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Are the brain’s electromagnetic fields the seat of consciousness?

nautil.us

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Re: Are the brain’s electromagnetic fields the seat of consciousness?

#81

Post by dbspin »

mjangle1985 wrote: post #22
TheHideout wrote: post #8

Tangent by PhD student in Cognitive Science here - My current belief is that consciousness arises at the cross section of 3 core skills: Theory of Mind [0], Autobiographic Episodic Memory [1], and Embodied Cognition [2]. Principally, recognizing that other people have intentions and beliefs different from your own, being able to understand that you have experienced a timeline of personal experiences and these contrib…

Thoughts about Epiphenominal explanations of the mind? I'm a former philosophy student that had general interests Philo of Mind and that always stuck out to me as the most reasonable explanation for consciousness.

As a former psychology student (lol) I have to point out that an epiphenominal mind is perhaps the least parsimonious thing imaginable. It's also been effectively disproven since the cognitive revolution at least. Since we can understand ideas, take in / generate perceptions, and act in meaningful ways based on what we've understood - some kind of raw behavioural conditioning is not a valid explanation for our behavior. Nor the behavior of most higher animals.

Re: Are the brain’s electromagnetic fields the seat of consciousness?

#82

Post by bawolff »

captainmuon wrote: post #58
DennisP wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are actually two problems, that people often mix up. One is how we get a sense of self, which I think is what you're talking about. Another is how qualia, like the perception of color, arise at all. Nobody seems to have any idea how that happens; we have no way to map some arrangement of atoms to a perception and prove from first principles that one leads to another.

Franky, I have never understood the problem of qualia - or why it is something in need of explanation at all. Maybe the correct answer is an "anthropic principle"-style non-answer: External stimuli have to affect the human brain and body somehow . There has got to be some internal representation of what you percieve. Now we have the capability of reflection. To some extent, we can think about how we think, and we can…

I've sometimes wondered if people precieve things qualitatively different way then I do to give rise to this problem, since to me it seems like s non-problem. To me, i have trouble even conceptualizing what is meant by the qualia problem. What is the fundamental difference between something's "redness" and say a tall person's "tallness". Maybe "redness" is a bit more mysterious because its non-spatial, but still is it really that different of a quality it needs an explanation? What would even be explained in the explanation?

Re: Are the brain’s electromagnetic fields the seat of consciousness?

#83

Post by goatlover »

captainmuon wrote: post #58
DennisP wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are actually two problems, that people often mix up. One is how we get a sense of self, which I think is what you're talking about. Another is how qualia, like the perception of color, arise at all. Nobody seems to have any idea how that happens; we have no way to map some arrangement of atoms to a perception and prove from first principles that one leads to another.

Franky, I have never understood the problem of qualia - or why it is something in need of explanation at all. Maybe the correct answer is an "anthropic principle"-style non-answer: External stimuli have to affect the human brain and body somehow . There has got to be some internal representation of what you percieve. Now we have the capability of reflection. To some extent, we can think about how we think, and we can…

Why does an internal state lead to an experience of color or pain? Computers have internal state without any expectation of them being conscious, and this internal state can be the result of external stimulus like a camera. But the internal state isn’t experienced as color.

Re: Are the brain’s electromagnetic fields the seat of consciousness?

#84

Post by mannykannot »

amarte wrote: post #78
captainmuon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Franky, I have never understood the problem of qualia - or why it is something in need of explanation at all. Maybe the correct answer is an "anthropic principle"-style non-answer: External stimuli have to affect the human brain and body somehow . There has got to be some internal representation of what you percieve. Now we have the capability of reflection. To some extent, we can think about how we think, and we can…

"There has got to be some internal representation of what you percieve." I don't think this is necessarily true. It seems to me like the universe would get on exactly the same without internal representation. By "internal representation" I mean a universe without "embodiment" -- no experience of being me or being you, no feelings felt, no colors seen, no sounds heard, etc.. And yet those experiences "exist" in some s…

> So the problem is, if we can imagine the universe getting on exactly the same without those experiences, why is it such that I am and you are.

The most plausible answer, in my opinion, is that our lack of knowledge about how our minds work means that we are free to imagine something that probably isn't so. Imagination is not a good enough guide to how things are to be the considered a basis of knowledge.

Re: Are the brain’s electromagnetic fields the seat of consciousness?

#85

Post by bawolff »

amarte wrote: post #78
captainmuon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Franky, I have never understood the problem of qualia - or why it is something in need of explanation at all. Maybe the correct answer is an "anthropic principle"-style non-answer: External stimuli have to affect the human brain and body somehow . There has got to be some internal representation of what you percieve. Now we have the capability of reflection. To some extent, we can think about how we think, and we can…

"There has got to be some internal representation of what you percieve." I don't think this is necessarily true. It seems to me like the universe would get on exactly the same without internal representation. By "internal representation" I mean a universe without "embodiment" -- no experience of being me or being you, no feelings felt, no colors seen, no sounds heard, etc.. And yet those experiences "exist" in some s…

That's a bit of a jump from no internal representation to no embodiment (whatever embodiment means in this context as that is pretty unclear to me)

Re: Are the brain’s electromagnetic fields the seat of consciousness?

#88

Post by bawolff »

goatlover wrote: post #83
captainmuon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Franky, I have never understood the problem of qualia - or why it is something in need of explanation at all. Maybe the correct answer is an "anthropic principle"-style non-answer: External stimuli have to affect the human brain and body somehow . There has got to be some internal representation of what you percieve. Now we have the capability of reflection. To some extent, we can think about how we think, and we can…

Why does an internal state lead to an experience of color or pain? Computers have internal state without any expectation of them being conscious, and this internal state can be the result of external stimulus like a camera. But the internal state isn’t experienced as color.

> But the internal state isn’t experienced as color.

How would a conscious entity experience an internal state in a way that's not like color (or pain, etc)? I think the claim is that conscious entities must experience some internal states somehow (otherwise what are you concious of) - how else could they do that other than via sensation?

I don't think that internal states of non conscious entities has much bearing on what a conscious entity does or is.

Re: Are the brain’s electromagnetic fields the seat of consciousness?

#89

Post by p1necone »

bserge wrote: post #2

Well it's an easier read than this: https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/2020/1/niaa016/5909853 but it lacks details. Regardless, my question is why did consciousness arise? What was the need? Would humans not have been able to achieve unprecedented control over the environment without it? Everything I read about self-control (which is a major problem of mine) points to an eternal battle between the conscious self and…

Why are you assuming that humans are the only conscious animals?

Re: Are the brain’s electromagnetic fields the seat of consciousness?

#90

Post by raducu »

amarte wrote: post #78
captainmuon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Franky, I have never understood the problem of qualia - or why it is something in need of explanation at all. Maybe the correct answer is an "anthropic principle"-style non-answer: External stimuli have to affect the human brain and body somehow . There has got to be some internal representation of what you percieve. Now we have the capability of reflection. To some extent, we can think about how we think, and we can…

"There has got to be some internal representation of what you percieve." I don't think this is necessarily true. It seems to me like the universe would get on exactly the same without internal representation. By "internal representation" I mean a universe without "embodiment" -- no experience of being me or being you, no feelings felt, no colors seen, no sounds heard, etc.. And yet those experiences "exist" in some s…

1) The issue of what perceptions "actually" are will be impossible to answer because qualia are ireductible.

Let me explain: you feel pain in your foot.

As a scientist I cut your foot and you no longer feel pain in your foot.

Or I cut the pain nerves, or the spinal cord, or give you pain medicine.

Or I find a brain receptor and a chemical responsible for pain.

Or in the future, we find a couple of brain networks that when hacked turn of or exacerbate this and that sensation. We find the exact neuron microstructure that is actually a quantum computer and a certain process/instruction set can precisely manipulate sensations. We find the exact process that is responsible for the "self" sensation.

I know that would still not satisfy my question of "what are sensations?".

"Yeah, this and that neural network, but WHO is actually feeling that sensation?".

It would be a little bit like trying to "see" in 4D space -- impossible actually.

2) Why are sensations really needed?

If we get to that advanced level as to technically answer the first question, even without a gut feeling understanding, I think we could actually understand the answer to this question.

The answer might be -- "because AI can happily process numbers, but the biological quantum neural nets cannot, and they need this "sensation" representation to actually work in the most efficient way possible.

By "quantum" I mean some missing stuff we don't know yet, I'm not saying the brain is a "quantum computer".

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