Electrodes, inserted into the septal area of rats caused the animals seek more of the same "pleasure." After lobotomy, patients claimed that pain did not "hurt." How could mere electrical impulses from nerve cells generate mysterious responses, like pain and pleasure? This article suggests that these events are generated by drives, triggered by emotions from the limbic system. Drives are processes of the mind, managed by intuition, a pattern recognition algorithm.

SUBCONSCIOUS DRIVES MAKE YOU UNHAPPY

It was not maths, but recognition. For centuries, science searched to uncover the enigma of the mind. Was there a link between the body and the mind? On the other hand, was the material world merely an imagined picture in the mind? If not, was the mind a maths and logic processor? If it was, could a computer mimic the mind? Even if it could, could such a logic processor become angry, or feel dread? The last idea sounded absurd. In the end, it was the more irrational and illogical processes of the mind, which baffled science. How could any logical process ever generate tears and smiles? Actually, this was not so impossible. There was a simple answer. The mind did use a logical process. But, it was not a maths processor, but a pattern recognition entity. The mind recognized patterns. Its interpretation of recognized patterns in the environment were often irrational and illogical. But the pattern recognition process was logical. Intuition was its enabling algorithm (IA).

The recognition of combinations. The evidence of a recognition process was universal. Nerve impulses were recognized as feelings and emotions. Nerve endings or sensors reported on feelings from tissues all over the body. These sensations included sharp pain, burning pain, cool or warm temperature, itching, muscle contraction, joint movements, soft touch, mechanical stress, tickling, flushing, hunger and thirst. Electrical excitation of certain parts of the temporal lobe, caused intense fear to be produced in patients. Excitation of other parts caused feelings of isolation, loneliness, disgust, or even pleasure. Out of the millions of nerve fibers which relayed these messages, the mind differentiated combinations of active nerve impulses to identify a feeling of hunger, thirst, or much else.

Combinatorial coding. The IA concept was that pattern recognition by the mind identified objects and events through a neural combinatorial coding process. This recognition process was recently acknowledged by science for olfactory neurons. Animals instantly recognized millions of smells through this process. A Nobel Prize acknowledged that discovery in 2004. For IA, the vision went further. The massive memories of nerve cells for combinations lay behind the immense wisdom of the mind. These memories were both inherited and acquired. Intuition was the logical elimination routine, which could instantly sift a single contextual answer from this immense knowledge base. When you reached into your pocket and identified a key, just by touch, you used this process.

A seamless pattern recognition process. So, the mind received, at the input end, kaleidoscopic combinations of millions of sensations. From these, it instantly recognized objects and events. Recognized events triggered contextual feelings. Feelings triggered allied drives. Drives fired sequences of remembered muscle movements. The circuit closed. 100 billion nerve cells recognized events and delivered motor output, within a bare span of 20 milliseconds. The time between the shadow and the scream. All this was enabled by intuition and massive neural memories. So, from input to output, the mind was a seamless pattern recognition system.

Intelligent drives. The current feeling dictated purpose at the highest levels. A hierarchy of intelligences followed through. At the second level, learned movements were inserted. At the lowest level, fine motor coordination delivered the final output – whether a spoken word, or a written line. A feeling expressed a purpose. A feeling of fear could dictate an escape drive, whose purpose was to achieve safety. That demanded instant responses, varying across species. A deer bounded away. A bird took flight. A fish swam off. While the activities differed, they achieved the same objective of escaping. Such activities could not be stupid. Escape was hardly possible by heading into the predator. Increasing the distance from danger demanded uncommon cleverness. That objective could even be achieved by slipping into a safe sanctuary, inaccessible to the predator. Like the underside of a rock.. Creatively intelligent responses occurred within fractions of a second. Purpose was expressed as feelings at the highest level and contextual, remembered drives delivered the final motor outputs.

Largely unconscious drives. The drive channel initially learned by recording context. That was when you first learned to drive a car. As the mind learned, combinations of contextual memories were encoded into the memories of drive channel neurons. Over the years, millions more contexts would be added. Shortcuts, early lane changes, responses to traffic snarls. Because the channel neurons remembered and managed habitual activities, you were free to worry about bills, on your drive home. Without conscious management, the drive channel acted through learned memories. But those memories also had inherited components. It was these components, which responded to feelings and emotions. These drives also acted at a subconscious level.

The historic basis of drives. Purposeful drives had historic antecedents. The Hydra was a primeval example. It was a branched tubular animal. A netlike arrangement of neurons was interposed between its outside and its internal digestive cavity. A stimulus applied to any part of its body resulted in contraction or bending of its tubular body and its tentacles. The Hydra moved about with this simple nerve net, varied its length and used its tentacles to push food particles into its mouth. Occasional strong contractions of the whole animal served to expel indigestible material from the same orifice. From the beginnings of history, ongoing drives enabled animals to move about, swallow, or expel food. Evolution brought more sophisticated feelings and emotions, generating a far wider range of drives. Drives to nurture the young, to lie in the grass, or to play in the water. But the essentials remained. Drives to seek out and accept, or to avoid and escape.

The agreeable quality. While complex mechanisms were used to identify pain, or itching, why was the universal experience of pain wretched and pleasure agreeable? What kind of code could differentiate between nice and awful? Medical texts reported on the pleasure emotion for rats. The animals were observed when they were able to self stimulate themselves, by pressing a lever, through electrodes implanted in the septal area. They continued pressing the lever till they were exhausted, preferring the effect of stimulation to normally pleasurable activities such as consuming food. The pleasure emotion created a drive to repeatedly seek that stimulus.

And the disagreeable quality. On the other hand, pain was felt in two waves, separated by an interval of a few tenths of a second. The first was sharp and localized. The second wave was diffuse and still more disagreeable. So, also, after an operation called lobotomy, the presence of pain was no longer distressing to the patient who would say that the pain was still there, but it did not "hurt." Pain was divided into a sensation and a disagreeable element. That element was, in reality, a drive to avoid the stimulus.

Pleasant and unpleasant drives. The primitive Hydra, moved about, swallowed, or spewed out food. Its drives worked to approach, accept, reject, or escape. Millenniums later, the control systems were more sophisticated. But, humans traveled the seas, enjoyed delicious meals and occasionally became sea sick. Pleasant emotions generated a drive to approach and accept. The rat kept pressing the lever. Such emotions made you feel good. Unpleasant emotions generated a drive to escape, or reject the stimulus. The second wave of pain was a drive triggered by cortical recognition of pain. That feeling triggered a drive to escape. That drive was disagreeable. It made you want to run away. When the drive was disconnected in lobotomy, pain became just a sensation. Drives operated at subconscious levels. When you want to reach out and hug a child, or to hurry away from a gruesome sight, remember, a subconscious drive is in charge.

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