62: A de-morelli Kit

62: A de-morelli Kit

62

AT one time Morelli had been planning a book that never got beyond a few scattered notes. It can be summed up best in this way : "Psychology, a word with the air of an old woman about it.

A Swede is working on a chemical theory of thought.l Cheristry, electromagnetism, the secret flow of living matter, everythingreturns strangely to evoke the idea of mana; in a likemanner, on the edge of social behavior, one might suspect aninteraction of a different nature, a billiard game that certainindividuals play or are played at, a drama with no Oedipuses, noRastignacs, no Phaedras, an impersonal drama to the extentthat the consciences and the passions of the characters cannotbe seen as having been compromised except a posteriori. As ifthe subliminal levels were those that wind and unravel the ballof yarn which is the group that has been compromised in theplay. Or to please the Swede : as if certain individuals had cutinto the deep chemistry of others without having meant to andvice versa, so that the most curious and interesting chainreactions, fissions, and transmutations would result."Things being as they are, all that is needed is a pleasantextrapolation in order to postulate a human group that thinks itis reacting psychologically in the classic sense of that tired oldword , but which merely represents an instance in that flow ofanimated matter, in the infinite interactions of what we formerlycalled desires, sympathies, wills, convictions, and whichappear here as something irreducible to all reason and alldescription : foreign occupying forces, advancing in the quest oftheir freedom of the city ; a quest superior to ourselves asindividuals and one which uses us for its own ends , a darknecessity of evading the state of Homo sapiens towards . . .which Homo? Because sapiens is another tired old word, one ofthose that one must scrub clean before attempting to use it withany sort of meaning."If I were to write this book, standard behavior (including themost unusual, its deluxe category ) would be inexplicable bymeans of current instrumental psychology. The actors wouldappear to be unhealthy or complete idiots. Not that they wouldshow themselves incapable of current challenges and responses :love, jealousy, pity, and so on down the line, but in themsomething which Homo sapiens keeps subliminal would laboriouslyopen up a road as if a third eye2 were blinking out witheffort from under the frontal bone. Everything would be a kindof disquiet, a continuous uprooting, a territory where psychological

causality would yield disconcertedly, and those puppets

would destroy each other or love each other or recognize each

other without suspecting too much that life is trying to change

its key in and through and by them, that a barely conceivable

attempt is born in man as one other day there were being born

the reason-key, the feeling-key, the pragmatism-key. That with

each successive defeat there is an approach towards the final

mutation, and that man only is in that he searchs to be, plans to

be, thumbing through words and modes of behavior and joy

sprinkled with blood and other rhetorical pieces like this one."

1 L'E:rpress, Paris, n.d.

Two months ago a Swedish neurobiologist, Holger Hyden, of the University

of Goteborg, presented to the most eminent specialists in the world,

gathered in San Francisco, his theories on the chemical nature of mental

processes. According to Hyden, the act of thinking, of remembering, of

feeling, or of making a decision is manifested by the appearance in the

brain, and in the nerves connecting it with other organs, of certain particular

molecules whlch the nerve cells manufacture as a result of the

external stimulus. ( . . . ) The Swedish team was able to effect the delicate

separation of the two types of cell in live rabbit tissue, weighed them ( in

millionths o f a millionth o f a gram ) , and determined through analysis

the way in which these cells utilized their fuel in various cases.

One of the essential functions of neurons is the transmission of nervous

impulses. This transmission operates by means of almost instantaneous

electrochemical reactions. It is not easy to surprise a nerve cell at work,

but it appears that the Swedes have done so by means of the careful use

of certain methods.

It has been proved that the stimulus becomes transformed in the

neurons into an increment of certain proteins whose molecules will vary

according to the nature of the message. At the same time, the number of

proteins in the satellite cells is reduced, as if they were sacrificing their

reserves for the sake of the neuron. The information contained in the

protein molecule is converted, according to Hyden, into the impulse

which the neuron passes on to its neighbors.

The higher functions of the brain-memory and the reasoning faculties

-are explained, according to Hyden, by the particular form of the protein

molecules which correspond to each type of stimulus. Each neuron in

the brain contains millions of different molecules of ribonucleic acid,

which are distinguished by the disposition of their basic constituent elements.

Each molecule of ribonucleic acid ( RNA ) corresponds to a welldefined

protein, the way a key is perfectly adapted to a lock. The nucleic

acids tell the neuron the make-up of the protein molecule it is to form.

According to the Swedish researchers, these molecules are the chemical

translation of thoughts.

Memory would correspond, therefore, to the ordering in the brain of the

nucleic acid molecules, which play the same role as perforated cards in

modern computers. For example, the impulse which corresponds to the

note mi as it is picked up by the ear, will slide rapidly along from one

neuron to another until it has reached all of those containing the molecules

of RNA corresponding to that particular stimulus. The cells immediately

construct molecules of the corresponding protein which that acid

governs, and we have the auditory perception of the note.

The richness and variety of thought is explained by the fact that an

average brain contains some ten thousand million neurons, each of which

contains in turn several million molecules of various nucleic acids ; the

number of possible combinations is astronomical. This theory, furthermore,

has the advantage of explaining why it has not been possible to

discover in the brain clearly defined and special zones for each one of its

higher functions ; since each neuron has several nucleic acids at hand, it

can take part in various mental processes, and evoke diverse thoughts

and memories.

2 Note by Wong ( in pencil ) : "A metaphor chosen with the deliberate

intent of suggesting the direction in which he is heading."

-Julio Cortázar, Hopscotch