It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.

Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.

Thank you.

 

Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.

 

Firing on all neurons: Where consciousness comes from

page: 1
3

log in

join
share:

posted on Mar, 23 2010 @ 06:37 PM
link   


Now one theory that claims to do just that is rapidly gaining weight, with strong evidence from research such as Laureys's to back up its predictions. The idea, dubbed the global workspace theory, was first floated in 1983 by Bernard Baars of The Neuroscience Institute in San Diego, California. He proposed that non-conscious experiences are processed locally within separate regions of the brain, like the visual cortex. According to this theory, we only become conscious of this information if these signals are broadcast to an assembly of neurons distributed across many different regions of the brain - the "global workspace" - which then reverberates in a flash of coordinated activity.


Great Article. Tell me what you guys think.

www.newscientist.com...

[edit on 23-3-2010 by Maddogkull]



posted on Mar, 23 2010 @ 06:53 PM
link   
reply to post by Maddogkull
 

What I find amazing is although we haven't even begun to understand how our own brains work...
...that we are convinced that it all came about by millions of undirected/random mutations over millions of years.




posted on Mar, 23 2010 @ 06:57 PM
link   
reply to post by Maddogkull
 


The global workspace theory makes sense and is probably right. But, it's more of an explanation of the role of consciousness in cognition, and really makes no attempt to explain the real deep mystery of qualia, or the "hard problem" of consciousness.



posted on Mar, 23 2010 @ 07:06 PM
link   
Yeah, I mean with no scientific knowledge at all about the brain, I could speculate that we attain to one sense and then our attention focuses intently on that one object.

It's not that hard of a concept, and I couldn't care less about the technical terms...I'm more interested on what difference consciousness makes instead of what neurons it fires off through our brain. That's all physical speculation...



posted on Mar, 23 2010 @ 07:53 PM
link   
reply to post by Maddogkull
 


Very interesting Maddogkull , thats another interesting article bookmarked.


=============================================

The global workspace model of consciousness, proposed by Bernard Baars of The Neuroscience Institute in San Diego, California, argues that non-conscious perceptions are processed in relatively small, local areas of the brain. It is only when this information is broadcast to a network of neural regions, the "global workspace", that we become conscious of whatever it is that we are experiencing.
link

You may find this of interest, it covers the same subject relating to conscious/unconscious brain activity and its location .
The original documentary was on UTube but has been withdrawn by the BBC.

However - i did manage to find it on Tudou .

Here`s the link .
BBC Horizon The Secret You - Consciousness 5/6
The section of interest begins at around the 1:30 min mark.

This is the detail provided by the BBC about the series.

With the help of a hammer-wielding scientist, Jennifer Aniston and a general anaesthetic, Professor Marcus du Sautoy goes in search of answers to one of science's greatest mysteries: how do we know who we are? While the thoughts that make us feel as though we know ourselves are easy to experience, they are notoriously difficult to explain.

So, in order to find out where they come from, Marcus subjects himself to a series of probing experiments. He learns at what age our self-awareness emerges and whether other species share this trait.

Next, he has his mind scrambled by a cutting-edge experiment in anaesthesia. Having survived that ordeal, Marcus is given an out-of-body experience in a bid to locate his true self. And in Hollywood, he learns how celebrities are helping scientists understand the microscopic activities of our brain.

Finally, he takes part in a mind-reading experiment that both helps explain and radically alters his understanding of who he is.
BBC

A series definitely worth watching .The out of body experiment featured in part 4/6 using virtual reality headsets is particularly fascinating imho.

All the best.

Umbra - Sumus.



posted on Mar, 23 2010 @ 08:03 PM
link   
Thanks for the link, hopefully sometime in the future, I can look at it. I am still living in the caveman era with dial up



posted on Mar, 23 2010 @ 08:14 PM
link   
each being is conscious, sentient, self-aware, while reality itself is an ordered state, a hierarchy, a system that extends like an Intelligence, but such that it always has a consciousness behind the lower consciousness, and upwards infinitely, all the way to the highest: the absolute. The absolute is conscious of everything because it is everything.




top topics



 
3

log in

join