Consciousness May Be the Product of Carefully Balanced Chaos (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes: The question of whether the human consciousness is subjective or objective is largely philosophical. But the line between consciousness and unconsciousness is a bit easier to measure. In a new study (abstract) of how anesthetic drugs affect the brain, researchers suggest that our experience of reality is the product of a delicate balance of connectivity between neurons—too much or too little and consciousness slips away. During wakeful consciousness, participants’ brains generated “a flurry of ever-changing activity”, and the fMRI showed a multitude of overlapping networks activating as the brain integrated its surroundings and generated a moment to moment “flow of consciousness.” After the propofol kicked in, brain networks had reduced connectivity and much less variability over time. The brain seemed to be stuck in a rut—using the same pathways over and over again.

Comments

Gibberish

[nintendoeats]

"The question of whether the human consciousness is subjective or objective is largely philosophical."

I have a philosophy degree and I have no idea what this sentence means. I think they mean whether consciousness is the product of a deterministic process or some kind of dualism (a soul, whatever that is). Either way, the experience of consciousness must be objective because what the thinker experiences IS the consciousness. In fact, I would argue that consciousness is the only thing that can be experienced objectively, since all other senses and experiences are filtered through consciousness. Cogito ergo sum and all that jazz.

But that's all rubbish anyway because as far as I'm concerned the question itself doesn't make sense.

Re:Gibberish

[turbidostato]

"Either way, the experience of consciousness must be objective because what the thinker experiences IS the consciousness."

So can I observe that very consciousness and say "yes, that's the consciousness you described to me"? Because, lacking that, your definition of objectiveness is quite useless, both on its definition (objective implies verifiable, which can't be done if not repeatable by a third party) and its operative value (you can't inject -not even theoretically, consciousness into an object if you can't objectively set what's the thing).

Re:Gibberish

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, I would argue that consciousness is the only thing that can be experienced objectively, since all other senses and experiences are filtered through consciousness.

Except that our brains process far more information than we are "consciously" aware of. I think if we had to be ever-conscious of everything we sense, we'd go nuts - which may be why "consciousness" developed in the first place, to provide a filter and focus for our decision-making based on sensory input.

The Power of Habit starts out with an interesting anecdote about a patient who was brain-damaged by a viral infection and couldn't remember what he was talking about even a few minutes prior. Yet, when he wandered off, he found his way home. He couldn't tell you how to get to the kitchen, yet when he was hungry, he just got up and went there to get some food. He was given cognitive tests that showed he was forming new memories, but wasn't aware of them.

There is a pile of intriguing evidence that consciousness may not strictly be necessary for a lot of the things we do everyday!

Re:Gibberish

[gweihir]

The neuro-"scientists" have this little problem that consciousness does not fit their models at all. (Neither does intelligence, but they have not noticed that little problem so far...) Hence they invent colorful non-explanations to misdirect others and themselves by claiming there is no problem.

The real problem is that they are not doing science. They assume physicalism as ground truth and that is a religious approach, not a scientific one. Actual scientists would realize that the question is still open at this time (but the more we know, the more it goes towards "some kind of dualism", although certainly not a religious one) and would search in both directions. They do not.

I do agree that the question does not make sense. Perhaps the strongest thing human beings find when entering this world is that they have a consciousness. (Well, unless this is solipsism where you are all p-zombies...) That is ground truth. Physics is less solid in comparison and physics actually does not seem to have a place for something like consciousness. It cannot explain it. In a rather strong sense, it does not apply to the question. Sure, there must be some kind of interface between consciousness and physical reality, but so far, it is completely unclear how that works. Interestingly, quantum-physics has the concept of an "observer", but the observer seems to be extra-physical as it can do "magic" and drag superposed quantum-states into a definite state. No purely physical object should be able to do that and yet it seems human beings can.

Re:Gibberish

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps I can help, one philosopher to another.

The word "objective" has multiple meanings. We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us.

In the scientific context, "objective" usually means "can be observed by multiple extrinsic observers, and they all describe their observations similarly after the fact." This would forcefully exclude your argument, inasmuch as the phenomenon in question is precisely that which is used to establish objectivity. Put differently...the reason why we need multiple extrinsic observers is because the singular act of experiencing is subjective (the opposite of objective). One cannot observe the content of another's observations (if we could, this definition of "objective" wouldn't even need to exist, let alone serve as the foundation for our single most-effective truth-testing method).

What the author might have been trying to get at, though, is whether or not consciousness is a physical phenomenon. In common parlance, "objective" is often used to mean "pertains to the real world" whereas "subjective" is used to mean "pertains to that private inner world which is of a different essence than the physical world." Since most scientists are philosophical physicalists to begin with, such a distinction is meaningless. To those who accept it as a given that reality includes a "spiritual" side, and that this spirit-world is where all subjective experience occurs, the question seems already-answered.

As an aside...in the domain of psychology, "objective" often means "without interpretive influence from emotion or forgone conclusion." This would also exclude your proposed definition. In fact, I am hard-pressed to think of any human discipline in which your notion of consciousness being intrinsically objective really makes sense.

I do agree, however, that consciousness is all we have to work with. Every "fact" we know about the external world (including the "fact" that it is external) is mediated to use by means of sense data, the experiencing of which is called "consciousness." Its incapability, however, doesn't automatically make it qualify as "objective" by any useful definition.

Re:Gibberish

[nintendoeats]

Consciousness cannot be defined as an awareness of one's immediate surroundings because

A: It is possible to have a consciousness that exists in a vacuum.
B: It is possible for that consciousness to believe that it is not in a vacuum because its method of detecting the outside world is faulty.
C: A and B both being the case, qualification as a consciousness must not require knowledge of anything outside itself.

Because of this, and some other sticking points, there is no test for whether or not something else is "conscious". In fact, we don't really know what consciousness is, only that there is some bundle of qualities which we call consciousness not all of which we can define or be aware of but which be believe must exist.

Re:Or, it might simply be...

[kheldan]

..feedback loop

That's what I was just thinking. Every system in a biological organism is a negative-feedback loop, isn't it? Self-regulating? Why shouldn't the human brain work the same way on a fundamental level? Drugs that we use work because it alters the loop characteristics, right?

Re:Or, it might simply be...

[peragrin]

A feedback loop with some amazing pattern recognition abilities. A little bit of fuzzy logic for memory storage.

That bieng said I don't think we will ever have our memories downloaded or uploaded. Every persons brain maps out uniquely. Can you image a hard drive that randomly scattered data,Yet could still sort through it?