Grinberg’s Syntergic/Neuronal Field Theory

Iconoclastic neurophysiologist Jacobo Grinberg-Zylberbaum presents a psychophysiological theory of consciousness—"The syntergic theory"— which postulates that “the human brain is able to create a hypercomplex field of interactions that are the result of the activation of all its neuronal elements.” He calls this interaction matrix the “neuronal field,” and “one of the effects of its activation is the unification of neuronal activity.”

Grinberg speculates that “the neuronal field produces a distortion in the basic space-time structure and the reality of our percepts is the perception of this distortion.” For the neuronal field to be activated, he says, “a structure as complex as the brain is needed” and “this field is responsible for the interactions between brains produced in emphatic non-verbal communication.” Consciousness, he states, “is closely connected to the neuronal field” (Grinberg-Zylberbaum, 1997).

Neuronal Field and Syntergic Theory

Grinberg, who pursued fringe areas, such as shamanism, and who vanished mysteriously at age 48, conceives of “Reality” as “an undifferentiated energetic matrix” and “by means of the brain, this matrix is converted into neuronal activity and experience.” Thus, “human experience is considered to constitute or ‘exists in' a dimension different from that which is related to the localized physiological activity of the brain.” Combining “cerebral electrochemical changes and the experiences themselves of light, sound, love, fear, etc., energetic transformations of a qualitative nature must take place.” These hypothesized transformations engender Grinberg's “syntergic theory” which, he says, concerns “the creation of experience” (Grinberg-Zylberbaum, 1981).

Grinberg also claims to support “the brain's quantum nature at the macrolevel” by demonstrating “transferred [evoked] potentials” between electrically insulated subjects situated 14.5 m apart (Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al., 1994).

From Brain Fields to Cosmology

Moreover, the syntergic theory postulates that the brain's energetic field (the neuronal field) “expands into space, interacts with the space-matter continuum, is able to change the informational content of the latter, and thus affects other neuronal fields and physical forces.” According to this theory, he says, “gravitation is a by-product of an alteration in the informational content of the space-matter continuum, and human communication is based on neuronal field interactions.” In short, the syntergic theory considers experience as “the interaction between the neuronal field and the energetic (syntergic) organization of space."

Grinberg claims that “this approach is the one that contemporary physics requires in order to be able to incorporate experience into its realm and thus expand its limits to include life and consciousness” (Grinberg-Zylberbaum, 1982).