Homeostasis could explain consciousness in physical terms.
Pain!
The biological roots of consciousness are deeply related to emotions.
Emotions are biochemical processes and not subject to choice.
Attention does not depend on homeostasis and can explain many types of unconscious reasoning.
Correct. Homeostasis does not require conscious attention, when it can perform perfectly without wasting precious energy for conscious thinking.
There is no such thing as unconscious reasoning. There is a subconscious biochemical reaction outside any conscious control. Remember anesthetics do not affect homeostatic functions.
An artificial thermostat is comparable to an unconscious biological fever sensor that makes you consciously “feel” badly because something is wrong.
We aren’t anesthesiologist and I don’t agree with your simplifications,
Introduction: Entwined Mysteries
THE mechanism by which general anesthetics prevent consciousness remains unknown largely because the mechanism by which brain physiology produces consciousness is unexplained. But the two mysteries seem to share a critical feature—both consciousness and actions of anesthetic gases are mediated through extremely weak London forces (a type of van der Waals force) acting in hydrophobic pockets within dendritic proteins arrayed in synchronized brain systems. Unraveling this common thread may reveal not only how anesthetics act, but also why we are conscious in the first place.
You should enjoy this one:
… This article reviews what is known about mechanisms of consciousness and anesthesia, finding that the “fine grain” of neuronal activities supporting consciousness and the molecular actions of anesthetic gases are one and the same—van der Waals London forces acting in hydrophobic pockets of coherently synchronized dendritic brain proteins. London forces are not chemical bonds but weak quantum interactions (in this regard, anesthetic gases differ in their actions from all other pharmacologic agents). Thus, the relative selectivity of anesthetic gases implies that the quantum nature of London forces may play an essential role in brain function leading to consciousness. …
…
… The transition from unconscious processes to consciousness is a key question. Most authorities agree that only a small fraction of the brain’s 100 billion or so neurons manifests the NCC at any one time, although many more are active.(13) But the same neurons and networks are not always “conscious”—signals and information do not travel to a particular part of the brain where consciousness happens. In the theater metaphor, the spotlight is constantly shifting, with represented content of particular γ-synchronized neural groups becoming conscious sequentially, selected by attentional processes and emotional saliency. (But why γ-synchronized neural activity has the subjective character of experiential awareness remains unexplained.)
Therefore, consciousness seems to be a process, a sequence of transitions from unconscious activity to experienced content, e.g. , frames or scenes shifting up to approximately 40 times per second in γ synchrony. …
… “There’s a folk psychology or tacit assumption that what anesthesia does is simply ‘turn off’ the brain,” says Earl Miller, Picower Professor of Neuroscience and co-senior author of the study in eLife. “What we show is that propofol dramatically changes and controls the dynamics of the brain’s rhythms.”
Conscious functions, such as perception and cognition, depend on coordinated brain communication, in particular between the thalamus and the brain’s surface regions, or cortex, in a variety of frequency bands ranging from 4 to 100 hertz. Propofol, the study shows, seems to bring coordination among the thalamus and cortical regions down to frequencies around just 1 hertz. …
Not sure what the wink means. I googled “sub-conscious reasoning” and the first hit was Quora. I don’t care much for Quora. The answers are often, um, bad.
No scientific definitions, no charts of “Here’s how you reason sub-consciously”. There was this, on the first page of hits. Uh-oh. Kant.
Impressive network. I wonder how it is all connected and communicates information, some sensory, some biochemically. The biochemical part needs no “reasonIng”.
It is only the sensory part of the brain that makes you superficially aware of yourself.
Phenomenal intentionalists typically hold that there is a kind of intention- ality that is constituted by phenomenality.6 This idea implies that the condi- tions that a state needs to satisfy in order to count as a state with phenomenal intentionality are phenomenal conditions. One task for the phenomenal inten- tionalist is thus to provide an account of the phenomenal conditions that con- stitute phenomenal intentionality. We can call this the constitution problem. One way to solve the constitution problem is to equate the conditions for phe- nomenal intentionality with the conditions for phenomenal objectivity. It is easy to see why one might be tempted to do so. Note that experiences with phe- nomenal objectivity have other-presenting phenomenal character. One might regard this feature as constituting the core of phenomenal intentionality. It is in virtue of having this phenomenal directedness toward the other that expe- rience has phenomenal intentionality. So it is in virtue of having phenomenal objectivity that experience has phenomenal intentionality. Thus a theory that explains the phenomenal conditions in virtue of which experience has phe- nomenal objectivity would thereby explain the phenomenal conditions in vir- tue of which experience acquires phenomenal intentionality. In this construal, explaining phenomenal objectivity would be at the core of any phenomenal intentionality research program by providing a solution to the constitution problem.
The phenomenal intentionalist might, however, refrain from equating the phenomenal-intentional with the phenomenal-objective. The phenomenal intentionalist might hold that some states that possess phenomenal intention- ality lack phenomenal objectivity. For example …
Oh boy, you can say that again.
Let me clarify.
“Sub” as in below. “Conscious” as in what you are conscious of.
Processing, Reasoning, call it what you want.
Okay, people reason over information, animals process information.
My point is that no matter how you say it, there’s an awful lot going on within your body below the level of our mind’s conscious appreciation of it.
So what?
What’s that got to do with the body keeping you alive and aware and being the essence of this mysterious “You” that so many want to foist off as an illusion.
But here you are already removing the body from the “You.”
You is the “sentient being” that uses the body for purposes of survival.
How do bacteria help keep you alive? Are they sentient?
What then keeps a single-celled body alive?
How about a paramecium? It has no brain at all but can learn to navigate around obstacles.
How about a slime mold? It has a lot of cells but still no brain. Yet it prefers oats over other foods.
Without a brain how is one conscious? IMO, conscious awareness in biology has a range of sensory utilities and sensitivity that starts with purely biochemical interactions and the gradual increase of complexity and an evolving “understanding” of the data being processed.
Gosh it’s amazing the alacrity with which you can slice and dice complex systems.
That particular conception seems to me to require sentience being poured into a body from on high.
Evolution shows us that awareness, consciousness, sentients are the product of complex organisms interacting with their physical reality. The two aren’t separable.
Without a body how can one experience consciousness?
Heck your wording doesn’t even acknowledge the absolutely intimate and constant feedback loops between body and brain.
I see complete thoughts transmitted without any body/brain produces consciousness acknowledged. Same with organisms ~ environment feedback loops.
They are fair questions which you’ve gotten good at avoiding because I guess you feel they are beneath you. Lip service isn’t good enough, these notions needs to be absorbed within the fabric of ideas being conveyed. I’ll call it out.
I am sure you are attaching too much meaning to the term “conscious”
I touched on this when describing single-celled organism having “memory” without having a brain or neural network. It responds strictly to kinetic stresses or biochemical interactions via “microtubules” (which are NOT conscious in and of themselves).
Evolution is responsible for the formation of “loop-back” data analysis, at which point consciousness begins to emerge. There is no magic involved. Consciousness is an emergent property of neural patterns, which in turn are formed by microtubule growth and synaptic connections.
I like this proposed theory about what consciousness is and how it is acquired.
New Explanation for Consciousness
“In a nutshell, our theory is that consciousness developed as a memory system that is used by our unconscious brain to help us flexibly and creatively imagine the future and plan accordingly,” explained corresponding author Andrew Budson, MD, professor of neurology. “What is completely new about this theory is that it suggests we don’t perceive the world, make decisions, or perform actions directly. Instead, we do all these things unconsciously and then—about half a second later—consciously remember doing them.”
I only disagree with the statement that “about half a second later we consciously remember”.
I believe that this should read "half a second later we become aware of the brain’s loop function and allows our brain to make a “best guess” of what it is “experiencing” and what if anything needs to be done, i.e. the fight or flight response.
Until that ability of weighing the incoming data against information in memory (differential equation) via the loop-function is established there is no conscious “expectation” of reality.
That comes much later in the evolutionary path, as an extension of “sampling” and comparing incoming data sets against data stored in neural memory patterns (pyramidal neurons) . This is exactly what Seth explains is the case with higher level consciousness. The conscious self-awareness that disappears under aesthetics.
Pyramidal neurons
John M. Bekkers
Why are they important?
There are two dominant families of neurons in the cortex, excitatory neurons, which release the neurotransmitter glutamate, and inhibitory neurons, which release g-amino-butyric acid (GABA).
Pyramidal neurons are the most populous members of the excitatory family in the
brain areas they inhabit. They comprise about two-thirds of all neurons in the
mammalian cerebral cortex, which places them center-stage for many important cognitive processes.
Figure 1. Dendritic morphologies of typical pyramidal neurons in different brain regions. (A) Layer 5 pyramidal neuron in the rat somatosensory cortex (courtesy of Maarten Kole). (B) Pyramidal neuron in area CA3 of the rat hippocampus (reproduced with permission from Gonzales et al. (2001). (C) Layer 2 pyramidal neuron in the primary olfactory cortex of the mouse (unpublished work of Norimitsu Suzuki and myself)
Only when data is processed by the brain does consciousness appear. All other data is unconsciously processed via bio-chemistry.
The beauty of chemistry is that it follows mathematically based interactions, which may appear “sentient” but does not need a mathematician to function properly.
The physics themselves are processed via a relational value based function.
I’ve never said their was magic.
There was life! Flesh and blood, and competition & cooperation, ecosystems and action, lots of non-stop action.
Life getting on with living is what created these “loop-back” analysis system.
Perhaps that the only real difference between us, you’re the mathematician type, you search for answers within number on endless paper (or its modern equivalent). I’m into the flesh and blood, the sensual, passionate pageant of people and creatures in action and in real time. It’s that human perspective that this Earth Centrist perspective is all about, wondering through the countryside absorbing the fact of creatures and plants in constant interaction.
Sure people can reduce anything to numbers and data analysis of loop-back incidents, and what not, but that’s not my language.
And what is this data that’s being processed?
If not, the stuff of interacting with the physical reality around one?
Life in action.
The only thing I disagree with is reading too much into pioneering work. Lots more to be learned about those delays, and what the body/brain is doing during those periods. We can be sure there’ll be more surprises and insights moving forward.
Yes, why do you assume that one cannot have both perspectives? When giants speak of mathematics as the “language of the Universe”, I don’t question the depth of philosophical understanding of controlled and uncontrolled Dynamism as an underlying causality.
“Conscious awareness” is always selectively processing environmental conditions.
The selection process is achieved by the loop-back process that compares the stored data of memory with the incoming data and what to select for comparison.
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a) philosophy : a theory that all phenomena (such as matter or motion) can be explained as manifestations of force (see FORCE entry 1 sense 4) compare MECHANISM
I think it’s a disingenuous question, because what irritate me and drive me to repeat myself is that you consistently out-shout the perspective I’m trying to convey, even though I don’t dispute any of the science you’ve brought to the table. (You’re self-certain conclusions are another story)
I bring up the human struggle with understanding our “human condition” and you dismiss it with microtubules and math.
A pyramidal nueron is part of your body. It’s in your brain, which is most likely where consciousness is created (remembering of course that the brain is connected to the body and gets input from it, i.e. the brain produces consciousness in the same sense the lungs exchange oxygen, they don’t do it alone). Write4U said that, without needing to say “body/brain”.
Perhaps you are wrong about that, perhaps it needs to be said explicitly and repeatedly until it soaks into the general appreciation. Which it most certainly currently not the case, considering how totally oblivious and lost so many human are.
It’s especially important to bring into the story when we are discussing humans appreciating their own origin stories, or all those struggling with existential angst, etc.
I agree with that. Not so sure saying “body/brain” is the cure.
Species only last a few million years, and none of them have an impact on their environment as we have. There isn’t high-tech stuff floating around, or even a beacon from some long-dead advanced civilization to tell us the story of their demise. We have pyramids and denuded islands as clues, that’s it. Maybe if we stopped arguing about the best way to view ourselves, and did the things we know how to do to keep each other alive, we’d last a few extra hundred thousand years.
