On Consciousness

[tsig]

Consciousness is characterized by the simultaneous integration of brain activity which produces a unitary phenomenal experience. (You can't decide to just see the cloud's shape or just its color, for example.)

The signatures of consciousness are activity in certain areas of the brain stem, synchronous pulses of neural activity across the more highly evolved areas of cortex, and the presence and coherence of 3 deep brain waves.

How that produces events such as colors and smells and sounds, nobody knows. We're not even sure how to think about it yet.

But when you look at a fly, it's pretty easy to see that nothing at all similar is going on, or could go on.

If it turns out flies are conscious, it will be a big surprise.

Not to flies.

 

[Piggy]

You called it.

No, he didn't, because dogs don't have human brains and they are conscious, and neither do birds which are almost certainly conscious.

It's not that they don't have human brains, it's that their brains aren't sophisticated enough, as far as we can tell.

None of the signature processes of consciousness that we observe exist in the structure of a fly. Or anything like them.

 

[Mr. Scott]

No, he didn't, because dogs don't have human brains and they are conscious, and neither do birds which are almost certainly conscious.
It's not that they don't have human brains, it's that their brains aren't sophisticated enough, as far as we can tell.

None of the signature processes of consciousness that we observe exist in the structure of a fly. Or anything like them.

I have no problem with the claim that dogs are conscious, because we have a common ancestor with us that has a brain that's quite close to ours in important ways (like emotions).

Birds, on the other hand, don't have common ancestors with use less than some 100 million years past (amphibians?). Bird brains are structured very differently from mammals'. So what makes us so sure birds are conscious and/or have subjective experiences?

 

[Piggy]

I have no problem with the claim that dogs are conscious, because we have a common ancestor with us that has a brain that's quite close to ours in important ways (like emotions).

Birds, on the other hand, don't have common ancestors with use less than some 100 million years past (amphibians?). Bird brains are structured very differently from mammals'. So what makes us so sure birds are conscious and/or have subjective experiences?

The more we learn about birds, the more we find that they do things which are very complex and which are similar to what conscious beings can do.

I would love to know whether they have any similar activity in brain stem, outer cortices, and deep brain waves.

Cephalopods do a lot of intelligent stuff, too, though, and the AI folks are continually pushing the boundaries of what we know non-conscious systems can do.

We don't yet know what is necessary for consciousness and what's merely convenient or powerful, although it's difficult to imagine anything without the brain stem activity, and hard to imagine a phenomenology not tied to the synchronized oscillations or some other mechanism that serves the same function.

Interesting to note that cuttlefish use synchronized oscillations in their skin.

 

[steenkh]

Consciousness is characterized by the simultaneous integration of brain activity which produces a unitary phenomenal experience. (You can't decide to just see the cloud's shape or just its color, for example.)

You present it as if this aspect of human consciousness is also a necessary ingredient. Why?

The signatures of consciousness are activity in certain areas of the brain stem, synchronous pulses of neural activity across the more highly evolved areas of cortex, and the presence and coherence of 3 deep brain waves.

In human brains, yes. Are synchronous pulses of neural activity necessary for consciousness? If no, then why mention it?

But when you look at a fly, it's pretty easy to see that nothing at all similar is going on, or could go on.

I have never heard of a study of fly brain waves, but I am unsure why a similarity to human brains would be a necessity for fly consciousness.

If it turns out flies are conscious, it will be a big surprise.

Not to me. But I also do not expect consciousness to be an either/or proposition, but something that can exist in degrees. And if flies are conscious, I would expect them to be pretty low on that scale.

I have seen an article about fruit fly intelligence, where it turned out that they have memory (they can remember if a place caused them pain, and can try to avoid it). Fruit flies are known to have absolutely no skill in navigating mazes, so the discovery of a memory that could last days was a surprise.

 

[steenkh]

No, he didn't, because dogs don't have human brains and they are conscious, and neither do birds which are almost certainly conscious.

Then why did you reply "Because of the structures involved in consciousness and their evolutionary history"?

It's not that they don't have human brains, it's that their brains aren't sophisticated enough, as far as we can tell.

How much do we know about the sophistication necessary for consciousness? We do not even know how to define consciousness!

None of the signature processes of consciousness that we observe exist in the structure of a fly. Or anything like them.

Probably correct, but why would that be important in determining if flies are conscious? As I see it, this only tells us that if flies are conscious, they are it in a way that nothing like how humans are conscious.

 

[PixyMisa]

Optical illusions demonstrate that things like colors exist in the brain and not in the world.

They illustrate that the mapping of colour in the real world to our perception of colour is indirect.

 

[PixyMisa]

Just to expand on that:

I have a map of France. I have a map of Middle Earth. The fact that Middle Earth doesn't exist does not imply that France does not exist. That's not logically valid.

Our perceptions of colour, sound, and odour are maps of real-world processes. This is simply a fact; denying it doesn't make it go away. That the mapping process is inexact doesn't alter the fact that it is a mapping process.

 

[PixyMisa]

We do not even know how to define consciousness!

I do!

 

[Mr. Scott]

Just to expand on that:

I have a map of France. I have a map of Middle Earth. The fact that Middle Earth doesn't exist does not imply that France does not exist. That's not logically valid.

Our perceptions of colour, sound, and odour are maps of real-world processes. This is simply a fact; denying it doesn't make it go away. That the mapping process is inexact doesn't alter the fact that it is a mapping process.

Our consciousness of the phenomena of things like color and sound ARE the maps, not the things, and the evidence of this is that the maps can by hijacked, intentionally or accidentally, by nerve stimulation or optical illusions, and the conscious experience is the same as if from physical external stimulus.

We are not conscious of colored light. We a conscious of the MAP of colored light.

E.G. stimulation of the map for "red," like by afterimage or synesthesia, and we are conscious of red. Presence of red light without stimulation of the map for red, and we are unconscious of red. What's wrong with this picture, Pixy?

 

[PixyMisa]

Our consciousness of the phenomena of things like color and sound ARE the maps, not the things, and the evidence of this is that the maps can by hijacked, intentionally or accidentally, by nerve stimulation or optical illusions, and the conscious experience is the same as if from physical external stimulus.

Yes, that's what I said.

We are not conscious of colored light. We a conscious of the MAP of colored light.

But we are aware of coloured light. It impacts our retinas and generates impulses in our optic nerves, and the resulting information then goes on an exciting journey through the visual perception pathway.

E.G. stimulation of the map for "red," like by afterimage or synesthesia, and we are conscious of red. Presence of red light without stimulation of the map for red, and we are unconscious of red. What's wrong with this picture, Pixy?

Colours (sounds, smells) are real, external physical events. Our consciousness of these events is, of course, internal to our brains, because that is where consciousness happens.

But saying that colours are internal to our brains is the same as saying that France is internal to my atlas. You've either redefined the meaning of the word France to something absurd, or you're claiming something absurd.

And if my map of France shows London as the capital, it's the map that's wrong, not France.

 

[steenkh]

I do!

Yes, and I found your definitions the most convincing I have seen.

Perhaps I should have written that people do not agree on the definition of consciousness ...

 

[PixyMisa]

Yes, and I found your definitions the most convincing I have seen.

Perhaps I should have written that people do not agree on the definition of consciousness ...

Now that is most certainly true.

 

[Mr. Scott]

Yes, that's what I said.


But we are aware of coloured light. It impacts our retinas and generates impulses in our optic nerves, and the resulting information then goes on an exciting journey through the visual perception pathway.


Colours (sounds, smells) are real, external physical events. Our consciousness of these events is, of course, internal to our brains, because that is where consciousness happens.

But saying that colours are internal to our brains is the same as saying that France is internal to my atlas. You've either redefined the meaning of the word France to something absurd, or you're claiming something absurd.

And if my map of France shows London as the capital, it's the map that's wrong, not France.

I'm afraid we are stumbling about in semantic land, which is not helpful. Words can have different shades of meaning, and when disagreements are about what shade we are using, but presented as disagreements about what the words are describing, it's, well, lame. Our disagreements about what words mean don't address the concepts of consciousness we are hopefully working together to tease out.

So with that in mind, here's a reboot of my argument.

The internal sensation, or quale, of the color violet does not exist as a wavelength of light. It only exists as patterns of action potentials in the brain.

This is evidenced by the fact that more than one combination of wavelengths of physical light produce the same shade of violet in the brain.

This is also evidenced by the fact that the color gamut can be represented as a circle, when in reality, it exists in a line that does not physically wrap around as a circle.

So, when I say that the color violet does not have a physical reality, I'm talking about the subjective impression of the color. We can also use the word violet to describe a specific wavelength of light, but since combinations of wavelengths (red and blue) can produce the identical subjective impression, as well as non-violet surrounded by an appropriate complement, or a white field after the complement has been burned into the retina, etc., a physical "violet" that can be reliably mapped to the sensation of the color is chimeric.

So, using your analogy of France, the country exists, but the sensation of Franceness in my gut does not exist in the physical world.

I should thank you for motivating me to make my argument with sharper focus, but I haven't seen a material refutation. Only confusion about terminology.

 

[Piggy]

You present it as if this aspect of human consciousness is also a necessary ingredient. Why?

Consciousness is, at its core, the creation of a point of view. And that's achieved through integration.

At least, that's certainly how it appears now.

And the more we discover about the mechanism, the more that's borne out.

In human brains, yes. Are synchronous pulses of neural activity necessary for consciousness? If no, then why mention it?

We can't just leap off into the air.

What we know about consciousness, we know from studying brains which are conscious.

The synchronous pulsing is a signature process, a defining process. And we see this integrated, synchronous nature reflected in how the phenomenology actually manifests.

If we stop looking for those key processes which we see in the conscious systems we observe, then there's nothing to look for anymore.

I have never heard of a study of fly brain waves, but I am unsure why a similarity to human brains would be a necessity for fly consciousness.

It might not. But when none of the components are present that we see in brains which we know are conscious, and no analogous structures are present or apparently could be present, then we have no way of concluding that consciousness could occur.

Not to me. But I also do not expect consciousness to be an either/or proposition, but something that can exist in degrees. And if flies are conscious, I would expect them to be pretty low on that scale.

I have seen an article about fruit fly intelligence, where it turned out that they have memory (they can remember if a place caused them pain, and can try to avoid it). Fruit flies are known to have absolutely no skill in navigating mazes, so the discovery of a memory that could last days was a surprise.

Consciousness is, in one sense, either/or, and in another it's a matter of degrees.

In the brain stem is the either/or switch. It's either on or off.

But if you've ever awakened slowly from a deep sleep, or come back from a dose of general anesthesia, then you have experienced the "degrees" side of it.

You could think of it like a rheostat, which can turn lights on or off as well as dim and brighten them.

 

[Piggy]

How much do we know about the sophistication necessary for consciousness? We do not even know how to define consciousness!

Defining consciousness is not difficult, it's simply the phenomenology.

The necessary sophistication is determined by observing normal and impaired brains, and in other ways, to see what activity is required for what task.

Consciousness appears to be relatively late and complex.

But who knows, things are often more simple than they first appear.

But I don't know of anyone in the field who thinks that a fly's neural apparatus is capable of performing consciousness.

Do you?

 

[Piggy]

They illustrate that the mapping of colour in the real world to our perception of colour is indirect.

Dude, there is no color in the real world. We've covered this. There can't be.

 

[Piggy]

Our perceptions of colour, sound, and odour are maps of real-world processes.

That's true.

Or at least, sometimes it's true, and to varying degrees.

Anyway, yes, these things are in our head and help us navigate, but they're not out there in the world anywhere.

It's like, if I make a flow chart, a square might indicate something out there in the world, but that thing is not, itself, a square. And in a different chart, it might be represented by a red dot, so squareness or redness is not a quality of the thing being represented.

Just so, color is not a property of light.

 

[PixyMisa]

I'm afraid we are stumbling about in semantic land, which is not helpful. Words can have different shades of meaning, and when disagreements are about what shade we are using, but presented as disagreements about what the words are describing, it's, well, lame. Our disagreements about what words mean don't address the concepts of consciousness we are hopefully working together to tease out.

Agreed, but if we're not talking the same language we're not going to get anywhere.

So with that in mind, here's a reboot of my argument.

The internal sensation, or quale, of the color violet does not exist as a wavelength of light. It only exists as patterns of action potentials in the brain.

Certainly. I have objections to the word quale, of course, but otherwise that is indisputable.

So, when I say that the color violet does not have a physical reality, I'm talking about the subjective impression of the color.

The problem is, the statement is still not true. The colour violet has a physical reality. The experience of the colour violet has a physical reality. The two are not, of course, remotely the same, but the experience is a map of the physical colour.

It's not a perfect map; it's not even a one-to-one map; but it is a map.

I should thank you for motivating me to make my argument with sharper focus, but I haven't seen a material refutation. Only confusion about terminology.

Sure. But terminology matters.

 

[Piggy]

But we are aware of coloured light. It impacts our retinas and generates impulses in our optic nerves, and the resulting information then goes on an exciting journey through the visual perception pathway.


Colours (sounds, smells) are real, external physical events. Our consciousness of these events is, of course, internal to our brains, because that is where consciousness happens.

But saying that colours are internal to our brains is the same as saying that France is internal to my atlas. You've either redefined the meaning of the word France to something absurd, or you're claiming something absurd.

And if my map of France shows London as the capital, it's the map that's wrong, not France.

Wow, you've got it all backwards.

France isn't in the atlas, and the stuff in the atlas isn't in France.

Now, follow that same logic with color.

What's outside of your consciousness is light, with wavelengths, frequencies, and amplitudes.

That's not in your head. It bounces off your eyes and goes away.

Inside your head is color. That's not in the light.

Your analogy applies, but you've interpreted it exactly backward.

We are not "aware of colored light" because there is no such thing. You can't give color to light. How would you do it?

Color is our brain's way of making us aware of light.

Colors and sounds and smells are not external events, they are internal ones.

Photons bouncing off things, molecules in air bouncing around, those are external events.