12/06/2026
Learning and Meaning.......Basis of Consciousness
Human consciousness began in utero (inside the womb) weeks before birth. This is the time when the brain and the somatosensory system is structurally complete and functioning. The somatosensory system (SSS) is the generator of the basic and master consciousness (BMC) both during the weeks before birth and through out the lifetime. The BMC requires a functional thalamus.
Association in the brain refers to connections between different brain cortical regions. Association is the basis of meaning and memory. During late infancy to early childhood the brain is characterized by the exuberant, excessive axodendronal connections among neurons and among cortical regions. These connections are random and disorganized. Later, learning would reshape the connections (many will be pruned, lost). From disorganized and random the connections will become memories and meanings; highly organized and purposeful.
The exuberant axodendronal connections make learning easier and faster.
Meaning and Understanding
If a sensory stimulus is presented (visual, auditory, tactile etc) it will create an image , a definite consciousness ( eg sound, visual etc) without a meaning. It is a meaningless image or consciousness; later it will become a memory connected to other memories and most importantly connected to hipocampal memory feel
which give it meaning ! Example is a prelingual 10 month old baby hearing a sound, a spoken word. For the baby the word will be a meaningless sound. A similar situation is when a purely English person hears someone speaking Chinese, the words will have no meaning, simply incomprehensible, just noise.. In the example of the 10 month old baby, the same word......for a 50 y/o person will have deep meanings. The sound or word have built a massive, extensive connections throughout the 50 year old person's brain. These connections are the learnings which give meanings to the sound ! Building the connections is learning.
The excessive, exuberant axodendronal connections of early childhood are gradually lost from unuse. This is termed pruning. is part also of the learning process.