Posted on Helium under: The fundamentals of self-awareness

The mind is an inherently fascinating and difficult subject to pin down. Philosophers have been musing over the mysteries of the mind for thousands of years but it is, without doubt, the scientists who find it the most frustrating to study.

The subjective nature of the mind makes it ill suited for scientific scrutiny, but scientists have found ways to pursue the matter indirectly. While some scientists have probed the frontier of the mind through behavioral psychology, others have focused their attention on the body and the brain.

Many of these scientists are confident that they will inevitably discover the cause of consciousness, a physical explanation for the creation of the mind. Although this is possible, it leads to a conclusion that no one should be in a hurry to embrace. If the mind is created and sustained by the body, a person’s existence ceases at death.

Fortunately, that may not necessarily be true. While any argument for the existence of the mind independent of the body might be considered an appeal for the existence of the soul, that may no longer be outside the bounds of scientific possibility.

As of yet, neuroscientists have not found a physical basis for consciousness, in spite of encouraging data. Nor is there a specific imperative to disprove the possibility of the independent existence of the mind.

The scientific objection to the existence of spirits or souls is based on the dualistic assumption that if they exist they must be phenomenon entirely separate from the physical universe, and thus beyond the scope of scientific scrutiny.

There is nothing more frustrating than having to search for something that is not there by definition.

The problems accessible to normal science are all those about mental functioning. How does the brain integrate data from different sources? How do long-term and short-term memory interact? What are the effects of damage here or there in the brain? What are the causes and limits of blindsight or of synaesthesia?

Any question framed in terms of human perceptual functioning, or motor or other functions, is in principle accessible to scientific understanding, just as the engineer can relate the functioning of the computer chip to its internal architecture. (Blackburn, 2004).

The integration of mind and body allows researchers to probe beyond the limits of the brain, and neuroscientists are not the only ones trying to unlock the secrets of consciousness.

Efforts to understand the origins of consciousness have “become the focus of an expanding intellectual industry involving the combined, but not always harmonious, efforts of neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists, artificial intelligence specialists, physicists, and philosophers” (Dolan, 2006, para. 2).

A raft of new brain-imaging and scanning technologies, including computed tomography (CT) scans and positron emission tomography (PET) scans, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and magnetoencephalography (MEG) … [has] enabled researchers to observe brain structure and activity in a variety of noninvasive ways, while … transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), actually allows the researcher to disrupt activity in the cortex underlying specific mental tasks (Tolson, 2006, para. 12).

Aided by these powerful tools, researchers are probing ever deeper into the structure and function of the brain, providing new insights into the relationship between the body and the mind.

Scientists can locate synaptic connections in space and time, and plot families of pathways between areas of brain activity. Each of the works under review delights in the complexities that are uncovered almost daily.

They savour the staggering numbers: 30 billion neurons in the cerebral cortex alone; a million billion synapses.

They go on to describe two-way interconnections, simultaneous activations of different areas, as well as the surprising examples of functions taking place without conscious experience at all, as in the famous cases of blindsight, and other clinical surprises (Blackburn, 2004 para. 4).

In place of the classic models of physical-spiritual dualism, modern research envisions the mind-brain relationship as being similar to the software-hardware model of computers.

According to the standard model of the mind sciences, the brain encodes information about the world, the body and its own internal operations in “neural representations”, or stored information.

This is used in memory, thinking, problem-solving, planning, physical actions and so on. The model insists that the “mind” is simply the functioning of the brain, thought of as an information processing system.

While the precise workings of this system may be debatable, the consensus for the past 50 years or so is that mind must be “in” the brain. The same goes for conscious experiences: if these are produced by the mind in the brain, they must be in the brain too (Velmans, 2006, para. 2).

As Blackburn (2006) observes, “In modern debates, this is not open to dispute. But within that consensus, there is still the question of just how the dependency works. Are there laws that relate the physical and the mental, and if so, why?” There is research that suggests that the relationship is developmental.

In a recent article, Dolan (2006) describes in detail the manner in which constant feedback between the body and brain generate a persistent image of the state of the entire organism that coalesces into a state of consciousness that gives an entity its sense of self.

Put simply, the body provides all the structure and stimulation required to achieve consciousness, contradicting the idea of the body and mind as two separate entities working in concert.

Of course, there is nothing simple about it. The brain is a vastly complex organ and consciousness is an extremely perplexing phenomenon. A startling number of brain functions have been observed that “work well enough or better without” consciousness (Blackburn, 2004, para. 14).

Such observations prompt some scientists to doubt that consciousness even fits into the causal order of physics. Even with implications that conscious does not do anything, objectively, it is still the definitive trait of the mind, crucial to all experience.

To put as much emphasis as possible on this point, as far as any of us are concerned experience is everything. We exist to experience, it is what makes life matter, and in the event we cease to exist, our experience ceases to exist as well.

While science is notably indifferent to this, it is not ultimately an academic issue. “One important lesson that has escaped most philosophers and many neuroscientists is that what seems obvious can change as the science changes” claims Patricia Churchland (2006, para. 6), a philosopher of mind identified by Wade Novin (2004) as a strict reductionist.

“With scientific development comes conceptual development, and this alters how we think about and see the world. This applies to our inner world, as well as to our outer world” (Churchland, 2005, para. 6).

As neuroscientists sift the brain for a physical explanation of consciousness, quantum physicists have stumbled across something in the foundations of the universe that is as elusive and ephemeral as consciousness.

Pausing for a moment to reflect upon the neuroscientists’ quest, we should ask ourselves what they were expecting to find, precisely, and how deep they intended to go to find it.

Take a brain and put it through a blender, break it down to its smallest particles, and there is little likelihood of some new, exotic form of matter or energy being found among the remains.

The search for consciousness is not a search for spirit-matter or psychic energy, the point of the whole exercise is to establish that consciousness arises from ordinary matter and energy, presumably due to the unique structure and organization of the brain.

What this means on the most practical level is that scientists are trying to find out what aspect of the physical universe possesses a “subjective” potential.

What we know and understand as conscious awareness in the mind is certain to be significantly removed from the most primitive corollary to awareness.

We can also surmise that the physical source of consciousness, the quality of raw awareness—or as consciousness researchers would say, qualia—must be a subjective property of something we are already familiar with at the atomic, sub-atomic or quantum level.

Otherwise, we return to speculating about a new form of matter or energy.

This is an important clarification, because it asks us to consider the possibility that awareness, ultimately consciousness, is a real phenomenon of matter or energy, rather than an epiphenomenon; an actual thing as opposed to the illusion of a thing.

Although it is somewhat foreign to the material-based thinking of science for a thing to have subjective properties as well as objective properties, it is not incompatible with the general premise of existence.

Objects may not be “aware” of their existence, but they do have the subjective quality of being. Subjectivity is also somewhat implicit in the principle of reaction. When acted upon by another force or object, an object is subject to the action.

It is not practical to deny the prospect of subjective properties in physical objects, and it is possible it would not occur to anyone to try unless motivated by a desire to deny the notion of proto-conscious or proto-aware matter or energy.

Given what is emerging from quantum research, it might, in fact, be counter-productive.

The further one goes down the scale of physical reality, the less material matter appears to be. In fact, the further one goes down, the more reality seems to consist of nonmaterial information, pure potentialities of matter or energy but not quite either.

Quantum mechanics has demonstrated the flux of particle and wave at subatomic levels, suggesting that the only fixity at such levels comes from the act of observing the object and arresting it at one or another stage of its being (Tolson, 2006, para. 30).

The implications of an observer-based reality that are found in quantum physics disturb scientists. It raises an unsettling question: If an observer is required in order for the universe to exist, who observed the universe up until the emergence of sentient organisms?

The question becomes irrelevant if the universe has some innate capacity of observing itself. Not to say, the universe might be or must be conscious; it is sufficient if matter and energy possess the minimal subjective responsiveness necessary to be affected by the nature of their interactions.

If primary particles are “sensitive” to their conditions, an outside observer is not required; the universe could determine itself interactively.

Quantum physics is, of course, more complicated than interpreted here, and even more speculative interpretations have been made based on the implications of the uncertainty principle.

A theory developed by Oxford physicist Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff suggests that consciousness could serve as an interface between the physical universe and its foundation of quantum information (Tolson, 2006).

Inspired by monistic-idealist philosophy, Amit Goswami (2001) proposes that consciousness serves as ground under the foundation of quantum information, an underlying medium and thus an intrinsic part of the universe.

While it appears to be another case of resorting to the spiritual, the monistic philosophy does not call for the separation of physical and spiritual existence.

Given what is understood about quantum physics, the concept of monism is startlingly applicable. “[I]n monistic idealism (of the East, at least), there is a symmetry between the subject pole and the object pole of an experience (they both are appearances), whereas in material realism the object pole is considered real and the subject pole a mere epiphenomenon” (Goswami, 2001, para. 10).

So, it is not a new idea that objects have a subjective aspect. What that means or how it ultimately applies to our conflict may not be known for some time, as the science of quantum physics matures.

All we can do at this point is ask what is plausible. If a physical explanation of consciousness is possible, is it reasonable to assume that the subjective quality is created from nothing, or would it be more accurate to say that consciousness is the manifestation of some underlying potential that is enhanced, reinforced or focused into consciousness in a brain?

Logic dictates that something does not come from nothing. Scientific method is founded on logic. Logically, it should not be possible to create a phenomenon like awareness from nothing.

The manifestation of a phenomenon reveals the existence of underlying, if previously unobserved contributing properties or qualities. If this principle is used to determine the origin of awareness, the most reasonable conclusion would be that awareness is a subjective property of matter or energy.

It is possible that this is, in fact, the actual answer.

What people experience as awareness might turn out to be a subjective quality of electric, magnetic, gravitic or nuclear forces interacting with each other.

Whether this is true or not, any conventional attempt to explain consciousness and the quality of awareness has to be derived from something that is already present in matter or—more likely—energy.

In order to find out what might happen to consciousness when we die—what we might experience, or what might happen to our experience—we can consider what we know about the properties of matter and energy.

No one knows what energy is, specifically, and matter is essentially energy invested in structure. The properties of matter and energy are determined by the way they are structured and how they can interact.

The forces of gravity, magnetism, electricity, nuclear strong and weak forces emerge at the level where energy is converted into mass. These forces exhibit distinct properties based upon unique and specific structures of energy.

Awareness could emerge at a level where energy is converted into information or vice versa.

A different parallel with energy can be found in the fact that awareness can be structured into more complex states like consciousness and understanding.

The true mortality of awareness or any construct of awareness need not necessarily be less than that of energy or any energy construct, expressed as a force or as matter.

The capacity of energy to become and remain structured is the only premise necessary to allow for the possibility of a similar capacity in awareness.

The circumstances of life as we know it suggest that the mind is born in the brain, structured and focused by the body and fed by experience.

It is only in the mind that we experience existence.

At a certain point in our lives, we become aware of the prospect of death, and while the causes of death can easily be recognized and understood, the personal implications of death remain a mystery.

Our beliefs might determine how we choose to face death, but no belief can tell us what will happen to us when we die.

In some respects, the question is academic.

Whether we want to or not, we are each going to die at some point, and that is the end of life as we know it. Interestingly, the prospect of death does have a way of focusing the mind remarkably.

To that living miracle of consciousness, death is not just the end of life as we know it, it is the end of all existence.

It is in that moment that the mind discovers that it can no longer afford to take its existence for granted.

References

Blackburn, S. (Sept 11, 2004). The world in your head: are you a qualia freak? A zombie? Can our inner world of sensation, colour and subjective experience ever be completely explained? Simon Blackburn weighs up three attempts to reconcile the mystery that is consciousness with a scientific world view.(Opinion: essay). New Scientist 183.2464 p42(4). Retrieved December 16, 2006, from InfoTrac OneFile.

Churchland, P. (April 30, 2005). Brains wide shut?(Essay). New Scientist 186.2497, p46(4). Retrieved December 09, 2006, from Thomson Gale PowerSearch.

Dolan, R. (Summer 2006). The body in the brain. Daedalus 135.3 p78(8). Retrieved December 09, 2006, from Thomson Gale PowerSearch.

Goswami, A. (October 2001) Physics within nondual consciousness.(Critical Essay). Philosophy East and West 51.4, p535(10). Retrieved December 09, 2006, from Thomson Gale PowerSearch.

Novin, W. (Spring 2004). Can quantum physics explain consciousness? A report on the Quantum Mind conference.(News). Skeptic (Altadena, CA) 11.1 p20(5). Retrieved December 16, 2006, from InfoTrac OneFile.

Tolson, J. (Oct 23, 2006). Is There Room for the Soul? (research into biology of consciousness). U.S. News & World Report 141.15 p56-63. Retrieved Retrieved January 14, 2006, from Thomson Gale PowerSearch.

Velmans, M. (March 25, 2006). In here, out there, somewhere? There’s a revolution looming in consciousness studies, finds Max Velmans, as he ponders recent attempts to locate mind and consciousness. New Scientist 189.2544, p50(2). Retrieved Retrieved December 09, 2006, from Thomson Gale PowerSearch.