Finding the root of consciousness [?]

Courtesy of David Metcalfe - Neuroscience News reports a paper in the journal Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience which suggests that cortical layer 5 pyramidal (L5p) neurons "affect both cortical and thalamic processing, hence coupling the cortico-cortical and thalamo-cortical loops with each other. Functionally this coupling corresponds to the coupling between the state and the contents of consciousness." The significance of this is beyond me, but they make a testable prediction: "cortical processing that does not include L5p neurons will be unconscious."
https://neurosciencenews.com/l5p-neuron-...ess-14997/

The full paper is available here:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10....00043/full

Courtesy of David Metcalfe - Neuroscience News reports a paper in the journal Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience which suggests that cortical layer 5 pyramidal (L5p) neurons "affect both cortical and thalamic processing, hence coupling the cortico-cortical and thalamo-cortical loops with each other. Functionally this coupling corresponds to the coupling between the state and the contents of consciousness." The significance of this is beyond me, but they make a testable prediction: "cortical processing that does not include L5p neurons will be unconscious."
https://neurosciencenews.com/l5p-neuron-...ess-14997/

The full paper is available here:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10....00043/full

Neuroscience News evidently hasn't heard about the Hard Problem of consciousness. And they haven't heard about some famous cases of normal functioning despite hydroencephaly reducing the brain's cortex to a thin membrane. At https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1...s-doctors/: 

A man with an unusually tiny brain manages to live an entirely normal life despite his condition, which was caused by a fluid build-up in his skull.

Scans of the 44-year-old man’s brain showed that a huge fluid-filled chamber called a ventricle took up most of the room in his skull, leaving little more than a thin sheet of actual brain tissue...

And there's this:                          

Of these cases of successful hemispherectomy, perhaps none is more astonishing than a case of a boy named Alex who did not start speaking until the left half of his brain was removed. A scientific paper describing the case says that Alex “failed to develop speech throughout early boyhood.” He could apparently say only one word (“mumma”) before his operation to cure epilepsy seizures. But then following a hemispherectomy (also called a hemidecortication) in which half of his brain was removed at age 8.5, “and withdrawal of anticonvulsants when he was more than 9 years old, Alex suddenly began to acquire speech.” We are told, “His most recent scores on tests of receptive and expressive language place him at an age equivalent of 8–10 years,” and that by age 10 he could “converse with copious and appropriate speech, involving some fairly long words.” Astonishingly, the boy who could not speak with a full brain could speak well after half of his brain was removed. The half of the brain removed was the left half – the very half that scientists tell us is the half that has more to do with language than the right half.

Neuroscience News evidently hasn't heard about the Hard Problem of consciousness. And they haven't heard about some famous cases of normal functioning despite hydroencephaly reducing the brain's cortex to a thin membrane. At https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1...s-doctors/: 


And there's this:                          

When it comes to the unsuccessful search for a materialistic explanation for consciousness, I frequently read the blogs "Head Truth" and "Future and Cosmos" by Mark Mahin. I think he does an outstanding job in explaining why some of these supposed "simple" materialistic explanations for consciousness don't explain anything in the end. Here is one of my favorite articles by him.


https://headtruth.blogspot.com/2018/04/c...spite.html

Neuroscience News evidently hasn't heard about the Hard Problem of consciousness. And they haven't heard about some famous cases of normal functioning despite hydroencephaly reducing the brain's cortex to a thin membrane. At https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1...s-doctors/: 


And there's this:                         

Were they missing the L5p neurons?

I guess it's not clear to me what you're suggesting - surely there will be some aspects of the brain necessary for instantiation of a conscious human in the world?

Beyond that nothing in the article suggests they are unaware of the Hard Problem?

Courtesy of David Metcalfe - Neuroscience News reports a paper in the journal Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience which suggests that cortical layer 5 pyramidal (L5p) neurons "affect both cortical and thalamic processing, hence coupling the cortico-cortical and thalamo-cortical loops with each other. Functionally this coupling corresponds to the coupling between the state and the contents of consciousness." The significance of this is beyond me, but they make a testable prediction: "cortical processing that does not include L5p neurons will be unconscious."
https://neurosciencenews.com/l5p-neuron-...ess-14997/

The full paper is available here:
https://www.frontietorsin.org/articles/1...00043/full

I have just gone thru the paper quickly.  The idea is seems quite significant to me.

Chris - what do you think about this idea of multiple loops for brain signalling?

I have just gone thru the paper quickly.  The idea is seems quite significant to me.

Chris - what do you think about this idea of multiple loops for brain signalling?

I'm afraid, as I implied to start with, I don't really understand the idea, except in the most general terms. This side of things isn't really my main interest - I just posted the links here in case others were interested.

I'm afraid, as I implied to start with, I don't really understand the idea, except in the most general terms. This side of things isn't really my main interest - I just posted the links here in case others were interested.

Thanks for doing so.  In the most general terms, which is the only level I am able to address the paper, they have evoked a couple of big ideas.  The one of interest to me, is the idea of a map of feedback circuitry  where two aspects of mind can internally build structures in response to changing circumstances.  This opens up a research pathway that may be fruitful in understanding how mind is so effective.

The current paradigm of brain --> mind is clearly (at least to me) observable, but fails to be comprehensive.

The paradigm of mind --> brain (idealism or panpyschism) is not hopeful to me, as its workings are abstract.

However, there can be a model where reciprocal functioning between mind and brain returns patterns of activity that describe actual behavior.  Afferent information from the nervous and other bio-systems feed mind.  Mind generates informational states, which induce efferent signals for physical action. 

For me, this provides a workable model.  The core organization of the informational state is not based on physical determinates from afferent signals, but on controlling meaning.  I am hopeful that this helps us understand the evolution of the mind.  

How you make people forget that brain equals mind?  Show scientific evidence that the information processing of mind evolved separately from physical brains.

I guess it's not clear to me what you're suggesting - surely there will be some aspects of the brain necessary for instantiation of a conscious human in the world?

Beyond that nothing in the article suggests they are unaware of the Hard Problem?

Their overall conclusion in the Abstract: "More generally, the present perspective suggests that L5p neurons have a central role in the mechanisms underlying consciousness."  

So like most neuroscientists they view consciousness as the workings of some sort of neurological mechanisms.

Neither this theory or any other mechanistic neurological theory can evade Chalmers' famous Hard Problem of consciousness. The properties of conscious awareness are in an entirely different existential realm than the properties of matter, energy and space. Some examples with conscious awareness:

- qualities of subjective awareness - qualia, i.e. blueness, redness, loudness, softness
- subjectivity: what it is like to be a person, a conscious agent
- intentionality - the quality of directing toward achieving an object
- aboutness: being about something
- this object of aboutness may be totally immaterial as in abstract thought, i.e. a thought about the number pi

What are the properties of all proposed theoretical biological/neurological mechanisms for consciousness? These are the ultimately physically measurable physics parameters involved in neuronal interactions through synaptic junctions or "quantum entanglement" or whatever. Measured classical parameters include forces, field strengths, masses, charges, velocities, etc. All of this amounts to "things" of some sort, not thoughts.

The properties of mental phenomena such as the examples given can't be derived from the properties of the ultimately physical phenomena utilized by Hameroff's theories. They are in entirely different existential categories.

So this seems to leave consciousness as some sort of epiphenomenal illusion, where what it is that is experiencing this illusion is undefined. But consciousness can't be a powerless epiphenomenon because consciousness has causative power in the world. To use the word "emergence" is just to evoke another mysterious miracle. The core mystery remains.

Aside from all this related to the Hard Problem, a large body of paranormal empirical evidence has been accumulated that clearly indicates that human consciousness is ultimately independent of the physical brain. This is especially in the area of veridical NDEs including many cases of very clear consciousness NDEs occurring while the physical brain is not functioning or only to a small degree, as in cardiac arrest. Other areas are the several thousand investigated and verified reincarnation cases including a number involving correlated birthmarks/birth defects, and investigated and verified mediumistic communications. 

Certainly a physical brain is necessary for consciousness to manifest in the physical world. The best metaphor or simile would be the TV set analogy. The TV set interfaces between the immaterial electromagnetic waves carrying the picture information, and the physical display. The TV is essential for the manifestation of the TV show in the physical world, and disruption of its various component parts will distort or destroy that displayed picture, but the TV set does not actually generate the displayed program. Any more than the brain generates consciousness.

Their overall conclusion in the Abstract: "More generally, the present perspective suggests that L5p neurons have a central role in the mechanisms underlying consciousness."  

So like most neuroscientists they view consciousness as the workings of some sort of neurological mechanisms.

Certainly a physical brain is necessary for consciousness to manifest in the physical world. The best metaphor or simile would be the TV set analogy. The TV set interfaces between the immaterial electromagnetic waves carrying the picture information, and the physical display. The TV is essential for the manifestation of the TV show in the physical world, and disruption of its various component parts will distort or destroy that displayed picture, but the TV set does not actually generate the displayed program. Any more than the brain generates consciousness.

I strongly agree with your description of the divide between physical transformations and emotional/intentional transformations are at different and discrete levels of natural functioning.  My approach is look at the tools that can map the information science, which underlies mind.  Wave detection is an excellent metaphor for the ability of agents to extract meaningful events and contribute responses back to their informational environments.

There is a debate that information and the structures that it forms from its casual activity -- are actually immaterial.  I strongly argue that they are.  This is a key point.  Floridi in his classic presentation on Semantic Information lays it out with 4 takes on the subject with 3 of them compatible with an immaterial nature. 

 

“It from bit” symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom—a very deep bottom, in most instances—an immaterial source and explanation; that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a [i]participatory universe[/i]. (Wheeler [1990], 5);

and

(ON.3)
[information is] a name for the content of what is exchanged with the outer world as we adjust to it, and make our adjustment felt upon it. (Wiener [1954], 17). Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day (Wiener [1961], 132).

A final comment concerning (GDI.3) can be introduced by discussing a fourth slogan:

(ON.4)
In fact, what we mean by information—the elementary unit of information—is a difference which makes a difference. (Bateson [1973], 428).

(ON.4) is one of the earliest and most popular formulations of GDI (see for example Franklin [1995], 34 and Chalmers [1996], 281) 

 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information-semantic/

Electro-magnetic waves, even as optical signals - are not immaterial but are physically measurable with units of physics (SI units).  What "fits the bill" is a probability wave.  The reality of information objects and probability waves is the immaterial answer to how natural communications detect, extract and restructure objective environmental information.

Their overall conclusion in the Abstract: "More generally, the present perspective suggests that L5p neurons have a central role in the mechanisms underlying consciousness." 

Right - but this doesn't seem to be ignoring the problem, it's suggesting a solution. Not that I think the proposed solution is workable.

The properties of mental phenomena such as the examples given can't be derived from the properties of the ultimately physical phenomena utilized by Hameroff's theories. They are in entirely different existential categories.

Hammeroff isn't a physicalist.

Certainly a physical brain is necessary for consciousness to manifest in the physical world. The best metaphor or simile would be the TV set analogy. The TV set interfaces between the immaterial electromagnetic waves carrying the picture information, and the physical display. The TV is essential for the manifestation of the TV show in the physical world, and disruption of its various component parts will distort or destroy that displayed picture, but the TV set does not actually generate the displayed program. Any more than the brain generates consciousness.

So when brain changes result in changes to a personality that is a distortion of a signal? But then were is the "you" that had the original personality?

I'd think, as suggested in Irreducible Mind, that the relationship between soul & body would have to be more like salt & water than the process by which a TV receives its signal?