The Screen of Consciousness is Not What You Think
A geometric update: multiple schemas, continuous ringframes, and the clamp-identity equation
I’ve been studying the so-called screen of consciousness1 for a while, and I think I’ve stumbled upon a few interesting updates. To marry my terms to more conventional language, I call the screen at the present moment the “access manifold” (A), I call the attentional tracers of the screen going into the future or past “ringframes” (ρ, but see point (2)), evident in a rolling time window (T), and volumetric content I label as “schemas” (ς). t is clock-time, τ is modeled-time (where conscious content lives), and τ̃ is the intrinsic parameter of a “time-object” (as I’ll argue ρ to be for any ς). The updates I’d like to propose, briefly, are:
(1) The screen is actually a bundle of screens (one per schema ς), pinched together at the present moment of modeled time (τ = 0);
(2) The screen actually extends continuously through modeled time as a sort of fiber-bundle (ρ) along the τ-axis, one per schema ς (with a Gaussian-tapered visibility span of τ ≈ ±(0.1–0.5) s);
(3) The screen is lit up or strobed (by what I call a Pi operator Π) in various ways to become visible to the conscious agent (varying frequencies, modalities [interrupt, phasic, extrusion], and mappings [azimuthal or translational, phasic mode only]).
As an example of point (3), take the “2 Hz reality frames” of salvia or the “strobing” of extreme drunkenness. Even the light-up sequence can, at times, be seen in the near-future +τ, advancing towards the present, such that you know when the strobe is going to occur. Point (2) means that we were mistaken to call individual tracers ringframes; the ringframe material persists below visibility between the tracers. Point (1) might suggest the screen or ringframes are brightest at τ = 0 because of the pinching of every schema’s ρ there, because of being the center of the Gaussian taper across ±τ, or both. This is not to take away from the earlier observation that ρ may have “bright marks” baked into specific τ̃ locations that make the brightness of the screen vary over time t.
If we take these seriously, then what first appears as a sort of “frame rate” of attention or of content may actually be a mere strobing of an underlying continuous process. In other words, as clock time t advances, the pinch slides along the continuous ringframe field to a new τ̃ each instant; and from the pinch’s own vantage, content flows past it from +τ through 0 to −τ. The advance seems to be continuous, even when revealed only in strobed snapshots. This continuous advance of the pinch-point is what’s known as concrescence, and the subconscious seemingly orchestrates it for free (see the first figure, where concrescence is explained as a ringframe (ρ) zipper: one can see how modeled time τ is orthogonal to clock-time t (consciousness lives in the former).
One advantage becomes apparent: the fineness of temporal resolution at any time t is merely the geometro-spatial resolution of the content in the rolling time window (a huge benefit for something as messy and frequency-crippled as the brain, whose neurons generally fire no faster than 80 Hz, and rarely show alignment between regions for a given stimulus event). The resolution of phenomenology is arguably one millisecond (expert drummers can get this level of timing precision to the beat on snare hits), but perhaps as fine as 50–100 μs according to my own (possibly wrong) back-of-the-envelope calculations.
In the video above, the screen A sweeps a repeated orbit (not an uncommon behavior), “Woman with notepad” 3D model from 3dmag.org (free download, no author listed).
As far as schemas go, everyone is familiar with the real schema (R): your body below, the room you’re in. The imaginal schema (I) of thought-imagery is fairly easy to grasp, and it’s easy to see how it could overlay or briefly replace the real (in dreams, it replaces it for extended periods). Others are less noticeable. One I call the “Bank” (B) schema is a sort of agglomeration of potential screens/ringframes into a concentric, cube-ish structure. Another, which I call the “canvas” (C) schema, seems to occur when listening to music, or otherwise experiencing a sustained-velocity Sim(3) “flow.” The real schema can break down into subschemas (any parts that move relative to the whole), which can themselves break down again (the head can turn, the eyes can turn from the head reference frame). If we allow a screen for each schema, then the dynamics of what’s happening at A can be formulated mathematically:
Let me break down the right side of the equation. Freeze A at time t and go to the marker τ̃*, an infinitesimal step into the schema’s ringframe along +τ. What you read there is the local Sim(3) tangent: how fast the ringframe’s pose changes per unit τ at that point. Call it J (with λ(J) its generator in sim(3)). dτ̃*/dt is how fast the portal slides along the fiber, i.e. how quickly that ringframe is fed through the present. Tangent × feed rate is the pose change per unit clock time, and Ad re-expresses it in the shared world frame W.
Now let’s do the left side. This imbalance being fed into the present can either be absorbed by A moving along ρ (“traversal”), by ρ and its pose-coupled schema ς doing the negative (opposite Sim(3), “reversal”), or by a combination. ω is the pose velocity of the screen or of a schema expressed in W.
The concept of “Sim(3) tangent” requires an explainer. Sim(3) means the pose change can be of three kinds at once: not only translation, but also rotation and scaling. The tangent is the local, per-τ rate of that change along the ringframe. As an example, normally when you’re hiking, it feels like you (A) are moving down the trail (ως = 0). In sedation, this can flip, so that it feels like you are walking in place (ωA = 0).
The video above illustrates one case where the mind’s eye orbits quickly to view an imaginal scene (triggered by the word “soccer” in text), then orbits back so you can continue reading.
I’d love to hear any feedback on this; for those interested, I have put this in more formal terms in Chapter 1 of a newly released book, Journal of Ring Bank Phenomenology, which is a follow-up to the book you may have heard of, Rings of Fire: How the Brain Makes Consciousness (on which I presented at the 2023 Sicily Science of Consciousness conference). The image above includes the “Lady walking animated with accessories” 3D model by luismi93 (sketchfab.com) (also included in the video and other image above) and depicts the screen of consciousness slicing sagittally through the head, pose-coupled to it for conscious turning purposes. Intro image: access manifold A is transverse at chest level (peripersonal space sampled poloidally, colored rings; canvas sampled in parallel by translation, white rings, see Journal for full explanation).
See work by Shamil Chandaria, Steven Lehar, or Michael Graziano if you are unfamiliar with the tradition that there is a (usually invisible) screen of consciousness.