Nick Lane Quote

Core consciousness operates in the present, rebuilding itself moment by moment, mapping out how the self is altered by external objects, draping perceptions with feelings. Extended consciousness uses the same mechanisms, but now binds memories and language into each moment of core consciousness, qualifying emotional meaning with autobiographical past, labelling feelings and objects with words, and so on. Thus extended consciousness builds on emotional meaning, integrating memory, language, past and future, into the here and now of core consciousness. The selfsame neural handshaking mechanisms allow a vast expansion of parallel circuitry to be bound back into a single moment of perception.

Nick Lane

Core consciousness operates in the present, rebuilding itself moment by moment, mapping out how the self is altered by external objects, draping perceptions with feelings. Extended consciousness uses the same mechanisms, but now binds memories and language into each moment of core consciousness, qualifying emotional meaning with autobiographical past, labelling feelings and objects with words, and so on. Thus extended consciousness builds on emotional meaning, integrating memory, language, past and future, into the here and now of core consciousness. The selfsame neural handshaking mechanisms allow a vast expansion of parallel circuitry to be bound back into a single moment of perception.

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About Nick Lane

Nick Lane (born 1967) is a British biochemist and writer. He is a professor in evolutionary biochemistry at University College London. He has published five books to date which have won several awards.