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bled, was with local anesthetic or focal TCMS. that generate the Avatar. The brain knows that it has this Avatar and
knows what it is doing. Stimuli and assorted thoughts are not isolated.
The Avatar knows consciously because its information is processed
CONCLUSIONS
within the Avatar s CIP representation of the sense of self. This repre-
Brains construct representations of what they detect and think about. sentation is the awareness and the attendant thought.
The representations take the form of patterned nerve impulses propa- Proposed here is the idea that conscious perception arises from
gating through circuits and networks (circuit impulse patterns, CIPs). combinatorial coding of CIPs. We don t really know what combinato-
This representational scheme has been unequivocally demonstrated rial coding means, other than to make the less-than-helpful conclusion
for both non-conscious and subconscious minds. that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. At least, however,
Conscious mind must also be a CIP representation, but unique we have good reason to believe that what is being coded is the spatio-
in that the constructed representations are of a sixth sense of self, an temporal distribution of spikes and the field potentials they generate in
awareness of embodied self and what the self encounters and engages. multiple linked neurons.
Thus, this mind may automatically know what it is knowing. This rep- The needed research tools are at hand for identifying the neural
resentation is actually an agent, more or less equivalent to an Avatar, causes of the conscious sense of self. Let the race begin.
serving the brain s interests and imperatives. The conscious Avatar
knows information the same way the non-conscious mind does; that ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
is, through CIP representations of that information. So, the key ques- The author wishes to thank Andrew Fingelkurts for his criti-
tion is What is different about the CIPs of consciousness and those cal reading of an early draft of this manuscript and his constructive
of non-consciousness or sub-consciousness? The CIPs of the Avatar suggestions. Helpful suggestions from anonymous reviewers are also
likely differ in spatial and temporal distribution. acknowledged and appreciated.
The Avatar is a CIP representation itself but also an interpreter of
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