Notes on Consciousness

What is Consciousness?

Consciousness is a deeply studied area, and we are just beginning to understand it.
Consciousness is defined as being aware of internal and external events.
- Aware of surroundings.
- Aware of internal states (hunger, happiness, sadness, etc.).
- Alertness plays a key role.

Selective Attention:
- The "cocktail party effect" illustrates selective attention.
- When someone says your name in a group, your attention becomes highly selective, focusing on who is talking about you and what they are saying.
Selective attention creates a direct inner awareness of internal and external events.

Preconscious Information:
- Information that you're not currently thinking about but can easily bring to the surface.
Unconscious Information:
- Repressed information pushed out of conscious awareness.
- Habits and procedural memory operate below the conscious level.
  - Example: Brushing your teeth, opening a doorknob.
- Some researchers estimate that 80% of our lives is done on an unconscious level.
Mindfulness vs. Mindlessness:
- Mindfulness: Being aware in a moment-by-moment experience.
- Mindlessness: Going through life without thinking about what we're doing.
Nonconscious:
- Bodily functions that occur without awareness.
  - Example: Hair growth.

How much of our life is based on the workings of neurons and glial cells in the brain?
Do brain mechanisms control our mind, or do they generate the mind and mental processes?
Mental Processes:
- Memory, sensation, perception, emotions, language, motivation, imagination, thinking, reasoning, and learning.
- These mental processes may result from the physical brain's activity and generate the mind.
Dualism:
- Some consider mental processes as the "soul," suggesting the soul may live on after the body and brain die.

Book Analogy:
- Brain: The physical book with weight and symbols.
- Mind: The story that emerges from how the symbols come together.
- Consciousness: The analysis and understanding of the story.

Waking State vs. Sleeping: Different levels of consciousness.
Altered States of Consciousness: Perceptions are altered due to situations like:
- Drugs
- Meditation
- Other factors that change how we perceive the world.

Parietal and Frontal Lobes:
- Memory systems in the frontal (prefrontal) cortex.
- Categorization of information in the parietal lobe.
- These lobes work together to generate consciousness.

For us to be conscious of something, it must meet a neuronal threshold.
It has to stimulate neurons, relating to action potentials.
Something must catch attention to reach this threshold.
Excitation and Inhibition:
- Some neurons are excited, while others are inhibited.
- The focus narrows down to specific neurons being activated while others fade into the background.
Collation of Neurons:
- Theorists believe information is taken in segments that must be held together for a duration.
- The idea or image must be held in consciousness for a time for the whole thing to come together (in a fraction of a second).

The cerebral cortex experiences the world based on competition for control of consciousness.
Neurons compete in a pyramid-like structure, with the "final four of the brain" winning (Graziano's concept of "fame in the brain").
These winning neurons determine what we consciously focus on.

Overt Attention:
- Grasping an object with sense organs.
- Involves competition among senses throwing in information.
Covert Attention:
- Grasping an object with the brain's computational machinery.
- Involves internal processing within the brain.

Excited and inhibited neurons create a spotlight effect.
Focus is on one thing (e.g., computer screen), but awareness of surroundings remains.