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Evidence for once controversial theory of Consciousness

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Re: Evidence for once controversial theory of Consciousness

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I don't think we can get to the heart of where we might disagree unless I put my understanding out there. I'm aware my understanding might be wrong, but here it is.

A disclaimer first. I know the comparison between computers and brains fails on many levels, but it's also a useful comparison, to draw associations. I think talking about electronic principles is the easiest place to start.

When I was in the Air Force learning about electronics, I remember having a breakthrough moment while studying how a group of precisely arranged transistors worked together to 'count' upward. I followed the individual logic from one component to the next, and eventually got to the point where I could hold a bunch of them in my head and envision the final output. Which was counting to the number 4. Super simple, yet amazing how simple components could manipulate information.

We went on to study more advanced components, such as receivers and transmitters. I couldn't hold all the components in my head, by a long shot. And the components were simple, and the function was simple. These components manipulated information, and that's the key association to what a brain does, manipulate information.

When you consider an advanced AI program, it is impossible to hold even a fraction of cause and effect in your head from the component level. That's the case even for those brilliant engineers who design such programs. They can approach it in a linear fashion, bit by bit, but the entire thing is like an emergent phenomenon. If alien computers were to drop from the sky back in the year 1940, they would appear as magical as the human brain does today. There is no way to go from a component understanding to a full understanding of the end function.

I don't see consciousness as something magical. It might be something we don't yet understand, but that doesn't mean it isn't understandable. We can't possibly understand it in whole, however. Only piece by piece, and that isn't enough for the certainty that we require at a gut level to say we understand something.

That's how I see the human brain. We have an idea of the mechanisms, but we will never hold the entire function in our heads. It's like using a computer program to run a simulation of another computer. It needs to be 64 times more powerful than the computer it's attempting to simulate(from the transistor level).

Consciousness is amazing and not fully understood, but that doesn't mean it isn't an emergent phenomenon resulting from the arrangement and firing of neurons. It's the explanation that most neurobiologists ascribe to, and for good reason. Proposing even more complex mechanisms seems to go against parsimony. Why make it more complex than necessary? Let's continue making progress in mapping the logic of neural connections and attempting to simulate larger and larger neural nets.
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Re: Evidence for once controversial theory of Consciousness

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Whilst slightly off topic, this might be relevant to the discussion of memories and locality/non-locality.

einstein.yu.edu/news/releases/968/watch ... -memories/
January 23, 2014­­ – (BRONX, NY) – In two studies in the January 24 issue of Science, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University used advanced imaging techniques to provide a window into how the brain makes memories. These insights into the molecular basis of memory were made possible by a technological tour de force never before achieved in animals: a mouse model developed at Einstein in which molecules crucial to making memories were given fluorescent "tags" so they could be observed traveling in real time in living brain cells.
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