New stuff in neuroscience

I am going to describe a concept that is simple and not technical. Please address it as a skeptic should - trying to grasp it in its own context but expect back-up reasoning. (The back-up IS technical and open to falsification)

When you say "fundamentally different things", the conversation moves to ontology and away from practical science. However, in terms of pragmatic math methods for measurement of natural observations - there are "different levels of abstraction". Simply, this means that you can't count apples and oranges. Apples are an abstraction with a different level of criteria than oranges. The functional goals of bio-information processes are not movement and metabolism. Counting force and mass work for those. When ideas and emotional responses are at hand - looking at logical organization, affordances in the environment and intentional communication are the measurables.

Back-up for LoA definition see:
http://philpapers.org/rec/FLOOTM-2 Please note that this paper has been cited 158 times.

Thanks Stephen. Yes, I was talking about ontology - isn't whether mind=brain an ontological issue? I will read the paper and let you know my thoughts. From the excerpt I didn't see anything that was incompatible with what I wrote but I'll read the whole thing carefully and hopefully we can get on the same page because I suspect to some extent we've been talking past one another. I'd like to try and bring it together.
 
It's not your fault that the majority of humans have little or no interest in Informational Realism , but to be a good communicator you need to speak in ways that are understood.

Do you mean before death, after death? Then logically support this contention they are separate. Saying it's possible in your estimation is not compelling.
My argument here is directed at those that prefer to think the brain is a radio receiver for consciousness and consciousness resides any place except the brain.

I am not a very good communicator.

Considering that 158 scholars have referenced the idea of LoA's in analyzing how agent behavior can be measured, shows more than a little interest. I think that I have plenty of chance to be understood, as people become exposed to the science.

I think the radio receiver "icon" is a valid one, as it points to the most basic math-model of information science: signal-channel-receiver!!!!!!

Some aspects of consciousness//unconsciousness are measurable (and therefore distinct). They are at the LoA (level of abstraction) of logical relations. Where ITF is logic residing? In the brain?
 
I am not a very good communicator.

Considering that 158 scholars have referenced the idea of LoA's in analyzing how agent behavior can be measured, shows more than a little interest. I think that I have plenty of chance to be understood, as people become exposed to the science.

I think the radio receiver "icon" is a valid one, as it points to the most basic math-model of information science: signal-channel-receiver!!!!!!

Some aspects of consciousness//unconsciousness are measurable (and therefore distinct). They are at the LoA (level of abstraction) of logical relations. Where ITF is logic residing? In the brain?
158 scholars means nothing to the masses in communicating in easily understood language. Think of Isaac Asimov, Sagan, Jennifer Ouelette all erudite persons yet capable of using common language to convey complex ideas. You can do it too.
http://www.jenniferouellette-writes.com/

I don't know what ITF stands for and I don't much care. What I care about is you and anyone fleshing out the "how and where" logic (consciousness) could be other than the brain? All of the thinking in the world amounts to nothing, I can't honestly say nothing, it does amount to belief, but that in the end gets us nowhere closer to the truth.
 
Thanks Stephen. Yes, I was talking about ontology - isn't whether mind=brain an ontological issue? I will read the paper and let you know my thoughts. From the excerpt I didn't see anything that was incompatible with what I wrote but I'll read the whole thing carefully and hopefully we can get on the same page because I suspect to some extent we've been talking past one another. I'd like to try and bring it together.
It is a difficult paper and I surely don't get all of it. However, objectifying information objects (such as quantities and math & logic operators) is the key.

If you look at a math formula as an "object" with inner structure that generates structured external outputs, then conceptualizing other items as information objects is easier. Recently, you wrote something that was lost - about your take on our informational selves. I was going to answer and confirm your thinking of the information processing of a person - as a unit and an object - is a handy way to start to be able to show relations to mental capabilities like intent and agency.

This paper takes up a suggestion made by Floridi that the digital revolution is bringing about a profound change in our metaphysics. The paper aims to bring some older views from philosophy of mathematics to bear on this problem. The older views are concerned principally with mathematical realism—that is the claim that mathematical entities such as numbers exist. The new context for the discussion is informational realism, where the problem shifts to the question of the reality of information. Mathematical realism is perhaps a special case of informational realism. - Gillies
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12130-010-9096-6

mind-brain distinctions can be ontological and metaphysical. I am looking to see how we can land this back on firm observation-oriented soil, with an eye toward a natural working -model for mentation.
 
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158 scholars means nothing to the masses in communicating in easily understood language. Think of Isaac Asimov, Sagan, Jennifer Ouelette all erudite persons yet capable of using common language to convey complex ideas. You can do it too.

I don't know what ITF stands for and I don't much care. What I care about is you and anyone fleshing out the "how and where" logic (consciousness) could be other than the brain? All of the thinking in the world amounts to nothing, I can't honestly say nothing, it does amount to belief, but that in the end gets us nowhere closer to the truth.
I am into truth tables and not so much into Truth.
In algebra, it is rarely possible to guess the numerical solution to a problem, and because there are an infinite number of numbers it is obvious that one cannot try all possible solutions in order to find one that solves the problem. But in logic, we only have two "numbers": True and False. Therefore, any logical statement which contains a finite number of logical variables (which of course covers any problem we have to deal with) can be analyzed using a table which lists all possible values of the variables: a "truth table". Since each variable can take only two values, a statement with "n" variables requires a table with 2n rows. Using the letters "p", "q", "r", etc., to represent logical variables, we can construct truth tables for statements involving any number of variables
 
Ioannidis Questions Strength of Psychology and Neuroscience Literature

Last week, well-known Stanford scientist John Ioannidis and his colleague Denes Szucs released a new analysis online. They examined research published in eighteen prominent psychology and cognitive neuroscience journals over the past five years and found that the studies in these fields are generally of “unacceptably low” power and suffer from inflated effect sizes and selective reporting.

Of major concern was the fact that many of studies were of very low power, which can inflate the significance of the measured effects and lower the likelihood that the results can be reproduced. In short, low power can increase the risk that a statistically significant finding is false.

Their analysis found that “power in cognitive neuroscience and psychology papers is stuck at an unacceptably low level” and that “overall power has not improved during the past half century.” In fact, cognitive neuroscience journals had much lower power levels than the psychology journals, perhaps a result of the increased resources needed per participant in neuroscience studies.

“The power failure of the cognitive neuroscience literature is even more notable,” Ioannidis writes, “as neuroimaging (‘brain-based') data is often perceived as 'hard' evidence lending special authority to claims even when they are clearly spurious.”

The data also revealed that the inflation of results may be more common in “high impact” journals and that these journals also had, on average, less power.
 
How does this apply and go on to answer the question where consciousness is?
My opinion is that consciousness doesn't have physical coordinates in a natural environment.

Wanna talk about how science can measure the communication of meaning in a natural environment? The field of study I have found that is detailing the subject is called Ecological Psychology and the newest tool is Bayesian inference.
from Wiki
Bayesian approaches to brain function investigate the capacity of the nervous system to operate in situations of uncertainty in a fashion that is close to the optimal prescribed by Bayesian statistics.[1][2] This term is used in behavioural sciences and neuroscience and studies associated with this term often strive to explain the brain's cognitive abilities based on statistical principles. It is frequently assumed that the nervous system maintains internal probabilistic models that are updated by neural processing of sensory information using methods approximating those of Bayesian probability.[3][4]
 
Once again an explanation that lacks detail. Without checking my facts and going from memory I think in the case of antegrade amnesia the hippocampus is damage. This small organ in the brain is where short term memory is created and eventually from that organ transfers to long term memory. It is not paradoxical if my fact is correct that long term memory remains intact prior to the damage but not after the damage is done. In other words no new long term memories are made, but the old ones do remain.

Read the paper, steve. The memories that were being "accessed" while the patient was dreaming were of events that took place after the onset of amnesia.
 
For example, among other systems, information diagnostic of emotion category was found in both large, multi-functional cortical networks and in the thalamus, a small region composed of functionally dedicated sub-nuclei. Thus, rather than relying on measures in single regions, capturing the distinctive qualities of different types of emotional responses will require integration of measures across multiple brain systems. Beyond this broad conclusion, our results provide a foundation for specifying the precise mix of activity across systems that differentiates one emotion category from another.

Please note that this research compliments Tononi, et all's, work. The tool used is Bayesian analysis.
http://wagerlab.colorado.edu/files/papers/PLOS2015.pdf
 
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I'd judge that the compelling reports from neuroscience are anatomical facts and 'anecdotal' case studies, not statistical work with cognitive psychology and high-tech brain scanners. Luria, Sacks, Ramachandran. Can't argue when there's a brain lesion patient in front of you, right? Of course, I'd want a new medical treatment that's expected to have a small effect size to be trialled in controlled experiments to be safe, but strong effects in a few case studies seem to outweigh weak effects in a big experiment.
 
Brain waves may be spread by weak electrical field
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University may have found a new way information is communicated throughout the brain.


Their discovery could lead to identifying possible new targets to investigate brain waves associated with memory and epilepsy and better understand healthy physiology.

They recorded neural spikes traveling at a speed too slow for known mechanisms to circulate throughout the brain. The only explanation, the scientists say, is the wave is spread by a mild electrical field they could detect. Computer modeling and in-vitro testing support their theory.

"Others have been working on such phenomena for decades, but no one has ever made these connections," said Steven J. Schiff, director of the Center for Neural Engineering at Penn State University, who was not involved in the study. "The implications are that such directed fields can be used to modulate both pathological activities, such as seizures, and to interact with cognitive rhythms that help regulate a variety of processes in the brain."

Scientists Dominique Durand, Elmer Lincoln Lindseth Professor in Biomedical Engineering at Case School of Engineering and leader of the research, former graduate student Chen Sui and current PhD students Rajat Shivacharan and Mingming Zhang, report their findings in The Journal of Neuroscience.

"Researchers have thought that the brain's endogenous electrical fields are too weak to propagate wave transmission," Durand said. "But it appears the brain may be using the fields to communicate without synaptic transmissions, gap junctions or diffusion."

How the fields may work

Computer modeling and testing on mouse hippocampi (the central part of the brain associated with memory and spatial navigation) in the lab indicate the field begins in one cell or group of cells.

Although the electrical field is of low amplitude, the field excites and activates immediate neighbors, which, in turn, excite and activate immediate neighbors, and so on across the brain at a rate of about 0.1 meter per second.

Blocking the endogenous electrical field in the mouse hippocampus and increasing the distance between cells in the computer model and in-vitro both slowed the speed of the wave.

These results, the researchers say, confirm that the propagation mechanism for the activity is consistent with the electrical field.

Because sleep waves and theta waves—which are associated with forming memories during sleep—and epileptic seizure waves travel at about 1 meter per second, the researchers are now investigating whether the electrical fields play a role in normal physiology and in epilepsy.

If so, they will try to discern what information the fields may be carrying. Durand's lab is also investigating where the endogenous spikes come from.

Explore further: Study Shows Electrical Fields Influence Brain Activity

Journal reference: Journal of Neuroscience

Provided by: Case Western Reserve University

New study reveals clues to how thoughts take shape
Let's start with a simple sentence: Last week Joe Biden beat Vladimir Putin in a game of Scrabble.


It's a strange notion to entertain, certainly, but one humans can easily make sense of, researchers say, thanks to the way the brain constructs new thoughts.

A new study, co-authored by postdoctoral fellow Steven Frankland and Professor of Psychology Joshua Greene, suggests that two adjacent brain regions allow humans to build new thoughts using a sort of conceptual algebra, mimicking the operations of silicon computers that represent variables and their changing values. The study is described in a Sept. 17 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"One of the big mysteries of human cognition is how the brain takes ideas and puts them together in new ways to form new thoughts," said Frankland, the lead author of the study. "Most people can understand 'Joe Biden beat Vladimir Putin at Scrabble' even though they've never thought about that situation, because, as long as you know who Putin is, who Biden is, what Scrabble is, and what it means to win, you're able to put these concepts together to understand the meaning of the sentence. That's a basic, but remarkable, cognitive ability."

But how are such thoughts constructed? According to one theory, the brain does it by representing...
More: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-10-reveals-clues-thoughts.html
 
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Read the paper, steve. The memories that were being "accessed" while the patient was dreaming were of events that took place after the onset of amnesia.
Just how does this paper this gel with the notion the brain does not produce consciousness?
 
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Just how does paper this gel with the notion the brain does not produce consciousness?

Don't try to change topic, so far I have played within your worldview and would be grateful if you avoided tangents. Back to the topic, we are talking about the purported linearity of memory "formation". I presented you with a case where short term memories are not being "formed" (per the pathology of the condition) and long term ones were, conflicting with the idea that it all depends on a systematic transition from one to the other.
 
Don't try to change topic, so far I have played within your worldview and would be grateful if you avoided tangents. Back to the topic, we are talking about the purported linearity of memory "formation". I presented you with a case where short term memories are not being "formed" (per the pathology of the condition) and long term ones were, conflicting with the idea that it all depends on a systematic transition from one to the other.
I haven't changed the subject from the moment I started this thread. The subject is, the brain creates consciousness.
 
I haven't changed the subject from the moment I started this thread. The subject is, the brain creates consciousness.

If you don't want to address our particular conversation, or can't formulate a concise rebuttal, that is fine. Just say so instead of quoting me for these superfluous replies. Can you actually address the paper?

BTW, "New stuff in neuroscience" hardly conveys that this thread's subject was "the brain creates consciousness". "Materialist hype" or "Physicalist fanclub" would have been much better.
 
Have you offered anything to support this claim, which has endured for thousands of years without a single physical fact of support? Please, just offer a process model?
Every link. Whose lacking facts? What is behind this member resistance to the brain creates consciousness? Could it be that such a connection would somehow dissolve the belief consciousness does not continue after death or could it be it would lead to some believing this connection would confirm the " meat robot" idea or is it something else? What is it?
P.S. I think you are playing fast and loose with what facts are.
 
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