
Into the Grey Zone - evilsimon
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2017/08/grey-zone-can-one-really-be-conscious-while-coma
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subroutine
Consciousness is a very interesting epiphenomenon. It piques intellectual
interest across the board, from first year psychology students, to Nobel
Laureates like Francis Crick [1]. I still cringe whenever I remember the time
I boldly announced to my would-be undergrad thesis advisor "I want to study
the origins of consciousness!" Thankfully she was wonderful advisor with a
knack for cultivating more practical research interests, and within weeks I
was decapitating rats in the name of science.

I've been studying biological neural networks (bNN) for about ten to fifteen
years, and artificial neural networks (aNN) for the past four or five (aNN
were something I first learned about in Kutner circa 2005[2], oblivious to
their future utility in machine learning). It's been interesting to observe
how fast the field of machine learning has progressed aNN theory and
application. IMO it has basically caught up to neurobiology - not so much as a
body of knowledge but in the elucidation of the key components that allow NN
to acquire and retrieve information (the modulation of synaptic weights, and
efficient functions to update these weights). Machines are now smarter than
ever, and have the capacity for adaptive behavior. A triumphant feat, no
doubt.

But within all that progress, we still have no fucking clue what consciousness
is about. We don't have a roadmap to get there. We don't know where it resides
in the brain (somewhere distributed among cortex presumably). And we don't
have a solid strategy for ML attempts at AI consciousness. The best we can
offer is: "just keep building these things more powerful and more parallel and
maybe it will eventually pop out". Who knows, maybe it will. But it probably
doesn't work like that. For all we know consciousness may be a dirty trick, or
nothing at all. Sure, we can think about thinking; it's a handy tool developed
by billions of eukaryotic cells working together, to keep themselves alive (or
at least to proliferate their shared dna).

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Astonishing_Hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Astonishing_Hypothesis)
2\.
[https://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/rkulik/mat3378/mat3378-tex...](https://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/rkulik/mat3378/mat3378-textbook.pdf)

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crocal
It is a topic that fascinates me. Would you have a more extensive read list to
recommend (graduate textbook level)?

Note: Without decapitating rats, if possible...

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subroutine
I think you might enjoy "In Search of Memory" by Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel
(pdf linked below). He provides an entertaining and informative narrative
documenting the history of neuroscience (a history Kandel himself heavily
influenced). Kandel also wrote 'Principles of Neural Science', a 1400 page
tome that some regard as the neuroscience bible. If you are more interested in
the latest happenings, run a google scholar search for articles by Huganir,
R.Nicoll, or R.Malinow (Malinow had an interesting paper recently called
'Engineering a Memory'). Or if you are interested in neuro methods look up
whats been done in the Karl Deisseroth lab.

[http://evolbiol.ru/docs/docs/large_files/kandel.pdf](http://evolbiol.ru/docs/docs/large_files/kandel.pdf)

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crocal
Thanks!

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smegel
I think you chose the wrong half of the original title.

