Dwelling of the Holy Spirit

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2: 19-22)

 

On the Trinity

Kallistos Ware, in Reclaiming the Great Tradition, has stated that the Trinity is the “heart of our life.” I am posting more quotes by him from that book, showing how the Holy Spirit relates to the triune God:

God is a triunity of persons loving each other, and in that shared love the persons are totally “oned” without thereby losing their personal individuality. In the phrase of St. John of Damascus, . . . the Three are “united yet not confused, distinct yet not divided.” . . . The Father is the “fountainhead” within the Trinity, so that the Son and the Spirit find their unity in him and are defined by their relationship to him: the Son is begotten,” the Spirit “proceeds.” . . . In the case of the Trinity . . . every divine operation is one and undivided, and the Trinity has but one will and not three. In this manner the three persons of the Trinity are one in a way that three human persons can never be.

 

Supernatural - natural interaction

I am sharing a selection taken from C. S. Lewis’ book, Miracles: How God Intervenes in Nature and human Affairs. It gives substantiation to interaction between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit, soul and body/brain. Though Lewis died before the most current findings of neuroscience that I cite in my two books and in many blogs, his comments are prescient for what we are now beginning to understand about this interaction.

. . . we do not know in advance that God might not bring two Natures into partial contact at some particular point: that is, He might allow selected events in the one to produce results in the other. There would thus be, at certain points, a partial interlocking; but this would not turn the two Natures into one, for the total reciprocity which makes a Nature would still be lacking, and the anomalous interlockings would arise not from what either system was in itself but from the Divine act which was bringing them together.

 

The supernatural human mind

Human minds, then, are not the only supernatural entities that exist. They do not come from nowhere. Each has come into Nature from Supernature; each has its tap-root in an eternal, self-existent, rational Being, whom we call God. Each is an offshoot, or spearhead, or incursion of that Supernatural reality into Nature. (C. S. Lewis, Miracles)

 

God the Son, the Word

This quote from C. S. Lewis’ book, Miracles, speaks to the unity of Jesus Christ, the Son, the Word, to the Father God:

The title “Son” may sound “primitive” or “naif.” But already in the New Testament this “Son” is identified with the Discourse or Reasons or Word which was eternally “with God” and yet also was God. (John 1:1) He is the all-pervasive principle of concretion or cohesion whereby the universe holds together. (Col 1:17) All things, and specifically LIfe, arose within Him, (John 1:4) and within Him all things will reach their conclusion - the final statement of what they have been trying to express. (Eph 1:10)

 

Uncreated, unconditioned supernatural reality

In this quote C. S. Lewis speaks to the reality of the supernatural:

For me the Christian doctrines which are “metaphorical” - or which have become metaphorical with the increase of abstract thought - mean something which is just as “supernatural” or shocking after we have removed the ancient imagery as it was before. They mean that in addition to the physical or psycho-physical universe known to the sciences, there exists an uncreated and unconditioned reality which causes the universe to be; that this reality has a positive structure or constitution which is usefully, though doubtless not completely, described in the doctrine of the Trinity; and that this reality, at a definite point in time, entered the universe we know by becoming one of its own creatures and there produced effects on the historical level which the normal workings of the natural universe do not produce; and that this has brought about a change in our relations to the unconditioned reality.

The resurrected Jesus Christ sent as He promised the Holy Spirit to indwell believers in repentance, bringing “a change in our relations to the unconditioned reality,” to the Holy Spirit, to God the Father, by His grace through Jesus Christ.

 

God, a concrete fact

But if God is the ultimate source of all concrete, individual things and events, then God Himself must be concrete, and individual in the highest degree. Unless the origin of all other things were itself concrete and individual, nothing else could be so; for there is no conceivable means whereby what is abstract or general could itself produce concrete reality. . . . If anything is to exist at all, then the Original Thing must be, not a principle nor a generality, much less an “ideal” or a “value,” but an utterly concrete fact. (C. S. Lewis, Miracles)

 

God, the Absolute Being

I continue with a quote taken from Miracles by C. S. Lewis:

Let us dare to say that God is a particular Thing. Once He was the only Thing: but He is creative, He made other things to be, He is not those other things. He is not “universal being”: if He were there would be no creatures, for a generality can make nothing. He is “absolute being” - or rather the Absolute Being - in the sense that He alone exists in HIs own right. But there are things which God is not. In that sense He has a determinate character. Thus He is righteous, not a-moral; creative, not inert. The Hebrew writings here observe an admirable balance. Once God says simply I AM, proclaiming the mystery of self-existence. But times without number He says, “I am the Lord - I, the ultimate Fact, have this determinate character, and not that. And men are exhorted to know the Lord,” to discover and experience this particular character.

By the restoration of direct communion between the Holy Spirit and the spirit and soul of repentant mankind through the sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ on behalf of fallen mankind we can come to a personal, intimate knowledge of God the Father.

 

God becoming man

C. S. Lewis discussed in depth God’s becoming man in Miracles. I am sharing a series of comments from his book that speak to this reality. I refer the reader to his chapter entitled, “The Grand Miracle”:

What can be meant by “God becoming man?” In what sense is it conceivable that eternal self-existent Spirit, basic Fact-hood, should be so combined with a natural human organism as to make one person? And this would be a fatal stumbling-block if we had not already discovered that in every human being a more than natural activity (the act of reasoning) and therefore presumably a more than natural agent is thus united with a part of Nature: so united that the composite creature calls itself “I” and “Me.” . . . In other men a supernatural creature thus becomes, in union with the natural creature, one human being. In Jesus, it is held, the Supernatural Creator Himself did so. . . . We cannot conceive how the Divine Spirit dwelled within the created and human spirit of Jesus: but neither can we conceive how His human spirit, or that of any man, dwells within his natural organism. What we can understand, if the Christian doctrine is true, is that our own composite existence is not the sheer anomaly it might seem to be, but a faint image of the Divine Incarnation itself - the same theme in a very minor key. . . . We catch sight of a new key principle - the power of the Higher, just in so far as it is truly Higher, to come down, the power of the greater to include the less.

I address extensively in my books, especially in The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, the “how” of this “composite existence,” drawing upon current findings of neuroscience and information theory to obtain at least a partial understanding. Most of all we now have the ability to understand that the “coming down” of the Holy Spirit to indwell the human spirit to give Counsel to the human soul is a reality in which we can have evidential faith in our time.

 

C. S. Lewis on dualist interactionism

In my books I consider in detail the concept, and I believe the reality, of what is called dualist interactionism, a concept that materialism and naturalism do not accept. What is it? Simply put, it is the interaction between what is immaterial and what is material, or physical. That which is immaterial can exert causal effects on that which is physical, and the dualist relationship I address through over 20 years of apologetics research is that between the Mind of God and the mind of Man, the human spirit and soul, through God’s created neural synaptic networks and their linguistic neural codes. Let us read selected comments by C. S. Lewis from Miracles that address this interactionism. My blog posts collectively address this concept, expanding on the points made in my books.

In the Walking on the Water we see the relations of spirit and Nature so altered that Nature can be made to do whatever spirit pleases. This new obedience of Nature is, of course, not to be separated even in thought from spirit’s own obedience to the Father of Spirits. . . . One thing at least we must observe. If we are in fact spirits, not Nature’s offspring, then there must be some point (probably the brain) at which created spirit even now can produce effects on matter not by manipulation or technics but simply by the wish to do so.

 

Causality of dualism

It is useful to remember that even now senses responsive to different vibrations would admit us to quite new worlds of experience: that a multi-dimensional space would be different, almost beyond recognition, from the space we are now aware of, yet not discontinuous from it: that time may not always be for us, as it now is, unilinear and irreversible: that other parts of Nature might some day obey us as our cortex now does. (C. S. Lewis, Miracles)

i refer you to my earlier blog posts entitled, “Waves in Our Brains, Parts I and II,” that extend the findings shared in my books from the neurosciences to those acquired by my continued research that relate to Lewis’ “senses responsive to different vibrations.”

 

Life in the Sonship of Christ

Most certainly, beyond all worlds, unconditioned and unimaginable, transcending discursive thought, there yawns for ever the ultimate Fact, the fountain of all other facthood, the burning and undimensioned depth of the Divine Life. Most certainly also, to be united with that Life in the eternal Sonship of Christ is, strictly speaking, the only thing worth a moment’s consideration. . . . I allow and insist that the Eternal Word, the Second Person of the Trinity, can never be, nor have been, confined to any place at all: it is rather in Him that all places exist. But the records say that the glorified, but still in some sense corporeal, Christ withdrew into some different mode of being about six weeks after the Crucifixion: and that He is “preparing a place" for us. (C. S. Lewis, Miracles)

As I state in my books, by God’s grace in our repentance we have had the direct, personal communion with the Holy Spirit restored by the sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In this sense we “already” have a real glimpse of the eternal Life to come in the Sonship of Christ, but it is “not yet” fulfilled in our present space-time. It is our eternal Hope.

 

Man, the supernatural and the natural

What follows is a series of posts of what C. S. Lewis said about the duality of Man in Miracles:

When we are considering Man as evidence for the fact that this spatio-temporal Nature is not the only thing in existence, the important distinction is between that part of Man which belongs to this spatio-temporal Nature and that part which does not: or, if you prefer, between those phenomena of humanity which are rigidly interlocked with all other events in this space and time and those which have a certain independence. These two parts of a man may rightly be called Natural and Supernatural: in calling the second “Supernatural” we mean that it is something which invades, or is added to it, the great interlocked event in space and time, instead of merely arising from it [the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as Counselor sent to believers in repentance by the resurrected Jesus Christ - added by the blog author]. On the other hand this “Supernatural” part is itself a created being - a thing called into existence by the Absolute Being and given by Him a certain character or “nature.” . . . There is, however, a sense in which the life of this part can become absolutely Supernatural, i.e. not beyond this Nature but beyond any and every Nature, in the sense that it can achieve a kind of life which could never have been given to any created being in its mere creation. . . . The rational part of every man is supernatural in the relative sense - the same sense in which both angels and devils are supernatural. But if it is, as the theologians say, “born again,” if it surrenders itself back to God in Christ, it will then have a life which is absolutely Supernatural, which is not created at all but begotten, for the creature is then sharing the begotten life of the Second Person of the Deity. . . . Finally, Christian writers use “spirit” and “spiritual” to mean the life which arises in such rational beings when they voluntarily surrender to Divine grace and become sons of the Heavenly Father in Christ. . . . the regenerate man will find his soul eventually harmonized with his spirit by the life of Christ that is in him.

This series of quotations concludes the posts taken from C. S. Lewis’ book, Miracles, that strongly support the concept of dualist interactionism between the immaterial Mind of God and mind of Man through God’s created neural synaptic networks of the brain.

In the beginning was the Word

In John 1:1-3 it reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.”

William Dembski has stated that Information is required for the start of any controlled process. Information itself is preceded by the prime source of all information, a mind. By the Word the Apostle John was referring to the person who is the Prime Cause, the Mind of God who is the Sender of information actualized in all creations by the Son, Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

Dualist interactionism supported

I cite Danko Georgiev in my book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, who said:

“Indeed if one considers the wave function of a quantum particle as a non-observable mental state of pre-probabilities and the actualized position in space and time as an observable material state, then the dualistic interactionism proposed by Sir John Eccles is consistent with the modern vision of what the physical world is.”

 

The dualistic interactionism take away

Mind-brain interaction occurs and is dualistic. Interaction involves a nonmaterial mind with the capacity to cause a probabilistic, directed transmission of action potentials through coherent synaptic networks of the physical brain (see “Waves in Our Brains, Part Two”). It occurs by quantum tunneling which induces conformational changes in the protein scaffolds, vesicles, vesicular pores and ionic channels of synapses. By this process neural transmitters are released from vesicular pores into synaptic clefts. The transmitters stimulate encoded spike trains of action potentials conducted through a network of postsynaptic downstream neurons. Synaptic transmission of specified information occurs by this process and is interpreted by a mind. When the intention, attention or will of one’s cognitive mind generates encoded neural impulses the mind interprets the codes as “percepts” in real time so that one knows what one is thinking and intending. The linguistic code generated is likely by an immaterial energy of the mind.

 

Plantinga on dualism

Alvin Plantinga was cited in my book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, stating that classical science does not claim that the universe is causally closed. His statement is entirely consistent with special divine action in the world. Just as God, who is immaterial and Spirit, can act in the physical universe, so too can the immaterial minds of human beings. There is no objection to special divine action or for human free action, dualistically conceived.

 

Miracles in our time

In an interview of Roger F. Olson, Ph.D. by Lee Strobel, Dr. Olson commented on the reality of miracles in our time. I included his quote in my second book:

No question…I continue to believe that God speaks to his people today, although I concede that sometimes I find myself feeling pretty alone on this….Often Christians object to the legitimacy of these ‘God things’ because they say people don’t need God to speak anymore. After all, they insist, the canon of Scripture is complete, and today God chooses to speak through preachers to communicate messages based on those biblical teachings. Personally, I find that absurd…If God was gracious enough to give personal guidance, comfort, and correction to individuals and groups ‘back then,’ why would he stop?

 

Connection to God via Holy Spirit

I am posting a quote from Shawn Bolz relevant to points I make in my books and blogs for our good and God’s glory:

“…we are all given access to the will of God and connection to God through the Holy Spirit. Jesus restored our connection with God! We no longer need a proxy through which we commune with our loving Creator. Jesus built a bridge that crosses the chasm of our sin to connect us directly with the Father’s love….We now have Jesus and His Spirit of truth, revelation, wisdom, and knowledge living inside of us.”

 

Spirit of Jesus

From F. F. Bruce’s Commentary on the Book of Acts:

Since His ascension it is by His Spirit that Jesus communicates with his people; we may recall Paul’s description of Him as “the last Adam: who became a “life-giving spirit” (1 Cor. 15: 45)

In my two books I consider at least in part how the Spirit of Jesus communes with us via linguistic neural codes distributed through coherent neural synaptic networks, showing concordance between neuroscience and Scripture.

 

THe Holy Spirit

The next posts will feature quotes in italics from Billy Graham’s book, The Holy Spirit: Activating God’s Power in Your Life. Doctor Graham’s worldwide evangelical ministry was guided by the Holy Spirit through prayer and with unrelenting faith, explaining to millions the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Before he died, Pope John was asked what church doctrine most needed emphasis today. He replied, "The doctrine of the Holy Spirit.” Billy Graham asked Dr. Karl Barth what he thought the next emphasis on theology would be. He replied without hesitation, “The Holy Spirit.”

Doctor Graham expressed concern over the misunderstanding and even ignorance in some Christian circles concerning the Third Person of the Trinity. How the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit relate is explained as follows: …we say that we pray to the Father through the Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit. …functionally the Father came first, then the Son became incarnate, died and rose again. Now the Spirit does His work in this age of the Spirit….trinitarianism preserves the unity of the Godhead, and at the same time it acknowledges that there are three persons in that Godhead which is still of one essence. God is one, but that oneness is not simple - it is complex. God the Father is fully God. God the Son is fully God. God the Holy Spirit is fully God. The Bible presents this as fact….although the Father is the Source of all blessing, it is through the Holy Spirit at work in us that all truth becomes living and operative in our lives.

 

Pentecost

Pentecost in the New Testament marked the commencement of the present age of the Holy Spirit. Believers are under the guidance even as the disciples of Jesus were under Him. From heaven Jesus still exercises lordship over us, but, not being physically with us now, He transmits his directions by means of the Holy Spirit who makes Christ real to us. Since Pentecost the Holy Spirit is the link between the first and second advents of Jesus. He applies the work of Jesus Christ to men in this age. (Billy Graham)

 

Christ in us

 

…consider Romans 8:10 (KJV), which says, “If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin.” Or consider Galatians 2:20, “Christ lives in me.” It is clear in these verses that if the Spirit is in us, then Christ is in us. Christ dwells in our hearts by faith. But the Holy Spirit is the person of the Trinity who actually dwells in us, having been sent by the Son who has gone away but who will come again in person when we shall literally see Him. (Billy Graham)

 

Holy spirit in history

 

…the operations of the Holy Spirit among men in the three periods of human history may be defined by three words: “upon,” “with,” “in.” In the Old Testament He came upon selected persons and remained for a season (Judg. 14:19). In the Gospels He is represented as dwelling with the disciples in the person of Christ (John 14:17). From the second chapter of Acts onward he is spoken of as being in the people of God (1 Cor. 6:19). (Billy Graham)

 

Marks of the holy spirit

 

I conclude this series of quotes from Billy Graham’s book, The Holy Spirit: Activating God’s Power in Your Life, with these comments:

There should be no more distinctive mark of the Christian than love. . . . The Holy Spirit is the one who reproves, convicts, strives, instructs, invites, quickens, regenerates, renews, strengthens, and uses. He must not be grieved, resisted, tempted, quenched, insulted, or blasphemed. He gives liberty to the Christian, direction to the worker, discernment to the teacher, power to the Word, and fruit to faithful service. He reveals the things of Christ. He teaches us how to use the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. He guides us into all truth. He directs in the way of godliness. He teaches us how to answer the enemies of our Lord. He gives us [direct] access to the Father.

 

Holy Spirit is personal

…the Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit performing tasks that only persons can perform. The Spirit comforts, guides, and teaches the elect (see John 16). These activities are done in a manner that involves intelligence, will, feeling, and power. He searches, selects, reveals, comforts, convicts, and admonishes. Only a person could do these things. The response of the Christian, then, is not mere affirmation that such a being exists, but rather to obey, love, and adore the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity. (R. C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith)

Sanctification by the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit fulfills the role of the sanctifier. To be sanctified is to be made holy, or righteous. Sanctification is a process that begins the moment we become Christians. The process continues until death when the believer is made finally, fully, and forevermore righteous….Our sanctification is a cooperative venture. We must work with the Holy Spirit to grow in sanctification. (R. C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith)

The Human Self

Sir Karl Popper and Sir John C. Eccles defined “self” in their work published in 1977, The Self and Its Brain (1). 

“…the self is not a ‘pure ego,’ that is, a mere subject.  Rather, it is incredibly rich. …it observes and takes action at the same time.  It is acting and suffering, recalling the past and planning and programming the future, expecting and disposing.  It contains…wishes, plans, hopes, decisions to act, and a vivid consciousness of being an acting self, a center of action.  And it owes this selfhood largely to interaction with other persons….”

The highest mental experience is “knowing that one knows,” self-awareness or self-consciousness. (2)   It is the most fundamental characteristic of the human species (3) and emerges from levels of linguistic communication not shared by non-human animals. (4)   Mind and language are more than physical entities.  Distinctively human language enables Man to bridge the gulf between mind and matter, the immaterial and the material.  Human language reflects a spiritual component in humans that does not exist in other creatures and lifts them to a unique eminence in the cosmos, made in the triune image of God with spirit, soul and body. (5)  Bruce M. Miller stated that “…it may be deflating to some people that the very essence of who they are – including their beliefs and values – is merely another anatomical process.”  This statement reflects the common reduction made of the mind to the physical brain.  The sense of self, according to his studies, could be localized to one area of the brain. (6) 

            William A. Dembski (7) points out that a full material account of mind needs to understand localized brain excitations in terms of other localized brain excitations.  Anger, for example, has to be explained in terms of semantic contents, such as insults.  The admixture of brain excitations and semantic contents hardly constitutes a materialist accounting of mind or intelligent agency.  The human soul mediates between the spirit and body and correlates with the self, or self-consciousness, our “I.”  The self remains in continuity with the past and into the future.  No matter how extreme the circumstances of our experiences one remains the same self, durable through a lifetime. (8,9) The self makes Man distinctively human.  We are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world. (10)

            Fundamental to the Gospel is the teaching from Jesus Christ that Christians need to die to self.  What does this mean?  The human self is durable and defines our unique human identity.  Dying to self as a term can generate confusion and angst among Christians.  Jan Johnson has addressed the issue of “dying to self” by explaining the term based on Scripture. 

“Jesus described the dying-to-self process (to ‘deny self’ is the exact scriptural phrase) as part of following Him: ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me’ (Matthew 16:24, NASB). Sometimes people mistake dying to self for death of self. But self-denial is not self-rejection. God treasures your divinely created self. He doesn’t want to obliterate the part of you that makes you uniquely you. God works within you and reshapes you into the person your renewed-in-Christ self is meant to be.” (11)

The following teachings of the Apostles Peter and Paul are representative “scriptural phrases” alluded to by Johnson:

1 Peter 2:24 …and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds, you were healed.

Galatians 5:24-25 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. 

Ephesians 4:22-24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

            It is of unique importance that human beings can communicate with their Creator God through the human spirit and receive Counsel from the Holy Spirit restored to repentant mankind by the sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  We remain distinct human selves in interactive harmony with God’s Spirit by His grace through the death and resurrection of Jesus, His Son.

References

1.      Karl R. Popper and John C. Eccles. The Self and Its Brain (Berlin, Heidelberg, London, New York: Springer-Verlag International, 1977), 120.

2.      John C. Eccles. Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Soul (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), 224.

3.      T. Dobzhansky. The Biology of Ultimate Concern (New York: The New American Library, 1967).

4.      Eccles, Ibid, 71.

5.      Joseph W. Poulshock, “Language-Wonder: Theory, Pedagogy, and Research,” Christ and the World, the Journal of Tokyo Christian University, 8 (1998).

6.      Bruce L. Miller, “Finding One’s Self,” Presented at the American Academy of Neurology, 53rd Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, P/a, May 5-11, 2001.

7.      William A. Dembski, “Are We Spiritual Machines?” First Things, 96 (1999), 25-31.

8.      Henry Margenau, The Miracle of Existence. Woodbridge, Connecticut: Ox Bow Press, 1984).

9.      John C. Eccles, “Do Mental Events Cause Neural Events Analogously to the Probability Fields of Quantum Mechanics?” Proc. Royal Soc. London (Biol), 227 (1986), 411-428.

10.  Eccles, Ibid, 241.

11.  Jan Johnson, Dying to Self and Discovering So Much More, August 25, 2011 (https://decisionmagazine.com/dying-self-discovering-much-more/)

 

Information Transmission between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man

              

In my second book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, I cited Christoph Lameter who stated in his doctoral dissertation, “God can effectively communicate with humans by direct stimulation of neurons in the human brain generating images and memories.  God is able to communicate with humans in a direct way.” (1) In his book, Being As Communion, William A. Dembski presented a scheme adapted from Claude Shannon that serves as a template for information transmission between the Mind of God and the mind of Man by means of the indwelling of the human spirit by the personal Holy Spirit. (2)  I am presenting the scheme in this blog as a foundation for subsequent blogs that will address how this interaction may occur drawing from current studies from the neurosciences.  In this scheme the identification of the Sender, or Information Source, is the Mind of God, and the Recipient, or Receiver, is the mind of Man.  God intended it as an intimate, personal communion of love.            

Information Source (Mind of God) generates a            

Message (the Word – specified information, the Word also being Jesus Christ) that is given to a            

Transmitter (Holy Spirit) that directs a            

Signal with meaning and purpose to the            

Receiver (mind of Man) in the form of            

Spike patterns of action potentials transmitted through the  

Destination, the neural synaptic networks as            

Linguistic codes in various manifestations (dreams, visions, perceived words, intuition, discernment) interpreted by the

Receiver, or recipient, the immaterial, cognitive mind of Man

Noise in the communication channel reflects the distorting or blocking effects by evil, sin or focus on self on the            

Message of the Information Source            

Effective error correction of the distorted or blocked Message is provided by the            

Word, the life and teachings of Jesus Christ through the Bible and through the conscience given by the Transmitter, the indwelling Holy Spirit, who gives discernment of God’s general revelation            

It is my hope that the evidence presented in my two books that is derived from Scripture, neuroscience, quantum mechanics and information theory for dualist interaction between the Holy Spirit and the soul of Man through the human spirit and neural synaptic networks is compelling.  In subsequent blogs I will explain how the interaction may occur drawing upon concordance between science and theology..  

References

1.     Christoph Lameter, Divine Action in the Framework of Scientific Knowledge: from Quantum Behavior to Divine Action, A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the School of Theology at Fuller Seminary in candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Apologetics and Philosophy, Newark, CA. (October 20, 2000)

2.    William A. Dembski, Being As Communion: A Metaphysics of Information (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2014)       

 

Waves in Our Brains

 

Part One

In the fifth chapter of my book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, I cited Mortimer Adler’s discussion of the mind’s relation to the material brain.  He stated that the intellectual mind is superior to matter and cannot be reduced to it.  It is an immaterial component of human nature.  He said, “The intellect cannot normally function without dependence on the activity of the brain, but the brain is not the physical organ of intellectual thought.” (1)  According to Adler human behavior consists of two substances, mind and physical brain, and the two interact with one another. 

Neural impulses are the same in electrochemical character.  They consist of action potentials transmitted across and through neural synaptic networks as spike trains with distinctive frequencies and amplitudes, as we shall see.  Neural structures are histologically and anatomically similar, or even identical.  Distinguishable concepts that reflect intellectual and cognitive processes cannot be embodied in matter that is so similar or identical!  The power of conceptual thought must be an immaterial energy,  and energy is expressed as waves.  We are aware that light and sound are transmitted by waves.  Likewise, waves are transmitted across synaptic clefts by quantum tunneling with specified frequencies,  amplitudes and trajectories.  Going further, it is now recognized that elementary particles at the atomic level, electromagnetism, gravity and the strong and weak nuclear forces are . . . waves.  Even space consists of unique vibrational signatures!  In this and my subsequent blog I will discuss the flow of waves within and across our brains. 

One more point merits emphasis.  John C. Eccles maintained that the human mind is not causally closed to nonmaterial stimuli as claimed by materialists. The neural synapse is considered to be a frontier across which information flows in both directions. (2) The billions of interconnections between neurons and trillions of synapses in neural networks constitute an information processing system.  William A. Dembski has stated that matter itself is reducible to the information instantiated within its design, construction and function.  It is energy that causes information to undergo such dynamic transformations.  Energy is inferred from information and is called by Dembski the “causal glue.” (3)  Werner Gitt stated that information is a fundamental entity on equal footing with matter and energy. It is required for the start of any controlled process whether energy or matter.  Gitt identified the one prerequisite of information, that it must be in coded form. (4)  Information itself is preceded by the prime source of all information, a mind.  In John 1:1-3 it is said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.”

The electrochemical activity of neural networks translates into the riches of the human mind.  James Le Fanu presumed that there has to be a code within the patterns of the activity, ensuring that the firing of the visual cortex, for example, gives rise to the perception of trees and birds seen from one’s window. (5)  The neural code requires an intelligence to establish the rules of syntax, meaning and purpose, human or divine.  Anything with high information content must be interpreted by the intellect of a mind.  It is the immaterial mind that interacts cognitively with encoded information within the spike trains of neural synaptic networks.  It is a perceptual process by which linguistic neural codes are interpreted by a human mind with the unique capacity for expressing and understanding advanced language.

The application of increasingly sophisticated technologies to the study of the human mind has generated more understanding of waves that are transmitted through the brain.  Initial observation of brain waves was by electroencephalography which recorded waves transmitted across the skull with relatively poor resolution and no directional components.  Human brains can now be studied by electrocorticography (ECoG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging.  ECoG applies to direct studies of live neural tissues in responsive patients such as those undergoing neurosurgery for epilepsy.  Multiple monitors can be placed over larger surfaces of the brain itself to study the characteristics and routes of neural transmission.  In Part Two of this blog I will share what I have learned from more current neuroscience literature.  There is yet a dominant perspective that the human mind is not immaterial and can be reduced to the functional activities of the physical brain.  Much of the literature of neuroscience does not acknowledge the human mind with causal and cognitive power but equates the function of the brain to computation.  The mind is considered to be an epiphenomenon by some.  By reviewing points I make in my books in the paragraphs above I have provided an introduction that shows the merit of dualist interaction between the immaterial mind and the material brain and its neural networks.  I will soon post Part Two of this blog.  In the blog that follows, “Minds in Communion,” I will focus on the dualist interaction between the mind of Man and the Mind of God.

References

1.        Mortimer J. Adler, Intellect: Mind over Matter (New York: Collier Books, MacMillan Publishing Company, 1990)

2.       John C. Eccles, How the Self Controls Its Brain (Berlin, New York, London: Springer-Verlag, 1994)

3.       William A. Dembski, Being As Communion: A Metaphysics of Information (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2014)

4.       Werner Gitt, In the Beginning Was Information: A Scientist Explains the Incredible Design in Nature (Green Forest, Arizona: Master Books, 2007)

5.       James Le Fanu, Why Us? How the Self Controls Its Brain (New York: Pantheon Books, 2009)

 

Searching for the Mind

In his article, “Searching for the Mind,” (jonlieffmd.com/blog/neuronal-networks-brain-waves) Dr. John Lieff discusses neuronal networks and brain waves. I am posting a paragraph from his article that is descriptive of the synchronicity of brain waves in neural synaptic networks and its significance.

The changing dynamics of wide-ranging neuronal circuits occurs throughout the brain in milliseconds at the level of individual neurons and groups of neurons. Neurons join a circuit one moment and another the next moment. Groups of neurons fire action potentials in very specific rhythms that rapidly change. Groups of neurons produce brain waves - synchronous oscillations - that communicate information from one section of the brain to another. Synchronous brain waves couple with other frequencies to connect multiple regions.

 

Matter and Mind

I will be posting a series of brief blogs that highlight contents of chapters in my book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man Through Neural Synaptic Networks. The blogs will march through the book contents. The first blog, “Matter and Mind,” includes excerpts from two articles by William A. Dembski entitled “Are We Spiritual Machines?” and “Conflating Matter and Mind.” I cite both articles on page xxi. They are in response to the question I raised, “But if mental activity includes a functional immaterial component, how can the immaterial mind of Man relate to physically based brain activity and to the Mind of God, who is Spirit? How might the Holy Spirit interact with the human mind, will and emotion - the soul?”

Within [a] richer world of both material and nonmaterial things, physical laws lose their status as absolutes and become subject to principles that may be quite metaphysical, (principles like intelligent agency and divine providence).

The brain is a physical system which captures intelligence . . . which is metaphysical, created by God as part of our mind, soul and “heart” before we were even placed in the womb. Our brains are interactive processors of this distinctive human gift, an incorporation of the divine Logos.

 

God Is Spirit and Personal

In His meeting with the woman at the well in the Book of John Jesus explained what had been proclaimed in the Old Testament, that God is Spirit, a living Person. He existed before the natural. He created the natural and continues to this day to give it life and breath, and He penetrates the natural. The Bible defines life of spirit as a God-given capacity in human beings to form a relationship with God, to serve and to please Him.

Communion with the Holy Spirit

It is important to understand that to be led by the Spirit it is necessary to communicate with Him, to have “spiritual ears.” It is through the Holy Spirit that Man has communion and communication with God. The spirit of Man comes in contact with and unites with the Holy Spirit as one. The Holy Spirit is divine, and the fallen human spirit is not, but the two are united as one so that the repentant human spirit is reborn to new life in Jesus Christ. The new spirit is none other than God’s indwelling Spirit Who will enable God’s people to follow His decrees. It is the presence of God Himself. The Holy Spirit is in you/us.

 

Holy Spirit and the human spirit

With the Fall of Man (Genesis 3) the image of God in humans was corrupted. Intimate communion between the soul of Man and the Holy Spirit was lost. In sin Man thereby experienced spiritual death, loss of communion between the human spirit and the Holy Spirit. Man’s mind became governed by his soul, by the will of his own self-centered focus.

The relationship between God and Man was and is designed to be a bidirectional, interactive one. Man’s capacity is to use all the communicative attributes of his Creator God, his mind being created in the image of the Mind of God. The restoration of this interaction depends upon Man’s repentance and the soul’s choice to follow the Counsel of the Holy Spirit through his human spirit. As the human spirit rules over the soul led by the indwelling Holy Spirit, the soul in turn expresses itself through the cognitive attributes of the human brain.

 

Self-Conscious Mind

I am citing work of John C. Eccles addressing dualist interaction between the self-conscious mind and the cortical neurons in the anatomical and physiological entities called modules. These entities are comprised of ensembles of many hundreds of neurons acting in a collusive patterned array. In Part Two of “Waves in Our Brains” we shall see how prescient Eccles was when he coauthored his book with Karl Popper in 1977. Some of the terms he used are changed but the functional relevance remains to this day.

The self-conscious mind is actively engaged in reading out from the multitude of active centers at the highest level of brain activity, namely the [modules] of the … cerebral [cortex]. The self-conscious mind selects from these centers according to attention, and from moment to moment integrates its selection to give unity even to the most transient experiences. Furthermore, the self-conscious mind acts upon these neural centers modifying the dynamic spatiotemporal patterns of neural events. Thus, we propose that the self-conscious mind exercises a superior interpretative and controlling role upon the neural events….Thus we conjecture that the self-conscious mind is scanning the modular activities in the liaison areas of the cerebral cortex…from moment to moment it is selecting modules according to its interest, the phenomenon of attention, and is itself integrating from all this diversity to give the unified conscious experience.

 

Inner person of the self

I cite Dr. James Le Fanu’s discussion of the “self” in this post which reference is included in my book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man through Neural Synaptic Networks.

“…the Self is an autonomous agent with freedom to choose, … founded upon a rich autobiographical inner record of memory, an accumulated subjective experience extending back to childhood, and that it possesses powers of reason and imagination expressed through language extending beyond the boundaries of personal experience. The Self is nonmaterial with no substance, and it cannot be weighed or measured. Its non-material attributes collectively form the “inner core” that is each unique individual. Self is grounded in the human brain which facilitates its formation through cognition and memory, but it has a coherent, durable transcendent reality that cannot be explained by ever-changing, transient electrical activity of neuronal circuits.”

 

Neural Codes and Information

Because human beings are uniquely gifted to express and understand language, neural codes transmit linguistic information (as does the genetic code) with small probabilities defining specification. The information has structure, meaning and purpose. The intention of the immaterial mind of a sender transmits information to a recipient, whether that be the mind of a person or muscles of a limb with an intended action, or result.

 

Silent thinking

Sir John Eccles defined thinking as a process of mental concentration on some anticipated sensory input, on some particular task or on some particular learned program. There is an internal generation of thinking in the absence of any signaling to the brain by sense organs.

 

Gift of language

Of significance is that human beings through the capacity for language not only can describe the material world around us with a high degree of accuracy but can easily overreach the entire scope of the space-time in which we live in order to express ideas that touch the unseen eternity of abstract ideas. That eternal, unseen realm is accessible to us through the gift of language.

 

Energy, frequency, wavelength

I cite William Dembski in my second book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man Through Neural Synaptic Networks, who commented on God’s imparting of information into His created universe and its constituents: Energy in quantum events is proportional to frequency and inversely proportional to wavelength. Since there is no upper limit to wavelength there is no lower limit to energy required to impart specified information with structure, meaning and purpose into the codes of neural impulses. The Designer could impart information into the universe and its constituents, including components of the neural synaptic mechanism, without inputting any energy at all.

 

Waves in Our Brains

 

Part Two

An Introduction

In this blog I describe in detail what has been learned by neuroscientists about the waves in our brains.  It is a lengthy composition intended to replace what would have been a very technical book.  I include information derived from more recent neuroscience investigations to expand on points I made especially in my first book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man Through Neural Synaptic Networks.  I endeavor to make the content understandable to lay readers, but it has been necessary to include some technical language which I try to explain along the way as accurately as I can.  I have directed this blog to individuals who are interested in seeing the concordance that exists between neuroscientific data and applicable Scripture relevant to dualist interaction between the immaterial mind of Man and the physical brain.  Ultimately, I shall address interaction between the Mind of God and the neural networks of the human brain that enable a bidirectional, personal communion between the Holy Spirit and the spirit and soul of Man.  That part of my composition will expand on material I presented in my second book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story.  God created mankind to have an intimate, personal communion with Him.  It was a communion that was lost at the Fall but restored by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ who sent as He promised the Holy Spirit to indwell the spirit and soul of mankind in repentance.  My next blog, “Minds in Communion,” will expand on this latter point.  Let us see what neuroscience has learned about waves in our brains that will help us understand this interaction.

Brain Waves Description

Brain waves, also referred to as oscillations, are periodic fluctuations of electrical excitability in neurons, singly or in groups.  Fluctuating changes in the membrane potential of neurons create an extracellular current which can be measured by electrical recordings from the brain.  The electroencephalogram (EEG) has been used to study the brain waves of humans for many years.  They are of multiple frequencies including in order from lowest to highest delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma.  The frequencies range from 0.05 Hertz (Hz) to as high as 500 Hz. (1) They have spatial and temporal relationships with brain functions and brain states (and we shall see with cognitive activity).  However, EEG’s are monitored through the skull and have poor resolution and correlation with specific cognitive activities.  They also do not show the trajectories of brain waves through the brain which are being increasingly documented.

As was pointed out in Part One of this blog, it is now possible to monitor brain wave frequencies and amplitudes directly by electrocorticography (ECoG) by placing monitors directly on the cortex of the brain during certain surgical procedures.  ECoG can be done in awake patients undergoing surgery for epilepsy.  Trajectories of waves can be traced through the monitored parts of the brain.  The procedure can be coordinated with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and spectrograms.  Technological advances that are becoming increasingly available allow investigators to learn more about cerebral cortical function within and between functional regions of the brain and how it relates to cognition and sensorimotor functions.

Brain waves are reflective of nerve impulses that consist of propagating action potentials referred to as spike trains.  They are immensely complex as we shall see.  Waves generated within certain parts of the brain may have specific relationships with the waves of other parts of the brain such as the cerebral, frontoparietal or visual cortex, so their trajectories are of interest.  Nerve impulses are continuously active within nerve cells constituting a stochastic, or random, background of wave activity.  At rest neural networks stay at various subthreshold levels of polarization insufficient to stimulate action potentials.  This status makes them highly responsive to electrochemical inputs that are sufficiently strong to cause depolarization and the generation of action potentials.  Spike trains of action potentials are transmitted with specified trajectories by a process to be discussed.  The fluctuations of brain waves can be switched within milliseconds between different states of amplitude and frequency in response to inputs of wave trains accounting for the fluidity of cortical activities and of the mind.  By a process such as cross frequency coupling (CFC) a neural network with a theta frequency can be linked with a network of impulses with a higher gamma frequency to facilitate a very rapid change in the trajectory of a train of spikes from one region to another.  Spike trains of action potentials transmit specified information (explained in both of my books) within neural codes to functional parts of the brain so that, for example, the aroma of a rose is sensed or an arm is raised.  We have seen in Part One of this blog that the immaterial mind interacts causally and receptively with this process.  Most current neuroscience studies are confirming this dualist relationship.

The Mechanics of Synaptic Transmission

Synaptic exocytosis serves as the regulator of the activity that generates coherent patterns of impulse transmission.  Quantum mechanical action is the switch, or trigger, within microstructures of ionic channels and synapses that stimulates exocytosis.  Because quantum processes involve signal times smaller than the pico- and femtosecond scale they correspond to electronic transitions.  These include electron transfers and changes in molecular bonds in ionic channels and synapses that cause the release of synaptic vesicles across synaptic clefts. The probability of synaptic vesicle exocytosis per excitatory impulse is less than 100% due to voltage potential barriers within the microstructures.  An incoming nerve impulse excites electronic configurations to metastable levels at these sites.  It is in this way that neural networks stay close to instability with subthreshold levels of depolarization that are insufficient to stimulate action potentials.  The microstructures of groups of neurons can be switched to new states by the collective action of incoming action potentials sufficient to cause depolarization leading to synaptic exocytosis and the transmission of brain waves along neural networks. Quantum tunneling triggers this process by which wave impulses are able to pass through voltage potential barriers to cause exocytosis.  (2)  I elaborate on the details of synaptic transmission and quantum tunneling in my book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man through Neural Synaptic Networks.

An Historical Review

For a historical understanding of brain waves I refer to the pioneering work of the Nobel Laureate Sir John C. Eccles.  In his book published in 1977 with Karl R. Popper, The Self and Its Brain (3), how cortical modules of pyramidal cells relate to the self-conscious mind is considered.  They proposed that the self-conscious mind actively scans and reads out the wave forms and frequencies of the multitude of cerebral modules in the neocortex, the principal site of cognition that act as detectors of specific scanning wave patterns.  They describe this as the highest level of brain activity.  The self-conscious mind selects from the background wave patterns of modules by focusing attention, or interest, on specific objects or activities integrating what is selected from moment to moment to give unity to experiences.  Matching of wave frequencies, amplitudes and phases of the mind with the modular wave functions is selected by the scanning process of the mind resulting in neuronal synchronization.  Moreover, the self-conscious mind can modify the spatiotemporal wave patterns of modules, thereby exercising both an interpretive and controlling role upon the impulses.  The authors stressed that the integrating unity of conscious experience is determined by the self-conscious mind and not by the neural machinery of the cerebral cortex and its modules.  Not only does the mind read out selectively from the ongoing activities of the modular machinery but it also modifies these activities, a causal interaction.

Perception and intention are characterized by dynamic, coherent actions of specific areas in the brain with increases in regional blood flow.  Activation generates spatiotemporal patterns of nerve impulses with specific frequencies, amplitudes and phases.  These patterns draw upon memory codes maintained in neural networks, including the learned inventory of pyramidal cells.  Cortical modules consist of many thousands of modifiable synapses which can act coherently with other neural bundles to generate action potentials that bring about specific functions.  Exocytosis probability can be increased in neural modules since there is a constant subthreshold background activity that can be modulated by exocytosis in large numbers of synapses that generate top-down inputs of impulses that can stimulate spike trains of encoded information in recipient networks.  (2)  Coupling of wave frequencies between networks can establish oscillatory synchronization that can also increase the probability of neural exocytosis.  So we see that waves do characterize brain function in specific ways.  It has been suggested that mentation is also accompanied by wave oscillations, a topic that will be elaborated upon in paragraphs to come.

Bringing Up to Date

I now turn our attention to the more recent work of neuroscientists.  As these articles are discussed we shall have reference to cortical modules, their structure and function as detectors, how they relate to neural wave patterns and codes, focused attention, how what is perceived by modular scanning is interpreted by the mind and how the causal effects of the mind are accomplished within the context of brain waves.  We will consider what gives direction to the trajectories of brain waves, how the trajectories are formed and how they relate to cognition of the immaterial mind.  I will do my best to make the content understandable, but waves in our brains is a complex and dynamic study.

Gyorgy Buzsaki and Brendon Watson (1) published an artlcle in 2012 that discussed brain rhythms and neural syntax and the implications for efficient coding of cognitive content.  Brain rhythms, or oscillations, can interact with each other by several mechanisms.  One example is phase coupling that involves the entrainment of oscillators with similar frequencies in which the phase of a given frequency is entrained by another.  When multiple rhythms are present simultaneously, the phase of the slow rhythms, e.g. theta, modulates the power of the faster ones, e.g. gamma.  A second interaction referred to as CFC creates packets of higher frequency waves that transmit information from one region of the brain to another conforming to syntactical rules.  So we see that the various types of synchronization appear to serve the transmission of information from region to region, and the causal role of the mind is also to be considered.  The syntactical rules apply to both sender and recipient so that encoded communication is meaningful and with purpose. 

The temporal pacing of neuronal waves is accomplished by rhythmic inhibitory volleys of impulses.  The balanced activity between stimulatory and inhibitory impulses is important to the generation of shorter frames of encoded messages. Oscillations have well-defined onsets and offsets with maximum and minimum spiking activity in the information-transmitting neural cells.  Coupled with CFC this activity serves to establish syntactical rules within codes.  Packets of gamma oscillations may be grouped by slower theta oscillations via CFC to associate linguistically encoded letters with words, and the theta waves can combine the words into sentences so that meaningful information can be transmitted across larger brain regions.  CFC is considered the backbone of a neural syntax which induces segmentation and the linkage of spike trains into cell assemblies that transmit encoded oscillations. The words to which we refer are the oscillations of linguistic codes within neural wave patterns that vary in timing and rate that the mind learns to interpret over a lifetime, archiving them into memory by neural plasticity.  Information trajectories and processing depend on the synchronization of neuronal oscillations, including those of the pyramidal neurons.  It is believed that gamma cell assemblies constitute a useable packet of information with specific content with meaning and purpose.

There is a staggering number of ion channels in neural networks.  This great number allows neurons to encode information within trains of action potentials with a wide range of frequencies, amplitudes, phases and shapes.  The different channel types determine the diverse firing behavior of neurons that can change on a sub-millisecond timescale as was pointed out above.  Action potentials serve a wide range of functions in neuronal networks by encoding information in their frequencies and patterns.  The rich firing behavior of neurons depends on the numerous voltage-dependent ion channels and synapses and accounts for the incalculable number of neural codes that are generated over a lifetime and archived in memory. (4)

Let us revisit the dynamics of neuronal circuits.  Neurons join a circuit one moment and another the next moment.  The firing of action potentials also can rapidly change, as can the attentional focus of an immaterial mind!  The waves of groups of neurons can entrain the waves of other neuron groups to form synchronous oscillations so that encoded information can be communicated between brain regions.  For any task multiple brain networks may be active and integrated by the process of synchronization.  Also of great complexity is the coupling and uncoupling of different wave frequencies transmitting information between local and global regions of the brain.  Coherent brain waves can be changed in milliseconds!  Doctor John Lieff has noted that there is no known center in the brain that directs this complex circuitry of rhythms and frequencies.  Absent a center for this complexity isn’t the best explanation an immaterial mind interacting with each molecule, each cell and each brain region, with each neural code? (5)  There is an important question to be asked.  Does the mind itself generate waves? I shall address this important question as you read on.

Challenge to Neuroscientists

It is a challenging goal of neuroscientists to interpret, or to decode, the mental content of brain activity.  Kendrick Kay and coworkers (6) designed a decoding method to characterize the relationship between visual stimuli and fMRI activity in visual areas.  Their model consisted of a tuning of individual voxels for space, orientation and spatial frequency, estimated directly from neural responses evoked by natural images viewed by study subjects.  Distinct voxel activity patterns were obtained for each subject.  The stimulus related information that was decoded from voxel activity remained stable over time.  fMRI signals contained a considerable amount of stimulus-related information that could be decoded.  The ultimate goal of the investigators is to reconstruct the actual images seen by an observer from neural response patterns.

Another challenge to neuroscientists is to understand the role of neural oscillatory activity in sensory and cognitive functions.  These include focused attention and intent to generate specific functions such as verbal communication, movement of an extremity or forming an original idea.  Erol Basar and coworkers (7) have studied oscillatory brain activity and have identified a new trend in neuroscience, to understand the mechanisms by which the immense number of neurons interact to produce higher cognitive functions.  Theirs is an important and detailed article that sheds much light on how cognition relates to brain waves.  Neuronal populations interact across extended regions of the brain through large nerve bundles in modules and in tracts of axons.  Each part of the brain has specific dynamics based on the history of life experiences and the input of neural stimulations.  Their interactions generate new neural patterns which are dynamic flows with continuous distributions and trajectories through the brain.  Brain oscillations are basic events with natural frequencies reflected in EEG oscillations.  Most functions require an integrated action of neurons in many regions of the brain.  We have seen that gamma oscillations serve to transmit information through brain regions.  Theta, alpha, delta and beta oscillations also have specific functions, and during functional states major operating rhythms can change their functional roles within milliseconds, as we have seen, reflecting the numerous brain functions of the cognitive mind to which we are coming closer!   

Neuronal Synchrony and Trajectories

Sensory input consists of the transmission of specific wave frequencies, amplitudes, phases and shapes.  Brain areas exist that share these wave characteristics and can be entrained by the sensory input setting up synchronous wave patterns across areas of the brain that transmit information.  One mechanism mentioned above is CFC.  Wave frequencies may also involve phase and time coupling.  For example, the state of attention is associated with 40Hz wave frequencies.  The coupling of these frequencies with the frequencies of specific sensory modules facilitates the transfer of information within coherent, synchronous wave packets between brain regions that are the focus of attention.  When resting wave frequencies in specialized modules are entrained by matching input frequencies of sensory input the synchronous, coherent oscillations of the generated spike trains are given trajectories through the brain that bring about perception.  Cognitive tasks have been observed to give rise to marked theta band increases in evoked action potential components.  Theta responses appear to serve as carrier signals for cognitive processing.

A unique type of oscillatory activity cannot be given to only one function.  Neural oscillations have multifold functions and provide codes for functional activity.  These are very dynamic activities about which much more will be learned in time.  Evoked brain potentials range from delta to gamma frequencies and are real brain responses that are related to cognitive brain functions. 

Thoughts do give rise to action via an intention network that exists in the human brain.  Conscious motor intention, such as the intent to raise an arm, increases the excitability of target-specific motor circuits in the supplementary motor area. (8) By employing fMRI investigators found in study subjects that movement intentions could be decoded from brain signals.  The conclusion they reached is that cognitive brain activity occurs before any movement execution.  Conscious voluntary intention determines the trajectory of motor representation via oscillatory synchronization, or tuning, of corticospinal excitability specific for a motor response. Goal directed excitation favors the recruitment of specific spinal motor neuron pools to bring about the desired movement.  And it is a mind that establishes a goal!

Dendrites and Traveling Waves

The neocortex is the center for cognition. Cortical modules consist of six laminae which house pyramidal cells and their numerous axons and dendrites.  The apical dendrites in lamina I and II are located in the most superficial part of the cortex and finish in extensive tuft-like branching.  These are the basic anatomical units of the neocortex and are the cortical units for reception, giving them a preeminent role in cerebral function.  Attention is a top-down process that targets apical dendrites in layer I. (9) Dendritic domains have distinct synaptic inputs, excitability, modulation and plasticity, features that allow synapses throughout the dendritic tree to contribute to action potential generation.  These properties support a variety of coincidence-detection mechanisms underlying advanced cognitive functions.  Humans have the most elaborate and spine-rich dendritic trees that receive input from other cortical regions.  Dendritic spines vary in their size and shape and are highly plastic so that they change with experience.  Dendritic synapses appear to work in concert to generate action potentials.  The coincident activation of a sufficiently large number of inputs from dendritic trees can cause pyramidal cells to reach the action potential threshold to generate action potentials, a process of so-called coincidence detection.  The separation of basal and apical dendrites on all pyramidal neurons implies that these dendrites have distinct functions that could include receptivity to cognitive wave train input, especially by the apical dendrites. (10) 

It is often the case that neuroscientists do not address the role of the immaterial mind in cognitive processes that include attention and motor functions.  In the article by Spratling I quote several sentences in his Conclusion to which I will offer a comment. 

“In addition, by influencing activation each dendrite can affect learning in a biologically plausible manner, neurons are likely to learn correlations between the separate information streams targeting the apical and basal dendrites.  Apical inputs can therefore influence learning at the basal dendrite and may be considered a source of reinforcement or supervision.  This interpretation is bolstered by the fact that the apical dendrites in layer I not only receive projections from other cortical regions but are also targeted by the limbic system, a widely projecting set of interconnected brain structures concerned with emotion and memory.” (9) 

The several words in bold type can be attributed to cognitive processes of an immaterial and personal mind.  Instead, the author relegates these activities to computations by the brain, a common thread in reductive materialism where cognitive activities are attributed to the functions of components of the material brain.  The function of neurons cannot account for learning, supervision, emotion and cognitive memory, all of which depend on the interpretation by a mind of neural codes!

The receptor field of dendritic trees of the neocortex selectively initiates action potentials when it detects specific wave patterns.  It has been reported by Stewart Heitmann and coworkers (11) that the dendritic field has spatially organized receptors that act as filters of the input of wave patterns that decode the information contained within their wavelength, coherence and direction.   There is emerging evidence that dendritic integration within cortical modules is sensitive to the relative timing and spatial location of synaptic input on the dendritic arbors.  This observation reflects Eccles’ description of “detector” modules (3) in the neocortex that respond to scanning by the self-conscious mind with, I suggest, its specific wave frequencies. 

The authors describe spatially organized waves of neuronal activity that propagate across the cortex during sensory or behavioral tasks.  Waves of action potentials are given direction in their spike trains by this dendritic receptor mechanism so that motor impulses are directed to specific muscle groups to bring about desired action.  An arrangement of excitatory and inhibitory receptors in the dendritic receptor field acts as the spatial filter of incoming wave patterns, allowing for the discrimination of encoded nerve impulses to be directed through axonal networks to appropriate receptor groups.  The authors describe traveling oscillatory waves that encode information within motor commands from the neocortex (and I add from the intention of the cognitive mind).  The spatial filtering by dendritic trees leads to their decoding to generate the trajectories for propagating downstream neural impulses that induce specified motor activity according to the neural code, such as limb movement and speech. Muller and coworkers (12) suggest that traveling waves have a functional role in associating cell assemblies by phase coupling (13) and activating them in the cortex. They propagate in the direction of maximal information transmission and are considered relevant for human cognition that is supported by neural patterns organized across both time and space.  Traveling waves may have a role in brain connectivity and oscillations of cognition by showing when behavioral information is represented and where impulse signals are propagated.

William A. Phillips (14) has presented evidence for the hypothesis that input to the apical tufts of neocortical pyramidal cells relates to cognition.  Inputs to apical tufts comes from a number of sources including direct feedback from higher cortical regions, indirect feedback from the thalamus and long-range lateral connections within and between cortical regions.  Again, we can look forward to future studies that investigate how the immaterial mind interacts with the apical tufts of pyramidal cells, the predominate cell type in the neocortex for cognition.

Mind and Dualism

We can now see that patterns of wave frequencies are generated by sensory receptors and by cognitive activity that interact with the modular and synaptic networks of the neocortex.  Neural networks are spatially arranged within the neocortex.  Networks express specific wave frequencies that can be entrained by incoming wave fronts with coherent frequencies.  Frequencies are thereby synchronized, such as by CFC or phase coupling, and transmitted along coherent neural networks with specific trajectories to intended final receptors.  It is a complex process that is under active study.  In Part One of this blog it was emphasized that many neuroscientists simply do not address the functional relationship of the mind to these processes, attributing all cognitive activity to the physical brain.  As we proceed focus will be directed to interaction between the immaterial mind and the material synaptic networks of the brain.  We have seen how over time there has been an evolution of understanding of these processes through the work of neuroscientists from across the world.  The main question I ask the reader to consider is, how does the immaterial mind relate to these processes in a dualist interaction?

Cognitive Dynamics

Pascal Fries (15) points out that neuronal networks oscillate with rhythmic fluctuations that produce temporal windows for communication.  Coherently oscillating neuron groups interact since their communication windows for input and output are open at the same time.  The highly flexible pattern of coherence defines the communication structure that provides for our cognitive flexibility.  It does not depend on the anatomical communication structure of the brain.  Only coherently oscillating neuronal groups can communicate effectively since input and output windows for communication are open at the same time.  Cognitive top-down control has flexibility in the routing of signals through the brain within milliseconds on top of the anatomical structure of synaptic networks.  It is coherent oscillation within neuronal groups that are phase-locked or in synchrony that provide the means for effective communication between functional regions of the brain (and with the immaterial cognitive mind, I suggest!).  For a sending group of neurons to communicate a coded message of information to a receiving group the output of the sending group must arrive at the receiving group when it is excitable irrespective of distance and the neuron groups are coherent with each other.  Fries gives the example that in a unidirectional communication sending group oscillations may entrain the oscillation intrinsically generated in the receiving group, as in a cortical module, or it could drive an oscillation in the receiving group.  Communications are facilitated in a selective, structured manner so that spike trains of action potentials are given trajectories down specific networks.   Neuronal coherence causes communication to be selective since it is determined by focused attention, further accounting for the trajectories of neuronal transmission through the brain. 

Fries summarizes the general mechanisms for the preferential routing of selected encoded spike trains. When the oscillatory rhythm of a sending group is passed to other groups of neurons, then the subthreshold membrane potential fluctuations of the receiving neurons become entrained to the selected rhythm.  The entrained neuronal groups are therefore sensitive to the selected input, selectively routed along only coherent groups of synaptic networks.

Earl K. Miller and Timothy J. Buschman (16) have studied brain rhythms for cognition.   They asked what a thought looks like in neurobiological terms.  It is universally considered to involve a neural ensemble that together represents an item of information.  Neurons at the higher areas of the cortex important to cognition are highly multivariate and dynamic, participating in many overlapping ensembles.  The brain has mechanisms that coordinate interactions between neurons to form ensembles and networks of ensembles that produce clear and coherent thought and action.  The flow of neuronal traffic is managed by rhythmic synchrony between neuronal groups so that ensembles are part of a larger functional network primed to transmit specified information.  Changing rhythmic synchronization between neuronal groups alters their communication and thereby changes the direction of flow of information through the brain, a process that can occur within milliseconds as we have seen.  The authors state that there must be some sort of mechanism for selecting specific neurons for membership in specific ensembles.  It is my suggestion that that mechanism is the cognitive mind, giving neurons in the higher neocortex heterogeneity in function so that they can transmit many sorts of information at different times, a process called multiplexing.  Signals that underlie cognition operate discretely with pulses of activity that rout packets of information, shaping the flow of encoded neural signals.  “…the brain’s physical infrastructure (i.e. its anatomy) dictates where neural signals can flow; synchronized rhythms dictate where signals do flow.”

The Neural Codes of Overt and Covert Speech

Through Part Two of this blog references have been made to cognition, attention and intent, and we have seen that waves are transmitted intrinsically through neural networks to bring about specific functions such as to move an extremity.  What is left is to address the question raised above, how does the immaterial mind relate to these processes in a dualist interaction?  Does the human mind generate waves extrinsic to the brain itself that can act causally on it?  Stephanie Martin and eight coworkers published an article in Frontiers in Neuroengineering that addresses this question with exciting findings. (17)  I conclude this blog with a discussion of their findings.

The model used was ECoG in seven epileptic patients who performed an out loud and silent reading task.  Subjects read short stories that were presented to them both aloud and silently.  A high gamma (70-150 Hz) neural decoding model was built “to reconstruct spectrotemporal auditory features of self-generated overt speech.”  The decoding model trained from overt, spoken speech was used to decode the neural activity of covert, silently read speech (which did not involve auditory sensory input, only input from mentation!). Spectrograms were generated in controls and in subjects who used overt and covert speech to reconstruct neural responses with a high statistical accuracy.  Evidence was provided that showed that representations of overt and covert speech could be reconstructed sharing a neural substrate.  In other words, out loud speech and read text could be reconstructed in neural networks monitored via ECoG.  No wires connected the test subjects to the cortical monitors, indicating that the cerebral network responded to waves generated by the mind of the test subjects.  The high gamma band reliably tracked neuronal activity and correlated with the spike rate of the underlying neural population.  The key test of reconstructive accuracy, according to the authors, was the ability to use the reconstruction to identify specific speech utterances.  This was possible especially for overt speech.

This is an important study on which I will base comments in my next blog, “Minds in Communion.”  I will consider how the Holy Spirit communicates with us via the synaptic networks of our brain, a topic I addressed in detail in my book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man Through Neural Synaptic Networks.  We now have evidence that is consistent with dualist interaction between the immaterial mind of humans and the Mind of God and the material neural networks of the human brain.  The mind of Man communicates bidirectionally via the synaptic networks of the brain.  Since the mind of Man is created in the image of the Mind of God it is reasonable that He can enter our dimensions and commune with Man via these same synaptic networks.

Summation 

Humans learn to interpret neural codes transmitted within their brains as perceptions, such as witnessing the beauty of a flower garden or the voice of a loved one, or as intent to move an extremity.  Over a lifetime of experience countless neural codes are established by synaptic plasticity, and they are archived in memory within neural networks.  Cognitive actions of will, for example to move an extremity, draw upon memory stores.  It is increasingly documented that the immaterial mind can exert causal effects on the synaptic networks of the physical brain.  It gives validation to dualist interaction between what is immaterial, the mind, and what is material, the extensive neural networks of the brain.  Neuroscientists are increasingly acknowledging this bidirectional dualist interaction that gives credence to communion between the Mind of God by His Holy Spirit and the mind and soul of Man through the brain. 

References

1.       Gyorgy Buzsaki and Brendon O. Watson, “Brain Rhythms and Neural Syntax: Implications for Efficient Coding of Cognitive Content and Neuropsychiatric Disease,” Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, Vol 14, No. 4, 2012.

2.       Friedrich Beck, “Synaptic Quantum Tunnelling in Brain Activity,” NeuroQuantology, Vol 6, Issue 2, June 2008.

3.       Karl R. Popper and John C. Eccles, The Self and Its Brain: An Argument for Interactionism, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, London, New York, 1977.

4.       Bruce P. Bean, “The Action Potential in Mammalian Central Neurons,” Nature Reviews/Neuroscience, Vol 8, June 2007.

5.       Jon Lieff, “Neuronal Networks and Brain Waves,” Searching for the Mind, December 7, 2014.

6.       Kendrick N. Kay et al, “Identifying Natural Images from Human Brain Activity,” Nature, Vol 452 (7185), March 20, 2008.

7.       Erol Basar et al, “Oscillatory Brain Theory: A New Trend in Neuroscience,” IEEE: Engineering in Medicine and Biology, May/June 1999.

8.       Volker R. Zschorlich and Rudiger Kohling, “How Thoughts Give Rise to Action – Conscious Motor Intention Increases the Excitability of Target-Specific Motor Circuits,” PLOS ONE, Vol 8, Issue 12, December 2013.

9.       M. W. Spratling, “Cortical Region Interactions and the Functional Role of Apical Dendrites,” Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews, Vol 1(3), 2002.

10.   Nelson Spruston, “Pyramidal Neurons: Dendritic Structure and Synaptic Integration,” Nature Reviews, Vol 9, March 2008.

11.   Stewart Heitmann et al, “A Dendritic Mechanism for Decoding Traveling Waves: Principles and Applications to Motor Cortex,” PLOS Computational Biology, Vol 9, Issue 10, October 2013.

12.   Lyle Muller et al, “Cortical Traveling Waves: Mechanisms and Computational Principles,” Nat Rev Neuroscience, Vol 19(5), May 2018.

13.   Honghui Zhang et al, “Theta and Alpha Oscillations Are Traveling Waves in the Human Cortex,” Neuron, Vol 98, June 27, 2018.

14.   William A. Phillips, “Cognitive Functions of Intracellular Mechanisms for Contextual Amplification,” Brain and Cognition, Vol 112, March 2017.

15.   Pascal Fries, “A Mechanism for Cognitive Dynamics: Neuronal Communication through Neuronal Coherence,” Trends in Cognitive Science, Vol 9(10), 2005.

16.   Earl K. Miller and Timothy J. Buschman, “Brain Rhythms for Cognition and Consciousness,” Neurosciences and the Human Person: New Perspectives on Human Activities, Political Academy of Sciences, Scripta Varia, Vol 121, Vatican City,  2013.

17.   Stephanie Martin et al, “Decoding Spectrotemporal Features of Overt and Covert Speech from the Human Cortex,” Frontiers in Neuroengineering, Vol 7, Article 14, May 2014.

 

Information, a Fundamental Entity

John C. Lennox refers to information as a fundamental entity. Information and intelligence are fundamental to the existence of the universe and life. Lennox states that “Word” in the 4th Gospel is Logos. It is a word used by Stoic philosophers for the rational principle behind the universe. It was given additional meaning by Christians, who used it to describe the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ. “Word” conveys notions of command, meaning, code and communication, thus it conveys information as well as the creative power needed to realize that which is specified by the information. The Word is therefore more fundamental than mass and energy. Mass and energy belong to the category of the created, but the Word does not. Lennox identifies a basic characteristic of information, that it is invisible and immaterial. Carriers of information may be material, but information itself is not material. Since information encodes on something physical the carriers of information are subject to the laws of physics, but information itself is not a physical entity.

 

Thoughts of the Mind of a Sender

The thoughts of the mind of a sender formulated as specified information are transmitted to the mind of a recipient by means of words within a medium (neural synaptic networks) with structure (linguistic neural code), meaning, and purpose with the expectation to stimulate action in the recipient. The codes are interpreted by the cognitive mind learned in a lifetime of experience and archived in memory and are to be understood by both the sender and the recipient.

 

Information and energy

I cited these comments of William A. Dembski in my book, Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man Through Neural Synaptic Networks:

“For causal, energetic relationships in information transfers to be inferred, the first thing that must be established is an information relationship. One can then establish how energy relates to that relationship. If it cannot be justified that the energy is material, then it must be nonmaterial. But the point I wish to repeat and emphasize is that, as with matter, energy is logically downstream from information. The first thing we always confront is information , and only then do we try to explain it in terms of energy. Energy is inferred from information, not vice versa.”

 

Information and linguistic neural codes

Information creation, according to Claude Shannon, “is essentially a speech act in which an intelligence, to advance a purpose, articulates an item of information and then broadcasts it.” In general, William A. Dembski has stated that all instances of information creation can be represented in language, the universal medium for bringing purposes to realization through the creation and transmission of information. Information is transmitted via a variety of linguistic neural codes, including semaphore and the Morse code. The spatiotemporal spike patterns of nerve impulses, or action potentials, are transmitted through neural synaptic networks as linguistic codes, especially through the predominant chemical synapses of the cerebral cortex, the center for consciousness and cognitive activity.

 

Polkinghorne on Divine Action

John Polkinghorne has commented on divine action*.  He acknowledges that contemporary science accepts a causally open view of nature and that top-down organizing causal principles must be at work to bring about the future.  Active information brings about the formation of a structured pattern of future dynamical behavior.  The notion of information input is necessary to resolve what actually occurs.  It is the vehicle for top-down operating causality and a possibility to accommodate human and divine agency.  He concludes that there should be a flow of information from God to the universe (and to mankind) by which God guides it providentially.  As has also been stated by William Dembski in a previous blog the input of information involves no exchange of energy between God and the universe (and mankind) thus avoiding action that would violate the energy conservation laws.  Polkinghorne sees it plausible that God’s providence acts within the open grain of nature, capable of receiving pattern-forming information (including linguistic neural codes which I have discussed).  Polkinghorne is clear that God is not the active informational principle, and God is not information.  God is the agent that generates active information and transfers it into the system He created.  Polkinghorne gives no explanation for how this causality works and believes it imperative to continue the search for the causal joint where God’s action acts causally on nature’s (and on Man’s) actions, on how the divine and the creature interact.  In my two books it has been the object of my research to inquire into this very question, to conduct this very search.

*Ignacio Silva, “John Polkinghorne on Divine Action: A Coherent Theological Evolution,” Science and Christian Belief, Vol 24, No. 1, 2012

 

Minds in Communion

 

We have seen in “Waves in Our Brains, Part Two” that wave patterns course through the brain in specific trajectories to bring about intentional as well as reflexive activities.  Cognition itself has recently been associated with the generation of specific wave patterns that transmit specified information to and through neural synaptic networks. As advanced technology has been applied to the studies of neuroscientists more understanding has been obtained about these processes, and there is a reasonable likelihood that dualist interaction between the immaterial mind and the material networks of the human brain will be increasingly confirmed. 

I now direct attention to the interaction between the Mind of God and the mind and soul of Man.  It is a relationship I have addressed in my two books and blogs that shows concordance between Scripture and neuroscience in its interpretation.  Evidence has been presented from Scripture, neuroscience, quantum mechanics and information theory for dualist interaction between the Holy Spirit and the soul of Man through the human spirit. There is a hunger for an intimate communion with the biblical God today, and it has been restored by God’s grace through the sin sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ.  Upon the resurrection of Jesus His Holy Spirit was sent as Jesus promised just prior to His crucifixion to indwell people once again who are in repentance and are willing and obedient to follow the Authority and Counsel of the Holy Spirit.

Calvin Miller has taught that the plan of God has always been to have an intimate, personal, bidirectional communion with mankind.  He stresses the importance of seeking union with the Holy Spirit in our inner being, our “center.” It is our option to listen in silence and prayer for His counsel so we can grow in righteousness and in obedience to His power, mentored by the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. But it is a plan that has not been fulfilled because of the pride of Man to live to self, beginning at the Fall of Adam.  We are yet fallen in our time but are blessed to have had the indwelling by the Holy Spirit restored by the grace of God through Jesus in repentance.  We are born again to new life in Jesus Christ to whom we belong.  The indwelling Christ moves into us with a boundless love.  God chooses to make his throne inside our mortal bodies.  It is the soul of Man accessed through the human spirit that serves as the place of rendezvous, of intimate, personal interaction with the Holy Spirit.

Meaningful communion with the Holy Spirit is both a voice through prayer and an ear.  Listening is the most valuable part of prayer, the key to blocking out inner and outer “noise” so we can commune with God and perceive the several ways He communes with us, through dreams, visions, words, intuition and discernment.  By submitting to the authority of Jesus Christ in our lives the Holy Spirit becomes one with us through the human spirit.  In Psalm 119, verses 34-35, it is said, “Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart.  Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight.” Miller states that all of life becomes communion.  By His indwelling Holy Spirit God continuously accompanies us, pervading the world of our cognition. In John 14 Jesus said, “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”

Prayer gives mankind the opportunity to focus on the inner presence of the Holy Spirit, the interactive communion between the Holy Spirit and the mind of Man.  The more earnestly we pray, the more our prayers transcend mere words.  When in prayer we may find ourselves overcome by wordlessness.  He can best communicate with us when we are silent, ceasing to focus on self but on His presence.  We move into Him, and this allows us to receive communion from Him.  Praying continually consists of a “listening prayer,” according to Miller.  It is an abiding in the presence of the Holy Spirit.  When Jesus Christ enters our life, that is the moment when our eternal life begins.  Miller states that “someday pulse or respiration may cease, but not us - we will already have taken the giant step into the pleasure of God!”  We do not live to die.  We die to live!  From the findings of the neurosciences it is now conceivable that meaningful neural codes with purpose are generated by the power of the Holy Spirit in wave patterns of action potentials transmitted through neural synaptic networks with specific direction. We can receive and perceive the gentle whisper of the Holy Spirit by this means.

Jesus declared a new covenant, the law of the Spirit of life which sets repentant people free from the law of sin and death.  The Kingdom of God is within us when in repentance.  It is a foretaste of the eternal Kingdom to come when sin will be forever destroyed.  Its complete fulfillment will occur with the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Since it is being increasingly shown that the cognitive mind of humans can generate wave patterns encoded with specified information that is transmitted through synaptic networks with meaning and purpose, is it not reasonable that the indwelling, personal Holy Spirit can and does also generate such wave patterns to give us counsel?  Minds in communion describes how personal interaction between the Mind of God via His Holy Spirit and the mind of Man is made possible by the human spirit bestowed at the special creation of mankind.  The plan of God has always been to have an intimate, personal, bidirectional communion with mankind. We are having it revealed to us how that occurs, at least in part.  All thanks and praise to God!

 

Spike trains as language

The decoding of a spike train requires an interpolation between the spike train and the continuous stimulus waveforms (including those emanating from a cognitive mind) that induce the spike train through quantum tunneling. The immaterial “observer” of a spike train, the mind, must reconstruct the stimulus, taking the spikes as informational input within neural codes and interpreting the stimulus waveforms with meaning, a process of learning over time.

 

Neural codes are linguistic

We have seen that neural codes are linguistic and must be “read” to have meaning and purpose. These codes are magnificent in their design and complexity, and their meaning cannot be reduced to the functional components of the physical brain. The cognitive capacity of an immaterial mind is required to interpret them, to visualize a meaningful scene. It is a progressive, cumulative learning process that is committed to memory, and it begins at birth.

 

Christ indwelling

I share a statement made by Dietrich Bonhoeffer from The Martyred Christian:

“This is what we mean when we speak of Christ dwelling in our hearts. His life on earth is not finished yet, for he continues to live in the lives of his followers. Indeed, it is wrong to speak of the Christian life: we should speak rather of Christ living in us. I live, and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me. (Gal. 2:20). Jesus Christ, incarnate, crucified and glorified, has entered my life and taken charge. To me to live is Christ (Phil. 1:21). And where Christ lives, there the Father also lives, and both Father and Son through the Holy Ghost.”

 

The Mind of God and the mind of Man

From “The Hypothesis” in Nerve Endings of the Soul: Interaction Between the Mind of God and the Mind of Man Through Neural Synaptic Networks:

The Mind of the personal God interacts with the immaterial mind of Man by the atoning grace of God through the living Jesus Christ in our time. His Holy Spirit indwells a receptive, repentant human spirit with the power to interact with the chemical neural synaptic networks of the cerebral cortex, the predominate site for cognition.

 

Special divine action

Alvin Plantinga states that special divine action is compatible with quantum mechanics because it doesn’t determine a specific outcome for a given set of initial conditions. Instead it assigns probabilities to the possible outcomes. Special divine action is not restrained and is therefore free to select via a proposed nonmaterial energy (acting by quantum tunneling in the case of synaptic transmission) certain outcomes according to what William Dembski terms as “small probabilities” with specificity.

 

Holy Spirit interacts today

There is recognition in the Christian church that the writing of the Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Since 397 AD the church has considered the canon of the Bible to be complete, and the assumption of many is that the Holy Spirit ceased to communicate directly with people as occurred with the writers of Scripture. To the contrary, I present evidence in my second book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story, that the Counselor and Helper sent by the glorified and living Jesus Christ continues to interact with the mind of Man through the human spirit. I explain the significance of the torn temple curtain described in Mark 15:38 at the death of Jesus Christ in the ninth hour. It signified the restoration of a direct personal interaction with the Holy Spirit offered as an indwelling to Man by God’s love and grace, and it began with the Apostles at Pentecost.

 

Loss of communion with the Holy Spirit

The mind of Man was created in the image of the Mind of God with whom an eternal, intimate, personal communion was made possible. But communion was lost by the sin of Adam, and mankind faced eternal spiritual death, eternally devoid of communion with the Holy Spirit. It was by the love and grace of God the Father that mankind has been offered redemption with restoration of communion by the atoning sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It was by God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ that mankind has been offered rescue and eternal salvation.

 

Promise of the Counselor

The life of the Spirit in Jesus fulfilled the Law and pointed to the salvation offered in Christ in the days to come. Jesus made this promise to the disciples, “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth. You know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him

The life of the Spirit in Jesus fulfilled the Law and pointed to the salvation offered in Christ in the days to come. Jesus made this promise to the disciples, “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth. You know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him

 

Human spirit and soul

When God created Adam He breathed “the breath of life” into him. (Genesis 2:7) It is this life from God that is identified with the eternal human spirit. It is the soul of Man that is the vehicle through which the mind’s will operates. If a repentant person’s soul wills to obey God, it will allow the human spirit to direct the mind and will of Man as counseled by the indwelling Holy Spirit. As the spirit acts upon the soul of Man, the soul in turn expresses itself through the human brain and body.

 

Mental events cause neural events

Mental events cause neural events, and the mind is differentiated from the material components of the brain. Eccles and his associates postulated that by quantum tunneling molecular conformations of synaptic proteins in ion channels and neural synaptic vesicles and pores are probabilistically altered by a nonmaterial energy as a wave function of the mind’s mental cognitive events. As a result nerve impulses as action potentials are generated and transmitted coherently across series of synaptic clefts in neural networks (see “Waves in Our Brains, Part Two”). The impulses transmitted consist of neural codes within the spike trains of action potentials, giving specification to the information transmitted.

my research has extended over more than 25 years, and i have been able to present three findings. First, i have presented compelling evidence for dualist interactionism, drawing upon my initial study of sir john c. eccles’ work for which he received the nobel prize. he described the “microsite” as a fundamental entity for the synaptic transmission of action potentials, a process triggered by the quantum tunneling of wave forms across pre-synaptic potential barriers. the microsite is the focus that enables interaction between the immaterial mind and the material components of the neural synaptic networks. in my writings i have presented considerable detail about this process, and selected excerpts will be posted. second, i have posited how cognitive intent of the mind generates wave forms that act on apical dendritic tufts of the pyramidal columns of the neocortex. these wave forms are matched with specific wave activity within modules generating synchronous waves that transmit encoded specified information through coherent synaptic networks to effect intended actions. third, eccles and his associates failed to convincingly identify how the triggering of quantum tunneling occurs. i have presented evidence from current neuroscience that the “psychons” named by eccles most likely correspond with wave forms having specific amplitudes, frequencies and shapes that are generated by eccles’ “self-conscious self,” the immaterial cognitive mind, of a person. i posit that these wave forms match with modular wave forms through an initial interaction with apical dendritic tufts. the waves are in synchrony and are transmitted through potential barriers of presynaptic terminals via quantum tunneling with the release of synaptic transmitters across synaptic clefts. this process accounts for the generation and transmission of encoded action potentials that causally effect actions such as speech and movement. it is a process that actualizes specified information originating in the mind of man as well as in the mind of god.

the purpose of my research has been to show that bidirectional interaction still occurs between the mind of god and that of man in our time. we are learning how this process occurs drawing upon concordance between neuroscience and biblical scripture. yes, we pray to god, but by god’s plan from the creation of adam he has desired a personal communion with man that is directed from god, his holy spirit, to the mind of man. it is a communion restored by the sin sacrifice of jesus christ who, resurrected, sent as he promised his disciples the holy spirit to indwell repentant believers so that this communion, lost at the fall, is restored.

i shall present selected blog posts from my website addressing specific processes that describe how minds are in a bidirectional communion between human beings and between god’s indwelling holy spirit. in lieu of writing a book, what i present will give the reader a comprehensive record of these blog posts. i have entitled this record “minds in communion.” the mind, will and emotion comprise man’s soul which is immaterial, as is the human spirit. god, who is spirit, created the synaptic networks of the human brain to enable this personal, intimate communion between minds, including the mind of god. it is a dualist interaction between the immaterial and the material. i offer that wave forms emanating from the cognitive mind of man are being found central to this process.

i asked the question on google, “Do john eccles’ psychons correspond with wave forms?” my reply was, “yes, john eccles’ ‘psychons’ explicitly correspond with wave forms, specifically in the context of quantum probability fields and wave functions.”

in my last blog posts i have posited a matching between wave forms generated by the immaterial cognitive mind and pyramidal column wave forms. eccles posited that columns act as “detectors” of waves having matching frequencies, amplitudes and shapes so that synchrony can be incorporated in the transmission of encoded action potentials along synaptic networks to effect action. exocytosis is triggered by the quantum tunneling of matched wave forms through components of pre-synaptic ion channels and synaptic vesicles with the release of neural transmitters that act on post-synaptic terminals. eccles and his associate friedrich beck did not identify this specific step that gives evidence for dualist interaction between the immaterial mind and the brain. it is posited that this interaction is initiated through pyramidal apical dendritic tufts in the neocortex, as discussed in a previous blog.

from the dualist interactionist perspective the physical brain is not the creator of the IMMATERIAL mind. it is ITS INSTRUMENT, TERMINAL, OR “LIAISON” ACCORDING TO PROF. JOHN C. ECCLES. A MAJOR QUESTION WAS, AND IS, HOW DOES AN IMMATERIAL ENTITY EXERT A CAUSAL INFLUENCE ON PHYSICAL MATTER WITHOUT VIOLATING THE LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS? THIS QUESTION IS IMPORTANT TO THE PERSPECTIVE I HAVE ADDRESSED THROUGHOUT MY BOOKS AND BLOG POSTS THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT INTERACTS WITH THE IMMATERIAL MIND AND SOUL OF MAN THROUGH THE MATERIAL COMPONENTS OF THE NEURAL SYNAPTIC NETWORK. IT IS ULTIMATELY A “HOW” QUESTION AS TO THE MECHANISM. LET US ADDRESS FURTHER THE PERSPECTIVE OFFERED BY ECCLES AND HIS ASSOCIATE, THE PHYSICIST FRIEDRICH BECK, AND IN SO DOING WE SHALL SEE the “HOW” QUESTION THAT WENT UNANSWERED BY THEM. IT IS A QUESTION I HAVE ENDEAVORED TO ADDRESS THROUGH MY RESEARCH EXTENDING WELL OVER 25 YEARS.

ECCLES ARGUED THAT THE MAMMALIAN CORTEX IS ORGANIZED INTO PHYSICAL ANATOMICAL UNITS HE CALLED DENDRONS (I HAVE REFERRED TO THEM AS pyramidal MODULES IN MY MOST RECENT BLOGS AND IN MY BOOKS). HE POSITED THAT THE IMMATERIAL MIND IS COMPOSED OF MATCHING, NON-PHYSICAL UNITS OF CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE HE CALLED PSYCHONS. (i HAVE WRITTEN EXTENSIVELY ABOUT THE POSSIBLE IDENTIFICATION OF THESE ENTITIES AS WAVE FORMS WITH AMPLITUDE, FREQUENCY AND SHAPE. MY CHALLENGE HAS BEEN TO IDENTIFY NEUROSCIENTIFIC WORK THAT CONFIRMS THIS IDENTITY. IN MY MORE RECENT BLOGS DEAling with brain computer interfaces, among other topics, I HAVE PRESENTED INCREASING EVIDENCE THAT THIS could be AN ACCURATE ASSESSMENT.)

instead of the mind “pushing” on neurons with physiCAL ENERGY ECCLES PROPOSED THAT PSYCHONS OPERATE VIA QUANTUM PROBABILITY. WHEN ONE CHOOSES TO THINK OR MOVE, THE IMMaterial mind alters the quantum probability of neurotransmitter release (exocytosis) at thousANDS OF SYNAPSES SIMULTANEOUSLY THROUGH QUANTUM TUNNELING. BECAUSE THE PROCESS OPERATES PURELY BY SHIFTING QUANTUM PROBABILITIES, IT TECHNICALLY OBEYS THE LAW OF CONSERVATION OF ENERGY. THE MIND INTRODUCES “TOP-DOWN” INFORMATIONAL INTENT THAT SYNCHRONIZES WITH CORTICAL MODULES HAVING MATCHED AMPLITUDES, FREQUENCIES AND SHAPES SO THAT ENCODED ACTION POTENTIALS ARE GENERATED TO TRANSMIT SPECIFIED INFORMATION TO EFFECT ACTION. BUT THE QUESTION IS HOW DOES THE INFORMATION GET TRANSMITTED VIA QUANTUM TUNNELING?

LET US EXAMINE FURTHER ECCLES’ HYPOTHESIS. HE ARGUED THAT A NONPHYSICAL SELF-CONSCIOUS MIND SELECTS, INTERPRETS, AND UNIFIES ACTIVITY IN A CORTICAL “LIAISON BRAIN.” IN MY WRITINGS I HAVE IDENTIFIED THE LIAISON brain AS NEURAL CODES ARCHIVED OVER A LIFETIME WITHIN THE BRAIN, SUCH AS in THE SUPPLEMENTARY MOTOR AREA. THE SELF IS A REAL, NON-PHYSICAL DOMAIN THAT BOTH RECEIVES FROM AND ACTS UPON THE BRAIN, AND THE PHYSICAL WORLD IS THEREFORE NOT CAUSALLY CLOSED. THE NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL MECHANISM PROPOSED BY ECCLES IS THAT THE SELF-CONSCIOUS MIND ACTIVELY SCANS AND READS OUT FROM SPECIALIZED CORTICAL MODULES TO TRANSMIT SYNCHRONIZED ACTION POTENTIALS ENCODED WITH SPECIFIED INfORMATION. INTERACTION BETWEEN THE SELF-CONSCIOUS MIND AND THE CEREBRAL CORTical MODULES OCCURS IN “LIAISON AREAS,” THE OPEN MODULES OF THE HEMISPHERE. UNITY OF MEANING AND PURPOSE WITHIN THE INFORMATION IS IMPOSED BY THE SELF-CONSCIOUS MIND RATHER THAN PRODUCED BY NEURAL INTEGRATION, AND THE UNITY IS ESTABLISHED THROUGH SYNCHRONIZED WAVE FORMS BETWEEN THE cognitive MIND AND THE WAVE FORMS MAINTAINED WITHIN PYRAMIDAL MODULES OF THE CORTEX which serve as “detectors.”

HEREIN LIES THE UNANSWERED QUESTION. CRITICS HAVE STATED THAT THE HYPOTHESIS EITHER SMUGGLES IN CAUSATION WITHOUT A LAW TO GOVERN IT OR LEAVES UNEXPLAINED WHAT A PROBABILITY-ALTERING NON-PHYSICAL AGENT COULD BE. THE CENTRAL WEAKNESS IS THAT THE SELF-CONSCIOUS MIND WHOSE POWERS OF SELECTION, INTEGRATION, PHENOMENAL REALIZATION, AND CAUSAL INTERVENTION REQUIREs EXPLANATION. ECCLES AND BECK DID NOT EXPLAIN HOW THE MIND PERFORMS THAT WORK. ALTHOUGH ECCLES’ QUANTUM HYPOTHESIS PROPOSED A MICROSCOPIC LOCUS FOR THE INTERACTION, IT DID LITTLE tO ADDRESS OR SOLVE THIS EXPLANATORY PROBLEM.

I HAVE ENDEAVORED TO PRESENT COMPELLING EVIDENCE FROM MORE CURRENT NEUROSCIENTIFIC WORK FOR THE ROLE OF WAVE FORMS IN THE TRANSMISSION OF INFORMATION THROUGH SYNAPSES VIA QUANTUM TUNNELING RESULTING IN PROTEIN STRUCTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS and electron transfers WITHIN IONIC CHANNELS AND COMPONENTS OF SYNAPTIC VESICLES TO EFFECT exocytosis and THE TRANSMISSION OF ENCODED ACTION POTENTIALS THROUGH SYNAPTIC NETWORKS. THE IMPORTANCE OF SYNCHRONY BETWEEN WAVE FORMS GENERATED BY THE IMMATERIAL MIND AND THOSE ARCHIVED WITHIN CEREBRAL PYRAMIDAL MODULES as “detectors” IS CRUCIAL TO THIS EXPLANATION. THE WAVE FORMS ARE ENCODED by the mind WITH FREQUENCIES, AMPLITUDES AND SHAPES WITH MEANING AND PURPOSE TO EFFECT INTENDED ACTIONS.

ARE WE BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND, AT LEAST IN PART, HOW OUR CREATOR GOD DESIGNED OUR BRAINS TO ENABLE A BIDIRECTIONAL COMMUNION BETWEEN HIM AND HIS BELIEVERS, LOST AT THE FALL BUT RESTORED BY THE SIN SACRIFICE and resurrection OF HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, JESUS CHRIST, WHO LIVES?

i am sharing excerpts from an article by alin cucu entitled “turning the tables: how neuroscience supports interactive dualism.” the author begins his article with the statement, “physicalists typically believe that neurophysiology HaS REFUTED THE THESIS THAT NON-PHYSICAL MINDS CAN INTERACT WITH THE BRAIN. IN THIS PAPER, I ARGUE THAT IT IS PRECISELY A CLOSER LOOK AT THE NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF VOLITIONAL ACTIONS THAT SUGGESTS OTHERWISE. . . . A THEORY THAT DEFINITELY PREDICTS SUCH A CAUSAL CONTRIBUTION OF THE MIND IS INTERACTIVE DUALISM, WHERE THE NON-PHYSICAL MIND IS CONSTRUED IN TERMS OF EITHER MENTAL PROPERTIES, OR A MENTAL SUBSTANCE. . . . THE AUTHOR FAIRLY IDENTIFIES “ONE BIG DIVIDE BETWEEN . . . VIEWS . . . THAT SEEK TO MAKE INTERACTION ENERY-CONSERVING . . . AND ACCOUNTS THAT ACCEPT ENERGY NON-CONSERVATION.” THE AUTHOR SUBSCRIBES TO THE ENERGY NON-CONSERVATION VIEW, BUT HE GIVES COMPELLING SUPPORT TO INTERACTIVE DUALISM. CONTINUING, CUCU STATES, “FIRST, IT IS IMPORTANT TO MAKE CLEAR WHAT I UNDERSTAND BY ‘VOLITIONAL (OR VOLUNTARY) ACTION’. I USE THE TERM HERE IN THE NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL SENSE, WHERE IT REFERS TO THOSE BODY MOVEMENTS THAT THE SUBJECT REPORTS TO HAVE ‘WILLED’ AND WHICH OCCUR INDEPENDENTLY OF EXTERNAL STIMULI. . . . THE CANONICAL FORM OF VOLUNTARY ACTION IS SELF-INITIATED ACTION . . . WHICH WE DEFINE AS VOLUNTARY ACTION INITIATED WITHOUT ANY SENSORY CUE. . . . A VOLITIONAL ACTION IS AN ACTION BROUGHT ABOUT ‘CONSCIOUSLY’ OR ‘INTENTIONALLY’ AS OPPOSED TO REFLEXIVELY . . . BECAUSE IT EXCLUSIVELY CONSIDERS THE CAUSAL CONTRIBUTION OF THE AGENT. . . . THE NEUROBIOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EXTERNALLY TRIGGERED AND ‘PURE’ VOLITIONAL ACTIONS IS FURTHER BUTTRESSED BY EXPERIMENTS SHOWING THAT AN ACTIVITY INCREASE IN THE SMA [SUPPLEMENTARY MOTOR AREA] TAKES PLACE DURING THE MENTAL EXERCISE OF MOTOR ACTIONS [I HAVE DISCUSSED THIS ACTIVITY IN MY BOOKS]. . . . DUALISTS CAN AND SHOULD [STATE] THAT INTERACTIONS ARE ARGUABLY VERY ‘GENTLE’, I.E. THEY DON’T MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE TO HOW THINGS WOULD HAVE BEEN WITHOUT THEM. . . . INTERACTIONS THUS DO NOT HAVE TO MOVE BIOLOGICAL STRUCTURES FROM A STATE OF COMPLETE REST BUT RATHER SLIGHTLY ALTER THE TRAJECTORIES OF SYSTEMS ALREADY IN MOTION” [AS HAS BEEN DISCUSSED IN A PREVIOUS BLOG]. “IT COULD BE THAT AT LEAST SOME BRAIN EVENTS REQUIRE A NON-PHYSICAL EXPLANATION, IN WHICH CASE INTERACTIVE DUALISM . . . WOULD BE TRUE.”

THE MAIN OBJECTIVE OF MY RESEARCH FOR OVER 25 YEARS HAS BEEN TO FIND AND PRESENT COMPELLING EVIDENCE FOR DUALIST INTERACTIONISM, HOW AN IMMATERIAL MIND, INCLUDING THE MIND OF GOD/HIS HOLY SPIRIT, INTERACTS IN A CAUSAL MANNER WITH THE MATERIAL COMPONENTS OF THE BRAIN’S NEURAL SYNAPTIC NETWORKS. I HAVE ALSO IDENTIFIED WHERE AN INTENTION OF THE COGNITIVE MIND INITIALLY ACTS ON THE APICAL DENDRITIC TUFTS OF PYRAMIDAL CELL COLUMNS SO THAT SYNCHRONOUS WAVE FORMS ARE MATCHED AND BY THE ACTION OF QUANTUM TUNNELING STIMULATE THE TRANSMISSION OF ENCODED ACTION POTENTIAL ACROSS THE SYNAPSES OF NEURAL SYNAPTIC NETWORKS WITH INTENDED ACTIONS. THIS SYSTEM OF INFORMATION TRANSMISSION CREATED BY GOD HAS MADE POSSIBLE A BIDIRECTIONAL COMMUNION WITH OUR CREATOR, HIS SON JESUS CHRIST AND HIS HOLY SPIRIT.

the theory of dualist interactionism was proposed by the nobel-prize winning neurophysiologist sir john eccles in association with the philosopher karl popper. their theory explained how a non-physical mind can influence a physical body, how an immaterial mind can influence in a causal sense a material neural synaptic network.

eccles sought to locate a precise physical interface where the immaterial mind could exert top-down control over neural architecture without violating the laws of thermodynamics.

pyramidal cells are the primary excitatory neurons found in the mammalian cerebral cortex. they act as the principal “output” channels of the cortex. pyramidal cells feature a long, prominent branch called the apical dendrite that travels toward the outermost layer of the cortex, layer 1, where it branches out into an apical dendritic tuft. the apical dendrites cluster tightly in bundles of about 70-100, constituting a pyramidal module. eccles considered the module as the fundamental functional unit of the cortex. he hypothesized that the immaterial mind generates non-material units, or wave forms, with specific amplitudes and frequencies corresponding to the wave forms of a synchronous, module referred to as a “detector.” when one has an intention, thought or desire these wave forms act to stimulate encoded action potentials that transmit complex specified information with anticipated outcomes or actions through modular dendrites, somata and axons.

eccles proposed that the mind’s intention does not forcefully “fire” a neuron. instead, the immaterial mind’s wave forms subtly alter the quantum probability of neurotransmitter release (exocytosis) at the vesicular level in the synapses of the apical tufts. he and physicist friedrich beck proposed that mental intention triggers a quantum tunneling effect which slightly alters the probability of a single synaptic vesicle to release its neurotransmitters across the synapse to an apical dendrite, stimulating thereby an action potential in the receptor neuron. this process uses quantum indeterminacy so that the law of thermodynamics is not violated.

in my books and blog posts i have discussed this process in great detail. with the aid of AI i have identified a precise locus in cerebral modules where the causal effects of an immaterial mind act on synaptic networks. this is a rapidly developing area of investigation in the neurosciences, reflecting the technological advances being made to reveal the mechanisms of dual interaction.

in my next blog post i shall refer to the concepts of sir john c. eccles that describe dualist interactionism. we shall see the importance he gave to apical dendritic tufts. i am highlighting this information for the following reason. in my books and blogs i have endeavored to present compelling evidence for dual interaction between the immaterial minds of man and god/his holy spirit as mediated by the neural synaptic networks of the human brain. i have also identified the role of wave forms in the transmission of encoded information within action potentials through neural synapses triggered by quantum tunneling. in these most current blogs i am sharing evidence for where the wave forms of cognition and intent first interact in the brain, a dual interaction. in previous blog posts i have described how, at least in part, the transmission of wave forms occurs across neural synapses. it is a complex and elaborate process created by god to enable personal communion not only between humans but also with the holy spirit. since the creation of man god has intended to have personal bidirectional communion with us.

my response continued:

“cognitive intention - such as top-down attention, or goal-directed imagery - initially stimulates the apical dendritic tufts of pyramidal cells. in the structural hierarchy of the cerebral cortex, these apical tufts terminate in layer 1. . . they function as the primary target for feedback (top-down) signals coming from higher-order cognitive, associative, and motor cortical regions. . . . apical dendritic tufts (top-down): receive feedback representing internal states, including cognitive intentions, behavioral context, predictions, and focused attention. . . . in short, your brain uses the apical dendritic tufts as an entry point for your thoughts, intentions, and focus to actively shape how you perceive and process the physical world. . . . the detector function of cortical pyramidal modules and the integrative properties of apical dendritic tufts are fully compatible, forming a cooperative two-stage computational unit that bridges local processing with global context. . . . pyramidal modules coordinate columns by aligning their superficial tufts within layer 1, allowing synchronous top-down modulatory streams to modulate entire assemblies of vertically stacked cell columns simultaneously.”