Where does consciousness originate?

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A books-dot-google search with "RUMELHART DE, MCCLELLAND JL 1986 holographic" gives about 200 results with "Computational Neuroscience" by Eric L. Schwartz (1993), Chapter 13, pages 169-173, being one of my current favorites. With the book listed on amazon-dot-com, many more more popular books are often also listed, like those by Patricia S. Churchland.

Very current issues involve PTSD from the ongoing military actions, and medical actions taken to prevent very recent "short-term memories" from "engraining" to "long-term memories" either through drugs, electro-convulsive treatments, etc., also with many moral issues. One version of theory has it that recent events can be totally "erased" with no side-effects but the short total gap in memory of the traumatic event ("60 Minutes" on had a recent segment about different forms of this), but if the wait is too long, long-term memories start to form in a more "holographic" manner (or as a "distributed neuronal matrix") which is impossible to remove without side-effects with "left behind artifacts" (say, a person is thinking about a birthday party years ago, then a nearby landmine explodes resulting in intense emotional and physical trauma, electroconvulsive therapy days later can reduce verbal associations of the trauma event, but not the Limbic visceral aversive conditioning of the event, and a sufficient stimulus of the much earlier "memory of a birthday party" (such as seeing a birthday cake) can invoke the "ghostly" dire Limbic visceral response without any self-verbal knowledge of "why").

I don't much like the concept of "consciousness" (I prefer "self-induced autoclitic(?)" Skinner version):
"Consciousness as a Neurological Concept in Epileptology: A Critical Review" by P. Gloor, (Epilepsia Volume 27, Issue Supplement s2, pages S14–S26, August 1986):
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... x/abstract

Using the phrase "distributed neuronal matrix" for "holographic" (this article and many of its references are cited in scores of books that use the buzzword "holographic"),
"Experiential Phenomena of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy" by Pierre Gloor (1989), (Brain (1990), 113, 1673-1694), and on the Full Text PDF download: pages 1686-1691 (Mona Lisa for Liberals, the other guy for conservatives):
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content ... 3.abstract

Some "wild & wide" concepts of consciousness (consciousness during sleep (unconciousness)???): "How To Study Consciousness Scientifically" by John R. Searle (1998), (Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B (1998) 353, 1935-1942)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 854266.pdf

Tadzio

P.S.: Here's a list to keep ruveyn's "his own crackpot self-criteria filter" occupied: http://www.philosophie.uni-mainz.de/met ... essBib.pdf

There's a book that's been around for a while that is a collection of essays on the subject. It's called The Mind's I edited by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett. Hofstadter writes (or wrote) for Scientific American. Worth a look.

Human consciousness originates somewhere between the base of the spine and the top of the skull.

ruveyn

it didn't "just" create consciousness, it took millions of years of evolution, one species slightly greater then the last. and i do believe true artificial intelligence is possible, if we do it right it may even evolve into something greater then our own intelligences.

What if consciousness is something that we just merely wish that existed but does not really? What if we are just the electrical and chemical impulses in our brain? Stephen Hawking supports that idea. Then we would have to worry about making robots with neuronal/bayesian networks. Perhaps they would have the same level of consciousness that we do.

That seems like what the OP was saying, and it is an utterly strange concept.

I've come to think of my own consciousness as an oscillation. Something where it flat-lines when I'm unconscious, oscillates when I'm awake, and regardless of where consciousness ultimately comes from the 'I' experience, from our perspective, seems to contextually trace down in a different way. To speak in scientific terms about non-sentient objects and measuring chemicals or equations is one thing, to look at ourselves and try to trace our sense of 'existence' is a bit more interior, which is where this all gets a lot more interesting.

"We are more than the sum of our parts."

Yes, I have wondered this. Obviously, there is no measurable way of saying definitively where our consciousness come from, but we are learning we are not the only earthlings to possess one as was once thought.

It can't possibly be that constrained, I am conscious of belly aches, and coldness on my feet, Consciouness encompasses everything we can sense.
Consciousness and awareness mean the same thing, so if you see something, you're conscious of it.

I see it differently, we are exactly the sum of our parts, 2+2 does not equal 5, consciousness is the result of the sum parts and how they interact with one another.

I have, and in fact I have studied it in depth time and again. The main problem with consciousness is its rather fuzzy definition, rather than whether it could be modeled or detected. Normally, most people equate consciousness with the act of being self-aware or self-actualized, and having the capacity of foresight, emotions, and reason.

As to where it comes from, there really isn't a general consensus other than that it appears to be an emergent property. I am of the opinion (as are most neuroscientists) that it probably does not exist, and that "consciousness" is a conceptual crutch rather than something tangible. It is but an illusion; we are merely very sophisticated electro-chemical machines...



I think ruveyn means where the processes of consciousness originate from, not whether or not our sense organs contribute to it.



Why not? Our brains and neurons are all made from inanimate matter, so why couldn't we create something with similar properties or uses algorithms that the brain utilizes. No doubt, it is unclear what criteria are necessary in order to conclude that an artificial intelligence is "conscious", but that doesn't mean that it is impossible.

Vision is what your eyes and your visual cortex do.

ruveyn

It'll be interesting, if we can ever muster a test that can scientifically find signs of consciousness or quantitatively measure them, what kinds off odd things we may find with that test.

that is again a question of definitions as there are some quite extensive studies regarding the loss of conscoiusness, both drug induced, coma patients and sleep states.
it seems the one thing everyone agrees on is that consciousness requires almost all of the brain to be actively comunicating, in the different sleep states there are varying levels of comunication between areas with coma patients exhibiting next to no syncronous activity.

i will see if i can find a link to some articles, nova sciencenow did some pretty good shows on consociusness from 2010 with these studies being used as well.

"Consciousness" does not require almost all of the brain to be actively communicating. People with more than half of their brain removed can still exhibit "consciousness". Usage of a language is often taken as a major sign of "consciousness", but with polyglots, during partial seizures of epilepsy, the person then may be in "consciousness" using one language, but being unable to use another language, be "not of consciousness" with that language. These paradoxes occur with the 5 basic senses also, as brain injury can render the sense of smell non-functioning, but then is the person of less "consciousness" or just of a less "range of perception"? The notions of "consciousness" seems more to confound than clarify any research.

With the subject of autism, the failure of good "body language" skills is often taken prejudicially to mean a lack of "consciousness" of "body language", when in fact, many instances of autism is an overly sensitivity to perceptions and expressions of "body language", which is assumed as something "bad", as if "super-consciousness" would then be bad. Then with things like "achromatopsia", is it a benefit or drawback compared to non-achromatopsia: "Some studies conclude that color blind individuals are better at penetrating certain color camouflages; this may be an evolutionary explanation for the surprisingly high frequency of congenital red–green color blindness." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness

As far as "Vision is what your eyes and your visual cortex do", the effects of the amygdala on "filling in" impressionist paintings and much else delimits that narrowed interpretation. Also, don't forget the "invisible gorilla" experiments during basketball games, and that damn Ames Window
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16fYml5z ... sults_main
The "Charlie Chaplin Mask" almost works too good to notice "anything wrong": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbKw0_v2clo

Tadzio