How the Brain Does Consciousness: Biological Research Perspectives

[Piggy]

This thread is intended to discuss consciousness from the point of view of biological studies on the brain. It's open to posting of research on the brain, and discussion of that research.

Because threads on consciousness tend to get derailed into debates about AI, I feel I must say a couple of things up front:

1. This thread is intentionally in the science forum rather than the philosophy forum. It is therefore expressly grounded in the modern viewpoint that consciousness is a scientific topic, and is no longer a philosophical one.

2. This thread is about biology, and about the brain. It is not about information science*, computer science, religion, or the possibility of building conscious machines. It has nothing to do with the question of whether computers can or cannot be conscious.

The word "consciousness" has various usages. For the purposes of this thread, the stipulative definition of the term is a functional one: Consciousness is what our brains are doing when we're awake, and when we're dreaming, which it is not doing when we're asleep and not dreaming or in a profound state of anesthesia. In other words, it's what our brains begin to do when we wake up from a dreamless sleep, and what they stop doing when we fall into dreamless sleep or are put into deep anesthesia or pass out.

For the purposes of this thread, consciousness does NOT mean only "waking awareness" -- we include the awareness of dreams -- nor does it mean self-awareness, i.e. knowing that one is aware. Those definitions are too narrow, although they're certainly interesting and worth discussion elsewhere.

If you would prefer to discuss those other meanings of consciousness, please be so kind as to start another thread rather than arguing the point here.

I look forward to a productive and enlightening discussion.

ETA: I will sometimes use the term "Sofia" as an anagram for "sense of felt individual awareness", which is the hallmark of consciousness.

*In some cases, information science overlaps with biology; in those cases, the research fits within the scope of this thread.

 

[Piggy]

Currently I'm reading Human by Michael Gazzaniga, and The Cognitive Neurosciences edited by Dr. Gazzaniga. I'll probably be referring to both of these books quite frequently, at least initially.

What has affected me the most so far as a result of this reading is coming to terms with an idea I was already aware of intellectually, but which now occupies my thoughts throughout much of the day: Everything I'm aware of is already over.

This is a quite profound realization that goes right to the heart of who I think I am.

It takes the brain some time, about half a second, to coordinate what's coming in from the senses, filter it, figure out what needs to be fed to the apparatus of conscious awareness, and fill that in with a kind of mental mortar from memories and schema in order to present Sofia with a seemingly complete view of the world.

I can't be aware of the charging tiger 1/10 of a second after it charges, because my senses don't sense a "tiger", but rather various sorts of lights and sounds and chemicals and such.

Fortunately, my body is smart enough to take action before I'm consciously aware.

Apparently, the bulk of what my brain does takes place in advance of conscious awareness. But because my brain is built to make sense of the world, it supplies the feeling that everything is happening in real time, and that "I" am making all my decisions.

So what is Sofia doing?

Clearly it must be doing something, or evolution would not have bothered to select for it, and my body would not expend resources to maintain it.

Given the time frames involved, it must be primarily concerned with longer time-frame decision-making. And since non-conscious modules (or daemons) can handle all the short-range stuff in the brain, consciousness seems to be the mechanism for dealing with actions and decisions requiring a high degree of coordination.

But it's a hard thing to really comprehend, that even as I watch myself type this, I've already finished typing what I believe I am typing right now in the moment.

The implications of this bit of modern knowledge are profound indeed.

 

[Malerin]

Currently I'm reading Human by Michael Gazzaniga, and The Cognitive Neurosciences edited by Dr. Gazzaniga. I'll probably be referring to both of these books quite frequently, at least initially.

What has affected me the most so far as a result of this reading is coming to terms with an idea I was already aware of intellectually, but which now occupies my thoughts throughout much of the day: Everything I'm aware of is already over.

This is a quite profound realization that goes right to the heart of who I think I am.

It takes the brain some time, about half a second, to coordinate what's coming in from the senses, filter it, figure out what needs to be fed to the apparatus of conscious awareness, and fill that in with a kind of mental mortar from memories and schema in order to present Sofia with a seemingly complete view of the world.

I can't be aware of the charging tiger 1/10 of a second after it charges, because my senses don't sense a "tiger", but rather various sorts of lights and sounds and chemicals and such.

Fortunately, my body is smart enough to take action before I'm consciously aware.

Apparently, the bulk of what my brain does takes place in advance of conscious awareness. But because my brain is built to make sense of the world, it supplies the feeling that everything is happening in real time, and that "I" am making all my decisions.

So what is Sofia doing?

Clearly it must be doing something, or evolution would not have bothered to select for it, and my body would not expend resources to maintain it.

Given the time frames involved, it must be primarily concerned with longer time-frame decision-making. And since non-conscious modules (or daemons) can handle all the short-range stuff in the brain, consciousness seems to be the mechanism for dealing with actions and decisions requiring a high degree of coordination.

But it's a hard thing to really comprehend, that even as I watch myself type this, I've already finished typing what I believe I am typing right now in the moment.

The implications of this bit of modern knowledge are profound indeed.

It's possible that consciousness always arises in sufficiently complex brains.

 

[Roboramma]

Thanks for an interesting OP Piggy.

Just a stray thought: I just got back from my BJJ training today. While training I was setting up an arm bar and thought to myself, "This guy always manages to escape, I need to trick him." Two days ago I'd been training a transition from the escape to attack the other arm. So, I thought, anticipate the escape and go for it.

Anyway, the thing I find interesting here is that since I haven't drilled that move enough it's not instinctive for me to just make that transition when it presents itself. I had to make a conscious decision to go for it, visualize his escape and my transition, and then "press the go button". Once I started the move my body took over and executed it, but prior to that there was a conscious thought process.

I think that in learning the majority of the work happens unconsciously. On the other hand the efficiency of the process improves when we consciously choose the direction that the learning takes. If I didn't consciously choose to work that transition, I would have gone for an arm bar, my opponent would react, and I would react to that, but I would not have a chance to improve in the particular way that I was able to because of a conscious choice.

A runner, for instance, probably becomes better at running simply by doing it. But if he can take some time to analyze his stride, and then apply that analyis to his training until the improvements become natural, he may improve in ways that would otherwise be impossible.

All this is simply a response to the question of "why is consciousness adaptive?". Of course it doesn't answer the question, because there's no obvious reason that this sort of decision making couldn't also happen unconsciously, but perhaps it's a hint that can take us in the right direction.

 

[Earthborn]

1. This thread is intentionally in the science forum rather than the philosophy forum. It is therefore expressly grounded in the modern viewpoint that consciousness is a scientific topic, and is no longer a philosophical one.

I don't think topics being scientific excludes them from being philosophical.

2. This thread is about biology, and about the brain.

I think you are narrowing the discussion too much. The brain shouldn't be viewed in isolation when considering consciousness, because a brain removed from the body isn't conscious.

ETA: I will sometimes use the term "Sofia" as an anagram for "sense of felt individual awareness",

BTW: it is an acronym, not an anagram. For an anagram it has too few letters.

... which is the hallmark of consciousness.

So you say. In other threads you haven't convinced me that it is a meaningful term.

It takes the brain some time, about half a second, to coordinate what's coming in from the senses, filter it, figure out what needs to be fed to the apparatus of conscious awareness, and fill that in with a kind of mental mortar from memories and schema in order to present Sofia with a seemingly complete view of the world.

This may contradict your claim that "it's what our brains begin to do when we wake up from a dreamless sleep, and what they stop doing when we fall into dreamless sleep or are put into deep anesthesia or pass out." If there is a lag in conscious experience, we cannot be sure that it begins when we think it begins, or ends when we think it ends. We may have dreams in which we are not conscious in this sense, but of which we become conscious during waking up. We also can never be sure we were conscious during dreams we forgot.

Clearly it must be doing something, or evolution would not have bothered to select for it, and my body would not expend resources to maintain it.

I am sure you are familiar with the view that it may just be a byproduct of functioning brain and not something specifically selected for. I haven't seen good evidence that the body needs to expend more resources to maintain it.

Given the time frames involved, it must be primarily concerned with longer time-frame decision-making.

It does seem that the lag in conscious experience, and the speed at which conscious experience is generated isn't constant: in stress situations people are likely to react much quicker and may feel as if time slows down while being highly alert. It seems therefore more likely to me that it is primarily concerned with shorter time frames.

 

[Kuko 4000]

So what is Sofia doing?

Clearly it must be doing something, or evolution would not have bothered to select for it, and my body would not expend resources to maintain it.

Given the time frames involved, it must be primarily concerned with longer time-frame decision-making. And since non-conscious modules (or daemons) can handle all the short-range stuff in the brain, consciousness seems to be the mechanism for dealing with actions and decisions requiring a high degree of coordination.

Thanks for the thread. I'm shooting from the hip here, feel free to correct any major gaps in my understanding.

I think I see Sofia as a by-product of (mostly) memory. As species, I guess it would be near impossible to create anything forward-thinking, systematic and novel without some kind of a memory (selection pressure). Memory seems to be a vital component of Sofia, and without it (or in different amounts), our Sofia would look very different. Together, with all the sensory input around us at all times (and our ability to interact with it), what more is there to consciousness?

Apologies if my "guessing" and "thinking" is not science-y enough for this thread, I just wanted to put my intuition out for a little walk and see how it does in the outside world

 

[PixyMisa]

It does seem that the lag in conscious experience, and the speed at which conscious experience is generated isn't constant: in stress situations people are likely to react much quicker and may feel as if time slows down while being highly alert. It seems therefore more likely to me that it is primarily concerned with shorter time frames.

RadioLab reported on the underlined part. Experiments indicate this is a retroactively constructed illusion.

 

[PixyMisa]

Clearly it must be doing something, or evolution would not have bothered to select for it, and my body would not expend resources to maintain it.

It's not clear that evolution did select for it. Evolution selects for advantages, and if an advantage comes together with some minor baggage, that doesn't mean the baggage itself is an advantage.

 

[dlorde]

I think it is probably coevolutionary with complexity of individual and group behaviours & dynamics. A sofia allows us to better manage our dynamic relationships and position within the group. We need to be able to model and predict other individual's behaviour, and this facility can be applied to our own behaviour for planning & what-if analysis. A sofia provides convenient platform for establishment and maintenance of identity, especially when communication via language becomes important (the concepts of 'I' and 'you').

 

[PixyMisa]

Can I interject at this point and say that "sofia", both as an acronym and expanded, is an absolutely horrible term?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

What evidence is there that what we think is "now" is actually half a second ago? It sounds reasonable to me, but I don't know how you could possibly go about testing it. The only experiments I've ever heard of had, in my opinion, questionable methodology.

 

[steenkh]

What evidence is there that what we think is "now" is actually half a second ago? It sounds reasonable to me, but I don't know how you could possibly go about testing it. The only experiments I've ever heard of had, in my opinion, questionable methodology.

I agree. It is one thing to make a decision, and quite another to be aware of this decision. The self-awareness of the brain takes time, and the decision-making process can, and should act without waiting for self-awareness.

A computer-analogy would be that the log entry is recorded slightly after the event that it records.

 

[Bishadi]

Instinct is the reactive measure while consciousness is the coherance of memories.

Basic

physiologically; when not 'awake' the mind is not coherant of its self and instinct is what is reacting to stimuli.

life is instinctive, naturally, and consciousness enables a coherant response combining previous experience with the current event


i liken the death of a conscious mind as being no different than sleeping

ie... a person with daimbamage can still be alive but the person as far as personality maybe gone.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I agree. It is one thing to make a decision, and quite another to be aware of this decision. The self-awareness of the brain takes time, and the decision-making process can, and should act without waiting for self-awareness.

A computer-analogy would be that the log entry is recorded slightly after the event that it records.

That's not quite what I was saying, no. While I agree that what you've written seems like it makes sense, I also know enough about science to know that what seems to make sense isn't necessarily what is actually true. What I'd like to know is what reliable evidence there is to support this model, because the papers I've seen referenced on the subject have had questionable methodologies, in my opinion. I've also seen this mentioned by science writers with highly dubious "evidence" in support.

Is there good science supporting this, or is it what people believe must be true?

 

[Beerina]

Here're some suggestions

 

[Piggy]

It's possible that consciousness always arises in sufficiently complex brains.

It's a very interesting question: How complex would a brain get before it would have to resort to consciousness in order to function?

 

[Piggy]

BTW: it is an acronym, not an anagram.

Literally LOL! I can't believe I posted that! Thanks for the catch.

 

[Piggy]

It does seem that the lag in conscious experience, and the speed at which conscious experience is generated isn't constant: in stress situations people are likely to react much quicker and may feel as if time slows down while being highly alert. It seems therefore more likely to me that it is primarily concerned with shorter time frames.

As far as I know, it has not been demonstrated that responses routed through conscious modules increase in speed in such circumstances.

The phenomenon of time slowing down is a fascinating one, to be sure.

I recently saw an experiment in which people were put into viscerally frightening situations (being dropped from a tower) while watching a high-speed readout. Their ability to read the display did not increase, so it seems doubtful that our actual "sample rate" increases.

Which is a shame, because I was hoping it would.

 

[Piggy]

I think I see Sofia as a by-product of (mostly) memory. As species, I guess it would be near impossible to create anything forward-thinking, systematic and novel without some kind of a memory (selection pressure). Memory seems to be a vital component of Sofia, and without it (or in different amounts), our Sofia would look very different. Together, with all the sensory input around us at all times (and our ability to interact with it), what more is there to consciousness?

I don't think it's been proven that Sofia requires long-term memory, but it's certainly an integral part of how Sofia functions in the human brain.

One of the prevailing theories is that consciousness developed in order to make decisions spanning lengths of time that cannot be handled by lower-level modules.

 

[Piggy]

It's not clear that evolution did select for it. Evolution selects for advantages, and if an advantage comes together with some minor baggage, that doesn't mean the baggage itself is an advantage.

True, but research demonstrates that consciousness is a resource hog.