It is beginning to dawn on me that the brain has many components responding to abstract facets of perceived reality. Simon explored this idea with the metaphor of a society of components.
For example the brain seems to have a few components that tune into expectations, what is at the time believed to be probable unfolding. Meanwhile other components are tuned into other abstractions. The question is how does a component understand the significance of things in the broader context.
Not sure where I want to take this...
how the elements convey to the single steam of consciousness?
how components in a limited context assemble into an apparent single stream of consciousness and so-called responsible behavior?
how the single string of consciousness conveys to the component? (i.e. at some point perception has to be adequately instantiated, conceptualized, serialized, and inferences drawn before an expectation can be computed or generated.)
Also, the whole symphony of behavior and mentation involve brain, glands, chemistry and electricity and who knows what molecular level phenomena. And whatever is, it is the process that results from a vast accumulation of component dynamics.
The closer you peer, the more it opens up new structure and process.
But I can’t help but think of it in the time domain as an ongoing interference pattern among the many parts that partially decodes into conscious awareness.
The one place in this logic where I get stuck is trying to accommodate how so much of our behavior is not individually intelligent, but only as a summation of many component behaviors. For example, when your heart starts racing when you perceive something stimulating, only because of many checks and balances does the visceral response remain synchronized and appropriate to the ongoing situation. Similarly, parts of the brain are firing according to parts of the context, and only the familiarity of the context keeps them coherent to the context.
There is some method that allows repeated experiences to average out in ways that functionally parse the context. Like averaging a set of photos of an object to reveal that persistent features.
==============================
Just read Daniel Kahneman’s comments on priming and anchoring in regards to behavioral economics (edge.org). Several examples show the idea:
- judges see lay persons opinion and are unconciously swayed by the opinion
- random number seen previously influences estimate of size
- picture of eyes on the wall unconsciously influences honest behavior
Kahneman says:
“I find it helpful to think of behavior as a choice of values along multiple continua (e.g., of friendliness, warniness, effort, driving speed, etc.). At any one time each of these features of our behavior and mental state can be represented as an equilibrium, which is influenced by multiple forces, some of which are internal (habits, intentions, stored knowledge) others drawn from the context. We are not specifically aware of all these forces (any more than we are fully aware of what determines our choice of speed on a winding road), but they are at work, and priming is one of the way this comes about.”
Nathan Myrhold is amazed that society doesn’t see this at work, that it is not made obvious by statistical analysis of people’s behavior. And that is the crux of the mystery that I am beginning to get curious about.
The phenomena is invisible because we haven’t developed a perceptual framework for it - preconscious behavior and mentation.
Loftus’ and others work on memory should fit into this also where various unseen factors influence memory and recall. Similarly work on attribution fits in also, such as the case where we attribute wrongly as in the case of finding a person more attractive on a bridge (misattributing our arousal) compared to a serene setting.
Even though the scientific research is just beginning to expose and substantiate this phenomena, it may be the case that people gain more and more awareness of these invisible factors as they learn and grow wiser. Still there isn’t much of a “language game” among most people to be able to bring the phenomena to shared awareness. But wait, maybe there is more than I give credit for. Consider how we know various social effects - how a charismatic leader can sway people without their awareness, how economic conditions influences behavior, and so on. Obviously these suggest many cases where individuals are under the influence of specific factors known to some but not to others. Raising children shows many examples where the parent knows what the child will do unbeknown to the child.
==============================