Brain Physiology, Cognition and Consciousness group: topic
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Constructing a complete model of consciousness
Esther Allerton
Friday, 08 February 2008 21:32 UTC
I may be biting off more than I can chew, but I’m starting to gather information ready for my final year project next year – my aim being to construct a complete model for consiousness, hard problem included.
Does anyone have any ‘pet theories’ that they think would be useful for me to look into? Books or papers that they feel might just offer that snippet of information that could help me fit everything together? Anything at all that they have a gut feeling about which might turn out to be important, even if it sounds a bit loopy? I’m looking into all disciplines – physics, philosophy, neuroscience, psychology – in a (probably forlorn) hope of finding a way to a complete model.
Any suggestions for further study very gratefully received.
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Esther hello,
About Esther’s quest
Hans Ricke just brought my attention to this very ambitious project of yours – worthy it seems, and may your life time be long enough to see its ultimate fruition.
Nah, just joking, so long as you include the word “summary” somewhere very close to the start of the opus!Forgive me if I just make some brief notes on the story you and the commentators have made so far. The owners of the [to me] familiar names amongst them will be rolling their eyes with “Amen to the ’brief bit!”
EA [8 Feb 08]: “I may be biting off more than I can chew,”
MP: He, he, I think the trick is going to be spitting out the bones and gristle as fast as you can!
EA [8 Feb]: “Does anyone have any pet theories they think would be useful for me to look in to?”
MP: Yes. Here is something succinct, to which I give the acronym “UMSITW” [pronounced um-see-two] which stands for Updating Model of Self In The World. I came across the basis of it in the writings of Susan Blackmore, whose style of writing and clarity of thought make her ideas on consciousness related issues very approachable.
I understand the idea of self-modelling as the basis of subjective awareness to be the essence of Thomas Metzinger’s description of C also, but I have not read much of his stuff.The guts of the idea is that for navigational purposes, and generally in order to move in ways which increase an animal’s/person’s survival prospects, etc., the better a creature is able to model its environment and its own location within that environment then the greater are its survival prospects. This entails three types of representation: representation of significant features of the environment, representation of self, and representation of currently important relationships between self and environment.
Note: ‘Environment’ generally means anything which or who is not-self, although often the boundaries between self and not-self can be much more vague or variable than we realise. Note also that radical/eliminative behaviourists abhor the very concept of representations as such so when in their company you must say ‘responses’ or ‘behaviours’ when you mean representations.
To put it simply: subjective awareness is what it is like to be the updating of the model of self in the world. This involves the linking of currently active representations of the environment with currently active representations of self by means of processes [neural network activities] which embody representation of relevant relationships between world model and self model.
If this is true then it provides a deft answer to Thomas Nagel’s question: What is it like to be a bat? The answer is “Nothing”, because it is the wrong question. The correct question is: What is it like to be the model of self in the world created and updated within the brain of a bat? The answer then becomes: "We don’t know but there are things we can do which might enable us to get an idea. [Things like virtual reality simulation of eye-blind echo locating, or blindfolded remote control of an artificial bat/helicopter/whatever using echo location.]
EA [12 Feb]: “Edelman’s ideas about the dynamic core suggest that any neurons firing within it would contribute directly to our consciousness, but I think that the brain would also have, literally, sub-consciousness that we are unaware of, the loops that are not currently, or ever, part of the dynamic core. It is the changing patterns which create awareness, …”
MP: I think you are getting the hang of it! I think that Edelman’s ideas of neuronal group selection, neural Darwinism, and so forth, provide a very powerful conceptual foundation for understanding the brain’s ability to host/embody repeatable, labile, and potent constructs able to BE the representations of self in the world.
I call these things in the brain dynamic logical structures. I believe they exist and they constitute the patterns of internal behaviour which ARE mental objects, percepts, motor skills. Thus – crudely put – a dynamic logical structure which currently represents the appearance of a rose for example, will BE a quale if it is entrained within a greater construct transiently representing the self looking at the rose. the construct of the potential appearance of the rose will not be a quale if it is currently active but NOT linked in as part of the model of self in the world.
Can I recommend you having a squiz at Steven Lehar’s very approachable [but challenging!] Gestalt bubble hypothesis. That terminology sounds terrible I know but his “Cartoon epistemology” gives the story in on-line cartoon format [still drawings, not animations] <http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/cartoonepist/cartoonepist.html>
D*mn! I said brief. So, I’m a liar. It’s in my genes.
Cheers,
Mark -
sorry, I somehow edited out the link to Steve Lehar’s page after pasting my spiel into the input box
http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/cartoonepist/cartoonepist.html
BTW Hans,
1/ thanks for bringing me to this thread,
2/ have we corresponded before? Was I really the person you were trying to lead here? if not … serendipity!Mark
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Since consciousness is likely to be present in invertebrates or emergent from systems present in invertebrates, a good place to start your investigations might be the inner workings of mental events in insects. You could begin with well worked out systems such as photoperiod response in the fly or reception and processing of odorant cues. As an introduction, a summary of behavioral pardigms is available in The Interactive Fly.
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Thomas, please consider:
Maye A, Hsieh C-h, Sugihara G, Brembs B (2007) Order in Spontaneous Behavior. PLoS ONE 2(5): e443. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000443
Abstract:
“Brains are usually described as input/output systems: they transform sensory input into motor output. However, the motor output of brains (behavior) is notoriously variable, even under identical sensory conditions. The question of whether this behavioral variability merely reflects residual deviations due to extrinsic random noise in such otherwise deterministic systems or an intrinsic, adaptive indeterminacy trait is central for the basic understanding of brain function. Instead of random noise, we find a fractal order (resembling Le´vy flights) in the temporal structure of spontaneous flight maneuvers in tethered Drosophila fruit flies. Le´ vy-like probabilistic behavior patterns are evolutionarily conserved, suggesting a general neural mechanism underlying spontaneous behavior. Drosophila can produce these patterns endogenously, without any external cues. The fly’s behavior is controlled by brain circuits which operate as a nonlinear system with unstable dynamics far from equilibrium. These findings suggest that both general models of brain function and autonomous agents ought to include biologically relevant nonlinear, endogenous behavior-initiating mechanisms if they strive to realistically simulate biological brains or out-compete other agents.”
An extract:
“We show here that random noise cannot be the sole source of behavioral variability. In addition to the inevitable noise component, we detected a nonlinear signature suggesting deterministic endogenous processes (i.e., an initiator) involved in generating behavioural variability. It is this combination of chance and necessity that renders individual behavior so notoriously unpredictable. The consequences of this result are profound and may seem contradictory at first: despite being largely deterministic, this initiator falsifies the notion of behavioral determinism. By virtue of its sensitivity to initial conditions, the initiator renders genuine spontaneity (‘‘voluntariness’’ 30) a biological trait even in flies” page 5
IDM comment:
The standard brain model developed from neurology covers differentiating/integrating and as such the indeterminate (differentiating realm, anti-symmetric) vs determinate (integrating realm, symmetric).
IDM brings out the JOINING of these into an asymmetric dichotomy brings out a dimension of POSSIBLE categories for the derivation of meaning. Thus we have synonyms of differentiate/integrate as:
Chance(possibilities)/necessity – [maps to MODAL logic]
Indeterminism/determinism
Parts/wholes
Local-context/non-local-context
Probabilities thinking induction/abduction)/deductive thinking
XOR/EQV
Difference/sameness
Far-from-equilibrium/equilibrium
Bottom-up/top-down
Free-will(singular)/determinism(particular-general)
Anti-symmetric/symmetric
What(who,which)/Where(when,how)Oscillations across these dichotomies elicit categories of meaning. EXTEND that self-referencing and so go deep enough and out pops the development of languages as covered in my “Categories of Meaning” paper.
What THIS particular paper, “Order in Spontaneous Behavior”, brings out is the oscillations in the brain of a fly just as we have such in the brain of a zebra-fish or human. SAME patterns, different scales, and so showing scale invariance in GENERAL and the presence of POWER law dynamics and THAT comes out of self-referencing an ASYMMETRIC dichotomy (aka a trichotomy with one element being that of mediation). With this comes the only asymmetric logic operator, IMP (implies) and so prediction dynamics in the form of choices. The more neurologically/cognitively advanced the life form the more choices it can make (or derive categories to serve as a pool of possibles and local context extracts a ‘best fit’ actual)
What they have not developed is the self-referencing and going DEEP enough to generate analogy-making and so use of pattern-matching and so forecasting with HIGH precision where these patterns are hard-coded in that they reflect the use of all possible categories to flesh-out finer details in each category. (a fly or zebra fish do not have the neural complexity to go so deep and make fine level distinctions at a universal level and utilise those ‘out of the box’ of some specialisation)
Some further extracts:
“The variability in spontaneous fly turning behavior is not solely due to nonlinearity; rather, the nonlinear processes controlling the behavior also have to operate at just the right parameters to produce instability.
Moreover, the number of these nonlinear processes has to be small, as nonlinear signatures disappear with increasing superposition of multiple nonlinear processes [59,60]. Thus, flies are more than simple input/output machines. Similar to flies, human brains also are notorious for their variability and even devote most of their energy budget to intrinsic processing 21. Our study supports the hypothesis that the nonlinear processes underlying spontaneous behavior initiation have evolved to generate behavioral indeterminacy: The choice of what behavior to produce in the next moment is rarely determinable exactly, but only probabilistically [17,19,20]. Implicitly, game theory, the biological study of choice behavior and neuroeconomics have incorporated this feature on an empirical basis [61–65].
If our results from a small fly brain hold also for more complex brains, they suggest that the biological basis of the widespread phenomenon of behavioral indeterminacy can be investigated” page 6IDM comment:
The above gets into dynamics of self-referencing and the Chaos game. What I have covered before is that with increased distinction making comes border creation and so letting loose complexity/chaos dynamics and so emergences where LOCAL context will prefer some emergences over others and so drive/select behaviours. In humans the internalisation of these dynamics are in turning the reactive into the proactive – as covered in the control dynamics of out pre-frontal cortex and frontal lobe complexity.
“Because theoretical work suggests a range of competitive advantages for indeterminate behavior in virtually all animals [19,61–65,71], the structure of the indeterminacy should be incorporated explicitly into models of general brain function and autonomous agents” page 7
IDM comment:
Sure – it is hard coded into the neurology in general and clearly identified in our brain asymmetry re probabilities thinking (Bayesian statistics, part-whole dynamics) vs deductive thinking. See abstract at the end of this email.
“Our data raise the suspicion that future models of the brain may have to implement this or a related component for spontaneous behavior initiation, if they strive to be biologically realistic, outcompeting other models/agents” page 7
IDM comment:
The nature of our singular nature and so personal consciousness is our freedom of choice and so open to spontaneous decisions (the randomiser nature of consciousness and so the ability to be innovative in our creativity)
“The tedious distinction between random noise and unstable nonlinearity is worthwhile, because the former points to extrinsic origins of variability, whereas the latter indicates intrinsic origins. Technical advances frequently lead to a significant increase in signal to noise ratios. Such advances would increase the predictability of a brain where the main source of variability stems from noise. In contrast, noise reductions will only marginally change the predictability of a nonlinear brain whose output is fundamentally indeterministic, despite the deterministic rules that govern it. Given that there is a cost associated with producing indeterminate behavior 61, it is a straightforward inference that these latter rules have evolved specifically to generate varying degrees of behavioural indeterminism…” page 7
IDM comment:
The ASYMMETRIC dynamic is unstable and allows for the paradoxical due to its oscillation dynamics across part-whole relationships that get interpreted as whole-whole and can elicit paradox as such. These issues are tolerated due to the overall success of the asymmetric in dealing with information and in development languages. The benefits of the language derivation are in the transcendence nature of such, but the price will be uncertainties in such due to the perpetual transcendence ability!
The ANTI-symmetric realm covers the mereological where it includes the concept of the ‘unique’.
“This notion of brains operating on the critical edge between determinism and chaos has also been used to describe human magnetoencephalographic recordings 78. Analogous to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle [79,80], much behavioral variability arises not out of practical constraints, but out of the principles of evolved brain function. Given these considerations and that our data imply a memory for past events influencing behaviour initiation, it is tempting to perceive such mechanisms of spontaneous behavior initiation as the basis for operant behavior, operant conditioning and habit formation” page 8
IDM comment:
… as covered in the IDM focus on increased distinction-making in that it creates borders and so increase in complexity/chaos dynamics through oscillations across those borders and so MORE mediation, MORE asymmetry.
From the distinctions comes conversion of DIFFERENCE to SAMENESS through extraction of essential elements to support the refinement of instincts/habits overall – and so an INCREASE in symmetric perspectives, the price of which is overall ‘dumbing down’. This is a threat to consciousness in that it leads to mediation being no longer required as more ‘law’ is learnt! Perfection as such is ‘death’ to us. So …. viva la difference! – the issue THEN is the increase fragmentation of the species and its collectives but that can also lead to phase transition states and re-configuration of existing forms into new ones but still within the symmetry of the species. As more and more re-configurations happen so we run out of ‘new forms’ and start repeating old ones – this repetition being a property of symmetry!
The Categories of Mediation paper )
takes us much deeper into the dynamics of self-referencing and the emergence of language – as it does the degree of determinism present where such is brought-out in the XOR material.
As such I dont see consciousness as we know it manifest in insects etc due to lack in complexity required for high level differentiations necessary for consciousness to function BUT the presence of neurology makes it easy to detect isomorphic patterns of behaviours shared by all neuron-dependent life forms.
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A complete model of consciousness? That sounds like three problems to me.
First problem is to define “completeness”. Second is defining consciousness and the third, defining the term “complete model of consciousness”. For thousands of years, from monks to philosophers to scientists have tried to understand the state identified by the term “consciousness”. Each person may define it in their own way. I figured that even if I put neuroscience, neurobiology, psychology, philosophy and evolution, together with my own subjective experiences, I still cant come up with a reasonable definition of “consciousness”. I guess any attempt to define consciousness will also have to cross the boundaries of relativity and uncertainty. The world of “complete model of consciousness” may be where relativity and uncertainty collapses, where one may travel infinite distance in 0 time and yet experience everything with infinite precision.
My suggestion is to start building from a partial model and then try to take it to a more complete model. I am sure that this complete model will never be established. Rather, there will be partial models that will be subject to continuous evolution through generations due to the existence of “time”. -
Dear All:
This Forum has received several interesting contributions. Kolothuparambil makes correct criticisms and ends with a good suggestion to Esther.
It seems that we all are – in one sense – Esthers, looking for a full understanding of consciousness – and failing.
I hope the sum of activities in this group will contribute to an advancement in the understanding of the causes of our persistent ignorance – and then we will know a bit more about consciousness…Best
Alfredo
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Dear Alfredo, Dear Kolothuparambil,
actually I do not try to understand consciousness as such, completely etc. I conceive that as futile as to understand life, existence, matter and so on. I think our understanding – as far as we are getting – is very useful though, it can be at least.
What I am most interested in are aspects of consciousness that lead to a more conscious life of individuals and humanity ( which in times of globalisation becomes more of a sociological agent quite quickly ). What makes us more conscious, what less? What are the issues we need to be conscious about, which ones are less important? Which issues are crucial, life-threatening?
As a young physician I was very much interested in ground-breaking topics, and my efforts and ideas were acknowledged by quite a few people. But one day my boss said, I that I need to learn to set better priorities – wow! Consciousness as a topic does seem the right priority these days.On a different note I like questioning definitions. But one was missing in Kolothuparambils list: model.
Models can be very simple and yet complete. That maybe the only way Esther could get somewhere in a reasonable time frame. Gobal Workspace Theory looks like a quite complete model, as far as I understand it. But maybe there are a few more steps possible in the directions I see when Chalmers mentions a flowchart. When we know the essential parts of the model, we would point out how they are linked.
One part I am convinced that it should belong to the model is memory, which I did not see the same way o short while ago.Yours friendly
Hans -
This is from an email by Bob Campbell, who has difficulties posting here:
“Defining consciousness is a knotty question. One is also entitled to ask what constitutes a definition? From whence does meaning of any kind derive? Is there a key word in the dictionary that defines all others? There must be an underlying structure to phenomenal experience that prescribes the basis of meaning. This underlying cosmic order must implicitly specify the meaning in language according to how we have evolved so it must also specify the structural dynamics of the evolutionary process. It must be ubiquitous. So it is by no means confined to language. To attempt a verbal definition of consciousness thus requires bootstrapping in the extreme. There are nevertheless things that can be said about it even though consciousness defies reduction to a separate phenomenon for scientific study as a distinct thing.
There is a difference between consciousness and what we are conscious of. Sensory input is coupled to the recall of appropriate archetypal patterns that have emotional content. These are reflected into specific intuitively recognized patterns in cerebral awareness via the primitive Limbic System and they may just as quickly find automated behavioral responses at the spinal level. Or they may require considerable cerebral reflection before an appropriate response can be formulated. But there are always three focal points involved in the integration of sensory input with appropriate response, one emotional, one intuitive, and one behavioral. These three focal points generally correspond to the Limbic emotional brain, the intuitive right hemisphere and the linguistic or behavioral left hemisphere, which have their correlates at the spinal level.
One can become conscious of this universal pattern in their private experience. Consciousness has universal characteristics. It can be shared. We share through the mutual experience of universal values to the extent that we have acquired access to them. We can share love, harmony, unity, truth, compassion, justice, mercy, etc. as well as their opposites with one another. To a considerable extent we can even share them with the family dog. Even a bug knows when we intend to kill it. There is a sharing of intensions associated with values that transcend the individual. We can be aware of this as well, so this does not in itself define consciousness. Some things language can not reach. In a universal sense values transcend and subsume physical circumstance.
Conscious awareness is behind phenomenal experience of every kind. The cosmic order is in communication with itself on many levels. This includes varieties of spiritual experience that can not justifiably be dismissed as vagaries of nervous function such as those that may be chemically induced. Genuine spiritual experiences generally fall into two broad but distinct categories, organic and cosmic. The organic variety is much more common. It involves organic processes in the human body even if the experiences carry with them transcendent elements of a universal nature as they often do. In the quite rare cosmic variety organic feedback to cerebral awareness is totally suspended. There is a clear and awesome perception of universal import that transcends and subsumes this physical universe including one’s body. This is not a higher form of consciousness. This same consciousness is there and intensely aware of what it perceives. It is the content of conscious perception that is different, not consciousness itself. That remains as elusive as ever.
One can say that consciousness is an inherent knowing, or awareness, or perception that is implicit in the nature of being and that defies rational analysis. It has universal characteristics associated with structural requirements implicit in the nature of universal wholeness. There is more on this in the website article Unified Theories, Fantasy, & Cosmic Order at the “website”:http//www.cosmic-mindreach.com. The article explores the relationship of epistemology to the ontological basis of being. I think it is reasonably instructive on the role and limitations of theories, as distinct from personal realization in phenomenal experience.
There are also articles on the website that show how phenomenal experience is meaningfully integrated by the nervous system, synapse by synapse at the spinal level and also how the cerebellum mediates integration of spinal and sensory inputs with cerebral function synapse by synapse. However these show how the content of consciousness works regardless of circumstance, not consciousness itself.
A quest into the nature of consciousness is essentially a quest into the nature of truth. I feel, perhaps with others, that it can prove informative so long as it doesn’t close the doors on the quest. We have never been able to package consciousness into language and treat it as something objectively distinct. It is a subjective phenomenon even at the most profound levels of awareness.
Best regards,
Bob"
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In response to the topic of constructing a complete model of consciousness I have, at least satisfied myself that I know what conscious awareness means in light of the paradoxes of experience verses logical additions. I will try to outline my understanding: 1) If one tries to define behavior in the terms of mechanical science the natural inclination is to assume it is built of parts that add up to a whole; one immediately comes to paradox : =first= paradox derived from the great complexity involved in defining living entities. =second =a seduction for those who like puzzles from the vast amount of scientific knowledge accumulated from evolutionary theory, biological studies etc… that always appear to lead a trail for the answers of deductively arrived at question though with the thought in mind that potential answers are still limited in character with respect to a total picture. We arrive at a point of nitty grittness with a humongous theoretical mathematical complexity resembling a layout of the universe as if it were an economic big business with a million departments and subdivions each with a million separate other departments- An infinite sized department store we tr to capture on paper. 2) I think that before this nitty grittyess is approached one need to better capture what he is attempting in philosophical terms. I have done with an analogy “the uncontained container” ==that goes…if one considers all the possible paths taken by nature to the present one may view it as contained, with nothing beyond it but what has not occured yet. Thus (all the possible) smooth and continuous possibile paths (in thought etc) have and have not a limit, are contained to present with nothing beyond … the non understood soul as aproduct of the humongous paths taken by nature to the present… reptresented in all facets of th world, scientific topics, the inside and outside of all things=all things come about that way whether aspects of vision, sight,touch perception of self etc. ..and have a single one sided surface based as we know life the universe as a model physical structure=open volume that is containe a one sided surface one could aliken to a belt with a twist that is balled up to have specific shape hat it encloses. But this is from a perspective of knowledgeless location ignorant nature-from the perspective of the balled=up belt the world is instead a dualism as it itself is not one sided, has volume and distinct faces and forms man ver higher order complexes-exists because it repels itself, each point is unique inside and out and does not overlap by virtue of a force that with respect to the forces we might measure in a lab; depends on angles of approach of surfaces ,densities and maybe of vast complexity but all depending, time, motion, etc on the existence of a world of unique particulars that are only classifyable in to genera by virtue of likeness of assembly with regards to surfaces and forces but conceptually the world cannot be captured from these likeness, it diverge, depart from the classifications of observation (though too far if the classifications are good=i.e. constructed with these thoughts in mind such that categories are not too compulsively formed are arrived at with the open perspective I suggest that we know in advance what the meaning of the categories are) but cannot be known from these classifications=might find new paths of emergence. With a reorientation one might construe that the transmissions=bouncing around of=reflections of light sound =whatever=is elementary to all and beyond the chemistries and physical laws we start with to define cognition and consciousness..instead all is manifest of witness processes to be taken in parallel not series with the orderings of science=both(the sciences and cognition) emanated form the same that is given as God in older philosophy which purport to prove his existence=do prove though that a universal exists as necessiy for he existence of matter that though not an omnipotent perceiving all knowing God, is perceiving nature which is no more than transmissions and reflections of energy, many types of which have become very familiar scientifically(light, sound, heat, etc). Einstein came to paradox with the dualism of special and general relativity in his failure to recognize and relate the volume with an elemantal force as the construction unit of life and consciousness as also one and the same as the space/universe he tried to define. In my perceptions the dualism created by Einstein is very similar in description to the dilemma of active verses passive reflection, we cannot conceive of a cetain two volumes at the same instant=ourselves and the external if we try to write absolutes about either each individually=an overlap results that is like volumes imposed on one another in to the same space ====is threatening(re: the post modern phenomenologys, paradoxes solisticisms ( that one cannot know anything beyond the self) In my personal manuscripts http://www.marvinekirsh.com I have proposed that aside from this normal paradox of nature in a normal situation, the earth, civilization has been functioning under an additional stress of a phyical kind that is congruent in description to that that is described that is normal, affects our thinking and behavior, involves ordinary, at last not especially mystical scientifically, phenomenon in the earths environment that is grown through us in all aspects, a second thorn that is not conceived of to exist, but might not be difficult to uncover if suspected. Our aggressions on nature in this light are worse than we contemplate based on the way we have defined things and have come to think , and are causing many of the problems ourselves via applied scientific attention, by means of the attention, and subsequent applications themselves. It is only from this broader perspective that I think we would be able to sort out what is appropriate in the relations that cause living problems, otherwise the view is a dead straight line of seek and kill, observe and surmount.=a constant and easily taken turning towards the leftside of nature and ourselves. We are half way along a path of self annihilation= a better perspective, awareness lends awareness and inhibition, loss of interest in what once might have drawn inappropriate curiosity. Focus in consciousness studies should always be from a medical and healing perspective and with a perspective to know what trails to pursue ,they do not always follow logic, all of natures defects and sufferings are not amenable to scientific curiosity, cures non disruptive to the total depend on how problems emerged, in analogy untying a knot depends more on knowledge of the loose ends and where they lead than the unraveling each of connected knots=some may turn out not to have as many surfaces in the twines as they appear and remedies may cause more disturbance in total that comes about from contrast with the sure path of nature to force collisions and subsequent increased trouble and failure from an imposed changes in total surfaces and volumes. A doctor may consider such thing in the treatment of a patient what to overlook to consider sources unknowns , to tailor his treatments to a necessary minimal from the acquired wisdoms of his learned skill, but a scientist may have no such learned wisdoms to apply, especially in the wake of non matured concepts preceding and guiding his endeavors, wherein ordinary common sense and life lesson yield in a science fiction like manner to the mysterious. Whether a mass activity for the accumulation of knowledge, or the activity of a single individual one should direct his focus as if the topic were himself, whether the patient is others empty space, imbiciles, zombie animals etc. especially when one can hardly define much less contain a topic conceptually. Some questions can be answered in advance with only philosophical considerations for the better allocation of energies, for a real betterment in general. A confusing point in consciousness is an appropriate awareness itself that must be present from the outset, of ones spaces personal spaces , a concept of space/volume itself the construction unit of all, feelings,senses thought etc, that it is a universal, a universal concept, a unity, as uniqueness defines the framework of self
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As an amateur, but an affectionate one to the field, I would pass on to Esther a number of books that I have enjoyed.
First off, there is Nicholas Humphrey’s 1992 book, “A History of the Mind”, which is subtitled “Evolution and the Birth of Consciousness”. The book is marvelously approachable, and Humphrey’s illustrations are a delight.
Next, I would suggest Stuart Kauffman’s 2000 book “Investigations”. Here, Kauffman proposes two ideas. First, he defines an autonomous agent as “a self-reproducing system able to perform at least one thermodynamic work cycle”. He then goes on to state that “I suspect that biospheres maximize the average secular construction of the diversity of autonomous agents and the ways those agents can make a living to propagate further”. Emergence is a recurring theme.
Finally, I would suggest a trio of books by Antonio Damasio. First is “Descartes’ Error”, in which he opines that “I feel, therefore I am” is the true understanding of the human condition. Rationality only comes from the brain as receptor of feelings, and when this is interfered with, rationality is impaired. The second book is “The Feeling of What Happens”. Finally, consider his third book, “Looking for Spinoza”, in which he discusses “Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain”.
Best Wishes for a successful hunt.
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