12/09/2026
The Inscrutable Neuromechanics of Speaking
C. elegans is a very small, 1 mm long ,soil worm with a brain of only about 302 neurons yet very capable of intelligent locomotion. Its movement is mainly for survival. It has a well developed chemo and physico sensory systems which are intricately connected with the neurolocomotion system. Basically its nervous system appreciates only physical existence. I cannot tell if that appreciation amounts to consciousness. For this organism psychic existence does not exist and there is no need for speech. Its existence involves its interaction with its immediate environment(mainly for survival). When its physicosensors (touch) detect something it responds accordingly (it moves to avoid or to get over the object or physical structure). Its chemosensors detect food or noxious substances. Its response or reaction is a complex neuromuscular activity preprogrammed in its nervous system (an intrinsic memory). First its nervous system make an assesment of the physical structure or object or substance, then make judgement and then execute the motor response (movement). It involves computations/logicizing within its neural logic/computation networks. The motor neural networks in the nervous system implements the actions. This is intelligence !. Some neural networks in the worm's nervous system prods the worm into movements to search for food. This is locomotion in search of food. Needs, hunger, satiety are the neural forces that .... keep the nervous system functioning and keep the organism surviving, living and flourishing. All have neural networks in the worm's nervous system.
When a word is spoken a hosts of neural networks are active. A will/command from the frontal lobe region initiates the vocalization/speaking activities. The command information ( a neural electrical signal) travels to Broca's area (speech motor cortex), Wernicke's area (speech auditory cortex) and to the various associated cortical neural networks in different cortical regions.. When a word is spoken the auditory system hears and confirms it (a feedback mechanism). Speaking is the most complex neural activity of the human brain involving a lot of neural connections, a lot of neural networks and cortical regions etc. Much more than scientific or mathematical thinking.
A word is a concept ., a complex idea encoded not just in a neural network in the auditory (Wernicke's) cortex but in a set of multiple neural networks in various cortical locations. A sound becomes intelligible and becomes a word when it is encoded in Wernicke's and multiple neural networks. A sound limited only to the auditory cortex and unconnected out side is unintelligible. Neural connectivity, is the raison d'etre of speech, the human mind. thought. Speech is thought expressed. Some sounds are intelligible but are not part of speech. Examples are chirps of birds/insects, rings of phones, sound of air/wind, sounds/noises of machines/objects, noise of coughing/sneezing etc etc. A word is a sound with a primary meaning. But it can have a secondary, tertiary, quaternary etc meanings. Words stitched together can have or convey similar meanings ex multiple.
In speaking, words are stitched, stringed together.
In speech the mouth speaks words continuously and form sentences that have logical ideas. It all happens seemingly without thinking. The words just come out from the mouth seemingly without thought. My analysis of the neuromechanics of speaking is this. First for speech or speaking to occur, a command or will from the executive frontal lobe is necessary. The command goes out to Broca's and Wernicke's auditory areas. However in both areas are thousands of neural networks coding for thousands of words. How is the first word and succeeding words chosen among those thousands of words ??? Of course the words must convey the idea/s determined in the executive frontal lobe.
