gamma
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    Attention vs. Consciousness
    Project: The great enhancement debate
    Paying attention to the target consistently and strongly increased the fMRI activity, regardless of whether the subject saw the target or not. This result was expected because many previous studies had shown that attending to a signal reinforces its representation in the cortex. Much more intriguing, though, was that whether or not the stimulus was consciously perceived made no difference to signal strength. Visibility didn’t matter to V1; what did was whether or not selective visual attention focused on the grating. Indeed, the experimentalists could not decode from the signal whether or not the subject saw the stimulus.

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=consciousness-does-not-reside-here

    Thu, Apr 12, 2012  Permanent link

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    CoCreatr     Sun, Apr 22, 2012  Permanent link
    Interesting piece of research. Thanks for sharing. In the last paragraph this eye-opener (works only for some but whatif it's true?)

    "... on the core problem of identifying the necessary causes of consciousness in the brain.".

    If we model the brain like a powerful computerized switchboard, we get progress like shown in this research. It is very necessary to discern between attention and consciousness. If we understand consciousness as the observer of and actor on said switchboard, and if we stop searching for it in the 3D realm, we might get ahead further.

    A thought experiment. At your discretion, will your arm to move up to a certain height and down again. Do it multiple times, observing where you put your attention. Do you focus your energy on the brain, relying on its capability to fire neuronsand nerves to move the right muscles te right amount? Or do you focus your attention on your arm and the place you want it to be? Where are you at this time
    gamma     Sun, Apr 22, 2012  Permanent link
    I am home, lustful :-) I focus on this or another reality. It is like a window to my invented visual knowledge of where my arm is.

    I think that the article is going in reverse a little bit, back to the basics. The consciousness requires a little more processing time in the brain (quarter of a second at least) and perhaps the unveiling of wandering iris of attention. We are witnessing possible burial of conscious perceiver in the brain static area where the pure mind of receiver should be, in theory.

    I remember loosely though, that Castaneda wrote how perception and awareness are one single functional unit. I was always in agreement with that, given that I was looking for the most extravagant possibilities of perception and sometimes I would reach different I, different self. However, he was reading the chicken intestines made of lights when he tried to make those prophetic claims. One could conclude therefore, that both systems, that of the attention and the awareness, are emanating visible energies into the ether.

    The sad burial continues and my cells, smarter than me, take the lead. They seem like individual subsystems of my body and mind that form independent neural sub circuits.

    These are the problems in the hypothesis of consciousness, as I see them. In one hand, we are talking about the final destination neurons that represent the mind, and on the other hand, there could be something dynamical that needs to happen in order to see or hear the particular information coming to the cortex. I heard that the synchronized firing can mark important input streams and emphasize the information that needs to be put together from the senses and processed in the mind. Sync has less information than chaos, but its only a minor case of synchronization just to unify the areas that are submitting the important information.

     
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