Consciousness is a Biological Problem

that is what i was getting at, kj-i may get an idea or impulse and usually have no idea where it is coming from-in my post i was saying that if i had not seen anything on television for example, suppose i am posting on this forum and the idea comes 'i want a cup of coffee' where did it come from?

but of course, do keep up presenting what is know to neuroscience. i am amazed at how much more is known today than the last time i looked in. my own opinion is that we need to look everywhere in order to get the full picture, not only one discipline or dimension. to me neuroscience, biology and psychology, anthropology, archaeology, the list is endless-all these contain puzzle pieces.

i am not sure what you are saying about being on thin ice, but i can only take so much book learning and then i have to put on the skates, you know what i mean?

let's not deride "book learning". empirical means of figuring things out are not first written down in books: they are found out in real life. and they're the only means we can falsify. that is, the only means that have a quality control built-in

It is pretty much the same essential thing as any urge, actually. Even in the event that there were no direct priming (i.e. no subliminal, or otherwise, prior input which could set off such an urge), drinking is an habitual activity, and pleasure is a sought after thing in the brain. A person who has drunk coffee fairly regularly, especially, will probably get pleasure from drinking coffee, and the pleasure element is one thing. Also in line with that, common brain build is basically in favor of addiction, and something related to that could have caused enough activity to be noticed; and memory recall--free recall--is always going on (even though it doesn't reach consciousness threshold, and so one won't be able to report on it). It is the case, afterall, that a person who didn't like coffee, and never drank coffee, would not get an urge to drink coffee. And of course, the urge came from brain activity.



Then picking up from my #721, some further looking at split-brain cases, and conditions.

It surely must have been very shocking, and disturbing--not to mention embarrassing--to find (as one lady who psychiatrists had eventually sent to Dr. Kurt Goldstein, a neurologist, did) that ones left hand would occasionally reach up and make a 'stranglehold' on the neck, and would have to be fought off with the right hand. That patient was checked out carefully by Dr. Goldstein and deemed not psychotic or anything, but most likely had had a stroke in the area of the corpus callosum, thus hampering control by the 'rational' left hemisphere, over the 'emotional' right hemisphere. (1) Not too long after having visited Dr. Goldstein, the lady died and an autospy was conducted. As diagnosed, she had had a massive stroke in her corpus collosum, and the two hemispheres had been disconnected to that extent--which most likely had resulted in letting the right hemisphere (RH) act on some (thinkable) latent suicidal tendency without left hemisphere (LH) inhibition.

For some time after the first callosotomy surgeries, there was almost no notice of anything different, after a number of post-surgery hours, from how the patient had been before--except that the epileptic seizures were usually much less. After a number of years, a number of operations, and the development of more precise and thought-out testing and investigation methods, little by little differences were teased out, and now it is clear that the two hemispheres are working on their own, in connection with each other for the good of the whole, but that LH is especially the center for talking and reasoning. (2)

Since the the left eye mostly attends to the left visual field (LVF), and the right eye to the right visual field (RVF), input can be sent to each individual hemisphere--LVF to RH, RVF to LH--and the fine differences of conscious can be drawn out (as in the lady whose left hand tried to choke her from time to time). One patient experienced the problem (though I do not know of the frequency of it) of grabbing his wife with his left hand, and attempting to shake her in a violent manner, while his right hand was trying to protect her. One had been seen on a number of occasions trying to put on a pair of pants with the right hand trying to take them off, once having kind of gotten them on (I'm sure it didn't go on all the time, though...hee, hee, hee (that lady with the suicidal hand would sit on it in public gatherings, just in case)). (3)

As one famous case study goes, one P.S. had been doing several activities and in one had been shown a picture of a snow scene to RH, and a picture of a chicken claw to LH. Then, he was instructed to choose from eight pictures, the one most related to the scene he had just been shown, using both hands. His left hand chose a snow shovel, while his right hand chose a chicken. Now since the information in the two hemispheres had not been shared in this case, neither had known what experience the other had had. When asked to explain why he had chosen a shovel and a chicken, the dominante LH, the 'interpreter' (as M. Gazzaniga has labled it), explained that the chicken claw (this is the experience [information content] known by LH) went with the chicken, that he had seen, and that the shovel (keep in mind that now, LH can take a look, and realize, that the left hand has chosen a shovel, while it had had no information nor knowledge of the experience of RH's having seen a snow scene earlier) was needed to clean out the chicken shed.

J.W. was shown the word 'phone' to his RH, and was asked to verbalize what he had been looking at. He said he had seen nothing (and RH is mute), so a pen was placed in his left hand, and he was asked to draw it. (which must have seemed strange to LH . . . I mean, it had been insisting that it hadn't seen anything at all). Well, the left hand started working on something, and J.W. was looking, and kind of talking outloud to himself, and it was about at the same point that any third party observer would have been able to get it, that J.W. said, "Duh, it's a phone." (I think he had had a good sense of humor, as well. . . because he may have then realized, that he should have already have known). When the command to 'stand up' had been flashed to RH, he stood up. When then asked why he had stood up, the 'interpreter' LH said that he had just felt like getting up and getting a coke.

While there are of course more case studies, the one I like a lot is that of one left handed patient who used to draw a lot before his CC was severed. Some works had been obtained before surgery for 'just in case' testing subjects, to compare with after surgery effects. In a testing situation, it was seen that he could still draw with his left hand, but his spontaneous drawings with that hand represented more simplified versions of things (a full, time spent, worked out drawing was more up to par). Spontaneous drawings with his right hand were very rudimentary and often unrecognizable.

Once he was asked to draw a house with his right hand, and as he was doing that, his left hand moved in to take over, but was stopped by the experimenter. Subsequently, the patient was asked to draw a person using his left hand, at which the 'frustrated?' RH quickly drew a well executed house (remember, RH can't express itself much otherwise). LH, however, started to complain, saying, "This is not a person," and then the right hand took the pen and drew what kind of looked like a person.

I will explain a little more about the differences in the roles and activity styles of the hemispheres, and then make applications, in the next post.




1. This is not to divide emotion and ration into the two hemispheres alone, but simply to point out that the right hemisphere does evidence more of a 'free-wheeling emotional trait' than the left hemisphere. Emotion is handled in the limbic system.

2. There are cases of more language distribution than usual into RH, and one interesting one in particular, one V.J. who generates spoken language exclusively from LH (Broca's and Wernicke's areas), but who generates written language exclusively from RH.

3. This is not going to be something that happens all the time in split-brain patients--and as far as I know, happens less often than not--because it will depend on what tendencies or information or experience recall and so on, that RH is has and is working on, and we just don't find such noticeable big differences that much. Nevertheless, the cases that are known of, do demonstrate that RH is conscious (new sense) on its own.

is emotion handled only by the limbic system?

really fascinating, kj!

... given the symmetry of the brain, is it not also possible that both hemispheres contain the functional subsystems necessary to support a full-blown process of consciousness? ... and thus, both hemispheres in a split brain patient may be conscious (old sense) on their own? ... that is, that a split brain patient may quite literally be "of two minds" (that share the same brain stem along the lines of how siamese twins share organs and limbs)? ...

Half a Brain is Enough - Cambridge University Press

of course there are left/right hemisphere distinctions. the left hemisphere appears to have more localized vs integrated functionality and (as far as I know) handles more high frequency vs low frequency stimuli

so they say for example that grammatical rules are best encoded in the left hemisphere, because you do lots of grammar checking rapidly, whereas prosody may be in the right hemisphere, because prosodic generation/recognition takes place over somewhat longer time periods (???)

but as you already see, half a brain can be enough

---------- Post added 09-13-2009 at 09:53 PM ----------

Nico had the advantage of having hemispherectomy at a young age

even three yrs seems kind of old to recover from such a drastic procedure

IMO nothing that has been offered by the boliogists in this thread has yet to determine the true reality of the human consciousness.

... but a critical point is that this does not work for any arbitrary division of the brain - only a division between the two symmetrical halves ... that is, if we were instead discussing the Top Hemisphere (TH) and the Bottom Hemisphere (BH), the division of which would almost certainly disrupt everything but perhaps autonomic nervous processing, would there be any "conscious" (in any sense) to speak of? ...

It might be good to keep in mind here, that the primary subsystem for core consciousness is not cortical, for the large part, but rather subcortical, and thus all brain stem connected; that makes for a 'tail-of-the-letter-Y' type singularity. Then, as I will touch on (and appologies for I have run out of time at this sitting, but will do so later), while there is symmetry, there is also some specific assymetry. Then, all this working together evidently balances a 'full-blown process of' and state of consciousness, but if the left hemisphere is damaged in a way that puts it on a lower level of conscious, we run into some major problems.



Yes, as suggested from the earlier pages in my presentation on this thread, brain is conscious, and so both hemispheres, just as you mention, are conscious. Here, it might be more clearly seen how that term is really being used, because while in the case of a split-brained person the right hemisphere will be conscious, that level is not totally (meaning some of it is [I have skipped some detail, and simply ask for trust there....my posts are already long enough, and spread out enough] at the level of activity which makes the state of access/extended consciousness; and thus no reportability. The evidence very greatly supports that understanding, paulhanke, the split-brain patient is only slightly, but quite literally, 'of two minds.'

The limbic system produces the emotional content tags that work along with other systems, and the prefrontal cortical area can inhibit the tagging. I'll do some more on that a bit later too, odenskrigare; but please review #39as well.

I will get back later, with more, of course (sorry for not being able to right now, the Fall/Winter semester has kicked off...and tis busy, busy, busy...).

... however, my point is that in split brain patients the conclusion that both hemispheres are conscious can be attributed to their symmetry of dynamical organization - not to some notion of "'brain' is conscious" ... add to that the hypothesis that if you instead severed a brain into a top hemisphere and a bottom hemisphere you would not end up with a split brain patient but rather a vegetable, and it would appear that the "dynamical organization" perspective is more consistent with things than is the "'brain' is conscious" perspective ... that is, in a "dynamical organization" perspective, it should make a difference how you cut things up, whereas in a "'brain' in conscious" perspective, it should not, yes? ...

It's actually quite weird because of the scientists I've come across the results are split. Some say there are signs of split-minds but others say it's just one mind still functioning. I think the reason behind the opposing views is from the lack of data to work with.

... yep - one big problem being that the centers of language are typically located in one hemisphere (how can you interrogate a consciousness that cannot communicate?) ... but I think I remember seeing somewhere a report of a split brain patient that spoke from his LH but wrote from his RH - and if you posed an abstract question to one and then the other hemisphere ("What do you want to be when you grow up?") you could end up with different answers ...

the feeling's mutual

what do you know about that



it is definitely easy to imagine cuts along planes other than the sagittal that wouldn't bode well for the person receiving the operation

---------- Post added 09-14-2009 at 03:15 AM ----------

like any plane that would leave out the medulla

It depends what you mean by "true reality". I agree that there is a subjective, phenomenological, first-personal aspect of consciousness which biology does not (cannot?) deal with. But nevertheless, wouldn't you agree that biology has vital things to say about the content of consciousness? Neuroscience may not show the whole of the "true reality", but it certainly shows an essential part of it, which any philosopher would be foolish to ignore.

I think one important point that emerges from KJ's post #743 is that, contrary to our natural belief, our 'stream of consciousness' has no necessary temporal coherence in itself. In other words, what we consciously think at one moment has no direct causal link with what we consciously think the next. Rather, the temporal coherence lies in the succession of our biological brain states. The state of the brain at any given moment, together with outside influences, determines its state at the next moment. The brain state also determines the content of consciousness(es) at any moment. Thus the relationship between successive brain states can be explained without reference to consciousness, but the relationship between successive conscious thoughts cannot be explained without reference to brain states. Trying to explain a stream of consciousness in isolation would be like looking for grammatical rules in a coded message without first decoding it.

If this is right, it seems to support the concept of epiphenomenalism in the philosophy of mind.

A whole lot of large words to attempt to define mysteries that we do not understand. A large word doers not create a sudden truth.

Why don't we have this discussion without all the terminology and just apply some actual intellect and logic? Brain state, successive conscious thoughts, stream of consciousness...blah blah blah...what you are saying is that what a man acts upon after consideration is directly related to the mechanics of the biology of his brain, and that you are questioning whether such biological function is responsible for the followup of a thought.

That sounds like a deliberate oxymoron to me, for the lack of a more scientific large word.

You guys never get tired of beatin your heads against the brick wall do ya?

I agree Pathfinder. Large words are nice inventions, but if anything, they create more ambiguity not less. I prefer simple ideas stated in simple sentences that anyone can understand. This allows parties to either agree with or disagree with the idea.

Rich

sure, but neither does making stuff up



before a well-known job site accident, New England railroad foreman Phineas Gage was a pleasant, dependable person



after the accident he became nasty and volatile

now if the mind were not rooted in the brain we would not expect these changes to happen



before a well-known job site accident, New England railroad foreman Phineas Gage was a pleasant, dependable person



after the accident he became nasty and volatile

now if the mind were not rooted in the brain we would not expect these changes to happen

I remember dropping my TV set. Totally destroyed it and I was no longer able to see the picture. Now, if the picture was not rooted in the TV, then I would not expect these changes to happen.

But, of course, we all know that the picture is rooted in the TV studio, not the TV picture receiver. It is all a matter of finding the source by not assuming that the receiver is the source.

Let us look at the brain/spine nervous system. It sure looks like a receiving antenna to me. Without the nail of course.





Rich

Yes, that's exactly what I am saying; I think that comes out very strongly if you read KJ's post #743. We may think that we arrived at a particular thought by "consideration", when in fact it can be shown to have originated by some other means.

I believe that the mechanics of the brain determine the content of thoughts. Do you believe it is the other way round, i.e. that thoughts influence the physical activity in the brain? Or do you believe that thoughts are independent of such activity?

I am trying to use the simplest language I can.