"When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence: Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter."
- Albert Einstein
"Space and time are not conditions in which we live; they are simply modes in which we think." - Albert Einstein
To my surprise, the following theory in which I thought 'I created' is shared by a few... and I thought I was special lol.
Not only did Einstein produce one of the most 'scientific' understandings of the universe to date... in my opinion, he as well gave us the most
accurate means of describing the nature of consciousness and the brain, itself.
It is my argument, that an individuals frame of reference is the first and foremost important contributing factor to the creation of memory... as well
as the make-up of spatial relationships in which they are stored. It is various means of spatial recognition in which dictates a majority of our very
conscious awareness. These very means of integrating spatial awareness then manifests what is called 'Wave Function Collapse', creating a single
possibility that is observed.
Mouse Brain Cells Activated, Reactivated in Learning and Memory
About 40 percent of the cells in the hippocampus that were tagged during initial memory formation were reactivated, Wiltgen said. There was also
reactivation of cells in parts of the brain cortex associated with place learning and in the amygdala, which is important for emotional memory.
Millisecond Memory: 'Teleportation' of Rats Sheds Light On How the Memory Is Organized
When the researchers 'teleport' the rats from one place to another by flipping the light switch from A to B, the rats experience exactly the kind of
confusion you feel when you momentarily don't know where you are. "But the mind doesn't actually mix up the maps," she says. "It switches back
and forth between the two maps that represent rooms A and B, but it is never in an intermediate position. The brain can 'flip' back and forth
between the two different maps, but it is always either or, site A or site B."
May-Britt and Edvard Moser have previously discovered the location of the brain's sense of place, shown how the brain works to make memories
distinctively different, and have found that the brain has a mechanism to switch between experiences through the use of senses and images stored as
memories. Now the researchers have also shown how the brain switches between individual memories, and how long the brain lingers on the different bits
Many Maps of the Brain
He explains that all species need to navigate, and that some types of memory may have arisen from brain systems that were actually developed for
the brain's sense of location.
So why has evolution equipped us with four or more senses of location?
Moser believes the ability to make a mental map of the environment arose very early in evolution. He explains that all species need to navigate, and
that some types of memory may have arisen from brain systems that were actually developed for the brain's sense of location.
"We see that the grid cells that are in each of the modules send signals to the same cells in the hippocampus, which is a very important component of
memory," explains Moser. "This is, in a way, the next step in the line of signals in the brain. In practice this means that the location cells send
a different code into the hippocampus at the slightest change in the environment in the form of a new pattern of activity. So every tiny change
results in a new combination of activity that can be used to encode a new memory, and, with input from the environment, becomes what we call
All of which, I then suggest creates the following correlation:
Pattern recognition (psychology)
Pattern recognition involves identification of faces, objects, words, melodies, etc. The visual system does more than just interpret forms, contours
and colors. Pattern recognition refers to the process of recognizing a set of stimuli arranged in a certain pattern that is characteristic of that set
of stimuli. Pattern recognition does not occur instantly, although it does happen automatically and spontaneously. Pattern recognition is an innate
ability of animals.
With competing maps, over-lapping maps, and flipping between maps upon recall...
it makes perfect sense that we do the following(maybe I'm the only one lol):
Cognitive dissonance is a term used in modern psychology to describe the feeling of discomfort when simultaneously holding two or more conflicting
cognitions: ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions. In a state of dissonance, people may sometimes feel "disequilibrium": frustration,
hunger, dread, guilt, anger, embarrassment, anxiety, etc.
Can cognitive dissonance be considered as 'conflicting maps' or conflicting templates?
Which then gives rise to the basis for metacognition which includes the following:
Metacognition - "cognition about cognition", or "knowing about knowing"
In the domain of cognitive neuroscience, metacognitive monitoring and control has been viewed as a function of the prefrontal cortex, which receives
(monitors) sensory signals from other cortical regions and through feedback loops implements control (see chapters by Schwartz & Bacon and Shimamura,
in Dunlosky & Bjork, 2008)
So in the end of the day... is our consciousness just a feedback looping system of memories that have been created using an individuals frame of
reference in relation to stimuli?
Lastly, I will leave you all with some information taken from :
Hippocampus: Mapping or memory?
This observation obviously refutes the notion that the hippocampus contains a representation of the fixed environmental structure. But rather than
abandoning the spatial mapping view, its discoverers concluded that the hippocampus creates multiple spatial maps based on different ‘reference
frames’, in the case of this study, separate maps referred to a starting point or goal. By extension, in an environment with many moveable objects
of interest, there presumably could be a very large number of maps for the same space.
Similarly, from this perspective place cells appear to be governed by different ‘reference frames’ when behavioral episodes are defined by a
sequence of actions and locations centered on objects independently of their positions within the overall spatial environment. And finally, from this
view a ‘trajectory’ can be straightforwardly characterized as the representation of a journey defined by a sequence of locations and behaviors
recorded in memory.
another paper that I wanted to quote from that basically sums all this up... it is an excellent read!
Spatial Memory and Hippocampal Function: Where
are we now?