Chapter 372: The Five-Stage Theory of Cognition

The main hall chapel is the most important and sacred core of church architecture. However, few people come here in normal times, and even fewer since autumn began.

Like other similar buildings, it uses large panes of stained glass instead of solid walls in its design, with the consequence that insulation performance drops sharply.

If this were in the territory north of Consolation Port, without lighting many fire basins now, the cold would soon drive away even the most devout believers.

Even in the south, damp cold weather is not easy to bear. Considering there were hardly any believers coming to inquire or make pilgrimages anyway, the dozen or so people in the courtyard who were to attend morning prayer could huddle in the prayer room, so the agenda to activate the main hall was shelved.

Moreover, the Priere Fief had no glaziers at all, so repair work was repeatedly delayed, finally ending up at the very bottom of the work list, ignored by all.

The monks did a little cleaning, cleared the floor and tidied up the large piles of book debris, then re-nailed the main door and locked the small door connecting to the side building.

They had an instinctive fear of this place; during night patrols they would subconsciously walk quickly past it, unwilling to linger, even deliberately turning a blind eye and avoiding discussion, as if afraid of awakening some unspeakable existence.

Vigilance is such a magical thing: even without any actual evidence, it can awaken the survival instinct, driving people to make irrational but correct decisions.

Yet Kraft had returned here, to the place where he last felt that thing.

Don't ask how he got in; he is the abbot, holding keys to every part of the monastery. Except for opening the gates to the Kingdom of Heaven, which requires consulting above, he can go wherever he pleases.

He relived that disturbed night, those places where traces of it were found, trying to recapture the feelings of that time.

This included the text he had once seen, hidden within the cloud patterns on the corridor ceiling; after it left, he could never read it a second time.

No matter how he adjusted his viewpoint, imitated the drawing, or even used spiritual senses for a panoramic scan, they were just ordinary patterns, merely drawn a bit strangely, with no extra information to be found at all.

Like classic optical illusions—staircases that ascend and descend simultaneously, triangles with three right angles, and similar phenomena—at first glance there appears to be no issue, but once given a hint, a transformative shift occurs, revealing something entirely different, or even its complete opposite, within the same image.

The principle of optical illusions lies in exploiting the brain's processing habits, misleading the brain into interpreting two-dimensional images as three-dimensional perspective scenes, yet introducing misleading information at key points of the two-dimensional image, like a train track switch, sometimes guiding the brain toward one interpretation, sometimes toward another.

Using the principle of optical illusions to explain "it" might not be accurate, but it certainly facilitates understanding.

Simply put, from a higher-dimensional perspective, one cannot drastically alter the information itself, but can influence the mode of cognition.

It is not a piece of simple knowledge, such as where to find something or how to look to see something, but rather a form of "cognition" descended from a higher plane.

Kraft sat cross-legged amidst the surrounding books, like a fisherman casting a hook by a cave; although the thing moving under the ice was no longer there, the action itself aided his thinking.

It is a form of cognition; what is that cognition?

Medical psychology, which barely passed the passing threshold back then, would explain it this way: cognition is not a single concept; it is a series of complex processes encompassing the entire journey by which an individual acquires, processes, stores, and uses information.

First is perception: the prerequisite for everything is receiving information, whether at the physical or spiritual level.

Then comes attention and memory: consciousness focuses on the received information and transfers it to short-term storage. This step is almost instinctive for all sentient beings; as long as they live, they actively and passively receive and store vast amounts of information, yet cannot choose which information to receive.

Similar to an assembly line, after storing information as raw materials, consciousness processes it, using existing experience and concepts to interpret it, converting it into compatible products, and combining and reasoning with other information.

If the processed information is judged valuable during reasoning, it may enter medium-to-long-term memory, equivalent to being stored in a warehouse for future use.

Finally, in specific application scenarios, the information is called up, producing external reactions such as speech or actions; or internal reactions such as emotional changes or shaken beliefs.

Perception, attention, processing, memory, and reaction: these five steps constitute "cognition."

The difference between "cognition" and "knowledge" is that cognition is ability and process, while knowledge is the established result and structure.

Knowledge corresponds to the long-term memory storage in the fourth link of the cognitive process, the product the factory prepares for subsequent use.

Examining Dominic's "madness" incident reveals that the entire cognitive process went wrong.

He seemed to have perceived extra information in folk handicrafts and written records, then his attention quickly began to focus on such information, continuously strengthening and filtering it directionally, obtaining more and more.

Changing from "I can perceive its existence" to "I cannot help but notice it."

In the subsequent information processing, specific information was identified as content differing from others' perspectives, such as "something exists up high" and the omnipresent dynamic vortex patterns.

Logically, the next step should have been forming a concrete knowledge concept. But the problem arose again: he failed to form one, remaining confined to the initially processed information, repeating "something up high," "vortex."

It was as if the final product composed of information was too vast for consciousness to fully contain, so it could only cycle between constant construction and collapse.

The vast concept drove him, transforming into a series of mad behaviors incomprehensible to outsiders and even to himself, pursuing an existence that remains incomprehensible to this day.

Thus, a twisted, incomplete cognitive process was formed.

"Interesting..." Kraft felt his thoughts clearing up. This was far more sophisticated than pulling people directly from the deep; it emphasized "moistening things silently," making it impossible to guard against.

It seemed inclined to appear when the target was thinking, reading, or concentrating on something; the state of absorbing and filtering large amounts of information was naturally suitable for infiltration.

Information in the present world was like paper patterns to it; it could easily cause slight deviations during the process from perception to processing.

If reasoning further, the anatomical regions for cognition and emotion are mainly concentrated in the frontal lobe, hippocampus, amygdala, and other parts of the anterior brain.

Abnormal cognition and related emotional activities cause excessive activation, projecting downward to the hypothalamus via the emotion-endocrine pathway; the hypothalamus releases various releasing factors for hormones, stimulating the subordinate pituitary gland until tumor hyperplasia occurs.

The hyperplastic tumor then secretes abnormally high levels of hormones, promoting emotional abnormalities and extreme cognition.

A perfect positive feedback loop on both mental and physiological levels.

For relatively sensitive people who think deeply, cognitive deviation is almost impossible to detect and resist actively.

For less sensitive people, they might simply not feel the slight deviations at all.

There are exceptions: if sensitivity to information stems from repeated exposure to higher-level complex information, and one already possesses the ability to understand, process, and distinguish, then the cognitive impact it causes is like a heavily armored cavalry attempting to sneak past from behind.

For example, Kraft himself realized the problem the moment he was disturbed.

So, besides removing the pituitary tumor, the simplest and most brutal method is to have severe patients contact the deep more frequently, until their brains and consciousness can adapt to and recognize information that does not belong to the present world.

It is somewhat similar to giving children oral bacterial lysate capsules to boost immunity.

Actual implementation is probably not so simple; it must be planned for the long term.

【But what if one does not resist it?】

Reverse thinking began to turn.

Treating one or a few patients only solves the immediate problem; it cannot increase actual understanding of it.

If there were a consciousness with sufficient capacity to endure, actively following the abnormal cognition, could it be possible at the fourth step of the cognitive process to truly "learn" that vast concept which ordinary people cannot bear?