My current view is that consciousness=attention, it is what is focused on in your brain at any moment.
This fits with what was reported in OP: there are many things that are perceived by brain, but are not deemed to be important enough to focus attention/consciousness on them.
The studies of “confidence & accuracy of near threshold discrimination responses” are easily replicated so they prove that unconscious (or sub-conscious or unaware) perception occurs. We can predict that quickly flashed images or other short stimuli will result in low confidence scores, and this is consistent. Hence, I’d recommend against the description “aren’t willing to say” as that implies unconscious perception isn’t proven and measurable. Rather, it would be more accurate to say that the body sensations/signals you experienced changes in show attention can override RAS suppression of repetitive stimuli and reinforce some unconscious signals enough for them to become conscious (like choosing to observe the feeling of clothes on your skin).
With TBIs studies, if the signal isn’t being suppressed and is partially absent, then it’s unlikely attention can override that (though I’d theorize there may be enough neuroplasticity for attention training over time to reinforce those unconscious signals and strengthen them. Much more time-consuming/intensive process than overriding suppression if so.)
That aside, I find it highly likely the functional pathways we see disrupted by narcolepsy and anaesthetics-hypocretin binding- will give some big hints on conscious function.
There is an absurd amount of sensory gating going on with the sense of smell in particular, which you can test by fasting for a few days - by the 48h mark you will smell things you never expect, sources of odor that are across the room feel like you put your nose inside of them. I think this makes pheromone effects in human mating a lot more plausible than naively expected, too.
I am still unconvinced blindsight has anything to do with consciousness, though - some subconscious processes could also be blindseeing, e.g. I expect a blindseeing person cannot read text in their native alphabet, which happens w/o conscious action for most people.
Centrally consciousness is about qualia, which are difficult to pin down to any neural correlate.
My current view is that consciousness=attention, it is what is focused on in your brain at any moment.
This fits with what was reported in OP: there are many things that are perceived by brain, but are not deemed to be important enough to focus attention/consciousness on them.
This also fits with how it feels from inside.
The studies of “confidence & accuracy of near threshold discrimination responses” are easily replicated so they prove that unconscious (or sub-conscious or unaware) perception occurs. We can predict that quickly flashed images or other short stimuli will result in low confidence scores, and this is consistent. Hence, I’d recommend against the description “aren’t willing to say” as that implies unconscious perception isn’t proven and measurable. Rather, it would be more accurate to say that the body sensations/signals you experienced changes in show attention can override RAS suppression of repetitive stimuli and reinforce some unconscious signals enough for them to become conscious (like choosing to observe the feeling of clothes on your skin).
With TBIs studies, if the signal isn’t being suppressed and is partially absent, then it’s unlikely attention can override that (though I’d theorize there may be enough neuroplasticity for attention training over time to reinforce those unconscious signals and strengthen them. Much more time-consuming/intensive process than overriding suppression if so.)
That aside, I find it highly likely the functional pathways we see disrupted by narcolepsy and anaesthetics-hypocretin binding- will give some big hints on conscious function.
This is pretty fascinating.
There is an absurd amount of sensory gating going on with the sense of smell in particular, which you can test by fasting for a few days - by the 48h mark you will smell things you never expect, sources of odor that are across the room feel like you put your nose inside of them. I think this makes pheromone effects in human mating a lot more plausible than naively expected, too.
I am still unconvinced blindsight has anything to do with consciousness, though - some subconscious processes could also be blindseeing, e.g. I expect a blindseeing person cannot read text in their native alphabet, which happens w/o conscious action for most people.
Centrally consciousness is about qualia, which are difficult to pin down to any neural correlate.
I wonder if psychedelics have an effect on backup sensory pathways. Isn't the pulvinar nucleus in the thalamus also heavily affected by psychedelics?