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LINZ AUDAIN
As an affirmation of this openmindedness, reconsider Jung's sugges-
tion that there might be in the human organism a "nervous substrate ...
which is absolutely different from the cerebrospinal system ... that can
evidently produce thoughts and perceptions" (1955, p. 124). I argue that
this substrate of the nervous system may very well be an extraneuronal
hyperspace. Under my Theory of the Extraneuronal Hyperspace, neu-
rotransmitters are important not only because of the effect they have in
the three-dimensional realm, but because of the effect they have beyond
the third dimension, in hyperspace.
Six Propositions of the Theory of the
Extraneuronal Hyperspace
I propose that there are six basic propositions of the Theory of the
Extraneuronal Hyperspace.
The transduction proposition. The first proposition is the transduc-
tion proposition. Specifically, neuroscientists have asked how the hu-
man brain controls thought, and this particular question has gener-
ated an impressive body of theories and empirical research. I argue
that an equally plausible but unasked question is how thought controls
the brain. In answering this question, I postulate that the brain is itself
an organ of signal transduction. The theme of signal transduction is a
powerful and recurrent one within the neurosciences. For example, the
Pacinian corpuscles transduce pressure to electrical signals, while the
eye transduces photons to electrical signals. It seems plausible that
the signals received by the brain, a separate neural organ, are also
transduced by it.
The complexity proposition. The second proposition, a complexity
proposition, refers to the nature of the signals that are transduced by
the brain. Although conceivably any kind of neuronal signal is a po-
tential candidate for transduction by the brain, it seems more plau-
sible that signals that have already been made complex within the
cortex are the chief candidates for transduction by the brain. For ex-
ample, neuroscientists now believe that vision involves a building up
of the simple signal registered by the neurons of the retina. Although
the signals move from the retina to the occipital lobe, they do not re-
main there, but are channeled through ganglia of increasing complexity,
such as the parvocellular-blob system (Kandel, Schwartz, and Jessell,
1991).
It seems reasonable then to argue that these signals that have al-
ready been made complex are the prime candidates for becoming more
complex. I shall use the term extraneuronal element or cognon to refer
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