UNiversal Correlates of Consciousness

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Consciousness and Neuroscience area of
specialization or presupposed method?

• Stephen Deiss, sdeiss_at_ucsd.edu
• Neurobiology, Integrated Systems Neuroscience Lab
• November 16, 2008, Society for Neuroscience,
  Washington, DC
• Computation, Modeling, and Simulation I

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Consciousness and Neuroscience area of
specialization or presupposed method?

• Stephen Deiss, sdeiss_at_ucsd.edu
• Outline
• Why Consciousness matters.
• The philosophical Black Hole Myth.
• The Hard Problem.
• The Root of the Problem.
• Defining Consciousness.
• A Critical Memory Experiment.
• A Paradigm Shift Proposal.
• Conscious Systems Theory.
• Constraint Satisfaction and Sync.

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Understanding consciousness matters
because Cant do science without being
conscious. Cant fully explain brains without
consciousness. Cant justify physicalism
without explaining it. Absence of explanation
prolongs ghostly superstitions. Profound social
and clinical implications.
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Caution Laboratory Trip Hazard
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The philosophical black hole myth Career-endin
g (Hence, those who know do not
speak). Opinion-driven vs fact-driven. The
answer is beyond our methods. There is no
explanation un-ask the question. Answers
cannot be tested. Its only a philosophical
problem. Its only an NCC problem Whats the
fuss?
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What is this hard problem anyway? Physical
world only has matter-energy transformations.
Transformative processes involve causal
mechanisms. Causal mechanisms are based upon
predictive laws. (But no scientific
agreement where laws come from.) Laws predict
observable behaviors, but not sensations.
Occamss Razor leaves no place for
consciousness. If consciousness emerges from
some mechanism, that emergence is
epiphenomenal and it is arbitrary.
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What is this hard problem anyway? Physical
world only has matter-energy transformations.
Transformative processes involve causal
mechanisms. Causal mechanisms are based upon
predictive laws. (But no scientific
agreement where laws come from.) Laws predict
observable behaviors, but not sensations.
Occamss Razor leaves no place for
consciousness. If consciousness emerges from
some mechanism, that emergence is
epiphenomenal and it is arbitrary.
One of the most used words in biological
publications and in meetings such as this one.
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Rephrase hard problem in terms of
sensations One might try to simplify the
problem to that of sensations. But brain
mechanisms do not predict sensations a
priori. Neuroscience explains sensations
using mechanisms and then only by assumption
or correlation. Failure is built in by
definition because Machines cannot have
sensations or feelings. A thermostat is a
sensor but without sensations. Emergence via
complexity still seems miraculous.
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The root of the problem, e.g., The
Astonishing Hypothesis is that "You," your joys
and your sorrows, your memories and your
ambitions, your sense of personal identity
and free will, are in fact no more than the
behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and
their associated molecules. As Lewis
Carroll's Alice might have phrased "You're
nothing but a pack of neurons." This
hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most
people today that it can truly be called
astonishing. Francis Crick, 1994
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The Shocking Insight Consciousness seems to
be neither matter nor energy. yet
observation is logically prior to both. It is
not an observable. It is the process by which
all things are inferred. It is the process by
which all laws are inferred. It is the process
by which anything is known., An
elementary natural process?
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Its the Epistemology, Stupid!
A philosophical dirty word regarding how we
know.
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1st Steps toward a Paradigm Shift What do we
mean by explain consciousness? What are
consciousness, meaning and explanation. Clarific
ation results in a recalibration of
perception. Recalibration sets confidence
limits on observation. From that we
will. temper dogmatism about scientific
reality. reinterpret laws as regularities
in phenomena. posit consciousness as
funda-mental in nature.
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Consciousness Studies - the Usual Approach.
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• The search for the NCC
• Neuronal Group Selection (J. Edelman, 1987)
• Thalamocortical Loops (F. Crick, 1994)
• Somatic Markers (A. Damasio, 1999)
• NMDA Channels (H. Flohrs, 2000)
• Thalamocortical Resonance (R. Llinas, 2002)
• Synchronous Oscillations (W. Singer, 2003)
• Frontal-Posterior Loops (C. Koch, 2004)
• Information Integration (G. Tononi, 2004)

Even if we find a good NCC, Correlation is not
causation. NCC do not predict experiences a
priori. Hence Zombies.
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We probably cannot explain what we have not
defined.
ZOMBIE
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Consciousness Defined A constrained process
of sensing contrasts, qualia, and interpreting
and storing their meaning for ongoing and future
behavior (Deiss, 2006) In science the
theoretical interpretation is usually physical or
presumed emergent from fundamental physical
processes. Physicalism is a useful way of
predicting behavior of systems under observation,
not of predicting presence of sentience.
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Consciousness Defined A constrained process
of sensing contrasts, qualia, and interpreting
and storing their meaning for ongoing and future
action (Deiss, 2006)
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Meaning What something means to someone
(symbol, sign, utterances, observation) is all
the expectations and predictions inferred.
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Meaning What something means to someone
(symbol, sign, utterances, observation) is all
the expectations and predictions inferred.
Explanation Exposition of observations
necessary and sufficient to reliably predict
another.
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Defined this way, consciousness broadly
paraphrases what scientific observation and the
core process of science is. It is
operationalized when one observes memory storage
and behavioral aspects of the process. To
operationalize, however, is to go beyond the
data and theorize.
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Perception involves assignment of meaning to
qualitative sensory contrasts using
association-based inferences.
Before perceiving any thing we start from
sensory contrasts here called qualitative
sensations (like qualia). Perceptual
inferences become a reflex habit once
associations are learned. This is close to the
Helmholz notion of unconscious
inference. Inferences can lead sensations via
expectations (inferences that precede and bias
interpretation of data top-down).
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Perception requires assignment of meaning to
qualitative sensations.
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The meaning of sensations is what we perceive
Without qualitative contrast (here black vs
white) nothing is recognized. We fill in
missing details to interpret and perceive based
on the contrasts.
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Sloan Digital Sky Survey
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Sloan Digital Sky Survey
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A monochromatic universe would be invisible
using the worlds best optical telescopes.
Qualia like the redness of red are not useful
alone. There must be contrast between
redness and other colors
separated by an in-formed boundary to
make usable (actionable) information.
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Qualia are not properties of things.
not properties of minds, not properties of
events, not properties of experiences,
not properties Qualia are what we know
directly. Everything else is hypothetical.



.
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An Eliminative Skeptical Paraphrasing of
Crick "You," your joys and your sorrows, your
memories and your ambitions, your sense of
personal identity and free will, as well your
body and brain and the very ground you stand upon
are in fact no more than a story, or generative
model, for explaining current, past and expected
future sensations. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might
have phrased Every thing is nothing but a
network of hypotheses." This fundamental limit
to our factual observational methods is so alien
to most scientists steeped in empiricism and
physicalism today that it can truly be called
enlightening.
The most tough-minded experimentalist is a
theorist in denial.
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To repeat, Its the Epistemology, Stupid!
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Laws of nature are not prescriptions that must
be followed! Regularism is the view that nature
is regular but not governed. Laws are just
generalizations about what systems regularly
do. Throughout nature systems self-organize
under constraints. This is a major issue not
just philosophical hair splitting.
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We generalize from consistent patterns observed
to consistent predictable behavior, and then we
go on to infer laws that govern a real world, a
reality machine that we observe. This creates
deaf and blind (governed) mechanisms out there
that are devoid of sentience, and thus the hard
problem.
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Mechanism Blindness results from... Assuming
there are no sensations in simple systems, and
Assuming there is no experience of any kind
when they evolve and behave, and Assuming there
is no reflection nor decision when they reference
their own state in advancing to the next.
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Self-organizing processes based upon constraint
satisfaction are better general models of
system behavior (living or not). These processes
arbitrate internal state constraints against
environmental constraints to create orchestrated
action and state change (new intrinsic
constraints on behavior). System
Synchronization is a model of complex
self-organization.
?
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Memory formation, sometimes fleeting, (e.g.,
H.M. E.P.) is a key aspect of all systems from
simple to complex. When we sleep we usually
remember little or not for long. Under general
anesthesia (done right) we remember nothing. If
knocked out, we remember nothing (often
retrograde). When doing things automatically,
like driving, we often do not remember scenes,
events nor actions. Memory and consciousness
clearly go together.
41
Gamma (g) is widely recognized as a key player
in perception, attention, memory, and cognition
in general. There seems to be widespread
assumption that all these are mostly explained by
cortical g or thalamo-cortical resonances in the
gamma range. However important g is for the NCC,
it does not get much traction without including
memory changes that can influence future behavior.
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• Hypothesis g precedes sparse network changes via
  STDP accompanied by neuromodulator combinations
  to compose and store new perceptual
  interpretations in working memory required for
  consciousness.
• Critical experiment Can we separate memory from
  g in consciousness? What if we could disrupt
  working memory and see if thalamo-cortical
  resonance or gamma oscillations or consciousness
  persist.
• Consciousness shadows memory (sleep, anesthesia).
• Automatic reactions happen without memory
  (driving).
• Synchronizations without consciousness
  (seizures).
• Gamma can exist without consciousness
  (anesthesia).
• Action decisions precede consciousness of them
  (Libet).
• Ketamine acts on NMDA channels for global
  anesthesia.

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Memory formation can be defined as system state
change that constrains future behavior. All
dynamical systems have it. Systems are defined
by how they change state and behave. State
change is like learning because it affects
behavior. All system behaviors are constrained
by state (inertia) just as human behavior is
constrained by memory and habits. System
behavior and memory-update do not have to
co-occur. State updates can trail behavioral
reactions (a la Libet, 2006). Trailing updates
allow for reflective state updates that include
credit assignment for recent behaviors in the
interpretation.
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The Paradigm Shift This consciousness process
is a universal, self-similar process comprised of
sensing contrasts, self-organizing systematic
state updates and systematic behaviors, as
constrained by evolving state. Sensation and
interpretation accompanies state changes all the
way down (and up). State change is memory
update. There are no senseless mechanisms in
nature, no dualisms, and no unnatural
epiphenomenal place for observers. We can
theoretically infer points of view as
interpretation reference frames defined relative
to each other.
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Brains are associated with the best observers we
know of. Simpler theoretical entities (remember
they are all theoretical) can sense less and
behave with less flexibility. All have a unique
viewpoint. I cannot feel your feelings, and
neither of us can feel what it is like to be a
paramecium or a hydrogen atom. We have long
memory and personal history. This further
differentiates the span of simple vs complex
consciousness. We define and know each other by
how we interpret mutually available imaginable
sensations, state changes and behaviors.
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The Elephant Laughs Last
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An Relative Observer Systems
Interpretation Dynamical system D model for
Observer O DO OE Iti QO ? lt ED,BD,SDgtti
It0QO lt ED,BD,SDgtt0 , dED/dt fe(
ItwE QEltE,BgttwE ), dBD/dt fb( ItwD QD
ltE,B,SgttwD ), dSD/dt fs( ItwS QD
ltE,B,SgttwS), where Qs are detected
qualitative contrasts for O, D or E resp.
fb has shorter latency being based on past
constraints. fs takes longer to interpret
the present
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How does a system move from the present into one
of many future states if there are no laws
governing? This is a prototype for all manner of
decision making. The metaphor I am lobbying
for is one of reflective constraint satisfaction
that requires arbitration between the inertia of
state memory sensed and new extrinsic constraints
sensed. The resolution uses constraint
satisfaction by SYNC. Underconstrained energy
creates entropy. Inertia and feedback constrains
energy expression. Consciousness accompanies
changes in state.
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A way to think of decision making that does not
commit to physicalism nor mentalism is as
synchronization. This would be a collective
phenomenon that gets a systems components all
going in the same direction along some dimension
using paired interaction constraints. Each such
component is similarly constrained recursively
from within so as to yield those pair-wise
interactions.
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This is related to the sync studied in
dynamical systems. Synchronization is a
pervasive and very natural process that gets
collective aggregates to act like
cooperatives. There are many examples described
with similar mathematics. How it happens can
shed much light on how systems decide. For
anything to happen in a coherent way in a complex
system its component subsystems must find
dimensions along which they can all travel (in
phase space) while meeting all their constraints
together. Composite SYNC Without Sync systems
would tend to unravel and disintegrate.
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Nothing happens or exists without SYNC No thing
is detected without interpretation IQO ? lt
ED,BD,SDgt
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Looks like ltB,Sgt to me hiccup
Do you think hes conscious?
Why is there something rather than nothing?
Evolution Grill with ID Free Bar
Thanks for taking time to (re)interpret.