[HN Gopher] Consciousness is supported by near-critical slow cor... ___________________________________________________________________ Consciousness is supported by near-critical slow cortical electrodynamics Author : hsnewman Score : 115 points Date : 2022-02-15 18:04 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.pnas.org) (TXT) w3m dump (www.pnas.org) | tpfl wrote: | While most often a female condition & linked to trama. | | I think it could be considered an involuntary & reflexive coping | & potentially habit forming loop. | | "dis-sociated" is the first ever documentary to explore | dissociative seizures (aka PNES/NEAD). | | These are NOT electrical based. I describe it as a dump between | hemispheres of brain & spine/body. | | Watch the film for free on the link below: | | https://youtu.be/MA1EYAg9y5 | | A professional explains the behavior like the brain rebooting | like computer. | | As a computer scientist I can confirm but also I can confirm that | the spirit/awareness/conciousness/soul & egos exist outside the | brain (in body & outside body). | | I would consider the brain an integral "receiver" for ur perfect | soul. | | My hypothesis is that brain can get into a habit of triggering | psycogenic communication between parts of brain & body & | conscious/unconscious/subconscious (universal unconscious[God or | source]) which do not normally communicate. A lot of information | can transfer in this way, in both directions. Some good relief, | some could be absolutely terrifying (think having the same bad | dream 1,000 times in a couple seconds) | | I believe a habit or trigger could start a reaction which | ultimately overwhelms patients brain. | | I would describe this event from the other side as a trigger | (unconscious) which causes the ego to join hands closer with | unconscious or subconcious, in this state we live outside of | space time, we learn knowings from past/present/future selfs & | past/present/future universe. | | Awareness expands, a sensation of electricity is everywhere. I | feel outside myself. A union not a death. | | We live after death for sometime outside of our bodies. We are | tethered romantically & intimately with our bodies. We love our | bodies. | | The spiritual perfectly married to the phsyical. | | Spiritual is source & unbounded, infinite. Physical manifest has | more "concrete" reality, but both are equal & valid. | | Both need each other for heaven on earth. | netsharc wrote: | It's a weird feeling to realize how we're all just hardware, and | it might be possible to wake up someone who's "brain | dead"/vegetative by LSD (the paper mentions how psychedelics | affect this cortical electrodynamics, and as this old article[1] | mentions the LSD). | | Imagine someone flipping a switch (in the future where tech to | control the electrodynamics exists) and you're awake and aware of | your surroundings again. | | [1] https://therooster.com/blog/scientists-want-to-give- | psychede... | tpfl wrote: | I think it's incredible u don't get down voted for a | technonology standpoint but I do from a spiritual one. | awb wrote: | > The idea of using LSD as a treatment has floated around the | Internet for decades. There are rumors -- totally unconfirmed | -- that an astronomical dose of LSD -- "a quarter of a vial," | or 25 hits -- woke up an unresponsive dude and, after a few | days, he was able to speak. It's entirely possible those | stories are true. | | "Unresponsive dude" lol. Interesting descriptor. | | It doesn't sound like anyone has tried it yet. | unfocussed_mike wrote: | > "Unresponsive dude" lol. Interesting descriptor. | | Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man. | ghostly_s wrote: | What does "a critical point or phase transition [of the] | electrodynamics of the cortex" mean? Electricity doesn't have | "phases" AFAIK (well there's two/three-phase power but I don't | think that's what they're talking about). | mlyle wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_transition | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_exponent | | The concept of phase transition is broader than the phases of | matter. | ghostly_s wrote: | Interesting, though the only example I see listed in that | article that's not a change in the physical properties of | matter is the ferromagnetic<=>paramagnetic phases. | colechristensen wrote: | One that isn't a matter it's convection currents in a | closed vessel between two plates of different temperatures. | | At low differentials there's no convection just conduction, | as you raise the temperature difference you get a stable | single circulation loop which is well behaved, continue | further and you get a tempest of circulations coming and | going in an entirely unpredictable manner. | | There are distinct phase transitions between each of these | states. | | Another one is a forced double pendulum. With just a little | periodic force they swing gently back and forth, with a lot | they do constant crazy unpredictable loops around each | other. | mlyle wrote: | Lots of the list are changes of physical properties of | matter (e.g. breaking of physics symmetries in the cooling | universe)... that are not conventional matter phase | transitions between e.g. liquid and gas. | colechristensen wrote: | They're talking about the dynamics of the system's behavior not | something physical about electrons. | alan-hn wrote: | Its a transition between distinct operational phases of a | dynamic system, iirc these can be described with a (my | terminology may be a bit off here) topological phase diagram | | https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/dynamical-systems-neuroscienc... | markhahn wrote: | This strikes me as totally unsurprising. How could it be | otherwise? It's basically saying that a brain normally operates | in an interesting dynamical mode: not chaotic, and not very | regular. Wow? If it were chaotic, we wouldn't have coherent or | consistent behavior at any scale. If overly regular, we'd be | incredibly dull and unable to respond to the environment. | | You could do this with a computer. If your signals coming from | the computer are either too regular or too unexpected, then it's | probably broken. This sort of thing might be useful | diagnostically, but doesn't really provide us with greater | understanding... | jawarner wrote: | It's interesting that we can measure, quantiatively, what the | dynamical operating mode of a system is. It's interesting, to | me anyway, because it's a high-level characteristic that | describes most (all?) information processing systems. | Gravityloss wrote: | Yes, and what you said is not novel. It was widely known at | least 20 years ago when I was working in the business. | | From quick skimming, maybe it's some more subtle point in the | publication. | abeppu wrote: | I didn't read the whole thing, but I did find parts of it | surprising. | | Some things that jumped out at me: | | > during conscious states, the electrodynamics of the cortex | are poised near a critical point or phase transition and that | this near-critical behavior supports the vast flow of | information through cortical networks during conscious states | | But we've had a lot of success building artificial systems that | support a "vast flow of information" which I would expect are | mostly nowhere near such a boundary. Stuff moves around within | a periodic structure, and moving more info has corresponded to | moving more information per period. Why would we not expect a | pile of neurons with a ginormous number of connections to be | able to move a lot of information even through largely periodic | behavior? | | > we found that the Lempel-Ziv complexity of the model's | simulated electrodynamics (with noise inputs) was maximal when | the deterministic component of its dynamics were poised near | this critical onset of chaos | | I guess if the measure of "information richness" is based in | compressibility of electrical activity ... is it surprising | that it isn't higher in the chaotic phase? Why wouldn't one | expect the chaotic system to produce as much or more random | output? | tomrod wrote: | A captured signal may represent a pathway for intervention, a | cause, or a margin to address. | | Imagine if we found that schizophrenia or other potentially | debilitating mental health condition were 99.9999% correlated | with this signal being weak or strong. That would be telling. | If only for diagnosis, and possibly as a cause. | | EDIT: a word - "would _be_ telling " | civilized wrote: | Welcome to the world of Complex Systems research. | | Complex Systems guy: we just showed a system operates in a | critical state scale-free phase transition and its key | statistics have a power law distribution! | | Everyone: okay, so? | | CS guy: I dunno? That's what our discipline does. It tells you | things are in critical states with power laws. So now you know | that... | croddin wrote: | A computer sending compressed or encrypted network traffic | would look as if it were sending unexpected noise if you don't | know how to read it. | inpdx wrote: | Can anyone ELI5 this? | colechristensen wrote: | Eh, not really. | | It's hard to describe features of chaos / nonlinear dynamics | simply. | | There are features of chaotic systems that undergo phase | changes from one type of behavior to another. Think a signal on | one side of the transition to look like a pure sine wave and on | the other side of the transition to look like purely random | white noise. | | What these guys are reporting is that they found a parameter, a | signal they can measure in brains that seems to correlate with | consciousness. When the signal is right up near the edge of | this kind of chaotic phase transition, the subject is | conscious, when nowhere near the phase transition, you aren't. | So they have a way to sort of measure and quantify | consciousness and perhaps even control it a little by measuring | and doing things to manipulate this signal. | | It might be sort of like an OPEN sign in a store, just a signal | that happens to reflect consciousness, or this brain wave | behavior might be a fundamental part of consciousness and | higher thinking. It all seems quite interesting. | | Projecting guesses out for this is that chaotic dynamics are a | fundamental part of how our brains, especially at the highest | levels work. One would guess given this evidence and other | things that one of the things that makes consciousness possible | is a complex system kept balanced at a knife edge of a certain | kind of chaotic phase transition. It's also the kind of thing | that can open a backdoor for free will in a deterministic | universe, your brain in this chaotic state might behave | deterministically but the actual state would never be knowable | with enough precision to predict the outcome of inputs for any | amount of time (butterfly effect). | bell-cot wrote: | +1...but my reaction to folks who worry much about free will | in a deterministic universe, "butterfly effect quasi-free | will", etc. is that they _really_ should have gotten outside | to play more when they were kids. | MarcoZavala wrote: | awb wrote: | > It's also the kind of thing that can open a backdoor for | free will in a deterministic universe, your brain in this | chaotic state might behave deterministically but the actual | state would never be knowable with enough precision to | predict the outcome of inputs for any amount of time | (butterfly effect). | | I think all it would mean is that the human brain is non- | deterministic. | | That's different from free will though which is really an | untestable, philosophical idea rather than a testable | scientific hypothesis. | | In any event, a random chaos state can be both non- | deterministic and not intentional, or what many would call | "free will". | alan-hn wrote: | I personally don't think that any macromolecular physical | system can be entirely nondeterministic. We just don't | understand how to make predictions for the system yet, but | being beyond out understanding doesn't make it | nondeterministic. | Buttons840 wrote: | Deep philosophical discussions around free will can benefit | from first defining what "free will" means. | colechristensen wrote: | Deep philosophical discussions around free will often | consist entirely of defining what "free will" means. | whatshisface wrote: | If the human mind is deterministic there's no free will. If | it isn't there might be. That makes free will half of a | scientific question - science can only rule it out. | darawk wrote: | > I think all it would mean is that the human brain is non- | deterministic. | | Chaotic systems are still deterministic. They're just | extremely sensitive to their initial conditions/inputs. | eightysixfour wrote: | I always find it interesting drawing the determinism line | on chaotic systems. | | For example, is a chaotic system that depends on initial | conditions so precise that having adequate measurement to | predict the outcome would violate the uncertainty | principle still deterministic? | azeirah wrote: | As far as I understand it, determinism is about being | able to predict the next state if you have all knowledge | about a system. | | That we can't have all knowledge about most systems in | the real world doesn't mean they're not deterministic. | | And who knows what kind of magical science we'll find in | the future that turns everything we know about | measurement upside down? | verisimi wrote: | "Think a signal on one side of the transition to look like a | pure sine wave and on the other side of the transition to | look like purely random white noise." | | This reminds me of something Rupert Sheldrake says is | possible - that consciousness is 'off-site', that the body is | more of a radio receptor. | BizarroLand wrote: | I'm interpreting it as there is a point in the meatspace of | your brain that is like a sailboat on a stormy sea. The | Water is one level, the air is another, and your | consciousness is the sailboat that glides around where the | two meet. | robbedpeter wrote: | There is no magic, nor room for it for any person that | believes in the scientific method. There are a sufficient | number of real mysteries and wonders not to waste time with | pseudoscience. The brain is not a consciousness antennae, | and there are no good reasons to think so. | | Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon entirely dependent | on and contained within the brain. | AnimalMuppet wrote: | For me personally, when I use the term "free will", I mean | something stronger than "deterministic, but not provably so". | That's more of a "free will of the gaps" - claiming that free | will is hiding somewhere in the holes in our knowledge. | nefitty wrote: | Whatever people mean by free will, this feeling like we're | driving our bodies and minds around usually, there's no | mechanism by which it could exist. | | Either the things in our brains follow deterministic | patterns or they're random. Neither one of those gives me | room to decide to get a glass of orange juice. In fact, any | desire I have at all for an orange is dependent on that | type of plant having emerged billions of years ago. I can | imagine a fruit that doesn't exist, but I can't desire it | and I can't buy it at the store. I had no say in any part | of that causal chain whatsoever. | MarcoZavala wrote: | otabdeveloper4 wrote: | a) Information complexity is a measurable physical | quantity. | | b) Unlike matter and energy, information complexity does | not obey laws of conservation. (Demonstrably so.) | | c) Ergo, an information complexity singularity can exist, | and if it does - we would be reasonably correct in calling | it "free will". | alan-hn wrote: | So to put things simply, this comes from a view of a neuron (or | network of neurons) as a dynamical system with various states. | These states are constantly in flux and we can describe the | states as patterns that are seen from plotting the pieces of | the instantaneous state of the system in question. These | patterns will repeat and change over time based on inputs and | such, hence the term "phase change" | | At least that's my current understanding of the matter, coming | from the mouth of an undergrad late in a biochem degree with a | focus on neuro | wahern wrote: | The 1992 book, Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of | Order and Chaos, arguably remains the classic introduction to | complexity theory. And it doesn't require any maths. | unfocussed_mike wrote: | _" This book deals with epiphenomenalism, which has to do with | consciousness as a mere accessory of physiological processes | whose presence or absence... makes no difference... whatever are | you doing?"_ | superkuh wrote: | Pretty cool. I am surprised that low frequency dynamics are so | strongly associated with reports of aware conciousnes states | given that the high frequency 40 Hz activity of cortico-thalamo- | cortical loops are necessary (if not sufficient) for | consciousness as well. I'd put my money on the low frequency | dynamics being a downstream effect from the cessation of the ~40 | Hz cortico-thalamo-cortical loops under anesthesia. I'd also like | it if they had included a gas anesthetic along with the receptor | mediated anesthetics. | [deleted] | geijoenr wrote: | This appears to be an indication of a new phenomenon correlated | to criticality in cortical electrodynamics, that also correlates | to consciousness as we understand it. | | It looks to me is a huge step, because even the result is so far | empirical, the first step to understand anything is being able to | measure it. | ffhhj wrote: | So, consciousness is like a big casino in which the brain builds | a bets for different theories, and this chaos measured come from | all the dice throwing. | drran wrote: | Event loop. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-02-15 23:00 UTC)