| (3) Emotions. These are similar to drives to the extent that the experiencing of them provides motivation to the organism to act with some type of purposeful behavior. They represent experiential/motivational phenomena that have adaptive functions independent
of tissue needs.11...They are more free than drives and can be satisfied in a greater variety of ways. In similar fashion to drives, they cause matter to be moved, with the expenditure of energy and the performance of work, and therefore qualify as a force. Emotions will also be discussed in greater detail in a later chapter.
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| (4) Affect-cognition interactions represent motivational states resulting from the interaction between an affect or pattern of affects and the cognitive processes. They provide motivation for action and behavior similar to that provided by drives and emotions.12
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Most acts of intelligence occur on an automatic or instinctual level, with the organism,
including man's, being completely unaware of them happening. Only in higher lifeforms does
it appear that a conscious thought process originates a purposeful act. All metabolic activity within an organism, although under control of the intelligence system, would seem to occur on an unconscious level.
Dr. H. Kornhuber, a neurophysiologist in West Germany, has determined that when a conscious act of will such as a hand movement is carried out, an electrical potential (readiness potential) can be measured as a widespread phenomenon over both cerebral hemispheres that lasts about 80 milliseconds. Following this there is another electrical potential that can be measured (premonition positive potential) over both cerebral hemispheres about 90 milliseconds prior to any body movement. Then finally, another electrical potential (motor potential) can be recorded directly over the hand area of the opposite side within the motor cortex about 50 milliseconds prior to a hand movement.13
Thus the act of will begins with the thought process that is somehow integrated with our intelligence mechanism. It is presumed that a conscious decision first results in a redirection of molecular activity within the brain. There is actual alteration in the molecular structure of certain cells within the cerebral cortex. Certain atoms (a large number) are raised to an excitable state, which then results in the formation of an electrical potential within a group of controlling cells, that in turn causes an electrical current to flow through a series of neurons. This electrical signal is biochemically transmitted across many synaptic junctions and then through more neurons until finally the appropriate muscular contractions cause the hand to move. Thus any body movement is the sum total of an automatic chain reaction of physical events that our mind (intelligence) both initiates and controls. In a sense, this could be considered to represent an example of "mind over matter."
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