Long-wavelength components will be present as well, even if minuscule for any one fluctuation, but they dominate over time. The statistical view of homogeneity is then of a sea of fluctuations arising and disappearing at the microscopic level, with homogeneity being sustained at the macroscopic level because, under normal conditions, the long-wavelength components always dominate. If we then ask where the pattern came from, the answer is that it was already there, hidden in the shorter wavelength components of the fluctuations.
Without a suitable amplifier, however, these never manifest themselves at a macroscopic scale. Conceptual biases inherent in the latter can be difficult to overcome, as Boltzmann found when he first introduced a statistical way of dealing with events at the molecular scale Cercignani, , but statistical mechanics has now been, for a century, the accepted way of dealing with such processes.
The same cannot be said if we try applying his analysis to consciousness, because there the physical processes we suppose to be most relevant range from being imprecisely known to entirely hypothetical, and there is no body of accepted mathematical theory to guide us. The argument developed here therefore depends on numerous assumptions, and at best represents an approximation of reality.
Even within these limits, however, there are useful insights to be gained from the exercise. Consider first what the Xs and Ys of the mechanism Figure 2 might be. If our focus is to be on NCCs, then it is reasonable for X and Y to be participants in the developmental process by which a particular circuitry or feature of neural organization is produced. Having only two such variables is an oversimplification, because the development of even moderately complex neural circuits would depend on many such Xs and Ys, involving multiple cell types and their myriad synaptic and non-synaptic interactions.
The simplest case serves only as an illustration of how, as a first approximation, the variables might be defined. Figure 2. One then has to find an appropriate way for each of these processes to be expressed mathematically, and some of the plus signs will indeed, must become minus signs. Consciousness enters only because of the way the variables are interpreted, in this case by supposing that X-dependent synaptic reordering affects subjective experience in some way, but without specifying how.
The model can then be used to address questions about the emergence during development of structural features capable of evoking or otherwise affecting conscious experience, but says nothing about the nature or origin of experience itself.
So, for the sake of argument, take X to be a measure of a constraint on the space available for synapse formation along the dendrites of a particular set of neurons, providing sites, ordered in a particular way, that are either filled or not filled by synapses from the branched terminals of presynaptic fibers represented by Y.
An XY interaction would either initiate synapse formation, reducing X at the expense of Y, or not, meaning the reverse, which also then reinforces the X-dependent ordering effect. Note, however, that X and Y no longer represent concentrations of chemical species, but are quantitative measures of some feature of larger-than-molecular scale.
Hence there is a spatial dimension to the XY interaction that must be reflected either in the mathematical expressions chosen or the way they are interpreted.
One could ask why a Turing mechanism is needed here at all, as the XY interactions will inevitably produce a synaptic structure of some kind, and this can be adjusted incrementally over time as natural selection acts to alter the genes on which the Xs and Ys depend.
To restrict the analysis just to changes at the genomic level, however, assumes that only jigsaw-like self-assembly processes need to be considered, as in the assembly of a virus particle Harrison, While neural development will likely be more rigidly controlled in some animals than others e.
How ubiquitous this variability is, has become evident to me from my work on amphioxus e. Given the vastly greater complexity of the brain centers associated with consciousness, in chordates at least, it is difficult to imagine how the circuits involved can be assembled correctly without the intervention of mechanisms specifically evolved to reduce variability of outcome. The Turing mechanism is only one possible way to do this, but illustrates in an especially clear way how the competitive dynamics of the assembly process can be harnessed to favor some outcomes over others.
Hence the pattern that emerges is not simply a structured set of synapses, as some kind of structure will inevitably be produced, but a particular structure rather than some other, and one that can be precisely replicated in each generation. The Turing mechanism is a dynamic process where the entities represented by the variables, in this case, the sites available for synapse formation and the developing terminals, are continually supplied and removed.
This is reflected in the inclusion of supply and removal terms in Figure 2. As to the XY interactions, the analogy implies that these should be thought of as resembling collisions between chemical reactants, that is, repeated contact events of which only a fraction become stable synapses. For the patterning process to unfold, a certain amount of developmental time is required for ordered structure to emerge, or more precisely, given the way X and Y are defined, for a structure to emerge that is ordered in a different way than would otherwise have been the case.
The initial conditions can both bias and expedite this process, the large initial fluctuation in Figure 1 being an example, as it gives a significant head start to a subset of possible patterns. For a tissue domain that is already heterogeneous because of underlying gradients and local signaling centers, patterning would proceed at a much faster rate.
Autocatalysis is a crucial feature of Turing-type mechanisms, represented here by the X-enhancement step. So, having more X generates yet more X at a greater than linear rate. Finding a realistic way to represent this in mathematical form has proven problematic for many Turing-type models, as it is here, and typically requires terms in higher powers of X e.
For the present case, one could perhaps think of such terms as arising from spatial effects, so that, for example, if the dynamics involved dendrites that branch and produce spines, each with multiple sites for synapse formation, there could be alternative ways of configuring the branches such that having more sites available i. Or, activity-based mechanisms might be acting to sustain synaptic connections, comparable to the role played by long-term potentiation in learning and memory Lynch, , but operative during development, as indeed they do in some instances Rauschecker, ; Cruikshank and Weinberger, The Turing mechanism would then be a hybrid model, combining structure and circuit dynamics, both of which would contribute to the synaptic reordering.
The variables themselves could still be defined in exclusively structural terms, as here, or could be redefined to incorporate activity-based features explicitly. Perhaps a failure to form synapses at one site would cause sprouting nearby and more Y synapse formation there, hence giving a kind of mobility to Y comparable to a diffusional effect. For X, assuming increasing X might affect the way dendritic arbors are locally configured, there would be a knock-on effect at a moderate distance e.
The precise identities of X and Y and the nature of the XY interaction are less important here than the general point, that in the development of real brains there are potentially many opportunities for X-type structural and activity-based variables to respond to Y-type synaptic inputs in ways that produce dynamics of the kind needed by a Turing mechanism.
A preliminary investigation of ways to express this mathematically, adapted from Lacalli and Harrison , has yielded provisional results showing that, for a suitable choice of reaction terms and parameter values, models based on Figure 2 can form patterns.
So in this formulation, a spatially restricted domain could emerge within the brain where X and Y have diverged quantitatively from the un-patterned condition, resulting in a local reordering of the synaptic organization or, for an effective wavelength that is small relative to the area being patterned, an ordered array of such domains.
If we then assume this reordering correlates with consciousness in some way, what has emerged is, by definition, an NCC. Because the formulation says nothing about how this happens, emergence in this instance is weak rather than strong. Now consider the evolutionary part of the story: evolution enters through its ability to alter the Xs and Ys themselves, increasing the frequency in the population of those X and Y variants that, acting through the effect they have on the emerging consciousness, most benefit survival and reproductive success.
The appropriate way to explore this aspect of the problem is through Directionality Theory Demetrius, ; Demetrius and Gundlach, , which deals statistically with changing gene frequencies over evolutionary time, i. But here also there is no way to introduce conscious experience explicitly, first because the equations are concerned only with outcomes, on survival, reproductive success, and gene frequencies, but also because of the incompatible time scales, real time for consciousness vs.
Perhaps the argument could be recast in a more revealing way, but on the evidence available, it appears that an analytical treatment of the evolutionary process, whether combined with development or not, is inherently limited in what it can say about the nature of conscious experience. On a more positive note, the patterning analogy provides a framework for thinking about how conscious experience can be shaped by development and evolution acting in concert. In doing so, it acts as an error-reduction mechanism, taking in inherently noisy input, and converting it into a repeatable outcome that overcomes the randomizing tendency inherent in real developmental processes, whether at the molecular, subcellular, or cellular level.
This then provides a way of assessing the importance of precision of outcome to any developmental process under investigation because, if a high degree of precision is required, evolution will have incorporated the necessary corrective mechanisms. For NCCs, there is a useful topological way to think about the consequences, as follows: consider the mapping between an abstract neural structure space consisting of all possible NCCs and an experience space consisting of all possible experiences.
If NCCs are not required to be especially precise in order to evoke a particular conscious experience, then many points in neural structure space, representing numerous NCC variants, will map to the same point in experience space. If great precision is required, then correspondingly fewer NCC variants will map to any one such point.
The map then represents in a formal way how precisely conscious experience depends on events in the physical world, but also how experience is shaped by evolution since, if even small changes to NCC configurations change experience, then that experience can be easily altered by incremental change at the genomic level. Conversely, for maps with greater redundancy, where many NCC variants map to the same point in experience space, a degree of evolutionary inertia would be predicted, since many changes to the NCCs must accumulate before their effect is seen in experience space.
Whether this can be used to make meaningful predictions about the absolute rate at which conscious experience can evolve remains to be determined, but is a possibility worth considering. Perhaps this is what neural activity in animals without consciousness produces, but if so, we are left with a somewhat unsatisfactory situation of accounting for the origin of real-time subjective experience by assuming it is there from the start.
In consequence, the patterning analogy is silent on the issue of whether animals without consciousness have, or do not have, anything resembling subjective experience. This then resolves any confusion over whether all possible experiences are already present in the preconscious condition as consciousness began to evolve, in an analogous way to the presence of all possible wavelengths in thermal fluctuations as pattern forms.
Here I believe the analogy leads to a sound conclusion, that indeed rudiments of all possible experience could already be present in the preconscious state.
Like LEGO scattered across the floor, they await assembly in order to become something specific. The issue of how real-time noise might be experienced by an individual brain is nevertheless worth considering further, for what it says about the nature and localization of NCCs. The point here is that one cannot assume a priori that animals lacking evolved consciousness also lack any kind of subjective experience. All the axons are collected together to form the optic nerve, which sends all the signals to the brain.
Figure two shows that the part of the retina behind which the optic nerve forms is called the blind spot because there are no photodetectors there. Note that the blind spot is about as large as the fovea. The fovea is where the retina can form images with high acuity. Our eyes move incessantly through the day to point our foveas to look directly at objects that interest us. In addition, retinal veins that nourish retinal cells lie between the lens and the retina, and thereby prevent light from reaching retinal positions behind them.
We can now begin to understand what it means to claim that conscious seeing is for reaching. This is true because, as illustrated in figure three, visual images are occluded by the blind spot and retinal veins. Even a simple blue line that is registered on the retina is sufficient to illustrate why this is a problem. Suppose that, as in the figure, the blue line passes through positions of the blind spot. Because the blue line is not registered at those positions, without further processing we could not reach for the blue line at any of these positions.
The brain reconstructs the missing segments of the blue line at higher processing stages so that we can, in fact, reach all positions along the line. The same problem occurs no matter what object is occluded by the blind spot or the retinal veins. As I will indicate below, it takes multiple processing stages for our brains to complete representations of images that are occluded by the blind spot and retinal veins.
But then how do our brains know which of these processing stages generates a complete enough representation with which to control reliable reaches? Choosing an incomplete representation with which to control actions could have disastrous consequences. For now, the main point is that, a resonance between a complete surface representation of an object and the next processing stage renders that surface representation conscious. Once such a complete surface representation is highlighted by consciousness, it can control actions.
And because it is complete, this representation can successfully control accurate reaches to any position on an attended object that is sufficiently near. The selection of complete surface representations occurs in prestriate visual cortical area V4, which resonates with the posterior parietal cortex, or PPC, to generate a surface-shroud resonance.
As illustrated in figure four, spatial attention from the PPC can highlight particular positions of the V4 surface representation via a top-down interaction, at the same time that spatial intention can activate movement commands upstream to look at and reach for a desired goal object. A resonance is a dynamical state during which neuronal firings across a brain network are amplified and synchronized when they interact via reciprocal excitatory feedback signals during a matching process that occurs between bottom-up and top-down pathways, like the pathways between V4 and PPC.
Resonant states focus attention on patterns of critical features that control predictive success, while suppressing irrelevant features.
They also trigger learning of critical features—hence the name adaptive resonance —and buffer learned memories against catastrophic sudden and unpredictable forgetting. The conscious states that adaptive resonances support are part of larger adaptive behavioral capabilities that help us to adapt to a changing world.
Accordingly, resonances for conscious seeing help to ensure effective looking and reaching; for conscious hearing help to ensure effective auditory communication, including speaking; and for conscious feeling help to ensure effective goal-oriented action.
Figure five summarizes six types of resonances and the functions that they carry out in different brain regions. Surface-shroud resonances derive their name from the fact that surface representations resonate with spatial attention that covers the shape of the attended object, a so-called attentional shroud.
Surface-shroud resonances support conscious seeing of the object, whereas feature-category resonances support conscious recognition of them. When both kinds of resonances synchronize, we can consciously see and know about familiar objects.
What processes are needed to form a complete surface representation from the noisy retinal images that are occluded by the blind spot and retinal veins? First, the blind spot and retinal veins themselves are removed from this representation. This happens because they are attached to the retina, which continually jiggles in its orbit, thereby creating persistent transient signals on the photoreceptors from objects in the world.
Retinally stabilized images like the blind spot and retinal veins fade because they do not cause such transients. Next, our brains compensate for changes in illumination that occur through the day and that could undermine the processing of object shapes.
Finally, our brains need even more stages to complete the boundaries and fill-in the surface brightnesses and colors that are occluded by the blind spot and retinal veins, as illustrated by figure six. Conscious states enable our brains to select the complete boundaries and surfaces that result from all of these processes.
Our Privacy Policy sets out how Oxford University Press handles your personal information, and your rights to object to your personal information being used for marketing to you or being processed as part of our business activities. We will only use your personal information to register you for OUPblog articles. Or subscribe to articles in the subject area by email or RSS. Very informative! But as a philosopher, the case for conscious seeing seems to imply that conscious seeing is to be found in other species, besides humans.
How far down the phyla does this extend? Dogs, yes. Human conscious is far different from the animal one which are supposed not to have one. Can we really in any reality in this quite large universe assume that we are something special? That life or consciousness or whatever it is that drives this universe has actually assigned some intention to us beyond the realm of playground randomness?
Johann Popper 12 June Jesus tap dancing Christ. You poor uneducated people. Read Aristotle for Buddha's sake. Or Kant, if you're on a long vacation. These word games were resolved last by Wittgenstein. There are no such questions as these false dichotomies or rascally tone tricks made of gibberish word strings.
Be grammatical. When you repeat words, preserve definitions for more than 5 seconds. Exactly none of you are apparently aware of the distinction between the categories of potentiality laws of nature and actuality empirical facts , and thus you and science are paired like a gorilla with a violin.
No harmonious sounds shall come forth. Conscious is an actual empirical fact of nature. Thus, we can say the laws of nature are such that consciousness is associated with the measurable empirical facts of the human brain.
Thus, it is both true that consciousness actually evolved, and that consciousness is potentially a phenomenon the universe could always manifest. There is no frelling mystery or contradiction in any of that!!!!!! If you want to be in awe of reality as it IS, cool cool. Go contemplate with pleasure. But don't pretend you're on to something as if you can stand outside of nature and grammatically iterate that one part is separate from the rest.
That's not how language works. Paul Gilbert 12 June What kind of thinking is this? In our efforts to understand ourselves, it seems we want to convince ourselves that if we build a tool that we tell ourselves is just like us Machines don't have any feelings. A tool is not motivated, not influenced, not manipulated to do anything.
People using the tool are. If we use tools for any discussion into what consciousness is or is not, I'd argue it is a benchmark for what consciousness is not. As to consciousness in general, our efforts to define it are skewed, IMO, by the very biology of our being. What is the purpose of defining consciousness, other than to create some kind of division and set a mark for us to be able to say "we have created a conscious tool".
Create your buckets. Define who, what goes in them and who what does not. Just remember In the end does anyone really care about whether or not they are, were, lived conscious?
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the discussion, the exploration but awareness, IMO, does not require an understanding of what it is that makes you aware, but a realization that you are unique and the discovery of yourself is too. Mitch Boggs 10 June I apologize for the lateness of this comment, I only just had your article appear on my feed.
I'm curious as to why you have chosen to address evolution as strictly natural selection. You seem to have completely disregarded the existence of both sexual selection and neutral selection to make a sweeping claim about the evolution of something, despite these being 2 fundamental aspects of evolution.
The idea that all traits and all aspects of life arise due solely to natural selection is patently false. If this were true we wouldn't have evolutionary spandrels as debated as the topic is , we wouldn't have neutral theory and as such we wouldn't have the molecular clock. This seemingly fundamental premise of ignoring any form of evolution other than natural selection holds up to none of the rigors of evolutionary questioning and seems almost like a buried No True Scotsman.
One that is dependent on the reader not knowing the other mechanisms of evolution or its selective pressures, an obfuscation of fact. There is also a failure to acknowledge the existence of maladaptive evolutionary traits. Evolution not not "choose", nor does it have absolute power. It doesn't simply go "well this trait will be better for your species future state, you get to live and propagate", these is no consciousness or intention when evolutionary pressures result in the existence of a trait.
Humans lost the ability to produce vitamin C naturally, this is a maladaptive trait, yet it, along with our species, has persisted for 61 million years following this maladaptive evolutionary selection. The human brain and subsequent consciousness evolving is not solely dependant on natural selection or this basal assertion that it MUST have been beneficial, let alone beneficial at all stages of its existence.
I also fail to see how making the comparison between a counter system who's functioning we have essentially complete understanding and control of is equivalent to the human brain considering how little we still understand and how we continue to make breakthroughs. This seems to be more an argument from ignorance and a false equivalence.
Your argument seems not dissimilar from those who argued evolution can't possibly exist in the early-mid 19th century, simply because they didn't have the means or understanding to measure it. Or those who argued the feeling of love and connection is completely ethereal, with nothing about it being measurable before we began understanding the existence of neurochemicals.
Have we not also coded these computers with our own consciousness and foresight, have we not "selected" for the optimal code that allows the most efficient allocation of memory and resources? We didn't just make a single code at the inception of computers and stick with it, leaving it forever unchanged. We built them to function as our minds deemed necessary and optimal, putting a bit of our own conscious considerations into the code, then refined it further.
You seem to be arguing based on a premise that computers in their current form function at maximum efficiency and that this is how they have always been, never subject to selection from a conscious source.
Which seems patently false. If the memory and experience of our consciousness serve no functional purpose or need in influencing future behaviour and reaction to situations, why is it that our emotions play such an impactful role in influencing how we remember or relate to something? If our inner life amplifies and augments the reality of an experience or situation, making us more or less likely to engage in such a situation, how is this impact upon our behaviour not Influential to our survival.
Frank Berkey 31 May I agree But we are assuming that we are already conscious We are all born with the ability to work to be conscious but like everything else in the universe, there is not an infinite amount to go around and then like any education we must find those who have struggled before us to learn how to get there.
David Bortin 24 May Sorry to join the party so late; I just encountered this paper, then got delayed registering. Anyway I just wanted to say that since consciousness obviosly has evolved, this essay is nothing more than a reductio ad absurdum disproof of Mr. Kastrup's interpretation of the particular dialect of physicalist materialism on which it'x premised.
So what? Anna Marle 3 April The miracle is Chinese software which Cj chuck 31 March Grover Scott 9 February One step further, a higher consciousness must have preceded the beginning of our limited consciousness. That would make moment that space, time, and material came into existence an act of will. Chris Sadler 4 January Joe Piecora said "that's why it's still considered a theory. Imagine, not being able to define 'theory' in the context of science on a site like this. How embarrassing for Joe.
Not to worry Joe, it gets covered in grade Joe Piecora 4 January The theory of evolution is not "overwhelmingly validated"--that's why it's still considered a theory. Abiogenesis has never been observed nor proven to have occurred. Our idea of "evolution" is really just a metaphor, another way of saying "autonomous biological systems improving themselves through random change". Science that depends upon "filling in the blanks" is not really science at all.
It's just closed-minded, stubborn speculation, rather like the Flat Earth Society's semi-schizophrenic teachings. Let's move on. Steve Quinn 4 January I just saw this article as well. Interesting topic, but the author makes the same mistake so many theists make, perhaps tellingly. That is in asserting that the discovery of a potential flaw in A, necessarily proves B.
It does not. The contradictions the author attempts to illustrate in a few materialism claims may be actual contradictions, they may be misunderstandings or they may be intentional misinterpretations by the author. In no case does their existence, potential or otherwise, prove his competing claim, as he abruptly asserts at the end. The author also employs much Jordan Peterson-esque wordiness and overly convoluted language for likely the same purposes Peterson does.
Let's say I fill a page with random letters. Then I do the same on more pages. I then bind all those pages together. I then go though each page and rearrange the letters on each page into random words. Then I organize the words on each page into random sentences. After that, I start to arrange sentences across the pages into coherant ideas. Lastly, I arrange those groups of sentences conveying ideas into a single chronological story. Where did a book emerge? That the word "book" is too imprecise to definitively answer that question, the author seems to suggest is proof that the book always existed.
It did not. A book only began to exist when the complexity and organization of the information reached a level we would describe as a book, and different people would put that at different places along the way. Without that definition, the book is just a collection of tree fibers pressed into sheets and covered with ink in different shapes.
Rhadamaric Amaranth 3 January Sorry if my point has been discussed before the article just popped up in my feed and I haven't read all the comments. I basically agree with everything that is discussed expect one key point: something e.
It is called a spandrel. Therefore the statement that "Phenomenal consciousness cannot have evolved. It can only been there from the beginning as an intrinsic, irreducible fact of nature" is in my opinion incorrect, and so is the main point of the article. If we reject the second premise and attributes some degree of consciousness to single cells, or lipid droplets for that matter, why not to a digital circuit?
Anyway we look at it, there's no clear answer as to how consciousness emerges, but there's no solid argument to believe it can only exist on a biological substrate. Vyacheslav Dianov 2 January The problem of understanding consciousness, thinking, etc. It arises from the wrong one-sided, materialistic worldview. Materialism forms the wrong thinking of a person. Worldview is the basic Knowledge, it is it that determines the breadth and depth of a person's thinking. The existing worldview materialism , with which the entire earthly civilization actually lives, does not meet these requirements!
It is addressed only to the material component of Being, a person comprehends the problem from one, the material side, and this limits his thinking abilities, while correct thinking goes beyond the limits, studies it from all sides, which means he has a chance to understand cause and solve the problem! It is impossible to understand and reasonably plan the development of civilization only on the basis of one-sided knowledge of Being. According to the "Harmonious Worldview", the main principle of the creation and existence of Reality is the control of the material world with the help of the Spirit - the really existing, informational field of the Creator.
Matter cannot by itself think, move and develop, it needs an indication of the way and this is done by information spirit, soul. The basis of this statement is the theory of physical vacuum, which proves the existence of a torsion field torsion , the nature of which allows performing the function of Spirit.
Not Ralph 29 December A quantam system does not own its dynamic attributes. How are the comments associating qualitative with quantitative? There are no quantam particles only potentialities. People are still trying to make it more than an ontological argument. You measure on one side and you experience on the other.
The bridge escapes you. Charles Luck 26 December The frequency of the light does not make it red, nor does any frequency of light determine it's color. We evolved in such a manner so as to interpret those frequency in the way that we see them; in and of themselves they have no color. Colors exists only behind our eyes, the universe is, in reality, a colorless dark place.
Ask yourself why we can't see electromagnetic waves in frequencies outside the range of visible light. Because there is no such thing as "visible" light. There is however, frequencies of electromagnetic waves that we have evolved to be able to see. A very similar reality exists in the realm of sound. Air waves do not make sounds; stars have been exploding long before anyone with ears existed, and they do not make a single peep. The Big Bang, an event that gave rise to an entire universe of matter, took place in total silence.
The ability to see light or to hear sound is not a fundamental aspect of our universe, but rather an evolutionary bi-product of a quantitative complexity that lead to what we are. You yourself, as computer scientist, should know. How complicated will an AI program get before it takes on a life of it's own? Through the evolution of human ingenuity, the computer gets smaller and faster, and when we finally write code that can enhance itself, can you say with certainty that it will never become sentient?
I'll answer for you From the box jelly fish on the Australian coastline to the humans walking the streets of an urban center, you can't point to which level of complexity it was when consciousness emerged as the product of the physical quantitative complexity it arose from.
Where do you draw the confidence that affords you the ability to dissociate the qualitative from the quantitative with such ease? Don't let the architecture be the box from which you cannot escape, it's shouldn't be the how, but rather the why that consumes you.
Consciousness is a bi-product of quantitative complexity, and necessity is the mother of invention. There most certainly is a connection between the two. Milton Ponson 25 December Many times computer scientists get it right.
But we are transitioning from causal, deterministic computing to quantum computing, for which some models mimic the structural elements of the brain i. Consciousness according to Buddhist philosophy dispels the usefulness of materialism, and the very well described fallacies of observed events, and observed, measured quantities are more in line with quantum mechanics.
Our reality is limited by both Godel and quantum mechanics. Reality and the perception thereof is part of what we intuitively sense to be consciousness. Most mammals and even invertebrates cephalopods, arthropods exhibit social behaviors and many mammals also dream, neither of which are directly functional in a causal way.
Our consciousness serves many functions which are not causal, e. In my humble opinion we should be focusing on how to reconcile mathematics, Buddhist philosophy and quantum physics.
When computer science merges with mathematics and quantum physics to produce quantum computing based artificial intelligence, materialism will fly out the window. Plain and simple. As a mathematician I have seen excellent dissertations by philosophers venturing into this new multidisciplinary field, none of which however stick to a materialism dogma. MethoNatu 23 December Personal pseudo Philosophical opinions presented as if they have some kind of scientific foundation.
Its really sad to watch people trying to gain fame and wealth through new age Death Denying Ideologies dressed up in lab coats. IdPnSD 26 February This means every atom has its own taste. Thus atom is not just material. Princeton University has shown that electronic circuit boards can react with human intentions.
A Japanese scientist has shown that water crystals change shape according to your attitude to the glass of water. Consciousness is a property of soul. Soul has many other properties, it causes birth and death of every object, it causes reincarnation, it gives yogic power in humans and all animals, etc. Soul is eternal, and does not evolve, because it is the root cause of every cause. Otto Mann 18 February Philosophy does not belong in inquiry about consciousness, because it has no language for it.
Kastrup writes Who holds a "mainstream materialist worldview? The infamous "hard problem" is no better than a paralyzing artifact of flawed dualism.
An easy case can be made that there are universals, eternals, fundamentals. But there is no cause whatsoever to name any of them "consciousness" — and that is what "consciousness" first is: word; name. It is a good name for that which is self-evident to us, the several humans reading this. A sponge? A virus? Far better to take a monistic view and understand human experience as a property-of or quality-of the physical system we might quite smartly name "neurality" or "neural being". That frees us to use the name "consciousness" as does Julian Jaynes, and it frees us from the interminable false dichotomy that the hard problem would have us wallow in.
Tomas Hull 14 February The cortex is like an upgraded tectum. We still have a tectum buried under the cortex and it performs the same functions as in fish and amphibians. If you hear a sudden sound or see a movement in the corner of your eye, your tectum directs your gaze toward it quickly and accurately.
The cortex also takes in sensory signals and coordinates movement, but it has a more flexible repertoire. Depending on context, you might look toward, look away, make a sound, do a dance, or simply store the sensory event in memory in case the information is useful for the future. The most important difference between the cortex and the tectum may be the kind of attention they control. The tectum is the master of overt attention—pointing the sensory apparatus toward anything important.
The cortex ups the ante with something called covert attention. Scientists sometimes compare covert attention to a spotlight. The analogy was first suggested by Francis Crick, the geneticist. Your cortex can shift covert attention from the text in front of you to a nearby person, to the sounds in your backyard, to a thought or a memory. Covert attention is the virtual movement of deep processing from one item to another. The cortex needs to control that virtual movement, and therefore like any efficient controller it needs an internal model.
Unlike the tectum, which models concrete objects like the eyes and the head, the cortex must model something much more abstract. According to the AST, it does so by constructing an attention schema—a constantly updated set of information that describes what covert attention is doing moment-by-moment and what its consequences are.
Consider an unlikely thought experiment. It exists without substance. It moves around from one set of items to another. When that mysterious process in me grasps hold of something, it allows me to understand, to remember, and to respond. The crocodile would be wrong, of course. It has a physical basis, but that physical basis lies in the microscopic details of neurons, synapses, and signals. The brain has no need to know those details. The attention schema is therefore strategically vague.
It depicts covert attention in a physically incoherent way, as a nonphysical essence.
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