Why nothing matters

[Celerity]

It took centuries for people to embrace the zero. Now it’s helping neuroscientists understand how the brain perceives absences

https://aeon.co/essays/why-zero-could-unlock-how-the-brain-perceives-absence





When I’m birdwatching, I have a particular experience all too frequently. Fellow birders will point to the tree canopy and ask if I can see a bird hidden among the leaves. I scan the treetops with binoculars but, to everyone’s annoyance, I see only the absence of a bird. Our mental worlds are lively with such experiences of absence, yet it’s a mystery how the mind performs the trick of seeing nothing.

How can the brain perceive something when there is no something to perceive? For a neuroscientist interested in consciousness, this is an alluring question. Studying the neural basis of ‘nothing’ does, however, pose obvious challenges. Fortunately, there are other – more tangible – kinds of absences that help us get a handle on the hazy issue of nothingness in the brain. That’s why I spent much of my PhD studying how we perceive the number zero.

Zero has played an intriguing role in the development of our societies. Throughout human history, it has floundered in civilisations fearful of nothingness, and flourished in those that embraced it. But that’s not the only reason it’s so beguiling. In striking similarity to the perception of absence, zero’s representation as a number in the brain also remains unclear. If my brain has specialised mechanisms that have evolved to count the owls perched on a branch, how does this system abstract away from what’s visible, and signal that there are no owls to count?

The mystery shared between the perception of absences and the conception of zero may not be coincidental. When your brain recognises zero, it may be recruiting fundamental sensory mechanisms that govern when you can – and cannot – see something. If this is the case, theories of consciousness that emphasise the experience of absence may find a new use for zero, as a tool with which to explore the nature of consciousness itself.

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The Fixx - Saved by Zero (Special Club Mix)

[Beastly Boy]

1. Fascinating.

I have always been interested in what is commonly referred to as extra-sensory perception, and I long suspected that it is merely sensory perception on levels not easily perceptible by most people, but is present, generally speaking, in all. The only difference that accounts for some people "possessing", and most people not "possessing" this ability, I thought, was the degree of sensitivity and the natural preference towards perceiving the stronger stimuli (as in the five commonly recognized human senses) versus the much weaker ones, which we tend to dismiss outright, or, in the best case, somewhat indiscriminately and ignorantly relegate to "extra-sensory".

While not exactly on the subject of my interest, this excerpt from the article was a revelation to me:

"The brain’s sensory systems are geared towards detecting the presence of objects, rather than their absence: when an object encroaches on your visual field, generally speaking, neurons in your visual cortex are activated. Moreover, this bias towards detecting objects has been reflected in scientific interest in the topic: most neuroscientific investigations of perception and consciousness are interested in how we become aware of something. Despite this, experiences of absence make up a significant portion of our conscious experience – we often become aware of what we can’t see. Revealing their neural basis is just as important for fully understanding the mechanisms supporting human awareness."

For the first time I see empirical validation for what I only speculated about. Not only that, the author links "extra-sensory" phenomenon, or, in his words, "becoming aware of what we cannot see", directly to networks of neurons that specialize in detecting the presence of the imperceptible, and the author cites studies that suggest evidence of similar mechanisms in various animals.

Fascinating! Much appreciated!

[Celerity]

2. thank you