Affective state of consciousness

Believers in the view that the brain has its self deny this duality. They declare that the psychic experience, the cognitive/volitional and affective state of consciousness, the most amazing product of nature, is inseparable from measurable changes in brain neurons. The objective and subjective aspects of brain activity are thought to be as interrelated as the outside and the inside of one and the same thing. This study is an exercise in support of this opinion on the basis of the following new argument ... 

The mechanism whereby the excitability of cortical neurons substantially decreases in response to long-term tedious stimulation is linked to an unpleasant affective state of consciousness. Humans suffer from the state of boredom, and it is not by chance that the phrase bored to death exists. It is the physiologic ambition of the healthy human brain to stay continuously in a drive-motivated active state. Sleeping is sufficient for rest. 

Emotion, an affective state of consciousness, in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, etc., are all included... 

We assume that whenever a drive is acquired, chains of ICRs are fixed, and also neurons responsible for emotions are coupled to the integral whole thus, cognitive/volitional consciousness is necessarily inseparable from an affective state of consciousness. 

Whenever the sonata is correctly played, the sequence of the sounds must be the same. The initiated listener who can perceive and even check the exactness of the performance is not satisfied by technical brilliance alone. He takes real delight in the indefinable, emotional side of the presentation, in the individual quality and richness of the appurtenances. Being enraptured by the performance he may even overlook some minor technical laxness. Thus, the physiology that makes cognitive/volitional consciousness necessarily inseparable from an affective state of consciousness, and the limitless individual differences in the appurtenances allow that the same piece of music can be presented in an emotionally endless variety. 

According to our working hypothesis (see Sect. 3.4.2), a chain of ICRs is ecphorized as follows. The proper stimulus activates the first member of the chain. Activation means that a higher amount of the neuron-specific enhancer substance is synthesized and the excitability of a mass of cortical neurons is enhanced. The members of the chain are thereafter explosively activated in the sequence in which they were fixed during the learning process. Activation of the chain of ICRs as an integral whole is inseparable from conscious perception and from the proper affective state of consciousness. 

According to the approach presented in this study, the self is at every moment the sum of the cortical neurons that belong to Groups 3 and 4. The nature of the acquired drives, the hierarchy of the importance of the goals they represent, determine the life of the individual. As the perception of the self is also inseparable from an affective state of consciousness, satisfaction is necessarily proportional to the success in reaching the goals represented by the innate and fixed acquired drives. 

The ability to fix ICRs and acquire drives made the development of social life possible. These are the brain mechanisms through which individuals influence each other s behavior and learn thereby to work together toward a common goal. The evolution of a brain with the capacity to fix ICRs and acquire drives was obviously the last revolutionary step in the development of life on earth. Thus organisms having a brain the operation of which was inseparable from some form of cognitive/volitional and affective states of consciousness appeared. 

The limitless capacity of the human cortex to fix ICRs and acquire drives -in conjunction with the development of language - made possible an unmatched interpersonal communication. This unique facility made the cognitive/volitional and affective states of consciousness of the human brain and, as a consequence of it, human social life, unparalleled. Because of the lack of similar developments in animals, there is no way to obtain direct evidence about the nature of their psychic experiences. Nevertheless, observation of the goal-seeking behavior of properly trained monkeys, dogs, horses,and so on furnishes convincing indirect evidence for the assumption that the operation of ICRs and acquired drives even in animals is inseparable from an archetype of consciousness. 

Since the operation of cortical neurons belonging to Groups 3 or 4 is inseparable not only from cognitive/volitional perception, but also from an affective state of consciousness, it is a natural law that the individual strives for pleasant goals and tries to avoid unpleasant operations. Accordingly, the community manipulates its subjects with a sophisticated system of time-honored rewards and punishments. The creation of the myth of an other world was the most influential invention of the past that rendered the maintenance of peaceful order in human society possible. According to this myth, the soul is immortal. The short, transient earthly period of fife is therefore of minor importance. A human whose earthly existence was honest reaps his reward in the other world, while the evil-hearted receives severe punishment. 

Based on the misinterpretation of a historical event it became a basic educational method in Christian societies to fix from birth millions of chains of ICRs inseparable from the cognitive and affective states of consciousness described as anti-Semitism into the brain of their subjects. As a consequence of this indoctrination Jews were already expelled in 1290 from England, in 1394 from France, and in 1492 from Spain. For centuries they were discriminated against and cruelly treated in European countries. 

Thus, (a) whenever a chain of ICRs is fixed in the human brain, the proper cortical neurons remain, on an unconscious level, constantly active for life, and (b) if the proper method is used, even a chain of ICRs that had never been ecphorized after fixation can be activated to the level needed for conscious perception at any later date. The recalling of any chain of ICRs is necessarily inseparable from an affective state of consciousness, due to the emotions coupled as appurtenances to the cortical neurons when they learned to cooperate with each other. Freud developed empirically sound methods for ecphorizing forgotten chains of ICRs in humans, decades after their fixation. 

Fortunately for the scientist interested in these matters, the attributes of consciousness tend to be organized in a correlated manner, resulting in what are called states. By states we mean syndromes or clusters of attributes. When we speak of altered states of consciousness, we refer to the tendency of consciousness to be at a higher or lower level, to be concerned with external or internally generated data, and to be organized in a linear logical or parallel analogical fashion, and to be more or less affect driven. 

From a theoretical point of view, the idea that interfering with serotonin neuromodulation affects just some conscious state functions and not others has several important implications. First and foremost, it nails down the somewhat vague and unsatisfying notion of altered states of consciousness by specifying what aspects of consciousness are altered and by pointing to a specific mechanism for those alterations. 

High An altered state of consciousness, marked by euphoria, feelings of lightness, self-transcendence, and energy. High states are not necessarily drug-related. They may occur spontaneously or in response to various activities that affect mood, perception, and concentration. Also used as an adjective... 

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