- 3030 - BRAIN - what creates consciousness? - How does the brain become a mind and create consciousness? Human brains have figured out how the Sun shines, how life evolved from a single cell, why apples fall. Our brains have built telescopes that see the galaxies as far back as the beginning of time.
-------------- 3030 - BRAIN - what creates consciousness?
- Brains have built microscopes that see the contours of a single atom. but, we have not figured our how the brain can possible do these things. How are we even conscious that we are doing them?
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- How does a brain transform itself into a “mind”? When does a brain become “conscious”. We are not conscious when we are asleep. What changes to wake us up?
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- If it is just neurons firing in a network could the internet computing power ever reach consciousness? Science is trying very hard to answer these questions. Today, much is still a mystery, but, science is learning.
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- One tool science is using is “Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation“. A magnetic jolt is sent into a part of the brain and electrodes around the brain monitor the signals as the brain responds to the jolt. The signals are compared between a fully awake person, a person in REM sleep and a person sleeping but not in full REM sleep.
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- REM sleep is typically 2 hours per night when most dreaming occurs, the eyes move under the eyelids, and muscles are deeply relaxed.
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- When alert a person’s brain responds with a widely spread pattern of signals lasting about 300 milliseconds.
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- When a person is asleep the signal stays put where it started and it fades away in about 150 milliseconds.
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- People under anesthetics or in the vegetative state have the same brief, stagnant signal. Doctors have learned that as clinical signs improve the brains connectivity signals improved.
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- The central hub of connectivity appears to be the “thalamus“. This hub of nerve cells at the top of the spinal cord is constantly sending and receiving nerve signals.
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- A heart attack victim went into a vegetative state. She died of natural causes. Study revealed that her cerebral cortex outer layer of the brain where thoughts are formed was fine. It was the thalamus that was destroyed.
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- The thalamus receives signals from the eyes, ears, tongue and skin. It then sends these signals along specific nerve fibers to the right part of the wrinkly cerebral cortex.
- The thalamus must be the seat of “ consciousness”. But, there is always chit chat going on between the thalamus and the cortex. These brain waves run at about 40 cycles per second. Other brain waves associated with concentration and attention run slower than 40 cps.
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- These brain waves actually increased while people were anesthetized with “Propofol” This Propofol was the drug Michael Jackson used to sleep. He overdid it. In the anesthetized and vegetative states there appear to be interruptions in the brain interconnections. There is a slow down in the flow of information.
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- Maybe consciousness is not some “thing” in the brain but the “process” itself. Maybe the constant flow of information is what produces consciousness.
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- It gets complicated. We can understand how it got complicated since consciousness is the outcome of eons of ever growing complexity in biochemical information processing over the course of evolution. Consciousness is self-referential awareness. It has become the self’s sense of its own existence.
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- On theory is that it is works like mathematics. The brain assigns symbols to be patterns. The signals become recognized. A mosquito would only see dots on a TV screen. A person will turn those patterns of dots into a football game. The brain creates a vast repertoire of these symbols.
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- Consciousness is the symbol for the ability to create these symbols. We call this symbol, “self”.
- Consciousness only operates on the level of symbols. It has no access to the workings going on in nerve cells or neurobiology. A humans self-identity remains stable over a lifetime despite constant changes in proteins and cells.
- Self-referentialism is a strange loop!
- A paradox!
- Like: “ This sentence can not be true.”
- Which is it? It says it is not true, But, then it mush be true if it is not true If it is not true than it is true. I’m confused. It is a strange loop.
- The atom is not a thing but more an idea, a symbol. Consciousness is representing information in symbols and putting the symbols together to make sense of the world. The brain uses information processing to symbolize itself.
- If the information processing is the key to consciousness could the internet ever create consciousness? Do we perceive, then invent our own reality? An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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February 4, 2021 1405 3030
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--------------------- --- Sunday, February 7, 2021 ---------------------------
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