Neurology and Consciousness

[trakkaton]

In the first 4 minutes there was nothing about "neurology and consciousness".

Cut the video or change the misleading title.

[0ThouArtThat0]

Maybe I didn't say those words, but it seems relevant to me. Sorry to disappoint!

[otonanoC]

Neurology does not have all the answers. In fact, quite the opposite. Modern neuroscience has a theory of consciousness that I find rather simple. Worse than simple -- it is even kind of *silly*. I may need to make a response video here to elaborate. For now, look at the heated exchange between a redhead in the audience and Kristof Koch at the end of the IBM Almaden Conference on Cognitive Computing. All of us on YT should be discussing that exchange.

[0ThouArtThat0]

Where can I find that video?

[danielacheson]

Or, actually, I think it might be in the video below that. Not Koch's actual talk, but in the "closing panel" or something. Downloading it now to have a look. Interesting stuff in Koch's talk anyway.

[jedimasterbooboo]

I certainly don't mean neurology has all the answers at this point, and it's really too general of a statement to jump on anyway. I don't think we're going to learn about our consciousness too far outside of neuroscience, yeah?

[UncannyRicardo]

OMG JediMaster

You live in SM where I was born. Central Coast all the way.

[jedimasterbooboo]

omg it's uncanny Ricardo! yeah! I'm in the Philippines now, but SM is home, OTOWN baby. :D

[danielacheson]

Which video are you referring to? The panel at the end of the conference? Are you talking about the guy who asks the question about "finding a new metaphor"?

[HaleyMary]

When you say intelligence at work, do you mean like a creator of the universe or that the universe itself is conscious?

[ItsJustARide314]

read "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" "The Holographic Universe" read it

[CPLains]

I figure - if i get education from both sides of the "two cultures". This will eventually allow me to bash everyone in their own language. And then.. then! i'll be free to poetically stretch people to pieces with their own terms!

I cheer for you! I'm most weary of the bleak. The respected meek. No need to distribute more foul-smelling inertial fog for people to sniff. At least not among people who think! A little digestible color in our charts and graphs never hurt us modern scientists? :))

[Censeo]

Water molecules are not wet. Why are neurons conscious?

[0ThouArtThat0]

We can speak of emergence when trying to understand consciousness, but there is a world of difference between "wetness" and consciousness. Wetness is a new emergent physical property not found in H2O molecules. But personal consciousness is an emergent spiritual capacity. Unless it was at least prefigured by neural sentience of some sort, we've got a miracle on our hands.

[Censeo]

We like consciousness, yes. All that matters to us is dependent on it, sure. But it could still be that consciousness isn't rising out of previous teleology, but by the mere fact that higher level of consciousness is higher level of gene duplication (survival of the genes). If consciousness is a property that has causal influence on reproduction, then it certainly is plausible that not all activity in the universe is guided with such cause and that some activity is truly unconscious.

[Censeo]

And if consciousness has causal implication (which we both think and which I think is obvious), then neurons aren't only reacting to the activity of the rest of the brain but they react to what the state of this emergent property is. In other words, consciousness makes neurons act too, and what neurons do determine the consciousness as well. So the causality must be both ways if consciousness is causal, which seems most plausible. Couldn't explain its existence if it were not.

[Censeo]

And because neurons are guided by the consciousness we are recognizing to be a fact in this hypothesis I just put out, it is clearly the case that even if we find evidence that neurons act as if they are conscious, it could be because of my hypothesis being true, rather than that they would actually be conscious.

[astrotometry]

Nice Censeo. I would add that the consciousness is non-local.

[Censeo]

Agreed. Consciousness and location in space time is not, by the definitions of these concepts, compatible by any means.

[cosabio]

Yep, Unless we can work out the geometry. ;-)

[Censeo]

Some may argue though that because consciousness isn't located anywhere, it can't be emergent only. But I've yet to see the actual logic reasons for posing the premise that non-local properties are not reducable to parts that are local. I see no reason to think that isn't possible.

[prhughes0]

Depends on what "wet" means: a category of human sensation or a property of water. In the former case, a macroscopic amount is necessary; in the latter, water DOES wetness molecule by molecule (hydrogen bonds form between individual molecules of water and those it wets).

Is "spiritual capacity" anything more or less than "mental capacity"? Why is "neural sentience" necessary? Isn't neural electrochemical responsiveness sufficient? Must transistors prefigure computers? How and why?

Best,

p

[TheObnubilators]

I think you undermine science to much. It's like you'd rather speculate and go off on a poetic tangent than hold a perspectve that's supported by evidence.

[0ThouArtThat0]

What counts as evidence always depends on the paradigm you're working within.

As for my preference for poetry... the closer technoscience and art become, the better the results for the human species and earth.

[prhughes0]

0TAT0:

All content is selected (for or against) by context, but what IS the evidence? (and the paradigm)?

Also likely. Doing what you think best when you think best (and especially when you think BEST) is the best that can be done.

Human (western?) civilization faces a crisis of unprecedented magnitude (population, energy, debt, climate?, ignorance, religion, ...).

The emergent sh*t IS hitting the proverbial fan. Every bit of wit and will will surely help.

From within, not without.

Think well.

[patternsinchaos]

Cells make themselves? You didn't believe that, Matt.

And you know why cell's don't make themselves. :-) Reciting the central dogma? lol

You probably know bo bo was baiting you. I'll advise you not to be a voluntary provocateur.

Think yogi not bo bo. ;-)

(reference to the Yogi the Bear Cartoons)

[0ThouArtThat0]

Cells make themselves, Varela calls it autopoiesis. DNA does not make cells, just helps cells remember how the dance goes.

[cosabio]

Well, I guess you haven't taken the next step, Matt. The cell requires a movement that happens outside it, in order for what appears inside to take place- Jedi Master Yoga

[patternsinchaos]

It was a calm day until I sat on this stone:

/watch?v=0WbM0egj3BA

Does one thing move another at a distance?

If you don't want to take my word for it, consult Emerson, or better yet, try it yourself.

There are relationships among all things, inside to out, above to within.

Biology is a myth.

[prhughes0]

8:00 NOW there is. There wasn't before us. There is neither need to postulate nor evidence to support the notion of "cosmic (or atomic) intelligence. Why cling to it?

8:41 WHY is this "odd"(er than anything else)? It worked (its way "up" to this bit by bit (both hard- and soft-.ware).

Keep thinking.

p

[0ThouArtThat0]

I'm not a "sky hook" guy, but I think evolution's axis is (also) pulled from ahead, not (only) pushed from behind. This isn't a sky hook because it is evolutionary (i.e., it is not a telos imposed by a transcendent creator god from above, but a telos immanent in the unfolding of energy, matter, space and time).

[prhughes0]

But you ARE a skyhook kind of guy.

Even S.J.Gould was, despite his deep knowledge and understanding. I just don't see evidence for the notion that evolution has any source of "forward pull". What is the evidence? How does this "pull" operate? What internal organization of "energy, matter, space and time" is there, outside the network of human minds, to invent a desired future and pull toward it? The glory of evolutionary theory is that nothing of that mysterious pull is necessary-

Think on,

p

[StevenErnest]

You bring up quite a few interesting points here, Matt. But re neurons "... have their own quite sophisticated kind of consciousness. Um, that's New Age goobledegook -- stretching the meaning of consciousness to fit your agenda. A GROUP of neurons may create the ability for a life form to have consciousness, but single neurons on their own?  Come on now.

That book does look quite interesting.

[0ThouArtThat0]

Steven, look into Steven Sevush's work at the Dept of Psyschiatry and Neurology at the University of Miami. Neural consciousness is not New Age goobledegook, but the object of serious research projects in non-California-like university departments!

[StevenErnest]

Okay, I will. Thank you for the link, Matt.

[StevenErnest]

"The Single-Neuron Theory of Consciousness" by Steven Sevush is very interesting! It gets rather elaborate, but it seems to come down to the complexity of the pyramidal neurons.

He writes: "It is estimated that for humans each cortical pyramidal neuron incorporates approximately 40,000 synapses within its dendritic tree (Abeles 1991), a number larger than is usually appreciated and one that allows for an impressive complexity of information encoding." [Ct'd...]

[StevenErnest]

[Ct'd...] "For example, if only one tenth of one percent of the synapses of a cortical pyramidal neuron were assumed to participate in a given VR- [Verbally Reportable] conscious experience, and if only a simple binary code were being used (that is, one in which the synapse is either active or inactive), then 240 or about one trillion different patterns could be encoded by that neuron."

But does that equal consciousness?

Complexity, yes; awareness? I don't know.

[StevenErnest]

Sevush also says: " According to Bieberich, if it is assumed that 5,000 simultaneously arriving synaptic input bytes, corresponding to 5,000 active spines in the dendritic tree, are turned over with a frequency of 50 Hz and a compression factor of 20, then a single neuron would be capable of processing 5 mB of information per second. This, he argues, constitutes a rate of information processing adequate to plausibly account for the complexity of VR-[Verbally Reportable] conscious experience."

[StevenErnest]

I was looking for a parallel of "5 MB of info per second," to compare a computer and the brain. I found this by Hans Morevec: "If 100 million MIPS could do the job of the human brain's 100 billion neurons, then one neuron is worth about 1/1,000 MIPS, i.e., 1,000 instructions per second. That's probably not enough to simulate an actual neuron, which can produce 1,000 finely timed pulses per second. Our estimate is for very efficient programs that imitate the aggregate function...[of neurons.]"

[StevenErnest]

Even if a neuron holds complex information, say equivalent to blueprints for the Louvre plus its extensions, or perhaps for an entire city, does that equal consciousness? Is it a self-contained "mind?" It seems obvious that neurons still have to share information so as to process it -- but then they are not a "single consciousness."

His hypothesis is definitely interesting; I'm sure I haven't grasped it all.

(Jeez, sorry for this looong post; it took many neurons to solve the captcha. ;)

[almafarag]

enaction

in action

is the

orgasmic

organismic

germ

-i-

nation

home

for all :)

[jedimasterbooboo]

We are in agreement btw. I think what prompted this was my understanding of our beings is based so much on input that its' inseparable from being. I do agree with you though and I made a video about dreams and wondered why my dreams as a child were beyond me and completely age inappropriate and full of symbolism. I know there is intelligence, that's for sure. If you haven't read everything Sacks has written do it! His ditties on colorblindness brought out the chart you showed. We're amazing !!

[jedimasterbooboo]

I'm thinking of making my second channel a neuroscience channel.

[jedimasterbooboo]

Another thing, my son said he saw a documentary that said that our heels are brain mapped next to our genitals, ...so...bingo. But he said they didn't explain why in that tv show either.

[StevenErnest]

I've heard that about the brain area of our feet and sex organs being next to each other, which could be an explanation for the foot fetish some people exhibit.

[CPLains]

True!

Have to admire Ramachandran throwing stuff like that out left and right. Stuff that instantly makes perfect sense, yet somehow no one really thought about it; pure genius.

*not 100% sure he's the one and only to be credited for that (in particular), but he tends to be magical in that kind of way ;)

[jedimasterbooboo]

Thowing stuff like what out left and right? Because he didn't offer a reason for the mapping locations. I was curious as to why, he's smarter than I am, so I have doubts about my mapping theory. It appears that a couple of key spots are like that, but other mapping seems random.

[jedimasterbooboo]

Also I was thinking about how some people say that parts of the foot are connected to parts of our body, maybe there's a brain thing there.

[CPLains]

Hmm? I'm not sure what you're saying. I was just applauding Ramachandran.. I don't know about your mapping theory. (and my sound just fell out so watching your video does me no good).

Ramachandran's comments just falls out of his view of the brain. He views the modular brain as interconnected through metaphorical concepts with special emphasis on physical proximity.

[CPLains]

So the given that the foot is next to genetalia in the brain body-map (common knowledge) he deduced that crossconnections between those areas are the reason why stimuli at one place can transfer easily to the other. (just like he found in synaesthetes, who connect color to number or sound and so on; turns out these areas are close in the brain).

And so he builds on this and makes a whole theory of metaphor. And thinks about how maybe people who are "artistic" have more crossconnections etc.

[CPLains]

Hah, i magically got my sound back - and watched your video. cute voice :D

Anyway, interesting comment about the developmental aspect.. touches the boundary of "nature or nurture" - the point where that whole discussion breaks down (even if one tries to patch it over with "..including mutual interaction betwixt them") ;)

Given the complexity of the topic (as you say, worse than chicken//egg), i don't think it's necessarily something he would disagree with, had you presented it to him.

[CPLains]

.. So long as you don't exaggerate the effect.

But soon as i think "effect" i'm thrown back into nature/nurture thinking and i have no idea what i'm doing. Which is interesting ;)

[CPLains]

See now i'm the one exaggerating, hehehe.

*flees the scene*