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Dinesh club

Posted: 13 Jul 2013

Taken: 19 Dec 2011

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Changing Lanes

Changing Lanes
There is a looming chasm between what your brain knows and what your mind is capable of accessing. Consider the simple act of changing lanes while driving a car. Try this: close your eyes, grip an imaginary steering wheel, and go through the motions of a lane change. Imagine that you are driving in the left lane and you would like to move over to the right lane. Before reading on, put down the book and try it. I’ll give you 100 points if you can do it correctly.

It’s a fairly easy task, right? I’m guessing that you held the steering wheel straight, then banked it over to the right for a moment, and then straightened it out again. No problem.

Like almost everyone else, you got it completely wrong. The motion of turning the wheel rightward for a bit, then straightening it out again would steer you off the road: you just piloted a course from the left lane onto the sidewalk. The correction motion of changing lanes is banking the wheel to the right, and back to the left side, and only then straightening out. Don’t believe it? Verify it for yourself when you’re next in the car. It’s such a simple motor task that you have no problem accomplishing it in your daily driving. But when forced to access it consciously, you’re flummoxed. ~ Page 55 Chapter: Mind: The Gap - INCOGNITO Author - David Eagleman
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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
There is a looming chasm between what your brain knows and what your mind is capable of accessing. Consider the simple act of changing lanes while driving a car. Try this: close your eyes, grip an imaginary steering wheel, and go through the motions of a lane change. Imagine that you are driving in the left lane and you would like to move over to the right lane. Before reading on, put down the book and try it. I’ll give you 100 points if you can do it correctly.

It’s a fairly easy task, right? I’m guessing that you held the steering wheel straight, then banked it over to the right for a moment, and then straightened it out again. No problem.

Like almost everyone else, you got it completely wrong. The motion of turning the wheel rightward for a bit, then straightening it out again would steer you off the road: you just piloted a course from the left lane onto the sidewalk. The correction motion of changing lanes is banking the wheel to the right, and back to the left side, and only then straightening out. Don’t believe it? Verify it for yourself when you’re next in the car. It’s such a simple motor task that you have no problem accomplishing it in your daily driving. But when forced to access it consciously, you’re flummoxed. ~ Page 55 Chapter: Mind: The Gap - INCOGNITO Author - David Eagleman
8 years ago.
 Dinesh
Dinesh club
Many neuroscientists believe that it does -- that consciousness is a by-product of the brain's fantastic level of neural net interconnectivity. For instance in the words of the neuroscientist Marcel Kinsbourne: 'Being conscious is what it is like to have neural circuitry in particular interactive functional states.' The problem with this explanation is again: why should it be conscious? We know that much of the complicated work our brains perform never makes it to our consciousness. For instance, a violinist playing directly from a musical score will perform the complex neural calculations required to direct her hand, arm, and upper body movement, without being conscious of this dense mass of calculation. Yet tap that same violinist on the shoulder whilst playing and she will become acutely aware of your interruption. What is the difference between complex neural nets that are conscious (that register the tap) and those that may be equally or even more complex (those that direct playing of the violin) but are unconscious?

It is hard to dispel the impression that consciousness represents an altogether different kind of operation from the one that drives unconscious actions. Most of the time I drive my car more or less 'unconsciously,' allowing my unconscious mind to perform all the necessary calculations concerned with turning the wheel or depressing the break to follow the road's twists and turns. I am not really aware of these actions; I might be listening to the radio, or thinking about some problem at work. However, if I happen to spot a hazard sign in the road -- perhaps 'Slip Pery Road Ahead' -- my conscious mind will seem to take control of driving the car. The radio will be forgotten and my conscious mind will instead take over the task of moving my limbs. What is taking control in these situations?

There are many explanations of consciousness and it would take several volumes to do them justice. I refer the interested reader to the many excellent books that give the theories a fairer hearing. However, in my opinion, none offers an explanation that adequately accounts for the fundamental problem of consciousness: what is awareness? How is our (apparently serial) mind aware of so many explanations of consciousness that has appeared in recent years --things at once? And how do we will actions? One of the most intriguing explanations of consciousness that has appeared in recent years -- and one with obvious relevance to this book -- is that consciousness is a quantum-mechanical phenomenon. ~ Page 291/292 ~

Excerpt: "Quantum Evolution" Johnjoe McFadden
6 years ago.

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