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 This week we talked about action potentials. Action potentials are extremely precise, all-or-nothing signals which are responsible for our neuronal connectivity and on a macroscopic level, our thoughts, feelings, urges, unconscious processings, and ultimately us! It is such a wonder to me how action potentials become animation. Carrie and I were talking earlier today about this, and we stumbled upon some really interesting questions about consciousness. The main question I have is how do our senses combine with everything else with in our brains (feelings, thoughts, unconscious processings, etc.) to yield an experience, a reality. Touching my keyboard, seeing the screen, hearing the keys, thinking a thought, pausing my thoughts as I type them, continuing where I left off, relating to past memories (my conversation with Carrie), acting, thinking, subconsciously thriving...this is my reality right now; how do propagating changes in concentration across a semipermeable membrane generate this WORLD?

My dreams are often hazy, but on rare occasions I have extremely vivid dreams which feel like reality. This must be the brain creating its own outputs, its own action potentials, in lieu of any sensory stimulus. But, what is it exactly that gives a vivid dream its "vivid-ness", its vivid quality, as opposed to duller dreams. What is making our mind and body (I know everyone's had a dream where they felt like they were falling!!!) feel REAL?
...hope this makes sense
 

We were also talking about the nature of these connections. Carrie wrote her first web paper about vegetative states vs. comas, in which levels of consciousness vary. If the connections within the brain regarding consciousness are severed or many are broken, can these connections be rebuilt? If so, are certain levels of consciousness learned as opposed to being innate? How do connections re-establish themselves? How to these connections form to begin with (I picture a little axon creeping along in the brain like a root in soil)? Action potentials allow connections to interact, but do they help form connections? How could the help "form" a connection if there is nothing for them to "form" on? How do connections become learned?
...a summary of this string of questions: What's up with connections?????