
A civil servant missing most of his brain challenges theories of consciousness - tomhoward
http://qz.com/722614/a-civil-servant-missing-most-of-his-brain-challenges-our-most-basic-theories-of-consciousness/
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keithpeter
" _And yet the man was a married father of two and a civil servant with an IQ
of 75, below-average in his intelligence but not mentally disabled._ "

75 is pretty far below average - one in 20 of the population - and the fluid
had been building up slowly over a 30 year period. I'm wondering what he was
like to speak to just before seeking medical attention (and what happened
next)...

I take the general point about being able to function normally in society
given such horrendous damage.

~~~
Houshalter
What about this case: [http://www.drjudithorloff.com/Free-Articles/Is-Your-
Brain-Ne...](http://www.drjudithorloff.com/Free-Articles/Is-Your-Brain-
Necessary.htm)

>He cites the case of a student at Sheffield University, who has an IQ of 126
and won first-class honors in mathematics. Yet, this boy has virtually no
brain; his cortex measures only a millimeter or so thick compared to the
normal 4.5 centimeters.

EDIT: Here's the paper itself, _Is Your Brain Really Necessary?_ :
[http://www.rifters.com/real/articles/Science_No-
Brain.pdf](http://www.rifters.com/real/articles/Science_No-Brain.pdf)

>Lorber divides the subjects into four categories: those with minimally
enlarged ventricles; those whose ventricles fill 50 to 70 percent of the
cranium; those in which the ventricles fill between 70 and 90 percent of the
intracranial space; and the most severe group, in which ventricle expansion
fills 95 percent of the cranium. Many of the individuals in this last group,
which forms just less than 10 percent of the total sample, are severely
disabled, but half of them have IQ's greater than 100. This group provides
some of the most dramatic examples of apparently normal function against all
odds.

~~~
keithpeter
Well, yes, that student is pretty amazing. Must be a way of measuring the
connection density as implicitly suggested by another poster - neural network
perhaps squashed together but structure preserved?

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appleflaxen
a severely distorted brain does not, in any way, "challenge theories of
consciousness" (as if we have a clear enough theory to be challenged by this).

the cells and connections are there, and function "well enough"

~~~
armitron
It certainly challenges theories of consciousness that point to specific parts
of the brain as responsible for the phenomenon. Same for theories of
consciousness that point __outside __the brain or ones that look at
consciousness as something pre-existing.

It leads weight to those theories that claim consciousness and the self are
emergent phenomena (meta abstractions) and do not really "exist" below a
certain level of complexity/abstraction which doesn't have to be physiological
(e.g. neurons) but also something emergent, software rather than hardware.

Interestingly, this messes extremely well with buddhism and non-duality in
hinduism and the various annihilatory experiences that one can produce via
these practices (but also meditation and certain psychedelic drugs).

It is also interesting for those who follow AGI/deep-learning and especially
those who treat these two fields as an orthogonal dichotomy claiming that one
can't lead to the other, no matter the computational resources we have at our
disposal. If consciousness and self-awareness are emergent phenomena, there is
nothing that, in theory, mechanistically forbids AGI.

~~~
appleflaxen
> It certainly challenges theories of consciousness that point to specific
> parts of the brain as responsible for the phenomenon. Same for theories of
> consciousness that point outside the brain or ones that look at
> consciousness as something pre-existing. It leads weight to those theories
> that claim consciousness and the self are emergent phenomena (meta
> abstractions) and do not really "exist" below a certain level of
> complexity/abstraction.

If all the parts are present and connected (albeit stressed), how does that
mean that they are not responsible for a particular phenomenon, or mean that
consciousness is not emergent?

I don't understand your reasoning.

~~~
armitron
Even if we assume that all the parts are present and connected (not clear),
surely having 90% reduced neural availability would lead to observable defects
(e.g. psychosis, dissociative disorders/schizophrenia) _if_ the neurons were
directly responsible for consciousness.

Yet this doesn't seem to be the case here (and in the other example someone
else mentioned in this thread) which leads weight to the theories that treat
consciousness as meta and emergent.

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amelius
Does he really miss 90% of his neurons, or has the fluid simply squashed them
towards the perimeter of the skull?

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rokosbasilisk
if it was slow and over time brain degradation, maybe his brain had enough
neural plasticity to reorganize the network for efficiency.

~~~
hvs
That's what I was thinking as I read this. It's still amazing that the brain
could have _that much_ neural plasticity, but I think if you simply removed
90% of someone else's brain you would see much different results (likely
death).

That said, it makes you wonder what genes/proteins make the human brain
develop/keep consciousness even with so little material to work with, while
other animals don't develop it.

~~~
armitron
It is not at all certain that other animals do not develop consciousness. John
C. Lilly's work with dolphins for instance points to a different conclusion.

There are also other animals (parrots, elephants, various apes) that are
widely believed to possess self-awareness if not near-human levels of
consciousness.

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ZoeZoeBee
I'd be interested in reading a follow up study in terms of how the Frenchman
has reacted to the discovery that 90% of his brain is missing.

If Cleereman's suggestion that

>“Consciousness is the brain’s non-conceptual theory about itself, gained
through experience—that is learning, interacting with itself, the world, and
with other people”.

Then the patient's discovery may affect his cognitive awareness, an
interesting example of Schrodinger's cat.

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xenadu02
I thought modern neuroscience agrees that all parts of the brain are
contributing to consciousness?

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nairboon
The man was examined in 2007 and the plasticity thesis is from 2011.

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im3w1l
How much energy does a squashed brain use?

