Pleasure and Joy

[genkaus]

Yes, but it is the conscious mind which imposes that sense of unity on the various pixels flashing on and off. There's a 3rd party involved. However, you cannot find a central physical entity in the brain which coordinates the various inputs into a unified whole. (again so far as I know)

And why can't it impose that same sense of unity on itself?

That's what I'm talking about. So far as I know, there is one stream of consciousness, with various sense impressions and abstract ideas being coordinated within that one stream. That is how I experience my mind. I recognize that different parts of the brain bring in visual memory, current touch sensations, and chunk them into symbols that I can work with. I don't have a problem with that.

But where is this mental "space" on which all these projections end up being experienced? Just saying it's in the brain doesn't really do much, because it is that unified mental screen which defines my experience of my mind, and it is the one component which they can't find.

Let me put it this way. How do you know that if you remove ALL those sensory symbols, you don't still have a kind of content-less mind? Why not? If you remove all objects from space, you'd still have space right? Or would you?

That's my point - what you regard as a unified stream of consciousness may not be that. In fact, current studies would suggest there are multiple mental screens on which these projections end up being experienced and the illusion of unity is the result of only one being in the forefront at a time.

Consider, for example, ventriloquism. The reason why it works - the reason why you believe that the doll is talking instead of the person - is because your visual experience holds primacy over the auditory one. Your vision gives you the data that the doll's mouth is moving - not the man's and your auditory information is automatically corrected to match it as a result.

Or consider a simpler and more universal example - daydreaming in class. Your imagination stream of consciousness takes the fore-front. Your eyes are open, your ears are open, you are taking in all the information coming in - but you are not experiencing it. If, at that moment, the question was asked "what did X say?" you won't be able to answer it, not because of memory issue, but because you didn't experience it. As soon as the teacher notices you and starts walking towards you, your self-preservation instinct kicks in and pushes the sensory-stream of consciousness into focus. However, since all throughout this, only one 'canvas' of experience is apparent, you get the mistaken impression that there is only one stream of consciousness into which all the others converge. While the simpler answer would be that there are multiple streams simultaneously going on and your brain switches priority based on input.