What is Consciousness Anyway?

What is Consciousness Anyway?

While I was reading a few articles at the journal "Frontiers" website I discovered a link to this fine blog story that posed this question.
I will ad that my own current views are reflected in this excerpt.

Representationalism

"This is a rubric for ideas in which consciousness is an emergent property of the brain's role of monitoring the environment and the body's own internal states using virtual representations created in the brain. Combined with temporal memories of previous states (memory), and projections of futures states (imagination) and representing the observing subject as a virtual self, consciousness is the overall effect of these functions. This emerges particularly from the work of Antonio Damasio and Thomas Metzinger and is closest to my own understanding of what consciousness is or does."

http://jayarava.blogspot.com/2013/04/what-is-consciousness-anyway.html

HHere are some links to other papers on consciousness recommended to me by Robert Gregson.
Thanks for sharing these Robert.

 Limanowski and Blankenburg:

http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00547/abstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3770917/

Hobson and Friston
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301008212000706

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3389346/

Do I dare to try and slip in one more?  Of course I will, I am a research junkie, and a long holiday weekend will allow you 'non shoppers' some 'Black Friday' reading time.

This collaborative paper (8 co-authors) is, I believe, the type of paper Mark Filippi was encouraging the Winter Chaos Conference to produce.    

http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00625/full 

"This joint article reflects the authors' personal views regarding noteworthy advances in the neuroscience of consciousness in the last 10 years, and suggests what we feel may be promising future directions. It is based on a small conference at the Samoset Resort in Rockport, Maine, USA, in July of 2012, organized by the Mind Science Foundation of San Antonio, Texas. "

Intersubjectivity Theory

There is a telling remark that Eleanor Longden makes during here recent TEDTalk.

 "Fourteen minutes is not enough time to fully credit those good and generous people who fought with me and for me and who waited to welcome me back from that agonized, lonely place. But together, they forged a blend of courage, creativity, integrity, and an unshakeable belief that my shattered self could become healed and whole."

Without knowing it, Longden had just describe "Intersubjective Systems Theory" (IST). IST "proposes that minds are not isolated, unitary things that exist as individual entities, as though in a vacuum. Rather, minds exist within interpersonal and intersubjective relationships, beginning at birth (and even before) with the attachment bond to the mother, and they develop within interpersonal, intersubjective, relational contexts." 

George E. Atwood, Robert D. Stolorow, and Donna M. Orange are the core theorists of intersubjective systems theory.These theorists, all of whom are practicing psychoanalysts, have rejected the Cartesian version of self as a unitary, isolated entity, and have likewise rejected mental illness as an intrapsychic dysfunction. In their model, which relies heavily on phenomenological philosophy as its explanatory foundation, the patient's troubles (excluding organic disease or physical trauma) exist only within the experiential and relational contexts in which they developed. 
http://integral-options.blogspot.com/2012/05/intersubjective-systems-theory-in.html

http://intersubjectivite.com/drupal/files/Stolorow,%20Robert%20-%20Dynamic,%20Dyadic,%20Intersubjective%20Systems,%20An%20Evolving%20Paradigm%20for%20Psychoanalysis.pdf

Contrast this approach with the another therapeutic experience Longen describes"

"... I was part of a student TV station that broadcast news bulletins around the campus, and during an appointment which was running very late, I said, "I'm sorry, doctor, I've got to go. I'm reading the news at six." Now it's down on my medical records that Eleanor has delusions that she's a television news broadcaster."

Connected....but alone.

The TED Radio Hour recently featured this talk, along with the TEDTalk by Sherry Turkle, "Connected, but alone. During the talk,Turkle recounts a story about a elderly women in a nursing home that was given a robot Seal as a companion.

"We're developing robots, they call them sociable robots, that are specifically designed to be companions -- to the elderly, to our children, to us. Have we so lost confidence that we will be there for each other? During my research I worked in nursing homes, and I brought in these sociable robots that were designed to give the elderly the feeling that they were understood. And one day I came in and a woman who had lost a child was talking to a robot in the shape of a baby seal. It seemed to be looking in her eyes. It seemed to be following the conversation. It comforted her. And many people found this amazing.

"But that woman was trying to make sense of her life with a machine that had no experience of the arc of a human life. That robot put on a great show. And we're vulnerable. People experience pretend empathy as though it were the real thing. So during that moment when that woman was experiencing that pretend empathy, I was thinking, "That robot can't empathize. It doesn't face death. It doesn't know life. And as that woman took comfort in her robot companion, I didn't find it amazing; I found it one of the most wrenching, complicated moments in my 15 years of work. But when I stepped back, I felt myself at the cold, hard center of a perfect storm. We expect more from technology and less from each other."

Turkle adds, That woman, at the end of her life deserves a person to talk to.

http://www.npr.org/2013/02/25/172900833/do-we-need-humans

"Researchers... suggest that loneliness is becoming more common in the United States. When polled as part of a 1984 questionnaire, respondents most frequently reported having three close confidants. When the question was asked again in 2004, the most common response was zero confidants. This trend is unfortunate, since experts believe that it is not the quantity of social interaction that combats loneliness, but that it is the quality. Having just three or four close friends is enough to ward off loneliness and reduce the negative health consequences associated with this state of mind."

"Oxytocin is a neuro-hormone. It fine-tunes your brain's social instincts. It primes you to do things that strengthen close relationships. Oxytocin makes you crave physical contact with your friends and family. It enhances your empathy. It even makes you more willing to help and support the people you care about. Some people have even suggested we should snort oxytocin to become more compassionate and caring. But here's what most people don't understand about oxytocin. It's a stress hormone. Your pituitary gland pumps this stuff out as part of the stress response. It's as much a part of your stress response as the adrenaline that makes your heart pound. And when oxytocin is released in the stress response, it is motivating you to seek support. Your biological stress response is nudging you to tell someone how you feel instead of bottling it up. Your stress response wants to make sure you notice when someone else in your life is struggling so that you can support each other. When life is difficult, your stress response wants you to be surrounded by people who care about you."

Another TEDTalk that was featured on the same TED Radio Hour was given by Abraham Verghese, a physician that makes the claim, "that when we shortcut the physical exam, when we lean towards ordering tests instead of talking to and examining the patient, we not only overlook simple diagnoses that can be diagnosed at a treatable, early stage, but we're losing much more than that. We're losing a ritual. We're losing a ritual that I believe is transformative, transcendent, and is at the heart of the patient-physician relationship."
 "I've gotten into some trouble in Silicon Valley for saying that the patient in the bed has almost become an icon for the real patient who's in the computer. I've actually coined a term for that entity in the computer. I call it the iPatient. The iPatient is getting wonderful care all across America. The real patient often wonders, where is everyone?"

http://www.ted.com/talks/abraham_verghese_a_doctor_s_touch.html.

I will offer that we are losing this "ritual," that Verghese speaks of, and this "intimacy," as Turkle puts it, in all of our relationships. The feeling that no one is listening to me make us want to spend time with machines that seem to care about us.   We expect more from technology and less from each other. Turkle asks "Why have things come to this?"  I will ask, "What can we do about it?"  How do we  reduce the "negative health consequences" associated with being connected but alone?  How do we learn to expect more from each other, again?

You can also find the Sherry Turkle TEDTalk here:  http://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together.html

Neurodegeneration vs Intergeneration: stress and epigenetics

In response to this comment on Google+

"Stanford neuroendocrinologist Robert Sapolsky is highlighted in "The Great Divide: Status and Stress"   http://inter.ec/15WBC3D


When Sapolsky says, “Early-life stress and the scar tissue that it leaves, with every passing bit of aging, gets harder and harder to reverse,” says Robert Sapolsky, a neurobiologist at Stanford. “You’re never out of luck in terms of interventions, but the longer you wait, the more work you’ve got on your hands.”
For a very long, and in depth explanation listen to "'Stress, Neurodegeneration and Individual Differences,'  but in a word, "glucocorticoids."
Stress, Neurodegeneration and Individual Differences


He might have referred to epigenetics.  "Early-life stress can extend to an infant in utero, where that lost "sense of control"  ("the stress that kills, ...characterized by a lack of a sense of control over one's fate, this “learned helplessness,” is the mother's or perhaps the grandmothers, since the effects of epigenetics is intergenerational.  The NY Times piece goes on to connect stress to poverty but it might also be linked to segregation, or the events of 9/11.
see the video, "The Ghost in the Gene."

Regarding stress in the general sense, this is an interesting TEDxTalk about the differences between "Stress" and stress.
"Acknowledging the Power of Positive Stress"
Acknowledging the Power of Positive Stress

"no American police department really has an excuse for engaging in practices that violate civil rights."

The New York Times

July 27, 2013

Some Chiefs Chafing as Justice Department Keeps Closer Eye on Policing

There are at least two sides to ever story, and this NY Times article attempts to report them all.

“The state of American policing is not where it should be,” Mr. Bratton said,  who as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department from 2002 to 2009. But, he continued, “there is a tension, and it is felt by police chiefs, between the constitutional policing that we’re obligated to provide to operate within the law and the obligation to provide public safety in terms of controlling crime and disorder.”

The Times story also takes police department nationwide for what the  the Justice Department calls a pattern of the use of excessive force—and civil rights violations. 

"Civil rights violations by police departments have been subject to investigation by the federal government since 1994, when Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. But federal intervention has become far more common and much broader in scope under the Obama administration, a development proudly highlighted on the Justice Department’s Web site." 

“In the year 2013, no police department should be in a position where it can be sued by the Justice Department.  The past records indicate what problems they need to be aware of and what to do about such problems if they have them.” said Dr. Walker, of the University of Nebraska, so many federal investigations have now been conducted that no American police department really has an excuse for engaging in practices that violate civil rights.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/us/some-chiefs-chafing-as-justice-department-keeps-closer-eye-on-policing.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

There is this 24 page report by TheRSA which I happened upon and that seems to address some of the concerns raised by the recent NYTimes story.

 "The report concludes that in order to improve community relations it would be helpful if police had a good understanding of the ways in which their minds work, and how they impact on what they do.

It recommends that there should be more institutional support for changing police culture – including integrating a package into police training regarding self-development, improving professional performance and taking more control over one’s thinking and behaviour."

http://www.thersa.org/action-research-centre/learning,-cognition-and-creativity/social-brain/reports/reflexive-coppers

"When discussing the influence of organisational culture, accountability and hierarchy, the police highlighted the militaristic metaphor: closed, bureaucratic,controlling and necessarily engendering ear in the public. On the other hand, when thinking about pattern so attention, communication, and gut feelings, the metaphor was more like a form of social work: open, personal, trust-based, and enjoying working with the public rather than against them." 

"My dad became a statistic"

I read that Goldhill had a book coming out based on his article publish a few years ago in "The Atlantic."  Then I happen to find this piece sitting in my draft file, so here it is.


David Goldhill wrote, "My dad became a statistic—merely one of the roughly 100,000 Americans whose deaths are caused or influenced by infections picked up in hospitals. One hundred thousand deaths: more than double the number of people killed in car crashes, five times the number killed in homicides, 20 times the total number of our armed forces killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another victim in a building American tragedy.  He wrote this in 2009.  Why do we not hear more about this since then?
In 2008, there were 37,261 traffic accidents with 11,773 fatalities, but organizations like Mother Against Drunk-driving are will throw $26 million annually, to fight for harsher sentencing laws and stricter enforcement.  This stricter enforcement resulted in the arrest of almost 1.5 million people in the U.S. in 2008.
The deaths that occur thorough the spread of infection in hospitals do not result in any arrests but may be just as criminal since they are preventable but there is no enforcement, and no organizations with big budgets to lobby for legislation.  In fact, there is just the opposite.  
The question becomes:  "Why do we pay hospitals for treating people they make sick? Where is the incentive for them to change practices if we do?"

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/how-american-health-care-killed-my-father/7617/

There is at least some hope that this will change at somepoint.
"There’s a new tool for tracking the spread of infections and diseases in hospitals. Developed by the Canadian company Infonaut, this tool tracks the movements of health care workers in hospitals, including if they’ve washed their hands or not! Toronto General will be the first hospital in the world to use this technology. Dr. Michael Gardam is Director of Infection Prevention and Control at the University Health Network in Toronto, and he explains why the data collected will be invaluable, and how they’re ensuring this won’t be a “big brother” type surveillance situation."

http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2012/03/spark-176-march-18-21-2012/

Trusting the Research

I quote a lot of scientific research, a LOT.  So, I wanted to acknowledge a problem that was brought to my attention by a fellow TEDster about fraud in science research.  The website that was originally brought to my attention was this one:

http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/owner-of-science-fraud-site-suspended-for-legal-threats-identifies-himself-talks-about-next-steps/

But Forbes.com picked the story up also and supported it with an article from "Nature". It is obviously a huge problem. 

"Fraud, plagiarism, cherry-picked results, poor or non-existent controls, confirmation bias, opaque, missing, or unavailable data, and stonewalling when questioned have gone from being rare to being everyday occurrences. Just look at the soaring retraction level across multiple scientific publications and the increasingly vocal hand wringing of science vigilantes. Hardly a prestigious university or large pharmaceutical company is immune, with the likes of Harvard, Cal Tech, Johns Hopkins, Ohio State, University of Kentucky, and the University of Maryland recently fingered byRetraction Watch."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrezza/2013/01/09/a-barrage-of-legal-threats-shuts-down-whistleblower-site-science-fraud/

"A surge in withdrawn papers is highlighting weaknesses in the system for handling them."
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111005/full/478026a.html 

A third related story puts an interesting twist on it. 
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2013/01/22/study-indicates-that-scientific-fraud-may-have-a-male-bias/
"The data seem suggest a certain laxity in behavior that might accompany tenure and a stable academic job. At the same time the findings may again illuminate the intense pressure and battles for funding that often tempt academic scientists to stray from the righteous path. Ultimately, studies like this may put the spotlight more on the dysfunctional aspects of our current academic research system rather than simply on gender bias."

This was what I found note worthy:
"What was also interesting was that the misconduct depended on the rank of the researcher; it seems that 88% of faculty members committing fraud were men, compared to 69% of postdocs and 58% of students."

Poetry

I have poems that I have written scatter all about.
This seems like a good place to deposit them when I run across them.

 1)

butter on my roll, before you go

 

 lying on clean sheets 

I wrestling with fat pillows

That will not hold me back

The water's drip & drip, wet outside the window

 drips that count a time

the wind blows in the ruffled curtains

   in and out

 

I am lying to a woman

and she wants to wrestle on clean sheets

with big pllows. and have curtains like these.

Curtains that fly

   in and out..to the breeze of the moon.

 I am lying with the woman

    and she is wrestling with choices 

    she has clean sheets and the freshest breezes

    that blow in off the ocean 

tonight, take off your shoe and dance

pick out a song we all know, sing along

 

 she orders chocolates and green tea

 the birds will sing if we are quiet.

    and the branches will sway  

smoke spins around in my head

Turn the stars on. the sky is charcole.

Drink more wine. I will draw you

2012 

2)

Do not count the time 

The time does not matter

It is always now

The stars are always in the sky

Even in the day.

The sound of the ocean is still 

In every shell upon the beach

The reflection is of the world

Held on every drop on rain

Things are lovelier this way

Wait for the flowers to come again

They have not gone so far 

Winter is a tired army

Let it March away

Play your drum as you will

And do not count the time.