INSTINCTS AND INSTINCTIVE BEHAVIOUR

We saw that instincts are an innate form of behaviour, that is a form of behaviour which is not learned but which the animal performs from birth, without being trained to do so.

Behaviour relating to survival of a species, such as attack, defence and sexual behaviour, is instinctive and responses are automatic. Territory is acquired by force and defended. Might is right.

CONSCIOUS BEHAVIOUR: LEARNING AND EVALUATING, MEMORY AND MEMORISING

As mammals evolved from reptiles, there evolved the ability for storing new experiences as they happen and so creating a store of experience-based memories.

A primitive animal's memory seems to be largely procedural. Both procedural and declarative memories are long-term memories, but declarative memory is located and used in a different way.

Human beings are learning all the time, memorising information and then recalling it when it is required.

What is being memorised includes what we are taught, what happens to us and to others and any lessons learned as a result. And when it happened and the sequence in which it happened. Including also the meaning of words and what is implied. And in addition we have the vast mass of externally prepared and stored information which is accumulating at an accelerating pace.

Massive volumes of information are being received. The incoming information is evaluated and we memorise only information which seems to matter. Some is retained, the rest rejected. Retained short-term (working) memories are converted to long-term memories. So only a part of the incoming information is retained and stored, that is memorised, so becoming available for recalling later when required.

Aspects of memories are stored in different locations. Aspects such as colour, shape, event, phrase, place, time, date. Aspects like shape of face, sound of voice, colour of hair.

Memories are associated, crossindexed if you like, with their different aspects and can be recalled by recalling an aspect associated with the memory one wishes to recall. Component memories are continually being associated with other old or new component memories, enormously increasing the range and flexibility of what can be recalled.

A process which continually keeps available memory components which relate to those of current interest, and memory components which are more frequently used than others.

Human beings store memories by means of changed neural pathways, by means of persistent modifications to the structure of neurons and their synaptic connections, by means of biochemical changes.

So we are strengthening neural pathways or associations by frequently using or recalling them, weakening memory components which are not being used.

Hence using neural pathways holds memories at higher, more easily accessible levels of memory, makes them more readily available. Infrequently recalled memories would seem to be overlaid by more frequently used ones, seem to be reduced to lower levels of awareness, of accessibility.

COMMUNICATING NON-VERBALLY: CONVEYING INFORMATION BY USING IMAGES

Instinctive Behaviour

Dreaming trains animals and human beings in instinctive responses and then keeps instinctive behaviour fully trained.

Dreaming does so by generating situations which require responses of the fight, flight, affection kind. A dream produces a corresponding response which, however, is not translated into action as the dreamer's body is normally paralysed by the mind for duration of dreaming (REM) sleep.

Frequent replaying strengthens corresponding neural pathways and so trains the individual to respond and to respond quickly.

Subconscious Behaviour (Functioning)

As mammals evolved from reptiles, the added functions included organs such as the autonomic nervous system for the automatic control of body functions, of functions such as digestion, the fluid balance, body temperature and blood pressure.

A key finding of this report is that the right hemisphere of the human brain is able to communicate by using images with the brain's older and more primitive component organs which have no verbal skills. And this enables us to communicate intentionally (that is 'consciously') with our autonomic nervous system and ask it by visualising to control body functions and to affect our body's immune system. Any or all our senses can be included when visualising.

Clinical trials have shown remarkable success in areas such as the treatment of cancer and heart disease.

Communicating with one's autonomic nervous system by visualising is a conscious activity.

Hence it is possible to direct and use the mind's subconscious maintenance and control capabilities, and so enable environmental experience and knowledge to be applied for one's benefit. That is, one's knowledge and experience can be consciously applied towards modifying the mind's subconscious control of body functions for the benefit of the individual.

Memorising

It is while REM sleeping that dreams are generated and that we appear to be filing away (memorising) memories for later use.

Much of dreaming may then be the creating and recalling of associations. As the night progresses this process seems to become more intuitive, delving deeper into stored memories and associations, associating with earlier memories and their aspects, tending to go back in time towards childhood.

Becoming more intuitive by going through likely or apparently associated filed images or other stored memory components (aspects) in their different locations.

In this way keeping long-term memories intact and relevant by continually associating and reassociating their various parts.

So we are strengthening neural pathways or associations by frequently using or recalling them.

This process at the same time would seem to weaken those memory components we are not thinking about or which are not being used.

ADAPTING TO THE ENVIRONMENT: CHANGING INSTINCTIVE BEHAVIOUR

A key feature which distinguishes mammals from the reptiles from which they evolved would seem to be that the mammalian brain contains organs for the experience-based recognition of danger and for responding to this according to past experience. And for some conscious feelings about events.

Millions of neural pathways connect the organs which generate experience-based memories, and also those which generate conscious feelings with associated behavioural response patterns, to the reptilian parts of the mammalian brain.

It seems that feelings such as attachment, anger and fear have emerged with associated behavioural response patterns, and that behaviour is less rigidly controlled by instincts.

So it seems that instinctive behaviour can be modified by feelings of care and affection and also by experience, particularly when repeated frequently.

Neural pathways are created and strengthened by being used, others weakened by not being used. We react accordingly and it seems as if memories are being created which modify instinctive behavioural responses.

It also seems that instinctive behaviour has to be controlled, and modified according to the environment in which we find ourselves, in every generation, and that the mammalian and human parts of the brain play a major part in this.

ADAPTING TO THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE: CHANGING BEHAVIOUR PATTERNS

We adapt to the world in which we live in much the same way. What happens to us and what we do, and what happens as a result, changes neural pathways. A trace is left, neural pathways are changed, memories are formed.

Playing is one way of learning how to behave, of learning about social co-operation and conflict, about family relations and about bringing up a family. From infant through child and adolescence to being an adult, we go through a long period in which we learn through playing and by experience. And learning by experience and by gaining knowledge continues while we are alive.

Social responsibility, the caring, giving and sharing with others, the taking on of responsibility for others, including conflict management, can be and is being taught.

What human beings do, what happens to us, is also memorised if thought relevant. These memories can be recalled when required and in this way will affect our future behaviour.

Additionally we also absorb information from external memory, from the mass of information now available to us from sources external to ourselves. And the action we take, what we do, depends on evaluating the situation, what we know and how we feel about it. The outcome itself is evaluated and becomes part of our memories.

It seems that on the whole people may not be able to recall feelings, that most people can only recall how they felt about something at the time.

Each new experience adds to our knowledge and plays a part in shaping our view of the community and society in which we live, of the world at large, and helps to determine our behaviour.

EVALUATION AND UNDERSTANDING

Behaviour of the primitive animals from which human beings evolved is instinctive. Which means that behaviour relating to survival, such as attack, defence or sexual, is automatic. Territory is acquired by force and defended. Might is right.

The mammalian brain includes the older reptilian brain and is linked to it. With the mammalian brain emerged feelings such as attachment, fear and anger together with associated behavioural response patterns. Mammalian behaviour is less rigidly controlled by instincts.

The human brain (see Figure 3 'The Human Brain') includes the mammalian brain and human emotional responses depend on neuronal pathways which link the right hemisphere to the mammalian brain.

It takes human beings many years to bring up their children and it is the right hemisphere which is concerned with a wide range of emotions and feelings of care and affection for the young and for the family, and then for other people and the community.

For human beings, primitive (reptilian) instinctive urges and behaviour are overlaid by mammalian care and affection for one's young and human care and affection for one's family and community. Behaviour is aimed at survival of the young and of the family, and then is for the good of family, other people, community.

The right hemisphere is linked to the primitive older part of the brain which has no verbal, semantic or reasoning ability and so functions subconsciously (below the level of consciousness). Hence the right hemisphere communicates with the 'subconscious' functions of the older part of the brain by using images. Communicating by using images is fast.

And so the right hemisphere communicates using images (pictures) and has highly developed spatial abilities, is intuitive and imaginative, is concerned with emotions and feelings.

Speech, that is thinking and communicating by using words, seems to have evolved later. The left hemisphere communicates by using words, has highly developed verbal and semantic abilities, is logical and systematic, concerned with matters as they are. Images may be described, or transformed into a narrative, by the left hemisphere.

Hence behaviour is not only determined by feelings but also by knowledge, understanding and reason.