The term information processing is used equally in information technology, psychology and the neurosciences to describe brain processes. In psychology, it refers to the operations by which people mentally manipulate what they learn and know about the world and information technology talks about information processing as the efforts to understand how we take in, process, access and store new information.
The brain’s purpose is to integrate information about the outside world together with information from inside the body. The purpose of this, as some have suggested, is to predict the future. To anticipate and engage with change in an adaptive way. Consciousness consists of monitor images of the inner and outer worlds; it can be seen as a container for the representation of all experiences.
The distinction between inside and outside origins of conscious experience is especially useful. In Kant’s terms, phenomena are events out there in the world and noumena are inner-generated conscious experiences. In the human mind, images of what is around us (the Mittelwelt) tend to be detailed and explicit in consciousness.
By contrast, monitor images from inside the body (the Eigenwelt) tend to be vague, fleeting and variable. You cannot see and understand your own internal organs without specialised training in anatomy and physiology. We are generally ignorant of internal processes and invent all manner of imaginary and irrelevant explanations for internal events. As a result our explanations for outside phenomena are very different from explanations of inside experiences.
The subjective Images from inside the brainbodymind can be called noumena. The brain places samples of its inner workings into consciousness – self-talk and dreams are all examples of normal noumena. Delusions and hallucinations are abnormal noumena. Noumena can be divided into images that resemble phenomena but are generated by the brain and images that originate from within the body and represent body states.
Information originating from inside the body is not clearly represented in consciousness. Inner senses belong to two groups - chemical and electronic. The more recently evolved electronic kind of sensing utilizes signals that travel along nerve networks that reach out to every cell in the body.
Images of the outside that are detailed and explicit in consciousness are called phenomena and representations of phenomena are said to be objective. The eye, for example, is a photon sensor that sends electronic signals to the occipital cortex and other regions of the brain that utilize visual input as information. The ear is a mechanical sensor that turns sound into electronic signals that are processed and experienced in and by the brain.
Consciousness is associated with awareness and vigilance. The unconscious animal will not experience the approaching predator but the conscious and vigilant animal maintains awareness of the local environment. Sensory receptors are tuned to features of the environment that may satisfy drives or signal danger.
There is much more happening in the world outside of us than we can ever understand and it is suggested that the human information processing system deals with approximately 11million bits of information at any one time. As demonstrated in many court cases, a detailed, complete account of a single moment or experience could easily consume many hours of documentation. As a result, we tend to simplify and approximate what is really going on. We dissect our Mittelwelt and Umwelt into discrete events (ignoring huge amounts of information in the process) and treat these events as the sole constituents of our experience, filtering the available information and specially selecting data that fits our habits and rejecting anything that does not. We describe what we are used to describing and we decide and act upon recognition - literally knowing again.
The continuous interaction of events in the brain and events in the world (noumena with phenomena) creates our experience of this world. The interface between phenomena and noumena result in the energy patterns in the world being transformed into a representational energy patterns in brains. The sense organs provide information for brain patterns to resonate with world events; these are experienced as perceptions and sensations.
Scientists refer to the continuously interacting and emerging events as a Mesh. From the point of view of this model, we are nodes or points of consciousness in the Cosmic mesh interacting with the mesh, warping it and forming an integral part of it.