With consciousness I am referring to the fact that we are observing reality and we don’t function automatically without having to observe and feel the world. That consciousness. Since we only experience and observe what exists as electrical signals in our neurons, and other signal just gets picked up by the neurons (we don’t feel hormones, but how our brain translates them).
So my thought is, what if consciousness has nothing to do with biology, but it just manifests in vastly different ways where there is electricity? Just some kind of philosophical idea more than scientific. A simple binary system would have some kind of (out of our comprehension) binary consciousness, where it either feels or doesn’t feel, or maybe it has two different incredibly simple “feelings”. Biology just has insanely complex electric systems that have the consciousness we know and love.
If consciousness was an external thing my mind would be different, because I’m thinking about consciousness right now. This doesn’t become a problem if consciousness is simply electricity. How consciousness works, though, and why I am I, remains a mystery.
You might consider the fact that electrical acivity occurs in the brain during anesthesia, where it’s reasonable to say that consciosness is not occuring.
Every atom is associated with electromagnetic events. To me, developing some understanding of how neural nets process information, seems more apt to lead to improving your understanding of yourself
I second the motion. The brain is an electrochemical machine. Much of its biochemistry is dedicated to generating and transmitting electrical pulses. I haven’t been able to keep up with neuroscience - it’s lightyears ahead from when I last read anything substantive in the field. To catch up would take me at least a year or two. Don’t have the patience or the resources for such a project.
We’re throwing everything we have at the problem of consciousness. Hopefully it’ll all come together in the future.
As of the present moment I’m a bit flummoxed by the fact that if we pick up a peripheral neuron (say an optic neuron in your eye) and follow a signal, you’ll meet another neuron; do the same and you’ll find yet another neuron, so on ad infinitum. All we get is a network of neurons. I believe for a computer this is different - the mouse click signal terminates in a CPU which is distinct from the wire + other hardware that connects your mouse to the CPU.
I mean I don’t know that much about CS but I’m pretty sure like there’s more to that mouse click thing. It goes through a lot of stuff and the cpu doesn’t really determine the whole computer it’s just an important part. My idea proposes that the entire electrical system put together has consciousness
For me, I believe consciousness, as we think about it, arises from complex causal chains, but I don’t think these specifically have to be electrical. However, the electromagnetic force seems to be kind of the only force that could plausibly make complex causal chains on small scales.
I am not at all trying to disprove an important role for electricity in consciousness.
That electricity is “central”, on the other hand would seems to me like a weird thing to suggest, in light of all the relevant biology, neural organization, etc.
That’s “all”? That’s what a network is, a combination of nodes (neurons, in this case) and connections (synapses). Individual nodes are pretty simple, but there are a mind-boggling number of them. But when we consider the possibilities that the connectome introduces, the number of possible configurations is so big that mere “mind-boggling” fades into insignificance. And that’s why brains are so impressively capable, isn’t it?
Do you have an example of consciousness that is non-biological that provides evidence of electrical reactions enabling consciousness? The only non-biological (yet observable) effect that hints at consciousness are quantum experiments such as Quantum Zeno Effect (QZE)/Quantum anti-Zeno effect(QAZE) along with the delayed choice quantum eraser (DCQE) experiment and the related double slit experiment (DSE). The QZE/QAZE seem to be “aware” of being observed while the DCQE/DSE seems to be protecting which-way information. Of course there are other explanations besides consciousness, but consciousness is one option to account for the experiment. I might add that Novikov Self-Consistency Principle (NSCP) suggests consciousness because all timelines must be self-consistent or they can’t happen, but that’s just a theoretical account as to why Grandfather’s paradox could not actually happen.
But consciousness, as the environment in which mental objects exist, doesn’t only observe? It can also inform the body of its state. Which is required for our ability to discuss what’s inside it using our body. And informing requires transmitting energy, in a smart way. Which makes consciousness an energy transmitter?
So, it looks like energy has the ability to create consciousness, and by doing this, it can move under a different set of rules. This can be used to explain various phenomena where energy moves in an unusual way that physicalists love to ignore, since the involvement of consciousness is what they all have in common.
Also, all types of energy and matter seem to be made from the same stuff, since they can all be turned into each other? And stuff that comes from our consciousness seems to be a part of a single system, capable of influencing our consciousness simply by existing… But if people with a split brain truly have 2 different consciousnesses, I’m not so sure how far we can go in this direction.
I don’t believe it is a problem. I believe the anesthetized brain is experiencing itself. It’s just not experiencing being awake, and the various things that come with being awake.
Well, no, it’s not just electricity. Neurons are able to communicate with one another (the basis of consciousness) because of the action of neurotransmitters. These molecules are the chemical messengers that move from cell to cell to carry a signal across the space between neurons called the synapse.
The electricity flowing in a neuron (called the action potential) is what causes neurotransmitters to be released into the synapse, where they cross the gap to the next neuron.
If one neuron touched the next, then the direction of the electricity could not be controlled but just result in a chaotic, directionless firing.
The synapse is at “the heart of all brain function.”