PRINCIPLES OF THE HUMAN PERSONALITY







A Study in Thought

sa064



by





Marius Heuff

Chapter 1

Content

A pretentious project.
Various models of explanation.
Complex scientific images.
An elusive "basic knowledge" about the nature of man.
Each scientific field seems to lead a life on its own.
Synthetic efforts within a field of science; a task for seasoned seniors.
The "popularisers" of science.
An encyclopedic summary.
The "old-fashioned" philosopher.
Philosophy; either a forgotten corner of the sciences, somewhere between language and mathematics, or an off-shoot of literature, with an emphasis on the lack of meaning in human existence.
A coherent portrait with generalised features.
The "routine" nature of many "idea packages".
A complete edition of my works.

It seems such a pretentious project to discuss all the aspects of the human personality, because, at the time I am writing, the human personality is considered to be a highly complex and unfathomed entity, where many different opinions and view-points, as well as a great variety of behavioural traits and manifestations, give the impression of utter chaos and confusion. Our own personality can not be pinned-down or described in a coherent and logical manner, and yet, this is, precisely, what we intend to do. My contemporaries will certainly consider such an attempt to create a unified vision of the human personality, audacious and pretentious, because no-one has been able to come-up with a description we can all agree with.

Perhaps, we should rephrase, to some extent, the statement, that chaos and confusion surround the understanding of our own psychological mechanisms, because there are several portraits of human existence, which aim at providing a clear-cut picture. Some models of explanation give us a fairly coherent point of view, such as the religious interpretations of man's existence. These interpretations explain the contradictory nature of man as a result of his follies and sins. For a variety of good reasons, these religious view-points have become intellectually unsatisfactory for many people, because they are based on the concept, that certain Scriptures reveal an absolute, God-given Truth.

Another reason for feeling dissatisfied with a religious explanation of human nature, is the fact, that there are so many different religious interpretations of reality, including many diverging concepts describing the nature and destiny of man. Then, there is the "problem", that the religious explanations accept man as a creature, who has been created by God in a human-like act of deliberately creating something, while scientifc observations give us irrefutable evidence for an evolutionary development of man's existence. In this imagery, the many species' of living existence are linked together by a slow process of evolutionary changes and adaptations.

We have learned to visualise, how life emerged from a prodromal stage of biochemical evolution, the protoplasmic primordium. In this imagery, all species', living and extinct, have found their roots in this protoplasmic primordium, because the living, organisational unit of the single cell found, slowly, a possibility to exist and perpetuate itself.

In spite of the fact, that the sciences have embraced the concepts of natural evolution as a reality that is permeating all our scientific observations, it has not been able to provide us with a coherent view of the human personality, as yet. The reasons are fairly clear, at least, to me. Scientific investigations are, in essence, an analytical method of acquiring knowledge, where, with or without the help of special instruments, man directs his attention to a small part of the observable realities around him. He starts to describe, as accurately as possible, what he sees, and, with the advent of technology and the development of many sophisticated instruments, man saw always something new, especially, when he looked at a particular field of reality with intense concentration, applying his array of scientific instruments.

This ability to see always "something new", or, at least, to see something in a different light because of this large array of instruments and the ability to choose different angles of vision, has led to the need for specialisation and sub-specialisation. The amount of information available in anyone particular field became so large, and, the investigative techniques so complex, that a field of science had to become smaller and smaller in order to remain "overseeable".

Finally, man came around to apply some of the scientific ways of investigating a fragment of reality to the "problem", or mystery, of his own existence, and, he began to look at the nature of his own behaviour, his thoughts, his subjective experiences, emotions and wide-ranging motivations, but, the field of investigation seemed to be far too complex to be tackled successfully by the methods of science.

Man's "organic" or bodily existence had already been sub-divided over widely scattered scientific fields ranging from anatomy and physiology, to biology, biochemistry and biophysics, with numerous, even more specialised fields thrown-in. At the same time, some attempts were made to understand man's psyche, or sphere of mental functions, in the fields of psychology, sociology, history, psychiatry, cultural anthropology, the religions, etc. A very broad field of knowledge arose, which I would like to call, collectively, "the humanities", in spite of the fact, that many people will disagree with the implication, that all the fields mentioned above belong to the "humanities", because, traditionally, the humanities encompass the artifacts or artistic achievements of man. The fields of psychology and psychiatry are, for this reason, usually excluded from the humanities.

The scientific study of man quickly retreated into the laboratory and created the field of experimental psychology, while the clinical sciences of psychiatry and psycho-analysis gave us many detailed and, often, illuminating descriptions and theories about the dynamics of the human personality. Nevertheless, the field of psychiatry was unable to create a solid foundation of fact and interpretation, which was acceptable to students all over the world as "basic knowledge". For this reason, psychiatry remained divided into a number of "schools", where students were being trained in the clinical diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders, and, as a result, they applied their knowledge and therapeutic measures according to the school of thought they had been brought-up in.

The field of experimental psychology has been able to link-up, to some extent, with such fields as neuro-physiology and neurology, but there has been no scientifically successful attempt to present a coherent and generally acceptable view of the human personality as a whole. The area of clinical psychology has developed a few useful but somewhat arbitrary testing methods that are able to steer people into a suitable career, or, these methods of testing are able to pinpoint a number of specific defects in psychological function. In this last application of psychological testing or measurement, "psycho-metry", psychology links-up with clinical neurology and has made some useful contributions. Yet, these fields of scientific endeavour do not even ask themselves, anymore, the question; what is conciousness, or, how do we correlate the descriptions and statistics of psychological test-reports with the subjective experiences of individual people?

We can safely state, that we still have only very tentative ideas, how the scientific appearance of the brain and the central nervous system, with its electrical and chemical functions and internal connections, correlate with our psychological sensations, experiences, moods, motivations, thoughts and reflections.

The scientific approach to man's existence, examining man's many ways of working and fighting, living and dying, his artifacts and artistic creations, has been helpful in studying all these aspects of human behaviour in a coherent perspective, and, these studies allow us to classify the phenomena of human existence to a certain extent, but, by and large, we still do not have any significant connections with the many other scientific fields that touch upon our existence.

Each scientific specialty seems to lead a life on its own, developing its own scientific terminology and becoming a world apart. Such a world is interesting, fascinating even, but, it seems to fall-short of the task to understand and correlate anything that falls outside the boundaries of this specialty.

The synthetic efforts of science take place, almost exclusively, within the field of a scientific specialty itself. The reasons are clear. It takes many years of study and training to become a proficient scientist in anyone particular field, and, it takes an even longer period of experience and study to be able to summarise and correlate, convincingly and acceptably, the findings, opinions and researches of a large number of young, eager, aggressive and opinionated scientists, who have often developed a measure of expertise in a specific field. Their expertise in a sub-specialisation gives them a special, if localised, voice of authority, and, even, the senior members in a particular field tend to tread very cautiously, when trying to create some sort of a synthesis of their knowledge.

If it is already so difficult and hazardous to synthesise a field of knowledge that falls within the boundaries of a specific scientific specialty, how dangerous and difficult must it be, then, to try a synthesis that crosses the boundaries between scientific specialties. Any respected scientist, trying to synthesise a field that also includes neighbouring fields of expertise, will immediately encounter a sense of suspicion, or, even hostility, and, as soon as he shows that his grasp is not as secure or precise as that of the "master in his field", he will be subtly ridiculed.

Therefore, it is not surprising, that a large-scale correlation of fields is not attempted by any active and self-respecting scientist. The area of "popularising" the sciences is left to intelligent lay-people, who have no reputation of expertise to lose, and, who write for a different audience. They write for other lay-people, and the scientific community can, then, safely ignore these popular writers, because they are "superficial" and are not addressing scientific professionals.

However, the popularisers of science also want to make sure, that they understand a particular field properly. Their style of presentation, and, even, the focus of their summaries, is, therefore, determined, to a large extent, by the people they have interviewed, as well as the particular type of work that has attracted their attention. It is logical, then, that those popularisers are, primarily, clever and intelligent journalists, who summarise a particular field and present it to an informed lay-audience. These scientific journalists are not, really, synthesisers in the philosophical sense, and, certainly very few of them would have the audacity to "synthesise" or summarise by a process of abstracting the essential features of a large series of scientific fields into a highly personal point of view.

"Who does this?", you may ask, or, you may want to know, whether or not there is any meaning, or value, in an attempt to summarise or synthesise a large number of scientific fields. Would it not be better to have a large number of comprehensive but succinct summaries of each field of science, written by a specialist, and, put them together into a single book or series of books, like an encyclopedia? Indeed, such a technique is often followed, but, we know, that, a modern encyclopedia, even, a very good one, appears fragmented and disjointed, and, it is clear, that such an encyclopedic summary is not a substitute for the wisdom of a coherent or unified point of view.

We need something more. We need someone, who is able and willing to familiarise him- or herself with a particular field to the point, that one is capable of summarising this field in a few generalised statements. This type of summary should not aim at a complete and comprehensive over-view of an entire field. This remains the task of the senior scientists who are writing text-books in their respective fields of expertise, but, the philosophical summary should be able to extract the fundamental and most important features of a field by a, largely intuitive, process of abstraction.

The summarising philosopher should be able to familiarise himself with a large number of specialised fields, and, he should be able to extract their most important features. Then, he should be able to compare and correlate the fundamental and generalised features of a number of scientific fields. As we have discussed before, this is the only way, a single person can "comprehend" a large number of specialised fields of knowledge. It is perfectly logical, that one single individual can not comprehend more than one scientific field in its entirety, because, after all, the limitation of the ability to "know fully" was the reason for the fragmentation and specialisation of the sciences in the first place.

The "old-fashioned" philosopher used to assume the task of creating such a generalised and overall synthesis, but, the enormous proliferation of the sciences, as well as the overwhelming vastness of the fields that have to be grasped in such a fundamental manner, have discouraged such synthetic and generalised philosophical efforts.

Old-fasioned philosophy disappeared, and the philosopher sought refuge in two very different camps, which have not been able to communicate with each other to any significant extent. On the one hand, philosophy adopted a "scientific approach" and looked for a "forgotten corner" of science. It found this "scientific niche", somewhere, in between the languages and the fields of logic and mathematics. The other branch of philosophy became an off-shoot of literature, were reflective and sensitive people became aware of the fundamental lack of meaning in their existence. Such an intuitive conclusion was re-enforced by the earlier conclusions of our evolutionary insights, which emphasised a never-ending struggle for existence, together with the mechanisms of the "survival of the fittest".

The sciences strongly undermined the fundamental intellectual reality perceptions of the religions, but, because science did not replace the religious concepts with an equally comforting and coherent imagery, the religious imagery remained the primary source of comfort for most people who were not schooled in the sciences, and the religious imagery continued to give a comprehensive over-view of the reasons and objectives of human existence.

I believe that I qualify as such an "old-fashioned" philosopher, because I try, pretentiously and audaciously, to familiarise myself with a large number of scientific fields, and, I try to abstract, largely intuitively, the fundamental features or the essence of each scientific field. I put these "essences", or fundamental corner-stones, into some sort of an overall perspective, because I am convinced that there are larger synthetic structures of understanding to be built.

These structures escape the attention of the senior scientists, who are busily synthesising their own fields in a comprehensive manner, and, these larger structures of understanding and correlation also escape the attention of the scientific journalists, because they lack, by and large, the time and patience to abstract a large number of common denominators from the scientific fields they are presenting to a lay-audience.

I am well aware of the fact, that my efforts are "old-fashioned", because such a traditional philosophical approach to the interpretation of our realities has not been attempted since the beginning of this century. I am also aware of the fact, that, very few people will recognise any usefulness in such an approach, but, I feel that this lack of recognition is largely due to the fact, that, people, today, have never experienced the comprehensive view-point of a well-reasoned and well-presented dissertation or discussion, ranging over a large number of scientific specialties.

I will attempt to discuss the human personality in a coherent but necessarily abstract manner, and, I will try to paint a coherent portrait with the generalised features that have been "distilled" from a large number of scientific fields. This discussion will, therefore, have a strong, personal flavour, as it reflects an attempt to philosophise in an old-fashioned manner, seeing aspects in a truly broad perspective. However, as people become, once again, more familiar with this type of approach, I hope, that they will derive some useful insights from my efforts.

Taking into account a large number of observations, fields of knowledge, ideas and view-points, has become a nearly automatic pass-time for me, and, I would not be able to answer the question, where a specific idea has come from, or, what evidence I have used to come to a particular statement or conclusion. By and large, the imagery I use has been obtained from, at least, a familiarity with the basic knowledge of a particular field. I would suggest, therefore, to any reader, who may come across statements or conclusions that are foreign or appear strange, to look-up a particular topic under consideration in a comprehensive encyclopedia. After all, the authors who have contributed articles to an encyclopedia, made a serious attempt to be succinct, yet comprehensive, when summarising their particular field of knowledge and expertise.

I make rarely use of material that is too specific for an encyclopedia. However, I am often referring to ideas, which I have worked-out before, and, it is logical, that, in the course of many years of writing, these "idea-packages" became "routine" for me. Of course, just because I have synthesised a number of philosophic images and speculations before, does not mean, that they have found any degree of validity, except in my own mind. However, if I feel, that I have written something fairly clearly before, I do not feel the need to repeat such ideas in detail. Often, I will summarise my own ideas, quickly, but, anyone trying to look-up such ideas in an encyclopedia or a textbook, will be disappointed, of course. Without being facetious, I feel, that, anyone who is contemplating to make a serious study of all the ideas that have gone through my mind, and, which I have worked-out in a variety of essays, will feel a need to have a complete edition of my works at his or her disposal.

So far, I have published nothing, and, I will probably have plenty of time to keep polishing my works, because nobody is in a hurry to read these essays. I will try to follow a systematic approach to my writing, and, each essay will be numbered according to the chronological order in which they have been sketched. Because a great deal of time has gone by between the first sketch and the final text, I do not feel that it has any meaning to indicate, when a sketch was first written, when it was revised, or, when it was completed.

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Chapter 2

Content

Recognising commonly shared awarenesses.
Social inter-actions are an integral part of the human personality.
"Probing-away" from our primary experiences.
The discovery of our existence.
What do we actually remember, and, what do we "project" into our memories?
The past is a function of the present.
Taking distance from our own existence.
We are nearly indistinguishable as infants.
Existential needs; evidence for an obviously shared heritage.
The concept of a comfortable equilibrium or "homeostasis".
Stress; a force, displacing living existence from a state of homeostasis.
The infant; its basic characteristics.
Birth; a great physiological revolution.

It is time to focus our attention on the purpose of this essay. I like to use a correlating approach to outline the human personality, and, we will emphasise the essential features of the faculty of "conscious awareness". I believe, that we can only hope to evoke a sense of validity, if the reader can "recognise" the fact, that awarenesses, situations, circumstances, emotions, motivations and instinctive drives are shared by us all. We will also come to the conclusion, that, so many of our awarenesses have to do with the way we "fit" into our social and natural environment, and, we can, therefore, not talk about the human personality in isolation, without considering the area of social and environmental inter-actions.

If we want to use subjective awarenesses as a focal point in the description of our personality, it becomes quickly apparent, that it is difficult to bring a measure of unity and comprehension to this large sphere of fluctuating, and, often, contradictory awarenesses. We have to go back to the observations of other people. We have to go back to a number of common features that have surfaced, time and again, from careful observations that were made in an emotionally more or less neutral frame of mind.

These observations were made by people who have tried to give a valid scientific description and interpretation of the realities they were concerned with. Such "probes" or extrapolations, "away" from our primary experiences and observations, will be recalled or made, "naturally", as I try to correlate a personal observation of feelings and experiences with the anatomical, physiological or psychological "facts" of our existence.

Perhaps, most professionals in the many fields touched upon, will feel, that the discussion has not done full justice to the numerous aspects that could be noted and discussed. Yet, I hope, that the experts and professionals can agree with the assertion, that my intuitive efforts to summarise or "distill" the essentials of a particular field, have been essentially correct, and, secondly, I hope, that these experts, as well as anyone else who is familiar with one or other aspect of the human personality, will recognise a measure of coherence in these efforts. All I am trying to do, is to correlate broad areas of knowledge, and, I will leave many of the details for another date, another discussion, and, perhaps, another "interpreter".

Let us go back a number of years, and, let us try to remember a few moments of our childhood, where we discovered ourselves to exist, somewhere, as a member of a family, or, as a member of a small group. We found ourselves, somewhere on earth, and, we noted, that we were a member of some sort of a social environment. We also knew, then, that, for a number of years, prior to our first conscious and remembered awarenesses, we lived and behaved as an even younger child. Even, then, we were a member of our family, and, we were completely integrated with the immediate surroundings, not aware of our individual existence. We came, then, or, at a later date, to the somewhat unsettling conclusion, that we would not have lived, if there would not have been someone to take care of us when we were an infant or very young child.

We do not remember a great deal of these first conscious awarenesses, when we discovered to exist as a personal entity, somewhere in the world. These experiences and awarenesses were fleeting, and, after a moment of realising, that "I" was "I", and, that I had a certain will or ability to want this or that, to talk, to react and inter-act with other people, to say "me" to myself, to be aware that I existed as a being that could have thoughts and feelings, that "I" was a "center of consciousness"; after such a reflective moment of discovering "ourselves" as a form of conscious existence, we would generally "fuse" again, psychologically, in a more or less harmonious manner with the people around us.

It does not matter, that we have only a very fragmentary recall of these events, or, that we are not even sure at all, what we truly remember as our own experiences, and, what sort of thoughts and reflections, feelings and emotions, we now "project" as having taken place in that distant past. It does not even matter, that the discovery of ourselves as a thinking and feeling individual does not have a precise moment or origin, and, that most of us would be at a loss to pin-point how old we were, when such experiences occurred. It does not matter, that our recollections of what happened in the past are often an indefinable blend of what really happened, what we remember of it, and, what has been a contemporary projection or interpretation of these feelings and experiences, whenever we think back at a particular time in the past.

We know, now, that all memory experiences of the past are a function of our existence in the present, and, we will always see the past in the light of our present moods, knowledge and judgements. Therefore, it is quite appropriate to mix the memories of what we experienced a long time ago with what we can see in the behaviour of children around us, today. We are not interested in what was specific or peculiar about our particular awakening, but, we are interested to know, in general terms, why, and how, people become, to some extent, aware of themselves as thinking individuals.

If we have some idea, why this event takes place, and, what the nature is of this faculty of conscious awareness making us reflect and think about ourselves and other people, then, we will have a better chance to "see ourselves" as a personality, reacting and behaving, thinking and manipulating our surroundings. It will, then, be possible to recognise, when and where our awarenesses and feelings are specifically our own, and, when we share feelings, thoughts and emotions with other people.

If we look at a newly born baby, we realise, how similar we are at the time of birth. It is even more remarkable to realise, that, the only differences between us at the time of our entry into this world, are physical characteristics. We differ in size and shape, in colour and texture of hair and skin. Some of us are healthy and well-formed, others have the misfortune to be born with diseases or genetic defects. In our behaviour, we are nearly indistinguishable from each other. We cry, when something is wrong, or, when we are hungry, and, if we are well-fed, dry and warm, we fall contently asleep.

While physical characteristics seem to describe the differences between us at birth, we are remarkably dissimilar later in life, after our personality has unfolded itself. Each and every personality absorbs many of the characteristics that are present or prevalent in our particular social environment. As a matter of fact, after we have reached a stage of adulthood, and, after we have become somewhat reflective, we notice, how remarkably similar we are in our physical characteristics, while our personality and behaviour-patterns remain a source of fascination and confusion, because there are so many differences.

The divergence between unfolded personalities, together with the essential unpredictability of human behaviour, lead to an endless series of surprises and puzzlements, giving rise, generation after generation, to the inspiration of a work of art, or a work of thought, as well as to a similarly endless series of political upheavals, atrocities and conflicts of war.

As adults, we become aware of the similarities between us, in particular, when we look, literally, "under the skin", but, we also begin to realise, that we resemble each other a great deal in our psychological make-up, in particular, if we look at the more primitive or instinctive forms of our behaviour-patterns. We realise, then, that we all search for security and food, comfort and well-being, but, also, for dignity, and a chance to fulfill our dreams and aspirations.

We even begin to realise that most, if not all conflicts, stem from the fact, that we compete for similar objectives and interests, and, that we resemble each other, quite closely, in the instinctive patterns of hostility towards our enemies, as well as the loyalty and friendship we show towards our relatives and friends. However, we are a little ahead of schedule, here, because we want to trace, first, a survey of the overall developments of the human personality, before we begin to answer the question, where we resemble and where we differ from each other.

The newly born human infant does not have a personality, even, if proud and anxious parents tend to deny this observation. We see, that infants are identical in their behaviour. There is no trace of a conscious awareness. The infant may be "awake", but, certainly, in the first few weeks, it does not even look at anything in particular. It does not recognise anything, not even its mother, and, it alternates between a state of crying and contentment, with or without sleep.

Initially, contentment is nearly always associated with sleep. As the periods of alert contentment increase, the infant begins to "recognise" a familiar face or situation, and, if this recognition is associated with a "pleasant" stimulus, like sucking on a nipple or being cuddled, the infant may give expression to such a pleasant recognition, by "a smile".

The smile is a curious, and, perhaps, rather typical human expression, but, we will not discuss the smile or the laugh at this point, because we will come back to it, later. Let us reflect on the fact, that an infant alternates between the states of contentment and an absence of contentment, or well-being. This absence of contentment can be due to a number of factors, which "drive an organism away from a comfortable homeostasis or equilibrium".

In this last statement, we broaden the observations of the newborn infant to a much wider principle, which we see in operation throughout the realm of living existence. All living organisms, even, single cells, "search" for a state of comfort or optimum conditions, and, they try to maintain this condition, or restore this state of a "comfortable equilibrium", whenever factors in the surrounding environment, or the internal mechanisms within the living organism, drive the organism away from a state of comfortable equilibrium, or "homeostasis".

In the term "equilibrium", we recognise the fact, that this state of comfort is, often, an ill-defined balance point between opposing and contradictory forces, and, we are, frequently, at a loss to define, with precision, where this balance-point lies, or what, exactly, it represents. We see, that this "dynamic point of balance" can shift fairly widely, especially, later in life, and, sometimes, after a prolonged shift, we see, that the balance-point will not return to its original "setting", even, if the factors displacing this point of balance have been removed.

All the factors that drive an organism away from its balance-point, its "homeostasis", or comfortable equilibrium, are called "stress", and, we note, therefore, that stress can be classified into two major categories. Let us look, again, at the infant. Its point of homeostasis is reached when it is satiated, warm, dry and protected, and, it will fall contently asleep. Hunger and thirst, or the soiling of a diaper, a change in temperature, or any stimulus that is an infringement upon this comfortable status-quo, will, eventually, reach a "point of displacement", where the infant will react.

Since the behavioural responses of the human infant are very limited, we see a stereotyped response. First, the infant becomes restless, moving its arms and legs in a jerky and uncoordinated manner, and, then, it starts to cry. Often, crying is intermittent in the beginning, but, if help is not forthcoming, its cry will become louder and more sustained.

The reasons, why the human infant is so helpless and dependent will be discussed later, because we want to emphasise, here, the concept of "stress", or, a "force of displacement", away from a comfortable equilibrium, together with the infantile response to stress; a stereotyped cry for help.

The newborn infant can not do anything else, and, this gives us an opportunity, not only, to see a personality unfold as the years go by, but, to appreciate one of the fundamental reasons, why human personalities can become so different. While we all have a few basic instinctive behaviour-patterns at the time of birth, which are, just like our bodies, remarkably similar from one person to the next, our personality unfolds and becomes "programmed", as we learn to communicate with our environment.

We are not able to communicate conceptually at the time of birth, and, it takes a few weeks before, even, the simplest act of "recognition", together with a somewhat modified and differentiated response to an environmental stimulus, has become possible. It takes even longer, before the child learns to focus its eyes, follow a moving object, grasp for objects in its environment, or learns to coordinate arm, leg and body movements.

Eventually, the young child learns to right itself, to crawl, to stand and walk. The progession of these abilities is due, in part, to the constant stimuli the child receives from the environment, including the people who take care of it, but, partly, these abilities develop, because they "become possible", as the central nervous system and the body continue their processes of completion and maturation.

These developmental processes were initiated at the time an egg-cell was fertilised and became implanted into the mother's womb. The time of birth does not indicate, therefore, that these processes have been completed. Certainly, by the time the child is ready to be born, its "ground-plan" has been completed. Most organs are there, and, most anatomical details have been actualised, but the birth of an infant only signifies, that the time has come to leave the security of the womb. To stay in the womb any longer would make the process of birth only more hazardous, and, we know, that, even, under "normal" circumstances, birth is a hazardous transition period that is dangerous to mother and child.

A great physiological revolution takes place at birth, because, suddenly, the infant switches from a form of nutrition and oxygenation via the maternal or placental blood-stream, to its own oxygenating and alimentary systems; the lungs and the digestive tract.

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Chapter 3

Content

A remarkably incomplete central nervous system.
Infancy and childhood; the role of sense impressions.
The "ground-tone" of a personality.
Periods of "specific receptiveness".
The sliding scale of defensiveness and aggressiveness.
The sliding scale between egocentricity and altruism.
An essential distinction between harm and benefit.
The reasons for a strong sexual drive.
Our biological heritage.
Behaviour-patterns that are triggered by suitable circumstances and a readiness of the organism.
Adapting and yielding to stressful conditions.
Anatomical and physiological features result from a constant pressure, or stress, by the forces of natural selection.
All three poles of behaviour involve a measure of stress.
Why we have to exhibit aggressive behaviour-patterns.

The central nervous system of the human infant is remarkably incomplete at the time of birth. The pathways have been laid-down, but there is not yet any traffic of electrical nerve-impulses taking place over many of the major path-ways, because the "insulation" around these conducting cables still has to be laid-down in the form of a fatty substance, called "myelin".

The bones of the skull are soft and malleable in order to facilitate passage through the birth-canal, and, it is not surprising, that the "molding" of the head and the displacement of the fragile central nervous system and its abundant blood-supply, lead, often, to small bleeds or hemorrhages, resulting in varying degrees of brain damage. We also know, that it takes another twelve to fourteen years for the sexual organs to mature, and, during this time, the infant grows through the stages of childhood and adolescence into adulthood.

It is fair to say, therefore, that birth is only a rather arbitrary stage in a continuous process of development, which has been initiated at the time of fertilisation. This process of development does not stop, until adulthood has been reached, and, even, then, continuous changes take place as an organism slips past maturity into the gradual decline of senescence, ending, inevitably, in death.

During infancy and childhood, gigantic changes take place. The central nervous system matures. The child learns to coordinate its musculature. It learns to walk and run, and, it also learns to speak and think, to communicate verbally with other human beings, and, it takes only a few short years to see a totally helpless and stereotyped infantile behaviour change into a small but fully human personality that can laugh and cry, ask and demand, give and take; a personality that can be fearful and timid, or, aggressive and confident. It may be trusting, loyal and loving, one moment, and, it may be spiteful, jealous and opportunistic, the next.

In short, in a few years time, the infant becomes a personality, and, we have, now, some idea, why, and how, this occurs. We are also beginning to realise the importance of the large number of stimuli an infant is exposed to in the form of a constant stream of sense impressions. These stimuli "set the mold" of the personality, and, they determine the features or characteristics that dominate the unfolding personality. These stimuli determine the preponderance of certain trends over others, and, during the process of personality unfolding, the basic outline of the personality is formed and makes its influence felt for the rest of an individual's life.

Yet, it is not accurate to believe, that a personality is completely formed during childhood or early adolescence. Certainly, we become increasingly "set in our ways" as we grow older, but, important changes do take place in our behaviour, as well as the make-up of our personality, during most of our life-span. We never cease to learn, as long as we are healthy and vigorous, and, we add to the total storehouse of our memories, experiences and insights, throughout life. We only cease to learn and lose the ability to understand, whenever we become somewhat senile and start to live, entirely, in the past.

Nevertheless, it is justified to consider the earliest years as the most important for the formation of a "ground-tone", or the general outlook of a personality, and, we know, that a significant lack of guidance, where we are deprived of normal protective and stimulating conditions, may lead to a severely defective personality. This does not mean, however, that all personality defects are due to such unfortunate environmental conditions, but, I believe, that we have barely scratched the surface in unraveling the influences of stimuli and environmental conditions upon the personality of a young child. We still have only a limited understanding of the influences that play a role during the early development of the human personality.

Abnormal influences, or aberrations from the "timed sequences" of required stimuli, may lead to a variety of personality defects, and, it is logical to see a defect develop, whenever an essential stimulus is not present at the time the child needs it most. We refer, here, to a certain similarity with embryological developments, because we know, now, that the normal development of cells into specialised organs and tissues, is only possible, if the embryonic cells receive the "appropriate stimuli" in the form of "inductor substances", whenever the cells are ready to receive such stimuli.

Sometimes, a lack of appropriate environmental stimuli may lead to an excessive stimulation of feelings of anxiety or fearfulness, and, this brings us to the concept, that the human personality contains a sliding scale of defensive and aggressive behaviour-patterns. We should spend some time elaborating and justifying this concept, because, I believe, that it is a corner-stone for understanding and classifying the phenomena of human behaviour. After we have elaborated this axis, or sliding scale, between the poles of defensiveness and aggressiveness, we will introduce the third pole of sexuality, which stands somewhat apart from this basic polarity in our personality. The last sliding scale or axis we have to discuss, is the scale of egocentricity and altruistic behaviour.

We have to go back and look at the origins of life, before we can trace a comprehensive picture of these sliding scales of behaviour. We see, how an animal life-form fluctuates between a mode that is primarily aggressive and a mode that is more defensive in nature. If we look at the single, free-floating cell, in particular, the cellular life-forms that have already developed some sort of propulsive mechanism, we note, that a cell has two basic reaction-patterns. If it enounters favourable circumstances, such as an environment, where it can obtain food, energy or other useful materials or building-blocks, (or, a suitable temperature-range for its biochemical reactions), then, the cell will try to perpetuate its contacts with such a suitable and beneficial environment by an active movement towards this environment. If, for one reason or another, the environment encountered is not suitable, or actually harmful, the cell will make an active effort to "get out of the way".

There are many harmful factors in an environment. There may not be any usable bluilding-blocks or energy-supplies, or, there may be toxic chemicals. The temperature may be too high, or too low, and, later in the evolutionary development of life, the environment may contain "predators"; life-forms that prey on the organism in question. The basic reaction of a single cell, (away from a noxious stimulus and towards a beneficial one), remains a useful principle for behavioural classification, even, when considering the behaviour-patterns of much more complex life-forms. Nevertheless, behaviour in the complex life-forms is so varied, that it is often difficult to recognise this basic behavioural axis.

Very soon after the development of the living cell, which became the basic building-block for all complex, multi-cellular life-forms, the mode of reproduction showed two basic patterns. The dominant mode changed from reproduction by a mitotic division, (a process we have discussed extensively before), to a sexual mode. The latter mode of reproduction became especially important with the emergence of multi-cellular life-forms. The fusion of two specialised sex-cells into a fertilised egg-cell, is the basic mechanism for initiating the growth of a new individual of a multi-cellular species, but, the reproductive processes from the single, fertilised egg-cell to the multi-cellular community of the fully formed individual, still depend on an a-sexual or mitotic type of division.

We have discussed these mechanisms extensively before, and, we want to emphasise, here, only, the fact, that the sexual mode of reproduction requires a highly specialised form of behaviour between the male and female members of a species in order to create a fertilised egg-cell. There is really no "existential need" for the members of a species to engage in such behaviour, because it does not benefit them directly. Nature had to sharpen, therefore, strong instinctive drives to encourage the living members of a species to engage in sexual contact, before a species would be ensured of a continuity of existence.

Unless this vital link of reproduction was adequately taken care of, all the "expertise" of a species to adapt capably to changing circumstances, would be to no avail. Therefore, as soon as nature adopted the technique of the sexual mode of reproduction, with all the advantages that are associated with a wide genetic spectrum, a variety of precisely encoded behavioural instructions became necessary. A sufficient number of fertilised egg-cells had to be produced to secure an adequate number of off-spring for the following generations.

Plants, or vegetative life-forms of the multi-cellular species', also use the sexual mode of reproduction, but, because the contact between male and female sex-cells can not be accomplished "actively", nature had to compensate for this handicap by devising a number of methods that would ensure contact between, and a wide distribution of, a very large number of well-protected sex-cells. These protected cells had to be able to withstand long periods of hostile circumstances after they had been fertilised, because they often had to wait-out adverse climatic and environmental conditions, before they could develop themselves into the next generation.

It is not surprising to see, therefore, that the drive of sexual behaviour is a strong instinct that has been genetically encoded. Together with the instinct to seek food and favourable circumstances, as well as the drive to seek shelter and defend living conditions or territory, we see, here, in outline, the three basic poles that determine the range of instinctive patterns of behaviour. The three poles are those of aggression, where an animal life-forms seeks actively for food and other conditions that will secure survival. On the opposite end of this drive towards aggressive behaviour-patterns lies the capability to recognise danger and flee, to seek shelter and protection, and to defend one's territory against "intruders". This is the pole of defensive behaviour, and, the third pole is represented by the urge to seek a mate, whenever the physiological promptings are awakened by suitable conditions and the "right time".

The aggressive-defensive axis of behaviour takes care of the basic existential requirements for the survival of the individual, while the sexual pole ensures, that the species as a whole survives. We are discussing, here, basic patterns of animal behaviour, but, the human being inherits this same package as a "biological heritage" from the evolutionary past, and, just like other animal species', man's individual survival, as well as the survival of the species, depends on the same three poles of instinctive behaviour-patterns. Each of these three poles has become remarkably complex in the range of its behaviour-patterns, and, in addition, these patterns are modified, extensively, by a variety of widely different circumstances.

Different species' show clear-cut differences in their reactions or instinctive behaviour-patterns to certain stimuli, because, what is appropriate behaviour for one species, may not be suitable for another. For example, we see, that, aggressive behaviour may mean many different things; from the actual hunt of a prey, the exploration of new territories to see, whether or not there is "something of value", to the active pursuit of a competitor or enemy.

Sexual behaviour can have many aggressive overtones, because the strong sexual urge may compel an animal into a rather aggressive pattern of behaviour, whenever the "reluctance" of the partner has to be overcome with, at least, a measure of persistence and force. Usually, the complex mating rituals of species' that are quite highly developed, require a precise correlation between the readiness of both partners, before a successful and productive form of mating can be accomplished. Mating behaviour requires, by and large, a great deal of energy, and, therefore, it is only "triggered", if the circumstances are suitable, and, this means, that the physical conditions of maturation must have proceeded to a point, where the sexual drive is well developed. In addition, the animal must be in a state of well-being and good health, and, it must feel secure and relaxed, before the instinct of mating behaviour can be released successfully.

The range of defensive behaviour is even greater. Not only, does it apply to many varied and complex behavioural reactions, such as recognising danger, the flight away from, or the avoidance of, dangerous situations, but, the need to be continuously "on guard" for potential dangers that may arise at any time, makes an individual "highly alert". This state of alertness and preparedness may "slide" into a form of aggressive behaviour, whenever the animal judges the circumstances to be "positive". If the interpretation of the incoming sense impressions remains primarily "threatening", or negative, the attitude of the animals slides into a zone of defensiveness, where it becomes ready to flee, or, if this is impossible, the animal becomes ready to defend itself with a rather desperate, last stance.

Defensive behaviour can, therefore, consist of an adaptation to adverse or oppressive circumstances. These may be due to climatological or geographical stresses, or, as a pressure from predators. The animal, or a small group of the species, may "yield" to these pressures and stresses, and it may try to find a less taxing or demanding place to live. In addition, "yielding" may mean "adapting", by changing its behaviour-patterns; it may change its physical appearance or physiological functions, or, it may be a subtle blend of all these mechanisms.

However, yielding is not always possible, and, before an animal or life-form yields to strong displacement forces, it tries to "resist". Such a resistance may take the form of a defensive stance against intruders or competitors into the territory. The defensive reaction may also be directed against harsh climatological or geographical factors, such as extreme cold or heat. The latter can be accomplished by building a "shelter" of one sort or another.

Resistance against adverse environmental conditions plays an important role in physiological and anatomical adaptations. Many anatomical and physiological features have developed under the constant pressures of naturally selective force-fields, and, the nature of these pressures or stresses was often climatological or geographical. These anatomical and physiological adaptations function as a defense against adverse conditions, and, they represent, also, an attempt to adapt to a specific "ecological niche". For example, the skin has become a specialised organ to allow an animal to be outside the "normal" watery environment, and, many of its appendages are instruments to guard against heat loss, when it is cold, or, to promote heat loss through the radiation of heat and the evaporation of moisture, when the temperature is high; to preserve moisture when the air is dry, and, to make it more resistant to cuts and abrasions from contacts with the environment, or fights with other animals.

Bony structures develop as a result of the need to move without the buoyancy of a watery environment; for muscles to attach to, and, to prevent organs from collapsing under the weight of gravity, or, to make an active exchange of air possible in the lungs. Bony appendages can become aggressive weapons, like teeth or fangs, or, they become strong defensive plates and shields of armour.

In addition, many of the internal mechanisms of adjustment are designed to avoid, resist, and partially yield to, a large variety of stimuli and circumstances that drive an organism away from its comfortable equilibrium. In the overall mechanisms of defensive behaviour, we see, clearly, that this pool of instinctive behaviour-patterns and physiological mechanisms is designed to cope with a series of stressful conditions, but, even, in the aggressive and sexual forms of behaviour, we see, that the organism is subjected, primarily as a result of its own actions, to stressful conditions that may suddenly lead to harm.

All three poles of behaviour evoke, therefore, a measure of stress, but, the defensive pole is primarily concerned with safeguarding or protecting the organism from too great a stress, while the other poles are more or less deliberately chosen forms of stress. They represent, then, a "challenge", where an organisms engages, voluntarily, in a stressful situation from a position of relative strength and confidence.

Yet, we see, also, that aggressive behaviour is not always a "voluntary choice", which an animal does not have to engage in, if it does not feel ready to do so. In particular the predatory animals have become very dependent upon an aggressive type of hunting behaviour, in order to satisfy their energy requirements and survive. They have become "obligatory predators", and, if the members of such a species are, for one reason or another, incapable of successful aggressive behaviour towards their prey, they will become rapidly extinct. We see, therefore, that obligatory predators are highly specialised animals, often supremely capable and well-equipped, but, if their source of food-supply disappears, they are utterly lost, and, they are immediately threatened with extinction.

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Chapter 4

Content

Being satisfied or satiated.
The "central zone" of a comfortable equilibrium, or emotionally neutral homeostasis.
The behaviour of "sleep"; dream-sleep and non-dream-sleep.
A brief review of the mechanisms of symbolic representation.
A "super-structure" of conscious awarenesses has become super-imposed on the non-verbal functions of our biological heritage.
The evolution of manipulative abilities, speech and thought.
An explanation of our nature on the basis of evolutionary change; a difficult imagery.
A brief review of man's physical evolution.
The occurrence of "evolutionary spurts".
Surviving unobtrusively; through alertness and agility.
A dialogue that provides the ability to transfer factual information.
Abstractions and qualities.
Cerebral and mental systems for classifying sense impressions and conscious awarenesses.

What happens, when an animal does not have to satisfy an existential need? What happens, if it has been able to satisfy its hunger, quell its thirst, and satisfy its sexual drive? It is secure, protected and satiated, and, we say, then, that the organism exists in a condition of "homeostasis". It exists in a state of comfortable equilibrium or well-being, and, another way of formulating this concept, is to say, that there are no stressful stimuli infringing upon the existence of such a fortunate individual.

The animal will, invariably, relax completely and fall contently asleep, until it is awakened by a need of one kind or another. It may have become hungry again, or thirsty, or, it may have to take care of a physiological necessity, or, it is just awake, refreshed and wants to go "on the prowl". We can be fairly certain, however, that an animal does not engage in a serious hunt, until hunger drives him to it.

The idea, that an organism exists in the "center" of a zone of homeostasis or comfortable equilibrium, is a very useful one, and, it shows us, also, that the brain of an animal is "kept awake" by a constant influx of perceptions, or stimuli, that are "existentially significant". By "existentially significant", we mean, that the sense impressions are recognised to be important; either as an indication that the animal can satisfy some of its existential requirements, or, the sense impressions are recognised as potentially harmful and dangerous. They induce, then, a state of readiness to move at a moment's notice, or, the sense impressions may be "sexually interesting", inducing courtship and mating behaviour.

However, if all three poles of the personality of an animal are in a state of quiescence, none of the stimuli are recognised as important, and, they will become less and less noticed. Slowly, the animal relaxes more and more. Its state of readiness to move and react, diminishes. Eventually, the animal "does not follow" the stream of stimuli anymore, and the brain sinks into a state of sleep.

We will not discuss the various patterns of "sleep behaviour", but, let us just say, that the brain is "idling". Certainly, there is always the possibility for a stimulus to "get through" and bring the animal back into a state of being awake, where it does follow, from moment to moment, what is going-on in the environment.

Sometimes, the animal "sleeps" by being in such a state of "cerebral idling". The receptivenes to "awakening stimuli" varies somewhat, since the animal may be in a deep sleep, or, a more superficial sleep. There is also "dream sleep", where the memory-traces of the day, as well as other significant recent experiences, are "played back" in a vivid but somewhat disjointed kaleidoscope of images. During this rather active period of dream-sleep, the state of sleep is actively maintained by a specific center of activity in the brain, shutting-out disturbing environmental stimuli, as long as this "subconscious review" is going-on. Nevertheless, at all times, the animal remains sensitive to strongly rousing stimuli.

We assume, that, animals, close to us in the evolutionary scale, can dream like we can, because they exhibit an identical behaviour of rapid muscle movements when asleep, with jerky movements of the eyes and extremities, just like the human being. Probably, the awareness of having dreamt is only possible for human beings, because we have learned to manipulate our memory-traces voluntarily, via the mechanisms of symbolic representation, with which we can re-stimulate a memory-trace into a focus of conscious awareness.

An animal can not do this, and, a specific memory-trace can only be stimulated and recalled, if the animal experiences a similar situation in "real life", and recognises, that it has experienced similar situations in the past. This ability to recognise similar situations lies at the root of the ability to recognise a condition or situation of "familiarity", be it a danger, or a suitable prey. We have discussed, on previous occasions, how, and why, the behaviourally flexible animals have developed an extensive cerebral classification system of memory-traces as a result of the need to recognise familiar patterns of behaviour or environmental circumstances.

Memory-traces are, therefore, categorised and classified with the help of "common denominators". This classifcation system makes it possible for an animal to "recall" a particular situation at the time it is experiencing a similar or analogous environmental circumstance or condition. However, only an actual, analogous experience can evoke this "similar memory-trace" into the focus of attention of an animal, and, the existential significance of the present condition, or sense impression, is, therefore, determined by the "value" or significance associated with the category of the recalled memory-trace. If a memory-trace is recalled from a category that has been given the connotation of being "highly dangerous", the animal will experience a strong "emotion" of fear, as it recognises a potentially very hazardous set of circumstances.

However, let us emphasise, here, once again, that the human species has learned, through the use of mimicry, imitations, gesticulations, dance-like movements and vocalisations, to evoke a memory-trace in the safety of the "home environment". The ability to evoke a memory-trace "at will" by such symbolic representations as mimicry and vocalisations, lies at the root of the faculty of "conscious awareness". We will not re-trace these mechanisms, here, in any detail, because we have done so many times before, but, let us just remind ourselves, that, we, as human beings, have inherited essentially the same basic behaviour-patterns as the animal species' who are close to us in the family-tree of evolutionary kinship.

We, too, have basic, instinctive behaviour-patterns that are geared or organised around the three poles of aggression, defensiveness and sexuality, and, we too, experience a zone of homeostasis, or a comfortable equilibrium, in which we like to exist, because it signifies an absence of stress from displacement forces. We, too, tend to fall asleep, when we are in such a comfortable state of homeostasis, but, we do not always fall asleep. We, as human beings, are beset by the problem, or the riddle, of boredom and restlessness, whenever we exist for any length of time in such a comfortable equilibrium of fortunate circumstances.

Obviously, the human personality is far more complex than just this basic triangle of aggression, defensiveness and sexuality, with its centrum of homeostasis, which is experienced in psychological terms as a zone of emotional near-neutrality. Let us explore, therefore, the "super-structure" which evolution has built upon this basic pattern of animal behaviour, and, together with the insights we have acquired about the nature and essence of conscious awareness, we may be able to trace a picture of the human personality that most of us could recognise as reasonably valid. At least, it should be able to function as a useful starting point for a widespread and wide-ranging discussion, if, and when, we become more aware of the need to search, deliberately and consciously, for a widely acceptable imagery of our own personality, as well as a widely shared core of understanding for the variability of human behaviour-patterns.

It may still seem extremely audacious to the reader to trace, in all sincerity, such a picture of the human personality, but, if you have been patient with me, so far, I ask you to go with me all the way, and, I promise you, that you will not be disappointed.

We have to go back to this crucial development, which set man onto the road of becoming a thinking, manipulating and conceptually communicating animal. This development is so remarkable, and, the results are so unique, that this thinking, human animal has, nearly always, refused, intuitively or consciously, to believe, that it was "an animal", just like the others.

The capability to think and speak, to believe and interpret the world around us in a vast and more or less coherent panorama of anthropomorphic force-fields, has given man the intuitive feeling, as well as the intellectual conviction, that he was a creature, quite different from the rest. In our modern imagery, we have abandoned the idea, that the species' were created through separate and deliberately "willed acts" by a Creative God, and, we have come to accept the concept, that we can explain, convincingly, the variety of species' as an evolutionary process, where the species' were derived from a "common stem" of the living organisation.

The variety of species' is so vast, and, the details of these evolutionary developments are still so vague, that it is difficult to give "proof" of these events, and, they remain, therefore, difficult to accept for many people, especially, if they have been brought-up with the more traditional, religious explanations for all existence.

If we want to explain man's existence as a slow evolution or "emergence" from other animal life-forms, we will have to develop some ideas about the way, we think, these changes took place. We have to have some answers to the question, why these developments took place, and, what sort of evolutionary changes led, eventually, to those cardinal features which set man apart as a unique species amongst the living organisms on earth.

These features are the ability to manipulate conscious awarenesses with the help of symbolic representations, and, to manipulate, with great fluency and virtuosity, a number of complex ideas, concepts and thoughts via the techniques of "language communications". As we have mentioned, these ideas have been discussed extensively in other essays, but, they are so important for our efforts to understand the structure of the human personality, that we will recapitulate, briefly, the main points.

We have sketched the social or communal nature of the animals from which man evolved, and, we know, that they lived in small groups at the borderline between the forests and the open plains. We also know, that these anthropoids used their prehensile fore-limbs to grab sticks or throw stones, while their hind limbs adapted to the frequent use of a "bipedal gait", which is an upright walk or run on those hind legs.

These animals were fairly small, and, they were not outstanding in anyone particular physical capability. Deeper into the forests, many species' were far more adept at living in the trees and obtaining their food there, while, on the plains, many mammals were bigger, could run faster, and, were much stronger. Some of them were undoubtedly predators of "proto-man", as well as other anthropoid species', as we like to call the group of species' from which man arose.

Perhaps, the main feature which made it possible for these anthropoids to survive, was their ability to increase the power of their aggressive and defensive behaviour-patterns with the use of "weapons"; sticks, branches, bones or stones, which they could pick-up and throw on account of the fact, that they had inherited those manipulative or prehensile hands and arms from their evolutionary past as tree-dwelling creatures.

These creatures were certainly agile and "clever", alert and keen. They had good, stereoscopic vision, as well as an excellent sense of balance and distance. They were also able to cooperate with each other, and, they lived in small groups that were hierarchically stratified under a dominant or leading animal. Most likely, these groups organised themselves to the point, where they left their females, youngsters, sick and older members in a "safe and sheltered place", while the strong and capable males would "hunt", and bring back, at least, a part of their catch to the hungry individuals left behind at their "base camp".

Another trait which made them highly adaptable, was the ability to use a large variety of foods to sustain themselves. Anthropoids never became "obligatory hunters", and, they often sustained themselves with fruis, nuts, berries, leaves, etc. Yet, they could make use of an opportunity to eat meat, and, this versatility in utilising a variety of food-sources, must have been an important factor in their ability to survive and evolve.

We have discussed the fact, that, evolutionary "spurts", or sudden evolutionary advancements and break-throughs, always take place in species' that have avoided a high degree of specialisation, and the anthropoids fitted this criterium quite well, because, versatility was their hall-mark. They had not been adapted to a precise and highly specific ecological niche.

This does not mean, that there is no "ecological niche" in which they lived, such as the borderline between the forests and the open grass-lands. The point we want to make, here, is the fact, that they survived rather unobtrusively by their wits and agility, and their existence must, often, have been precarious, as the environmental pressures upon them became frequently intense and could shift rapidly.

The anthropoid features, such as an intelligent, quick-witted, alert and agile disposition, with wide-ranging cerebral recognition-patterns and an excellent motoric control over their musculature, (an inheritance from their arboreal background), must have led, by accident or evolutionary necessity, to the exploration of the ability to recall the memory-traces of events by a series of gesticulations, vocalisations and imitative dances.

On occasion, a highly successful imitation must have caused a "flash of recognition" in others, and, the other members of the group would quickly participate in a spontaneous "re-living" of these vivid experiences. Of course, the significance and meaning of these developments were not at all clear to our ancestors, but, the ability to recall a particular memory-trace or past experience in the safety of their home environment, led to very important consequences.

Certain anthropoid groupings, or, perhaps, an entire species, learned to manipulate their memory-traces more or less voluntarily with the help of mimicry and imitations, which later evolved into a rapid flow of stylised gestures and vocalisations. This ability to bring-back into a focus of attention, a memory-trace that other animals could only experience, involuntarily, by virtue of an analogous experience, forms the basis of our ability to be "consciously aware", and, to evoke, rapidly, a number of mental images, whenever we "have a dialogue" with each other, or, with ourselves.

The ability to recall, frequently, and, at will, a large number of memory-traces, led, quickly, to the need to classify groups of memory-traces and experiences into classes with a common denominator, and, the conscious awareness of such a common denominator became, eventually, an "abstraction"; a quality, a feature, or a characteristic, which became slowly "an entity on its own"; existing as a separate or independent quality or entity in our minds, while, in actual reality, such a quality or abstraction was always associated with a concrete object of experience.

It is interesting to note, in passing, that this mental classification system parallels the "cerebral classification systems", which must exist, before the processes of recognition and the sense of familiarity can take place. However, let us not dwell, here, upon these parallels, but, let us move-on to the concept, that, an ever more elaborate system of mental classifications would develop as an "adaptation" to the rapidly increasing number of awarenesses that had found a form of symbolic representation.

Without a useful system to group a large number of conscious or symbolically representable awarenesses into a class of "logical coherence", (with clearly defined and secondarily classified, abstracting or classifying principles), we would quickly run into a situation, where the manipulation of conscious awarenesses would have become extremely cumbersome, and, the practice would have been abandoned a long time ago.

How many separate items of awareness can we "learn" and recall at will, if they do not have any logical connection with each other? Very few. When the anthropoid species' learned to "stow away" the ever-increasing flood of symbolically represented awarenesses into increasingly sophisticated systems of classification, the technique of communicating symbolically with each other became "very useful".

Let us see, then, whether or not we can trace a picture that shows us, why, and how, these developments became "very useful" to those animals that indulged in this sort of "spare-time activity". Again, we have to re-trace our steps for a moment, because, in order to appreciate, fully, what such a voluntary manipulation of our awarenesses means, we have to review, more in detail, what happens, when a behaviourally flexible and highly developed animal "behaves". Even, without the capability of conscious awarenesses and a voluntary manipulation of memory-traces, we see a highly complex and capable form of behaviour in the behaviourally flexible species', which makes full use of the "cerebral classification systems". As we noted earlier, these are similar to the super-imposed "mental classification systems" of our human conscious awarenesses, which are operative in the synthesis and regulation of conscious behavioural processes that are specific for the species of mankind.

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Chapter 5

Content

Animal behaviour.
Recognising the familiar, and, being constantly in touch with the environment.
Anticipating the outcome of a familiar event.
The ability to "digest" feelings and emotions with the help of a voluntary recall of memories and experiences.
A "cerebral grasp" over reality.
The tendency to name every familiar awareness.
The emergence of a structure of beliefs, together with an increased intellectual and manipulative mastery.
A communal effort to "fit" experiences into a coherent whole.
Conscious awarenesses and emotional reaction-patterns.
The fragile bonds of trust and mutual reliance.
Classifying emotions, feelings and attitudes on the scale of egocentricity and altruism.

Let us look at a pre-human, behaviourally flexible animal, as it hunts for its food. It is keenly alert, prowling around, and, all its senses, including the same special sense-organs we have been endowed with, are receiving, simultaneously, a large number of stimuli. We categorise these stimuli in the summarising concept of "sense impressions". However, in order for these sense impressions to be meaningful, they have to be recognised, and, this means, that the incoming sense impressions are continuously compared with a large variety of categories of sense impressions that have been stored as memory-traces in a cerebral system of classification.

Each sense impression is, therefore, categorised as it comes in, and, this act of classification and recognition gives meaning to a specific sense impression. By far the majority of the impressions are classified as "familiar", and, the response of the animal will be nearly "automatic" or "routine". It steps over stones and branches, and it avoids obstacles of all sorts, without ever losing its concentration on a more remote goal; e.g., its prey. The animal walks and ducks around objects, and, it scans the environment continuously. Its ears are monitoring all sounds, and, its sense of smell registers chemical traces in the air. In short, through its general and special sense-organs, the animal is constantly "in touch" with its environment, and, it recognises all the familiar events, objects and sounds. A continuous check against the data-banks of the cerebral memory-register is being made, in order to maintain this sense of familiarity.

We have to realise, that, "the familiar" has to be recognised or confirmed continuously, and, this includes static objects and surroundings, as well as a large number of events. The chirping of birds, the rushing sounds of a brook, or the wind through the leaves, the pitter-patter of rain-drops, or the silence of falling snow-flakes, all these sense impressions, and many others, are representative of events that are taking place, frequently, and, they are, therefore, recognised without any difficulties. Other events, such as the behaviour of various animals, in particular, those of its own species, and, of its predator or prey, are recognised, because these are the most important events to know.

Why do we elaborate something that is so obvious to us all? Because, we fail to realise, by and large, that all animal behaviour, especially, the behaviour of the highly developed and behaviourally flexible species', including ourselves, evolves around a continuous check of the incoming stimuli against the memories of past events, as well as a continuous anticipation of events and happenings in the immediate future. Events that have become a "routine" experience, are accurately recognised and anticipated in so far as their outcome is concerned.

The ability to accurately anticipate the immediate future of an event that has been recognised and correctly categorised, is of great importance in understanding, why an animal can hunt successfully, because a successful hunt includes a correct anticipation of the evasive manoeuvering of the prey. Even a sophisticated, behaviourally flexible animal lives, therefore, in a blend of the present, the past and the immediate future, and, this type of cognitive and anticipatory behaviour is made possible by the continuous, rapid and computer-like classification processes that take place in the brains of complex and highly evolved animals.

When a branch of the anthropoid species' began to enlarge its memory repertoir with a super-imposed structure of recallable mental images, or, symbolically representable, conscious awarenesses, we see, that the ability to "grasp reality" was immensely enlarged. As we mentioned, an animal can only react in accordance with the recognition-patterns that are evoked by an actual, analogous situation. The animal can not deliberately "reflect" upon certain experiences in the safety of his hide-out, and, it can not compare, communicate or express these experiences to other animals. The animal can only communicate, rather crudely, a state of alertness. It can show signs of alarm, or, of being sexually interested, and, these signals may "synchronise" the "mood", or status of alertness, in the other members of the group. However, the human species developed the ability to re-live, and "muse", over past experiences, and, these experiences or memories became, therefore, far more vivid than an experience that was "lived through" only once, and could only be recalled by an analogous experience.

With the help of symbolic representations, an experience can be re-lived in the safety of a sheltered environment, and, such an experience can, therefore, become less intensely charged with the feelings of anxiety and other emotions, which are the verbalisable or symbolically representable awarenesses of the feelings we notice, when our behaviour is strongly under the influence of one of the three existential poles of behaviour.

Man's ability to form a set of conscious, communicable and verbalisable awarenesses, describing, to some extent, the realities of his existence, opens the way for a "comprehension"; a grasp of reality that exceeds, by far, the intuitive or "cerebral" grasp over reality that is shown by the hunting animal.

True, only a small fragment of the total flow of sense impressions comes into a sharp focus of conscious awareness, and, we still rely for our behavioural responses upon intuitive or sub-conscious classification mechanisms, as well as upon the primary cerebral mechanisms of recognition. In addition to the classification of sense impressions that could be verbalised, if necessary or desired, there is, also, a largely subconscious registration of awarenesses that have the potential of being verbalised, but, these awarenesses have not been "noted" with a sufficient degree of sharpness by the individual to be registered as a precise and specific sense impression.

Compared to the completely automatic cerebral classification mechanisms, the sense impressions that form the basis for a conscious, mental deliberation, are very slow. Therefore, all "routine" reactions by-pass our conscious evaluation processes, and, the cerebral mechanisms are supported by a large pool, or reservoir, of sub-conscious awarenesses, where evaluations and comparisons are made quickly and routinely.

Let us elaborate, for a moment, on the idea, that we use our conscious awarenesses to give a name, or a verbalisable symbol, to what we are aware of. Just as the hunting animal recognises its environment by virtue of its cerebral classification mechanisms, so does a conscious human mind put a name on everything it sees, feels, hears or experiences in the focus of his conscious awareness. This is a separate, but super-imposed process of mental or verbalisable activities. These activities are also carried-out by the brain, because, after all, even, the mental or conscious awarenesses, as well as their mechanisms of classification, are based on cerebral mechanisms.

If we can not put a name on a conscious awareness, it does not mean, that it is something totally strange or unfamiliar. Cerebrally, we may have classified something as familiar, but, we also want to be able to name whatever is familiar to us, otherwise, we feel, that we do not have an adequate grasp over this particular reality. Therefore, consciously evaluating a (small) part of our experiences, means, that we try to put a verbal label on these experiences or awarenesses.

I think, that we have developed, here, a basic understanding of the principles of conscious awareness, and, this lets us see, how human consciousness evolved from the animal or "cerebral" form of awareness. I realise, that this is a very sketchy outline, but, we refer the reader to other essays, where we have described these ideas more in detail. We have to get-on with the task of describing the specifically human characteristics of conscious awareness.

Objects and events that have been verbalised, or can be given a name, are categorised by a generalising or classifying principle, which may, eventually, become an "abstraction", and, it leads, then, a conceptually independent existence. Whenever a small group of people have worked-out a system of symbolic representations, after a period of intense experimentation with the possibilities of primarily vocal symbolic representations, or language, its members can form a more or less coherent "image of reality", where, at least, some of the common and classified awarenesses have been grouped-together and placed into a framework of causal and coherent relationships. This framework of coherent relationships begins to form a "structure of beliefs", and, these beliefs are thought to represent the reality "as it really exists".

Daily experiences are interpreted in this light, and, if the interpretation of these experiences in the light of a communally accepted structure of beliefs, leads to an increase in predictability, grasp or manipulability, the credence or credibility of such a structure of beliefs has been strongly re-enforced.

If a number of experiences do not fit into a belief structure, there will be an uneasy feeling of discrepancy, and, it will be difficult to know, what to do with the observations and experiences that "do not fit". They tend to undermine the credibility of a belief structure. Such a belief structure may, then, slowly fade from the scene, as it is being replaced by a structure that seems to "fit better" with the observations that have been made. The "adapted" belief structure will, then, enhance, once again, the sense of predictability or mastery, as the members of the community orden their experiences and sense impressions into an improved structure of beliefs, and grasp the realities around them "as they appear to exist"

A successful structure of beliefs gives, not only, "intellectual security", by providing an acceptable explanation of coherence for a number of seemingly separate events, but, even more important is the fact, that, belief structures start to function as guiding principles for the behaviour-patterns of the members of a community.

Certainly, the basic existential poles remain important behavioural organisers, and, we know, that human behaviour becomes more primitive or more instinctive, and less "rational", as it moves closer to one of these existential poles, but, the conscious experience of reality becomes, also, an important tool to shape patterns of behaviour.

The sense of mastery that comes with a successful grasp over reality, is used to "manipulate", or "influence", forces, or force-fields, over which the human being did not have any control before. This lack of control is, then, easily explained, because the human being did not "understand", or grasp, these force-fields before, as he can do, now, in a conscious structure of much more coherent beliefs.

We may still interpret, in hind-sight, that, most of these belief structures did not allow for truly manipulative behaviour-patterns, but, we should not forget, that, early man with his strong sense of reality, really believed in the world of anthropomorphic force-fields with which he gave a logical explanation to a wide range of his experiences. We may shrug-off all these attempts to influence with magic rituals, incantations and prayers the course of natural phenomena, (including the behaviour of the spirits and the gods), as futile attempts by ignorant savages, but, we forget, then, that these people really believed in what they were doing, and, they must have had good reasons for their beliefs. They really believed that they could influence these forces, and, the fact, that these belief structures became well established, must mean, that the experiences of early man re-enforced their beliefs in magical manipulability, over and over again.

Here, we see an important and frequently recurring principle of human behaviour. Belief structures represent a communal attempt to "fit" the generally accepted experiences into a coherent whole, but, once such a system of beliefs has been accepted, and is transmitted successfully from one generation to the next, there is a strong tendency to interpret subsequent experiences according to previously accepted beliefs.

However, let us emphasise, here, that belief-structures are not merely intellectual scaffolds to help us classify the numerous conscious awarenesses that have become a part of the "cultural pool" of our society. Our beliefs, in particular, those arising during the initial stages of the evolution of conscious awareness, remain closely linked with the strong existential feelings and emotions of hope and fear, and, these beliefs become, therefore, important secondary structures that regulate, together with the genetic instructions of our biological heritage, the behaviour-patterns of human beings.

It is time to discuss the nature of emotions, and, it is time to clarify, what we mean by the concepts of motivations, moods and goals. We should, then, be able to complete this "super-structure" of the personality, which gives human behaviour an extra dimension compared to "pre-symbolic" animal behaviour-patterns.

An emotion is a "feeling", which we are aware of, at least, to some extent, if something "arouses" our existential concerns or interests. If we perceive something in the environment that is dangerous or a potential threat to our existence, we will immediately be aroused into a state of alertness, and, at the same time, the "defensive pole" of our behaviour comes into action. The degree to which this defensive pole comes into play, varies a great deal, ranging from a mild concern or attitude of caution, to uneasiness, fear, and, eventually, to outright panic or a desperate last stance.

These varying reactions depend on the intensity of the threatening stimuli, and, they are associated with a gradually more intense set of feelings or emotions. We have given a large number of names, or verbal symbols, to these feelings. Now, we know, that all these feelings are, essentially, similar in nature, but, they vary in intensity, and, it is understandable, in view of the slow process of verbalisation, that the meaning or definition of these varying states of existential arousal, remains vague and overlapping.

Similarly, we are aware of a whole series of feelings and emotions associated with the aggressive pole of our behaviour, and, we all are familiar with the fact, that the pole of sexuality gives also rise to a great many different and varied feelings. However, there are also many feelings and emotions that can not be so easily categorised into one of the three instinctive or existential poles of our behaviour. There are, first of all, feelings, that seem to fall, somewhere, in between the two or three existential poles, and, these feelings and sensations seem to represent, therefore, a mixture of instinctive influences.

A major source of feelings and emotions that can not be so easily categorised, has to do with the fact, that the orientation of our concerns and anxieties can be on the negative or positive side of two different sliding axes. We have discussed the axis of aggression and defense, but, there is also an axis of concern for the self, versus a concern for other people. The human being can be strictly egocentric in its behavioural orientation, where all the decisions and concerns take only the "ego", or its own existence, into account, but, it is also possible to be bonded strongly to one or several other individuals. These bonds take the form of feelings of trust, affection, "love", mutual concern, etc. Then, the center of concern is not just the self, or the ego, but, it includes the members of a small group who are bonded together by these relationships.

We have traced the origins of the ability to form trustful bonds with other members of the same species, to the attitudes and behavioural instincts of "parental concern", which become a necessary adjunct to the pole of sexual behaviour, especially, in species' with a "program" of behavioural flexibility. In particular the anthropoids have an extremely vulnerable off-spring, which remains helpless for a prolonged period of time after birth. Nature had to sharpen a precise and complex instinct of parental and maternal care as a corollary, or sequel, to the mating instinct; otherwise, the survival of such vulnerable off-spring would not be possible.

The helplessness of the infant "triggers" an attitude of care and concern, which is remarkably sustained and consistent, especially, in the anthropoids and the species of mankind. Youngsters, growing-up in such a sheltered and protected environment, remain "trustful" of the members who belong to the immediate social environment, but, we see, also, that, gradually, throughout the period of infancy, childhood and adolescence, the individual becomes increasingly capable of looking after itself. At the same time, "protection" becomes mixed with "stimulation" in the form of a number of challenges, as well as the setting of guidelines and limits for the sort of behaviour that is favoured or tolerated by the other members of the group.

The instincts of parental care, as well as the ability to form trustful relationships, even, after the period of adolescence has ended, forms the basis for the social unit of the family, and, it is probably a building-block for the larger social units as well. It is also a corner-stone for the development of "natural ethical behaviour-patterns", or, the acceptance of a sub-conscious, moral code of conduct for the members of such a socially integrated grouping. And, of course, these mechanisms form also the basis for this sliding axis between egocentric and multi-centric concerns.

However, the bonds of trust and mutual reliance are never immutable. From an early age, egocentric instincts break through in the behaviour of the off-spring, and, the parents, too, may behave in a way, indicating, that they are getting somewhat tired and frustrated with their never-ending tasks of looking after their off-spring. We see, indeed, that the relationships between people are continuously sliding and shifting between the two extreme poles of "total egocentricity" and "total commitment" to the well-being of another indvidual.

There are numerous actions and reactions between people, pushing the balance-point towards egocentricity, or towards a greater degree of mutual reliance and inter-dependence. Attitudes and emotions that lead to a greater degree of egocentricity, are summarised in the concepts of suspicion, hostility, treachery, conflict and hatred, etc., while emotions and feelings that lead to an increased bonding, are categorised as mutual trust, friendship, loyalty, sacrifice, love, etc.

A mood is a more sustained feeling or state of alertness, while an emotion is the somewhat fleeting feeling associated with a specific response or reaction to a specific event. A motivation is a constellation of factors, or, perhaps, a single dominant factor, that may set a specific behavioural act into motion, and, the direction or purpose of our behaviour is characterised by an objective, or a pattern of somewhat related goals.

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Chapter 6

Content

A quick review of complex material.
A look at human goals and objectives.
Short-term, intermediate and long-term goal-patterns.
Objectives that change with age and experience.
The beauty of achievement, and the desire to make a contribution.
The motivations behind our goals; a revealing outlook on life.
Maintenance-energy and the elan vital.
Human nature is so much easier to understand, when analysed from a biological, motivational point of view.
The conscious, the sub-conscious but retrievable sphere of experiences, and the "forgotten" experiences.
A definition of "the un-conscious".
Judgement functions of the human mind.
Building-up a mental imagery from current conceptual building-blocks.
Voluntary and involuntary access to a pool of memories.
The awareness of "the self".
The "essence of my existence"; an abstraction as fragile and transient as a flawlessly executed musical passage.

We have been going over complex ground rather quickly, but, we have discussed the concepts of moods, emotions, goals and motivations before, and, here, we want to put all these aspects of behaviour into an overall perspective of the human personality. We should, indeed, not forget, that we are always engaged in some sort of activity. There are always sense impressions to be evaluated, and, in the sensitive and reflective human being, there are always thoughts, reminiscences or re-evaluations of past experiences going-on.

While the animal has a limited ability to foresee the immediate future of on-going events, the human being, with its structures of belief and a greatly enlarged grasp over reality, is able to see events on a much larger scale. We are concerned, here, not only, with the ability to anticipate the immediate future of an on-going event, but, we also have the ability to extrapolate events over a much longer period of time. This extrapolation is a direct result of our ability to grasp, at least, part of the surrounding realities in a conscious framework of conceptual relationships. The consequences of these long-term extrapolations are truly gigantic.

Let us reflect, for a moment, on the numerous goal-patterns we can detect in ourselves, and others. We see a great variety objectives and ambitions, as well as tasks and chores, which are mandatory or "imposed goals". Human goals and objectives form a very complex pattern, indeed. For the sake of clarity, it is probably justified to sub-divide these goals, somewhat arbitrarily, into short-term, medium-term and long-term objectives. While we will not try to pin them down more accurately, by defining or indicating precise time relationships, we can say, that our short-term goals and objectives are largely of a routine nature.

Look at an ordinary day in our lives, and, we see, that, from the moment we get-up in the morning, our day is filled with numerous, often simultaneous and over-lapping, short-term goals and objectives. We get dressed, have break-fast, brush our teeth, listen to the news, or read the morning-paper, etc. Here, we see, already, a whole host of "routine", daily activities, that are organised around goals which we accomplish without much effort. Yet, we know, that, any break in this routine, any failure to reach our objectives smoothly, can be a highly annoying experience.

We get to work, and, even, this simple objective consists, usually, of a great many smaller tasks that have to be accomplished, one after the other. If we fail, we have an accident, miss a connection, and come too late. Our work is a combination of short, intermediate and long-term objectives. There are many routine activities that are accomplished within minutes, or, at the most, a few hours. The intermediate objectives are goals that take a few days or, perhaps, a few weeks to accomplish, and they are much less routine. They require an active effort on our part in order to become "organised" and "realised".

Long-term goals are represented by a number of somewhat vague ambitions. We are usually not satisfied to stay where we are for the rest of our working career, because, we may have the feeling that we are "stagnating"; that we could accomplish more, and, indeed, we see, how most of us strive to accomplish a number of long-term goals or ambitions. We may want to achieve a higher position in the firm or department we work for. We may want to study or up-grade ourselves. We may want to buy a house or a car. We may want to move to an area, where it is more pleasant to live, etc., etc.

Sometims, our long-term goals are more "defensive". We want to save more, so we can get out of debt and "move more freely", or, we want to hold-on to a privileged position, and, we defend our job against young and eager competitors. Sometimes, we are afraid of losing our job, because the work we do is rather unproductive and redundant. Perhaps, we suffer from an illness, and, we want to get better, or, we want to break an enslaving habit, like drinking or smoking, etc.

If we happen to have a reflective nature, or, if we have been sensitised to the beauty of artistic achievements, we would like very much to make a contribution, somewhere. This goal reflects, at least, in part, an effort to cope with this most important riddle we all face, sooner or later. This is the certainty that we will die, some day, and, this certainty is always clouded by a vague fear, that we may have to suffer severely, before we can pass into a state of death, or, that we may suffer after death, especially, if we believe in the religious reality perceptions about eternal life, be it in Heaven, in Hell, or, somewhere in between.

What is death? Why do we have to die and suffer? How will we be remembered by those, who come after us? Will they remember us, and, is there any reason why they should think of us? Do we want to make a contribution, because we want people to think well of us, after our death, or, do we have really something to say; to give, or, to contribute to those, who will come after us, and go through, largely, the same emotions and experiences, while facing the same questions and the same cycle of life and death?

Ambitions and goals show, therefore, a great deal of variety, and, they may represent many different objectives. What is meaningful for some, may be meaningless to others, but, if we look, only, at the large variety of goals and objectives of human behaviour, we have a difficult time grasping their meaning. Let us look, therefore, at the motivations of our goals; from the short-term, routine goals, through the more complex but still largely pragmatic intermediate goal-patterns, to those long-term dreams and ambitions, which reveal, much more clearly, our outlook on life.

The motivations behind these long-term goals and ambitions can, sometimes, give us a remarkable sense of cohesion, as well as a measure of firmness to our personality. Such goal-directed behaviour lies, nearly always, behind exceptional achievements. The short-term goals are primarily routine or "maintenance goals". We get-up, get dressed, eat and clean ourselves, and, we go to work, because we have to do all these things to "maintain a desirable status-quo". Just like a cell has to spend, continuously, a certain amount of energy to "maintain itself", so does every organism have to spend energy to maintain its existence, and, this is the reason, why our instinctive heritage reveals the three existential poles we have discussed on many occasions.

A human being in society is not really different from an animal in the wild, but, the "desirable status-quo" is heavily influenced by the beliefs and attitudes of our social environment, and, these beliefs and attitudes tell us, how each one of us "ought to live". Besides, all ambitions to reach a "higher level in society" are fueled by this fundamental source of "vital energy", which is a hall-mark of all living organisms, including the human being. This vital energy, or "elan vital", is not a mysterious or specific characteristic of the living organisation, but, it is a consequence of the fact, that the living organisation dissipates, continuously, a stream of energy through its system.

In part, this energy is used to maintain its existence at a comfortable status-quo, but, partly, the "left-over" energy that is available after primary existential concerns have been taken care of, is being channeled into a never-ending search for a "better way" to exist, and, in the human society, this means, a search for a higher or more secure position in the social hierarchy.

These are fundamental evolutionary concepts that have been discussed before, and, we will only allude to them to help us grasp and comprehend the complexity of human drives and motivations. In summary, then, we use our energies, primarily, to maintain our viability in a large and complex series of activities and goal-oriented behaviour-patterns. These activities range from the need to keep ourselves fed, clothed, clean and in good health, (and, to keep our homes in a good state of repair), to the need to make a living and maintain a satisfactory position in society. Finally, our activities include, also, the ambitious dreams that reflect our deepest desires and questions about the origin and meaning of human existence.

We have to spend a certain amount of energy to fulfill the requirements of personal and social existence, because we all are part of some sort of social environment, where the existential requirements and tasks have been divided over a number of people. In order to maintain ourselves, we have to work. We have to provide a service or manufacture a product for others, and, in return, we receive the financial means to "buy" the needed services and products that are being provided by other people.

By far the greatest part of our daily activities are, therefore, concerned with this primary aim of maintaining a viable status-quo. Our long-term goals can be either defensive or aggressive, as we have discussed. As we get older, the goals become, by necessity, more defensive, but, as long as we are young and full of energy, and, as long as we have the feeling that we are capable of accomplishing more than we have done, so far, we are driven by a remarkable energy-gradient, prompting us to set goals of a long-term nature, and, as a result, we work hard and consistently in our efforts to realise our objectives.

We see, then, that it is very useful to analyse human activities in terms of motivations, rather than the goal-patterns themselves, because it is so much easier to group-together a variety of motivations, than the seemingly endless variety of goals, ambitions and objectives. It is important to remind ourselves, that the motivations can be grouped around existential requirements. The accent may fall on our own existential requirements, but, we see, also, many varied motivations that take into account, in ever varying degrees of complexity, the existential requirements of others.

The social environment we live in, emphasises, through its behavioural guidelines, the mores, ethics, customs and laws of its cultural code, and, this means, always, an emphasis upon a behaviour that is multi-centric in its concerns. However, often, our experiences are such, that we are disappointed or suspicious of other people, and, then, the motivations behind our behaviour become strained and contradictory. Our experiences, as well as the interpretation of these experiences, tend to focus our behaviour around the well-being of a much smaller group than the society as a whole. Perhaps, we contract the sphere of concern around our own existence. However, such a blatant egocentric attitude is hostile to others, and the social environment will, rightfully, object, if our behaviour violates the vague boundaries between what is tolerated and what is not.

However, before we get into the dynamics of the human personality as it inter-reacts with other people in its environment, I would like to complete the picture of the human personality by discussing, how conscious awarenesses slide imperceptibly into a vast region of less conscious awarenesses, or, even, sub-conscious awarenesses, which can not be recalled, anymore, "voluntarily". These subconscious experiences may still be recalled by an analogous experience, and, they surface then into a focus of awareness, either as a specific awareness that had been "forgotten", or, the recall of a subconscious experience may merely evoke a generalised "feeling", or "emotional arousal". (We reserve the term "unconscious" for a damaged or sick state of the organism, when it can not be aroused anymore into a state of alertness by environmental stimuli.)

We like to discuss, more in detail, the functions of interpretation and judgement, and, we want to recall, briefly, the nature and mechanisms of "thought". We should also recall the nature of this feeling of "the self", and, we will discuss the mechanisms that make such an awareness possible. Finally, in rounding-off the imagery of the human personality as an individual entity, we want to discuss the discrepancies in judgement which a personality can experience; whenever it judges its status at the moment to be unsatisfactory, and, to be radically different from the "status it ought to be in". We will see, that this discrepancy is a powerful source of motivations and emotions.

Conscious awarenesses arise, because certain memory-traces find a symbolic representation and become subject to voluntary recall with the help of mimicry, gesticulations, vocalisations, etc. Initially, the only aspect that was voluntary, was the "trigger" to bring a memory-trace back into a focus of attention, and, whatever was recalled depended, therefore, upon the content of the memory-trace and the way it had been recorded by an individual.

Later, by frequent recall, supplemented with the technique of using "qualifying symbols", it became possible to shape, voluntarily, the meaning and form of such a memory-trace, and, eventually, the ability to convey a meaning or a mental image with the help of symbols, especially, language symbols, developed to the point, that a specific but essentially unknown or unfamiliar mental image could be "build-up" with the help of a large number of commonly understood symbols.

An individual could, then, "learn something new", be it "second hand". This learning came-about through the assimilation and understanding of verbalised experiences and symbols from the social environment. The mental image that was recalled, or evoked, by symbolic representations, did not depend, then, on a pre-existing experience, but, it depended on an adequate mastery over a repertoir of "building-block symbols", which were more or less uniformly understood throughout the society, and, which were varied enough to give a useful composite image of such a newly learned concept, entity or idea. Certainly, additional or personal experiences could clarify, to a remarkable extent, the precision and meaning of such a concept which had been "built-up" out of conceptual or symbolic building-blocks.

The point we want to make, here, is the fact, that, only a small percentage of our experiences, awarenesses, sense impressions and feelings are verbalisable as symbolic representations, and, only a small percentage of such verbalisable experiences or awarenesses have a clear and precise meaning. Our world of precise concepts blends, imperceptibly, with a world of much less precise notions and feelings, where a large number of symbolic representations evoke widely fluctuating images and levels of significance amongst the peoples of a social environment. This wider world of vague perceptions, blends, once again, with an even much larger world of sub-conscious notions and perceptions.

The subconscious is a pool of experiences, memory-traces, awarenesses and feelings, which are partly verbalisable and partly beyond a conscious grasp, but, the essence of the subconscious lies in the fact, that we have, really, no voluntary access to this pool. We use this pool, at least, in part, as a memory reservoir, because images may well-up into our conscious awareness by a process of "association".

An image may be evoked, if it is "brought to the surface" by a sense impression, or a reminiscence, which has been classified in the same category. Through the process of association, a number of related images or awarenesses may surface, which we "had forgotten"; at least, we could not bring these images to the surface, except by such a process of association. You will note, that these mechanisms of recall by association only, are closely related to the recall by an analogous situation, which is the mechanism of recognition in the pre-symbolic but flexible animal species'.

From this summary description of the world of conscious and subconscious awarenesses, it is no surprise to come to the conclusion that the world of our conscious awarenesses is only a small fraction of the total pool of awarenesses, experiences and memory-traces we could be aware of, if we had an unlimited time and capacity to know and remember. Since our behaviour is influenced by the entire pool of conscious and subconscious awarenesses and notions, and, not only by our conscious awarenesses and decisions, we should not be surprised to experience a measure of non-understanding about the reasons and mechanisms of our own behaviour.

Again, let us not go into psychodynamic mechanisms, here, because we want to discuss, more in detail, the world of conscious awarenesses, and, in particular, this remarkable capability to abstract secondary awarenesses, such as classifying or categorising principles. We see, then, the curious phenomenon, that qualities and attributes, together with a whole host of "abstract concepts", lead an "independent life" in our minds, while they do not exist as separate items of existence in the world of observations and experiences. Qualities, such as colour or texture, number or speed, variety and unevenness, are all abstractions, that exist, only, in conjunction with a concrete object or event.

Even "time" is an abstraction of the awareness and experience that circumstances can, and do, change, from moment to moment, in spite of the fact, that some changes are so slow, that they have to be measured in a time-span of thousands of years, while other events are so quick, that even the most sophisticated, high-speed cinema-photography is unable to capture the event in detail. A millionth of a second is, then, too long, in particular, when we think about, or investigate, events in the world of sub-atomic or particle physics.

The awareness of the "self", the "I", as a subject of conscious awareness, is an abstraction that depends upon a gradually developed capability to "see ourselves react and behave". By focussing attention upon the qualities or attributes of our own being, we can, eventually, develop this curious feeling that there is an "observing me", that looks, judges and stands apart from an "acting me". The implications of this capability are far-reaching, but, it is important to keep in mind, that we are dealing with the capabilities of symbolic abstraction, and, that the sensation or experience of having "discovered" this "inner me", this "essence of my existence", is just as fragile an entity, as a flawlessly executed musical passage, where the memory of beauty and admiration linger-on, or remain with us for the rest of our lives, while the reality of the entity is dissolved in "thin air" within a few seconds after its completion.

We can argue, successfully, that the quality of beauty we experience with the appreciation of a flawlessly executed musical passage, is entirely the result of a synthesis in our own mind, because the sound-waves in themselves have no unity or meaning. They are only a physical skeleton for the beauty of melody, harmony and rythm, which constitutes the essence of a communication between listener and performer.

These are all fascinating aspects of the capabilities of the human mind, and, we have discussed many of them throughout years of writing essays. Undoubtdly, I will continue to write for many years to come, if fate and fortune allow. In the next chapter, we want to discuss, briefly, the nature of thought, because it is such an essential part of our personality. We will only review the nature of thought in overall terms, because, as so many other aspects of human existence, these specific aspects of our existence have often been discussed in an essay, or part of an essay, which was more specific in its scope than this one. This essay has been designed, specifically, with the purpose of bringing a general perspective of the human personality into view.

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Chapter 7

Content

What is thought?
A brief recall of evolutionary principles.
The epitomy of nature's experiment with behavioural flexibility.
The need to "finely tune" our behavioural responses.
Solving problems.
The "sensory side" of our thought processes.
"Postulating a response"; an imaginary review of its likely results.
A series of "hypothetical inputs", and an on-going series of judgements.
The function of the "will".
The experience of a "freedom of choice" during a voluntary act.

What, then, is thought? In order to present our ideas coherently, we have to go back to the question; what is behaviour? All living organisms are continuously subjected to a variety of stimuli from the world around them, as well as from their own internal environment. Many of these stimuli are monitored, even, if they are not reacted to, and, therefore, the organism has to make some sort of an evaluation about the significance of all these stimuli.

The most primitive organisms can only react "chemically". This means, that they can, either, "open-up" and absorb the beneficial components of their environment and extrude unwanted waste-products into it, or, they can "close-up" and try to minimise the penetration of harmful substances and stimuli. If the organism has developed some sort of propulsive mechanism, it can prolong contact with a beneficial environment by moving towards it, or with it, and, it can minimise noxious influences by moving away from a harmful or potentially harmful environment.

The sophisticated, multi-cellular animals still behave in essentially the same manner, in spite of the fact, that they can analyse a large variety of complex and simultaneous stimuli through a number of special sense-organs. They can react in a precisely appropriate manner, because they have numerous behavioural choices. One of the characteristics of "behavioural flexibility" is the ability to "tailor" a behavioural response according to the circumstances as they exist.

For primitive animals, the behavioural reaction-patterns to stimuli are clear-cut and stereotyped, because these responses are encoded, in detail, by their genetic code, but, in the behaviourally flexible species', nature gives the individual organism a chance to "learn" from a large number of experiences, and adjust its behavioural response, at least, in a number of details. Its response will then be in accordance with the evaluation of past experiences in similar situations. The genetic instructions are, then, not anymore precise, but, they set overall guidelines and limits to the range of the behavioural response, and, the exact details of a response are left to the discretion of a behaviourally flexible animal, at the time it needs to respond to a particular situation.

This is the reason for the registration and classification of so many memory-traces. If a certain experience in the past has been beneficial or harmful, then, the significance of this experience has been "noted". If an animal experiences a similar situation, the incoming sense impressions will recall, "by association", the appropriate category into a focus of awareness, and, the contemporary, incoming sense impression will be given its appropriate existential meaning.

The great advantage of flexible behaviour lies in the fact, that an animal can have a much larger range of behavioural adaptations, and, this may make it easier to find food, shelter and protection. A behaviourally flexible animal can, quickly and smoothly, adapt or change its behavioural responses in accordance with changing circumstances, without having to "wait" for the much slower, but surer, genetic adaptations, which have to be imprinted into the gene-pool of a species via the mechanisms of natural selection.

As we have discussed before, the human animal is, probably, the epitomy of nature's experiment with behavioural flexibility, because the human being makes use, not only, of the cerebral classification mechanisms in order to recognise similarities and familiarities, but, it also makes use of a structure of conscious or verbalisable beliefs which depend on the classification of verbalisable or conscious awarenesses.

These belief structures vary from one group of socially integrated human beings to the next, and, these beliefs represent communal experiences that have found a measure of symbolic representation and validity, after they have been "communicated", extensively, amongst the members. Here, we see an additional dimension of variability or flexibility in behaviour arise, but, the price of such a large range of behavioural flexibility is paid-for by a vagueness in the package of genetically encoded behavioural instructions. Indeed, we see, clearly, that primitive, instinctive behaviour-patterns are often unsatisfactory for the human being, and lead, quickly, to great difficulties. The human being needs to "finely tune" its behaviour, almost continuously, in order to make its responses "appropriate".

We see, then, that "automatic" or routine responses are, by and large, "learned" responses, but, because the circumstances are repetitive, it takes much less effort to synthesise an appropriate routine response, However, if we face a set of circumstances, or a particular task, for the first time, we have to stop and think, because we do not have a ready-made, appropriate response at our finger-tips. We first analyse the circumstances into a series of manageable problems, and, we try to "solve" or understand these problems, or, the nature of each component in the series of problems, separately. Eventually, after a period of study and asking questions to obtain additional information to help us in the task of analysis, we may come to a point, that we can say to ourselves to "understand", or grasp the situation at hand.

This is, nearly always, the most difficult part of solving a complex problem, and, the more clearly and precisely we understand a situation, the easier it is to synthesise, "logically", an appropriate response, because we have, then, understood the situation, clearly. Occasionally, a precise understanding still requires a long and difficult response, but, if we analyse such a situation again, we see, that the problems were aggravated because of the fact, that we were not sure about some of the aspects we had to deal with.

Often, the reality is so complex, that we can not grasp all the aspects adequately, or, we interpret the reality in a preconceived framework of beliefs, which does not let us see reality as precisely as could be possible, without such preconceived assumptions or beliefs. Or, there are just too many variables and uncertainties, because we are unable to get precise information, or, the behavioural reactions of the people around us are becoming less predictable, as an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust sours relationships between the members of a social environment.

The crux of the matter is the fact, that the most complex and the most conscious sense impressions require a great deal of "work", before we are confident that we can interpret them properly. We can not rely, anymore, on a "simple" cerebral association of contemporary sense impressions with an appropriate category of past experiences. Often, we have to select from a maze of contradictory sense impresions, those, we think, are the most important. This requires a period of observation and communication with other people, who may have encountered similar problems, and, it requires a careful and deliberate scrutiny of our own awarenesses and experiences.

This is, perhaps, a fairly adequate summary of the "sensory" side of our thought processes. However, there is another important super-structure that plays a role in thinking. After having made a "choice", so to speak, about the best way of perceiving or interpreting a relevant reality, we do not "jump" into a response, but we "postulate" a behavioural response in our mind. We "think", what would happen, if we did so and so, and, we review the postulated results in our minds as a series of "evoked" sense impressions. These are not really sense impressions from a contemporary reality, but, they are images that are evoked from our memory and judgement faculties, by "inserting" a hypothetical response and "see in our mind what happens".

The activity of thinking is often made-up by a series of "hypothetical inputs", or postulated responses, together with a careful evaluation of possible and probable results. This inter-play between the sensory and the acting or motoric side of our thought-processes, can go-on for a long time. However, fairly soon, we come to the conclusion, that the extrapolated series of "possible results" becomes increasingly uncertain, and, we need, then, a "check against reality", to see, whether or not our thought processes are still valid.

This, in a nutshell, is the essence of our thought processes, but, it is clear, that we need to excercise a great deal of effort and concentration to "synthesise" an adequate response to sense impressions that are difficult to evaluate or judge. They are often difficult to evaluate or categorise because of many contradictory features, and the response can, therefore, not be "routine". This effort to concentrate, to think and work hard to find a, hopefully, adequate behavioural response, is summarised by the concept or the act of "willing".

Certainly, the conscious initiation of a particular response, even, the simple and "routine" act of picking-up an object, is a function of the will, because we know, that we have to make a conscious decision to initiate this action. Characteristically, we initiate many actions with our will, but the detailed execution of the manoeuver is outside our will and conscious awareness, and, it proceeds largely "automatically". In many ways, we do not even have conscious access to numerous details of action and reaction that take place, after we have initiated the command to "go".

However, the most intriguing functions of the will come into view, when we look at the complex behavioural responses that take a long time to synthesise. Sometimes, a behavioural response is never fully synthesised and completed, as we may struggle, for many years, with a difficult dilemma that is never resolved completely.

Some traditional, primarily, religious interpretations of reality may make us wonder, whether or not we really have a choice. Sometimes, it seems, that all behavioural decisions are "predestined" to occur the way they do, and, some behavioural theories show, that the behavioural choice of "simple organisms" can be predicted by an algebraic summation of positive and negative factors.

If the balance is clearly in favour of one response or another, then, of course, the "choice" will be predictable, and, it really ceases to be a choice. However, if positive and negative factors are scrupulously "in balance", the choice is not predictable, but, the possibility has not been ruled-out, of course, that a future analysis may be more refined, and, that it will show a bias towards one side or the other, which makes, then, the behavioural choice, again, a more "predictable event".

We have discussed these questions before, and, will not re-iterate them here, except to say that, whatever "another observer" of our behaviour may be able to predict about the difficult deliberations of our "free will", there can be no doubt about the legitimacy of our subjective experiences. These indicate to us, that, in many instances, we have to synthesise a behavioural response with a serious effort of our conscious will. Let us forego, here, a discussion of "religious pre-destination", because it is a complex subject that has been dealt with, extensively, elsewhere.

.......

Chapter 8

Content

Mechanisms of "stress" or "tension".
The discrepancy between what we are, and, what we like to be.
Identification mechanisms.
Becoming a personality.
Commercial stimuli in affluent societies.
Severe tensions and chronic frustrations.
The tensions of affluent life.
The use of sedatives and intoxicants.
Aggravating tensions by a deteriorating performance.
A cautious life-style amidst a "crazy world".
Channeling energies into the right direction.
The "steeling" of a character.
Compulsive and lackadaisical attitudes.
Reflection and thought; tools to re-evaluate our position.
The mechanisms of laughter.
People are quite willing to laugh.
Comedy; its functions.
The usefulness of a philosophical over-view.
The time to learn and think is past, when we have been trapped into a corner.
The price of our ability to anticipate the future is a feeling of chronic anxiety.
A series of cautious anticipations.

In the final chapter of this essay, we should turn our attention to the phenomenon of "stress", or "tension". We are frequently, and, sometimes, constantly, subjected to some sort of tension. These tensions may arise from the environment, but, they may also come from within ourselves. A common mechanism of chronic tensions within ourselves is the discrepancy between "what we judge ourselves to be", and, "what we like to be or become".

This tension is a "residual" or left-over tension from a normal growth mechanism, because, during our growth from childhood, through adolescence into adulthood, we "use" this tension to guide our actions and direct the growth-energy of our young, healthy, vigorous and ambitious personality. The left-over energies are used to set goals of one sort or another. A primary form of "goal-setting" is the identification with a "hero". Who becomes a hero, depends on a combination of our own talents and inclinations, as well as the chance-stimuli and contacts we have been exposed to.

For example, we may want to emulate a sport's figure, if we happen to have become interested in a particular sport. The "hero" may be a profession rather than an individual, such as a policeman or a fire-fighter. People, as well as occupations may, therefore, become a goal, and the aspiring individual identifies with the objective. Our long-term aspirations are, then, guided by the image of achievement we have identified with.

The mechanism of identifying with an individual and his activities or profession, is, perhaps, the single, most important, and, in evolutionary terms, the oldest way of learning and becoming, and, it still is a natural and effective way of learning for human beings. In this aspect, we behave somewhat like ducks that follow the first individual or living organism they see, as soon as they have hatched. The newly born duck is "ready" to receive the imprint of the "mother-image", and, it will follow, blindly, whatever this image happens to be. Of course, in nature, the image will, indeed, be the mother, and, this imprint mechanism is, therefore, a useful one, but, in our studies and experiments, we can let such an instinct "go wrong" by deliberately substituting another individual to cause this imprint, shortly after hatching.

We learn a great deal from such experiments, in spite of the fact, that they are somewhat cruel, because they destroy normal and natural relationships. The human being has similar mechanisms. The newly born infant does not exhibit an instantaneous attachment to a mother-image, but learns to recognise a familiar face within a few weeks time. Yet, when we look at the prolonged period necessary for "becoming" a personality and a fully grown adult, we see, that the developing child is frequently sensitive to an example-setting imagery, and, we have to learn, as a society, as well as intelligent parents, to guide the identification mechanisms of our youngsters in such a way, that the examples that are being chosen help our youngsters to develop into balanced, responsible and alert individuals, able to cope with the many difficulties they are going to face.

In today's large, complex and somewhat chaotic societies, many people remain "unfulfilled" and under-developed in their skills and ambitions. As a result, there remain many significant tensions between the "reality as it is" in the eyes of the individual, and, the reality one has come to see as "the ideal". There are many reasons for these discrepancies, and, they are a result of faulty or irrealistic expectations and goal-patterns, which have developed under the influence of pernicious and chronic commercial pressures.

Commercial stimuli in affluent societies teach youngsters, that a gigantic appetite and a consumerist attitude for all sorts of emotions and gratifications is the pinnacle of social success and individual fulfilment. It is also possible, that a chaotic and haphazard series of identifications leaves the individual confused and frustrated. However, most of the achievements and successful emulations fall well short of an ideal, because the chosen hero or model is, so often, an irrealistic and glamorous imagery that does not reflect an existing reality.

People in our affluent, consumerist societies are confused and frustrated. Many believe themselves to be failures, unless one has lived-up to those glamorous ideals, and, those, who have come close, see, as a rule, that it is all an illusion. We always think, that we should have more; more money, more happiness, more sexual experiences, more to eat or drink, more to satisfy our insatiable appetites, more fun and games, because these appetites have been stimulated beyond reason. At the same time, we have been goaded to spend everything we earn in return for very little; in return for a position of entrapment, somewhere in a city or suburb.

The result is a severe and chronic tension of frustration and confusion, and, most of us learn to live with it, in one way or another. Because of the presence of such chronic tensions and feelings of failure and entrapment, we remain, primarily, concerned with our own problems, as well as those of our family and immediate social environment. This is the reason, why affluent people remain so fatefully egocentric and neurotically concerned with themselves, in spite of the fact, that they consume many times more than is necessary to sustain themselves in a healthy and relaxed way of life.

These tensions are due, not only, to a discrepancy between what we are and what we like to be, because there are other sources of tension and conflict as well. A conflict or tension arises, whenever our anxieties are stimulated and our attitudes slide into an egocentric out-look and goal-pattern. The society around us frowns upon such a defensive and egocentric attitude, at least, if the society is still healthy, and, if the cultural guidelines are still intact, but, in a confused, decaying, affluent society, the egocentric and exploitatve attitudes become accepted as "normal".

Yet, even so, in the affluent society, the successful members are called-upon to donate for this or that; to give their time to a variety of organisations or service clubs. Our family always "needs" something. Bills have to be paid, and we are pushed and pulled from all sides.

If we have the good fortune to have acquired a good business or profession, we learn, quickly, that our income is eaten away by the many taxes and obligatory payments we have to make. There are mortgage payments, payments for other outstanding loans and accounts, and, we come to the conclusion, that we are not much better of than those, who are out of work. Those receiving unemployment insurance benefits do not have to rush every day through traffic. They have far fewer expenses, and, we sadly conclude, that our life is ebbing away quickly. We are getting old rapidly. The tensions are getting to us. It will not be long, before we have our first heart attack.

We may not be very happy with the work we do. As soon as our employer knows, that we are in debt and need the job desperately, we become vulnerable to abuse, because he knows, that we can not afford to quit. Another source of tensions has then been added. We can not show our frustrations or resentments too openly. Often, we have to smile continuously and put-on a happy face, while pushing other people, gently but persistently, into buying one or other unnecessary item or shoddy product, because, if we fail to entice them to buy, we have no income or commission. Now, we are really caught-up in a maddening rat-race, because we can not even laugh, anymore, at this crazy atmosphere of consumerism. We have become an integral part of this world, and, our livelyhood depends on it.

We find an outlet for these tensions and frustrations by bullying those who are dependent upon us, or, at least, do not dominate us. No wonder, that the modern family is often a hot-bed of frustrations, where the tensions easily reach a breaking point. This is the reason, why children and wifes get abused or beaten, or, why husbands get nagged into their graves. Alcohol becomes an ever more important "sedative", where tensions are dulled, at least, temporarily, by the euphoria of a mild alcoholic intoxication. However, as the body gets used to a regular dose of alcohol, the amount has to be increased, and the frequency or intensity of the level of intoxication has to increase as well, before it has the desired effect.

Yet, at the same time, the refuge into alcohol creates its own tensions, because an individual's performance starts to drop alarmingly. One is, now, in serious danger of losing one's job, and, this will increase significantly, already major financial difficulties. The frustrations and tensions hit even harder, after the euphoria of alcoholic intoxication wears off, and the feelings of guilt and failure are added to the pre-existing stress.

To cope with tensions by soothing the restless and frustrated mind with new acts of consumption is, of course, a pernicious practice. The soothing effect is short-lived, but the added financial burdens linger-on. Most people settle, eventually, into a routine, where the level of chronic frustration and tension is balanced by a certain amount of drinking and "entertainment", which remains relatively stable. The "expenses" in terms of health and money remain "tolerable", and the "cautionary signals" are strong enough to let an individual know, when to stop. The self-esteem is bolstered by the firm conviction, repeated over and over again amongst friends, that they have, at least, adopted a sensible answer and a cautious life-style amidst a "crazy world".

However, after this interlude into the brave new world of affluent consumerism, we want to go back to a more theoretical discussion of the mechanisms of the personality. We should discuss the origin and resolution of a number of tensions, as well as the mechanisms that lie behind them. As we have mentioned, youngsters and adolescents can use this tension or discrepancy between goal and status-quo to channel their energies into the "right direction", and, this tension remains "bearable", and, it may even be "invigorating", as long as the individual can see "progress".

As long as there is a movement towards the long-term objective, the level of frustration remains reasonable, and, the character or personality becomes "steeled", as well as more efficient, as it persists in pursuing its goals with a great deal of tenacity. However, the focus upon a specific goal, and the relative long-term efforts needed to succeed, result in a "withering-away" of other potentials. If an individual decides, after a prolonged effort, that a particular objective is beyond reach, one may want to switch, but, one will also come to the conclusion, that one has spent already a great deal of the vital energies that were available. As we get older, we realise, that our energies are dwindling rapidly, and, soon, all our energies will be needed to survive the stress of staying alive.

It is very important, that we learn to set reasonable, realistic and obtainable goals, otherwise, the level of frustration, as well as the sense of failure, rise rapidly. In the light of these mechanisms, it is logical that the compulsive individual is penalised, because he tends to set difficult goals for himself, and, he will perceive any short-coming as a painful failure. The lackadaisical individual is better of, but, he or she will go through life accomplishing little, and, a haphazard personality will also grow old with a vague sense of failure, because one realises, that one could have done better with a little more self-discipline.

As always, we have to be flexible and intelligent enough to avoid both extremes. The fanatic commitment of the compulsive achiever can lead to a paralysing feed-back of frustration and unhappiness, preventing such an individual to accomplish anything worthwhile, but, the happy-go-lucky personality remains disorganised and undisciplined, and can only look back at meager achievements.

Often, we have little influence over these personality traits, because we find ourselves saddled with these behavioural characteristics, and, only, slowly, with the practice of frequent reflection and re-evaluation, can we gain an insight into our own personality, as well as the reasons for our behaviour.

Insight tells us, that time is flying by with the passing of each year. It becomes increasingly likely, that our dreams and ambitions will remain dreams, and, we are lucky, if we can come to the conclusion, that these dreams functioned, primarily, as a guideline for our behaviour. If we stop and think for a moment, and look around us, we will see, that we have accomplished more than many others, even, if we did not accomplish what we hoped to.

In other words, reflection and thought become tools to re-evaluate our position; to re-evalute the meaning and significance of our goals, and, we see, once again, that the faculties of conscious thought and reflection are, in essence, tools for our behavioural choices, designed to construct or synthesise the most appropriate response under the circumstances. This is, after all, the essence of adaptative behaviour.

Whatever tensions we may experience, and, whatever their origin or causative mechanisms may be, we always try, consciously or subconsciously, to resolve or adapt to these tensions. We have discussed, briefly, the non-solution; the postponement of the acknowledgement, that a problem exists. We can do so by an alcoholic intoxication or a consumerist binge, but, let us turn towards more effective ways to resolve tensions. We can adapt to tensions, or, even, break and remove tensions by this most remarkable form of behaviour; the laugh.

Laughter can be a sharp and aggressive weapon, ranging from a sneering ridicule or carricature to the subtle deflation of someone's pompous manners and attitudes. Laughing can also be somewhat defensive, as we may grin, together with others, at a remark or criticism made at our expense. Or, we may laugh, somewhat sheepishly, when we try to correct a mistake or avoid someone's criticisms. And, there is the healthy, entertaining laugh, when we are completely absorbed by a gifted performer, who manipulates our mental imagery and expectations with a great deal of skill, in order to create a certain tension or anticipation, and, then, punctures or dissipates this tension with a sudden, unexpected twist.

The art of entertaining is complex and, certainly, the comedian requires a high degree of skill. He has to create, expertly and quickly, a certain image of anticipation or expectation, and, then, he should be able to dispel this tension in such a way, that the unexpected release of this tension provokes a surge of laughter.

It seems accurate to say, that, laughter is, amongst other things, the sudden release of a tension of anticipation in an unexpected manner. If the tension is released more slowly, more expectedly, we "sigh from relief". A mystery story may also end with an unexpected twist, but, it is not funny, because some sort of denouement or resolution of the mystery was expected.

Certainly, laughing can have other functions as well. It may be a technique to "disarm" an opponent, and, this is, perhaps, the original purpose or meaning of a smile, or a grin. Again, we see, that there is a resolution, or, at least, an easing of tensions, and, this is accomplished by synchronising a mood of relaxation.

We all like to laugh, because we like to be relieved from tensions. We all like to be entertained by someone, who can genuinely capture our attention, and, we like to resolve tensions between ourselves and others by starting a laugh; perhaps, a somewhat nervous laugh, but, nevertheless, the objective is to diminish tensions and create an atmosphere of relaxation.

The essence of entertainment is to capture someone's attention in a way that is felt to be pleasant, and, it does not have to be funny. Certainly, comedy of one sort or another is the queen of entertainment, because it is one of the most pleasant ways to be entertained. A good story, well told, and, without difficult or problematic tensions, may also capture our attention, and, by identifying with the hero or heroine in the story, we follow, during a few hours of entertainment, the ups and downs of his or her adventures. In a good story, we feel a twinge of regret, when we come to the end, because, now, we are back to reality, with all the tensions that exist, there, before we were captured by a few hours of entertainment.

However, it does not have to be the reading of a story, the watching of a movie, a comic personality or situation, in order to be able to entertain ourselves. To be engaged in a sport, an invigorating physical activity, or, to listen to a beautiful piece of music, can be just as entertaining. If we are fairly young and vigorous, and, if we are "still learning" about the world around us, we are also entertained by seeing a more serious or dramatic presentation of human conflicts and follies. The reason, why such a presentation may hold our attention comes from a desire to see problems handled and discussed in a manner we can identify with, and, the way in which these tensions are solved in the dramatic presentation, may help us to formulate a more coherent response to our own problems.

Similarly, a hilarious and comical presentation of human situations, follies, embarrassments and activities relaxes us, because we can laugh heartily as the tensions are formed and broken. A good comedy or comedian will help us cope with serious problems as well, because, quite often, good comedy is good, because it shows us, where we can relax our tensions safely without harming ourselves.

Good comedy lets us see, that many of the tensions are of our own making, and, are not really necessary or all that important. Our goals and ambitions, our struggles for attention and social prestige, our habits of consumption and ostentatious displays are gently ridiculed as if to say; "You do not need to participate in all these tensions in order to be happy or feel successful".

Yet, entertainment remains, essentially, in a different category from presentations that can be called "educational". We go through school, because we know, that we require a long period of training and learning, before we can successfully participate in, and contribute to, the many functions of society. The process of learning is, by and large, an effort. To learn is to create a tension. We decide, that we do not know as much as we should in a certain field of knowledge, and, we learn, then, "voluntarily", or, we learn because of social pressures and undesirable consequences, if we fail to learn.

We also know, that we can really learn something, only, if we are motivated to learn, and, if we make a genuine effort to achieve a certain degree of knowledge, skill or understanding. Most students experience some sort of a balance between the motivation to learn for the sake of learning and understanding, and, the existential or social pressures that oblige them to study and learn in order to find a comfortable niche in society.

Later in life, many people experience a much more genuine and profound motivation to learn, because we begin, then, to realise, that, our confusion and frustrations are, at least, to some extent, a reflection of the fact that there are so many things we do not understand. There are so many things about nature, society and ourselves, which have remained a mystery for us, but, only later in life, do we have the patience, as well as the reflective inclination, to acknowledge, how little we know. Then, we may begin to learn for the sake of experiencing the beauty of insight and comprehension.

While learning requires the effort of concentration and study, the rewards can be great, and, these rewards may also help to reduce tensions. However, many of the more academic and formal areas of knowledge, such as the scientific disciplines, do not give us direct answers to the entrapment and frustration we suffer from in our affluent societies. A more philosophical overview of our nature, as well as the conditions we live under, may be quite useful to help us understand our experiences and feelings of stress.

The insight, how, and why, these tensions of entrapment came-about, and, how they became the foundation for a chronic feeling of depression, may also have an opposite effect, at least, in the initial stages. The diagnosis of our problems may, initially, be quite painful, because a thorough analysis of the problems may show us, that the situation is even worse than we thought. What is even more depressing, the real solution to the problems may seem to be even further out of reach, than they appeared to be.

The fruits of insight do not come easy, and, often, there is a price to be paid, because, by and large, the human being who is under a certain amount of chronic stress, begins to see the realities of his existence in a somewhat distorted and unjustified favourable light. This "bias" in interpretation is not helpful when trying to solve problems, because it actually hampers our insight, and, it weakens our grip over reality, but, by seeing reality in a more favourable or "hopeful" light, it becomes easier to sustain our feelings of positive expectations and self-esteem. These would wither-away, helplessly, if we dared to look at reality with a cold and detached analysis of the situation.

Hope is a mood that tends to colour our interpretations of reality more favourably than is justified when looking at this reality more objectively. A mood of depression does the opposite. Then, our sense of reality, our sense of self-worth and achievement are strongly suppressed, often to the point, that we fail to see, why we should struggle any further. Depression is a paralysing experience, and, it is often just as unfounded as the attitude of hope. Neither attitude or outlook is helpful in adjusting our behavioural responses, most precisely, to the existing circumstances.

In order to learn to analyse a situation with a measure of "emotional neutrality", we have to learn to be able to abandon every form of self-deception. We have to be able to diagnose a condition of "self-delusion", where we adhere to a number of prejudices and biased interpretations, because we fear, subconsciously, that the reality would be too bleak and too difficult to face-up to without such illusions.

The time to learn to think and react in a sphere of "emotional neutrality" has passed, when we are cornered by entrapment and frustration. We have a serious obligation to teach our youngsters the art of thinking rationally, and behaving in a zone of emotional neutrality. We have to teach them the techniques of an objective analysis, when they are still young and relatively free from worries and obligations.

What is this sphere of emotional neutrality, you may ask, because we have not discussed this concept in detail in this essay, but, it has been discussed extensively on a number of occasions. Just as we defined the existence of a zone of homeostasis as an area of equilibrium that lies, somewhere, in between the three instinctive poles of existential concerns, so can we define the "zone of emotional neutrality" as the mirror-image or psychological equivalent of this zone of homeostasis.

Yet, the human being does not have such a clear-cut and easily reached zone of homeostasis, or contentment, as we can see in the relaxed and satisfied animal, falling asleep after a good meal and secure in a comfortable environment. The reasons, why, we, human beings, do not fall so easily asleep when we are physically in a state of "homeostasis", lies in the fact, that our mind is, so often, disrupted by the many long-term and medium-term goals and worries of our ambitious super-ego. We, literally, have always something to worry about, because we know, even, if we are well-fed and sitting comfortably in a chair near a stove on a cold winter evening, that the situation is not going to last. We are chronically anxious because of financial troubles and other tensions, while, physically, we may well be in a state of homeostasis, far more often and for much longer periods than any other animal.

The price we pay for the ability to anticipate trouble far into the future, is a feeling of chronic anxiety, and, the reward of experiencing such a chronic state of anxiety, is a nearly constant state of physical well-being. Certainly, if we let these worries overwhelm us, we may get sick, and, we undermine our health, if we give-in to foolish habits of consumption.

It is, indeed, ironic, that, the remarkable potential of human viability is now only threatened by tensions we create ourselves, either individually or collectively, as we try to deal with the stress of competitive strife. Long ago, we lost all serious existential competition from the other species', except, perhaps, a few insects or viruses, but, we are in danger of losing this remarkable potential of viability, as we are being lured into a suicidal act of nuclear warfare.

Perhaps, a higher level of insight into the way we exist, the reasons for our behaviour, as well as a "feeling" for the structure of the human personality, may help us solve these chronic tensions of a successful and crowded species, and, these insights may help us opt for a life-style of frugality, before we are fully entrapped into a commercial life-style.

Perhaps, we can, even, reform our societies by an act of our collective, conscious will. Perhaps, many of us will be able to enjoy this zone of a comfortable homeostasis and emotional near-neutrality, where we can be happy and content, without being ecstatic; where we can be ourselves; relaxed, yet responsive; comfortable, yet self-disciplined, without sliding into competitive attitudes and practices that will, inevitably, ruin the gains of reflective thought and inner peace.

.......

Summary

1. A pretentious project.
   Various models of explanation.
   Complex scientific images.
   An elusive "basic knowledge" about the nature of man.
   Each scientific field seems to lead a life on its own.
   Synthetic efforts within a field of science; a task for seasoned seniors.
   The "popularisers" of science.
   An encyclopedic summary.
   The "old-fashioned" philosopher.
   Philosophy; either a forgotten corner of the sciences, somewhere between language and mathematics, or an off-shoot of literature, with an emphasis on the lack of meaning in human existence.
   A coherent portrait with generalised features.
   The "routine" nature of many "idea packages".
   A complete edition of my works.
   
   
   
2. Recognising commonly shared awarenesses.
   Social inter-actions are an integral part of the human personality.
   "Probing-away" from our primary experiences.
   The discovery of our existence.
   What do we actually remember, and, what do we "project" into our memories?
   The past is a function of the present.
   Taking distance from our own existence.
   We are nearly indistinguishable as infants.
   Existential needs; evidence for an obviously shared heritage.
   The concept of a comfortable equilibrium or "homeostasis".
   Stress; a force, displacing living existence from a state of homeostasis.
   The infant; its basic characteristics.
   Birth; a great physiological revolution.
   
   
   
3. A remarkably incomplete central nervous system.
   Infancy and childhood; the role of sense impressions.
   The "ground-tone" of a personality.
   Periods of "specific receptiveness".
   The sliding scale of defensiveness and aggressiveness.
   The sliding scale between egocentricity and altruism.
   An essential distinction between harm and benefit.
   The reasons for a strong sexual drive.
   Our biological heritage.
   Behaviour-patterns that are triggered by suitable circumstances and a readiness of the organism.
   Adapting and yielding to stressful conditions.
   Anatomical and physiological features result from a constant pressure, or stress, by the forces of natural selection.
   All three poles of behaviour involve a measure of stress.
   Why we have to exhibit aggressive behaviour-patterns.
   
   
   
4. Being satisfied or satiated.
   The "central zone" of a comfortable equilibrium, or emotionally neutral homeostasis.
   The behaviour of "sleep"; dream-sleep and non-dream-sleep.
   A brief review of the mechanisms of symbolic representation.
   A "super-structure" of conscious awarenesses has become super-imposed on the non-verbal functions of our biological heritage.
   The evolution of manipulative abilities, speech and thought.
   An explanation of our nature on the basis of evolutionary change; a difficult imagery.
   A brief review of man's physical evolution.
   The occurrence of "evolutionary spurts".
   Surviving unobtrusively; through alertness and agility.
   A dialogue that provides the ability to transfer factual information.
   Abstractions and qualities.
   Cerebral and mental systems for classifying sense impressions and conscious awarenesses.
   
   
   
5. Animal behaviour.
   Recognising the familiar, and, being constantly in touch with the environment.
   Anticipating the outcome of a familiar event.
   The ability to "digest" feelings and emotions with the help of a voluntary recall of memories and experiences.
   A "cerebral grasp" over reality.
   The tendency to name every familiar awareness.
   The emergence of a structure of beliefs, together with an increased intellectual and manipulative mastery.
   A communal effort to "fit" experiences into a coherent whole.
   Conscious awarenesses and emotional reaction-patterns.
   The fragile bonds of trust and mutual reliance.
   Classifying emotions, feelings and attitudes on the scale of egocentricity and altruism.
   
   
   
6. A quick review of complex material.
   A look at human goals and objectives.
   Short-term, intermediate and long-term goal-patterns.
   Objectives that change with age and experience.
   The beauty of achievement, and the desire to make a contribution.
   The motivations behind our goals; a revealing outlook on life.
   Maintenance-energy and the elan vital.
   Human nature is so much easier to understand, when analysed from a biological, motivational point of view.
   The conscious, the sub-conscious but retrievable sphere of experiences, and the "forgotten" experiences.
   A definition of "the un-conscious".
   Judgement functions of the human mind.
   Building-up a mental imagery from current conceptual building-blocks.
   Voluntary and involuntary access to a pool of memories.
   The awareness of "the self".
   The "essence of my existence"; an abstraction as fragile and transient as a flawlessly executed musical passage.
   
   
   
7. What is thought?
   A brief recall of evolutionary principles.
   The epitomy of nature's experiment with behavioural flexibility.
   The need to "finely tune" our behavioural responses.
   Solving problems.
   The "sensory side" of our thought processes.
   "Postulating a response"; an imaginary review of its likely results.
   A series of "hypothetical inputs", and an on-going series of judgements.
   The function of the "will".
   The experience of a "freedom of choice" during a voluntary act.
   
   
   
8. Mechanisms of "stress" or "tension".
   The discrepancy between what we are, and, what we like to be.
   Identification mechanisms.
   Becoming a personality.
   Commercial stimuli in affluent societies.
   Severe tensions and chronic frustrations.
   The tensions of affluent life.
   The use of sedatives and intoxicants.
   Aggravating tensions by a deteriorating performance.
   A cautious life-style amidst a "crazy world".
   Channeling energies into the right direction.
   The "steeling" of a character.
   Compulsive and lackadaisical attitudes.
   Reflection and thought; tools to re-evaluate our position.
   The mechanisms of laughter.
   People are quite willing to laugh.
   Comedy; its functions.
   The usefulness of a philosophical over-view.
   The time to learn and think is past, when we have been trapped into a corner.
   The price of our ability to anticipate the future is a feeling of chronic anxiety.
   A series of cautious anticipations.

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