Is Consciousness Unique to Human Brains?

[kant]

What makes you say that? They don't lose the ability to use language; they don't lose their memories; they don't lose the ability to learn; they don't lose the ability to function normally in everyday life. Both hemispheres carry out much of the same function, with the primary differences being the right hemisphere processes information obtained from the left side of the body and vice versa. If you want to simulate much of what it's like, just paralyze one side of your body, blind one eye, and deafen one ear. It doesn't reduce you to the level of a dumb beast.

Hmm... i remember reading brain functions are localized. The left hemisphere specialized in things like language, mathematics and sequential thinking, while the right hemisphere specializes in things like pattern recongnition, intuition...

Ex: A person can t be able to read or write if his/her left brain is paralized.

 

[kant]

What is this? Are you giving me the silent treatment, loseyourname? I want to know your position.

 

[loseyourname]

Ha, no, I'm not giving the silent treatment. I just haven't checked back in 'til now.

What happens when the corpus callosum is excised or damaged is not that either hemisphere ceases to work. Both continue to work fine; they just cannot communicate. If you're right about which functions are localized where, then the patient would only be able to verbally report what he saw through his right eye, though his left hand could still draw a picture of what he saw through the left eye.

 

[kant]

Ha, no, I'm not giving the silent treatment. I just haven't checked back in 'til now.

What happens when the corpus callosum is excised or damaged is not that either hemisphere ceases to work. Both continue to work fine; they just cannot communicate. If you're right about which functions are localized where, then the patient would only be able to verbally report what he saw through his right eye, though his left hand could still draw a picture of what he saw through the left eye.

So each hemisphere is "conscious", because certain cognitive processes are hemisphere bias...? Tell me how each hemisphere is "conscious" again? In otherword, convince me that each hemisphere has "self-awearness".

 

[-Job-]

So what is this "externalData" ? is it "experience"?

What is a "output"?

I am not convince.

I meant externalData as sensory input to the body. Output, as your actions + thoughts.
I'm not convinced either, it's only a hypothesis.

 

[kant]

I meant externalData as sensory input to the body. Output, as your actions + thoughts.
I'm not convinced either, it's only a hypothesis.

So it is a hypothesis? So human conscious is recursive. That is your point, right?

 

[-Job-]

That's my suggestion, yes. I can't claim it if i haven't verified it, I'm not mad.

 

[kant]

That's my suggestion, yes. I can't claim it if i haven't verified it, I'm not mad.

Well, i am just playing along, hommie.

Ok. Give me a realistic example that human consciousness is recursive. Explain to be me what is self-awearness using your paradigm? How do a person learn, and acquire a new skills?

 

[-Job-]

I don't think learning is a particularly hard thing to explain. Learning is actually perfectly modeled with "neural networks" used in computers. These neural networks are a software implementation. They are used for tasks such a speech/image recognition and they are useful because they can actually learn. Basically there are a couple of variables per "dendrite" (a dendrite is part of the anatomy of a neuron that connects a neuron to another). One such variable is called a "weight". A simple implementation of a neural network is to have layers of neurons, such as:

O O O O O O input layer
O O O O O O layer 2
O O O O O O layer 3
O O O O O O layer 4
...
O O O O O O output layer
(where each O is a neuron)
Each neuron has an axon which has many dendrites, so a neuron can be connected to many neurons in the next layer.
When the neural network receives input it (in a biological being it would be like visual/auditory input for example), that input causes certain neurons in the input layer to fire, depending on the input. When these neurons fire, they excite neurons in the next layer, but not in the same way. Each dendrite has a "weight" that determines how each receptor neuron is excited. This continues down from layer to layer, until it reaches the output layer. This output layer, in a biological being, could be the neurons in your hand, and depending on what output the neural network generated the hand will do different movements.
By settings the weights with trial and error you would be able to test certain weight distributions and check which ones get you the output you want for the given input. The important thing is which weights to keep and which weights to change depending on success or failure of the output and which you'll determine by some algorithm. Depending on the algorithm you'll learn faster or slower.
In a actual biological being it's much more complex than this. learning is dependent not only on the weights but also on the number of conenctions and number of neurons. All of which vary from time to time. Neural connections that are not frequently used will deteriorate and eventually disappear. If this causes a neuron to become isolated it will die.
So it seems pretty clear that learning is performed by setting all these variables accordingly.
Consciousness isn't required for learning, but i won't say it doesn't play a role in speeding it up.

 

[-Job-]

As for my suggesting that consciousness is recursive, it comes from observation of the human brain. When input reaches the brain in the form of stimulus carried along the spinal cord into some area of the brain, that area of the brain is stimulated. This stimulation will propagate throughtout the brain, and it will alter the "voltage" in the soma of certain neurons. If the voltage is past the threshold the neuron will fire an action potential. The result from the input having reached the brain is then that:
1) it will cause neurons to fire
2) it will set the voltage of neurons such that they are closer or farther away from firing
3) some of this activity may reach output neurons where an action will be performed.

Some things to consider are that whenever an input reaches the brain, even if no further input comes in, the brain may remain active. Meaning that this input may inititate some cycle besides being able to generate some output.
Modeling the brain with a function:
Say that f(x) is the state of the brain after the brain processes input x, where the state of the brain is given by the "voltage" of each neuron.
Suppose the initial state of the brain is 0, then, if we receive input x=12, we may say that:
f(12) = 0 + 12 = 12
and so the new state of the brain will be 12.
If we next receive input x = 3, then
f(3) = 12 + 3 = 15
In other words we are saying that f(x), the function that gives the state of the brain after an input x is:
f(x) = currentState + input = nextState
This isn't an unreasonable function, of course it is more like
f(x) = currentState + g(input)
But the function is recursive. It's like, for example, you see a Canary, you think of its color (maybe yellow), then you see some t-shirts for sale and because you're thinking about yellow, you notice the yellow shirt so now you think about the yellow shirt... etc. It's input leads to thought, thought + input leads to thought, thought + input leads to thought, etc.
Or, more accurately: input leads to thought + action, thought + input leads to thought + action, thought + input leads to thought + action, etc.

 

[kant]

I ask you for your hypothesis of how consciousness works, and you give me this lenghty explanation on how neural networks "learning"? what am i to make of this?

 

[kant]

As for my suggesting that consciousness is recursive, it comes from observation of the human brain. When input reaches the brain in the form of stimulus carried along the spinal cord into some area of the brain, that area of the brain is stimulated. This stimulation will propagate throughtout the brain, and it will alter the "voltage" in the soma of certain neurons. If the voltage is past the threshold the neuron will fire an action potential. The result from the input having reached the brain is then that:
1) it will cause neurons to fire
2) it will set the voltage of neurons such that they are closer or farther away from firing
3) some of this activity may reach output neurons where an action will be performed.

Some things to consider are that whenever an input reaches the brain, even if no further input comes in, the brain may remain active. Meaning that this input may inititate some cycle besides being able to generate some output.
Modeling the brain with a function:
Say that f(x) is the state of the brain after the brain processes input x, where the state of the brain is given by the "voltage" of each neuron.
Suppose the initial state of the brain is 0, then, if we receive input x=12, we may say that:
f(12) = 0 + 12 = 12
and so the new state of the brain will be 12.
If we next receive input x = 3, then
f(3) = 12 + 3 = 15
In other words we are saying that f(x), the function that gives the state of the brain after an input x is:
f(x) = currentState + input = nextState
This isn't an unreasonable function, of course it is more like
f(x) = currentState + g(input)
But the function is recursive. It's like, for example, you see a Canary, you think of its color (maybe yellow), then you see some t-shirts for sale and because you're thinking about yellow, you notice the yellow shirt so now you think about the yellow shirt... etc. It's input leads to thought, thought + input leads to thought, thought + input leads to thought, etc.
Or, more accurately: input leads to thought + action, thought + input leads to thought + action, thought + input leads to thought + action, etc.

How do you define consciousness? Is self-awearness/consciusness suppost to emerge from all this..? Is it the firing of neurons? Is the the process of thought( t) + input( i) , t-i, t-i ...?

This is begging the question. Consciousness implies thought, yet, you use the word "thought" to show Consciousness.

 

[clouded.perception]

When cutting the corpus callosum was still a treatment for epilepsy, they did an experiment where they put a pair of those goggles that contain a separate picture in each eyepiece, and with a division to block the other eye's view, on a patient. The right eye had a square in it, the left a circle. On a person with normal vision and normal brain activity, this would be perceived as a quare and circl, intersecting each other.
When the patient was asked what they saw, they replied that they had seen a square. When asked to draw what they had seen, they drew a circle. If they were asked what they had drawn, they would insist that they had drawn a square. This was taken as an indication of the different roles of the two sides of the brain, which was later backed up with brain scans in many experiments worldwide (when technology got good enough).
It is interesting to note that the patient's spatial area knew to draw a circle, but their language centre believed the shape was a square. They reported no mental confusion on this. It seems that the language centre knew that it had seen a square and didn't cross-reference the information with the body's own actions (drawing a circle).
Yes, I know all of this is a side point and not really relevant to the conversation; I just found it interesting.

 

[Les Sleeth]

I have read your posts, and I think your "doesn't make sense" is just purely defensive, that you don't really couple to the cognitive science research or to zooby's explanations in terms of micro seizure, but just hand wave them away. I remain open to anything you may have to say on this issue, because apart from name-calling, it's all that stands between us.

What am I defending? I don't believe anything. All I have going for me is what I've experienced. Some of it indicates this, some of it indicates that. So I have to weigh the different things on a daily basis.

I’ll try again to explain myself but I don’t think you are judging me fairly. On my side of it, just for your information, I view your intellect and learning with great respect (which I’ve openly said before, and now I’m saying it again). Einstein was a great thinker, but he still resisted uncertainty and the expansion of the universe. That shows a brilliant thinker can nonetheless be harboring unfounded beliefs in advance of (and/or in spite of) evidence; and that intellectual failure can color one’s judgment.

I claim I am being objective and you are not. Why? Because you seem to ignore or gloss over a fact I find impossible to pass by.

If physicalist theory is true, there is one trait physicalness must have above and before all others: self-organization. And not just for a few steps, it has to be a type of organization that can result in fortuitous changes over billions of years. And, not just fortuitous changes, but changes that result in systems (systems: a combination of elements organized into a complex whole). And not just systems, but multiple new systems which interrelate in such a way to form mega-systems like a cell.

Now let’s survey reality. Where do we see mechanistic/physical self-organizing of that quality? Nowhere! The only examples physicalist believers cite are within an already-existing self-organizing system. A fatally-flawed bit of logic is to point to all the physical/mechanical aspects of biology as proof matter can self-organize. Does the discovery of an assembled computer mean the computer assembled itself? No, to believe that we have to find an self-assembling principle. If we don’t have sufficient evidence for such a principle, why would one believe such a thing unless one was already predisposed to believing in self-assembly?

In every case I know of personally, and have read about, all attempts to get matter to self organize BY ITSELF (i.e., without conscious intervention) only progresses for a few steps. There are no exceptions to this, there are no physicalistic “miracles” as of yet. So, there is really no evidence matter can self-organize much.

Now, jump to physicalist theory, which everything from the origin of life to evolution of life forms is dependent on matter’s ability to self-organize. And then we get in a forum discussion where you and LYN want to skip over that physicalist deficiency to discuss if the brain is creating “self” or consciousness. But you haven’t yet explained how we got off the ground to reach the stage of development where brain that can do that. You want to jump billions of years and development ahead of our missing self-organizing principle and talk like we have a foundation for considering a physicalist theory when in reality you haven’t even accounted for the most basic thing.

You imply I have my own belief system from which I am evaluating. Okay, then I’ll admit to what it is. I want the foundation of a theory strongly indicated before we leap to all the wondrous feats we are going to attribute to that theory. If you want to award creator status to physicalness, then first show it can get creative!

 

[clouded.perception]

Self-organisation... does crystal growth count?

 

[Les Sleeth]

Self-organisation... does crystal growth count?

There are a great many examples of self-organization in nature, and yes crystal growth is one of them. But how does a logical person extrapolate from the numbingly repetitive organizaton of crystal growth--the same pattern, over and over and over--that matter can self-organize rather perfectly into high-functioning systems?

It's like concluding from a stone one finds resembling George Washington that erosion created his figure at Mt. Rushmore. Yes, they might both have a few things in common, but there is a vast difference between accidental shaping and conscious shaping. I am not insisting that life was consciously shaped (e.g. by God), but I am claiming that so far we have not discovered physical behaviors and principles which can self-organize with the quality it takes to create living systems.

So what is the basis of physicalist confidence that physicalness alone has created life? I cannot see the basis of their "faith," which to me seems nothing more than a reaction to religion, and not objective at all. The objective scientific position would be to say we haven't a clue what does it, we have no evidence substantial enough to attribute life's self-organization to anything known (scientifically).

 

[quantumcarl]

I drink, though I am not... right now. Give me a minute!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The idea that "thought" exists in its own right is an illusion. Thought is simply the mind's chemical language.

This kept nagging at me.

We can have random thoughts, but by definition, a thought is structured [useful] information. Even if my mind races from one thought to the next in an illogical manner, each individual thought must still have structure such that information is contained "within" the thought.

Taking from what I believe is a proof from information theory, since structured information contains energy, thoughts must exist.

We adopt the view that information is the primary physical entity possessing objective meaning. Based on two postulates stating that (i) entanglement is a form of quantum information corresponding to internal energy and (ii) sending qubits corresponds to work, we show that in the closed bipartite quantum-communication systems, the information is conserved. We also discuss the entanglement-energy analogy in the context of the Gibbs-Helmholtz-like equation connecting the entanglement, of formation, distillable entanglement, and bound entanglement. Then we show that in the deterministic protocols of distillation, the information is conserved. We also discuss the objectivity of quantum information in the context of information interpretation of quantum states and algorithmic complexity.

http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v63/i2/e022310

 

[selfAdjoint]

Memories exist physicallyand contain information. Sensations exist, as channels bringing physical information from the environment. Merge-melding channels of memory and sensation information on a "scratchpad" is an information describable process, but also entirely physical. This is about what I think consciousness is. Very much more complex in detail, of course, than this generalized description.

 

[octelcogopod]

Memories exist physicallyand contain information. Sensations exist, as channels bringing physical information from the environment. Merge-melding channels of memory and sensation information on a "scratchpad" is an information describable process, but also entirely physical. This is about what I think consciousness is. Very much more complex in detail, of course, than this generalized description.

That may be, but the consciousness itself is not physical.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

We adopt the view that information is the primary physical entity possessing objective meaning

If we accept the idea that consciousness is information merging on a scatchpad, then the question of whether or not my computer is conscious seems to be open; and for that matter, my battery, or even my coffee...when stirred.

 

[quantumcarl]

That may be, but the consciousness itself is not physical.

Can you prove awareness is not physical?

There does exist proof that it is physical.

 

[PIT2]

Can you prove awareness is not physical?

There does exist proof that it is physical.

The only proof that we have is that consciousness and the physical interact with each other, and this can be interpreted in many different ways. What is clear however is that the two are different beyond comparison.

 

[selfAdjoint]

If we accept the idea that consciousness is information merging on a scatchpad, then the question of whether or not my computer is conscious seems to be open; and for that matter, my battery, or even my coffee...when stirred.

Well my description was perhaps oversimplified. I believe you have some knowledge of Complexity Theory. My idea is that the ongoing process lies at the dynamic edge between systems that settle down to equilibrium, like your coffee, on the one hand, and mathematically chaotical systems, on the other. This is where complex systems live, and such systems can possesss (soft) emergent behavior, and I believe that that is what consciousness is.

 

[quantumcarl]

The only proof that we have is that consciousness and the physical interact with each other,

Please direct me to the proof that awareness takes place outside of the physical domain. And please provide me with proof that demonstrates how this stated "non-physical consciousness/awareness" interacts with the physical domain.

When you are able to point to examples of this proof I will be able to demonstrate how these examples are simple physical interactions that some people term "awareness" and some call "consciousness".

I've pointed out in the Philosophy Secretion repeatedly that there is a barrier to our observing and/or perceiving a non-physical domain. That barrier is our physical condition as physical structures. Our physical structure is our only means of perceiving our environment. Can our senses perceive something that "is not physically present"... or, as is being defined... non-physical? My answer is "no" for the reasons stated above.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Well my description was perhaps oversimplified. I believe you have some knowledge of Complexity Theory. My idea is that the ongoing process lies at the dynamic edge between systems that settle down to equilibrium, like your coffee, on the one hand, and mathematically chaotical systems, on the other. This is where complex systems live, and such systems can possesss (soft) emergent behavior, and I believe that that is what consciousness is.

Is there nothing but the brain as an example of this type of system? What specific physical property or process is unique to brains?

Going back to the idea of a computer, there is plenty of chaos at the atomic level. Shottkey and Johnson noise, for example.

...not to mention Brownian motion in my coffee.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

btw, I'm not disagreeing with you, rather I am wondering whether or not we can assign limits of some type. When I ask if my computer is conscious, I'm not kidding; at least not entirely. The more that I hear about consciousness, the more I wonder how far the idea might be extended - how we can limit this activity to brains. Obviously my computer could be self-aware and we would have no way to know.

Deepak Choprah once described the immune system as a circulating intelligence. He argues that it is an active part of our consciousness.

 

[-Job-]

If consciousness arises uniquely out of physical interactions of matter, then the system of interactions producing consciousness ought to be describable by mathematics. This would mean that any physical system implementing and behaving according to that mathematical specification ought to be conscious as well. Possibly there are many ways to produce consciousness.
Computer algorithms can examplify this. Algorithms are equivalent to mathematical functions. You don't need the traditional computer to run an algorithm. If you have an algorithm performing addition of two numbers, then you could implement it with a network of water channels for example. Imagine a device where you pour a certain amount of water at the top, the water is distributed through the network of tubes (which implement the algorithm) and comes out at the bottom perhaps filling 10 cups with water, the amount of water representing a value (possibly empty=0, not-empty=1), thus encoding the sum of the two numbers in binary.
Similarly, if we were to find out the process by which consciousness is produced, we could model its behavior with an algorithm and implement it in almost any "device". This is assuming there isn't anything preventing this, like some weird quantum effect for example.

 

[PIT2]

Please direct me to the proof that awareness takes place outside of the physical domain. And please provide me with proof that demonstrates how this stated "non-physical consciousness/awareness" interacts with the physical domain.

Contrary to what one may think, there exists no proof that consciousness is physical, or nonphysical.
The burden of proof lies upon the one who claims that consciousness is physical, or is nonphysical.

Here is an interesting discussion about defining 'physical':
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=58723

Can our senses perceive something that "is not physically present"... or, as is being defined... non-physical? My answer is "no" for the reasons stated above.

Can u prove that the pink elephant in someones dream is 'physically present'?
I doubt it

 

[quantumcarl]

Can u prove that the pink elephant in someones dream is 'physically present'?
I doubt it

The concept of the pink elephant is present, physcially, as a few neurons firing in the brain. The phenomenon of concept is purely physical. The manifestation of concepts like these vary according to the physiology of the brain conceiving them.

Take St. Patrick, for example. He saw snakes.