The brain and consciousness?

Consciousness is one of the great mysteries studied by modern science.

Here's an article I recently wrote on the topic. The quote trims all of the links so I'll point to the article as a reference.

Is consciousness easy with a paradigm shift?

Doug FreyburgerJanuary 13, 2016 Uncategorized 4 Comments

Atlantic magazine article about consciousness

I’ve often discussed that I think human cognition has errors. Science, logic and philosophy are processes that reduce the number of errors but we will never know if there are errors of omission that we will never be able to detect.

This article in The Atlantic magazine mentions this in a discussion that a paradigm shift is needed to understand human consciousness.

When Isaac Newton was 17 years old, he performed a series of experiments with prisms and light beams. Within weeks he discovered the scientific explanation for color, invented the reflecting telescope, proposed the particle theory of light, and deduced that the human eye contained three receptor types corresponding to the three primary colors. Not bad for a teen.

Newton’s insights were not easily accepted. At the time, the prevailing theory of color was metaphysical. White light was thought to be pure, heavenly, and scrubbed of all contaminants, whereas colored light was contaminated by the worldly surfaces it touched. To scholars, the exact process by which white light became dirtied was a philosophical hard problem worthy of debate.

We now know why that hard problem was so darn hard. The brain processes the world in a simplified and inaccurate manner, and those inaccuracies gave people the wrong idea about color. Deep in the visual system, the brain reconstructs information about light. In that simplified code, white corresponds to the color channels registering zero and the brightness channel cranked up high. Pure luminance without color is a physical impossibility, because white light is a mixture of all colors. The pre-Newtonian problem of color was hard because it had no possible solution.

The article starts with a thesis that Newton triggered a paradigm shift about how light is considered. Once that paradigm shift had been achieved it became possible to conduct experiments on light, and the science of optics was born. Notice the statement “The brain processes the world in a simplified and inaccurate manner, and those inaccuracies gave people the wrong idea …”. This is a more general statement than the context of this one article suggests.

Why would the brain evolve such an inaccurate, simplified model of the world? The reason is efficiency. The brain didn’t evolve to get all the scientific details right. That would be a waste of energy and computing time. Instead, it evolved to process information about the world just well enough, and quickly enough, to guide behavior. All the brain’s internal models are simplified caricatures of the world it models. Arguably, science is the gradual process by which the cognitive parts of our brains discover the profound inaccuracies in our deeper, evolutionarily built-in models of the world.

The article suggests this in the context of figuring out the mystery of consciousness. I have suggested this in the context of human reason more generally.

The main topic of the Popper’s Inversion board is to push for reasoned action. The main hurdle is the question of why people behave in irrational ways. We already know that emotions drive behavior and that at times emotions run in opposition to reason.

Which of our assumptions are actually false? The process of objectively verifiable experimental evidence can be applied to more than just religion. It can be applied to reason itself, as reason emerges from brains that are evolved to be good enough to dominate the planet not to actually get the facts correct and to form valid conclusions from those facts.

I hope you enjoy reading the article.

It's hard to arrive at an explanation when there is no consensus as to the definition. The common one is the sense of being aware of one's surroundings, but even a cockroach will run if the kitchen lights are turned on (my kitchen, maybe not yours.) Do cockroaches possess consciousness? Another explanation is that it is a result of the complexity of an advanced developed brain. While perhaps possible, there are also plenty of examples of animals with horribly complicated brains, just like humans. The mirror test may be the best determiner, humans, some apes, and maybe elephants, dolphins, and magpies, will recognize themselves in a mirror. They know their own reflection. That however excludes crows, who are the PhD's of the avian kingdom. If a crow can solve a puzzle that would challenge a human, but not recognize him or herself in a mirror, do they possess consciousness? You asked a simple question, but they're aren't any simple answers.

Update: Is that any scientific explanation on consciousness?

How do consciousness arisen in a brain?

WHAT?

Update 2: Is consciousness in our brain the same as in plants?

No, plants don't have a brain and do not have either a conscious or unconscious state.

What about a mold or fungus? Do they have the same type of consciousness?

Uh.... NO

Update 3: For that matter, can we create a supercomputer and create a consciousness in it?

no...

The brain and consciousness?

The brain and consciousness?

Edit

Update: Is that any scientific explanation on consciousness?

~~~ No! Nor can there be!

How do consciousness arisen in a brain?

~~~ It does not!

'Materialism' is a long obsolete theory!

"It is neither the eye that perceives 'light', nor the ear that perceives 'sound', nor the brain that perceives 'thought'!" - Book of Fudd

Update 2: Is consciousness in our brain the same as in plants?

~~~There is One Universal Consciousness, and it is everywhere in the Universe!

No matter whether surrounded by a person, a plant or the sun, Consciousness is everywhere and every when!!

What about a mold or fungus? Do they have the same type of consciousness?

~~~ Yes!

Sometimes is appears that mold and fungus have greater Consciousness than many here!

Update 3: For that matter, can we create a supercomputer and create a consciousness in it?

~~~ No!

Consciousness is already Here! Everywhere!

'Creation' is not possible!

Explanation :- Consciousness is the state or quality of awareness, or, of being aware of an external object or something within oneself. It has been defined as: sentience, awareness, subjectivity, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind.

Brain is physical part in the body which gain its power to work from soul and consciousness is radiation of soul which reflects with knowing something.

Working of brain depends upon soul. A dead man has brain but it does not provide consciousness, so soul is source of consciousness. Consciousness is free of brain. A man in coma has consciousness but no brain working.

(But if brain is tranquilized then our body become unconscious. I could not understand about this.)

Plants have consciousness too but they have not brain. They feel thirst, hunger, hot, cold etc. The amount of consciousness in plants is least in the creation. So they feel very little pain while hurting them and sin of eating them is least in creation. Fungus, reptile etc have more consciousness than plants. Birds with two legs have more consciousness than reptile and fungus. Animal with four legs have more consciousness than two legged birds. Maximum of the consciousness is in human and hitting a man cause much pain in man than other species.

We can not put soul in computers. So without soul there is no consciousness. We can not put consciousness in computer.

http://www.hindupedia.com/en/Consciousness_in_Adva...

You are the subject of consciousness. It happens to you. And you use it like a tool. Which it is. From way back when something had to think, those that could had a tool that helped them survive better than anyone or anything else. And now it is your turn to participate with it in whatever it does. Which is shine a light on things so you can see where to go. It helps us coordinate with so many things.

Scientists don't really know where exactly our consciousness resides. Since it does not seem to have any specific physical locality, it may very well turn out that the brain is merely an organ allowing the physical body to interact with the self and allowing it to animate it. Anyway, great question. This would be a very fascinating area to study.

How do consciousness arisen in the brain?

I'm wondering where people that ask ungrammatical questions like this are located!

so!

brain is the control centre for all the body's functions,

Consciousness awareness, something within oneself

Science relies on what physical eyes can see. If their microscope can see it then it doesn't exist.

Luckily for us, humans, scientists included experience a consciousness/awareness otherwise science logic would have dictated that it doesn't exist.