Neurons

[Holiday20310401]

This is what I want to talk about.
I'd also like to add that I meant "anaog" in a connotative sense but for equivocative purposes voltages fits well .

I meant analog as 'gradually', so its interesting how you bring up the pipe organ, because the lengths of the pipes are gradually increasing or decreasing. Neurons do differ in distance, right?

Consciousness is linked much to time from how I look at it because they both are illusive when comparing them from reality's terms to whatever actual sense they have.They are dependent on one another when time is an independent variable, to a point.

As neurons can't perceive time on their own maybe there are constant dendrites that occur in the brain signaled throughout lengthy networks of neurons, which have to be adept at measuring voltages. Perhaps a distance between relative synapses of certain neurons provides the answer to consciousness due to the link between the non-negotiable 'ness' between actuality in respect to our perception. Maybe there is a sort of redshift with voltages sent from neuron to neuron, and the difference when signaled across to different neurons is proportional to length.

Or is it much simpler than that. (But my theory allows for the rate of neuron flow to be constant)

So no, memory would not serve purpose to how the consciousness develops, but how the brain functions would, obviously. (except that memory allows for relative instances for general cognition)
When it comes to sound, sure, differentiating Hz would be appropriate, just have comparison to it and the rate of neuronal firing. I mean an inputted frequency could cause neurons that are pre-programmed to only output 1 given rate so a part of the neuron could receive only 1 given voltage to trigger the fire.

For example, a certain neuron would only recognize frequency 120 Hz and if true then respond by firing at it's programmed rate; however if false then stay innate.

But for relative variables of time (I doubt sound is directly related) it doesn't work.

"pulse sent down the axon will be constant and unrelated" - dominant nomad

What does pulse mean? Do you mean the rate of recurrence of the firing does not change or the actualy voltage does not change the whole way through neuron to neuron?, because that would ofcourse ruin my theory. (Unless voltage remains contant but current 'redshifts'[redshift is obviously firgurative]).

[dominant_monad]

Yeah neurons differ in their length, although the reason for that is to do with the function of that specific neuron. For instance the neurons attaching your finger to your spinal cord are long so that you can retract your finger when you touch something hot almost instantly. But no extra information is encoded in the length of the neuron's axon, just the speed at which the pulse travels.

Im not sure what you mean by your theory? You might want to check out again how a neuron works though, i dont think it works quite like you're hoping. By synapse i think you mean axon? Neuronal transmission is both a chemical and an electrical process. The neurons talk to EACHOTHER via neurotransmitters in the synaptic cleft. Whether or not the neuron will fire depends on the NTs attached to its receiving dendrites. When enough receptor sites are activated, the neuron will reach a certain threshold, sending an electrical 'pulse' down the length of its axon to the terminal button, where more NTs are released across the next synaptic cleft to the next neuron and so on. The 'pulse', called an 'action potential', is sodium, with a charge pulsing down the length via gaps in the myelin sheath which replenish the charge and send it onwards down the axon. The pulse will pulse on and off for a short period while the neuron is activated, although this speed remains constant.

As far as time goes, im not sure if this is processed at a neuron level, but i know that all animals do have an internal clock of some description to measure the passage of time, and there's been a lot of research into this. There are lots of journals online, especially in animal experiments, im sure it wouldn't be hard to find out.

Sounds transmitted through hearing work in two ways. Neurons are attached to the basilar membrane of the chochlear via outer hair cells. Depending on the frequency at which the membrane vibrates (in response to changes in water pressure generated by the ear drum vibrating), different neurons are activated. For instance in high pitched sounds, the basilar membrane vibrates with a peak vibration very close to the front, activating neurons there. In low pitched sounds, the membrane vibrates most towards the back, activating neurons attached down there. This makes the membrane like a piano keyboard, and the neurons attached all along the membrane (via hair cells) transmit this frequency information to the hearing centre in the brain. This is partly how frequency of sounds are transmitted to the brain, very mechanical, very simple, no chemistry or anything, just moving parts. The other way i already described, the neurons tend to pulse at the same rate as the frequency they're tuned to (or said another way, the place at which they're attached to the membrane). Both ways are important, and there's more to it, but as far as neurons go, that's basically how it's done. The neurons in this example simply transmit information via their place on the membrane, and their rate of fire.

[eternalstudent2]

How do neurons behave that constitute for intuition, logic, emotion, etc.?

Your question is excellent, IMHO; the kind of basic question that children ask and adults forget how to, the most powerful kind of question. In a way, your question relates to the "supervenience" question. OK, I'm no expert on supervenience, but I roughly understand it through the wood / furniture analogy. I.e., wooden furniture takes a lot of its characteristics from the nature of wood. If cedar smells cedary, then cedar furniture also smells cedary, etc. So cedar furniture supervenes to cedar wood, for much of its nature.

So just what about mind and consciousness "supervenes" to the nature of the neuron? In what ways can neurons be looked at as having mind-nature? Can they be looked at in that way at all?

If you take a look at the classical functional description of neurons given by MuCulloch and Pitts back in the 40s, the answer to the third question above seems more negative than positive. Here's a link:

McCulloch-Pitts Neuron Applet

IMHO, the nature of mind and consciousness relative to neurons is more a question of large-scale / high-complexity system effects. I.e., "emergence", the effect that applies to higher-level things / events such as traffic jams and the red dot on Jupiter. Mental life is pretty clearly an "emergence" from neuron organization and its activity in response to body dynamics and, in turn, to the body's response to its environment. And that concept gets you down the road a ways in the struggle to understand mind and consciousness; but it still leaves you pretty far from home.

Another personal opinion: computer research on the nature of neural networks and parallel distributed data processing also takes you down that road from neuron ion events to falling in love or composing an opera or tasting a mango, etc. The development of PDP and neural network concepts and models in the 50s and 60s was a major step forward in understanding the brain's functionings on a very high level. The PDP field offers some remarkable insights into high level mental functionings.

Right now I'm slowly digging my way through a 1989 book by philosopher Andy Clark on PDP, called "Microcognition". I'm about 75% of the way through it, and though I don't claim to fully understand every last word of it, Clark really offers some great insights on the remarkable progress being made in understanding mental / psychological phenomenon through PDP models. Had they understood PDP back in the seventeenth century, so much of what Locke and Hume and Kant wrote about the mind would have been unnecessary. (Well OK, perhaps not 'unnecessary'; but certainly spurious or superfluous in many places).

And that was in the late 80s; I obviously need to find out more. I'd like to know just how much further PDP research has gone in the last two decades. Once I finally finish Clark's book, I will try to drill my way through Paul Churchland's 1995 intro to PDP, "Engine of Reason, Seat of the Soul" (with the dull blade that is my aging mind, alas). Churchland seems to go into a bit more technical detail than Clark, asking the reader to get up to speed on 'vector coding' of 'sensory state-space' and such. But hey, no pain, no gain.

Being a dualist, I personally don't think that PDP is going to unlock the ultimate secret of consciousness and self. But it will get us a lot closer. It offers some very powerful insights into the mystery of how the human mind (and possibly some animal minds too) forms abstract concepts from huge collections of sensory experiences and memories thereof.

Just don't ask too many questions about how it ultimately does this; at some point, once again, all you can say is that through the "magic of emergence", a highly parallel-distributed computing machine can form abstract, flexible, useful concepts such as heat versus cold, threat versus non-threat, etc. from repeated inputs. There's just something about this kind of machine that soaks up something of the character and essence of its surrounding environment. So it makes sense that evolution and natural selection eventually came across this trick, given the millions of years it had to work with in terms of arranging and re-arraigning neurons. (OK, sorry, natural selection doesn't have intentionality; excuse my anthropomorphizing) (say that three times fast!).

Thanks for listening, hope this is of some interest.

Jim G.

An Eternal Student Of / For Life

[dominant_monad]

I agree eternal_student about the emergence thing, i think that consciousness could 'emerge' from the integration of individual neurons in a similar way as the economy emerges from the interaction of individual people, but leaving at that is, as you say, kind of unsatisfactory. At the very least, it can't explain the very core of human consciousness, which is the creation of the sense of self, and 'qualia'.

I have to wonder though, what makes you say you're a dualist? By saying that consciousness supervenes on neurons, isn't that the very definition of physicalism? Can you explain how 'the magic of emergence' achieves this physical - nonphysical interaction in a dualistic theory? Or even if that's not clear, why do you still hold that dualism is necessary?

[paulhanke]

Originally Posted by eternalstudent2

There's just something about this kind of machine that soaks up something of the character and essence of its surrounding environment.

... some of Clark's more recent writings (e.g., "Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again") dive into this ... Clark expresses the concept of "external scaffolding" (pencil and paper, etc.) without which the human mind would be incapable of certain types of thought (long division, etc.) ... and if I'm remembering correctly, Clark actually asserts that such "external scaffolding" can be considered a functional component of the modern human mind ... a very interesting read.

Taking Clark's "external scaffolding" to its logical conclusion, are there elements of the environment without which there could not be human consciousness?

[Holiday20310401]

I've been reading some stuff about the quantum mind. There are people who believe that the mind relies on quantum, or very small intermolecular actions to carry out the overall functioning of the mind.

Then some people believe that quantum mechanics has little influence on the mind at work, and that the classical functioning is a better approach. I haven't made up my mind but this quantum entanglement sounds interesting.
Quantum Entanglement

I don't really see how 100% correlation is possible with bound energy(if you read the link). An atom of carbon is not exactly the same as another atom of carbon in that the electrons are not in the exact same place, right? But I suppose that at one level, once particles get small enough, there must be symmetry, and 100% correlations.

Maybe there are particles for matter with little correlations.
Particles for energy with a little more correlations.
Particles for force with 50% correlations (thus waves, up or down, giving two possibilities). Gravitons, photons, etc.
Particles for dimension with 100% correlation. And when we reach small enough to these dimension particles we get to a point where those particles are the container for another universe, or rather perhaps our own. Because with 100% correlation all of those dimension particles are in essence all connected and thus become 1, or are actually one.

[paulhanke]

Originally Posted by Holiday20310401

I've been reading some stuff about the quantum mind. There are people who believe that the mind relies on quantum, or very small intermolecular actions to carry out the overall functioning of the mind.

Then some people believe that quantum mechanics has little influence on the mind at work, and that the classical functioning is a better approach.

... here's a question to ask yourself - how much influence on the "mind" does carbon have? ... that is, the chemical properties of carbon and its relative abundance in nature are key to earthly life and the human brain - but beyond simply providing a substrate, is there anything in the chemical properties of carbon that is responsible for the overall functioning of the "mind" (or is "mind" a process that is substrate-independent)? ...

[Holiday20310401]

Oh and about those particles of dimension... I doubt now that I think about it, they would have actuality, they would just be a threshold to our gauge in how small a particle can get, and would simply act as the universe we exist in right now so in a sense, they are infinite in how big they are just as how small they are, so.... we probably would never detect them lol.

[Holiday20310401]

Originally Posted by paulhanke

... here's a question to ask yourself - how much influence on the "mind" does carbon have? (or is "mind" a process that is substrate-independent)? ...

Mind is a process, I believe, that relies on the contents. It depends on the substrates. And carbon, I suppose would have many effects on the structure of neurons, like say protection, as carbon can bind covalently very well, so less polarity with biomolecular fluid, making it more stable?
Even though I don't have a clue as to what the chemical structure of neurons are I suppose that only the hippocampus neurons can repair themselves, all other ones can not, which is unlike most other cells in the human body. And since electrical signals are going through this system I'm sure carbon is beneficial.

The mind I just look as a processor, like a computer, except obviously its structure deviates in complexity than a computer, making us conscious. Personally, thats all I think there is to it, I just want to know at what point does the consciousness occur exactly, what difference is there in neural networking that makes our cognitive abilities so abstract and superior to computers (except that a computer can process mroe than we can at a given time).

A computer can process time very well, we can only estimate it.

[paulhanke]

Originally Posted by Holiday20310401

Mind is a process, I believe, that relies on the contents. It depends on the substrates.

... for the moment, let's assume we were able to engineer a simulated neuron in silicon that interacted with its environment identically to a biological carbon-based neuron ... in your estimation, if we started replacing the neurons in a biological brain with the simulated neurons then "mind" would just disappear? ... or is it your estimation that there is no possible way to engineer a simulated neuron that interacts with its environment identically to a biological carbon-based neuron that is not also internally indistinguishable from a biological neuron? ... or?