Lecture 33: Consciousness Flashcards
How does the brain produce our experience of ourselves and our universe?
there seems to be a close isomorphism between the function of the brain and the conscious experiences
consciousness is what the brain does
What is a view of consciousness?
consciousness is in fact nothing more than the result of complex brain activity
What is consciousness an example of?
an emergent property
Why don’t we know how brains generate phenomenality?
1) more investigation is required
2) progress is impeded for want of some currently undiscovered organising principles
3) the methods neuroscientists currently pursue are inadequate to address the mechanism of consciousness
What can machine learning exhibit?
important features of learning that were previously only known to be exhibited by nervous systems
they learn features of data without prior instruction on what features to look for
What do a number of neuroscientists believe?
that the way that neuronal circuits process information renders a level of complexity that entails a degree of consciousness
In what way may we have an incomplete conception of matter?
it may have properties that, in suitable arrangements, performs some physical process that generates consciousness
Why have consciousness?
has long linked the instinctive behaviours that subserve powerful survival drives, with emotion
What is pain?
a homeostatic emotion reflecting an adverse condition in the body, such as thirst, hunger, hunger for air, temperature deviation, which demand a behavioural response
What does interoception connect?
positive and negative affective experience with adaptive behaviors
What are examples of primordial emotions?
desire to sleep (after deprivation)
sense of temperature change
desire for sex
thwarting of visceral function
What does the insular cortex contain?
a viscerotopic sensory and motor map
