THE EMOTIONS

The biological basis of the emotions

At the beginning of life, the human baby is equipped with a complex neurological system. This system receives input unceasingly through a wide spectrum of sensorial receptors of diverse characteristics. For instance, receptors of light (mainly the eyes), receptors of noise (mainly the ears), receptors of heat and infrared radiation (the coarse ones are all over the body - the most delicate ones are mainly in the forehead and around the eyes), receptors of taste, smell, pressure, movement & balance, etc.

Various parts (or centers) of the brain (which is the center of the neurological system) are simultaneously fed by this plethora of fresh input(5), and an even larger amount of "conserved" ones, stored in the memory. The new and the old inputs are processed by various components of the brain in divergent ways in order to act upon and/or to memorize them for later reference.

During the analyzing and the recycling of the new and old input (stored results and references of previous processing included), many processes occur in the brain. Small parts of those processes are sufficiently slow, long, strong and important that they involve our awareness. The majority are too short, weak, or of a content or mode, that do not access to the awareness at all, or perhaps do so but only in certain circumstances.

The initial steps of the processing are mainly swift and inaccessible to the awareness. They mainly consist of (and result in) perception, identification and subjective evaluating of each item and pattern. This initial step can decide what will be the amount and the nature of the effect a specific item of input will have on the ongoing happening and on future ones. This weighting is done in accordance with a subjective bias that can deviate widely from the objective one.

During initial processing of the input (and more so during the recycling and deeper processing of conserved ones), new organizations, conceptualizations, summations and decisions are achieved, at various levels of organization and functioning of the brain.

Part of the processes occur in steps that have a stable order. In some of them, the order of the steps is dependant on the result of the initial steps, or the advance of the whole process. In most cases, various steps of the processing are taken parallel to each other. The processes of these steps can (and usually do) interact with each other.

Frequently, they not only interact among themselves but also with other processes that are ongoing in the brain and mind at the time. The most complicated mode of processing in the brain, which is also the most typical, is called by the experts the "procession-in-parallel" mode.

The integrations done during the input and the advanced steps of processing have a topographic (or geographic) facet. Part of the steps or aspects of the processing can be related to large parts of or to almost the entire brain. Part can be related to small or large neurological paths and areas. Specific parts of the processing can be located in small neurological structures, in a small group of neurons or even in a particular neuron.

Process products that reach awareness are usually the result of the simultaneous activity of many regions or nearly all of the brain. Only complicated and ingenious tactics can succeed in the task of isolating stages, or in the effort to relate them to regions.

The emotions (sometimes called moods, feelings, sensations, subjective experience, passions and their like), that are the subjects of this book, are also processes of the brain. They too have specific neuronal paths and organization centers for their main facets. They too involve fresh input and recycled ones (including previous processions of them) stored as memory traces, which they integrate at various levels.

For instance, the processes of the fear emotion can be engaged by inputs from receptors of the same sense located at different part of the body - as in unexpected pain signals. Fear can be aroused by inputs of various senses like seeing danger or hearing a threat or feeling the loss of balance. It can involve recycled input of previous processing about the measure in which a specific person or event is dangerous, as it caused harm in the past.

It can also involve all these in combination and higher level processes, like thinking and imagery. It is typically so in the evaluation of a specific situation in the present or the future, that has no similar precedents - according to its components, circumstance and/or the probability of its development and transformation.

The same principle, but with more complex integrations, is expressed in movement. The regular daily walking in the house from one room to another - which is relatively simple when the lights are on - is based on the input of the eyes, the ears, kinesthetic inputs of the muscles, the sense of balance, memory of the environment and furniture arrangement, and knowledge of the neighbors' windows, our clothing, our curtains and our sensitivity of being spied on.

Usually, this kind of movement does not involve the emotional subsystem to any great degree. However, when the movement is part of a dance at a ball, with a partner who is a stranger and whom we are courting - and the dance is not one we know too well - it will surely involve the emotional subsystem to a great measure. A whole book will be needed to describe the relevant processing of the input done by the brain* and the various subsystems involved.

*Since the relationship between the mind and the brain is a bit blurred, it is worth clearing up the use of the concepts of brain and mind in this book. They are used here essentially as two main aspects of what our head is about.

It is known that the acts of thinking, perceiving, learning, remembering, feeling, believing and the like are the main aspects of the mind. It is also known that those are, at the same time, products of processes mainly done in the brain.

The relationship between the mind and brain can be likened to that which exists between the bicycle and the rider as a physical entity, and the act of traveling.

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