"Consciousness occurs in 'time slices' lasting only milliseconds, study suggests"

According to Herzog and fellow researcher Frank Scharnowski from the University of Zurich, neither the ‘continuous’ nor ‘discrete’ hypotheses can by themselves aptly describe how we process the world around us, as numerous studies testing people’s visual awareness seem to disprove both notions.

But what if elements of both hypotheses were taking place at the same time in a continuous interplay between conscious and unconscious thought?

“According to our model, the elements of a visual scene are first unconsciously analysed. This period can last up to 400 ms and involves, amongst other processes, the analysis of stimulus features such as the orientation or colour of elements and temporal features such as object duration and object simultaneity,” the authors write in PLOS Biology.

After this analysis is complete, the researchers say the features we’ve detected are integrated into our conscious perception, compressing all the unconscious recording into something we’re actually aware of.

In other words, while we’re taking the world in, we’re not actually consciously perceiving it. Instead, we’re just mutely using our senses to record data for up to 400 ms at a time. Then, in what could be called a moment of clarity, we consciously perceive the stimuli that our senses have detected.

The team thinks this presentation of information to our consciousness lasts for about 50 milliseconds, during which we also stop taking new sensory information in. And then repeat. (read more)

via Instapundit

New Scientist: "Consciousness on-off switch discovered deep in brain"

"ONE moment you're conscious, the next you're not. For the first time, researchers have switched off consciousness by electrically stimulating a single brain area."

Scientists have been probing individual regions of the brain for over a century, exploring their function by zapping them with electricity and temporarily putting them out of action. Despite this, they have never been able to turn off consciousness – until now.

Although only tested in one person, the discovery suggests that a single area – the claustrum – might be integral to combining disparate brain activity into a seamless package of thoughts, sensations and emotions. It takes us a step closer to answering a problem that has confounded scientists and philosophers for millennia – namely how our conscious awareness arises. (read more)

Stuart Hammeroff and quantum consciousness

I've keyed this video to begin in the middle, where Hammeroff speaks of the microtubules within neurons that are at the heart of his theory that consciousness arises at the quantum level...where the fate of Schrodinger's Cat is determined. Or not determined? 

Here is a good interview that further explores his ideas.


from The Large Idea Collider blog by Michel Trottier-McDonald:

"Another way of looking at the problem between quantum field theory and general relativity comes from basic knowledge of both theories. If you know something about general relativity, it is that matter and energy bend space-time. If you know something about quantum mechanics, it is that you can’t know velocity and position of a system as accurately as you want simultaneously. This fact about quantum mechanics implies that in quantum field theory, you will have arbitrary amounts of matter and energy fluctuating in and out of existence, and the smaller the scales you probe, the larger these fluctuations will become. I know this is far from a straightforward conclusion, but I’d rather be incomplete than inaccurate in my explanation. For now bear with me. Putting these two facts from both theories together, you get that at small enough scales, there will be enough matter-energy fluctuating to distort space-time, transforming space-time into some kind of fractal foam."

"Why Anesthesia Is One of the Greatest Medical Mysteries of Our Time"

"Anesthetics are fairly selective, erasing consciousness while sparing non-conscious brain activity," Hameroff told io9. "So the precise mechanism of anesthetic action should point to the mechanism for consciousness."

"Recovery from anesthesia, is not simply the result of the anesthetic 'wearing off' but also of the brain finding its way back through a maze of possible activity states to those that allow conscious experience," noted researcher Andrew Hudson in a statement. "Put simply, the brain reboots itself."

"Don't freak out - it's just a save-the-date"