Scientists turn off consciousness in rats

Thst’s much clearer but aren’t there unjustified assumptions being made here? How do we know that it’s information and not just housekeeping signals?

Would not “housekeeping signals” be an example of information?

I don’t think so. A janitor cleaning the rooms of a math department isn’t a mathematician (doesn’t have to be).

I’m afraid that analogy is beyond me.

Assumptions? You would have to give examples. The study states that the framework of cortical traveling waves as active, directionally tuned conduits for neural communication. As for how they distinguished between housekeeping signals and information, they used something called transfer entropy to measure each wave that traveled across a sensor which they measured in a conscious brain in three ways:

  1. Measured the directional alignment of the physical waves
  • Awake: transfer entropy drops in arbitrary directions and becomes coupled. Information literally follows the wave vector, proving that the traveling wave is acting as an active transport mechanism for a signal rather than background noise.
  • Asleep: transfer entropy exists everywhere in a uncoordinated flux.
  1. Measured the information turning curve.
  • Awake: Curve becomes sharp and narrow The study explains why
  • Asleep: Curve becomes broad and flat. Study explains why
  1. Measuring the brain response to external stimulus.
  • Awake: The traveling waves and entropy paths became repeatable, stable, and targeted towards processing areas.
  • Asleep: Failed to produce these pathways where the brain failed remains in a high entropy chaotic state.

My knowledge of neuroscience is scant. However from what I can glean from your post, it still looks like we’re looking at global brain phenomena i.e. the electrical signals we’re measuring = the sum of all the electrical activity of the brain. We could draw interesting conclusions from the average electrical activity of the brain but just as 1 + 3 = 4 and 2 + 2 = 4 and since what we measure is 4, we can’t really know if it was from 1 + 3 or 2 + 2. Perhaps I’m wrong and neuroscience has made advances I’m not aware of.

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Yeah they have made breakthroughs from the eggcrate problem that you’re describing.

  1. There using high-density spatial array recording and directional vector analysis. Instead of recording one single output of 1 + 1 = 2, the array records individual micro-voltage fluctuations simultaneously at dozens of precise, distinct grid coordinates, x1 y1, x2 y2, and so on.

  2. Tracking phase variances across a electrode net.

  3. And so on…

Keep in mind this is a new global research study from a top university that was published on a reputable site. I doubt there releasing anything that hasn’t been peer reviewed heavily. I guess the exception to this is if you believe that it’s fake news. It does smell like a martian coverup story.

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Oh, my old bones. :smiley:

There still could be cause for pause in re the conclusions as identifying a brain wave as information and not something else probably involves some guesswork.

‘This body’ would be called what is ‘half awake’ and ‘half asleep’.

By the way, would you like me to read this thread to see what has been mentioned and talked about here so far?

Sure why not. I swear if that martian doesn’t get off of my lawn i’m going to shoot it down again. What radio station is this again? :pensive_face:

Autonomous being? The thread is for all. (who exist in the right radio frequency range that is! they’ll never know! Shh! Don’t tell the squares the truth. Our radio frequency is imagination to them.)[Some fun humor to contemplate that offers deep insight about the study]

Perhaps I’m being unfair, comparing neuroscience to (say) physics. The latter sets a high bar for the other sciences. It’s just that with physics there’s no spot for an annoying skeptic to plonk himself on.

Haha, don’t be so sure, i’m reading one of those skeptics now from another thread.

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This is two words, with a question mark at the end of them.

I have no clue as to what the two words are referring to, and if you were asking me a question, then I also have no clue as to what it is, exactly.

Okay.

If you say so.

What is being studied, and what deep insight are you referring to, exactly?

The study that the topic is about.

Is this topic about rat consciousness or human consciousness, exactly?

The topic title says one thing and your first three words in the opening post says something else.

I am not sure why you tagged me here and asked me the question that you did here.

You’ll have to figure that out for yourself. As for why I tagged you:

I’m looking forward to reviewing a well thought out criticism on the article that I posted.

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Just going on these words alone, there is NO ‘problem’ at all here, let alone any so-called ‘immensely difficult problem’ at all.

The consciousness in rats, humans, or other things is not that hard nor complex to study, understand, nor know at all.

And, ‘Consciousness’, Itself, is not something that can be really studied anyway.

Once you know what ‘Consciousness’ is, exactly, then all of this is far better understood.

Did you tag me because:

I said,

and you replied,

to which I responded,

?

Ah okay. I was thinking a bit more specifically in regard to what I said and wrote, but you were thinking generally.

On the first sentence in your post, I have already provided a very quick review and critique.

See, some people say things like they study ‘consciousness’, ‘the mind’, ‘time’, or ‘the expansion of the Universe’, for example, but when asked for clarification about the ‘very thing/s’ that they claim to study, they are not actually even able to provide clarity. So, there is my first criticism.

As for the rest of what you wrote in the opening post I have yet to begin to read.

Fair criticism within a philosophy of language topic. You’re quick to notice this within others, but I caution anyone to not fall into the exact trap you’re criticizing of others—using a concept without providing any clarity on the thing itself especially if you’re holding others accountable like you seem to be doing.