NeuroFelicitology Foundations
As we have described in the section About NeuroFelicitology, NeuroFelicitology is the modern science based upon the ancient Indian philosophy of Advaita or Non-Dual Vedanta. Being several millennia old, this literature naturally has content that is unscientific. NeuroFelicitology is the result of removing everything unscientific from Advaita Vedanta and integrating it with modern science. The three sciences that serve as foundations for NeuroFelicitology are described below.- Physics & Cosmology
This science describes the Cosmos – its origin in the Big Bang and its evolution over the next 13+ billion years. Not only does this amazing scientific discipline have the capacity to grasp this inconceivably long period of time, its explanatory power extends over unimaginably vast scales – from galactic clusters to sub-nuclear particles!
This immense explanatory and predictive power stems from the mathematically precise knowledge of the Cosmic Force-Field – the system of four fundamental forces that give rise to and govern all that exists.
- Evolutionary Psychobiology
In 1859, Charles Darwin published his revolutionary theory of the Evolution of Species by Natural Selection. Almost a century later, on February 28, 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA, thus unlocking the mystery of genetic code – the unique blueprint for every living being.
In the second half of the 20th century, scientists started seeking answers to the question, ‘Given that the human brain has evolved over many millions of years, how has the ancestral natural and social environment shaped the modern brain/mind?’Their findings constitute the science called Evolutionary
Psychobiology/Psychology. They found that, as expected, the modern brain has many traits that were adaptive in the ancestral environment, i.e., they increased the survival and reproduction propensity of the individual. They also discovered several traits that were adaptive in the ancestral environment but are liabilities in the modern world. These mal-adaptive traits, dubbed ‘Evolutionary Hangovers’, are at the root of what prevents us from living a life full of Felicity.
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the study of the nervous system – how it develops, its structure and its functions. Neuroscience is a vast and vibrant field of research. The findings most relevant to NeuroFelicitology are the following
- Neural Structure The human brain is an incredible network consisting of around 86 billion processing cells called neurons. Synapses are the connections between neurons, and the brain has an estimated 100 trillion synapses. Each neuron can connect to thousands of other neurons, forming intricate networks. It’s safe to say that the number of connections between neurons is in the hundreds of trillions!
- Brain Function At its receiving synapses, a neuron gets signals—usually as a burst of chemicals called neurotransmitters—from other neurons. Signals tell a neuron either to fire or not; whether it fires depends mainly on the combination of signals it receives each moment. In turn, when a neuron fires, it sends signals to other neurons through its transmitting synapses, telling them to fire or not. A typical neuron fires 5– 50 times a second.
Unlike a computer, the brain uses the same ‘hardware’ for processing information as well as storing it. In other words, the ‘processor’ and the ‘memory’ are the same. - Experience – The brain is the locus of all experience. Its structure, i.e., content and connections, determines experience. Experience is nothing but the firing of a subset of neurons – a Neural Activity Pattern (NAP). The experiences of happiness and unhappiness are simply NAPs. An individual’s NAPs are shaped both by heredity – reflecting humankind’s evolutionary history – as well as lifetime experiences.
- Neuroplasticity – The brain is not static. Its structure – both the mass of neurons as well as the connections between them, changes throughout life. ‘Neurons that fire together, wire together’. Consequently, connections are strengthened or weakened by use and disuse respectively. This is the basis of all learning.