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Dan8267
2016 Nov 25, 10:18pm
I think that's because the page was loading at a time when my brain was simply on the "off" part of the sinusoid wave of consciousness.
Ever heard of this, @Dan8267 ?
Never heard of that. However, I do like neural networks and built a few virtual ones as well as read up about some brain stuff. What you describe as noticing things may just be what you are consciously aware of, particularly in the left hemisphere. As the brain is made up of many layers of neural networks, it's possible for some parts to be "aware" of data while other parts aren't. Here's an extreme example of this.
www.youtube.com/embed/wfYbgdo8e-8
As for brains, I don't go into all that alpha wave / gamma wave stuff. To me, it's just neurons firing and it's similar to digital logic gates with a few important differences. I view a brain like a CPU, it's composed of lots of subcomponents and integrated circuitry. It's not really a single thing and looking at it with a large granularity like "what parts are active" isn't very useful in my opinion.
marcus
2016 Nov 26, 10:47am
my brain was simply on the "off" part of the sinusoid wave of consciousness.
No. This makes no sense to me. Think of when you are doing something that requires high focus. say reading, in a focussed way. Certainly you can hold your focus (and your consciousness) on when you want to . But focus can turn off, where you mind wanders and you "space out." I know this is normal.
But if you feel there are gaps where you "blackout" for very short periods of time ? In that case, I think you might want to talk to a neurologist.
Patrick
2016 Nov 26, 10:54am
Reading works fine because the letters remain on the page. Do it doesn't matter of, say, half a second or a quarter of a second are blank. If you're not conscious of the blank, you just continue after it and don't remember it.
How could we test this? Maybe by flashing numbers on a screen for very short amounts of time. Some of the numbers will be seen, but some will not.
Shaman
2016 Nov 26, 10:54am
Consciousness itself is weird, and fairly unexplained. We know so much about the brain, but can't explain how the aspect of consciousness develops or exists. Even the transition of sleep to awake isn't well understood. We might think to know that we are, but ho does that thinking even work?
Patrick
2016 Nov 26, 11:03am
Yes, meditation is good for illustrating how weird consciousness is. The basic technique is to simply sit still and pay attention to your breathing (or any other thing) for, say, 10 to 20 minutes. It's really hard, because your mind wanders, and then you have to bring it back to your breathing or whatever.
But the exact moment when your mind begins to wander is impossible to pin down or remember. It just happens, and then you notice that your mind has wandered while "you weren't looking" so to speak.
I like to play ping pong, and it would seem you could not play ping pong if you were unaware for even half a second, but after you've been playing for a year or more, you often notice that it is your body playing and that it just responds automatically even as your mind wanders. Sometimes it's almost like watching someone else play. So I think you could be unconscious for a moment still play fine. The body is still there, and the eye and muscle coordination still happens, but there does not necessarily need to be anyone home for it to happen.
marcus
2016 Nov 26, 11:55am
Seems like you're talking about focus rather than consciousness. If not focus, then perhaps some level of consciousness. When consciousness goes completely off, you can't continue doing what you're doing.
but there does not necessarily need to be anyone home for it to happen
When you meditate do you think you "are home" when you reach the state where your mind isn't wandering, but you also aren't really focussed on your breath or heart beat ? Those moments certainly last much longer than a fraction of a second.
Dan8267
2016 Nov 26, 12:00pm
The body is still there, and the eye and muscle coordination still happens, but there does not necessarily need to be anyone home for it to happen.
Sounds like posting on PatNet.
Anybody heard of DMT?
It's a naturally produced hallucinogenic created within the human body.
Patrick
2016 Nov 26, 2:09pm
When you meditate do you think you "are home" when you reach the state where your mind isn't wandering, but you also aren't really focussed on your breath or heart beat ? Those moments certainly last much longer than a fraction of a second.
Sometimes I reach a very pleasant state where my mind stays on my heartbeat for a while. Slightly dizzy, relaxed, like floating. But even then, I'm now sure whether my consciousness really stays there, or comes and goes without my being aware of when it's gone.
Maybe a good analogy is when you're dragging the mouse across the screen, and it sticks for a moment because the computer interrupted it to do something else. But from the point of view of the process controlling the mouse, there was no delay. The only way it could tell that it did not have a perfectly smooth motion would be to note that the clock suddenly jumped ahead.
Patrick
2016 Nov 26, 2:12pm
Maybe this is all related to the pervasive pot smoke in San Francisco. I don't usually smoke marijuana, but I'm fairly sure I've gotten at least some degree of contact high from walking down the street near others who are smoking.
Sometimes I reach a very pleasant state where my mind stays on my heartbeat for a while. Slightly dizzy, relaxed, like floating. But even then, I'm now sure whether my consciousness really stays there, or comes and goes without my being aware of when it's gone.
Your first out of body experience may be something you've never experience!
OK, this is a bit loopy, but I've noticed that I don't notice certain things now and then. Say I'm loading a page on Patrick.net. Sometimes, I see the page load, and some other times, I am suddenly aware of the loaded page, but the moment before is blank. I think that's because the page was loading at a time when my brain was simply on the "off" part of the sinusoid wave of consciousness. I think the wavelength is just a few seconds long, and that we don't normally notice it because we simply cannot. We can prove that the blank spot exists though, by doing certain tests.
Maybe this is all well known and I'm just re-stating a scientific fact, but it's new to me. Ever heard of this, @Dan8267 ? You seem like the kind of guy who might be aware of scientific reasearch on this.
Another oddity: I've been getting into meditation, and decided that paying attention to my heartbeat is more enjoyable than paying attention to my breath. But I can feel my heartbeat only if I'm slowly breathing out. While I'm breathing in, I can't feel it. A bit annoying.
#weirdness