ABSTRACT
Here it is suggested that one interesting but not well-studied property of consciousness is its continuity – the fact that my experience is stable in time despite the myriad changes in the underlying neural activity. It is proposed that there are specific mechanisms that maintain the continuity of consciousness by preventing certain transitions in the environment from entering conscious experience. These mechanisms are the key reason why we do not perceive involuntary eye-blinks or why our own moving limbs do not capture our attention. I will describe some studies conducted with virtual reality to demonstrate that one mechanism supporting the continuity of consciousness seems to be the withdrawal of attention from the specific predictable sensory activity. It is also discussed how the active inference theory can explain these sets of findings. It seems that (for now) the active inference theory is the only theory that can account for the continuity of consciousness. Finally, I explore the neural mechanisms of how the motor cortex conveys specific predictions to the sensory cortices that inhibit the predicted sensory consequences of own movement. Although not much is learned from this piece about the mechanisms of continuity, it is concluded that the topic is worth exploring more thoroughly.
