i conclude this series of excerpts from the cepelewicz article with a discussion of steven wise’s perspective on how cortical areas process combinations of information.

“to the retired neurobiologist steven wise . . . the findings imply that instead of categorizing cortical areas in terms of their specialized visual, auditory, somatosensory or executive functions, researchers should study the different combinations of information they represent. . . . wise argues that this brain organization scheme explains why there’s so much unexpected functional overlap in the traditional maps of mental activity. when each region represents a particular combination of information, ’it does that for memory, and for perception, and for attention, and for the control of action,’ wise said.”

in my books and in a number of blog posts i have shared that information is encoded in its structure to transmit meaning, purpose and action. neural codes are instantiated within spike trains of action potentials that transmit specified information. I have offered that the immaterial cognitive mind interprets coherent neural codes (in combinations?), and wise suggests that the sources of the codes can be multiple. it is the mind that integrates the codes to bring about various actions.

i have presented data in more recent blogs showing how the mind has been documented to generate wave forms that represent words, images and the like. the “so what” of my offerings is that the mind of god, his indwelling holy spirit, can transmit specified information to our brains in our time as can the human mind. the mind of god created the mind of man in his image to be in a personal bidirectional communion with him. as neuroscientists reject the commitment to materialism we are learning more about how this communion works through dualist interaction.

joseph ledoux is a neuroscientist at NYU known for his studies of the amygdala, thought to be the fear center of the brain. in the article being cited ledoux states “that the amygdala isn’t involved in generating fear at all. fear, he points out, is a cognitive interpretion of a situation, a subjective experience tied up in memory and other processes. the psychological phenomena that some people experience as fear may be experienced as something very different by others. research shows that the feeling of fear arises in the prefrontal cortex [active in cognition] and related brain areas.”

so we are seeing a revision in the understanding of brain function and beginning to see a connection with cognition. in my books and a number of blog posts linguistic neural codes have been discussed as they relate to memory. is it not possible that the immaterial mind interprets neural codes archived in memory and associated with “related brain areas” such as those that function in perception, attention, will, intent and the like? Such could account for fear.

I continue with excerpts from the quanta magazine article:

“no one disputes that the visual cortex enables sight, that the auditory cortex enables hearing, or that the hippocampus is essential for memory. . . . but memory, for example, also requires brain networks other than the hippocampus, and the hippocampus is turning out to be key to a growing number of cognitive processes other than memory. sometimes the degree of overlap is so great that the labels start to lose their meaning. . . . when functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri) and other powerful technologies made it possible to examine living brains in increasingly sophisticated ways, neuroscientists enthusiastically started searching for the physical basis of our mental faculties [material reductionism]. they made great strides in understANDING THE NEURAL FOUNDations of perception, attention, learning, memory, decision-making, motor control and other classic categories of mental activity. but they also found unsettling evidence that those categories and the neural networks that support them don’t work as expected. it’s not just that the architecture of the brain disrespects the boundaries between the established mental categories. it’s that there’s so much overlap. . . . [gyorgy buzsaki, a neuroscientist at the NYU School of Medicine believes] recent findings . . . highlight a deeper conceptual problem in neuroscience. ‘we divide the real estate of the brain according to our preconceived ideas, assuming - wrongly, as far as i’m concerned - that those preconceived ideas have boundaries, and the same boundaries exist in brain function,’ buzsakio said.”

excerpts will be continued in subsequent blog posts. Please note that the writers fail to identify the specific role of an immaterial cognitive mind that would have the capacity to interpret overlapping neural codes that convey specified information drawing upon memory.

in the next several posts I will be including comments by researchers in the 2/19/23 quanta magazine article by jordana cepelewicz, entitled, “The brain doesn’t think the way you think it does.” I have pointed out that material reductionism has dominated neuroscience perspectivesof brain function for a very long time, but this article shows that that perspective is being challenged, or at least questioned.

I begin with statements by lisa feldman barrett, a psychologist at northeastern university: “ . . . a brain map with neat borders is not just oversimplified - it’s misleading. ‘scientists for over 100 years have searched fruitlessly for brain boundaries between thinking, feeling, deciding, remembering, moving and other everyday experiences,’ barrett said. a host of recent neurological studies further confirm that these mental categories ‘are poor guides for understanding how brains are structured or how they work.’

“neuroscientists generally agree about how the physical tissue of the brain is organized: into particular regions, networks, cell types. but when it comes to relating those to the task the brain might be performing - perception, memory, attention, emotion or action - ‘things get a lot more dodgy,’ said david poeppel, a neuroscientists at new york university.”

I have shared that single impulses can appear in A SPECIFIC neuron AND CHANGE TO NEW ONES within microseconds, showing the versatility in the CODING functioN OF individual neurons. IN THE NEXT POST THIS REALITY WILL BE ADDRESSED.

in a number of blog posts i have shared how wave forms become synchronized in a coherent fashion to transmit specified information through selected synaptic networks to bring about desired actions. It is a top-down function generated, I maintain, by the immaterial cognitive mind to move an extremity, for example. however, there are still many neuroscientists who reduce such cognitive activity to being generated by the material brain with no consideration given for the will of an immaterial mind.

A review article was published on February 19, 2023 entitled “synchronising brain waves key to how and why we pay attention.” researchers at the university of melbourne “have revealed how interactions between electrical waves within the brain may be vital to information processing in the brain. . . . dr. moein esghaei said, ‘coupling lower frequencies of oscillations with higher ones allows fine-tuning the brain and forms the basis for higher cognitive functions, such as selective attention. information arriving at different frequencies from different brain regions may help a target area to select the appropriate input depending upon what one needs to pay attention to,’ said dr. esghaei. . . . the brain’s executive center can attend to a sensory input by simply tuning in to its respective frequency. . . . the attention network, by thus selecting different types of information as required, helps the brain [italics added] to focus on what’s important . . . professor vidyasagar said.”

but note that the researchers do not identify the “executive center” or the “target area” as the immaterial cognitive mind! no, it is believed to be solely a brain function. the researchers do, however, confirm the role of synchronization of frequencies in transmitting specified information encoded within neural spike trains of action potentials, a process discussed in detail in my books and specific blogs.

In previous blog posts I have shared that wave forms are being recognized as interacting with synaptic networks through quantum tunneling among other processes. Earl K. Miller is cited in a publication from the picower institute as “showing that brain rhythms, or brain waves, play a central role in how the cortex processes information and gives us volitional control over our thoughts [suggesting the role of the immaterial cognitive mind] . . . . information flow can be guided among the [coherent, synchronous] circuit pathways available at a given moment by the interplay of brain rhythms [waves] carrying different kinds of [neurally encoded] information.”

(i have added relevant points within brackets reflecting information i have shared in earlier blogs.)

i conclude my posts of excerpts from my second book with the following:

“indeed, when one places confident belief in christ’s sacrifice on the cross, one comes to a most important understanding. it is by god’s grace through jesus christ’s life, death and resurrection that we are able to be redeemed, justified, by his atoning sacrifice from the spiritual death of adam we all face as fallen humans. with jesus’ resurrection and glorification he sent as promised the helper and counselor in the form of his holy spirit. once again he will indwell our human spirit and give counsel to our repentant minds, to our souls. we can increase our personal knowledge of him and experience progressive sanctification by abiding by his counsel to become christ like. over time we become less susceptible to the influences of the prince of this world. that the process of sanctification is deemed a ‘mystery’ has been addressed by my research, and i hope that the neurophysiological process of sanctification guided by our savior has been clarified. god wants mankind to increase in knowledge and understanding by applying advances in scientific knowledge aND WITH PROPER SCRIPTURAL EXEGESIS TO SUCH A ‘MYSTERY.’”

i QUOTE THE APOSTLE PAUL FROM THE BOOK OF COLOSSIANS:

I HAVE BECOME ITS SERVANT BY THE COMMISSION GOD GAVE ME TO PRESENT TO YOU THE WORD OF GOD IN ITS FULLNESS - THE MYSTERY THAT HAS BEEN KEPT HIDDEN FOR AGES AND GENERATIONS, BUT IS NOW DISCLOSED TO THE SAINTS. TO THEM GOD HAS CHOSEN TO MAKE KNOWN AMONG THE GENTILES THE GLORIOUS RICHES OF THIS MYSTERY, WHICH IS CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY.

JOHN 10:27

In Chapter 6 of my book i include A QUOTE FROM ROGER F. OLSON, A PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY, WHO WAS INTERVIEWED BY LEE STROBEL. IT ADDRESSES THE FACT THAT GOD STILL SPEAKS TO US IN OUR TIME:

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?

WE SHOULD BE REMINDED THAT GOD IS THE SAME AS YESTERDAY, TODAY AND FOREVER.

“thus the kingdom of god was established in the church in the present age by restoring the indwelling of the human spirit by the holy spirit which was lost at the fall. in luke 17 jesus responded to a question posed to him by the pharisees who wanted to know when the kingdom would come. jesus said, ‘the kingdom of god does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘here it is,’ or ‘there it is,’ because the kingdom of god is within you.’ it is a foretaste of the kingdom to come when sin will be forever destroyed. . . . the complete fulfillment of the kingdom to come that will occur with the second coming of jesus christ is ‘not yet’ realized. the new covenant of the gospel gives the good hope that we will be with jesus for eternithy in the kingdom to come.”

in chapter 6 of my book i included three quotes from albert einstein and louis pasteur which i wish to share:

science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind. (Albert einstein)

the more i study nature, the more i stand amazed at the work of the creator. science brings men nearer to god. little science takes you away from god but more of it tAKES YOU TO HIM. (lOUIS PASTEUR)