On 29 Mar 2015, at 08:27, Bruce Kellett wrote:
meekerdb wrote:
On 3/28/2015 12:33 AM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
meekerdb wrote:
Another possibility is that all those neurons that /*didn't*/
fire in the calculation were just as necessary to the experience
as the one's that did. That seems quite plausible to me.
I find the notion quite bizarre. It is the actual sequence of
actual brain states that is important. If some neuron didn't fire,
then they did not contribute to /that/ conscious moment, no matter
that they might be crucial to other, /different/, moments of
consciousness.
That seems bizarre to me. Are you saying that when I look at a
black and white picture only the photoreceptors that fire
contribute to my experience and the ones that didn't fire are
irrelevant? Only the "1"s matter and not the "0"s? The state of
the brain (assuming thought is neural action) depends on all the
neurons; not just the ones firing at a given time.
I see your point, but don't think it really makes a difference.
Certainly, the pattern of the brain state, which includes neurons
that didn't fire, is part of the description of the state. But if I
replace the neurons that didn't fire with a label saying 'there once
was a neuron here!', the pattern is the same, and you could argue
that the film re-animating the sequence of brain states would
reproduce the conscious state quite adequately even without those
neurons being alive, as long as the place is kept.
But I was actually think more widely of the fact that many brain
functions are largely localized. When I move my leg, the motor
cortex lights up, but if I am in the dark, or if I am blind, the
visual cortex is not generally involved. Consciousness is not lost
if a few random neurons die off, or are lost to injury and/or
illness. People can lose very large parts of their brains and still
remain conscious, and for quite a number of smaller brain injuries,
the subjects do not necessarily lose much functionality. So it is
not the case that the whole brain is involved in producing
consciousness
Good points.
and this observation seems to me to somewhat blunt the MGA.
? You seem again quite quick here. You might elaborate.
Bruno
Bruce
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