Consciousness

[DBT]

That's funny.

How does your consciousness work? Does it control me or do I control it?

Lift your right arm over your head.

You have just used your consciousness to move your arm.

You used your consciousness to form and type out your questions.

Not true, it's not consciousness that initiates motor actions.

''Movement generation seems to come largely from the primary motor cortex, and its input comes primarily from premotor cortices, parts of the frontal lobe just in front of the primary motor cortex. The premotor cortices receive input from most of the brain, especially the sensory cortices (which process information from our senses), limbic cortices (the emotional part of the brain), and the prefrontal cortex (which handles many cognitive processes). If the inputs from various neurons “compete,” eventually one input wins, leading to a final behavior. For example, take the case of saccadic eye movements, quick target-directed eye movements. Adding even a small amount of electrical stimulation in different small brain areas can lead to a monkey's making eye movements in a different direction than might have been expected on the basis of simultaneous visual cues.4 In general, the more we know about the various influences on the motor cortex, the better we can predict what a person will do.''

 

[untermensche]

Lift your right arm over your head.

You have just used your consciousness to move your arm.

You used your consciousness to form and type out your questions.

Not true, it's not consciousness that initiates motor actions.

''Movement generation seems to come largely from the primary motor cortex, and its input comes primarily from premotor cortices, parts of the frontal lobe just in front of the primary motor cortex. The premotor cortices receive input from most of the brain, especially the sensory cortices (which process information from our senses), limbic cortices (the emotional part of the brain), and the prefrontal cortex (which handles many cognitive processes). If the inputs from various neurons “compete,” eventually one input wins, leading to a final behavior. For example, take the case of saccadic eye movements, quick target-directed eye movements. Adding even a small amount of electrical stimulation in different small brain areas can lead to a monkey's making eye movements in a different direction than might have been expected on the basis of simultaneous visual cues.4 In general, the more we know about the various influences on the motor cortex, the better we can predict what a person will do.''

You don't have the vaguest clue, physiologically, what consciousness is.

You don't know what scale or even dimension it is generated in.

Your dogmatic fantasies about what it does and can do are worthless.

You know the effects of consciousness in terms of very crude areas of "excitation", but you don't even have the slightest idea why this activity occurs or how this activity is related to consciousness.

And it is complete nonsense to say a person can't use their "will", their consciousness, to move their arm. Something NONE of these studies look at. They are all reaction studies, not willful action studies. This is something science has to explain, not pretend it doesn't happen.

You've presented all this before. It is not convincing in the least. Except to religious adherents. The criticism is far more reasonable than the wild unsupported claims.

 

[DBT]

Not true, it's not consciousness that initiates motor actions.

''Movement generation seems to come largely from the primary motor cortex, and its input comes primarily from premotor cortices, parts of the frontal lobe just in front of the primary motor cortex. The premotor cortices receive input from most of the brain, especially the sensory cortices (which process information from our senses), limbic cortices (the emotional part of the brain), and the prefrontal cortex (which handles many cognitive processes). If the inputs from various neurons “compete,” eventually one input wins, leading to a final behavior. For example, take the case of saccadic eye movements, quick target-directed eye movements. Adding even a small amount of electrical stimulation in different small brain areas can lead to a monkey's making eye movements in a different direction than might have been expected on the basis of simultaneous visual cues.4 In general, the more we know about the various influences on the motor cortex, the better we can predict what a person will do.''

You don't have the vaguest clue, physiologically, what consciousness is.

You don't know what scale or even dimension it is generated in.

Your dogmatic fantasies about what it does and can do are worthless.

You know the effects of consciousness in terms of very crude areas of "excitation", but you don't even have the slightest idea why this activity occurs or how this activity is related to consciousness.

And it is complete nonsense to say a person can't use their "will", their consciousness, to move their arm. Something NONE of these studies look at. They are all reaction studies, not willful action studies. This is something science has to explain, not pretend it doesn't happen.

You've presented all this before. It is not convincing in the least. Except to religious adherents. The criticism is far more reasonable than the wild unsupported claims.

Another example of avoiding provided information.

I know what consciousness is: an experience of self and the world composed of sensory experience, sight, sound, smell, etc. with associated feelings, thoughts and actions. I experience this every day....what I don't know is how the brain forms this experience even though it is clear that it does, based on the information we do have, which I have outlined and given examples. Which you studiously ignore.

 

[fromderinside]

1. Is this some kind of argument?

2. Are you claiming humans don't understand how refrigerators make cold air

.......

3. They don't have the slightest ideas how a brain creates consciousnesses or what part of brain activity is creating consciousness.

4. They don't know what scale or even dimension consciousness is created in.

.....

3a. We have no idea which dimension conscious is created in.

4a. We have no knowledge what-so-ever about how consciousness is created.

5. We do know a lot about how brains work. But have nothing to connect any of this knowledge to the production of consciousness.

In order:

1. Yes.

2. Yes.

3. Wrong We know how consciousness evolved and through what sort of changes that evolution took place.
a little reference support for the the last: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3790330/#!po=25.4717

4. Finally, we know through behavioral, neurochemical, and genetic study how and in which dimension consciousness works in the brain (nervous system). I'm including a recent paper on mirror neurons to illustrate the degree to which we understand consciousness. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1073858416652079

The intend of including both of these studies is not to prove anything beyond illustrating the extent to which we in the NS community, have progressed in our research on consciousness.

3a. see my first response

4.a see extended responses above and below.

5. Redundant. Covered by my responses above

As for DrZoidberg's comment on mirror neurons - not knowing what they're for - there has never been any argument about how mirror neurons are used. Such would imply a purpose for mirror neurons which is nonsense and DrZoidberg is certainly aware of that. What has happened is that mirror neurons are now acknowledged to work in empathy, association, and a variety of other behavioral paradigms. Such use would make sense if one presumed genetics is opportunistic making use of any existing capability for superior function, fitness, in its random walk through time.

Untermenche we have very different views on consciousness. You argue it exists as would a fundamental particle or field as a consequence of uncertainty over how it works and why there seems to be no structure in which consciousness is centered. I, on the other hand, argue that consciousness is a marker, a holding place for knowledge about how we operate as humans. Further I now argue it is extra-individual in nature, a thing or existence only in cognitive transactions wit in and between humans driven by our nature as being our own greatest threat.

 

[George S]

Free Will is in the planning. The action in the moment is unconscious. If you raised your arm (as untermensche suggested) you made a short term plan and turned it over to your unconscious. You (consciousness) don't know what muscles to contract but your unconscious does.
There are reflexes. These are the equivalent of ROM. A reflex that is overridden by the conscious is impossible. And now let's get to how learning how to do a complicated task like dancing happens. At first it is slow, at the speed of thought, at the speed of the built-in computer. Then new instructions to the unconscious -- a new reflex -- is stored and activated. We call this learning. When we know how to do that thing (driving, dancing, singing, playing an instrument, participating in a sport, teaching, skating, skiing, swimming) we have made that task unconscious.
An anecdote may illustrate. When I was teaching programming I asserted that structured programming was the only way to go. A student asked why. I was stumped. At the time I just replied that I didn't know the exact reason my younger self decided that was true. I went back and found some old code, read it and remembered.
There have been times when I was pleased and surprised myself by my unconscious reacting the way it did. I had planned what to do in the case of engine failure; while piloting a single engine Cessna over the mountains and it happened I just did the steps I'd learned. When that baby was falling headfirst into the concrete bench just beside me I snatched him or her out of the air at the speed of reflex; there was no time for considered thought.
Every time you repeat a thing you make another copy in your brain. Every time you repeat a thing you make another copy in your brain. See a product name anywhere and then see it in a store it is familiar. A brand name can become a reflex. Why do you use Dial? I always have.
I had free will when I made the decision to buy a car which engaged my subconscious to notice ads for cars and pickups. I discovered the Honda Ridgeline. I used to own a Honda Insight. A Ridgeline is on the way.
I have free will to interrupt any ongoing uncompleted plan. Unconscious desires -- temptations -- bad habits -- bodily functions -- libido -- sleep -- may be so powerful the conscious has no freedom in the moment. If a moment is planned for, no problem. If it is a situation you didn't plan for? Your unconscious is in charge. When you get a gut feeling it is your unconscious speaking. When you are ashamed of something you did it must have been your unconscious acting given that you are consciously ashamed. You can talk to your unconscious. Repeat it until you remember it. Replay in imagination until it works out the way it should. So that your unconscious aligns with your conscious desires.
May all your decisions be correct or correctable. May all those daydreamed scenarios follow the script you've planned. May all your dreams come true.

 

[untermensche]

I know what consciousness is: an experience of self and the world composed of sensory experience, sight, sound, smell, etc. with associated feelings, thoughts and actions. I experience this every day....what I don't know is how the brain forms this experience even though it is clear that it does, based on the information we do have, which I have outlined and given examples. Which you studiously ignore.

You are amusing.

You don't know how the experience is generated but you know everything involved.

Again, you are a pre-Newtonian pointing to the earth and claiming it is the only thing involved in gravity.

You can't tell me what dimension consciousness arises in because you have no idea what makes it arise.

 

[untermensche]

3. Wrong We know how consciousness evolved and through what sort of changes that evolution took place.
a little reference support for the the last: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3790330/#!po=25.4717

I'll gladly discuss the entire paper with you.

It doesn't explain the production of consciousness in the least.

Beyond the level of imaginary systems that have no physiological explanation.

...we have very different views on consciousness. You argue it exists as would a fundamental particle or field as a consequence of uncertainty over how it works and why there seems to be no structure in which consciousness is centered. I, on the other hand, argue that consciousness is a marker, a holding place for knowledge about how we operate as humans. Further I now argue it is extra-individual in nature, a thing or existence only in cognitive transactions wit in and between humans driven by our nature as being our own greatest threat.

Consciousness is the ability to be conscious of something. How specifically this ability arises is unknown.

A splitting of the universe in two. A subject and objects.

 

[untermensche]

Free Will is in the planning. The action in the moment is unconscious. If you raised your arm (as untermensche suggested) you made a short term plan and turned it over to your unconscious. You (consciousness) don't know what muscles to contract but your unconscious does...

It is of course a crude switch and we really don't know what we are doing or how we are doing it, but we do something with our thoughts, our "will", and our arm moves in a manner of our choosing.

If we say the arm is moving because of the desire of the brain and not a desire of consciousness then we have a model where the brain is both controlling everything and also creating a consciousness that thinks it is controlling everything.

The great trickster model of the brain.

But this model is ridiculous. If the brain is doing everything why does it need a consciousness that thinks it is controlling at all?

This model makes the consciousness that controls superfluous. It is not needed for anything. Not needed for survival in the least. The brain could just do everything, move the body and all that without it.

Why something not needed in the least would persist for hundreds of millions of years is something the proponents of the great trickster model of the brain have to explain.

 

[fromderinside]

It doesn't explain the production of consciousness in the least.

Beyond the level of imaginary systems that have no physiological explanation.

...we have very different views on consciousness. You argue it exists as would a fundamental particle or field as a consequence of uncertainty over how it works and why there seems to be no structure in which consciousness is centered. I, on the other hand, argue that consciousness is a marker, a holding place for knowledge about how we operate as humans. Further I now argue it is extra-individual in nature, a thing or existence only in cognitive transactions wit in and between humans driven by our nature as being our own greatest threat.

Consciousness is the ability to be conscious of something. How specifically this ability arises is unknown.

A splitting of the universe in two. A subject and objects.

Good. If an organism can detect the difference between food and nonfood, navigate to that food, consume it, it has demonstrated it possess those systems and attributes necessary for consciousness. Put another way when the hagfish becomes conscious (determines) something is food it goes to it and consumes it. These capabilties became possible when organisms could differintate objects of interest from those do not and act on that information.

The authors hint that both olfaction with it's molecule coding mechanisms and vision with features which permitted identification of discrete objects underlie this evolutionary track. In addition some sort of integrative sense-effect-memory capacities are also necessary for this feature to exist. It is also quite evident that What I describe is other than bumping into something, nibbling, moving and bumping into another something, nibbling, etc. Consciousness is not a thing. Conscious is a process. I suspect that olfaction was the first sense to provide the sense tools necessary to evolve and demonstrate demonstrate consciousness.

I'm pretty sure bees demonstrate consciousness.

Put another way behavioral purposefulness where events permit an organism to leave whatever it is that has attracted it to execute purposeful actions in response to specific environmental conditions to either attain or avoid those identifiable conditions qualify as demonstrating consciousness.

The authors have succeeded in demonstrating the requirements and occasions of consciousness in evolutionary history of organisms. All I did was rehash the operations they presumed were required for consciousness.

Consciousness is seldom a continuous state, definitely never a permanent state or condition.

 

[untermensche]

If an organism can detect the difference between food and nonfood, navigate to that food, consume it, it has demonstrated it possess those systems and attributes necessary for consciousness.

Are you saying consciousness is directing? In control of movement?

 

[fromderinside]

No. I'm saying consciousness requires the ability to separate objects, and act in response to them accordingly which requires coordination of input with output and memory as well. Hagfish got it and hagfish do it. So do bumble bees. I see consciousness as an integration center more than sensor, controller, or responder. It might be enough for an organism to have the equipment to identify objects of interest to qualify as being conscious. I take a behavior standard though. I include the conscious act as one of sensing and attaining whatever it desires. It may choose not too, but, that's another, after the fact, discussion. Its all in the operations.

 

[DBT]

I know what consciousness is: an experience of self and the world composed of sensory experience, sight, sound, smell, etc. with associated feelings, thoughts and actions. I experience this every day....what I don't know is how the brain forms this experience even though it is clear that it does, based on the information we do have, which I have outlined and given examples. Which you studiously ignore.

You are amusing.

You are consistently wrong. It's not about me. I have provided references for everything I have said, only to have it ignored because it doesn't suit your faith.

You don't know how the experience is generated but you know everything involved.

Your error lies in your claim that because we don't know how a brain forms consciousness experience we know nothing.

Something is known. We know that we have vision, hearing, smell, touch, taste and associated thoughts and feelings and so on - which I've pointed out too many times only to have you repeat that we don't know anything about consciousness, which is a false claim.

We know that structural changes alter consciousness to the point of dysfunction. If memory, being woven into the fabric of consciousness, breaks down, we are no longer able to recognise people, self or objects.

You can't tell me what dimension consciousness arises in because you have no idea what makes it arise.

According to you. Yet, based on evidence (which you refuse to even consider), it is universally excepted by neuroscientists worldwide that the brain is the agency of consciousness...that it is the electrochemical activity of a brain that is forming conscious experience based on information from the senses integrated with memory, enabling recognition and thought.

 

[Kharakov]

Or we have a persistently generated illusion of neural structures and the natural universe, an illusion that requires persistence and depth (both in the brain direction, down to atomic structures, and in the space direction, up to distant large scale structures) in order to make us care about it.

If you knew the world was generated last Thursday, would you care about it as much? Would everyone?

I don't understand. Are you saying the existence of neural structures we call the brain as well as our concept of the natural universe is an illusion?

Is? No. Might be? Yes.

Show me the evidence.

I can't- if it is an illusion, I appear to be as trapped as you.

Now let's say there is some way to connect to another dimension or natural process we have no clear conception of but is the origin of consciousness.

Let's call it consciousness.

I don't understand. Are you suggesting the connection itself is what we call consciousness, or is consciousness or source of consciousness what is being connected to (which is simply what I meant)?

It was a joke about using consciousness to "connect to another dimension that is the origin of consciousness".

Ok, but then you still need to explain what causes consciousness!

Persistent consciousnesses. There are different layers and scales of consciousness.

But you still haven't explained consciousness. That just makes the path to explain it more obscure.

Human level consciousness would be awareness of self and perceived reality. Persistent consciousnesses that cause other consciousnesses would be... something like many iron atom's magnetic fields aligning to create a larger scale magnetic field.

It's just placing it conveniently beyond our capability of ever discovering or even asking anything about it.

That persistent consciousnesses have mastered the ability to cause our consciousnesses?

What are they?

Fundamentalist particles that think they are in charge.

Kind of like the argument for God as "The Uncaused Cause". By definition it doesn't need an explanation.

Why doesn't it need an explanation?

It's usual purpose is to explain what is said to be unexplainable. Creation, morality, out of body experiences, winning the lottery, the election of Donald Trump, etc. (Sorry about that, but it's true.) Regardless, I don't see the point of speculating for it's own sake when it can prove nothing.

So meaningless speculation does not fill a void in your life?

Children's fairy tales. Not science.

Yeah.

 

[untermensche]

No. I'm saying consciousness requires the ability to separate objects, and act in response to them accordingly which requires coordination of input with output and memory as well. Hagfish got it and hagfish do it. So do bumble bees. I see consciousness as an integration center more than sensor, controller, or responder. It might be enough for an organism to have the equipment to identify objects of interest to qualify as being conscious. I take a behavior standard though. I include the conscious act as one of sensing and attaining whatever it desires. It may choose not too, but, that's another, after the fact, discussion. Its all in the operations.

What purpose is served by creating this "consciousness" if it has no control over anything?

Why have a personal unified experience when it is not needed? Non-experienced reactions could do just as well. You're claiming it is all merely reaction anyway.

That seems an incredible waste of energy.

Something in need of serious explanation before accepting this irrational model you propose.

 

[untermensche]

You are consistently wrong. It's not about me. I have provided references for everything I have said, only to have it ignored because it doesn't suit your faith.

Knew all about it before you presented it and don't agree with your conclusions.

Conclusions you can't defend any further than by claiming them.

For example; When increased activity is seen prior to the subjective reporting the "desire" to move, you claim it is the brain doing something on it's own, yet the subject is awake and knows it will be required to do something soon.

The natural conclusion is this activity is consciousness preparing to make an imminent and rapid command for movement. It is all done by consciousness. Consciousness is never removed from the situation and never gives up control.

But your prejudices have replaced natural conclusions. You have a prejudice that consciousness cannot control and therefore make all conclusions based on this prejudice, not evidence.

You claim researchers can predict which arm a person will move, but if the subject is allowed to not move, at the last instant randomly at their volition, no researcher can predict this non-movement. They will predict movement when no movement occurs.

Because they are not seeing the brain superseding consciousness, they are seeing how the brain responds to it.

Your error lies in your claim that because we don't know how a brain forms consciousness experience we know nothing.

You know nothing about the generation of consciousness.

You don't know how it occurs. You don't know necessary conditions. You don't know method of genesis.

You don't know what scale it occurs in, or even what dimension it occurs in.

You know the brain is correlated to the genesis of consciousness, but cannot say with any certainty it is the only thing necessary.

Because you don't know what consciousness is, in physiological terms. Not the first thing about it.

You know a bit of what the brain is doing but certainly nothing about what it is doing on a quantum scale.

...it is universally excepted by neuroscientists worldwide that the brain is the agency of consciousness...that it is the electrochemical activity of a brain that is forming conscious experience based on information from the senses integrated with memory, enabling recognition and thought.

Here we can see your religious nature.

No such universal faith exists.

Real scientists conclude the brain and brain activity are highly correlated with consciousness but whether it is all that is necessary for the production of consciousness they cannot say.

When Newton proposed this "force" called gravity he was accused of having occult ideas by the scientists of his day.

But Newton understood the phenomena he observed could not be explained using only the earth and falling body. Something else had to exist (gravity) to explain the phenomena.

We are still at a pre-Newtonian understanding of consciousness. Certainly the brain is involved. What else, if anything, is necessary is unknown.

 

[fromderinside]

Remember the principle of as good as necessary at the time given the competition and conditions. Genetics operates using a similar bit of guidance. For instance it is not necessary for processing speech to have a hearing capability that is nearly linear in the presence of obstacles like limited mechanical plasticity in muscle and connective tissue in the cochlear nucleus. Yet, scientists have shown that the human hearing system is better than can b e reproduced by current science.

A graded spectral system existent since the advent of mammals has been successively refined to the point where it now is responsive to membrane movement of less than an angstrom. At some time, under some set of conditions in the last 115 million years mammalian auditory mechanics lurched toward fidelity as a response to processing sound. Why must something within the human control the human?

Consciousness was enabled by the ability for senses to register discrete responses to significant discrete entities (the principle of lateral inhibition within the nervous system making edges detectable, and lock and key arrangement of detectors in the olfactory system. At some point memory was required for some reason. It was adapted to and connected with senses permitting storage and recovery of objects for comparison and identification and probably a bunch of other needs. senses were connected through intermediaries to effector systems to permit use of information to guide organisms to get to targets. With these connections other improvement were permitted as mammals and other species went through crisis after crisis driven by competition and environment.

Consciousness, apparently became a major drive as structures and pathways were created to wake, arouse, and attend appropriate elements of NS to action when key signals were detected. IOW we wouldn't be alive today without the system we posses for being conscious. Apparently there is enough to having a personal unified personal experience, as you put it, that some gain is provided assuring dominance and survival with it.

Those of who study such thing find that organisms taken by species and compared to their competition within, between species and with environment approach a nice optimum nearly equaling that of the optimization in energy use of matter from electrons to complex molecules. Some call this phenomenon an example in third law of thermodynamics processes where surviving systems approach an optimum in energy use.

 

[rousseau]

Remember the principle of as good as necessary at the time given the competition and conditions. Genetics operates using a similar bit of guidance. For instance it is not necessary for processing speech to have a hearing capability that is nearly linear in the presence of obstacles like limited mechanical plasticity in muscle and connective tissue in the cochlear nucleus. Yet, scientists have shown that the human hearing system is better than can b e reproduced by current science.

A graded spectral system existent since the advent of mammals has been successively refined to the point where it now is responsive to membrane movement of less than an angstrom. At some time, under some set of conditions in the last 115 million years mammalian auditory mechanics lurched toward fidelity as a response to processing sound. Why must something within the human control the human?

Consciousness was enabled by the ability for senses to register discrete responses to significant discrete entities (the principle of lateral inhibition within the nervous system making edges detectable, and lock and key arrangement of detectors in the olfactory system. At some point memory was required for some reason. It was adapted to and connected with senses permitting storage and recovery of objects for comparison and identification and probably a bunch of other needs. senses were connected through intermediaries to effector systems to permit use of information to guide organisms to get to targets. With these connections other improvement were permitted as mammals and other species went through crisis after crisis driven by competition and environment.

Consciousness, apparently became a major drive as structures and pathways were created to wake, arouse, and attend appropriate elements of NS to action when key signals were detected. IOW we wouldn't be alive today without the system we posses for being conscious. Apparently there is enough to having a personal unified personal experience, as you put it, that some gain is provided assuring dominance and survival with it.

Those of who study such thing find that organisms taken by species and compared to their competition within, between species and with environment approach a nice optimum nearly equaling that of the optimization in energy use of matter from electrons to complex molecules. Some call this phenomenon an example in third law of thermodynamics processes where surviving systems approach an optimum in energy use.

On that note:

Is it possible for a 'personal unified experience' to exist without long-term memory?

Is it possible for a 'personal unified experience' to exist without any capacity to sense the environment?

Does a 'personal unified experience' entail a real, central substance, or is it only the interpretation of recent data input?
- with that, is a concrete self necessary for humans to function? Does it only matter that we inevitably eat and have sex?

With these questions in mind it's clear that our 'normal' experiencing of the world is contingent on a hugely complex neural system, which, if some components stop working, will completely disappear or be severely dysfunctional.

We are the conglomeration of the genes that create our brains, and a bit of experience.

 

[bilby]

No. I'm saying consciousness requires the ability to separate objects, and act in response to them accordingly which requires coordination of input with output and memory as well. Hagfish got it and hagfish do it. So do bumble bees. I see consciousness as an integration center more than sensor, controller, or responder. It might be enough for an organism to have the equipment to identify objects of interest to qualify as being conscious. I take a behavior standard though. I include the conscious act as one of sensing and attaining whatever it desires. It may choose not too, but, that's another, after the fact, discussion. Its all in the operations.

What purpose is served by creating this "consciousness" if it has no control over anything?

Why have a personal unified experience when it is not needed? Non-experienced reactions could do just as well. You're claiming it is all merely reaction anyway.

That seems an incredible waste of energy.

Something in need of serious explanation before accepting this irrational model you propose.

Biological systems evolve. They have neither purpose nor creation.

What is the point of wisdom teeth or tonsils?

Do you imagine that they wouldn't exist if they didn't have a purpose?

It's astonishing that you can hold such demonstrably stupid beliefs, and still have the arrogance to berate others for not agreeing with things whose only support is that YOU find them 'obvious'.

Try looking in a mirror for fucks sake.

 

[DBT]

Here we can see your religious nature.

No such universal faith exists.

Your desperation is starting to show.

You may be thinking of your own faith based position of some inexplicable non material consciousness. A position shared amongst the likes of Deepak Choptra.

Real scientists cthonclude the brain and brain activity are highly correlated with consciousness but whether it is all that is necessary for the production of consciousness they cannot say.

Real scientists don't look to magical non material 'solutions' to problems of understanding, unlike some folk.

Integrated information

Neuroscientist Giulio Tononi of the University of Wisconsin-Madison developed one of the most promising theories for consciousness, known as integrated information theory.

Understanding how the material brain produces subjective experiences, such as the color green or the sound of ocean waves, is what Australian philosopher David Chalmers calls the "hard problem" of consciousness. Traditionally, scientists have tried to solve this problem with a bottom-up approach. As Koch put it, "You take a piece of the brain and try to press the juice of consciousness out of [it]." But this is almost impossible, he said.

In contrast, integrated information theory starts with consciousness itself, and tries to work backward to understand the physical processes that give rise to the phenomenon, said Koch, who has worked with Tononi on the theory.

The basic idea is that conscious experience represents the integration of a wide variety of information, and that this experience is irreducible. This means that when you open your eyes (assuming you have normal vision), you can't simply choose to see everything in black and white, or to see only the left side of your field of view.

Instead, your brain seamlessly weaves together a complex web of information from sensory systems and cognitive processes. Several studies have shown that you can measure the extent of integration using brain stimulation and recording techniques.''

 

[untermensche]

Real scientists don't look to magical non material 'solutions' to problems of understanding, unlike some folk.

Newton did.

He was called an occultist.

But then people caught up.