Foundations Of Consciousness Research Articles

Non-Separability of Physical Systems as a Foundation of Consciousness.

A hypothesis is presented that non-separability of degrees of freedom is the fundamental property underlying consciousness in physical systems. The amount of consciousness in a system is determined by the extent of non-separability and the number of degrees of freedom involved. Non-interacting and feedforward systems have zero consciousness, whereas most systems of interacting particles appear to have low non-separability and consciousness. By contrast, brain circuits exhibit high complexity and weak but tightly coordinated interactions, which appear to support high non-separability and therefore high amount of consciousness. The hypothesis applies to both classical and quantum cases, and we highlight the formalism employing the Wigner function (which in the classical limit becomes the Liouville density function) as a potentially fruitful framework for characterizing non-separability and, thus, the amount of consciousness in a system. The hypothesis appears to be consistent with both the Integrated Information Theory and the Orchestrated Objective Reduction Theory and may help reconcile the two. It offers a natural explanation for the physical properties underlying the amount of consciousness and points to methods of estimating the amount of non-separability as promising ways of characterizing the amount of consciousness.

Emotional thinking as the foundation of consciousness in artificial intelligence

Current theories of artificial intelligence (AI) generally exclude human emotions. The idea at the core of such theories could be described as ‘cognition is computing’; that is, that human psychological and symbolic representations and the operations involved in structuring such representations in human thinking and intelligence can be converted by AI into a series of cognitive symbolic representations and calculations in a manner that simulates human intelligence. However, after decades of development, the cognitive computing doctrine has encountered many difficulties, both in theory and in practice; in particular, it is far from approaching real human intelligence. Real human intelligence runs through the whole process of the emotions. The core and motivation of rational thinking are derived from the emotions. Intelligence without emotion neither exists nor is meaningful. For example, the idea of ‘hot thinking’ proposed by Paul Thagard, a philosopher of cognitive science, discusses the mechanism of the emotions in human cognition and the thinking process. Through an analysis from the perspectives of cognitive neurology, cognitive psychology and social anthropology, this article notes that there may be a type of thinking that could be called ‘emotional thinking’. This type of thinking includes complex emotional factors during the cognitive processes. The term is used to refer to the capacity to process information and use emotions to integrate information in order to arrive at the right decisions and reactions. This type of thinking can be divided into two types according to the role of cognition: positive and negative emotional thinking. That division reflects opposite forces in the cognitive process. In the future, ‘emotional computing’ will cause an important acceleration in the development of AI consciousness. The foundation of AI consciousness is emotional computing based on the simulation of emotional thinking.

Analysis of functional potential of communication technologies in modern educational practices

The object of research is communication technologies. It is devoted to the analysis of their functional potential in educational practices. On the basis of the author's integrated methodology, communication, its structure, varieties, functional range and constructive potential are considered. The role of dialogue and discourse as a form of reflection is highlighted. It turns out the importance of hermeneutics for educational activities. It is necessary that taking into account the peculiarities of modern communication is of fundamental importance for increasing the effectiveness of educational and educational practices.
 Investigated problem. The communicative philosophy proposes landmarks different from the classical philosophy of consciousness. They provide for the recognition of the phenomenon of communication as fundamental to human existence. Here communication is seen as the last foundation of consciousness, cognition and social life. This question was developed by a number of researchers earlier, but the problem remains relevant. This is due to the need to substantiate the universal foundations of human understanding. Also, the aim of research is to find new ways to harmonize relations between people.
 Main scientific results. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the creation of an integrated post-non-classical model of modern communication. The features of the complex of modern communication technologies are investigated. On the basis of the author's methodological program, the functional potential of modern communication technologies in educational and upbringing practices was discovered.
 The scope of practical application of the research results. The proposed methodological program is used in the development of strategies for the education of a communicative culture, in the teaching of special courses in modern communicative philosophy, pedagogy, sociology of education and culture. The research results were introduced into the educational process of the H. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ternopil Volodymyr Hnatiuk National Pedagogical University, Kharkіv College of Trade and Economіcs of Kyіv Natіonal Unіversіty of Trade and Economіcs.
 An innovative analysis of the functional potential of communicative practices, together with the developed recommendations, is appropriate to apply in modern education, which is aimed at the formation of a strong and courageous personality, capable of building a successful life strategy.

From the reflective to the post-personal teacher

Effective teaching is often connected to reflective practice. Reflection not only involves recording thoughts about what went well (or not) after class, but also to consider examples of potential bias in (re)actions to certain situations, and indeed, to one’s own evaluations of educational activities. This relates to the drive towards greater objectivity in education, and an emphasis on making educational practices and their evaluation explicit. In ‘Transcendence of the Ego’, Sartre (2004) outlines a theory in which a ‘pre-personal’ self produces itself through reflection. This production is unavoidable, and yet dangerous in how it is conflated with a more fundamental ‘pre-reflective’ state of being. This ‘pre-personal’ self, as the very foundation of consciousness, is only experienced in moments when one is fully absorbed in a task, conscious but unaware, uninterrupted by thoughts or reflections that might disrupt this ‘raptured’ state of being. Complete immersions in the task at hand find their place within educational settings, and thus, what Sartre deems as the move from the ‘pre-personal’ to the ‘produced’ self is relevant for teaching. But so too is what comes after that sense of exposure recedes. Such absorption in the task of teaching leads to might be called a ‘post-personal’ self and is often when moments of ‘good teaching’ can be found. But this proclivity for reflective action can disrupt the flow of such immersive events. This is dangerous for two reasons. Firstly, it frames teaching within a particular ‘temporality’ that fails to allow for the performance of teaching in the present moment. Secondly, it fails to account for what the experience of teaching entails. This paper attempts to argue for the space and value of such forms of suspension, and to call into question the overly metricised way in which teachers are expected to reflect.

Historicizing Hermann von Helmholtz’s Psychology of Differentiation

Nineteenth-century scientist Hermann von Helmholtz’s peculiar wavering between empiricism and transcendentalism in his philosophy of science in general, and in his theory of perception in particular, is a much debated and well-documented topic in the history and philosophy of science. This contribution aims at providing a fresh angle on this classical issue, by considering Helmholtz’s account of differential consciousness against the background of a centuries-old philosophical debate between the (strict) empiricist tradition and the tradition of transcendental idealism. By placing Helmholtz’s psychology against the background of a historical narrative stretching from Hume to Fichte, one can gain insight into the possible merits of his empirico-transcendentalism with regard to the problem of differentiation. More particularly, it is argued that Helmholtz’s psychology tilted towards transcendentalism when met with the classical theoretical problems of strict empiricism in dealing with the foundation of consciousness, most notably circularity and infinite regress. Without claiming that Helmholtz’s theorizing presented a self-conscious attempt to overcome the latter issues, his well-known wavering between perspectives in general, and his appropriation of the a priori in particular, might have served him well in avoiding the deadlocks of empiricism. As noted at the end, however, Helmholtz’s account produced complex philosophical problems of its own.

Integrated mind

Numerous experiments indicate a connection between integration of neural structures activities distributed widely across the brain and conscious experience. This paper will try to answer the question how does an interconnection of many elements of the remarkably complex system such as brain come about and which neural structures are the foundation of consciousness. Through examples of various syndromes, degenerative changes and aftermaths of surgical procedures, the role and importance of particular brain areas in the formation of conscious experience will be analyzed. Apart from experiments on living organisms, the analysis of integrative processes will be presented through computer simulations. It will turn out that consciousness appears when special conditions are satisfied, when there is a balance between two opposing tendencies within a neural system: a tendency for global integration and a tendency for local specialization. The system in which there is a balance between these two tendencies is situated in a metastable state. Metastability enables the system to have high levels of complexity and high levels of exchanged information within itself.

Physical Foundations of Consciousness: Variable Width Synapses

The many facets of consciousness divide into two distinct categories. First: the organisational state of the neural networks at any one time, which determines whether a person is conscious – awake, or unconscious – asleep. Second; the processes, or traffic of electrical signals across these networks that accounts for the experiences of conscious awareness. This paper addresses the former; namely, how the state of the billions of neural networks and the trillions of additional axons, dendrites and synapses varies over the daily cycle - what physically changes when we go to sleep – what happens in our brain as we wake up? Synapses play a major role in the operation of the brain. We submit that the widths of synaptic clefts are not fixed, but are variable, and that this variable tension across the synapses is the neural correlate of consciousness. Various experiments are suggested to explore this hypothesis. NeuroQuantology | June 2012 | Volume 10 | Issue 2 | Page 268-275

'Self' and the Problem of Consciousness

'Self' and the Problem of Consciousness

"A Good Memory Is Unpardonable": Self, Love, and the Irrational Irritation of Memory

"A Good Memory Is Unpardonable": Self, Love, and the Irrational Irritation of Memory Margaret Anne Doody Ein Marmorblock, obgleich er leblos ist und bleibt, kann darum nichts desto weniger lebende Gestalt durch den Architekt und Bildhauer werden; ein Mensch, wiewohl er lebt und Gestalt hat, ist darum noch lange keine lebende Gestalt. Dazu gehört, dass seine Gestalt Leben und sein Leben Gestalt sei.1 Friedrich Schiller "She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men." ... Mr. Darcy walked off; and Elizabeth remained with no very cordial feelings towards him. She told the story however with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in any thing ridiculous.2 Jane Austen It is a truth universally acknowledged that the Enlightenment depends upon memory. Indeed, the Enlightenment in a sense—in its very sensations of thought—loves memory. Memory in the Lockean world is the foundation of consciousness. The soul cannot think 1 Friedrich Schiller, Werke und Briefe. Theoretische Schriften. Über die Ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen, ed. Rolf-Peter Janz et al., Werke (Frankfurt: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1992), letter 15, 8:610. 2 Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, ed. Isobel Armstrong (Oxford: World's Classics, 1990), chap. 3. References are to this edition. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 14, Number 1, October 2001 68EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION "before the Senses have furnish 'd it with Ideas to think on"3 Retaining these sensible ideas, so as to have them available for the process of thought, must be the province of Memory. And in a case of disease or disorder of Memory, the mind that thinks may as well not be thinking: To think often, and never to retain it so much as one moment, is a very useless sort of thinking, and the Soul in such a state of thinking, does very little, if at all, excel that of a Looking-glass, which constantly receives variety of Images, or Ideas, but retains none; they disappear and vanish, and there remain no footsteps of them; the Looking-glass is never the better for such Ideas, nor the Soul for such Thoughts, (p. 112) Locke's primary (or at least overt) purpose in this passage is to get rid of the traditional idea that the Soul always thinks—though to us the passage may function less as abstract speculation than as a sharp reminder of the observable confusions and vagaries of minds lost to disease—as in cases of what we term "Alzheimer's," especially dreadful perhaps to academics and all writers and thinkers who live proudly in the castles of their own minds. Swift's deathless Struldbruggs horrifically exemplify such useless continuance of the soul without understanding: "they forget the common Appellation of Things, and the Names of Persons" and they cannot read "because their Memory will not serve to carry them from the beginning of a Sentence to the End."4 Locke himself always writes with an alert poetic horror of the fading of memory and the concomitant loss of the powers of the mind. The vanishing looking-glass world is indeed what all would be condemned to were it not for the underlying assurance of memory which, retaining the ideas supplied by sensation and reflection, permits consciousness to find itself. Consciousness itselfis the splendid flowering ofhumanity. In consciousness alone, in the Lockean view, can each of us be said to have a Self. Consciousness is the hero ofevery tale. It is consciousness also which guarantees social order, by providing a full entity, a guilty person , to be answerable before the law. The conscious Self is also the basis of the entire Whiggish republican and capitalist system. A person is an individual, answerable for himself. He stands by or behind 3 John Locke, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 116. References are to this edition. 4 Jonathan Swift, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, better known as Gulliver's Travels (1726), ed. Paul Turner (Oxford: World's Classics, 1994), p. 205...

MIND AND MUSIC: ON INTENTIONALITY, MUSIC THEORY, AND ANALYSIS

Among current theories of cognition, Gerald Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection is one of the most successful in showing how the mind is grounded in neurobiological activity. Edelman brings together ideas concerning the selective adaptability of the brain and the interplay of neural impulses during perception to show how the brain creates interconnected neural maps from which memory, the foundation for consciousness, is constructed. Such maps are adaptive; they can change in response to a plethora of ongoing associations in the cortex. Hence, perceptions, rather than remaining fixed in memory, are acts of reconstruction, a perspective that encourages one to view music less as a collection of immutable structures and more as a subject for intentional creative perception. An analysis of Berg's Op. 2, No. 3 tests these ideas by bringing intentionalism and the biological basis of the mind to the forefront of the discussion.

MIND AND MUSIC: ON INTENTIONALITY, MUSIC THEORY, AND ANALYSIS

Among current theories of cognition, Gerald Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection is one of the most successful in showing how the mind is grounded in neurobiological activity. Edelman brings together ideas concerning the selective adaptability of the brain and the interplay of neural impulses during perception to show how the brain creates interconnected neural maps from which memory, the foundation for consciousness, is constructed. Such maps are adaptive; they can change in response to a plethora of ongoing associations in the cortex. Hence, perceptions, rather than remaining fixed in memory, are acts of reconstruction, a perspective that encourages one to view music less as a collection of immutable structures and more as a subject for intentional creative perception. An analysis of Berg's Op. 2, No. 3 tests these ideas by bringing intentionalism and the biological basis of the mind to the forefront of the discussion. The task of understanding music is complicated, necessarily, by the fact that music-and by that I mean music not only in its written form, but also music as a collection of ideas and processes-is ever-changing

Mythmaking and Human Development

As the richly articulated cultural myths of the past have faded from social prominence and lost their viability in guiding individuals through predictable life crises, uniquely personal myths have assumed significance in helping individuals organize personal reality. After a brief survey of "personal mythology" as a concept within psychology, this article examines the mythic nature of thought and the historical shift in the foundations of consciousness from the myths of the collective to myths that increasingly bear the unique stamp of the individual. We will describe how the evolution of an individual's personal mythology takes the form of a dialectical pattern in which prevailing and emerging myths compete as new mythic structures evolve. This natural dialectic may be facilitated through a five-stage model we have developed and used in clinical, educational, and community settings. The model is presented as an approach that allows the individual to participate consciously in attitudinal and behavioral change. We close with a summary of eight principles that seem to govern the evolution of the individual's mythology and speculate about characteristics of the mythologies associated with higher levels of personality integration.