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Consciousness is supported by near-critical slow cortical electrodynamics

pnas.org

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Re: Consciousness is supported by near-critical slow cortical electrodynamics

#81

Post by iratewizard »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #78
jquery wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this research is super interesting, and it's disappointing such a blaze, dismissive comment is at the top. Cosmologists: we literally took a picture of a black hole! Someone: So? I already knew they existed. Besides, it's not a picture of a black hole, it's just the ring around the black hole. yawn Cosmologists: oh... sorry for wasting your time.

I was far more interested in the algorithms they used than the actual picture of the black hole.

The social politics that came out were most interesting to me. The person with a smaller contribution to the project taking a lion's share of credit. The lead, a soft coward who has been conditioned to let her take credit. The history of that tribe of people doing this sort of self promotion.

Re: Consciousness is supported by near-critical slow cortical electrodynamics

#82

Post by Scarblac »

verisimi wrote: post #11
colechristensen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, not really. It's hard to describe features of chaos / nonlinear dynamics simply. There are features of chaotic systems that undergo phase changes from one type of behavior to another. 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. What these guys are reporting is that they found a parameter, a signal they c…

"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 are various drugs that alter consciousness. That shouldn't be possible if the brain were only a receptor.

Re: Consciousness is supported by near-critical slow cortical electrodynamics

#83

Post by csee »

kylebyproxy wrote: post #67
sigstoat wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's the definition. "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.

I'm asking if there's a proof for determinism itself. I was under the impression that we've only ever been inferring consistency is a property of reality. If you can QED me to a conclusion that yes, in fact, the sun will rise in the morning, I would genuinely find that useful.

If the underlying physics is deterministic, then a chaotic system (e.g. the Three Body Problem) is just a collection of deterministic parts interacting with each other, and is therefore itself deterministic. The overwhelming complexity and unpredictability we observe is just a commentary on our own ignorance and limitation as humans. There was never room for any non-deterministic thing to magic itself into the system at some point as the complexity and unpredictability of the system got bigger and bigger.

Re: Consciousness is supported by near-critical slow cortical electrodynamics

#84

Post by jodrellblank »

netsharc wrote: post #7

It's a weird feeling to realize how we're all just hardware, and it might be possible to wake up someone who's "brain dead"/vegetative by LSD (the paper mentions how psychedelics affect this cortical electrodynamics, and as this old article[1] mentions the LSD). Imagine someone flipping a switch (in the future where tech to control the electrodynamics exists) and you're awake and aware of your surroundings again. [1]…

> “The first report of a zolpidem awakening came from South Africa, in 1999. A patient named Louis Viljoen, who, three years before, was declared vegetative after he was hit by a truck, had taken to clawing at his mattress during the night. Thinking he was suffering from insomnia, his family doctor suggested zolpidem to help him sleep. But 20 minutes after his mother ground the tablet up and fed it to him through a straw, Viljoen began to stir. His eyes, which normally wandered the room, vacant and unfocused, flickered with the light of consciousness. And then he began to talk (his first words were “Hello, Mummy”), and move (he could control his limbs and facial muscles). A few hours later he became unresponsive. But the next day, and for many days after that, zolpidem revived him, a few hours at a time” - https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/magazine/can-ambien-wake-...

Re: Consciousness is supported by near-critical slow cortical electrodynamics

#85

Post by [deleted] »

verisimi wrote: post #11
colechristensen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, not really. It's hard to describe features of chaos / nonlinear dynamics simply. There are features of chaotic systems that undergo phase changes from one type of behavior to another. 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. What these guys are reporting is that they found a parameter, a signal they c…

"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.

[deleted]

Re: Consciousness is supported by near-critical slow cortical electrodynamics

#86

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #73
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a) Information complexity is a measurable physical quantity. b) Unlike matter and energy, information complexity does not obey laws of conservation. (Demonstrably so.) c) Ergo, an information complexity singularity can exist, and if it does - we would be reasonably correct in calling it "free will".

Can you point me in the direction of further reading?

Unironically Wikipedia is a good start.

Re: Consciousness is supported by near-critical slow cortical electrodynamics

#88

Post by juliangamble »

mach1ne wrote: post #87

I find that it's disingenuous to propose attributes of consciousness when consciousness hasn't even properly been defined. There is not a shred of evidence that something like our concept of consciousness even exists.

Disagree. As a science, Psychology is largely based on self-reporting.

Re: Consciousness is supported by near-critical slow cortical electrodynamics

#89

Post by periheli0n »

markhahn wrote: post #24

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…

Indeed it has long been known that the awake human brain operates near a critical point. Unfortunately, their significance statement is very generic and doesn't really summarise their main contributions.

The abstract has more information, describing how this paper adds to the picture a mathematical determination of that critical point, and the insight that low-frequency oscillations play a key role when switching consciousness states.

The level of the experiments is quite high, also they use primates (humans and macaques), some of them epileptic, and they administer psychedelics. All this sets the paper apart from lower-tier work.

It doesn't strike me as a real ground-breaking paper, but still an important contribution to the field. And the methods are impressive.

Re: Consciousness is supported by near-critical slow cortical electrodynamics

#90

Post by verisimi »

Scarblac wrote: post #82
verisimi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 are various drugs that alter consciousness. That shouldn't be possible if the brain were only a receptor.

Do you think?

Using the radio metaphor, I think I could edit the radio so that the signal would be heard differently. Just turning up the volume is a sort of alteration of consciousness, as would be increasing/decreasing the bass/treble.

These are alterations to the way the sound is experienced, but do not affect the signal itself.

Maybe taking drugs would be akin to running the received signal through some sort of special effects board? Ie a different/unusual type of alteration to the signal.

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