[ExI] Possible seat of consciousness found

[William Flynn Wallace]

I said that I will bow out of this conversation and I will.  I don't belong
in it.

bill w

On Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 6:17 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> Hi William,
> Yes of course, all this is absolutely true.  Nobody is disaputing any of
> this.
> But you are completely missing the point.
> That point is the initial cause of perception is what we are eating, or
> looking at.
> The final result is our conscious knowledge of that.
> Our eyes, and everything else need to do lots of tricks (such as the 60 HZ
> saccades your are describing) so that we can have accurate and
> consistent knowledge.
> If our conscious knowledge of such, fades, because we are overriding the
> tricks our eyes are attempting to do, this change or fading in our
> awareness of what we are seeing is what we are talking about, which you
> seem to be completely ignoring.
> You just continue to map everything I say into  a world where this
> changing conscious awareness isn't real or something.
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 5:01 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> Our eyes vibrate at 60 Hz.  If you overcome this with a special camera,
>> you can focus light on the same cells continuously.  What the person
>> reports is that the light fades and comes back, fades again and comes
>> back.  The explanation is that with continuous stimulation the neurons
>> cannot make enough transmitter substance fast enough to send a continuous
>> signal to the brain.  So it rests for a brief time to make more transmitter
>> substance.
>>
>> Similarly, continuously stimulating nose and tongue receptors makes the
>> underlying neurons run out of transmitters, and so the signals to the brain
>> get weaker and weaker, and thus so do the sensations.  These neurons do not
>> recover as fast as the eye neurons do (I don't remember the down time data
>> - absolute refractory period followed by relative refractory period (during
>> which a stronger than usual stimulus can elicit a response), followed by
>> normal sensation)..
>>
>> So we have real, measurable changes in neurons causing lessening reported
>> sensations until the transmitters can be made in sufficient quantity again.
>>
>> Of course you can keep on eating even though the sensations diminish, or
>> other reasons.
>>
>> These changes are temporary, so of course they do not qualify as
>> learning.
>>
>> This is from quite a while back.  I have not kept up with research on
>> neurons.
>>
>> bill w
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 5:42 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi William,
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 3:51 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> OK - just wanted to correct something I knew was false.  I don't know
>>>> what kind of reality you are dealing with where those statements are true,
>>>> but I'll stay out of it.  bill w
>>>>
>>>
>>> OK, so let me see if I clearly understand your reality.
>>> So, you say we continue to eat something that is not change, but our
>>> perception of it 'fades'.
>>>
>>> In your reality, is the fact that something is 'fading" a change that is
>>> not real, or this change doesn't exist?
>>>
>>> Brent
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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