A report on Consciousness

Representation of consciousness from the seventeenth century by Robert Fludd, an English Paracelsian physician
John Locke, British Enlightenment philosopher from the 17th century
Illustration of dualism by René Descartes. Inputs are passed by the sensory organs to the pineal gland and from there to the immaterial spirit.
Thomas Nagel argues that while a human might be able to imagine what it is like to be a bat by taking "the bat's point of view", it would still be impossible "to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat." (Townsend's big-eared bat pictured).
John Searle in December 2005
The Necker cube, an ambiguous image
A Buddhist monk meditating
Neon color spreading effect. The apparent bluish tinge of the white areas inside the circle is an illusion.
Square version of the neon spread illusion

Sentience or awareness of internal and external existence.

- Consciousness
Representation of consciousness from the seventeenth century by Robert Fludd, an English Paracelsian physician

98 related topics with Alpha

Overall
Simulation of neural oscillations at 10 Hz. Upper panel shows spiking of individual neurons (with each dot representing an individual action potential within the population of neurons), and the lower panel the local field potential reflecting their summed activity. Figure illustrates how synchronized patterns of action potentials may result in macroscopic oscillations that can be measured outside the scalp.

Neural oscillation

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Neural oscillations, or brainwaves, are rhythmic or repetitive patterns of neural activity in the central nervous system.

Neural oscillations, or brainwaves, are rhythmic or repetitive patterns of neural activity in the central nervous system.

Simulation of neural oscillations at 10 Hz. Upper panel shows spiking of individual neurons (with each dot representing an individual action potential within the population of neurons), and the lower panel the local field potential reflecting their summed activity. Figure illustrates how synchronized patterns of action potentials may result in macroscopic oscillations that can be measured outside the scalp.
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Tonic firing pattern of single neuron showing rhythmic spiking activity
Simulation of a Hindmarsh–Rose neuron showing typical bursting behavior: a fast rhythm generated by individual spikes and a slower rhythm generated by the bursts.
Simulation of a neural mass model showing network spiking during the onset of a seizure. As the gain A is increased the network starts to oscillate at 3Hz.
Handwriting of a person affected by Parkinson's disease showing rhythmic tremor activity in the strokes
Generalized 3 Hz spike and wave discharges reflecting seizure activity

Consequently, neural oscillations have been linked to cognitive states, such as awareness and consciousness.

The "standard interpretation" of the Turing Test, in which the interrogator is tasked with trying to determine which player is a computer and which is a human

Computing Machinery and Intelligence

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Seminal paper written by Alan Turing on the topic of artificial intelligence.

Seminal paper written by Alan Turing on the topic of artificial intelligence.

The "standard interpretation" of the Turing Test, in which the interrogator is tasked with trying to determine which player is a computer and which is a human

4) Argument From Consciousness: This argument, suggested by Professor Geoffrey Jefferson in his 1949 Lister Oration states that "not until a machine can write a sonnet or compose a concerto because of thoughts and emotions felt, and not by the chance fall of symbols, could we agree that machine equals brain." Turing replies by saying that we have no way of knowing that any individual other than ourselves experiences emotions, and that therefore we should accept the test. He adds, "I do not wish to give the impression that I think there is no mystery about consciousness ... [b]ut I do not think these mysteries necessarily need to be solved before we can answer the question [of whether machines can think]." (This argument, that a computer can't have conscious experiences or understanding, would be made in 1980 by philosopher John Searle in his Chinese room argument. Turing's reply is now known as the "other minds reply". See also Can a machine have a mind? in the philosophy of AI.)

Journal of Consciousness Studies

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The Journal of Consciousness Studies is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated entirely to the field of consciousness studies.

Attention schema theory

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The attention schema theory (AST) of consciousness (or subjective awareness) is an evolutionary and neuropsychological scientific theory of consciousness which was developed by neuroscientist Michael Graziano at Princeton University.

Heterophenomenology

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Heterophenomenology ("phenomenology of another, not oneself") is a term coined by Daniel Dennett to describe an explicitly third-person, scientific approach to the study of consciousness and other mental phenomena.

Consciousness and Cognition

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The journal Consciousness and Cognition provides a forum for scientific approaches to the issues of consciousness, voluntary control, and self.

Penrose in 2011

Roger Penrose

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English mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics.

English mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics.

Penrose in 2011
The Penrose triangle
Predicted view from outside the event horizon of a black hole lit by a thin accretion disc
A Penrose tiling
WMAP image of the (extremely tiny) anisotropies in the cosmic background radiation
Penrose at a conference
Penrose in the University of Santiago de Compostela to receive the Fonseca Prize
Penrose in a lecture

Penrose and Hameroff have argued that consciousness is the result of quantum gravity effects in microtubules, which they dubbed Orch-OR (orchestrated objective reduction).

Disorders of consciousness

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Disorders of consciousness are medical conditions that inhibit consciousness.

Gerald M. Edelman in 2010.

Gerald Edelman

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American biologist who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work with Rodney Robert Porter on the immune system.

American biologist who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work with Rodney Robert Porter on the immune system.

Gerald M. Edelman in 2010.
Diagram illustrating the disulfide bonds (red) that link the light (green) and heavy (blue) protein subunits of Immunoglobulin G (IgG) molecules. This diagram also illustrates the relative positions of the variable (V) and constant (C) domains of an IgG molecule. The heavy and light chain variable regions come together to form antigen binding sites at the end of the two symmetrical arms of the antibody.

In his later career, Edelman was noted for his theory of consciousness, documented in a trilogy of technical books and in several subsequent books written for a general audience, including Bright Air, Brilliant Fire (1992), A Universe of Consciousness (2001, with Giulio Tononi), Wider than the Sky (2004) and Second Nature: Brain Science and Human Knowledge (2007).

Fig. 1 a

Response priming

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In the psychology of perception and motor control, the term response priming denotes a special form of priming.

In the psychology of perception and motor control, the term response priming denotes a special form of priming.

Fig. 1 a
Fig. 2: Typical time course of response priming effects (fictitious data). Consistent primes (blue) speed responses to the target, inconsistent primes (purple) slow them. In addition, consistent primes only rarely lead to response errors, whereas error rates can be very high for inconsistent primes. In response times as well as error rates, priming effects typically increase with SOA.
Fig. 3: Typical patterns of backward masking (fictitious data). When a participant tries to identify the prime, response accuracy depends on the degree of masking. Without masking, the prime is identified with nearly perfect accuracy (purple), while accuracy drops to chance level (50 %) when masking is complete (left panel). Depending on the type of mask, other time-courses of masking are possible (right panel). In type-A masking, the degree of masking is highest when prime and target follow each other at short SOAs, and decreases with SOA (purple). In type-B masking, the degree of masking is stronger at intermediate SOAs than at shorter or longer SOAs (red). Type-B time-courses can be obtained in metacontrast masking under specific stimulus conditions.
Fig. 4: Central tenets of direct parameter specification theory and the action trigger account. When the response to a target stimulus is sufficiently practiced, the response can be prepared to a degree where only a single critical stimulus feature is needed to specify and elicit the response. Response elicitation by the prime occurs quickly and directly without the need for a conscious representation of the stimulus. In parallel to these visuomotor processes, a conscious representation of primes and targets emerges which can be subject to visual masking but plays no role in the actual motor processing in the current trial. More recent variants of the theory stress the role of so-called trigger conditions which determine how stimuli and responses are linked in a given task.
Fig. 4: A schematic depiction of rapid-chase theory. Primes and targets are engaged in a chase through the visuomotor system (from visual to motor areas). Because the prime signal has a head-start over the target signal, it is able to start a motor response assigned to it and to control this response for as long as the prime-target SOA allows. When the actual target signal then arrives in the motor system, it can follow through with the response already activated by the prime (in consistent trials) or has to reverse the response (in inconsistent trials). Rapid-chase theory assumes that primes and targets elicit feedforward cascades of neuronal activation traversing the visuomotor system in strict sequence, without mixture or overlap of prime and target signals. Therefore, the initial motor response to the prime must be independent of all stimulus aspects of the actual target.

Response priming can be employed to investigate phenomena of perception without awareness.