The Feedback Loop of Consciousness: How Psychextrics Resolves the Century-Old Conflict Between Cortical Supremacy and Somatic Determinism
A Debate Built Upon a False Choice
BY: OMOLAJA MAKINEE
For generations, Behavioural science has oscillated between two competing explanations of human behaviour.
- One tradition placed behavioural authority in the cortex. According to this view, conscious awareness, reasoning, executive control, and symbolic cognition direct behaviour from above.
- The opposing tradition located behavioural authority in the body. According to this model, behaviour emerges from physiological states, survival mechanisms, emotional systems, and somatic reactions that operate beneath awareness.
Both positions accumulated evidence. Both revealed genuine aspects of human behaviour. Neither fully explained the complete behavioural sequence.
The cortical model struggled to explain why organisms routinely react before conscious reflection occurs. The somatic model struggled to explain why conscious awareness repeatedly alters, suppresses, recalibrates, or completely reverses behavioural trajectories already underway.
Psychextrics proposes that both traditions identified real components of the same biological pipeline while overlooking the structure that connects them. That structure is the Siencephalon.
The mechanism that unifies them is the Feedback Loop of Consciousness.
1. The Warehouse Alarm
Imagine a maintenance engineer working alone inside a large industrial warehouse late in the evening. The building is quiet. Workers have already left.
The engineer is inspecting electrical equipment near the rear of the facility when a loud metallic crash suddenly echoes from the darkness.
Immediately afterward, a flashing emergency light activates. The sound is abrupt. Unexpected. Violent. Within fractions of a second, the engineer’s body reacts.
- Heart rate accelerates.
- Muscles tighten.
- Breathing changes.
- Attention narrows.
The possibility of an explosion, equipment failure, structural collapse, or criminal intrusion races through the biological system.
Importantly, none of this begins with conscious reasoning. The reaction of the lower cephalons begins before conscious narration catches up.
2. The Ascending Construction of Behaviour
The auditory signal enters the system. The lower cephalons immediately begin their work.
- The Myelencephalon elevates vigilance.
- The Metencephalon prepares movement.
- The Mesencephalon redirects spatial attention toward the source of the disturbance.
- The Diencephalon assigns immediate priority. Danger. Investigate. Prepare.
The Siencephalon begins assembling these physiological deposits into a coherent behavioural package.
The behavioural signal is clear. Something significant has happened. Action may be required.
At this stage, the somatic traditions of Behavioural science are correct. The behavioural response originates beneath conscious awareness. The organism reacts before it understands.
3. The Incomplete Behavioural Package
Suppose the engineer immediately leaves the building. Ran away from the scene. Suppose the source of the noise is never investigated. The event remains unresolved.
The Siencephalon must preserve an incomplete trace. A loud crash occurred. An emergency light activated. The outcome remains unknown.
Later, the Diencephalon may repeatedly revisit the indexed pattern, forcing onto the Telencephalon to display hypothetical outcomes.
- Perhaps equipment exploded.
- Perhaps someone was injured.
- Perhaps a serious hazard existed.
Because the behavioural package never reached resolution, the memory remains biologically open. An incomplete signal tends to invite symbolic completion. The organism attempts to finish what reality left unfinished.
4. The Discovery
Now imagine a different outcome. Instead of leaving, the engineer walks toward the source of the disturbance. The body remains alert. The lower cephalons continue maintaining defensive readiness. The behavioural prediction remains active. Danger remains plausible.
Then the engineer reaches the location. The reality is completely different. A loose storage chain suspended from an overhead rack has slipped from its mounting point. The chain struck a metal container as it fell. The impact activated a vibration sensor connected to the emergency warning system.
- No fire exists.
- No explosion exists.
- No intruder exists.
- No threat exists.
The entire event originated from a harmless mechanical fault. Everything changes.
5. The Return of Reality
At this moment, the Telencephalon performs its unique function. It displays reality.
The display screen reveals information unavailable during the original prediction. The conscious field now contains direct verification.
- The organism sees the fallen chain.
- The organism sees the intact environment.
- The organism sees safety.
The significance of this moment is profound. The cortex is not creating reality. The cortex is revealing reality.
This distinction resolves half of the historical paradox.
6. The Descending Broadcast
The story does not end when reality becomes visible. The display state begins travelling downward. The Telencephalon broadcasts its active representation back into the cephalic hierarchy.
Layer V and Layer VI from the cortex projections carry the updated state of reality into the subcortical pipeline. This is the Feedback Loop of Consciousness.
The cortex informs the deeper architecture that the prediction was incorrect. The lower cephalons begin recalibrating.
- The Myelencephalon abandons emergency vigilance.
- The Metencephalon reduces defensive preparation.
- The Mesencephalon updates its spatial threat map.
- The Diencephalon changes contextual meaning.
Threat becomes malfunction. Danger becomes safety. Alarm becomes explanation.
At this stage, the cortical traditions of Behavioural science are also correct. Conscious awareness has altered the behavioural trajectory. But it has not done so through command. It has done so through feedback.
7. The Siencephalon as the Reconciliation Engine
The true resolution occurs inside the Siencephalon. The Entorhinal feedback relay receives the updated information.
- The hippocampal archive is revised.
- The original prediction is preserved.
- The correction is appended.
The behavioural trace now contains both states.
Initial interpretation: “There may be immediate danger.“
Verified outcome: “The disturbance originated from a harmless mechanical failure.“
The memory becomes a trajectory rather than a frozen snapshot. The Siencephalon records both the prediction and the correction. Future behaviour becomes more accurate because both stages remain indexed.
8. Why Neither Tradition Was Wrong
The historical conflict emerged because researchers examined only one side of the pipeline.
- The somatic schools observed the ascending signal. They correctly concluded that behaviour begins beneath awareness.
- The cortical schools observed the descending correction. They correctly concluded that conscious awareness influences behaviour.
Both observations were valid. Neither observation described the complete system.
The missing component was the recursive integration performed by the Siencephalon. Behaviour does not flow in a single direction.
- Reality travels upward.
- Verification travels downward.
The Siencephalon continuously compares both.
9. The Feedback Loop of Consciousness
The Feedback Loop of Consciousness therefore resolves the apparent contradiction.
- The lower cephalons generate behavioural predictions from incoming reality.
- The Siencephalon packages these predictions into coherent behavioural signals.
- The Telencephalon displays the resulting reality.
The displayed reality is then rebroadcast downward to recalibrate the predictive systems that generated the original signal.
The cycle repeats continuously. Behaviour emerges from recursive comparison rather than unilateral control.
Conclusion
The century-old conflict between Cortical Supremacy and Somatic Determinism survives only when behaviour is examined as a one-way process. Psychextrics replaces this assumption with a bidirectional cephalic pipeline.
- The lower gateways capture reality.
- The Siencephalon integrates reality.
- The Telencephalon displays reality.
The Telencephalon then broadcasts reality back into the Siencephalon through the Feedback Loop of Consciousness. The Siencephalon compares prediction against verification and updates the behavioural archive accordingly.
Behaviour is therefore neither purely top-down nor purely bottom-up. It is recursive.
And within that recursion lies the missing bridge between traditional Neuroanatomy and the psychextrical architecture of behaviour.
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