What Are The Limits Of Consciousness?

In the last lesson, I explained how you only use a small percentage of your brain. But in fact, you don’t use your brain at all. You are more like a wave on the ocean of your nervous system. What lies beneath?

Transcript

The notion that you use your brain is actually an illusion.

Your brain is not your possession.

Saying that you use a portion of your brain would be like saying that a wave uses a portion of the ocean.

It would be more correct to say that a portion of the ocean produces the wave.

So what about the rest of the ocean,

That is,

Your brain?

If your consciousness is limited to just a tiny bit of neural activity,

Most likely located in the left temporal lobe,

Is that just the cage of your virtual reality,

Like in the matrix?

Not quite.

Consider the wave metaphor again.

While a wave accounts for only an infinitesimal part of the ocean,

Its bounds are not fixed.

There is no clear line where the wave begins and ends.

The wave has no clear border.

What about consciousness?

Its borders are also fuzzy.

There are data that are 100% within consciousness,

That is,

Within your active working memory,

Such as what you're paying attention to right now.

And then there are data that are 100% outside of your consciousness,

Like the working of your liver.

And then there's stuff that's on the threshold,

Like the feeling of your shirt against your skin or the taste of your tongue.

That threshold,

Or limen,

From which we get subliminal,

Is where things get interesting.

That's where concepts like intuition come in.

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