Consciousness Archives - Farther to Go!

12 Years After

April 25, 2024 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

Twelve years ago this month, I headed off on the path I came to call Farther to Go! I was on a path of sorts at the time—well, on a sidewalk, anyway, heading west on Academy, into what I tend to refer to as the (expletive deleted) New Mexico wind—when I experienced a profound moment of ferocious dissatisfaction. It’s true that the wind had something to do with it, but the wind was also emblematic of my then current state of affairs and my feeling about it.

I wasn’t entirely sure where the new path would lead, I had no idea what I would find out along the way or who I would encounter, and there was certainly no inkling of Farther to Go! on the horizon.

During the past 12 years, I’ve read an insane amount of information about the brain and behavior. Many, but not all, of the books are identified on the Reading List page on my website. That list doesn’t include all the articles and other materials I’ve accessed. All my bookshelves and file drawers are maxed out. There’s been a lot of input into the system (me, that is; into my system).

In addition to applying what I learned to my own life, I’ve written hundreds of blog posts, articles, and newsletters, produced countless handouts and exercises, and created workshop and course materials galore. The 36 3-ring binders lined up on the desk behind me can attest to my output.

I was armed with a small amount of knowledge about the brain and behavior when I managed to look up at exactly the right moment to take advantage of the explosion of research in this arena. It was serendipitous to a great extent.

What kind of surprises me now is how well what I’ve learned has held up. Over the course of these 12 years, I have significantly revised my perception of only the four key elements outlined below.

Dopamine

Dopamine was long considered to be the pleasure neurochemical. A “hit” of dopamine was thought to be like a hit of a drug such as cocaine or heroin (more metaphorically than factually). This was still the prevailing view when I first learned about the brain’s reward system. Many people haven’t yet let go of this mistaken idea, which has led to some really silly concepts like dopamine detoxing.

Fortunately, I encountered the work of Kent Berridge early in my exploration and research. He’s an expert on dopamine and rewards and his work set me straight and helped me understand how essential rewards are in regard to behavior, whether we’re aware of them or not.

Dopamine is the wanting neurochemical. It’s associated with anticipation or craving or desire. When we attain what we anticipate, crave, or desire, other neurochemicals referred to as liking neurochemicals are released. Liking neurochemicals such as serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphin generate feelings of pleasure.

Dopamine motivates us to move (physically as well as psychologically), to pursue what we want, to take action. This wanting system is considered to be robust, while the liking system is considered fragile. Our experience of pleasure waxes and wanes, but wanting is always with us. This isn’t a personal problem or a design flaw; wanting is absolutely essential for both surviving and thriving.

Rewards

In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg described what he calls the habit loop, which consists of a cue, a behavior, and a reward. This was a bit of a revolutionary idea because we tend to think of a habit strictly in terms of behavior. Duhigg’s research led him to see that all three parts of the habit loop had to be in place in order for the brain to initiate, run, and end the habit.

That means that if we want to create a new habit, we need to determine what the cue will be, what the behavior will be, and how we will reward ourselves. I think this is accurate.

But Duhigg says that if we want to change a habit, we have to identify the reward we’re getting from the current behavior and substitute a new behavior that will give us the same reward. He makes a compelling case in his book. The problem, though, is that as far as the brain is concerned, liking neurochemicals are the reward, while to us a reward is something tangible or meaningful or perhaps symbolic.

Trying to identify a reward we’re getting for an existing behavior is like trying to figure out why we have a tendency to react the way we do to rain or a particular type of music or stray dogs or umbrella thorn trees. We can’t possibly figure that out with any degree of certainty—and even if we could, it wouldn’t make any difference.

In the case of changing a habit, what’s important is to be consistent about providing a reward for the new behavior until the brain takes over the job of releasing liking neurochemicals without the added stimulus.

Berridge is helpful here, too. He points out that our conscious perception of the reward we’re getting is essentially a story that may or may not have anything to do with what’s going on in the brain. The purpose of a reward is to get the brain to pay attention to a desirable behavior we just engaged in to increase the likelihood we will do it again. It’s positive reinforcement, plain and simple. It doesn’t matter if the reward we supply is related in any way to the behavior. It just has to be something we like so the brain will release liking neurochemicals. (I’ve done two consecutive 30-Day Challenges based on the same behavior, each with a different reward. Neither reward has anything to do with the behavior; both rewards have been extremely motivating.)

System 2

Although he didn’t come up with the terms—and dual-process theory was not a new idea—Daniel Kahneman did popularize the concepts of “System 1” and “System 2” in his best-seller, Thinking, Fast and Slow.

According to dual process theory, the unconscious part of the brain, System 1, is “fast,” meaning it processes 11 million bits of information at a time, while consciousness, System 2, is “slow” by contrast, as it can only process 40 bits of information at a time. There are many other significant differences between conscious and unconscious processing.

Kahneman, who died recently, won a Nobel Prize. He was considered a genius. I think that’s why it didn’t initially occur to me to question this binary division of thinking processes. But doubts started creeping in quite a few years ago. The characteristics attributed to System 2 thinking simply cannot be applied across the board to conscious thought. (There are even some researchers who question whether or not there is such a thing as “conscious thought.”)

After grappling with the problem for a while, I concluded that System 2 is a part of consciousness—a very, very small part of it, one that we access quite infrequently, possibly never. If we use Freud’s iceberg to represent consciousness and the unconscious, with consciousness being the tip of the iceberg, then System 2 is the tip of the tip. I’ve come to refer to the rest of conscious thought as ordinary consciousness. It has some attributes in common with System 1 and some attributes in common with System 2. Most of the time the stream of consciousness just flows through our minds, carrying us along with it.

Ordinary consciousness can be extremely useful and it has a role in creating transformational change, but accessing System 2 is essential for it. If we believe we’re accessing System 2 thinking just by being awake, we’re missing the boat entirely.

Autopilot

It seems hard to believe that the scientific estimate for how much of our behavior is outside conscious control was once a mere 40%—and that 40% was hard for a lot of people to swallow. Neuroscience has now concluded, logically, that 100% of our behavior is generated by our unconscious.

“Autopilot” is the short-hand term for this. It’s somewhat of a misnomer, though, because it was intended to contrast with the supposedly conscious “pilot” that makes intentional rather than automatic choices. But consciousness can’t and doesn’t make moment-to-moment choices.

Accessing System 2 can provide us with some ability to steer our personal ship in terms of determining direction and affecting future outcomes. But it can’t affect the choices we’re making now or the outcomes we’re getting as a result.

Duhigg’s conception of what happens at the end of a habit loop is that the brain is returned to conscious control. This is a perspective from the point of view of ordinary consciousness. It implies, first, that the brain is normally under conscious control, which it isn’t. Second, it fails to take into consideration that the unconscious is attending to multiple things at the same time, which means it is generating multiple action sequences, not just one. So the idea that the brain is “on autopilot” for the duration of a habit and then returned to the control of the pilot is both inaccurate and simplistic.

Habits are a bit different than the rest of our so-called autopilot behavior, but the fact remains that all of our behavior is initiated by the unconscious. If that weren’t the case, we wouldn’t survive long enough to get to the point of contemplating thriving.

Provisional Assessments

There are bound to be other conclusions that will be overturned by the ongoing research into how the brain works. So it’s useful to consider the conclusions we’ve arrived at thus far as provisional assessments. Provisional assessments are essential because they give us something to work with and to test, and they indicate new directions for further examination.

I’m excited to keep learning in this area. I don’t think there is any other exploration as challenging and potentially rewarding as this: humans investigating our own internal operational systems from the perspectives of our internal operational systems. Some contortionism required!

Here’s to many more years of learning—and of overturning.

It’s All about the Action

April 12, 2024 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

“I think therefore I am.” So declared Rene Descartes sometime in 1640.

Cogito ergo sum! was the culmination of his attempt to identify something he could be certain of, some bedrock truth of which there was no doubt.

Even he knew, way back then, that sensory perception can be incredibly misleading and was not to be trusted. His thinking led him to wonder if we are all hallucinating our experiences. Or part of the Matrix. These are not new thoughts.

In coming to his conclusion, Descartes assumed a separation between the physical and the mental that many members of the species continue to grapple with, at the same time he elevated the mental beyond all proportion.

Right off the bat, however, the first two words, as translated—“I think”—are totally misleading. They imply agency and intent. It would be more accurate to say “I have thoughts” or better, “thoughts have me.” Most of the thoughts running through our mind at any given time are involuntary and unintended. The best analogy is to the air we breathe.

Having air circulate via the nostrils, throat, lungs, etc. is highly desirable, but (fortunately) it isn’t under our voluntary control. It’s debatable how desirable it is to have thoughts continually circulating in the mind, but circulating thoughts, like circulating air, is not something to take credit for or, in the case of Descartes, crow about.

This is all to say that at least since Descartes, thinking has been assumed to be the crowning glory, so to speak, of the species. Granted, there are some tasks only thinking (i.e., System 2 logical/linear, voluntary/intentional thinking) can and should handle. But that kind of thinking is extremely hard, so we do very little of it. And even when we do it, if we don’t follow it up with action, there isn’t much point to it.

A number of false assumptions follow from the false belief that it’s what we think that matters most. The most significant of these assumptions is:

Understanding something will automatically have an effect on behavior, as will having a desire or an intention to do something.

Two more false assumptions:

We don’t need to pay much conscious attention to what we do.
Only some of the actions we take are worth paying attention to, in any case.

The unconscious part of the brain, however, pays attention to everything we do, including the things we’d really prefer no one—including us—noticed at all. It pays considerably less attention to what we think or even what we think about doing.

What Is the Brain for?

The purpose of the brain is to figure out what to do (what action to take) and then to make those actions happen.

It’s blindingly obvious why we have a brain. We have a brain for one reason and one reason only, and that’s to produce adaptable and complex movements. There is no other reason to have a brain. Think about it. Movement is the only way you have of affecting the world around you. —Daniel Wolpert, neuroscientist

It’s also via the actions we take that the brain figures out how to interpret the information it receives, including who we are and what things mean. It’s via repetitive actions that the brain determines what behaviors to turn into habits and hand off to the basal ganglia to administer. It’s via persistent actions that the brain changes: trajectory, perception, identity, awareness, and areas of attention.

Yes, it’s annoying that the brain pays attention to all our actions—including those we aren’t paying attention to. It’s as if the brain maintains or modifies our mental model of the world according to its own parameters rather than to our wishes. [That was sarcasm. Of course that’s what it’s doing.] But since our wishes, like our thoughts, are fleeting and contradictory and ephemeral, it’s a good thing the brain doesn’t take them seriously because that would result in chaos.

As we know, our moment-to-moment choices—or actions—are not consciously determined. Rather, it’s our unconscious that determines out actions based on its interpretations of the internal and external sensory data it views through our mental model of the world.

Since action is the only way we can affect the world (of which we are a part), then the only way to create change is to get our brain to take different actions than the actions it is currently taking. And that requires modifying the brain’s interpretations of the sensory data it processes.

How does the brain modify its interpretations? By the actions we take. If this sounds like a vicious cycle, it really isn’t. This is where thinking comes into the process. Thinking can provide a bridge between the undesired actions (and outcome) and the desired actions (and outcome). It can do that by identifying the outcome we want, the actions that are likely to produce that outcome, and the contrivance or contrivance we can use to train the brain to take the actions we want it to take.

This is what contrivances are for: to train the brain (our movement organ) to automatically take the actions we want it to take rather than the actions it’s automatically taking now. This is how to use the brain to create a satisfying and meaningful life. The process isn’t complicated or complex. It’s our thoughts about the process that get in the way.

Note: This post is an update of an article in lucidwaking from February 2022. Look for the companion piece next week!

Sudoku, Provisional Assessments,
and the Space of Possibilities

February 6, 2024 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

I enjoy working Sudoku puzzles, especially the hard or challenger level, and I always look forward to the super challenger puzzles on the back pages of Dell’s Crazy for Sudoku books that take days to complete. (They look like the puzzle pictured above.)

A friend once said that she’d completed a Sudoku puzzle and, having solved it, did not see a point in doing it again. Certainly completing a puzzle successfully is one point of Sudoku, but for me it’s the incomplete puzzle that’s juicy, especially if I’m struggling with it and not sure I’ll be able to solve it.

Sudoku puzzles are a great example of one of the aspects of existential troublesome knowledge I talked about in the last blog post: what we don’t know exceeds and is more important than what we know. The numbers that are not filled in are more important than the numbers that are filled in. And there’s no way to know at the outset which numbers go in which blank spaces. You can only find out by taking action. As you fill in more numbers, you get more information, and eventually you solve the puzzle. This is a life lesson some of us struggle to learn.

There’s always a point where I feel stuck, at least with some hard or challenger level puzzles. I can’t find a next number to fill in. I used to get frustrated when I was stuck, but after going through this process so many times, I’m quite familiar with it and am no longer frustrated by it. I think Sudoku has trained my brain to recognize that being stuck is a temporary condition and so I actually appreciate the experience now.

I don’t know if or how I will solve the puzzle, but I now appreciate the space of not knowing, of uncertainty, because it’s also the space of possibilities. This is the same space I get into when I’m grappling with a conceptual problem or puzzle. And in both Sudoku and conceptual problem-solving, one is more likely to arrive at a “solution,” by trying different approaches.

If the only puzzles I have available are easy or medium level, I create “rules” to make them at least a little bit more challenging. I would never, for example, start by filling in all the 1s, 5s, or 9s I can fill in because that’s too easy. But in a challenger level puzzle, I would definitely start that way in order to get at least a few spaces filled in.

In Sudoku, there is only one correct solution to the puzzle. The same isn’t necessarily so for conceptual puzzles where my aim is usually to arrive at a provisional assessment rather than a definitive conclusion because in the conceptual world we never have all the information. But I don’t think this difference is particularly significant, and I heartily recommend activities like Sudoku to train the brain to appreciate uncertainty and to sort of force ourselves to recognize how much we don’t know—and how neither condition is either fatal or even undesirable.

Moving around Inside the Space of Possibilities

The fact that what we don’t know is more important than what we know has been a subject of discussion in classes, workshops, and individual meetings. I asked a couple of different groups to consider, write about, and summarize their responses to statements that described different aspects of our lack of knowledge. Here’s what they had to say. (The statements they are responding to are in italics.)

Our predictions about the future are constrained by the present.

When we try to imagine our future, we can only see a small slice of possibility—based on our current mental model. The same is true about understanding our past—we do so based on who we are in the present. When we move to a different rock, we see new things and, to some extent, lose sight of what we saw before. —Susie

We are driven to make sense of the world, whether or not the world makes sense.

It never occurred to me that one would not be able to make sense of the world. Why, all one has to do is work hard enough, read, listen, observe, and have the intelligence to integrate all the available information, and understanding will come. Right? I’ve long assumed that the world not making much sense (in many ways) was a failure on my part (I’m obviously not getting it all, nor fast enough) because of course all things must be understandable, given the right type and amount of information/instruction etc. —Lisa

Our brain habitually constructs coherent and compelling stories—tailor-made for each of us—based on the information available and our mental model of the world.

We seem to live in some illusion of reality or a unique reality to each of us that is constantly shifting towards a pre-existing story that the brain has developed. We aren’t aware of the information that the brain is picking, discarding, ignoring or overlooking until after the fact. How to consciously participate in this story of our own reality? If it’s based on the information available to us and on our mental model of the world then it’s necessary to expand both, to become aware of what the brain is choosing to add to the stories. —Imelda

We prioritize cause-and-effect explanations and discount randomness (because we can’t account for it).”

How can we imagine a future without our history? Can I only imagine a future rooted in my past or can I possibly imagine a future untold? To understand that we are not divining our future but to accept that randomness plays a role in a possible eventuality serves up the possibility for change. —Sammie

Each of us is weaving stories, not uncovering absolute truth.

There are facts. 2+2=4. Truths are when we try to assign meanings to our perceptions of something that happened. Each of us has our own way of assigning meanings so no truths can be absolute, or shared by everyone. So we might as well weave beautiful stories, or at least useful ones. —Ann

We mistake perception for reality.

My perceptions seem to be more on the trees and not the forest. Actions and thoughts seem to be driven by a false narrative of what I perceive to be true. I can base life itself on little discussion and shoot from the hip decisions made in the small dark damp room on my shoulders, without much input from “me.” —Kelly

Our predictions about the future are constrained by coherence.

The future is way more exciting with those blinders noted. I am not even confined by my imagined trajectory! Why not create? —Adam

Onward

I invite you to consider these statements for yourself, along with the comments prompted by them. Where do they take you?

Asking ourselves what we don’t know in a given situation is useful even if we can’t answer that question just because it’s a reminder that we are always—100% of the time—operating based on limited information. Could there be something we don’t know, the knowing of which would change everything?

Existential Troublesome Knowledge

January 18, 2024 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

There’s troublesome knowledge—and then there’s existential troublesome knowledge.

The concept of troublesome knowledge was developed in academia and has since been applied and utilized in many academic and non-academic areas including scientific exploration, mathematics, politics, finance, history, and even writing.

To refresh, knowledge is troublesome when it:

conflicts with preexisting beliefs, especially if those beliefs are deeply held
is counterintuitive or seems illogical
is complex or difficult to understand
is disconcerting
requires a (transformational) change in self-perception

Troublesome knowledge within a field of inquiry or endeavor is one thing. But troublesome knowledge about the very nature of how we as humans function and our experience in and of the world—i.e., existential troublesome knowledge—is something else altogether. It’s troublesomeness squared, at the very least.

Many of our most basic assumptions about ourselves…are false. —Leonard Mlodinow, Subliminal

Phenomenal Individualism and Its Implications

The pursuit of existential troublesome knowledge leads us to a number of inescapable conclusions that point in the direction of what has been called phenomenal individualism.

Our experience is not an accurate reflection of reality, which means things are not as they seem.
We cannot fully know or access the experience of any other person or creature.
What we don’t know far exceeds what we know, and no matter how much we learn, this will always be the case; yet we operate as if what we see is all there is (WYSIATI).
Not only is everything everywhere in motion all the time, but everything (including each of us) is a process, and everything is an interpretation.
Rather than being, or resembling, a mechanical system, each of us is a complex adaptive system, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
These factors all constrain our experience of being in the world—and there is no way out of these constraints—but they also create a space of possibilities, including the possibility of creating transformational change.

I believe the fact that our experience is not an accurate reflection of reality is the foundational threshold concept that we must get (incorporate into our mental model) in order to grasp the nature of our existence and experience: our space of possibilities.

You may recall that threshold concepts are likely to be, among other things:

Transformative: they lead to a significant shift in perspective that alters our sense of who we are as well as what we see, the way we see it, and how we feel and think about it.
Irreversible: they involve crossing a “threshold,” after which our previous understanding is no longer readily accessible.
Integrated: they reveal relationships and connections of aspects and ideas that were previously seen as unrelated.
Troublesome: they are difficult concepts to grasp and are therefore troublesome (see troublesome knowledge above).

The Space of Possibilities

What you or I make of the characteristics that circumscribe our existence—how we interpret them and work with them—depends on our mental model of the world, which includes our personality and our beliefs.

Do you find the idea that things are not only not as they seem, but never as they seem disturbing, confusing, trivial, or intriguing?

Is the idea that the extent of what we don’t know will always be far greater than the extent of what we know frustrating, obvious, or expansive?

Does knowing that everything you experience is the result of your brain’s interpretation of data that other brains are very likely interpreting differently make you curious or does it feel unnerving or even threatening?

The Thin Slice

It has become clear that our brains sample just a small bit of the surrounding physical world. —David Eagleman, Incognito

Although what Eagleman says is true, and it’s possible to grasp the concept intellectually, it is simply impossible for us to experience. That’s because our brain is continuously assessing and interpreting the data it has access to as if it is all the data there is. How else could it operate?

If we really understand and acknowledge this aspect of reality—that we are always working with limited information we treat as if it is all the information—we must realize that a likely majority of the conclusions and explanations we take for granted are inaccurate, sometimes extremely so. Our brain can’t take into account factors of which it is unaware. Yet there are always factors that affect us of which we and our brain are unaware.

The conclusions and explanations we arrive at daily are often good enough for us to get by—not so erroneous they threaten our survival. But that isn’t always the case. And even if they don’t threaten our survival, they can modify our mental model in ways that lead to maladaptive perceptions of our internal and external world. Taking all of our perceptions for granted can have detrimental effects on our experience and therefore on our actions in and reactions to the world, as well as our wellbeing, and our relationships with others.

We are not significantly different from humans of the past who didn’t believe in the existence of germs or bacteria because they couldn’t see them with the naked eye. Or humans who believed the earth was the center of the solar system. Or that the brain was a useless organ—or that we only use 10% of it. Or that our memories are accurate, and eye-witness accounts are reliable.

When more information was obtained, we modified our understanding of germs and the solar system and the brain and memory and eye-witness accounts. We have enough information now to modify our understanding of how we operate and how our experience is based on our interpretations.

If we don’t, or don’t want to, understand this thing called phenomenal individualism, we will constantly be at the effect of our mistaken beliefs, locked into a perceptual and experiential system within which we have very little room to maneuver and no room at all to create transformational change.

On the other hand, we can step into and take an active role within this space of possibilities.

More to come!

Sensing and Perceiving
the Physical World

December 27, 2023 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

Sensation is the information the brain receives; perception is the result of the brain selecting, organizing, and interpreting this information. We don’t experience the sensory data directly; we experience the result of the brain’s processing of it.

As an aside, some people consider sensation to be a physical process, while perception is a psychological process. We may talk about and think about the physical and the psychological as being two distinct domains, but the brain that receives sensory data also does the interpreting that gives rise to perception. It doesn’t make a distinction between the physiological and the psychological in this or in any other regard.

An example of the difference between sensation and perception is prosopagnocia, a neurological disorder experienced by about one in 50 people, including neuroscientist Oliver Sacks. More commonly known as face blindness, it’s the inability to recognize faces, including one’s own in a mirror. Prosopagnocia is not a result of memory dysfunction or loss, impaired vision, or learning disabilities. The sensory data is input, so to speak, but the brain can’t interpret it so there is no perception.

While an interpretation—anyone’s, of anything—can be more or less accurate, it is always approximate. As Daniel Gilbert said, there isn’t a view from nowhere. All interpretations are based in a point of view from a particular brain at a particular point in time, so interpretations are inherently limited and slanted—and they vary both from individual to individual and within individuals at different times and under different circumstances.

“Normal” vs “Abnormal”

We tend to think that there is always a correct interpretation (perception) of an object or an event—that objects and events and their properties exist in an immutable state independent of us. And if we apply the appropriate lens, we believe we can achieve complete, or nearly complete, accuracy in our perception. At the same time, we tend to assume (operate as if) we are perceiving correctly.

So it’s tempting, not to mention less troublesome, to view others’ experiences or perceptions—especially when they don’t match ours—as missing the mark somehow. There’s an error in their, or their brain’s, calculations. One example is color blindness (also called color deficiency—see what I mean?), which has a genetic basis. Another example is tone deafness. There are many more, including:

Aphantasia: the inability to create a visual mental image of something that isn’t present.
Synesthesia: a sort of mixing up of sensory pathways in the brain (experiencing letters of the alphabet as having colors or associating a smell with a word).
Misophonia (aka soft sound sensitivity): a disorder in which certain repetitive sounds like gum chewing or paper crinkling automatically trigger powerful negative emotional responses.

And don’t forget prosopagnocia.

Clearly color blindness, aphantasia, synesthesia, misophonia, and other such conditions provide individuals with different experiences of reality than we might consider the norm. But does it make sense to say it’s wrong to experience the letter “M” as orange or the color green as smelling like cilantro? Richard Feynman had synesthesia and saw his equations in colors. Far from being wrong, this sounds pretty great to me, although that’s coming from a point of view of not having the experience.

Is there something wrong with that fellow over there who can’t mentally visualize a field of poppies or fluorescent purple mushrooms or a galloping horse? Aphantasia, unlike synesthesia, seems tragic to me; I can’t imagine I would be the same person if I didn’t have the vivid visual imagination I have. But how could one miss it if they never had it to begin with?

Is it wrong that the crinkling of paper or chewing of gum elicits a fight or flight response in that woman seated the next row over on the plane? She just seems to be overreacting and behaving rudely. Misophonia doesn’t seem desirable to me in any way. Of the few conditions I’ve included here, it’s the one that people who have it are perhaps most likely to view as being abnormal. That’s because it can cause problems beyond the purely sensory. It can create a lot of stress in personal relationships or interactions and in social settings. Many sufferers and the people they interact with tend to think it’s a psychological problem, meaning they could control their response if they tried harder. Or they need therapy. Nevertheless, it is an example of the brain sensing and perceiving (interpreting) sensory data and providing a resulting experience. It’s no different from any other instance of sensory processing.

External vs. Internal

The conditions described above all relate to the processing, interpretation, and experiencing of external sensory data. Enough research has been done on how the brain processes external sensory data to allow scientists to map the parts of the brain associated with them.

But there’s still much to learn about how the brain processes internal sensory information. How does it sense and organize feedback from internal organs to regulate hunger, satiation, thirst, nausea, pain, breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, etc.?

Scientists think that internal sensing may be more complicated than external sensing because, according to cell biologist Chen Ran:

[I]nternal organs convey information through mechanical forces, hormones, nutrients, toxins, temperature, and more—each of which can act on multiple organs and translate into multiple physiological responses. Mechanical stretch, for example, signals the need to urinate when it occurs in the bladder, but translates into satiation when it happens in the stomach and triggers a reflex to stop inhalation in the lungs.

How does the brain determine (interpret) sensory data so that we have an accurate enough experience to allow us to respond appropriately? Researchers do have some leads they’re following as they attempt to get a handle on the coding of internal senses throughout the brain. One motivation for this area of study concerns treatment for diseases that arise from internal sensory system malfunctions—i.e. abnormal feedback.

Of course this is a bit oversimplified since this so-called feedback involves sensation, perception, and interpretation. Feedback might relate to external or internal sensory data or what we think of physiological or psychological sensory data. No matter what it relates to, however, there’s feedback that occurs at the unconscious level and feedback that we are aware of at the conscious level. Most feedback occurs at the unconscious level and doesn’t make it into conscious awareness.

What We’re Aware of

When feedback does make it into conscious awareness, we have thoughts about it (our interpretation, usually in the form of an explanation).

We also experience an emotion, which neuroscientist Antonio Damasio would refer to as a homeostatic indicator. Emotions constitute a sort of personalized, constantly updated, running report to consciousness, indicating the status quo of the organism—as the brain sees it—both internally and externally. This is pretty damn amazing, when you think about it.

If the interpreter (see last post) is like a play-by-play announcer calling a game (your life) over the radio, emotion is your response to what you perceive to be happening both on the field (externally) and internally. There’s lots of information available to you. Are you tuned in?