Infinity and the Brain: A Unified Theory of Mind, Matter and God

This book presents a new and logical solution to the “hard problem” of how consciousness and brain are related. The argument rests upon how the seeing-of-an-image is actually a probabilistic event in relation to infinity and/or one’s potential nonexistence – a perspective whereby an immersive image can be envisioned as minimizing disorder and maximizing energy sufficiency while, equivalently, optimizing the "big-enoughness" of the observing self. This approach, assuming a God-centered universe, explains why a balance between self and other is actually but the visible manifestation of an ongoing relationship between order and disorder and, respectively, past and future. By looking at the relationship between an image, the motor system, and the deeper thermoregulatory centers of the brain, the book reveals the profound unity of space-time, mind, energy, and God – putting to rest once and for all the notion that matter is fundamental.

GLENN DUDLEY became interested in the mind-body problem as an undergraduate student at the University of Colorado while pursuing a pre-med major and elective studies in physics, philosophy, and Judeo-Christian theology. He received his M.D. degree in 1969, and after doing a combined psychiatry/medicine internship, he completed a two-year program at MIT's Neurosciences Research Program. Then, sponsored by the Department of Psychiatry at Tufts School of Medicine in Boston, he studied the mind-body aspects of cancer. From 1975 until his retirement in 1998, Dr. Dudley served as a primary care physician, emphasizing spirit-mind-body relationships.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface
Introduction
Historical overview
Theoretical premise: the universe is personal
The origin of an image
Introspective clues
There is no conflict between a personal and a mechanical universe
Light and the illumination of self
Definitions

PART I: PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE

1. The Expectant Brain
   Mind and brain are neither equal nor separate
   A diagrammatic approach
   Behavior and infinity anticipation
   Blobs, qualia, and other mysteries of perception
2. From The Womb To The Tomb: The Search For Certainty
   Who or what actually sees an image?
   From small to big in the "now" of time
   Familiarity, novelty, and the natural desire for certainty
3. The Circadian Self
   The anticipatory nature of awareness foretells the periodicity of sleep
   Which comes first, the self or its image?
   The probabilistic basis of sleep and dreams
4. Sexuality And The Universe
   Sexuality and the fetal nature of perception
   The probabilistic basis of orgasm
   An image is a symbolic castration
   The "sex-crazed" brain
   The thermodynamic basis of pain and pleasure
   A universal principle of fecundity
   The law of privacy
   "OAGs," orgasm, and social vision
   
   PART II: THE NEUROANATOMICAL SELF
5. The Bilateral Origin Of Consciousness
   A "collocation of atoms" cannot explain consciousness
   Bilaterality and infinity anticipation
   Imagery and mediolaterality
   Axial movement and infinity
   Qualia and axial movement
6. The Unified Brain
   The brain has an "eye" for its boundary sufficiency
   The brain has no brains
   The homuncular rationale
   Metabolic and behavioral unity
7. Infinity Anticipation And The Brain
   The cephalad nature of awareness
   Cephalad proximities
   Lateral inhibition and the "remembered present"
   Abstraction and size sufficiency
   Does infinity have a shape?
   Space-time and the anatomy of focal-ambience
   Memory structures are key to a probabilistic, infinity-based theory
8. The Brain In A Personal Universe
   "Neuronal models"
   Who's the boss?
   The mediolateral brain
   Language, object recognition, and body awareness
   Specificity depends upon an infinite Person
   The three-dimensional nature of the brain in a personal universe
   Facial recognition depends upon infinity being personal
9. The Limbic Link To Eternity
   The limbic bridge between perception and behavior
   Introspective exercises
   The reticular core monitors the ongoing probability of survival
   Hippocampal "memory" and size sufficiency
   Infinity anticipation and cortico-limbic harmony
   Limbic loops with the past rule out materialism
10. Unity Amidst Diversity
    Perception and the interfacing of space and time
    Habituation, rhythms, and spiritual reality
    Infinity anticipation and signal-to-noise ratios
    Infinity, rage, and thermoregulation
    All structure has a mediolateral configuration
    Abstraction and the limbic "inner sanctum"
    Limbic predictions and infinity anticipation
    The limbic forebrain and physiological unity
    Circadian rhythms, thermoregulation, and infinity
    The wisdom of the body
    Thermodynamics and free will
11. The Sleeping Brain
    "Chunking" and circadian rhythms
    The thermoregulatory function of sleep and dreams
    God, sex, and dreams
12. Needle In A Haystack
    Where is the "locus" of infinity anticipation?
    The perception-action cycle
    A quick review of brain unity
    A developmental clue
    Falling pianos and the "interaction" of mind and body
    Hormones and the mind-body problem
    An autonomic perspective
    Oppositional systems
    A biochemical perspective
    Mind-body duality from an energy perspective
13. Memory
    The meaning of memory
    "Home" defines our search for energy
14. The Ethical Brain
    The anatomy of deception
    Neural design and morality

    Endnotes
    Bibliography