16: Let's Put It All Together
Thus far, the author has considered various aspects of the brain - memory, emotion, mood, personality, and culture - each of which have some role in the way we make decisions. To choose between alternatives, or choose nothing at all.
The chief problem is that there are a number of factors and a great deal of complexity - and the problem may be that we expect the brain to be complex and dismiss simple and obvious answers to questions we expect to require complicated and elaborate ones. And in that process, we obscure more than we reveal.
Definitions of Thought
It is generally agreed that "thought" occurs in the frontal lobes of the brain, and that consciousness resides in the same area. This is supported by biometrics (MRI, EEG) as well as in observations of patients in which this area of the brain has been damaged. When we are idle, there is little activity in the frontal lobes, but when we are actively engaged, they show significant activity.
This begs the question: what do we mean by "think"? Most commonly, thinking is divided into two categories: planning (deciding what to do, immediately and in future) and creativity (making unusual connections between ideas).
(EN: The author doesn't explicitly state that these two categories are comprehensive, and I expect that implies they are not. For example, active perception, in which a person considers stimuli and strives to find meaning rather than accepting the automatic association, is clearly a thought process. There likely exist other categories as well.)
The notion of creativity is not well understood, and is further confounded by "a lot of pop psychology books that are mostly well worth not reading." However, there has been some worthwhile scientific inquiry into creativity, particularly by Damasio.
Few animals demonstrate evidence of creativity, such as sing objects as tools, though relatively many show evidence of planned behavior, even though it is at a very basic level, in response to present stimuli and body state, geared largely toward survival.
The primary difference between the animal's survival instinct and the way in which man serves the same end is time: the animal acts in a way that is immediate and obvious, man acts in a way that is more long-range and indirect. But essentially, it is still a choice among alternatives: considering the various needs and impulses, prioritizing them, and choosing a course of action that will address them.
From a marketing perspective, a person decides on a specific product and brand based on their awareness of it as a pertinent alternative at the time when a choice is made. The choice may be made upon memories or assumptions, but in either case is an assessment of the item as a desired solution to a problem. The act of choice may be nearly instantaneous, or require time in deliberation.
'Thinking' Involves A Lot Of Brain Process
The author uses the analogy of an orchestra to consider the process of thought: many instruments being played by individuals, a conductor who coordinates them in a way that the listener perceives a coordinated symphony.
(EN: A more apt analogy might be of a very large jazz ensemble - with no conductor and no planned score, each player making up his own part yet aware of and reacting to others, few formal rules to guide them. The result is between the extremes of complete harmony and complete cacophony - but generally a "tune" emerges, however briefly.)
In the author's analogy, the frontal lobes, where conscious thought occurs, are likened to the conductor (or listener), who pays attention to some, excludes others, and attempts to get them to act in concert.
And in that sense, neuroscience attempts to reconstruct the score - to the extent that they are able to identify only certain of the parts, and based upon theories that, to some degree, suffer from the assumption that the parts that can be perceived are significant and indicative of the whole.
As science progresses and we perceive additional parts, we may discover that our conclusions were entirely misguided.
Making A Choice
Making a choice involves communication between the frontal lobes ant the limbic system. In a general sense, the frontal lobes conceive a possible option and pass it to the limbic system, which evaluates how it "feels" about the concept.
In terms of the balance of power between the two, there is "some evidence" that suggests there are more neurons that enable the limbic system to communicate to the frontal lobes than run in the opposite direction.
Also remember that the notion of "gestalt" means we need only a few inputs to generate a bigger output - the (small) ideas passed to the system touch upon a greater store of memories and associations to result in a "feeling" that encompasses a great many things.
Ultimately, a decision or choice is made based on the evaluation of the feelings we have about each of the options under consideration. When we have a much more positive feeling (dopamine reaction) to one of the options, our choice seems clear. Where two or more options seem equally positive, we are uncertain which to choose. Where none of the options seems positive, we are reluctant to choose at all.
Feelings And Time
Even after a decision is made, we continue to evaluate options, and our course of action changes based upon the continued thought, sometimes in a different direction. "I got to the supermarket to buy things to make a steak barbecue and come back with the ingredients for a chicken stir-fry." Perhaps this is the result of additional stimulus (an in-store promotion for soy sauce, the beef at the butcher's counter looks a bit off today) or perhaps a re-evaluation of the choice based on additional information from memory (the shopper remembers that it is supposed to rain, so it may be wiser to cook indoors) or a re-evaluation of existing emotions (on the drive there, chicken seems like a better idea).
The author returns again to the notion of ripples, the way that two or more boats traveling across the same lake create waves that interact with one another and sometimes create a new wave that has no apparent relationship to the ones that spawned it. The mind creates "new" thoughts in much the same manner.
(EN: it occurs to me, in light of this analogy, that the surface waves created by the watercraft are also played upon by the currents in the lake and objects that are beneath the surface - this again speaks to the influence of factors that our current theories of thought do not consider or accommodate.)
Ultimately, patterns of thought that seem erratic - fluctuating and moving in new directions - are likely attributable to factors such as these: changes in external stimuli, changes in evaluation, changes in emotion or mood, or the interplay between them.
Another person, not able to perceive these factors, might consider a subject to be irrational or scattered - but the subject remains focused on making a choice that will have the most positive outcome in future.