Introducing the brain: new consciousness theory (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, October 03, 2022, 20:09 (568 days ago) @ David Turell

The brain hides much of what it is doing:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-10-explanation-consciousness.html

"Consciousness is your awareness of yourself and the world around you. This awareness is subjective and unique to you.

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"'In a nutshell, our theory is that consciousness developed as a memory system that is used by our unconscious brain to help us flexibly and creatively imagine the future and plan accordingly," explained corresponding author Andrew Budson, MD, professor of neurology. "What is completely new about this theory is that it suggests we don't perceive the world, make decisions, or perform actions directly. Instead, we do all these things unconsciously and then—about half a second later—consciously remember doing them."

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"According to the researchers, this theory is important because it explains that all our decisions and actions are actually made unconsciously, although we fool ourselves into believing that we consciously made them. So, we can say to ourselves, we're just going to have one spoonful of ice cream and, the next thing we know, the container is empty—because our conscious mind is not controlling our actions. "Even our thoughts are not generally under our conscious control. This lack of control is why we may have difficulty stopping a stream of thoughts running through our head as we're trying to go to sleep, and also why mindfulness is hard," adds Budson."

Comment: this fits my theory that the brain is built to help understanding reality, just as this new theory tells us so much of brain work is unconscious.