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(for example Hopfield’s networks,
small simplified simulations of biological neuron
networks) consider an ‘energetic landscape’,
made up of hills and valleys, within which the
‘mental state’ of the network rolls around like a
marble, subject on the one hand to the effect of
gravity, which tends to keep it trapped at the
valley bottom, and on the other to the action of a
kind of ‘thermal noise’, which tends to toss and
jolt it out of the valleys.
And
it would seem that, above and beyond the metaphor,
this is also how our brain works: at any given
moment in our lives we find ourselves wrapped in
overlaid cognitive domains, as if we were ‘trapped’
within a certain county of our mental territory. The
counties correspond to what we could suitably call “Sub-Personalities”,
or aggregations of many cognitive domains of
different types (Gurdjieff’s ‘momentary mes’, the
wards and towns of the CS region). Every situation,
every meeting, every circumstance we are involved in
‘activates’ within us a different sub-personality:
the marble rolls mechanically into another valley
and we are flung into another portion of our mental
space, where we will be stuck until a new stimulus,
or perhaps the ‘background noise’, here represented
by the chemistry of emotions, throws us out.
Thus today we see, in a strictly
scientific (if not entirely orthodox) context, the
outline of the same psychological picture as that of
the ancient system revealed by Gurdjieff, who had
instinctively sensed it a long time ago: our
conscious mind is similar to a stage where
several actors, our sub-personalities, are busy,
fighting to take over the scene. In fact, only one
actor at a time can act out their part: however,
their entry on stage is almost always accidental or
mechanically induced by context (the audience, the
‘fight’ behind the scenes). The main thing, above
all, is that in normal conditions there is no
director overseeing the play (perhaps a better
definition would be tragedy) being staged.
The sub-personalities automatically
replace each other on the stage of our
consciousness, activated by what the neurosciences
call ‘structural coupling’ with the external
environment: an apparently random process, which is
actually pre-determined, that each time decides the
prevalence of one group or another of cognitive
domains in resonance with external stimuli (Gurdjieff’s
influences A, B and C).
As Ouspensky states: “You can say
that personalities consist of different ‘mes’.
Anyone can find different personalities within
himself, and real self-study begins with studying
these personalities, because we cannot study the ‘mes’:
there are too many. Whereas it is easier with
personalities, in that each personality or group of
‘mes’ signifies some special inclination or
tendency, or at times some aversion”.
If we substitute the term
‘personality’ with ‘sub-personality’ and ‘me’ with
‘cognitive domain’, we see the thinking of Gurdjieff
(or Ouspensky) marrying cognitive neurosciences:
each of our sub-personalities will thus be seen to
be characterised by the prevalence within it of
certain categories of cognitive, intellectual,
senso-motory, emotional or instinctive domains,
which will at any given time be active or passive,
dominated by the left or right hemisphere. In turn,
the predominance of certain types of sub-personality
in a given individual will allow us to catalogue him
or her – according to Gurdjieff – as type 1, type 2
or type 3.
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Perhaps we are talking about types 4,
5, 6 and 7. Perhaps we are talking about the
‘internal circle’ of humanity.
Certainly we are talking about an as
yet unexplored area of our mind, about regions where
neurosciences are just starting to venture, but
where there is a strong sensation that, like in an
enormous historical spiral, the most advanced points
of current scientific research are just
rediscovering ancient truths about ourselves and the
nature of our conscious mind.
Alessandro Pluchino
June 2002
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