Page 113 of The Secret of Secrets

“Interesting. And you make this point in your book?”

“Yes, along with the argument that repeatability, as a burden of proof, is an unreasonably high bar when studying consciousness. It’s doing damage to the field and destroying careers.”

Langdon wasn’t sure how to respond. It was a fascinating concept, but in light of what they’d been through today, he had expected something more controversial…or dangerous…to warrant the kind of attention she had drawn. “So, this is the backbone of…your discovery?”

“Heavens no!” Katherine laughed loudly. “I was simply explaining why consciousness is such an elusive beast to hunt. My discovery is tangible. I found something amazing through a series of experiments.” She leaned toward him and smiled. “And by the way, yes, these experiments I was able to repeat.”

In Random House Tower, the elevator pinged, and Jonas Faukman stepped out onto a collage of colored floor tiles. The seventh floor was like stepping into a parallel dimension, a place where he knew his tension would dissipate. Here were none of the orderly bookshelves, muted tones, and straight lines that defined the other floors at PRH. The seventh floor was a winding maze of brightly colored “work pods” decorated with cartoon art, inflatable palm trees, beanbag chairs, and stuffed animals.

Children’s books: playful decor. Serious business.

In addition to this division’s pleasantly whimsical setting, Faukman appreciated that there was nothing childish about its coffee machine—a Franke A1000 with FoamMaster technology—a far cry from the Nespresso pods on the other floors. Sometimes, late at night, Faukman would sneak in here with a manuscript, make a double espresso, and plop down in a beanbag chair to edit under the watchful eye of a giant Winnie-the-Pooh on one side of the lounge and the mischievous smile of seven-foot-tall Cat in the Hat on the other.

Tonight, as the machine ground his coffee, Faukman breathed in the aroma, trying to ease his fears. The arrest of the operatives downstairs should have been a relief, but he felt no real contentment; the whereabouts of Robert and Katherine were still unknown, and he felt increasingly desperate to know they were safe.

Alex Conan had already solved one vexing question:

Who stole Katherine’s manuscript?

But the startling answer now begged a second question.

Why?

Jonas Faukman had devised a plan to unravel that mystery.

Chapter 73

We need to hurry, Langdon thought as the limousine climbed the steep switchback curves traversing Chotek Gardens. The “Prague 6” neighborhood that housed the ambassadorial residence was a matter of minutes from here, and Langdon desperately wanted to know everything he could about Katherine’s book and her discovery. Before we face the ambassador, he thought, still uncertain whom to trust.

Katherine continued. “In the nonlocal consciousness model, your brain is a kind of radio that receives consciousness, and like all radios it has countless stations bombarding it all the time. So you can immediately understand why a radio must have a tuning dial—a mechanism that enables it to choose which single frequency it would like to receive. The radio itself has the capacity to receive all stations, but without a way to filter the frequencies that flow in, it would play all those frequencies at once. The human brain works the same way; it has a complex series of filters to prevent the mind from being overloaded with too much sensory stimulus…so it can focus on only a small sliver of the universal consciousness.”

That makes perfect sense, he thought. Our perception of light and sound is filtered. Langdon knew that most humans were unaware that they experienced only a small fraction of the practical frequency range and electromagnetic spectrum; the rest sailed by us, beyond our tuning dials.

“Selective attention is a prime example of filtering by the brain,” Katherine said. “It’s called the ‘cocktail party effect.’ Picture yourself at a crowded party with your brain focused solely on the words coming from the person who is speaking to you—and then you get bored, and your focus switches effortlessly to a more interesting conversation halfway across the room. It’s what enables you to filter out background noise and not be overwhelmed by every voice within earshot.”

Faculty meetings, Langdon thought, often catching himself tuning in to music outside on the quad while his colleagues debated the curriculum or scheduling.

“Habituation is another kind of filtering,” Katherine said. “Repeated sensory input is blocked by your brain so effectively that you literally cannot hear the incessant hum of the air conditioner or feel the pair of glasses sitting on your nose. That filter is so powerful that we can search the house for glasses that are literally right before our eyes, or a phone clutched in our hand.”

Langdon nodded. He had not felt the Mickey Mouse watch on his wrist for decades.

The concept of “filtered reality,” he knew, was a recurring theme in ancient scripture. The Hindu Vedanta, which had inspired the great quantum physicists like Niels Bohr and Erwin Schrödinger, described the physical mind as a “limiting factor” that could perceive only a fraction of the universal consciousness known as Brahman. The Sufis defined “mind” as a veil that disguised the light of divine consciousness. The Kabbalists described the mind’s klipot as obscuring most of God’s light. And the Buddhists warned that the ego was a limiting lens that made us feel separate from the universe—uni-versum—literally “everything as one.”

“And modern neuroscience,” Katherine continued, “has now identified the actual biological mechanism by which the brain filters out incoming data.” A faint smile crossed her lips. “It’s called GABA. Gamma-aminobutyric acid.”

“Okay.” Langdon was reminded that most of Katherine’s postgraduate work had been on the brain’s neurochemistry.

“GABA is a remarkable compound—a chemical messenger in your brain that plays a critical role in regulating brain activity. But probably not in the way you’d think. Specifically, GABA is an inhibitory agent.”

“Meaning, it impedes brain activity?”

“Exactly. It actually decreases neuronal firing and constrains the overall activity of neurons. In other words, GABA shuts off parts of the brain in an effort to filter out excessive input. In our most basic understanding of it, GABA filtering ensures the brain does not become overloaded with too much information. In the radio analogy, GABA is like the tuner that limits reception to a single frequency while blocking out dozens of others.”

“Makes perfect sense so far…”

“GABA really caught my eye a few years ago,” Katherine continued enthusiastically. “I read that the brain of a newborn baby has incredibly high levels of GABA, filtering out everything except what is directly in front of its face. Newborns are therefore virtually unaware of details across the room. The filters work like a set of training wheels, protecting the baby’s mind from too much stimulation as it develops. As we mature, our GABA levels slowly decrease, and we take in more of the world and gain wider understanding.”

Fascinating, Langdon thought. He had always imagined a newborn’s tiny field of perception was because it couldn’t see very well.