Understanding the Gift of Consciousness

2008
Timothy Lynch
COMP 111
5/14/2008

The brain is the most complex and most fundamental of all the human organs. It is the essence of life. It is the vehicle through which man perceives reality, experiences, interprets his body’s sensory information, and coordinates all communication through billions of neural connections to various organs and systems, regulating and maintaining homeostasis (processes for maintaining internal stability). One’s experiences of life, their acquired skills, and the lessons learned are contained within a brain’s wrinkled, corrugated, and almost alien structures as memories. Two main categories of memory exist independently and simultaneously, short-term and long-term. Short-term, also known as working memory, is the mind’s way of temporarily storing any relevant information and task-specific data.
There are at least two varieties of Short-term memory. One of the memory types is called by the name ‘phonological loop.’ This is how your brain stores linguistically encoded information for short periods of time (only seconds). The other is the visuospatial sketchpad, the mind’s way of maintaining, its visuospatial relationship(s) for the same short time as the phonological loop.(Foster, 972).

The alternative memory format is Long-term or, declarative memory. The three inherent and pre-determined protocols the brain uses to remain functioning to translate a person’s experiences as this type of memory are encoding, storage, and retrieval. The mind autonomously separates and handles the two types differently, going as far as storing them in different locations.
Intertwined within memories, attached to (a majority of which are long-term) and enhancing them are emotions. Emotion is exclusively a human phenomenon and our beautiful mind is where to look to understand our