Probably a waste of time other than curiosity to try to define consciousness scientifically. MMY trying to be "scientific" about it just added confusion to the whole thing. That's why I like the simpler definitions of enlightenment in village tantric terms. Works for me: http://youtube.com/watch?v=OUHKPngw36A
new.morning wrote: > http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/presentations/whatisconsciousness.html > > The Problem of Consciousness > > Conventional explanations portray consciousness as an emergent > property of classical computer-like activities in the brain's neural > networks. The prevailing views among scientists in this camp are that > 1) patterns of neural network activities correlate with mental states, > 2) synchronous network oscillations in thalamus and cerebral cortex > temporally bind information, and 3) consciousness emerges as a novel > property of computational complexity among neurons. > > However, these approaches appear to fall short in fully explaining > certain enigmatic features of consciousness, such as: > > * The nature of subjective experience, or 'qualia'- our 'inner > life' (Chalmers' "hard problem"); > * Binding of spatially distributed brain activities into unitary > objects in vision, and a coherent sense of self, or 'oneness'; > * Transition from pre-conscious processes to consciousness itself; > * Non-computability, or the notion that consciousness involves a > factor which is neither random, nor algorithmic, and that > consciousness cannot be simulated (Penrose, 1989, 1994, 1997); > * Free will; and, > * Subjective time flow. > > Brain imaging technologies demonstrate anatomical location of > activities which appear to correlate with consciousness, but which may > not be directly responsible for consciousness. > > Figure 1. PET scan image of brain showing visual and auditory > recognition (from S Petersen, Neuroimaging Laboratory, Washington > University, St. Louis. Also see J.A. Hobson "Consciousness," > Scientific American Library, 1999, p. 65). > > Figure 2. Electrophysiological correlates of consciousness. > > How do neural firings lead to thoughts and feelings? The conventional > (a.k.a. functionalist, reductionist, materialist, physicalist, > computationalist) approach argues that neurons and their chemical > synapses are the fundamental units of information in the brain, and > that conscious experience emerges when a critical level of complexity > is reached in the brain's neural networks. > > The basic idea is that the mind is a computer functioning in the brain > (brain = mind = computer). However in fitting the brain to a > computational view, such explanations omit incompatible > neurophysiological details: > > * Widespread apparent randomness at all levels of neural processes > (is it really noise, or underlying levels of complexity?); > * Glial cells (which account for some 80% of brain); > * Dendritic-dendritic processing; > * Electrotonic gap junctions; > * Cytoplasmic/cytoskeletal activities; and, > * Living state (the brain is alive!) > > A further difficulty is the absence of testable hypotheses in > emergence theory. No threshold or rationale is specified; rather, > consciousness "just happens". > > Finally, the complexity of individual neurons and synapses is not > accounted for in such arguments. Since many forms of motile > single-celled organisms lacking neurons or synapses are able to swim, > find food, learn, and multiply through the use of their internal > cytoskeleton, can they be considered more advanced than neurons? > > > more... > > >
