David Stephen
There is just one form of the experience of extremism to the brain, though degrees differ. There is no difference between the extremism that lets one continue to do things recklessly or to dangerous levels for drinking or for addictions, work, exercise, study, engaging with violence, getting radicalized with ideology, espousing hate, disagreeing, anger and so forth.
What it takes is that the destination of extremism in the brain is—to a certain degree—reached, before or after the location of the activity [or thing] is reached. What gets there is a quantity, but the destination is where the property [of extremism] is acquired.
There are activities without extremism, at some moments, because the destination, in the brain, was not reached. The brain does not know extremism differently from how it knows an object. This applies to all experiences, including what is recalled. There is often a separation of memory and emotions, when both are properties in locations, to degrees, across the brain.
It is possible to know what it means to be cold, hot, angry, excited, when there is no external reason to. It is also possible to be in those states, when there are reasons to. There could be external reasons to, but internally, no-compliance, because the destinations were not reached, or they were but to a less degree, or something else was prioritized or at the principal spot. Feel-like may be described as memory. The match with the external as a feeling effect.
It is possible to know a word or a thing, which is that the quantity that came in, acquired the property or meaning of that word, or the use of that thing. The quantity could then leave that destination to another where a word related to it is acquired [or remembered], at that instance. It may skip that to proceed to a location to acquire trauma, depression, happiness or delight, making that word [known] have an emotional toll, stretching its property spread.
The basis is quantity and property. To properly measure to solve extremism, polarization and radicalization, they should be understood for the brain, like in mental health. How do quantities transport to acquire properties that become experiences? What are quantities? What are properties?
How does extremism [feeling] bind to what is known [memory], to drive action to cause harm [reaction]?
Quantities and Properties
The brain has cells and molecules, but conceptually, they build or construct quantities and properties for experiences. When something is recalled, or a reaction to something is made, brain cells and molecules are active all that time, but the experience is not the cell or molecule, it is the quantity [thought] and property [memory, feelings and reaction]. Sleep is a property, but can be can displaced by an engaging activity—as a property acquired, at a moment.
In brain science, it is established that all senses arrive at the thalamus, except for smell that does at the olfactory bulb. It is where they are processed or integrated before relay to the cerebral cortex for interpretation.
It is theorized that sensory integration or processing is into a uniform unit, quantity or identity, which is thought or a form of thought. It is what becomes the version, equivalent or representation of all senses to the brain. To the brain, the chair is in a form of thought, converted from the sense of sight. This applies to everything sensed. It is this quantity, thought that is used in dreaming, imagination, inner speech, memories, subvocalization and so on.
Interpretation in the cerebral cortex is postulated to be into knowing, feeling and reaction, which are all properties. Knowing is memory, dominating and deciding for what follows.
In the memory, there are large and small stores. Small stores have the smallest possible unique information on anything, while large stores have similarities between small stores. To acquire properties, incoming thoughts bind to small stores, to relay in sequences [old and new] to large stores to—by degree—determine experiences. It is in those stores that feelings and reactions are also decided.
Extremism and Radicalization
Like depression, anxiety, fear, loneliness, emptiness, boredom, craving, hate, thirst, hunger, pain, anger, sleep, places, objects, cars, chairs, and so forth, extremism is a large store in the memory. It is if the transient small store [bearing the quantity] gets there that anything acquires that property for that extreme experience. This is how the brain works, in general.
If the quantity proceeds to where action is, the property is acquired and the person makes a move spontaneously or if there was a plan [property] for the attack or action, previously.
Transport to stops in the brain handles what properties follow. Some people have a higher transport of quantities to the extremism location, making them generally so. There are others whose nurture got them there. There are cases where the property is emptiness, boredom or others, as experiences of vacancy, opening for some quantity activity in the brain, which may lead to sources that initially acquire interest or curiosity as a property, but ending up at radicalization, as a property.
There are some people aiming to radicalize others who continue to direct the quantities of some, to acquire properties that includes extremism.
Just like it is possible to remember something to do and go for it only to get there and forget, which is like the quantity acquired and lost that property, it is possible for anything to acquire extremism, or for it to be lost, per moment.
There are some also, without the actual extremism destination, but a feel-like of it, enough to carry out attacks.
Vengeance and Cruelty
There are cases people say others lack emotion, doing or saying things in a cruel way without consideration for how others would feel, or the pain and hurt it would cause. Cruelty and vengeance are properties in the brain, with quantities getting there before or after acquiring extremism to a degree. There are situations where quantities might get there, but calm or caution is acquired resulting in nothing, but sometimes, it gets there and proceeds to acquire properties for the action to effect hurt.
Experiences are properties in the brain, as well as whatever is known, directly linking what is separated as memory and emotion. Properties can be acquired automatically or by control, but control holds some power over when and how to do whatever is acquired.
Mapping and showing this to vulnerable groups, as well as to those preventing crimes and apprehending perpetrators, would be useful in understanding the source, motives, extents and more, towards safety.
—
Photo: iStock
