The Nature of Consciousness, the Universe and Everything

An inquiry into emergent consciousness from microbe to humans and beyond

by Alex Milov

 

 

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Perception

 

Perception is the process of organizing and interpreting sensory signals.  It is an interactive process.  As the act of perception alters the neurological activation pattern inducing consciousness the perception will change.  So perception is the moment to moment shifting and re-aligning of consciousness in response to the signals being perceived.  Just as "knowing" emerges from the awareness of the similarities and differences between things, perception emerges as clusters of neurons calculate the similarities and differences between the signals of sensation and the catalog of experience.
 

Human visual perception is a complex process.  Each eye connects to the brain through an optic nerve with about one million neural connections.  These two million data channels deliver an ever-changing signal stream first to the thalamus and then on to the primary visual cortex in the occipital lobes.  During each moment of visual perception, billions of photons of light strike the retinas stimulating the hundreds of millions of rods and cones responsible for generating the two million channels of electrochemical visual data.  It is almost too much to consider.  Fortunately, the mind can conceive beyond its ability to perceive as demonstrated by the following geometry thought experiment....

 

The Nature of Consciousness, the Universe and Everything

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