http://people.umass.edu/trehub/thecognitivebrain/chapter3.pdf

and TCB, Ch. 12, “Self-Directed Learning in a Complex Environment”, here:

http://www.people.umass.edu/trehub/thecognitivebrain/chapter12.pdf

It seems to me that the vast search space in Seung’s research program could be significantly narrowed by the guidance of model neuronal mechanisms that have been shown to be competent for significant cognitive processes.

http://people.umass.edu/trehub/YCCOG828%20copy.pdf

(2) Cognitive therapy (e.g., Beck’s work, as well as Meichembaum’s, Ellis’, etc.) does not suggest that self-talk per se is detrimental to self-control. Instead, it shows that some individuals misuse inner speech by either overusing it or by distorting it (by engaging in negative thought patterns), which leads to poor self-regulation indeed. These individuals are «self-ruminators» as opposed to «self-reflectors» — see Trapnell and Campbell (1999). Healthy use of inner speech translates into highly effective self-regulation.

… except that the brain itself is a machine, a network of cells that computes its choices….

If you start by asserting that this metaphor is simply the fact of the matter, your subsequent argument rests on quicksand. If you are right about the centrality of “the complex circulation of molecular information,” you should address why virtually none of our actual computing machines work by circulating “molecular information.”

If men were solely driven by their pleasures and pains, women would have centuries ago taken total control of men’s minds. Really addressing the question of free will doesn’t consist in showing the neural correlates of the “pleasure principle,” but rather in showing how conscious human beings are so often (even if not all or most of the time) capable of transcending it.

Answering that question would produce a plausible model of free will. Denying the question of transcendence – claiming that all behavior is merely the end result of calculation against projected sum results of an equation of pleasure and pain – misses the question of free will entirely.

It’s also simply incoherent. It assumes that all pleasures can be neatly mapped onto an intensity scale. Yet any aesthete knows that subtle pleasures can be preferable to strong pleasures, and that the flavors and complexities of pleasures can hardly be reduced to a scale at all – or even multiple scales. To the extent different pleasures – say of fine food or fine scenery – can be scaled, it’s not to the same scales across pleasure kinds either. Nor are pains differentiated simply in linear intensity.

You also should contend with Aaron Beck’s findings suggesting that self-talk, lodged presumably in working memory, often leads to a neurotic lack of self-control, which can be improved precisely by training subjects to gain psychological distance from the self-talk – what his well-proven “cognitive therapy” consists in.

In folk psychology, of course, inner speech just is self-control, and there’s a homunculus over there producing it, or is it that we’re supposed to be the homunculus? All the standard arguments against a homunculus need to be disarmed, perhaps by better separating your claim from the folk psychological picture.

Also, even if better self-control capacity correlates with better verbal (as compared to visuo-spatial) working memory capacity, you need to show that it isn’t the other way around: that better self-control capacity produces better working memory capacity. Keeping something within working memory is itself arguably an instance of self-control.

The latter hypothesis beyond lame since if such an entity existed, which is totally devoid of proof, the “neurotheological” circuit would be 1. present in all and 2. lead to perfect communion with this occult, ephemeral being.

Whether it’s the “god gene” or Persinger’s “god machine”… or OOB’s… or religious hallucinations induced by drugs or schizophrenia… it is crystal clear to me that man has created god out of ignorance of the natural world, fear of death… and the wish to be demigods and live forever.

The fact that the belief in a god that has left not a trace in the physical world is a fixed delusion speaks volumes of a clear link between mental illness and the attendant hallucinations which often take on religious themes. I had a friend once who literally went crazy on drugs… a brilliant,jewish muscian during the late 60′s. He was later arrested and in court defended himself in the person of jesus christ. Clearly, our culture determines the dialog and narrative these “visions and voices” will take.

Cheers to all who seek.

I would add that along with researching dream-states during sleep… progressive levels of anesthesia and brain/mind altering drugs are fertile ground which have been sadly abandoned until only recently.

Regarding one commenter pontificating that QM has slayed any notion of a deterministic universe… and without a shread of evidence asserts free-will (FW) exists… I think absurd. Like evolution, the great weight of evidence has demonstrated the utter lack of FW, whether from mountains of reasearch in neurobiology or interrelated genetics. The alleged randomness of QM does not equate in any sense with some notion of FW. Quite the contrary, it would be a strong argument against it. Someone as eminent as Gerard t’Hooft has authored a paper on the “determinism underlying QM” as I recall!
I challenge anyone who desires to escape the determined Natural world (but certainly NOT the simplistically “mechanistic”) to explain the nature of this “free-willing agent” which somehow, by some means, supervenes on our physical brains. When did this supernatural agency appear in the context of human evolution, apart from the evolution of our physical brains? When during our embryological development does FW appear? Does FW operate at the synaptic, neuronal level… or is it some kind of ethereal super-identity, which comes from who-knows-where… for who-knows-why?

Cheers.

Arnold Trehub

Best,
Thomas

Arnold Trehub

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Arnold Trehub

Rather, Dr. Woofit was using this particular lab to illustrate a broader set of methodological issues that are well known in social psychology and certainly not specific to ganzfeld experiments. It was an opportunity to talk about the ganzfeld to an audience who didn’t know anything about it, thus sharing the message about parapsychology’s serious scientific objectives and intriguing results. What he did not anticipate is that people would not read his study closely (if at all) and report it incorrectly on the internet as you have done above.

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Best,
Arnold

You are probably aware of this, but regions within the medial temporal lobe, especially the perirhinal cortex, is most sensitive to novelty (se refs below). Conversely, the hippocampus seems to be involved in familiarity processing, although there is a tight interdependence between the two processes and regions.

Best,
Thomas

References:
Dissociating intentional learning from relative novelty responses in the medial temporal lobe.
Strange BA, Hurlemann R, Duggins A, Heinze HJ, Dolan RJ
Neuroimage. 2005 Mar ; 25(1): 51-62

Novelty responses to relational and non-relational information in the hippocampus and the parahippocampal region: a comparison based on event-related fMRI.
Köhler S, Danckert S, Gati JS, Menon RS
Hippocampus. 2005; 15(6): 763-74

Conceptual and perceptual novelty effects in human medial temporal cortex.
O’Kane G, Insler RZ, Wagner AD
Hippocampus. 2005; 15(3): 326-32

Arnold Trehub

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Arnold Trehub

However, it ought to be obvious that a sufficient metabolic turnover fueling the firing of excitatory signals from certain basal brainstem ‘reticular activating type’ neurons with excitatory synaptic efferent influences on, other in turn excitatory superposed neurons within the actention selection serving system, is how any level or mode (or aspect) of consciousness is being energized.

We ought to be able to accept that it is a continuum of self-regulatory capacity that include both a vigilant and reflexive autonoumous sensorymotor type modular actention selection serving system (~ up to an amphibian style system for “paying actention”), up to a emotion effecting, or feeling, such system; and a cognitive (including ‘abstractly aware’) mode of being “actentive” or “paying {metabolically, i.e.) actention”.

share yours if you don’t mind revealing your genius. :)

I have to wonder if this is not a big part of the common materialist presumption that physics has “complete causal closure.” When physical phenomena are based on quantum phenomena, which have a built-in random factor, it’s hard to see how that can be characterized as “complete causal closure.” Granted, there are the intermittent attempts of a few determined determinists — such as David Bohm, to rewrite quantum theory into something that it’s not; but among physicists the Copenhagen interpretation wins broad support. One might claim that the “complete causal closure” of physics does not imply that all events have a physical cause, but it only implies that if they have any cause at all, then that cause must be physical. However, physicists generally don’t make those same kinds of claims on reality; they’re inherently more modest than philosophers when it comes to the role of physics in describing the nature of the universe.

The standard assertion of “No Hidden Variables” refers to no hidden *physical* causative factors, which would lead to physical determinism. It says nothing at all about potential non-physical variables that might act as causative factors. To some minds, the gap in causation at the quantum level — which is ubiquitous, since all physical processes are ultimately based on quantum physics — is one possible place for consciousness to hide out in the physical world, and for free will as a causative agent. (This could readily lead to a panpsychist view of the physical world, since consciousness per se would not be restricted to biological entities and processes, but would permeate all of physical reality. However, the specifics of biology and physics and chemistry would of course restrict the range of actions and behaviors that any physical entity could exhibit, as well as their range of phenomenal experience.)

This introduction of non-physical aspects to the universe is widely abhorred by contemporary philosophers, who often seem to think they are being “scientific” by adopting the philosophical stance of materialism. But materialism is not demonstrated by science; it’s just a metaphysical assumption. It so happens that physical science generally works well with materialism as a useful default assumption; but that’s only to say that physical science is about physical stuff, and not about non-physical stuff. All areas of inquiry have a proper domain, and the fact that the proper domain of physical science is physical stuff should not imply that there are no other domains or dimensions to reality, or that other areas of inquiry should be compelled to limit themselves to the default assumptions of physical science.

And, of course, the physical sciences can also be compatible with other metaphysical stances, such as idealism or dualism. There is no necessary violation of the known facts or laws of science involved in assuming that all the scientific facts that we know about the universe are the result of a universe composed of consciousness. Insofar as physics does not concern itself with consciousness, it has nothing to say about whether consciousness is constructed out of physical processes, or whether the physical universe is constructed out of consciousness, or whether consciousness and physicality are two aspects of some underlying unity.

But when it comes to attempts to understand the mind, regarding the materialistic assumption as the necessary default assumption makes no sense. It’s like wearing dark purple sunglasses, and then looking at a forest and declaring that no non-purple things exist. The most interesting things may be unintentionally filtered out that way.

Re comment #7, it did not appear that comment #6 was asserting that quantum phenomena can explain consciousness or its phenomenal content. I took Mr. Seyfried as making a more general point: that materialism assumes a physical cause for all physical events; and that that assumption has been amply disproven by quantum mechanics. But I think one could hold the materialist assumption without the assertion of physical determinism that violates quantum mechanics. That would mean accepting that many physical events ultimately have no cause at all, neither a physical cause nor a non-physical cause.

As to explaining consciousness itself, that is a much harder problem than merely explaining some of the details of the contents of conscious experience. David Chalmers did a great job of addressing “the hard problem of consciousness” in his book, outlining how there is something there that seems, from our own direct subjective experience of consciousness, to be fundamentally non-physical. He ended up defending a dualistic metaphysics of sorts; but most of the same arguments would work equally well for an idealistic metaphysics.

Idealistic metaphysics is very common in eastern philosophy, but apparently it’s anathema in western philosophy these days. (And Berkeley’s version of idealism was problematic; but vedantic or Buddhist idealism is quite a different beast.) However, the only objection that western philosophers can seem to raise against idealism is the “but that’s just absurd!” objection. That seems like a woeful lapse of intellectual rigor on their part. To maintain that the position of idealism is simply untenable by anyone who is intelllectually serious is demonstrably wrong; as evidenced by its popularity among the most rigorous of Indian philosophers and physicists alike. A reductio ad absurdum argument loses its teeth when confronted with the existence of many profound thinkers who don’t seem to find the “absurdity” to be absurd at all.

The study of consciousness as an interdisciplinary effort involving science and philosophy and psychology has been revealing fascinating things about the mind and how we think of it. But with regard to some of the “hard problems” of consciousness, I can’t help but feel that this area of inquiry will be chasing its own tail in some ways, so long as researchers feel duty bound to swear oaths of fealty to the presumption of a materialistic metaphysics.

I recall reading somewhere that squirrels maintain an accurate mental map of just where they planted each of hundreds of acorns. They do appear to go straight to where an acorn is buried, as opposed to randomly digging all over. (However, the acorn may not be there any longer, because the crows also dig them up.)

D.M.R. Sekhar

Abstract
Intelligence is the function of brain. The structure of brain and it’s location in the living organism have been changing as life forms evolved. A single cell organism has only DNA that can qualify for the status of brain. DNA molecules not only remember their structure but also produce their replicates, the properties that no other matter molecules posses and hence they are live. Live molecules [ for that matter all life forms] are alive as they are conscious of their existence.

Plant Intelligence

Are plants intelligent? Probably yes as Anthony Trewavas showes(1) certain aspects of plant intelligence. He says “as a species we are clearly more intelligent than other animals, it is unlikely that intelligence as biological property originated only with homosapiens. There should therefore be aspects of intelligent behavior in lower organisms from which our superlative capabilities are but the latest evolutionary expression”. Behavior is equated with movement in animal terms and majority of multi cellular plants are sessile because of their decision several billion years ago to gather energy via photosynthesis and hence movement has never been critical for plant survival as light is freely available. Rejection of that decision to gather energy by photosynthesis by primordial animal eukaryotic cell, ensured that movement became critical to find food and mates. At the end of the review the questions if the word intelligence can be used to describe the behavior of plants. If so how plants accomplish (intelligent behavior) in the absence of a brain and he calls this phenomenon “Mindless Mastery”.

The Survivors and Intelligence

The idea and arguments that plants may be intelligent, reminds this author a paper news that describes(2) a mango tree that walks. The mango tree (in Gujarat State, India) reportedly as old as 1200 years ( big in size, rich with foliage) lowers one of its branches to the ground some distance away from the trunk and roots itself. The new trunk starts growing as the old one dries after some time. The locals call it “chalto ambo” (in Gujarati language) which means walking mango tree. The lowering of the branch and its development into a new trunk is repeated periodically. Attempts to grow this tree at other places by graft have not succeeded. Goats will die if they drink sea water. But feral goats in the barren island of Andaman-Nicobar are reported (3) drinking seawater during dry period (December-May) when no fresh water is available in whole of the island. The goats of Andaman and the chalto-ambo are the rarest of the rare examples of survival and the phenomenon behind must be a special case of adaptive response.

Intelligence may be defined/described in several terms(1) . In the view of this author, intelligence of a living organism is sensing a change in the environment (or a problem) imagining several options based on logic and or past experience (memory) or simply by hit and try basis to overcome (or solve) the problem, selecting (deciding) one or few of the options sequentially or simultaneously and expression of the selected option or options as (response or) behavior. The elements of “past experience” (which may differ from organism to organism) and “hit and try” introduce randomness in the behavior or the response of the organism. The organisms that show a response or behavior that best answer the changed environment (the problem) survive.

The Brain

Are living organisms without brain mindless? Do brain and mind carry the same meaning? For those to whom body-mind relations are a matter of study4, brain is a part of the physical body and mind is an abstract term (which probably may be described as software that runs the brain). Often neo-cortex is considered the brain. If behavior is to be related to intelligence and neo-cortex, then we have a problem as amygdala is known5 to control the emotional behavior. Hence while neo-cortex is said to be the logical brain, amygdala is known as brain of emotions. Both amygdala and neo-cortex are located in the head. Does it mean that headless creatures are brainless? Enteric Nervous System (ENS) also known6,7 as gut’s brain, is considered a single entity containing neurons, neurotransmitters and proteins that send messages between neurons and support cells. ENS has complex circuitry that enables it to learn, remember and produce gut feelings, functioning in ways similar to that of peripheral nervous system. Tubular animals have the nervous system in their guts and as life evolved animals needed a more complex brain and so developed the central nervous system, preserving the gut’s nervous system also. Hence it may be noted that the functions of the brain are performed by different systems operating from different locations of the body as the evolution proceeded.

Decision Making Capacity

Are psychic processes such as learning, remembering, taking decisions, intelligent behavior dependent on the existence of nervous system (which may be loosely called brain, as of now)? In other words, are organisms without nervous system brainless? And hence can’t take intelligent decisions? Escherichia Coli a bacteria has hydrophilic outer surface8 in normal aqueous media. The surface of E.Coli turns hydrophobic in 5% solution of sodium chloride. E.Coli takes a decision to turn its surface from hydrophilic to hydrophobic, thereby perturbs9 the structure of water near it’s outer surface in order to escape the inhospitable environment created by 5% solution of sodium chloride. This may be described as a temporary adaptive response of E.Coli occurring through genetic means. That is E. coli shows intelligent response (behavior) if subjected to conditions that are unfavorable to it’s survival and the response must be a decision taken by genetic means, i.e. by DNA material as E.Coli has no brain or nervous system. Thus one may say that the DNA molecules have all the features of a brain and can prompt intelligent behavior. The structure and operating mechanism of “brain” and “genetic material” (i.e. DNA) are quite different but they can perform similar functions such as “remembering”, “taking decisions” etc. See for example, diodes that work on the basis of thermo ionic emission of electrons and semiconductors of N-P junction are quite different in their construction and operating mechanism but perform similar function the one way flow of electrons.

The DNA and Genome

According to Frued10 all living organisms have two primary instincts, viz. (a) self preservation and (b) procreation. Analogy is that DNA (and RNA) molecules11,12 do have (a) self repairing capacity and (b) can replicate themselves. If we ignore the play of terms, self-repairing capability of DNA molecules is nothing but “self preservation” and replication of DNA molecules is nothing but “procreation”. In the terminology of genetics, adaptive response is not conscious but controlled by “genetic means” or heredity or an outcome of natural selection. Without getting entrapped in the terminology, we can see that DNA material has both the primary instincts (self preservation and procreation), functions as “brain” in that it can take logical decisions and can remember (it’s own structure for example) that results into intelligent behavior expressed as adaptive response. After all we have already noted that the word “brain” has no absolute meaning as, it has been changing locations (during evolution as ENS, amygdala, neo-cortex) and the original “brain” unmistakably is DNA whereas ENS, amygdala and neo-cortex are it’s peripherals developed during evolution. Thus, the origin of intelligence is same as that of the origin of life, that is the origin of DNA. It is false to assume that the decision making capacity is the exclusive property of brain (the nervous system). Decisions can be taken by living organism from different levels, including the genetic level which is primary. Nervous system (ENS, amygdala and neo-cortex) may not have control over genetic material (DNA) but genetic material can control nervous system (brain).

DNA molecules have adenine-thymine [AT] and guanine-cytosine [GC] nucleotide pairs fixed as sequences along the twisted double helix. G is bound [triple bond] more strongly to C than A to [double bond] T and hence we expect the presence more GC pairs which surprisingly is not the case. Surprise as the GC pair content in higher organism is in the range of 40% to 45% only 13 which goes against the general version of the second law of thermodynamics 14 . The genome of mammals and birds are reported 15,16 to have a GC content varying from 30% to 60%. Further the genome may be classified 17 into putative isochores [regions or fragments] with varying content of GC pairs. The isochors are non randomly 18,19,20 arranged i e the genome is structured from the point of view of isochors. With stable [GC rich fragments] and unstable [AT rich or GC poor fragments] states the genome resembles an information processing device. Gene complexes such as bithorax, BX-C and antennapedia, ANT-C are reported 21,22 to play a central role in programming the development of organism. Biological rhythms in an organism are due to 23 gene clocks which are automatically aligned with the external planetary rhythms. The alignment of bio-rhythms with planetary rhythms suggests that the gene clocks in fact sense the external environment.

The Thesis

[1]The properties of DNA molecules suggest that they not only preserve themselves by remembering their structure [hence can repair themselves] but also procreate ie replicate. [2]The presence of GC poor regions [against the general version of the second law of thermodynamics] in the genome and the fact that gene complexes programme the development organism indicate that DNA molecules/genome are self programmable and are competent to process information. [3] Genes [clocks] can sense external environment and reset genomic functioning for example bio-rhythms. The self programming property of DNA molecules/genome may be termed as genopsych or genpsy. Genpsy imparts consciousness to DNA molecules/genome.

Closing Remarks

Thus the origin of consciousness is the origin of life itself that is the first appearance of DNA/genome. The property of genpsy explains the native intelligence of microorganism, plants etc. Genpsy is the extensive [self ordering/self programming] property of DNA/genome as entropy [the measure of disorder] is the extensive property of matter. At macro level placebo effect is the self ordering property of the brain which we may call the mind. Thus genpsy is to genes is as the mind to brain. It is genpsy, the additional property that distinguishes DNA/genome/organism from other matter molecules.

REFERENCES
1. Anthony Trewavas, Aspects of Plant Intelligence, Annals of Botany 92:1-20, 2003.
2. Sanjiv Desai, A mango tree that walks with time, The Times of India, Ahmadabad, 13.9.2000.
3. Ahlawat, SPS, Rai, SB and Senani, S. Seawater Consumption of Feral Goat of Barren Island, Biotropica, 25(3), 1993.
4. Joseph R. Dunn, Re-Introducing the Soul: The Medical Vs the Psychotherapeutic Model : An Interview with Elio Frattaroli, Psychology Online Journal, The American Institute of Psychology and Health, Vol. 11, No. 12, Dec. 2001.
5. Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books , New York, 1996.
6. Michael. D, Gershon, Alcmene Chalazonipis, Taube. P, Rothman, From Neural Crest to Bowel: Development of the Enteric Nervous System, Journal of Neuro Biology, Vol. 24, No. 2, 1993.
7. Sandra Blakeslee, There is a ‘brain’ behind gut feelings, The Times of India, New Delhi, 5.1.1996.
8. Gaudin , AM, Flotation of Micro Organisms, Froth Flotation, 50th anniversary volume, Ed. D. W. Fruestnuea, AIME, New York 1962.
9. Ernest Grunwald, Thermodynamic Properties of Non Polar Solutes in Water and Structure of Hydrophobic Hydration Shells, J. Am. Chem. Soc., Vol. 108, No. 19, 1986.
10. Ernest Jones, Life and work of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 2, Basic Books Inc. New York, 1960.
11. George Wald, The origin of life, Molecules to living cells, W.H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 1980.
12. Philip C Hanawalt, Protein Structure and Function: Assembly of Viruses and Ribosomes, ibid.
13. Volkenshtein ,M.V, Biophysics ,MIR Publishers, Moscow, 1983.

14. Yeremin , E.N, Fundamentals of Chemical Thermodynamics ,MIR Publishers,Moscow,1983

15. Bernardi,G. Isochores and the evolutionary genomics of vertebrates, Gene,241:3-17,2000.

16. Meunier,J.,Laurent Duret,L., Recombination Drives the Evolution of GC content in Human Genome, Mol. Biol. Evol. 21[6]:984-990, 2004.

17. Bernardi,G., ETAL ,The mosaic genome of warm blooded vertebrates, Science,228:953-958,1985.

18. Galtier,N., Piganeau,G.,Mouchiround,D. and Duret,L.,GC content Evolution in Mammalian Genomes: The Biased Gene conversion Hypothesis, Genetics. 159: 907-911., 2001.

19. Cohen,N., Dagan,T., Lewstone and Graur,D., GC composition of the Human Genome: In search of Isochores, Mol. Biol. Evol. 25[5]:1260-1272., 2005.

20. Arndt,P.F., Hwa,T.,Petrov,D.A., Substantial Regional Variation in Substitution Rates in the Human Genome :Importance of GC content, Gene Density and Telomere Specific Effects, J.Mol. Evol. 60: 748-763. 2005.

21. Lewis, E.B., A gene complex controlling segmentation in Drosophila, Nature, Vol.276, 565-570. 1978.

22. Lewis.E.B., Clusters of Master Control Genes Regulate the Development of Higher Organism,JAMA,Vol.267.No.11,1524-1531,1992.

23. Okamura, H., Circadian and Seasonal Rhythms- integration of mammalian circadian clock signals: from molecule to behavior , Journal of Endocrinology,177,3-6,2006.

Arnold Trehub

It might be possible to manipulate kinesthetic and somesthetic events to induce an out-of-body experience (OOBE) in the blind. The following experiment occurs to me. Suppose a blind person (S) stands behind the back of a dummy torso clothed in the same fabric worn by S. S is instructed to reach out and touch something in front. Beneath the fabric on the mannequin’s back is a grid of pressure-sensitive sensors that activate a similar grid of electro-mechanical prodders arranged to touch the back of S at the same moment and at the same relative bodily location as S reaches out and touches the back of the dummy. Under these conditions, one might expect a blind person to mislocalize his self to the position of the “body” at some distance in front of his actual bodily location. It is also possible that S would have the weird feeling of reaching in front to touch his own back.

Does anyone know if such an experiment has been done? Any thoughts on the likelihood of an OOBE under these conditions?

Arnold Trehub

Now what? lol

See: http://people.umass.edu/trehub/YCCOG828%20copy.pdf

When the virtual world of the retinoid system is tricked by the substitution of contrived visual input instead of veridical input, the self is naturally located at an egocentric coordinate consistent with the layout of objects and events (e.g., touch) within that other virtual world. It seems to me that this argues against Metzinger’s claim that no such thing as a self exists.

Arnold Trehub

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news: Why are visual memories so vivid when visual memory is so limited? Cognitive Daily has another fantastic breakdown. Science and Consciousness Review has a new feature article on whether language is…

thanks

here are 3 examples (i only remember these out of many since they were “milestones)

1. i had the feeling since the 3rd grade that i will finish my days at my private school (8th grade) on june 13, and every end of the year i would remember that and when it actually happened (i did finish on june 13) i was blown away, but due to a tragedy in my life after i didnt experience this until the spring of my freshman year.

2 it started out at first by knowing which way a car would turn or when i street light would turn on, but then one day on the bus home i saw this girl, who i had never seen on that bus line, and once i saw her a thought or picture of the movie theaters (where a bus stop is located) and minuets later she got off at that stop.

3 this is general but i usually can finish everyone’s sentences’ (strangers or friends) in my head with great accuracy

but now on summer vacation (and having just come from a month and half trip out of state) i have been unable to experience this, save for one instiance, so i think that by being near somebody i would be able to do this

but the main reasons i think i lost my ‘ability’ are when i started to watch the show heroes in may and began to want to control it, and when i heard about the concept of the movie the secret where i tried to actually use it.

but today i was able to achieve 2 separate precog thoughts that happened right after i thought with in the same hour

It is my hypothesis that all tissues rely on DHEA for optimal function, especially the brain. Direct effects of DHEA on the brain are numerous and the natural decline of DHEA of old age directly parallels the loss of brain function.

The recent report of brain stimulation and “awakenings” involved stimulation of the thalamus. I suggest stimulation of the thalamus that produced an improvement in brain function is due to stimulation of DHEA. The thalamus is a center high in prolactin-releasing peptide, which has been shown to stimulate “awakenings” (Neuroscience 2002; 114: 229-38). Prolactin has been shown to specifically stimulate DHEA production. It has also been reported that DHEAS, the precursor of DHEA, “improves cognitive and behavioral deficits after mild traumatic brain injury” (Eur Neuropsychopharmacol 2007 July 30; Milman, et al., epub ahead of print).

I suggest that the vegetative state may result from phenomena that cause reductions in DHEA.

James Michael Howard
Fayetteville, Arkansas, U.S.A.

It is my hypothesis that all tissues rely on DHEA for optimal function, especially the brain. Direct effects of DHEA on the brain are numerous and the natural decline of DHEA of old age directly parallels the loss of brain function.

The recent report of brain stimulation and “awakenings” involved stimulation of the thalamus. I suggest stimulation of the thalamus that produced an improvement in brain function is due to stimulation of DHEA. The thalamus is a center high in prolactin-releasing peptide, which has been shown to stimulate “awakenings” (Neuroscience 2002; 114: 229-38). Prolactin has been shown to specifically stimulate DHEA production. It has also been reported that DHEAS, the precursor of DHEA, “improves cognitive and behavioral deficits after mild traumatic brain injury” (Eur Neuropsychopharmacol 2007 July 30; Milman, et al., epub ahead of print).

I suggest that the vegetative state may result from phenomena that cause reductions in DHEA.

James Michael Howard
Fayetteville, Arkansas, U.S.A.

Stapp preceded me, as Lockwood and I preceded Penrose.

As to neuroscience, the community’s response to the quantum-mind thesis has been akin to that of lazy students who want to know if this will be on the test.

Koch has written that classical neurons have a wealth of state spaces to offer for anchoring sensory variables — though he doesn’t offer any explicit candidates. Yet, in the same breath, he admits that brains must operate on the quantum plain.

So… the brain is quantum, but the mind is classical. Uh huh.

Koch and Co. might want to look at Dyson’s old SciAm article on “Field Theory,” wherein Dyson points out that classical fields just are large quantum fields.

In another article in Nature, Koch and Crick argued that physics can’t help us understand mind & brain because physics is rigid, whereas biology is flexible. So… when the brain takes a left turn, it does so by ignoring physics? Or what? (Ironic, that Crick should have helped discover a physical mechanism underlying the profusion of living — and often quite complex — things.)

It is a sad reflection on Nature and the scientific community as a whole that Crick and Koch should get so much air time for arguments that do not stand the slightest scrutiny — for the simple reason that they have big names.

The fact is that the paradigm has shifted and there’s no going back. Those intent on fighting rearguard actions are advised to do what they can to catch up — or, at a minimum, come up with less flimsy excuses for their willful ignorance.

This week’s edition of medical journal The Lancet has a brief case report of a 44-year-old man who was discovered to have a severely distorted brain, due to it being displaced by a build-up of fluid. The man’s MRI scans are shown on the right and you…

– Richard Wilkerson

http://www.well.com/user/jct/Talk.htm

http://www.well.com/user/jct/index.html

Extracts…

Q: May I interrupt you? I was told by people who are around you that when this calamity befell you, you couldn’t recognize even ordinary things. You were asking like a newborn child, “What is this?” Even if there was a flower in front of you, you did not know if that was a flower. Then you would ask, “What is this?” And the Swiss lady who was keeping house for you, who was looking after you, Valentine, [she is here with us], said “This is a flower.” Then you would ask again, “What is this?” You mean to say that at the time when the calamity took place, all recognition was gone?

U.G. Not only then, but even now, as I said, this is a state of ‘not knowing’. Since the memory is there in the background, it begins to operate when there is a demand for it. That demand is created by an outside agency, because there is no entity here. There is no center here. There is no self here. There is no Atman here. There is no soul here at all. You may not agree. You may not accept it, but that unfortunately happens to be a fact. The totality of thoughts and feelings is not there. But [in you] there is an illusion that there is a totality of your feelings and thoughts. This human organism is responding to the challenges from outside. You are functioning in the sphere — so, thousands and thousands, perhaps millions and millions of sensations are bombarding this body. Since there is no center here, since there is no mind here, since there is nothing here, what is it that is happening? What is happening here [is that] this human organism is responding to the challenges, or to the stimuli, if I may put it that way. So, there is nobody here who is translating these sensations in terms of past experiences. But there is a living contact with the things around. That is all that is there. One sensation after another is hitting this organism. And at the same time there is no coordinator here. This state of not knowing is not in relationship to your Brahman, or your Nirguna Brahman or Saguna Brahman or any such thing. This state of not knowing is in its relationship to the things that are there around you. You may be looking at a flower. You may think that it is a crazy state. Perhaps it is — I don’t know. You do not know what you are looking at. But when there is a demand for that — and that demand always comes from outside, [asking] what is that, and then the knowledge, the information that is there, locked up in this organism comes and says that it is a rose, that this is a microphone, that’s a man, that’s a woman, and so on and so forth. This is not because there is a drive from inside, but the outside challenge brings out this answer. So, I say that this action is always taking place outside of this organism, not inside.

How do I know that these sensations are bombarding or hitting this organism all the time? It is only because there is a consciousness which is conscious of itself and there is nobody who is conscious of the things that are happening. This is a living organism and that living state is functioning in its own way, in its natural way.

According to this review, Stapp appears to go farther in appealing to psychological findings. But while I’m certainly not well-versed in neuroscience, I wonder if Stapp produces any hooks to grapple with direct confirmation of his hypotheses via current neuroscientific techniques. I suspect he is, and has always been, speaking past the neuroscientists rather than to them. Perhaps the paradigm of current neuroscience is so fundamentally classical in its physics that he has no choice. Yet with neuroscience making some good progress in many areas, could a better connection be made?

One hint of the possibility of convergence may be in Bruckner and Carroll’s “Self projection and the brain” (Trends Cog. Sci. 2006), which argues that the default state of the brain is prospection – which is to say, focused on the cloud of possibilities. Occam’s razor at least suggests that this default state would make most sense as an evolved feature of a world in which these possibilities are truly there; in a classically deterministic world all but one aren’t (although that paper does not follow its implications into this space).

http://www.people.umass.edu/trehub/thecognitivebrain/chapter4.pdf

http://people.umass.edu/trehub/YCCOG828%20copy.pdf

Good question. The literature on CBS suggests that the eyes closed or eyes open condition stops the illusory percepts of CBS only in a minority of cases. So it is apparently not just a complex “modulation” of existing/remaining visual input from the eyes. See for instance

Teunisse R.J., Craysberg J.R., Hoefugels WH., Verboek A.I., Zitman F.G. (1996), Visual hallucinations in psychologically normal people: Charles Bonnet syndrome, Lancet 347: 794-797.

God hates psychedelics, because I say so! Get a life.

How “thoughtful and informed” can a review be by someone with a blurb on the cover of the book? Sounds like a conflict of interest to me, and CS&R undermines its credibility by publishing “reviews” by vested parties.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22henry+stapp%22+%22pat+hayes%22

As prescient as Shakespeare’s sarcastic insight, it is a bit too dramtaic and negative. It seems that the human capacity for language and meta-cognition which emerged from our neural network, and gave rise to the narrative self. However, Shakespeare was right in the sense that at revealing moments, we feel or glimpse ourselves as though caught in a play… those interconnected “stories”… and indeed, we are.

That “glimpse” is consciousness coming to grips with the deterministic and inexorable “unfolding” of spacetime, eh?

That being said, I think the FACT (“If something is not alive, then it is not conscious”) is more remarkable–and more true–when expressed as its contrapositive: If something is conscious, then it is alive. Thus, if one built a conscious machine, it would be alive, by the FACT.

“man has need of the word, but in essence, number is sacred” Jung

“entelekk”

Arnold

Endel Tulving wrote this FACT, referring to ‘The First Axiom of Consciousness and Thought’ – ‘If a thing is not alive, it cannot be conscious, nor can it think.’ Read more, including criticism (sorta). Do you agree, or …?……

Genetics is incidental. Beauty is a modulation of something. It’s intrinsic character is metaphysical, abstract law. Beauty is something like the golden cut. The “uglier” is the worse applied math function. Ugly means bad development. Look at twins. You are stone cold crazy – beauty is not something of identification and self gratification, over dna, it is something of correct aesthetic processing. Aesthetic is the fundamental right over the modulation of material to basic math universal laws.

Alice doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of “review”. If Dr. Tulving’s “message” is so “piercing”, then just what is it? One of his points seems to be that there are a lot of fools working in consciousness studies who can’t distinguish a syllogism from a religious proclamation.

Thank you for this nice and well-written article about CBS!
Apart from “treating” or “dealing with” CBS, one can also
conjecture about binding CBS to sensory substitution, like
I proposed at

Sound-Induced Mental Imagery for the Blind

After all, realistic visual hallucinations with the visual
content tightly bound to live but crossmodally encoded camera
views would be very much like… true vision for the blind?
This would turn a “limited problem” into an real asset – though
no one knows at present if it can be made to work as hoped for.

Best regards,

Peter Meijer

I could use significant dental work and haven’t had it because the pain is ghastly. I am also concerned that if I should ever need general surgery, the anesthetic wouldn’t affect me.

Are there any resources for people like me?

– Trollers are not typical subjects. Although common in certain parts of the web, in the large scheme they are rare.

The last line in the first paragraph of this article says that
Taylor claims that “consciousness can be more fruitfully regarded
as created by processes arising from the movement of the atention.”
The notion asserting the importance of “attention” in “consciousness” subject ia really a great. CODAM module is not
less important than other known ones, however in my own point of view some reversal is likely to take place: In sum: matter cannot create consciousness through attention. I argue that attention may lead us to consciousness.(Please refer to the last two lines in the introduction above).

All information coming from the sesnses ‘DO’ meet in the same field where mind (conscious & sub/unconscious)tackle it all so amazingly in a normal head. However, in an abnormal one indistinctive/ wrong judgement/(disorder) including the synesthesia phenomenon may partially or wholly occur.

Other possibilities are still there, especially an undetectable psychic malady.

ATTENTION ;RSS;
PLEASE LET THAT DAILOGUE APPEAR HERE SOONEST. THANKS

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news: Cognitive Daily investigates the curious psychological effects of self-refilling bowls. The San Francisco Chronicle discusses OCD from the perspective of a popular radio broadcaster and author who …

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In one of the questions at the beginning of the interview, Ramsoy introduces a question this way:”But if your focus is on local processes in neurons do you not run the risk of missing crucial events at a global scale?” The question actually moved me to laughter from the bottom of my heart, and left me indebted with the duty of thanking Ramsoy for it: Thank you very much Ramsoy. I suppose you could be right in your surmise that Koch may miss a “global” event being busy “locally”. Sometimes, the more one looks at something the more he is apt to miss it. Apparently the more you study at school books the more intelligent you are expected to become. But what actually happened to one of my colleagues at the university was that he became, due to much studying, quite pedantic/scholastic but always missed to learn the lesson that should be taken from every lesson(lecture: Much data and knowledge, yet lacking proper or even any analysis. As a matter of fact exploring from above (e.g. from a plane) can be better in a sense from exploring from the ground. In other words, you cannot see the city if you ar in the middle of the city, however you can see it all together in one view if you look at it from an overlooking mountain summit. Therefore, if any scientist especially the neuro-one addict, keeps gazing at a particular thing in his beloved lab, he may discover great things, but the greater ones will most certainly be missed. Look at Dr.Alan Wolf (Captain Quantum) from physics and particularly quantum discipline he converted to speculative/theoretical physics and disclosed in a recent interview that this has happened to him because he began to question: What is it after all- what is it that lies beyond matter and the world of physics? The man has actually converted to somethinbg new: became a Shamanist, a lucid dreamer, a “Soul” seeker and researcher up to his own way. Look at a famous anaesthesiologist/neuroscientist Dr. Stuart Hameroff’s answer to his interviewer’s question: “Are you
Idealist/ Platonist”. The Tucson Consciousnes Conferences Organizer (Quantum Mind 2007)answered in the affirmative, and so did Captain Quantum).

Work in the lab and “locally” is good, however consciousness itself may reside somewhere else. Look for it EVERYWHERE (“Why wait”)-if I may borrow the term. Thank you.

2. “The Max Plank Institute at Tuebingen , Germany” experiments as described above shows no valuable results that can be considered proof of a hypothesis or its reversal. The abstract’s last paragraph reads: “We conclude … of the stimuli involved. “( Pls.refer to the very last four lines). I argue that this conclusion is not scientifically accurate. There are implicit propabilities more than scientific facts. Nothing actually is reached at, and (if any)is likely to mislead.

The experiments conducted are good and in the right path towards the targetted subject (consciousness), and more experiments are still required if promising outcomes are to be attained. Good luck.

I’ve found it fascinating that in seeking to be aware of or “read” another person’s internal state, that some people may, rather than visually noticing, instead sense a smell or a body sensation that correlates with the state.

This article is also interesting in that it makes the point that the brain seems to have learned from the experience of utilising the machine. The machine is merely a teaching tool, not a prosthetic in the true sense of the word.

What are the limits of our perception, I wonder? This is a question which should be asked/debated, or we risk sidetracking into unhelpful metaphysical arenas, or being perceived as supporting anti-scientific paradigms.

New-age bouncing bunnies are notorious for hijacking good science and utilising it in the next snake-oil scam.

2) Providing the scientific theory of the novelist in the same novel, separately though,is a sour sandwich to eat, that is self-wiping artistic touches, and giving a reader no room for the world of fiction and imagination to enjoy. It is like revealing the finale of the film story while still watching the complications of the plot, just spoiling it all. Does the novelist want to gain two kinds of audiences: those of fiction readers and those of science and its theories seekers? I am just questioning.

3) “The brain is a multidimensional neural network” : This is a great say, and even the remnant part of the same sentence shows the importance of the writer’s theory related to consciousness.

Thanks for the novelist, and not to forget thanking Allan Combs for this interesting article: Thank you.

Hypothesizing about the role of genes, Ramsoey claims that they
“set the stage for how neurons and functional groups of neurons act in response to different inputs.” This is fair enough, however to add, and of course still hypothesizing, he carries on to claim “Genes are therefore fundamental for the way we experience, think, and behave. I argue that is more than a hypothesis can bear :” experience” in addition: “think”, and furhermore: “behave”. I argue that such a claim(s) need much effort to scientifically prove any of these many notions which are “easy said than done”. S0, I suppose there remains the issue of proof of whatever claimed, and one more thing that the term “therefore” was a little far from logically-used a term.

I admire the way this article is presented to us, and could easily notice and appreciate the systematic and grdual building up the structure/ body of this scientifically strong analysis based on certain lab works (Hariri’s), nonetheless, one may find it plausibly unacceptable to take for granted a sort of unsustainable enough findings. In other words binding some outcomes with some philosophical theory is not less hard than “The Hard Problem”.

Finally, the genes set up the stage for the neurons, so marvelous a role they do, if this claim has got enough support. As for any claims of their being fundamental for the way we “experience”,”think”,”behave” : I believe that they are not. As dignified by beng human beings nothing is shaping us: We have been shaped since our creation.

I am a scientist (biochemist) absent from the university 20 years and have recently pursued a study in philosophy. Current science education is very restrictive and does not consider history. In my own mind I have reduced all things(including cause and effect) to the word witness(of both unique witness A and the act of his(its’) witness =A). From this scheme A chain is thus described of witness and events A.B.C.D …over time of any change.. This must be true even for temporally unextended events. A question can be posed-can a volume of space exist that is closed such that a witness process within it leaves no external record from uncommunicated thought, and I do not think that this is possible. Between the past and the present, in general, the existence of a closed space implies the alignment of all witness processes from an origin. Thus if the molecular interactions within the brain are chains of witness in terms of communications between intracellular and extracellular events, thought produces a sum change of some type, rather than saying A causes B. Like the layers of an onion, it is conceived from a (differential-i.e conceived from a more previous change)..previous change.. and relates to itself that way…relates externally that way the same, and to the same, of objects of mutual witness and cannot be detected if it did not occur in this ad-infinitum means of mutual relation . .e.g. occurred with intention as an external relation appropriate to the relations of another onion-set of onion like, layered entity. If such a relation did not occur, it did not exist; the suggestion of whether an uncommunicated thought/unextended event, could be detectable is not any different from the suggestion of being able to detect what dies niot exist. This is very different from a notion “does cognition alone produces detectable or undetectable change”. The way one spends his time, where his thoughts rest can change the way he relates–self-relates. I think this fact might be instantiated to concepts of history.
With respect to the onion example, the world, all of its’ processes might be divided into the appropriate (direct, basically originating proximally, and directly applicable to one’s perceptions) and the inappropriate (indirect, originating distal to what is proximal and relocated in the sense that it contains “information” more applicable to a distal place). These elements –appropriate and inappropriate, associated with momentum/energy-by comparison and difference, I believe, define time, are the perceived elements of change, as of the different layers of the onion-and the basis of all relations. Actual time itself I think to be of a higher order(e.g. x^2) oscillation, with respect to our mental frequencies/wavelengths as space and volume seekers; are but a subset. Einstein himself did not believe that the correct elements to describe phenomenon had been ascertained (major topics being “observed and then reconsidered”).
If one reflects on history, it is dominated (from description see Nietzsche “On the Geneology of Morals) ) to be riddled with actions and concepts formed from inappropriate connections(the Arians and the Jews and their described activities and ascribed life positions with respect to others-one another).

To include the human habit of soul searching, but extended deep into the realms of science and philosophy, where serious controversies exist and a vast dark area continues to emerge, I would like to propose the notion that there is an inappropriate light in every beacon on this earth from its’ beginning –from the first recorded thoughts.
With respect to history and science, it is simple to state that all things emerge, but not so simple to accept that we might not find laws that enable us to assemble an understanding or order to provide explanation-but only a simple list of circumstances evolved over time from the past and unwitnessable. I believe that natures mechanism for continuance is recurring in the sense that (information for) survival in (innately) included with conscious experience. Science, though, appearing useless, in this case of unpredictable emergence, might only suffer from a poor orientation(see personal manuscript in URL list) in its avoidance, or ignorance, of individual ratios (that might be, with empirical categorization, become individual potential ratios, for each unique,causality becoming, in both science and individual perception a range of hierarchically ordered potentials uniquely suited for each unique relation). A newly ordered scheme that accounts only for a mechanism of transmission, transmission/replication of form, self avoidance as the issuer of force/momentum-the means of uniqueness(and uniqueness in perspective and emergence), is possible. In this sense though, I believe/fear that we have overextended our means to take an inappropriate direction for continuance with an excessive exploitation of nature arrived at from failed insight and overconfidence.

Marvin E. Kirsh

http://www.authorsden.com/marvinelikirsh
http://www.marvinekirsh.com
http://philosophy.elte.hu/philphys_archive/2007/msg00015.html

To sum up, God does not accept anything that is not blessed. This means that he will give no pathway to his spiritual realm to a drunkard or any narcotic drugs addict, hallucination case caused on purose by taking doses of “mind-loosening” LSD or any sort of drinks that cause temporal or permanent madness or one of its aspects of stupidity and shaking of the basal neurons of the brain and the power of the mind. Ayahuaska, or those acts and magic effects of Shamanists ..etc. may lead to perceiving certain illusions and imaginary images, however nothing of the sort would be enlightening though.

FAITH, true faith in God (The Almighty) may lead to understanding CONSCIOUSNESS, rather than all ‘liquids’ and their sisters the “solids” or whatever stuff that may effect on consciousness. This drug or that affects certain neurons whether partially or
wholly, another affects them in the roots or at the stem in a certain yet different way. The LSD is not exceptional.

In reference to the question in the last paragraph about “the explanatory role of voluntary action” and how to “reconcile with
the findings from sciences” I would like to proffer this say: To contribute with a serene position in the above-hypothesized
“debate” is to directly describe/express the situation from an introspective perspective. I apply this as much as possible yet equipped withan UNUSUAL phenomenal experience.

According to Sara Lazar in this interview, her research is only “a first step”. She has the intention to carry on/ build on for more prospective findings. There remains the more difficult question: Does thickness of “the gray outer layer” or any increase in cortical thickness or other correlative phenomena have really anything to do with consciousness? This question precedes any thought related to cures/advantages of such resarches, yet we wish this researcher and all others working on consciousness good luck.

I could see the main difference between exploring on the nicotine and exploring on anaesthetics, in that the former calims the effect on only “one nicotinic receptor subunit” a merit over the latter whic is unlikely to have effect on one “one receptor subtype or one mode of inhibition or decoupling.” We hope to hear more of the results of such a reasearch.

Beacuse this occasionally happens with me in different situations, I started to add some improvement on this phenomenal experience, viz: writing the sentence/idea on a piece of paper. That is because people forget what they have just said, being dishonest or even liars almost always. To me the worst of all is their being liars due to their immediate feeling of jealousy/envy in the worst sense: why they should acknowledge a merit that I enjoy(or anybody on earth), while it becomes abruptly a demerit on their part. Each of them expresses it up to his own way e.g: “I did not say what he did exactly but I said so and so …etc.”I would be very happy if I can find somebody saying the truth, or remembers what has been just said.

In sum, I believe that this phenomenal experience can be attributed to some power/intelligence related to prediction and that it is built logically in the unconsious: It is something that has reached consciousness just ripe/ready before the usually expected time. This kind of pre-knowledge makes me impatient when the other party insists to carry on talking until he finishes, because I know it all. For me, it becomes killing to listen to one introducing things, he believes to be new, whereas for me it is only a repetition i.e, aprediction/forknowledge., a torture that eats/consumes much of our relationship, Exceptionally my parents- due to my great love for them.

I agree with those who hypothesize that neurons activity lies beyond this kind of predictory knowledge: at a higher-order, dealing with various levels of information.

(PBUH) ?

Dear Ramsoey, before I bid you adieu, I’d like to discuss your sentence:”This means that the Self usually denotes a mental phenomenon, something that is only internally observable.” Wow,for the term:”internally observable”. This denotes an introspective gesture, which is , in my opinion, a merit.But actually the question lays itself before you dear good questioner of neuroscientists working on consciousness: Is it really internally obsevable?(Nature of observation). I mean you have said “observable”. I suppose you mean mentally/imaginatively observable or, or, or anything in any sense except one. Okay, Ramsoey, if you avoid providing us with your answer to my question, soon I will provide one.

* Table 1. “Consciousness enables access to ‘Self’”- That’s it, Baars :
THIS IS THE MILLION EURO HYPOTHESIS.
* Table 2. The term: “concsious content”, when it comes to palatability & unpalability criterion, it is, frankly speaking, unpalatable, whereas Dehaene & Naccache,2001, used a “conscious state”; Damasio,1989, “contents of consciousness”. I maean contents are not themselves conscious, and cannot be. In the Quran God used this word metaohorcally, more than once: “consious ears” to mean: to be heard and understood by “consious ears” the required perfect understanding, so by using the adjective ‘consious’ with a ‘sense’ he wants to tell that mechanical hearing and such automaticity in the work of senses is not all that is required from such super creatures like man who are endowed with the mind marvel. Man is supposed to not only hear and /or see just like animals which are not equipped with’consious mind’/consciousness. He is supposed to use his mind that leads to the ‘Conscious Self’ if it chooses to be conscious.All affairs/qualia ..etc, should be absorbed fully by a ‘conscious self’.If all senses function well, a really ‘conscious self” will be the indisputably absolute outcome.

Under the title: ” A Theatre Metaphor…”,comes the first paragraph:”Like other cognitive architectures. … .The rest of the theatre is dark and unconscious”. The thatre metaphor is just admirable in almost all details prticularly those found in this quoted paragraph.

I wonder how could ‘anger’ and ‘fear’ facial expressions are recognized by only the visual system. What about the auditory one? Doesn’t it function the same way. What happens to you if it happens that the lion under your bed roars just a little roar,or stands up carrying you and your bed: the touch sense(the tactile system), or you may even imagine the ‘olfactory system’ functioning: you are walking alone in the dark and the gentle breeze begins to change and fill in with hyenas smell.

“… spatial maps, which are not themselves objects of consciousness, but which are required to shape every conscious visual event.” Bravo, Baars, but I just wonder about the great efforts exerted by man in his reasearch and endeavors to aquire such details of real knowledge.
Good bye, Baars.

eg suoqi…

There is one point I would like to draw the attention to: The audience of the theatres as shown above are made not to watch as audience usually do but to act, (actors resembling the activated neurons). They have to play their roles presumably by leaving their seats and moving to the stage where the spotlight is. To make the audience partially act is a well-known idea. It reminds me of Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar” where some of the actors have to penetrate the audience,sit among them, and from time to time one or more may shout a sentence about Antonio: What is this man saying about Brutus? or after hearing something aboput the will: “Read the will”. It seems that Caesar was kindhearted for his weeping for the poor or generous..etc. Some fittings simply does not fit in our new thetres, yet the idea of the theatre remains powerful, but the notion of too many theatres and cinemas together are just making the sandwich components no longer edible. By the way I wil soon introduce a new theory to be called (“RRR”)and I actually prefer to use similar analogies, yet the theatre one is excluded.

Maybe we should call it Sleep Aboutness : the sleep cycle/circuit is about to come to its full: It is very similar to normal sleep but something, any move, gesture, signal or perceiveable reminder may count to put one (the sleeper/unconscious) back to consciousness.

The analogy of the city that has nothing wrong except that “blocking traffic artery” is a successful one with all its details. It is much better this time,Baars, than that unswallowable- “at least for me” one of the “shopping Center”.

Finally, may I ask how one can know that “AAD have much peace of mind”? I mean if this is testable, I do propose this be tested. After all,”Such tragic cases can help us learn about consciousness.” Thank you.

As regards the comment above no.(1), I wish that this 16 years old female bud not to consider that her “head is metaphorically empty”. First of all, how could she know or how could anybody know? I hope that you are capable of dreaming because dreaming includes thinking and sometimes even logical thinking. I suppose you must have read or heard something about lucid dreaming. Dreaming includes thinking. I can confirm that even sleeping begins with thinking and carries on doing so thinking, thinking, and thinking until one is falling in deep sleep having still part of the thinking in pictures viz dreams. Good luck in your research and may God help you.

Philosophy, Revonsuo, is, as you know, a nondisciplinary
“discipline” of science that can never, in any sense be regular/unified or subject to regulations, formats or even any kind of disciplined discipline. It follows that you may take any of its theories for application in your work/research if you need its guidance, but still you can’t call others to stick to one of those philosophical or theoretical/speculative thories to unify consciousness research. If you do not let this be free, it will remain so(free) for choice, as it has always been.

Virtual reality of consciousness can better be thought of as that “computer-generated” world/space in “Matrix” film where “The One” (Not the real one: I mean not me)does some Karate execrsises.

Today I read in a newspaper that one hundred fifty (150) poets have committed suicide in the 20th century. I suppose that most of these poets, if not all, have nothing to do with discripancey in the negative, but to other reasons like: absurdity of life with lack of faith in God, looking at life from a certain perspective that shows disadvantages overweigh the advantages to an ubearable extent, fear of old age and feeling of loneliness: who would take care of them when their faculties begin to detoriorate, and many other reasons, beliefs, principles that would encourage them to choose a “clean less-tormenting sort of death” chosen of one’s own volition. Only faith in God and belief in the afterworld may stop certain suicidal intentions.

Committing suicide is a subjective experience that whatever information available about any case should never be trusted, even if the person who intends to commit it tells you the reason(s)is the immediate direct source: He just wants that a certain reason to be known/ published or spread and be considered as the only one reason that motivated himm to kill himself. There could be other reasons rather than infidelity of his love, but he just adapts to serve a certain desire may be to show off with it. Other reasons could be a pain, a disease, a scandal ..etc. however he does not want it to be known: He wants simply to die and and his secret(S) be buried with him. The self is too deep to understand.

As for the conclusion of the above article: People are buisy, too busy to deal with questionnairs to serve a study especially celebrities who think themselves belong to a different world that is void of studies and that studies belong to our world that should only be busy in learning how to appreciate them and their “art”, love them and clap for them.

The self watches “the consciously perceived scene” exactly the way it does at near-death experiences: It remains inside,yet overlooking the inside as well as the outside. The onlooker ‘Self’ abandons the body completely if the ‘Immortal Soul’ abandons the body first. Only then the Self abandons the body ‘following’ and never ‘preceding’ the ‘Soul’ that have decided to leave the collapsed/broken/detoriorated/too diseased (body) house, the one where it can no longer find proper dwelling. The pain felt by the woman during the Caesarean surgery is due to the Self’s physical component.

aibidex suo…

The two conscious actions mentioned above compete against each other according to the intention and decision of the self which is responsible for it desire to concentrate on something being important and ignore another being less important. Consciousness is being distributed: something to be done as mechanically as possible and something else should not be missed. Assignments/orders of the queen (the Self)to be carried out by obedient subjects, the neurons (neural coalitions).

Now read this answer to the above relevant question: The coalition at the neural level becomes ready to be perceived/watched by the self after the process/the development of the film and final projection. The coalition of neurons is not itself conscious but becomes ready to please/displease the onlooker, the self.

As for snapshots, yes, there is “automatic” snapshooting. As for timing, yes, there is timing and additionally there is proportional spacing as well.

I agree to the idea that attention’s role is to push the neural coalition to the threshold of consciousness. As regards the nature of the threshold please what I proffer here: The threshold is the best place where the self may look at every and each prduct/processed stuff/objects introduced to be perceived by the self. It is a limitless space.

My comment actually dealt with Baars’s comment on the the “framework” and its contents.

Jung’s analogy lacks some accuracy. Dreams, according to my own point of view, are of two kinds: 1)Night dreams: Those projected screen-show ones (like a movie film played for the self to watch/engage in happy/nightmares to be pleased/displeased respectively), or just like a copy of this very world with its own distinctive different/various mystries/obscurities. 2)Day dreams: Those ones which are only verbal i.e, just a distraction/ abstractedness or you may even call it absent-mindedness: Merely imagined images or, where as those ‘lived’ or ‘perceived in night dreams, especially those lucid ones are as Dr. Alan Wolf (Captain Quantum; a physicist and then a seculative physicist/Shamanist and a lucid dreamer)puts it “virtual images”- (as I remember)in other words as virtual reality. The daytime dreams talked about by Jung are nothing more than thoughts, mere thoughts, whereas the stars are always “there” during the day or at night i.e, unseen, whatever causes there may be for their invisibility, or seen. As for Freud’s theory which includes the notion that “most mental activity is unconsious”, Chartrand’s say in this respect:
“But scientific evidence on this issue has been rather sparse” may suffice. Nonetheless, I want to add: Some psychologists, according to “Wikipedia” information on their website, divide the mind or its aspects to three areas: The Conscious, The Sub-conscious, and The Unconsious/Nonconsious, with some confusion in Un/Non syllables/prefixes. I do believe and seize the opportunity here to confirm the availability of the three. Perhaps the following lines concluding my comment would partially help explain my belief in the posssible existence of the three. Before we fall in deep sleep, with closed eyes, a thinking stage of continuous/intermittent imagined situations/imaginary images would flow while we are quite conscious, a state of consciousness preceeding the nonconscious one as the following or part of such thoughts begin to visualize in night dreams- hopefully happy ones).

Consciousness, on the one hand, cannot cover “all things” at the same time ,and on the other, cannot cover them equally but in accordance to a decision specifiying what areas to be covered(for instance the two yellow dots) and those not included in a certain coverage (like the remaining physically existing yellow dot regardless of its being so remarkably large). The potential of consciousness, the speed of moving objects, their color/brightness, its decision of what is to be seen and what is not (based on the power of the neurons), its concentration on something at the account of another as I have said above may cause such “obliteration”, “fading from consciousness”, or what is termed “MIB”.

When the mission before the mind is too heavy a “burden”,the stand-by IMAGINATION under control of consciousness automatically starts its work of cooperation or even what I call:Taking Over Synchrony to carry out the mission. It is within the capacity/potential of the imagination power to DEDUCT from the number of the yellow dots/spots or in other situations to INCREASE their number or even ENLARGE their size in addition to other capabilities that may be performed depending on the given situation.

When the imagination takes over, the mind remains awake “conscious” of what is going on, otherwise it is a case in disease at its extreem or as you called it, Ramsoy, “default” at its instant momentry occurence.

When the self wants (“intentionally”) to choose “something”,the process of activation of the first neural groups takes time (information formation process in human beings). The difference in time mentioned above in the article and relevant to models, (if it can be paralleled/compared with the time consumed in human beings’ brain) is due probably to the “density” and lack of the decisive decision (oscilation/ hesitation and many other implications or impediments..etc.,) that the first neural group has to deal with before it could show up to the self. It needs time before it can successfully make its way (through their other sister neurons that are ever-moving, “competing”, filling in the site, and waiting to be chosen at any moment)to the “spotlight”.
A second group may take less time being prepared to move forward towards the spotlight, when there is similarity (may be symantically, or of any kind of relation that you may imagine to exist) between the two groups, the first and the second. The first group, in a sense may facilitate the way for other followers. Therefore, I claim that decision making in the human brain is processed at least at a certain stage via a certain mechanism. Can anyone describe the process taking place in the human brain or confirm such claims from any perspective rather than the subjective (introspective one)?

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None of the above conjectures or attempts to locate the self implies any plausibility. I only agree that the self is in the head and its ‘where’ is neither on the left nor on the right side, and leave other ‘wheres’ without comment.

Back to Clint Eastwood’s quotation: “A man’s got to know his limitations”. A wise say, however it happened that my dreams included the idea of ‘flying’ since childhood. I always knew that I have to know my limitations, but always felt that my limitations are many and capabilities are not enough, i.e. human beings have many aspirations and little equipment to carry them out. As for me only faith in God could coerce me to accept such so narrow fields or even horizens available in this life. Therefore, I ‘flew’ at night and wondered during the day why I can’t do the same: Limitations, limitations , limitations….Oh God help! And He helped in a matter (“flying”) that is reasonably considered “unhelpable”. (The dream has come true! How come ?!)Of course I am quite “conscious”, at least exactly like everyone (including the “of(f)”-suffixed-neuron specialists viz:Kristof and Hameroff)that such a dream should never come true: It suffices now to say it is ‘true” in only one sense, something reasonable amid all that is unreasonable. Did I raise the curiosity of neuroscientists as much as I did to that of philosophers?

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In an interview( posted somewhere here among these featured articles) with Koch who declares that it is only a framework, and that a framework is a framework. Actually Koch has a keen eye on his language and could choose his words carefully. There is no allusion that qualia are restricted to his framework or anything the like whatever the way critics put their claims.

The eyes that can “see” qualia are not those of those at labs, nor are they anybody’s eyes. The only eye that can enjoy “seeing” or you may say “watching” is the mind’s eye (if you believe there is any. I do).

Neuroscience, is definitely one of the best approaches to qualia and of course to consciousness, nonetheless it is not the only one.

Baars calls this action of drinking such stuffs “bravery”, even though such experiences cannot be more than seeking a change, or you may call it motivation of curiosity, or adventure; a sort of game in which one’s mind is at stake, and for what? For science? Science of what? Of CONSCIOUSNESS through annhilation of mind and consciousness. You want to learn about consciousness by maddening yourself. How can we trust the truth of any results? Is this the only technique to resort to for “cognitive psychology”? I admit that “There is no alternative to studying phenomenology from within”, however I believe that that the entry to that prosed world is a different one. It requires different qualifications. The first prerequisite is:FAITH, real faith in God (The Almighty). Does anyone enjoy this now? (Let alone the ideal faith of prophets that performed miracles that outconscioused the most conscious).

I do recommend unusual “privileged” phenomenal experiences? Honest
description of such experiences can help if you can find such “honest experiencer”! Good luck.

This study is an important one in relation to the mechanisms of acute pain, but it should be realised that chronic pain has different brain patterning and is almost indistinguishable from patterns associated with emotional distresss.

Whilst there is an overlap in our growing understanding of both acute pain and chronic pain, there are vast differences in the mechanisms, and very considerable differences in the way these two are treated.

We mustn’t assume that findings in relation to acute pain will necessarily hold for chronic pain.

Thanks, John, for this additional supporting data.

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