<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Dear FIS Colleagues,<br>
<br>
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...<br>
<br>
Best--Pedro<br>
<br>
<br>
El 22/01/2019 a las 13:25, GUEVARA ERRA RAMON MARIANO escribió:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAHVHHJUwjUyNDRd8XOq-H3=ayj=QXVgTR78smNhF-U8boEqRRw@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>Dear colleagues,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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. <br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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. <br>
</div>
<div>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. <br>
</div>
<div>It would be interesting to see results from an experiment
where subjects have sensory deprivation.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>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". <br>
</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
<div>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. <br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best,</div>
<div>Ramon<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
<br>
<pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
Fis mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:Fis@listas.unizar.es">Fis@listas.unizar.es</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis">http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p><br>
</p>
<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>
<div id="DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2"><br /> <table style="border-top: 1px solid #D3D4DE;">
<tr>
<td style="width: 55px; padding-top: 18px;"><a href="https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient" target="_blank"><img src="https://ipmcdn.avast.com/images/icons/icon-envelope-tick-round-orange-animated-no-repeat-v1.gif" alt="" width="46" height="29" style="width: 46px; height: 29px;" /></a></td>
<td style="width: 470px; padding-top: 17px; color: #41424e; font-size: 13px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Libre de virus. <a href="https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient" target="_blank" style="color: #4453ea;">www.avast.com</a> </td>
</tr>
</table>
<a href="#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2" width="1" height="1"> </a></div></body>
</html>