Forebrain - Quareness Series 143rd "Lecture".
As far as we can tell the human brain is quite a complex construction. The brain processes of a newborn are all fight or flight driving addictive behaviour, excitement, immediate gratification, impulsiveness, involuntary movement and reactivity. And our forebrain/frontbrain (the seat of attention, analysis, comprehension, consciousness, explanation, focus, intelligence, knowledge, reason, thinking, understanding) is the most immaturely developed part of the brain of any mammal...in women this may not fully develop until age 25-28 and in men until age 28-30.
This development mostly follows a path emanating from the hindbrain (which coordinates functions vital for survival such as respiratory rhythm, motor activity, sleep, wakefulness) relaxing and the muscle movement creating an experience that registers in the midbrain (serving important functions in motor movement, auditory and visual processing). We can see this quite clearly in watching the behaviour of any toddler who will do something over and over again thereby priming the midbrain to trigger the forebrain to develop which then says "I got it" because I went through trial and error and now I own the knowledge.
Unfortunately today there's much curtailing of the ability of adults and kids to go through trial and error, do their own research and have their own experiences so they can learn. What we're increasingly seeing instead is forebraining from the outside i.e. we only have knowledge based on what we're being told. And a big problem here is that when we make the hindbrain dominant through fear or anxiety, the frontbrain tends to stop working and what we're left with is a growing loss of thought, critical thinking, consciousness, comprehension, analysis and the ability to work through problems and try to come to our own conclusions.
The recent "one size fits all" approach to mask wearing provides an apt example in that the essence of such tends toward keeping the body in fight or flight mode, keeping the hindbrain dominant and lopping off forebrain profusion (because of higher adrenaline) in driving impulsivity. The inevitable result is decreasing oxygen and blood flow to the front of the brain...the very part that most needs such to develop healthily. And this despite the path of blood flow to the brain when there's sympathetic and parasympathetic tone being well known and that adrenaline is detrimental here (see my "Behind The Mask" of October last).
In our current covid-19 environment, the first basic premise of mandated face
masking is that we're making people (including our children) afraid of either catching the disease or being the cause of making others ill, despite the lack of any real evidence for such. And of course we're largely ignoring the fact that we are each a fountain of micro organisms (e.g. 100 trillion bacteria) and whenever we wipe our hands or behinds, rub our skin or pick our noses, those bacteria go into our bloodstream and this has little or no downside for us practically 100% of the time.
We also have an immense virome...inside the cells of our bodies are thousands of RNA and DNA genetic materials that make viruses all the time which are embedded in our chromosomes, mitochondria and the very bacteria within i.e. we already have trillions of active viruses in and on our bodies carrying out very many vital functions (both known and yet to be discovered). We never stop viralling and if we for example swab someone's nose we're inevitably going to find viral material. As a result we cannot clearly differentiate whether any virus is emanating from within the body or from external sources (e.g. breathing in).
We're always viralling one way or another and yet we're mostly not ill. The truth is that we're all asymptomatic carriers of hundreds of trillions of viruses and we're not going to prevent transmission of organisms when mask wearing in the absence of very custom designed masks (and very precise wearing protocols) only to be used for very temporary protection against specific micro-organisms. And such mask hygiene has rarely been deployed in the covid-19 scene. Pre covid the accepted medical scientific protocol was that the health status of those involved needed to be individually ascertained beforehand and prolonged mask wearing needed to be avoided. It's also of relevance that the masks were known to contribute to a reduced oxygen intake and increased carbon dioxide intake, and that's in addition to the fact that growing children in particular have a critical need of strong oxygen levels in order to healthily develop (even if only because their cells are dividing faster than those of adults). In this respect it seems that little if any of the science pre covid is being followed on the use of masks, and in the science cited now with covid that we're making up this concept of the asymptomatic carrier which is not scientifically rooted in how we understand the virome in the body.
Corrective viral action in the body is mainly about moving material from the inside to the surface i.e. almost always an expelling of material in a viral illness. Symptoms of covid-19 look most like an internal poisoning e.g. airways are spared initially and the blood is what creates the problem with oxygen in the red blood cells not binding appropriately (and thus depleting oxygen availability in the body). And even though the spike protein is capable of binding to the heart and blood and to the brain in crossing blood/brain barrier, as well as to the liver, kidneys, sperm, placenta and mitochondria, we're stimulating the body (in the vaccination program) to make more of the very thing (spike protein) that has the potential to damage all these parts. Perhaps we need to worry less about this virus and more about the apparent willingness of our species to rush ahead despite those elements of actual science that don't fit the desired narrative?...time may tell.
If we can curtail the forebraining of people from the outside and the tendency toward being so full of such certainty that they know the answers, and get back into the curious brain of a toddler behaving in full uncertainty and complete openness to learning experience...there is hope. We might then witness something of a renaissance through encouraging folk to re-engage with their own uncertainty, fascination, curiosity, awe and willingness to look at something and wonder...how do I figure this out...how do I use my brain instead of merely accepting what I've been told by authorities. This may be how we emerge from fear, build character and forebrain ourselves again. Perhaps it's the heart rather than the brain which houses our curiosity impulse and willingness to learn...to be empty and to fill up again. And what we may really need for healthy progress is to be okay with uncertainty, to take back ownership of our critical thought processes and to embrace free and open dialogue.
We don't really learn without some pain, struggle and toil...without going through the mud of the hindbrain doing something, the midbrain having an experience over and over again, and the forebrain truthfully saying...I didn't know that and now I do. To grow it would seem necessary for people to personally own their information.
Sean.
Dean of Quareness.
July, 2021.