Ego-centric Brain

An Article in NY Times (extract reproduced below) explains how our brain sees the world and
states the reasons for our limited perception.
Our life-experience is a movie created by the brain,
from a selection of current sensory inputs, stored memory and feelings/emotions experienced and
recorded in the past. We see and experience only this limited part that is depicted in the movie.
Each of us writes a different and unique script for this movie, experiencing life differently and uniquely
through the tinted glasses of what our scriptural texts have named as Vasanas. Hindu philosophy
attributes the cause of this limitation to Maya -- an obstacle to our experiencing the Whole (Reality).
We are however, assured that through knowledge, awareness and detachment we can train the
mind to overcome the limitation and have a vision of Reality.
Ramana Maharishi, in his Upadesa Saram, has stated:
Ahaminasa-bhajyahamahamtaya,
sphurati hrt-svayam parama-purna-sat.
Meaning: When the ego is destroyed (falls thro' self-enquiry), the self which is
the Supreme-Whole-Existence shines forth of its own (independently).

What is implied is not the destruction of the Ego-power - a source of energy necessary for great actions.
But the realisation that the ego is not the Self and needs control/guidance by the Self greatly improves
its effectiveness and creates effective Leaders in any sphere - family, society, nation. It is like atomic
energy which can serve us or kill an entire city's population. The scientific study mentioned in the article
suggests that we "see" only partially depending on our choice/inclination but live under the false belief
that we have "seen" all; in that sense, we live under a "grand illusion". The subject-matter has wide
implications and is a very challenging one for discussion in a group.
Ayya-MKK

Extract from the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/science/01angi.html?8br
How does the brain see the world? What is the difference between seeing a scene casually and automatically versus a focused seeing? In both cases the same sensory information, the same photonic stream from the external world, is falling on the retinal tissue of your eyes, but the information is processed very differently from one eyeful to the next. What is that difference? At what stage in the complex circuitry of sight do attentiveness and awareness arise, and what happens to other objects in the visual field once a particular object has been designated worthy of a further despairing stare?
Visual attentiveness is born of limited resources. The basic problem is that far more information lands on your eyes than you can possibly analyze and still end up with a reasonable sized brain; hence the brain has evolved mechanisms for combating data overload, allowing large rivers of data to pass along optical and cortical corridors almost entirely unassimilated, and peeling off selected data for a close, careful view. In deciding what to focus on, the brain essentially shines a spotlight from place to place, a rapid, sweeping search that takes in maybe 30 or 40 objects per second, the survey accompanied by a multitude of body movements of which we are barely aware: the darting of the eyes, the constant tiny twists of the torso and neck.
The mechanisms that succeed in seizing our sightline fall into two basic classes: bottom up and top down. Bottom-up attentiveness originates with the stimulus, with something in our visual field that is the optical equivalent of a shout: a wildly waving hand, a bright red object against a green field. Bottom-up stimuli seem to head straight for the brainstem and are almost impossible to ignore.
Top-down attentiveness, by comparison, is a volitional act, the decision by the viewer that an item, even in the absence of flapping parts or strobe lights, is nonetheless a sight to behold. Volitional attentiveness is much trickier to study than is a simple response to a stimulus.
Recent studies with both macaques and humans indicate that attentiveness crackles through the brain along vast, multifocal, transcortical loops, leaping to life in regions at the back of the brain, in the primary visual cortex that engages with the world, proceeding forward into frontal lobes where higher cognitive analysis occurs, and then doubling back to the primary visual centers. En route, the initial signal is amplified, italicized and annotated, and so persuasively that the boosted signal seems to emanate from the object itself. The enhancer effect explains why, if you've ever looked at a crowd photo and had somebody point out the face of, say, a young Franklin Roosevelt or George Clooney in the throng, the celebrity's image will leap out at you thereafter as though lighted from behind.
Whether lured into attentiveness by a bottom-up or top-down mechanism, scientific studies strongly suggest that the visual system can focus on only one or very few objects at a time, and that anything lying outside a given moment's cone of interest gets short shrift. The brain, it seems, is a master at filling the gaps and making do, of compiling a cohesive portrait of reality based on a flickering view.
Our spotlight of attention is grabbing objects at such a fast rate that introspectively it feels like we are recognizing many things at once, but the reality is that we are only accurately representing the state of one or a few objects at any given moment. The rest of our visual experience may be aptly called 'a grand illusion'.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/science/01angi.html?8br