On Consciousness

[!Kaggen]

I don't have to, they never backed up their assertion that it was.

The actual paper has much less bragging. It's just a prettied up ANN with the usual baseless assumptions; chiefly that the cerebral cortex, a phenomenally complicated computational system, can be represented by a single group of objects that only behave like neurons in the most degenerate cases. The systems-level organization also isn't remotely similar to what the brain does, in the same manner, but then at this point they never say it is.

Then all the documentation shows the ANN activity superimposed onto a brain with none of the above caveats that would otherwise lead you to realize it's a false equivocation.

Then the actual science journalism articles talk about it as an accurate model of the actual human brain.

Then I get my nerdrage on.

Nice post.

That's pretty much how I feel about GMO's.

 

[annnnoid]

Saw the report in local newspaper…typical example of how a few key words in a tepid science paper get amplified through the cultural megaphone to the forefront of science fantasy. What happens next…??? ” Didn’t you hear…the Canadians have instantiated a human brain! AI will be here by Easter! “

The making of a meme.

 

[Dancing David]

A while ago we debated here whether or not there were two separate consciousnesses in split brain patients. I assert there were. Dancing David I recall argued that since some connections between the hemispheres remained lower in the brain stem, there was still only one consciousness.

Famed neurologist Ramachandran agrees with me. Here's a cool short video from one of his talks, about when he found a split brain patient with a theist right side and atheist left side.

[/lurk]
Still feel that way too, despite others beliefs.
[lurk]

 

[Mr. Scott]

[/lurk]
Still feel that way too, despite others beliefs.
[lurk]

Do you have a hypothesis explaining how someone's right brain would be theistic and left brain atheistic if they are one consciousness and not two? How do you argue out of the evidence?

 

[Anders Lindman]

Christof Koch on "The Neurobiology and Mathematics of Consciousness" at Singularity Summit 2011 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i9kE3Ne7as

 

[Mr. Scott]

Christof Koch on "The Neurobiology and Mathematics of Consciousness" at Singularity Summit 2011 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i9kE3Ne7as

Wow, that's an excellent talk. Thanks!

I like his comment about dogs, which though obviously conscious, are not self-aware and never seem to wonder about things like why their tails wag in a funny way. (They also, BTW, don't compose musical masterpieces.)

One really interesting thing I didn't know was that, even though we have the complete circuit diagram for C-elegans brain and nervous system, we don't know how it works!

 

[mike3]

I don't have to, they never backed up their assertion that it was.

The actual paper has much less bragging. It's just a prettied up ANN with the usual baseless assumptions; chiefly that the cerebral cortex, a phenomenally complicated computational system, can be represented by a single group of objects that only behave like neurons in the most degenerate cases. The systems-level organization also isn't remotely similar to what the brain does, in the same manner, but then at this point they never say it is.

Then all the documentation shows the ANN activity superimposed onto a brain with none of the above caveats that would otherwise lead you to realize it's a false equivocation.

Then the actual science journalism articles talk about it as an accurate model of the actual human brain.

Then I get my nerdrage on.

I'm curious: could it be possible to make a system built on assumptions that have more base to them?

 

[mike3]

Nice post.

That's pretty much how I feel about GMO's.

How do you feel about GMOs?

 

[Beelzebuddy]

One really interesting thing I didn't know was that, even though we have the complete circuit diagram for C-elegans brain and nervous system, we don't know how it works!

Actually, I'd argue we do. The circuit diagram was only half the solution - the other half was figuring out how to record C. Elegans neurons to study their physiology - but it's a pretty well characterized set of stimulus-reflex systems. There's tons of little things we don't know, like exactly how the different systems influence each other in various circumstances, but we have a pretty good general idea of how it works.

I'm curious: could it be possible to make a system built on assumptions that have more base to them?

Sure! Google Henry Markram's Blue Brain Project. IMO, they're doing it the right way: mimicking the biology and trying to deduce information flow, not the other way around.

 

[Dancing David]

Do you have a hypothesis explaining how someone's right brain would be theistic and left brain atheistic if they are one consciousness and not two? How do you argue out of the evidence?

[/lurk]
This does warrant an answer and I had to think about it a while. The nature of the brain is that it contains many subsystems, some areas regulate other areas, some areas regulate sensation and perception, then when yo get into the cortical areas is just gets very complex. Some cortical areas seem to be general purpose, some seem to be very specialized. We know for example that language skills are very localized in a very small portion of the left hemisphere, some areas between the auditory cortex and the visual cortex may engage in time sharing as it were.

As humans many of us focus upon verbal cognition and its associated structures and ways of organizing things. But really at this point any conclusions that this the the dominant way that the left hemisphere works are tentative because that is the channel we have for accessing the left hemisphere, there may well be visual and looser pattern associations that are common in the left hemisphere but discerning them may be difficult. We do not as of yet really have that parsed out.

Now many disorders like OCD and others point to the fact that the language functions are not always as logical, hierarchical as may be modeled. And especially when you look at the verbal cognition disorders found in the general thought disorders of the scizophrenias you can see that the common hierarchical structures associated with 'left hemispheric thinking' you can see that much of the associations are much less hierarchical and logical.

Now it could well be that it is 95/5 logical vs. associative, 80/20 or 50/50. I assume that in 50 years they will know much better.

So my first thought is that many of the amazing things that appear to be different between the two hemispheres may be related to localization and specialization of portions of the left hemisphere, without necessarily meaning the whole left hemisphere is organised that way.

Secondly because of the power of communication in the language area there may be an artifact in determining what actually occurs in the left hemisphere, for example by way of an analogy in computing. If you looks at the FSB, the northbridge, southbridge and CPU. You would get a different glimpse of the functions of the CPU depending on which of the three interfaces you would look at. It would change you vision drastically of the functions of the CPU depending on which one you examine. Or the differences in networking between hubs and switches, a hub broadcasts to all links on the sub net while the switch dedicates packages for specific port/IP addresses and the traffic on a network is going to vary depending upon the gateway, server hosts, routers, switches, DHCP, DNS, firewalls and which protocols you are using. each examination point is going to give you a different view of what is actually going on in the network as a whole.

So while it sure looks like the left hemisphere is strongly associated with logical structures and hierarchical patterns, it may be a product to some extent of how we can examine it. As I said it may well be 95/5.

This also does not include the cultural and social structures of language, cross cultural studies would be warranted as well.

So based upon the localization, the dominance of teh language access to teh left hemisphere, it is to be expected that the two hemisphere will vary in function and organization, just as you do not find a whole bunch of visual processing in the auditory cortex.

Now that then leads to the center of the issue, the definition of consciousness and if you are a splitter or a lumper. Under normal functioning both hemisphere process visual sensations into a continuous perceptual field, so at one level there is unity of consciousness between the two hemispheres, and that extends through many processes. Now even with the severing of the corpus callosum there is still the unity of the mid and lower brain. How much of what we call consciousness occurs in those areas, quite a bit, attention, arousal and memory for sure along with a whole bunch more.

So it will always come down to splitting and lumping and what aspects of consciousness you are looking at.

BTW I am lurking to avoid my own personal flaming, baiting and confrontation, nothing to do with you as a poster.
[lurk]

 

[deaman]

It's kinda funny, reading what brains have to say about themselves, as they argue with other brains, about what brains are, and how they work.

Brains: Gotta love 'um!

I am reminded of that old adage: Can you fix a broken pair of pliers, using only the broken pair of pliers you are intending to fix, as your only tool?

 

[Zeuzzz]

It's kinda funny, reading what brains have to say about themselves, as they argue with other brains, about what brains are, and how they work.

Brains: Gotta love 'um!

I am reminded of that old adage: Can you fix a broken pair of pliers, using only the broken pair of pliers you are intending to fix, as your only tool?

The great embarrassment to evolutionary theory, that can fully explain the tongue of the hummingbird, the evolution of the orchid, the morphology of the elephant, the mating habits of the platypus, the migration of the European pied flycatcher; never the less the great embarrassment to human evolutionary theory is the development of the human neocortex. Carl Sofus Lumholtz who was a pretty straight evolutionary biologist described the evolution of the human neocortex as "the most dramatic transformation of a major organ of a higher animal in the entire fossil record"

Well why is this an embarrassment? Because it's the organ that thought up the theory of evolution. Can you say tautology? .....

So it is necessary in evolutionary theory to account for this unprecedented transformation of the human neocortex. To account for the evolution of us (in this very short space of time) from being higher hominids to being true humans. As human as you or I. What was the factor? The Earth was already old, many hundreds of higher forms had come and gone, and yet the fire of introspection and intelligence had never been kindled. So what happened?

I think that the answer lies in diet generally, and especially in the use of consciousness expanding psychedelics, which ultimately catalyzed the evolution of our consciousness by expanding it. Without wanting to get another suspension for mentioning psychedelics again, I will leave this argument in this thread for now, and continue it in the relevant thread.

 

[Mr. Scott]

It's kinda funny, reading what brains have to say about themselves, as they argue with other brains, about what brains are, and how they work.

Brains: Gotta love 'um!

I am reminded of that old adage: Can you fix a broken pair of pliers, using only the broken pair of pliers you are intending to fix, as your only tool?

I used to wonder about this: Wouldn't you need something MORE complex than the brain to understand the brain?

HOWEVER

The brain has a highly modular structure, and each module, by itself, may possibly be simple enough for a good brain to understand. Then the interplay between the modules may also be comprehensible to us. This idea of breaking a large problem down to many simple problems is second nature to computer professionals.

It's well established that there's almost no difference between the human brain and the chimp brain -- mainly just the quantity of neurons in certain areas.

This thread is not just about human consciousness. It's about any consciousness, down to worms. Indeed, whether or not we could even tell if worms were "conscious" is worth discussing.

If we can understand how the simpler brains of some animals work, then we've made a lot of ground in understanding how our brains work. Go up from simple to complex, notch by notch, and we could learn fantastic stuff.

...then apply it to our machines to make them less stupid!

 

[Mr. Scott]

BTW I am lurking to avoid my own personal flaming, baiting and confrontation, nothing to do with you as a poster.

Thanks, David. I struggle with that myself.

I wasn't referring to hemispheric specialization. I just wondered if a split brain patient had one hemisphere that was theistic and the other atheistic, how could they have a single, unified consciousness? In test after test I've read about, the hemispheres of split brain patients exhibit clear evidence of two separate conscious minds. If you can supply a link to an article about tests that show otherwise, I'd be happy to read it.

 

[deaman]

Indeed, whether or not we could even tell if worms were "conscious" is worth discussing.

We could discuss it until our brains came home, but unless either of us is able to mind meld, converse, or communicate with a worm, it all heresay and speculation. No actual knowledge would be gained, but we could waste some time guessing and acting like we are doing something important, while actually just goofing off.

 

[tsig]

We could discuss it until our brains came home, but unless either of us is able to mind meld, converse, or communicate with a worm, it all heresay and speculation. No actual knowledge would be gained, but we could waste some time guessing and acting like we are doing something important, while actually just goofing off.

You just described most of the internet.

 

[deaman]

LOL!

You just described most of the internet.

Very good, Sir! Very good.

 

[Zeuzzz]

You just described most of the internet.

I think that this is practically the definition of the internet, as it relates to forums.

No better area for the study of consciousness than there, or in this very thread, though.

Some thoughts. Been on my mind for a while, might as well spill them out here.

I've always found words, syntax and the organic creation of language we use to describe all of science rather magical and somehow uber scientific, more in the realm of consciousness contemplating consciousness than objective.

I would say there are two main theories about the world and how it works that have crystallized over time for me over many years of studying consciousness. And both depend on some fundamental axioms and assumptions about what the world is.

One is the scientific theory about the universe. Which claims that the it is a machine, tiny packets of matter that create fields that we can test and measure.

The other is the theory that the world is language. We can state that the world is composed of mass and atoms flying around at the speed of light, that is composed of electromagnetic fields of interlocking subatomic particles in constant flux, but no matter how we try to explain it each time what we end up with is words. Our models of the world are made of words and the world is composed of description.

When scientists and people were more epistemologically naive centuries ago it meant that they did not have a clear understanding of the inside and the outside, between what we imagine and what actually is. The more I think about consciousness reflecting on consciousness the more I come to the conclusion that what we imagine and what actually is are very much closer to the same thing than we typically realize.

I think the mind is somehow a co-creator in the process of reality, through the acts of language that connect, not just us, but every conscious entity in nature. Which in turn each have their own language on a similar yet consciously unique level to ours.

Neither view is necessarily right or wrong.

Although one is far easier to ridicule as baseless nonsense (ironically by using language to ridicule it)


It's just a matter how you look at it, that's all.

 

[Mr. Scott]

We could discuss it until our brains came home, but unless either of us is able to mind meld, converse, or communicate with a worm, it all heresay and speculation. No actual knowledge would be gained, but we could waste some time guessing and acting like we are doing something important, while actually just goofing off.

Actually, we've got some pretty good ways to find out if a person is conscious. Doctors plan to apply it to patients in vegetative states to decide if they should be off life support, for example.

We could apply those methods to other animals. That could give us a fix on how much complexity is required for conscious brains, as opposed to unconscious zombie-like brains such as lower worms, etc.

What complexity of brain do you think with be worthwhile to look into whether it's conscious or not? Show me where you'd draw the line:

1 - Chimp
2 - Dog
3 - Mouse
4 - Reptile
5 - Amphibian
6 - Fish
7 - Worm

Would you be interested in if octopus, cuttlefish, dolphin or whale were conscious?

 

[deaman]

Double post. Sorry, computer connection trouble.