The brains hardware and software
Every computer consists of two aspects, known as hardware and software. The hardware in a solid-state computer is localised. 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. A program can also exist on a piece of paper, if i invented it myself, or in a manual, if its 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. On the other hand, the software is more “real” in 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. In speaking of how the brain acts as an electro-colloidal computer, we all know where the hardware is: it is inside the human skull. The software, however, seems to be anywhere and everywhere. For instance, the software “in” my brain also exists outside my brain in such forms as, say, a book i read 20 years ago, and anybody and (to some extent) any-thing that has ever impacted upom my brain.
Of course, if consciousness consisted of nothing but this undifferentiated tapioca of timeless, spaceless software, we would have no individuallity. We want to know, then, how out of this universial software ocean a specific person emerges: What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves. Because the brain acts as an electro-colloidal computer, not a solid-state computer, it follows the same laws as other brains. That is, the programs get into the brain, as electro-chemical bonds, in decrete quantum stages. Each set of programs consists of four basic parts:
- Genetic Imparitives: totally hardwired programs or “instincts.”
- Imprints.
- Conditioning.
- Learning: This is even looser and “softer” than conditioning.
References
- Wilson, A., Robert. (1983). Prometheus Rising Chapter 2 Hardware & Software The Brain and Its Programs (Location 372). Grand Junction, CO: Hilaritas Press.
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Type:🔴 Tags: Biology / Ethology / Neuroscience / Psychology / Neuropsychology Status:☀️