10/07/08 04:33 [Thursday]

The structures of thought I am speaking of were maintained over a long period in the above cases and in similar cases, that is they were capable of being set aside for the purpose of leading a day-to-day life but were always ‘in the back’ of the mind and resumable in the more detailed form as occasion allowed. This was a prerequisite to sorting out such involved structures into the coherence (that is, having entire internal consistency within themselves) which made them acceptable on public presentation and indeed gives confidence they are ‘correct’ that is that, insofar as they are supposed to, they correspond with reality.

These structures of thought were embodied in neural structures in the brains of their creators of the type I have recently been mooting as depending on neural-loop style arrangements. This type of semi-permanent memory is used to set up internal models for such purposes as (in adolescence) answering examination questions and (in more practical life) maintaining an internal plan of one’s location as one moves about even in unknown territory. The arrangements which permit their maintenance depend on transmission across synapses of dopamine as I know because they are defeated in myself when I am given dopamine-blocking drugs. For example I completely lose my ability to maintain the internal plan of my geographical location at any time I am in less familiar territory.

Needless to say these neural structures are located in the frontal brain in man and come into use only from the time of adolescence. They are present in only a rudimentary form if at all in other animals (for example it is possible apes have them in rudimentary form). It seems to me that the functions called seriatim functions must correspond with those implemented using these structures of resumable semi-permanently remembered internally envisaged models of parts of the world (or as-if of parts of the world, in that the models can be used for abstract purposes such as in mathematics and chess when they are divorced from immediate connection with any structures in the physical universe, of tangible matter or time or space).

Experiments with rats trained in conventional mazes which were then converted to mazes of canals having to be swum convinced theoreticians who had previously hypothesised that learning a maze involved merely learning a sequence of muscular operations which got the animal from start to finish, that it was not so and that the rats in fact must have an internal model of spatial arrangements. Needless to say rats achieve this without a seriatim process.

An adult human being could learn a maze - walked or swum - much faster, the reason being he could set up an internal model ‘by an effort of will’, a model which (consisting of the type of neural structure spoken of above) could be discarded afterwards if no longer needed. Giving dopamine-blocking drugs would interfere with this ability, reducing the human to needing like the rat to practise sufficiently often over a sufficient period, to embody the knowledge of the maze in synapses which had permanently adapted to form a model of that specific maze.

Needless to say I strive my best to evade being given dopamine-blocking drugs because I dislike in the extreme having the ability taken from me to form such semi-permanent models of the world and its parts. I find it a matter for bitter regret that developers of these drugs, as well as those prescribing them in practice, have not taken sufficient care to determine adequately this effect they have. I find it very difficult to believe that anyone treated with these drugs will not suffer the debilitation I am speaking of. In practical terms the debilitation I have suffered of this nature over the years, given the unusual circumstances of the foisting on me of the drugs, has led to my not being employed in any capacity I would otherwise have been fit for and might have benefited from (as well as benefiting the economy). I regret the legal framework which permits such drugs to be compelled on people in disregard of their attempts to complain when they cannot understand (I myself have not until now) what the nature is of the debilitation they have to complain about. I regret any legal framework allowing people’s freedom to be taken from them without absolute need.