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CONSULTATION DOCUMENT 05
Circulation: Members of the Delphics Advisory Panel.
REAPPRAISAL OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF FUNCTIONS
OF THE 6 PRIMARY SYSTEMS OF THE BODY
2016 // Articles // Consultation Doc 05. Functions 5 systems v1 //16 11 Nov
The convergence of biogenetics, cognitive neuroscience, and cognitive psychology has
stimulated two major reappraisals of our understanding of the brain, the mind, and its
relationship to the whole body [1] The brain is not an organ on its own but an integral
part of the holistic system of the whole body. [2] Because we have largely thought about
the brain in isolation we have tended to ascribe functions to the brain that on more
careful study may be functions of other organs and systems.
The body consists of six major systems:1. The central nervous system that provides the communication system that connects every
organ and every muscle enabling the body to operate in equilibrium as one
cooperative, coordinated, synchronised whole.
2. The brain organises responses to internal and external events and modulates behaviour. It
is the memory and learning system and the seat of intelligence, thinking and
creativity.
3. The cardiovascular system that includes the heart and lungs and manufactures and
circulates the blood though the arteries and veins to supply the body with nutrients,
oxygen, water, the hormones and other secretions of the glands of the endocrine
system, the ‘emergency services’ to repair damage to the fabric of the body, and
remove waste.
4. The endocrine system which includes some one hundred known glands and potentially a
further hundred that supports the other systems in transmitting information, modifies
the activities of those other systems and generates the perceptions, sensations
impressions and emotions that enable us to be aware of events taking place in our
bodies, and being part of the environment around us: that we are hungry, angry,
aroused, and a myriad other feelings of being alive.
5. The immune system which defends the body from foreign bacteria and viruses, maintains
facilities to recognise and exclude these invaders should they return; and is thought to
manage the biome.
6. The gastrointestinal, enteric nervous system, consisting of some 500 million neurons. It is
the second largest agglomeration of neurons which controls the conversion of food
into nutrients, regulating the selection, supply and temporary storage in the light of
events, and expels waste.
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THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM.
In the earliest life forms, numbers of cells began to group together for safety and mutual support.
Individual cells began to specialise. Neurons evolved to link all the other cells together so that
they could communicate and they could begin to work together as one co-ordinated organism.
Babies born today have about two billion neurons. About half are concentrated in the brain. Some
five hundred million form a ‘secondary brain’ in the intestines, and the remaining five hundred
million connect up every organ and muscle.
Neurons
There are many different types of neurons, but they all broadly follow the same pattern. They
have a nucleus and a number of tentacles, very roughly like a octopus. However, there are two
types of tentacles, usually referred to as filaments. Dendrite filaments bring messages from the
sensory and other organs and from other neurons. There are usually numbers of dendrites feeding
information to a nucleus. Axon filaments carry messages from the nucleus to muscles, organs and
other neurons. Usually there is only one axon, although some axons divide up like a delta as they
near their target.
The nucleus transmits patterns of electrochemical signals along the axons and receives patterns of
electrochemical signals along the dendrites in the form of action potentials, or electrical pulses
generated by the interaction of sodium and calcium atoms. This electrical activity creates a weak
electro-magnetic field around these filaments whenever they are active. All the links to muscles
and glands are duplicated. For instance, one axon carries signals down the spine and legs to each
toe and a dendrite carries signals from each toe to the brain. More technical details are listed at
appendix 35.
It is observable that if one stubs ones toe there is a definable time gap before that information
reaches the brain. We see the impact but only feel the pain about a second later. As well as
carrying instructions and information, the dendrites feed-back the performance generated by the
instructions transmitted along the axons, providing a form of quality control.
At birth the brain can do almost nothing, but it can learn to do almost anything. In particular, all
the sensory organs are connected to the brain, but that is all. For instance a baby can hear sounds
and make noises, but nothing more. Every human has to learn to hear and say every single word.
Power Supply
All neurons have their own individual power generator. Every neuron is connected to the blood
supply by astrocyte glia cells. These cells pass nutrients to mitochondria in the nucleus which
convert these nutrients to energy. The mitochondria convert more energy than is needed. This
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excess energy is stored in adenine triphosphate, which operate rather like ‘storage batteries’. This
stored energy is available in a crisis when the nucleus may need maximum power in a hurry.
All neurons are connected to all organs, muscles, glands, other neurons et al by very intricate and
sophisticated links known as synapses. The curious fact is that synapses are not direct connectors
but gaps or clefts. None of the signals carried along the axons and dendrites can pass across these
gaps. The electrochemical signals travelling along an axon or dendrite stimulate neurotransmitter
molecules which swim across the synaptic gap and stimulate an electrochemical signal in the
target axon or, dendrite; or reaction if the target is a gland, muscle et al.
Synapses have been something of a ‘Cinderella interest’ in cognitive science circles, as they are
very difficult to study, however recent research has suggested they may play very significant
roles that are as complex as their structure and operation. They are the subject of Consultation
Document XX
Signal strength
The nucleus can either send a signal or not, but the influences on that transmission are wide and
complex. Whether the nucleus transmits a signal varies widely according to the number of stimuli
it receives from its dendrites. Secondly, it depends on the ambient hormone mix. In a perceived
crisis he brain may be bathed in a strong solution of adrenalin, which will tend to amplify the
likelihood of signals being received and acted upon, for instance. The length of the signal may
depend on the available energy. Over prolonged periods of high activity, stored energy capacity
may be run down, and the supply of nutrient and particularly water supplies come under pressure.
The electrochemical signals tends to leak from the sides of the axon and dendrite filaments.
Frequently used filaments attract glia cells which coat them with myelin. This has the effect of
insulating them.
There is a growing body of evidence that synapses are strengthened every time they are activated
Various messenger molecules can attach themselves to the filaments to modulate the strength and
length of transmission of signals temporarily and permanently. A great deal of attention has been
given recently to accumulation of ‘plaque’ on neurons, which appears to reduce their efficiency in
transmitting signals.
Transmission of signals across the synaptic gaps is very variable. Another subject of Consultation
document XX
Thus the transmission of information of complete messages from source to destination is both
analogue and almost infinitely variable.
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Functions of the background operating system.
The neurons with their axon and dendrite filaments provide the physical communications
network. The patterns of electrochemical signals transmit all the instructions over this
network. In the womb the first signals are transmitted from the nascent brain to the proto
heart causing it to begin pumping blood to carry nutrients back to the brain, and the
whole intricate system builds from there.
It is worth emphasising the clearly observable fact that nothing can happen to this whole
elaborate ‘machine’ without this flow of ‘tiny sparks’.
There appear to be three systems that provide a background operating system that largely
operates automatically and only impinges on consciousness if something is significantly
wrong and needs attention. It was originally referred to as one single system and named
the ‘autonomic’ system, but more recently the components are thought they may be
separate.
Current thinking is that the basic autonomic functions are a stream of patterns of
electrochemical signals, which in addition to controlling the heart rate, is also responsible
for continuously overseeing the digestive system, the lungs, monitoring all the sensory
and other organs, sexual competition, arousal and satisfaction; and the waste processing
and output systems. It is also responsible for minor reflex actions like coughing,
sneezing, swallowing, vomiting, and for major responses to external circumstances like
fighting or fleeing, catching prey or partners, home building and nurturing the young.
Some (sympathetic) functions seem to mobilise activity, some (parasympathetic) seem to
dampen functions down.
Sometimes thought to be part of this system and sometimes as a separate network, is the
somatic nervous system that connect up and operates the skeletal muscles. Efferent
nerves are responsible for sending commands to stimulate muscle contraction from the
central nervous system. Afferent nerves are responsible for relaying sensations back to
the central nervous system.
The enteric nervous system governs the functions of the gastrointestinal system. More
recently it appears to have its own independent reflex activity and therefore whether it is
considered to be part of, or separate from the autonomic system is the subject of debate.
In short, these sympathetic, somatic and enteric functions, whether called collectively the
autonomic system or not, are the agencies that cause the whole body to operate efficiently
in coordinated, cooperative, synchronised equilibrium.
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THE BRAIN
For much of the last century the brain has been the centre of attention of any research that has
been carried out, and any work on its relationship in the holistic body has mostly been left to the
medical community.
We have for some time known that the brain does not feel pain. Recently we have also begun to
realise that the brain is not intelligent, nor can it remember, nor is it conscious. It is also true that
there are no letters, let alone words in the brain. There are no numbers, pictures or music either.
We seem to have gone from the brain doing everything to the brain doing little or nothing all in
one sentence. Not so, of course.
How can this be? Our computers can help us unravel this conundrum. Most people nowadays are
familiar and comfortable with the concepts of hardware and software. The former are the
integrated circuits of semi-conductors – mostly transistors at present – the equipment that we can
see and touch. The software is the jargon for the programs of instruction that the processor uses to
transmit sequences of patterns of ephemeral electronic signals to activate and control the
hardware.
The physical neurons we can see and touch are the hardware: the brain. The electrochemical
signal patterns that flow over the axon and dendrite filaments are the software: the mind. Without
this electrochemical activity there is no life. Just as computer programs are useless without
computers to run them on, so the mass of electrochemical signals are useless without the physical
network of neurons.
There are no letters, words, pictures or music in any computer ever manufactured. No one thinks
a computer feels pain, is intelligent or conscious. All this must exclusively be the software.
Similarly all these functions and information must be modulated by the mind.
The brain transmits all this information around the central nervous system, but the activities and
functions are carried out by other organs of the body, with one exception.
The principle role of the brain is to provide, organise, manage, grow and access the memory
systems.
The hardware of a computer is fixed. However, the brain can augment its neural networks. We
noted that babies are born with a billion neurons in their brains. A mature adult has upwards of an
additional trillion new neural links and structures. Babies can only hear and make sounds, but an
adult can learn to hear, see, speak and write one hundred thousand words, their spelling, syllables
and phonemes- and that is just in one language. More significant, we learn to understand the
meaning of words and phrases. We can puzzle out the implications of this information and we can
extrapolate it out to imagine and predict possible future events. We call these functions
intelligence, thinking and creativity.
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How does the brain ‘grow’ memories? The Canadian, Donald Hebb (appendices 10 & 29) argued
that ‘neurons that fire together, wire together’. One hypothesis suggested in 2008, and gaining
popularity is that where the electromagnetic fields of two active neuron filaments overlap, their
combined magnetism attracts free standing glia cells to form a temporary, speculative link or
bridge. More distant active neuron filaments attract messenger molecules to form glia bridges. If
these new links begin to be used – they are useful new information, or instructions, these glia
bridges are strengthened and in due course replaced with conventional neurons. A process very
similar to how babies grow their first neurons along glia scaffolding in the womb (appendix 12).
Learning
It is relatively easy to understand how apprentices learn how to carry our crucial skills from their
parents and peers. It is largely curiosity, imitation and repetition. We know that there are even
specialist neurons – mirror neurons – that are active both when we observe someone carry out a
task and when we try and imitate them.
Representation of information in the brain and mind.
The computing pioneers found a solution in the coding system invented by Morse to transmit
signals over telegraph lines. After a few false starts the world standardised on groups of eight
binary bits into computer ‘words’. 2 8 = 256 unique codes for various alphabets, numbers,
punctuation and symbols. And these binary codes are also used to digitise images and music.
One of the most powerful aspects of computing is that a stream of programming instructions
appears identical to a string of words, part of a picture or piece of music. In the jargon: data and
algorithms are indistinguishable. Thus programs can be designed to edit programs in hierarchies
of complexity in response to experience: thus computers can be programmed to learn.
Our brain and mind has no such coding system. [See note below]
We can observe that at birth the central nervous system has an impressive range of algorithms in
place to operate all the organs of the body. Streams of patterns of electrochemical signals flash
along the axons and dendrites coordinating the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys…. The whole intestinal
tract goes into action, and somewhere in the system a set of instructions causes the muscles of the
lips to suck.
At birth there is no information in the brain at all.
Information is an important subject in its own right and the subject of Consultation Documents in
the Future, but a short summary might be:We start from the position that information is as fundamental as energy. When the wave
form of a photon collapses a ‘bit’ of information is created. A computer approach is that
information is in four states:- [1] passive = memory, or potential information. [2] Active
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= processing, doing work, or kinetic information. [3] Facts and measurements. [4]
Algorithms, formulae, instructions.
As soon as babies open their eyes a stream of photons impacts their retinas. The flow of a pattern
of photons impacting their retinas generates a reciprocal flow of patterns of electrochemical
signals along the dendrites to the brain. As the neurons fire they leave a pattern – say- mother’s
face. Each time they ‘see’ mother that pattern is strengthened, and perhaps a gland is stimulated
to provide an emotional reward. In another part of the brain a similar activity is growing a pattern
of the sound of the word ‘mother’. Baby tries to imitate that sound and after a while produces a
sound that clearly gives pleasure all round and more warm feelings generated by the hormones.
Our baby has now created three codes and learned how to generate a pleasant feeling of
achievement. [1] a neural pattern of the image of a face [2] the neural pattern of the sound of
hearing the word mother, and [3] the neural pattern of a set of instructions to the muscles of the
lung, vocal chords, tongue and lips to make the sound mother. If three responds to one, baby
experiences nice sensations either externally – a warm hug, or food perhaps…and internally as
various glands are stimulated.
Watch any very young baby and they endlessly repeat simple movements, simple words.
The intestines demand food, so the mind responds by activating a neural network to generate a
yell. It works. Repeat the strategy. It works better calling ‘mother’. Another lesson learned –
imprinted on the neurons.
There has been much debate over the last fifty years about how babies learn words and language.
In parallel baby is learning to control its body functions, and crawl, stand up –wow(!), that is an
exciting new perspective; and balance – walk. All these systems seem reasonably congruent.
Sensations
However, we can already see a differentiation of function. Sensations of hunger and thirst come
from the intestines amplified by some glandular secretions. Soon the first sensations of
apprehension and perhaps fear course through the whole body. Then laughter and attraction, as
the glands of the endocrine system generate more complex sensations. There is so much to
recognise, imitate, repeat, relate together and learn. Words and increasingly combinations of
words, give us ever widening sensations, perceptions, impressions and emotions as the endocrine
glands secrete ever more complex combinations of hormones, which reinforce our understanding
of the meanings of what we see, hear, touch, taste and feel.
Then comes books and reading. We are already able to differentiate between cats in pictures and
real ones prowling about. Now they are in books sitting on mats with black squiggles under them.
And the squiggles seem to be ‘ke’, ‘ah’ and ‘ter’. Well if you say so. And now we can draw those
shapes and people know you mean cats without seeing the picture.
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We now have a fast growing amount of information in our brains and minds. Nearly all the words
are cross referenced to other words and representations of images, sounds, tastes, smells and
touch, and the sensations the hormones generate. We can break words down into letters and
syllables, and build up different words from those letters and syllables, with different meanings.
Some words make nice sounds: onamatopia. Some groups of words rhyme which make one feel
good.
At birth there are few instructions in the brain.
At birth all the autonomic functions are fully operational (whatever titles we give them). In
addition as we noted above, babies can move their arms and legs, and they can hear and make
sounds. They can also suck. Whether this is an autonomic ability of the first learned function of
the brain is a matter of classification.
Again it is a matter of classification whether learning to carry our functions – learning to walk,
swim, ride a bicycle is different from acquiring information. Both are about curiosity, imitation
and repetition.
We can note one difference that is much more conspicuous in learning skills, tasks, algorithms.
Few people can remember learning to read, write, walk and run. Most people can clearly recall
leaning to swim, ride a bicycle or drive a car. To start with we are all over the place, then
gradually our arms and legs that appeared to be so clumsy, seem to be doing the job effortlessly.
As with information, we do, quite literally, grow the neural circuits that move our arms, legs
coordinate our breathing: to move the handlebars as the signals from the balance system in our
ears direct: to operate the pedals with our feet with unaccustomed precision…… We soon find
we can do all these tasks with such ease that we hardly notice what we are doing them, and can in
fact do other things at the same time. We chat away to the passenger in our car and are almost
oblivious of doing the driving.
We can call this background mode or foreground mode. People talk about operating ‘below the
radar’, in ‘autopilot’.
However, there is a much more interesting alternative.
Background operating system.
Recently there has been a trend to separate out functions as a way to better understand
them. However, it can also sometimes be useful to do the opposite and to think of how
various similar functions might converge.
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We have discussed how various functions of the central nervous system operate largely
below the radar of our everyday experience: not too different a concept to the many
learned functions we do in ‘background’ mode. We concentrate on the text we are
writing. We need to give no attention whatever to the intricate muscle movements
necessary to write each letter.
Observe the history of computing. The great major breakthrough was the development of
the standard operating system that enabled all programmers to concentrate on the
algorithms of applications while the OS looked after all the intricate operations of the
system, input, output, allocation of memory, the layout of the screen…..
There is a very compelling argument that not only are the sympathetic, somatic and
enteric functions all various aspects of one background operating system, but also the
autopilot operation of the brain is also part of the extended autonomic functions of the
central nervous system: the OS of the body.
Can this be?
In the first place the brain is almost certainly an evolutionary extension of the central
nervous system. As the brain has evolved it is unlikely not to have retained the services
of its very efficient messaging system.
Secondly, all the major responses of dealing with predators, partners and prey are all joint
functions of the central nervous system and the brain. As all observes down the centuries
have agreed, in a crisis, there is no time stop and think of alternative, more sophisticated
responses. Indeed the foundation of every description of intelligence ‘is the ability to
respond to incomplete information as fast as possible’. Our survival depended on this
policy. It has hardly changed.
There is another much more convincing argument. As we have just noted, as soon as we
learn a skill it slips into ‘background mode’. We have the impression that our brain has
taken over. All those once difficult functions are now effortlessly executed. Logic
suggests that our autonomic background operating system is taking over the heavy lifting.
There is a third conclusive argument. The world is an ever more complex environment.
The instant inherited or learned response worked very well – it is why we are here; but
we needed greater sophistication to continue to survive, thus we have learned techniques
to enable us to do better: outsmart predators, trap our prey, entice our partners. These are
all, ever more clever activities. They are advanced capabilities of our sentient brain,
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making the maximum use of all the multitude of skills we have learned over the
millennia.
We argue that the brain has a duality of capabilities. [1]A background extended
autonomic operating system, [2] and a ‘library’ of continuously being learned
applications.
We argue that all the extended autonomic functions of the central nervous system
and, in particular, this dual capacity of the brain to operate together in unison is the
basis of our long sought ‘general intelligence’.
We draw two further conclusions
Information representation
[1] Everyone learns everything in their own unique way in their own unique time and sequence.
Thus the coding system that they grow in their individual neural networks of their individual
brains and individual minds are as unique as their finger prints and their eye patterns, the sounds
of their voices, their handwriting and their personalities.
The corollary is that every person who has passed the same exam may have answered the
questions in an identical way, but every single student will have a different perception of what
that information means, even if some of those differences are marginal. Such is the foundation of
evolution, and by forcing standard answers on each generation great damage is done, and the
advance of our civilisation held back. With the historically scarce resources of the human race in
the past, this was probably inevitable, but the situation is changing fast.
At the moment we only have a symbiotic connection to our computers. When we develop
prosthetic brains and begin to learn to edit DNA the fact that every individual stores every piece
of information and every activity and algorithm in a unique way, will present some interesting
problems, but at the same time offer opportunities currently outside the imaginations of even the
most avant garde science fiction authors and futurologists.
Note: We touched above on how information is represented in the brain and the coding systems in computers.
The most curious are the representation of numbers and music. There are no numbers in the brain. Groups of
transistors can be logically added. Groups of neurons cannot. It is probably a coincidence that computing is
based on eight bit characters, or ‘words’ and music on eight bit octaves. However, all programming consists
of patterns of ever more sophisticated hierarchies of 8 bit ‘words’: all music consists of patterns of ever more
sophisticated hierarchies of 8 note octaves. We explore the history on numbers from Pythagoras to Ripoli and
the problems of enciphering them in XXX
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Meaning of Information
[2] Meaning is not a function of the brain. Meaning is the combination of sensations, impressions,
perceptions, feelings and emotions we experience generated by the hormones and other
neurotransmitters secreted by the glands of the endocrine system, partly by the information
flowing from our sensory organs as they monitor the outside world, but increasingly by the neural
processing of our vocabularies and other activities.
Words have meanings in the dictionary sense, but only where the meaning of one word is
described in terms of numbers of other words, often many words, and often offering different
meaning in different circumstances. In the end, however, all words have only emotional
meanings. Almost always the brain can differentiate between the usage of one word to mean
different things with ease because of the ambient state of the surrounding neural networks at the
time.
THE CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM
The cardiovascular system primarily controls the heart and lungs and circulation of the blood. It
controls the manufacture of the blood then pumps it though the gastrointestinal system to collect
nutrients and water, and the lungs to collect oxygen, then transports these nutrients to the whole
body through the arteries; returning the blood, less nutrients but plus waste, through the veins. It
thus transports the fuel for the generation of energy to the muscles, organs and the brain.
Although the brain is around 2% of the weight of the body it consumes upwards of a quarter of
the nutrients and fuel.
One can get just as ‘tired’ thinking, as running. Equally the water supply is crucial. Among other
functions it maintains tension in all the organs and, again, particularly in the neurons.
The cardiovascular system’s other vital role is the transport of the hormones and other secretions
of the glands of the endocrine system to all parts of the body in general but crucially to the brain.
It is also responsible for the ‘emergency services’ to repair damage to the fabric of the body, and
remove waste.
THE ENDOCRINE SYSTEM
The endocrine system consists of some one hundred known glands. Recently a new type of gland
has been identified and it is forecast that there are likely to potentially at least a further one
hundred of these.
These glands produce the neurotransmitters that populate the synapses, messenger molecules that
carry instructions around the brain and most important of all the family of hormones.
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In their deep evolutionary past they controlled a lot of the reactions of their host that enabled
them to be aware of events taking place in their bodies, and being part of the environment around
them: the sensations of hunger and thirst, anger to repel a predator, fear to retreat, and arousal to
mate, and satisfaction for any job well done. Similarly it was these hormones that were
responsible for displays of aggression, attraction and so forth.
As their hosts gradually grew in complexity so the numbers of these glands and their hormones
increased. Their functions grew more sophisticated, and they generated ever more complex
combinations of perceptions, sensations, impressions, feelings and emotions.
The development of language stimulated many changes, not the least was the need to express to
others the feelings of emotions and opinions about the past, what action to take now, what might
happen in the future. Words could be used to replace displays of aggression et al.
Thus hand in hand, each stimulating the emotions of others, the numbers of words exploded. The
perceptions, sensations, impressions, feelings and emotions those words represented followed in
turn, causing more glands to generate more hormones, and more sensations, and more words to
represent them.
Thanks to the ability of language the usage of a word produced the same response in the hearer as
it did in the speaker.
With all these sensations attached to the use of every word and phrase, our ancestors could
transmit meaning to each other.
Thus we argue that the source of all meaning is the myriad combination of hormones and
other secretions of the glands that generates the perceptions, sensations, impressions, feelings
and emotions of words, phrases and other methods of communication.
These functions are stimulated by the electrochemical signal patterns generated by the brain, but
the source of meaning is not in the brain, it is provided by the endocrines’ glandular system.
The ambient state of hormones in the brain also varies the responses of the neurons, and the
strength of any new links and structures. We can observe that if someone is getting emotionally
involved in, say, an argument, they often say things that they would not otherwise have done.
IMMUNE SYSTEM
Our knowledge of the immune system is rising fast. There are increasing signs that it is much
more closely integrated into the central nervous system and the cardiovascular systems than
previously thought.
It seems unlikely that evolution would have favoured developing a separate communications
system, when the central nervous system is available to do the job. Similarly, it seems unlikely
there is a duplicate means of circulating fluids in addition to the cardiovascular system.
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There is mounting evidence that a stimulus from the brain can vary the secretion of a component
of the immune system, both to activate it and supress it.
There is some controversy as to whether the immune system is involved in monitoring and
controlling the mass of viruses, bacteria and parasites in the body, usually now called the biome.
GASTROINTESTINAL (ENTERIC) NERVOUS SYSTEM
The gastrointestinal, or enteric nervous system, controls the conversion of food into nutrients,
regulating the selection, supply and temporary storage according to what is available. If the
system is becoming short of food or water it stimulates the appropriate glands to generate a
sensation of hunger or thirst. It has the second highest concentration of neurons, some 500
million. However, while the neuron networks in the brain multiply a thousand fold, there is no
evidence of the enteric neurons increasing in number at all. These neurons have a job to do and
they carry it out.
It confirms the argument that the brain is the learning system of the body and so is uniquely
responsible for growing and managing the memory structures
It gastrointestinal system is responsible for discarding waste.
Generally not aware of these systems unless something is malfunctioning or otherwise not
behaving properly.
SUMMARY
Thus we can begin to see that each of these six systems has their own functions to carry out.
The Central nervous system provides the communication for all the other systems.
The Brain coordinates the other systems and is the learning centre of the body, responsible for
growing and managing the memory systems.
The Cardiovascular system circulates the fuel and nutrients supply.
The Endocrine system does much more than we used to believe and provides all the perceptions,
sensations, impressions, emotions and the myriad other feelings of being alive. It is the source of
‘meaning’, not the brain as conventionally believed.
The suspicion is that the Immune system and the gastrointestinal systems are much more closely
integrated with the other four than traditionally believed.
Perhaps a significant breakthrough is that at birth all these six systems operate automatically to
maintain the whole organism in equilibrium, including the brain. It is very like the Operating
Systems we have designed for all our computers. We can call it the extended ‘Autonomic
Functions’. However the brain has developed superior processing capabilities: what we recognise
as the means by which we learn new skills, talents and abilities. When these applications are fully
learned and operating efficiently they become part of these background operating autonomic
functions, freeing up the brain to do other tasks, observe more, be more alert, learn more, have
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more time to think, be more creative. For some time we have called this ‘background mode’ or
‘autopilot’. We can now give it its rightful designation.
There is a compelling argument that all these extended autonomic functions, including the
background processing in the brain is part of our general cognitive abilities, and to the extent they
are efficient they are what we call our ‘general intelligence’.
BMF 2016
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