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From: uj797@freenet.Victoria.BC.CA (Arthur T. Murray)
Subject: Re: consciousness
Message-ID: <1995Nov24.222116.17630@freenet.victoria.bc.ca>
Sender: news@freenet.victoria.bc.ca (News Manager)
Organization: Victoria Freenet Association
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 1995 22:21:16 GMT
Lines: 22


   Consciousness  is  the  associative  awareness  of self and of
surroundings.   Awareness, or associative remembrance of stimuli,
automatically constitutes a mechanism of attention  as the brain-
mind selects for deeper scrutiny the associatively most evocative
stimulus.   When  the  brain-mind  becomes aware of its own body,
sensations and thoughts, it knows:  "I think - therefore I am."

   The ease with which our mechanism of attention follows a chain
of associations gives us the epiphenomenal impression that we are
conscious.  Once the mere impression  of consciousness is formed,
instantly the reality of consciousness exists.

  /^^^^^^^^^^^\ http://www.newciv.org/Mentifex/  /^^^^^^^^^^^^^\
 /visual memory\ brain-mind________  abstract   | auditory      |
|      /--------|-------\ / syntax \ memory     | memory        |
|      |  recog-|nition | \________/<-----------|------------\  |
|   ___|___     |       |    |flush-vector      |    ______  |  |
|  /image  \    |    ___V____V__  word-fetch    |   /      \ |  |
| / percept \<--|-->/ array of  \---------------|->/ stored \|  |
| \ engrams /   |   \ concepts  / for thinking  |  \ words  /   |
|  \_______/    |    \_________/  in language   |   \______/    |
