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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_transition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_exponent The concept of phase transition is broader than the phases of matter.
Interesting, though the only example I see listed in that article that's not a change in the physical properties of matter is the ferromagnetic paramagnetic phases.
This strikes me as totally unsurprising. How could it be otherwise? It's basically saying that a brain normally operates in an interesting dynamical mode: not chaotic, and not very regular. Wow? If it were chaotic, we wouldn't have coherent or consistent behavior at any scale. If overly regular, we'd be incredibly dull and unable to respond to the environment. You could do this with a computer. If your signals coming…
I had the same reaction. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could even formalize it and say that all information processing takes place on this edge between stability and chaos. That’s where all interesting/useful Turing machines live, for example.
If this is true then there are two different ways to be unconscious.
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> It's also the kind of thing that can open a backdoor for free will in a deterministic universe, your brain in this chaotic state might behave deterministically but the actual state would never be knowable with enough precision to predict the outcome of inputs for any amount of time (butterfly effect). I think all it would mean is that the human brain is non-deterministic. That’s different from free will though whic…
> I think all it would mean is that the human brain is non-deterministic. Chaotic systems are still deterministic. They're just extremely sensitive to their initial conditions/inputs.
Is there some definitive proof for this, or are we just taking it as a useful assumption?
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"Think a signal on one side of the transition to look like a pure sine wave and on the other side of the transition to look like purely random white noise." This reminds me of something Rupert Sheldrake says is possible - that consciousness is 'off-site', that the body is more of a radio receptor.
There is no magic, nor room for it for any person that believes in the scientific method. There are a sufficient number of real mysteries and wonders not to waste time with pseudoscience. The brain is not a consciousness antennae, and there are no good reasons to think so. Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon entirely dependent on and contained within the brain.
How would one falsify this?
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> I think all it would mean is that the human brain is non-deterministic. Chaotic systems are still deterministic. They're just extremely sensitive to their initial conditions/inputs.
> Chaotic systems are still deterministic. Is there some definitive proof for this, or are we just taking it as a useful assumption?
"chaotic systems" aren't just... unpredictable things that we find laying around and say "yeah we'll call that chaotic because it looks like my kid's bedroom". they've got to satisfy that description.
Why do people feel the need to continuously push this fake science?
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There is no magic, nor room for it for any person that believes in the scientific method. There are a sufficient number of real mysteries and wonders not to waste time with pseudoscience. The brain is not a consciousness antennae, and there are no good reasons to think so. Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon entirely dependent on and contained within the brain.
agreed. brain-as-a-radio-antenna is a common trope amongst those who would believe that meatspace isn't capable of generating consciousness alone (always looking for some sort of elan vital, to equate with another pursuit for the magic stuff of life). From a purposely scientific perspective, we have to begin with the working assumption that materialism is true, until such point that it is conclusively proven false. T…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no magic, nor room for it for any person that believes in the scientific method. There are a sufficient number of real mysteries and wonders not to waste time with pseudoscience. The brain is not a consciousness antennae, and there are no good reasons to think so. Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon entirely dependent on and contained within the brain.
>Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon entirely dependent on and contained within the brain. How would one falsify this?
Consciousness exists. It ceases to exist when the brain is damaged or killed. We can predictably modify conscious systems with drugs and experiences. Particular types of injury and illness sometimes result in predictable consequences, letting us know things such as that the hippocampus is critical to memory, and that whatever hierarchy of semantic meaning is stored in the brain, neurons in the hippocampus represent ontological peaks in the mental landscape of constructed meaning.
With a sufficiently high resolution brain interface, you could record, replay, simulate, and share experiences between consciousnesses. If the mind is an emergent phenomena brought about within the confines of the skull, shared experience will be possible, up to the point that your subjective experience of being another person will be complete for the duration of the replay. If there's some outside factor playing a role in consciousness, it will be missing and likely prevent attempts at recording experience.