Neuron News

Nicholas Humphrey posted this thought-provoking article nearly a year ago on Seed Magazine, and although it initially sounds a little out-of-whack, and too flippant for real scientific consideration, after a second thought it does pose a potentially useful thesis and alternative viewpoint (which are certainly needed right now!) for how to approach the understanding of our conscious experience.

As human beings we all experience some form of “magical mystery” in our brains. It’s absolutely not clear what it is, how it is formed, or why it’s there, but there does seem to besomething. Neuroscience would love to provide a thorough explanation of the “NCC”–the neural correlate of consciousness–but the notion of consciousness still seems to be buried deep in the confines of philosophical reasoning and a wide variety of non-specific, generalized notions of mental states and “qualia.”

But, it does seem interesting to ask the question: maybe the magic coming from our brain isn’t really magical at all. Maybe there really isn’t a specific physical correlate to what we consider the conscious experience, but it is rather only an illusion, of sorts, that we somehow sense only as a perception from some as-of-yet unexplainable result of the high level of complexity in our brain’s system.

Remember, the neuron networks comprising your brain is unbelievably complex. There is a structure to the system, but we really have no idea as to the nature of the structure and how this can affect the functioning of the system. We know so much about stars and galaxies billions of light years away, but there is so much still unknown about the closest physical structure to ourselves.

Understanding the nature of consciousness–and if there is even any nature of sorts to understand!–is critically important for neurotechnological developments in the long term. In particular, how will integrated neuron devices affect our perceptions, conscious reasoning, emotions, and overall network function in our brain? If we plug in a few neurons into the back of our heads, will the front of our heads flip out? We really have no idea at this point, and we barely have the ability to write down the best questions to ask to even begin addressing the issue.

Finally, Mr. Humphrey proposes a final idea that suggests that even if a physical nature of consciousness is only a perceived illusion, it is still an experienced illusion that we all have and this could have developed as an evolutionary advantage for our species. Consider the notion that you actually enjoy living life because you sense consciousness; that you might even feel that life is worth living because you sense consciousness. If consciousness is an illusion of a vastly complex neural network, it might have been the key evolutionary survival skill required to insure that our species actually wanted to keep on keeping on when times got rough.

Even if you think these considerations are entirely incorrect, it is certainly still an important approach to cracking consciousness and must be addressed and entertained. We have a long way to go to empirically understand our conscious selves, and we need to work through all of the questions that might be put on the table…

“Questioning Consciousness” :: Seed Magazine :: January 28, 2008 :: [ READ ]

In preparation for Andrew’s birth, I am re-reading the wonderful overview book by Alwyn Scott, Stairway to the Mind. He does not present a particular new or definitive theory (or, more appropriately an hypothesis) on the nature of consciousness, but gives a fabulous overview of current ideas and philosophies (up to “modern day” as of 1995).

This book is strongly recommended by Neuron News for anyone interested in obtaining a nice feel for the broad and wild fields covering the study of consciousness, and we are currently featuring it in our recommended books list. Sadly, Prof. Scott passed away last year at the age of 75 after dealing with lung cancer.

What is consciousness? What is the nature of the mind? A few initial, interesting, yet informal overviews may be found on Wikipedia under Consciousness, Self-awarness, and evenPhilosophy of Mind. But, the issue of consciousness from a scientific perspective is still so vague and so complicated… it is almost like we do not yet have the mathematical language to describe the seemingly miraculous phenomenon that we feel emanating from our heads.

As a vague beginning on outlining an approach to understanding the human mind, Prof. Scott emphasizes that consciousness is potentially the result of a hierarchy of a broad range of physical phenomena all interacting with one another in complex ways. So, borrowing his outline from the book, we present an interesting–although mostly intuitive–structure for considering the path through which consciousness might emerge during human existence:

Within a week, my wonderful wife, Michelle, will deliver our second child. Our little boy, Andrew, will be a lump of cells working in amazing synchrony to survive in a wild and scary universe. All of the actions are the result of a profoundly self-organized system that can successfully respond to its environment and maintain its internal cycles and processes in order to allow it to continue to develop and evolve as a living creature.

However, it is my understanding and hypothesis that the neuron network composing his infant brain is not yet entirely developed into what we would consider a fully-functioning conscious system. My son will certainly be a human being, and will have already been one for quite some time while growing in Mommy’s tummy, but there is still something missing… that “something” behind his eyes that allows him to be self-aware and fully able to make decisions to guide his body’s behavior, no matter how remedial the decisions might still be.

Our first child, Elizabeth Noelle, is nearly three years old now, and she, too–like all of us conscious beings–began as this glob of organized, interacting cells. And I noticed one day with her that something changed… it wasn’t entirely clear… but, it seemed to me that one day when I looked into her eyes there was something more. Something was working at a higher level inside her head… my cute little human being that I helped create had developed into something more… a self-aware, conscious human being.

Unfortunately, my observations were mostly an afterthought and not documented in any way other than personal reflections. So, with our second child I intend to conduct a more thorough observational experiment and create a more scientific record here on Neuron News of his development from a human being into a conscious human being. Although I anticipate this transition to be quite fluid and difficult to pinpoint, I hope that something might be taken from the considerations that could provide at least a slight glimmer of understanding into the nature of the consciousness of my son.

Each of my observations will be recorded here under the Topical Category “Raising Consciousness.” I am also very much interested in your responses, ideas, and feedback… and even observational guidance as we begin what I expect to be an exciting and interesting journey into what is the fundamental nature of human consciousness.

Avoiding the notion of an “homunculus” in the brain … or any single, overlord power that controls the function and decisions of the brain has been a deeply embedded faux pas in the neuroscience and neurophilosophy circles for many decades.

After years of trying to be accepted into a peer-reviewed journal, Prof. Asim Roy of Arizona State University will have his day in the sun. Using established ideas from the “connectionist” model of the brain–where information and control processing is considered to be distributed and non-local–he actually claims to proves that a hierarchical system exists in brain function.

One potential realization of this hypothesis (because we cannot call any idea related to brain function a theory, yet!) is that if Prof. Roy’s ideas are correct, then the brain may in fact work more like conventional computer artificial intelligence systems of today, which have countless rules pre-programmed in the code to provide the resulting behavior of the AI software or machine. If this is the case, then we may only need a sufficiently large enough processor chip to emulate true human brain behavior and the Singularity Event might come sooner than expected.

Although Neuron News carries a strong bias against the notion that the human brain is locally-controlled (even though it feels like we have a conscious single controller sitting in our heads), these alternative ideas are still important to progress with advances in understanding brain function. Are we at a road-block? We need to somehow break-through our limited ability to grasp the essentially higher-dimensionality of complex networks, and it’s going to take one exciting “ah-ha!” moment to get there… so let us know if you have one.

“Professor Finally Publishes Controversial Brain Theory” :: PhysOrg.com :: November 19, 2008 :: [ READ ]

“Connectionism, Controllers, and a Brain Theory” :: Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Part A, IEEE Transactions on :: November 2008, Volume: 38, Issue: 6, Pages: 1434-1441 :: [ READ THE ABSTRACT ]