Meaning, Values and Cognitive States

Abstract

This work is the result of a presentation I gave at the Biological Physics and Meaning (BPM) mini conference 2, on ‘BRAIN DYNAMICS, CONSCIOUS THOUGHT, PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGICAL COHERENCE AND SPIRITUAL AWARENESS’ (April 2024).

The title of my presentation was “Meaning, Values and Cognitive States” and it was based on a study published in Sensors, by the title “Information-Theoretical Analysis of the Cycle of Creation of Knowledge and Meaning in Brains under Multiple Cognitive Modalities” (Davis, Schübeler, & Kozma, 2024a).

Here I briefly touch on the main findings of this study, based on detailed statistical analysis of experimental data, on the cycle of creation of knowledge and meaning in human brains, under multiple cognitive modalities, which combine various audiovisual stimuli, leading to different mental cognitive states. These modalities include relaxed and cognitively engaged conditions, that, when compared via the pragmatic information index, show significant differences in brain dynamics. Engaged cognitive states that require complex sensory information processing to create meaning and knowledge, are shown to be more active than relaxed-meditative cognitive states. This observation is conjectured to be associated with the demand on psychophysiological and brain energy resources and needs further research. The reader is recommended to read the full study for a deeper understanding of this line of work.