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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Dear All,<br>
<br>
Thanks to Xueshan for his preview of the next discussion session
he will lead. I would ask him and the other parties who have just
responded to wait a little. Our "tradition" of the New Year
Lecture is that it lasts until the end of January. During the rest
of the current Lecture we can do something that can be of
interest: to air the way each one's views on information relate to
consciousness. For instance, in my own case I left that crucial
aspect in complete obscurity, in the underground, when I referred
to the ten principles of information science.<br>
<br>
More related to the present discussion, I have always following
the ideas drafted by Kenneth Paul Collins (1989) in his
unpublished manuscript: "On the Automation of Knowledge within
Central Nervous Systems". In my comment on Jose Luis' stuff, I
made a mix with the ideas of both sides (but I had misunderstood
the Figure on the entropy variation). Collins' key idea was the
definition of a neurodynamic entropy based on the summation of
excitation/inhibition ratios in the topographically distributed
areas of the CNS. Then, variations of entropy corresponded with
the development of adaptive behavior (and synaptic encoding), with
very nice insights by Kenneth to map basic behaviors such as
aggression, sadness, curiosity, high-level thought, etc.
Reformulating these topodynamic insights in terms of the new
achievement on connectomics, network science, criticality, and
ideas such as those of Jose Luis and Ramon --couldn't it be a
timely enterprise? Naturalizing the study of consciousness so that
we see reflected our most important behavioral drives has general
importance beyond the neurosciences themselves. <br>
<br>
But the above refers somehow to a few basic dynamics of
correlates, and lacks a series of "engines" that keep the
conscious going on according to the inside and the outside, the
sensory and the motor, the low level and the high level, the
emotional and the rational. As a result the enigmatic
consciousness is carrying the possibility to alter in a fluid way
the focus of contemplation of the world. So it provides "de
gratis" properties that we assign or share with the most general
notions of information, in particular those associated to
"meaning". It may reduce the complexity of the surroundings in an
astonishing way, so that we may see tiniest details together with
highly integrative drives of other agents. It provides space,
time, and a myriad of different adaptive percepts/acts or
"cognits" for Joaquin Fuster (2009), and all the intricacies
around our social lives (narratives)... In my view, consciousness
may well be considered as "the mother of information." But before
descending into this underground, a lot of work has to be done in
the surface, co-ordinating the different approaches, as I have
postulated around the life cycle. <br>
<br>
Anyhow, let us risk some exercising around the conscious, even
only for ten days...<br>
Best--Pedro<br>
<br>
It is true that the current discussion El 10/01/2019 a las 13:07,
jose luis perez velazquez escribió:<br>
</div>
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cite="mid:CAH2XT=-YdjgHJKzdViuns2mdjF3UddBu6YMXdj7pSRR8NO-r4A@mail.gmail.com">
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<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">---------- Forwarded message ---------<br>
From: <strong class="gmail_sendername" dir="auto">jose luis
perez velazquez</strong> <span dir="ltr"><<a
href="mailto:jlpvjlpv@gmail.com" moz-do-not-send="true">jlpvjlpv@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
Date: Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 12:51 PM<br>
Subject: Further comments<br>
To: <<a href="mailto:fis-request@listas.unizar.es"
moz-do-not-send="true">fis-request@listas.unizar.es</a>><br>
</div>
<br>
<br>
<div dir="ltr">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif"> Colleagues,
thank you all for your comments to our New Year's
digital seminar. I will try to answer some things in
those comments received so far in
a more or less compact manner.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif"> <b>Francesco R</b>. points out
different
notions of consciousness, and also of entropy. Let us
clarify some things that,
perhaps because of the word limitations, were not made
apparent in the “talk”
and of course more details can be found in the two PRE
papers listed in the
references. Nonetheless, let me say for
now that we deal with <i>conscious awareness</i>,
we prefer not to delve into the diverse connotations of
consciousness (Edelman’s
primary consciousness, higher-order etc.), rather our
study deals in fact more
with <i>optimality of sensory awareness</i>
than with consciousness itself (even though these two
are absolutely related,
of course). Let me explain why because that was
something we could not describe
in the text due to the space limit. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif"> Briefly, as
can be seen in our PRE 2016 paper, the entropy
associated with subjects closing
their eyes is lower than that calculated with eyes open.
Obviously, one is
equally conscious with eyes open or closed (unless one
is sleeping!). Thus,
what does this mean? In animals like us that depend
almost totally in visual
input, stopping visual stimuli to the brain causes
remarkable changes in brain
dynamics. To wit, the appearance of very rhythmic
oscillation, the alpha
rhythm, in parieto-occipital cortex (but it can be
recorded as well in frontal
and temporal areas). Some studies have found that brain
complexity is lower and
its structure more organised with eyes closed (I don’t
exactly remember but I
think they used graph theory or similar), not too
surprising after we see the
very periodic and beautiful alpha; hence, not surprising
either that this “more
organised brain” is manifested in our study showing
lower entropy. For these
reasons, we tend to think that our entropy reflects more
<i>optimality of sensory manipulations</i> rather than
“pure” consciousness
(for visual animals like us, being blind is not optimal
at all!).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif"> And this
brings us to Francesco’s comment on the diverse
entropies (which I will call
from now on S for short… my fingers are getting tired of
typing). There are
indeed different notions of S and this is why it is
important to specify what S
is being computed. In our case it is the S associated
with the <i>number of configurations of connected
signals/networks.</i>
<b>Pedro C.M</b>., in two of his points,
refers to entropy, for instance: “</span><span
style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"
lang="EN-GB"> if the inner
processes ring some alarm, that entropy would escalate
enormously</span>”. <span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"
lang="EN-GB">This in fact cannot occur in our case,
because the
S has a maximum value for certain number of
configurations of connections, namely,
when the number of connected signals are the same as the
not connected. This is
why the S graphs in the papers (and in my cartoon in the
talk) are inverted Us,
a Gaussian basically – the maximum S is at the top of
the curve, it cannot increase
any further</span><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif">. Many of the S values we see in
awake-eyes open are
close to this top, hence almost maximal.
It is important to emphasise again that we are
evaluating the number of
configurations of connections, the fact we go one step
further and obtain an S adds
very little in terms of concept but makes the wording
and data presentation
easier. That is, in awake-eyes open we have near maximal
number of possible
configurations (our microstates), and the macrostate is
represented by all
those configurations. For those into chemistry, this is
akin to chemical equilibrium:
equilibrium is found at the top of the Gaussian where
the quantity of the two molecules
of a chemical reaction (for the sake of simplicity let’s
assume it is a
reaction involving 2 molecules) is the same, and far
from equilibrium we have
lots of one molecule and little of the other. Sorry for
this digression into chemistry,
but I am a biochemist after all. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif"> So this is our S, but if we
were to consider
the S applied to other aspects, say, ions/molecules, it
would be different. Just
extract the brain of a mouse and homogeneize it (a
common biochemical technique
to make neuronal milk shake). The S of molecules has
increased vastly, complete
disorder of ions and molecules. But this is not the S we
are talking about
here. That molecular mess cannot process any
information/sensory input because
there is no organization of cell networks, connections
and all that. Can our S capture brain dynamics, as <b>Pedro</b>
asks? To some extent, but only in
its global character, this is then reason for the second
PRE paper, “</span><span
style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"
lang="EN-GB">Consciousness as a <i>global property</i>
of brain dynamic activit</span>y”,
<span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"
lang="EN-GB">where we used </span><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif;color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"
lang="EN-GB">LZC which allowed us to capture the
“microscopic”
dynamics, the fluctuations in the configurations of
connections that our S
cannot capture. By the way, Pedro, when you say “</span><span
style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"
lang="EN-GB">All the
brain areas relatively silent in the left side of your
figure, when transiently
connected with some portion of the central cluster of
the conscious space” </span><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"
lang="EN-GB">I
am not sure you understood the figure, the x-axis does
not represent “silence”,
or activity, in brain areas, it is number of synchronous
channels: in the left the number of synchronised
networks is lower, but those nets may be very active,
just not synchronised.
Higher activity does not always lead to more synchrony,
to wit, right at the start
of epileptic seizures, when the cellular activity begins
to grow, there is normally
a decrease in synchrony (which then increases during the
ictal event).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif;color:black"> Loet L.,</span></b><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif;color:black"> </span><b><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif">Joseph B., </span></b><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif;color:black">and <b>Francesco </b>have
related points mentioning Prigiogine’s order through
fluctuations and
emergence. My opinion is that S is a concept humans
created to characterise/understand
phenomena, but I would not claim it is the cause of
processes (like H. Haken
thought as well, in his “Information and
self-organization” book). It is for
this reason we normally use the terms “S associated
with…” in our papers. It is
hard, in open, complex systems, to talk about cause and
effect. As <b>Joseph B</b>. mentions, </span><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"
lang="EN-GB">the emergent entity being actualized is not
totally separate
from states from which it emerged. Remember Haken’s
enslaving principle. The “control mechanisms” (Loet’s
words) that
may exist operating in neural feedback loops are hard to
disentangle, because,
due to the enslaving, one microscopic aspect may become
a macroscopic “force”
at some level. <b>Alexander F</b>. mentions
their theory about the nested hierarchy of brain
processes and talks about
causal relations. But as for our study, we don’t know.
All we can say is that
awareness is associated with larger number of possible
configurations of connections
among brain areas that may be needed for the integration
and segregation of
sensory-motor activities. We are now, as an extension of
our work, trying to come
up with an evolution law, something that will allow us
to make some predictions
about what can be found in certain brain states. This
evolution equation may be
related to the probability of connections, but we are
not sure yet… this is something
for another talk.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"
lang="EN-GB"> Let me mention too that </span><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif;color:black">fluctuations are
fundamental for pattern
formation, and in the nervous system we talk about
fluctuations in synchrony
that, perhaps via dynamical bifurcations (the existence
of bifurcations in
brain activity, at least in epilepsy, has been obtained
<i>in vivo: ‘</i></span><span lang="EN-GB">Dynamical
regimes underlying epileptiform
events: role of instabilities and bifurcations in brain
activity’ </span>Perez
Velazquez et al., <i> </i><i><span lang="EN-GB">Physica D</span></i><span
lang="EN-GB">, 186, 205-220, 2003</span><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif" lang="EN-GB">), create
patterns of organised neuronal activity. It is this
organised activity pattern
that is the fundamental for a proper, healthy brain
information processing. In
seizures you find lot of synchrony with not enough
variability in the configurations
of connections, hence not good for sensorimotor
processing, thus loss of awareness
is common during seizures. There is an extensive
literature suggesting that variability
in brain activity is associated with good health -- not
only in
neurophysiology, but also in cardiac activity, hormonal
concentrations etc…
Variability makes you healthy!).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"
lang="EN-GB"> </span></b><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"
lang="EN-GB">Sorry
we missed, in our papers, to mention some parallels of
our results with<b> Alexander F’s </b>Operational
Architectonics<b>, </b>above all that phenomenal
consciousness refers to a higher level of
organization in the brain. We will take note of this for
future publications. </span><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif" lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif" lang="EN-GB">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif"> And finally, let me mention that
I tend to agree with Pierre Gloor in his view of
consciousness that he expounded
in ‘Consciousness as a neurological concept in
epileptology: a<b> c</b>ritical
review' (<i>Epilepsia
</i>27 (Suppl. 2): S14-S26, 1986): “Consciousness
cannot therefore be external to itself; it cannot be an
“object, out there”; it
thus cannot be observed. If I may be allowed to use the
metaphor of describing
consciousness as the <i>only</i><b><i> </i></b>window
through which we can look at the
world, then it follows that when looking through this
window we cannot see the
window itself, even though it, too, is part of the
world. Consciousness thus
conceived is not an objectively verifiable datum; it
therefore cannot be
defined, and its very nature is not accessible to any
form of objective
analysis”. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif"> Like Gloor, I do not want to
search for strict definitions of consciousness, rather
for properties of it,
which can be investigated, e.g. memory, self-awareness,
motor actions etc. To me, consciousness, like life, can
be best defined
by enumerating properties rather than by a strict
sentence.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:8pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif"> This is all
for now. My colleague Ramon, I am sure, will have more
things to add and
comment.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm
0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif"><br>
</span></p>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/">http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/</a>
------------------------------------------------- </pre>
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