Is consciousness the Schroedinger wave function of the brain?

The suggestion should be viewed in the light of Russell'e paradox, rather than  vis--a-vi3 HB.

Consciousness includes self-consciousness, so why invoke Russel's paradox?

The electrical brain function involves two types of transmission. One is synaptic, including pre-established pathways and physico-chemical processes; this one contributes, by characteristic  mechanisms, to the sensory and  conscous  activity. The second is ephaptic (made by volume conduction); it is a quantic  (ohmic) energy, transmitted with an extremely high speed to the whole scalp, and has no functional role in mental activity. Properly recorded, it may signal, instead, the functioning of the  cerebral centres, and can be used   in the paraclinical investigation of brain diseases.

Dan Michatl Psatta, the SWF is a more valid and more general description than classical mechanics although, in the classical limit, quantum mechanics gives the same results as classical mechanics. Petar Grujic What is the SWF doing in the project on the HB? Well, as a physical chemist, I am a pluralist i.e. not married in a catholic marriage to a single ontology. The SWF is a very mysterious thing with many ontologically different interpretations. So is consciousness. Why not combine the two mysteries in a single one? Maybe a Rabbi would call such a combination sacrilegious. However most Rabbis only know profane philosophy through what Maimonides told them about Aristotle. So, for them the soul is the form of the organism and it would not be too difficult to convince them that in the De Broglie - Bohm ontology the SWF is the form of a substance. So i hope that i am in a better position than Spinoza.

If the SWF is  a valid theory for the consciousness of a brain, generation of strong AI (conscious robots) is possible. See the following link sent by Tatsuo Tabata:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3165282/A

I think this question points out a possible candidate for consciousness. How might we investigate it?

The Hard Problem..

What is attempted here is a solution of the hard problem within the limits of quantum physics, Jaegwon Kim has tried to solve the problem within the limits of classical physics, with one obscure non-physical addition: supervenience. I do not think that he has succeeded to convince anyone that he has solved the hard problem. Anne Ross writes in an abstract "Conscious qualia have a basis in reality and should constrain models of that reality." I would agree with you, Anne, if you change this to: Conscious qualia have a basis in reality and should constrain models to that reality. Physics, as you correctly wrote, Anne, describes reality from a third person perspective.Therefore, a realistic model of consciousnes, which sees realiry from a first person perspective, must explain the first-person perspective in third-person perspective terms. All this is an introduction to a solution of the hard problem within the limits of quantum physics,

Hi Harry,

Am thinking about what you are saying. Are you saying we should not investigate it? Can you give me a reference for Jaegwon Kim? 

Cheers, Anne

Hi Anne,

First of all the references:

The second reference is Jaegwon Kim's most famous book

Of course, I think that the SWF of the brain, In the De Broglie - Bohm interpretation, as a candidate of consciousness deserves investigation. The choice of a wave function, which is a complex whole, not a mixture, seems justified by the existence of coherent ( alpha, beta, delta and  theta) waves in EEG measurements. The next step is to propose a simple physical mechanism for the self- consciousness of the ego. Such a model is a loop, that is to say a system that can act and experience its own act by feedback. The SWF of the brain certainly fulfils these requirements. Being a pilot wave it orchestrates the acts carried out by the material particles and via the senses it gets feed-back of its own action. This procedure can be induced in a sufficiently complex robot, to make it aware of its ego, see: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3165282/A-polite-robot-uprising-Humanoids-glimmer-self-awareness-apologises-scientific-experiment.html.

Consciousness and Unconsciousness,

Consciousness can be distinguished from partial consciousness and from unconsciousness by disrupting the flow between a number of  synaptic connections, so that the total SWF disintegrates into a product of independent partial SWFs. Every partial SWF spans a different part of the brain. For wakefulness, the Reticular Activating System and its ascending connections to the various parts of the cerebral cortex as well as the cerebral cortex must be functional

Important remark;

The time-dependent SWF  initially only dealt with interacting

fermions. However the charged fermions also interact with

bosons called photons which are the quanta (particles) of the

 electromagnetic waves. They also play an important role in the

self-causation mechanism of consciousness (vision).

I have only a very vague notion of an optical implementation of backpropagating neurons but except an article we published a long time ago, i have nothing physical to offer.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44673876_Backpropagating_neurons_from_bichromatic_interaction_with_a_three-level_system

Altered states of consciousness occur in cases of damage (or disfunction) of the brainstem reticular formation. This  is  modulated by  phyizico-chemical processes and has nothing in common with the quantic transmission of energy.

It is a huge difference between consciousness and cognition. Other scientists identify consciousness and conscience. These are very complicated different cerebral functions. Consciousess derives from a  largely propagated activatory mechanism: it can activate either sensory analysis, thinking, cognition, judgment or motor activities.

Dear Dan and Roman, Can one feel passively, that is in the absence of analytic sense activation? Or would you say that a stimulus (beyond a threshold value) triggers the activation mechanism?

True!  Reticular function activation depends on motivational grounds. Therefrom the relativity of our perceptions, of our cognition....

 Dear Dan and Roman, I guess that the answer to this question is not known. So i'll assume that Franz Brentano was right and that consciousness requires intentionality. In Husserl's terminology, the stimulus comes from the object of consciousmess and constitutes the noema of the conscious experience while the triggered active part cones from the subject and constitutes the noetic act.

Correct, once more. From my neurophysiological experience in man and animals, it resulted however that intentionality is of two types: one is instinctual, generated by the motivation brain stem centres (food procuring, defensive, aggressive) and occurs in animals and men; the second, superior, occurs only in men, and is generated by the frontal lobes judgment centres. Both are intermediated, however, by an activation of the reticular formation, and by a consecutive modulatory participation of the limbic lobe (Hippocampus, Amygdala). I synthetised these ideas in a work entitled "Electro-physiological Investigation in Brain Diseases",  published in:  "Scholar's books, Germany, 2016".

The direction of the noetic act from the energy providing region to the sensory cortex, after the triggering of the energy providing region by the incoming stimulus of the noema should be a guiding priciple in building conscious robots. Maybe backpropagating neurons should be used in the energy providing region.

Harry (if I may), in my humble opinion you need a process to understand a process. If you are going to invoke the Schrodinger wave function in physiology, what is the mechanism by which it does so? 

John, Physiology is a part of physics and physics, which includes chemistry, is ruled by the time-dependent Schroedinger equation.The problem is the state of the system. Is it a single or pure state or a mixture of states? I believe that the  messengers play a fundamental role in coordinating different parts of an organism and of individual cells in an integrated  whole. The Schroednger wave function can to a certain extent maintain and control this whole.This whole is a dynamic material system which determines the Schroedinger wave function by means of the Hamiltonian. The Schroedinger wave function reciprocally cintrols the material system. Mathematically, the dynamics of the Schroedinger wave function is determined by the time-dependent Schroedinger equation. In the limit where classical mechanics gives good results, the results obtained by the time-dependent Schroedinger equation are identical to the classical results. However, the Schroedinger wave function does not disappear.When you are awake, the Schroedinger wave function is your mind which gives you informaion to some extent on what is going in your physiology and whether you need medical help.

The mind is by far more complex than a wave function. In my opinion the quantum physics studies mostly the energies (unfortunately still confusing). Mind is much more than a simple field energy.

Dan Michael Pratta The SWF of the brain is characterized by many trillions of properties not just by the energy.

Harry, regarding the Schrodinger equation and consciousness, I have attached a recent paper that is contingent on cellular hierarchical interactions as the basis for 'mind'. Perhaps you could suggest how Schrodinger's equation can be applied in this context?

Roman, if you were directing that comment about vertical integration of calcium fluxes at me, I am the first to my knowledge to hypothesize that that process is derivative of the cell-cell signaling mechanisms that form structure and function during embryogenesis, culminating in hoemostasis (Torday and Rehan. Evolutionary Biology, Cell-Cell Communication and Complex Disease. Wiley, 2012). I doubt that the work you are referring to is of the same nature. Perhaps you could provide a reference?

Dear John, please consult Roger Sperry (1913 - 1994), Nobel prize 1981 on "nested hierarchies" in brain function:

http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/sperry/  and

Dear Harry, thank you for the links to Roger Sperry. I see downward causation as a different way of expressing allostasis (see McEwen and Wainright). And with all due respect to both Sperry and to you, none of this information addresses the kind of mechanistic integration that I have provided as a continuum from embryogenesis to homeostasis and regeneration founded on cell-cell interactions mediated by growth factor signaling (see attached, for example). When combined with epigenetic inheritance, which is dependent on the sorting of epigenetic marks acquired from the environment by egg and sperm, one realizes that the unicellular state, like the multicellular state, is conscious since the sorting of the epigenetic marks during meiosis requires self-referential self-organization.

Sperry sustained the loclization theory of functions in the brain (neocortex)., This can be relevant for the limited extent of consciousness at various moments in time.  It has nothing to do with embriogenesis or homeostasis.

Dan Michael Pratta, I mentioned Roger Sperry because of his view on the emergence of hierarchy in order to introduce the notion of downward control instead of "mental" causation. Donald Campbell has replaced Sperry's downward control by downward causation within the framework of self-organization on the basis of Ilya Prigogine's thermodynamics of dissipative structures. See: http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/downward_causation.html

Brain must be too complex a problem to solve through ordinary quantum mechanics. Analogy seems to be interesting as a wavefunction but seems difficult to imagine as information seems to be transmitted faster than light.

Harry, thank you for the clarification, but as far as I am concerned as long as the perspective expressed is based on conventional descriptive biology it cannot reflect what the true underlying principles are.....in this case, consciousness. It's like the difference between Newtonian and Einsteinian gravity, the former being based on how attraction between bodies appears, whereas the latter links it to Relativity Theory as a distortion of the fabric of space-time. Description is non-predictive, whereas mechanism is predictive, i.e. the basic difference between soft and hard science.

Dear Munish Kumar, the brain only seems too complex a problem to solve because we see it as it now exists, not how it has evolved. By analogy, the origins and 'evolution' of the Cosmos also seemed insoluble and too complex until the Big Bang perspective was formulated. I propose the 'Big Bang' of Biology as the solution to the brain and consciousness.

I agree with you sir@Torday.

In this case John it is not "like the difference between Newtonian and Einsteinian gravity" but like the difference between Newtonian and the infinitely more complex theory of quantum mechanics, the implications of which you did not understand. The, same remark also applies to Munish who does not realize that non-locality of the wave function does precisely what seems similar to what he demands, namely that "information seems to be transmitted faster than light.".

Harry, perhaps I don't understand Quantum Mechanics, but perhaps you can tell me how the wave function affects physiology. As I had said earlier in this thread, I have been able to interpolate gravity into mechanotransduction in the lung, kidney, bone.....so by analogy how does wave function affect physiologic function?

My answer is absolutely certain - no. The reason is that quantum mechanics has limited application, and can not in principle explain the phenomenon of life, in other words, does not work for living systems, brain, consciousness, etc. This follows essentially from my dozy-chaos theory of molecular quantum transitions.

Vladimir Valentinovich Egorov, I wouldn't have thought that gravity would have been integral to vertebrate physiology until I discovered the cellular-molecular cell-cell signaling principles behind lung alveolar physiology either. So my question is where in the vertical integration of vertebrate physiologic evolution might quantum mechanics have been interpolated into the process? My guess is that it occurred very early in unicellular life when the cell membrane delineated the internal and external milieus (see attached). Your thoughts?

John, it's not quantum mechanics that is interpolated into the process, but let's take it more - physics. The question is, at what point, at a very early stage of evolution, as a result of the self-organization of molecular matter, both structural and dynamic, there is a transition from inanimate to living. Where is the border? What in physics is the cause of the appearance of living matter? On the first question, I can not answer for sure. But I know the answer to the second question. The cause of the self-organization of molecular matter is the new unique property of the electron, which binds the atoms inside the molecule, creating chaos in the process of molecular quantum transitions. This chaos is called dozy chaos. Dozy chaos is a necessary condition for the existence of molecular quantum transitions. The dozy chaos is the cause not only of molecular quantum transitions, but also of the whole variety of chemical reactions, and as a consequence, it is the origin of the evolution of molecular matter, up to the appearance of living matter and man himself. Please see the publications on my RG-website.

Dear Vladimir, thank you for your reply. Perhaps it would help if I expand on my approach to the problem of how physics affects biology. I have spent my career as a working cell biologist (50 years+) in elucidating the mechanisms involved in embryogenesis/morphogenesis. The big breakthrough in this area of research was the discovery about 50 years ago that there are soluble growth factors and their cognate receptors that determine pattern formation during normal embryo development. It is those signaling mechanisms that culminate in physiologic homeostasis at birth. When those signaling mechanisms breakdown they cause chronic diseases that are held in check by fibrosis. I have shown how gravity affects such mechanisms, for example. This phenomenon is best known as Wolf's Law, which applies to the remodeling of bone under tension, but the same mechanism applies to the lung, kidney and uterus, for example.

So my question is how a Schrodinger Wave might similarly affect physiology? In my reduction of the evolution of physiology as serial preadaptations, it is lipids that were the origins of life (see attached). Schrodinger Waves may affect such protocells, though I don't know how that manifests itself, do you. I would appreciate your thoughts.

Dear John,

I have shown in essence that quantum mechanics does not work already when describing molecular quantum transitions, not to mention some processes in living matter. My theory of dozy chaos is the replacement of quantum mechanics for describing molecular quantum transitions. This theory will eventually be applied to the description of processes in living matter. Schrödinger waves are related only to quantum mechanics and to discuss them with respect to processes in living matter is an illegal act. See my two articles that relate to this issue. The publication directly on the issue you are interested in, I'll probably do in the next six months.

1) Discovery of Dozy Chaos and Discovery of Quanta: Analogy Being in Science and Perhaps in Human Progress, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-33914-1_6

2) Dozy-chaos end of the human civilization, Journal of Ultra Scientist of Physical Sciences (Section B), Vol. 29 (4), pp. 87-96 (2017), DOI: 10.22147/jusps-B/290402

Best regards,

Vladimir

Vladimir, can you send me your articles (jtorday@ucla.edu)?

Dear Harry Friedmann

I know the works of John S Torday and Vladimir Valentinovich Egorov, they are serious, scientific and of great depth, in addition to the great extension of their works that translate their experience based on evidences.

Schrödinger waves that describe and explain at the atomic level and at the level of its elementary particles the structure, dynamics and energy of the same; by means of the methods and instruments of Quantum Physics; they leave much to be desired at the molecular level, and can not be grossly extrapolated to the structure, dynamics and characteristics of the brain, mind, and human consciousness.

Therefore, I totally agree with the thought of Vladimir Valentinovich Egorov, in the sense that:

And even, it seems to me that apart from not being legal, it is pseudoscientific, and to some extent, neither ethical nor moral.

regards

Jose Luis

Estimado Harry Friedmann 

Conozco los trabajos de John S Torday y de Vladimir Valentinovich Egorov, son serios, científicos y de gran profundidad, amén de la gran extensión de sus trabajos que traducen su experiencia con base en evidencias.

Las ondas de  Schrödinger que describen y explican a nivel atómico y a nivel de sus partículas elementales la estructura, dinámica y energía de las mismas; por medio de los métodos e instrumentos de la Física Cuántica; dejan mucho que desear a nivel molecular, y no se pueden extrapolar en forma grosera a la estructura, dinámica y características del cerebro, la mente y la consciencia humana.

Por tanto, estoy totalmente de acuerdo con el pensamiento de Vladimir Valentinovich Egorov, en el sentido de que:

E incluso, me parece que aparte de no ser legal, es pseudocientífico, y hasta cierto punto, no ético ni moral.

Saludos

José Luis

Quantum mechanics is a general theory of physics. It contains all of the results of classical physics in the limits of validity of classical physics, but it does not have any need to be united with classical physics. In the same way, relativity does not need to be united with Newtonian physics because the results of relativity are the same as those of Newtonian physics, within the limits of validity of Nestonian physics.

As you have noticed, Roman, life has evolved from physics via self-organization as understood by the theory of dissipative structures. My claim is that the mind also has evolved from physics via self-organizattion of dissipative structures, once the interactions between "pivotal" elements of the self organized system are sufficiently strong to  be described by a single wave funcrion ( a pure state, not a mixture.). This is the secret of why a being composed of an almost infinite number of particles can act as a coordinated whole and say I.

Hi Roman

At the following link you will find evidence that self-organization can occur due to the development of electric and magnetic fields:

The quantum potential has a field structure that lies beneath it.

regards Tony Fleming

Contribution to this debate:

Regards,

Marko Vitas

Self-organiizatio as described by Prigogine' s theory of dissipative structures is a classical theory, not caused by Bohm's quantum potential. However, when the energy content in the individual "particles" (the neurons) of the self-organized brain acquire a sufficiently high energy (ATP content) they connect (via neurotransmitters) causing their individuak wave functions to overlap. That is when the quantum potential becomes the nested top of the brain hierarchy.

For "" A quantum -mechanical version of Descartes' mind-body interaction" see the latest update in

I must admit that I am greatly depressed by the scholastic character of this issue and the main channel of this discussion.

When did the scholastics discuss dissipative strucures, self-organization, fractals and quantum mechanics? Maybe depression isall they knew.

It from bit or bit fromit or it from bit and bit from it.

What comes first information (mind) or.life, the chicken or the egg? In the loop mechanism proposed ih the present project, the evolution by self-organization of the organism is intimately connected with the evolution by self-organization of the mind. The two evolutions are combined and interdependent.

The most advanced one acts as a pacemaker carrying the others along. Don't forget, the whole system is connected by self-organization. All the rest requires only the understancing of the double meanig of ψ  in the time-dependent Schroedinger equation: iħ ∂ψ∂t = Hψ , first as the carrier of infotmation and also as the pilot wave at the nested top of the brain hierarchy..

Agreed. But by combining quantum mechanics with self-organization, the hard problems do not look so hard anymore.

Tony and Harry, with all due respect, I don't disavow the findings in Tony's paper, but I would submit (again) that we already know that ion fluxes are the mediators of cell physiology, so why not think that the application of electrical or magnetic fields are mimicking them, not the source of such processes? I say this because in my reduction of the effect of gravity on cell-cell interactions, the distension of the endodermal and mesodermal cells of the lung alveolus caused coordinate up-regulation of both the ligand and the receptor, providing evidence for the physiologic nature of the mechanism regulating lung surfactant procution in the process of Ventilation-Perfusion Matching, the basis for alveolar physiology. I would ask you to identify the nature of the mechanism by which electricity or magnetism specitically affects physiology because that information is necessary in order to test the hypothesis using gain- and loss of function experiments.

John

There's also been work on the (not insignificant) effect of the Moon's gravitation on plant root growth. So it's not a question that electric and magnetic fields DONT have a physiological effect. These fields have forces and can have significant physiological effects in the macroscopic world. These forces are either rotational or translational and this would be the underlying effect.

{ASIDE I think we are all talking here assuming a top-down physiological mechanism and this might be right, but I point out that a bottom-up mechanism is an option too. One of the interesting facets of my work (aside from cell biology) is that field particles such as photons may have a composite nature. In other words there's a fractal structure not only in the biology but in the particles and fields as well.)

I have nothing at all against a potential being the macroscopic unit of consciousness, as we know the effects of transmembrane potentials have been known since Hodgkin and Huxley's work. I have studied the elasmobranch fish who have a physiology where these potentials add together to give a magnified sensory ability to discern the movement of fish in their environment

We can see in my paper there are perhaps computational methods of testing the endogenous fields against various biological stimuli; we have a sort of 'before' and 'after' test. It's computationally intensive but not certainly not impossible. This is exciting and can be applied across biology and possibly neurology

Hope this helps. 

Harry

What about one or two examples of what you are thinking?

Tony, I know about the geotropism in plants and those structures that respond to gravity. My bias about electrical and photoelectric effects is that it is primarily bottom-up, but has evolved into a top-down process over time, moving from homeostasis to allostasis. Anecdotally, I used to run a lab at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. We measured lung surfactant in amniotic fluid obtained by amniocentesis to determine if the infant was ready to be delivered or not (preterm infants). I kept records of the number of such events as a function of the phases of the moon, observing a significant spike in sync with the full moon. As I have said previously, I have shown the effect of gravity on lung development, the proxy for which is the volume of amniotic fluid acting to distend the developing lung. The moon broke away from the Earth about 100 million years after its formation, so the 'Lunar Effect" has been active for billions of years. My hypothesis is that over the course of vertebrate physiologic evolution the effect of gravity has been imbeded in our physiology and that of other organisms. We know this is true because Astronauts have to wear pressurized suits to counter the deleterious effect of microgravity on the lung......and they also develop osteoporosis. Both of these effects are due to loss of Parathyroid Hormone-related Protein (PTHrP) signaling in the lung alveoli and bone alike. PTHrP is necessary for alveolar and bone homeostasis....if you delete the PTHrP gene in developing mice their lungs don't form alveoli and their bones  don't calcify.

All that said, I am open to the hypothesis that energy waves affected the evolution of the unicell as well.....but how? What mechanism was affected? and how did that translate into vertically integrated physiology. The only such mechanism I know of is the effect of ambient light on the pineal, affecting reproduction. But I don't know how to walk that back to its origins, do you?

@Roman R Poznanski

>There are other human brain projects coming to existence and hopefully they will crack this problem of conscious robotics. If they do then the world will be changed forever.<

Life is far from thermodynamic equilibrium. How about the robots?

Regards ...

I agree

If we build artificial brains with quantim comouting then implementing ethics will be not possible. WIANTIM ENTANGLING OF THE NETWORK OF QUANTUM DNA COMPUTERS

WIL CREATE NONSCIOUSNESS WITH KANT PHILOSOPHICAL BASES BUT THE GOOD AND BAD WILL BE OF THE SAME VALUE AS TJE ROBOTS WILL HAVE NO INSTINCT OF SELFORESERVETION

so we will have tje oredators and terminators on the streets

Jerzy

Dear Roman. Russel's monism is not clear. Are his basic units neither mental nor physical or both mental and physical? How are they related to the mental and to the physical phenomena? Moreove if inorganic matter did not have the potential of consciousness, what about self-organization, does inorganic matter not have the potential of self organization? Finally does self-organization lack the potential of consciousness and do you need some not yet physically known entities of the Russel type to explain consciousness?

I have seen that you have changed your mind concerning whether rocs have the potentiality of consciousness, However you pay a heavy price for this: you use Russel's physics, which i believe is superfluous. Why do you abanfon the safe road of self-organization?

What you say is not clear to me. Dennet rejected Popper's three-world ontology because it reminded him of mind-body dualism. You seem to base Russel's monism on Popper's dualism? What is biological field? a field unknown in physics?

Eccles was a briliant neurophysiologist and a lousy philosopher. He sustained the extrasensorial information (coming from the divine?); any mediocre scientist knows that barain receives information only by the sense organs. The dualism of Descartes was something else:" brain and mind have a different substance" (something which is obviously evident,)..

HI John

I'm answering your post of a couple of days ago; this is such a fast moving discussion. Thanks for the description of your fascinating work with infants.

I'm attaching a conference paper where it seems the marine fossil record (biodiversity) is following a resonance effect of gravitation at the galactic level. 

Dear Roman, thanks for the positive feedback. I think that the theory does involve quantum potential in the way that Bohm and Basil expressed it in their 1975 work "On the intuitive understanding of nonlocality as implied by quantum theory", with the idea of the 'unbroken wholeness of the entire universe'. I have expressed the basis for this in the attached, published as Torday and Miller. The resolution of ambiguity as the basis for life: a cellular bridge between Western reductionism and Eastern holism. Prog Biophys Mol Biol  2017 Jul 22. Your thoughts?

Tony, thanks for the Self-Field paper. Seems to me that the merging of the ideas in that work with the ambiguity idea I shared in my reply to Roman (see reply to Roman above) forms an elucidating initiating interface between the physical and the biologic, the cell acting to reconcile the difference between its internal enviornment/milieu and the external environment, iteratively acting to foster evolution. In my reduction of this problem, lipids seem to be the final common pathway, acting to protect the cell against oxidant stress/injury, tentatively first as the synthesis of cholesterol (Konrad Bloch), followed by lipid rafts in the cell membrane that form the basis for cell-cell signaling, the formation of peroxisomes that allowed the cell to cope with rising levels of oxygen, culminating in the Endocrine System. Given all of that, and the prevailing idea that evolution is serial pre-adaptations, the question arises as to what was the precursor for cholesterol synthesis. I have hypothesized that the polycyclic hydrocarbons (lipids) that have been shown to be present in the snowball-like asteroids that formed the oceans spontaneously formed protocells in water because that is a property of lipids. And because lipids have 'memory' due to hysteresis, this was the origin of life moving forward from unicells to multicellular organisms. But it should be born in mind that the First Principles of Physiology- negentropy, chemiosmosis, homeostasis- are adhered to throughout. So for example, I have shown how gravity affects vertebrate physiology, beginning in the unicellular state. I don't know how electromagnetic fields have invagled themselves into the biologic......perhaps you have some thoughts?

Dear Roman, if I understand the use of the term 'non-locality', you are referring to the fact that different areas of the brain 'light up' during the process of thought? That may still represent self-organization in the sense that over evolutionary time different localities of the brain emerged to adapt to the prevailing environmental conditions. For example see the attached paper on epigentic marks in the human brain. Hope this is helpful.

Dear John, I think that the reticular activating system radiates information simultaneously to different regions of the brain so that non-locality is not a problem. Of course, to be sure, it is desirable to have DAN MICHAEL PSATTA's advice.on this crucial question.

Hi Roman,  I lke your formulation. Would you agree to ascribe the hierarchical self-organization to evolution?

Harry and Roman, Not to be obnoxious, quite to the contrary, I have expressed the idea that evolution from the unicellular state forward through First Principles of Physiology circumscribes both self-organization AND the hierarchical organization of the brain through one common, seemless mechanism of integrated physiology. I will send the abstract of a paper that sums this idea up nicely to my way of thinking in a subsequent post...see below.

J Theor Biol. 2001 Aug 21;211(4):377-91.

The sense of consciousness.

Tannenbaum AS1.

Author information

 

Erratum in

J Theor Biol 2001 Sep 21;212(2):271.

Abstract

I propose that consciousness might be understood as the property of a system that functions as a sense in the biological meaning of that term. The theory assumes that, as a complex system, the sense of consciousness is not a fixed structure but implies structure with variations and that it evolved, as many new functions do, through the integration of simpler systems. The recognized exteroceptive and enteroceptive senses provide information about the organism's environment and about the organism itself that are important to adaptation. The sense of consciousness provides information about the brain and thus about the organism and its environment. It senses other senses and processes in the brain, selecting and relating components into a form that "makes sense"-where making sense is defined as being useful to the organism in its adaptation to the environment. The theory argues that this highly adaptive organizing function evolved with the growing complexity of the brain and that it might have helped resolve discrepancies created at earlier stages. Neural energies in the brain that are the input to the sense of consciousness, along with the processing subsystem of which they are a part, constitute the base of consciousness. Consciousness itself is an emergent effect of an organizing process achieved through the sense of consciousness. The sense of consciousness thus serves an organizing function although it is not the only means of organization in the brain. Its uniqueness lies in the character of the organization it creates with consciousness as a property of that organization. The paper relates the theory to several general conceptions-interactionism, epiphenomenalism and identity theory-and illustrates a number of testable hypotheses. Viewing consciousness as a property of a sense provides a degree of conceptual integration. Much of what we know about the evolution and role of the conventionally recognized senses should help us understand the evolution and role of the sense of consciousness, and of consciousness itself.

Dear John,  Which ontogenetic and philogenetic arguments are used to ascribe the hierarchical self-organization of the brain to evolution? Can the ontogenesis show the steps of this hierarchical evolution clearly? Is all this very well known?

7s ago

Dear Harry, ontogenetically, I start with the exploitation of the lipids in the water of the primordial oceans that co-habited those frozen snowball asteroids that formed the oceans. As for the origin of those lipids, there's evidence that they are produced by pulsars. The introduction of lipids in the phospholipid bilayer of the eukaryotic cell membrane fostered vertebrate evolution by making the membrane more 'liquid', enhancing gas exchange, metabolism and locomotion, the key characteristics of vertebrate evolution. Subsequently the lipids acted as the physical 'platform' for rafts that act as the site for receptors that mediate cell-cell communication. That mechanism is the means by which growth factors and their receptors mediate embryogenesis/morphogenesis. Ontogeny/develoment is the short-term means by which phylogeney occurs over longer time lines. As for the relationship of all that to the brain, the formation of the protocell by lipids spontaneously forming micelles was the origin of life, demarcating the internal and external 'environments' (milieu interieur described by Claude Bernard). In the process, the internal negative entropy (Schrodinger, What is Life?) and external positive entropy generate 'ambiguity'. In so doing it behooves the cell to resolve that ambiguity by authoring itself via self-referential, self-organizing in accord with homeostasis as the monitor of this process. The vertical integration of that iterative process is what we call evolution. In a recently published book, entitled "Evolution, the Logic of Biology" by Torday and Rehan, the premise was that the cell membrane gave rise to all of physiology. So with respect to the brain, it is thought to have evolved from the skin (the Skin-Brain hypothesis). There are molecular homologies between the skin and brain, and the bottleneck with regard to the evolution of the brain from invertebrates to vertebrates was resolved through this breakthrough idea posited by Nick Holland. Moreover, there are skin abnormalities for all of the neurdegenerative diseases, and there are homologies between host defense mechanisms in the skin and lung that are the basis for the association between asthma and atopy, or skin rash, in Man, and coat coloration in dogs.

As to whether the ontogenesis clearly shows the evolution of the brain, there are gaps because this hypothesis has not been tested, but they could be filled given potential interest and funding. For example, there is a well-recognized 'crisis' in biomedical research in the U.S. I think it's because we're using the wrong paradigm.And as to whether all of this is well known, only I and my collaborators have fostered this concept thus far, though there is a biotech company using this concept for designing new drugs based on such phenomenology.

John wrote "As for the origin of those lipids, there's evidence that they are produced by pulsars."

Any references John? I'm not disagreeing just interested because this factor arises in my work on evolution and its causes. See: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319875215_Self-field_Theory-biodiversity_May_Be_a_Resonance_Process

It seems from my dielectric work that life is associated with the fields (electric, magnetic amd acoustic (or vibrational, sometimes known as pressure). The dielectric permittivity may follow the expansion of the Solar System from its proto form. That is, the permittivity needs to get larger as Earth presumably expands outwards as time goes on.

If true this gives us another way of 'measuring' evolution over many millions of years - viam the permittivity of associated tissues and organs across species. The number of cells in any species is getting bigger as evolution proceeds.

So this question of pulsars links in to the issue of resonance within evolution.

Also 'intelligent consciousness' seems to follow this rule of getting larger also. Maybe the number of neurons gets bigger at the same time??

What does this say about life throughout the Universe?

Fulminating theories, any proof.

Dan 

You see life from your perspective of clinical neurophysiology (?) and I respect that; what do you think is wrong specifically in those 'fulminating theories'? Or is it just that they are unusual to you? I'm sure there are many molecular scientists who haven't realized that the fields are part and parcel of biology, equally as important, perhaps more fundamental than molecular biology. Why don't you read my work and see if they are saying anything wrong in specific. My works are linked to each other.

It seems to me that evolution and 'intelligent consciousness' (intelligence) are headed in a similar path and this could be linked to our electrophysiology (numbers of cells) as originally worked on by Wagner-Maxwell over a century ago. And this could relate to our intelligence too in terms of numbers of neurons.

Part of my research involves ideas for the difference in short and long term memory so I have approached neurology from a fresh perspective.

When a wave function belongs to a certain value of the angular momentumm is this property a qualitative (qualia) and quantitative property, or is it a cognitive information?

Dear Roman,

Lynch pin  and phonons. Do you mean the noise it makes? If the five brain waves are associated with phonons, they would provide an important argument for quantum neuroscience. I believe that there are publications connecting neural activity with mechanical motion..Moreover, the transition of a sodium ion throuh a ptential-gated Na channel all the way down the membrane potential, would this not emit an optical phonon, like a lynch pin? The wave length of this phonon could synchronize the action potentials at distant parts of the brain. Phonons, coordinating the entire information of the brain, could be valid candidates for onsciousness.