mimicry

Mirror neurons are freaky. The same neurons fire when we move our arm as when we see someone else move their arm. Consciousness may be all about estimating what other people are feeling (to better deceive them, probably).

ulysses and consciousness

In Ulysses, Stephen ponders the nacheinander (one thing after another) and the nebeneinander (one thing next to another) of music and visual arts respectively.

I wrote:

The styles and narrators of Ulysses add some nebeneinander to the nacheinander of stream of consciousness.

Thoughts of Stephen, thoughts of Bloom = nacheinander (we experience one thing after another)

Style of one chapter clashes/contrasts with style of previous or next chapter: nebeneinander (one thing next to another)

Character and plot = nacheinander

Typographical tricks (headlines in Aeolus), narrative interruptions (Cyclops) = nebeneinander (narrative juxtaposed to something)

Joyce's challenge: to make his novel more than a novel, he had to do more than tell a story one thing after another (nacheinander). He also wanted us to be able to contemplate the parts of Ulysses nebeneinander.

Integritas = we hear the story of Ulysses as a stream of narrative fragments moving forward in time

Consonantia = we ponder the styles of Ulysses and how the chapters fit together

Claritas = drawn in by the narrative nacheinander and puzzled by the jarring styles' gnomonic juxtaposition nebeneinander, we experience the silent, luminous stasis of aesthetic apprehension, ineluctably.

There are parallels here to how the brain creates consciousness.

nacheinander = the formation of new memories through time

nebeneinander = selected memories in neuronal workspace of working memory are juxtaposed one next to another to create a conscious scene (Edelman's "remembered present"?)

But there is also the successive nacheinander of conscious states. The brain takes the nacheinander of sequential expreiences and makes it into a smoothly flowing series of nebeneinanders to create the nacheinander of consciousness.

The key to Joyce's aesthetic is stasis. It seems also to be the secret of consciousness: our brain seizes the flux of experience to create a conscious scene in the present. The succession of these scenes is what creates the "illusion" of consciousness.

workspace

The brain's workspace can be thought of as a neural "hypothesis" space, where hypotheses about reality, desires, plans, etc. can be entertained, modified, replaced.

memory and consciousness

Feelings are body movements: happy = towards, sad/pain = away.

Memories are results of the brain checking out reality and encoding its findings.

The brain is active. It has modules with agendas (language is an example).

Consciousness and memory use the same pathways.

memory formation and consciousness

If you're not conscious when it happens, you don't form memories of the event.

Is consciousness some kind of pre-sorting of material to thin it down? Consciousness seems to be a selection of key aspects, of salient features...is this due to limited storage space?

Memory formation and consciousness may be one and the same thing. Is this Edelman's "remembered present"? Memories seem to be salient features of a momnet selected and unified.

Is consciousness the first stage of forming a memory? A snapshot framed? A filter? The synthesis of a moment? Likes frames of a movie (NOT to be shown in the Cartesian theater!)

What if consciousness were a REPLAY of the previous moment. The first replay of a memory. First view of a memory.

Maybe everything we experience consciously HAS ALREADY HAPPENED. Consciousness as our first "view" of a momory.

Then we need to explain memory. Memory is experience encoded into neurons.

edelman/totoni on perception = memory

"The rapid reentrant interactions within the dynamic core thus give rise to a sort of temporal ongoing "bootstrap," according to which changes in the pattern of firing of neuronal groups involved in perceptual categorization can select one out of scores of specific activity patterns involving the entire core—and entire memory repertoire. This selection generates a large amount of information over a short time, hence creating a scene in the remembered present. The resulting integrated state of the core constitutes a memory and thereby the MEANING of the firing of neurons involved in perceptual categorization. Therefore, in categorizing incoming stimuli, the adult brain goes well beyond the information given, and within the dynamic core, conscious perception and memory should be considered to be two aspects of one and the same process" (p. 173).

edelman/totoni on the dynamic core

"If, as we have assumed, this blue-sensitive neuronal group is part of the dynamic core, a change in its firing will be capable of rapidly perturbing—thanks to ongoing reentrant interactions—the firing of many other neuronal groups throughout the core, including many neuronal groups situated in more anterior regions of the cortex. This perturbation will produce a switch from one integrated state of the entire core to the next" (p. 173).

The sensation of blue changes our entire conscious state. Every sensations does. Great complexity and great speed.