World Science Scholars

3.7 The Neural Correlates of Consciousness

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    • As Dr. Koch tells us, we perceive with our minds and not our sensory organs. This underlies the personal subjectivity to the experience of consciousness. Do you think that the subjectivity of this mental phenomenon poses a problem for attempts at scientific (and objective) study of consciousness? Explain your answer.

    • Yes. Sensory organs possess rudimentary consciousness.

    • Sim, os órgãos sensoriais possuem consciência

    • I’m not sure subjectivity presents any more of a challenge for the objective study of consciousness than it does for the scientific study of anything else. It must be overcome through collaboration and seeking out differing perspectives.

    • Para cada experiencia consciente habrá algunos mecanismos biofísicos en el cerebro que pueden desarrollar y generar dichos acontecimientos que podrían dar una nueva explicación sobre la conciencia .

    • La teoría de información integrada es una de las teorías que a mi parecer es una de las más interesantes, me llama mucho la atención por el contenido como, por ejemplo:
      El estudio de la conciencia de animales, se sabe tan poco sobre el funcionamiento cerebral de animales sobre sus comportamientos para ser más específicos y lo que me sorprende es que muchos de ellos poseen seis capas corticales, lo de que son conscientes, bueno eso si creo que era algo que se notaba por su naturaleza.
      Otro tema que me interesa son las técnicas neurocientíficas el cómo trabaja la mente de los animales su biología molecular el acceso a la biométrica . pero me viene una pregunta a la mente ¿Qué tan preciso es la opto genética ? que tanto influye en el cambio resultante de la conciencia.
      Cuantas investigaciones coinciden en que la conciencia con el tálamo están muy relacionados .si el mundo de la conciencia aún resulta desconocido. La inteligencia artificial es otro resultado de querer demostrar que la tecnología puede lograr independizarse de la humanidad tanto que desearía llegar al punto de querer someter a la raza humana .
      En conclusión, la teoría de información integrada es un camino que nos puede abrir nuevas rutas para poder tratar de entender a la conciencia o mejor dicho intentar conocer lo poco que se desea saber. nos encontramos en una playa intentando contar la arena.

    • We have to consider consciousness as another fundamental aspect like space and time for us to understand Nature and find answers to subjective experience.

    • Consciousness could be a basic element that we are unable to perceive. The entities with apprropriate mechamisms process that element to make that entitity aware of that experience that consciousness gives. It might be all to difficult for us to understand or too difficult for us to function if we fully understood consciousness. Each person may experience what gets to the brain via the senses differently. And individually, even as a specieis, our brains might be deliberately giving us perceptions that consciousnes wants us to have. If this does not make sense to the reader, I understand the feeling.

    • I Don’t think subjectivity of experience might affect the objective study because subjectivity might come at the level of perception but the underlying mechanism, I say may be ‘x’ nucleus is responsible for consciousness it would not change from person to person. Just like vision, as it is shown in that visual illusion some people see that dress as white and blue while some as yellow. In my view different perception would not occur due to different biochemistry.

    • some sensory input, like music, are percived roughly the same way in people, so we are able to link input to some output with bad accurasy. its bad because subject at different states will react defferently at same stimuly, so subject should be able to defy its state…<

    • Yes this is a problem because there is inevitable noise and error in mapping anyone’s subjective experience and feelings on to precise objective data. This is further compounded by the individuality of people’s experience, history and brain wiring.

    • I think the subjectivity of human perception is a problem for the scientific method unless a constant(s) is found for the mind. Relativity in physics, from the point of the observer, is “allowed” or able to be structured in an objective way because of the constant of the speed of light. Motion is a relative concept (we’re always in a state of perpetual motion if you’re considering our placement in relation to the sun and stars, but we could also be in a state of rest on our couch), but Newton’s Laws of Motion can still be operationalized scientifically. A constant or some sort of law of nature is needed to sort through and unify all subjective experiences.

      I also think that knowledge derived from the scientific method is reduced down to it’s simplest, foundational components. To me, it seems that the mind is more of a complex web of interactions between top-down and bottom-up processing, nature and nurture, objective and subjective, feeling and logic. It seems to always be a trade off between qualitative and quantitative. A case study might reveal synergistic details behind someone’s experiences with discrimination, but when you try and operationalize one variable (or even a few – like cultural immersion and stereotypical experiences and mindset beliefs) in hopes of quantizing discriminatory experience, you’re often left with more questions than answers and it seems that you’re over-simplifying someone’s life experiences. How could you know every detail about that person’s life shaping them into who they are?

    • Joe,

      I agree that collaboration and seeking out other’s perspectives is good! But the scientific method is not concerned with that – that’s not how it adds to knowledge. It is a form of deductive logic (taken from the inductive reasoning on the hypothesis), rigorously tested.

    • Siempre el observador en este caso el científico ????‍???? va percibir aquello en lo cual se inclina.
      Hay culturas que piensan en la gran conciencia en donde cada uno desarrolla un rol pero pertenece a un solo pensador omnipresente. Sería la explicación muy sencilla a porque aún no se sabe en qué parte del cerebro está la conciencia porque todo es la conciencia , esa que dice hey ???? aquí estoy y soy

    • yes, everyone is individual so results will always vary

    • I think it is very difficult to study, because each one thinks what he thinks, and acts in a different way than the rest in front of different aspects of life

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    • Yes, I would agree that the subjective integration of sensory data does appear to be one of the most considerable factors that complicates the study of consciousness.

      Let’s consider a hypothetical situation first: If data from each sense organ were merely collected and relayed to a central hub within the brain for assembly and projected display — without any additional modification — neuroscientists would have an easier line of work for two reasons:

      1. Identifying the neural correlates of consciousness would be considerably simpler, if the path for assembly of sensory data were more straightforward. Once the central hub of integration was pinpointed, neuroscientists could simply look for activity in that spot to determine the presence and relative degree of consciousness. Comparisons could more readily be made, and hypotheses could be tested with much greater ease.

      2. If sensory data were merely relayed from the senses to the brain, without any type of modification made by individual processing centers along the way, we would also be in a better position to speculate about how “reality” is perceived by any given individual — and perhaps even other organisms — by examining the info collected by the sensory apparatuses. In that case, two individuals observing the same stimuli should presumably be presented with the same internal display of the information — barring any sort of damage to the areas of the brain involved, of course.

      As things stand, however, the situation appears to be far more complicated — in a complex scenario that has come to be known as “the binding problem.” Information streaming in from each of our senses is essentially dissected and sent out to many different areas of the brain, as a means of processing individual facets of our environment. For example, the secondary visual cortex recognizes contours; the fusiform face area is responsible for facial recognition; the medial temporal area is charged with the detection of motion; and so on. Ultimately, all of these individual data points somehow reassemble to form the multisensory movie-like projection that we each perceive as “reality” — though, as yet, modern science has not determined how or where the construction of this first-person perspective takes place.

      “The dress” viral sensation from 2015 is just one example that clearly demonstrates the noticeable differences in perception that can be detected between people — all within the same species! As we take into account the multitude of details that somehow converge inside our heads to form a picture of reality from our own unique, first-person subjective standpoint, it truly is mind-boggling to contemplate how it all works.

    • Snakes do not have ears that function like humans, they are completely deaf but can pick up vibrations. The sounds wave that travel through the air come into contact with the snake, this then transfers through the muscle until reaching the inner ear bone under the skull of the snake, this then is moved to the brain for processing what it is. Hence the mind or brain is where the computation happens and that what gives us perception.

    • Snakes do not have ears that function like humans, they are completely deaf but can pick up vibrations. The sounds wave that travel through the air come into contact with the snake, this then transfers through the muscle until reaching the inner ear bone under the skull of the snake, this then is moved to the brain for processing what it is. Hence the mind or brain is where the computation happens and that what gives us perception. To dig further at consciousness we might need to derive levels of consciousness on different organisms and then relook at the problem of consciousness by assuming there is a higher consciousness which binds all of it together. May be the unknown higher consciousness is the constant we are looking for similar to speed of light. Can we we perceive speed of light? may be not yet, but we know that it exist.

    • Our science needs to move from objective reality to subjective reality

    • Consciousness is first person aspect or thing while science is always executed in third person’s perspective.

    • This underlies the personal subjectivity of the experience of consciousness. Do you think that the subjectivity of this mental phenomenon poses a problem for attempts at the scientific (and objective) study of consciousness?
      Not necessarily just as the observer makes it real, does not make it real. In physics, this would be Schrodinger’s cat. If we perceive with our minds and not our sensory organs then both observed and not observed realities are real. Meaning if someone says they have consciousness and they believe they have consciousness they might not actually physically be conscious. It’s a paradox of thought where what makes the experience subjective and unique to the observer, might also not require the observer to be conscious for the experience to be observed. While observing it might not be as important as being conscious of it, the actions to date cannot be separated and provided to exist without each other. My sensory organs tell me the cat exploded, but my consciousness was not triggered by this input, but the cat is definitely exploded due to sensory input with consciousness be damned.

    • As Dr. Koch tells us, we perceive with our minds and not our sensory organs. This underlies the personal subjectivity to the experience of consciousness. Do you think that the subjectivity of this mental phenomenon poses a problem for attempts at scientific (and objective) study of consciousness? Explain your answer.

      The more we learn about ourselves, the more we realize that our senses are not so reliable, especially to execute scientific duty, because there’s just too much subjectivity. So, I think our mental subjectivity does poses a problem for attempts at scientific study of consciousness, and that’s exactly why it’s important for us to use external instruments so we can get more accurate and objective measurements. Even with the usage of external instruments, we still have to keep re-checking the data we have, often times with the results from other observer to make sure that our data is accurate.

    • Este obedece al ya mencionado problema duro de la consciencia. Para que una investigación científica en la materia no se ve permeada por esa subjetividad de la percepción, lo que se debe hacer es investigar sobre una basa amplia con numerosos sujetos de prueba

    • Yes, its a problem because the sensory information are integrated and process by differents places in our cortex, so the conscious are subjetive and not has a unic place in our brain, the conscius is formed by all cortex of our brain

    • Subjectivity is inherent in all human activity, whether conscious or not. Filtering it out requires a strong effort to recognize it, measure and account for it. Often this must be assisted by outside observers because the biases may be so sublimated as to make the subject resist eliminating them from their study. It is sort of like the story of the blind persons and the elephant. How does the external observer get the blind persons to revise their understanding of what the elephant is.

    • Se tomarmos como certo o facto da consciência ser algo experenciado pelo cérebro, então só quando essa experiência é percebida, analisada e compreendida pelo cérebro é que se toma consciência de …

    • If there is no way to measure the non physical mechanism that integrate the whole conscious system, how can we know it really dies?

    • Yes, any expression of subjectivity becomes a new variable to consider in a study. In consequence, in order to “eliminate” or reduce that variability (or at least try so), we would need to compare the data of hundreds and maybe thousands of people – therefore, diferent sensory organs and diferent perceptions of reality – and try to discern a patron that remains continuous: some biochemical reactions, nucleous of neurons, genes… Because of that, the personal subjectivity of consciusness needs to be considered an added difficulty to ubicate or at least comprehend how this phenomen works; but at the end it wouldn’t be “more problematic” than any other variable.

    • we would have to understand it before we take any new steps. We have to consider consciousness as a complete different aspect like space for us to understand its peoperties and find answers to various subjective processes

    • Yes, subjectivity is a serious problem in evaluating the experience of consciousness.
      It is difficult to obtain objective results to carry out studies of consciousness because, to a large extent, it depends on the individual worldview and if we take into account that each person experiences different experiences in which they focus their attention, the stimuli and the construction of feelings is not a process that we can standardize neither from neuroscience nor with epigenetics.
      If we take into consideration the implications of the subjective concept about the elements that make up consciousness, we will have diverse results where a common factor can be found that is decisive in defining the parameters of the experience of consciousness. Of course, research must continue to advance, but individual subjectivity is already a challenge with a high degree of difficulty for scientific analysis.

    • While subjective, all experience is organized into similar structures for integrating it all in a framework that can all be studied in the like.

    • Acredito que sim, pois o ser humano seria capaz de qualquer coisa para chegar a este conhecimento!

    • When perceptions only occur in the brain, the other senses can get ignored for thought based functions.

      This is similar to drug side effects that actually are effects, not on the side.

    • Sounds interesting but, thats one of the things that is motivating me to study. I watched a video with Francisco Mora and I agree with him about that we are more emotional than racional… I don’t really know the truth but im exciting to discover it.

    • The subjectivity of consciousness poses a challenge for scientific study due to its inherent nature as a subjective experience. Traditional scientific methods, which rely on objectivity and measurable data, struggle to capture the complexity and diversity of conscious experiences. However, I believe that the use of different modern techniques, such as brain imaging and qualitative methodologies, allows us to gain more objective views of consciousness. While complete objectivity may be elusive, interdisciplinary collaborations and technological advancements offer potential avenues for advancing our understanding of consciousness.

    • The subjectivity of conscious experience is indeed one of the central challenges in the scientific study of consciousness. The subjective nature of consciousness means that each individual has direct access only to their own internal experience and cannot directly experience other people’s consciousness.
      This poses a problem for attempts to study consciousness objectively, as traditional scientific methodology is based on external observation, measurement and replication of observable phenomena. Consciousness, by its very subjective nature, is not directly observable by others.
      However, this does not mean that the scientific study of consciousness is impossible. Researchers use a combination of methods, including subjective self-reports, behavioral measures, and neuroimaging techniques, in an attempt to investigate the neural correlates and cognitive processes associated with consciousness.
      Although direct access to subjective experience is limited, individuals’ subjective reports can still be used as important data for understanding consciousness. Furthermore, the use of complementary objective methods, such as the analysis of brain activity patterns, helps to provide a more solid basis for scientific investigation.

    • Espero ansioso por uma tecnologia capaz de realizar download e upload da consciência.

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