And while we are on the topic of DNA entanglement, we should feast our eyes on the following link. What might this suggest? http://www.sciencealert.com/dna-replication-has-been-filmed-for-the-first-time-and-it-s-stranger-than-we-thought
From: Stephen Jarosek [mailto:sjaro...@iinet.net.au] Sent: Wednesday, August 9, 2017 8:33 PM To: 'Online_Sadhu_Sanga@googlegroups.com' Subject: RE: [Sadhu Sanga] Which came first, consciousness or the brain? >”Why are the synaptic connections not enough” Because the notion that complexity can emerge by a process of dumb luck and persist across time, despite the forces of entropy arrayed against it, is complete nonsense. It just is. My more detailed response to Paul should provide an indication of where I’m coming from. And if you are still not convinced, then the following video clip (Inner life of the cell) should at least provide an intuitive grasp of the situation: https://youtu.be/FzcTgrxMzZk From: online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com [mailto:online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Edwards, Jonathan Sent: Wednesday, August 9, 2017 2:03 PM To: Online_Sadhu_Sanga@googlegroups.com Subject: [Sadhu Sanga] Which came first, consciousness or the brain? Why are the synaptic connections not enough Stephen. A neuron can have 40,000 input channels. How could one want it to be better informed than that and make a sensible response? Keeping all the cells updated is easy. You just have a massively convergent/diverent connection system, which is precisely what the brain has. Presumably there is some population that ‘broadcasts’ the salient content to appropriate ‘consumer’ cells. The thalamus would seem to be the perfect option. Or even Christof’s claustrum. It is all so easy if one takes the actual dynamics at face value. Jo On 9 Aug 2017, at 11:05, Stephen Jarosek <sjaro...@iinet.net.au> wrote: >”In fact, the old split-brain experiments are also very interesting.” Yes, they are very interesting. It is also curious, to me, that the discourse around split-brain experiments doesn’t seem to venture beyond the two separated hemispheres. At the risk of overstating the obvious… Is it not self-evident that you can probably keep on dividing the brain even into functional specializations, to observe that each subdivision itself behaves as a unity? Indeed, you can keep on dividing the brain into quarters, into eighths, and keep going right down to the cellular level, to arrive at the autonomous behavior of each neuron. It is exactly what would happen if you divided a human city, as a culture, right down to the level of each human. The important implication here is that the brain is nothing like a computer, and everything like a colony, like a city of people. And just as a city has its own functional specializations (business districts, industrial zones, residential suburbs, defense, government, etc), so too, does a brain. You can knock out any one of the brain’s functional specializations, and the brain will still continue to function, more or less, with other neurons being recruited from their usual roles, to compensate for the absence of the missing functional specialization. Just like what would happen in a city, were any one of its specializations removed. The thing is, though, what is it that enables each and every neuron in the brain to have immediate access to the collective, so that it can act in a timely and productive manner? Is there something analogous to a city’s information technology (media, telephones, computer network), in the brain, to accomplish this unity? In a city, our information technology is crucial to informing each of us of our options, in a timely manner, and this provides our city with a cultural identity and unity of purpose. In the brain, I don’t think that synapse connections, completing something analogous to wiring circuits, are enough. Hence my interest in DNA entanglement… each neuron acts in its own interests, but also in the interests of the collective, and it is the collective that informs each neuron of its options. And the key to providing each neuron with timely access to the collective is entanglement, because old-fashioned electrical circuits, on their own, are not enough (and how might the Hameroff/Penrose Orch-OR hypothesis relate to this?). Each neuron is a bug, like any other bug, and it has its own interests to pursue, while at the same time contributing to the interests of the collective… each neuron has to receive its motivations from elsewhere beyond a top-down Designer’s “genetic blueprint” that defines an electrical circuit. Or to state all this yet another way… there is no way that a computer can happen in nature… the law of entropy forbids it. Or yet another perspective… a culture is, in a very real sense, very much like a thought (a topic that I introduce in my 2001 Semiotica paper, The law of association of habits). From: <mailto:online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com> online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com [ <mailto:online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com> mailto:online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Paul Werbos Sent: Wednesday, August 9, 2017 1:27 AM To: <mailto:online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com> online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Which came first, consciousness or the brain? I have to agree with Whit that the homunculus assumption is ever more misleading when we look deeply into what happens in the brain, and even more when we consider the coupled system of brain and soul. Karl pribram (famous to some because of his talk about holography, but also important because of other streams of work) was fascinated by the many types of research into blind-siding. In fact, the old split-brain experiments are also very interesting. It is possible for the left side to come up with incredible rationalizations, even as the right side has simple clear reasons for what it chooses to do. In such cases do we declare the left side conscious because it outputs socially managed words, or do we declare the right side conscious because it is actually aware and making reasonable decisions? Really, a connected brain has more of the whole system property we call consciousness sometimes, than either of the others. But treating the word "conscious" as a piece of all-embracing magic is misleading in any case; various levels of the mind simply focus on and have access to different information, and it is not such a binary type of relationship. (Though certain kind of gating or connection can often simply be off, so I shouldn't push the continuous point TOO hard. That in itself would be too binary!) Best of luck, Paul On Aug 8, 2017 5:35 PM, "Whit Blauvelt" < <mailto:w...@csmind.com> w...@csmind.com> wrote: On Tue, Aug 08, 2017 at 06:31:26PM +0000, Edwards, Jonathan wrote: > The signals we experience are arriving deep in the brain. Before that > there is no perception, no image, nothing. I'm not questioning that you represent an orthodox view from the neurology department. Nor am I questioning that the deep brain is necessary. Yet the eye and the deep brain are not separate. Nor is the eye a passive receptor. We see as much by anticipation as by reception. The deep brain, the various visual modules between it and the eyes, the eyes, and the world beyond them are all essential in normal circumstances. There are plenty of experiments now showing that even priming below the level of consciousness has a large effect on what we subsequently see or not. No doubt you've seen the film of the kids passing a basket ball back and forth, after being consciously primed to watch the passes, and missed the guy in the gorilla suit walking across the scene? I missed it! You're trying to salvage something from Descartes -- precisely the thing which led people to classify his view as a homuncular one. You're also making an argument from authority, as if Descartes is one. He was brilliant; I love his writing; but no he doesn't count as a modern authority on much. If your counter argument is going to be that we can put ourselves in an isolation tank, and there dream vividly while cut off from the eyes and world, I'll point out that that fits well with my claim that we see as much by anticipation -- which is pretty much what dreams are. Dreaming is anticipation, carried away without the check of the eyes and the senses. 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