ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY HUMANIST FAMILY BRAIN STUDY DETAILS ABOUT YOUR CORE CONSCIOUSNESS May 28, 2016 WHAT IS YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS AND WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT? BRAIN SCIENCE FACTS ABOUT 15 MAJOR BRAIN IDEAS What is the purpose and the function of your consciousness? Your consciousness is what makes possible your awareness of being alive. And it gives you your experience of being you. You cannot have a sense of self without being conscious. The new fundamental scientific assumption is that your consciousness is caused by the global connectivity of all of the neuronal pathways and the nano-microscopic signaling processes in your brain and nervous system. It is helpful to simplify the most complex three pounds of matter in the universe, which is your brain, by connecting the 15 major brain ideas that define your consciousness with the concept of the global neuronal circuitry of your brain's physical structures, which are the sources of your brain's functions and your mind's self-awareness. First, you can quickly explore the connection between the idea of consciousness and the new brain idea of global connectivity by focusing your attention momentarily on the following circular symbol and all 15 red arrows: See arrows 1-15 = HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS THIS SYMBOL REPRESENTS A SIMPLIFIED HOLISTIC VIEW OF THE GLOBAL CONNECTIVITY NECESSARY FOR HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS This circular symbol was created to convey a powerful visual image of the previously unimaginable coalescence of the many diverse and interactive physical brain structures that form the awesome new idea of your self-manifesting holistic evolutionary brain. The 15 major brain ideas are bookmarked by your brain's two essential memory functions that you should know by heart! That means memorize until you will never forget the relationship they have to each other and how they create your sense of self. The symbol of 15 red arrows pointing toward the Circle of Consciousness depicts a living human brain, which is made up of many parts with a sum total of metaphorical meaning that is greater than all of the separate parts, whose functions are jointly known as your conscious self-awareness. Each of the 15 major brain ideas named in the Circle of Consciousness image can converge and merge in your mind to produce the enlightened awareness that the neuroplasticity process is one of the chief causes that makes possible your mental force and, therefore, your sensory self. This awesome plasticity process has only been verified experimentally during the past 20 years and widely accepted for the past few years. Your mental force empowers you to stand up for your self-talk and self-beliefs. Simply stated, you will be able to activate your own unique mental force when you understand how important it is for you to interact with your family, social network (social class or ethnic group), and your geographic culture (part of the 7 billion world population) to create a meaningful life for yourself. Think socialize and empathize with others as ways to create profound meanings in your life. For you to be conscious and able to activate your mental force, all of the neuronal fibers and all of their synaptic connections (in your brain and nervous system) must be connected through all of your body's neuronal pathways and all of their nerve tracts. This means that, if your brain is healthy and the physical structures are functioning well together, your brain is using 100% of its mental capacity when you are aware of yourself thinking, feeling, remembering, or doing anything. When the distinct parts of your anatomical brain are functioning properly together, they operate both interactively and synergistically to produce your mind's virtually unlimited thinking and feeling capacity, which is your creative imagination. Now modern scientific knowledge can explain how your billions of neurons and trillions of synapses are attached to each other to create your coherent sense of self. Now your own self-awareness can be explained well enough scientifically for you to trust your senses and use the new brain knowledge to empower your mind's mental force. Now you can make healthy decisions about your own survival and creative purposes as well as how to benefit others. The new altruism explanation of human nature and motivation is based on the new genetics research and it beats the old selfish gene explanation that was based on old historical ideas about social Darwinism in the context of the debunked scientific materialism. Therefore, your mental force gives you the curiosity and motivation to solve problems by using your own intellectual capacity to reason based on the linguistic context of your personal knowledge and your active vocabulary, which are both permanently saved in your long-term memory. Once you make this critical distinction that the quality of your ability to reason depends upon the quality of your personal sensory experiences and the size of your personal vocabulary, you will be able to control your magnificent mental force better. This is because you will be able to name the distinct functional structures of your brain and nervous system and decide how to use the scientific knowledge (the definitions and explanations behind the names of the 15 major brain ideas) to conduct your behavior from day to day and year to year --- to your advantage. Nevertheless, it is important to constantly upgrade your logical reasoning skills (critical thinking and reading skills) to actually make better choices regarding ethical (personal) and moral (social) decisions. This point is essential for understanding and appreciating how your mind's mental force can enable you to thrive no matter what educational or cultural advantages or disadvantages you may have experienced in the past --- if you have persistent grit. Today, it is known that biochemical currents cause action-potential spikes to travel only a few inches from the physical structure of your prefrontal cortex, which is just behind your forehead, to the physical structure of your hippocampus at the inner sides of each of your two hemispheres at the bottom of your limbic system. These biochemical currents and action-potential spikes cause the strengthening of the electrochemical signals from your working memory (in your prefrontal cortex) to your long-term memory (in your hippocampus). When the neuronal pathways are healthy, the potentiation signaling process is bidirectional, allowing signals to flow from your prefrontal cortex to your hippocampus and back again (back and forth) which provides you with your sense of self and your capacity for self-management and self-control. When this signaling process is interrupted by obstacles or holes in the neuronal pathways, Alzheimer's and other dementias destroy human consciousness. In addition, the biochemical currents continuously flow throughout your brain and the rest of your body, sending out biochemical signals that control all of your bodily functions whenever you consciously or unconsciously move your body or think or feel or even sleep. By understanding these key relationships among your major brain structures, your mental force and your conscious awareness of how your brain functions can help you overcome difficulties, sustain happiness, and achieve lasting success in the future starting now. That is why the symbol of the Alphabetical Brain™ and the contents of the Alphabetical Brain™ Vocabulary Website are so important. Soon the Alphabetical Brain™ Vocabulary App will be released to reach a larger group. Learning about your brain and mind can activate your mental force and empower you to express your conscientious humanistic values in order to achieve your goals. Typically, people experience this kind of brainpower as their creative imagination and intelligence. The new brain knowledge can be used by all humanists in the face of economic class warfare and global culture clashes. It is epic to finally know what you can do to save yourself and also help others at the same time. RELEVANCE OF THE NEW BRAIN SCIENCE FACTS AND IDEAS Since curiosity is the primary motivation you need to get started with your brain study, just ask yourself two basic questions: "How does my brain work"? and "What is consciousness"? The source of your mental force is now known to be your well-tuned organized mind. Every day you can understand your self as being a gifted person who can update your long-term memory (LTM) by seeking new information and collaborating with your family and friends and by reading the books of famous ancient thinkers and celebrated modern thinkers or by seeing movies about consequential progressive ideas created by great documentary film producers. Furthermore, even though your brain is a singular unit, it is useful to describe it as having four separate essential physical structures. The four basic structures include your cerebrum, limbic system, cerebellum, and brainstem. They are separated by membranes called fissures. There are crucial activators inside each of the structures: some activators are associated with your conscious willpower located in your cerebrum; and some activators are associated with your feelings located in your limbic system; while other activators are associated with your unconscious behavior located in both your cerebellum and brainstem. For example, your prefrontal cortex is the source of your "executive functions" including self-control, which is located in the two frontal lobes at the front of your cerebrum just behind your forehead with neuronal connections to all of the other major areas of your brain. The phrase executive functions denotes specifically that your prefrontal cortex is the essential source of your thoughts. It also means that since your thoughts can control your feelings, your thoughts can also control your body. It is very important to know that your prefrontal cortex is associated with the creation of new habits as you deal with personal and social challenges. As you make decisions, feel emotions, or act to achieve your goals, your prefrontal cortex must function superbly to help you achieve your personal best. This means that your prefrontal cortex, which contains your working memory (you can think of it as "creative memory" because it has the potential to be creative at any moment), can access your long-term memory, which typically stores the information that defines your unique self. With the new scientific knowledge about human consciousness that is based upon factual biological knowledge about evolution, your mind's mental force can control your feelings under normal situations when it is informed by the functions of the 15 major brain ideas and mindfully integrated into your conscious self-awareness. All of the 15 declarative statements, which define the 15 major brain ideas, can be consolidated into your long-term memory and they can be readily accessible for organizing and activating your new brain vocabulary. Remember, "If it's to be, it's up to me!" [That famous slogan used by some self-helpers will be analyzed in the book review section of this website.] You have to take the lead and give your new brain ideas direction or else they will be scrambled all around your cerebral cortex with no clear focus. However, if you regularly rehearse the new brain vocabulary correctly on a systematic basis, you will be able to recall the appropriate brain ideas at the appropriate times when you need to make the proper decisions. Recent scientific studies have demonstrated that you can improve the functions of your brain by simply learning to relax and focusing on whatever interests you. And you can boost memory retention by taking written notes and by subvocalizing in order to create a personal immersive multisensory learning environment inside your head with the assistance of all six of your senses. What you need to remember is to use proven critical thinking and reading skills and adapt them to your own unique life circumstances in order to make better decisions. You do not need to rely on ancient historical rituals to conduct your life and mimic ancient spells to be totally fulfilled in your present and future lives. Your own conscious self-awareness can justify itself with a little help from your friends and brain scientists! Many great new books about brain functions are outlined in other sections of this website. They can give you a head start on selecting the best scientific evidence available to help you expand your mental force and shrink your anxieties, fears, and depressive self-talk. When you learn about the massive connectivity of your billions of neurons and trillions of synapses, you will be able to understand the huge creative thinking potential that your mind's mental force provides you each moment. Evan during sleep your mind is consolidating the previous day's activities to determine which fragments of experiences are compatible with previous long-term memories that should be remembered in the future to prepare you to be ready when they are needed later to save your life or keep you happy. The neuronal strength of the signals that you established during the day's activities are somehow weighted or algorithmically "decided" unconsciously (while sleeping) so new triggers are established or sculpted into your overall long-term memory system for use later. Therefore, even though the exact electro-chemical process of storing new memories may not be clear now, it is clear that the infinite number of interactive neuronal connections you were born with and which you have been in charge of managing since your birth, gives you enormous brainpower to achieve your personal goals, if you learn how to use this birthright effectively. By avoiding dangerous addictive habits and useless social behaviors whenever you can, you will be able to create more precious time to achieve your most important goals. Finally, if you want to have a healthy brain, it is crucial that you eat, sleep, exercise, and relax enough at all ages, since good blood circulation is required for good brain health at all times. In addition to the free information on this website, there will be more detailed factual ideas related to the many scientific references that support the authenticity of the 15 major brain ideas featured on this website. There will be expanded coverage of the brain and more options on the unique Alphabetical Brain ™ App that will be launched very soon. Printable PDF Form DETAILS ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS (printable copy for your easy editing and memory consolidation) RECOMMENDATION: Print this pdf version and read it. Underline or highlight with colors the most important new brain ideas to save them in your long-term memory. Then edit the text to personalize it and read your edited version of these ideas in a few hours and in a few days and then a week later to take advantage of the spaced-repetition method of learning. NOTE: See also neurons #2, dendrites #3, axons #4, nucleus #5, glial cells #6, potentiation #7, synapses #8, connectome #9, and plasticity #10. instantly go to: FACT FINDER LIST OF BOOKS ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS #1 or instantly go to: FACT FINDER LIST OF QUOTES ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS #1 or instantly return to: CONSCIOUSNESS: BRAIN FLASH CARD #1 or instantly return to: ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY INDEX produced by Infinite Interactive Ideas™