On Growth

[p. 253]

38. José M.R. Delgado

Professor José Manuel Rodriguez Delgado was born in Ronda, Spain, in 1915. He studied medicine at the University of Madrid, where he still teaches. In 1965 he was nominated professor of physiology at the School of Psychiatry at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut.
Professor Delgado developed electrodes for permanent implantation in the brain. He further studied problems of radio stimulation on the brain, and the social behavior of colonies of monkeys. Physical control of the mind by direct manipulation of the brain is an entirely novel event in man's history. His book Physical Control of the Mind: Towards a Psychocivilized Society was published in 1971. A cover story for Time magazine, ‘The Mind: From memory pills to electronic pleasures beyond sex,’ devoted considerable attention to Professor Delgado's work (April 19, 1971, pp. 29-34).

Albert Szent-Györgyi,¹ the microbiologist, feels that man is apt to follow the dinosaur.² You said somewhere that man is about as stupid as a dinosaur.

There is a very fortunate difference between the dinosaurus and man: The difference is that we have awareness about our own existence.

1 See conversation no. 6.

2 See The Crazy Ape, Philosophical Library (New York, 1970).

[p. 254]

Furthermore, we are developing the technology to investigate the mechanisms of awareness, of personality, and therefore of our own future behavior. The dinosaurs did not have the technology or the intelligence to establish the feedback that we are initiating now, which is the feedback of intelligence on the destiny of man. Until very recently, this was not possible because we did not have the methodology to explore the intracerebral mechanisms of behavior.

Man has always considered himself from a political, economic, and philosophical basis. But in fact, he was really an outsider. In the past the only thing that we could do was look at each other from the outside. The most essential link between all men, the processes within their thinking brains, were totally out of reach. This is the new door that technology has opened for us. In addition to general information about mankind, we now have access to knowledge of how the intracerebral mechanisms act. Until now, we could only give information to man and expect to evoke some responses. That is what education is all about. BecauSe we did not have any idea about brain functions, which constitute the connecting link between sensory inputs and behavioral outputs, we could not comprehend the possibilities or limitations of the intracerebral processing of information which was resulting in the expression of behavior.

Is it true that the ten billion or so nerve cells in the brain are preprogrammed and therefore that it will be extremely difficult to influence them?

The answer is no. Like other animals, we have preprogrammed instincts and very elemental motor activity. What is most essential in man, however, is not his elemental preprogrammation but depends on stimuli which come from the outside. This is one of the findings of recent investigations on how the brain is structured.

What do you mean by outside environment?

Waddington³ said long ago that we have a dual inheritance: genetic plus cultural. One of the important differences between man and animals is that animals' behavioral repertoire is largely preset. When a cat is bom, it knows how to walk. When a rat is born, it knows how to eat. These creatures have many programs already established that they do not need to learn. Man is born with a far more immature brain. Today we know that the chemical structure of this brain, which will be developed

3 See conversation no. 2.

[p. 255]

and formed through the years of childhood, is to a great extent dependent on the amount and quality of sensory inputs it may receive. In the absence of visual sensory inputs, the visual pathways of the brain will not develop properly. In the absence of auditory inputs, the auditory centers will be abnormal. Therefore, our experiences have a material representation, and messages from the outside world are stored, perhaps as symbolic codes of chemical formulas, inside of the brain. Information from the outside is transformed somehow into symbolic matter within the brain. These are facts that we know today.

We should ask what are the most important elements of being human. Naturally what is ‘human’ is a question of definition. Let's take, for our discussion, something very simple like conversation, language. Man has preprogrammed mechanisms of speech, but without exposure to this type of communication, he will never learn to talk. The anatomical structure of a chimpanzee's larynx is different, and it would be impossible for him to modulate the sounds that we make. Probably the temporal lobe is also programmed differently in the chimpanzee, making the animal difficult to teach.

And is it nonsense that we are called descendants of apes?

No, that is not nonsense. It depends on your understanding of what we are discussing. The blood in our veins is similar in composition not only to that of chimpanzees but also to the blood of other mammals and even reptiles. Therefore, we should define the question more precisely. We are descendants of a long biological evolution, but we should not speak in generalities. We must proceed item by item. For instance, sodium chloride, the main component of sea water, is still present in our bloodstream, testimony to our evolution from remote ancestors which swam in the world's oceans millenniums ago.

When we speak of human nature, we are talking about something completely different. The chimpanzee does not have the preprogrammed mechanisms in its brain that would enable it to talk and associate words in the complex way that we do. Therefore, in relation to your question, some of man's behavior is preprogrammed, but it is only a possibility, not a reality. To develop these potentials, to talk, you need to be taught. If you are not exposed to English or Chinese, you will never speak these languages. You have in your brain, however, the capacity to learn languages. Thus, anatomical structure and preprogramming of instincts should be distinguished from the wide range of variability in possible

[p. 256]

human development. Would you like to be human? Would you like to talk? Then you need to learn. Would you like to be human? And to have ethical values? You may acquire ethics, but they are not inherited, and must be learned. The most basic qualities of man come from the outside.

In order to understand human potential, you must go inside man. The unique qualities of human behavior have their origin within the thinking brain, and the new technology allows us to explore its working neurons. The tremendous difference between animals and man is that we have the awareness and technology to investigate and influence our own behavior. We have already acquired tremendous mechanical and atomic power with which we can modify nature. We now live in the artificial climates of our cities. This is the present condition of mankind. Civilized man does not live in - and is never again going to live in - the jungle, where he would be old at twenty-five and would probably be dead at thirty. This is just not comfortable. It is not practical. It is not ‘human.’

So we will continue to live in the modern environment of expanding metropolises. The only choice is whether we are going to use or misuse human intelligence in order to plan our cities. If we are not intelligent, our cities will not be functional. Then instead of helping man to enjoy a healthy and interesting life, his surroundings will turn out to be a handicap, imposing pollution, overcrowding, and their corollary problems. We cannot afford to make this mistake: We must organize our environment properly and learn to modify nature for our benefit. In a similar manner, the careful planning of man's social relations is absolutely vital.

Do you feel that the planning of our planet as a whole is essential? You are talking of planning the planet in a social way according to a frame of reference -

- of the nineteenth century. It is inadequate in today's society because new elements are evolving. The old political ideologies, including Marxism and capitalism, cannot work. They were the products of conditions which were realities in the nineteenth century, but today we need new frames of reference, and they must be found soon. This is my bias. This is my opinion: that we need the biological understanding of man with the new premise that our problem is not to discover ‘Who am I?’ or ‘What is man?’ That was the classical position. That was static. What we need now is to know the neurophysiological potential of human beings. What is the main organ responsible for ‘humanness’? The brain.

[p. 257]

We need to know what it can do. Then, based on biological reality, we can plan the kind of human beings that we would like to structure for the future.

Naturally that requires unlimited imagination and involves grave risks, but we have no choice, because just as we are building cities today, for better or worse, we keep on producing children. Because they are not born all prewired (and that is why your first question was important), their behavioral frame of reference must be provided. The sole question is, Who is going to choose it? This we can decide. Shall we allow the intellects of future generations to be formed by chance? In this way we may have some safeguard that human beings will not be automats. But don't random stimuli influence thought processes as much as rigid sets? We could program people, increasing the automatism that we experience today. What we must recognize is that at present most of us are ninety-nine percent programmed by our culture, by our civilization, by the mechanization of our cities. We are programmed by television, by books, by information that we receive from the outside. Very few people are strong enough to think for themselves and qualify the avalanche of information coming from the outside. Therefore most of our behavior involves carrying out activities planned by the mass media. Conduct is determined not by our genes but by the medium in which we live.

Now the choice could be to augment this behavioral programming and establish some institutions and central agencies strong enough to effectively control human development.

In the form of universities -

In the form of universities, government, or anything you like. To me, these methods are repulsive. To me this is what I would not like to see done.

An Orwellian⁴ nightmare is alive today?

Exactly. This is what people do not realize. They are concerned about being controlled in the future without realizing that they are being controlled today. Most of us are the products of specific cultural systems. Now, Big Brother, the directive power, could do something else, which is what I would like to see done: to emphasize in education the elements of human dignity and personal freedom. To me, the most precious aspect of being human is the opportunity to use one's own ideological and emo-

4 George Orwell (1903-50), British novelist and essayist.

[p. 258]

tional framework in order to do something original. But even originality must be inculcated, developed, and encouraged from the outside. You see, we are not born original. While we are all unique individuals, we are not necessarily going to make unique contributions; all of us are different, but few are original. If you want to create original, independent human beings, you need to cultivate these qualities in childhood.

I would strongly favor teaching people the trick that has been played on all of us: that we were patterned in early life when we had no choice or defense. We did not choose the framework of our own minds. Each set of parents, as spokesmen for their particular cultural environment, arbitrarily and in a dictatorial way imposed their own ideas on us. Before a child's brain mechanisms of choice have developed, he must be guided. We need to give little babies a frame of reference.

During later childhood, when their brains are more mature and they are able to gather information and make decisions, we can favor the development of a new kind of human being by encouraging them to evaluate their frames of reference and to challenge the sensory inputs given them. We can then ask them to be cautious about the set value patterns they have been exposed to, and reward flexibility, not rigidity. Thus we could encourage children to express their own individuality, keeping in mind that they will always act with the cultural tools we have provided. With these building blocks at their disposal, we could ask children: Be original. Be not only yourself but a different kind of yourself. Try to live for some purpose and go toward some future in which you can make a special contribution. Parents could provide the conditions in which children could develop in this way; the initial choice is theirs, and the responsibility is society's.

This is what we might plan for: the creation of a new kind of man that I call psychocivilized. Psychocivilized man will have far greater awareness of the determinants of his own behavior, and an intimate knowledge of his potential, based on the possibilities and limits of his own mind. He will realize that we are not (as I was taught) individual, independent human beings, but creatures totally dependent on social and cultural exchange. A man who comprehends his inescapable involvement with his surroundings will appreciate that the quality of his environment is of primary importance in determining individual development. Thus, in order to be a freer ‘himself,’ he may need to improve his surroundings. There are profound social implications of this new concept of what man should be. We cannot live isolated from our medium, and therefore we need to improve it. Since we form part of the medium, let us also improve ourselves and try to help those around us.

[p. 259]

Isn't that what Mao Tse-tung is practicing in China?

Not really, because in China, as in most other countries, education and indoctrination are practiced empirically with predetermined aims but without an intimate knowledge of man's working brain. Rather than accept doctrines blindly - it makes no difference their political or theological color - we should try to exert the precious human qualities of awareness and individuality. Leaders should be respected but not idolized. The words and desires of a great man are not always right: Leaders may provide inspiration without necessarily being arbiters of all scientific and spiritual values. Each person should use his own intelligence to accept - or reject - doctrines and frames of reference, trying to develop ideas as original as possible.

Toynbee⁵ foresees a kind of benevolent form of dictatorship. Skinner⁶ advocates positive reinforcement.

My view is quite the opposite, because what I would like to see is not a benevolent dictatorship, but the contrary. When you give a person the encouragement and possibility to develop himself as an individual, then he will have a rather critical view of any dictator, no matter how benevolent he is. I envisage a society which does not constrain the individual and does not impose the modes and morals of a dictator but, to the contrary, encourages the person not to accept blindly the frames of reference received from either the past or the present. Everyone should have the opportunity to compare information given him with other cultural sets. Thus, in the future I see a more self-reliant and self-controlled man, not a society of creatures ruled by a benevolent dictator. The psychocivilized man will be free and independent because he will know the tricks of dictators and propaganda directors who try to control his own behavior; with this knowledge, he will be equipped to resist indoctrination.

But isn't it impossible to change characteristics in the interaction between heredity systems and the environment?

No. We are not changing characteristics, if by that you mean genetic inheritance. What we can do and should be doing is to give man a different kind of environment, more favorable to his development.

5 See conversation no. 5.

6 See conversation no. 7.

[p. 260]

You encourage the already present characteristics to develop more, to get additional branches on its tree.

Exactly.

Proust⁷ made a famous effort to recapture the past. How important is memory in this exercise of using intelligence?

Memory is the bank where all of our frames of references are stored. Memory forms the bases of our personality.

Is it true that the brain collects a million billion bits of information in a lifetime?⁸

I would be doubtful about how many items can be collected, but as usual, the important thing is not how much money you have, but how you use it.

Could computers someday assist or replace human memory?

I think that the role of the computer is as an accessory of memory. We are using computers today to store information. That is fine, but there are many other applications to be explored. For example, in one of our latest published studies we established direct communication for the first time from the brain to the computer and back to the brain. We did this in a chimpanzee equipped with implanted electrodes and a telemetric device that sent information from the amygdala, a deep brain structure, to the computer. The computer recognized a special spindle pattern in the recording of spontaneous electrical activity from the amygdala; and each time it appeared, the computer produced a square wave which activated radio stimulation of a negative reinforcing area in another part of the chimpanzee's brain. The animal soon ‘learned’ not to produce amygdala spindles, because every time it did, it received an unpleasant stimulation. In this experiment we demonstrated that one part of the brain may influence another with the link of the computer.

Our experiment, in spite of its complexity, is still rather simple. Perhaps the technique could be applied to man. This is a speculation, and what I say may be incorrect: Perhaps a computer could detect something clear-cut, such as the beginning of an epileptic attack, and then trigger a brain stimulation which would inhibit the attack. This could

7 Marcel Proust (1871-1922), the reference is to his most famous work A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past).

8 See The Human Brain, Its Capacities and Functions, Isaac Asimov, New American Library (New York, 1963), p. 338.

[p. 261]

have tremendous therapeutic possibilities. We are only just entering this exciting new era because this instrumentation was developed within the last three years.

Naturally, advances are related to technology. I can show you our new unit for transdermal stimulation of the brain in animals, which should be used soon in patient therapy. Now we can reach the depth of the brain, stimulating it through the intact skin, by totally implanting this tiny unit, which needs no exterior sockets. It is used routinely in our laboratory animals, eliminating the possibility of infection, and making the animals available for radio stimulation at any moment.

More recently we have developed the sister instrument for transdermal recording from the depth of the brain, and when it is miniaturized, we will have two-way communication with the behaving brain by means of totally implanted units. Now, let us speculate a little. In the future, we will be able to link this ‘in and out’ information with computers. The ‘Cyborg,’ a combination of man and machine, will become a reality, but don't be too impressed by this technology - it has its limits. The only thing that we can do in this fancy experimentation is to activate what is already in the brain. Stimulation certainly cannot transmit ideas or teach a language; for this we need to use normal, sensory inputs. This is the limitation of electrical stimulation of the brain or ESB, which has often been misunderstood by the press and the general public. It has been incorrectly assumed that with electrodes we are now going to be able to control everybody, and that a dictator is going to push buttons to handle the masses.

Whereas the fact is that you can only evoke by ESB behavioral patterns already there.

Exactly. This is the fortunate qualification. We can stimulate a point in the brain to cause an arm movement that may be skillful, provided that this arm has previously been trained to perform the movement skillfully. Stimulation of the second temporal convolution may cause a patient to talk, but naturally he will use words that he has learned in the past. Brain stimulation cannot create a new individual - it cannot change personality.

One possible application of computers to brain research involves the - highly speculative - communication of an emotional state from one brain to another, by means of a computer: It could perhaps be programmed to recognize an intracerebral electrical pattern coincident with

[p. 262]

a state of excitement or ‘happiness’ and transmit a message to a second person to induce a similar emotional state. This may be possible with ESB, while it is not possible to direct or induce robotlike behavior.

How can we promote the dialectical relationship between consciousness and concrete reality?

Probably by acquiring a conscious understanding of this reality and by analyzing the neurological mechanisms involved, without being misled by fantasies.

It's like telling children about Santa Claus and programming them from the cradle onward against realities.

That's right. That's why I propose the establishment of psychogenesis, which means the creation, the genesis, of the psyche. Instead of programming in an erratic and contradictory way, as we are doing today, let's try a more intelligent method. You may ask, ‘Through a big brother?’ and I answer, ‘Perhaps.’ But with a different orientation: with awareness of what types of human beings we would like to produce, based on unavoidable biological realities.

As it was sung in the American musical, South Pacific, ‘You have to be taught... to hate.’ It is known that patterns of aggressive behavior can be effectively instilled in little children; in some countries they are taught bayonneting the enemy, superpatriotism, and hatred of other nations or races, as a part of formal state-school training. Forms of aggression and prejudice are learned all over the world, not through formal education, but in the streets, in the struggle for survival. On the other hand, a young child could just as easily learn judo, to play the piano, or to speak three languages, by the same age. Society determines the substance and quality of information given to each new generation. Children need to be taught even to walk and to talk. They will learn, for better or worse, a wide repertoire of other forms of behavior, and we might as well try to promote patterns that will increase individual happiness and world peace.

Who will decide - the Japanese, Chinese, Indians, or others?

We are all deciding these things now, the Chinese in a different way than the Americans. The lack of common goals for mankind, which is bound by a common destiny to share the planet earth, is in part the cause

[p. 263]

of present conflicts. Attempts to reach international agreements are often handicapped by man's ignorance of his own neurological decision-making mechanisms, by the intellectual distortion of uncontrolled emotionality. Human beings cannot be dealt with only in statistics and in terms of productivity: We must also take into consideration the existence of sensitive and reactive brains.

In preparing a global model, how could education be included?

We already have global norms in public health, travel, and in international law. Scientific research about atoms or cancer cells is carried out with similar instruments and comparable aims in different countries. The landing of astronauts on the moon was televised around the world, arousing enthusiasm for a great adventure shared by all mankind. These facts mean that we possess the technology and that we have started a global education. What is still missing is agreement on common goals for the human race, the realization that international cooperation is more useful than selfish economic exploitation, and the awareness that in the same way as we are changing the surface of the earth with our cities and roads, we are also changing the brains of human beings with knowledge and behavioral imprinting.

The future destiny of man no longer depends on natural chance: It is determined by our planning and intelligence - or lack of it. Our attention and efforts should be centered on the neurological mechanisms of the intellect, and the development of the brain's maximum potential, without forgetting that we are in the middle of a feedback, with ideas, emotions, feelings, and actions in a continuous exchange with electrical, chemical, and anatomical phenomena which are at the fingertips of our scientific curiosity. Man is not the final product of creation, but an evolving creature which is learning to direct its own evolution. Man is inventing the man of the future.