Analysis of over 400 studies on leading theories regarding consciousness

Interesting article on consciousness. I’m not sure how to define it , other than to say it’s an analysis of over 400 studies on the leading theories of consciousness. I’m curious people’s thoughts …

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-03-n...sults.html

Interesting article on consciousness. I’m not sure how to define it , other than to say it’s an analysis of over 400 studies on the leading theories of consciousness. I’m curious people’s thoughts …

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-03-n...sults.html

Thanks for this, really shows what Kastrup called the "epicycles" of the materialist faith! 

Interesting article on consciousness. I’m not sure how to define it , other than to say it’s an analysis of over 400 studies on the leading theories of consciousness. I’m curious people’s thoughts …

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-03-n...sults.html

I don't see the Expanded Mind discussed directly, by this comment by the writer seems to lead in that direction.

 Moreover, when you put together all of the findings that were reported in these experiments, it seems like almost the entire brain is involved in creating the conscious experience, which is not consistent with any of the theories. In other words, it would appear that the real picture is larger and more complex than any of the existing theories suggest. It would seem that none of them is consistent with the data, when aggregated across studies, and that the truth lies somewhere in the middle."

What about the information processing in the heart and gut?  What about the ability of arms and legs to do their own thing?  And then there is external devices we can control and animate.

Mind is not drawing its artwork between the lines set by the physical brain.

I don't see the Expanded Mind discussed directly, by this comment by the writer seems to lead in that direction.


What about the information processing in the heart and gut?  What about the ability of arms and legs to do their own thing?  And then there is external devices we can control and animate.

Mind is not drawing its artwork between the lines set by the physical brain.

There are the descriptions we have, accumulating numbers of them, from NDEs where a person finds themselves released from the body. Somewhere towards the end of these experiences it is often described how difficult it was to squeeze a vast conscious self into the narrow confines of the human body, which feels too small to contain it. I don't think people describe squeezing their consciousness back inside the skull. I never heard such a thing. It is a whole-body experience. There are numerous reports of re-entering the body, all of it.

I don't think this article is particularly interesting, because it is for the most part DOA due to being totally based on materialist neuroscience - various theories of how consciousness is supposed to be solely a function of the physical brain. This mindset simply ignores the entire body of accumulated empirical data from psychical research over the last century and a half. 

The leading four materialist neuroscience theories analyzed are:

- The Global Neuronal Workspace Theory maintains that there is a central neural network, and when information enters it, it is being broadcasted throughout the brain, becoming conscious.

- The Higher Order Thought Theory claims that there is a higher order neural state that 'points' at activity in lower-level areas, marking this content as conscious.

- A third theory, called Recurrent Processing Theory, claims that information that is reprocessed within the sensory areas themselves, in the form of recurrent processing, becomes conscious.

- And finally, a fourth theory—Integrated Information Theory—defines consciousness as integrated information in the brain, claiming that the posterior regions are the physical substrates of consciousness.

The underlying approach of the article seems to be that if these theories aren't "scientific" enough, then by common sense implication we just need better materialist theories of how the physical brain produces consciousness, perhaps like the liver produces bile. Enough.

The underlying approach of the article seems to be that if these theories aren't "scientific" enough, then by common sense implication we just need better materialist theories of how the physical brain produces consciousness, perhaps like the liver produces bile. Enough.

My reaction was rather that the author of this article is saying that science has not really made any progress on the Hard Problem.

"The big question is how consciousness is born out of activity in the brain, or what distinguishes between conscious processing and unconscious processing," Prof Mudrik explains. "For example, if I see a red rose, my visual system processes the information and reports that there is a red stimulus in front of me. But what allows me—unlike a computer for example—to experience this color? To know how it feels? In recent years, a number of neuroscientific theories have been proposed to explain how conscious experience arises from neural activity. And although the theories provide utterly different explanations, each of them was able to gather empirical evidence to justify itself, based on multiple experiments that were conducted. We reexamined all these experiments, and showed that the parameters of the experiment actually determine its results. The artificial intelligence we used knew how to predict with an 80% success rate which theory the experiment would support, based solely on the researchers' methodological choices."

I think the point is that if there were a correct theory, it should stand out, but if several vastly different theories can each garner some support from experiment, it doesn't look like real progress is being made.

Then a little further on we read this:

"Another one of our findings was that the vast majority of the experiments we analyzed supported the theories, rather than challenging them. There appears to be a built-in confirmation bias in our scientific praxis, though the philosopher of science Karl Popper said that science advances by refuting theories, not by confirming them," adds Prof. Mudrik.

I think that  observation is really to the point. My guess is that Prof. Murdik is leaning in our direction without quite wanting to admit it openly.

- The Global Neuronal Workspace Theory maintains that there is a central neural network, and when information enters it, it is being broadcasted throughout the brain, becoming conscious.

This is the kind of statement that bugs me.  There is neurological information, then there is becoming conscious, but there is nothing to explain how one thing can lead to the other.  It is therefore not a theory of consciousness.

Here is Professor Murdrik:

https://www.mila-center.org/dr-liad-mudrik

I don't think this article is particularly interesting, because it is for the most part DOA due to being totally based on materialist neuroscience - various theories of how consciousness is supposed to be solely a function of the physical brain. This mindset simply ignores the entire body of accumulated empirical data from psychical research over the last century and a half. 

The leading four materialist neuroscience theories analyzed are:


The underlying approach of the article seems to be that if these theories aren't "scientific" enough, then by common sense implication we just need better materialist theories of how the physical brain produces consciousness, perhaps like the liver produces bile. Enough.

I mean for those of us who are already passed the materialist faith it's obviously going in the wrong direction (though IIT isn't explicitly materialist) but it's valuable for people out there to see these biases and religious self-confirmation that somehow consciousness must be explicable in terms of that which is not conscious.