[HN Gopher] Consciousness is supported by near-critical slow cor...
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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.
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