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Towards a Neurobiological Theory of Consciousness
Abstract
Visual awareness is a favorable form of consciousness to study neurobiologically. We propose that it takes two forms: a very fast form, linked to iconic memory, that may be difficult to study; and a somewhat slower one involving visual attention and short-term memory. In the slower form an attentional
mechanism transiently binds together all those neurons whose activity relates to the relevant features of a single visual object. We suggest this is done by generating coherent semi-synchronous oscillations, probably in the 40-70 Hz range. These oscillations then activate a transient short-term
(working) memory. We outfit several lines of experimental work that might advance the understanding of the neural mechanisms involved. The neural basis of very short-term memory especially needs more experimental study.
... The technique depends on slow correlations in the blood oxygen level-dependent signal (BOLD) (e.g., 0.01-0.1 Hz) in the brain. These gradual correlation patterns have been utilized to identify functional networks and to explain how they grow, alter with age, differ between people, and get disrupted in disease [30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. Though the fundamental mechanisms remain unclear, it is thought that delayed BOLD fluctuations and their associations represent brain processes [37,38]. ...
... In the neurosciences, resonance theory has long been noted. Crick and Koch [32], Fries [33,34], and Koch [35] have studied the concept of resonance. According to Fries, a critical component of the nervous system's operation is brain synchronization, resonance, or "communication through coherence". ...
... Using a range of resonant examples from biology, physics, chemistry, and neuroscience, the authors of [35] aimed at describing the nature of synchrony in the experience of consciousness, and have included certain species of fireflies that start to flash their bioluminescent parts in unison when they are in large groups. Mammalian awareness and the ability of human brains to fire large numbers of neurons at specific frequencies are believed to be closely related to various forms of neural synchronization [32][33][34][35][36]. We always see the same face of the moon because its spin precisely matches its orbit around the planet. ...
Aim: Biofields combine many physiological levels, both spatially and temporally. These biofields reflect naturally resonant forms of synaptic energy reflected in growing and spreading waves of brain activity. This study aims to theoretically understand better how resonant continuum waves may be reflective of consciousness, cognition, memory and thought. Background: The metabolic processes that maintain animal cellular and physiological functions are enhanced by physiological coherence. Internal biological-system coordination and sensitivity to particular stimuli and signal frequencies are two aspects of coherent physiology. There exists significant support for the notion that exogenous biologically and non-biologically generated energy entrains human physiological systems. All living things have resonant frequencies that are either comparable or coherent; therefore, eventually, all species will have a shared resonance. An organism's biofield activity and resonance are what support its life and allow it to react to stimuli. Methods: As the naturally resonant forms of synaptic energy grow and spread waves of brain activity, the temporal and spatial frequency of the waves are effectively regulated by a time delay (T) in inter-layer signals in a layered structure that mimics the structure of the mammalian cortex. From ubiquitous noise, two different types of waves can arise as a function of T. One is coherent, and as T rises, so does its resonant spatial frequency. Results: Continued growth eventually causes both the wavelength and the temporal frequency to abruptly increase. Two waves expand simultaneously and randomly interfere in an area of T values as a result. Conclusion: We suggest that because of this extraordinary dualism, which has its roots in the phase relationships of amplified waves, coherent waves are essential for memory retrieval, whereas random waves represent original cognition.
... Our discussion of the consciousness issue will be restricted to one particular aspect, namely, sensory awareness. With many authors, we share the view that sensory awareness is one of those facets of consciousness that is (probably) most easily accessible both in terms of experimental quantification and theoretical explanation (Crick & Koch, 1990a;Farber & Churchland, 1995). Furthermore, there can be little doubt that we have this basic form of phenomenal consciousness in common with many other species (presumably with at least most other higher mammals). ...
... Thus, it is conceivable that research on animals can contribute substantially to explaining this aspect of consciousness, which may not hold for many higher order features of consciousness which, for instance, require a language system or an elaborated selfmodel. There seems to be wide agreement that awareness as the basic form of phenomenal consciousness has the following prerequisites: First, generating sensory awareness seems to involve some form of attentional mechanism, i.e., a mechanism that selects relevant information and enhances its impact on subsequent processing stages (Crick & Koch, 1990a;Newman & Baars, 1993;Crick, 1994;Desimone & Duncan, 1995). Second, awareness presumably requires working memory, which allows the short-term storage of episodic contents (Goldman-Rakic, 1992;Moscovitch, 1995). ...
... The important point is that this shift in perceptual dominance can occur without any change of the physical stimulus. Obviously, this experimental situation is particularly revealing for the issue at stake, because neuronal responses to a given stimulus can be studied either with or without being accompanied by awareness (Crick & Koch, 1990a;Farber & Churchland, 1995), and thus there is a chance of revealing the mechanisms leading to the selection of perceptual information. ...
Consciousness is at the very core of the human condition. Yet only in recent decades has it become a major focus in the brain and behavioral sciences. Scientists now know that consciousness involves many levels of brain functioning, from brainstem to cortex. The almost seventy articles in this book reflect the breadth and depth of this burgeoning field. The many topics covered include consciousness in vision and inner speech, immediate memory and attention, waking, dreaming, coma, the effects of brain damage, fringe consciousness, hypnosis, and dissociation.
Underlying all the selections are the questions, What difference does consciousness make? What are its properties? What role does it play in the nervous system? How do conscious brain functions differ from unconscious ones? The focus of the book is on scientific evidence and theory. The editors have also chosen introductory articles by leading scientists to allow a wide variety of new readers to gain insight into the field.
Bradford Books imprint
... Yet there remains no consensus about which contender might be most promising. With the development of cognitive neuroscience and related empirical approaches (electrophysiology, neuroimaging), a great deal of research has been focused on the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) as the presumed shining path to understanding its underlying mechanisms [2][3][4]. To be sure, understanding the relationships between consciousness and the brain would not merely improve our understanding of consciousness itself and its relations to behavior; it also seems to be a necessary condition for a complete theory of consciousness considered as part of nature. ...
... Some, including GWT proponents, have decided to set the challenge aside [2,11], while others, in particular IIT proponents, have attempted to tackle it based purely on information-theoretic concepts [8]. However, we hold that the latter have largely failed to capture the phenomenon in a compelling and operational way (see [5]). ...
... The still ongoing debate in cognitive neuroscience regarding whether conscious access and experience require frontal-parietal interactions or solely activity in posterior cortices [2,13] might be partially driven by a focus on different aspects of consciousness relating to the division into two main engines in our hypothesis. ...
Consciousness has been described as acting as a global workspace that integrates perception, imagination, emotion and action programming for adaptive decision making. The mechanisms of this workspace and their relationships to the phenomenology of consciousness need to be further specified. Much research in this area has focused on the neural correlates of consciousness, but, arguably, computational modeling can better be used toward this aim. According to the Projective Consciousness Model (PCM), consciousness is structured as a viewpoint-organized, internal space, relying on 3D projective geometry and governed by the action of the Projective Group as part of a process of active inference. The geometry induces a group-structured subjective perspective on an encoded world model, enabling adaptive perspective taking in agents. Here, we review and discuss the PCM. We emphasize the role of projective mechanisms in perception and the appraisal of affective and epistemic values as tied to the motivation of action, under an optimization process of Free Energy minimization, or more generally stochastic optimal control. We discuss how these mechanisms enable us to model and simulate group-structured drives in the context of social cognition and to understand the mechanisms underpinning empathy, emotion expression and regulation, and approach–avoidance behaviors. We review previous results, drawing on applications in robotics and virtual humans. We briefly discuss future axes of research relating to applications of the model to simulation- and model-based behavioral science, geometrically structured artificial neural networks, the relevance of the approach for explainable AI and human–machine interactions, and the study of the neural correlates of consciousness.
... Some, including GWT proponents, have decided to set the challenge aside [26,20], while others, in particular IIT proponents, have attempted to tackle it based purely on information theoretic concepts [101]. However, we hold that the latter have largely failed to capture the phenomenon in a compelling and operational way (see [63]). ...
... Yet there remains no consensus about which contender might be most promising. With the development of cognitive neuroscience and related empirical approaches (electrophysiology, neuroimaging), a great deal of research has focused on studying the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) as the presumed shining path to understanding its underlying mechanisms [20,102,70]. To be sure, understanding the relationships between consciousness and the brain would not merely improve our understanding of consciousness itself and its relations to behavior; it also seems to be a necessary condition for a complete theory of consciousness considered as part of nature. ...
... The still ongoing debate in the cognitive neuroscience regarding whether conscious access and experience require frontal-parietal interactions or solely activity in posterior cortices [20,25] might be partially driven by a focus on different aspects of consciousness relating to the division into two main engines in our hypothesis. ...
Consciousness has been described as acting as a global workspace that integrates perception , imagination, emotion and action programming for adaptive decision making. The mechanisms of such workspace and their relationships to the phenomenology of consciousness need to be further specified. Much research in this connection has focused on the neural correlates of consciousness, but, arguably, computational modeling can better be used toward this aim. According to Projective Consciousness Model (PCM), consciousness is structured as a viewpoint-dependent, internal space, relying on 3D projective geometry and governed by the action of the Projective Group, as part of a process of active inference. The geometry induces a group-structured subjective perspective on an encoded world model, enabling adaptive perspective taking in agents. Here we review and discuss the PCM. We emphasize the role of projective mechanisms in perception and the appraisal of affective and epistemic values as tied to the motivation of action under an optimization process of free energy minimization. We discuss how these mechanisms enable us to model and simulate group-structured drives in the context of social cognition and to understand mechanisms underpinning empathy, emotion expression and regulation, and approach-avoidance behaviors. We review previous results, drawing on applications in robotics and virtual humans. We briefly discuss future axes of research relating to: applications of the model to simulation-and model-based behavioral science; geometrically structured artificial neural networks; the relevance of the approach for explainable AI and human-machine interactions; as well as the study of the neural correlates of consciousness.
... The common route to narrowing down the mechanism behind conscious processes is to explore the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC), seeking to isolate the distinguishing features of neural activity patterns associated with conscious states (Tononi and Koch, 2008;Aru et al., 2012;Singer, 2015). Mounting evidence suggests that conscious states are related to long-range synchronized brain activity in the beta or gamma frequency band (Crick and Koch, 1990;Desmedt and Tomberg, 1994;Rodriguez et al., 1999;Engel and Singer, 2001;Melloni et al., 2007;Gaillard et al., 2009), with these activity patterns originating from abrupt changes in macroscopic brain dynamics and reflecting the collective behavior of large numbers of neurons (Kelso et al., 1992;Freeman, 2004Freeman, , 2005Freeman, , 2007. Perception proceeds in rapidly evolving frames with repetition rates lying in the theta frequency band (Freeman, 2004(Freeman, , 2005Doesburg et al., 2009), while self-referential conscious processes follow the alpha rhythm (Freeman, 2004;Knyazev et al., 2011). ...
... A second branch highlights the importance of the thalamocortical system, which is assumed to operate as a dynamic core that is capable of forming an enormous range of differentiated, transiently stable states (Tononi and Edelman, 1998;Edelman, 2003;Seth et al., 2006). A third branch agrees with the notion of consciousness being associated with the formation of transient coalitions of neurons but underscores the significance of synchronization among brain areas for the binding of separate features into a unified conscious percept (Crick andKoch, 1990, 2003). Yet another branch stresses the necessity of recurrent processing for the generation of conscious states (Lamme, 2006). ...
Empirical evidence indicates that conscious states, distinguished by the presence of phenomenal qualities, are closely linked to synchronized neural activity patterns whose dynamical characteristics can be attributed to self-organized criticality and phase transitions. These findings imply that insight into the mechanism by which the brain controls phase transitions will provide a deeper understanding of the fundamental mechanism by which the brain manages to transcend the threshold of consciousness. This article aims to show that the initiation of phase transitions and the formation of synchronized activity patterns is due to the coupling of the brain to the zero-point field (ZPF), which plays a central role in quantum electrodynamics (QED). The ZPF stands for the presence of ubiquitous vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field, represented by a spectrum of normal modes. With reference to QED-based model calculations, the details of the coupling mechanism are revealed, suggesting that critical brain dynamics is governed by the resonant interaction of the ZPF with the most abundant neurotransmitter glutamate. The pyramidal neurons in the cortical microcolumns turn out to be ideally suited to control this interaction. A direct consequence of resonant glutamate-ZPF coupling is the amplification of specific ZPF modes, which leads us to conclude that the ZPF is the key to the understanding of consciousness and that the distinctive feature of neurophysiological processes associated with conscious experience consists in modulating the ZPF. Postulating that the ZPF is an inherently sentient field and assuming that the spectrum of phenomenal qualities is represented by the normal modes of the ZPF, the significance of resonant glutamate-ZPF interaction for the formation of conscious states becomes apparent in that the amplification of specific ZPF modes is inextricably linked with the excitation of specific phenomenal qualities. This theory of consciousness, according to which phenomenal states arise through resonant amplification of zero-point modes, is given the acronym TRAZE. An experimental setup is specified that can be used to test a corollary of the theory, namely, the prediction that normally occurring conscious perceptions are absent under experimental conditions in which resonant glutamate-ZPF coupling is disrupted.
... After Watson rejected introspectionism (1), and the cognitive revolution in turn rejected behaviorism (2), it has become widely accepted that there is middle ground: one can potentially gain access to (some of) the contents of the mind by asking observers to report on these contents. This idea has been the central tenet in what has come to be known as the search for the neural correlate of consciousness (3,4). It was realized early on that to determine what consciousness is, one must contrast it with what is not conscious, or else the concept of consciousness is an empty shell (the contrastive approach, see 2). ...
... In a second experiment, we had a different group of participants perform the same task, this time responding using the Perceptual Awareness Scale (PAS: 38). This scale allows observers to indicate the strength of their experience at a more fine-grained resolution ranging from [0] "No experience" to [3] "A clear experience" (PAS experiment, see figure 2B and Methods for full description of the four response categories). The PAS was originally developed as a solution to the criterion problem, for example by assuming that selecting [0] will only occur if trials are 'truly' unseen. ...
How consciousness arises from brain activity has been a topic of intense scientific research for decades. But how does one identify the neural basis of something that is intrinsically personal and subjective? A hallmark approach has been to ask observers to judge stimuli as ‘seen’ (conscious) and ‘unseen’ (unconscious) and use post hoc sorting of neural measurements based these judgments. Unfortunately, cognitive and response biases are known to strongly affect how observers place their criterion for judging stimuli as ‘seen’ vs. ‘unseen’, thereby confounding neural measures of consciousness. Astoundingly however, the effect of conservative and liberal criterion placement on neural measures of unconscious and conscious processing has never been explicitly investigated. Here we use simulations and electrophysiological brain measurements to show that conservative criterion placement has an unintuitive consequence: rather than selectively providing a cautious estimate of conscious processing, it inflates effect sizes in neural measures of both conscious and unconscious processing, while liberal criterion placement does the reverse. After showing this in simulation, we performed decoding analyses on two electroencephalography studies that employ common subjective indicators of conscious awareness, in which we experimentally manipulated the response criterion. The results confirm that the predicted confounding effects of criterion placement on neural measures of unconscious and conscious processing occur in empirical data, while further showing that the most widely used subjective scale, the Perceptual Awareness Scale (PAS), does not guard against criterion confounds. Follow-up simulations explicate how the experimental context determines whether the relative confounding effect of criterion placement is larger in neural measures of either conscious or unconscious processing. We conclude that criterion placement threatens the construct validity of neural measures of conscious and unconscious processing.
Significance statement
Consciousness has been a topic of scientific research for decades. It is therefore surprising that no consensus has been reached on its neural basis. This may be due to a fundamental problem in consciousness science. Consciousness cannot be observed directly, so that subjective measures are used as behavioral indicators of conscious experience. Here we show that subjective measures cannot reliably reflect experience due to the inescapable arbitrary nature of behavioral criterion placement. We use computational modeling and empirical data to show that the criterion problem has unexpected consequences, such as inflating measures of both conscious and unconscious processing. These findings show that subjective measures are flawed, questioning past work on the neuroscience of consciousness.
... At the turn of the 20 st century, subjective measures of awareness regained popularity within consciousness research, a shift partly precipitated by the newly appointed quest for the Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC) and by the need to gather observers' subjective experiences more exhaustively. Crick and Koch's (1990) seminal paper laid down the foundations for the scientific exploration of consciousness. It sparked significant interest and research in the field of consciousness studies and stablished the groundwork for subsequent investigations into the neural basis of conscious awareness. ...
... Even though Crick and Koch (1990) acknowledged the challenges and limitations in studying subjective experiences and subjective reports, the standard approach behind the NCC consisted of comparing brain activity associated to stimuli that observers' report as consciously perceived (e.g., 'aware' condition) to brain activity of the same stimuli that observers' report as not being aware of (e.g., 'unaware' condition). This "contrastive approach" was proposed by Bernard Baars (1989), who suggested that contrasting conscious and non-conscious processes could help uncover the neural mechanisms and cognitive processes involved in generating conscious experiences. ...
The study of consciousness is considered by many one of the most difficult contemporary scientific endeavours and confronts several methodological and theoretical challenges. A central issue that makes the study of consciousness so challenging is that, while the rest of science is concerned with problems that can be verified from a "third person" view (i.e., objectively), the study of consciousness deals with the phenomenon of subjective experience, only accessible from a "first person" view. In the present article, we review early (starting during the late 19 th century) and later efforts on measuring consciousness and its absence, focusing on the two main approaches used by researchers within the field: objective (i.e., performance based) and subjective (i.e., report based) measures of awareness. In addition, we compare the advantages and disadvantages of both types of awareness measures, we evaluate them according to different methodological considerations and discuss, among other issues, the possibility of comparing them by transforming to a common sensitivity measure (d'). Finally, we explore several new approaches-such as Bayesian models to support the absence of awareness-, as well as future challenges-such as measuring the qualia, the qualitative contents of awareness-in consciousness research.
... The term "neural correlates of consciousness" refers to the minimal neural mechanisms that are required for an individual to experience any conscious percept. This concept was first introduced by Crick and Koch in 1990 [25]. Over the years, researchers have identified a number of brain regions that are thought to be involved in generating conscious experience. ...
I present a symbolic elucidation of mind topology, revealing the intricate process through which conscious experience is generated. Introducing Sensor Theory (ASAG), also known as Cognitive Mechanism, we offer a tangible understanding of conscious experience by highlighting how the mind accumulates and employs information to shape behaviors within a system. Through mathematical techniques, I demonstrate the elusive nature of identifying the precise moment when an organism acquires consciousness , emphasizing its gradual development from zygote until the end of life. I contend that consciousness emerges from the chemical and physical processes that unfold during an organism's growth and evolution, underscoring the importance of comprehending the underlying biological mechanisms. This manuscript further explores the impact of internal states on a system and investigates how the associated information can guide subsequent processes. Additionally, I delve into the physical mechanisms that underlie consciousness, seeking to understand their manifestation in subjective awareness. By examining the interplay between biological mechanisms and conscious experience, I strive to deepen our comprehension of this phenomenon.
... Thus, the VRIB provides the opportunity to generalize previous conclusions, to provide new means to study their neural underpinnings, and to look further into the relationship between attention and consciousness, in an environment that brings research one step closer to lifelike experiences. In addition, it opens the gate to comparing the neural correlates of real-life conscious and unconscious processing, expanding the existing search for the neural correlates of consciousness (Crick & Koch, 1990) into the ecological domain. ...
Unconscious processing has been widely examined using diverse and well-controlled methodologies. However, the extent to which these findings are relevant to real-life instances of information processing without awareness is limited. Here, we present a novel inattentional blindness (IB) paradigm in virtual reality (VR). In three experiments, we managed to repeatedly induce IB while participants foveally viewed salient stimuli for prolonged durations. The effectiveness of this paradigm demonstrates the close relationship between top-down attention and subjective experience. Thus, this method provides an ecologically valid setup to examine processing without awareness.
... Compared to neuroscience of the 50's and 60's, Watson and Crick (1953) had it easy when deducing the genetic code from the data of Rosalind Franklin. The proof is that once Crick started using the deductive method to explain how the brain works-vis-à-vis consciousness-his efforts failed (e.g., Crick and Koch 1990). Peter Schiller would not make the same mistake, since he realized that one needs a lot of neuroscientific understanding before ever thinking about constructing a neurophysiological theory of consciousness, for example. ...
The late Professor Peter H. Schiller of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is considered one of the best neuroscientists of his generation. Five to six days per week, Peter would arrive at his laboratory at 8:00 am and almost immediately he would be sitting hunched down at his experimental rig setting up his PDP computer files (or an alternative) to start the experiment of the day, and he would continue working on the experiment until 5 am. This discipline went on for some 50 years. Unlike many modern neuroscientists, who conduct science from their laptops rarely seeing the insides of a laboratory, Peter believed that there is nothing better in life than being present for one’s discoveries regardless of how small or large, since it is cumulative knowledge that matters in science. Given that the field of neuroscience in the 1960’s (when Peter started his professorship at MIT) had few facts upon which solid theories could be formulated, he dedicated his life to the collection of facts by performing inductive rather than deductive science. Deductive science is only meaningful once a field has an established set of facts, such as for physics in the early 20th century marked by the advancement of many testable hypotheses (e.g., Einstein 1901-1909). Compared to neuroscience of the 50’s and 60’s, Watson and Crick (1953) had it easy when deducing the genetic code from the data of Rosalind Franklin. The proof is that once Crick started using the deductive method to explain how the brain works—vis-à-vis consciousness—his efforts failed (e.g., Crick and Koch 1990). Peter Schiller would not make the same mistake, since he realized that one needs a lot of neuroscientific understanding before ever thinking about constructing a neurophysiological theory of consciousness, for example. Peter’s contribution to neuroscience is largely descriptive and fact based (always looking for the big effect to reduce dependence on the student t-test, which is greatly abused). Peter’s facts will now be used by us with the hope that we are finally ready to use the deductive method in neuroscience that will yield some explanations (Tehovnik, Hasanbegović, and Chen 2024), based largely on the experimental results of Peter and his contemporaries, as well as his students and affiliates who also have refused to venture much beyond their data (e.g., Robert Doty, Dick Held, Case Vanderwolf, Doreen Kimura, Thomas Thatch, John Yeomans, Nikos Logothetis, Sergio Neuenschwander, Lewis Longtang Chen, Warren Slocum, Fahad Sultan, Andreas Tolias, Thanos Siapas, Stelios Smirnakis, Manolis Froudarakis, to mention but a few).
... This assumption should not be uncritically accepted. Consider the once-influential suggestion that visual experience involves oscillations of around 40Hz in the visual cortex [90]. Clearly, only a system with a visual cortex is capable of instantiating that property. ...
Neural organoids are laboratory-generated entities that replicate certain structural and functional features of the human brain. Most neural organoids are disembodied—completely decoupled from sensory input and motor output. As such, questions about their potential capacity for consciousness are exceptionally difficult to answer. While not disputing the need for caution regarding certain neural organoid types, this paper appeals to two broad constraints on any adequate theory of consciousness—the first involving the dependence of consciousness on embodiment; the second involving the dependence of consciousness on representations—to argue that disembodied neural organoids are not plausible candidates for consciousness.
... Such a time window, or "bin", is expressed through the parameter t which would represent the sum of standard deviations for the time delay of synaptic transmission including the duration of the refractory period. An average estimate of 6 ms for this parameter appears reasonable in light of the data available [146]. Helekar [147] based his calculations of a temporal code on an average duration of 3 ms for Δt, operating under the hypothesis of an average estimate of only 30 ms for a state duration, expressed in terms of the parameter t. ...
This book covers key areas of arts and social studies. The contributions by the authors include concept of love, Plato’s and Mozi’s philosophy, universal love, familial relationships, political employment, libertarianism, cultural malfunction, conservative culture, aristotelian ‘s ideas, foreign capital, moral geography, night-time economy, pre-capitalist practices, quality of performance, shift work, sleep disruption and maladaptation, ergonomic injuries, social and sociological thought, autonomy, history of armenia, social stratification, Ruskin’s treatises, honesty in architecture, architecture’s death, architectural deceit, sanitation in semi-urban and urban areas, water pollution, sewage treatment system, access to drinking water, human consciousness, artificial consciousness, artificial general intelligence, brain plasticity, musical connotation, Tchaikovsky’s symphony, sixth symphony pathetique, liaozhai imitation, civil war tragedies, blurring distinctions, fashionable literary. This book contains various materials suitable for students, researchers, and academicians in the field of arts and social studies.
... Like the temporal signal sequence or activity pattern of any single coding cell is determined by its firing activity across a certain length of time [127,128,129], the temporal signature of a conscious state would also be linked to its duration, the so-called "psychological moment", with variations in the limited dynamic range of a few hundreds of milliseconds [130][131][132][133][134]. This estimate was established decades ago on the grounds of a considerable body of psychophysical and neurobiological data [135][136][137][138][139][140][141][142][143][144][145]. Experiments by Libet [42,43,44] have shown that a time minimum of about 500 ms is required for a near-threshold stimulus to produce a conscious perceptual experience. ...
This chapter critically questions the claim that there would be possibility of emulating human consciousness and consciousness-dependent activity by Artificial Intelligence to create conscious artificial systems. The analysis is based on neurophysiological research and theory. In-depth scrutiny of the field and the prospects for converting neuroscience research into the type of algorithmic programs utilized in computer-based AI systems to create artificially conscious machines leads to conclude that such a conversion is unlikely to ever be possible because of the complexity of unconscious and conscious brain processing and their interaction. It is through the latter that the brain opens the doors to consciousness, a property of the human mind that no other living species has developed for reasons that are made clear in this chapter. As a consequence, many of the projected goals of AI will remain forever unrealizable. Although this work does not directly examine the question within a philosophy of mind framework by, for example, discussing why identifying consciousness with the activity of electronic circuits is first and foremost a category mistake in terms of scientific reasoning, the approach offered in the chapter is complementary to this standpoint, and illustrates various aspects of the problem under a monist from-brain-to-mind premise.
Keywords: Consciousness, Brain, Artificial Consciousness, Human Mind
... The mind-brain problem, i.e. how our conscious experience is related to material brain processes, has been debated by philosophers for centuries and remains one of the deepest unsolved problems in science [1][2][3] . The last decades have seen a surge of theoretical and empirical consciousness research. ...
How is conscious experience related to material brain processes? A variety of theories aiming to answer this age-old question have emerged from the recent surge in consciousness research, and some are now hotly debated. While most researchers have so far focused on the development and validation of their preferred theory in relative isolation, this article, written by a group of scientists representing different theories, takes an alternative approach. Noting that various theories often try to explain different aspects or mechanistic levels of consciousness, we argue that theories do not necessarily contradict each other. Instead, several of them may converge on fundamental neuronal mechanisms and be partly compatible and complementary, so that multiple theories can simultaneously contribute to our understanding. Here we consider unifying, integration-oriented approaches that have so far been largely neglected, seeking to combine valuable elements from various theories.
... turning Off-Diagonal Long-Range Correlations, ODLRO, into Off-Diagonal Long-Range Correlative Information, ODLCI (Brändas, 2021a); , inducing a syntax for communication simpliciter 5 , i.e., creating channels for microscopic negentropic quantum-thermal fluctuations, epitomiizing iconicity, while promoting a monistic world view. It transcends DAM in that the focus, rather than concentrating on the neural correlates (Crick & Koch, 1990), or reconceptualizing the functional role of the FEP in terms of the Markov-Blanket-states (Solms, 2019), lies in the realization of open systems, and their associated physical and chemical processes, generated by universal explicit temperature-time-scale boundary conditions. ...
It is generally agreed amongst philosophers and neuroscientists that the main obstacle between the science of the brain and the conscious nature of the mind is rooted in an objective-subjective dichotomy. It is further common to classify natural sciences in terms of their epistemological values and their ontological existential attributes. As a result, one concludes that a computer that is useful for studying nature, such as the conscious mind, is not itself part of nature, or as phrased differently by the noted philosopher, John Searle, ‘there are no Turing Machines in nature! However, the great physicist John Archibald Wheeler, by declaring the famous dictum, ‘it from bit’, did impart a somewhat different approach to the true nature of reality. To reconcile the two contrasting portraits, a different picture, based on the principle of self-reference, will be presented, and applied to the brain-mind problem. It is demonstrated how this principle imparts a thermo-qubit syntax, i.e., ‘bit from it’, for communication between increasingly more complex physical systems. Altogether, the steady state situation produces negentropic pockets for quantification and storage of information. The communication protocol entails cognition mechanisms that display unexpected equivalences that prompts fundamental interpretations of general optical illusions such as Necker’s cube, the Rubin vase, and the Spinning Dancer. The derived syntax also embodies an interesting deconstruction of the recently observed dodecanogram brain signal, experimentally elucidated by Anirban Bandyopadhyay and his team.
... Mocombe's quantum materialist reading of the origins and nature of consciousness diametrically opposes contemporary (ontological) approaches, materialism, post-materialism, dualism, to the phenomenon. Contemporary materialism highlights the neural correlates of consciousness in the brain for the origins and nature of consciousness (Crick,et al. [2,3,(7)(8)(9)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)); postmaterialist approaches suggest that consciousness is fundamental to the world/universe/multiverse and becomes embodied, received by the brain, which facilitates consciousness (van Lommel, et al. [8,9,[17][18][19][20]); and the less scientific interactionist/ dualist position, posits that consciousness is both fundamental and material, a substance that is embodied and takes shape through the neural correlates of the material brain, which acts on consciousness (Chalmers,et al. [2,4,8,10,15,18,19,21]). ...
This work offers a critical review of the ontological question regarding the origins and nature of consciousness. In the attempt to resolve the structure/agency problematic of the social sciences, Paul C. Mocombe offers his consciousness field theory and phenomenological structuralism in response to structuration theory. This work critically assesses Mocombe's consciousness field theory within the larger body of contemporary ontological debates regarding the nature, origin, and constitution of consciousness, especially human consciousness.
... This estimate was established decades ago on the grounds of a considerable body of psychophysical and neurobiological data (e.g. Lehmann et al., 1987;Lestienne & Strehler, 1988;Thorpe & Imbert, 1989;Crick & Koch, 1990;Potter, 1993;Gray, 1995;Pascual-Marqui et al., 1995;Taylor, 2002;Koenig & Lehmann, 1996;Lehmann et al., 1998;von der Malsburg, 1999;Bressler & Kelso, 2001;Chun & Marois, 2002). Work by Libet (1993Libet ( , 2003Libet ( , 2004, for example, has shown that a time minimum of about 500 ms is required for a near-threshold stimulus to produce a conscious perceptual experience. ...
... Visual quality evaluations of images and videos play a significant role in ensuring the performances of various applications as well as maintaining the quality of services relevant to visual media. Due to the notable correlation of awareness and actions of humans with vision [41], perceptual behaviour of HVS is at the core of visual quality assessment. But subjective assessment is impractical due to being expensive, time-consuming, impracticable for real-time application, as well as cumbersome to implement [42,43]. ...
With technological developments, the resolution of the display systems is increasing, causing image data to increase. Several technologies are aiding in optimizing these data during transmission and storage while maintaining quality. Still, the internal data transmission for accessing the memory sub-system during reading and writing cycles consumes significant power while requiring large memory for storage, which is inefficient, especially for portable displays. Hence, this work investigates the feasibility of reducing data through approximation for images in different formats and resolutions for human and computer vision based applications. Different image quality assessment metrics are utilized for performance evaluations with optimum image quality assessment selection according to application requirements. In addition, the feasibility analysis is conducted for three different applications as examples of computer vision. The experimental analysis highlights theoretical and industrial importance by showing that image data can be reduced from 25.0% to 62.5%, while satisfying requirements for HVS-based and computer vision-based applications.
... The neural correlates of consciousness are the minimal neural mechanisms that are necessary and sufficient to experience any conscious percept. (Crick and Koch, 1990). The integration of these neural correlates with the framework of consciousness will help build up a comprehensive theory which has the potential to support different forms of meditation. ...
Cosmopsychism is a novel paradigm that has the potential to respond to the hard problem of consciousness. It is based on the theoretical framework of stochastic electrodynamics. Considering both consciousness and matter as the primary reality, cosmopsychism describes the dynamic interaction of the brain with the ubiquitous field of consciousness (UFC), resulting in a number of information states. The UFC is conceived to exhibit twofold properties— extrinsic and intrinsic. The extrinsic property has the characteristics of the field of physics, whereas the intrinsic property is hard to decipher but is interpreted in terms of the characteristics of a color palate representing different shades of consciousness. Scientific analysis reveals that the concept of UFC, as theorized in cosmopsychism, resonates with the philosophical ideas of the Indian knowledge system (IKS). This article attempts to integrate the paradigm of cosmopsychism with the philosophical insights of the IKS in order to develop a holistic framework that contributes substantially to the science of consciousness
... To isolate the effect of conscious perception, one needs to compare trials that differ only with respect to consciousness while keeping physical stimulation (i.e., the perturbation) constant for each participant. This type of contrastive approach is also used in the search for the neural correlates of conscious perception (Crick & Koch, 1990). ...
During speaking, errors in the auditory feedback are processed rapidly and automatically, suggesting that feedback control of speech operates unconsciously. Yet, humans are also sensitive to consciously detect errors in their auditory feedback during speaking, but research has not probed whether conscious processing of feedback errors modulates speech, or what neural mechanisms underlie conscious detection of errors during speaking. To address these questions, we concurrently measured behavioral vocal responses and electroencephalography (EEG) in 30 participants while their online auditory feedback was altered using individually calibrated threshold-level pitch changes (i.e., errors). Following each vocalization trial, participants reported if they consciously detected pitch errors in their auditory feedback. Our results revealed that irrespective of conscious error detection, participants generated vocal compensation to the altered auditory feedback; however, conscious error detection was associated with increased magnitude of vocal responses roughly 500-700 ms after the altered feedback compared to the unconscious trials. In addition, we found that conscious detection of the altered feedback correlated with early and late neural activity responses as indexed by the modulation of event-related potentials (ERPs). Source localization of ERP responses suggested that conscious error detection was attributed to increased neural activity within the temporal, frontal and parietal cortical networks known to be involved in speech motor control. These findings emphasize the importance of investigating the role of higher-level conscious processing mechanisms in regulating speech feedback control, and their effect on the underlying neural and behavioral functions.
... Moreover, Valencia and Froese (2020) describe how the synchronisation of EEG oscillations is what brings about the informational integration and therefore sense of flow that characterise conscious experience. After all, the idea that synchronisation of neural activity is basic to the phenomenon of consciousness has long been supported by Crick and Koch (1990). ...
Contemporary theories of consciousness, although very efficient in postulating testable hypotheses, seem to either neglect its relational aspect or to have a profound difficulty in operationalizing this aspect in a measurable manner. We further argue that the analysis of periodic brain activity is inadequate to reveal consciousness’s subjective facet. This creates an important epistemic gap in the quest for the neural correlates of consciousness. We suggest a possible solution to bridge this gap, by analysing aperiodic brain activity. We further argue for the imperative need to inform neuroscientific theories of consciousness with relevant philosophical endeavours, in an effort to define, and therefore operationalise, consciousness thoroughly.
... Pursuing this line of discovery further, we reasoned that use of the feature conjunction search paradigm in electrophysiological experiments might shed light on the nature of attentional dynamics (e.g., serial vs. parallelcompetitive dynamics). Among other possibilities, the conjunction search task would allow one to test the controversial proposal that attentional feature integration is mediated by synchronizing neuronal discharges in different cortical maps (e.g., Crick & Koch, 1990;Singer & Gray, 1995). ...
The duration of the visual search by human participants for visual features is independent of the number of targets being viewed. In contrast, search for targets formed by conjunction of features is characterized by reaction times that increase as a linear function of the number of items viewed, suggesting that the target detection requires scrutiny of the search array by focal attention. Macaque (Macaca mulatta) and human performance on feature and conjunction search tasks was compared by using color or motion, or by conjunctions of color and motion. Like human participants, monkeys exhibited a dichotomy between feature and conjunction search performance. This finding suggests that humans and macaques engage similar brain mechanisms for representation of feature and conjunction targets. This behavioral paradigm can thus be used in neurophysiological experiments directed at the mechanisms of feature integration and target selection.
... Lastly, we also highly appreciate the feedback we got from ASSC in Tel Aviv. All data and analysis code of all experiments in this article have been made publicly available on Open Science Since Crick and Koch (1990) advocated that it was finally time to tackle the "hard problem" of human mind-the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC), many philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists have contributed to theory building on this issue in the past three decades (Aru et al., 2020;Baars, 2005;Chalmers, 1996;Lamme, 2006;Lau & Rosenthal, 2011;Tononi, 2004). Various theories have been proposed to account for the neural mechanism of conscious experiences from very different disciplinary stances, such as neurocognitive perspectives (Baars, 2005;, neurobiological perspectives (Aru et al., 2020;Lamme, 2006;Tononi, 2004), and philosophical perspectives (Lau & Rosenthal, 2011). ...
In a conventional (Stroop) priming paradigm, it was well documented that objective prime-target incongruency delays response time (RT) to target compared to prime-target congruent condition. Recent evidence suggests that incongruency between the target and subjectively reported prime identity also delays RT over and above the classic congruency effect. When the prime is rendered invisible, the former effect is fundamentally a bottom-up (BU) stimulus-driven congruency effect and the latter a top-down (TD) guess-driven congruency effect. An influential theory of consciousness, global neuronal workspace theory, postulates that the long-lasting simultaneous and reciprocal interaction between TD decision network and BU input network is preserved during conscious processing and disabled during unconscious processing. Current study is focused on testing this theoretical postulation using two behavioral experiments. Our results showed that indeed TD-congruency and BU-congruency produced additive RT effects on prime-invisible trials, which implies that TD and BU prime representations are activated in independent neuronal populations. Meanwhile, an underadditive interaction effect was observed as prime visibility rose, which is a signature that TD and BU prime representations recruited overlapping neuronal populations during conscious perception. In addition, we suggest that current behavioral paradigm might be a financially friendly alternative to detect the presence of representational overlap in the brain between a wide range of mental representations, such as expectation, prediction, conscious/unconscious perception, and conscious/unconscious working memory.
... Living things are merely survival machines for genes, according to Dawkins (1976). Acts of perception are neuronal events, according to Crick and Koch (1990). ...
Economic progress is the result of entrepreneurship that introduces new and improved products into markets, and uncovers more efficient production processes. Entrepreneurial activity takes place in an uncertain environment, and is the result of the conscious choices of entrepreneurs. Economic progress cannot occur without the conscious choices of individuals, both as entrepreneurs and as consumers. This paper compares the concept of conscious choice with the frequently-used concept of rational choice. The study of consciousness has been multidisciplinary, mostly within philosophy, biology, and psychology. Economics has had little to offer to the study of consciousness, and has taken little from that interdisciplinary area of inquiry. This paper offers economists an introduction to the study of conscious choice, and shows why conscious choice is essential to the creation of economic progress.
... NCCs are defined as the minimal set of neuronal mechanisms sufficient for any phenomenological aspect of consciousness to emerge. 7 Theoretically, NCCs can be related to a specific mental content (content-specific NCC), or denote the minimal neural mechanisms that are together necessary and sufficient for presence of mental content (full NCC). 8 The different Table 1 Operational classification of phenomenological consciousness states related to access consciousness and phenomenological self, and the relative contribution of wakefulness, internal awareness, and external awareness to those states. ...
Neuroscientists agree on the value of locating the source of consciousness within the brain. Anaesthesiologists are no exception, and have their own operational definition of consciousness based on phenomenological observations during anaesthesia. The full functional correlates of consciousness are yet to be precisely identified, however rapidly evolving progress in this scientific domain has yielded several theories that attempt to model the generation of consciousness. They have received variable support from experimental observations, including those involving anaesthesia and its ability to reversibly modulate different aspects of consciousness. Aside from the interest in a better understanding of the mechanisms of consciousness, exploring the functional tenets of the phenomenological consciousness states of general anaesthesia has the potential to ultimately improve patient management. It could facilitate the design of specific monitoring devices and approaches, aiming at reliably detecting each of the possible states of consciousness during an anaesthetic procedure, including total absence of mental content (unconsciousness), and internal awareness (sensation of self and internal thoughts) with or without conscious perception of the environment (connected or disconnected consciousness, respectively). Indeed, it must be noted that unresponsiveness is not sufficient to infer absence of connectedness or even absence of consciousness. This narrative review presents the current knowledge in this field from a system-level, underlining the contribution of anaesthesia studies in supporting theories of consciousness, and proposing directions for future research.
... For example, when an image flashes on a computer screen, we might have a lower-level experience that something was there (detection) or a higher-level experience of what it was (identification). To determine the neural mechanisms of these experiences of content (Aru & Bachmann, 2017), research has focused on finding the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC): neural activity that is consistently associated with particular experiences (Crick & Koch, 1990). Because electrocortical (EEG) activity is relatively easy to record and has excellent time resolution (Biasiucci et al., Luck, 2014), it has been used widely to study NCC. ...
Humans have conscious experiences of the events in their environment. Previous research from electroencephalography (EEG) has shown visual awareness negativity (VAN) at about 200 ms to be a neural correlate of consciousness (NCC). However, when considering VAN as an NCC, it is important to explore which particular experiences are associated with VAN. Recent research proposes that VAN is an NCC of lower-level experiences (detection) rather than higher-level experiences (identification). However, previous results are mixed and have several limitations. In the present study, the stimulus was a ring with a Gabor patch tilting either left or right. On each trial, subjects rated their awareness on a three-level perceptual awareness scale that captured both detection (something vs. nothing) and identification (identification vs. something). Separate staircases were used to adjust stimulus opacity to the detection threshold and the identification threshold. Bayesian linear mixed models provided extreme evidence (BF10 = 131) that VAN was stronger at the detection threshold than at the identification threshold. Mean VAN decreased from [Formula: see text]2.12 microV [[Formula: see text]2.86, [Formula: see text]1.42] at detection to [Formula: see text]0.46 microV [[Formula: see text]0.79, [Formula: see text]0.11] at identification. These results strongly support the claim that VAN is an NCC of lower-level experiences of seeing something rather than of higher-level experiences of specific properties of the stimuli. Thus, results are consistent with recurrent processing theory in that phenomenal visual consciousness is reflected by VAN. Further, results emphasize that it is important to consider the level of experience when searching for NCC.
... In contrast, scientific theories of consciousness make claims about which specific material phenomena-usually brain processes-are associated with consciousness. Some explicitly aim to identify the neural correlates of conscious states (NCCs), defined as the minimal sets of neural events which are jointly sufficient for those states (Crick & Koch 1990, Chalmers 2000. The central question for scientific theories of consciousness is what distinguishes cases in which conscious experience arises from those in which it does not, and while this is not the only question such theories might address, it is the focus of this report. ...
Whether current or near-term AI systems could be conscious is a topic of scientific interest and increasing public concern. This report argues for, and exemplifies, a rigorous and empirically grounded approach to AI consciousness: assessing existing AI systems in detail, in light of our best-supported neuroscientific theories of consciousness. We survey several prominent scientific theories of consciousness, including recurrent processing theory, global workspace theory, higher-order theories, predictive processing, and attention schema theory. From these theories we derive "indicator properties" of consciousness, elucidated in computational terms that allow us to assess AI systems for these properties. We use these indicator properties to assess several recent AI systems, and we discuss how future systems might implement them. Our analysis suggests that no current AI systems are conscious, but also shows that there are no obvious barriers to building conscious AI systems.
... En un primer momento, cuando el individuo todavía no es consciente del estímulo que se está procesando, es necesario que esta sucesión de procesos desencadenados no se detenga para que pueda ascender hasta la consciencia del espectador. El neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) es el mecanismo neuronal mínimo, pero suficiente, para que una experiencia sensorial se pueda considerar como consciente (Crick y Koch, 1990). Así, todo aquello que no alcance el NCC queda relegado a la categoría de estímulo subliminal que, aun siendo procesado, no alcanza a ascender al dominio de lo supraliminal. ...
El neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) identifica los procesos neuronales mínimos que deben producirse para que un estímulo sea percibido de forma consciente. En numerosas ocasiones, los estímulos percibidos no alcanzan a completar los procesos del NCC. Así cabe discriminar entre aquellos estímulos subliminales, que no alcanzan la consciencia, y aquellos supraliminales, que sí lo hacen. En el medio cinematográfico se han desarrollado diferentes estrategias que persiguen desencadenar procesos neuronales de bajo nivel sin superar el umbral de lo supraliminal. Su diseño persigue impactar en el espectador, presentando una naturaleza netamente diferenciada en razón de los motivos por los que los estímulos no ingresan en la consciencia. La principal distinción cabe establecerla entre aquellas basadas en una exposición del estímulo que resulta insuficiente, de aquellas otras donde el estímulo se procesa como un elemento integrado o subsumido dentro de un todo más amplio al que sí accede la consciencia del individuo. Este artículo propone una aproximación al dominio subliminal cinematográfico desde una perspectiva analítica aplicada a un caso de estudio paradigmático como es El Exorcista (1973), gracias al uso programático que dentro de ese film se desarrolla en torno al umbral donde cabe situar el territorio de lo subliminal.
To investigate mechanisms underlying loss of consciousness, it is important to extend methods established in humans to rodents as well. Perturbational complexity index (PCI) is a promising metric of “capacity for consciousness” and is based on a perturbational approach that allows inferring a system’s capacity for causal integration and differentiation of information. These properties have been proposed as necessary for conscious systems. Measures based on spontaneous electroencephalography recordings, however, may be more practical for certain clinical purposes and may better reflect ongoing dynamics. Here, we compare PCI (using electrical stimulation for perturbing cortical activity) to several spontaneous electroencephalography-based measures of signal diversity and integrated information in rats undergoing propofol, sevoflurane, and ketamine anesthesia. We find that, along with PCI, the spontaneous electroencephalography-based measures, Lempel–Ziv complexity (LZ) and geometric integrated information (ΦG), were best able to distinguish between awake and propofol and sevoflurane anesthesia. However, PCI was anti-correlated with spontaneous measures of integrated information, which generally increased during propofol and sevoflurane anesthesia, contrary to expectations. Together with an observed divergence in network properties estimated from directed functional connectivity (current results) and effective connectivity (earlier results), the perturbation-based results seem to suggest that anesthesia disrupts global cortico-cortical information transfer, whereas spontaneous activity suggests the opposite. We speculate that these seemingly diverging results may be because of suppressed encoding specificity of information or driving subcortical projections from, e.g., the thalamus. We conclude that certain perturbation-based measures (PCI) and spontaneous measures (LZ and ΦG) may be complementary and mutually informative when studying altered states of consciousness.
Cognitive science is a cross-disciplinary enterprise devoted to understanding the nature of the mind. In recent years, investigators in philosophy, psychology, the neurosciences, artificial intelligence, and a host of other disciplines have come to appreciate how much they can learn from one another about the various dimensions of cognition. The result has been the emergence of one of the most exciting and fruitful areas of inter-disciplinary research in the history of science. This volume of original essays surveys foundational, theoretical, and philosophical issues across the discipline, and introduces the foundations of cognitive science, the principal areas of research, and the major research programs. With a focus on broad philosophical themes rather than detailed technical issues, the volume will be valuable not only to cognitive scientists and philosophers of cognitive science, but also to those in other disciplines looking for an authoritative and up-to-date introduction to the field.
The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness is the first of its kind in the field, and its appearance marks a unique time in the history of intellectual inquiry on the topic. After decades during which consciousness was considered beyond the scope of legitimate scientific investigation, consciousness re-emerged as a popular focus of research towards the end of the last century, and it has remained so for nearly 20 years. There are now so many different lines of investigation on consciousness that the time has come when the field may finally benefit from a book that pulls them together and, by juxtaposing them, provides a comprehensive survey of this exciting field. An authoritative desk reference, which will also be suitable as an advanced textbook.
The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness is the first of its kind in the field, and its appearance marks a unique time in the history of intellectual inquiry on the topic. After decades during which consciousness was considered beyond the scope of legitimate scientific investigation, consciousness re-emerged as a popular focus of research towards the end of the last century, and it has remained so for nearly 20 years. There are now so many different lines of investigation on consciousness that the time has come when the field may finally benefit from a book that pulls them together and, by juxtaposing them, provides a comprehensive survey of this exciting field. An authoritative desk reference, which will also be suitable as an advanced textbook.
The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness is the first of its kind in the field, and its appearance marks a unique time in the history of intellectual inquiry on the topic. After decades during which consciousness was considered beyond the scope of legitimate scientific investigation, consciousness re-emerged as a popular focus of research towards the end of the last century, and it has remained so for nearly 20 years. There are now so many different lines of investigation on consciousness that the time has come when the field may finally benefit from a book that pulls them together and, by juxtaposing them, provides a comprehensive survey of this exciting field. An authoritative desk reference, which will also be suitable as an advanced textbook.
The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness is the first of its kind in the field, and its appearance marks a unique time in the history of intellectual inquiry on the topic. After decades during which consciousness was considered beyond the scope of legitimate scientific investigation, consciousness re-emerged as a popular focus of research towards the end of the last century, and it has remained so for nearly 20 years. There are now so many different lines of investigation on consciousness that the time has come when the field may finally benefit from a book that pulls them together and, by juxtaposing them, provides a comprehensive survey of this exciting field. An authoritative desk reference, which will also be suitable as an advanced textbook.
According to Loorits, if we want consciousness to be explained in terms of natural sciences, we should be able to analyze its seemingly non-structural aspects, like qualia, in structural terms. However, the studies conducted over the last three decades do not seem to be able to bridge the explanatory gap between physical phenomena and phenomenal experience. One possible way to bridge the explanatory gap is to seek the structure of consciousness within consciousness itself, through a phenomenal analysis of the qualitative aspects of experience. First, this analysis leads us to identify the explanandum concerning the simplest forms of experience not in qualia but in the unitary set of qualities found in early vision. Second, it leads us to hypothesize that consciousness is also made up of non-apparent parts, and that there exists a hidden structure of consciousness. This structure, corresponding to a simple early visual experience, is constituted by a Hierarchy of Spatial Belongings nested within each other. Each individual Spatial Belonging is formed by a primary content and a primary space. The primary content can be traced in the perceptibility of the contents we can distinguish in the phenomenal field. The primary space is responsible for the perceptibility of the content and is not perceptible in itself. However, the phenomenon I refer to as subtraction of visibility allows us to characterize it as phenomenally negative. The hierarchical relationships between Spatial Belongings can ensure the qualitative nature of components of perceptual organization, such as object, background, and detail. The hidden structure of consciousness presents aspects that are decidedly counterintuitive compared to our idea of phenomenal experience. However, on the one hand, the Hierarchy of Spatial Belongings can explain the qualities of early vision and their appearance as a unitary whole, while on the other hand, it might be more easily explicable in terms of brain organization. In other words, the hidden structure of consciousness can be considered a bridge structure which, placing itself at an intermediate level between experience and physical properties, can contribute to bridging the explanatory gap.
The complexity and diversity inherent in living organisms pose a significant challenge to the formulation of a universally accepted definition. Life manifests in myriad forms, exhibiting a range of attributes including growth, reproduction, responsiveness to stimuli, adaptation, and homeostasis. However, these characteristics are not exclusive to living organisms; they can also be observed, albeit to varying degrees, within certain non-living entities. Consequently, the distinction between living and non-living entities becomes blurred, giving rise to conceptual complexities. In this manuscript, I explore the transformation of non-living entities into living organisms, demonstrating that this process does not adhere to a specific temporal boundary that unequivocally designates the onset of life. Through mathematical analysis, I illustrate the absence of a comprehensive definition of living beings, indicating that there are no clear delineations in the chemical processes that facilitate the transition from non-living to living states. Put simply, living organisms lack unique characteristics that entirely distinguish them from non-living entities. This finding challenges the conventional notion of a comprehensive definition of living organisms , which assumes a clear-cut demarcation between the living and non-living realms.
RÉSUMÉ
Il pourrait paraître étrange qu'un même mécanisme neurophysiologique puisse concerner aussi bien l'activité cérébrale normale qu'une activité critique. En reprenant les concepts‐clés des synchronies à l'œuvre lors d'une activité cognitive, nous verrons les différences entre synchronies «critiques» et synchronies «cognitives»: le caractère non différencié des premières, la définition statistique et non rythmique de la seconde. Nous spéculerons enfin sur les rapports qu'elles pourraient entretenir à la lumière des découvertes récentes sur l'anticipation des crises et sur la possibilité qu'elles puissent partager certains générateurs.
In Chapter 7, we move from cognition and life to matter.
Thus, we try to show that some major problems from physics are
in fact pseudo-problems. (Some parts of this chapter are from
Vacariu and Vacariu 2008.) The last section of this chapter refers
to the (super)string theory. We believe that we have to replace the
“multiverse” or “hyperspace”, a notion from the string theory, with
the hyperverse (that is EDWs). Even if hyperspace and hyperverse
are quite similar notions, their meanings are totally different. The
superstring theory is elaborated in the unicorn-world framework.
Hyperspace means the “real space” of the universe with 10 or 11
dimensions. Hyperverse is an abstract notion that refers to all
EDWs. This notion is abstract because nobody can simultaneously
observe more than one EW.
A fundamental goal of research in neuroscience is to uncover the causal structure of the brain. This focus on causation makes sense, because causal information can provide explanations of brain function and identify reliable targets with which to understand cognitive function and prevent or change neurological conditions and psychiatric disorders. In this research, one of the most frequently used causal concepts is 'mechanism' - this is seen in the literature and language of the field, in grant and funding inquiries that specify what research is supported, and in journal guidelines on which contributions are considered for publication. In these contexts, mechanisms are commonly tied to expressions of the main aims of the field and cited as the 'fundamental', 'foundational' and/or 'basic' unit for understanding the brain. Despite its common usage and perceived importance, mechanism is used in different ways that are rarely distinguished. Given that this concept is defined in different ways throughout the field - and that there is often no clarification of which definition is intended - there remains a marked ambiguity about the fundamental goals, orientation and principles of the field. Here we provide an overview of causation and mechanism from the perspectives of neuroscience and philosophy of science, in order to address these challenges.
The marker approach is taken as best practice for answering the distribution question : Which animals are conscious? However, the methodology can be used to increase confidence in animals many presume to be unconscious, including C. elegans , leading to a trilemma: accept the worms as conscious; reject the specific markers; or reject the marker methodology for answering the distribution question. I defend the third option and argue that answering the distribution question requires a secure theory of consciousness. Accepting the hypothesis all animals are conscious will promote research leading to secure theory, which is needed to create reliable consciousness tests for animals and AIs. Rather than asking the distribution question, we should shift to the dimensions question : How are animals conscious?
This chapter deals with consciousness and its relation with identity, or with what we perceive as identity. To explore this topic from a broad perspective, we will first take a tour of the different explanations with which philosophy, throughout history, has tried to explain the phenomenon of consciousness. Secondly, we will go into the neurofunctional and neuroanatomical perspective, to set the precedents on which we will expose the current theories with which neuroscience tries to explain consciousness. Finally, we will recapitulate on what has been seen so far and try to reconstruct, with it, a possible explanation of the relationship between consciousness and identity, and the relationship that it has not only with ourselves but with our environment – we will try to explore whether consciousness and identity are individual phenomena or also dependent on others; If our identity is something that relies on us, or that also relies on what others think about us.
Against behaviorism, humanism, and cognitive psychology, this work explores Mocombe's antihuman psychology as a product of his consciousness field theory. The paper critically assesses Mocombe's consciousness field theory within the larger body of contemporary ontological debates regarding the nature, origin, and constitution of consciousness, especially human consciousness, vis-à-vis their relations to the psychological theories of behaviorism, humanism, and cognitivism, concluding that consciousness field theory posits an alternative psychological theory of the mind, i.e., antihuman psychology, to behaviorist, humanist, and cognitivist conceptions of the mind.
تعامل ذهن و بدن و تظاهرات آن در سطح مغز به طور گسترده در زمینه تحقیقات آگاهی توسط محققین مورد مطالعه قرار گرفته است. میدان شعوری فرادرمانی، همانطور که محمد علی طاهری (بنیانگذار) بیان کرده است، روشی برای ارتباط با شبکه شعور کیهانی با واسطه گری ذهن انسان است و مغز در این روند، نقش دتکتوری (نشانگری) دارد. در نتیجه این ارتباط، فرایند اسکن وضعیت یک موجود، مثل وضعیت سلامت سلول ها و در نتیجه اندام انجام می شود. این مطالعه به منظور بررسی تأثیر ارتباط میدان شعوری فرادرمانی بر ویژگی های الکتروانسفالوگرام (EEG) به عنوان یک نشانگر مهم عملکرد مغز، انجام شد. نتایج نشان داد که در جمعیت فرادرمانگر در باند فرکانسی گاما 2 (35-40 هرتز) قدرت قابل توجهی در لوب پیشانی در مدیال فرونتال ژیروس (BA6) و لوبول پاراسنترال (BA31) مغز در حین ارتباط نسبت به حالت کنترل (استراحت؛ بدون ارتباط همان افراد) وجود دارد. با توجه به فعالیت الکتریکی قشر مغز فرادرمانگر طی ارتباط میدان شعوری فرادرمانی، مشخصه افزایش قدرت موج گاما و فعالیت نواحی موثر بر حافظه، توجه، ادراک و فعالیت ذاتی شبکه حالت پیش فرض مشاهده می شود. این نتایج، ارتباط میدان شعوری فرادرمانی را از طریق نمایش فعالیت مغز امواج و نواحی درگیر، از روش های شناخته شده (از جمله انواع مختلف مدیتیشن) که به تعامل ذهن و بدن می پردازند، کاملا متفاوت و متمایز می کند.
The overall view of the topics of the book is given in the first part of the book and only the organization of the contents of "TGD Inspired Theory of Consciousness: Part II" is represented.
The topics of the book are organized in the following manner.
\begin{enumerate}
\item The first part of the book summarizes the TGD view about intelligence and cognition. p-Adic physics as physics of cognition and perhaps also \index{intentionality} intentionality and many-fermion states as representations of Boolean statements are the key notions. In zero energy ontology also quantal versions of logical rules $A\rightarrow B$ realized as quantum variants of\index{Boolean functions} Boolean functions emerge at the fundamental level. Also a chapter describing a general vision of adelic physics as a mathematical description of physics of both sensory experience and cognition in the evolution of cognition and intelligence is included.
A chapter about the role of\index{dark matter} dark matter hierarchy, in particular about topological quantum computation as a universal information processing tool would be needed but is left to a separate book about quantum computation and its relation to ordinary computation.
\item In the second part of the book TGD inspired theory of consciousness is compared to other theories of consciousness including integrated information theory (IIT).
\end{enumerate}
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