This essay summarizes how the mind can be used to reverse-engineer the brain. It’s called the MA (Memory Activation) Model. It features the mind’s “parts” or cognitive ontology, and how these act (and interact) through space and time in the brain. The model can be understood in stages, not all at once on the first read. Why? Because it’s based on a new cognitive neuroscience theoretical framework, or paradigm. Also the subject matter (the mind’s activity inside the brain) is an enormous topic and difficult to conceptualize. More important than whether it’s correct or fully understood is that the method enables practical insight and analysis that can improve nearly any applied neuroscience project. This value can be clearly demonstrated.
1. The mind exists as a subjective or experiential phenomenon. Mental states and processes obviously exist. They occur every waking moment of the day: including sensation and perception (sight, sound, somatosensation — pain/pleasure, temperature, hunger, fatigue…), recognition, identification, meaning, emotion, thoughts, thinking (comparing & contrasting, analyzing, evaluating…), imagination, beliefs, understanding, motivation, executive control, the self, goals, attention, prediction, intention, language, and learning. Any aspect of experience or knowledge is included, conscious or unconscious.
2. The mind is located inside the brain. This is obvious. After all the main purpose of the brain is to create or enable the mind. Consider motor control. The basal ganglia & motor cortex receive input from most of the brain; most directly from the lower sensory systems, premotor cortex and areas near the motor cortex. From there, the efferent brain signal is relayed to the spine and body, creating the desired movement. Although the brain’s efferent signal creates movement, the mind controls this signal. Immediate sensation and perception, along intentions to move, directly control one’s movement. Also influencing movement less directly is the meaning of it, the self and executive functions (planning, decision-making…), goals, imagination and attention. In fact most of the mind influences our ongoing body language, facial expressions and movement throughout the day. The quickest, most direct way mind could influence the efferent signal is from inside the brain.
3. Since the mind is inside the brain, it has to have a neural correlate. If the brain is physical, the mind within will have to take a physical form. How could the mind exist and operate to control the efferent signal, yet it (or its connection to the brain) remain non-physical? Mind is well-known to influence brain, via a strong and reliable mind-to-brain connection. The mind’s neural correlate is proposed to be the dominant electrochemical force of the brain: coordinated neural ensemble activity and accompanying synchronous neural oscillation. In other words, function neural networks (FNNs).
4. The mind and its neural correlate are the same phenomenon; viewed from two different perspectives. If the mind occupies space in the brain, yet is non-physical, then how could it exist within the brain? One answer is dual-aspect monism. Here the mind and the brain’s activity are two views of the same phenomenon. The mind is simultaneously 100% subjective AND 100% physical. The mind is the first person subjective view; its neural (FNN) correlate the third person objective perspective. The active components (networks) of the mind = a set of FNNs.
5. If mind has a neural correlate, it could be used to functionally map (encode) it to the brain, and vice-versa (decode). Any legitimate modeling of the mind in real time would include a parts list — a set of mental states and processes (cognitive ontology) presumed to be active. And it would include their function through space and time, in the brain. Once defined, “it” can then be connected to the brain. Without a parts list & its activity however, it would be impossible decode or encode the mind accurately; since its components are not defined or labeled in the first place.
6. The mind CAN be defined, with accuracy and precision. Any combination of components of mind active during a common task can be not only listed, but weighted and connected into a “mind network.” This includes any changes to the network caused by context (environment, situation, recent task history…) and passage of time. This is great news because the mind can then be used as a “roadmap” for labeling the neural oscillatory activity corresponding to it. For example, the FNN during an intention “move the cursor to the right” would represent a set of active mind components. The mind network involved in this example would include “the perception of my hand resting gently on a mouse,” “imagine my arm/hand/mouse moving to the right,” and “I intend to do this — now.” The FNN set would also have to represent associated components of mind, such as perceptual prediction (visual & somatosensory), the subject’s emotional state (calmness/excitement, happy/sad…), and reasons for moving the cursor, immediate goals, and attention.
7. The mind is (mostly) ignored because it’s poorly understood. The obvious fact that encoding and decoding requires a cognitive ontology & its activity is mostly ignored by the brain science community. Why? In part because no one understands the mind in the first place.
On one hand, brain scientists have great insight into the mind/brain system. Their highly refined knowledge and skills are invaluable.
On the other hand conceptual understanding is in its infancy. There’s no agreed-upon definition of what consciousness or the mind even is. Existing definitions are vague and unclear. A precise or comprehensive description (or summary) of the mind’s states and processes during a task is (outside of phenomenology) very rare.
In this “mind vacuum” the study of the brain has filled the void. This makes perfect sense. Why study a subject in which there’s little understanding and no agreement?
8. The lack of mind understanding is caused by a flawed conceptual framework. The current cognitive neuroscience framework is incomplete. There’s still no solution to the mind/brain problem. The fundamental problem here I argue is human experience is viewed apart from the brain, as something it “processes.” As experience is translated in a neural code or set of algorithms, both it and the larger mind are reduced to brain activity. Both experience and the mind disappear — or at least its contents do. The brain is all there is, isn’t it? The physical brain exists; while the mind — being immaterial — doesn’t.
In addition to minimizing the content of experience and the mind as much as possible, the current framework also minimizes the mental content of memory. Memory is seen as a neural “process.” However any memory has subjective contents that can be categorized and defined in various ways. Memory content not only clearly exists, but is essential to everyday life. The ability to recognize, identify, or understand the meaning of the world, or any aspect of it, is based on the subjective information contained in memory. These contents allow the prediction of the next bite of food experience, the ability to identify it via its texture and taste, and the understanding of what it might mean to eat “too much.” The contents of experience dominate memory, the mind and by extension the brain as well.
9. The main function of the brain, especially during common tasks, is to activate memory. Consider “taking a sip of coffee while reading.” During this task, the reader’s mind includes recognition (my hand, my coffee cup), meaning (hot, delicious coffee), thought (caffeine, mental alertness), goals (read, learn something new, take a sip), intentions (reach my right hand toward the cup), emotion (desire — for coffee, knowledge about what I’m reading), state of motivation (I want to understand this sentence, paragraph, essay) etc. Each above mental component activated during that task is not only an immediate experience, but represents a group of (similar) past events. “My hand,” “coffee,” “desire” etc. are all memories. The overall task “(me) taking a sip of coffee while reading” is a memory with specific content comprised of memories also.
10. Other than immediate (low-level) sensation & perception, and the “higher” mind or Self, the mind = a set of general memories, built from past experience. Recognition, identification, meaning, concepts goals, intentions, and even emotions are mostly memory (in an active state). This is particularly true of everyday tasks. For example, the intention “reach for my coffee cup” triggers memories such as “my right arm and hand,” “grasp,” “my fingers,” “liquid,” “caffeine,” “smell & taste of coffee” and “drink.” These are all general memories — based on past experience of those same events.
The content of a general memory is built from a past experience (or unconscious event) type. They have perceptual, intellectual, and emotional contents and associations.
11. A general memory represents a range of similar experience. The difference between episodic and general memory is common knowledge. A “dog collar” is a general memory built from episodes of a person’s experience of those collars. It has a range of perceptual content: size, shape, texture, color, weight, sound when dropped on the floor etc. It has meaning: dog, leash control, walking, exercise, health, socialization etc. It has a range of emotional associations, particularly for dog owners, dog trainers etc.
This memory is general because it represents not a single collar, but a range of collar experience and information. In other words, it represents the ways in which “dog collar” is typically expressed when activated. “Dog collar” = a range of “dog collar” experience.
12. The contents of a person’s mind are converted to memory. This includes (conscious & unconscious) sensation and perception, recognition, meaning, thought, thinking, state of arousal, motivation, goals, the self, executive functions, attention, intention, and motor control. All of this (and more) is converted to memory, continuously and automatically. This allows a person to describe what their lived experience was for the last 10 seconds, or what they were doing 5 minutes ago.
The most salient & attended to components of mind are converted to episodic memory (hippocampus) while activating (and shaping) matching general memory.
13. Sets of general memories, when active, work to create the mind. “I bite into an apple” to have any meaning involves the memory of “I or me,” “bite,” “into,” and “apple.” Other memories might include “hunger,” “feeling desire to eat,” and “nutrition.” Absent these memories, you are left mostly with immediate (low-level) sensation and perception.
14. If the mind = mostly general memories, built from and comprised largely of past experiential content, this means the brain runs (mostly) on experience. This seems to runs counter to what is known about the brain. Isn’t the activation of a memory manifest as neural activity? Doesn’t it involve the activity of neurons, synapses, neurochemicals etc.? I argue that’s true from a third person perspective. But a first person view of memory is present simultaneously — the subjective information of that memory’s expression.
15. The main “processing” mechanism of the brain is memory activation. The brain’s hardware (structural neural networks & surrounding biology) and software (its activity) is very different from that of a computer. It’s an electrochemical organ, the wetware of which is based on (interconnected) biology and physics.
Though the brain is a physical organ, it supports and mirrors the activity of the mind. And mind is mostly memory. In fact the brain works to activate, shape, and store (multiple) memories every moment of the day.
16. The ongoing neural oscillation patterns of the brain interact with both themselves and the sensory signal, simultaneously. This simultaneous interaction sustains a coordinated, partly-connected & partly independent (metastable) set of general memory network activation, or set of FNNs. This (active memory/FNN) set can be connected, weighted, and labeled excitatory or inhibitory.
17. The mind partly mechanical, partly not. If the subjective is manifest in the brain, then isn’t the mind a physical entity? Aren’t (conscious & unconscious) mental states and processes mechanical phenomena? Isn’t a person a physical machine that — with the right set of algorithms — is 100% predictable?
I would argue no. People are much more than the sum of their physical parts and activity. Higher aspects of mind – intuition, inspiration, passion, creativity etc. – play a large role in mind, consciousness and behavior. These higher states are unpredictable and somewhat mysterious. The higher self is not 100% comprehensible. People can act in ways that are not easily understood, far from having a known “mechanism.”
It’s true human behaviors based on conditioning and habit are common. Yet the higher mind — truth, beauty, insight, compassion, forgiveness, spontaneity, humor, courage, genius, humility, perseverance, spiritual or religious experience etc. — can strongly inject themselves into the mind. At any time the mind can express higher meaning during daily living. The higher mind is connected to the brain in a non-predictable way.
18. Once general memory is understood subjectively, its neural correlate becomes obvious: a functional neural network (FNN) range. A FNN is a (local or global) population-level neural firing event. Groups of neurons (neural ensembles) in distributed regions of the brain act in concert, via neural synchrony, to produce population-level firing (a FNN). A group of similar FNNs (ex: a set of “that apple” experiences) expressed over time represents a FNN range (“an apple” memory).
Both general memories and FNNs are strongly associative. Each can function as a transmitter of its own signal and (simultaneously) receiver of associated signals. And each dominates its respective (mind/brain) system.
19. In summary: active mind = (mostly) a set of active general memories, based on past experience = a corresponding set of FNN range activity.
The MA Model represents an entirely new way to define the mind and connect it to the brain. It’s not only a new paradigm but a practical brain science tool. It enables a scientist or research group to define the mind and connect it to the brain with significantly greater accuracy than currently possible. This can be done for most aspects of the mind: across people, environments, measurement situations, tasks, disorders and other variables.
A memory-based view of the mind, one based on everyday experience and action, yields a deep, detailed, fascinating, and illuminating picture of both it and the brain that enables it. It enlivens the brain with the richness and complexity of the reality of consciousness and behavior.