tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post2301138226019307808..comments2024-03-28T19:14:33.619-07:00Comments on The Splintered Mind: Are Garden Snails Conscious? Yes, No, or *Gong*Eric Schwitzgebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-88890825167755351492023-04-09T14:53:56.724-07:002023-04-09T14:53:56.724-07:00"Snails may have opioid responses and mussels..."Snails may have opioid responses and mussels release morphine when confronted with noxious stimuli. Both reactions suggest that these animals do, in fact, feel pain."<br /><br />That's really all you need to confirm to tell yourself, yes it was wrong to torture snails when you were seven and yes you should feel a little guilty about it. (which is natures way of encouraging better behavior.)<br /><br />I am interested in pondering the lack of remorse / sadism in almost exclusively males in the west and I would bet most are enacting some sort of childhood trauma (at best not being encouraged to express yourself emotionally / not being given tools to regulate emotions or self soothe / etc. )(at worst emotional and or psychical neglect or abuse)<br /><br />As far as the debate on snail's consciousness - I have a couple as pets (which was why I looked this article up ;)) and to me they are much more conscious than plants (which I would argue has a form of consciousness. Self awareness and consciousness aren't the same thing.<br /><br />I read a dude's article that posts here:<br />https://selfawarepatterns.com/2023/03/14/qa-on-the-mind-object-identity-hypothesis/<br /><br />The bit about brains "carving out" subsets of the world is great.<br />Incredible stuff and very much resonates with me.<br /><br /><br />an old, stoned hippienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-42312173055002568572021-05-07T18:50:11.887-07:002021-05-07T18:50:11.887-07:00You cannot imagine how this article fits in with w...You cannot imagine how this article fits in with where my mind is nowAylahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06691787398778799713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-80874372080379494422018-11-07T17:22:09.155-08:002018-11-07T17:22:09.155-08:00Stephen,
I think I need to re-emphasize the point ...Stephen,<br />I think I need to re-emphasize the point above. Wherever it happens, the experience of the "display" is a mechanism, and that mechanism itself must have components, components that eventually must not themselves be conscious. To believe otherwise is to think that some component of the brain is an antenna of some type for an immaterial aspect of the mind. Under physicalism, sooner or later consciousness must reduce to non-conscious components.<br /><br />So even if the display is experienced in the midbrain region, it would still have large numbers of neurons involved, with the experience of the display arising from the interaction of those neurons. If you think a broader collection of components requires a ghostly electromagnetic "field", then you'd have to think the same thing of this more compact region. <br /><br />I think the reality is that the impression of the "display" comes from action planning regions in the brain accessing the mental imagery held in the perceiving regions. So when you see a tree, the frontal lobe receives an impression of "treeness" from the posterior association cortex. When you notice the color of the bark, it comes from the prefrontal cortex deciding to focus on that and retrieving the information from the visual cortex. <br /><br />Our impression of a visual display comes from the frontal lobes retrieving information from the perception cortices in an ongoing interaction. The frontal lobes can only retrieve a very small part of that information at any one time, but the interactions come fast and quick, which add up to the impression of a theater like experience. No electromagnetic field required.<br />SelfAwarePatternshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11856665627652130336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-13726944822969301822018-11-07T09:49:50.845-08:002018-11-07T09:49:50.845-08:00Perhaps we are talking about two different things,...Perhaps we are talking about two different things, Mike. You seem to be discussing the subsystem interactions that <i>resolve the contents</i> of consciousness, while I’m specifically referring to the neural cell assemblies that ultimately <i>”display”</i> conscious “images”, i.e., the specific brain tissue that actually results in a feeling of pain, for instance.<br /><br />Are you proposing that a feeling is “displayed” by all of those distributed, interconnected brain structures you mention operating together? You wrote “… there wouldn't be any underlying cause to emotional feelings.” I’m referring instead to the presumably localized functionality that creates a conscious “display” of a feeling <i>without</i> any underlying cause or preprocessing—a feeling of pain, for instance, that is solely produced by the specific cortical tissue arranged to “display” a pain feeling.<br /><br />I agree that in the normal, orderly case there’s processing that precedes a feeling—that’s what I call an “orderly” production of a feeling. But my concern for cortical consciousness theorists (and they are legion) is about the possibility of self-assembling cortical organoids in the laboratory “displaying” conscious “images”—particularly painful ones—without any of that normal preprocessing.<br /><br />I’m trying to understand your conception—are you proposing that the actual “display” of a single resolved feeling is some sort of electronic “field” (or something similar) that’s widely distributed across brain subsystems? If that’s your view, how would such complex, interdependent functionality evolve? It seems consciousness would then be an all-or-nothing proposition, requiring the several interconnected brain subsystems you’ve identified to be fully developed and fully functioning before the first feeling was felt.Stephen Wysonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15213141784165096783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-28461372311394564842018-10-25T16:50:38.316-07:002018-10-25T16:50:38.316-07:00Stephen,
When considering this question, I think w...Stephen,<br />When considering this question, I think we have to remember that at some point a conscious system must reduce to non-conscious components. Most of us wouldn't argue that an individual neuron in isolation by itself is conscious. (Not to mention the individual proteins and other components of the neuron.) So consciousness comes into being through the interaction of components. (If this seems a bit too mystical, consider that the program you're using to access this web site comes into being in the same manner.)<br /><br />Considering the neocortex overall, I think we first have to specify whether the thalamus is also present. Without it, most of the communication between the regions of the cortex can't happen. The thalamus serves as a communication hub and also likely modifies some of the signals. I don't think the cortex can be considered separate from it. <br /><br />Would the thalmo-cortical system in isolation be conscious? It's worth considering what would be missing. Without the reflexive survival circuits in the brainstem, there wouldn't be any underlying cause to emotional feelings, including the sense of self. Without the hippocampus, there'd be no sense of location or ability to form new memories. Without the claustrum, it's possible brain waves throughout the neocortex wouldn't be in sync (technically making it as necessary as the thalamus).<br /><br />So would the thalamo-cortical-claustrum system maybe be conscious? If so, it seems like it would be an unfeeling type of consciousness, one without sentience.<br /><br />I'm not a fan of IIT, but I think it gets one thing right. Consciousness is, among other things, a nexus of integrated information. But a nexus can't be a nexus without the surrounding material.<br /><br />You discuss the possibility of an unordered consciousness. I could see that if enough of the system were present and functional, but if not, I don't think the resulting fragmented signalling would be anything we'd be tempted to call "conscious". <br /><br />Sorry for the long rambling answer, but I find this stuff fascinating and can ponder it all day.SelfAwarePatternshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11856665627652130336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-6607856636901330802018-10-25T09:42:18.474-07:002018-10-25T09:42:18.474-07:00Mike, I believe you’re suggesting that the cortica...Mike, I believe you’re suggesting that the cortical creation of consciousness cannot happen without support of some sort from sub-cortical structures. If, however, the cortex is the brain structure that resolves and then somehow “displays” conscious contents, as cortical consciousness hypotheses propose, then, rather than an experience of pain being impossible without contributions from other brain subsystems, it’s the <i>orderly</i> experience of pain that's impossible. For a laboratory cortex, generating an experience that’s normally a consequence of prior sensory input is impossible because there is no sensory input. But, if cortical consciousness hypotheses are correct, a "cortex in a vat" generating <i>disorderly</i> experiences of pain—hallucinations of pain and, indeed, hallucinations of every kind—seems unavoidable.Stephen Wysonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15213141784165096783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-62516407944939437702018-10-20T17:40:45.707-07:002018-10-20T17:40:45.707-07:00Stephen,
Based on everything I've read, any se...Stephen,<br />Based on everything I've read, any section of cortical tissue in isolation wouldn't by itself be conscious (unless you're a panpsychist). Even the entire neocortex, without the supporting sub-cortical structures, wouldn't by itself be conscious. The feeling of pain seems to require the anterior cingulate cortex, but only as the convergence and culmination of a lot of signalling from supporting structures, both cortical and sub-cortical.<br /><br />That said, I do think that if enough of the brain were simulated, including emulating all those supporting structures and processes, that the simulation could be conscious, feel pain, etc, but we're a long way off from achieving that (decades, possibly centuries).SelfAwarePatternshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11856665627652130336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-29075314556344154192018-10-20T09:10:05.822-07:002018-10-20T09:10:05.822-07:00Here’s a most interesting development related to t...Here’s a most interesting development related to the “where is consciousness created” discussion. For those who support any cortical consciousness hypothesis, this recent article at https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-10/tu-sgf101518.php should raise some concerns.<br /><br />From the article: <br /><br />“A team of Tufts University-led researchers has developed three-dimensional (3D) human tissue culture models for the central nervous system that mimic structural and functional features of the brain and demonstrate neural activity sustained over a period of many months. … The new 3D brain tissue models overcome a key challenge of previous models—the availability of human source neurons.”<br /><br />and:<br /><br />“The researchers are looking ahead to take greater advantage of the 3D tissue models with advanced imaging techniques, and the addition of other cell types, such as microglia and endothelial cells, to create a more complete model of the brain environment and the complex interactions that are involved in signaling, learning and plasticity, and degeneration.”<br /><br />If you subscribe to any cortical consciousness hypothesis, the experimental creation and maintenance of human neural tissue in this way might be a genuine moral hazard—could these “3D tissue models,” or the more complete and sophisticated "organoids" of future experiments be conscious in any way? Could they be experiencing pain?Stephen Wysonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15213141784165096783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-45148008253013071222018-10-14T08:57:17.494-07:002018-10-14T08:57:17.494-07:00My "what causes what" comment is incorre...My "what causes what" comment is incorrect, as I've just rediscovered in Merker's excellent paper, which I'm revisiting. Apparently, visual experience in the absence of enhanced cortical processing is limited to "the ability to orient to and approach the location of moving visual stimuli in space" but subcortically generated visual experience decidedly exists:<br /><br />"Complete removal of the posterior visual areas of one hemisphere in the cat (parietal areas included) renders the animal profoundly and permanently unresponsive to visual stimuli in the half of space opposite the cortical removal (Sprague 1966; see also, Sherman 1974; Wallace et al. 1989). The animal appears blind in a manner resembling the cortical blindness that follows radical damage to the geniculostriate system in humans. Yet inflicting additional damage on such a severely impaired animal at the midbrain level restores the animal’s ability to orient to and to localize stimuli in the formerly blind field (Sprague 1966; cf. Sherman 1977; Wallace et al. 1989)."<br /><br />and ...<br /><br />"... adding a small amount of damage in the brainstem to the cortical damage “cures” what appeared to be a behavioral effect of massive cortical damage. The restored visual capacity is limited essentially to the ability to orient to and approach the location of moving visual stimuli in space (Wallace et al. 1989). Visual pattern discrimination capacity does not recover after the midbrain intervention (Loop & Sherman 1977), though the midbrain mechanism can be shown to play a role even in such tasks (Sprague 1991)."Stephen Wysonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15213141784165096783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-88757580950130841252018-10-12T13:23:06.059-07:002018-10-12T13:23:06.059-07:00Thanks for the elaboration, Mike.
Your apparent ...Thanks for the elaboration, Mike. <br /><br />Your apparent allocation of conscious functionalities 1-3 to the brainstem, with 2 and 3 qualified as “low resolution,” locates a primary consciousness in the brainstem complex, so on that point we are apparently in agreement, as Jim points out. Merker’s hypothesis that the cortex elaborates the <i>contents</i> of consciousness seems to fit as well and would account for the “high resolution” of 2 and 3 that humans experience. I notice that your definition is biological, which perhaps eliminates IIT and panpsychism, as it definitely does for me. Also, rather than being an extended <i>type</i> of consciousness, I would suggest your number 5, “introspection, metacognition, and self reflection” are additional <i>contents</i> of human consciousness. I’m puzzled by the claim for the existence of varying types and amounts of consciousness because, to my way of thinking, an organism is conscious or it’s not, but the contents of consciousness are variable.<br /><br />I believe the unexplained maintenance of a unified conscious presentation between existing unitary subcortical consciousness and a newly developed, widely distributed cortical consciousness is very problematic for cortical consciousness theories. The development of enhanced, pre-conscious images by the cortex which are then transmitted to the brainstem for incorporation into its unified “display” simply seems more straightforward and solves the unitary presentation conundrum.<br /><br />Also, it’s difficult for me to draw strong conclusions from agnosia/anosognia, inattention/change blindness and cortical lesions types of evidence for the location of consciousness creation because the complexity of the interconnected subsystems in the human brain makes it very difficult to determine precisely what causes what. In contrast, I find that the persistence of consciousness following a cerebral hemispherectomy very persuasive evidence, as is the strong experimental and observational evidence of consciousness in cortically deficient animals and humans. In those cases, consciousness remains intact and cannot possibly be ascribed to cortical functionality. Certainly the content of consciousness is significantly reduced, but that’s once again explained by the “cortical elaboration of conscious contents” hypothesis.<br /><br />That being said, both cortical and subcortical theories are still on the table. I don’t expect a resolution anytime soon.<br /><br />For Jim: I believe the anatomical location of consciousness is important to our eventual discovery of precisely how conscious feelings are generated—we'll never find out how if we're looking in the wrong place. That knowledge will be required prior to any attempt to create Artificial Consciousness, a moral hazard to be sure, but truly irresistible.Stephen Wysonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15213141784165096783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-54113950291198685552018-10-10T08:11:45.767-07:002018-10-10T08:11:45.767-07:00Jim,
Definitely a lot hinges on the definitions.
...Jim,<br />Definitely a lot hinges on the definitions.<br /><br />I do think we have to be careful about our intuitions here. We see an awake organism and intuitively project the full range of capabilities mentally complete humans have (1-5) when we're awake. But that's a major assumption. An organism can be awake with only 1.<br /><br />I would argue that a system that lacks 4 doesn't have sentience. Feelings require a feeler. And we should remember that in humans we distinguish the conscious from the unconscious mind based on what can be introspected. Where does that leave a system with no introspective ability?SelfAwarePatternshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11856665627652130336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-63214602992722009022018-10-10T04:50:45.176-07:002018-10-10T04:50:45.176-07:00"The brainstem has rough low resolution versi..."The brainstem has rough low resolution versions of 2 and 3, but it's not the high resolution versions we actually experience directly..."<br /><br />That sounds to me like you are agreeing that there is some low resolution consciousness possible with the brain stem unless you are restricting consciousness to 4 and 5. If you are restricting it to 4 and 5, then we seem to be having primarily a disagreement over definition more than anything.<br /><br />I still think that it somewhat pointless to argue over where in the brain consciousness resides. In normal, waking human consciousness (2-5 in your list), it is involved with many parts of the brain - brainstem to cortex. The question is what turns on the switch and for that I am with Stephen in pointing to the RAS that controls the sleep-wake cycle and is directly involved with sensations of pain.<br />Jim Crosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12359287601046663774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-71867495818493870132018-10-09T12:40:56.752-07:002018-10-09T12:40:56.752-07:00Hi Stephen,
I do think definitions might be involv...Hi Stephen,<br />I do think definitions might be involved. That's one of the problems with discussing consciousness, is that people are often arguing past each other. It's why I often describe a hierarchy:<br />1. Reflexes, primal responses to stimuli<br />2. Perception, image maps, predictive models of the environment and oneself, expanding the scope in space of what the reflexes react to.<br />3. Attention, prioritization of what the reflexes react to.<br />4. Imagination, sensory and action scenario simulations, expanding the scope in time of what the reflexes are reacting to. I think it is here where reflexive reactions become affects, inclinations toward an action rather than automatic action.<br />5. Introspection, metacognition, self reflection.<br /><br />1 is in the brainstem. The brainstem has rough low resolution versions of 2 and 3, but it's not the high resolution versions we actually experience directly, which are in the thalmo-cortical system, as are 4 and 5 completely.<br /><br />What's the evidence? Extensive neurological case studies of various agnosias (failure of sensory processing due to specific brain injury) and, importantly, anosognosias (inability to know about the lack of capability from a brain injury). Anosognosia is important, because if there's a place separate from the capability where consciousness is happening, the patient should be aware of their agnosia, but often they're not.<br /><br />An example is hemispatial neglect, where due to cortical injury in the right hemisphere, the patient can't perceive the left side of their field of vision. It's not that they are blind on the left side (although they effectively are), but sometimes that the left side has become *inconceivable* to them.<br /><br />And large scale damage to the cortex or the thalamus can snuff consciousness out just as thoroughly as damage to the midbrain region. <br /><br />There are many excellent books that explore some of these case studies. Some I've read and can recommend include:<br />Cognitive Neuroscience, A Very Short Introduction by Richard Passingham<br />The Tell-Tale Brain by V.S. Ramachandran<br />The New Executive Brain by Elkhonan Goldberg (this focuses on the frontal lobes)<br />Who's In Charge by Michael Gazzaniga<br /><br />Of course, you can insist that these are all elaborations on some primal version of consciousness. But if so, I have to ask what that primal version is supposed to be or do?<br /><br />Hope this helps.SelfAwarePatternshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11856665627652130336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-58841032869017013492018-10-09T09:48:01.108-07:002018-10-09T09:48:01.108-07:00Mike, just a short post regarding your assertion t...Mike, just a short post regarding your assertion that “... primary consciousness happens in the cerebrum in humans (and I do think the evidence is quite strong that it does)”. Since that statement is directly at odds with my assertion that the proposition is evidence-free, would it be possible for you to provide a list of documented evidence points that I can investigate?<br /><br />I keep finding information like this, from “A Neuropsychoanalytical Approach to the Hard Problem of Consciousness” by Mark Solms: “Moruzzi & Magoun (1949) demonstrated decades ago—to their own surprise—that decorticated cats remain conscious. The same applies to all other animals, including humans; as Penfield & Jasper (1954) found when they concluded that human consciousness depends upon the integrity, not of cortex, but rather of the upper brainstem—of what they called the ‘centrencephalic’ region.” Solms proceeds to cite the research of Shewmon, Holmse & Byrne 1999; Merker 2007.<br /><br />I simply cannot find similar material citing evidence, strong or otherwise, to support your statement. I’ve considered the possibility that our definitions of consciousness might be substantially different, and your statement might be a consequence of your definition of "primary" consciousness tending towards reflective consciousness rather than the affective definition I’ve provided. A looksee at the sources for the evidence you mention on might help me clarify my understanding. If and when you have the time ... thanks in advance.Stephen Wysonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15213141784165096783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-28948214595943820692018-10-05T12:44:11.834-07:002018-10-05T12:44:11.834-07:00Thanks Stephen. I hope I won't test your pati...Thanks Stephen. I hope I won't test your patience if I clarify a few things. <br /><br />Accepting that primary consciousness happens in the cerebrum in humans (and I do think the evidence is quite strong that it does) doesn't mean accepting that species lacking a mammalian cerebrum can't have it. A lot of non-mammalian vertebrates have their sensory processing spread out between the forebrain and midbrain. For example, fish do olfaction in their telencephalon and visual processing in their optic lobes. In mammals, most of this functionality migrated to the cerebrum and to the nidopallium in birds. <br /><br />And I wouldn't dismiss the idea of convergent evolution for consciousness. I think many invertebrate species (arthropods, cephalopods, etc) display compelling signs of primary consciousness in their behavior, even though their brain structures and evolutionary history are very different from vertebrates. It seems to me that once we accept that primary consciousness is adaptive, the idea that it might have evolved in independent evolutionary lines shouldn't be a hard sell.<br /><br />Note that I specified "primary consciousness" above, because if we're talking about introspective self awareness, I think only a few species have that.<br /><br />I have to admit I'm not familiar with the block universe concept, although I do know about general and special relativity. I do plan to take a look at your paper when I get a chance. Looking forward to our future conversations!<br /><br />SelfAwarePatternshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11856665627652130336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-35643018901425325412018-10-04T15:03:36.902-07:002018-10-04T15:03:36.902-07:00Looks like we’ve drifted a bit from gonging snails...Looks like we’ve drifted a bit from gonging snails, but in a most interesting way. Mike, since the overwhelmingly preferred hypothesis is that cortical tissue creates consciousness, I believe the decortication evidence, as opposed to the evidence from decerebration, is more relevant to the discussion about which brain structure creates consciousness. As such, F&M’s analysis, while certainly interesting, would appear to be of lesser relevance than Merker's (and others) contributions.<br /><br />To back up a bit, though: my primary claim that there’s no evidence at all for cortical consciousness hypotheses seems unrefuted still and that absence of evidence would seem to invalidate all of those evidence-free hypotheses at this point, particularly in light of the considerable body of evolutionary, experimental and observational evidence supporting the minority brainstem consciousness hypothesis. Although none of that evidence taken by itself is conclusive, taken together it’s very suggestive and persuasive. And added to the lack of evidence for cortical consciousness, I’ve recently come to believe that there is evidence <i>against</i> cortical consciousness theories, including no explanation for the unity of conscious experience, Libet’s timing data, inexplicable but seemingly necessary propositions like “back referencing” and so on. Cortical consciousness proponents also cannot explain why consciousness remains whole and intact following the removal of handfuls of cortical tissue and even an entire hemisphere—certainly the <i>content</i> of consciousness changes, but consciousness itself remains unaffected.<br /><br />From an evolutionary perspective, I have a hard time believing that, over hundreds of millions of years, gazillions of living creatures metabolically quite similar to ourselves but lacking mammalian cortical structures possessed eyes without vision, noses without smells, ears without sounds, and felt no hunger, no pain, nor any proprioceptive feelings whatsoever. I also think it’s a stretch to believe that core consciousness would evolve twice on top of the established brainstem architecture—once for birds with the pallium and again for creatures with a cortex.<br /><br />Perhaps the focus on the cortex is a simple consequence of its relatively easy accessibility. In contrast, as you say, “we cannot test the brainstem-movie hypothesis” and, problematically, should the investigative technology become available, probing and manipulating the brainstem complex will remain dangerous, both physically and morally.<br /><br />That ends my summation. I’ve spent some enjoyable time lately perusing your very interesting selfawarepattens blog Mike and, surprisingly, I didn’t see any references to the block universe of Relativity physics, which I expected in your Science section. I subscribed to your blog earlier today because it’s an interesting and enjoyable read and also in the hope that you might someday post your thoughts on 4-dimensional spacetime and Einstein’s remarks about “consciousness propagating itself throughout all eternity,” should you get around to reading “Einstein’s Breadcrumbs”. Your blog is an enjoyable discovery in any case … many thanks!Stephen Wysonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15213141784165096783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-18393522332355886142018-10-03T03:44:49.663-07:002018-10-03T03:44:49.663-07:00"So core consciousness, also called “creature..."So core consciousness, also called “creature consciousness”, that feeling of being embodied and centered in a world, is a simulation and not a faithful representation of ourselves in the world."<br /><br />The "feeling of being embodied" may be the original and most basic sense that makes up consciousness that came before vision and smell. The neural mapping of the body and its relation to the external world, simulation though it may be, had the adaptive advantages of regulation of the internal body, orientation of the body, particularly the mouth, and control of eating, swallowing and digestion.<br /><br />Jim Crosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12359287601046663774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-52952565025707812572018-10-02T14:09:00.802-07:002018-10-02T14:09:00.802-07:00Stephen,
I think we have to be careful about confl...Stephen,<br />I think we have to be careful about conflating two different procedures: decerebrating and decorticating. As I understand it, decerebrating is more severe, severing the connection between the brainstem and the cerebrum. Decorticating involves removing the outer cortical layer, but leaves more lower level structures, such as the thalamus and basal ganglia intact. I think this makes a difference in how much functionality remains. Panksepp in particular in his writing seems to focus on the results of decortication. F&M's analysis is about decerebrated animals.<br /><br />From what I've read, newborn behavior is dominated by reflexes. But we should remember that even newborns still have a cerebrum, just one that isn't fully myelinated yet and only beginning synaptic pruning, so its functioning is inefficient, but not entirely absent. (Infants put in an fMRI still show substantial cortical activity.) Myelination of the axons in the cerebrum, which begins in the womb, is constantly in progress for an infant, although it isn't fully complete in the frontal lobes until well after puberty.<br /><br />Damasio in his book 'Self Comes to Mind' discusses hydranencephalics, children born with little or no cerebral cortex. He notes that they seem to exhibit a sort of primal form of consciousness, very similar to newborns, but never developing past that stage. I think this is a factor in his views, and I initially found it compelling. But when I did additional research, I learned that their capabilities vary substantially, and that most retain their thalami. Many also have lower levels of their temperoal and frontal lobes. All of which cloud any conclusions about brainstem functionality.<br /><br />On the movie metaphor, my apologies. I should have realized that you would have a more sophisticated conception. Myself, I think the impression of the movie comes from the interaction between the perceiving regions of the brain and the movement planning ones. To me, the mid-brain region seems awfully small for that. I'll admit that it likely has image maps, for saccades and other reflexive reactions, but at a much lower resolution than what we consciously experience.<br /><br />The problem is that we can't test the brainstem-movie hypothesis. There's no way to temporarily turn off someone's cerebrum to see if they retain any consciousness during its absence, and subsequently restore it so they can describe the experience to us. I wonder if the work currently being done with patients previously thought to be locked in, but subsequently discovered via brain scans to have some alertness, might eventually shed some light on this.<br /><br />Damage to the midbrain does tend to wipe consciousness out, but so does sufficient damage to the thalamus, as well as widespread damage to the anterior cingulate and overall neocortex. What is a vital supporting structure and what is actually part of the experience generation?<br />SelfAwarePatternshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11856665627652130336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-42782199254978909942018-10-02T10:36:37.379-07:002018-10-02T10:36:37.379-07:00As an interesting aside, a movie metaphor is also ...As an interesting aside, a movie metaphor is also employed by physicist Brian Greene to describe our feeling of a flowing time, a completely illusory feeling since flowing time (and its “now”) does not exist in the universe, per our repeatedly confirmed Relativity physics. Hence Einstein’s remark, “… the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." I believe that the use of a movie metaphor in both instances demonstrates the intimate relationship between the stream of consciousness and the flowing time illusion. In my “Einstein’s Breadcrumbs” paper, I propose that the flow/stream of consciousness is the <i>fact</i> of consciousness that we mistakenly interpret as the illusion of flowing time, so that the conclusion that consciousness alone animates the static and unchanging block universe we inhabit seems unavoidable.Stephen Wysonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15213141784165096783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-14428200278869689542018-10-02T10:34:31.758-07:002018-10-02T10:34:31.758-07:00Mike, the Feinberg/Mallatt interpretation of decor...Mike, the Feinberg/Mallatt interpretation of decorticate animal behavior as purely reflexive conflicts with Merker’s (and others) view of “… the purposive, goal-directed behavior exhibited by mammals after experimental decortication ...”. I’ve added Feinberg/Mallatt's book and thesis to my lengthy reading list. Thanks for the reference.<br /><br />I wonder how Feinberg/Mallatt would account for the consciousness of normal, healthy infants, considering that (again, from Merker’s paper): “Their cerebral cortex is quite immature and its connections to brainstem systems are still rapidly developing. … Nevertheless, 3-day-old infants can discriminate their mother’s voice and work to produce it ... Three-to 4-month-old infants can form concepts … and 6-month-old infants can form associations between memory representations that are absent). Also, “A child without a cortex cannot regulate emotions efficiently or exercise cognitive control of emotion-expression or emotion-related behavior. The same is true of normal young infants.” Apparently we have all been “brainstem babies” yet, as far as I know, no one claims that normal human infants lack consciousness or that they behave in a purely reflexive way.<br /><br />Regarding the “movie-in-the brain”, the phrase is used by Damasio, Panksepp, Sacks and others metaphorically and not literally. Consciousness is not a display that’s observed by a brain-resident homunculus with a little homunculus in its head, with a little … and so on, <i>ad infinitum</i>. The movie-as-metaphor is not “watched” but is, rather, <i>experienced</i> and the use of a movie as a metaphor refers to the multi-sensory-track flowing experience that <i>is</i> consciousness. The movie as metaphor is why I use the visual word “display” in quotes.<br /><br />Related to the earlier mentions of change blindness, I noticed this interesting information in Merker’s impressive paper:<br /><br />“The simulated nature of our body and world is further supported by a number of phenomena that alert us to the synthetic nature of what we typically take to be physical reality itself, that is, phenomena such as inattention blindness, change blindness, and allied effects … Such “deletions from consciousness” can be countered by appropriately placed microstimulation of the superior colliculus … These various indications all support the conclusion that what we confront in sensory consciousness is indeed a simulated (synthetic) world and body.”<br /><br />So core consciousness, also called “creature consciousness”, that feeling of being embodied and centered in a world, is a <i>simulation</i> and not a faithful representation of ourselves in the world—a fact that I believe is all too often overlooked. The silent, colorless external world is not at all like our conscious representation of it.<br /><br />So much to think about … so little time … ;-)Stephen Wysonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15213141784165096783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-44921363313747838592018-10-01T14:33:16.232-07:002018-10-01T14:33:16.232-07:00Thanks Stephen. I'd be thrilled to see your th...Thanks Stephen. I'd be thrilled to see your thoughts on any post.<br /><br />I’m sure you’ve heard the common criticism of the internal movie idea and the infinite regress. A movie implies an audience, but how does the audience consume the movie? With its own internal movie and audience? Which in turn as its own movie/audience? You can break the regress by having each nested movie be less sophisticated, but that means the final nested version would be pretty primitive.<br /><br />The brainstem is generally seen as primarily reflexive in nature because of disturbing experiments done on animals where the cerebrum is separated from the brainstem. This results in the animal displaying nothing but reflexive behavior. An excellent source for information like this is Todd Feinberg and Jon Mallatt's excellent 'Ancient Origins of Consciousness'. It's a fairly technical book on animal consciousness, but it has a lot of discussion on where mental imagery take place.<br /><br />So that phylogenetically ancient region is definitely where our most primal reactions to the world originate, the core of what eventually become emotional feelings. In that sense, everything above it *is* an elaboration, but I think consciousness is one of those elaborations. <br /><br />Unless of course you equate consciousness with the reflexes.SelfAwarePatternshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11856665627652130336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-68293608623218299192018-10-01T13:05:57.595-07:002018-10-01T13:05:57.595-07:00Stephen
Those Merk and Damasio papers are pretty ...Stephen<br /><br />Those Merk and Damasio papers are pretty persuasive to me but I was already on board with the idea of the primacy of the brain stem and reticular formation.Jim Crosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12359287601046663774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-90764470007005973502018-10-01T06:54:42.267-07:002018-10-01T06:54:42.267-07:00My own armchair elaboration of the brainstem consc...My own armchair elaboration of the brainstem consciousness proposition is that <i>pre</i>-conscious images are resolved both by the brainstem subsystem, for core consciousness, and by the cortex for extended consciousness. Then, some as-yet unidentified structure in the brainstem complex creates the conscious “display” of the feelings that are the “movie-in-the-brain” (as it’s been called) from, or by using, those pre-conscious images. The more complex pre-conscious images resolved by the cortex are created from the massive parallel processing that Merker notes and transmitted to the brainstem with its “limited-capacity, sequential mode” for “display,” perhaps via those sweeping electromagnetic waves Jim mentions. It would seem that the centrality and connectivity of the brainstem to the entire nervous system would also allow the physical instantiation of conscious images (the “displaying”) to directly and efficiently affect bodily control, particularly in high-speed interactions—Merker’s “penultimate step in action control”.<br /><br />It seems most unlikely that another “display” functionality would evolve in the cortex because once a successful biological functionality evolves and conserved, it’s possibly enhanced but not duplicated. In the case of consciousness, the problem of synchronizing and unifying distributed consciousness into a single presentation would seem a daunting obstacle to the evolution of a distributed cortical consciousness. By the way, that unity of conscious presentation is one of the unsolved “mysteries” of all cortical consciousness hypotheses.<br /><br />I’d be happy to email the Merker and Damasio PDFs cited above to anyone in response to an email to ERLTalk@outlook.com. Mike, I’ve taken a cursory look at and bookmarked your great website for further reading and I see that we might have much in common—I’m a retired computer programmer with very similar interests. The “ERL” in ERLTalk refers to my hypothesis “The Eternal Re-experiencing of Life” regarding what Einstein called the “eternity of life”—a direct implication of the existence of consciousness in our block universe. ERL challenges <i>everything</i> we believe about the purpose and meaning of life! My paper “Einstein’s Breadcrumbs” can be downloaded from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e76sHwM4bjKyZwl2sMcrDmTKAtZDG74D/view?usp=sharing.<br /><br />And, Eric: I’ve noticed that a freshly exposed cortical surface is slippery wet and shiny and, as we all can attest, we are irresistibly drawn to shiny objects … and I suspect that’s the hypnotic attraction at the root of cortical consciousness theories. ;-)Stephen Wysonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15213141784165096783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-66915051536775472802018-10-01T06:53:53.085-07:002018-10-01T06:53:53.085-07:00For starters, I’m delighted to see interest in the...For starters, I’m delighted to see interest in the topic of brainstem consciousness, an admittedly minority view, but, in this case I believe the evidence supports siding with the crackpots … ;-). To Mike Smith (aka SelfAwarePatterns): I theorize that cortical processing resolves much of the <i>content</i> of consciousness as opposed to creating the conscious “display”—the actual presentation of consciousness—which I believe is created by the brainstem, as discussed below. As such, I expect the blind-sight phenomena will be found to be a consequence of that division of functionality. Also, it’s my understanding that after severing the corpus callosum, direct connectivity still exists between hemispheres, but it’s less optimized for speed, lacking the c. callosum’s myelination. To Jim, the reticular formation—as you know, “a set of interconnected nuclei that are located throughout the brain stem”—has long been known to be intimately connected with consciousness. The brainstem actually <i>activates</i> the cortex, a functionality whose evolution I believe merits consideration.<br /><br />I’ve posted some of what follows to Eric’s blog before, in the “AI Consciousness” guest post by Susan Schneider (http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2017/01/ai-consciousness-reply-to-schwitzgebel.html) but, for convenience, I repeat some of that posted content here. The neuroscientific sources of interest are: “Consciousness without a Cerebral Cortex” by Bjorn Merker (at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.211.7642&rep=rep1&type=pdf) and “Consciousness and the Brainstem” by Antonio Damasio and Josef Parvizi (at https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/aad7/58c2e6fa977d8a6169197f50ddb44e0b3cea.pdf).<br /><br />The brainstem consciousness hypothesis is decidedly a minority position. As Damasio writes: “... contrary to tradition and convention, I believe that the mind is not made in the cerebral cortex alone. Its first manifestations arise in the brain stem. The idea that mind processing begins at brain stem level is so unconventional that it is not even unpopular.”<br /><br />I believe that Merker makes the definitive case, which is supported by compelling evolutionary, experimental and observational evidence. From his paper’s abstract:<br /><br />“<i>A broad range of evidence</i> regarding the functional organization of the vertebrate brain—spanning from comparative neurology to experimental psychology and neurophysiology to clinical data—is reviewed for its bearing on conceptions of the neural organization of consciousness. ... the principal macrosystems of the vertebrate brain can be seen to form a centralized functional design in which an upper brain stem system organized for conscious function performs a penultimate step in action control. This upper brain stem system retained a key role throughout the evolutionary process by which an expanding forebrain—culminating in the cerebral cortex of mammals—came to serve as <i>a medium for the elaboration of conscious contents</i>. This highly conserved upper brainstem system, which extends from the roof of the midbrain to the basal diencephalon, integrates the massively parallel and distributed information capacity of the cerebral hemispheres into the limited-capacity, sequential mode of operation required for coherent behavior. It maintains special connective relations with cortical territories implicated in attentional and conscious functions, but is not rendered nonfunctional in the absence of cortical input. This helps explain the purposive, goal-directed behavior exhibited by mammals after experimental decortication, as well as the evidence that children born without a cortex are conscious.”<br /><br />As far as I can tell, no such compelling evolutionary, experimental and observational evidence exists for any cortical consciousness hypothesis—no evidence at all. If you’re aware of any, please let us all know.Stephen Wysonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15213141784165096783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-3361196345947797352018-09-29T06:09:25.729-07:002018-09-29T06:09:25.729-07:00Consciousness happens in consciousness. Its physio...Consciousness happens in consciousness. Its physiological correlates involve the whole brain (some believe to be like a unified electromagnetic wave) and perhaps the whole body so it is pointless to debate whether it is more of less in one part of the brain or another. <br /><br />One of its distinguishing characteristics is the sense of embodiment. The reticular activating system has both descending and ascending connections. In a sense, it connects the brain with the body. It seems to control wakefulness and transitions between sleep and wakefulness. Damage to it results in coma. If we grant consciousness to evolutionary older organisms with brains and nervous system - insects, reptiles, slugs - they either have a reticular formation or probably have cells performing analogous functions since most of these organisms seem to require sleep.<br /><br />Jim Crosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12359287601046663774noreply@blogger.com