I’ve always been baffled by the differing ways people use the terms attention, consciousness and awareness. In conversations having to do with psychology or spirituality, one gets the impression that consciousness (and/or awareness) is the summum bonum. What I’m curious about right now though, is the biological/neurological basis of attending. I read somewhere that attention is an exclusionary biological function, whereby there is an active inhibition of sensory and motor neurons in all areas other than the area (let’s say, my tongue) to which I’m attending. Whatever the case, I wonder how the basic neuroscience fits with all the psychospiritual yahoo about the primacy of attention/consciousness/awareness. Here’s how I’m understanding the distinctions at the moment. Attention is a function of the central nervous system, an everything-but-this inhibitory process that leads to greater sensory awareness and motor control. Consciousness is the total functional repertoire of which we can be aware, at any given moment. Or is it the other way around… we can be conscious of that which we pay attention to… we are aware of the…
Wait a minute….E = mc2? No, hold on now…I think therefore I am? No no…I am that I am.
I am what I am and that’s all that i am! Got it.
