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Currently the blog contains 153 entries.
The singularity and understanding
The neuroscientist, Susan Greenfield, has made sceptical comments relative to the excitement surrounding the singularity. She takes the singularity to mean an exponential increase in the intelligence of machines to the point, sometime in the near future, at which they will exceed the intelligence of humans. Her views can be seen as a reality check, in respect of the buzz surrounding the singularity idea.
Greenfield discusses intelligence, as defined by IQ tests and computational processing. She points that while developed countries have seen an increase in IQ since the advent of technology, there has been no corresponding increase in success in social and economic policies. She thinks that IQ/computational processing may exclude aspects of intuition, common sense, imagination and creativity.
She sees the difference between the narrow computational approach and the wider brain approach, as the fact that the computational approach needs a specified problem with a clear solution, and is less suited to considerations such as economic, commercial and social problems or concepts best understood by metaphor or analogy, or requirinng creativity. She thinks that these latter require a wider understanding. Information is viewed as the response to stimuli, while knowledge involves the stimulus being able to be related to a conceptual framework. In terms of the brain, this conceptual framework means connections within the brain that allow it to evaluate the current environment, both in terms of associations built up in the past, and in terms of these being updated by current stimuli. This connection or embedding allows the subject to make sense of current stimuli.
Greenfield views understanding as the process of seeing one thing in terms of another. Understanding improves the more that one is able to relate different facts. This includes the understanding of metaphors and analogies that help to clarify relationships between things and processes. Wisdom involves the application of wider values to the current environment. Greenfield's own image is that this wider understanding is like the widening ripples from a stone thrown into a pool, as opposed to a fuse burning along a single path. She thinks that this wider understanding requires the inner state of consciousness, through which values can be experienced.
A Taxonomy that is Scientific, Ethical, Useful and Spiritual
In my last blog (21-Mar-12), I explained that my starting point for inquiry was the human capacity to create a personal and social life. I pushed for the recognition of «psychosocial reality» as a distinct field, much as great thinkers have done through the ages, and wrote that I had discovered a dynamic taxonomy of observable elements constituting that reality. It is named: THEE, an acronym for Taxonomy of Human Elements in Endeavour.
Psychosocial Reality: Mapping the Missing Field
If we want to conceive of human beings as creative entities, as our network does, then we should study what they create. The prime universal creation of each of us is our personal and social life. This life is simultaneously experiential and social. It feels real and is real. Being real, it has effects. Being real it can and should be studied. It naturally interacts with empirical reality: existing objectively and independent of our own feelings.
Neural correlates of the psychedelic
A reecent neuroscience paper further undermines the persistent claim within mainstream consciousness that all that needs to be done is to deconstruct the self (a relatively easy process), and then declare the consciousness problem solved. Altered states of consciousness have always appeared to contradict this claim, but the evidence for this tended to be at a rather anecdotal level. Compiled by several prominent universities, this paper demonstrates that it is likley that the self can be deactivated by a drug or other means, while the subject continues to have conscious experiences.
Further thoughts on consciousness .... from New Scientist 19 September 2011
Recent research links the sensory function of smell with emotion and the limbic system and consequently an element of consciousness. "What's more, it is becoming clear that the brain's olfactory centres are intimately linked to its limbic system, which is involved in emotion, fear and memory. That suggests a link between smell and the way we think." "Other work has found that scent can influence our cognitive skills. A study this year by William Overman and colleagues at the University of North Carolina Wilmington found that when men were subjected to a novel smell - either good or bad - during a gambling task used to test decision-making skills, they performed significantly worse than normal. The researchers conclude the scent stimulated brain areas connected with emotion, making their decisions emotional rather than rational (Behavioral Brain Research, vol 218, p 64). Smells also seem to direct our visual attention, and they may play a key role in consolidating memories too (see "Blast from the past").AN EXPLORATION OF CONCEPTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS - some basic thoughts.
The current definition of consciousness is:
Zen and the art of watching films
This draws on a published conversation between Zoran Josipovic, a neuroscientist with an interest in meditation, and another neuroscientist, Rafael Malach, who has performed experiments that may be relevant to this area. Malach argues that at least in some cases conscious perception does require any form of 'observer' inn the prefrontal area, but needs only activation in the sensory cortex. This claim is based on fMRI studies performed by Malach and colleagues. In one study where subjects had there brains scanned while watching a film, there was widespread activation of the sensory cortex in the rear part of the brain, coinciding with relatively little activity in the frontal areas. It was further shown that the more engaging the film, the less activity there was in the frontal areas. The subjects were in a sense out of themselves or detached from everyday cognition by the gripping nature of the film. The experimenters also noted a high degree correlation between the brain activity of the different subjects, something also sometimes claimed for meditators.
EARTH, CANCER, AND THE 100TH MONKEY
"Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and Monsanto´s pesticide Roundup are amongst the most dangerous products of modern times, joining a list that is heavily populated by other Monsanto products such as PolyChlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), dioxin and bovine growth hormones.
End-of-Life Experiences
At the recent 'Towards a Science of Consciousness' conference in Stockholm, Peter Fenwick gave a very interesting lecture on end-of-life experiences (ELEs), which may not yet be in more general circulation.
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