{"title":"Blurred Lines: Memory, Perceptions, and Consciousness: Commentary on \"Consciousness as a Memory System\" by Budson et al (2022).","authors":"Hinze Hogendoorn","doi":"10.1097/WNN.0000000000000325","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In the previous issue, Budson, Richman, and Kensinger (2022) put forth the intriguing proposal that consciousness may have evolved from the episodic memory system. In addition to providing a possible evolutionary trajectory for consciousness, I believe that viewing consciousness as an extension of memory in this way is particularly useful for understanding some of the puzzling temporal complexities that are inherent to consciousness. For example, due to neural transmission delays, our conscious experience must necessarily lag the outside world, which creates a paradox for both conscious perception (Do we see the past, rather than the present?) and action (How can we make rapid decisions if it takes so long to become conscious of something?). These paradoxes can be elegantly solved by treating consciousness as a memory system. Finally, the proposal put forth by Budson and colleagues (2022) aligns with the emerging perspective that consciousness, like memory, represents a narrative time line of events rather than any single instant. However, I believe that this conceptualization can be further extended to include not only the past, but also the future. In this way, consciousness can be provocatively viewed as the remembered past, present, and future.</p>","PeriodicalId":50671,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1097/WNN.0000000000000325","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In the previous issue, Budson, Richman, and Kensinger (2022) put forth the intriguing proposal that consciousness may have evolved from the episodic memory system. In addition to providing a possible evolutionary trajectory for consciousness, I believe that viewing consciousness as an extension of memory in this way is particularly useful for understanding some of the puzzling temporal complexities that are inherent to consciousness. For example, due to neural transmission delays, our conscious experience must necessarily lag the outside world, which creates a paradox for both conscious perception (Do we see the past, rather than the present?) and action (How can we make rapid decisions if it takes so long to become conscious of something?). These paradoxes can be elegantly solved by treating consciousness as a memory system. Finally, the proposal put forth by Budson and colleagues (2022) aligns with the emerging perspective that consciousness, like memory, represents a narrative time line of events rather than any single instant. However, I believe that this conceptualization can be further extended to include not only the past, but also the future. In this way, consciousness can be provocatively viewed as the remembered past, present, and future.
期刊介绍:
Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology (CBN) is a forum for advances in the neurologic understanding and possible treatment of human disorders that affect thinking, learning, memory, communication, and behavior. As an incubator for innovations in these fields, CBN helps transform theory into practice. The journal serves clinical research, patient care, education, and professional advancement.
The journal welcomes contributions from neurology, cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology, neuropsychiatry, and other relevant fields. The editors particularly encourage review articles (including reviews of clinical practice), experimental and observational case reports, instructional articles for interested students and professionals in other fields, and innovative articles that do not fit neatly into any category. Also welcome are therapeutic trials and other experimental and observational studies, brief reports, first-person accounts of neurologic experiences, position papers, hypotheses, opinion papers, commentaries, historical perspectives, and book reviews.