L03 - Consciousness Flashcards
What is the Interaction problem?
How are the mind and body related?
What are Idealists?
aka spiritual monist: mind is fundamental, disagrees with dualism, mono=1 – only mind, no matter
What are Neutral monist?
two different ways to represent reality: mental and physical
What are Materialists ?
Most popular: matter is fundamental, brain+mind=matter (same thing)
There is a problem with this view – the hard problem
What is the Hard Problem?
How to account for consciousness, how does matter give rise to mind?
Core of all questions of consciousness
What we perceive of the world and ourselves in the world
Who is Thomas Nagel?
What’s it like to be a bat
If it makes sense to ask, what is it like to be X, then X should be conscious
Bats live a very different life compared to humans. The conscious awareness will be based on totally different perceptions from humans.
Can we ever know what it is like to be a bat?
Nagel argues that that would be impossible because consciousness is subjective, a private experience (phenomenality)
What are examples of easy problems (cognitive psychology)?
Attention
Learning
Perception
Memory
What did Massimo Pigliucci suggest?
The hard problem is an illusion
How is this illusion generated?
What did Patricia Churchland suggest?
Impossible to decide in advance what is easy and hard problems
If we solve all the easy problems, will there be a hard problem?
What is Consciousness as a subjective, private experience?
We have no idea what it is like to be others – we cannot see their consciousness
Materialist problem – just knowing all the facts will not get you what you are after (always things left out)
They can say, I know it is wrong, but we can agree they will never get the answer but still study the brain when it is conscious
Or they can change their materialistic ways
You cannot be a materialist and still study consciousness.
Materialists believe that mind and brain are the same thing – matter
There is a Buddhist approach – use consciousness to study itself
What is Qualia?
Content of consciousness
The private aspect of our mental lives (our private reaction to: Tasting something sweet, Smelling something weird
The ineffable, subjective qualities of experience, such as the redness of red or the indescribable smell of turpentine. Some philosophers claim that qualia does not exist.
If qualia arise from mental activity, one way to understand what others are experiencing is generating similar activity by mimicry
The same faces have the same brain activity.
If you feel something from a face, you will think the person making the same face as you is feeling the same way you feel when making that face.
Give me examples of mimicry
Animals also mimic others and use it to their advantage.
Mimic octopuses change its shape to scare off predators (ex. Mimics Sea Snakes to scare off the fish that is afraid of sea snakes)
Mimic octopuses must know more than us what it is like to be other animals since they can mimic them so well (can change colours and shape)
What is consciousness?
There is no commonly agreed upon definition
Consciousness is identical to the physical process we can observe in the brain
Studying attention, learning, memory, perception etc. will let us understand consciousness in the end.
Materialist view
Consciousness is an illusion and does not exist
Consciousness does not exist and is an additional quality added to humans
We must understand the purpose of it: What does it allow us to do that we could not do without it?
Functionalist view: consciousness exists and is an additional quality to humans. It is intrinsic and an inseparable quality to humans
What does consciousness allow us to do? What are humans without consciousness? Give an example of how this could be shown.
Are humans without a consciousness functional beings?
Philosophical zombies – Physically identical to humans and behave like humans (will react the same as humans using their mimicry skills) but they do not have qualia/they have no conscious experience.
Would we consider a philosophical zombie a human? NO!
David Chalmers – pure materialism will not be enough to explain consciousness. Consciousness cannot be reproduced
What is Panpsychism?
Consciousness is possibly everywhere (Pan = everywhere)
Gaia theory – Earth itself has a consciousness: climate change is to make earth unlivable for humans (trying to extinct the humans because they are a threat to earth).
All particles in the universe have some form of experience – consciousness pervades the universe
Where there is life, there is consciousness
What is the Intergrated information theory?
All systems that integrate information has some type of consciousness
Can be calculated – phi-score
The more information integrated, the higher the score, the higher the system’s level of consciousness
Ex. A human cell – integrates information that leads to changes in behaviour or others – cells have a high phi-score therefore high level of consciousness.
According to this, internet has a high consciousness – is this true? No way of knowing.
Consciousness is linked with the idea of self (thing in us that is aware and knows it is aware)
What does Buddhism argue?
that consciousness is a complete ILLUSION
What is Unconsciousness?
Someone throws a tomato at you; you will catch it softer than if they threw a tennis ball at you because your unconsciousness tells you that if you would catch it as hard as a tennis ball you would smash the tomato. (Making a subconscious decision
Going downstairs and the stair is further than you expected, you realise that you made a prediction on where the stair would be before getting there – subconscious behaviour
Give examples of Unconscious awareness/
slips of the tongue, dreams – evidence on unconsciousness
We believe that we are in full control of our actions but is free will just an illusion?
People argue that free will is just a thought after actions have been done (body does something, you become conscious, and you answer; why did I do that?)
Do children have self-awareness?
When you are younger, you do not know what you are
The development of self-awareness happens at about one and a half year old.
Younger than a year and a half old, they do not recognise that they are looking at themselves in the mirror, they think it is someone else.
At a year and a half, they start realizing that it is them (put a red dot on their forehead and they recognized that it was on their forehead by looking in the mirror.
Explain the Self.
Me – empirical self (objective self)
I – subjective self (knowing self – pure ego)
Receive sensation and perceptions occurring in the stream of consciousness
Appears to be the source of attention, the origin of effort and will
What is the default mode network?
Brain is never silent
Always something going on
When doing nothing, same network in the brain is activated (DMN)
Claim that that might represent the “Self”
The self-concept – the broad network of mental representation that a person has of him/himself
The more an aspect of the self is activated, the more schematic you are to feel about that trait. Ex. If you are always being told that you are gorgeous, you find it hard to believe when someone does not find you attractive.
We seek to try to confirm that our self/affirmation trait is true by askin others
What do Buddhists believe?
that the self is just an illusion – that it needs to be destroyed (make us know it is an illusion
What are the 8 species on the planet demonstrate self-recognition (in the mirror)?
Humans
Chimpanzees
Gorillas
Orangutans
Bonobos
Dolphins
Magpies
Elephants
What are the stages of self-recognition? What is the mark test?
3 stages
Social behaviour – see a stranger in the mirror
Test behaviour – test the reaction of thing in mirror (it does the same thing as me?)
Self-directed behaviour – look at their bodies in the mirror (check themselves out) sidenote: elephants like to look inside their mouths
Mark test – Scientists put a mark on their body where they can only see when they look at themselves in the mirror and look at how they react
If they touch the mirror, they are confused
If they use the mirror to wipe it off, they understand the “self”
What is the importance of the frontal lobe?
All the bits and pieces come together
Thought, planning, decision making, self-control
Hold things in your mind when they are not present as well as keeping distractions out
Linking your different “selves” across time (uses the past in order to decide what to do in the present that is best for the future).
Last checkpoint of choosing to act
Frontal lobe calculates the complexity and the implications of the final act
Represents your will and conscience
Critical for holding your behaviour in check
Therefore, children are more immature – conscience grows over time
Research has shown that psychopaths have abnormally reduced activity prefrontal cortex
Damage there can result in psychological disorders such as acquired sociopathy, resulting in impaired sympathy and aggressive behaviour without remorse
SHOWS THAT FRONTAL LOBE AND MORE SPECIFICALLY THE PREFRONTAL CORTEX ARE CENTRAL TO US BEING HUMAN, OF BEING WHO WE ARE.
Who is Phineas Gage?
suffered in an explosion and an injury to the frontal lobe made him be a different person, was not the old Gage anymore.
What are different things that everyone struggles with during their life?
We struggle with different things over the span of our life.
Infancy – we struggle with trust
Early childhood – shame and doubt
Preschoolers – guilt
School age - inferiority
Adolescence – role confusion
Early adulthood – isolation
Middle age – stagnation
Later years – despair
When do we stop being adolescents and become adults?
We do not know!
Everybody is different
EMERGING ADULTHOOD – In western culture, it is roughly from the ages of 18-25 when people are starting to finish off school and establish financial independence from their parents, setting off to the path of their careers and their own families.
A person consists of the social groups of which the person belongs to.
What are EEG (electroencephalograms)?
Levels of consciousness – levels of alertness/responsiveness are correlated with patterns of electrical activity in the brain (brain waves) - recorded by an electroencephalogram (EEG)
Brain and consciousness
Relationship of consciousness and the brain
Consciousness depends on the brain
EEG – electrodes on skull that can detect electrical activity in the brain (can correlate them – help measure what level of sleep the person is in)
EEGs and MEGs are good at predicting when the brain activity will occur but not where it will occur.
What type of sleep wave when you have a wide awake consciousness?
– the patterns of brain waves consist of RAPID AND IRREGULAR WAVES (low amplitude voltage)
ALPHA AND BETA WAVES
What type of sleep wave when you have a sleep consciousness?
– minimal, the brain waves are much SLOWER, greater amplitude
DELTA, THETA, GAMMA waves
What are brain waves and their relation to states of consciousness?
Beta – AWAKE, alert consciousness, thinking, excitement
Alpha – Physically and mentally relaxed
Theta – Creativity, insight, deep states, dreams, deep meditation, reduced consciousness
Delta – Deep (dreamless) sleep, loss of bodily awareness, repair
What is the gamma brain wave?
Slow wave sleep
REM sleep
Problem-solving tasks
Heightened perception learning
What is the beta brain wave?
Alert
Normal alert consciousness
Active thinking
REM sleep
What is the alpha brain wave?
Physically and emotionally relaxed
What is the theta brain wave?
Creativity
Insight
Daydreams
Reduced consciousness
NREM light sleep
What is the delta brain wave?
Slow wave/deep sleep
NREM snd possibly also parts of REM
What is sleep?
Sleep is a regularly occurring state of altered consciousness that happens when arousal is very low.
Patterns of sleep happen every 90 minutes – 5 stages occur in that time
What are the stages of sleep?
Stages 1-4: non-REM – no rapid eye movement, fewer dreams
Stage 5: REM sleep – rapid eye movement, vivid dreams
What is stage 1 of the sleep stages?
5-10 minutes – Alpha and theta waves (when you dream – hypnagogic imagery – and twitch – monoclonic jerks)
What is stage 2 of the sleep stages?
10-30 minutes/cycle – 65% of total sleep, have k-complexes, VERY hard to wake up in this stage
During stage 2, bursts of rapid rhythmic brain-wave activity called sleep spindle and high amplitude waves called k-complexes are observed.
What is stage 3 and 4 of the sleep stages?
15-30 minutes/cycle - Delta waves (slow waves) – crucial to feel rested, suppressed by alcohol (DEEP SLEEP – VERY HARD TO WAKE UP)
In stages 3 and 4, you can determine subconsciously what noises are important and what noise are not. HARDER to wake up
What is stage 5 of the sleep stages?
10-20 minutes/cycle - Deep sleep, REM SLEEP– VIVID DREAMS – brain waves are similar with wakefulness, becomes longer as night goes on
What is a Hypnogram?
a graph representing the different sleep stages like the one above.
What are k-complex’s?
high amplitude waves
In stage 2 of sleep stages
May be involved in maintaining sleep
What is a sleep spindle?
bursts of brain-wave activity
In stage 2 of sleep waves
Why do people sleep? Sleep functions?
Sleep about one third of our lives
When you sleep you lose awareness of the time and place of right now
When people don’t sleep, they don’t function very well
Sleep deprivation causes bad things to happen/life to be harder
Unresolved functions on why we sleep in the first place.
Serves as restorative function
Stop deficits often linked to cognitive deficits
Prolonged sleep deprivation can lead to death
SLEEP IS NOT THE ABSENCE OF BRAIN ACTIVITY
Constructs
Repairs
Restores
What does sleep deprivation cause?
Harder to concentrate
Mistakes
Harder to remember
Harder to perform complex tasks
Make people feel irritable
Make people more likely to see the negative than the positive
What is the amount of sleep required across life span?
Newborns – 16 hours
College Students – 9 hours
Most people 7-10 hours
People (<1%) with DEC2 mutation – 6 hours or less
What are the functions of REM sleep?
Functions REM sleep unclear
Possibly memory consolidation
Possibly forgetting
Possibly both
Possibly insight
What is unhemispheric sleep?
Animals that cannot fully sleep like some fish and dolphins, sleep one brain hemisphere at a time
Literally sleeping with one eye open
Animals that cannot fully sleep like some fish and dolphins, sleep one brain hemisphere at a time
Called unhemispheric sleep
Literally sleeping with one eye open
What are Difficulties of sleep?
Insomnia
Narcolepsy
Sleep apnea
Sleepwalking
Night terrors
RBD
What is insomnia?
sleep disorder involving chronic difficulties falling/staying asleep
What is narcolepsy?
having uncontrollable sleep attacks when a person normally wouldn’t be sleeping.
What is sleep apnea?
a sleeping disorder in which a person stops breathing because of obstructions in the airways or problem with brain’s control of breathing.
What is sleepwalking?
Occurs more often in children in stage 4 of sleeping
What are night terrors?
occurs more often in younger children. While still asleep, look awake and terrified, breathing accelerates and high heart rate
What is RBD?
REM behaviour disorder – during REM sleep normally the brainstem blocks signals from the motor cortex to the rest of the body but this DOES NOT OCCUR WHEN ONE SUFFERS FROM RBD. Often confused with sleepwalking as this causes people that suffer from RBD to act out their dreams in real life and even putting themselves in danger
Occurs in middle-aged and older adults
What is the Circadian rhythm?
Cyclical changes that occur on roughly a 24-hour basis
Like the planet, we have roughly 24-hour cycles.
Cyclically changing biological processes are hormone releases, body temperature, brain wave activity
Regulated by neurons in the hypothalamus, triggering our sense of fatigue by increasing melatonin
The most critical nucleus in the hypothalamus is the SUPRACHIASMATIC nucleus
What are Disruptions of circadian rhythm?
Like jet lag or night shifts – can cause HEALTH PROBLEMS
What do PRGCs photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (not receptors) do?
Fire to central circadian oscillator
Circadian clock
Behaviour is controlled by the firing of these ganglion cells
Certain firing patterns lead to certain behaviour pattern
Connected to olivary pretectal nucleus
Depend on the light/time of day
Indirectly regulate via input to SCN (superchiasmatic nucleus) the light sensitive suppression of melatonin in pineal gland
Changes expression of melatonin
PRGCs are directly connected to structures that regulate sleep in the brain
Modulate sleep during wakefulness
The blue light being shone on the eyes that activate these cells can modify the brain’s responses during specific cognitive tasks and change responsiveness.
This is why it is not good to look at a screen during the night
The screen emits a lot of blue light and the brain and body change its activity pattern because they think it is the day.
What is Selective Attention?
The act of focusing one’s awareness onto a particular aspect of one’s experience, to the exclusion of everything else
What is Inattentional Blindness?
A failure to perceive information that is outside the focus of one’s attention
What is Change Blindness?
A type of inattentional blindness, in which a person fails to see changes in a visual stimulus.
What is mind wandering?
Sometimes reflects a failure to maintain our attention
Other times it is an intentional strategy to escape an unpleasant/boring situation
When your mind wanders, your awareness is shifting to things that are different from what you are seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and feeling right now
Which means you’re thinking is decoupled, meaning disconnected from what
What is Hypnosis?
A relaxed state of mind in which a person is especially receptive to suggestions made by a hypnotist and feels her actions and thoughts happening instead of being in control of them.
The induction of a state of consciousness in which a person loses the power of voluntary action and is highly responsive to suggestion or direction
Used in therapy to recover suppressed memories/allows modification of behaviour by suggestion
Controversial
Consider hypnosis as therapy. It is used to help people give up smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or deal with emotional difficulties, and although many of the claims are exaggerated, some of these treatments do help. Hypnosis is also used to reduce pain, and as an alternative to anaesthetic, in some kinds of operation.
What is hypnotic analgesia?
Reduced sensitivity to pain under hypnotic suggestion
What is Dissociation?
Splitting of conscious awareness
In the case of hypnosis
One stream of awareness stays connected to the hypnotist’s suggestions
Another stream observes the person’s experience in a disassociated way.
Separation of normally related mental processes, resulting in one group functioning independently from the rest, leading in extreme cases to disorders such as multiple personality.
What is the global workspace hypothesis?
According to GWT, items are conscious only when being processed within the workspace and broadcast to the rest of the (unconscious) system. So, when you are driving consciously, the information about red lights and other cars is in the global workspace and broadcast to the rest of the brain making it available to influence behaviour, speech, and memory. When your workspace is filled with daydreams, the lights and cars are relegated to the fringe, or even to the darkness, and are not broadcast.
