C0NSCIOUNESS

CONSCIOUSNESS

Personal comments

This ability of our species to process information in more than a "STIMULUS-REACTION " manner and our large capacity for logic and foresight separates us form lower primates. This ,however, is poorly understood even today and has been subject of much controversy.

Basically two different camps of thought:

1) MIND-BODY SEPARATION (Descartes) consciousness is not completely a product of the neurons in our brain but is acted on by some external source of energy or information that exists extracorpoerally . 2) EMERGENCE of consciousness and cognative abilities within the neural structure of our brains alone or in sensory organs processing information that doesn’t depend on any outside source – the interplay of neurons introduces a complex system from which consciousness can occur

There have been some recent discoveries of the possibility of the brain depending on a quantum system for consciousness by Penrose and Hameroff-- the ARCA system. This takes place within a specialized form of microtubule ( proposed as possible receptors for extrinsic information) that accompanies each neuron that can recruit themselves “as a whole system simultaneously” – this will allow vast increase processing of information and possible reception of quantum information from an external source. I think quantum interaction has also already been shown in the olfactory process.

This section will ask the reader to view many of these propositions on very excellent YouTube lectures since they would be very informative and would include subtleties---(chat GPT )would overly categorize them for sure)

Total consciousness may be an admixture of both -an "awareness consciousness" may be biologically generated from sensory inputs such as the visual system ( Graham Guest)--the higher lavels of conscious "cognition" perhaps can ocur from our"quantum awareness"

Whether” Conscious” performance completely emerges from brain tissue or is externally generated is a very important subject with many, profound implifications for us as you might gather

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WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS

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Mind–Body Problem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghJ2OL4o4FA

The first influential philosopher to discuss this question specifically was Descartes, and the answer he gave is known as Cartesian dualism. Descartes proposed that consciousness resides within an immaterial domain he called res cogitans (the realm of thought), in contrast to the domain of material things, which he called res extensa (the realm of extension).[ He suggested that the interaction between these two domains occurs inside the brain, perhaps in a small midline structure called the pineal gland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness#:~:text=Although%20it%20is,thought.%5B53%5D

Although it is widely accepted that Descartes explained the problem cogently, few later philosophers have been happy with his solution, and his ideas about the pineal gland have especially been ridiculed. However, no alternative solution has gained general acceptance. Proposed solutions can be divided broadly into two categories: dualist solutions that maintain Descartes's rigid distinction between the realm of consciousness and the realm of matter but give different answers for how the two realms relate to each other; and monist solutions that maintain that there is really only one realm of being, of which consciousness and matter are both aspects. Each of these categories itself contains numerous variants. The two main types of dualism are substance dualism (which holds that the mind is formed of a distinct type of substance not governed by the laws of physics) and property dualism (which holds that the laws of physics are universally valid but cannot be used to explain the mind). The three main types of monism are physicalism (which holds that the mind consists of matter organized in a particular way), idealism (which holds that only thought or experience truly exists, and matter is merely an illusion), and neutral monism (which holds that both mind and matter are aspects of a distinct essence that is itself identical to neither of them). There are also, however, a large number of idiosyncratic theories that cannot cleanly be assigned to any of these schools of thought.

Integrated information theory postulates that consciousness resides in the information being processed and arises once the information reaches a certain level of complexity. Additionally, IIT is one of the only leading theories of consciousness that attempts to create a 1:1 mapping between conscious states and precise, formal mathematical descriptions of those mental states. Proponents of this model suggest that it may provide a physical grounding for consciousness in neurons, as they provide the mechanism by which information is integrated.

Graziano and Kastner proposed the "attention schema" theory of awareness. In that theory, specific cortical areas, notably in the superior temporal sulcus and the temporo-parietal junction, are used to build the construct of awareness and attribute it to other people. The same cortical machinery is also used to attribute awareness to oneself.

Opinions are divided as to where in biological evolution consciousness emerged and about whether or not consciousness has any survival value. Some argue that consciousness is a byproduct of evolution. It has been argued that consciousness emerged

(i) exclusively with the first humans,

(ii) exclusively with the first mammals,

(iii) independently in mammals and birds, or

(iv) with the first reptiles. Other authors date the origins of consciousness to the first animals with nervous systems or early vertebrates in the Cambrian over 500 million years ago. Donald Griffin suggests in his book Animal Minds a gradual evolution of consciousness. Each of these scenarios raises the question of the possible survival value of consciousness.

IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

TURING TEST

One of the most influential contributions to this question was an essay written in 1950 by pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing, titled Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Turing disavowed any interest in terminology, saying that even "Can machines think?" is too loaded with spurious connotations to be meaningful; but he proposed to replace all such questions with a specific operational test, which has become known as the Turing test. To pass the test, a computer must be able to imitate a human well enough to fool interrogators.

Douglas Hofstadter argue that anything capable of passing the Turing test is necessarily conscious,while David Chalmers argues that a philosophical zombie could pass the test, yet fail to be conscious.A third group of scholars have argued that with technological growth once machines begin to display any substantial signs of human-like behavior then the dichotomy (of human consciousness compared to human-like consciousness) becomes passé and issues of machine autonomy begin to prevail even as observed in its nascent form within contemporary industry and technology.

CHINESE ROOM TEST

In a lively exchange over what has come to be referred to as "the Chinese room argument", John Searle sought to refute the claim of proponents of what he calls "strong artificial intelligence (AI)" that a computer program can be conscious, though he does agree with advocates of "weak AI" that computer programs can be formatted to "simulate" conscious states.

His own view is that consciousness has subjective, first-person causal powers by being essentially intentional due to the way human brains function biologically; conscious persons can perform computations, but consciousness is not inherently computational the way computer programs are.

To make a Turing machine that speaks Chinese, Searle imagines a room with one monolingual English speaker (Searle himself, in fact), a book that designates a combination of Chinese symbols to be output paired with Chinese symbol input, and boxes filled with Chinese symbols.

In this case, the English speaker is acting as a computer and the rulebook as a program. Searle argues that with such a machine, he would be able to process the inputs to outputs perfectly without having any understanding of Chinese, nor having any idea what the questions and answers could possibly mean.

If the experiment were done in English, since Searle knows English, he would be able to take questions and give answers without any algorithms for English questions, and he would be effectively aware of what was being said and the purposes it might serve. Searle would pass the Turing test of answering the questions in both languages, but he is only conscious of what he is doing when he speaks English.

Another way of putting the argument is to say that computer programs can pass the Turing test for processing the syntax of a language, but that the syntax cannot lead to semantic meaning in the way strong AI advocates hoped.[

Examining The state of Consciousness is not specifically apropos for the subject to be included in this webpage. The mechanism of consciousness, as an entity, is still mostly unknown, and even now vigorously debated. There are Two sides to the debate exist on what composes it.

1 – Dualism (originally described by Descartes) in which a part of consciousness obviously influences and affects the matter in our brain, but is a creation of “energy” that lies outside our brain but interacts with it to produce consciousness. Advocates of this include “quantum consciousness” as proposed by Roger Penrose, and others who have demonstrated “electromagnetic fields” that exist outside our corporal person

2 – Monism (all mechanisms that create consciousness are within our brain tissue)

they feel there is a “self emergence” of extremely complex interactions from simpler ones in our brain tissue that result from sensory awareness, and develops within the brain cells and their interactions. This is supportive of the concept that artificial intelligence can produce “consciousness” as it progresses.

Other people feel there may be a “mixture” of the two mechanisms (to me really establishes the dualism concept – it’s just alters how much effect it has)

if you’re interested there several links below that give some of the latest opinions. Next week YouTube will probably have even more!

"consciousness is not a computation" it involves Quantum mechanics

I won't attempt to transcript this - best to watch utube

Cellular Mechanisms of Conscious Processing

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Recent advancements in neurobiology suggest that we are on the verge of understanding how cellular mechanisms underpin conscious experiences. This article focuses on the biophysical properties of pyramidal cells, which act as gates controlling the evolution of global activation patterns in the brain. In conscious states, these cells facilitate complex, sustained dynamics within the thalamocortical system, while in unconscious states, such signal propagation is inhibited. We propose that the hallmark of conscious processing is the flexible integration of bottom-up (sensory input) and top-down (cognitive and contextual) data streams at the cellular level. This concept forms the foundation of the Dendritic Integration Theory, a novel theory of consciousness.

Global Dynamics and Local Mechanisms

Early studies of consciousness aimed to identify specific neurobiological mechanisms underlying conscious experiences. Over time, the focus has shifted to understanding consciousness as emerging from interactions within distributed networks of neurons. Empirical evidence supports this view, showing that consciousness correlates with global activity patterns in corticocortical and thalamocortical loops. For example, the state of consciousness can be detected and measured from the activity of large-scale networks during sleep, anesthesia, psychedelic-induced altered states, and disorders of consciousness.

When the cortex is perturbed with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), the resulting activation patterns vary depending on the state of consciousness. During wakefulness, TMS leads to widespread, complex activation involving many cortical areas. In contrast, during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep or anesthesia, the response is localized and fails to engage other brain areas. This measure of the spread of local perturbations can quantify the level of consciousness. Moreover, conscious perception is associated with "ignition-like" activity propagation from sensory areas to frontal regions of the cortex.

The focus on large-scale dynamics has overshadowed questions about the cellular mechanisms supporting consciousness. Understanding the processes within single neurons that enable communication and interaction between brain areas is crucial for gaining fundamental insights into consciousness and its relationship to global brain dynamics.

The Role of General Anesthesia

General anesthesia offers a unique opportunity to study consciousness because it selectively removes consciousness without completely shutting down neural activity. Despite long-standing use, the exact mechanism by which anesthetics work remains unclear. Anesthesia seems to disrupt a local gating mechanism in the brain that regulates activity patterns, particularly involving large layer 5 pyramidal (L5p) neurons. These neurons, located in layer 5 of the cortex, play a strategic role as they lie at the nexus of corticocortical and thalamocortical loops.

Recent studies using advanced optical and optogenetic strategies have shown that a specific region of the apical dendrite of L5p neurons serves as a gate or switch, enabling or disrupting global brain dynamics. This local mechanism is crucial for consciousness, suggesting that anesthesia disrupts this gating, preventing the integration of long-range information transfer necessary for conscious processing. Pyramidal Cells and Consciousness

Cortical pyramidal neurons, particularly L5p cells, are central to the neurobiological mechanisms of consciousness. These cells span different layers of the cortex and integrate information from various brain areas, making them key players in controlling the flow of information and enabling complex brain functions. The cell bodies of L5p neurons are located in layer 5, but their dendrites reach the surface of the cortex, covering all cortical layers. This structure allows L5p neurons to serve as a nexus of information flow within the brain.

Recent experiments have demonstrated that during conscious states, stimulation of the apical compartment of L5p neurons leads to high-frequency firing of the neurons. However, under anesthesia, this stimulation does not propagate to the soma, indicating that the basal and apical compartments are decoupled. This decoupling, controlled by inputs from the higher-order (HO) thalamus, prevents the integration of information, leading to a loss of consciousness.

The Dendritic Integration Theory

The Dendritic Integration Theory (DIT) posits that the central operation underlying consciousness is the integration of apical and basal compartments within L5p neurons. This theory explains why global dynamics of large-scale networks differ between conscious and unconscious states and why local perturbations have varying effects depending on the state of consciousness.

In the coupled state, activity can propagate, activating the HO thalamus and spreading through corticocortical loops, giving rise to global dynamics of consciousness. This cannot occur if the activity is blocked by decoupling within L5p cells. Decoupling single pyramidal neurons disrupts the loops, switching off the reverberating nature of conscious processing.

DIT is compatible with leading theories of consciousness, such as the Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and the Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT). These theories propose that consciousness involves complex interactions within cortical networks. DIT provides a specific cellular mechanism for these interactions, highlighting the importance of understanding the biophysical properties of pyramidal neurons in conscious processing.

Dendritic Integration of Data Streams

DIT suggests that the brain's ability to conditionally separate and recombine information streams at the cellular level is crucial for consciousness. Pyramidal neurons integrate feature-specific information in the basal compartment and contextual information in the apical compartment. When these compartments are coupled, simultaneous input leads to a burst of action potentials, signaling a match between the data streams.

This cellular mechanism can support computational theories of brain function that depend on the integration of bottom-up and top-down information streams. The ability to flexibly combine segregated information streams at the cellular level provides a foundation for understanding how the brain processes and integrates information to produce conscious experiences. ConclusionConsciousness relies on the dendritic integration of anatomically and functionally segregated data streams within pyramidal neurons. Specific cellular mechanisms gate the global dynamics of the conscious brain, enabling complex, coordinated activity necessary for conscious processing. Advances in neuroscience techniques make it possible to test these ideas and gain deeper insights into the neural basis of consciousness. By focusing on the cellular mechanisms of consciousness, we can better understand how conscious experiences arise from brain activity.