What we don't know

I have an exam tomorrow for which I'm trying to study for, yet I find myself writing because of an interesting concept that is part of my study. It's called the global workspace model and, nothing to do with 'global' buzzwords such as 'global economy', it says that consciousness is a result of which parts of your brain are active. That is, your brain's output is experienced as concious awareness. In other words, you aren't conscious of what your brain doesn't do!

If that sounds like I'm talking in circles, consider that there is a condition called blindsight in which the visual system is working but the brain is not concious of visual awareness. Vision in your brain is processed mainly by the occipital lobe at the back of your brain so damage to this area may render your brain unable to process part or all of the visual information being received. Typically, people with blindsight only lose vision in part of their visual field. Interestingly though, they often don't realise that they've lost it. If you damage your eye, your brain knows that it is missing information, so you know you've lost part of your vision. If your brain is damaged, it doesn't know that it is missing information and so you don't know that you're missing something! 

Similarly, there's another condition called hemineglect in which damage is done to the right hand side of your parietal lobe. Your parietal lobe is responsible for spatial awareness and the right hand side of your brain controls and receives information from the left hand side of your body. People with this condition don't notice anything on their right hand side. They  might shave or only put on makeup on the right hand side of their face and if they draw a picture, they will mainly only draw the right half. A patient with hemineglect has said, about the name of the condition, "How can you neglect something that's not there?"

I find this interesting because it shows how it is possible for us to be unaware of things that may be obvious to others. We don't know what we don't know. I've always been flabbergasted by people who claim they know everything or have all the answers. You may know things from your point of view but you cannot claim to know how other people feel or how they "should" therefore react. Conciousness is such a subjective experience and nobody can say for certain that they experience a situation in the same way as somebody else. We use labels to describe but they are learnt in a social context. We learn that grass is green but we do not know that what you see and experience as "green" is exactly the same as what I see and experience as "green". We only know to recognise and label this same experience as green. Maybe that's why some people have terrible colour co-ordination?! 

I think this gels with me because it fits in with my philosophy of dealing with others. There's more to people that just what you can see and because we don't know what is happening under the surface, we shouldn't be too quick to judge. Everyone has their foibles and there may be good reason for them. That's not to say that you have to be friends with everyone or have to super considerate of all the possibilities. You still have to live your own life and be true to yourself. Spend time with the people you get along with and you don't have to spend time with people you don't like but judge not lest ye be judged...