hey everyone and welcome to top think today we're gonna learn eight mind-blowing theories about your
brain now let's begin the human brain is the most complex object in our known universe with
a hundred billion nerve cells and over a hundred trillion synapses this intricate neural network
has both fascinated and frustrated scientists for decades even after significant advances in
biotechnology scientists are still struggling to uncover all that the human brain has to offer but
we are getting closer and closer every day while we don't have a complete understanding of how
everything works leading experts have stumbled upon several earth-shattering discoveries we're
not just talking about a few new facts and figures mm-hmm these theories call into question all kinds
of fundamental cognitive concepts they turn everything from perception to consciousness on
its head despite volumes of supportive research many people like to pretend that these theories
don't exist but the truth is right around the corner these revolutionary concepts may transform
the way you view life reality and the world around you so let's go ahead and dive into eight theories
about your brain that will blow your mind number one passive frame theory what exactly does your
conscious brain do most people assume your consciousness interprets and interacts with
the world they see it like a middleman between your body and the environment when something
happens your consciousness has the free will to choose how to behave for example when a ball rolls
towards you your consciousness decides whether to kick it pick it up or do nothing but passive
frame Theory challenges this basic assumption it proposes that our consciousness plays a more
passive role it doesn't have any choice or free will it simply provides possible options which
other parts of the brain use to stimulate action so when that ball comes rolling towards you your
consciousness doesn't tell you what to do think about your consciousness like a search engine you
can look up how to kick a ball but that's just information you don't have to behave a certain
way simply because you know you can this means your consciousness serves as a passive observer
it pays attention to external stimuli and cognitive data but doesn't actually decide
anything what it can do is provide justification after you kick the ball your consciousness uses
all that information to explain why the ball was kicked this creates the illusion of choice it
seems like you have control you believe you took action for a specific reason but it's really your
consciousness justifying a series of automatic impulses in simpler terms we might be giving
our consciousness way too much credit number two single neuron theory what if consciousness
existed on a smaller scale we usually think about the entire brain as one conscious entity but this
theory suggests the complete opposite it says that your brain is comprised of a hundred billion
conscious cells each one has its own subjectivity its own independent impact on your brain now of
course not every neuron is created equal some have little to no consciousness while others are
extremely influential the difference depends on where the neuron is located in your brain neurons
in cognitively complex places like the prefrontal cortex would outweigh neurons in the hypothalamus
which controls mostly unconscious functions but if each neuron has its own consciousness how does
anything get done well our brain may only activate one group of neurons at a time your consciousness
seems singular and unified because only a few neurons are speaking their minds number three time
slices humans have invented and organized ways of understanding time it's continuous consistent and
fluid but do our brains conceptualize it the same way time slice Theory breaks temporal processing
into two stages at first we unconsciously perceive vague pieces of information it's almost like a
long series of very blurry frames these only last about 400 milliseconds or 0.4 seconds in
each one you identify basic colors and forms it isn't until stage 2 that you hone in on the
actual details at this point your consciousness figures out what's actually happening you give
each sliver some sort of meaning and decide if it's important that way you know where to store
each slice of time in your memory so how does this theory change our perception of time instead of
one continuous system your brain experiences time as a string of tiny moments to you time
feels consistent and coherent but it's actually a trick that your brain uses to make your life a
little easier number 4 pan psychism pan psychism alters the way we conceptualize consciousness
normally we attribute subjective consciousness to a select few organisms we classify it as a higher
cognitive process that means it's reserved for only the most neurologically developed species
but pan psychism suggests a completely different approach this theory proposes that every material
thing in the universe has some fragment of consciousness every atom whether it's part
of a rock or a living cell can have experiences they have consciousness even if it's just a
tiny tiny bit and if this sounds strange to you don't worry you're not alone pan psychism has
been widely criticized for how counterintuitive it sounds how could something as simple as an
electron be conscious how the nonliving objects have experiences it's challenging to wrap your
head around but that doesn't mean isn't true pan psychism has grown in popularity over the
years by offering one of the most plausible explanations for the birth of consciousness
few questions have stumped scientists more than this one where did human consciousness come from
why are some animals conscious while the rest of the universe isn't there have been hundreds
of different theories however none have properly explained how consciousness actually emerged pan
psychism answers this question by nullifying if every material thing can experience then human
consciousness never needed to emerge it's been there all along it's a fundamental part of your
existence every building block in your body has a small but relevant sense of subjectivity that
means human consciousness is just a product of evolution of course this theory has the
same problem as just about every other theory related to consciousness there's very little
definitive proof but it does offer a logical and more importantly possible explanation of human
subjectivity so while it sounds exceptionally strange pan psychism is one of the best theories
we've got number five integrated information theory can you measure consciousness it seems
like such an intangible concept the active quantifying consciousness feels too abstract
and nuanced to really yield anything worthwhile that's where integrated information theory or
IIT comes into play in the simplest terms IIT says consciousness is created by integrating a
huge volume of stimuli our brain combines all that information into a single experience you
can therefore quantify the amount of consciousness something has by analyzing the complexity of its
brain it gets a lot more complicated from there but that's pretty much the gist of it this theory
began with a pretty simple observation neuro scientists noticed that the most complex parts
of the brain play the largest role in conscious thought the more essential something is the
more intricate it gets but here's the problem with IIT we don't really know how to accurately
measure neural complexity we're not completely clueless but scientists are still working on a
reliable way to understand the brain whoever figures that out just might unlock the first
accurate measurement of consciousness number six branching minds this might be the most challenging
concept to wrap your head around it's based on an older theory called the many-worlds interpretation
essentially there are an infinite number of branching realities in which everything that
can happen has happened each time an event occurs it creates a new set of realities in which that
event unfolds differently an extension of the many worlds theory titled the many Minds interpretation
claims that branching isn't happening to our reality instead the split happens in your mind
your subjective experience of the world is what changes after each event every outcome triggers
a different mental states which subsequently limit your brain to a single perspective that
means that every consciousness interacts with a diverse spectrum of minds but the only one
that you could experience is yours number seven conscious electricity your perception might not
come from the construction of your brain a group of scientists in the United Kingdom discovered
that both awareness and perception correlate with disturbances in the electromagnetic field
around your brain their research suggests that meaning might come from a unique electromagnetic
field its primary job is to bind neural responses together which creates the illusion of singular
perception an important piece of evidence for this theory comes from a study conducted on
rabbits researchers found that the field around the rabbits brain changed shape in response to
different smells this transformation may be responsible for at least influential in the
creation of meaning this theory has a lot of room to grow at this point all we know is that
electricity plays a bigger role in the brain than we thought number eight orchestrated objective
reduction orchestrated objective reduction or ork or explains consciousness as a collection
of biological signals from each neuron this theory is actually a few decades old back
then it was rejected by the scientific community no one believed neurons could be so structurally
complicated a study from 2014 has given ork or new life researchers discovered vibrations
coming from individual neurons consciousness therefore could be a combination of billions
of tiny vibrations if this were true each of your neurons would have a small amount of input on your
total consciousness it's almost like voting in an election each person casts their votes but in the
end the majority rules to put this theory to the test researchers tried to influence those neural
vibrations if or poor were true this should have some positive or negative effect on consciousness
and that's exactly what happened this change caused significant differences in both mood
and voluntary behavior who knew that such tiny vibrations could be so powerful hey thank you
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