Phantoms in the Brain : On human perception
As I sit at home, typing my way through this page, thinking about what I should write next, I can almost see my thoughts bouncing around in my brain, puffs of ideas flashing for a moment before getting lost among the throngs of other distinct ones, all competing for my attention like bunch of reporters trying to catch the eye of a star.
But in the end “I” decided what to write. There is an invisible paradox in the last statement that raises the question we all ask ourselves sooner or later, who am I? Because as “I” had the illusion of sitting haughtily deciding which idea to choose among others it was easy to forget that all those ideas, however bizarre, brilliant or malign they might have been, were all uniquely “me”. So who is it really that decides which words my hands type that would be most relevant to the situation. Clearly, there has to be some abstract thing in our brain that decides what idea is most relevant amongst an orgy of others. What is this thing that forces us to smile and say “Hi, pleased to meet you” instead of staring and saying “Hi, aroused to meet you” when we see a hot girl dressed scantily, when in fact, majority of the senses in our mind and body are explicitly feeling the later. (Before I get accused of something here, I would like to make it clear that no matter who you are, if you are shown an arousing photographs, your body automatically shows a large response on a GSR meter ( a device similar to a lie detector) clearly indicating its opinion of it whether we verbally agree to it or not).
This abstract thing represents the entire model of behavior and understanding of an individual and accommodates everything from their past experiences, future goals, feelings, their understanding of the universe and their role in it etc. This model or “perception” of self is what we really refer to as “I”. At first this might look like a preposterous claim that perception has anything to do with manners. But if you analyze the scene again you should note that it is your preconceived notion of appropriateness that stops you from taking inappropriate actions and this is in turn a part of a broader perception of “I”. Because the saying inappropriate things conflicts with your broader model of yourself (a normal, polite person), your brain decides to sensor it and say something consistent with what “you” perceive yourself to be. Indeed, if your dog was put in your shoes he would probably find it perfectly acceptable to start licking, smelling or even humping the poor girl and would find it consistent with its much simpler perception of the world (say fight, flee or mate with things). This perception is obviously different for each and every single one of us. Each one of us carries a model of the entire world and self that is unique and that depends on our genes, upbringing, experiences in life and to what level our subconscious desires have been satisfied.
While reading the book “Phantoms in the Brain” by a world famous neuroscientist Dr.V.S.Ramachandran, I came across a fascinating story of a man who was recently amputated carrying out daily tasks totally oblivious to the fact that his left had was missing. He would make gestures using the phantom limb, try lifting objects or even complained of unbearable pain in the non-existent arm, time and time again and even insisted that he could see his arm. Initially this seemed to me far fetched story or some rare case but on further research on the topic I found that as many as 80% of amputees claim to feel their arms after amputation. Even bizarre cases are seen when person’s eyes are removed as many as 10% of these patients are convinced that they can see very detailed objects. (In some cases of people with blind vision in certain spots see characters, relatives or even cartoons which, they claim, look even more real than reality). I find this phenomenon an interesting window to see into understanding how the brain works. How it deceives us every second of our lives without us ever realizing it.
The human perception, far from being a steadfast entity is rather a fickle one. This software in our brain that drives us constantly changes in small amounts over time (e.g. acquired taste is a change in perception to our physical stimuli and change in our friendliness towards someone is a result of change in perception to our emotional stimuli). Rarely though this change is not nearly as imperceptible. People who “find” god and are “reborn” overnight or when a criminal realizes his wrong and is overwhelmed by grief and regret are examples of complete breakdown of our central model of views which leads to subsequent restructuring taking into account of the new revelation. Less overwhelming the change, easier the restructuring.
Denial is caused by such facts about self which mind decides, if true, requires extensive reformulation of the model of self. So it decides it is better to avoid chaos and pain to suppress the facts rather than directly address them. Denial is more commonplace than we realize. It shouldn’t be surprising though since denial is caused by change and we are all inherently reluctant to change. Everyday denial may include alcoholics who refuse that they have an alcohol addiction, we not doing things we don’t like by claiming not to have time or that we are gonna do it tomorrow or in more extreme cases of anorexics we can see a skeleton thin person insisting they have too much fat they must loose by dieting. The beauty of denial is that though the subconscious of the person might be aware of the problem, person himself is totally convinced that there is no problem. Of course the problem may be clearly evident to an observer but the person’ perception cannot be changed so easily. Phantom limbs are just an extreme case of such denial. Loss of hand is a much more integral part of the model of self than say alcohol and is therefore much more difficult to cope with. The options facing the brain (depending on the person’ perception of self and the flexibility of it) may only be one between total despair, chaos and even madness (remember the cases where people go mad on the loss of a loved one) or completely deny the facts as far as the perception of the person goes while it secretly tries to cope with it. As we know from statistics, more often than not it chooses the later. The lie of the phantom limb is perhaps brain’s greatest lie and therefore is so absorbing because it reveals the workings of the brain. It systematically overrides the responses from the organ which say that there is vision in that portion of the eye and fills it up with whatever makes sense to it. If this sounds hard to believe, think of the illusions you see as forwards these days which trick you into thinking that circles are moving or bent lines are straight or results to that effect. All such visual effects rely on the fact that given confusing enough situations the mind will show you what makes sense to it rather than the chaos it faces. This, by the way, is similar to principles by which performers such as Derren Brown use to hypnotize their subjects. They do this by first putting their mind in a confused state (rapidly talking, inserting random words that are hard to make sense and switching one word for another) at this point of time the mind is open to suggestion as it tries to come up with a sensible model of the instructions it just received. They use this time to implant suggestions in the subject’s brain by using subtle words or gestures. The subject not knowing the tricks its mind will play on them go on to do which were in fact inserted by the performer as a part of his immediate thoughts would end up doing the things they are told. Phantom limbs are similar illusions played by patients mind on them while they themselves might be completely unaware of what is really going on. We must not forget the real reason of the illusion though that is conflict with our internal model, the greatest illusion of them all, the feeling of “I”.
After writing these few pages “I” feel mostly satisfied with it, meaning that it is consistent with most of my models of what words, structures, examples and analogies should be, determined by my perceptions of language, reasoning, psychology and its significance in the world and ultimately for me. Depending on how your perception of the above mentioned attributes might be for you may find this article either largely true, great read, pompous in choice of words, on completely wrong subject or so different from your own that you may never reach this line. No matter what our opinion, one fact stands true, we do the things we do because of the subconscious forces that form, suppress and play with our perception of self and we are all governed by these phantoms in the brain.
