{"id":486,"date":"2016-01-17T08:28:51","date_gmt":"2016-01-17T08:28:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/issp.nu\/en\/?p=486"},"modified":"2019-03-11T07:38:15","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T07:38:15","slug":"486-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/issp.nu\/en\/486-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Mirror Neurons, Neuroplasticity and Awareness of Awareness"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Georgi Y. Johnson<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

With the discovery of mirror neurons, it could be that a new neural network is opening for the contemplation of human interdependency, empathy and the deeper nature of consciousness, through the biological medium of the human brain.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beyond the empathic function of mirror neurons, there is a hardly-touched area of research. These neurons are about unconditioned awareness. When mirror neurons\u00a0are empathic to\u00a0their own awareness, (when the brain becomes aware that it is aware), a whole new brain capacity for meta-perspective opens up in which neuroplasticity (and the brains ability to change, adapt and oversee conditions) could be greatly enhanced.<\/p>\n

Does this\u00a0mental ability to awaken to collective consciousness represent\u00a0a blind spot in the field of neuroscience?<\/p>\n

Mirror Neurons and the Monkey<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cThe greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.\u201d Leonardo da Vinci<\/p><\/div>\n

The scientific anecdote has it that in the \u2018eighties and \u2018nineties some Italian neurophysiologists \u2013 Rizzolatti, Di Pellegrino, Fadiga, Fogassi, and Gallese at the University of Parma, had the ventral premotor cortex of a macaque monkey hooked up with electrodes to study neurons specialized for the control of hand and mouth actions. Each time the monkey picked up a peanut to eat, his brain would signal: \u201cclick, click, click\u201d.<\/p>\n

One day,\u00a0a researcher himself took a peanut and began to eat it, as the monkey watched.\u00a0 The same sound \u201cclick, click, click,\u201d resonated through the monitor, although the monkey hadn\u2019t moved an inch. The monkey\u2019s brain reacted identically on an observed action to when the action was physically done by the monkey herself.<\/p>\n

Repeated\u00a0tests showed that an observed action in another can signal the same brain response\u00a0as first-hand physical action. The neurons that fired in\u00a0response to actions taken by\u00a0someone else\u2019s body have been called Mirror Neurons.<\/p>\n

We can easily recognize these theorized mirror neurons at work: each time we clutch our heads in despair when the player misses the penalty; when we\u2019re watching a drama on TV; or in any emotional engagement with situations that are none of our business.<\/p>\n

When I was a toddler, my brother cut his leg. My response was to not walk myself for a week.\u00a0Was this the effect of unshielded mirror neurons hardly restrained by the un-programed infant brain?<\/p>\n

\u201cI predict that mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology.\u201d<\/strong>
\nProf. V.S. Ramachandran<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\u201cWith the arrival of humans, it has been said, the universe has suddenly become conscious of itself. This, truly, it the greatest mystery of all.\u201d Prof. V.S. Ramachandran. Image: WikiCommons<\/p><\/div>\n

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The new millennium has witnessed an expanding wealth of research\u00a0around the existence, role and potential of mirror neurons.<\/p>\n

The functioning of mirror neurons (or lack of) has been theoretically linked\u00a0 to autism; they have been described as critical in processes of learning, mimicry, intention, anticipation and even in the evolutionary leap from Neanderthal to today\u2019s splendid example of human.<\/p>\n

While scientific dissenters have attempted to puncture the hype, casting doubt on the phenomena, as well as on the task and location of mirror neurons\u00a0in the brain, research is only now unfolding into the scientific implications of what some neuroscientists, such as Prof. Vilayanur Ramachandran, have indicated could be the neurological missing link in basic skills of empathy.<\/p>\n

From a nondual perspective, in which consciousness is seen as a unified field rather than a localized affair, the discovery of empathic mirror neurons\u00a0is inspiring.<\/p>\n

Experientially, it\u2019s\u00a0not surprising that we have brain cells that translate the actions of another body in the same way that they translate the actions of our own physical matrix.<\/p>\n

Leaving aside direct ANS input of physical sensation, observation of\u00a0one\u2019s own\u00a0body is not so critically different from the observation of\u00a0another body doing that thing. A line which separates one from the other is mostly formed by thought identification. A vast amount of sensory input is in itself collective.\u00a0For example, a sudden clap of thunder will resonate through all bodies in the area simultaneously. When it rains, we all hear the sound and we all\u00a0get wet. The separation\u00a0between one physical body and another\u00a0is more conceptual than physical.<\/p>\n

Yet\u00a0for the freedom\u00a0to interchangeably experience your own stuff with\u00a0the stuff of the \u201cother\u201d, a third position or overview is needed.\u00a0Logically, this would seem to\u00a0be the consciousness (that which chooses to identify or not)\u00a0which is the backdrop to all experience and which is claimed to exist independently of the contents of experience. This consciousness gives freedom of form, and a freedom of choice\u00a0over which neurological pathway to follow.<\/p>\n

The unconditioned consciousness that witnesses the movement\u00a0of physical, mental and emotional form is understood\u00a0in nonduality\u00a0as fundamental to perceptive\u00a0reality. This conscious \u2018witness\u2019 is not memory dependant, and as experience can only<\/em> occur in the present moment, it is also not time dependant. What mirror neurons introduce is the additional possibility that the access points of consciousness\u00a0are also not dependent on space or spatial conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cA physical peanut for one, is an experiential peanut for all.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Inter-being<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is clear that in the empathic movement between my peanut and the professor\u2019s peanut, the idea of a\u00a0definable, separate self has broken down.\u00a0A physical peanut for one,\u00a0can be\u00a0an experiential peanut for all.<\/p>\n

Yet sensory experience is not limited to physical acts, it is also how we experience emotional stress, pain or relief.\u00a0This physical resonance\u00a0of non-physical sensation also resonates through mirror neurons \u2013 perhaps to a refinement that we can hardly capture.\u00a0This is happening biologically of itself, to be blocked only by the active neglect or repression of mirror neuron activity.<\/p>\n

In their quality of empathy, mirror neurons would seem to be receptive \u2013 a receptivity that can be obscured by rejecting thought patterns \u2013 but which is nevertheless the same natural tendency found in a monkey.<\/p>\n

Such repression through\u00a0conditioned thought control (it\u2019s not \u2018my\u2019 happiness, it\u2019s \u2018his\u2019)\u00a0can be viewed at the root\u00a0of jealousy, competition, suffering and war. Allowance and cultivation of mirror neurons and resulting neuroplasticity\u00a0could lead to greater freedom, togetherness and a realistic flow of interdependence that could provide a utopian model for any community or society. Yet like any biological ability, mirror neurons need to be used in order for them to multiply.<\/p>\n

Who am I again?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When we really move into the perceptive experience of being alive, it can become clear that our whole interpersonal sensory reality is composed of our perceptions of others and the environment.<\/p>\n

We see\u00a0the facial responses, struggles, egos and accidents of others\u00a0from many perspectives, whereas we are physically unable to see ourselves in such living totality.<\/p>\n

The closest we get in visual input about our own<\/em> physical objectivity is through photographs, video recordings and mirrors on the wall. But a vast amount of sensory data and perspective is excluded from these forms. Our experience of our own self is entirely entangled with and dependant on the feedback we get from others. In a way, we exist as a personality, only in the sum total of reflections in the interpersonal\u00a0field.<\/p>\n

Mirror neurons invite us to realize that our reality was never separable from the whole.<\/p>\n

Awareness of Awareness<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"Droste_1260359-nevit,_corrected\"

\u201cBeauty is truth\u2019s smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror.\u201d Rabindranath Tagore Photo: Wikicommons<\/p><\/div>\n

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This non-physical, empathic ability of mirror neurons to fire in response to the perception of \u201cothers\u201d, also\u00a0gives us the ability to empathize with ourselves as if we were also \u201cother\u201d.<\/p>\n

Because of mirror neurons, we (the subject) are also able to reflect on our own identity, emotional patterns, instinctive drives (the objects of inner perception). We are able to have empathy for another form, but also for and our own \u2018inner\u2019 form. We are able to self reflect, to become self conscious and even to be conscious that we are conscious.<\/p>\n

What happens when a mirror neuron\u00a0sparks empathy for its own empathy? What happens when the mirror neuron\u2019s awareness turns to the other mirror neurons, and the brain becomes aware that it is aware? What is then reflected?<\/p>\n

The brain is still alive, firing reflections but now it is reflecting its own capacity for reflection, like a tunnel of mirrors into infinity. On a cellular level, we are becoming aware that we are aware, in increasing degrees of refinement and liberation from normal perceptive constraints. Could this be a neurophysiological explanation for the phenomena of spiritual awakening?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Where Binary Brain Surrenders<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\""The

\u201cThe quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future.\u201d \u2015 Eckhart Tolle<\/p><\/div>\n

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Now, we have no choice but to take ourselves as the laboratory monkey. In the experience of awareness of awareness, (the tunnelling of mirror neurons\u00a0into infinity), the wiring of the brain seems to flip into another dimension beyond habitual neural pathways.\u00a0This expansion could be a result of a new superconductivity between left brain and right brain.<\/p>\n

The effect is\u00a0a feeling of power, freedom\u00a0and benevolence.\u00a0The sense of separation from life falls away. There is an expansion of existential impressions of\u00a0eternity and infinity \u2013 of \u2018being\u2019 unconditioned by time and space.\u00a0The programed mind\u00a0defaults to a deep, connected sense of \u2018is-ness\u2019, unconditional to circumstances\u00a0(pleasure, pain, past, future).<\/p>\n

In the acceleration and collapse of the tension between\u00a0subject and\u00a0object, seen already in the monkey salivating over the professor\u2019s ice-cream, a more evolved layer of mind begins to fire up.<\/p>\n

This kind of mind is less identified yet more ingenious. It moves beyond the \u2018either-or\u2019, binary\u00a0equations of subject-object and into the \u201cand-and\u201d formulas that reflect life more truthfully:\u00a0(also<\/em> the professor and also<\/em> the monkey eat peanuts). In developing the ability to relax into paradox, many possibilities, and many feelings, there is an increasing surrender in responsivity to\u00a0environmental stimuli\u00a0in any moment.<\/p>\n

The more our nervous system learns to recognize these mental perspectives beyond the limitation of time and space as safe and benevolent, the more it relaxes into them and\u00a0new, more expansive\u00a0areas of the brain\u00a0begin\u00a0to thrive.<\/p>\n

Neurons multiply according to how often they are fired. If we don\u2019t use them, we lose them. The more we walk a particular path through the forest of the mind, the more likely we are to walk it, and the easier the walking becomes. This is the nature of education and training. We learn through resonating with the \u201cother\u201d, then we do it ourselves (as we have already walked that path with our role model), and then we do it easily and without drama. What at first\u00a0could have spritzed\u00a0adrenalin into the system can later signal easiness and home-coming.<\/p>\n

The more often we walk new pathways of the brain, the more easily the pathways\u00a0open. The more we practise mindfulness, self-reflection and empathy, the more mirror neurons we have at our disposal, and the easier it becomes to disentangle and to access this deeper existential layer of being beyond conflict. Through tending the garden of our minds, we find more freedom in form, which is mastery in form.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is extraordinary how near we are to our deeper being. It\u2019s just a thought\u00a0away.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

Ram Dass \u2013 Polishing the Mirror<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One Evolution<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cIt is paradoxical that the more we know, the more ignorant we become in the absolute sense, for it is only through enlightenment that we become conscious of our limitations.\u201d Nikola Tesla<\/p><\/div>\n

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When we move to subtler frequencies of brain, such as the perspective of timeless, unattached consciousness, or the resonance of unbounded being, these mirror neurons and the effects of them are firing our brains, but also, through empathy,\u00a0through all the brains in the vicinity.<\/p>\n

Could this be a neurological reflection of what has been called the transmission of enlightenment from teacher to student?<\/p>\n

Is this why meditation in a cave in Lhasa makes a difference even if it is far from the madding crowd?<\/p>\n

If what is true of a peanut is also true of enlightened minds, then the liberation of our own perception from the\u00a0limitations of habitual reactions and thought programs would have an immediate physiological impact on everyone around us \u2013 generations forward and backward \u2013\u00a0without us moving a muscle of saying a word.<\/p>\n

Empathy is embodied, instinctive and unconscious. All we need to do is allow it. This means relaxing into the spaces beyond thoughts, relaxing into the formless, infinite screen\u00a0that precedes\u00a0imagination, and becoming mentally at ease in co-existing dimensions beyond duality, unconditioned by the parameters of time and space.<\/p>\n


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