His Journey to the Source of Consciousness: Mark Solms on His New Book, The Hidden Spring

Additional links below the notes.
A traumatic experience early in life led Dr Mark Solms on a quest to understand the source of consciousness. The difficult experiences of his childhood led to depression born of nihilism but out of that, he found a way to teach himself how to approach life with enthusiasm and discipline when he decided that the only thing that was worth doing was to try and understand what Being is.
When his career in neuroscience didn't provide all the answers he was looking for, he then trained in psychoanalysis, so he looks at this issue both from a scientific view but also from that of a clinician with real world experience of people's stories.
Consciousness arises out of feelings located in the brain stem, in the ancient, lowly brainstem.
Reticular Activating System arouses cortical function as a way of maintaining homeostasis. The biological mechanisms of life resist the2nd law of thermodynamics and minimize entropy.

The function of feelings is to deal with uncertainty. Cognition can go on in a completely unconscious way, but when a need arises (thirst, hunger, suffocation, etc) we must make choices. Feelings make a demand upon the mind for work and conscious cognition is the work that is demanded.
"What must I do to satisfy my needs?"
We have a predictive model.
Memories are about the past but for the future.
Increasing entropy increases the number of questions, increases the uncertainty when your decisions don't succeed.
The need to play. Piaget, Panksepp.
Seeking, a foraging drive - engage with uncertainty, risk taking, play.
Solms does not have a totally reductionistic, mechanistic view of the world.
The lived life of the mind, subjectivity, the importance of story.
Freud: "My case studies read like short stories."
Narrative medicine
Oliver Sacks endangered his career by exploring these things.
In response to a question about Barfield's theories of the evolution of consciousness, Solms brought up:
David Lewis Williams, archaeologist, two books:
The Mind in theCave
Deciphering Ancient Minds.
The ratio between the known and the unknown is like a single grain of sand on one beach among all the beaches on earth.

A class on psychoanalysis taught by Mark Solms:
Energy Conversion Processes in a Light Harvesting Organelle:
Karen's websites

[SelfImageStylist]

He was so gracious and patient. I was hoping to hear more about his book.

[amustafa]

What a beautiful and engaging conversation. I have no choice but to get the book now.

[Terpsichore]

I thought your book was wonderful Mark. I learned so much about the hierarchical systems and physical functions of the brain than I could ever have thought possible from within those pages. More importantly, ‘knowing’ how opaque I am, you’ve helped me to understand why. You seem like an amazing clinician. One who’s actually interested in the person who resides within this amazing organ we call the brain. What it’s like to BE me, driven by my needs. Thank you!

Marks’ attempt to draw attention away from the already much discussed cognitive aspects (200 million years old), and to get us to concentrate and understand the more neglected source of our consciousness, “The Hidden Spring”, was so refreshing. A structure buried much deeper, and so much older in our brain system, (500 million years old). Anyone recalling a Lobster yet!?

And as Mark said, don’t be put off by chapters 7and 9. They’re SO relevant to all the discussions for anyone interested in Karens’ ongoing conversations with Glen. They’re thoroughly and clearly explained in this wonderful book.

Lovely conversation Karen, thank you.

[Brad-RB]

Excellent conversation. Thank you both for taking the time.

[JohnSWren]

"Doing work that helps my brother." Yes.

[TheMeaningCode]

I encourage everyone to read the notes as there are many good links in there to the topics covered by Mark.

[MourningTalkShow]

This is great. I'm not finished with this yet but it implies that emotional self-knowledge will bring greater wisdom, even outside of emergency situations.

[shari]

What a fantastic conversation Karen and Mark. A very thought provoking dialogue between the two you. I hope there will be a Part 2 after Mark has read Saving the Appearances. 😉

[joanbuffard]

Oliver Sachs was/is such a gift. He pulled us through the window to read and understand our patient ... not give the patient a label to file

[jopmens]

I think Dr. Solms' impressive hydroencephalitic girl case mostly shows how adaptive our brains (and bodies in general) are, not that consciousness is seated where it seems to reside in that girl.
But yes it is interesting what the most rudamentary presentation is (with affect), if the resources are absolutely minimal in a body, for development.

[TheMeaningCode]

Some are asking for a book list. In this video, we mentioned.The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist and Maps of Meaning by Jordan B Peterson as well as a book by Oliver Sacks

[maramalnawash]

Can someone write a list of the books mentioned in the video please

[rudivandoornegat]

Interesting and very fruitful conversation.

Ehm, but how is the dog?

[nyworker]

Heidegger's master work was Being And Time or being is the most fundamental feeling from which all emotional feelings or affects arise. This can apply to any biological being or Nagel's What It's Like. Time or sense of time and "what is out there" is the highest function of objective sense.

[Brad-RB]

When I train horses I consciously apply the minimum amount of pressure to the horse to place it into a feeling oriented state (fight or flight) and maintain the pressure until the horse acts in a way that is acceptable, and then I release the pressure. Repeated over a relatively short period of time this will condition the horse to know what I expect of it in that particular situation.
Its pretty obvious to me that many forces in our culture are doing this to us constantly.
Dr Solms, what I would love to explore is whether or not our subconscious mind trains our conscious mind using similar methods. Has there been any research related to this?

[patrickwagner]

I am left with the question - Do our imagination and our emotions, appetites, feelings and our desires, sometimes, without us even knowing it, bypass any filtering process that our minds may or may not have so that there is no opportunity to reason or think clearly (choose whether to even acknowledge them before considering them) about the affects or implications of exposure to certain experiences, images and information ? If I heard Mark correctly, feelings may be a channel or route to do so ?

[Matthew-pmfg]

Wonderful meeting. So far, I am seeing the reason why I write at all. To seek Being itself. For example, contemplating Being comes at the real cost of doing Being without thinking; and this transaction may be justified as a win-win, if, and only if, there is something to Being itself, which can be meaningfully negotiated and traded over, in the absence of meaningful action, i.e., intelligible signs and unironic communication, ever since high school, and even before, I preferred, in deliberate choices, the company of the departed (authors) and non-local (figments and functions and fictions of my mind -- or the mind since it does not revolve around the time of day, but which plots its musings in the sequences of self-discovery, beyond the physical correlates of conscious awareness, the limitations of language, and sincere emotions, and all the rest of the accidents of phenomenal happenings) places.

[maudeeb]

Interesting chap. I have a couple of nuts and bolts left over. Does Mark have room for strong emergence? What are we saying exists other than mechanics?

[cameronlakeview]

I'm an orange farmer. I'm just trying to spread awareness of how damaging packs of feral dogs can be to orange orchards. The dogs literally go wild for oranges - it's absolute carnage.

[charlesdavidson]

i wonder what dr. Solms thinks of NDE research by people like Dr, Bruce Greyson, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia?