In search of sensibility

According to the recent article by New Scientist, our brains manage the huge task of visual observation by extrapolating predicted visual inputs based on recent experience. This predictive guessing game frees up processing resources to deal with the unexpected.

If we consider the limited time available between observing something unexpected happening to trip us while we walk, and the lightning fast reflexes needed to sidestep and swerve said obstacle, we begin to understand why our brain indulge in such mentalist trickery.

Predictable sights trigger less brain activity than unfamiliar stimuli, bolstering the view that the brain is not merely reactive, but generates predictions based on the recent past. "The brain expects to see things and really just wants to confirm it now and again," says Lars Muckli at the University of Glasgow, UK.

The finding follows a series of scientific discoveries that challenge our current view of awareness. It challenges our understanding of reality, and throws a curve-ball to philosophers and scholars alike, neither of which have ever been able to come up with any satisfactory explanation for the rational mind or the origin of consciousness in the first place.

Recent research has provided us with inconclusive evidence that awareness is highly lucid, that conscious experience depend more on frame of mind than on actual experience (with about a 20/80 split between experience and expectation), and that reality is a highly individual experience. Add to that the latest revelation that our power of observation mostly confirm predictions and you will begin to see why our view on consciousness needs to change.

Since the historical debate on the nature of reality that was started way back in the Age of Enlightenment has failed to provide us with any solid argument we can believe, I suggest the time has come to wipe what we think we know from the table, change our perspective, and begin our view on life, the universe and everything anew.

By starting with a clean slate, and basing our arguments on what we know rather than the philosophical discourse that has been going on since the dawn of awareness, chances are good we may end up looking at life in a totally different light.

Since all of this is rather sudden and unexpected, not to mention virgin territory even to myself, I welcome any comment you may have, and would love to hear your point of view.