Prometheus Rising (4 page)

We will, throughout this book, consider the human brain a kind

of bio-computer—an electro-colloidal computer, as distinct from

the electronic or solid-state computers which exist outside our

heads.

Please note carefully and long remember that we have not

said that the human brain is a computer. The Aristotelian idea

that to understand something you must know what it
is
has been

abandoned in one science after another, for the pragmatic reason

that the simple word "is" introduces so many metaphysical

assumptions that we can argue forever about them. In the most

advanced sciences, such as mathematical physics, nobody talks

about what anything is anymore. They talk about what
model
(or

map) can best be used to understand whatever we are investigating.

In general, this scientific habit of avoiding "is" can be profitably

extended to all areas of thought. Thus, when you read

anywhere that A is B, it will clarify matters if you translate this

as "A can be considered as, or modeled by, B."

When we say A
is
B, we are saying that A is
only
what it

appears within our field of study or our area of specialization.

This is saying too much. When we say
A can be considered as B,

or
modeled by B,
we are saying exactly as much as we have a

right to say, and no more.

We therefore say that the brain can be considered as a computer;

but we do not say it
is
a computer.

The brain appears to be made up of matter in electro-colloidal

suspension (protoplasm).

Colloids are pulled together, toward a condition of
gel,
by

their surface tensions. This is because surface tensions pull all

glue-like substances together.

Colloids are also, conversely, pushed apart, toward a condition

of
sol,
by their electrical charges. This is because their electrical

charges are similar, and similar electrical charges always

repel each other.

In the equilibrium between
gel
and
sol,
the colloidal suspension

maintains its continuity and life continues. Move the suspension

too far toward gel, or too far toward sol, and life ends.

Any chemical that gets into the brain, changes the gel-sol

balance, and "consciousness" is accordingly influenced. Thus,

potatoes are, like LSD, "psychedelic"—in a milder way. The

35

Prometheus Rising

changes in consciousness when one moves from a vegetarian diet

to an omnivorous diet, or vice versa, are also "psychedelic."

Since "What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves," all of our

ideas are psychedelic. Even without experimenting with diet or

drugs, whatever you think you should see, you
will
see—unless

it is physically impossible in this universe.

All experience is a muddle, until we make a model to explain it. The

model can clarify the muddles, but the model is never the muddle

itself. "The map is not the territory"; the menu does not taste like

the meal.

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Every computer consists of two aspects, known as hardware

and software. (Software here includes information).

The hardware in a solid-state computer is concrete and localized,

consisting of central processing unit, display, keyboard,

external disk drive, CD-ROM, floppies, etc.—all the parts you

can drag into Radio Shack for repair if the computer is malfunctioning.

The software consists of programs that can exist in many

forms, including the totally abstract. A program can be "in" the

computer in the sense that it is recorded in the CPU or on a disk

which is hitched up to the computer. A program can also exist on

a piece of paper, if I invented it myself, or in a manual, if it is a

standard program; in these cases, it is not "in" the computer but

can be put "in" at any time. But a program can be even more

tenuous than that; it can exist only in my head, if I have never

written it down, or if I have used it once and erased it.

The hardware is more "real" than the software in that you can

always locate it in space-time—if it's not in the bedroom, somebody

must have moved it to the study, etc. On the other hand, the

software is more "real" in the sense that you can smash the

hardware back to dust ("kill" the computer) and the software still

exists, and can "materialize" or "manifest" again in a different

computer.

(Any speculations about reincarnation at this point are the

responsibility of the reader, not of the author.)

In speaking of the human brain as an electro-colloidal

biocomputer, we all know where the hardware is: it is inside the

human skull. The software, however, seems to be anywhere and

Prometheus Rising

everywhere. For instance, the software "in" my brain also exists

outside my brain in such forms as, say, a book I read twenty

years ago, which was an English translation of various signals

transmitted by Plato 2400 years ago. Other parts of my software

are made up of the software of Confucius, James Joyce, my

second-grade teacher, the Three Stooges, Beethoven, my mother

and father, Richard Nixon, my various dogs and cats, Dr. Carl

Sagan, and anybody and (to some extent)
any-thing
that has ever

impacted upon my brain. This may sound strange, but that's the

way software (or information) functions.

Of course, if consciousness consisted of nothing but this

undifferentiated tapioca of timeless, spaceless software, we

would have no individuality, no center, no Self.

We want to know, then, how out of this universal software

ocean a specific person emerges.

What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves.

Because the human brain, like other animal brains, acts as an

electro-colloidal computer, not a solid-state computer, it follows

the same laws as other animal brains. That is, the programs get

into the brain, as electro-chemical bonds, in discrete quantum

stages.

Each set of programs consists of four basic parts:

1 .
Genetic Imperatives.
Totally hard-wired programs or

"instincts."

2.
Imprints.
These are more-or-less hard wired programs

which the brain is genetically designed to accept
only
at certain

points in its development. These points are known, in ethology,

as times of
imprint vulnerability.

3.
Conditioning.
These are programs built onto the imprints.

They are looser and fairly easy to change with counter-conditioning.

4.
Learning.
This is even looser and "softer" than conditioning.

In general, the primordial
imprint
can always over-rule any

subsequent conditioning or learning. An imprint is a species of

software that has become built-in hardware, being impressed on

the tender neurons when they are peculiarly open and vulnerable.

Imprints (software frozen into hardware) are the non-negotiable

aspects of our individuality. Out of the infinity of possible

Prometheus Rising 39

programs existing as potential software, the imprint establishes

the limits, parameters,
perimeters
within which all subsequent

conditioning and learning occurs.

YOUR HARDWARE IS LOCALIZED:

BRAIN CELLS RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.

YOUR SOFTWARE IS NON-LOCAL:

POINT-EVENTS EVERYWHERE, EVERYWHEN.

Before the first imprint, the consciousness of the infant is

"formless and void"—like the universe at the beginning of

Genesis,
or the descriptions of unconditioned ("enlightened" i.e.,

exploded) consciousness in the mystic traditions. As soon as the

first imprint is made, structure emerges out of the creative void.

The growing mind, alas, becomes trapped within this structure. It

identifies with the structure; in a sense, it
becomes
the structure.

This entire process is analyzed in G. Spencer Brown's
Laws

of Form;
and Brown was writing about the foundations of mathematics

and logic. But every sensitive reader knows that Brown

is also talking about a process we have all passed through in

creating, out of an infinite ocean of signals, those particular

constructs we call "myself and "my world." Not surprisingly,

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many acid-heads have said that Brown's math is the best description

ever written of an LSD trip.

Each successive imprint complicates the software which

programs our experience and
which we experience as "reality."

Conditioning and learning build further networks onto this

bedrock of imprinted software. The total structure of this braincircuitry

makes up our map of the world. It is what our Thinker

thinks, and our Prover mechanically fits all incoming signals to

the limitations of this map.

Following Dr. Timothy Leary (with a few modifications) we

shall divide this brain hardware into eight circuits
for convenience.

("For convenience" means that this is the best map I know

at present. I assume it will be replaced by a better map within 10

or 15 years; and in any case, the map is not the territory.)

Four of the circuits are "antique" and conservative, they exist

in everybody (except feral children).

1. The Oral Bio-Survival Circuit.
This is imprinted by the

mother or the first mothering object and conditioned by

subsequent nourishment or threat. It is primarily concerned with

sucking, feeding, cuddling, and body security. It retreats

mechanically from the noxious or predatory—or from anything

associated
(by imprinting or conditioning) with the noxious or

predatory.

2.
The Anal Emotional-Territorial Circuit.
This is imprinted

in the "Toddling" stage when the infant rises up, walks about and

begins to struggle for power within the family structure. This

mostly mammalian circuit processes territorial rules, emotional

games, or cons, pecking order and rituals of
domination
or

submission.

3. The Time-Binding Semantic Circuit.
This is imprinted and

conditioned by human artifacts and symbol systems. It "handles"

and "packages" the environment, classifying everything according

to the local reality tunnel. Invention, calculation, prediction

and transmitting signals across generations are its functions.

4. The "Moral" Socio-Sexual Circuit.
This is imprinted by the

first orgasm-mating experiences at puberty and is conditioned by

tribal taboos. It processes sexual pleasure, local definitions of

"right" and "wrong," reproduction, adult-parental personality

(sex role) and nurture of the young.

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The development of these circuits as the brain evolved

through evolution, and as each domesticated primate (human)

brain recapitulates evolution in growing from infancy to adulthood,

makes possible gene-pool survival, mammalian sociobiology

(pecking order, or politics) and transmission of culture.

The second group of four brain circuits is much newer, and

each circuit exists at present only in minorities. Where the

antique circuits recapitulate evolution-to-the-present, these futuristic

circuits ^recapitulate our future evolution.

5.
The Holistic Neurosomatic Circuit.
This is imprinted by

ecstatic experience,
via biological or chemical yogas. It processes

neurosomatic ("mind-body") feedback loops, somatic-sensory

bliss, feeling "high," "faith-healing," etc. Christian Science, NLP

and holistic medicine consist of tricks or gimmicks to get this

circuit into action at least temporarily; Tantra yoga is concerned

with shifting consciousness entirely into this circuit.

6. The Collective Neurogenetic Circuit.
This is imprinted by

advanced yogas (bio-chemical - electrical stresses). It processes

DNA-RNA-brain feedback systems and is "collective" in that it

contains and has access to the whole evolutionary "script," past

and future. Experience of this circuit is numinous, "mystical,"

mind-shattering; here dwell the archetypes of Jung's Collective

Unconscious—Gods, Goddesses, Demons, Hairy Dwarfs and

other personifications of the DNA programs (instincts) that

govern us.

7.
The Meta-programming Circuit.
This is imprinted by very

advanced yogas. It consists, in modern terms, of cybernetic consciousness,

reprogramming and reimprinting all other circuits,

even reprogramming itself, making possible conscious choice

between alternative universes or reality tunnels.