it's just a gap in knowledge — Garrett Travers

What gap? There is no gap. Well, a gap being crossed easier. Between neurons, enhancing their connectivity.

And as Cobb observes, Global Workspace Theory does not explain why flexible circulation of information causes consciousness to pop up. — Daemon

This is just another attempt to point to a gap in knowledge and say "See?!" that's just not what's going on here. There are plenty of things GWT can't say directly with its body of evidence, that has nothing to do with what it CAN say. Which is to say, the brain is the source of consciousness, and it produces it through the operation of numerous networks of structures.

What gap? There is no gap. Well, a gap being crossed easier. Between neurons, enhancing their connectivity. — EugeneW

lol, I see what you mean Eugene. I've no problem with it. I'm simply saying that there isn't enough literature in the science to say things definitively on this topic. Well, that I have seen.

The brain doesn't process information, nor compute on it. The only thing that happens is resonating with incoming structures. Or vibrating on its own. I can see a real ball and I can imagine one. — EugeneW

I just don't know what to call what it is that the brain does use to produce images, sounds, ideas, concepts, and creative endeavors. Information is the best way to look at it, even if it isn't what is technically taking place.

The only thing happening in the brain is ion currents running parallel on the network, from birth to dead (the brain can't be turned off). Connection strengths involved in learning and memory (which are actually the same) direct the patterns. The 10exp(10exp20) possible pathways are actualized by these strengths. They are already there at birth, as a result of, for example retina induced stimulations of the network (concentric circle patterns moving over the retina structure, stimulating the embryonic network, so the newly born sees and recognizes round shapes).

I suggest you give a small, supported argument to back up your assertion, because the metaphysics taking place on your thread are in no way contradictory to anything stated here that has been supported with research. Perhaps the opposite. — Garrett Travers

Your entire argument is metaphysical. I think your rigid reductionism blinds you to that. As I've said elsewhere, metaphysical arguments can not be resolved empirically, and that's your whole argument. You keep asking for scientific evidence. There isn't any. There can't be any.

The "metaphysics taking place on [my] thread" does contradict your position.

You keep asking for scientific evidence. There isn't any. There can't be any. — T Clark

Right, which is why your metaphysics, like most, isn't relevant. You cannot have a philosophy that isn't informed by the science, irrespective of whether or not you continue to use the descriptor "reductionist" ad nauseum in an attempt to shield yourself from needing an argument, which you still do.

The "metaphysics taking place on [my] thread" does contradict your position. — T Clark

This was your chance to explain that. All you've done here is say it. So, go ahead and tell me how your metaphysics contradicts established science across an entire field of research.

The only thing happening in the brain is ion currents running parallel on the network, from birth to dead (the brain can't be turned off). Connection strengths involved in learning and memory (which are actually the same) direct the patterns. The 10exp(10exp20) possible pathways are actualized by these strengths. They are already there at birth, as a result of, for example retina induced stimulations of the network (concentric circle patterns moving over the retina structure, stimulating the embryonic network, so the newly born sees and recognizes round shapes). — EugeneW

Sure, that sounds about right. What I'm highlighting is that these ion currents are used by the network to produce representations of the world in accordance with the stimuli that induces those currents. It doesn't seem too outrageous to use the term "information" or "computation" as a way to conceptualize the process. Where am I off the mark here? Or, am I?

So, it would have to be brains that produce consciousness, as there are no structures of consciousness that can be tested for brain production, but the opposite is tested daily, as I have demonstrated with the research I have posted. — Garrett Travers

So neurologists are not conscious of the brains they are testing? When neurologists provide explanations of brains and how they function, are they talking about their conscious experience of brains, or how brains function independent of their conscious experience (observation, empirical evidence)?

"How?" is still a mystery, but the leading theory is that all structures of the brain operate in a complex network of unparralleled sophistiction. By produce, I mean emit, generate, or otherwise enable. Much like eyesight is produced by the brain, so too is consciousness. — Garrett Travers

I don't see how complex networks of neurons can produce experiences of things that are not neurons. If brains emit consciousness, where is consciousness - once emitted, relative to the brain?

So neurologists are not conscious of the brains they are testing? When neurologists provide explanations of brains and how they function, are they talking about their conscious experience of brains, or how brains function independent of their conscious experience (observation, empirical evidence)? — Harry Hindu

...?

I don't see how complex networks of neurons can produce experiences of things that are not neurons. If brains emit consciousness, where is consciousness - once emitted, relative to the brain? — Harry Hindu

I don't understand how hepatocytes can produce anything that isn't livers. Basically the same level of analysis.

Consciousness is the brain operating to allow for wakefulness and awareness. There is no "where." It's a made up idea. There is just the brain and its functions. Consciousness is itself a made-up term used to describe something people had no clue about before the past few decades.

One can tell if someone is unconscious if they are unresponsive. The man acting unconscious is still conscious. He wouldn’t be able to act if he was unconscious, though he may deceive us. — NOS4A2

You can yell my name and I won't respond. Deceiving you is a successful act of acting like you are unconscious.

I don’t think the fact of being conscious is silly, but the notion of “consciousness” is. By adding the suffix “ness” to the adjective “conscious” we fashion a thing out of a descriptive term, which in my mind is an error in philosophical discussions. This is true of terms such as “awareness”, “happiness”, “whiteness”. Descriptive terms serve to describe things, but they aren’t themselves things, substances, or forces, and they shouldn’t be treated as such in any careful language.

When speaking about and analyzing things that exist, the human organism exists. This human organism is what we study and analyze to better understand his activity. “Consciousness”, however, doesn’t exist, and we should abandon the term. — NOS4A2

What I am gathering from what you are saying is that conscious is a descriptive term of other's behaviors. But that isn't what I'm talking about when I use the term. I'm talking about the form my awareness of other people's behaviors takes.

Consciousness is the brain operating to allow for wakefulness and awareness. There is no "where." It's a made up idea. There is just the brain and its functions. Consciousness is itself a made-up term used to describe something people had no clue about before the past few decades. — Garrett Travers

Then consciousness isn't emitted by the brain, but is the brain operating in certain ways. You aren't being consistent.

So neurologists are not conscious of the brains they are testing? When neurologists provide explanations of brains and how they function, are they talking about their conscious experience of brains, or how brains function independent of their conscious experience (observation, empirical evidence)?
— Harry Hindu

...? — Garrett Travers

Well? Are neurologists conscious of brains or not? If so, then what form does them being conscious of brains take? How would they know they are conscious of brains? What form does empirical evidence of brain functions take, and in talking about empirical evidence, are you talking about your conscious visual experience of brains, or how brains are independent of your visual experience of them?

Then consciousness isn't emitted by the brain, but is the brain operating in certain ways. You aren't being consistent. — Harry Hindu

There is no distinction between the two, Harry. The brain emits, generates, or otherwise enables consciousness, just as it does sight, through its operations. Individual networks of the brain are responsible for certain functions, that when operating in tandem with others, produce the awareness that you use the term "consciousness" to describe.

Well? Are neurologists conscious or not? — Harry Hindu

Yes.

The only thing happening in the brain is ion currents running parallel on the network, from birth to dead (the brain can't be turned off). — EugeneW

You do not write with clarity. Most of the time it seems like you are just making stuff up. Ion currents running parallel are not the only thing happening in the brain, by any means. For example consciousness is affected by neurohormones, which act on a far longer timescale than the synapses. Then there is the wave activity affecting populations of neurons.

The brain is not a digital computer.

"How?" is still a mystery, but the leading theory is that all structures of the brain operate in a complex network of unparralleled sophistiction. — Garrett Travers

That's garbage man. Are you really studying philosophy?

How is that a "theory"? A theory is "a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something". A scientific theory is "is a well-substantiated explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can incorporate laws, hypotheses and facts".

That "theory" you are so captivated by doesn't explain anything at all!

And where do you get the idea that it's "the leading theory"? In what field? My son is a neuroscientist. Here are two of the current research projects in the lab he runs:

1. The cingulate cortex (Cg) provides long-range retinotopically specific top-down input to the primary visual cortex (V1) in mice. Previous studies have argued that this circuit may serve as a mechanism of selective attention, as optogenetic stimulation of this projection enhances visual responses and improves visual discrimination. Other work has argued for a role of this projection in relaying predictive motor signals to sensory cortex. In this study we are characterising the endogenous recruitment of this circuit during visually guided behaviour. Specifically, we are using two-photon microscopy to longitudinally image activity of GCaMP6s labelled axons originating from Cg in layer 1 of V1 while animals performed a Go/Nogo visual discrimination task.

2. Higher visual areas, such as the lateral medial visual area in rodents, send dense axonal projections to lower levels of the processing hierarchy. The purpose or function of these feedback signals remains unclear, but they have been suggested to provide a substrate for a form of predictive processing (Marques et al. 2018). In this study we are examining 1) the relationship between the functional properties of LM>V1 axons and the neurons they target in V1 in the awake brain, and 2) the manner in which this feedback circuit forms after eye opening, testing the hypothesis that this putative predictive circuit recapitulates visual experience.

I asked him about Global Workplace Theory and its relevance to his work. He said he has heard the name Baars, he has heard of Global Workplace Theory, but he doesn't know anything about it.

Can't wait to tell him that it's the leading theory, and that all structures of the brain operate in a complex network of unparralleled sophistiction.

The brain is not a digital computer — Daemon

That's what I wrote many times alresdy. There is no computation done. Only connections between neurons are strengthened. Neurotransmitters and hormones are involved in the propagation of ion currents, which are no os or 1s. They're not information. Rather, the coherent currents run like processes in the world run.

Thank you Eugene, that is clearer.

This article https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538094/ explains that the Neural Binding Problem comprises "at least four distinct problems" and points out that "At this time, the state of scientific understanding is radically different for the four versions of the NPB".

One of the subproblems, the problem of the Subjective Unity of Perception, "remains mysterious".

"The connections between neurons" doesn't explain how we have unified subjective experience.

How this unification is achieved is the issue. My thought is that fields are extended throughout the brain, and indeed everything, and consciousness is perhaps best understood as a fundamental field-property. — bert1

This fascinating lecture https://youtu.be/zNVQfWC_evg tells us that "everything is fields", rather than, say, particles. So everything can be understood as a field property, including consciousness.

But that doesn't explain how consciousness arises, any more than saying "it's all particles".

I share your suspicion that some brain-wide phenomenon may be crucial, but that is no more than speculation. And it will be a specific, dedicated phenomenon, not the more general quantum fields that apparently make up everything.

The connections between neurons" doesn't explain how we have unified subjective experience — Daemon

Off course not the individual strengths. The currents on a single pathway run coupled to other paths. All these parallel currents constitute an experience of a whole (their content, that is; not the material currents). There is not one of these ion peaks traveling alone. If they all would travel independently, it would be a mess. A single neuron can be involved in many memories. How is morality materialized in ion currents on neurons and the body (and felt in their content)? I imagine taking away food from a poor person. The image of the food and me taking it runs around on the neurons, which makes me say not to do it.Empathy. Dunno how this can be seen or translated in ion currents. It's complicated... :smile:

But that doesn't explain how consciousness arises, any more than saying "it's all particles" — Daemon

Maybe that's because we don't know the nature of particles. They contain charges by means of which the interact, by coupling to the glue fields between them.

I could learn to see the "illusion" behind my naive phenomenology ... and start to worry about mind~body dualism when I went off to philosophy class.

So sure. Phenomenology is fine if it begins a process of reverse engineering the causes.

And sure, it is neither objective or subjective in the traditional sense. I'm always saying that it is not that, but instead, semiotic. And semiotic on both the biological and sociological levels. — apokrisis

Semiotics and Husserlian intentionality are different notions of causality. You may consider the latter naive while I consider the former to be naive and derivative. Semiotics allows for the consideration of what is subpersonal , independent of but underlying and inclusive of conscious awareness. For phenomenology there is no outside of consciousness but rather constitutive levels of meaning. My ‘naive’ perception of a mysterious figure in the distance center that turns out on closer inspection to be nothing but a shadow is no different than the ‘naive’ perception of mach bands. In both case, there is no end run around the temporally unfolding synthetic activity of phenomenological constitution, only an enrichment of perception achieved i. accordance with the assimilative function of intentionality.

The image of the food and me taking it runs around on the neurons, which makes me say not to do it.Empathy. Dunno how this can be seen or translated in ion currents — EugeneW

This post doesn't progress the discussion.

Maybe that's because we don't know the nature of particles. They contain charges by means of which the interact, by coupling to the glue fields between them. — EugeneW

This doesn't explain anything.

That's because it can't be explained. Described at most.

To every process in the physical world, a corresponding parallel process of currents running on the neural network can be found. There are more possible pathways to run on than there are processes in the physical world so the brain can accomodate all. You can walk around in the world while it's projected onto the brain, which makes it come alive. It's a continue process, which started already in the womb so you're thrown into the world kind of prepared.

I don't see why consciousness couldn't be explained. The question is, "how does feeling or experience arise from processes in the brain (and body)?"

As you know I have a family member working in this field, he has an absolutely enormous microscope and brain and I'm quite hopeful that he will detect the neural correlates of consciousness in my lifetime. That would be nice.

Seriously, we are finding out so much about the workings of the brain at the moment, I think we may be close to identifying what switches consciousness on.

In one experiment a mouse learned to push a button to get a reward when it saw a faint grey line appearing on a screen. The researchers were able to identify neurons firing in time with the appearance of the line. The line was then made more and more faint, until the mouse could no longer see it and stopped pressing the button. But the researchers could still see neurons firing in time with the line. Could the next step be the identification of the link between the conscious and the unconscious processes there?

My ‘naive’ perception of a mysterious figure in the distance center that turns out on closer inspection to be nothing but a shadow is no different than the ‘naive’ perception of mach bands. — Joshs

Hardly. One is an easy mistake to make - a high level act of interpretation. The other is found to be constitutive of interpretations themselves.

You can unsee the mysterious figure. But you can't unsee the Mach bands. And having noted this interesting difference in your qualitative experience, you would then look to its separate causes.

What answer does Husserlian intentionality give us here?

I don't see why consciousness couldn't be explained. — Daemon

Because already the interaction and motion of particles can't be explained. Consciousness can be described only.

One is an easy mistake to make - a high level act of interpretation. The other is found to be constitutive of interpretations themselves.

You can unsee the mysterious figure. But you can't unsee the Mach bands. And having noted this interesting difference in your qualitative experience, you would then look to its separate causes.

What answer does Husserlian intentionality give us here? — apokrisis

One does not unsee the mysterious figure. What appears to one as the figure is the product of a specifically correlated concatenation of retentions, expectations and actual sensation. The changes one makes in one’s spatial relation to the phenomenon via bodily movements changes that constellation of retentions,
protentions and sense data. One has now constituted a different phenomenon, but idealizes the changes by dubbing this process of perceptual transformation as my seeing the ‘ same’ object correctly now but incorrectly before. As realists, our belief in persisting real objects makes our conformity to the ‘ facts’ of the real
external thing the arbiter of correctness. But from a phenomenological vantage , the difference between illusion and correctness is a function of the ways changing inferential compatibility between one moment of perception and the next, which can be relatively stable over time but never self -identical.

Why is the binding problem a problem? — EugeneW

It's a problem for neuroscience, as the area of the brain which performs the crucial role of generating the subjective unity of consciousness can't be identified. All of the neural subsystems responsible for the component parts have been identified, but not the system that brings it together into a unified whole. That's why Feldman says that the neural binding problem is an empirical confirmation of Chalmer's 'hard problem' argument.

I'm still waiting on an argument against my OP. — Garrett Travers

You wouldn't know one if you saw it.