Thursday 14 May 2020

Processing Proportions

During processing, what proportions of subconscious and conscious memory access, does the brain use?

During times of consciously aware attentiveness, it seems that the brain can simultaneously utilize subconscious memory.  

Simply using words to think or speak is a process of consciously making connections of cause and effect between factors or concepts. But each word referenced for factors or concepts within the conscious combination, also has a subconscious subset. The portion of brain activity which I’m considering to be conscious, would be the portion that makes a neural connection between memories of factors, and their interaction or relative cause and effect. I further explain details of the specific aspects of conscious thought, in a post from 2+ yrs ago; Conscious Comprehension. So in the process of any general thoughts using language, involving a relative connection of how something affects something else, the conscious portion would be the neural access to memory of the pronouns, as well as the verb connecting them. For eg, someone thinks; “cats chase mice”. Cats & mice are the pronouns of the 2 factors, and chase, is the verb which references the interaction. 

The subconscious subsets, would be the neural combinations of memory of each individual factor and interaction. For eg, any additional neural access connected to “cats”, but which the person is not focusing on. In any example of words which someone is thinking, in order to make a connection or interaction between factors, the overall neural combination between the pronouns and verb, would be the conscious portion, whereas varying additional neural access to each word's memory subset, would be the subconscious portion. 

Most words we save in memory, after being a toddler, are saved through conscious connections of memory of sensory perceptions of that particular factor. Once words are saved as a subset, the mind can then subconsciously access that word and the meaning behind it, through ease of neural connection. When memory of that word is accessed in the future, without awareful analysis of it in particular, it is being used as a subconscious subset. The variation and quantity of any subset would likely change to some degree each time it is accessed.

Considering that in the human brain, there are supposed to be an average of 86 billion neurons, many with thousands of synapsis connections, the amount of brain activity at any time of active thought, should be astounding. I just Googled it now, and there are estimates that 95% of brain activity is subconscious, leaving only 5% conscious. Of course this is likely not too accurate, as consciousness is not down to a measurable science (yet), but it gives an estimate of the vast quantity of neural activity. 

At any time of mental analysis, it seems likely that only the core combination of neurons, which are accessing memories of that which the person is focusing on the connection between, would be the conscious portion. Each factor which the person is considering in analysis would likely have additional neural tangents (like tree branches), which are being accessed subconsciously. The neural connections and combinations seem to be the relevant aspects of the brain’s Processing Proportions. 

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