This seems to be completely hard-wired behavior. Now in the wasp brain,
there may be rudimentary symbols, capable of triggering each other; but
there is nothing like the human capacity to see several instances as instances
of an as-yet-unformed class, and then to make the class symbol; nor is there
anything like the human ability to wonder, "What if I did this-what would
ensue in that hypothetical world?" This type of thought process requires an
ability to manufacture instances and to manipulate them as if they were
symbols standing for objects in a real situation, although that situation may
not be the case, and may never be the case.Class Symbols and Imaginary WorldsLet us reconsider the April Fool's joke about the borrowed car, and the
images conjured up in your mind during the telephone call. To begin with,
you need to activate symbols which represent a road, a car, a person in a
car. Now the concept "road" is a very general one, with perhaps several
stock samples which you can unconsciously pull out of dormant memory
when the occasion arises. "Road" is a class, rather than an instance. As you
listen to the tale, you quickly activate symbols which are instances with
gradually increasing specificity. For instance, when you learn that the road
was wet, this conjures up a more specific image, though you realize that it is
most likely quite different from the actual road where the incident took
place. But that is not important; what matters is whether your symbol is
sufficiently well suited for the story-that is, whether the symbols which it
can trigger are the right kind.
As the story progresses, you fill in more aspects of this road: there is a
high bank against which a car could smash. Now does this mean that you
are activating the symbol for "bank", or does it mean that you are setting
some parameters in your symbol for "road"? Undoubtedly both. That is,
the network of neurons which represents "road" has many different ways
of firing, and you are selecting which subnetwork actually shall fire. At the
same time, you are activating the symbol for "bank", and this is probably
instrumental in the process of selecting the parameters for "road", in that
its neurons may send signals to some of those in "road"-and vice versa. (In
case this seems a little confusing, it is because I am somewhat straddling
levels of description-I am trying to set up an image of the symbols, as well
as of their component neurons.)
No less important than the nouns are the verbs, prepositions, etc.
They, too, activate symbols, which send messages back and forth to each
other. There are characteristic differences between the kinds of triggering
patterns of symbols for verbs and symbols for nouns, of course, which
means that they may be physically somewhat differently organized. For
instance, nouns might have fairly localized symbols, while verbs and prepo-
sitions might have symbols with many "tentacles" reaching all around the
cortex; or any number of other possibilities.
After the story is all over, you learn it was all untrue. The power ofBrains and Thoughts 361