This is a work of philosophical anthropology, “an attempt to unify disparate ways of under-standing behavior of humans as both creatures of their social environments and creators of their own values” (Wikipedia).  It represents the culmination of an avid 36-year study of human
behavior and the human potential. The major theses of the book are:
 

That each of us, starting at birth and continuing throughout our life-time develops and maintains a unique “belief system” in the brain, which can be better described as a Love/Belief System, which forms the heart of theological considerations, and which ultimately consists of hundreds of thousands of Loves and Beliefs, including our Values, Needs, Doubts, Disbeliefs, and Memories.  These Elements  give rise to Desires and Fears, which in the “normal” person generate a constant mental cacophony of response-impulses, as opposed to intermittent responses and response-impulses generated by internal or external circumstantial stimuli.

 

That most of us think of this system as comprising the standards against which we evaluate our

percepts as to their importance, meaning, relevance, significance, veracity, morality, etc.
 

That in actuality, the Love/Belief System is Bruner’s inhibitory system, and stands between

our senses and consciousness, removing from our perception over 99% of available fact, and

modifying the rest to make it compatible with the thousands of Elements comprising the

System; that all our percepts have already been evaluated, and enter our consciousness colored

and modified by those evaluations.  These evaluations exercise great influence over―indeed in

many cases actually determine―our responses to stimuli.

 

That the perfect neurological candidate for the Love/Belief System is the Reticular Activating System (RAS), centered in the thalamus, and its “sentinel,” the Reticular Formation (RF), a bundle of neurons at the top of the brain-stem which receives all our sensory stimuli, and sorts out the “vital” from the “trivial.”  How it does this, no one knows.  (See page 194 from the book, below). 
 

That therefore we are all  seeing and hearing―experiencing―the world through our Love/Belief Systems, our hearts, and our responsive emotions and acts are programmed by the Reticular Activating System.
 

If the doors of perception were cleansed,

everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

For man has closed himself up,

till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.

                        ―WILLIAM BLAKE
 

That the Love/Belief System also stands between our consciousness where intentions are formed and the brain components which might effect those intentions, often subjecting even our best intentions to displacement.

 

We are all living in a post-hypnotic trance,

induced in early infancy.

R. D. LAING
 

That since learning is known to alter the circuitry of the brain, adoption of a Love or significant Belief must have altered the circuitry of the Reticular Formation; that significant Loves and Beliefs are not the data of the brain, but rather form the principles or the programs which determine how all the data is handled.  Our Loves and significant Beliefs form neuronal patterns in or near the Reticular Formation.
 

That the RF/RAS, programmed with our Loves and Beliefs, their concomitant Desires and Fears, and the Needs we share with many social animals, then generates all of our emotions and pre-conscious Response-Impulses; impulses which, if strong enough and unopposed, are enacted, and also generates our mental aberrations, including neuroses, psychoses, character disorders, perceptual defense, cognitive dissonance, the power of the self-image, etc.

That since our DNA is 99+% identical to that of the chimpanzee, we are subject to all the social-animal needs of the chimpanzee; but that since the remaining <1% is related only to hair, skin, bones, blood, muscle and the like, the vast superiority of our capabilities can only be explained by the hypothesis that we are endowed with a non-physiological element, an element which thousands of mystics, saints and sages have proclaimed as the True Self, or purely spiritual Soul, the “I”.

 

That the Soul is characterized by Its Needs to Exist, to Love, and to Know, and Faculties of Free Will to Imagine, Know or Believe, and Commit the being to a purpose; that the unified exercise
of these Faculties constitute human Will, and make the Soul the de facto Governor of our lives.
 

That the interaction of the Soul-Needs and Faculties with the functions of the RF/RAS provides
an explanation of all human motivation and behavior (except of course, behavior arising from chemical, genetic, neurological, etc. anomalies).
 

That we each laboriously construct and maintain our Love/Belief Systems with a great innate need for consistency, and only accept changes with great resistance, or “hardness of our hearts,” since any significant change is a threat to our particular world.

That all spiritual exercises: prayer, meditation, fasting, self-denial, physical austerities, etc., can be seen to be exercises of the Soul Faculties, in an effort to restore the Soul's sovereignty over the mind and body, i.e., over the social-animal needs, and the machinations of the Reticular Activating System, including the emotions; exercises which lead to a growing realization of the Soul's power and potential sanctity–the Soul’s filial kinship with God― and ever-increasing gratification of the “I”-Needs in the Love and Knowledge of God.
 

That the exemplars of the Perennial Philosophy all insist on metanoia, a turning one's life in a new direction, a re-formation of one’s world-view, and spiritual exercises in a thorough reconstitution of the heart―Underhill's costly reordering of our disordered Loves―if we are to arrive at a unitive Love and Knowledge of God.  One must cleanse the doors of perception in order to see the world as it is: infinite.  In Christian terms, “You must be born again to see the Kingdom of God;” and, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
 

Our whole business in this world is to purify
the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen.

― ST. AUGUSTINE
 

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  194                                                      T H E   I M M O R T A L “ I  "  

                                                                                                 

                                                       —THE BRAIN - MYSTERY OF MATTER AND MIND

                                                           U. S. News Books - 1981  ! ! !

 

           There it is - the neurologic/theologic “heart!” It was thrilling to find this beautiful rendering eight years after I had inferred a “Love/Belief System” in the brain—a system which was filtering and modifying all our sensory stimuli and responses—and written the first several versions of this book.

            But “vital” and “trivial” are subjective terms. How does the RF know what is vital or trivial to the individual, if not in the way this book describes?  I can find no serious literature which even addresses the question.

           And of course the RAS is more than just “catalytic.”  It is better described as a bureaucratic Lieutenant-Governor; the “I” is the Governor.

 

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The Immortal “I" 
  A Unified Theory of
Psychology, Neurology,
and the Perennial Philosophy

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