Of Brains.

IF the brain be defined as an organ concerned in multiplicity of action and reaction, as I think it reasonably may, then we see in truth there is nothing around us in all existence which is not a brain. The mud in which we tread responds by depression, ice responds to heat, the air is slowed by trees, the trees are quickened by air, the planets orbit responsively to stars, and the stars with all other things contribute and respond to infinity's circumambient forces. It tends to be by custom of categorisation that such things as the organic, and such things as brains, within which are included all we believe to be valuable in existence, comprehension, emotion, personality, sensation, and experience generally, are exalted beyond all else. We incline to thinking it is only by virtue of these that anything else can be appreciated or given a use at all, but this is surely erroneous, and the error thereof may be shown, like invisible ink before ultraviolet light, when the nature rather than the object of the brain is considered.

   It is simple, but not elegantly so, to say the brain organises the actions of a living body by its various regions, and that it is only the brain in our experience which has been known to show such a capability; but these are the kinds of acutely specific observations which can be made of anything. I could, for example, take up a paper clip and bend it to a very unusual shape and say, 'This paper clip alone has been shown to make this shape at this time and place.', and I would be true, I would be right, I would be accurate, but I would not be understanding anything of import. Better it would be to speak of the paper clip's eternal qualities, and so achieve a broad understanding of the nature of Nature, which thing may be achieved by drawing forth knowledge from the paperclip not as a paperclip, but as an exhibition of existence itself. Therefore I should not speak of the unprecedented shape I have made of the clip and call it unparalleled, unique, but I should speak of Shape's very concept, of the notion of the Unique, of the nature of Action and Reaction evinced by its bending, and in so doing I will gather far greater knowledge than I would have otherwise by a simple categorisation of the paperclip in itself and for itself. There is nothing unique in existence that is not simultaneously identical with everything else.

   Therefore, I may rest assuredly confident that I approach nearer to the heart of truth, and that I encompass by far the greater portion of reality, when I do enter a figurative World of Ideas, Plato's perfect and immutable kingdom of absolute concepts. I do not dare to suggest that by so doing I certainly and completely attain to perfect knowledge, only I contend that by doing so I come very much nearer than otherwise. Modern science realises this also, if not avowedly and volubly then tacitly, for it realises when it comes to the fundamental forces or powers of the universe it is considering not an object but an inference, not something that may be isolated and experimented upon but something that is omnipresent and will not be tethered. That is why the further and further up or down science looks into the scale of this cosmos the less and less effective it becomes, for its methods cannot deal with its subjects, as a surgeon cannot operate on a moving patient or an invisible organ. Consequently, it comes to quantum fields and theoretical particles which no test can detect in any regularly tangible ways. I cannot feel a graviton like a little marble in the palm of my hand, hold it up between a thumb and a forefinger and marvel at its colour or texture. Yet even if I could would it really confirm its existence? Am I not too apt to put faith in immediate presence, and to assume therefrom much too gigantically? Though my instincts serve me well most of the time, they often outright mislead me too, and the seeker of truth really must war with them more than harness them. Truth's purpose is beyond things like food and drink, or the protection of the species from things like mishap or poor survivability. It absorbs these also, as it absorbs everything, but it is not contained by them, informed by them, nor governed by them.

   Of brains therefore I should be cautious. I know I have one and that if I did not I would perhaps lose eight-tenths of my being, but this is a statement about myself rather than truth. What is the nature of a brain? To extract, to coalesce, to command, to regulate, these are four fundamental qualities which define a brain, but they also define everything else in existence. Water extracts nutrients from soil, it coalesces in seas, it commands movement along rivers, it regulates itself by performing actions such as the diffusion of temperature and the induration into ice. Of course we think such processes to be lesser and automatic compared to animal processes, but why pray? Can I cause any part of myself to do the things water or fire perform? We utilise these, we employ them, but we cannot enter into their nature, and by that token alone they have a claim to superiority as much as we, for doing things another cannot. Nor should we presume too much to suppose that we have the kind of cogent agency which 'blind' forces do not. I have written before that variety of action does not command volition, however satisfied we might feel at the thought of the notion, however joyous the feeling of self-aggrandisement.

   The mind is the better word to brain, it is the concept of endowed thinking apart from a specific organ, and so when the question of God's consciousness arises in the pantheistic context, His brain must be thought of as a mind which is coextensive with all reality; and truly it is not such a strange notion. Everything depends on definition, and when indeed we have a framework even in science which rounds up all observation into identical essences, the reflection becomes rather more believable than otherwise. For if of a brain arises human personality, consciousness, and thought, then it is natural to question what a brain is. I. Configurations of nerve tissue. II. What is nerve tissue? —  A collection of neurons. III. What are neurons? — Cells. IV. What are cells? —  Many elements, including hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. V. What are elements? — Configurations of atoms. VI. What are atoms? — Sub-atomic particle systems. VII. What are sub-atomic particles? — Values in quantum fields. VIII. What are quantum fields? — In theory, they are a framework involving three of the main studies of physics, but in reality they are also the last layer to existence which may be mathematically denominated.

   Thus ends the journey from the brain to the final imaginable stratum of existence in the human intellect. The journey would be almost identical from any other starting point, a tree, an eye, a tail, a river, a flame, or a stone. Patently, everything is to do with configuration, for of substantial essence or material it is plain there is not to be found a difference. The quantum fields extend and permeate infinitely forever, not that I would be so bold as to say these are truly fundamental; it does not signify, they show very well that the divisions of appearance manifest in our immediate sensation are false. What then might we ask is this configuration of identical substance, represented in mathematical units at the sub-atomic level and by shape and name at our own scale? It seems to be the driving urge of a common identity for variety's appearances: for paprika to kick up piquant scents, for the nose to sniff it, for the brain to enjoy it, for water to wet the hair, for hair to be wetted, for the rocky mountain to jut into the sky, and for the sky to touch the rocky mountain, for light to race around and bounce upon everything, for the eye to concentrate and detect its movements, for sound to rumble, for music to generate, for the brain to ruminate and to ponder. These many things I describe, these all are identical with one another, but they all are differentiated by configuration of values, which (to the many configurated values which form and organise the human intellect) are determined against one another, defined apart, so that we the more easily might fathom our lives; like a man waking in a strange and lightless room who slowly shuffles his feet along the invisible floor, and holds out his hands in both directions to feel for the walls he cannot see but trusts exist.

   It is in lieu of this reflection that I lose the clamorous doubts which cannot realise a consciousness without a three pound brain stewing in a skull, for when once I realise the brain is only one type of matrix in the infinite field of values, then it becomes absurd to talk of qualities which are not universal with the field. I remember once walking in a wood and thinking about mathematics, when suddenly straight 'to my vision started' numbers assigned to everything I saw. All numbers unique to every tree, every fern, every blade of grass, every bounding hare, every branch, and every bluebell, I fancied I could see assigned. Thus a realisation dawned on me, not that everything we see is really only a number, but that number determines everything we see in terms of a common language because they all are a common substance; as clay can be made to an infinity of shapes but is still the same clay. Hence, I hold consciousness a universal thing which contorts itself to certain ways, which best we recognise in human beings and other animals, but which, forming a fundamental principle of existence, is manifest in all things and must be perfectly magnified in the framework's totality. Were it not so it would seem paradoxical that such should be our own case in a trifling accumulation of carbon and gawkishness.