sounds.

For example, there are a variety of different kinds of neurons and then, there are glial cells that support and regulate the function of the neurons. A glial cell might wrap around a synapse and regulate the function of the synapse, by increasing or decreasing the normal functioning of the presynaptic and/or post synaptic neurons and/or the neurotransmitters.

As always, the environment we grow up in influences the expression of these behaviors, pathological or not. We seek pleasure and novelty. The pleasure seeking and the novelty seeking are apparently two different, but related, variations of human consciousness; and they blend in seamlessly with an almost infinite variety of other biological and psychological impulses that make up the complex human organism.

People with the A2 alleles are comfortable when resting. People with the A1 alleles are not. The disorder expresses itself in a spectrum of degrees of intensity, and our environment probably has a lot of influence on both the intensity and the particular manner in which the disorder expresses itself.

Reward Deficiency Syndrome can also be thought of as a character trait, which if recognized and treated appropriately, can be a character asset rather than a character defect. Folks who have the syndrome, are not likely to be content to sit around enjoying their success. They’re going to be seeking to improve themselves and their environment.

Medicating away this character trait is not always the best strategy for treating it. In some extreme cases, medication may be helpful, but usually, holistic healing techniques are a more productive response to this facet of human nature. A loving, caring developmental experience is the most important way that we can insure that the syndrome expresses itself in healthy ways and not destructive ones.

Get a copy of your children’s genome when they’re born, or even before they’re born, and make your health care decisions with that information in mind. Whatever you do, don’t just medicate this syndrome away. It can manifest itself as some form of insanity or ingeniousness. Being content to sit still and listen to a lecture, is not necessarily what we want our kids to be able to accomplish.

If your consultation with your doctor reveals that your children have the genetic marker for reward deficiency syndrome, then you will want to make sure they have plenty of productive activities in which to expend all that energy. Remember, kids are not born civilized. They need to be led by their parents and taught in school, to be honorable citizens and not uncivilized barbarians.

I remember one time when I was a little kid. We were over at a friends house eating lunch. My friend suddenly convulsed himself up, out of his chair, onto the floor. We were all looking at him, astonished, and then laughing as he sheepishly got up and climbed back into the chair. It wasn’t like a seizure. It was more like a big tick. He just jerked himself up and off the chair. That was way before I ever heard of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

The psychic energy is not necessarily pathological, it’s our response to it that can be harmful, pathological and sometimes criminal. Learning how to respond to that psychic energy is one facet of holistic human being. It’s probably the most important thing we can do to insure that the reward deficiency syndrome manifests itself in harmless and productive ways, and not pathological outcomes such as mental illness or harmful or anti-social behaviors.

If you are already suffering pathological consequences of reward deficiency syndrome, then you will have to take responsibility for your recovery. The most important thing you can do is to find some creative activity that you enjoy and start doing that. Do your research. Get really good at one thing and then figure out how to turn that into a valuable product or service for other people. Crowd out your bad habits with productive, spiritual habits.

I like to write about developing a way to earn income, because I need to earn income. I’ve suffered from chronic poverty and homelessness from most of my life. If you already have plenty of income, then volunteer to help other people in some way. There is plenty of work to be done. There are still about 2 billion people living on less than $2 per day. We have got to figure out how to improve that aspect of human nature and civilization.

Use your psychic energy, your chi, to produce something valuable, to help make the world a better place. Don’t set yourself, and especially your kids, up in rut. Be flexible, adaptable. Do something productive for our universal commonwealth, for profit or not, and with a spirit of service in any case.

Divine Civilization

Our perception of God is located in our soul, not any particular physical or mental aspect of human nature. In fact, I think the human soul is the whole point of life on earth. Our bodies are merely a vessel in which our soul is growing and developing. Or maybe I should say that our body is in our soul.

The Bible says that God created us in the image of God. Baha’u’llah says that the human soul is like a mirror that reflects the attributes of God. Which means that our soul is not permanently attached to our body.

The Baha’i Faith is our science of spirituality, which is attracting the entire human race to grow together into one universal commonwealth. Every single human being, every nation, race and religion are all coming together into one universal and divine civilization.

Adapting to living in a neighborhood of 10 or 25 40 story apartment buildings, in a city with dozens of such apartment complexes, is significantly different than any social and economic ecology that human beings have had to adapt to in all human history. Cities with more than a million people are new. Cities with more than ten million inhabitants is unprecedented.

The Baha’i Faith is not just another feature of the transformation of society, it is actually causing the evolution of human nature and civilization. The revolution in human consciousness, the world unity and the explosion of scientific knowledge and technology are all results of the spiritual impulse, the Baha’i Faith.

Baha’u’llah is rolling out a new heaven and earth, at the same time He’s rolling up the old heaven and earth. All of the true religions of the world, have always been one and the same, unchanging eternal Faith of God.

We can engineer our collective consciousness infrastructure, to make sure it is safe, clean and decent. Make sure people living in these densely populated cities can earn a fair living, without worrying about being robbed or taken advantage of. We’ll need to be careful about slavery, imprisoning people in their own apartment, like our industrial agriculture imprisons animals in cages. Stop doing that! Make sure people get what they trade for. And treat animals humanely.

We’ll need to build safety into the systems and most importantly, we need to educate and train people to be honest and trustworthy. Divine education begins at conception and continues for the entire lifetime of every human being. Mom and dad will have been participating in Baha’i activities while pregnant, so babies will already be familiar with the faith when they are born.

Love and respect everyone. We want unity in diversity, not uniformity. We want freedom, equality, justice, respect and loving kindness for every single human being alive on earth.

Having fun is a good thing. Doing things that are harmful to yourself or anyone else for the fun of it, is a serious character defect. Pleasure and happiness are two entirely different things.

Its up to you. You are responsible and accountable for your own thoughts, words and deeds. Taking responsibility for yourself, self-discipline and self-determination are what freedom is. The Rule of Law revealed by the Manifestation of God is the spiritual ecosystem, in which we all exercise our free agency. The divine rule of law generates human nature and civilization.

The divine rule of law makes our personal responsibility and self-determination possible. Without that divine rule of law, our freewill metastasizes into self-centeredness and anarchy. Without the personal responsibility and self-determination, we develop a co-dependent relationship with our environment.

Totalitarianism and anarchy are both harmful extremes.

We all need to develop a strong spiritual core of our personalities, in order to function effectively on our densely populated planet. God is our strength. Seek God and depend on God, not on yourself or any human being or any human ideas or institutions.

The divine rule of law is a superset of natural law. Natural law is a subset of divine law. Natural law is created by the one true God. The divine rule of law is revealed by God.

Thank God Jesus saved us!