If you grow a brain in a lab, will it have a mind of its own?

Well that’s easy then: No sensory input = no “quaila” = no “experience” = no “consciousness”. Surely?

I think that may be what the researchers are counting on.

I wonder if the phi of Integrated Information could be measured under these circumstances.

Linda

Well that’s easy then: No sensory input = no “quaila” = no “experience” = no “consciousness”. Surely?

Depends on how one thinks of qualia. I'd say while sensory examples are the ones often used as examples, it's more to describe the idea that there is something it is like to be that individual.

So you have qualia when you feel you remember something, when you feel like you are running late, etc. I offer this as a neutral definition outside of any claim as to what qualia ultimately are or signify - I recall seeing the "running late" example in a paper somewhere.

I think that may be what the researchers are counting on.

I wonder if the phi of Integrated Information could be measured under these circumstances.

Linda

I believe so, although Tononi has yet to have anything more than comparative results and not hard values that are empirical, as far as I have read.

here is a report from his Lab
https://news.wisc.edu/research-shows-hot...-dreaming/

 “This suggests that dreams recruit the same brain regions as experiences in wakefulness for specific contents,” lead author Dr. Francesca Siclari says. “This also indicates that dreams are … not ‘inventions’ or ‘confabulations’ that we make up while we wake up.”

malf writes

 Well that’s easy then: No sensory input = no “quaila” = no “experience” = no “consciousness”. Surely?

I don't think so.  Dreams have qualia.  Yet, there is no sensory input from the 5 senses.  There is a confused idea that during dreaming that some magic source resends "memory traces" to substitute as sensory input.  To date - "memory traces" are not real and are made-up mystery meat called engrams.  Some abstract concept like engrams is not a signal source.  No engram has empirically measured or defined as a physical object.

Is self-stimulation - sensory input?  I would say: no not really, as we understand the senses today.

I don't think so.  Dreams have qualia.  Yet, there is no sensory input from the 5 senses.

Is self-stimulation - sensory input?  I would say: no not really, as we understand the senses today.

You are putting the cart before the horse here. Everyone in that study has had a lifetime of sensory input leading up to those dreams (to say nothing of the sensory input which does make its way into our dreams - pee dreams as an example). There is no reason to think that a brain which has never received sensory input would have "qualia" in any recognizable way (i.e. would Tononi recognize it?).

Self-stimulation is definitely sensory input, though. Otherwise, what's the point of sensory deprivation in the Ganzfeld studies?

Linda

You are putting the cart before the horse here. Everyone in that study has had a lifetime of sensory input leading up to those dreams (to say nothing of the sensory input which does make its way into our dreams - pee dreams as an example). There is no reason to think that a brain which has never received sensory input would have "qualia" in any recognizable way (i.e. would Tononi recognize it?).

Self-stimulation is definitely sensory input, though. Otherwise, what's the point of sensory deprivation in the Ganzfeld studies?

Linda

Thanks for the response, Linda.  It makes perfect sense and your question as to what can Tononi measure; deserves discussion.  I am working from the context of a non-normative model for mind and its workings.  My terse answer is that brains have sensory input during development in the womb and there is no tabula rasa from which qualia have a start-up after birth.  Qualia may be active experiences, before sense organ signalling begins.

The 5 senses are electronic circuits, with sensors like eyes, ear drums & chemical detectors in the nose.  Sensory input cascades to afferent circuits leading to the brain for decoding.  This is very well understood.  In dreams the sensory organs are not transmitting signals.  If the brain is to be considered a sensory organ - what is it detecting, physically?

 The Five Sense Organs in Human Beings. The sense organs — eyes, ears, tongue, skin, and nose — help to protect the body. The human sense organs contain receptors that relay information through sensory neurons to the appropriate places within the nervous system.

The Five Sense Organs in Human Beings - dummies
www.dummies.com/education/science/biology/the-five-sense-organs-in-human-beings/

The physical channels of the sense organs and the circuits of sensory nerves are well-defined.  The information (bits and bytes) communication channels are clear; and quantitative.  In the post you responded to - I have already strongly discounted the idea that there are bit cells (addressable storage location) , like a hard drive where the information from sensory organs is resent to central processing as memory.  This is a primary fallacy (IMHO) of the normative narrative.  Experiences are not stored on brain video tape to be viewed by our in-house  homunculus (see Dennett).

The sensory data for dreams comes from signal sources that appear to be non-local to single cells but are generated globally in an abstract "workspace".  Your comment that sensory deprivation causes new sensory information - appears to me as self-contradictory.  

My self-styled model would find the brain as having a detection functionality (sixth-sense? second sight?)  Hence, it can be a source for dreams and a source for sensory information in dreams.  I am well-aware that this conjecture is not mainstream science and have had my share of ridicule for postulating it.

Thanks for the response, Linda.  It makes perfect sense and your question as to what can Tononi measure; deserves discussion.  I am working from the context of a non-normative model for mind and its workings.  My terse answer is that brains have sensory input during development in the womb and there is no tabula rasa from which qualia have a start-up after birth.  Qualia may be active experiences, before sense organ signalling begins.

The 5 senses are electronic circuits, with sensors like eyes, ear drums & chemical detectors in the nose.  Sensory input cascades to afferent circuits leading to the brain for decoding.  This is very well understood.  In dreams the sensory organs are not transmitting signals.  If the brain is to be considered a sensory organ - what is it detecting, physically?


The physical channels of the sense organs and the circuits of sensory nerves are well-defined.  The information (bits and bytes) communication channels are clear; and quantitative.  In the post you responded to - I have already strongly discounted the idea that there are bit cells (addressable storage location) , like a hard drive where the information from sensory organs is resent to central processing as memory.  This is a primary fallacy (IMHO) of the normative narrative.  Experiences are not stored on brain video tape to be viewed by our in-house  homunculus (see Dennett).

The sensory data for dreams comes from signal sources that appear to be non-local to single cells but are generated globally in an abstract "workspace".  Your comment that sensory deprivation causes new sensory information - appears to me as self-contradictory.  

My self-styled model would find the brain as having a detection functionality (sixth-sense? second sight?)  Hence, it can be a source for dreams and a source for sensory information in dreams.  I am well-aware that this conjecture is not mainstream science and have had my share of ridicule for postulating it.

Minor point, but we don't have 5 senses. 

https://www.jhupressblog.com/2012/02/01/...o-we-have/

I suspect a brain never exposed to external referents (such as sensory information) doesn't have qualia. There is no opportunity for information to be integrated.

In addition to sensory input from sense organs, a brain also senses its own activity (once we are in an Integrated Information situation).

I'm thinking that since Koch has recognized that the Integrated Information concept of consciousness does not depend upon the substrate, that there must be a way of measuring integrated information separately from measures of brain activity.

Linda

Operationally, for the purposes of this thought experiment, what is the difference between a ‘lab’ and a ‘womb’?

The presence of a loving mother.

Minor point, but we don't have 5 senses. 

https://www.jhupressblog.com/2012/02/01/...o-we-have/

I suspect a brain never exposed to external referents (such as sensory information) doesn't have qualia. There is no opportunity for information to be integrated.

In addition to sensory input from sense organs, a brain also senses its own activity (once we are in an Integrated Information situation).

I'm thinking that since Koch has recognized that the Integrated Information concept of consciousness does not depend upon the substrate, that there must be a way of measuring integrated information separately from measures of brain activity.


Linda

I readily grant that the vestibular system is an additional sense with an information circuit that can be clearly defined, just in the same mode as the 5 traditional ones.  Your linked article, likewise, supports what I was trying to point out, as the key difference between sensory systems and saying that memories are sensory signals.

 A sensory receptor is a specialized cell that sends electrical signals to the brain in response to the type of stimuli the cell is optimized for. 

What cells in the cortex are receptor cells and what physical signal are they receiving, to qualify as the stimulus for content in dreaming?

And just to stay on topic - I don't think growing brain cells will make a human mind, however it seems logical to accept that they could be stimulated to process information.