Identical Simultaneous Thoughts, Imagine the same thought occured at two different places in the brain at the same time - What happens? See post 5 Options

[IdentitytheKeystone]

What would happen if you realized you had the same or similar thought in two different places in your mind, at the same time ?

In case you think this a nonsense notion, I would point out that the visual system makes two independant, near identical images, simultaneously.

Thank you for your response.

[Joesus]

What would happen if you realized you had the same or similar thought in two different places in your mind, at the same time ?

In case you think this a nonsense notion, I would point out that the visual system makes two independant, near identical images, simultaneously.

Thank you for your response.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P...s00137-0120.pdf

Tho it might be theorized that the eyes (left and right) work independently of each other, the object they both assume to focus upon is either the same object or there are always two of the same in your field of vision and senses.

So are there really two of the same thought, or one with variations?

[IdentitytheKeystone]

I am proposing that each thought has the effect of reinforcing the other, in the same way that one scientist reinforces another by advocating a similar idea.
I am proposing a mechanism for Dennetts 'fame in the brain' hypothesis, or his multiple drafts notion.

In the visual system there is an instance of the scientific method. Each eye independently offers a view of the outside world, and when they are seen to be the same, they reinforce each other and provide a compelling case for the brain's attention. The reinforcing of thought creates a mechanism for prioritizing thought and attention.

[Joesus]

You're not saying the left and right eyes reinforce the view determined by minds interpretive function are you, or that the eyes function independently of each other with their own conscious mechanism separate from the mind?
It would be the mind which reinforces an idea thru sensory perception whether it be seen touched tasted or heard.

Even if you take 3 people and set their gaze upon an object they will agree the object has relative value, shape and even allows for sensory experience when engaged by the other senses, but the difference is that no two people will see the same object or experience it the same way. The consciousness of the individual will isolate the experience to the individual cognitive functions which will include past experiences. This is what makes the individual unique.

I suppose if you had trained each eye to function as a separate organ from the other there might be an optical reinforcement thru the cognitive functioning of the independently trained eye, but if both eyes have been supporting depth of perception I doubt there could be independent thought linked to each eye separate from the other.

Getting back to the idea of having two similar thoughts... The mind thinks anywhere from 60-100000 thoughts per day. Consciousness is not bound to linear progression of thought and experience but it is often conditioned to see and experience everything in a linear fashion. What are you proposing differentiates two thoughts that are similar? How do you know they aren't the same thought?

[IdentitytheKeystone]

Thank you for your question Joesus.
I will respond by expandiing on what I proposed above, and then address your questions in a subsequent post.


The function of the brain, I propose, is to organize information in the service of the organism as a whole.
The brain is a vast store of information. The cerebral cortex is a vast store of information.
In the cerebral cortex the information is variously organized and under continuous review for better organization.

Through parallel awareness, we are simultaneouly aware of most of the differently organized information in the cerebral cortex at the same time.
Poorly organized information does not help the organism. Paying attention to disorganized information is stressful.
Attention is drawn to organized thought. Organized thought gives us refuge from disorganized thought.

When we become aware of two thoughts/notions/concepts that are very similar, we are sparked by, and attracted to, what is actually an episode if instant organization.
When two similar thoughts come to our awareness, they help 'organize' each other.
The act of organizing, of discovering similarity, creates attention and focus. this is a step towards creating consciousness.

Please note; not all issues of consciousness are directly addressed here. I have a Youtube video posted. It is cryptic but relatively complete. It is called 'consciousness theory using the logic of identity'.


Thank you.

[IdentitytheKeystone]

Joesus you asked

'Getting back to the idea of having two similar thoughts... The mind thinks anywhere from 60-100000 thoughts per day. Consciousness is not bound to linear progression of thought and experience but it is often conditioned to see and experience everything in a linear fashion. What are you proposing differentiates two thoughts that are similar? How do you know they aren't the same thought?'

What differentiates two thoughts that are similar is their provenance. We input new thoughts/information every day, every minute. Every thought is unique. However some thoughts are bound to be similar. The one that are most alike cry out for scrutiny and comparison. They offer a toehold by which to advance the organization of those similar thoughts and thoughts/information associated with them.
Parallel awareness creates the perfect condition for the discovery of similarity in a large domain of variously organized information. The discovery and/or establishment of similarity or identity between thoughts, through the use of parallel awareness, is a step by which we can organize information in the brain.

Joesus - The address you gave at the Biotechnology inst is not working.

[Joesus]

Joesus you asked

'Getting back to the idea of having two similar thoughts... The mind thinks anywhere from 60-100000 thoughts per day. Consciousness is not bound to linear progression of thought and experience but it is often conditioned to see and experience everything in a linear fashion. What are you proposing differentiates two thoughts that are similar? How do you know they aren't the same thought?'

What differentiates two thoughts that are similar is their provenance. We input new thoughts/information every day, every minute. Every thought is unique. However some thoughts are bound to be similar. The one that are most alike cry out for scrutiny and comparison. They offer a toehold by which to advance the organization of those similar thoughts and thoughts/information associated with them.
Parallel awareness creates the perfect condition for the discovery of similarity in a large domain of variously organized information. The discovery and/or establishment of similarity or identity between thoughts, through the use of parallel awareness, is a step by which we can organize information in the brain.

What is the provenance of thought?

Joesus - The address you gave at the Biotechnology inst is not working.

INVESTIGATIONS IN THE RELATION BETWEEN CONVERGENCE
AND ACCOMMODATION OF THE
EYES. By ERNEST E. MADDOX, M.B. Edin., Syme
Surgical Fellow in the University of Edinburgh.'
I. Introductory Sketch.
WHY, if we see separately with each eye, do we not see double
when both are used? This problem has taxed the ingenuity
of many busy minds in past ages, and its history is by no
means one of uniform progress.
Euclid, two or three centuries B.c., had advanced so far beyond
some at a far later date as to recognize that both eyes were employed
in unison, and that their dissimilar pictures were in some way united.
Galen surmised that the union of the optic nerves at the commissure
supplied a clue. Both he and Herophilus assumed that the two
nerves were there united by mysterious pores; doubtless to permit
the free passage and intercourse of the little spirits of both sides,
whose remarkable unanimity in fitting the pictures together was
evidenced by single vision. Later on Gassendus, Tacquet, and Joan
Baptista Porta, the inventor of the camera obscura, escaped the
difficulty altogether by assuming that one eye only at a time was
engaged in vision.
In 1613, Francis Aguillon (Aguilonius), a learned Jesuit, called in
the aid of what he termed a " common sense," which " imparts its aid
equally to each eye, exerting its own power equally in the same
manner as the eyes are converged by means of their optical
axes." This was an advance, for the two pictures, we may truly say,
are mentally united by a "common sense," 2 of the real nature of
which we probably know little more than Aguilonius, though we
may notice more of its effects.
Dr Briggs appears to have been the first to have suggested "corresponding
" or " identical " points in the two retinae, that is, that each
point on the inner side of one retina has a corresponding point on the
outer side of the other, so that when images are thrown by an object
upon these identical points, they are mentally united. This was a
great advance, though the theory of " identical points in the field of
vision" is now considered more correct. But he explained it in a
The original of this memoir was the successful essay submitted in competition
for the Syme Surgical Fellowship in April 1884. Before publication it
has been revised and enlarged.
a It is now located in a theoretical " fusion centre."
MR ERNEST E. MADDOX.
curious way, by ascribing to each fibre of the optic nerve a different
degree of tension, like the strings of a violin or piano, each vibrating
in unison with its own retinal area,-" a tension," argued Porterfield,
impossible in the soft and pulpy structure of the nerve fibres."
From the fact that " in animals which look the same way with
both eyes, the optic nerves meet before they enter the brain, while
this union does not occur in those which do not, such as fishes and
the chameleon," Sir Isaac Newton suggested an arrangement of the
optic fibres at the commissure, which exactly tallies with that now
generally received-" the fibres on the right side of both (optick)
nerves uniting there at the commissure, and, after union, going
thence into the brain in the nerve which is on the right side of the
head, and the fibres on the left side of both nerves uniting in the
sanie place, and, after union, going into the brain in the nerve which
is on the left side of the head." I quote from the 13th Query
at the end of his " Treatise on Opticks " (1718), the more remarkable
because it was the belief of anatomists, like Vesalius, that no
decussation occurred at the commissure, and that it consisted of
fibrous tissue.
Dr William Porterfield of Edinburgh is believed to have first
enunciated the correct, though still very partial theory of binocular
vision. In his " Treatise on the Eye " (1759)1 he showed that when
the eyes are accommodated for any object their two visual axes are
also exactly converged upon the same point, and " since each eye
possesses the power, either intuitively or by acquisition, of localizing
points in space, the object must appear single, it being impossible
for us to conceive two objects existing in the same place at the same
time.
Single binocular vision therefore requires a perfect concert
between the efforts of accommodation and convergence. The
former secures distinct vision; the latter single vision.
Accommodation affects the nature of the images thrown on
the retinae; convergence affects their position on the retina, so
that they still fall on the same portions whether the object
looked at is near or distant. If distant, both accommodation
and convergence are nil. With every approach or recession of
the object, they increase or decrease simultaneously. The two
efforts are not only associated in their daily exercise, but the
nervous centres which govern them are linked in the brain by
strong nervous ties, so that the slightest action of one affects
the other. This is shown by Donders' experiments, for, though
they demonstrate that the desire for single vision has power to
overcome the nervous ties within limits, when lenses or prisms
are used, yet they show also that the slightest alteration in
1 To which I am indebted for most of what precedes.')
476
CONVERGENCE AND ACCOMMODATION OF THE EYES. 477
convergence shifts both limits of the possible play of accommodation
in the same direction.
Further evidence was given by Dr Loring, who, while looking
at an object through concave lenses, reduced the desire for
fusion by placing coloured glass before one eye, and thus produced
diplopia. The distance between the two images varied
with the strength of the lenses worn, showing that "(for every
degree of tension of the ciliary muscle there is a corresponding
degree of tension of the interni."
Convergence, like accommodation, is brought about by a single
effort. Hering's theory may well be mentioned here, since it
receives striking and repeated confirmation in the following
pages. It is that " each eye is supplied by two innervationsone
directed to the turning of both eyes to the right or left, the
other to turning both eyes inward or outward." " Both eyes are
uIsed in the servicee of the sense of sight as a single organ consisting
of two separate limbs."
The movements of both eyes to the right or left may for convenience
be called " ranging " movements. They depend on two
distinct mechanisms, which have no known connection with each
other. Of these, one supplies the external rectus of the right
eye and the internal rectus of the left, and turns both eyes to
the right; the other supplies the remaining lateral recti, and
turns both eyes to the left. When both ranging centres evolve
an equal quantity of nervous energy the result is simply increased
tension of all four lateral recti, since each internus
antagonises its fellow externus. If one centre predominates,
both eyes are deviated to the right or left as the case may be.1
Stimulation of Ferrier's area 12 in the frontal lobe causes
among other movements turning of both eyes to the opposite
side. It is clear, therefore, that "convergence" or intersection
of the visual axes is not provided for by this innervation. It
is brought about by a separate and superadded effort, and is
provided for by a mechanism which affects both eyes equally.
1 In the nates Adamuk finds a common centre for both eyes, stimulation of the
right side producing movements of both eyes to the left, of the left side movements
to the right, while stimulation in the middle line behind causes a dolynward
movement of both eyes with convergence of the axis, and in the front an
upward movement with return to parallelism, both accompanied by the naturally
associated movements of the pupil.-Michael Foster.
MR ERNEST E. MADDOX.
When an object is viewed in the mesial plane the effort of
convergence causes the two visual axes to intersect at the point
of fixation, and no effort is needed on the part of either ranging
centre. But if the point of fixation is carried ever so little to
the right or left of the mesial plane, convergence must be supplemented
by an effort of one of the ranging centres to carry
the point of intersection into the required plane.
Is the central connection between the efforts of convergence
and accommodation complete ? Though the nervous association
an be partly overcome when necessary by prisms or lenses, it
does not follow that it should be naturally incomplete, and it
has generally been supposed that a normal eye when excluded
from vision would remain in status quo. Consistently with
this, since the demand for accommodation is relatively greater
in a hypermetrope and less in a myope than in normal eyes, it
has been supposed that under the same conditions the eye of
every myope would deviate outwards, and that of every hypermetrope
inwards. We shall find this is far from being the case.
II. The Blind-spot Method of em0loy/ing the "Visual CaJm)era."
The object of this method is to ascertain the behaviour of an
eye placed subjectively in the dark when the other eye is
employed in vision. The blind spot, or "punctum c.ecum,"
is a nearly circular gap in the field of vision of each eye discovered
by Mariotte, and shown by Donders to be due to the
fact that the entire surface of the " optic disc " (the extremity of
the optic nerve at its entrance into the eye) is wholly insensible
to light. When one eye is closed, therefore, there is an area in
the outer part of the field of vision of the other entirely devoid
of visual impressions, and large enough, according to Helmholtz,
for eleven full moons to stand in a row in it (Handbuch der
Physioloyik OptiZk, 1867). The method of its employment for
our purpose is illustrated in fig. 1, which represents a dark box
or camera of a flattened pyramidal shape, measuring about a foot
from side to side and nine inches from before backwards.' The
narrow end contains two visual apertures, pierced through slides
(a, a), which permit their mutual distance to be regulated as the
eyes of different observers require.
'To be obtained from Messrs Pickard & Curry,.Gt. Portland St., London.
478
CONVERGENCE AND ACCOMMODATION OF THE EYES. 479
The curved border of the box is built up of two arcs (d, d)
united by a straight line nearly 2.j inches long, and therefore
equal to the average distance between the centres of the two
eyes, while each arc is part of a circle drawn from the centre of
motion' of the eye of the same side. This end of the box is
provided with three luminous points, one fixed (e) and two
2N~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 2
Fia. 1.-View of the visual camera with the roof removed.
(Erratum. --The dotted lines should cross in the crystalline lens instead of
behind it; 22J lines should be 285 lines.)
movable (ff). They are tiny apertures, which become luminous
when the box is held up to the light. The central one (e) is
stationary, and since it is used as the point of fixation, should be
provided with a piece of ground glass, a letter, or cross wires, to
fix attention.2 The lateral points (ff) are preferably coloured,
1 This point is about 13 mm. (Donders) behind the anterior surface of the cornea.
Nearly half an inch is allowed for the distance of the cornea from the visual
apertures, so that since the box is 9 2 inches from before backwards, points on
itsfurther border are 10 inches from the dioptric centres, and therefore when
looked at require 4 dioptres of accommodation to be in exercise. A dioptre is the
chosen unit of refractive power; it is that possessed by a spherical lens of the
focal length of a metre (nearly 40 inches). Four such lenses would represent the
increase in the refractive power of the crystalline lens required to focus on the
retina distinct images of points 10 inches distant.
2 In default of these it suffices to moisten a piece of printed paper and apply it
to the outside .of the aperture.
MR ERNEST E. MADDOX.
and are pierced through brass slides (s, s) which travel in
grooves, so that each aperture can be moved at pleasure along
its own half of the curved end independently of the other and
of the central one, and without the admission of any additional
liaht. This is brought about by a system of long slits so cut in
the brasswork that the two slides and the side of the box against
which they are apposed mutually overlap each other's slits, and
yet permit the points of light to be seen through. A graduated
scale of degrees (made by taking as a radius the centre of the
eye of the same side) is attached to the outer surface of the arcs,
and indicates the angular interval between each of the movable
points and the central one.
The camera is nearly divided into two lateral compartments
by a median vertical partition (, which runs forward to within
an inch or two of the central luminous point. It is interrupted
by a small cross-piece of wood called the " stop " or " obstructive "
©, which is let in through a slit in the roof, and can be made to
travel shortly from side to side so as to intercept at pleasure the
view of the central point (e) by either the right or left eye.
This is shown to the right in dotted outline (y), but the central
point (e) is perfectly visible by both eyes, so long as the "stop "
is in the middle of its slit, as represented by the shaded portion
of the figure ©.
Since the optic nerve enters the eye to the inner side of the
visual axis, and since all projections are reversed in position,
there is an area on each side of the curved end of the box (represented
by a shaded circle) which corresponds to the projection
of the blind spot of the eye of the same side, and which may be
called the "blind area." Each is about an inch in diameter at
this distance from the eye. It may be observed that vision of
the movable points is always monocular, since the medium
partition ( cuts off the view of each from the opposite eye;
whereas vision of the central point is either monocular or binocular
at pleasure according to the position of the " stop," the
motion of which is too short to interfere with the view of either
of the movable apertures, though wide enough to interfere (when
Jesired) with the view of the central one by either eye.
Exp. 1.-As a preliminary, push the left brass slide inwards until
the point it bears is overlapped lby the brass work and thus
480
CONVERGENCE AND ACCOMMODATION OF THE EYES. 481
disposed of. It is not needed in the observation. Put the stop
in the middle of its slit, and leave the right movable point within
the usual limits of the right blind area. Now let the subject of
the experiment hold the camera up to the light and look steadily
with both eyes at the central fixation point. The right luminous
point, being in the blind area, is then out of sight so long as
the stop is in the middle. Now push the stop to the right, and
it will be found that though the observer does not know what
has happened, and still thinks he sees as before with both eyes, yet
in most cases, after the lapse of a moment or two, the hitherto
hidden point springs into view, showing that the eye has deviated
from its former position, and has allowed the image of the luminous
point to fall on a sensitive portion of the retina, as in fig. 2.
The only effect of which the observer
is conscious when the stop is pushed
to the right is that the fixation aperture
appears less bright,' yet by so
doing the right eye is excluded from
vision entirely, and placed subjectively
in the dark, since of the two apertures
the fixation one is cut off by the stop
and the other throws its image on the
blind spot where it produces no impression.
He is aware neither of the
exclusion of the eye nor of its deviation.
If now, after the eye has deviated, FIG. 2.-The vision of the central
the right brass slide is drawn out- aperture (e) being cut off by the
wards, the movable point it bears stop from the right eye, its axis
again becomes lost to view in the has deviated from e to J, and its
blind area, showing that the devia- blind area (b') has moved to ext*-
ioTnlonwasoJuW~ufvILa~dwcts ts eexxaacctt eexxttent noaetllyonthgeer scaomneceeaxltsentth,esopotihnatt oift
may be measured in degrees by read- lighit (f). The lcft blind area (
ing off from the graduated scale, the does not inove, showing that only
position of the inner border of the one eye deviates.
blind area befo e and afte? the eye has deviated, that is,first with the
stop in the middle and then to the right. The difference between the
two records gives the angular deviation of the visual axis. In my own
eyes it is about 50 as a rule, though it varies from 30 to 70 or even 80,
according to the time of day, the temporary comparative anemia or
congestion of the brain, the previous occupation of the eyes, and
doubtless many other conditions. It appears to be greater in the
morning than in the evening, and less after much reading, or with congestion
of the eyes from close work or hot rooms. That there should
be any outward deviation at all in my case was an unexpected result,
owing to the presence of at least 2 D of hypermetropia, for it ha
hitherto been supposed that when excluded from vision a hypeyp.8
1 The central aperture sometimes also appears to move slowly to the right, Iut'.
this is not generally noticed unless attention is called to the fact.
MR ERNEST E. MADDOX.
tropic one deviated inwards.1 I believe, however, that a great many
eyes with minor degrees of hypermetropia would be found to deviate
outwards, and that if this were duly estimated some of those
difficult cases might be more readily relieved which are so sensitive
to any disturbance of the requisite relation between convergence and
accommodation.
The psychical factor furnishes an occasional difficulty in the observations
when there is a constant expectation of seeing the hidden point
appear. It may be guarded against by registering the position of the
outer as well as the inner border
of the blind area in both records,
which thus mutually correct each
other, since the same mental effort
which might prematurely bring the
hidden point into view when one
border is being tested would do the
very reverse when the other is
d under trial. Moreover, if the re- 2 corded breadth of the blind area be
found equal in the two observations,
before the deviation and after it,
the oathe coincidence is reassuring as
i to the exactness of the records.
Variations in the shape and size
ofthe " disc in no wyise affect the
experiments, since the same definite
a point in each border is taken as
1 I i eCthe index of deviation. The shape
Fina 3 AcB was thc optic dngle be- of the curved end of the box is
fore the right eye deviated. AdBu is such that each movable aperture in
the optic hngle after deviation it any part of its range still throws a
is less than before by the angle of tiny and distinct image upon the
deviation cBd. V~Il
ynAHrts retina instead of a diffused one; for,
as Donders haSs said in the emmetropic eye the whole curvature of
the retina lies in the focal surface of the dioptric system." The
image is aboutpi th the size of the aperture, so that the latter being
half a line wide its image is about Trth of an inch in width.
I am indebted to Mr Brudenell Carter's " Defects of Vision " for the fact
that Hansen has recorded a few instances of " central defect," though MNr Carter
had not identified them (1877, p. 141), and says : " In every case of myopia the
tenldency of the visual axes would be towards divergence, and in every case of
bypernietropia the tendency would be towards convergence as soon as the control
exercised by the demand for fusion wvas withdrawn" (p. 138). To' Hansen
then belongs the first notification of the fact that in "a few persons " an excluded
eye diverges with the ordinary tests at reading distance. I think, however, the
camera will show that instead of being a rare exception, this is the normal condition,
though not the invariable one. Doubtless Hansen's cases were, in one
sense, really exceptions to the normal, in that the degree of deviation was large
enough to be detected by the ordinary methods.
482
CONVERGENCE AND ACCOMMOT)ATION OF THE EYES. 483
It may be stated as a simple geometrical necessity 1 that the angular
deviation of either eye alters the " optic angle" (or "angle of convergence
" contained between the tuwo visual axes), by the same number
of degrees (fig. 3). When both eyes fix the central aperture the optic
angle is 140. A deviation therefore of the excluded eye to the extent
of 50, reduces the optic angle from 14° to 9°. From this it is easy to
calculate that, while aeconimodation still remains in both eyes for a
distance of 10 inches, the visual axes intersect at a distance more than
half as much again (15 7 in.), and wbich, if it in turn became the point
of fixation, would need lo dioptres less of accommodation to be in
exercise (2j D instead of 4 D).' 1 have tried a sufficient number of
cases to assure myself that outward deviation of the excluded eye
is the rule where refraction is apparently normal or only slightly
hypermetropic, though here and there an exception is found. Of ten
recorded cases the average deviation was 410, as shown in the following
table, which also gives the angular interval between each border
of the blind area and the visual axis before deviation-the difference
between them gives anmliar dimensions of the blind spot.
TABLE I.
No. Innbelridborder of Outer border of Breadth of blind area. blind area. area. DEVIATION.
1. 1210 181° 56 1or
4. 110 1710 61 or
5. 12j 191° 610 240
4 132.. 1189- 602 640
8. 130 ° 1849 0 50
9. 1110 1V 5604
10. 1230 18°1-1I
Average, 440
If this table is at all representative (and I expect it is fairly so), it
shows that, while deviation occurs in nearly all, its amount varies greatly
in different individuals; in No. 1O only 6 O of convergence is left, as
attached centrally to the accommodative effort-less than one half. A
more extensive set of observations is much to be desired to arrive at a
more reliable average, and to seek, if possible, to note some of the
causes of these variations, but for taking records the " direct method,"
to be described presently, is far to be preferred.
1 Euc., bk. i. prop. 32.
2 See the footnote on page 479.
4MR ERNEST E. MADDOX.
It has been considered by Donders, a fact at present unaccountable,
that only a small proportion of hypermetropes
should develop strabismus, and that the same refractive anomaly
should lead to squint in some cases and not in others. No
doubt an explanation is afforded by these great variations which
exist in the amount of convergence naturally attached to the
effort of accommodation. So loag as every hypermetropic eye
was supposed to deviate inwards when excluded there was no
reason why all hypermetropes should not squint. The minor
degrees of deviation which the camera detects come thus to
have importance. The advantages of angular measurements
over linear ones are obvious. The latter would vary with
camera of different sizes, and would not permit of direct comparison,
whereas the former are invariable.
It is evident from the results obtained that the central connection
between the efforts of convergence and accommodation
is still considerable, though not complete. If there were no
central connection the excluded eye would deviate outwards
nearly 14° instead of only 4°.* If the connection were complete
it would not deviate at all. In ordinary vision there is
perfect concert between the two efforts, since the two visual
axes meet exactly at whatever point is accommodated for. To
bring this about a " supplementary" effort must be in exercise
whenever central connection is insufficient. This effort is connected
with the instinctive desire for single vision, of which the
seat is yet unknown, so that we may say the relatively complete
convergence of ordinary vision is maintained partly by central
connection with accommodation and partly by this additional
effort, which isfirst roused into activity by the sensible presence
of double images, and then maintained in exercise by the fact,
of which the nervous centre is every moment kept sensible, that
were the effort abated the mental image would immediately
resolve itself visually into two. To keep it from doing so the
joint sensations from the retinae must all the while be bearing
between them the message of continually impending (yet as
quickly averted) double vision, by threats of double images so
slight and frequent that they produce the required effect without
our being conscious of their existence. It is difficult to
conceive the exquisite mechanism at work so assiduously when
484
CONVERGENCE AND ACCOMMODATION OF THE EYES. 485
we remember that, if double images are produced artificially or
by disease, it is impossible for the mind to tell to which eye
each image belongs-whether, therefore, the visual axes are
crossed or not, and whether convergence needs to be increased
or relaxed to bring the images together.
By Hering's theory, convergence is a single effort, exerted in
equal amount in each eye.
It is also clear that impressions from both eyes are necessary
to maintain the supplementary factor in convergence connected
with the abhorrence of double images. When, therefore,
the obstructive in the experimentl
is placed before the right eye,;E.
and vision is confined to the left
only, this common effort ceases,
and both internal recti receive
correspondingly diminished impulses
from the converging
centre. Were this all that happened,
e.g., in my own case, each
eye would deviate outwards 2Jo
as represented by the dotted
lines in fig. 2. As a matter of
fact, however, the active one
remains stationary, fixing the FIG. 3A.-Convergence of the visual
central aperture, while the uncon- axis as if for the left hand cross is effected by the converging innervatrolled
one moves outwards 5O. tion; but they are jointly deflected
This can be proved by com- to the right hand cross by the rangling
innervation; in accordance with
mencingy the experiment with both, Hering's theory.
lateral apertures in their respective blind areas, when it will be
found that if the stop is pushed to the right, although the right
lateral aperture comes into view, the left one remains hidden
the whole time; if the stop be pushed to the left the left aperture
appears while the right one continues hidden, showing clearly
that in each case it is the seeing eye which continues stationary,
and the excluded one which deviates. Another innervation,
therefore, distinct from that of convergence, must come into
play to keep both the eyes from deviating equally. This is
found in that centre whose ordinary function it is to turn both
eyes to the right, and which, therefore, presides over the internal
4AIR ERNEST E. MADDOX.
rectus of the left eye, and the external of the right eye. It
compensates by a slight effort for those impulses which the left
internal rectus has lost from the converging centre; but since it
governs both eyes equally, while it maintains the convergence
of the left eye, which would otherwise fall back 21°, it moves
the right eye through an additional 21O (see fig. 3 A).
The effort put forth by this fresh innervation is determined
entirely by the requirements of the seeing eye; it only affects
the deviating eye because it cannot help influencing one as
much as the other. Its intervention is proved by the next two
experiments. The result is that exactly half the deviation of
the right eye is due to relaxation of the internal rectus, and the
other half is due to contraction of the external rectus; but since
in the left eye the diminishing converging effort and the increasing
ranging effort have each to do with the internal rectus,
it remains stationary.
Exp. 2.-With the stop in the middle, fix the central aperture with
both eyes, and try to place the right forefinger exactly upon the central
aperture from outside. The attempt will succeed in proportion to
the perfectness of the observer's muscular sense. Now push the stop
to the right, and repeat the attempt. The finger will be found to
have missed its mark, and to be actually on the right side of it; and
similarly to the left side of it if the stop is pushed to the left. The
miscalculation will be slight if the attempt is made directly after the
exclusion of the eye, and greater with every increase in the interval
which elapses till the maximum miscalculation is reached, which in
my case is about a distance which corresponds to 21' on the graduated
scale. The right eye, we have seen, has meanwhile moved 5°.
It may therefore be accredited as a rule that the angle of miscalculation
is half that of the deviation of the excluded eye; it is slight at
first, because the deviation is slight, and they increase together in the
proportion of 1 to 2.
It has long been known that when one eye is closed, and a finger is
pushed forward from under a book, it misses its mark to the side of
the closed eye; but I believe this phenomenon will be absent in
those with whom deviation of an excluded eye does not occur at the
distance of the test; and that the extent of miscalculation will be
found to depend entirely on the amount of the deviation, and to be
half as great.
Exp. 3.-If the central aperture is very closely watched its apparent
position may be observed to move slowly to the right as soon as the
stop is pushed to the right. Now, it is remarkable that the point of
view should seem to be moving when not only is the point really
stationary but also the image it throws on the retina, and the retina
itself. Since only one eye is in this case engaged in vision, and that
486
CONVERGENCE AND ACCOMMODATION OF THE EYES. 487
(as may be shown by the immobility of its blind area) keeps quite still
the whole time, there cannot be the slightest change in the comparative
tension of its recti, to account for the apparent movement of the
image. Moreover, though the excluded eye deviates, we shall see
later that the oculomotor muscular sense is purely central and not
peripheral, since the same degree of tension in a muscle is mentally
estimated or mentally ignored, according to the central source of the
impulses which cause the tension. The stillness of the seeing eye
therefore proves that the illusion is due to some alteration in central
nerve effort of which the mind takes (what is now) unnecessary co"-
nizance, and thus forms a false estimate.
The new effort is also shown by the nature of the apparent movement
to be the one which the mind has been accustomed to associate
with lateral displacementt of the point of fixation, and with the joint
movement of both eyes to the right, which such displacement makes
necessary in the ordinary vision of nature. The illusion cannot be
due to the diminution of converging effort, because that, as we shall
see, is mentally associated only with the idea of distance, not at all
with the angular departure of the object from the median plane, or its
position in the field of vision. The slowness of the apparent movement
is a striking feature; it shows how gradually the ranging effort
is put forth, consistently with the gradual diminution of the converging
effort for which it exactly compensates.
It is a fact which affords some food for thought, that although the
stimulus which causes the "'supplementary " converging effort ceases
suddenly when the stop is pushed to the right, yet the effort itself
continues for some time decreasing only gradually. This is in striking
contrast to the speed with which full convergence is again effected
when the stimulus is restored. The gradual relaxation of the converging
effort when the stimulus is withdrawn, causes both internal
recti to receive growingly feebler impulses from the converging centre,
so that each eye has a constant and momentary tendency to deviate
outwards, which is only prevented in the left one by the wonderful
vigilance of the nervous mechanism which every instant appreciates
this tendency, and as quickly compensates for it, not by again stimulating
the flagging convergence, but by causing a strictly proportionate
and gradual increase of that effort whose output causes in the
mind the impression that the point of view (really stationary) is
moving to the right. It need hardly be said that all this naturally
accords with and establishes Hering's theories mentioned on p. 477.
The apparent movement of the central aperture is through half the
angle and at half the rate of the real movement of the deviating eye.
A little reflection on the preceding experiment wifl show the truth of
this, as nearly as it can be determined, and also that when an object
is fixed not far from the middle line its position is mentally referred
to the vertical plane which bisects the angle of convergence, and
which, as we shall see, runs through a point midway between and
slightly behind the centres of the two eyes. (See the line yp in
fig. 3.)
After a few attempts to touch the point thus miscalculated, the
MR ERNEST E. MADDOX.
mind allows for the error, and the attempts begin to succeed. It has
already been suggested that thousands of such attempts in childhood
contribute to the wonderful correlation between the muscular sense of
the eye and the hand. How perfectly they may by practice be made
to co-operate is seen in a good cricketer or marksman.
The senses are there to begin with, but the mental apprehension of
their import, both singly and jointly, seems to be largely left to be
perfected by education. Indeed, it is known how any sense itself
may be quickened by receiving a larger share of psychical attention,
or dulled by its prolonged abstraction.
The human body is thus made capable of adapting itself within
limits to adventitious circumstances; it is not made, like an ordinary
loom, capable only when once set of turning out material of one texture,-
but it is like a loom, if one can be conceived, made with such
wonderful skill and forethought that it can automatically adapt itself
to the requirement of any new material and other altered circumstances.
I find, on trying to touch the central aperture with my left hand,
that when the stop is to the right, instead of missing its mark to the
right side of the central aperture aimed at, it misses it to the left side,
and when the stop is in the middle it misses it still more to the left
side, though its miscalculation is not very precise. Its muscular sense
is therefore less perfect.
Exp. 4. On first opening the eyes in the morning the divergence
is greater than during the day; it falls just after the mid-day meal and
perhaps after the others.
Exp. 5.-When vision is directed through either the central aperture
or the left lateral one at an object placed at different distances,
accommodation is, of course, diminished in proportion. It Will be
found that the excluded eye moves outwards with each removal, and
inwards with each approach of the point of fixation. This shows
how delicate is the connection between the two efforts, since the
slightest difference in accommodation causes an alteration in the
degree of convergence.
Exp. 6.-If convex glasses of increasing strength be placed in turn
before the active eye, the blind area of the obstructed eye moves outwards
with each increase in the refractive power of the lens employed.
With concave glasses, on the other hand, it moves inwards with every
increase. This experiment, of course, differs only from the last in
the method employed; which, indeed, is far less satisfactory, owing to
the fallacy introduced by prismatic action of the lenses, if their
optical centres are not placed exactly in the line of vision-a precaution
of great difficulty.
Exp. 7.-When the box is sloped downwards from the eyes, I
have records which show that the deviation of the obstructed eye is
reduced by 20 or 3°. I am not quite satisfied, however, with the
observations-the bridge of the nose almost obliges the box to be
held at a greater distance. The way to get over the difficulty would
be to use prisms with their bases upwards, which would permit the
488
CONVERGENCE AND ACCOMMODATION OF THE EYES. 489
box to be held horizontally, and yet record the effect of a downward
direction of the visual axes. The ordinary circular prisms used in
practice are not available for this purpose, owing to the difficulty of
placing the centre of the base exactly in the vertical line which bisects
the prism. A slight shift to either side not only reduces the vertical
deflection of the line of vision, but introduces a still greater lateral
deflection, which vitiates the result. Small prisms fixed in the visual
apertures would be most satisfactory.
Exp. 8.-If the central aperture be fixed by the left eye, with the
obstructive to the right, it is possible to place the right lateral
aperture so precisely upon the inner border of the right blind area
that the point of light alternately appears and disappears, showing an
evident tendency in the nerve centre to rhythmic, or at least irregular
action. This irregularity furnishes a striking contrast to the fixedness
of gaze and precision of movement in ordinary binocular vision.
It devolves upon the supplementary effort in single binocular vision
to fill in these irregularities in the fluctuating basis, besides meeting
the new and changeful requirements constantly introduced in glancing
from point to point. It is interesting to notice that thisfluctuating
effect in the converging centre is connected with the evolution of a
steady stream of nervous energy from the accommodating centres. It
may perhaps bear some comparison with the rhythmic automatism
which manifests itself -in the vasomotor centre under the uniform
stimulation of venous blood, as evidenced by Traube's curves.
Exp. 9.-With both eyes fixing the central aperture, and with the
obstructive in the middle, place the right lateral aperture in the outer
part of the blind area at a definite number of degrees from its inner
border. Push the obstructive to the right, and note how long a time
elapses before the hidden point comes into view, by listening to a
clock pendulum beating half-seconds. As might be expected from
Exp. 8, the interval is a variable one. Thus, at one sitting, my right
eye was engaged from 121 to 22 seconds in rotating outwards 3jO.
Exp. 10.-After wearing convex spectacles for some hours, I find
that for a time the relative divergence is diminished (by the training
the converging centre has undergone in the increased relative demand
made upon its energies). How long this effect lasts I have not been
able to observe.
Exp. 11.-Measurement of the Blind Spot.-I have found the
angular dimensions of the blind spot in its horizontal meridian, as
far as the box measures it, very uniform. In nearly all cases it was
approximately 60. So far as the observations are worth, they go
therefore to confirm Landolt's estimate of 60, rather than Helmholtz's
of nearly 70 (6° 56').1 The method they both employed was that of
moving a pencil on a piece of paper till the point became lost to view.
With one who has thoroughly practiced indirect vision this suffices,
but for others it is very uncertain. Thus Helmholtz says: " I have
even seen men of education and information-doctors, erg.-not able
1 It must be remembered, however, that any error of the box from not
measuring the exact horizontal meridian tends to give too emall a result.
VOL. XX. 2I
MR ERNEST E. MADDOX.
to prove the disappearance of small objects on the blind spot." I
Hanover and Thomson, in 22 eyes (quoted by Helmholtz), found
the breadth to vary from 30 39' to 90 47'. I believe cases of less
than 50 or more than 70 will be found exceedingly rare. In taking
measurements, the stop should be either in the middle or to the
opposite side of the eye under examination. I believe it is better to
start with the point hidden, and let the observer exclaim at its first
appearance at either border, rather than to note its disappearance,
though the two may check each other.
A point of light is peculiarly fitted for the purpose, owing to the
comparatively great susceptibility of the peripheral parts of the retina
to light. Brewster2 stated that astronomers, when they cannot see a
minute star by looking directly at it, may often bring it into view by
looking somewhat away from it. Landolt,3 however, finds " the perception
of light remains almost exactly the same throughout the whole
extent of the retina." Ile instances that in his right eye the perception
of light at a part 30° from the centre remains the same, while the
visual acuteness is reduced to 4; but certainly, in my own eyes, the
point of light appears to be more easily discerned on its emergence
from the inner (macular) border of the blind area than from the outer
border-it may not be so with others.. Clinically, the measurement
of the blind spot may be useful, both to determine the increase of the
posterior staphyloma of progressive myopia and to trace the progress
and decline of such affections as optic neuritis, in which the adjacent
retina loses its perception awhile by infiltration.
A disadvantage is, that in the original instrument the two lateral
apertures are not upon the same level, and therefore one of them (the
highest) measures the blind spot above its horizontal diameter, and
gives a uniformly smaller and fallacious record. This may be rectified
by using, instead of slides, two flexible ribbons arranged circularly,
so as to have the lateral apertures on the same level.
It is well to have the point coloured blue, since the peripheral parts
of the retina perceive thiscolour most readily. If we assume that
an angle of 4°, with its apex at the optical centre of a normal eye,
subtends 1 mm. of the retina, then 60 would subtend 1 mm.;
showing the close coincidence between the anatomical and physiological
dimensions of the disc. The angular distance between the visual
axis and the border of the blind area I have not found so uniform as
the breadth of the blind spot. Landolt and Dobrowolsky found the
interval greater in hypermetropes and smaller in myopes.4 It would
be well to confirm this by the camera.
Optique Physiologique, p. 735.
Brewster on Stereoscope, 1856, p. 44.
3 Landolt, on Examinatiom of the Eyes (translated by Dr Burnett, 1879,
Philadelphia), p. 214.
4 Examination of the Eye, Landolt, 1879, p. 216.
490
CONVERGENCE AND ACCOMMODATION OF THE EYES. 491
III. The Direct Method.
This method is far more useful clinically, and not less interesting
physiologically. The eye is not placed in the dark, nor is
the blind spot made use of. It depends upon the fact, that when
each eye receives a single image upon its median vertical
meridian, from whatever points they are thrown, the two are
mentally referred to the same vertical line.
Exp. 12.-Place the left aperture out of sight and the obstructive to
the right; the observer then sees
the central and the right lateral
apertures. As he looks, they apspear
to approach. The right slide'
is then pushed inwards till they
seem to lie in the same vertical
line. The process is now coinplete;
it will be found that /
real interval separates the ap..
parently superimposed apertures. _
This interval expresses in de- _
agrees the relative divergence of FIG.3r.-lllustratesthe "directmethod."
the eyes, for one visual axis The apertures appear superimposed
passes through one aperture, while though really separated by the deviatthe
second lies either above or ing angleoftheeye.
below the other. I have found this method quite easy in a child of
six.' In comparing its results with those obtained by the blind spot
method, I found that they coincided, showing that the mere additional
presence of an image upon the retina does not affect the convergence
and accommodation, so long as the desire to unite double
images is eliminated. In the blind spot method there is an image in
one eye, in the macular method in both. Its explanation is simple.
Since the view of the right point by the left eye is intercepted by the
median partition, and that of the central aperture by the right eye is
cut off by the obstructive, each eye sees only one point, and that a
different one, as shown in fig.. 3 B. From the nature of the curve at
the base of the camera, accommodation is required from each eye in
equal amount (or practically so). If now the brain relationship were
complete, when attention is directed to one aperture, say the central
one, both visual axes would converge toward it, while the image of the
right point would fall to the inner side of the macula of the right eye,
and would be correctly referred outward to its real position in space.
This, in fact, does continue momentarily, when first the points are looked
at. As soon, however, as relative divergence commences, and the
right eye deviates outwards, the image of the right point approaches
I It is convenient for children to remove altogether the little wooden slides
bearing the visual apertures.
42MR ERNEST E. MADDOX.
the macula, or, more correctly, the macula approaches the image, for
it is the eye which moves and not the point. While this is going on,
the two stationary apertures
appear to be getting nearer to
each other, for the cerebral
centres are unconscious of the
divergence, and inake no
allowance for it. The images
do not appear to meet completely
until each falls upon
the median vertical meridian
of its eye. It is well to begin
the experiment with the apertures
at some distance front
each other, and after allowving
a short time for them to
approach naturally as far as
IN ;fN = they will, to push the right
slide inwards, and let the
observer say when they conme
into the same vertical line. In
~b~ifretE~inbi~d. '~- this part of the process the
ots point throws an image on the fovea of eye remains stationary while
the eye on the same side, so that both the image is moved, on to its
images are mentally referred to- the plane median vertical meridian. which bisects the angle of convergence. The dialogue would be
something like this - -
Q. What do you see ?-A. Two bits of light.
Q. How far apart ?-A. An inch or two.
Q. What happens? (pushing on the right slide slowly).-A. The
right one is moving to the left.
Q. Say when they are quite together, that is, when the right point
comes to be exactly below the left.-A. Now!
This concludes the observation. The real interval between the two
points, automatically recorded by the graduated scale at the base of
the, box, has only to be read off to give in degrees the relative divergence
of the eyes. This method dispenses with the use of prisms and
the fallacies which attend them; it saves the trouble of special
measurement, and gives an angular instead of a linear record, which is
therefore always ready for comparison. It is equally available by
daylight or artificial light.
But the bestpractical evidence of its efficiency is afforded by
the ease with which it reveals the physiological prevalence of
relative divergence in near vision, while the ordinary methods
have only hitherto detected the grosser pathological exceptions.
I may not be acquainted with all of them, and therefore cannot
indicate the reasons of their failure, but I think I can suggest
492
CONVERGENCE AND ACCOMMODATION OF THE EYES. 493
what they are in Von Graefe's well-known test, which- when
carried out as usually directed, does nIot reveal the slightest
relative divergence in mny own eyes, though, as we have seen,
50 really exists on exclusion. I have not had access to Von
Graefe's own directions. I may quote those in Mr Carter's
valuable treatise on Defects of Vision, a3 [ followed them
"In this more delicate test the object of vision is a small black dot,
bisected by a vertical line. A card thus marked is fixed in the
median line at a distance of 8 or 10 inches from the eyes, and the
patient is directed to look at it steadily. A prism of ten or twelve
degrees, with its base either upwards or downwards, is then placed
before the eye; and as the power of the superior or inferior rectus to
overcome double vision is very limited, this prism necessarily produces
a vertical diplopia. The patient will therefore see two dots, one above
the other. If the original convergence For the object is accurately
maintained, the duplication of the vertical line will only cause it to
appear elongated, and the two dots will be seen one above the other
on the same line. If, on the contrary, the convergence be not maintained,
the patient will see two lines with a dot upon each; and when
the diplopia is a consequence of relative divergence of the optic axes,
the double images will be crossed, and the extent of the divergence
will determine the distance between them."
On carrying out these instructions the dot truly duplicates and
the line elongates, but that is all. The line still continues single.
The reason of this becomes evident when the further step is
taken of covering one eye for a short time; on again uncovering
it, two lines appear, separated by a considerable interval, but
they quickly run together again. This shows that the desire for
fusion, though doubtless weakened, is not removed altogether, for
the overlapping portions of the two linear images are sufficient
to excite it. We shall see that images need not be similar in
shape to excite an effort to unite them. Indeed, in ordinary
vision the two pictures, as illustrated by the stereoscope, are
slightly dissimilar except when the objects viewed are at a
practically infinite distance. But I find if the upper part of the
line be drawn very wavy, and the lower part straight, so that in
the experiment the wavy portion overlaps the straight portion,
there appears to be no attempt to unite them, though even then
would not be quite sure that there is not a faint effort to keep
them nearer to each other than they would otherwise be.
The fallacy may also be demonstrated in another way without
temporary exclusion of either eye, by simply holding the line at
MR ERNEST E. MADDOX.
first horizontally (with the prism as before) and then quickly
returning it to the vertical position; the two images for a
moment or longer are quite separate, and hesitate a little before
they run together.
"Why then," it may be asked, " if the test does not eliminate
the fusion effort, does it ever reveal relative divergence ? " It does
so because, though it does not, like the camera, remove the desire
for single vision, yet it lessens it to such an extent that it
becomes inadequate to the demands made upon it in certain
pathological conditions. The test weakens the desire for single
vision, not only by the effect on one of the images of the slight
light-absorbing (especially when the prism is not perfectly clean
and free from moisture) and chromatic properties of the prism,
but also by shortening the linear extent of the overlapping portions
of the two images of the line. It would therefore detect
relative divergence in such conditions as (1) those probably very
rare cases in which the normal desire for fusion is defective.
By lessening the desire still further it might be rendered incapable
of rousing a sufficient "supplementary" converging effort.
(2) Where the mechanical difficulties which attend convergence
are so great that no effort can overcome them unless prompted
by a strong fusion stimulus, as in some extreme cases of myopia,
or where there is weakness of the internal recti or functional
disability in their innervation. (3) Where almost the whole of
the required convergence devolves on the fusion effort.
In all cases of myopia a larger share falls to the fusion effort
than in the normal eye, because there is less demand for the
effort of accommodation in looking at any point, and therefore
the degree of convergence due to central association is correspondingly
small. The smaller it is, the more work it leaves for the
fusion effort, so that, " cateris paribus," the greater the refractive
anomaly the larger is the required proportion of supplementary
or fusion effort.
A great effort needs a great stimulus. The latter is so weakened
by the prism that, while still adequate for the requirements
of normal refraction, it may be inadequate for those of high
myopia, in which, moreover, mechanical difficulties almost
always exist as well from the altered shape of the globe.
To make the test of any relative value even in these cases,
494
CONVERGENCE AND ACCOMMODATION OF THE EYES. 495
care must be taken to make the line of always the same length,
or if not, to adjust its distance from the eyes in proportion; so
that the reduplicated portion of the line may always be of the
same length, and thus ensure uniform diminution of the desire
for fusion, otherwise the test might at one time detect an insufficiency
and at another time not. Moreover, the line whbih joins
the apex and base of the prism must be exactly at rigIt.Mgles to
the line uniting the centres of the two eyes (intercentral line);
otherwise, though the lines continue parallel, their very opposition
would only prove that convergence is not complete-if it
were so, the lines would be separated by an interval determined by
the strength and degree of rotation of the prism. Even when
the prism is held correctly, if the line looked at is not also held
exactly at right angles to the intercentral line another fallacy
ensues, for the linear images, though still parallel are oblique,
so that coincidence of their overlapping portions, instead of showing
convergence to be complete, can only take place when it is
incomplete, for were it complete an interval would separate
them, varying as before with the degree of rotation of the card.
These difficulties, I would suggest, may be overcome by the
use of a double prism composed of two prisms, each of 20, fused
together by their bases' (see fig. 5). The patient, shutting the
left eye, holds this prism before the right one, and looks through
it at a card marked with a single dot or short line. Two false
images appear, one 20 above and the other 20 below the real
position of the 'dot, and both are seen by the right eye. It is
easy for the patient to hold the prism so that the two images
appear in the same vertical line, and then when the left eye is
opened as well to say whether the real image of the dot lies to
the right or left of this line. Even if the first two are not held
vertically, if all three images are in one straight line it shows
that convergence is complete. If the central one lies to the
right of th3 line, uniting the other two, there is relative
divergence; if to the left, there is relative convergence.
Simple as this expedient is, and though it yields the same
result as the camera, it is inferior to the use of the latter by the
I In reality, of course, it is a single prism of 1760 though double in its use,
since three faces are used instead of two. The large face (or base) should be
towards the eye, the two smaller faces towards the object.
4MR ERNEST E. MADDOX.
direct method. The camera ensures uniformity in the distance
of the object from the eyes without the trouble of measurenment;
it needs less intelligence in the patient, and gives an automatic
angular record. The double prism, however, would I think be
found useful for rough analysis at greater distances. The
Fie.. 5.-Side view of the right eye and the double prism. The false images seen
by the right eye are dotted. The central'one is seen by the left eye.
radical difference between Von (Graefe's test and the camera is
that in the latter a separate object is used for each eye, while in
the former the same object is reduplicated by a prism. The
camera also not only reduces the desire for single vision, but
abolishes it altogether when the lower of the two lateral apertures
FIG. 6.-To illustrate how relative divergence is measured by the double prism.
A is the only device onl the card, and is seen by the left eye ; B and C
are false images of it, and are seen by the right eye. In this instance 5° of
deviation are seen recorded. If the two lowest arrows are made continuous by
rotating the prism, the middle one points to twcicc the divergence, for as C
moved to the right, B moves equally to the left, A of course remaining
stationary. The arrows would all but touch the lines above them wh en
the card is held at the appropriate distance of 10 inches.
is used in conjunction with the central one, so that the eye
takes a position determined solely by the converging effort which
is associated with the accommodation.
496
CONVERGENCE AND ACCOMMODATION OF THE EYES. 497
If when, in the "direct method," the two images are in the
same vertical line, as in fig. 3 B, an effort be made from outside to
place the finger on them, it will miss both, for it will be just
half-way between the two actual apertures, which, though they
appear superimposed, are, as we have seen, really separated by
an interval of nearly an inch, so that the vertical plane in which
the two images appear to lie is that which bisects the angle of
convergence, as represented in fig. 4. At present we have only
to do with movements of the eye in the horizontal plane, and
with the head stationary. The converging apparatus appears to
be solely connected with the union of double images and the
estimation of distance. With the relative position of points
along the horizontal meridian of the field of vision it has
nothing to do. This must be determined entirely by-
(1) The part of the retina on which images fall.
(2) The innervation which turns both eyes to the right or
left.
As regards the first indication, since each image falls on the
median vertical meridian of its eye, the effect is the same

[IdentitytheKeystone]

What is the provenance of thought ?

I did not talk about the provenance of all thought. I talked about the provenance of two individual thoughts.

The provenance of a thought is all the contexts and information that inform how you organize a thought. It can be added to and supplemented without end. It corresponds closely to the notion of personal reputation.

The provenance of two similar thoughts refers to the context in which the person meets them. For example consider meeting someone at a party. You have a pleasant conversation and go your separate ways. Two months later your paths cross again at a police station, but you are distracted and you cannot place his face - He is wearing a hat. Later on when you are reflecting you realize that at the police station you saw the same man you talked pleasantly with at a cocktail party two months previously.
The thought which ties these two occasions together is the man's face. The two similar images which you later realize are the same, key the organization of the first context you met him in and the second context you that registered his face as familiar. The similar image of his face helps you oraganize all the information of the two meetings. If you meet him again, all this information will be quick to your awareness.

[Joesus]

What is the provenance of thought ?

I did not talk about the provenance of all thought. I talked about the provenance of two individual thoughts.

The provenance of a thought is all the contexts and information that inform how you organize a thought. It can be added to and supplemented without end. It corresponds closely to the notion of personal reputation.

The provenance of two similar thoughts refers to the context in which the person meets them. For example consider meeting someone at a party. You have a pleasant conversation and go your separate ways. Two months later your paths cross again at a police station, but you are distracted and you cannot place his face - He is wearing a hat. Later on when you are reflecting you realize that at the police station you saw the same man you talked pleasantly with at a cocktail party two months previously.
The thought which ties these two occasions together is the man's face. The two similar images which you later realize are the same, key the organization of the first context you met him in and the second context you that registered his face as familiar. The smlilar image of his face helps you oraganize all the information of the two meetings. If you meet him again, all this information will be quick to your awareness.

What you are suggesting then is that two similar thoughts could be coming from the same original thought but because of changing experiences and beliefs the thought itself changes with the mind as awareness moves from a single definition to multiple possibilities and probabilities based on experience of change..
Getting back to your original post where you said:

Posted Jul 06, 2011, 03:52 AM
What would happen if you realized you had the same or similar thought in two different places in your mind, at the same time ?

In case you think this a nonsense notion, I would point out that the visual system makes two independant, near identical images, simultaneously.

You originally state that the visual system independently makes its own course regardless of where the mind is. That the mind looks thru each eye as if each reflects something different.

I'm not sure where you want to go with this, but I would state that the eyes do not do anything at all to transfer differences in imagery, but it would be the mind that changes the notion of identification thru its movement thru memory and identity. Two similar ideas then are part and parcel to an infinite number of ideas regarding a similar theme based on the idea that consciousness itself is instantaneous, but the brain is only trained to deal with thought in a linear pattern, or with a few thoughts at a time.

[IdentitytheKeystone]

When you meet a person for the first time, you establish in your mind a notion of that person which is particular to that person only. As you get acquanted with them, you build your impressions and feeling onto that notion and build a bigger picture of them. Now, it may happen that you later forget that person. You may not meet them for years. The momory is still there, but it has receded in importance. If your path crosses theirs one day, you may not recognize them. However, with some reflection their face may trigger the old memories, and you may realize that the notion of them you started all those years ago is similar to the fresh notion just recently formed. You can realize that the notions concern the same person, and your old impressions and new impressions can be combined.
If you do not tie the memory of the face you met those years ago with the face you recently met, you woujd have to memorize two seemingly disconnected events. That requires a certain amount of energy.
If you do realize that both faces are the same person, you can unite all the impressions and consolidate all the information. By doing this, you organize the information in a better way, and you save evergy. If you should meet that person again, you are ready to interact, and ready to accomodate and organize new information about that person in a more efficient way.
Each new meeting with the person is not a 'brand new thought'. The notion of the person, the individual, is a constant to which other information is added. The notion or thought of the person is a constant which is augmented with new information. The first original notion over time aggregates into a more informative notion.

Separately, I am not aware that thought in the frontal cortex has been shown to be linear in certain parts, and not linear in some parts, and parallel in other parts.

''Two similar ideas then are part and parcel to an infinite number of ideas regarding a similar theme based on the idea that consciousness itself is instantaneous, but the brain is only trained to deal with thought in a linear pattern, or with a few thoughts at a time.''

As far as I can tell there is no evidence to contradict the proposition that the frontal cortex uses parallel processing. If you are aware, please tell me.

Thanks for responding.

[Joesus]

If you have a memory and most do (unless you don't have a past), the first time you meet someone all of your cognitive references to the past come into play and comparisons are bounced off of everything you experience in order to categorize the cognitive experience. This is what the ego does. It neatly boxes everything into categories. The person you meet for the first time becomes a category filed into familiar territories of past experience.

No one really knows another until one spends enough time with them to take them out of the box in association to comparisons and past references of the ego and its memory/associative profiling.

Consciousness is not isolated to the frontal cortex.

[IdentitytheKeystone]

If you have a memory and most do (unless you don't have a past), the first time you meet someone all of your cognitive references to the past come into play and comparisons are bounced off of everything you experience in order to categorize the cognitive experience. This is what the ego does. It neatly boxes everything into categories. The person you meet for the first time becomes a category filed into familiar territories of past experience.

No one really knows another until one spends enough time with them to take them out of the box in association to comparisons and past references of the ego and its memory/associative profiling.

Consciousness is not isolated to the frontal cortex.

Hello Joesus

The question I put at the outset is what intrigues me the most. I have NEVER seen it posed before. I have read considerably. I have some familiarity with current consciousness theories. I have a three year BA in philosophy and psychology. I have read around the topic in epistemology and the philosophy of math.

The question I posed does something different. It puts the logic of identity, of equality, of sameness into the heart of philosophy of mind or consciousness. Identity is, in my understanding, held by Frege to be the starting point of logic. When you speculate about the establishment of reason it is a good matter to account for. In many ways consciousness should entail the establishment of reason in the mind.

The incidence of simultaneous similar thoughts is in my opinion an inevitable state of affairs in the brain. We receive non stop input from the world. This information has to be sorted. The detection of sameness seems the obvious method. The detection of sameness also matches with parallel processing. It seems to me that parallel processing is well suited to scan and discern similar thoughts and group them into classes, and that this is nub of an organizing process in the brain.
I would suggest that it is hard to propose that such steps do not happen in the brain.

Again, I have never seen or heard this line of questioning followed. Am I missing something, or what ?

Salute

[Joesus]

What you are identifying is the ego. It is a construct which groups impressions, and builds a house around them creating a point of reference for all ideas. The house has rooms for categories in subjective belief which aid in the objective experience. It is still consciousness which observes the ego but is not bound by it.
The construct symbolizes a direction and thru the will of individual impression and changing belief, personality builds upon impression to assemble the house and to fill the rooms within the house.

The ego uses what it has available for the materials in construction. Consciousness operates on multidimensional levels. Awareness follows patters of thought in different levels of consciousness.

Psychologists are most familiar with 3 states of consciousness, waking, sleeping and dreaming. Beyond these three, 4 more, with their subjective and objective operatives are described in the treatises of enlightenment, written by those who have studied consciousness beyond the 3 (normal) states of consciousness known by the waking state individual. In those narratives you might discover what you have said you never heard of before.

Like an individual who climbs the ladder of knowledge in school in yearly progression, beliefs and experience open the door to the objective ladder of awareness in reality. Most never make it any further than the "I think therefore I am" state of mind where one believes consciousness is the result of the mind/body and its programming.

Something you might consider, is that since consciousness resides in more than the 3 states of consciousness that I mentioned, you could picture the possibility that ego also a construct of consciousness exists on multiple levels of awareness, and that sometimes one can bleed into the other, but usually the mind does not make sense of this when it is trained to follow a particular path of thinking.

In any reality consciousness travels along many different lines of perception in the construct of reality. Not only does conscious create the path but it follows it and experiences it. It would be like a train station with an infinite number of trains going in different directions. In the waking state one thought takes its track and along the track it accumulates certain experiences. When decisions are made to follow a different track the track splits with the awareness following the track of choice. The alternate track for the alternate reality is followed by consciousness but it is not tracked (so to speak) by the awareness which has taken the choice to take the new track. The waking state individual follows one thought of reality at a time, in the way the ego is conditioned to render its identification with the outer senses. Consciousness which is more subtle than the outer senses continues on multiple tracks and on multiple levels.
Time which is also a construct, helps put experience on a track of its own. It is not a necessity for consciousness in awareness of itself, but it is necessary to create identity within the ego when sequencing thought into forms that are the identity of personalities at certain levels of consciousness such as waking dreaming and sleeping. Beyond that the subjective and objective experiences of reality begin to change.

What I have been pointing to, is that consciousness operates on multiple levels and sometimes alternate realities can be glimpsed where one or more thoughts can be witnessed outside of the linear time progression. However the mind in conditioning takes any one thought and compares it to the basic information that relates to the foundation of that thought in the past experience. When it (awareness) is isolated to a particular foundation any new thought is going to be scrutinized, even torn apart and reassembled to fit the patterns of the foundations pattern of identity with the world.
The older you get the more set you are in you thinking and identification. The younger you are the more flexible you are and more willing to shift perspectives which can create alternate foundations.
In fact it is possible for a child to begin construction of many houses, but thru conditioning and the influence of society, parents and peers is likely to pick one house to live in.

So when you speak of multiple thoughts, the way I experience them and from what I know of the history of consciousness, they do not have to reinforce any particular idea within the mind. The thoughts, in and of themselves when taken thru any sense organ be it the eyes, ears, hands...even tho each may seem to have a mind of their own in the idea that each sense organ has its own pathway to the brain which is also two hemispheres of functioning data, do not dictate or reinforce anything. Awareness in certain constructs of states of consciousness follow patterns of thought and the ego assembles and reinforces itself with the accumulation of acceptable input, or input that falls within the boundaries of the subjective and objective experiences of a particular state of consciousness.

If one develops the subtle senses beyond the first three states of consciousness one begins to witness how choice creates the pathway or track which also creates the foundation of identity. When one begins to witness consciousness in the different states of consciousness simultaneously, the identity with personality expands beyond the reinforcement of patterns, but it doesn't abandon those tracks or the houses that have been built at different levels of identity.
Imagine if you could, a different house for every age of your life where you believed you were the age that you were. Now imagine all of those houses in a neighborhood. Then imagine more houses on different levels of identification where you are operating at different levels of thought, such as Universities, cities and even countries where construction of reality is taking place. It is possible to see how you are connected to the world and the universe around you, but if the ego is isolated to one track then the only thing you might imagine is that the track has a beginning and an end and you, only begin and end, filling the track between the beginning and end with experiences between life and death.

In one sense every cell has its own consciousness and in that idea each eye as you propose retains its own experience at a cellular level. I had the opportunity to discuss this with someone who witnessed this in a round about way. A motorcyclist who died of a head injury was kept alive artificially for an organ harvest. Since the body was still functioning after the brain was destroyed the organs were still useful for transplanting into other human bodies. The body while on life support, was monitored for brain activity, heart rate and blood pressure, respiration and skin temperature. Upon cutting into the body the heart rate went up, respiration increased as did the skin temperature when the skin began to sweat.
The brain was dead, and it was not telling the body what to do. The body was reacting on its own at a cellular level of memory to the invasion of the knife.

This type of functioning is not however at the level of the mind in cognitive awareness and so when it comes to the functioning of the eyes, they are passive, and in service to the awareness at a conscious level of the mind.

The mind is a tuner to consciousness at different levels of awareness. Tap into different levels and the mind will operate on different levels. It in and of itself (the brain) does not dictate the level of awareness or consciousness in which you think and experience.
You do thru choice and awareness of Self.

[Dianah]

Joesus

The ego functions as a triad. What you explain is one aspect of ego, the aspect that deduces.


Keystone,

I find your question thought provoking. I do not know much (Scientifically )about the brains functioning, but it seems to me that although a thought may be similar, its sensory data would be of a different experience. In this difference, the brain can then summarize or compare the input.

On another note, can what one feels, be considered a thought? If so, then simultaneous thought occurs all the time. If one can register a feeling thought to a reasoning thought, can balance occur within the mind?

Another question; does the brain think, or just organize sensory input, and if so, what truly thinks?

[Joesus]

Joesus

The ego functions as a triad. What you explain is one aspect of ego, the aspect that deduces.

It's been a while. Nice to hear from you again.

The ego I explained is the waking state ego. The one most familiar to Psychologists

[IdentitytheKeystone]

Joesus - You make many points. My responses are not direct, but are relevant to different points at the same time.
I propose that the complexity of mind does not require the proposal of many different structures. I think that complexity can be sufficiently accounted for in the complexity of the organization of thought.
For example; the notion of houses has merit. One can propose that building organization in the brain would be like building out a town, and houses are constructs that serve to integrate notions/thoughts. This is a complex and information rich model. One could also propose a picture that is both more complex and simple at the same time. One could propose that the brain builds organization by rebuilding the whole world in the mind. We have no measure of the complexity of the brain, and we are unable to put an upper limit on the organizational capacity of the brain. As far as we know, if the world has n dimensions, the brain may be capable an n dimensional model, or an n-1 dimensional of n-x dimensional model.
Any process which simplifies the working of the mind deserves a place at the table. It is beyond our ability to second guess the elegance that a billion years of evolution may, I emphasize may, have attained. It is noteworthy that the brain has levels of evolution, and the imperative to simplify may be increased by the need of a later level to compensate for the architectural limitations of the level below it.
The use of parallel processing, or parallel awareness also simplifies the mind. The more extensive it's use, the simpler the brain is.

On the issue of duplicated thoughts.
1. Duplicated thoughts have to happen. ( I submit this imperative is not immodest )
2. If they are not resolved, what is the brain for ? The reinvention of schizophrenia !?!
3. When they are resolved, especially in the case of complex thoughts, there has to be consequences which cannot avoid our awareness.
4. I am unable to discern what could possibly put a ceiling on such a process of organization, so I follow the logic and it is possible that this is all the brain needs.

ItK

[Dianah]

Hi Joe,

Yeah, its been awhile...its good to see that you are still on this board...its a whole lot quiter then it used to be thou.

[IdentitytheKeystone]

Dianah - Thanks for responding. I envision the person being simultaneously cognisant of stored thoughts and external information. The external information is input, and then interpreted. It is interpreted according to the thoughts stored.. For instance, when you meet a friend you recognize their mood because of your stored thoughts of them. The image that your sensory faculties send to you is meaningless without the previous, the prior, organization of all the components of the sensory information. When you reconstitute all the sensory information, you are composing a thought ( a generic term ), a very very complex thought. This thought has a near duplicate in your memory. It is not exactly the same because people change a little every day. But the two match up in a compelling carnival of confirmation. I am suggesting that sensory data is formed into the same form that information is stored in the brain. There does not have to be an separate interpreter mediating between the brain’s information and sensory information. You do not need a separate interpreting device to watch a movie, why would you need one to match the world in your head with the world outside. I am simplifying of course, in order to make the point.
I am suggesting that the brain composes and builds its version of a replica of the outside world. I suggest that the model of the world in the brain is not an abstraction, but a replica. The input presented by the senses recomposes a version of the world already built up in the mind, and the brain gets to compare like with like. If there are small differences, parallel awareness will make them apparent. Again, there is compelling carnival of confirmation (...sorry.....not really..).

Regarding reasoning thoughts and feeling thoughts, I use the word thought in a generic sense. For my part I am sceptical of the speculative excising of feeling from reason.

I think that thinking is accomplished using parallel awareness. It brings to mind the phrase ‘weighing all the options’. The flexibility afforded by parallel awareness and the simple steps of comparing and contrasting can accomplish much. I do not believe it is a matter of comparing and contrasting hard analytical facts, but that emotions and motives are part of the same scrutiny.

Have one !

[Dianah]

Hi keystone,

I think I understand what you are saying here;

“I envision the person being simultaneously cognizant of stored thoughts and external information. The external information is input, and then interpreted. It is interpreted according to the thoughts stored.”.

Here is where we differ;

“ For instance, when you meet a friend you recognize their mood because of your stored thoughts of them. The image that your sensory faculties send to you is meaningless without the previous, the prior, organization of all the components of the sensory information.”

We recognize a persons mood because of what is emanating from them, this would fall under what I referred to as a ‘thinking’ feeling…it is an intuitive knowing…how we respond to this is determined by the process you explained above…comparing and weighing our memory to a previous experience that was first intuited…or sensed.

All thought is very, very complex, it is the mechanism of consciousness that creates complexity, or deduces.

You said;

“This thought has a near duplicate in your memory. It is not exactly the same because people change a little every day”…

It is not the thought that is recognized…but the feeling, or sensing…our brains can only interpret what we sense. So yes, I agree there is a duplicate sensing in our memory…but it is of feeling/sensing to thought.

“I am suggesting that sensory data is formed into the same form that information is stored in the brain.”

I think I get what you are saying here…but…what is stored in the brain is only sensory data…now this sensory data has a code or vibration to it or a DNA structure of its own that automatically places this sensory data into a form or thought…this would be as the firing of the brain…this would be as the neurons…(I think, I’m not a neuro scientist)…what is not being mentioned here is the subconscious mind and it is that which ‘works’ in the in between spaces…

“I suggest that the model of the world in the brain is not an abstraction, but a replica.”

I totally agree with this suggestion, it is as what many philosophies state: as above, so below.

“

The input presented by the senses recomposes a version of the world already built up in the mind, and the brain gets to compare like with like”

A very profound observation…esp. if one views the MIND differently in function then one views the brains function.

“For my part I am skeptical of the speculative excising of feeling from reason.”

You may want to ponder on this skepticism…if our bodies are nothing more then a sensory vehicle…if our brain can only interpret sensory data…then there is nothing but energy or vibration…and if energy is within a thought…then it is within a form…and when its within form then it is within limits…if we take away the limits and or the form…there is only energy…herein lays a greater meaning to E-motion.

“I think that thinking is accomplished using parallel awareness. It brings to mind the phrase ‘weighing all the options’. The flexibility afforded by parallel awareness and the simple steps of comparing and contrasting can accomplish much. I do not believe it is a matter of comparing and contrasting hard analytical facts, but that emotions and motives are part of the same scrutiny.”

I agree.

Well…I hope I understood you…and responded accordingly.

[Joesus]

On the issue of duplicated thoughts.
1. Duplicated thoughts have to happen. ( I submit this imperative is not immodest )

Well, have to, would be relative to the nature of thought. The source of thought is not bound to time and space, so relative awareness of thought within linear progression of time and space is a construct of states of consciousness as we idealize the different levels of operation within time and outside of time.
All thought exists NOW in potential. Past present and future exists now and the individual consciousness pulls now out of potential, and arranges it into personal experience. Thoughts then can be experienced as timeless or within time.

2. If they are not resolved, what is the brain for ? The reinvention of schizophrenia !?!

Reminds me of a Harry Nilson Song called Joy:
Joy to the world was a beautiful girl
But to me Joy meant only sorrow..
Now, if you haven't got an answer, you'd never have a question
And if you never had a question, then you'd never have a problem
But if you never had a problem, well everyone would be happy
But if everyone was happy, there'd never be a love song

Is there something that has to be resolved? What exactly would that be?
MY idea of the brain in its function is like a radio tuner. It has the ability to tune into many frequencies but for the most part people stay within the I am band... I am this, I am that, this is this, this is that...

3. When they are resolved, especially in the case of complex thoughts, there has to be consequences which cannot avoid our awareness.

Consequences of idealism, is the eventual destruction of all stagnant belief and comprehension, in the expansion of awareness beyond the boxes of belief in the complexity of thought.

4. I am unable to discern what could possibly put a ceiling on such a process of organization, so I follow the logic and it is possible that this is all the brain needs.

ItK

Need is always relative to the subjective mind.

[IdentitytheKeystone]

Hello Dianah

I think that when the brain re-models the outside world that feeling is fully integrated into the thoughts that compose the model. The same thought can be later re-examined in a more analytical or a more intuitive way, as you choose. And the model can later be reorganized in a more analytical or other way, as you choose.

This is speculative and not integral to anything I have proposed, but I would suggest that the term, mind, refers to the content of a mature brain, say after consciousness has developed at approximately three years.

Regarding sensory data -

''I think I get what you are saying here…but…what is stored in the brain is only sensory data…now this sensory data has a code or vibration to it or a DNA structure of its own that automatically places this sensory data into a form or thought…this would be as the firing of the brain…this would be as the neurons…(I think, I’m not a neuro scientist)…what is not being mentioned here is the subconscious mind and it is that which ‘works’ in the in between spaces…''

In my opinion,

What is stored in the brain is organized information. Sensory data is not collected or hoovered up and thrown as is, into the brain. Sensory data is put into the brain as fully organized thought. It may be subjected to further organization, but it is already sufficiently organized.
For example when we look at and examine a car, we do not see itemized components of sensory data. We do not see or conceive at any stage the components of the car as they were before they were assembled into the car We just see the car. In our mind it slots into the pre-established organization we already have composed. It is as if we look though our organization process as well as our eyes.

Conversation about the fallibility of our sensory faculties and our ability to deceive ourselves is just opportunistic niche sceptism. ...just saying……!…

[Dianah]

Keystone,

Where does abstraction fall into thinking?

You said;

For example when we look at and examine a car, we do not see itemized components of sensory data. We do not see or conceive at any stage the components of the car as they were before they were assembled into the car We just see the car. In our mind it slots into the pre-established organization we already have composed. It is as if we look though our organization process as well as our eyes.

I ask; what was a car before it manifested into a form that the brain recognizes as a car?

Did its functions derive from a need, an inspiration, intuition…or all of these? I am saying when we look at a car…our brain is looking at the sensory data of color form and action…it then moves through the rolodex of memory and applies color and form into thought…or into a forms desired effects through the memory of desire/need derived from sensory input.

Color and form strikes a sensing or feeling within us that we then construct into a thought form…through accessing our memories of prior experiences that in turn strike a FEELING which moves it into action. E-Motion.

You said;

What is stored in the brain is organized information. Sensory data is not collected or hoovered up and thrown as is, into the brain. Sensory data is put into the brain as fully organized thought. It may be subjected to further organization, but it is already sufficiently organized.

What I am suggesting is that what is stored in the brain is organized information in the subjective way of color and geometric form, that is then aligned to memory of images to definition. But this is not concrete for if it where then there would be no ‘new’ discoveries, no potential for growth.

Sensory data lends its self to potential of creating thoughts beyond what is known or stored within the brain, or what is called beliefs.

Sensory data is abstract and allows for potential.

What you suggest lends only to perpetuating patterns of stagnation…or limitations of imagination.

Thought is very, very complex, it enfolds and unfolds upon sensory experiences that are not created by the brain, but born of MIND.

[mr-cheshire-cat]

Heyloouu people !

I am Armenian 'friend' of Mr. Enki - the former member of your forum.

---
Kind regards,
Mr. Cheshire Cat,

Cheshire Intelligence Agency (CIA/AIC)
Ararat Valley /Airavata valley/, (Airavata - white elephant of God Indra)
Yerevan City /Erawan City/, (Erawan is the Thai name of Airavata)
Republic of ArmEn[k]ia
mr-cheshire-cat . livejournal . com

[IdentitytheKeystone]

Joesus
Imagine that as you went about your day, you were to pick up every object you encountered ( imagine you are a kleptomaniac ), and put it in a bag, then later on catalogued everything and placed it in storage. Upon later inspection you would notice that you touched the same types of objects more than once a day. You would find that objects were duplicated in the storage.

In the same way, through the course of an average day, you come across the same episodes, people, events, types of events several times a day. These events will key the same or similar thoughts when you come across them. So you will have duplicated thoughts. So you apprehend the similarity and group similar thoughts into sets or classes.
If someone was to propose that the mind does not look for similarity between these events, then in my opinion, because that proposition makes so little sense, there would be a very heavy burden of proof on them. They would be proposing a system so inefficient as to be dysfunctional.

In other words the corollary of what I am proposing makes so little sense, that it, in effect, gives further weight to the proposed dynamic.

The radio analogy I can relate to; the capacities of a radio are part of an organization process in the brain that is constructed from scratch within the brain. The ability to snag information and discover it’s meaning is one thing the brain does.
ItK

[Joesus]

The similarity of twice touched articles and their comparisons is what I was speaking of when I mentioned the waking state ego. A lack of innocence precludes one from actually touching something and experiencing it new each time you come in contact with it. The mind under this kind of conditioning is often clouded by preconception but it is not necessarily the human condition. As one learns to step back from conditioning and refresh the senses one begins to live life in the present moment and at this level of consciousness the radio is tuned to greater frequencies. The result is a greater perspective of reality.

Thoughts then are recognized for what they are. The witness to thought can then engage thought differently.

[IdentitytheKeystone]

Dianah
I agree about the priority of imagination and flexibility.

I have a favorite band. They are called Chic. I have listened to some of their songs maybe a thousand times. When I hear them in a public place, I usually pause to listen because the sound is different in every different place. Sometimes I listen and move on quickly. Sometimes I am once again wrapped up by the magic in the music.
When I encounter the music in my mind there are three things going on. 1. There is the original music put on tape. 2. There is the playing of the music in that particular place, on a particular sound system. 3. There is the perceptual attitude I deploy.
Point number 3 is the one relevant to our conversation. I know the music. I have an organized framework ready to appreciate it, but I do not have to preordain how I am going to react to it. My mood changes, so I pick up the music in different ways. I focus on different aspects of it at different times. In fact I believe I can vary how I engage past memory of the music, and how I deploy my pre-organized thought. I can relegate my pre-organized perceptions to a considerable degree. I believe I am saying that on open, flexible mind in also a matter of choice.

Now bragging about my open mind is not the same thing as saying that my account of consciousness has the same flexibility. I am saying you do not have to hypothesize specific functions or processes in order to preserve or make relevant the important attributes of imagination and flexibility. I do not think my proposal builds limitations to imagination.
One thing which may skew understanding may be the constant use of the word ‘organize’. This word prompts associations with ideas about regulation, order, regimentation and static structure. I use it and no other word because I think it is sufficient. I have no basis to move beyond one process. I see no limitations in the organization process. Because it is simple I believe it is more flexible for being so simple.
For instance, imagine a huge Jackson Pollack painting 50 feet by 30 feet, with the usual balance of chaotic drips and spills. Imagine I take a one foot by one foot section, photo it and make a perfect real size copy of that section of the picture. Now imagine I place that picture ten feet away from its sublect on the Jackson Pollack painting, If you were to stand back and scan the whole painting you might eventually notice that one part is duplicated ten feet away. Without that duplicated square there is little structure or organization in the picture, but with that duplicated square there is organization. A very fluid, near chaotic situation now shows a little more organization than before. The matching squares together make a figure, and the rest of the painting is now the ground ( Gestalt terms ). In this example organization has increased incrementally without defining the information, or terminally categorizing it. (Apolagies to JP for pimping his art for my propoganda, of course)

I have a video on Youtube called ‘consciousness theory using the logic of identity’. It is very condensed unfortunately.
In any case thank you for sticking with the conversation so far. This post is way too long.

Cheers, ItK

[Dianah]

Keystone,

This is what I am proposing; our waking state of consciousness deducts, our subconscious state of consciousness deduces, the unconscious state is what is often called chaos. Chaos is pure potential it does not deduct or deduce it just IS. The subconscious state works fluidly moving from one image to another, our dreams work in this way. For example in our dream we can be driving down a road in the rain and a raccoon is encountered in the road, our attention goes to the raccoon and we follow it into a field, which is now sunny and so forth…this dreaming state makes no sense to our awake state, but when in the dream it makes sense. What we bring back from the dream state is a feeling. In our awake state we may not remember the dream but we wake up with various moods or with various feelings…these feelings are now what determine our thoughts for the day. So, the brain receives a sensory input, it then rolodexes its memory banks and applies form/images to the feeling, and we call this thought. It organizes feeling/sensing into images/form.

In order to change a thought one must first change the feeling.

The subconscious mind houses sensory input, the conscious mind houses images, when these two areas of the mind function in awareness of each other, a state of balance can occur. In this point of balance, the mind as a whole fluid vehicle, can then access the unconscious mind and bring forth greater potential of expression. Or greater potential in which to organize, experience and eventually understand.

Our feelings hum through our being all the time, our brain is constantly whirling with this hum, whizzing from thought to thought trying to organize or make sense of this feeling…if this feeling is not understood then one moves into great activity of back and forth motion in the attempt to organize and this creates distressful e-motion. A calm feeling produces calm thought and this creates a peaceful e-motion. So…feeling and thought create conscious movement…via e-motion.

In fact I believe I can vary how I engage past memory of the music, and how I deploy my pre-organized thought. I can relegate my pre-organized perceptions to a considerable degree. I believe I am saying that on open, flexible mind in also a matter of choice.

I totally agree with that. The mind must learn how to focus its attention.

I think in essence we are saying the same thing…I liked your video.

How do you relegate your pre-organized perceptions?

[IdentitytheKeystone]

Dianah

Thanks for giving me your view. Here are my questions.

I do not understand the distinctions between

1. The conscious mind.

2. The subconscious mind. ( you say sensory input is stored in the sub-conscious mind, making it a warehouse of bits and pieces which are not necessarily part of meaningful thought, and you say that the sub-conscious is where dreams take place - making the sub-conscious a store for feelings and emotional thought as well )

3. The unconscious mind. ( Would the unconscious chaos realm not be more interactive with the rest of the mind ? A realm of chaos makes sense to me. I propose that there is part of the mind that is unorganized. It is not the same thing as chaos, but it is close. I have always been suspicious of the notion of an unconscious part of the mind that is analogous to a dungeon, that is separated from the rest. )

You write -- ‘’The subconscious mind houses sensory input, the conscious mind houses images, when these two areas of the mind function in awareness of each other, a state of balance can occur’’.

My question - What is the dynamic or tension between a store of sensory input and a store of images ?


For you it seems, a tension between feeling and images ‘stirs the pot’
and is associated with a dynamic in the brain.
Does feeling refer to a holistic structure of thought ? Or is feeling a sort of higher arbitrating ‘agent’, or a higher level interpreter/overseer of the mind that is not part of everyday awareness ? A capacity to take in and address all the mind and sensory input and make a judgement on the state of things ? Is feeling a kind of holistic inventory or organizer of the brains content, which delivers it assessment and the rest of the mind then tries to deal with it ?

How do I relegate my pre-organized perceptions ?

By suspending the impulse to make a judgement. By doing nothing and taking on the role of being a spectator. By engaging an open mind.
By being a wide-eyed fool.

ItK

[Dianah]

keystone,

I do not understand the distinctions between

1. The conscious mind.

2. The subconscious mind. ( you say sensory input is stored in the sub-conscious mind, making it a warehouse of bits and pieces which are not necessarily part of meaningful thought, and you say that the sub-conscious is where dreams take place - making the sub-conscious a store for feelings and emotional thought as well )

3. The unconscious mind. ( Would the unconscious chaos realm not be more interactive with the rest of the mind ? A realm of chaos makes sense to me. I propose that there is part of the mind that is unorganized. It is not the same thing as chaos, but it is close. I have always been suspicious of the notion of an unconscious part of the mind that is analogous to a dungeon, that is separated from the rest. )

The only distinctions, if there are any, would fall into the category of function.

My question - What is the dynamic or tension between a store of sensory input and a store of images ?

Good question…I perceive the tension between the two states as; action, movement or simply energy….pure consciousness.

For you it seems, a tension between feeling and images ‘stirs the pot’
and is associated with a dynamic in the brain.

Not necessarily.

Does feeling refer to a holistic structure of thought ? Or is feeling a sort of higher arbitrating ‘agent’, or a higher level interpreter/overseer of the mind that is not part of everyday awareness ?

I use the term feeling as attributes of emotion, or that which emanates from a thought form. Sensing is more abstract.

How do I relegate my pre-organized perceptions ?

By suspending the impulse to make a judgment. By doing nothing and taking on the role of being a spectator. By engaging an open mind.
By being a wide-eyed fool.

So one could say that; you step out from the emotion, observe, and allow, in the state of ‘innocence’?

[IdentitytheKeystone]

So one could say that; you step out from the emotion, observe, and allow, in the state of ‘innocence’?
[/quote]

Answer; More or less.

Dianah

You seem to give prominence to fluidity and energy, but I don’t get what the structure is. Anyway, I appreciate your feedback.

ItK