[Fis] "the mother of information"--MINI-BRAINS

Thu Jan 31 13:58:38 CET 2019

   Greeting again, colleagues.   I agree that when a sensory-motor loop
that interacts with an environment is closed, anything can happen. This is
along the lines of that neural closure I was mentioning in a previous
comment I posted a few days ago.
    But  I am not sure I agree with conscious cells. I know some propose
that even atoms or elementary particles are conscious, and with all due
respect for their ideas, to me this is like asking whether a water molecule
is gas, solid or liquid. One or two molecules of water don't make a phase,
phases are "emergent" property of a large set of "waters".  Hence I don't
think one or two cells can display self-awareness/consciousness. I would
admit that among the several features of consciousness, one single cell, or
better yet, two connected neurons, may possess one: they process
"information" in the sense of exchange of matter/energy between them and
with the environment, but if we call that consciousness, even an extremely
primordial consciousness, then as Pedro mentioned, we end up in panpsychism.

  Regards
JL

On Thu, Jan 31, 2019 at 1:24 PM Pedro C. Marijuan <pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>
wrote:

> Dear Bill and FIS colleagues,
>
> Nice comments. Although agreeing with the basic orientation, I would
> change a few words. For instance, that "every cell has self-referential
> consciousness" would make more sense, in my opinion, with the term
> "intelligence." I remember that Lynn Margulis also used the C- term applied
> to living cells, but it conduces to a form of panpsychism that extends the
> problem and by doing so pretends to solve it, but does not advance it a
> iota. Consciousness has a special cellular-molecular underpinning that
> continues defying the scientific efforts to decipher it.
>
> In response to Malcolm (offline), brain organoid research is a new field
> that opens new possibilities--in brain development, medically for some
> tumors, disorders such as epilepsy or autism, etc. The most serious
> inconvenient (in words of Christof Koch) is ethical: "The closest they get
> to preterm infant, the more they should worry." The leading researcher A.
> Muotri, plans to connect them to other brain/body parts organoids. Then, my
> speculation is that if sensory inputs are provided, and some "action"
> external connection is established (eg, via EEG sensors connected to
> outside actuators), then a sui generis form of sensory-motor loop could be
> closed, and... I really don't know.
>
> Best--Pedro
>
>
> El 29/01/2019 a las 22:13, Bill escribió:
>
> Dear Pedro,
> I have not previously contributed to this thread, but thought that you and
> your terrific readership might be interested in this article.
>
> Miller Jr, W.B., Torday, J.S. and Baluška, F., 2018. Biological evolution
> as defense of'self'. *Progress in biophysics and molecular biology*.
>
> Based within the conclusions defended in that article, there should be no
> surprise about the experimental findings you mention below. Every cell has
> self-referential consciousness, within its basal limits, and assesses and
> deploys information as communication to problem-solve. Hence, the
> researchers are not close to a pre-emergence of consciousness, since it
> exists as the definition of life and they are experimenting with living
> cells. In my opinion, the researchers nicely substantiate the arguments
> within the above paper.  The pre-emergence you mention below would then be
> prior to its instantiation in the living cell, which would be somewhere
> along the trajectory of the molecular attachment to information space-time
> that changes physical data to biological information.
>
> Best regards,
> Bill
>
> On 1/29/2019 11:28 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:
>
> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>
> An interesting twist on what could be the minimal requirements for
> consciousness has recently arisen (Nature News, 15 Nov. 2018). Lab-grown
> mini-brains, or better, brain organoids obtained from stem cells and coaxed
> to form cortical tissue, show amazing properties of structure,
> connectivity, and synchronicity of their neural discharges. Up to the point
> that ethical questions have been raised. The neural types, the genes
> expressed, and the "EEG records" are surprisingly similar to those seen in
> real human brains of preterm babies. The organoids themselves have been in
> culture for 10 months. How close could they be to a primary form or say to
> a pre-emergence of consciousness? Although grown for medical purposes, if
> these organoids, or more complex ones, are hooked to organoid forms of
> sensory organs (eye, hear) what would happen? Would these sensory organoids
> open real windows to these mini-brains towards the external world? Could
> they be sort of an instantiation of Putnam's  "brain in a bat"? Too many
> questions one can formulate...
>
> Best--Pedro
>
>
> El 22/01/2019 a las 13:25, GUEVARA ERRA RAMON MARIANO escribió:
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> I have some comments on the question by Krassimir. In our paper we talked
> about consciousness but I think the results can also be interpreted in a
> wider sense.
>
> Indeed, with open or closed eyes, a person is not more or less conscious
> than with closed eyes, also seems to me. There is simply more sensory input
> with eyes opened, and presumably more information processing.
>
> So, going back to our paper, we measured the information content in the
> brain network, and see that in some states there is more information
> content than in others. Now, if you are unconscious, in a medical sense,
> say you fainted or you are in coma, the information content is very low.
> But also if you switch off part of the sensory input. In both cases what
> you measure is information processing.
> In other words, our measure is good at revealing the amount of information
> processing in large scale brain networks. Incidentally, it serves to
> contrast conscious and unconscious states as consciousness is related to
> information processing. But not only, it also serves to contrast states
> with different sensory input, as in the eyes opened/ eyes closed case, even
> when both seem to be conscious states.
> It would be interesting to see results from an experiment where subjects
> have sensory deprivation.
>
> Regarding consciousness, I don't know of a method to quantify it
> behaviorally. Actually, even the definition is elusive. Without a
> behavioral quantification, all we can do is to rely on an empirical,
> medical use of the concept and say "this state is more conscious than that
> state".
>
> I agree with Karl , this question is very important, weather something is
> alive or not, and is perhaps related to the question of begin conscious or
> not.  They may be examples of "major evolutionary transitions" (Maynard
> Smith and Szathmary). In this sense I have a comment. There seems to be a
> believe in certain communities that intelligence and /or consciousness
> would appear as a result of the accumulation of processing units, with
> networks of sufficient complexity. So, an artificial intelligence could
> appear if we have a very complex and large set of artificial neurons (it
> could even be a simulation, it doesn't have to be physical). I disagree
> with this optimism on historical grounds. There was a similar  wave of
> optimism after the Miller - Urey experiment on the origin of life, long
> time ago, and look where we are now. As long as I know, a self-replicating
> artificial cell cannot be created from inorganic molecules.  I think this
> is the case because, of the large amount of possibilities that gives
> molecular combinations, chemical reactions, etc, only a few can be
> qualified as "alive". And the more the system is complex, the more there
> are combinations. Is the selection of the correct combinations that is
> difficult. One could say the same about the brain, where in this case the
> units are neurons. There is a nice argument in one of Penrose's books about
> this. The cerebellum and the cerebral cortex have the same order of
> magnitude neurons. However, we don't tend to believe that the cerebellum is
> the material basis of consciousness.
>
> Best,
> Ramon
>
>
>
>
>
>
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> --
> -------------------------------------------------
> Pedro C. Marijuán
> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
> pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.eshttp://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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> --
> -------------------------------------------------
> Pedro C. Marijuán
> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
> pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.eshttp://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
> -------------------------------------------------
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