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3 Brain Systems That Control Your Behavior Reptilian, Limbic, Neocortex

By Robert Sapolsky

Reptilian brain

Also known as the primal brain, this is the oldest part of the brain and is responsible for basic life functions like breathing and alerting us to danger. It’s also responsible for the fight or flight response. 

Limbic system

Also known as the paleomammalian brain, this part of the brain is responsible for emotions and is involved in learning and memory. It’s based on instinct and past experiences. 

Neocortex

Also known as the neomammalian brain, this part of the brain is responsible for higher cognitive functions like reasoning and logical thought. It’s the outermost part of the brain. 

Video by Robert Sapolsky

These three parts of the brain are often described as working together to keep us alive. However, the triune brain hypothesis, which describes the brain as having these three components, has been criticized and is no longer widely accepted by comparative neuroscientists. 

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Orchestrated Objective Reduction theory (Orch OR)

orch-or
  1. Quantum Consciousness:
  • The Orch OR suggests that consciousness is a quantum process facilitated by microtubules in the brain’s nerve cells.
  • Microtubules are protein-based structures forming part of the cell’s cytoskeleton.
  • According to this theory, consciousness is akin to a quantum wave that passes through these microtubules.
  • Like any quantum wave, it exhibits properties such as superposition (existing in multiple states simultaneously) and entanglement (connection between particles even when far apart).
  1. Universal Connection:
  • Penrose and Hameroff propose that our consciousness can connect or entangle with quantum particles outside our brain, theoretically spanning the entire universe.
  • However, other scientists have raised objections. Efforts to recreate quantum coherence (keeping particles in a wave state) only succeed in very cold, controlled environments.
  • The brain, being warm, wet, and dynamic, doesn’t fit these conditions, leading to skepticism about consciousness remaining in superposition.
  1. Criticism and Challenges:
  • Orch OR has faced criticism from mathematicians, philosophers, and scientists.
  • Key points of contention include Penrose’s interpretation of Gödel’s theorem, the link between non-computability and quantum events, and the brain’s unsuitability for hosting the required quantum phenomena due to its warm and noisy nature.

In summary, Orch OR offers an intriguing perspective on consciousness, suggesting that it emerges from quantum processes within our neurons and may connect with the universe at large¹²³⁴. However, it remains a topic of ongoing debate and exploration in the scientific community. 🌟

Source: Conversation with Bing, 4/23/2024
(1) Orchestrated objective reduction – Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction.
(2) How quantum brain biology can rescue conscious free will. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnint.2012.00093/full.
(3) 14 Orch OR and the Quantum Biology of Consciousness – Oxford Academic. https://academic.oup.com/book/44484/chapter/376471400.
(4) 14 CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE UNIVERSE AN UPDATED REVIEW OF THE “ORCH OR” THEORY. https://anesth.medicine.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/hameroff-penrose_updated_review_of_orch_or_2016_b2237_ch-14_revised-2-3.pdf.
(5) en.wikipedia.org. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction.

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THE THREE PLANES OF EXISTENCE | Ram Dass

Ram Dass

One system through which you can look at it all, is that there are a set of vibrations or frequencies, you can call them the physical plane, the astral plane, the causal plane, and that which is beyond the beyond.

That’s a good image, “beyond the beyond.” In Tibetan, there is a mantra, which is “GateGateParagatePara Sam gate Bodhi svaha,” which means, “To that which is beyond the ocean of existence, I give homage; to that which is beyond the beyond.” That’s the place beyond those three levels.

Now what are those three levels? Look at it this way: Imagine a light bulb, and the light bulb has three layers of glass. There is the inner layer of glass, the middle layer of glass, and an outer layer of glass. Inside the light bulb is the same thing that’s outside the light bulb, pure consciousness, pure energy, and even these layers of glass are made up of merely “patternings” of this entire package called this “light bulb.”

Now imagine dipping this light bulb into a series of births – chemical baths, and the quality of these chemical baths is that they do two things. Each chemical bath thins the outermost layer of glass, and simultaneously, it leaves on the outermost layer of glass, which determines when the bulb comes out of the bath, and what next bath it will be pulled into. It codes the bulb for what its next bath will be. It goes from bath to bath to bath to bath, until it comes to a bath where the outer layer has gotten so thin that this particular bath breaks through, and the glass goes “poof!”

Now there are only two layers of glass left.

The subjective experience of that poof is, “Oh, so that’s the way it all is…” It’s the moment of waking up out of the illusion. That’s the place where, like Ramana Maharshi said, “You are finished with physical birth,” because the outer layer is the set of pre-dispositions which pull you each time into a physical birth, and keep you going through physical birth, after physical birth. Then this “poof!” occurs, and then you only have two layers of glass, leaving the physical. So then you start birth after birth, after birth on the astral plane, without a physical body, until “poof!” that goes.

Then you have one layer of glass.

So then birth after birth, and now you’re on the causal plane, the world like Plato’s world of pure ideas. It’s the highest place you can get on in the world of form or energy. It’s the basic laws of the universe, from which all the rest is manifestation, the world of pure idea. You’ve got one layer of glass then, and finally, you go through that enough until “poof!” that’s gone and the inner and outer are one again.

The bath is your entire heredity, your entire environment, it is everything that is happening to you, that has happened, and that will happen to you in this lifetime, and it is all done. You must understand that there are no accidents whatsoever in the universe.

-Ram Dass