Medical EM fields: a plausible correlate of consciousness?

[Moonbear]

Certainly from the perspective of computationalism, a neuron is a switching unit capable of only acting on what inputs and outputs it receives from those neurons with which it is connected. From that perspective, the analogy to a person receiving inputs and outputs directly from immediate contacts with other people is straightforward. If for example, one receives a handshake from person A, they have no idea where person A got the instruction to give you a handshake from or what it means. In addition, a computer made of properly programmed (ie: connected) humans exchanging handshakes is equal to and is capable of performing any mathematical computation that a computer with an equal number of switches and connections is capable of. If neurons in the brain act as if they are nothing more than mechanical switches interacting with each other, then one is hard pressed to point out any significant difference between a group of people trading handshakes and neurons trading ions...

I'd agree with you that the hand shaking analogy is weak, but then I'd also have to point out that Chalmers analogy of replacing a neuron with a computer chip is weak. They are both analogies and can't be used as proof. What makes the cemi field theory interesting is it provides a mechanism which might be used to create or otherwise explain the phenomenon of unity. It also provides specific predictions which are debatable by others more familiar with the details than I.

Comparing a neuron to a computer chip is weak as well. The problem with the "switch" and "connection" analogy is that it also ignores diffusible signals in the brain, such as neurohormones that are released in CSF and can rapidly reach many areas of the brain without direct synaptic contacts. As somasimple pointed out, glial cells are also contributing to communication in the brain.

The most troubling part of this whole CEMI field theory to me is that I don't see how a signal that would be distorted by passing through the very substrate that produces it could have any useful function as a means of transmitting information. Wouldn't the field produced by a neuron in say the prefrontal cortex be completely degraded before it could reach the thalamus or hippocampus? The concept might work in a tiny mouse brain, but in something as large as a human brain, it just makes little sense that such a weak field could do much to synchronize function over large areas of the brain, as is proposed.

Yet another contradiction to this idea that these EM fields, detectable by local EEG recordings, are involved in consciousness is that in anesthetized rats (I'm sure we can all agree that depending on the plane of anesthesia, an anesthetized animal at least has reduced consciousness) treated with amphetamine, EEG recordings in the frontal cortex show arousal. This EEG indicator of arousal in these anesthetized rats can be blocked with noradrenergic beta-receptor antagonists.
Berridge CW, Morris MF. 2000 Amphetamine-induced activation of forebrain EEG is prevented by noradrenergic beta-receptor blockade in the halothane-anesthetized rat. Psychopharmacology 148(3):307-13.

There are some other papers I came across on a quick search that indicate similar "arousal" on an EEG recording following various treatments in anesthetized animals, but am not citing them because I don't have access to the full articles, just the abstracts at this time.

 

[somasimple]

Hi All,

About Thalamus/and sub cortical cores: Damasio explains its theory with marvelous examples of patients and shows the subtle difference it exists between the different kind of consciousness.
He start with an uncounscious man able to walk and takes a cup and drinks and walks. Marvellous. And follows some seizure problems that shows how and why, consciousness doesn't need cortices.

Chinese/gap junction.
Imagine ten people talking together (that's already a problem!). I can say that A talks to B... But A doesn't know what B thinks when A talks... B knows what A thinks because A told B...

Imagine now a world where we are interconnected with tubes directly with our circulatory system. The rule is simple. It allows to balance pressure between the connected people. If an event arrives and changes my heart rate and pressure thus my family is alerted and as a familiy we could choose a better behaviour since it is spread with speed and accuracy.

Imagine now ten people connected by their brain... That is what gap junctions create with our thinking cells.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Hi All,
About Thalamus/and sub cortical cores: Damasio explains its theory with marvelous examples of patients and shows the subtle difference it exists between the different kind of consciousness.
He start with an uncounscious man able to walk and takes a cup and drinks and walks. Marvellous. And follows some seizure problems that shows how and why, consciousness doesn't need cortices.

You're saying he shows the thalamus alone is all that is needed?

 

[somasimple]

No,

It is a master piece. And Evolution gave us consciousness for a better adaptivity. There is a NCC that needs the pre-frontal cortex to be be achieved for a consciousness as we "know" it.
There is a low level one enabled with these old brain structures.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0156010755/?tag=pfamazon01-20

This book shows there is many examples where we are fooled by aspect of conscious activity but there are a subconsciousone.

 

[zoobyshoe]

No,
It is a master piece. And Evolution gave us consciousness for a better adaptivity. There is a NCC that needs the pre-frontal cortex to be be achieved for a consciousness as we "know" it.
There is a low level one enabled with these old brain structures.

Which old brain structures?

 

[somasimple]

Well,

The problem with Damasio is that he is not totally clear and says that parts are mandadory and form as you said a NCC. He said with medical examples that cortices aren't necessary for consciousness neither language.
He proceeds by elimination and it seems probable that the core-consciousness which enables the extended one we are speaking is enabled by thalamus, hypo-thalamus, cingulates, brainstem. The pre-frontal is mandatory for the extended (as many other sites).

 

[johnjoe]

Several problems with this interpretation. First, "no obvious behavioral abnormalities," does not mean "NO behavioral abnormalities." It means the mice appear to locomote normally, are capable of breeding, and nothing really stands out as unusual. There was no reference to any rigorous behavioral testing in the Guldanagel et al., 2001 paper. It's basically a way of saying, "we think the mice are healthy enough to not require any special care."
Second, and more importantly, they provide NO evidence that gap junctions are disrupted or non-functional following this deletion. The Guldenagel paper refers to Connexin-36 being primarily found in retina (that was the focus of their study). Another study using hippocampal slices from the Cx36 KO mice found only subtle effects, and indicate that other gap junctions are likely preserved.
From: Maier N, Guldenagel M, Sohl G, Siegmund H, Willecke K, Draguhn A. 2002 Reduction of high-frequency network oscillations (ripples) and pathological network discharges in hippocampal slices from connexin 36-deficient mice. J Physiol. 541(Pt 2):521-8.
Just eliminating one protein found in one type of gap junction does not mean all gap junctions were disrupted, or that there wasn't a compensatory increase in another related protein that maintained function. All this says is that Connexin 36 isn't sufficient on its own to disrupt all neural synchronization.

[Johnjoe]
But connexion 36 is the major gap junction protein in the mouse brain. Subsequent have confirmed that the KO mice completely lacked ANY functional gap junctions in the brain. See for instance,

De Zeeuw, C. I. et al (2003) Deformation of Network Connectivity in the Inferior Olive of Connexin 36-Deficient Mice Is Compensated by Morphological and Electrophysiological Changes at the Single Neuron Level. The Journal of Neuroscience, June 1, 2003, 23(11):4700-4711

One of the tests the authors performed was to inject Lucifer yellow into olivary neurons. With functional gap junctions [of any kind!] in the wild-type mouse the dye spreads to adjacent neurons but “ in all Cx36-deficient mice, the injections resulted in labeling of single neurons only (n = 16), whereas those in the wild types always provided clusters of multiple neurons (n = 18, with an average of 8 ± 3.8).”
The authors go on to perform electrophysiology measurements that lead them to conclude that “no functional gap junctions exist in the homozygous mutants.”.
Similar studies have been performed by several other authors and the conclusion is firm that the KO mice lack functional gap junctions in those parts of the brain that have been investigated.
That the mice still demonstrate rhythmic oscillations in the brain is very interesting. The above study found evidence that the mice compensate for loss of gap junctions by making their neuronal membranes more electrically sensitive. This would make them more sensitive to EM fields (although that hasn’t yet been demonstrated) so it may be that EM fields are maintaining synchronicity in these mice.


johnjoe

 

[johnjoe]

The most troubling part of this whole CEMI field theory to me is that I don't see how a signal that would be distorted by passing through the very substrate that produces it could have any useful function as a means of transmitting information. Wouldn't the field produced by a neuron in say the prefrontal cortex be completely degraded before it could reach the thalamus or hippocampus? The concept might work in a tiny mouse brain, but in something as large as a human brain, it just makes little sense that such a weak field could do much to synchronize function over large areas of the brain, as is proposed.
[johnjoe]
this objection is based on a misconception that the EM signals have to be free of distortion to convey information. Distortion is irrelevant so long as the information in a signal is not degraded. If the EM field and one point can predict the neural activity at another point then useful information is transmitted. so although the EM field may be largely deformed by its passage through the brain it can still funtion to transmit information rapidly through the entire volume of the brain.

Yet another contradiction to this idea that these EM fields, detectable by local EEG recordings, are involved in consciousness is that in anesthetized rats (I'm sure we can all agree that depending on the plane of anesthesia, an anesthetized animal at least has reduced consciousness) treated with amphetamine, EEG recordings in the frontal cortex show arousal. This EEG indicator of arousal in these anesthetized rats can be blocked with noradrenergic beta-receptor antagonists.
Berridge CW, Morris MF. 2000 Amphetamine-induced activation of forebrain EEG is prevented by noradrenergic beta-receptor blockade in the halothane-anesthetized rat. Psychopharmacology 148(3):307-13.

[johnjoe]
I'm not clear on the significance of these findings. amphetamines are thought to induce arousal noradrenergic beta-receptorin the brain and this arousal can be detected by EEG. the paper showed that blocking the noradrenergic beta-receptors prevented the EEG arousal signal in anaesthetised rats. Is the point that you get EEG signals of arousal in a (presumably unconscious) anaesthetised animal? But the EEG signals are generated by neuronal firing that similarly would be an neural 'indicator' of arousal. Does that indicate that neurons aren't necessary for consciousness? The conclusion must surely be that either neuronal activity and/or EM fields are necessary but not sufficient for reportable consciousness. anaeasthetics must block some downstream processes (eg. motor and/or memory) that prevents reportable consciosuness.

johnjoe

 

[somasimple]

Johnjoe,

Supposing that I take your theory.

1/ shape of brain and orientation of pyramidal cells (they are quite ever oriented to the cortex surface).
2/ the resulting EM field will be then ever a sum/subtraction linked of firing cells.
3/ the resulting field couldn't be a legit representation of the original neural activation.
4/ we are encountering the same limitations with other modalities (RMI, PET, EEG...)

IMHO, it is like I get all characters that make a Bible and try to reconstruct it.
The unified/integrated field is just like making this huge trial.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Well,
The problem with Damasio is that he is not totally clear and says that parts are mandadory and form as you said a NCC.

Actually, I never use the term NCC.

He said with medical examples that cortices aren't necessary for consciousness neither language.
He proceeds by elimination and it seems probable that the core-consciousness which enables the extended one we are speaking is enabled by thalamus, hypo-thalamus, cingulates, brainstem. The pre-frontal is mandatory for the extended (as many other sites).

This makes sense to me in principle. When things are subtracted by disease or trauma you get a more diminished consciousness. The notion of cross referencing between patients to see what parts appear to be necessary for what level or kind of consciousness seems sound.

 

[somasimple]

Hi,

Damasio says, too, that core-consciousness is an old thing because its first goal is an enhancing of the homeostatis process. Homeostasis is governed by old brainstem structures.

Many patients who lost consciousness (seizures/kinetic automatism) lost egally the ability to shows the primary emotions. Primary emotions are located also in these old structures and many animals share the same ones.

Thus, it seems probable that core-consciousness is an enhancement of the reward system used to maintain homeostasis.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Hi,
Damasio says, too, that core-consciousness is an old thing because its first goal is an enhancing of the homeostatis process. Homeostasis is governed by old brainstem structures.

This, I can't say anything about. Never looked into it.

Many patients who lost consciousness (seizures/kinetic automatism) lost egally the ability to shows the primary emotions. Primary emotions are located also in these old structures and many animals share the same ones.

I get the impression from "kinetic automatism" that he's talking about what are called complex-partial seizures. Partial seizures are either classified as simple, which means there is no impairment of consciousness whatever, or complex, which means there is a greater or lesser defect of consciousness.
As far as they know, so long as seizure activity remains in one single hemisphere, regardless of how many lobes the activity spreads to, the seizure will remain simple: consciousness will not be impaired. The impairment of consciousness in a complex partial seems only to arise from the spreading of simple partial seizure activity across into the other hemisphere.
The defect of consciousness that results is extremely peculiar and manifests quite differently from patient to patient. It is also quite distinct from the complete loss of consciousness that you get in absense seizures ("Petite Mal"), tonic-clonic seizures ("Grand Mal") and atonic seizures ("Drop Seizures") . These latter render the person completely unconscious by interfering with the thalamus.
In the complex-partial seizure you get all kinds of levels of this "defect" of consciousness, and always amnesia for the incident after it occurs. The "average" CP renders the person about as responsive to the environment as a sleepwalker: they're still vaguely responsive to some sensory imput, but seem more focused on some compelling illusory world, or just plain stupified. This state is usually accompanied by "automatisms": repeated movements and gestures.
As for not being able to show primary emotions, I'm not sure that is generally true. It is only true that whatever emotions they show aren't going to be appropriate to the stimulus. One woman posted on an Epilepsy website saying her husband told her that during her seizures she pulled him close and whispered gibberish with a high emotional valence to him "It sounded like you were trying to tell me something really important". Another person at that site was told by relatives his seizures were screaming sessions. Also: a caution that is repeated over and over again to the loved ones of people with complex partials is to never try to move them around during a seizure, because the reaction is almost always one of hostility, and even violence:
In "The Making Of A Psychiatrist", by David Viscount, he tells of an "uncooperative" man who was brought into a psych ward where he was an intern, by police. This man was surly, and had fought them when they brought him in. He looked directly at anyone who addressed him and responded with an answer that was not gibberish, but which had nothing to do with what they'd asked. No one could figure this out. They put him in a room and left him there. Later the author happened to walk by and see the guy was having a tonic-clonic seizure. Suddenly he realized the initial behaviour was a complex-partial which had later generalized to the tonic-clonic.
People having CP's are certainly not unconscious, a term which applies to someone in a coma, but they aren't what you could properly call conscious either. That's why they've settled on speaking about this as a "defect of consciousness". And while sometimes they have a flat affect and seem stupified, I don't think this represents an inability to feel emotion. Some people with CP's get plenty emotional despite the defect of consciousness.

 

[somasimple]

Hi,

Here is a link for some usefuls paper by Damasio
http://www.medicine.uiowa.edu/adolphs/documents.html

 

[Q_Goest]

Hypnagogue, thanks for the post on NCC's. It seems to me there must be a fairly localized portion of the brain which is responsible for consciousness, some boundry must exist within the body between neurons that support consciuosness and those that don't. One can use extreme examples as a way of proving this, obviously we can remove neurons in the limbs, and even quadrapalegics have no significant impact to consciousness. I would suspect there are neurons even in the brain which are used to interpret visual, audible, and other sensory signals which shouldn't have any significant impact on consciousness along with neurons that control various involuntary parts of the body such as the heart, breathing, etc...

I'm not suggesting there's a single group of neurons that are solely responsible, the group could even change from moment to moment, conscious experience dancing around within the brain as it were. But I have to believe that everyone recognizes there is a boundry and the only issue is where that boundry is. Saying it is the entire brain and cutting it off at the spinal cord may not correspond to reality.

 

[somasimple]

Brain. 2003 Jul;126(Pt 7):1524-36. Epub 2003 Jun 4.
Neuroanatomical correlates of brainstem coma.

Parvizi J, Damasio AR.

Department of Neurology, Division of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA. parvizi.josef@mayo.edu

The brainstem tegmentum, including the reticular formation, contains distinct nuclei, each of which has a set of chemical, physiological and anatomical features. Damage to the brainstem tegmentum is known to cause coma, the most radical disturbance of consciousness. However, it has remained unclear which nuclei within the tegmentum are crucial for the maintenance of consciousness in humans. Accordingly, we initiated a retrospective study of MRIs obtained from 47 patients with brainstem stroke. The lesion boundaries were charted on patient MRIs and transferred onto a corresponding series of 4.7 T MRIs obtained from a control brainstem specimen that later was cut on a freezing microtome and analysed histologically. In addition, medical charts and available post-mortem materials were used to obtain relevant clinical and anatomical data to verify the MRI readings in each case. We found that in the 38 patients who did not have coma, brainstem damage either was located outside the tegmentum (n = 29) or produced a very small and unilateral compromise of the tegmentum (n = 9). In contrast, in patients who had coma (n = 9), the lesions in the tegmentum were mostly bilateral (n = 7) and were located either in the pons alone (n = 4) or in the upper pons and the midbrain (n = 5). The maximum overlap territory of the lesions coincided with the location of the rostral raphe complex, locus coeruleus, laterodorsal tegmental nucleus, nucleus pontis oralis, parabrachial nucleus and the white matter in between these nuclei. We also found that four coma subjects developed hyperthermia and died in the absence of any infections. In these cases, the maximum lesion overlap was centred in the core of pontine tegmentum. Our findings suggest that lesions confined to the upper pons can cause coma in humans even in the absence of damage to the midbrain. The findings also point to the brainstem nuclei whose lesions are likely to be associated with loss of consciousness and fatal hyperthermia in humans.

PMID: 12805123 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

 

[Q_Goest]

Hi Job. I like your question, and thought it would be a good kick off point to some discussion around the central feature of the cemi field theory.

One thing that seems to go against this theory is the fact that some people who have undergone brain surgery while conscious report feeling normal even though the brain is exposed.

There are two ways to reduce or eliminate the impact of stray em fields and I believe both are needed for the cemi field theory and both are actually discussed in the papers.
1. Neurons must be reasonably well isolated from stray noise.
2. Neurons must be capable of filtering the noise from the fundamental signal.

This issue is discussed in the second paper under the heading "Pockett's difficulty 2". McFadden recognizes the large amount of information present in the brain's em field and suggests "only a tiny component of the information" corresponds to consciousness, so the excess information must be discarded. Em receiving devices such as radios, tv's, cell phones or other electronic devices are actually designed to accomplish these two features. One primary goal of an antenna for instance, is to provide for reception of a limited band of frequencies. The circuitry then filters out everything but the signal being tuned for.

Shouldn't neurons also accomplish the same two features? I believe so, and in fact this may lead to a more rigorous prediction for the theory. A focus on the mechanisms involved and a computational analysis on neurons' abilities to interact with specific fields may be just what is needed to help prove or disprove this theory. The field signal of interest is said to be integrated and distributed (ID) throughout the brain, but it comes along with much excess noise. If it exists, this ID information should in principal be measurable. It should also be calculable, such as is being done with the Blue Brain project, assuming they are modeling the em field in addition to the rest of the neocortical columns.

 

[somasimple]

HI,

1. Neurons must be reasonably well isolated from stray noise.
2. Neurons must be capable of filtering the noise from the fundamental signal.

Shouldn't neurons also accomplish the same two features? I believe so

1. Some neurons are inhibitors.
2. Some neurons are facilitators.

Is there a way that an EM field created by these different classes may be different?
How a distant neuron will regognize the difference?

 

[reena]

ELF or extremely low electromagnetic fields are related to human brain functions and in fact as the existence of Schuman resonance has demonstrated that there is an implied relation between human brainwave and ELF .

 

[somasimple]

reena,

We are all agreeing with this opinion. That is not the subject of the thread.

 

[Q_Goest]

The brainstem tegmentum, including the reticular formation, contains distinct nuclei, each of which has a set of chemical, physiological and anatomical features.

Hi Somasimple. Thanks for the info regarding 'seat of consciousness' or NCC's. Not sure what to call them, but unless there's a better word, I'll use NCC's.

You asked:

Is there a way that an EM field created by these different classes may be different?

From an engineering standpoint, if the cemi field theory is to have any significant predictive power, I have to believe it must predict there is a fundamental difference between neurons which provide a substrate for consciousness and those that don't. The theory must predict that the cemi field interacts in some mechanistic way with specific neurons in some specific portions of the brain and not others. If all neurons (ie: even nerves) interacted with the cemi field then our legs and fingers would be conscious too, provided they were close enough to interact. Locating a seat of consciousness and suggesting those neurons interacted directly with the cemi field seems to be a prediction of the theory. Although it is not listed as one of the eight, it seems to be implied.

These neurons that form a substrate for consciousness must also be 'tuned' to a specific field since the field has so much additional garbage in it.

Conclusion: there is a portion of neurons that interact with a portion of the em field. The portion of neurons might be called NCC's and the portion of the field is referred to as the cemi field. What sets the cemi field apart from other em noise is that it contains the information needed for a unified conscious experience. The cemi field must also be distinct from the noise such as perhaps by operating at a different frequency. (Does anyone see a problem with this conclusion given the theory provided?)

That conclusion results in a prediction. Prediction: If we locate the NCC's, then we should similarly find something unique about them which interacts with the cemi field. We should be able to model those neurons using typical finite element or control volume analysis techniques and find they have properties which are particularly receptive to em fields to the point of being able to interact with them. That analysis should also indicate a frequency or some other unique property of the field which sets it apart from the noise. Similarly, we should be able to do this type of analysis on other neurons and find they have significantly less ability to interact with em fields and the cemi field in particular. Another finding might be that NCC's are well protected from stray em fields.

I think this prediction may go counter to what is proposed by McFadden though. Thoughts? Johnjoe, are you still there? :)

 

[Q_Goest]

Hi reena. You obviously have a good background for discussing this concept. Please have a gander at the paper under discussion. To summarize very briefly, the cemi field theory suggests that em fields, analogous to TV fields/transmissions, are used by the brain to bind or unify information. These fields are external to the neurons. It has been suggested by many that the em fields within neurons that are passed between gap junctions are insufficient to provide for unity. Such signals are discrete, local, and not integrated.

 

[somasimple]

Hi again,

If all neurons (ie: even nerves) interacted with the cemi field then our legs and fingers would be conscious too, provided they were close enough to interact.

But nerves are neurons!? and are connected to brain by neurons.
Some medical trials say that body stimuli are mandatory to process/create consciousness. So body is an indiscutable part of it (because body is just a way for brain to apprehend world)

See Damasio's books; Looking for Spinoza and the Descartes' Error.

 

[Q_Goest]

Some medical trials say that body stimuli are mandatory to process/create consciousness.

Interesting. Are you saying a "brain in a vat" would result in the brain not being conscious? Are stimuli provided by external means (ie: an electric impulse) not equal to actual stimuli? I can only remember a single bit of research that suggested they were, but that's not my field. I believe the whole point of the 'brain in a vat' thought experiment was to suggest there are no special signals, that any equivalent signal would produce identical reactions and would feel the same to the person. Hence, no loss or change in consciousness despite the brain being disconnected from a human and inside a vat.

 

[somasimple]

Hi,

I wasn't thinking so directly to the "brain in a vat" story. It is perhaps possible to reproduce all incoming "electrical" stimuli with patience and time?

But it will not work if you limit brain, to an electrical "computer" (it is not).
But brain is the first endocrine system of body and hormones/peptides produced are modifying directly the manufacturer.

Consciousness needs a "body state" to create a "reference Self". Brain works with differences comparing a state to a newer one and updating continuously the reference material.

Some medical states as psychosis and phantom limbs problems, for an example show that an impairment/perturbation of incoming stimuli create a distortion and "painful solutions".

It is why I persist to think that a cemi field is an integrated "reflection" of brain activity but it can't directly rely the subtle changes in the brain endocrine system.
Do not forget that a neuron is able to synthetize around... 20,000 peptides.

 

[cotarded]

Wow. The development of this thread has been an immensely pleasant suprise. Thanks to everyone, especially johnjoe - to who I am most grateful for sparing us the time -, q_goest, and somasimple, for putting such effort into what has become a great discourse. I've been humbled into silence thus far, since others have consistently provided a more eloquent and perspicious presentation of whatever questions, confusions, or observations I might have been able to offer. This has been a thoroughly thought-provoking experience, and has impelled me into quite a bit of illuminating research and questioning as well.
But anyway, nobody wants a bunch of praise and gratitude from someone who has nothing to say for themselves. So here's my input:
Somasimple said:

"But it will not work if you limit brain, to an electrical "computer" (it is not). ...
It is why I persist to think that a cemi field is an integrated "reflection" of brain activity but it can't directly rely the subtle changes in the brain endocrine system."

This all seems irrelevant to the cemi field theory, which, though it has claimed that the field has access to all of the information repersented by neural firing, doesn't need complete access to all the biology or chemistry that influences our neural processes. It seems to me that since we've already both accepted that the field is primarily effected ('e' intended) by large, synchronous groups of neurons, and that only a small part of the fields' content even comprises our consciousness, it seems cavilling to try and dismiss the idea on the basis of neglecting to factor a certain type of neural input.
From an evolutionary standpoint, this new system evolved in addition to the old, so it is seems only valid that it integrates less information than the system below it (unnecessary to reproduce the entire existing system - not even productive) to distill meaningful data to be returned to that system.
Somasimple:

"But nerves are neurons!? and are connected to brain by neurons.
Some medical trials say that body stimuli are mandatory to process/create consciousness. So body is an indiscutable part of it (because body is just a way for brain to apprehend world)"

As far as the first sentence, it seems you've forgotten this paper acknowledges a dichotomy between conscious and unconscious neural processing.
In addition, I'm willing to bet that those medical trials didn't induce unconsciousness, but simply disrupted normal functioning. Even someone lost in a fugue is still conscious, though functioning may be disrupted (I'm asserting sentience, which is generally assumed to be a conscious thing). Assuming knocking someone out through sensory deprivation were possible, a loss of sensory input may compromise lower systems in the brain that preceded the conscious, higher level systems evolutionarily, causing a loss of consciousness (as the conscious systems grew taking the others' nominal functioning for granted). A program for which internet access isn't essential, but assumed, can cease to function without an internet connection, because of the assumption, not due to an inherent requirement. This is relevant, because it implies the possibility of using pharmacological intervention to artifically compensate for the lack of afferent arousal and revive consciousness in a discarnate brain.
somasimple:

"Do not forget that a neuron is able to synthetize around... 20,000 peptides."

Man, the complexity of our brains is just unfathomable .
q_goest:

"If all neurons (ie: even nerves) interacted with the cemi field then our legs and fingers would be conscious too, provided they were close enough to interact."

Not conscious, but contributing information to the conscious field. One of the advantages of this theory was it's elegant resolution of the binding problem... we can't simutaneously entertain the idea of delocalized consciousness.
q_goest:

"here are two ways to reduce or eliminate the impact of stray em fields and I believe both are needed for the cemi field theory and both are actually discussed in the papers.
1. Neurons must be reasonably well isolated from stray noise.
2. Neurons must be capable of filtering the noise from the fundamental signal."

It seems to me that these concerns about noise, or a distored signal, are misplaced. Assuming evolution, the whole thing developed with the distortion/noise concurrent. Perhaps I am forgetting that the position of neurons in your brain is far from set in genetic stone. Dismissing genetic evolution, there's the evolution of your conscious system as you develop from a- nebulously conscious -newborn. Your consciousness cohering and becoming "capable of communicating self-generated inrreducibly complex concepts like 'self'," could repersent the slow acquisition of neural configuration that considers the distortion of signal, interference, etc.
lates,
cotarded.

 

[cotarded]

motor neurons: decisive for consciousness?

Again and again, motor neurons are mentioned in this paper and in this thread as what divides the consciousness-relevant bits of the em field from the rest. I propose something that at least to me seems far more reasonable.
After all, what makes consciousness so enigmatic is how private and personal the experience is; I can't reconcile that with a dependency on outward expression (here come the studies that show subvocalisation for our internal speech).

Memory. What is a flash of sentience in the dark? Our consciousness could be what it feels like to be an evolving feedback loop inside short-term memory, with input supplied by the outside world. So maybe there is field consciousness, and all the other sorts described in the paper, but what makes us self-reflective is the fact that we CAN reflect off of ourselves: our stored snapshots in memory. So I opine that the part of our EM field that can affect the memory encoding process is the part that is conscious.

Feedback?

-cotarded.

 

[hypnagogue]

Memory. What is a flash of sentience in the dark? Our consciousness could be what it feels like to be an evolving feedback loop inside short-term memory, with input supplied by the outside world. So maybe there is field consciousness, and all the other sorts described in the paper, but what makes us self-reflective is the fact that we CAN reflect off of ourselves: our stored snapshots in memory. So I opine that the part of our EM field that can affect the memory encoding process is the part that is conscious.

If you read any of Bernard Baars' work, his model of consciousness largely implicates working memory and attention as two of the main cognitive functions associated with consciousness. (Any in-depth further discussion on this is probably better left for another thread.)

In a sense, focusing on motor systems makes sense, since presumably any mental content that is within consciousness can be poised to guide flexible kinds of motor behavior, even if it does not wind up doing so (e.g. as in Ned Block's conception of access consciousness). So a reasonable constraint on any theory of consciousness is that the phenomena in the brain proposed to be correlated/synonymous/whatever with consciousness have the requisite kind of power to affect the brain's motor outputs. Though of course, that will not be the only useful constraint.

 

[Q_Goest]

I feel a bit let down by the 8 predictions provided by the theory. I'm not convinced the predictions, if proven, would thus prove the theory. I'd be glad to hear arguments to the contrary.

However, I think there's a very solid prediction the theory could make. The theory suggests that motor neurons are the ones interacting with the cemi field, but it is acknowledged this field is analogous to a single TV station signal among hundreds of signals which are simply garbage (per McFadden). From the second paper under "Pockett's difficulty 2"

Pockett's second difficulty points out that 'there actually is no one-to-one correspondence between electromagnetic patterns measurable at the scalp or the surface of the brain and the conscious sensations experienced by the "owner" of the brain' (p. 53). However, I would argue that this is only a problem for em field theories that propose an identity between the brain's total em field and conscious experience. Indeed, the issue highlights a difficulty with any identity theory between the brain's em field and consciousness. Since every action potential generates a perturbation in the surrounding em field, the information flow through the brain's em field must be of a similar order of magnitude as the spike rate of cortical neurons, about 10^12 bits per second. But this is far greater than the approximately 40 bits per second that are estimated to be involved in conscious thinking (Norretranders, 1998). Clearly only a tiny component of the information held in the brain's em field can correspond to consciousness so any identity theory must find some means of discarding the excess information. In the cemi field theory this is explained by the requirement for the field information to be downloaded to motor neurons. In my paper, I showed that induced transmembrane voltages are in the range of several microvolts up to about one millivolt. Neurons will thereby only be sensitive to em field effects when they are within a millivolt or less of the firing threshold. Since transmembrane voltages vary across approximately 130 mV, very crudely, we would expect less than one hundredth of neurons to be receptive to information held in the surrounding extracellular field. The corollary of this is that most of the information in the brain's em field will not be downloaded into neurons. Therefore, in the cemi field theory, only a tiny portion of the informational content in EEG or MEG signals would be expected to correlate with consciousness. A one-to-one correspondence between perturbations of the brain's em field and consciousness is not therefore expected in the cemi field theory. Although the failure to make a clearly verifiable prediction of a correlation between the gross structure of the brain's em field and consciousness may be considered to be a weakness of the cemi field theory, the theory does make many alternative predictions as described in my earlier paper, and I describe a direct test in the final section of this paper.

In the final section of the paper, a very unique prediction is provided (Discussion section) but the prediction requires the manufacture of an artificially aware computer. I'd agree this would be a much more solid, even indisputable test of the theory. Unfortunately for us, it is so far off into the future we probably won't see such a test in our lifetimes.

Instead, I would suggest one could make a prediction about the theory which is testable today using current technology.

The theory MUST predict that the portion of the em field in the brain, the cemi field, is somehow different from the rest. If it didn't then the motor neurons would also pick up all the other garbage in the em field and not be able to distinguish, just as a TV signal that had another signal of the same frequency on top of it could not receive the TV signal. Your TV would give you lots of static and garbage because both signals were using the same frequency. The same applies to the cemi field, it has to be different enough (not necessarily frequency, though I'm unsure of this) that the motor neurons can separate it out from the garbage.

Similarly, the cemi field theory must predict that the motor neurons are different than other neurons with respect to certain em fields. One can for example, analyze an antenna and/or a radio and determine what signal frequency it is able to interact with. Conversely, the motor neurons (if they really are picking up this cemi field) must be able to interact with whatever is unique about the cemi field. One should be able to analyze a motor neuron and a neuron in your finger for example, and show that these neurons are capable of interacting with different em fields. This is normally done in engineering using sophisticated finite element or "control volume" concepts. Such tools should be capable of indicating what em fields a neuron is susceptible to and prove one way or another if the cemi field theory is correct or not.

Cotard said: Not conscious, but contributing information to the conscious field.

Yes, exactly. Sensory neurons, per the cemi field theory, must relay information which contributes to the cemi field, but not be sensitive to it (they are not motor neurons in the brain). The only way I can see that being possible is for the sensors (ie: nerves in your hand) to transmit a signal to your brain, and some other neurons in the brain must then convert that information to the cemi field. One has to ask the question, "What neurons create the cemi field?" I don't see that in the paper, but in principal, I believe the answer is that sensory neurons transmit information to the brain which is then converted by other neurons into em vibrations which can be interpreted by the motor neurons or something like that.

I'd also suggest another prediction but I'll hold off on that one for now.

 

[Q_Goest]

Ok, I think I just fell off the deep end and would like to know if there are any sharks in these waters. <grin> I'm looking at a picture of various types of neurons. If I use my imagination, the axon looks a lot like an antenna, and the nodes of Ranvier look like the neuron's way of tuning that antenna. The distance between these nodes might act to selectively transmit/receive specific em frequencies. And I'd think the general shape would have a distinct effect on em field interaction as well (though I suspect that shape is generally straight). This suggests that the length of an axon, and the distance between nodes (and possibly the general shape) will characterize the frequency of response to any em field that the neuron is exposed to. If there is something unique about specific neurons in the brain which might interact with a field, it might be these characteristics of the axon. Can anyone comment on the role of the nodes?

 

[Moonbear]

Ok, I think I just fell off the deep end and would like to know if there are any sharks in these waters. <grin> I'm looking at a picture of various types of neurons. If I use my imagination, the axon looks a lot like an antenna, and the nodes of Ranvier look like the neuron's way of tuning that antenna.

You're looking at a stylized drawing for the purpose of schematically illustrating the parts of a neuron. It's not what they really look like if you look at them under a microscope. Besides, similarity in shape does not translate into similarity in function.