The documentary does a good job of introducing the idea of consciousness along with the role of our brain. It beginning with the example of the brains job being explained to a child seemed to be a good choice to ease the viewer into the the themes of what consciousness is. Having taken three neuroscience courses here at Roger Williams and this topic being one that I find interesting I have spent a good amount of time thinking about these types of topics before taking this course. I appreciate the beginning’s focus on the senses, this is a major part of how our brain gathers information to operate and I did not realize how big of a deal all of them were until taking classes here. Perception and sensation can simply sum up our brain function and arguably consciousness as a whole, if you consider our brain function to be consciousness. receiving signals through our senses, transferring those signals to differing brain areas, then perceiving that information is a large part of what the brain does. I also have fond memories of viewing the NOVA show on PBS as a kid with my dad. All these things together have lead me to be excited about getting to write about this topic and do some more research while finishing this assignment. 

With this explanation in mind it brings up the question. If our perception of the world is based on these signals that we are receiving with our senses, does that mean our perceptions can be inaccurate if our senses make a mistake. The show does a good job of highlighting this by showing the viewer differing examples of optical illusions. While taking my three neuroscience related classes we looked at a multitude of different examples of optical illusions and also read in depth explanations of how they trick our brains and senses. An interesting take away that I had while in this class is that our senses work together to provide us the best explanation as to what’s happening in the world. A way that this was demonstrated to us was our professor playing for us an audio and then showing us a video of someone mouthing the word that the audio sounded like it was playing. When we were all in agreement that the person was saying one word our professor switched the slide, but kept the same audio playing. On this new slide was different person mouthing a different word. When this new slide came up the word that sounded like it was being said on the audio changed. While the word sounded different because of the change in video the audio remained the same. This similar to the brainstorm and green needle audio example that was highlighted in the documentary, along with the yanny laurel controvery. This shows that our eyes and ears work together to try to provide the most accurate perception of what is happening, but that we are not perfect and sometimes our brain can be tricked and make mistakes. While our brain does a good job overall showing us the world and keeping us alive, it does bring up questions about consciousness once you learn where our different interpretations of the world come from. The big example brought up in the documentary was the dress and how peoples perceptions of the color differed, leading them to think about consciousness and reality.

One of my main takeaways after watching the documentary is that consciousness is the brains ability to take in this information, flawed or not. Humans differ dramatically in every sense that you can think of, so our perceptions of anything will not line up with one another. Just the ability to sense these things and come up with an output of what you perceive is consciousness to me. In this senior seminar class I remember the question being asked is red the same to everyone. There was a little back and forth when discussing the answer which lead me to think about that idea more. After thinking about it and watching the documentary to get a reminder about how light particles enter your eyes and then are interpreted to create a encoded description of the color that we see it has lead me to a conclusion. While the colors that we see differ from person to person with no way to be able to tell how much, the particles that our eyes take in are the same, our brain just may process them in slightly differing ways. This is the reason we are able to come to a consensus on which colors are which even though we may interpret them differently. Fun fact women are able to see more shades of colors than men. This is why if you are a man you may have the experience where a women asks you which shade of something that you like better and you may not be able to tell the difference between the colors. With this in mind, does that mean consciousness is different between men and women, since women are generally able to see more variation in the world?

While the documentary did do a good job laying out the ideas of perception and consciousness along with getting my brain thinking about the implications of these ideas, one thing I did not hear it discuss was spirituality or religion. There are countless different takes on what consciousness is depending on the religion or spiritual practices one subscribes too. The documentary did not really delve into any of these takes, which I cannot fault them for since they are a science based documentary. It is still cool to learn and hear about different cultures idea about spirituality. I wanted to look more into the buddhist perception of consciousness because I often hear about it and wanted to learn more. While depending on the source there were many differing answers what I generally found was that buddhists believe in many different layers of consciousness with altering rolls. What I also found is that tend to believe in a general consciousness that others can tap into. The example I read was that if enough people deem something as beautiful you will come to also accept that it is also beautiful even if you have not seen it due to the collective conscious. I believe that the variability in information may be due to variability in beliefs. No matter what though it is all interesting and thought provoking.

Sources:

– https://www.lionsroar.com/the-four-layers-of-consciousness/

– https://www.gweye.com/blog/2021/07/07/do-men-and-women-see-209565#:~:text=Color%20Perception&text=Even%20when%20compared%20to%20males,hues%2C%20like%20blue%20and%20green.

– https://www.sightmd.com/blog/link-between-eyes-and-ears/#:~:text=Your%20vision%20and%20hearing%20are,vestibulo%2Docular%20reflex%20or%20VOR.

– https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31789635928&dest=usa&ref_=ps_ggl_11147913055&cm_mmc=ggl-_-US_Shopp_Textbook-_-product_id=COM9780197551967USED-_-keyword=&gclid=Cj0KCQjw6PGxBhCVARIsAIumnWZ0TUQdhGiK-nr9VDzz8jhHfAKK5vq80OuXvefRTGDfHa243xoSII8aAl1CEALw_wcB