The Hidden Spring

1. The Stuff of Dreams

Two puzzles that have bedevilled thinkers for centuries:
- The mind/body problem - How the mind relates to the body, or how the brain gives rise to the mind.
- The problem of other minds - What can we tell about what happens in other people's minds.
In the first half of the 20th C, behaviorism worked with classical conditioning and operant conditioning (the Law of Effect)
In the second half, behavorism was gradually eclipsed by "cognitive" psychology, which formulates models of the information processing that goes on within minds. It suggests that the mind is a function rather than a structure. The software of the mind is implemented by the hardware of the brain and could be implemented elsewhere. Both brains and computers perform:
- Memory functions (they encode and store information)
- Perceptual functions (they classify patterns of incoming information by comparing them with stored information)
- Executive functions (they execute decisions about what to do in response to such information)
In parallel with cognitive psychology developed "cognitive neuroscience", which focuses on the hardware of the mind.
Paradoxical sleep, where the brain is physiologically aroused despite being fast asleep.
The whole sleep/waking cycle - including REM sleep and dreams as well as the different stages of non-REM sleep - is orchestrated by a small number of brainstem nuclei interacting with each other.