Kandel reports that it took about 15 minutes for the animal to learn the experimental spatial task, and relates that to the strengthening of synapses in the
hippocampus (short term memory). It took several hours for the creation of new synapses (consolidation of short term into long term memory).
Ernest
Rossi, in his work on therapeutic hypnosis and genetics discusses the genomic expression of Immediate-Early Genes, Early Activity-Dependent Genes, and Late Activity-Dependent Genes.
- Many lines of research suggest that immediate-early genes (IEG's) are the newly discovered mediators between nature and nurture at the cellular-genomic level. Immediate-early genes act as transducers allowing signals (sometimes called primary response genes or third messengers) from the external environment to regulate the adaptive transcription of target gene expression at the cellular level. Immediate-early genes can initiate a series of molecular-genomic transformations that can transduce relatively brief signals from the environment into enduring changes in the physical structure of the developing nervous system and the formation of new memory and learning throughout life. (6)
Immediate-Early Genes can promote protein synthesis in a matter of minutes, Early Activity- Dependent Gene expression can take as little as 10 to 12 minutes (short term memory), and Late Activity-Dependent Gene Expression can take 1 to 2 and last to up to 8 hours (long term memory consolidation).
Rossi goes on to say,
- Facilitating gene expression, neurogenesis, and stem cell differentiation and maturation into newly functioning tissues is a basic mechanism of healing that makes rehabilitation possible. ... (the) neuroscience hypothesis is that behavior activation initiates activity-dependent gene expression. This activity-dependent gene expression initiates healing by the generation of proteins that facilitate neurogenesis and stem cell differentiation into new tissues. (7)
Rossi's and
Kandel's research sheds light on clinical experience with Emergence
. It is postulated that mapping elements such as mission, goals, thoughts, ideas, behaviors, sensations, feelings, and symptoms, etc., onto 3 dimensional
InfoSpace recruits spatial mapping systems in the brain, promoting
neurogenesis and long term change.
An Emergent session is
analagous to
Kandel's laboratory animals' "having to learn a spatial task at the same time it is exploring the new space."
It can take a few to 20 minutes or more for clients to enter Emergence. Their subsequent exploration can become most absorbing and can last 1 to several hours. Towards the end of a session, the client is asked to formulate
a number of action plans. The facilitator then can weave in post- hypnotic suggestions for the remaining waking hours, sleep that evening, and subsequent days and weeks.
Sometimes the Emergence experience is so intense that clients feel like taking a nap afterwards. Care must be taken by the facilitator to properly re-orient the client, especially if they are driving from the office. A client reported he indeed did "sleep soundly" and "awakened refreshed" after an
InfoSpace session. And changes made during the session continued to evolve over days, weeks and months.
Of course, humans do not live in a static 3 dimensional universe, but, as Einstein showed us, there is the 4
th dimension of space-time. One strategy for working the 4
th dimension is to fix an element in 3 dimensional space and using an Iterator to move it through time. Let's say that a client describes an annoying sensation, a gnawing feeling in their stomach, for example. The facilitator could iteratively ask,
- ..... and what's there, now? ..... and what's there, now? ... ..... and what's there, now? ..... and what's there, now? .... and what's there, now? .... and what's there, now? ...
waiting for a verbal or non-verbal response between each iteration. Inevitably the client's experience will evolve over time. And the change can be ratified by asking
- ... and what do you know about that, now? ...
... and how does that compare to before? ...
Grove describes this Iterator process as "running the numbers", "Clean Numbers", or "the Power of Six". The Power of Six Iterator can be used in a variety of ways. For example, one could iteratively ask the client to move to a different space of a, asking "... and what do you know from that space there?" as shown in figure 3.
Figure. 3
InfoSpace After Power of Six Iterator.
The emergent knowledge can be ratified by asking. "... and how does that compare to before?..."
InfoSpace thus has a history, a past, present, and future. We define
InfoSpace as existing in 4 dimensional space-time. We operate on information elements in space with distance, size, shape, angle, direction, etc. And we operate on the time dimension by fixing a particular element in space and move it through time.
The number 6 in Grove's Power of Six has been arrived at
emperically, but it may relate to the
Feigenbaum scenario as described by
Rossi.
Figure 4.
- Figure 4 is a Feigenbaum tree diagram that shows the 6th iteration or bifurcation approaching the domain of chaos and unpredictability of psychological experience.
- Each bifurcation represents a "choice point." Here the solutions of mathematical feedback loops (iteration, recursion, replay) divide and diverge in the "decisions" of consciousness, dreams, and behavior on all levels from mind to gene.
- The basic iterative process for generating the Feigenbaum period doubling sequence is to take the answer from an equation and feed it back into the same equation to get an new answer and then keep doing this over and over again. This is the same fundamental process that takes place in all biological and psychosocial systems. Life at all levels from the molecular-genetic to the psychosocial involves doing the same iterative operations over and over again in the process of evolutionary adaptation as well as daily survival. At the molecular-genetic level, for example, gene transcription and translation takes place over and over again in an adaptive feedback loop with the environment. In psychology one stimulus-response unit of behavior is feedback for the next; the experience of one cognition becomes feedback leading to the next etc.
- The Feigenbaum period doubling sequence is an appropriate model for the life sciences because it inherently models the physical and biological process of feedback with mathematical iteration. Most important was the discovery that there is a well defined path or route which leads from order to chaos that is described as "universal". It is universal because the same abrupt changes between order and chaos, usually called "bifurcations," can be found in many apparently different equations used to model different processes in nature. When the series of iterated answers to different equations are graphed they all have features in common with the Feigenbaum period doubling sequence as illustrated with the logistic equation in Figure (Four above). (8)
Looking Forward
David's schema is a welcome addition for general problem solving for individuals, families and groups. There are great possibilities for applications in technology and medicine.
References
- Greg Miller, Brain Damage Sheds Light on Urge to Smoke, FreeRepublic.com, 01/26/2007 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news...
- Penny Tompkins and James Lawley, Clean Space: Modeling Human Perception Through Emergence, Cleanlanguage.co.uk, September, 2003, http://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk/articles...
- Personal clinical experience.
- Eric Kandel, In Search of Memory, W.W. Norton, New York, 2000, p. 312.
- Ibid., p. 130.
- Ernest Rossi, A Discourse with our Genes - The Psychosocial and Cultural Genomics of Therapeutic Hypnosis and Psychotherapy (Salvatore Iannotti, M.D. editor), Editris SAS, Italy, 2004, p. 93.
- Ibid., p. 95.
- Ernest Rossi, The Feigenbaum Scenario as a Model of the Limits of Conscious Information Processing http://www.ernestrossi.com/