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What Is Consciousness?
Neuronal Correlates of Consciousness (NCC)
The whole brain can be considered an NCC because it generates experience continually.
- When parts of the cerebellum, the "little brain" underneath the back of the brain, are lost to a stroke or otherwise, patients may lose the ability to play the piano, for example. But they never lose any aspect of their consciousness. This is because the cerebellum is almost wholly a feed-forward circuit. There are no complex feedback loops.
- The spinal cord and the cerebellum are not enough to create consciousness. Available evidence suggests neocortical tissue in generating feelings.
- The next stages of processing are the broad set of cortical regions, collectively known as the posterior hot zone, that gives rise to conscious perception. In clinical sources of causal evidence, stimulating the posterior hot zone can trigger a diversity of distinct sensations and feelings.
- It appears that almost all conscious experiences have their origin in the posterior cortex. But it does not explain the crucial difference between the posterior regions and much of the prefrontal cortex, which does not directly contribute to subjective content.
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About Consciousness
Consciousness is everything you experience - taste, pain, love, feeling. Where these experiences come from is a mystery.
Many modern analytic philosophers of mind either deny the existence of consciousness, or they argue that they can never be meaningfully studied by science.
Searching For Physical Footprints
What is it about brain matter that gives rise to consciousness? In particular, the neuronal correlates of consciousness (NCC) - the minimal neuronal mechanisms jointly sufficient for any conscious experience.
Consider this question: What must happen in your brain for you to experience a toothache?
Neuronal Correlates of Consciousness (NCC)
The whole brain can be considered an NCC because it generates experience continually.
- When parts of the cerebellum, the "little brain" underneath the back of the brain, are lost to a stroke or otherwise, patients may lose the ability to play the piano, for example. But they never lose any aspect of their consciousness. This is because the cerebellum is almost wholly a feed-forward circuit. There are no complex feedback loops.
- The spinal cord and the cerebellum are not enough to create consciousness. Available evidence suggests neocortical tissue in generating feelings.
- The next stages of processing are the broad set of cortical regions, collectively known as the posterior hot zone, that gives rise to conscious perception. In clinical sources of causal evidence, stimulating the posterior hot zone can trigger a diversity of distinct sensations and feelings.
- It appears that almost all conscious experiences have their origin in the posterior cortex. But it does not explain the crucial difference between the posterior regions and much of the prefrontal cortex, which does not directly contribute to subjective content.
Popular Theories On Consciousness
We need a scientific theory of consciousness that can predict under which conditions any particular physical system has experiences. Any speculation about machine consciousness is based solely on our intuition, which is not a reliable scientific guide.
Two of the most popular theories of consciousness is the global neuronal workspace (GNW), and the Integrated information theory (IIT).
The Global Neuronal Workspace (GNW)
- GNW argues that consciousness arises from a specific type of information processing, known from the beginnings of AI, when specialized programs would access a small, shared repository of information.
- According to GNW, consciousness is when incoming sensory information is broadcast to multiple cognitive systems, which process these data to speak, store, or call up memory.
- The network of neurons that broadcast these messages is thought to be located in the frontal and parietal lobes.
- When the data is broadcast on this network, the subject becomes conscious.
- GNW proposes that computers of the future will be conscious.
Integrated Information Theory (IIT)
The starting point of this theory is that each experience has specific essential properties. It is necessary, structured, and distinct. It is unified and definite. An experience of sitting on a park bench on a warm, sunny day, watching children play, cannot be separated into parts. Doing so will alter the experience.
- The hypothesis is that any complex and interconnected mechanism whose structure encodes a set of cause-and-effect relationships will have these properties and some level of consciousness.
- IIT predicts that programming for consciousness will never create a conscious computer as it cannot be computed. It must be built into the structure of the system.
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Near-death experiences (NDEs)
NDEs are triggered during a life-threatening situation when the body is injured by blunt trauma, e.g., a heart attack or shock.
Many survivors tell of leaving their damaged...
Negative NDEs experiences
Not all NDEs are positive - some can be frightening, with intense terror, anguish, loneliness, and despair. Distressing NDEs are underreported because of shame, social stigma, and pressure to conform to the positive NDEs.
A close encounter with death reminds us of the fragility of life and can reveal the layers of psychological suppression that prevents us from these uncomfortable thoughts.
The NDE phenomenon
A 2017 study found that NDEs were recalled with greater clarity and detail than either real or imagined situations were. In other words, NDEs were remembered as being more real than life itself.
NDEs are no more likely to occur in devout believers than in secular or nonpracticing subjects.
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Performer - audience synchrony
When you are at a concert and you get to the part with a refrain from your favorite song, you are swept up in the music. The performers and audience seem to be moving as one.
Rese...
Dancing to the same emotions
The synchrony between the brain activity of a performer and his audience shows insights into the nature of musical exchanges: we dance and feel the same emotions together, and our neurons fire together as well. This is especially true when it comes to the more popular performances.
Synchronous brain activity was localized in the left hemisphere of the brain (temporal-parietal junction). This area is important for empathy, the understanding of others’ thoughts and intentions, and verbal working memory used for expressing thought.
Music and the right hemisphere of the brain
The right brain hemisphere is most often associated with the interpretation of musical melody.
In the right hemisphere, synchronization is localized to areas involved in recognizing musical structure and pattern (the inferior frontal cortex) and interpersonal understanding (the inferior frontal and postcentral cortices).
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Our Sense Of Smell And Our Memories
Certain smells that are associated in our minds to events or locations from the past, trigger our memories to revisit them. This association of the past through the sense of smell works bet...
The Memory Association
According to a 2004 research, the sense of smell is a complicated process.
- The olfactory receptor cells send a neuron signal to a part of our brain which is called the olfactory bulb.
- This multistep process which involves over a thousand genes and the nerves connect to the amygdala of the brain, the area responsible for processing emotions.
- It also connects to the memory and cognition area called the hippocampus, forming the association.
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Sleep Paralysis
Apparent hallucinations of a dark monster holding the sleeping person, while he or she is unable to move or speak, is a phenomenon that is experienced by one-fifth of the population at least once.
The Scientific Explanation Of Sleep Paralysis
Scientists claim a brain glitch blurs the wakefulness and Rapid Eye Movement (REM) modes of sleep, making the dreams come out in the real world, creating a hallucination.
To prevent you from acting out these dreams, the brain paralyses your body. Sometimes this mechanism fails and you see your dream in augmented reality in the real world.
Cultural Interpretations of Sleep Paralysis
The Egyptians referred to sleep paralysis as something caused by a ‘Jinn’, which terrorizes and even kills the victims. Italians refer to this figure as Pandafeche, a giant cat.
South Africans interpret this as small creatures known as tokoloshe, who perform black magic, while in Turkey the creature has another name, the Karabasan.
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Recognizing mirrored motion
Italian neuroscientists first noticed the "mirror neuron system." The brain recognizes a kind of micro-kinship.
When we watch a video of someone else smelling...
The challenges of live self-stream
- The non-mirror-style self. We are used to seeing ourselves mirror-style. When you move your left hand, it will always be flipped when you view yourself in a mirror. On Zoom, you lift your left hand, and the opposite side moves on Zoom. This feels disorientating. Thankfully, Zoom has fixed this.
- The perfect self-contingency detection. When you lift your hand in front of a mirror, there is no lag in the image. Now you feel your arm stir and see it move a few seconds later. No wonder we stare at ourselves.
- Glitchy wifi magnifies the slight asynchrony. The response delay disrupts your feeling of connection with another person. You can't read them, and they can't read you.
- A documented phenomenon is that we accurately recognize neutral expressions on other faces, but we misidentify our own expressions. We see our own expression as unfavorable most of the time.
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The Risks Of A Life Spanning Centuries
With the rapid advancement in bioscience and technology, it is likely that most ailments will be cured in the future and our life span would increase considerably.
With increased lifespans,...
The Challenges of The Future
As the human life span increases to span centuries, the planetary environment, along with the collaboration and cooperation among nations would come to the forefront, as hostile people and chronic pollution are extremely dangerous in the long run.
While our survival would still not be a guarantee, there will be a new challenge of overpopulation, which could be moderated by sending people into space to colonize other places, and by limiting the birth rate.
The Long Journey
As inter-galaxy travel becomes a reality, there could be many spaceships which would be able to take us to nearby habitable solar systems, setting up for new adventures, challenges and a completely radical lifestyle.
The changes in Earth’s biosphere could also be a concern, as new technologies and constant harvesting of resources (like deforestation) can lead to dangerous environmental changes.
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Rocking Sleep
Rocking babies back and forth while making them sleep is common as parents try to stop them from wailing and shouting. Even as adults, we can get lulled into sleep in the rhythmic motion of the tra...
Health Benefits Of Rocking
- People who rock while sleeping tend to be less disturbed during the night and maintain their deep sleep longer.
- The memory function improves by a factor of three, according to a study.
- Rocking synchronizes the brainwaves in the ‘thalamocortical’ networks of the brain, helping both sleep and memory consolidation while improving one’s mood.
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Shame Affects Our Mental Health
Shame is that uncomfortable sensation we feel in our stomach when we realize our irrationality and cannot run away from the judging eye of other people. It usually happens when we ...
Women And Children Feel Shame More Intensely
- Women and adolescents are quick to feel the negative effects of shame, and dive into low self-esteem and depression at a much faster rate than men.
- Young people have a stronger ‘pull’ towards any kind of emotion, including shame, which is the reason for them being susceptible to severe depression.
- The propensity of shame decreases as we grow older, but elders again start to feel ashamed just as a young person, as they get self-conscious of their actions, appearance and bodily decline.
Shame And Guilt
- Guilt is related to shame but is easier to rectify, as we focus our attention on the other person and apologize, accepting responsibility.
- Shame is an inward emotion that makes us view our entire self in a bad light, with us getting punished by our conscience.
- Guilt is actually a positive emotion, showing our empathy and encouraging us to reverse the harm that we may have done.
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Past and future
- When English speakers use hand gestures to talk about the past and the future, they thrust a hand over the shoulder for the past and put a hand forward to indicate the future. English speake...
How humans sense time
Humans are different from animals in that we don't sense time only as passing. We dice time into units or think of time to go beyond our lifespan, such as millennia. We rely on time concepts that allow us to make plans, follow recipes, and discuss possible futures.
Describing yesterday and tomorrow
Recent research suggests that across all cultures, the concept of time depends on metaphor, known as a conceptual metaphor. We build our understanding of duration and sequences of events out of familiar spatial ideas such as size, movement, and location.
But the "time is like space" metaphor takes on very different forms from one culture to the next.
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