What I make of those studies is that stimulating the thalamus activates the whole corticothalemic loop.
Yes, precisely, but the inverse is not the case. It seems to make a strong argument that the loops “start” in the thalamus and that the thalamus has a primary role.
There you said the thalamus is where consciousness is happening. That is just flat wrong. It’s a system phenomenon.
Literally every empirical phenomenon is a system phenomenon at some level. Everything is the undifferentiated Brahman according to the Kharmic religions, and they’re basically right in some sense. But we make abstractions for events which are local in space and time.
US federal governance or a match of fisticuffs in an arena are complex system phenomena with many disparate influences but the language and abstractions we use place these things at a particular place and time because that is where these influences converge in time and space and resolve their conflicts.
(I think our discussion has become perfectly looped at this point.)
Yes, precisely, but the inverse is not the case. It seems to make a strong argument that the loops “start” in the thalamus and that the thalamus has a primary role.
Literally every empirical phenomenon is a system phenomenon at some level. Everything is the undifferentiated Brahman according to the Kharmic religions, and they’re basically right in some sense. But we make abstractions for events which are local in space and time.
US federal governance or a match of fisticuffs in an arena are complex system phenomena with many disparate influences but the language and abstractions we use place these things at a particular place and time because that is where these influences converge in time and space and resolve their conflicts.
(I think our discussion has become perfectly looped at this point.)