Neuroscience and
Consciousness:
Biology
&
Beyond
Outline
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What is it like to be a bat?
Philosophical positions
What is consciousness
Hard problem of consciousness
Easy problem—and solutions
Neuroscience perspectives
• Limitations of neuroscience
• Alternate views
What is it like to be a bat?(1974)
One of the most famous
articles in all of philosophy!
Can we ever know what it
feels like to be a bat?
Bats are mammals.
Most people agree they have experiences – they are conscious.
But, their consciousness is alien to us:
They “see” by sonar
They fly and hang upside-down
Mostly nocturnal
We might be able to imagine what it would be like for us to live
and behave like a bat.
But we can’t imagine what it is like for a bat to be a bat.
But can we ever know what is would really be like
for the bat?
• “ Consciousness is what makes the
mind-body problem really
intractable”-Nagel
• “ There is something it is like to BE
that organism…something it is like
FOR the organism”….
• “ What is it like from the inside?”
Thomas Nagel
• Consciousness = Subjectivity = “What
it is like to be…”
Bat’s experience is subjective.
Consciousness = having a point of view
Scientific knowledge is objective.
“The view from nowhere.”
Example: lightning
– subjective: looks like a flash of light
– objective: electrical discharge
Can the study of objective science ever reveal the
character of subjective experience?
Is this the same as the problem of other minds?
Not quite.
What is it like to be an eskimo?
What is it like to be Tom Cruise?
Nagel: we can answer these questions fairly well by using our
imagination. But, the answer is accessible to us only because we
base our imagination on our own experiences.
We need the subjective experience of being human to imagine the
experience of others.
Objective science alone could not give us these answers.
Could a Martian learn from objective facts what it is like to be human?
Can Science explain consciousness in
physical terms?
“I have not defined the term 'physical'. Obviously it does not apply just to
what can be described by the concepts of contemporary physics, since we
expect further developments. Some may think there is nothing to prevent
mental phenomena from eventually being recognized as physical in their own
right. But whatever else may be said of the physical, it has to be objective.”
(Nagel, 1974)
Physical facts are objective. Consciousness is subjective.
So consciousness can never be explained by physical facts.
Question: Is this right? Are only objective facts physical? Are the
objective and the subjective irreconcilable?
Is physicalism about mental states wrong?
Nagel: not necessarily
“It would be a mistake to conclude that physicalism must be
false…. It would be truer to say that physicalism is a position
we cannot understand because we do not at present have any
conception of how it might be true.” (Nagel 1974)
Example: our saying “mind is brain” is like a pre-Socratic
philosopher saying: “matter is energy”
“Strangely enough, we may have evidence for the truth of
something we cannot really understand.” (Nagel, 1974)
Related questions
• Perception
Do we perceive directly or indirectly?
Do we "construct“ our world?
• Reduction
Can mental properties be reduced to physical
properties?
• Mental Downward Causation
Do mental acts cause physical events?
Related questions
• Our Cognitive Capacities: Is Thinking Computation?
• The Nature of Consciousness: What are the NCC
(Neural Correlates of Consciousness) ?
• The Qualia Problem: Is There an Explanatory Gap
(Chalmers)?
More questions
- for some other evening
• Free Will
Is our sense of free will an illusion?
• Humans as Self-Responsible Agents
What are the social consequences of the denial of
free will ?
• Neuro-enhancement through cosmetic neurology
Can cognitive enhancement make us happier as
individuals and socially?
• Conceptual Analysis
You are your Synapses-- Joseph LeDoux, The Synaptic Self
Metaphor or Nonsense?
• Philosophy of Language
Representation, Emergence of Meaning
• Philosophy of Mind, Philosophical Psychology
Perception, Thinking, Feeling, Volition, Consciousness,
Intentionality
• Philosophy of Science
Determinism, Causality, Explanation, Reductionism,
Emergentism
INCREASING
SENSORY
FEEL
alerting capacity
pain
vision, hearing
obsession,
worry
touch, smell
embarassment
fear
love
happiness
loneliness
thought,
memory
richness
vestibular
sense
driving
proprioception
corporality
What Is the Mind?
• Greek and European Philosophical Understanding:
• Because Aristotelian empiricism (as a mode of enquiry) is
limited in its ability to explore and understand first-person
phenomena (which is often also paradoxical by nature)
many scientists mistakenly conclude that these
phenomena simply cannot be understood at all (Batchelor,
1997; Wallace, 2000; Wallace, 2003; Ekman et al, 2005)
• The creation of a taboo of subjectivity
What Is Mind--European Philosophy
• Scientific materialism: the tendency to reify science as the
only valid mode of inquiry for obtaining information about
reality
• Exemplifying Scientific Materialism, Alfred Ayer in his 1936
treatise Language, Truth and Logic:
We conclude, therefore, that the argument from religious experience is
altogether fallacious. The fact that people have religious experiences is
interesting from the psychological point of view, but it does not in any
way imply that there is such a thing as religious knowledge, any more
than our having moral experiences implies that there is such a thing as
moral knowledge. The theist, like the moralist, may believe that his
experiences are cognitive experiences, but, unless he can formulate his
"knowledge" in propositions that are empirically verifiable, we may be
sure that he is deceiving himself.
“It follows that these philosophers who fill their books with assertions
that they intuitively "know" this or that moral or religious "truth" are
merely providing material for the psycho-analyst. For no act of
intuition can be said to reveal a truth about any matter of fact unless it
issues in verifiable propositions. And all such propositions are to be
incorporated in the system of empirical propositions which constitutes
science” (pp119-120).
• In one page Ayer dismisses 5,000 years of spiritual,
philosophical and religious insight.
• This attitude set the stage for psychology (as a fledgling
field) to dismiss introspection as a valid mode of
inquiry and to embrace scientific materialism at first in
the form of behaviorism and now in the form of
empiricism
European Philosophical Understanding
– The death of introspection around the turn of the 20th
century
– James and Freud v. Skinner
– As Plutchik (2000) states in Emotions in the Practice of
Psychotherapy:
• Behaviorists held the view that the only truly reliable
objective information obtainable about living creatures
was information about their behavior (and preferably
simple behavior). This attitude lead to a preoccupation
with conditioned responses; emotions, on the other
hand, were considered to be inner states that could not
be reliably observed and were therefore outside the
realm of scientific psychology. (p 40)
Brain/consciousness relation as a case of
mind/brain mutual determination
consciousness
Brain
Body
Mind
Three features of conscious experience
• We feel that we can experience sensations
(Sentience)
• We feel that we can use such sensations to freely
decide our future actions (Agency)
• We feel that sensations are experienced by a ‘Self ‘
and decisions are made by a ‘Self ‘ (Experience of
Self)
Major approaches within the field
of consciousness studies
• Current empirical science is enough
• Requires a radically new approach within
science
• Cannot be studied within empirical science
In Western philosophy, consciousness is
a representation of the world in our brain
Materialism
Brain=Mind=Computer
Mind
Matter
In Eastern philosophy consciousness is connected to a deeper reality
Panpsychism
Mind = Matter
Idealism
Mind
Matter
Descartes believed an immaterial
soul perceived the world in our head
Cartesian Dualism
Mind
Matter
Global Workspace
Simon and(computers)
Newell developed similar
brain/mind computer architectures
Consciousness
Logic
CPU
Memory
Global
Workspace
Top
Down
Data
Inputs
Neuroscientists-- Baars, Edelman/Tononi,
Changeux/Dehaene, Crick/Koch cast
Thalamo-cortical
thalamo-cortical oscillations as
Projections
Global workspace
for consciousness
Consciousness
Cortex
Emotions
Executive
Cortex
Thalamus
Sensory Inputs
Memory
Neuroscientists-- Baars, Edelman/Tononi,
Changeux/Dehaene, Crick/Koch cast
Thalamo-cortical
thalamo-cortical oscillations as
Projections
Global workspace
for consciousness
Consciousness
Cortex
Emotions
Executive
Cortex
Bottom-up, top-down,
hierarchical, based on
sensory inputs, arousal
Thalamus
Sensory Inputs
Memory
But consciousness also internally-generated:
mind wandering, daydreaming, memories, meditation
The Brain's Dark Energy/Default network
Raichle (2006) Science 314: 1249 – 1250, 2006)
defining Consciousness
What is Consciousness?
• “Consciousness poses the most baffling problems in the
science of the mind. There is nothing that we know more
intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing
that is harder to explain.” -Chalmers
• Consciousness is not synonymous with the “mind.” This
confusion has led to the loss of some of itmysteries.
• Throughout history, mysteries that have plagued scientists’
minds have dwindled away and we have lost interest.
Inversely, the mind/body problem continues to grow and
capture our interests.
Consciousness in modern science
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Wakefulness-arousal?
Metacognition? (I know that I know)
Self-awareness?
Mental content?
Qualitative questions?
•What about the consciousness of different animal species?
•What kind of consciousness characterizes dreaming?
Scientific analogy  the concept of energy in physics
Photic-, heat-, magnetic energy. What is energy? A word or an
existing entity. It depends on whether different forms of energy
have common physical essence. Research is in progress…
Forms of Consciousness
AP Photo/ Ricardo Mazalan
Stuart Franklin/ Magnum Photos
Christine Brune
Bill Ling/ Digital Vision/ Getty Images
Consciousness, modern psychologists believe, is
an awareness of ourselves and our environment.
When are you Conscious?
•
•
•
•
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Are you conscious?
Are you conscious when you use the restroom?
Are you conscious when you drive?
Are you conscious when you sleep?
Or dream?
Consciousness is your own private experience.
The colors you perceive in your mind are your property. There is no way to publicly share the
same experience.
• Some monist theories
emphasize just the mental
and believe objects are just
perceptions of the
individual’s mind.
• Problems arise as to how
two human beings can
agree to a physical object
when the object is outside
their mind.
• Materialist monist theories
say that there is only matter
and everything is just a
physical state.
• However, this takes away
from the thought that
humans have control over
their fate and future.
Other possibilities
• Epiphenomenalism: the idea that mental states are
produced by physical events, but have no causal role
to play.
• Physical events cause mental events but in turn,
mental states don’t have any causal effects on the
physical future.
• But then how can we speak about consciousness if
our conscious thoughts don’t have any influence
over our physical outcomes?
Panpsychism:
• The view that mind is fundamental
• All matter has associated mental aspects or
properties; however primitive.
• But then is a rock aware?
• How about it’s contributing atoms?
• Why should there be mental and physical properties
to everything?
Cartesian Dualism
• Substance dualism is a widely known theory. The best-known
form is from Rene Descartes.
• Cartesian dualism was founded by the intention of basing the
philosophy only on firm foundations that were beyond doubt.
• “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes concluded that the
thinking self was immaterial and did not take up space like the
mechanical body.
• This view consisted of two entities – the extended stuff which
bodies are made of and the unextended, thinking stuff of
which minds are made.
• How do they interact?
• Descartes’ solution was through the pineal gland in the center
of the brain.
Dualism—out of fashion
• Few contemporary scientists and philosophers agree that
dualism works.
• Gilbert Ryle argued that when we talk of the mind as an entity
that does things, we are making a mistake. Instead, he saw
mental activities as processes, or as the properties and
dispositions of people.
• “Minds are simply what brains do.” – Minsky
• The mind carries out the functions of the brain.
• The two notable dualists are Sir Karl Popper and
Neurophysiologist Sir John Eccles who give us a modern
theory of dualist interactionism.
• They argue that the critical processes in the synapses of the
brain are so finely poised that they can be influenced by a
non-physical, thinking and feeling self, thus the self really
controls the brain.
Psychology
• The term psychology popped up in the 18th century to
describe the philosophy of mental life.
• It was towards the 19th century that it became a science.
• William James dismissed the dualist concepts of “mind-stuff.”
• He pointed out that consciousness can be abolished by injury
to the brain, or altered by taking alcohol, opium or other
substances. Certain amounts of brain physiology must be
included in psychology.
• James coined the term “stream of consciousness” to describe
the ever changing flow of thoughts, images and feelings.
• Psychophysics was the study between physical stimuli and
reportable sensations; your outer and inner experiences.
• Ernest Weber and Gustav Fechner studied the relationships
between physical luminance and perceived brightness; weight
and sensations of heaviness; or sound pressure and loudness.
• Hermann von Helmholtz
was a German physicist and
physician.
• Helmholtz made the first
measurement of the speed
of conduction of nerve
signals. Popularly referred
to as the “velocity of
thought.”
• Helmholtz proposed the
idea of “unconscious
inferences” based on
sensory (visual) illusions.
• German philosopher
Edmund Husserl wanted to
focus on “the things
themselves.”
• This was based off of
Brentano's idea that every
subjective experience is an
act of reference.
• Conscious experiences are
about objects or events,
while physical objects are
not about anything.
Introspection
• Wilhelm Wundt--studied the subjective experience by
introspection.
• He wanted to be able to build a psychology based on studying
from the inside.
• Wundt claimed that there are two kinds of “psychical
elements”: the objective elements, or sensations such as
tones, heat or light; and the subjective elements or simple
feelings.
• Every conscious experience depended on a union of these
two.
• Introspection fell out of favor because one person’s claim to
an experience can be quite different form another person’s
experience. There was no agreement.
Behaviorism
• Behaviorism became popular because this branch could be
measured much more reliably.
• John B. Watson argued that psychology did not need the
methods of introspection and indeed could do without the
concept of consciousness altogether.
• Many of Watson’s ideas are built on the ground works of Ivan
Pavlov, whose works included the study of reflexes and
classical conditioning.
• Skinner’s studies of rats and pigeons shaped the history of
reinforcements.
• These new findings led to a period of abolishing
consciousness. Behaviorism's success led to the avoidance of
“consciousness.”
Cognitive Psychology
• As the popularity of behaviorism was fading, cognitive
psychology came into play.
• However, consciousness was still discarded. It was not
welcome in psychology because of the looseness of the
term.
• In different sentences, consciousness conveyed completely
different things.
• As we have more information from research on mental
imagery, altered states of consciousness such as sleep and
drug-induced states, hypnosis, computer science,
consciousness began creeping back into our vocabulary.
• Consciousness is one that remains as much a mystery as it
has throughout history.
Qualia
• Private qualities. You only experience it, privately, incapable of
being expressed because only you experience it in your own
way.
• A quale is what something is like…our conscious experience
consists of qualia.
• Now the problem becomes : “How are qualia related to the
physical world, or how an objective physical brain can produce
subjective qualia”
The problem with qualia…
They do not have physical properties that can be measured
Are qualia something separate from the brain?
Do qualia make any difference?
Does a quale contain information above and beyond the neural
information it depends on?
This is where Mary can help us out……
Mary - the Color
Scientist
•Lives in far far future, when everything
there is to know about the physical
processes in the brain and how they produce
behavior is known.
•Knows absolutely everything about : color
perception, the optics of the eye, the
properties of colored objects in the world,
the processing of color in the visual system,
etc.
•BUT she has been brought up all her life in a
black and white room, observing the world
through a b/w TV monitor…
•She has never seen any colors at all
• Suddenly she is let out of her black and
white room and sees colors for the first
time….
What happens?
Will she just shrug and say,
“That’s red, that’s green,
nothing new of course”?
Will she gasp with
amazement and say “WowI never realized red would
look like that!”
Cartesian Theater
For Descartes, consciousness like a play on stage
The Cartesian Theater
Consciousness
Lighting
Actors
Stage
Irony
Props
Script
Story
Costumes
Dualist believe that
qualia are part of a
separate mental
world from physical
objects
Idealists
believe that
everything is
ultimately
qualia
Epiphenomenalists believe that qualia exist but have no casual properties
No doubt about one thing: We seem to do some things
consciously and others unconsciously.
•
Divide actions into five types:
1.
Are always unconscious
i.e. I can wiggle my toes or sing a song, but I cannot consciously grow my hair
2.
Some actions that are normally carried out unconsciously can be brought back under conscious
control by giving feedback of their effects, or “biofeedback”
i.e. We may unconsciously open the door, but we have no idea all the muscle power it takes
to do so. The whole action seems to be done consciously, while the details remain unconscious.
3.
Many skilled actions are initially learned with much conscious effort
i.e. You probably first learned to ride a bicycle with the utmost conscious concentration... but
the it becomes automatic. Can be counter-productive: get off your bike and you might find that
you cannot even walk normally.
4.
Many such skilled actions, once well learned, can be done either way.
i.e. Classic example: driving a car. Every driver must have had the experience of arriving at a
familiar destination without apparently having been conscious of the journey. Scary part:
potentially life-threatening decisions being made correctly without, apparently, any conscious
awareness.
5.
Some actions seem always to be done consciously
I.e. When we have to make a difficult moral decision, we seem to be far more conscious than
when deciding what clothes to put on. Tempting: To say that these kinds of thinking or
decisions require consciousness.
Consciousness: modern approaches
• Phenomenal consciousness
is experience itself
"I am conscious."
• Access consciousness is the
processing of the things in
experience
"I am conscious of these
words."
Consciousness Tests
• Turing Test
• Mirror Test
• Delay Test
Cognitive neuroscience approaches
• Psychological statistical
studies
• Case studies of consciousness
states and the deficits that
disrupt the normal
functioning of human senses
and cognition.
Brain bases of Consciousness
• Neural correlate of a content
of experience
• Neuroscience hypothesizes that
consciousness is generated by the
interoperation of various parts of
the brain.
Is there a hard problem?
How do we find the solution?
A Hard Problem
• Are all organisms conscious?
• If not, what’s the difference between those
that are and those that are not?
– Complexity?
– Language?
– Some peculiar type of memory?
– All of these?
Why the problem is hard
“You can look into your mind until
you burst, and you will not
discover neurons and synapses
and all the rest; and you can stare
at someone’s brain from dawn till
dusk and you will not perceive
the consciousness that is so
apparent to the person whose
brain you are so rudely eyeballing.“ (McGinn, 1999)
Approaches to the hard problem
1) Declare that it is insoluble, because
a) dualism is true – dualists; or
b) we don’t have the mental capacity to understand it – the
“New Mysterians”, e.g. Nagel, Colin McGinn
Quote from Colin McGinn:
“consciousness is indeed a deep mystery. . . . The reason for this
mystery, I maintain, is that our intelligence is wrongly
designed for understanding consciousness.” (McGinn, 1999)
A Hard Problem
• Really what we’re asking is:
What is it about our brains that makes us conscious?
1. The hard problem is insoluble
• The problem of subjectivity is
hopeless – Nagel
• Our human kind of
intelligence is wrongly
designed for understanding
consciousness –Colin McGinn
• Our own awareness is ‘the
ultimate tease…forever
beyond our conceptual grasp’
–Steven Pinker
2. Solve it with drastic measures
• Rethink all that we know
about the universe
• We can only understand
consciousness when we
have a new theory of
information
• Fundamental rethink of he
nature of the universe is a
MUST !
3. Tackle the easy problems
• Tackle the easy problems first
and eventually we’ll pump
into the answer (about
attention, learning, memory
or perception).
• Why? We need to start with
something reasonably
tractable such as visual
binding.
• Those who work on the easy
problems, come close to
arguing that there is no
separate hard problem.
4. There is no hard problem
Ignore the problem…for now
Start with the easy problems
Solutions to the easy problems
will change our understanding of
the hard problem, so trying to
solve the problem now is
premature.
A solution to the hard problem
would only be of use if we could
recognize it as such, and for the
moment the problem is not well
enough understood.
Easy problem
• Neuroscientists have deferred some of the
difficulties of that problem by focusing on a
subtly different one:
What are the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC)
• What neural processes are distinctly associated
with consciousness?
– That is still a pretty hard problem!
The neural correlates of consciousness (NCC)
How can this gray, wrinkly physical lump of stuff be the seat of
consciousness?
Neural correlates
Thalamocortical Loops
Neuronal Groups
Somatic Markers
Synchronous Oscillations
Membrane Channels
Frontal-Sensory loops
Information Integration
(R. Llinas’, 2002)
(J. Edelman, 1987)
(A. Damasio, 1999)
(W. Singer, 2003)
(H. Flohrs, 2000)
(C. Koch, 2004)
(G. Tononi, 2004)
Pick a favorite mechanism and ask why that should make a
physical process conscious?
This is a simple restatement of the “hard problem.”
Searching for the NCC
• When a visual stimulus appears:
– Visual neurons tuned to aspects of that stimulus fire
action potentials (single unit recording)
– Ensemble depolarizations of pyramidal cells in various
parts of visual cortex (and elsewhere) (ERP, MEG)
– Increased metabolic demand ensues in various parts
of the visual cortex (and elsewhere) (fMRI, PET)
– A conscious visual even occurs
Searching for the NCC
• We can measure all sorts of neural correlates of
these processes…so we can see the neural
correlates of consciousness right?
• So what’s the problem?
• Not all of that neural activity “causes”
consciousness
• We will explore some situations in which neural
activity is dissociated from awareness
Short Break
Standpoints
• The cog. neuroscience of consciousness aims at
– determining whether there is a systematic form of
information processing and a reproducible class of neuronal
activation patterns that systematically distinguish
conscious states from other mental states.
• Subjective reports are the key phenomena that a cognitive
neuroscience of consciousness purport to study.
– It may be wrong, ex: Hallucination
 Brain-imaging method
• The tools of cognitive neuroscience may suffice to analyze
consciousness.
Cognitive processing is possible
without consciousness
• Blindsight phenomenon
• Perceptual level
– Prosopagnosic patient
– ERP: shorter P300 for the familiar faces
• Semantic level
– Neglect patient
– Picture-word priming task
– the same amount of semantic priming from both
hemifields.
Cognitive processing is possible
without consciousness
• Normal subjects
– Priming experiments
– Masked priming
• Brain-imaging studies
– Whalen et al. (1998)
– passively looking at emotionally neutral faces
– Masked faces: neutral vs. expression of fear
– Amygdala
Inattentional Blindness
Daniel Simons, University of Illinois
Inattentional blindness refers to the inability
to see an object or a person in our midst.
Simons & Chabris (1999) showed that half of
the observers failed to see the gorilla-suited
assistant in a ball passing game.
Change Blindness
Change blindness is a form of inattentional
blindness in which two-thirds of individuals
giving directions failed to notice a change in the
individual asking for directions.
© 1998 Psychonomic Society Inc. Image provided courtesy of Daniel J. Simmons.
Searching for the NCC
• What is needed is a situation in which a
perceiver’s state can alternate between aware
and unaware in ways that we can correlate
with neural events
• One such situation is called Binocular Rivalry
Rivalrous Images
• A rivalrous image is one
that switches between
two mutually exclusive
percepts
Binocular Rivalry
• What would happen if each eye receives
incompatible input?
Left Eye
Right Eye
Binocular Rivalry
• What would happen if each eye receives
incompatible input?
• The percept is not usually the amalgamation
of the two images. Instead the images are
often rivalrous.
– Percept switches between the two possible
images
Binocular Rivalry
• Rivalry does not entail suppression of one eye and dominance of another
– it is based on parts of objects:
Stimuli:
Left Eye
Percept:
Right Eye
Or
Neural Correlates of Rivalry
• What Brain areas “experience” rivalry?
• Clever fMRI experiment by Tong et al. (1998)
– Exploit preferential responses by different regions
– Present faces to one eye and buildings to the
other
Neural Correlates of Rivalry
• What Brain areas “experience” rivalry?
• Apparently activity in areas in ventral pathway
correlates with awareness
• But at what stage is rivalry first manifested?
• For the answer we need to look to single-cell
recording
Neural Correlates of Rivalry
• Neurophysiology of Rivalry
– Monkey is trained to indicate
which of two images it is perceiving
(by pressing a lever)
– One stimulus contains features to
which a given recorded neuron is
“tuned”, the other does not
– What happens to neurons when
their preferred stimulus is present
but suppressed?
Neural Correlates of Rivalry
• The theory is that Neurons in the LGN mediate
Rivalry
Neural Correlates of Rivalry
• The theory is that Neurons in the LGN mediate
Rivalry
• NO – cells in LGN respond similarly regardless
of whether their input is suppressed or
dominant
Neural Correlates of Rivalry
• V1? V4? V5?
• YES – cells in primary and early extra-striate
cortex respond with more action potentials
when their preferred stimulus is dominant
relative to when it is suppressed
• However,
– Changes are small
– Cells never stop firing altogether
Neural Correlates of Rivalry
• Inferior Temporal Cortex (Ventral Pathway)?
• YES – cells in IT are strongly correlated with
percept
Neural Mechanisms of Consciousness?
• So how far does that get us?
• Not all that far – we still don’t know what is the mechanism
that causes consciousness
• But we do know that it is probably distributed rather than at
one locus
• Thus the question is: what is special about the activity of
networks of neurons that gives rise to consciousness?
Neural substrates of the mechanisms
of consciousness
• The cognitive neuroscience literature contains
numerous illustrations of these principles, and
many of them point to prefrontal cortex (PFC)
and anterior cingulate (AC) as playing a
crucial role in the conscious workspace.
• Brian image of conscious effort
– Raichle et al. (1994)
– Verbal generation task
– PFC & AC
• Initial task performance: activated
• Automatized: vanished
• Novel items were presented: recovered
• Contrasting conscious & unconscious
subjects
– McIntosh et al. (1999)
– Left PFC
• Binocular rivalry
– Tong et al. (1998)
– infero-temporal (IT) cortex
Anatomy and neurophysiology of
the conscious workspace
• Workplace framework
– Many modular cerebral networks
– Mobilized by top-down attentional amplification
– Self-sustained loop of activation
– Long-distance connectivity
– Distributed throughout the brain
• PFC & AC
Manipulations of visual awareness
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
When TMS is applied over early visual
areas, there are two primary
perceptual consequences.
One, when people have their eyes
closed they tend to experience a weak
flash of light, a phosphene. This is
attributed to the activation of visual
neurons due to the electrical
stimulation.
The second consequence is that you
can experience a visual hole or
momentary blind spot -- a transient
Blackmore
Kolb
Kolb
Creating Unconsciousness
123
324
523
654
T
I
M
E
ABY
234
543
123
+/- 80 to 100 ms after a stimulus, a TMS pulse
over V1 can make you unconscious
765
Amassian et al., 1989
You in Your Body
Out-of-Body
Experience
Blanke et al, Nature,
2002
Consciousness
and connectivity
TMS + EEG:
When conscious, the effect of a
TMS pulse spreads much further:
The brain is ‘more connected’!
Massimini et al., Science, 2005
TMS: summary
• TMS CAN manipulate consciousness
• Thus it CAN teach us about the locations and
timing of conscious processing
• Early visual cortex is important around 100
ms.
• Probably a kind of feedback signal is arriving
by that time
Information Integration Theory
• Consciousness =
– The amount of information integrated
Φ
• Observations:
– Our conscious percept is unified (one)
– Our conscious percept is differentiated (many possible percepts)
• A system that is conscious consists of many “nodes” with
complex connections between them
– Notice:
this system is not necessarily a brain, although our brain is one such
system
Tononi PMC 2003
Information Integration Theory
• You versus a photodiode
– Not enough possible states (too little information)
• You versus a digital camera (1 Megapixel)
– Independent nodes (too little integration)
Tononi PMC 2003
Information Integration Theory
• The more complexity,
the more information
integration,
the more consciousness
Complexity
Information
Integration
Tononi PMC 2003
Information Integration Theory
• IIT allows quantification of
consciousness
• (compare “b” to “a”: it’s not only
about the number of connections)
• So what about the brain?
Tononi PMC 2003
Information Integration Theory
•
The brain consists of many many
many many many many many many
many many many many many many
nodes
•
Over time, the effective connections
change
•
The most complex whole of
connected nodes at any given time
is the main complex
•
A dynamic core consists of the
thalamus and certain cortical
regions – that as a whole interact
more among the nodes in this core
than with the rest of the brain
•
The main complex or dynamic core
are consciousness
Tononi PMC 2003
Information Integration Theory
Summary:
– A conscious system needs both strong differentiation and strong integration
– A dynamic core of nodes in the brain forms consciousness at any point in time
(changing)
Cognition
Evidence:
Biology
(predictions)
– The brain should be in a more complex, integrated state during consciousness than
during unconsciousness (e.g. sleep)
– Regions implicated in consciousness should be highly connected to other parts of the
brain (e.g. prefrontal, thalamus)
– Any complex system should, in principle, be conscious if enough information integration
occurs (e.g. future robots)
Tononi PMC 2003
Information Integration Theory
• Evidence from simultaneous TMS/EEG:
• A TMS pulse spreads further during wakefulness than during NREM sleep
• REM sleep (dreaming) resembles wakefulness
More integration during consciousness than non-consciousness!
Massimini et al., 2005 Science
SOME BASIC DATA ON THE BASIC FORMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS:
70 years of human life
47 years of
wakefulness
23 years of sleep
17 years of
NREM sleep
6 years of REM
sleep
Different states of consciousness characterize different sleep-waking states.
Let’s consider the “unconscious state”.
Prior to surgery, a patient undergoes anesthesia, going from a
conscious state to an unconscious state.
What is biological mechanism behind this effect?
Hans Flohr (German neuroscientist) observes that the normal
functioning NMDA synapse is necessary for consciousness.
Anesthetics abolish consciousness by interfering with the
functioning of NMDA receptors.
Conclusion: The NCC is the functioning NMDA synapses and
the cell assemblies they support.
But is it really that straightforward?
Three fundamental empirical findings
on consciousness
• Cognitive processing is possible without
consciousness
• Attention is a prerequisite of consciousness
• Consciousness is required for specific mental
operations
input?
SLEEP
output
behavior
processing
output
Dreaming
Dream report
stimuli
input
stimuli
STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS, ENVIRONMENTAL STIMULI AND CONSCIOUS
EXPERIENCES
WAKEFUL CONSCIOUSNESS, WAKEFULNESS, MENTAL CONTENT
Cerebral cortex
Brain lesions:
Mental
contents
thalamus
Wakefulnesslike coma (after
thalamic lesion)
Midbrain
reticular
formation
hypothalamus
Pontine
reticular
formation
Medullary
reticular
formation
awareness
Sleep-like coma
(after the lesion
of the brain
stem reticular
activating
system)
The arousal dimension of consciousness is determined by the ascending brain stem reticular formation, while the
content of awareness is a result of thalamocortical interactions. As thalamic activity largely depends on brain stem
activation influences (see the brain stem inputs of the thalamus), some level of arousal is an indispensable condition of
40 Hz magnetoencephalographic oscillations and consciousness
Llinas R, Ribary U. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1993; 90:2078-81.
CONSCIOUS PERCEPTION AND
GAMMA EEG
200 ms
200 ms
SYNCHRONIZATION
When perceived the mild
somatosensory stimuli provoke
gamma EEG (35-45 Hz)
synchronization. Lack of
conscious perception is
characterized by a smaller
gamma synchronization.
Meador et al Neurology 2002; 59:847-54.
Wakefulness, sleep and other states: brain activity
wakefulness – sleep
A
propofol anaesthesia
B
coma
C
lateral view
Lateral view
Medial view
Medial view
Medial view
Gusnard DA, Raichle ME. Nat Rev Neurosci 2001; 2:685-94.
Cerebral blood flow during REM sleep
Significantly activation during REM sleep as
compared to the collapsed data of NREM sleep and
wakefulness: pons, thalamus, amygdala, anterior
cingulate, right parietal operculum. Maquet et al,
Nature 383:163-166 (1996).
SCHEMATIC REVIEW OF
THE CURRENT FINDINGS
REGARDING CEREBRAL
ACTIVITY DURING REM
SLEEP
- Decreased activity
- Increased activity
Schwartz S, Maquet P. Trends Cogn Sci 2002; 6:23-30
AMYGDALA AND REM SLEEP
Blood flow of the left (a) and right (b)
amygdala correlates positively with left
and right temporal cortical blood flow
during REM sleep (red points), but such
correlation was not observed during
wakefulness and NREM sleep (green
points). This relationships suggest that the
amygdala could play a major role in the
modulation of cortical activity during REM
sleep. Thus, emotional processes
supported by the amygdala might
determine the selection of dream
content.
- REM sleep
- NREM sleep and wakefulness
Maquet P, Franck G. Mol Psychiatry 1997; 2:195-6.
Maquet P. HFSP, Strasbourg, 2000;86-93.
Ventral
view
M
P
REM sleep
and brain
activity: an
overview
F
F
A
T-O
PH
Lateral view
T-O
PC
AC
PC
B
Th
PT
A, H
Medial view
O
Cortical areas: M – motor, P – parietal,
F – frontal, T-O – temporo-occipital, PC –
precuneus, AC – anterior cingulate, PC – posterior cingulate, O – occipital, PH – parahippocampal; subcortical areas: Th – thalamus, B –
basal forebrain, PT – pontine tegmentum, A –
amygdala, H - hypothalamus
increased blood flow
decreased blood flow
wakefulness
NREM
1s
2
Cholinergic influence
Cholinergic influence
Aminergic influence
REM
100 µV
1
EEG EOG EMG x 5
sleep
3
4
Noradrenergic
and serotoninergic
pathways
Cholinergic
pathways
Sensation and
perception
Thought
Movement
Vivid, externally generated
Dull or absent
Vivid, internally generated
Logical, progressive
Logical, perseverative
Illogical, bizarre
Continuous, voluntary
Episodic, involuntary
Commanded but inhibited
Disorders of consciousness
Laureys et al, Lancet Neurol, 2004
www.comascience.org
AWARENESS
NORMAL
CONSCIOUSNESS
AROUSAL
AWARENESS
MINIMALLY
CONSCIOUS
STATE
AROUSAL
AWARENESS
AROUSAL
VEGETATIVE
STATE
AWARENESS
AROUSAL
COMA
Misdiagnosis
n=103 post-comatose patients
44 had clinical consensus diagnosis of “vegetative state”
18 (41%) were actually conscious
Schnakers et al, BMC Neurol, 2009
www.comascience.org
disorders of consciousness | behavioural evaluation | electrophysiology | neuroimaging | methods, ethics & quality of life | perspectives
Nociceptive Perception
(n=15)
(n=5)
Boly et al, Lancet Neurology, 2008
www.comascience.org
disorders of consciousness | behavioural evaluation | electrophysiology | neuroimaging | methods, ethics & quality of life | perspectives
Active fMRI paradigm
Owen, Coleman, Boly et al, Science, 2006
www.comascience.org
Misdiagnosis: fMRI vs. Behav
- Vigilance?
- Compliance?
7/22
5/16
2/22
Coleman et al., Brain, 2009
14/16
The ‘first-personal’ nature of
consciousness
• Searle: the phenomena and reality of consciousness
is irreducibly ‘first-personal’, known from the ‘inside’
• Conscious states are only available (as conscious) to
the person whose states they are
• Functional analysis is ‘third-personal’, from the
‘outside’, which is why it misses the subjective
perspective
Biological naturalism
• Consciousness is a biological
property, a ‘systemic’ property of
the (working) brain
• Systemic properties are properties
of a whole system not possessed
by its parts, e.g. liquidity,
transparency
– In these two cases, we can
explain the systemic property
in terms of molecular
arrangements
Biological naturalism
• Neurons aren’t
conscious, but some
brain processes, as a
whole, are conscious
– Consciousness is
caused by neuronal
processes
• So consciousness is a
natural, biological
property
Objection
• We can give scientific questions of why liquids are
liquid, why glass is transparent
• But the first-personal nature of consciousness
prevents us giving a scientific (third-personal)
explanation; so consciousness is not a physical
property (an argument for property dualism)
Searle on reduction
• With the molecular explanation of liquidity, we redefine
liquidity as a particular arrangement of molecules
(ontological reduction)
• We could do the same with consciousness, but we don’t,
because it would miss out the first-personal aspect of
consciousness
• But this doesn’t show consciousness isn’t physical - we
have already explained that it is a systemic property of
the brain
• The unwillingness to reduce is pragmatic, not
metaphysical
When are two things really one thing?
• With liquidity, the explanation also shows why, given
how molecules interact, the substance must be
liquid; so we can’t think of the two as separate
• Nagel: we can’t imagine an explanation that would
show why neuronal activity has to produce
consciousness; so it is natural to suppose that
consciousness is something more than just neuronal
activity
Searle’s response
• Neuroscience might yet produce such an
explanation
– But how can any third-personal explanation
account for first-personal phenomena?
• Scientific theories don’t always show why
something must be the case, e.g. e=mc2
1. The Presumption of Materialism.
• Many scientists today presume materialism
will provide the right answers prior to
investigating the facts.
• Are they open to following the evidence
wherever it leads?
Why is philosophy important?
“If anything extraordinary seems to have
happened, we can always say that we have been
the victims of an illusion…. What we learn from
experience depends on the kind of philosophy
we bring to experience.”
--C. S. Lewis, Miracles, 2nd Edition (New York: Macmillan, 1978), 3.
The failure of materialism to account for the
mind.
Materialists claim that the mind reduces to the brain.
However, they face major difficulties.
The “hard problem” of consciousness:
All neuroscientific descriptions of the brain are in
the third person, yet consciousness is characterized
by a first person experience---what it is like to be in
pain, afraid, in love, etc.
What do the best philosophers think?
• “The most striking feature is how much of
mainstream [materialistic] philosophy of mind is
obviously false….[I]n the philosophy of mind, obvious
facts about the mental, such as that we all really do
have subjective conscious mental states…are
routinely denied by many…of the advanced thinkers
in the subject.”
-- John Searle, The Rediscovery of Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1992), 3.
Subjectivity is something new.
• “No explanation given wholly on physical terms can
ever account for the emergence of conscious
experience.”--David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1996), 93.
• “It is not that we know what would explain
consciousness but are having trouble finding the
evidence to select one explanation over the others;
rather, we have no idea what an explanation of
consciousness would even look like.”--Colin McGinn, The
Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World (New York: Basic
Books, 1999), 61.
Materialism in Critical Condition.
• “We don’t know… how a brain (or anything
else that is physical) could manage to be a
locus of conscious experience. This last is,
surely, among the ultimate metaphysical
mysteries; don’t bet on anyone ever solving
it.”
--Jerry Fodor, In Critical Condition: Polemical Essays on
Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1998), 83.
• “if mental phenomena are in fact nothing
more than emergent properties and functions
of the brain, their relation to the brain is
fundamentally unlike every other emergent
property and function in nature.” --B. Allan Wallace,
The Taboo of Subjectivity: Toward a New Science of Consciousness (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000), 136.
• No other emergent property (e.g. liquidity)
has subjectivity.
Is consciousness reducible to matter?
“Nowhere in the laws of physics or in the laws of
the derivative sciences, chemistry and biology, is
there any reference to consciousness or mind.”
--John Eccles and Daniel Robinson, The Wonder of Being Human: Our Brain
and Our Mind (New York: Free Press, 1984), 37.
Do neuroscientists need consciousness?
• If they’re going to operate, I hope so…
“The whole foundation of my experimental studies of
the physiology of conscious experience . . . was that
externally observable and manipulable brain processes
and the related reportable subjective introspective
experiences must be studied simultaneously, as
independent categories, to understand their
relationship.”
--Benjamin Libet, in The Volitional Brain: Towards a Neuroscience of Free
Will, ed. Anthony Freeman, Keith Sutherland, and Benjamin Libet (Exeter,
England: Imprint Academic, 2000), 55.
Is consciousness localizable?
• “No single brain area is active when we are
conscious and idle when we are not. Nor does
a specific level of activity in neurons signify
that we are conscious. Nor is there a
chemistry in neurons that always indicates
consciousness.”
--Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary, The Spiritual Brain: A
Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul (New York:
HarperCollins, 2007), 109.
Mind-Body interaction
• Materialists point out that brain damage
affects the mind (bottom-up causation).
• This does not show that the mind reduces to
the brain: compare dropping a phone when
someone is speaking. The phone does not
generate the voice, it transmits it.
• The brain is necessary to transmit thoughts. It
does not follow it generates them.
Correlation is not identity.
• Water comes from pipes (correlation).
• If the water pipes are damaged, there is less
or no water.
• Yet the pipes do not generate water. Water is
not identical to a property of the pipes.
• The pipes are conduits of water.
• Likewise the brain is a conduit of
consciousness.
Top-Down Causation.
• The mind cannot be the same as the brain,
because the mind ALSO has a top-down causal
influence on the brain (cognitive therapies
exploiting neuroplasticity) and the immune
system (psychoneuroimmunology).
Cognitive Therapy for Neural Disorders
• “willful, mindful effort can alter brain
function, and...such self-directed brain
changes—neuroplasticity—are a genuine
reality... In other words, the arrow of
causation relating brain and mind must be
bidirectional.”
--Jeff Schwartz, The Mind and the Brain, 94-95.
The mind changed the brain
• “PET scans after treatment showed significantly
diminished metabolic activity in both the right and
left caudate... There was also a significant decrease
in the abnormally high, and pathological, correlations
among activities in the caudate, the orbital frontal
cortex, and the thalamus in the right
hemisphere....[T]herapy had altered the metabolism
of the OCD circuit. Our patient’s brain lock had been
broken.”
--Jeff Schwartz, The Mind and the Brain, 89-90.
The Placebo effect
• A placebo is: “any treatment—including drugs,
surgery, psychotherapy and quack therapy—
used for its ameliorative effect on a symptom
or disease but that is actually [physically]
ineffective or not specifically effective for the
condition being treated.”
---A. K. and E. Shapiro, The Powerful Placebo: From Ancient Priest to Modern
Physician (Baltimore: MD: Johns Hopkins University, 1997), cited in Mario
Beauregard, “Mind does really matter,” 10.
Does it work?
• “The placebo effect depends on a patient’s trust in the
physician. I’ve become convinced that this relationship is
more important, in the long run, than any medicine or
procedure. Psychiatrist Jerome Frank of Johns Hopkins
University found evidence for this belief in a study of ninetyeight patients who had surgery for detached retinas. Frank
assessed the subjects’ independence, optimism, and faith in
their doctors before the operations, and found that those
with a high level of trust healed faster than the others.”
--Bernie S. Siegel, M.D., Love, Medicine and Miracles: Lessons Learned About SelfHealing From a Surgeon’s Experience with Exceptional Patients (New York: Harper
& Row Publishers, 1986), 37.
Does Hope Help?
• “Drs. Sheldon Greenfield and Sherrie Kaplan of the UCLA
School of Public Health, conducted four separate studies on
the health status of patients with ulcer disease, hypertension,
diabetes, and breast cancer. Drs. Greenfield and Kaplan found
that increased patient control, more expression of affect by
doctor and patient, and greater information provided by the
doctor in response to patient questions, were related to
better patient health status as measured by audiotapes of
office visits, questionnaires, and physiological
measurements.”
---Norman Cousins, Head First: The Biology of Hope (New
York: E. P. Dutton, 1989), 234.
Psychoneuroimmunology (how mental
states influence health)
• A study by Dr. Arthur Stone of the State University of
New York at Stony Brook revealed that:
• “mental stress tasks caused measurable increases in
cardiovascular and psychological stress and
lymphocyte stimulability was significantly lower for
one hour immediately following the stressful tasks.”
---Norman Cousins, Head First, 236.
Cancer Care and Mindfulness Based Stress
Reduction (MBSR).
• A 2004 study explored the affect of MBSR on cancer patients
who are hospitalized for a long time with stem cell /
autologous bone marrow transplants, and found “a
statistically significant decrease in pain...and increases in the
levels of relaxation...happiness...comfort...reduced heart
rate...and respiratory rate.” Other studies have shown
benefits from MBSR in “decreasing anxiety, depression, anger,
demoralization, and symptoms of somatic fatigue in male and
female cancer patients.”
---Mary Jane Ott, Rebecca L. Norris and Susan M. Bauer-Wu, “Mindfulness
Meditation for Oncology Patients: A Discussion and Critical Review,” Integrative
Cancer Therapies 2006; 5; 98, DOI: 10.1177/1534735406288083, p. 106.
Near Death Experiences (NDEs)
• Starting in 1988 a physician, Pim van Lommel did a
study of 344 heart attack survivors who were
temporarily clinically dead. (Clinical death means all
vital signs have ceased: no fibrillation in the heart, no
electrical activity on the cortex of the brain, and no
brain-stem activity.) 18% of the patients reported an
experience from the time they were clinically dead.
--Pim van Lommel, “About the Continuity of Our Consciousness,” in Brain Death
and Disorders of Consciousness, ed. Calixto Machado and D. Alan Shewmon (New
York: Kluwer Academic / Plenum, 2004)
Near Death Experiences (NDEs)
• These experiences include:
• 1) details of the operating room at the time of brain death
that could only be accessed by consciousness;
• 2) dissociation from the body (sometimes seen from above);
• 3) a review of one’s life actions;
• 4) encounter with deceased relatives and friends;
• 5) return to the body;
• 6) disappearance of the fear of death;
• 7) a transformed life showing more concern for others.
---See Beauregard and O’Leary, The Spiritual Brain, 153-166.
Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: are religious
experiences hallucinations?
• Michael Persinger’s “God helmet” results derive from
suggestion. His results were not replicated by Granqvist and
associates at Uppsala University in Sweden.
• Using Single Positron Emission Computed Tomography
(SPECT) scans, Andrew Newberg showed:
“The mind remembers mystical experience with the same
degree of clarity and sense of reality that it bestows upon
memories of ‘real’ past events. The same cannot be said of
hallucinations, delusions or dreams.”
--Andrew Newberg, Eugene D’ Aquili, and Vince Rause, Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain
Science and the Biology of Belief (New York: Ballantine Books, 2001), 113.
All in the “selfish” genes?
• “The fact is, not a single study of personality traits in human
populations successfully disentangles similarity because of
shared family experience and similarity because of genes....
[N]o one has ever measured in any human population the
actual reproductive advantage or disadvantage of any human
behavior. All of the sociobiological explanations of the
evolution of human behavior are like Rudyard Kipling’s Just So
stories of how the camel got his hump and the elephant got
his trunk. They are just stories.”
--Richard Lewontin, Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA (New York: HarperCollins, 1991),
96, 100.
Responses
• Radical emergence:
– Mind emerges from brain
– Even though mind is an ontologically different
type from brain (matter), radical emergence holds
• Worldview probably held by majority of
scientists today
• Want to postpone discussion of consciousness
until “brain problem” is solved
Several Approaches
Radical Emergence
Non-reductive physicalism
Mind,
Culture
Life
Matter
Mind and Culture
Life
Matter
Mystery ingredient X
Idealism
Brahman
Dual-aspect panpsychism
Mind,
Culture
Life
Mind
Life
Matter and Proto-Phenomenal
Matter
Brahman
• But the nature of consciousness is not just a vital question
for science; it’s also the source of some of society’s
thorniest, most fundamental ethical dilemmas.
• On a personal level, consciousness is where the meaning to
life resides. All the moments that matter to us, from falling
in love to seeing our child’s first smile, to that perfect
holiday surrounded by snow-capped mountains, are
obviously conscious events. If none of these events were
conscious, if we weren’t conscious to experience them,
we’d hardly consider ourselves alive—at least not in any
way that matters.
Eccles and dualism
• “Professional philosophers and psychologists think up the
notion that there are no thoughts, come to believe that there
are no beliefs, and feel strongly that there are no feelings.”
• Many scientists concede that there are huge gaps in their
knowledge of how the brain makes consciousness, but they
are certain they will be filled in as science progresses.
• Eccles and philosopher of science, Karl Popper branded this
attitude “promissory materialism.”
• “Promissory materialism is a superstition without a rational
foundation. It is simply a religious belief held by dogmatic
materialists … who confuse their religion with their science. It
has all the features of a messianic prophecy… .”
Mysteries vs. Miracles
• Clarification: McGinn maintains that consciousness is
mysterious, but denies that it is miraculous.
Mystery: a phenomenon that lies beyond the limits
of our understanding.
Miracle: an action of a deity that violates a law of
nature.
1st Question: What is mysterious?
• Question: What is it
exactly about
consciousness that
McGinn regards as
mysterious?
Answer
• What is mysterious is the link or connection between
(a) what goes on in the brain &
(b) what goes on in phenomenal consciousness.
• He does not doubt that brain events are de facto correlated
with conscious events; he even concedes that brain events
cause conscious events (although it is not clear he is entitled
to the latter claim).
• But creatures with our powers of understanding do not and
cannot understand why particular types of brain processes are
necessarily connected with particular types of conscious
experience.
Working with mind and mental states
• Western Perspective:
– In the West, we tend to take an adversarial approach to
our suffering (trying to destroy it, numb it out, deny it or
fix it)
– In the West when we suffer, we think that means
something is wrong, almost as if our life should not include
suffering
– Freud’s radical technique: free association
• Learning to open, look, and analyze our mental experiences
At present, there are over thirty different theories of emotion
in the field of psychology
• Medical model and the pathology model
These do not work well with the goal of understanding and
working with mind
• Positive Psychology
Eastern Perspective:
• Suffering is to be expected, recognized, acknowledged,
accepted, learned from and then transformed
• Is anger a thing to be managed?
• “You will not be punished for your anger, you will be
punished by your anger.” –Buddha
What Are Your Limits and Hooks?
Getting cut off in traffic (we get hooked by our anger)
Helplessness
We come home and our spouse is wrapped up in her day
and is insensitive to our feelings (we now reach our limit)
We tell ourselves stories starring us as the victim or unsung hero
We assign blame and become fundamental and righteous
Emotional
Overwhelm
Anger and victimhood doesn’t
feel good, we are very
uncomfortable, and now we look
for an exit door
What Are Your Exits Doors?
Feeling overwhelmed
with: anger, irritation,
frustration, anxiety,
fear, sadness,
mourning, depression,
grief, shock, etc
Numb Out (drugs, alcohol,
food, sex, TV, Xbox, etc)
Material comforts / We
Crave and Seek (“retail
therapy,” buying bigger
and better things,
splurging)
Anger / Aggression (we yell, condemn and
put others down, quietly intimidate,
threaten, passive-aggressive manipulation,
assault, etc)
What Is Meditation?
•
Meditation is slowing down
•
Meditation is learning to stay
•
Meditation is becoming educated about your
“hooks,” your “limits,” and your “exit doors.”
•
Shamatha cultivates three things: relaxation of
body and mind, mental stabilization
(concentration), and mental vividness
Meditative phenomenology
• Ordinary qualia: Sensation, perception, emotion,
cognition, visualization
• Meditative phenomenology: Hindu and Buddhist
traditions agree on importance of awareness
• Awareness leads to non-ordinary state in which
self/world boundary reconfigured
• Moments of awareness (MoA): evidence of
construction of self or subject
Training your mind
Research on
Meditation and the
Neuroscience of Consciousness
A Neurophenomenological Approach
Neuroscience of Meditation
Relating experience and the brain
Pragmatic correlation
Knowledge (epistemic
objects):
Phenomenology
Self-report
Brain Measure
Black Box of
Reporting
Black Box of
Brain Recording
World, nature (ontology):
Experience
Brain Activity
Principal correlation
Contemplative neuroscience
• More than the neuroscience of meditation.
• Collaborative research with meditators using mental
training to reveal aspects of mind, brain, and self that
might otherwise not be visible to science or ordinary
experience.
Contemplative Neuroscience
x Cognitive neuroscience (neuroscience of
cognition)
x Affective neuroscience (neuroscience of
emotion)
 Computational neuroscience (neuroscience of
neural systems using computational tools)
 Contemplative neuroscience (neuroscience of
consciousness using contemplative insight)
Contemplative Neuroscience
Phenomenology of
Consciousness
Meditative Insight
Neuroscience of
Consciousness
Neuroscience of
Meditation
"You can no longer say that we did not know
Francis Crick Memorial Conference on Consciousness in Human and non-Human Animals,
Churchill College, University of Cambridge
• The Cambridge
Declaration on
Consciousness (July 7, 2012)
• Several animals have some
degree of consciousness.
• admits the existence of
consciousness in all
mammals, birds and other
creatures, like octopus,
Thank you
Fact
Classical Mechanics (CM) was believed to
be correct from the time of Isaac
Newton (Principia, 1687) until ~ 1900.
During the first half of the twentieth
century Classical Mechanics was found
to be incompatible with vast amounts
of empirical data, and it was replaced by
Quantum Mechanics as our basic
physical theory!
Mind-Brain Connection
• The physical correlate of a thought can be a
macroscopic pattern of neurological activity
in the observer’s own brain. (von Neumann)
• Then the patient’s “free choice” of what
thoughts to attend to, and the intensity of
those attentions, can affect the longevity of
the neural correlates of those thoughts.
A Prevalent Misunderstanding.
It is often asserted that Quantum
Mechanics is not relevant to
consciousness, because the neural
correlates of our conscious thoughts are
macroscopic brain processes, and
macroscopic processes are said to be
described by Classical Mechanics.
The Correct Understanding:
• In both classical and quantum mechanics big
things are built out of smaller things. The
underlying dynamics is therefore the
quantum dynamics, which governs the
evolution of the microscopic aspects, and
consequently also the macroscopic aspects,
except at the quantum jumps.
The properties of actual (quantum
mechanical) matter:
Are they counterintuitive?
• McMullin calls the quantum conception of matter
“problematic” and “counter-intuitive.”
• Seth Lloyd calls the quantum mechanical properties of
matter “counter-intuitive” and “weird”.
• Actually, it is the classical properties that are counterintuitive, problematic, and weird.
• The quantum properties are the natural and intuitive
ones.
• They appear weird only when viewed from the
problematic classical standpoint
The Classical-Physics Conception of Matter
is Counter-intuitive and Problematic
• The deepest human intuition is that ones’ own
conscious subjective efforts can influence ones’ own
bodily actions.
• Any conception of nature that claims this deep
intuition to be an illusion is counter-intuitive.
• Any conception of reality that cannot naturally
explain how our bodily actions are caused, at least in
part, by our conscious thoughts, ideas, and feelings is
problematic.
The Classical-Physics Idea of the Nature of the
Physical World is not Innately Intuitive to
Minds Untutored in Classical Physics
• McMullin’s account of the two millennia of
wonderings by philosophers from Thales to Newton
confirm this.
• School children need to be taught that the solidlooking table is “really” mostly empty space, in which
tiny particles are buzzing around.
• The tight causal connectedness of mind and matter is
deeply intuitive: hence
• The classical-physics conception of matter is a
counter-intuitive theoretical construct.
The Rehabilitation of Intuition by Quantum
Mechanics.
• The original Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory was
pragmatic and epistemological: it eschewed ontology; it avoided
commitments about what really exists!
• Von Neumann’s formulation (called “orthodox” by Wigner)
prepared the way for an imbedding ontology.
• The quantum conception of reality is built around “events”.
• Each such event has a physically described aspect and a
psychologically described aspect.
Quantum psycho-physical events are the
building blocks of reality
• Heisenberg: “The probability function does not
in itself represent a course of events in time. It
represents a tendency for events and our
knowledge of events. “(1958. p.46)
• “The observation… enforces the description in
space and time but breaks the determined
continuity by changing our knowledge.”
(ibid, p. 49-50)
Quantum psycho-physical events are
the building blocks of reality, cont.
• “The observation itself…selects of all possible
events the actual one that has taken place.
Since through the observation our knowledge
of the system has changed discontinuously its
mathematical representation has undergone a
discontinuous change and we speak of a
‘quantum jump’.” (ibid. p. 54)
Psycho-physical events are the building
blocks of reality, cont.
• “The transition from the ‘possible’ to the
‘actual’ takes place during the act of
observation. If we want to describe what
happens …we have to realize that the word
‘happens’ can apply only to the observation,
not to the state of affairs between two
observations.” (ibid, p. 54)
Reality is built of psycho-physical events
and objective tendencies
(potentia) for such events to occur.
• “The probability function combines objective and
subjective elements. It contains statements about
possibilities or better tendencies (‘potentia’ in
Aristotelian philosopy), and these statements are
completely objective, they do not depend on any
observer; and it contain statements about our
knowledge of the system, which of course are
subjective, in so far as they may be different for
different observers.
Human Beings as Players
• “As Bohr put it…in the drama of existence we
ourselves are both players and spectators.
…our own activity becomes very important…”
(ibid, p. 58)
• “The probability function can be connected to
reality only if one essential condition is
fulfilled: if a new measurement is made to
determine a certain property of the system.
(ibid, p. 48, my italics)
Human Beings as Players
• Bohr: “The freedom of experimentation
…corresponds to the free choice of experimental
arrangement for which the mathematical structure
of the quantum mechanical formalism offers the
appropriate latitude.” (Bohr, 1958, p.73)
• This “choice on the part of the ‘observer’ ” is
represented in the mathematical formalism by von
Neumann’s “process 1” intervention (von Neumann,
1932/1952, p. 351, 418)