
Network theory suggests consciousness is global in the brain - jonbaer
http://www.kurzweilai.net/etwork-theory-suggests-consciousness-is-global-in-the-brain
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smtucker
I'm not sure "consciousness" really exists. A computer surely isn't aware of
what it is computing and you don't need a global state of consciousness to
describe its functionality. Why point to things like "consciousness" when our
brains being biological automatons is a perfect explanation already?

It gets even sillier when you consider that the criteria for what things are
considered conscious seems to be quite arbitrary. They say a human is
conscious. Is a dog? I think most people would agree if a human is conscious a
dog is. Is a squirrel? I think most people would agree. Is a lizard? Maybe. Is
a spider? eh... Is a worm? well some might only have ~300 neurons... Is a
plant? Well, no neurons, but they technically do react to stimuli...

How about a rock? Well it certainly doesn't have any neurons and doesn't react
to stimuli but what is so special about neurons and reacting to stimuli
anyway? The concept of a threshold for consciousness doesn't seem to hold any
weight to it. It has nothing backing it up.

When two particles interact with each other is a barrier of consciousness
formed? Are all systems conscious? Is the universe conscious? Are all possible
systems made up of all the connections of all the constituent parts of the
universe conscious?

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bencollier49
That depends what you mean by "consciousness". If you mean the "experience of
awareness", then we can't even properly define it, let alone begin to explain
it.

This whole question is so hard because we find it impossible to define the
terms. It could be that by default, we cannot define consciousness. Perhaps
that implies that the universe is made of consciousness, rather than the other
way around.

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amelius
Interesting. But if the universe is all consciousness, then one can ask what
it is conscious about, and why this consciousness is forced to follow the laws
of physics.

On the other hand, I find it surprising that science does not deal with
"experience of awareness", for clearly it is part of reality (since we are
talking about it) and hence of physics (there is only one way out of this,
which is to say that we are all zombies just making up that our awareness is
influencing reality).

By the way, anyone know of a more concise term for "experience of awareness"?
I have been looking for it, and I'm sure it must exist, but no luck so far.
How do philosophers address this concept?

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davedx
You could be looking for "Qualia":
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia)

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snowwrestler
The analogy I fall back on is the concept of a wave in a body of water. Where,
in the body of water, is the structure that defines the wave? How does a wave
arise from a bunch of water molecules?

What we call a "wave" is actually a broadly distributed energy pattern in the
water. We just have created a single word for it to help us recognize and talk
about that pattern.

Consciousness might be like that--a (very complex) pattern of energy in the
matter of the brain. "Consciousness" would refer to a pattern of behaviors,
rather than a physical "thing" like a rock or a hand.

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divan
Jeff Hawkins wrote absolutely the same thing in his "On Intelligence" book
(2004), and came to that conclusion from his brain model.

~~~
sebastianconcpt
Something that you might find interesting:

There are two basic lines of thought here, the hard-electron AI school of
thought that pushes the emergent hypothesis and the "Consciousness is not
Computation" school of thought that accepts that Mind is Computation but
states that Consciousness is something else.

Tip: the AI hypothesis does NOT explain nor predicts the thing that a
Paramesium can do.

[https://www.singularityweblog.com/stuart-hameroff-quantum-
co...](https://www.singularityweblog.com/stuart-hameroff-quantum-
consciousness/)

~~~
danielbarla
> the AI hypothesis does NOT explain nor predicts the thing that a Paramesium
> can do.

Can you elaborate? Off the top of my head, I believe Paramecia display
slightly above amoeba-like intelligence; what I'm missing is the leap to how a
theory of emergent consciousness would not be able to explain this.

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doctorstupid
It seems rather tenuous to suggest that because all the parts of a conscious
brain are active, all of the brain must then be conscious.

~~~
anigbrowl
I think they're arguing that consciousness is an emergent property of a
sufficiently large network, rather than being located in a particular cerebral
structure.

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klank
I'm in agreement. Think of large social sites like reddit or 4chan. I think it
would be fair to consider them as conscious entities for the same reason. They
can have conversations with themselves about themselves and can even have
conversations/interactions with outside entities all driven "by their own
volition".

~~~
anigbrowl
Ah, so I'm not hte only person that thinks that way. I've found it helpful to
imagine the same mechanism at work in any large system like market, a nation
and so on. Even things like ant colonies have a sort of slow primitive
consciousness.

It's particularly interesting that you mention 4chan, since the the fact that
it is anonymous by default actually fosters this behavior.

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lerno
Consciousness is typically understood as "the one that experiences". The
failure of reductionism to explain it can be demonstrated by an example:

You accidentally burn your finger on the stove, this is detected by the nerves
that send nerve signals to the brain that signifify pain. In the brain those
signals create an incredibly complex reaction in the brain that cause you to
withdraw your hand. For a "philosofical zombie" \- an awareless automaton -
that is all that happens.

For an aware being, this is followed by an "experience" of pain.

How does this experience of pain arise? There is an action and reaction in
both the aware and the unaware, an automaton does not EXPERIENCE pain, even
though reaction and consequent actions are identical.

Let us focus on the experience of the aware observer - where does it start? If
it is in the brain, we can reduce it to physical effects, in which case our
automaton could replicate it. Plus, at what point does the feeling arise? It's
clearly not in the hand itself, nor in the nerves. But nerves are an extension
of the brain. We have a part of the brain that handles pain, but why should
those particular brain cells cause a painful feeling to arise? These are just
like all the other cells in the brain, just differing in connections.

Why would the activation of some cells cause pain to arise? If it is due to
the connection that cause our brain to decide that this was a negative
experience, then this would imply that the feeling arises when the pain center
sends signals that it is stimulated to other parts of the brain. Then does the
feeling of pain arise in the cells connecting to the part of the brain dealing
with pain? If so, by what mechanism do those parts of the brain cause the
feelings to arise?

There is no way to nail down a mechanism that isn't physical and anonymous
(i.e. doe not know the context of what it is connected to), and trying to
claim that inanimate objects are self-aware is a bit of a stretch. We reach
the conclusion that there is no good way to describe aware experience arising
from the physical.

Nor do any simple metaphysical notions of "soul" work, as any metaphysical
system run into similar issues (if there is a soul, then by what process does
it give rise to awareness)

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dmichulke
So analyzing the process of detecting a disk on a screen is somehow supposed
to permit conclusions on consciousness?

Well, my cat meows when I switch on the light so I suppose I should write
about how "Electricity suggests language development is intrinsic in mammals"

~~~
sp332
Yes. When a person is conscious of a disk on the screen, their brain scans
look very different from when they do not detect the disk. And there isn't
just one part of the brain that changes. I'm not saying fMRI is a great tool
for this, but it seems like a pretty clear conclusion.

~~~
dmichulke
Well I think that 'consciousness' is a pretty strong term for something
described in the article.

Just to clarify: Are cats or toddlers conscious? Are the people that do not
see the disk conscious?

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sp332
The fact that it's such a small thing that they're testing is what makes the
large reaction so interesting. They were trying to determine what part of the
brain is involved in detecting an object, but just that tiny bit of awareness
seems to be widely spread out.

