The operating system of THE brain (Buddhi)

Author: Veera Raghavaiah Kancharla

Abstract:

Animals with brains have thirst for information. Happiness is the state of the brain when knowing new or decayed (forgotten) information. The state of being thirsty (not knowing information) due to analytical thinking or lack of information availability is sadness. Physical pain and some strong interrupting senses (such as a very strong smell of a fish or a strong bitter taste) also distract the brain from knowing any information and thus cause sadness. Animal brains get some happiness from the reception of information from the brain itself (general bliss) in the absence of interruptions and distractions. Animals evolved to have thirst for information, because that is the only effective way for animals to actively interact with nature for survival, which is buzzing with information of light, sound, chemical reactions and pressure. Animals evolved to have general bliss so that animals do not hook on less dense information, which is abundant in the vicinity of the animals. Also, general bliss is not as rich in information density as many information elements coming through the sense organs. This makes animals to interact with nature actively for information rich sources and thus increases the chances of survival.

Keywords: Brain, Mind, Buddhi, Information, Operating System, Feelings, Happiness, Bliss, Sadness, Pain, Meditation.

 

Introduction:

There is some existing literature on the brain mechanisms of pleasure (happiness or joy) and sadness in animals with brains including humans. However, none of this literature can satisfactorily and un-refutably explain the brain logical mechanisms of desire, pleasure and sadness. For example, the existing literature cannot explain the exact brain mechanism behind the pleasure from a joke, pleasure from winning a challenge, pleasure from music, etc. The existing literature predominantly explains the evolutionary reasons behind pleasure or sadness in all different scenarios in the lives of animals including humans.

 

This paper elucidates new findings (theorizes non empirically) on the exact mechanism of pleasure (joy) and sadness with abundant illustrations. This paper clarifies that the mechanism of getting pleasure is same from all kinds of pleasure sources. All the illustration scenarios are universally well-known life experiences by all, additionally backed by the existing literature on psychology in some cases. This paper includes a detailed comparison and review of the existing literature.

 

The summary of the findings is as follows. Animals with brains have thirst for information (Information is what the brain can interpret and memorize from the data reaching the brain). Happiness is the state of the brain when knowing new or decayed (forgotten) information (This is a completely new understanding unlike the old misunderstanding that happiness/pleasure and memorization are different processes). Information that causes feelings gets stored as either short-term memory or long-term explicit memory. Animals know about the information availability in the environment from the meta information (This also is information, but is usually less dense and so less enjoyable. Example of a meta-information element: “Sweets in a shop at XYZ location taste good. We already know that new information is found in different places. The link information of one of the different known paths to a shop with tasty sweets is given here.). The state of being thirsty (not knowing information) due to analytical thinking or lack of information availability is sadness. Physical pain and some strong interrupting senses (such as a very strong smell of a fish or a strong bitter taste) also distract the brain from knowing any information and thus cause sadness. There are already some evidences indicating that the brain centers that become active during sadness because of physical pain or emotional pain are the same. In other words, the brain processes the sadness because of a physical pain or other reasons similarly (1, 2).

 

All of this process in the brain driving the living in the animals with brains primarily through the desire for pleasures/information can be called as the operating system of the brain. In summary, the operating system of the brain (called buddhi in all major languages of India including Sanskrit) operates for gathering information. The processes in the consciousness are already well segregated as two main components called manas (mind) and buddhi and used in all major languages in India. The following discussion gives clarity on this segregation in more detail.

 

The flow of the discussion/content is given in the index below.

 

 

Index:

  1. Considerations
  2. Definitions
  3. Illustrations (Analysis and Discussion)
  4. General bliss and meditational bliss
  5. The Operating System of the Brain
  6. Review of the Existing literature
  7. Basic organization of the processing in brain
  8. Factors affecting information gathering by an animal
  9. Conclusions

References

 

1. Considerations (available knowledge of the brain):

  1. The brain receives or considers two kinds of information from nature. One is non-associative information such as taste, sound, smell, image, etc.; and the other is information of association(link) such as the fruit is linked to tree, light is linked to the Sun, students are linked to roll numbers, etc.. The information of association is referred to as link in the rest of this article. Non-associative Information and the links are considered by brain together most of the times.
  2. The information in the long-term explicit memory of the brain naturally decays slowly. The information in the short-term memory decays very fast.
  3. The interpretation by the the brain from the data it receives from the environment is known as information. All the information considered (observed) by brain is stored in the memory (short-term and then long-term explicit memory depending on the repetitions of learning). Similarly, all the information in the memory is perceived as known.
  4. The brain takes time to know/store/learn information. It cannot know all the available information instantly. For example, the taste of a fruit is known completely only after eating it for some duration. Complete taste information (The perception of a food is usually a combination of many tastes, flavors, texture, chemical sensations, etc.) of a fruit cannot be perceived in the first bite.
  5. Complete storage/memorization of any information element takes much more time compared to storing majority of the information. For example, the roll number of a student (associating a known number to a student) can be memorized decently in just a couple of repetitions of learning. But, perfect memorization of the roll number of the student requires several repetitions of learning until the memory is formed firmly (memory solidification).
  6. The brain has a limit to the amount of information it can process at a time due to the size limit of sensory and temporary memories. For example, a two-digit number can be memorized in a single go. Memorizing a mobile phone number requires dividing the mobile phone number in to multiple small parts and then arranging/linking the parts one after the other over time sequence. All of the mobile number can not be conscious in the brain at once.
  7. The brain can imagine and build up some information of a state (such as winning in a game) based on the confidence, even before the state is really achieved. Information build up from imagination gives happiness similar to in real information storage. Sense information such as an unknown taste information cannot be imagined.
  8. Repeated learning (storage) or repeated recall of the same information (memory) solidifies the memory (information).
  9. Animals other than human beings do not have analytical ability and the ability to imagine as much as possessed by human beings.
  10. All the good feelings an animal gets are happy feelings and all the bad feelings an animal gets are Sadness. Worry, cry, feel of physical pain, etc. are sadness in different occasions or levels. Happiness, feeling humor, feeling the taste of a food, listening to liked music, meditational sense, etc. are happiness in different occasions or levels. Hatred, anger, selfishness, love, surprise etc. are not feelings; but understandings or behaviors in the process of getting happiness or getting rid of sadness.
  11. Differences in the level of feelings between animals (including humans) for the same received information are due to the differences in the physiologies, genes, environmental influences, etc. of the animals. For example, person A and person B both find mangoes tasty, but person A feels mangoes as the tastiest fruits where as person B feels mangoes as tasty but not the tastiest. The brain of person A could be losing the specific taste information of mangoes faster (memory decay) than that of person B after eating them and therefore could be finding them as very tasty every time due to the vacuum of taste information of mangoes. The same person A might have slower memory decay to the tastes of other fruits.
  12. Animals and people have general bliss. The bliss is noticeable when a person is mentally relaxed. Severe analytical thinking or physical pain or strong interrupting senses (such as a loud sound, strong smell of fish, extremely bitter food) deprive the brain of the general bliss.
  13. The brain does not enjoy physical pain and some strong interrupting senses. A person may enjoy a slightly bitter taste in a food. An extremely bitter food is not enjoyable and at the same time, extreme bitterness prevents the brain from thinking about anything else. Similarly, the strong smell of a fish is not enjoyable and it also prevents the brain from thinking about anything else.

 

2. Definitions:

Sense: The information directly received by the brain through sense organs.

E.g.: Taste of a fruit sensed through the tongue, sound from drums sensed through ears, etc.

State: The state of an animal with respect to its environment, by way of its abilities or actions.

Some state information requires crossing challenges and some state information does not require crossing challenges. State is not understood or not so well understood by animal brains as by human brains because of differences in analytical abilities, memories and other reasons.

E.g.: Being the leader of a group, being achiever of a medal, climbing a tree as a challenge, playing a video game, having economic status, having social status, etc..

The Operating System of the Brain: The primary control system (process) in the brain. This is the driving force of living in animals. This is known as Buddhi in Sanskrit and majority of the other Indian languages. Mind (Manas in Sanskrit and the majority of the other Indian languages) is a supporting system under the control of the Buddhi. Buddhi and Mind are different functionalities in one processing (processes in the consciousness) system.

Information element: Distinct information from a source or ‘an information’.

E.g.: taste of a sweet, music, crossing a sublevel in a video game, etc.

 

3. Illustrations (Analysis and Discussion):

  1. Listening to the sounds of birds:

The sounds of some birds have a rare timbre. Therefore, people like to listen to those sounds to know the timbre information of those sounds. When listening to the rare sound of a bird for the first time, brain understands that there is a lot of new information in the sound (knows the meta information that the sound has a lot of new information), but can memorize/recall only some information of the sound after the first listening (learning). Since the brain understood that there is much more remaining information in the sound but it is able to recall only some of the information, the brain tries to keep listening to the sound of the bird until knowing majority of the sound information of the bird (until knowing the meta information that there is no much additional information being memorized with each additional listening).

 

  1. Listening to music:

Music has a different sound pattern (of different frequencies, amplitudes, their sequential arrangement and repetition) from that of the general sounds reaching the ear from ambience. The sound pattern information of general sounds from ambience is well known to the brain. But, the music pattern information is new to it. Therefore, people like to listen to music until they know most of it.

 

  1. Eating a sweet:

Case1: Sweet has not been eaten for many days

When a sweet is not tasted for many days, the information regarding the taste (perception of a food is usually a combination of many tastes, flavors, texture, chemical sensations, etc.) of the sweet is lost in the brain to some extent, because of decay of the long-term explicit memory in the brain. The nuances are not well remembered after several days, although the overall taste make up information is generally remembered decently. Then the brain seeks to know the majority of the information of the taste of the sweet. Therefore, the brain starts analyzing ways to taste the sweet. If it gets that sweet, knows its taste information.

Case2: Sweet just eaten up to satisfaction

The information is already stored. Therefore, no more sweet is needed for the taste information. Therefore, the brain stops analyzing ways to get the taste information of the sweet. If the tongue yet provides the already existing information to the brain regarding that sweet, the brain ignores that information and tries to switch to getting some other unknown information by priority.

Case3: Got a new sweet when the stomach is already full

Eating when the stomach is already full causes stomach pain. Therefore, people may eat a very little of the new sweet to load majority of the taste information or they may not eat at all as the sadness from stomach pain may dominate the joy/pleasure from the taste information of the sweet. Physical satiation because of stomach fullness is another cause of reduced interest in food when the stomach is full. This satiation reduces the sensitivity to the information of food (5, 13).

Case4: feeling a little hungry and got a sweet 

The information about anything in the brain is generally linked with some other information/memory in the brain. The mild burning sensation of the stomach increases forced attention to the stomach and thus the consideration of food which is related to the stomach. This concentrated consideration of food leads to the concentrated consideration of the taste information of food and leads to more effort to get food than it should be for the amount of taste information. This means, the brain has tendency to change the normal priority for information under exposure to information sources and stimulation.

 

  1. Watching beautiful images and scenery:

The beauty of an image or scenery depends on the amount of new information it has. A 2D square shape has straight sides, parallel opposite sides, equal length sides, opposing corners, etc.. information that is a little rare and thus causes happiness on watching the square shape. A 2D mango shape is somewhat peculiar in nature with the bottom turning to a side and thus has a rare shape information that causes happiness. A rainbow has 7 main colors and innumerous transition colors in between. It is a little difficult to memorize a rainbow as a rainbow has a lot of color and color arrangement information and thus causes happiness on watching it.

 

  1. Playing a video game:

Suppose that a boy received a new video game as a birthday gift. When he opens it for the first time, he tries to get the state information “I crossed several sub/minute challenges in the first level and also I won the first level in the video game”. Typically, a single level of a video game has several sub/minute challenges to cross and thus gives a new state information element on crossing each of those sub/minute challenges. This makes each level of a video game a potential contributor of a lot of new state information (for example, a single level of a Temple-run game has several subchallenges such as taking sharp turns and jumping over hurdles before finishing the level successfully).  For winning in the first level, he does some effort. If he crosses the first level after some effort, then he wants to get the state information from the second level. Like this, he tries to get the state information from all the succeeding levels or he gets some other more prioritized work. The boy does not necessarily remember all of the state information from the video game in the long term. He may forget the sub challenges crossed in each level of the video game as soon as a level in the game is finished or even before a level in the is finished. Pleasure comes only from loading information and does not require long-term memorization. The music and images in a video game can be additional contributors to new information.

 

  1. Eagerness to disobey:

Suppose that a mother of a child draws a line on the floor and asks her child to not cross the line and warns of a minor punishment if the line is crossed. This new restriction gives scope to a new state information – “I have crossed the line”. The child shows eagerness to cross the line as the crossing of the line gives new state information and thus some pleasure. The meta information that the boy has before crossing the line is – “having crossed the line state information is available, but it is not yet associated with self to makeup the new information I have crossed the line”. Disobeying usually involves some risk of punishment. Therefore, disobeying is challenging.

 

  1. Winning a car in a lottery:

Let us assume that a poor person wins a lottery for which the prize is a good luxury car; but the car will be given only 2 months after the day he wins the lottery. The person has the information immediately after he knows that he has won the car, “I have a luxury car”.  Therefore, he starts enjoying the status of having the luxury car from the time he wins the car (data) due to confidence that he will get the car for sure in approximately 2 months. This information build up from the data happens because the person actually owns/has the information to be added, although the situational sensory data of actual owning of the car did not happen immediately. In this way, he adds some part of the total information before actually taking car to hand. The status information comprises multiple information elements from being above many other people in the society.

 

  1. Participating in a contest with some confidence of winning:

Suppose that a person attends a weightlifting challenge in a recreation club, to lift a weight of 30 kg with a single hand. Before trying to lift the weight, suppose that the person has some confidence (expectation) that he can lift the weight with a single hand. This means that he loaded some of the information (partial memorization) of the state of being able to lift the weight, even before trying to lift the weight. Here, the information is loaded only partially in to his brain based on the past experiences and rough estimation by the person with partial confidence (People usually have some level of prior confidence/expectation in all types of challenges. Confidence depends on the prior experiences and the knowledge of the circumstances of a challenge). This partial memory (state information of having lifted the weight) keeps fading away and the person keeps recalling his past experiences and analyzing the current circumstances to reload the partial state information until the actual attempt to lift the weight. Only a real lifting of the weight gives real situational information at the time of lifting, to form a strong memory of having lifted the weight. Therefore, if the person actually lifts the weight in the contest, he loads the full information (perfect memorization) of the state of having lifted the weight.

 

  1. Losing a contest:

Suppose that a person attends a weightlifting challenge in a recreation club, to lift a weight of 30 kg with a single hand. Before trying to lift the weight, suppose that the person has some confidence (expectation) that he can lift the weight with a single hand. This means that he loaded some of the information of the state of being able to lift the weight, even before trying to lift the weight. Suppose that the person is actually not able to lift the weight with a single hand when he tries to lift the weight and loses the contest (loss and failure are words used in language and they are data to convey the absence of win and success. A person who does not participate in the contest has no new/additional state information with respect to the contest, same as the person who loses the contest). He now firmly memorizes the current state as having not won the contest due to the actual situational evidence of having not won the contest. The previously partially memorized state information of winning the contest due to some confidence immediately starts fading away in the memory with time because of the absence of data to remind the win in the contest. He also has no new/additional state information to load into the brain from the contest. He starts thinking and analyzing deeply in hunt for the same or different information in the future. Thinking deprives the brain of general bliss (information from the brain itself) also (Brain can either load information or think at a time. Brain cannot do both simultaneously). The brain becomes thirsty with little information to load and this is perceived as sadness.

 

  1. Participating in a running race:

Suppose a participant is in the 7th rank in the latest running race that is conducted frequently in a locality. The information available regarding the race in the brain of the participant is: I am in the 7th rank in the running race and running race fans recognize that I am in the 7th rank. “I am in the 8th rank in the running race and running race fans recognize that I am in the 8th rank (logically 8th rank is within the scope of the 7th ranker and the participant is conscious that he crossed the lower ranks). I am in the 9th rank in the running race and running race fans recognize that I am in the 9th rank. I am in the 10th rank in the running race and running race fans recognize that I am in the 10th rank. I am not in any rank in the running race and fans recognize that (logically; not having any rank is true while he holds a rank; because not having any rank is under his scope. i.e., not having the 10th rank also is under his scope)”. I run faster than many people in the society. The information of recognition by the running race fans is huge as it is made up of the information of recognition by each of the running race fans. The information of the state of being faster runner than many people in the society also is made up of a lot of information elements. This abundant information would keep the participant happy for a good amount of time, to the extent that he can interpret/perceive.

 

His brain does not contain information such as “I am in the 4th rank in the running race and running race fans recognize that I am in the 4th rank”, “I am in the 5th rank in the running race and running race fans recognize that I am in the 5th rank”. Therefore, he wants to get that not existing state information by doing some effort and then participating in this race. Suppose that the participant does not think of the 1st or 2nd rank for now as it is not possible for him obviously. He does some effort to improve his abilities to get new state information and now his actual rank capability (very confident) is 5 and the participant loads the state information of being in the 5th rank in to his brain, but the race fans do not know his present capability. For expected information: “running race fans recognize that I am in the 5th rank in the running race”, he participates in the new race of running. He is less confident to get the 4th rank based on the available data and experiences and so he loads partial state information (weak memorization due to less consideration and limited supporting data to think of and remind the 4th rank) of being in the 4th rank. He is even lesser confident of getting 3rd rank and so loads even weaker state information (weaker memorization due to very little data to think of and remind the 3rd rank) of being in the 3rd rank in to his brain.

   

If the participant gets the 5th rank in this race, his brain loads the new state information “fans recognize that I am in the 5th rank in the running race”. “Fans recognize that I am in the 5th rank in the running race” information addition is happiness. The state information of the 6th rank is also obviously loaded as it is within the scope of the 5th rank.

If the participant gets the 4th rank in this race, his brain loads the reaming state information of “I am in the 4th rank” on top of the previously loaded partial state information and makes a firm memory. He also loads the new state information “fans recognize that I am in the 4th rank in the running race”. The state information of 5th and 6th ranks also is obviously loaded as they are within the scope of the 4th rank.

If the participant gets the 3rd rank in this race, his brain loads almost new (full) state information “I am in the 3rd rank”. He also loads the new state information “Fans recognize that I am in the 3rd rank in the running race”. The state information of the 4th, 5th and 6th ranks also is obviously loaded as they are within the scope of the 3rd rank.

 

If the participant gets the 8th rank due to unexpected competition from the opponents, he makes a firm memory of having got the 8th rank based on the actual circumstances of the race completion. He also has no new state information to load in to the brain from the contest. He starts thinking and analyzing deeply to improve the rank in the future. This thinking deprives the brain of the general bliss (information from the brain itself) also. The brain becomes thirsty with little information to load and this is perceived as sadness. The previously known state information “I am in the 7th rank in the running race and running race fans recognize that I am in the 7th rank” fades away in the memory of the participant with time because of no reminding data to consider the 7th rank.

 

If the person (brain) cannot at all expect to win any race (suppose he is a person with disability or general person, who cannot compete in a race), then he (brain) does not try to know any information of being in a rank as it is not possible (cannot be received and stored).

 

Getting the first rank for the participant gives more happiness than getting the 5th or the 6th rank when he was in the 7th rank in last race; because getting of 6th rank adds just one additional state to the getting of the 7th rank. But, “I am recognized in the 1st rank” adds information of all states associated with ranks 1 to 6.

 

{The rank numbers (such as 1,2,3…10) are only used/memorized for easy reference to the actual rank. The existence of a rank or position in a race or competition is independent of the notations such as numbers or alphabets, etc.. For example, in a three persons’ competition of persons A, B and C; we can express that A wins in a position ahead of B and C without using any number or alphabet to refer to his/her position.}

 

{There is possibility of doubt that why a participant can not imagine him-self to be having whatever rank he wants instead of practically trying for it. This does not happen because every possible state information element is logically already available/known in the imaginary world of a person; which means that, in the imaginary world, already person holds whatever rank he wants. Therefore, only practical information is not stored in the brain and so a participant tries for practical information}

 

  1. Wishing fall of economic status of relatives:

If known people such as relatives fall in economic status and go below the self status, it means the relative increase in self status (new state information). Therefore, people wish the fall of status of known people to a level below the self status to get the new status information regarding the self. Even if people wish the increase in status of other people with low status, they wish that others should not match or cross the self status.

 

  1. Knowing a Secret:

A secret is an unknown information. The brain tries to know the secrets to get the unavailable information.

For example, trying to know the atmosphere of Saturn (even if this knowledge is known to not benefit us in other ways than just knowing it).

 

  1. Knowing a story:

Instead of knowing a story by some author, we can create a story by ourselves. But, our self-created story is what we imagine as we want. Therefore, the self-created story is readily available in the self-imagination (self). Therefore, there is no story information unknown from the self-imagination. The story information by some author is not known unless we know it by reading or listening or watching.

The content of a story is interpreted in the same way as a real situation by the brain. Therefore, we feel by the information of a story (imagination) in the same way as in a real situation. A story could consist of state information, relaxation/peaceful moments, secrets and twists (a twist is a new information as it is unexpected in advance and very novel in the context of the twist).

 

  1. Knowing a joke:

A joke is a short story with high density of information from twists. A twist is a new information as it is unexpected in advance and very novel in the context of the twist. Knowing the novel information from the context in the joke causes happiness. In other words, if we divide a joke in to two parts – the part before the twist and the twist, the association between the two parts already known individually is novel or new information and thus knowing this new association information gives pleasure.

A joke example:

I found a way to earn money easily without doing any work or business or having property. I will tell you if you give me 1000 bucks.

Explanation:

After knowing the first sentence, the addressee expects to know a decent detailed logic to earn money easily. But, the addresser is actually asking 1000 bucks to get money for himself in the second sentence. This is far from what the addressee expects after getting the first sentence. Therefore, the second sentence is a very novel information (twist) as it is far from the expectations (estimations/imaginations) of the addressee. This is knowing of a large amount of information in a few sentences (dense information). This type of high-density information reception from jokes is happiness.

 

  1. Waiting for relatives in the railway station:

In this case, the waiting person feels to do something to get some new or decayed information untill his relatives come (time pass). Since he knows some means of getting information, he tries for them, such as eating peanuts or reading jokes in a paper instead of being idle. This is because the brain always keeps trying to get some new or decayed (forgotten) information.

 

  1. Attending a big entertainment show with number tags:

Suppose that a person attends a big entertainment show by buying a ticket. The show organizers issue tokens with serial numbers to the spectators at the entrance of the show for the purpose of managing the spectators. The person attending the show knows the numbers already from the school days. The person finds it interesting (mild pleasure) to know that the show has numbers associated with the spectators. Here, the new information is the information of association(link) between the number system and the spectators at the show, which is strange to him.

 

  1. Participating in both swimming and running competitions:

Suppose that a person is physically fit enough for both swimming and running competitions. He participates in a swimming competition first and wins at some level and enjoys the state information of winning in swimming. Now, although he knows the concept of winning, he participates in the running race also to get the winning state information in the running race. Here, the new state information of winning in a competition can also be interpreted as making a new association (link information) of the known concept of winning to a certain competition. A new association is formed only by winning in a new(different) competition through participation.

 

  1. Seeing Stones on a Mountain:

Let us assume that a small boy Tom who did not see stones before goes to a mountain with full of stones with random shapes. When Tom finds the first stone, he curiously knows its shape. When he finds the second stone, he knows its shape. After seeing a few stones, he understands the shapes of the majority of the stones. When he sees any more stones, he does not think of knowing their shapes, because he knows their shapes and so there is very little new shape information in them. He can draw innumerous different shapes of stones if asked to draw, because he knows the shapes of the majority of the stones now. After some time, suppose that he finds a few stones with odd colors or odd textures or rare shapes such as a circular shape. Those stones are somewhat enjoyable due to the new information in them.

 

There exists the link information of which known stone shape is in which known place (let us consider only large stones in this case, since small stones of all known shapes can be found in every known place). The boy already knows that the group of known shapes are linked (information of association) to the group of known places. This means that all known shapes are linked moderately (some confidence level) to all known places (many to many relationship) initially in his consciousness. Decent memorization (short-term memory) of the certain place of the stone of a certain shape on top of the previously known information requires only a couple of repetitions of learning and thus gives a little pleasure. Therefore, the boy observes the locations of stones of different shapes with a little curiosity only if it does not consume much time to gather this link information. Now, if the boy wants to perfectly memorize the certain place of the stone of a certain shape, it requires several repetitions of learning (memorization) of the association between that shape and place until the memory is formed firmly (memory solidification). The remaining link information decreases towards zero gradually with each repetition of learning (memorization). The last few repetitions have hardly any information, but those repetitions are inevitable to memorize the link perfectly. The overall new information density (information received for a unit of time spent in memorization) of such perfect memorizations is very little. The brain loses the more enjoyable general bliss at the cost of such perfect memorizations. Therefore, the brain does not like perfect memorizations. Animals memorize links perfectly only on the need basis while hunting for other information.

 

  1. Memorizing a song:

Memorizing the lyrics of a song involves linking the known words or sentences corresponding to the context in the song sequentially over time. People listen to the lyrics curiously once or twice until decent memorization (short-term memorization and subsequently a little long-term memorization) of the lyrics, which is a little pleasure. Memorizing the lyrics of a song perfectly (solid long-term memorization) takes much more time (listening several times) than does memorizing the lyrics roughly after listening to the song just a few times. Therefore, perfect memorization of lyrics in a song is not enjoyable for the singers. The majority of the enjoyable information in a song comes from the rhythm in the song. Therefore, listening to a song is enjoyable to listeners mainly because of the rhythm in it. Memorizing the rhythm perfectly also is very time consuming and so the brain loses interest in listening to a song after listening to it a few times.

 

  1. Memorizing paths:

If a person is asked to draw random paths on a paper, he can draw innumerous different paths as different combinations of lefts and rights. The information of all different possible paths is already known to him. Remembering the path to office (or a shop) involves linking one of the known paths perfectly to the office (or a shop). If the path is complex, it is not enjoyable to memorize it perfectly.

 

  1. Memorizing the phone numbers of people:

A typical person can tell infinite numbers. Listening to a number has no unknown information unless it has a rhythm information as in 527352735273. Memorizing a specific phone number of a specific known person requires dividing the specific phone number into multiple small well known numbers and then linking the parts one after the other over time sequence and memorizing the overall phone number. Then the specific phone number has to be linked to the specific known person. People curiously notice or listen to the mobile phone numbers of people once or twice if that information is available effortlessly. Perfect memorization requires several repetitions of learning (memorization) with very little additional information with each learning. Perfect memorization is time consuming with low density new information at the cost of general bliss of the brain. Therefore, it is not enjoyable to memorize the mobile phone numbers of people perfectly.

 

  1. Olympic running race rank number vs jersey number:

The Olympic running race rank number of a participant is a reference number to the enormous amount of state information carried by that rank. An Olympic running race Gold medal winner gets the state information elements of being faster runner than every individual person on the Earth, without repeated learning (rapid loading of information elements without memorizing them permanently) of any of those information elements. He also gets the enormous amount of dense state information of a large number of individual people on the Earth knowing his win. The jersey number of a participant in the Olympic running race has only the single information element of what known number is linked to the participant. Therefore, the Olympic running race win in the 1st rank gives enormous amount of happiness. People notice the jersey number once or twice curiously if it is visible effortlessly, due to the limited (single) link information carried by it. Permanent memorization of the jersey number at the cost of losing more information rich general bliss and other dense information while memorizing the jersey number firmly is not preferred by anyone.

 

  1. Doing a software job:

Some jobs such as a software job involve a lot of analytical thinking and perfect memorization (memory solidification) of a lot of information (a lot of low density information). This is why these jobs are not much enjoyable as they deprive the brain of  general bliss and other dense information and keep it thirsty.

 

  1. Losing a costly mobile phone:

Losing a working mobile phone causes sadness. Losing an already damaged mobile phone does not cause any sadness. Losing things is a known (habituated) information. Therefore, the sadness from losing a working mobile phone is not because of the minor link information of the phone being lost (linking losing to a phone). The majority of the sadness is due to the cost involved in buying a similar replacement phone as not expected in advance. The thought of buying a replacement phone brings the thought of losing some money unexpectedly and causes consideration of the loss (missing) of some other predetermined (stored/felt/known/imagined) state information such as buying a new jewel or a new dress or a new video gaming console, etc. due to the money being spent for the replacement phone. The deep thought and analysis deprives the brain of general bliss and thus keeps the brain thirsty for information (sadness).

 

  1. Feeling very hungry:

Hunger is a pain. To get rid of the burning sensation inside the stomach, which distracts the brain from knowing any information including general bliss (information from the brain itself) and keeps the brain thirsty (sadness), animals consume food. The brain does not (cannot) consider the information in physical pain and some strong interrupting senses (such as a very strong smell of a fish or a strong bitter taste) for enjoyment. There are already some evidences indicating that the brain centers that become active during sadness because of physical pain or emotional pain are the same. In other words, the brain processes the sadness because of a physical pain or other reasons similarly (1, 2). The taste information of food is another factor for consuming food.

 

  1. Torturing an insect:

Let us consider a small boy torturing an ant and enjoying it. Here, what happens is, the information of “how the ant jumps and moves peculiarly when tortured” is understood (known) by the boy. It is not possible to imagine and feel the actual pain of others unlike the feeling of the state information of others. But it is possible to recall a little of the self-pain and the state of sadness during a self-pain in the past on observing the painful situation of others. This ability to relate builds up with experience and age and leads to the sense of dharma (law) that if I torture others, others also can torture me. The sense of dharma prevents people from torturing others in nature. The small boy does not understand the dharma (law) to not torture insects due to his young age.  Therefore, he finds enjoyable information in a suffering insect’s peculiar movements.

 

  1. Supporting their own team in a game:

In a multinational game, the winning state information of the team of a country directly affects the state information of all the people who associate themselves with that country, because a team represents a whole country. People cannot feel state information about others as much as they feel about themselves (feeling about self or self-team is easier than feeling about others who are usually not attached to self continuously). Therefore people enjoy/prefer the win of the self or a team of a self-associated country more than the win of others or a team of another country.

 

  1. Loving animals, friends and country:

When a person observes the environment in search of information, he looks at animals and people and observes what they are doing. He works for the happiness of the observed animals and people; which is in fact an effort to add information into his own brain through observation of the state information and general bliss of others. The state information of others can be felt, but the sense information cannot be felt. Feeling of a new state information of others requires only understanding that state. For example, a person can feel the state of a new winning in a competition by his friend, but he cannot imagine and feel the taste information of a new food eaten by his friend. Many people give tasty food (sense information) to others, because themselves got tasty food from others in the past or want tasty food in the future from others if themselves become unable to earn tasty food by themselves (This is adherence to dharma/law).

Love also removes stress and gives relaxation to others from support to others; and the same relaxation can be felt by the self, which is a state of general bliss.

(Interpretation of others’ feelings is not as effective as understanding of self-feelings. This is because of the limited ability of the brain to analyze others’ feelings from the observation, which varies among animals and person to person; and lesser stimulation coming from others’ information environment than from the self, as others will not be attached to the self continuously.)

 

  1. Becoming famous as a bad person:

Generally, the majority of people think of themselves as being in the state of a good person or an average person by character. They also have a little state information that a few others are aware of their state. This is a naturally occurring default state of character to most people by birth. A person becoming famous as a very good person (better than most other people) adds the state information of being very good and the state information of many others being aware of his goodness. Thus, becoming famous as a very good person causes a lot of happiness. If a person becomes convicted of a very large crime and becomes famous, that person loses the state of being in about middle state in the world with respect to character. He loses all states until the bottom states with respect to character. He also loses all states until bottom states in the minds of other people aware of him. Although the previously known state information cannot be erased from the brain, consideration of the loss of states causes ignoring the previously known state information and forgetting (stop associating the states to self) over time. Sadness comes from thinking and analyzing to regain the state information and thus depriving the brain of general bliss and other pleasures while thinking.  

 

  1. Feeling sad for the death of a family member:

The concept of death is not a new information for grown up people. The news of the death of a family member only gives the link information of a specific date/day of death out of several already partially linked dates/days, which is a very small new information. The death of a family member mainly causes the consciousness of the loss of support for the self and thus pushes people into thinking and loss of general bliss. Also, people miss the chance to observe the general bliss of a person and feel that general bliss if a person is dead. Also, if a person is contributor to several kinds of enjoyments (care taker such as a parent), the death of such person leads to severe thinking and thus deprives the brain of general bliss and other enjoyments while thinking. The amount of sadness that people feel for the death of a person depends on the awareness of the amount of care given by the dead person when that person was alive. People also think deeply due to the missed expected state information of the dead people (such as getting higher status by buying costly vehicles, buying new houses, gaining financial status, gaining more social status, etc.). Thinking due to all these reasons deprives the brain of general bliss. People may not be able to enjoy other pleasures such as tasty food, music, etc. during severe thinking resulting from the death news. This sadness due to the sever deprivation of general bliss and other pleasures strongly dominates the miniscule link information of the specific date/day of death.

 

  1. Enjoying bullying:

Some people can interpret bullying (disparagement or ridiculing) as the fall of status of others. Fall of status of others causes a relative increase in the status of the self and gives happiness from the new state information.

 

  1. Music with large intervals of rhythm:

Music with large intervals of rhythm is not much enjoyable due to the limited short-term memory of people. The short-term memory cannot recognize/perceive the repetition (rhythm) information if the interval of a rhythm is lengthy. Therefore, music is enjoyable well only if the rhythm interval is within a maximum of a few seconds.

 

4. General bliss and meditational bliss (interpreted in the best reasonable manner with some hypothesis):

  1. Animals with brains evolved to have general bliss so that animals do not hook on less dense (less enjoyable) information (For example, solid memorization of which specific known stone shape is in which specific known place, solid memorization of phone numbers, etc.), which is abundant in the vicinity of the animals. Also, general bliss is not as rich in information density as many information elements. This makes animals to interact with nature actively for information rich sources and thus increases the chances of survival. For example, if a person is offered to choose between ‘just staying relaxed’ and ‘eat a new tasty food’, that person would definitely choose to eat the new tasty food.
  2. Hypothesis 1: General bliss and the denser sense of bliss in meditation (greater bliss in meditation as described by the people with the experience of meditation) is very probably the sense of the neural electric energy (noise/ambience) information of the brain sensed by some specific part (may be within the limbic system) of the brain. When this information is sensed, it gets stored in some specific location of the brain, because it is sensed as an information element. Animals do not get bored of general bliss, which means that this information dries up very fast (fast decay) while it is stored unlike the information of senses from the sense organs which has relatively slow decay. Therefore, the neural electric energy (noise/ambience) can be sensed and known continuously as it is very fast decaying and so there is always good vacuum of neural energy information. Therefore, the general bliss or meditational bliss can be had continuously throughout life in the absence of interruptions and distractions.
  3. This information from the brain itself causing general bliss is feeble. It cannot be felt as long as we consider the relatively intense external environment. This is similar to that loud sounds can make weak sounds not easily noticeable to ears.
  4. Hypothesis 2: People say that they get intense pleasure in deep meditation. This means that the information density from meditational bliss is probably greater than that from general bliss and on par with the densest information coming through the sense organs, in the near complete absence of interruptions, distractions and other thoughts. Therefore, meditation may be the best way to quench the thirst for information as meditational bliss can be had continuously throughout life in the absence of interruptions and distractions. Therefore, meditating may be the happiest way of living. Although there is very significant mentioning of the pleasure in general bliss and deep meditation in many Indian origin old texts, sufficient study is required in this area using the modern techniques and tools (38, 39).
  5. Love or Friendship support a person (animal) and reduce mental stress (thinking) to some extent. Proper understanding of the environment and life also can reduce unnecessary mental stress. Reduced mental stress gives scope for general bliss. These are some contexts of general bliss in limited levels (discrete and moderately information dense general bliss amidst general discrete thinking and gathering of the other information) in regular life.
  6. Hypothesis 3: Different animals are exposed to different information/influences of nature more and so evolved to tolerate them (not interrupted by them) more. For example, men roam for more time in the forests to gather food and women spend more time taking care of their children. Therefore, the brain of men is less sensitive (does not find much information and does not get disturbed) to green color and the brain of women is less sensitive to pink color. Men enjoy some general bliss while watching green color and women enjoy some general bliss while watching pinkish colors. Similarly, very smooth melodious music detaches people from the external senses and takes in to general bliss.

 

5. The Operating System of the Brain (Buddhi):

The process steps of the operating system of the brain are concluded and given below based on the above illustrations and the section on general bliss.

 

1.     Get all the possible meta-information (generally link information) of information elements (‘all possible senses of objects’, states, secrets, twists and general bliss) from the environment to add information to the memory. Example of a meta-information element: “Sweets in a shop at the XYZ location taste good (We already know that new information is found in different places/paths. The link information of one of the different known paths for a shop with tasty sweets is given here.)”

(Animals other than humans have limitations in analyzing and dreaming. Therefore, they do not understand or well understand states and some secrets. They are weaker in analyzing the world for information.)

  1. If an unknown (sense or state or secret) information element is not zero in content, it is not already stored (memorized) completely or partially in the brain and possible to be got (obtainable); prioritize that information element for attempting to get the information. Else, neglect for getting.
  2. Give priorities to different unknown information elements based on ‘the right time for getting the information’, ‘the effective amount of information obtainable per unit period of attempt’, ‘the information density (information per unit of information loading time)’ and ‘the obtainability of the information’; for attempting (the amount of information that an information element contains, information density and the obtainability of that information affects the priority in direct order; and the total time needed for obtaining affects the priority in reverse order.)

     Effective Amount of Information=basic information amount – information including general bliss missed due to physical pain or some strong interrupting senses occurring in getting the basic information (information missed due to physical pain or a strong interrupting sense is generally less compared to the basic information)

     This prioritization is done by the operating system (buddhi) without further analysis. Then buddhi directs the mind to analyze the information sources and environment deeply and reprioritize the information elements considering the effective information (effect on the other information elements) obtainable in the long run.

     (All this prioritization can happen with the buddhi stimulated by the information elements or environment, leading to over or under prioritization; improper analysis by the mind, due to influence of the buddhi to adhere to its initial decisions; and incorrect or insufficient analysis by the mind irrespective of the influence of the buddhi (with the available information for analysis). Therefore, the average information obtained after attempts can be less than what could be obtained under the absence of these limitations). 

  1. Direct the mind to plan in detail and work for the information elements according to the priorities.
  2. If a task is being performed by the buddhi or the mind, consider new information elements from the environment at regular intervals or when interrupted by an intense sense.
  3. Under the success of an attempt to get the expected information element, the buddhi adds (knows) that information of sense or state or secret or twist or general bliss into the memory, which is called happiness (While adding information, sometimes the brain may activate body organs in different ways in different animals such as the body actions we see when a person is feeling happy of sense or state or secret or twist information). Failure/partial failure to get the expected information through an attempt can lead to analysis of the reasons for failure or thinking and analyzing deeply in hunt for the same or different information in the future, which keeps the brain thirsty (sadness) without much information loaded into the brain. Sadness may induce some special actions in the body such as crying, tearing, etc., in some animals.
  4. The brain does not enjoy physical pain and some strong interrupting senses. The brain does not (cannot) consider the information in physical pain and some strong interrupting senses (such as a very strong smell of a fish or a strong bitter taste) for enjoyment. Physical pain and some strong interrupting senses distract the brain from knowing any information including general bliss and thus cause sadness. Physical pain and some strong interrupting senses are always rejected by the buddhi. The buddhi prioritizes to get rid of (reject) physical pain and some strong interrupting senses in the prioritization for information.  
  5. For getting information or avoiding lack of information, the mind is directed by the buddhi to invent new means through imagination and analyzing if the objects in the imagination can be used to get information or avoid some loss of information and how, which is called the creativity of the mind.

 

6. Review of the existing literature:

There is some existing literature on the brain mechanisms of pleasure (happiness / joy) and sadness in animals with brains including humans. However, none of this literature is able to satisfactorily and un-refutably explain the brain mechanisms of pleasure and sadness. The existing literature predominantly explains the evolutionary reasons behind pleasure or sadness in all different scenarios in the lives of animals including humans. The notable points in the existing literature are discussed and reviewed in this section as follows.

 

There has been research work to map the regions of the brain that get excited or behave differently from the rest of the brain regions during pleasure; as observed using different functional imaging technologies such as PET and MRI scans during pleasure and by using artificial stimulants such as electrical and chemical stimulants. These regions are named as reward centers, which are part of the limbic system of the brain. It is also found that the reward centers are common and get excited similarly for all kinds of pleasures like music, food, sex, winning challenges, etc. (3, 4). Dopamine has been found to be an important agent in the process of pleasure and learning. The mechanism of the reward centers to identify the reward worthiness of the data or information reaching the brain has never been explained. For example, the brain is known to enjoy music. It is not explained why the reward centers do not like the sounds that are not music such as ambient sounds and why a certain music is liked more than the other music by a typical person. Although dopamine is active during pleasure and learning, it is regulated by the reward centers and is a result of the reward center activation and not a primary cause of pleasure. The reward worthiness is decided by the information quantity and density as elucidated in this paper through the illustrations given above.

 

The reward centers of the brain have been segregated into wanting hedonic hotspots (centers) that cause pleasure and liking hedonic hotspots (centers) that encode pleasure. Lesions in the wanting centers is known to cause loss of interest in the pleasure causing sensory inputs. The liking centers are active during a pleasure (8). The wanting centers of the brain can be interpreted as the information thirsty centers that analyze an input for information quantity and information density. This means that the buddhi (the operating system of the brain) is predominantly executed by the wanting hedonic hotspots of the brain. The liking hedonic hotspots of the brain can be interpreted as the centers with predominant role in transmitting information to the memorization regions of the brain, since it has been established in this paper that the pleasure comes from memorization of information. There is already sufficient evidence that the liking hedonic hotspots have a bigger role in memory formation than the wanting hedonic hotspots (18, 19, 20, 21, 22).

 

Dopaminergic pathway (wanting hedonic hotspots) regulated satiation has been identified through some of the existing research work (14, 15, 16, 17). However, the mechanism of executing satiation in this pathway has not been found out. This paper has established that satiation or reduced interest in pleasure sources primarily results from the decreased remaining information from the sensory inputs or other kinds of pleasure causing incidents as the learning of information progresses. Therefore, this is the mechanism/logic of the dopaminergic pathway in satiation. The sensory specific satiation has been identified by some of the existing research work to happen predominantly in the Orbitofrontal Cortex (6, 7). The Orbitofrontal Cortex interacts with the liking hedonic hotspots. Sensory specific satiation could be at least partially influenced by the Dopaminergic pathway regulated satiation. Further research is required to clearly decode the influence of the Dopaminergic pathway regulated satiation on the sensory specific satiation.

 

There is some early literature on motivation such as Expectancy-value theory. Expectancy-value theory explains how a value (perceived reward) leads to motivation while having expectancy (9), without clarifying the mechanism of the brain in identifying the value or reward worthiness.

 

Another existing idea is that the brain likes challenges probably due to the scarcity bias, which means that when a challenge is faced, the brain thinks that the object or success achievable through challenge is scarce due to exclusive traits such as resilience, intelligence, or effort required to cross the challenge. It has been validated through scarcity bias principle that scarce things are valued more (10, 11, 12). However, it is not understood by the existing literature, why scarce things are valued more. Actually, scarce things are more challenging to get with the potential to give state information by overcoming/crossing challenges, in addition to the basic value of those things. Therefore, scarcity-bias should be actually understood as challenge-liking. How challenges give pleasurable state information by overcoming/crossing challenges is illustrated and established in this research paper.

 

Scarcity bias principle in the existing literature has another major defect. It is assumed that the magnitude of the scarcity/challenge and the perceived added value are proportional. But, the perceivable pleasure from a challenge or scarcity of an object actually depends on the amount of state information that is receivable through the challenge/scarcity. For example, some born rich people enjoy social and economic status without having to cross/overcome any challenge or facing scarcity in their life. This paper has established through the illustrations above that crossing of challenges and having a social status give similar state information of being in a certain new state and so challenge is not necessary for the brain to enjoy state information. For another example, very rich people do not perceive a typical buyable object as highly valued and highly demanded like a poor person does, just because that object becomes a little scarce over time. Let us take another example. Suppose that there is a running race being conducted in a recreation club, where the participants do not have a prior estimate of their potential positions after the race and there are no additional pleasure influencers such as prizes or additional benefits to the winners. All the participants of the running race run at their respective full potential and so it is equally challenging to all of the participants. But, the person who comes in the first rank gets more pleasure from the state information of the win than the persons who come in lower positions (which is well known and obvious) as described in the illustrations above. Therefore, it is clear that crossing a challenge can cause pleasure, but same level of challenge can cause different levels of pleasures. A little challenge to someone can give same amount of pleasure as a big challenge to someone else. When scarcity bias is measured on a group of people wholistically, the scarcity/challenge and the amount of pleasure may look proportional. A more precisely conducted experiments such as the ones in the running race example explained here would prove that the scarcity and the value are not necessarily proportional. Therefore, scarcity/challenge and perceived value/pleasure are not necessarily proportional.

 

The brain mechanism behind pleasure from humor or jokes was never interpreted meaningfully. The pleasure from a joke with a twist and the pleasure from disparagement or ridiculing others are entirely different pleasures but bundled under a single term humor in the existing literature. One notable theory is the theory of incongruity. People laugh at the juxtaposition of incompatible concepts and at defiance of their expectations - that is, at the incongruity between expectations and reality. According to a variant of the theory known as resolution of incongruity, laughter results when a person discovers an unexpected solution to an apparent incongruity, such as when an individual grasps a double meaning in a statement and thus sees the statement in a completely new light. But, people already knew without the need for these theories that all jokes have incongruity. What was missing in all these exiting theories is the logic of why an incongruity or resolution of incongruity causes pleasure. How a joke with a twist gives pleasure is explained in the illustrations above in this paper. If we divide a joke in to two parts – the part before the twist and the twist, the association between the two parts already known individually is novel or new information and thus knowing this new association information gives pleasure.  There are other concepts like relief theory, superiority theory, benign violation theory, etc. to explain humor. Majority of these concepts give examples of pleasure from ‘disparagement of others’ or ‘perception of change in the self-status’ in different contexts and use different terminologies to refer to these contexts, without explaining the mechanism of the brain behind pleasure in these contexts. The pleasure from disparagement or ridiculing others (bullying) is a result of the perception of an increase in the self-status leading to new state information as explained in the illustrations above in this paper. References have been provided to all the notable articles which tried to explain humor (29, 30, 31, 32, 35).

 

Music has been defined as the science and art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity. The mechanism of how and why this causes pleasure was not explained by the existing psychological or neuroscience literature (33, 34). The existing literature predominantly concentrates only on the evolutionary benefits of music and how music can be used as a therapy. The functional brain imaging technologies helped in identifying the reward centers and other brain areas that become active during pleasure from music, without explaining how a music is assessed by the brain for its reward worthiness. The status of the existing research is similar in explaining the pleasure from food and visuals. This paper has well established and explained through the illustrations above; how and why music, some sounds such as the sounds of birds, foods with different tastes (combinations of tastes, flavors, textures and chemical sensations) and visuals give pleasure. Pleasure is proportional to the quantity and density of the information loaded into the brain from any of these sources.

 

As analyzed in this paper above, physical pain distracts the brain from knowing any information including general bliss (information from the brain itself) and keeps the brain thirsty (sadness). This is a state same as the sadness because of a mental pain such as losing a contest. There are already evidences indicating that the brain centers that become active during sadness because of physical pain or emotional pain are the same. In fact, people use the same words such as ‘pain’ to express sadness from physical or mental origin. In other words, the brain processes the sadness because of a physical pain or other reasons similarly (1, 2). Sadness is found to be activating several regions of the brain including the liking hedonic hotspots, orbitofrontal cortex and the hippocampus; which are major participants in the analysis process that involves memory recall. The wanting hedonic hotspots are found to be less active during sadness. (22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28). This aligns with the explanation in this paper that sadness involves less information load into the brain because of severe analysis or physical pain.

 

It has been assumed that the reward centers are wired to individually identify the pleasure from different kinds of sensory inputs reaching the brain and other pleasure causing experiences such as a joke or crossing (overcoming) of a challenge. For example, if a question is asked that why do people enjoy music, the available answer is “The brain is wired to enjoy music”.  This answer gives absolutely no information on the mechanism of getting pleasure or happiness. If a question is asked that why do people enjoy crossing challenges, the available answer is “The brain is wired to enjoy crossing of challenges”. Thus, the existing literature considers that the brain has several mechanisms to identify the reward worthiness of different kinds of sensory inputs and other pleasure causing experiences. It has been well established in this research paper through the illustrations given above that the mechanism to identify reward worthiness is common (same) for all causes of pleasure and it is based on whether that sensory input or experience carries information (memory) that is not already present in the brain.

 

Pleasure/joy and memorization were thought to be different processes although it is well known that they always happen simultaneously, because the mechanism or the exact cause of pleasure/joy was not known before. It has been assumed that the reward centers of the brain themselves result in pleasure. Memorization is thought to be useful in future decisions. This paper has established that memorization is part of pleasure since pleasure comes from knowing information.

 

The significance of memory fading for getting pleasure was not recognized, because experiencing pleasure was considered to be a different process from memorization. It has been illustrated in this paper above, how memory fading is important to have pleasure (information memorization) from the same source of pleasure again and again with time gaps.

 

The patterns, level and speed of fading of memory was not known and appreciated sufficiently until recent empirical studies (36). The fading speed of a memory is also dependent on the solidification level of that memory (37). These empirical findings stand as a proof of memory fading and they collectively enabled knowing how memory fades.

7. Basic organization of the processing in the brain (mostly available knowledge):

The buddhi and the mind are functionalities of the processing in the brain. The buddhi generates the key commands (Operating functions) to run the animals. The continuous desire for pleasures that we know is the main constituent of buddhi. The mind executes these commands at a lower level under the control of the buddhi. Since both of these are functionalities of the same processing functionality, the exact functional border between the buddhi and the mind is not analyzed here. 

 

The buddhi takes help from the mind. Additional analysis; building up new information based on the existing data; innovation also happen in the mind. All these abilities aid in getting information or avoiding loss of information. The mind analyses information elements before final decisions are taken by the buddhi to attempt for that information element. However, the mind is influenced by the buddhi to adhere to the initial decisions (wishful thinking/biased thinking) of the buddhi.

 

For getting information, the mind is directed by the buddhi to invent new means; through imagination and analyzing if the objects in the imagination can be used to get information and how, which is called creativity of the mind. Good creativity needs enough information in the memory in less decayed state (The person should have enough knowledge. Long-term memory should be good to possess abundant less decayed information over long run) and good short-term memory to use the information in the memory in imagination and analysis process effectively. Forgetfulness affects analysis and so creativity.

 

The buddhi can undergo stimulation from the environment or information elements under high perceptibility of the information elements, leading to over prioritization (sometimes lower prioritization) for those elements by the buddhi.

 

When the buddhi identifies an information element and decides to get it, then it influences the mind to do restricted analysis of that information element in favor of getting that information (wishful thinking/biased thinking); deviating from the fact based correct logical analysis. How this happens is as follows. The job of the mind is analyzing all the aspects pertaining to an information element to make a final decision on the priority, feasibility, consequences and worth of getting that information element. The analyzed aspects within the capacity limits of the mind are all combinations of assumptions, ‘available facts’ and ‘things of imagination’ that can be related to the information element. However, the buddhi influences the mind in such a way that the mind is pulled back (cut short) from analyzing the aspects that will prohibit the obtainment of an information element and the mind is freely allowed to analyze the aspects that support getting of the information element. Sometimes the mind does a little or no analysis under the influence of the buddhi and the buddhi proceeds with its initial decisions. Analytically strong mind uses a little chance given to it by the buddhi in such circumstances to come up with right decisions.

 

Sometimes, the mind cannot analyze correctly or sufficiently irrespective of the influence of the buddhi (with the available information for analysis). In such cases also, inappropriate decisions are taken by the processing functionality.

 

Short-term memory, knowledge (long-term memory enables to have good knowledge) and forgetfulness affect analysis. If some information that can help to make right decisions is readily available in the memory (knowledge), it helps in the decision-making process when needed. Having knowledge of what to do, when and how depends on observation, analytical ability and availability of corresponding knowledge sources (books, environment, etc.).

 

Serial Thinking:

A lot of data reaches the brain in parallel through sense organs. But, only one of them receives concentration. For example, when I am in deep concentration on my book, I do not observe normal sounds, people walking, etc., happening around me. When I am not concentrating deeply into something, I easily notice all the things happening. If I had parallel observation, I should notice the things around me always at the same level. Therefore, what may look like happening in parallel is actually happening serially. In this case, I have the sense of things happening around while having deep concentration on the book also, but for a too short time and so I do not have good knowledge of them. When there is no much urge to concentrate on book, I spend more time for other things also in between.

When we are thinking / minding about some specific thing, we come out of concentration in two ways.  One way is that the brain automatically stops concentration after regular focus intervals by its nature and traverses other items in its consideration in a brief traverse interval. The frequency of focus intervals an item gets depends on the priority of that item as decided by the buddhi. The processing in the brain is a repeating cycle of focus and traverse periods. Second way is interruption. When I am typing here, I noticed the loud sound of a TV just because that TV sound loudness has the ability to forcefully interrupt, using the interrupting mechanisms of the brain for strong inputs. Therefore, what is running in parallel here is an interruption mechanism, but not the main thinking itself. This interruption mechanism runs as a coprocess of the main thinking.

When I want to drink water, my brain processes the data of glass, water and drinking along with many other things. At any instant, there is only one thought / information element. In each thought element, many data objects are processed together (parallel processing of data, such as water and glass imagined together). Interpretation or analysis happens only serially (a series of related thought elements. First notice thirst, then relate thirst to a memory of water satisfying thirst, relate it next to water in a glass, etc.). I.e., thinking is serial even when data processing is parallel. Therefore, the brain processes only one thought (a set of related objects) at a time.

The received information density can vary between different information elements (depending on the amount of parallel data processing in each thought and other causes such as sensitivity to different information elements) and also between the repetitions of learning of a single information element.

 

Since information can be received (thought) serially, the amount of happiness from an information element is proportional to the duration of the information reception from that information element to quench the thirst for information and the density of the information element. Therefore, if a person can get continuous top happiness forever in deep meditation, meditational bliss is the best happiness.

 

Subconscious mind:

The existence of subconscious or unconscious mind does not have firm proof. For example, if you are struggling for an idea in your work, the chances of getting a good idea are better when you take a break and then return to work than when you continuously keep thinking for an idea in the work environment. This could be, as a break takes a man out of a single dimensional thinking on the problem, or the brain regained thinking ability after some rest from serious thinking. There need not necessarily be an unconscious process running during a work break. Its existence can not be proven with the available data.

 

8. Factors affecting information gathering by an animal:

The total amount of information (happiness) an animal can get in its life depends on the availability of information in the environment for the animal, natural disasters, unexpected environmental conditions, animal’s ability to get information, wisdom, and other mental aspects of the animal, getting a disease naturally and decaying nature of an animal’s explicit memory (a fast decaying brain memory will forget information quickly and can get it again and again and vice versa. However, fast decay may also reduce the knowledge that is useful in getting information).

 

9. Conclusions:

1.     Animals with brains have thirst for information. Happiness is the state of the brain when knowing new or decayed (forgotten) information. The state of being thirsty (not knowing information) due to analytical thinking or lack of information availability is sadness.

2.     Physical pain and some strong interrupting senses (such as a very strong smell of a fish or a strong bitter taste) distract the brain from knowing any information and thus cause sadness. The brain does not (cannot) consider the information in physical pain and some strong interrupting senses for enjoyment.

3.     Animals evolved to have thirst for information, because that is the only effective way for animals to actively interact with nature for survival, which is buzzing with information of light, sound, chemical reactions and pressure. The process of gathering information and rejecting physical pain and strong interruptions is the living in animals.

4.     Animal brains get some happiness from the reception of information from the brain itself (general bliss) in the absence of interruptions and distractions. Animals with brains evolved to have general bliss so that animals do not hook on less dense (less enjoyable) information (for example, solid memorization of which specific known stone shape is in which specific known place, solid memorization of phone numbers, etc.,), which is abundant in the vicinity of the animals. Also, general bliss is not as rich in information density as many information elements. This makes animals to interact with nature actively for information rich sources and thus increases the chances of survival.

5.     The decisions of the buddhi get influenced by environmental stimulations. The analytical decisions of the mind (manas) get influenced by the buddhi. Also, the mind may not be able to analyze correctly or sufficiently sometimes irrespective of the influence of the buddhi.

6.     The information density from meditational bliss is probably greater than general bliss and on par with the densest information coming through the sense organs, in the near complete absence of interruptions, distractions and other thoughts. Therefore, meditation may be the best way of quenching the thirst for information as meditational bliss can be had continuously throughout life in the absence of interruptions and distractions. Therefore, meditating may be the happiest way of living.

 

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