One of Bor's research areas is a type of information processing called chunking. We can normally hold only a few things in our working memory at one time, but if we chunk items into groups so that the group represents all the items it contains, we can manipulate more and more concepts simultaneously. MRI scans show that the prefrontal-parietal network, a broad area of the cortex that is sometimes seen as the home of consciousness, lights up particularly when we do tasks that involve such chunking.
If that seems speculative, it's nothing compared with the final chapter, where Bor interprets several neurological and psychiatric conditions as disorders of consciousness. Autism is, for instance, a kind of supercharged consciousness, he believes, whereas his wife's depressive episodes arising from her bipolar disorder could stem from an underactive one.
- Review of Daniel Bor's new book The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning
If that seems speculative, it's nothing compared with the final chapter, where Bor interprets several neurological and psychiatric conditions as disorders of consciousness. Autism is, for instance, a kind of supercharged consciousness, he believes, whereas his wife's depressive episodes arising from her bipolar disorder could stem from an underactive one.
- Review of Daniel Bor's new book The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning
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