Inner Visions

I came across a pre-release academic paper yesterday that, even though I haven't done more than scan it, and to be frank the absolute substance of it, mathematically, is beyond my ken, made me ponder on the glorious phenomenon that is human consciousness itself. As a species we are capable of the most astonishing achievements of engineering and science, coming up with not only an understanding of why things are the way they are, but also how to manipulate the phenomena we've observed and analysed to our own ends. Add into that the fact that we have created art, music and culture independent of physical need simply because we can, is testimony to a species not simply dependent on the need for survival itself. That we are capable, equally, of being an intemperate, unthinking and venal species is also, unfortunately, a simple fact, but one which does not naysay the depth of our creativity.

The paper in question, however, despite its complexities of argument, posits what is essentially a simple concept. At its core, this is its case: we essentially cannot understand how our thought processes work, despite the simple fact of inhabiting ourselves from cradle to grave, because the permutations of neurological connections in the human brain are essentially bigger than the known universe folded in on itself a very large number of times: not infinite, but unimaginably vast: even bigger than the numbers I posted about a while back, such as Graham's Number. Folded within the small mass of tissue that inhabits our skulls is a mental space so unimaginably huge that even the human mind itself can only allude to its vastness of scope via arithmetical and philosophical  niceties. Check out Tree(3) for a glimpse into the spacial depths of our inner space...