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Tag: Senses

A Controlled Hallucination: Part 1—The Problem with Perception

Now that we understand a little bit about the complicated architecture of the brain, we can finally start to appreciate the beautiful complexity of the world it creates. Everything we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch is filtered through the lens of the brain, refracted through our thoughts and past experiences, and reconfigured to create our unique perception of reality. Because of this complicated system of translating sensation to perception, we never really interface directly with reality. Most of the time, the image that perception creates is fairly accurate—or at least we mostly agree on it. But like any complicated…

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The Architecture of Thought: Part 2—How the Nervous System Turns Information into Electricity

Try this experiment at home with a friend: close your eyes and have your friend slap you across the face (probably don’t choose a friend who would take some sort of sick pleasure in hitting you as hard as possible). Wait a minute or so and then repeat the experiment with your friend softly caressing your face instead. Now, compare these two experiences and how you perceived them. The slap and the caress both involved someone else touching the same area of skin, alerting sensory neurons beneath the skin and causing an electrochemical impulse to move through the nervous system…

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