Are You Always Conscious While Awake? Flashcards
This lecture in Episode 16 best explains why there is no “Executive I”living inside us.
We all think that we have a free will in our control of ourselves. This is wrong. This is a well crafted illusion!
To make someone completely unconscious, An anesthesiologist will use a three drug cocktail. One is for unresponsiveness another produces amnesia and the third one relaxes the muscles. This is necessary so the patient does not wake up and does not feel pain.
All brain input goes through the “thalamus”.
We get lots of sensory input, but if it doesn’t go through the thalamus, we have no consciousness of anything happening.
Like a person in a coma. Various components of the brain are lighting up from sensory input but there is no central binder that puts it all together and makes the coma person aware that things are happening all around him.
There is not a single entity in our mind, but there is a large stream of “DRAFTS” going through it.
Consciousness is not some single authoritative region in the brain that puts all these drafts together.
The refrigerator light analogy.
We all know the light comes on when we open up the refrigerator door. When we think “Am I a conscious being right now?” We are physically evaluating if we are conscious, it is like we open the fridge door to see if the light is on.
When we are not evaluating being conscious, then we have no way at that instant to evaluate if we are a conscious being. Just like not seeing the light on with the fridge door closed.
It is just a simple case of you cannot realize if you were conscious unless you were actually thinking am I conscious.
If you are daydreaming or busy whistling or doing something else you were not able to tell if you were conscious or not.
When you are thinking in your car, it’s just like looking inside the refrigerator door to see if the light is on.
When you were not thinking am I conscious now it’s like the refrigerator door is closed and you don’t know for sure if the light is on or off.
When you are riding on a bus, are you conscious for the entire ride?
Are you daydreaming?
Are you engrossed listening to a talk show on the radio?
(MN: So we flow in and out of consciousness all the time. Most of the time the “DRAFTS” go through our brain and there is nothing to bind the drafts together.
Suddenly the car behind you honks the horn! THEN, THEN, RIGHT THEN your brain binds the drafts into the reality that the light turned green and you are just sitting there!
That is a prime example of being unconscious and suddenly snapping to attention in INSTANT consciousness.
Because you say, “Oh shit” and instantly that YOU are totally to blame, you get the well crafted illusion that you are a real person, living inside your body.)
Indre’s example, “We open the door and the illusion of a unified consciousness is presented.”
“Without a functional brain, there is no evidence that consciousness exists.”
Episode #17: Are other animals conscious?
Short answer, yes. They recognize themselves in a mirror.
Episode #23: Is your brain unprejudiced.
You may think you are not prejudice against people not like you. Color, nationality, body shape, social standings, athletic ability, conversation intelligence.
Perhaps you think you are not prejudice, but your brain can be. It can be hardwired that way because of your childhood upbringing.
IAT: Implicit Association Test
This testing brings out hidden associations embedded in your psyche. For example:
- You buy a golf shoe like your buddy.
- A black man wearing a hoodie in a dark street scares you.
- You like cars that you see other people driving.
Many of our choices insights are influenced by subconscious association.
Biases are strongly influenced with context. Stereotypes can lead to biases.
Biases accumulate over time because of experiences. We are finely tuned to biases of those around us i.e. rednecks, golfers, tennis players, people sharing our religious beliefs.
We implicitly prefer people and places in careers that match our identity in some way.
Bn
Episode #6: Black Death in Florence.
Guilds-like Castes-classes of people.
Natalism. Have babies and get populations back up. Florence population less than half.
Dowry invented to promote marriages and babies. With all these people dying, much land becomes available dirt cheap. Big economic booms took place. But, alas, Florence never returned to its magnificence again. The plague kept on returning in new waves of pandemics an amazing 14 times over 200 years!
Episode #15: The Jewish persecution during the black death.
Between 1000 and 1300 CE, the western European population doubled. Suddenly land became scarce. Clans were formed, and outsiders were more despised.
One of the others was the Jews. So it was plotted then enforced that the Jews could not manufacture, farm, sell and do normal life stuff.
One big thing jews could still do was banking. In Christian Europe, you could not charge interest for loans, but Jews were permitted to do this.
In the year 1290 Jews were expelled completely from England by king Edward I (1239-1307.)
The crusades were determined to wipe out the Jews because they would not convert to Christianity.
It got so bad that the Jewish families would kill all their own family members before the crusades arrived.
Wells. The Jews use their own well water and had religious ceremonies to only eat on leaven bread etc.
Thus, not a crumb of bread/food was left in any food bins, there’s no food for rats. No rats means no fleas equals no plague.
While everyone else was dying from plague, the Jews were mostly untouched. The towns people noticed this and declared it was the Jews poisoning the wells etc. that is causing the plague.
Then they captured and tortured hordes of Jews, making them confess under torture that yes, the Jews are secretly causing the plague.
1348-1349, Progoms against Jews started everywhere. Massive crowd executions. And Basel, Jews were rounded up into a large wooden house, then the house was set on fire and burned to the ground.
In other instances Jews were rounded up to be burned, talking tens of thousands of Jews here!
When the Christians came to either convert or burn the Jews, Jewish mothers would toss their own children into fires, then jump in after them. All this hysteria from fake news!
340 German towns launched progoms against the Jews.
80 Jewish communities were completely wiped off the map.
Episode #17: Pilgrimages.
Pilgrimages exploded throughout Europe to atone for their sins in the great hopes to escape the plague. It had the opposite effect.
The vast numbers of tens of thousands of pilgrimages caused a massive spread of the plague. The church was powerless to stop the plague or help any people with the plague. So the Catholic Church dusted off at least 100 Saints for plague victims to pray to in hopes of stopping the plague.
Quite a brute force effort which did absolutely nothing.
Episode #20: Economics of the Black Death.
The black death came and went in waves for 200 years.
In 1349 London, the wealthy fled the plague and left the servants to watch over their estates.
Because the plague killed so many men, the wife would need to take the businesses over to feed her family. After a while, women started not having many children because:
- They had to work full-time.
- They enjoyed the elevated standard of living, the good life that was impossible before the plague.
Many people gained tremendous wealth because:
- They survive the first plague.
- They inherited houses, estates and animals from dead relatives.
- Plagues had many waves over the next 200 years, and the survivors got very wealthy!
The church got wealthy also because people left everything to it in hopes of going to heaven.
Suddenly people had disposable income.
Changes for serfs:
- They were able to become tenant farmers.
- They were able to enter professions previously closed to them.
Primogeniture:
- Eldest son inherited almost everything.
- Second sons and daughters had to marry well, or join a religious order.
