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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