Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference. | Quanta Magazine

YOUR BRAIN AS AN ABSTRACTION MACHINE • - I came across this Kerouac quote today and it grabbed me because it captures some of the most fundamental modern understanding about the way our brains work. What he’s referring to here is that when we shut off our perception of the outside world (by closing our eyes and focusing on the sensations occurring within the confines of our skin) we enter what’s called “interoceptive awareness”. - Our brains are remarkable in that we can focus our perception on internal events, a.k.a. interoception or on external events which is called “exteroception”. Most meditative practices involve a shift to the former. - Our brains are also remarkable in that we can focus our perception on the past, the present, or the future, or a combination of those. Most meditative practices also involve directing our focus to the present, again underscoring that we can control our perception to some extent. - Now here’s the remarkable part and the “lesson” I believe Kerouac was referring to: Because your brain is in the confines of your skull (the exception being your eyes which are part of the brain but outside the cranial vault), everything you know and perceive about the outside world is your brain’s abstract representation of what is “out there”. - It FEELS real but it’s just a picture, an abstract movie of what your brain assumes is around you based on your prior experience. And it’s accurate enough that it allowed us to evolve to be the dominant species on the planet, and certainly the best at building technologies. - I never thought of Kerouac as a neuroscientist, but I’m impressed by the amount of modern and accurate neuroscience information this short quote encapsulates. - We can learn a lot about ourselves by deliberately moving our perception from external to internal now and again. That process of shifting gives us a glimpse of how our nervous systems work. - Put any questions you might have in the comments section below this post, and as always, thank you for your interest interest in science! - @hubermanlab @stanford.med @stanford - #neuroscience #science #ciencia #neurociencia