Mind(full)ness

Mind, body, and soul.

Oh la la, just saying it sends a sense of relaxation through me.

This blog, however, will probably not be so relaxing for most people so consider yourself warned.

As I always mention ‘thinking’ in my blogs, it has aligned well with the book I am currently reading about consciousness. A book that dives into the arguments about whether consciousness is strictly physical that only is related to the brain or if there are non-physical aspects of consciousness. Similar, yet different to the investigations of where the mind exists. Strictly in the brain or non-physical as well? If consciousness exists in the mind then where does it all connect? Are they all similar and overlapping or do they all make up parts of each other, but exists theoretically inside one bubble?

I hope you aren’t expecting me to give you any answers to these questions because I’m still formulating my own opinion on the matter, but I will share the pieces that I believe to the most interesting while inserting other random tangents along the way.

Starting with the wonderful evolution of humans. Is the start of humanity and how we evolved not critical to they way we begin to think about consciousness? With all of the complexities about human evolution and what gets passed along, I’m just going to talk about the DNA side of things. DNA the genetic code that determines the characteristics of all living things. Manipulating DNA can change the way we look, change what things we may be susceptible to, and perhaps even change thought.

According to the book that I am reading (The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning, by Daniel Bor) consciousness can be passed down through our DNA. When we think of the human species compared to the rest, the thing that sets us apart is our brains. Our hunger for innovation, understanding patterns, and awareness is what has allowed us to not only survive, but control the world that we are living in. With this innate drive within us, I think that is where the claim of consciousness getting passed down through DNA derives from.

I suppose one important factor of all of this before going any further would be to think about what you believe consciousness to be in terms of a definition. The author uses consciousness and awareness interchangeably. For me, I’m not even sure if I agree with that. I think I would use awareness to describe something that I am experiencing in the physical world. Consciousness I think more of the act of knowing whether it be awake, asleep, or funnily unconscious. I think of the people who say that they have out of body experiences or those who have flatlined and claim to have went to heaven. Are they not conscious? What would you use to describe their being at that moment? Is that the mind, but not consciousness?! Genuinely curious, would love to know what other people would say.

For now, that is why I believe that consciousness is within the brain and mind, but also exists in the non-physical world.

When I think about the brain I think about the different lobes, neurons, information getting passed down through the nervous system, chemicals, physical things. When I think of the mind, I think of the aspect that allows us to feel, sense, imagine, perceive, something that is certainly based within the brain and based off of the brain, but there is more to it. Why is there more to it? Consciousness…

What a whirlwind aye. It’s a lot and I’d be very surprised if people made it this far without giving up because it is a thought provoking subject. How ironic…

Enough of my thoughts as they do tend to go in circles after awhile, but I thought I’d just end with some very interesting facts about the brain which may give you some understanding as to why I’m so obsessed with understanding it.

Our brains account for only 2% of our body weight, however it uses 20% of our body’s energy (like what?!). Ever start that new job and wonder why you are so exhausted at the end of the first few days? I would say you have your answer my friend, although I’m sure you came to that conclusion already as it isn’t that hard to figure out. New job, new role, new people and connections, a lot of new for the brain to process.

There are roughly 85 billion neurons in a human brain. An average PC processor has around 100 million components; so about 850 times fewer components than a human brain has neurons (<— straight out my book). When I think of that and I think about how fast we think the internet and computers function then put it in comparison to the brain. Pretty freaking impressive. The motherboard to our bodies. Processing information at a level that we cannot understand nor can we duplicate. Unreal.

To top that off.. I’ll leave you with this…

Each neuron in the human brain is connected to, on average, 7,000 others. The means there are some 600 trillion connections in the brain, which is about 3,000 times more than the number of stars in the galaxy. In every young adult human brain these micro cables, extended end to end, would run about 165,000km - enough to wrap around the Earth four times over! (<— Also, straight out the book)

My mind can wrap around the Earth four times over, but I can’t even wrap myself around my mind. I’m struggling… Is that why though? Shit seems long. Way too complicated. Incomprehensible. Next level. You get it.

Maybe now you see why sometimes I can’t sleep at night. Jokes, I usually sleep just fine, but maybe now you see why I think so much. So much to understand that doesn’t make sense. So much untouched research. So many gaps and questions. So many unknowns.

That is how are brains have always functioned and have been wired. It is said that our ‘consciousness’ cannot focus on more than up to four things at a time. Perhaps, this is just another reason why we need to think about the way we work and what we are looking at on a daily basis.

With information being so accessible these days, it makes it difficult to find a good balance especially when many things are expected of us in regards to work. It is so so important though to try and limit what we are processing and engaging in daily as research is starting to show the impacts of the emergence of technology and it causing early burnouts.

I will leave that for the next one though… may we dive deeper into why I think society needs a complete restructure from work weeks to free time to me just bullshititing really.

Congrats to you for making it to the end, I’m impressed! You must love me because I’m not even sure I will ever re-read this one again. Hopefully, you got something out of it though.

Until next time!!!

PS: Your brain likes dark chocolate so you should go have some now. <— I also just somewhat made that up, but it’s always a great idea.