The Mystery

What differentiates conscious and non-conscious states? Depending on the context of the conversation and various definitions, when talking about sleep, consciousness can be described as the ability to integrate information in a unitary and cohesive way. Ilian and Alea talk about how limitations in our vocabulary may restrict our understanding of consciousness. Their dialogue evolves into the topic of sleep. Alea shares a personal lucid dreaming experience, where different levels of conscious awareness made her realize that she was actually in a dream state. When we talk about conscious and non-conscious states, I feel like for simplicity sake, what we're talking about when we say that one is conscious that basically means being able to integrate and process the information that's coming from the outside world. Is that correct? So, sort of like when you say, we're sleeping, ergo we're unconscious, that means even though we still sense information from the outside world s

Some years ago the philosopher David Chalmers divided the scientific exploration of consciousness into two categories; there's the easy problem and the hard problem. The easy problem is to find neural signals that correlate with consciousness, as in this region is active when you're conscious of something. But the hard problem of consciousness is explaining why the physical stuff of the brain gives rise to subjective experience. It's a hard problem because it's not clear how physical stuff gives rise to a private internal life, that's the hard problem. Now we don't know the answer to this, but we can make progress by being very clear about the different challenges. One of them is something called 'The Binding Problem'. For example, imagine that you look out your window and you see a beautiful blue bird fly past. Different signals from the bird are processed by different regions of your brain. So part of your brain is detecting the motion, this is the dor

Today we discover the 'Filter Theory', also known as the 'Transmission or Reductive Filter Model' of consciousness. The 'Filter Theory' arises from philosophers and neuroscience, but also aligns with many of the spiritual and religious beliefs held around the world. This perspective seems to lend itself well as a supporting theory for where consciousness originates, not just how it is interpreted biologically. The core idea of the 'Filter Theory' is that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of the universe, much like 'Dark Matter', and that it exists independently of the brain and body. In this view, the brain's primary function is to limit and channel this universal consciousness into a manageable, focused stream that is suitable for navigating the physical world. In everyday life, our brains filter out an immense amount of information to help us focus on what is necessary for our survival and well-being. This means that we perceive only a

A group of international scientists have mapped the genetic, cellular, and structural makeup of the human brain and the nonhuman primate brain. This understanding of brain structure, achieved by funding through the National Institutes of Health’s Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® Initiative, or The BRAIN Initiative® , allows for a deeper knowledge of the cellular basis of brain function and dysfunction, helping pave the way for a new generation of precision therapeutics for people with mental disorders and other disorders of the brain. The findings appear in a compendium of 24 papers across Science, Science Advances, and Science Translational Medicine. “Mapping the brain’s cellular landscape is a critical step toward understanding how this vital organ works in health and disease,” said Joshua A. Gordon, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Mental Health. “These new detailed cell atlases of the human brain and the nonhuman primate brain offer a