Scientists Reveal How Many Times You're Conscious Per Minute

The authors of this groundbreaking research published in Neuron discuss how we perceive the world around us. It appears that our biological hard-wiring is poorly suited for modern society. We don't take in sensory data in a constant stream. Our consciousness oscillates in and out of focus. The world about us is then pieced together from this limited data.

These findings are just as much philosophical as they are scientific. Our most basic understanding of reality is now being challenged.

Studies were conducted at the University of California Berkeley and at Princeton University. Researchers were trying to determine how many times the human brain oscillates in and out of focus per minute. They may have been shocked to find out that frequency is approximately four times every second, or about 240 times a minute!

We focus in bursts with periods of distractibility in between. Those in between moments are when the brain checks the rest of the environment for anything that may be important

We experience time as continuous as our brains fill in the time gaps. It is amazing that our brains can accomplish such a task. It is a reality jigsaw puzzle.

The Advantage of a Distractible Brain:

We could consider distractibility as a negative quality, but it may have been a huge survival advantage for primitive humans. This natural tendency of the brain to “zoom out” and become distracted by the environment, even for just a few milliseconds, might have allowed our ancestors the time to detect the presence of a potential threat and react accordingly.

There is also powerful evidence that these rhythms are highly adaptive and have been preserved in humans and their relative species for millions of years.

The bottom line here is that there were no "mistakes" made when God designed the human body. Everything has a reason and a purpose for being as they are.

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