What is it like to be a fly?

Question 1

Give a second way to categorise these theories of consciousness

Answer 1

Functionalist theories, They associate consciousness with particular functions:
•GNWT: access, attention, working memory, report
•HOTT: higher order thoughts, metacognition
•RPT: perceptual organisation, binding

IIT (and to some extent RPT) are structuralist theoriesThey associate consciousness with architecture

Question 2

Why does IIT guy not like functionalist theories?

Answer 2

As he explained, one function can be carried out by various structural arrangements (e.g integrated or feedforward.)

Question 3

What is meant by dualism?

Answer 3

Mind and body are different entities, different substances, with different properties.

Question 4

Name and describe two forms of dualism

Answer 4

Interactionism- Mental and physical interact, e.g. via the pineal gland according to Descartes

Epiphenomenalism- Physical events cause mental events, but mental events have no effect on physical (brain) events (Libet experiments)

Question 5

What is meant by monism?

Answer 5

Mind and body are the same entities, you can ‘translate’ one into the other

Question 6

Describe two types of monism

Answer 6

Idealism, Solipsism
•There is only the mental, the physical is a mental imagination (as in the Matrix)

Physicalism, Materialism
•There is only the physical
•View most neuroscientists have

Question 7

Name and describe four types of materialism

Answer 7

• Reductive materialism: all mental phenomena can be reduced to physical (e.g. brain) processes
• Eliminative materialism: Our notion of mental phenomena is flawed, they do not exist
• Behaviourism: Disregard all the mental, only look at behaviour
• Functionalism: mental phenomena can be realized in different physical structures (brains, computers, aliens), as long as they are analogously related to each other, to the external world, and to behavior

Question 8

How did David Chalmers turn this discussion on its head?

Answer 8

He said we were focusing on the easy problem: the particularities of consciousness, and not the hard problem of consciousness: how we have consciousness or qualia at all? why aren’t these all carried out ‘in the dark’

Question 9

What is meant by E.G in relevance to the hard problem?

Answer 9

The Explanatory Gap (E.G.): explaining the function does not explain the experience

Question 10

The hard problem opens up the possibility of the existence of what theoretical entity? Describe these

Answer 10

philosophical zombies- These are functionally identical to normal humans, except they have no Qualia, no experience.

Question 11

Who was the strongest opponent of this and what did they argue?

Answer 11

Daniel Dennett; consciousness is all about reactive dispositions (behavior)

Question 12

What previous studies mentioned came close to the philosophical zombie? (2)

Answer 12

the behavior of monkey Helen showing ‘super blindsight’

Other examples would be the Milner and Goodale patient D.F. who was able to execute movements towards objects she didn’t see, or any other example of unconscious processing and reacting towards visual stimuli that are not seen, as in masking, CFS, blindsight, sleepwalking, etc

Question 13

Why are these studies not proof of ‘real’ philosophical zombies?

Answer 13

In all these cases, the behaviour is not entirely normal, identical to, or as good as the conscious, unlesioned behaviour. No proof of ‘real’ philosophical zombies

Question 14

Name and describe two other thought experiments that argue for Qualia

Answer 14

• Mary ‘the super color scientist’. She has no color experiences (e.g. she lives in a colorless world), yet knows everything there is to knowabout color processing, rods and cones, the brain etc. Now she leaves her seclusion, and suddenly, for the first time, sees, experiencescolor. Will she not have learned something new? > E.G.
• The inverted spectrum thought experiment. How can we ever know that what I see and report as red, is in someone else’s mind the same color? Maybe they experience my green, where I experience red. We all call these colors ‘red’, and assigns this color to apples, lights, tomatoes etc, but how do we know we experience the same?

Question 15

What solution did Chalmers propose for the hard problem?

Answer 15

In its original form, the Hard Problem is (almost?) impossible to deal with inside materialism. Chalmers proposed a sort of dualist solution: the dual aspect theory of information, where information automatically is accompanied by experience (like matter is also energy)

Question 16

How has the original version of the hard problem changed to a milder version?

Answer 16

A milder version of the Hard Problem is the distinction between Phenomenal (P-) consciousness and Access (A-) consciousness (Ned Block). P-consciousness is about ‘raw’ experience (seeing, hearing), while A-consciousness is about reflecting on the experience (knowing, reporting, cognition)

Question 17

What theories which we have discussed are more regarding phenomenal and which are mostly regarding access consciousness

Answer 17

Phenomenal/ P-consciousness= ‘sensory’ theories (IIT, RPT)

Access or A-consciousness - ‘frontal theories (GNWT, HOTT)

Question 18

There could be an argument made why an object such as a photo camera should not be considered to have consciousness- it has similar optic technology to us after all.

How would IIT attempt to answer this?

Answer 18

In the human brain there is consciousness, because the ‘pixels’ and ‘modules’ interact, engage in recurrent processing, form integrated information.

In a photo camera there is no consciousness, because the pixels and modules all work independently.

Question 19

What question arises with this explanation of what whether a camera has consciousness?What theory of consciousness more directly relates to the difference between a camera and a brain?

Answer 19

The architectures and functions that are supporting consciousness in theories of human consciousness are relatively simple. What if we would mimic these in AI systems, would these systems then be conscious?

Or is there some missing ingredient? Does it need to be implemented biologically? = Biological chauvinism

Question 20

Describe an argument for why it would matter that the system is biological?

Answer 20

Feedforward and recurrent processing use different neurotransmitters. Recurrent processing is much more prone to induce NMDA receptor activation. Hence the end-effect of recurrent (and not of feedforward) processing is that the connections between neurons change. Maybe this is the reason induces consciousness.

Question 21

What conclusions (extension) could be drawn from this explanation of neurotransmitters?

Answer 21

Consciousness happens when your brain changes. - NMDA receptor activation can allow you to make changes on the fly

Question 22

What happens as you increase the dose of anaesthesia in humans? Is this different to animals? If so, how?

Answer 22

Isoflurane induces anaesthesia (inhibition of response to pain, startle etc) in all sorts of animals at comparable doses

Inhibition of ‘simple’ functions requires higher dose than stopping of ‘complex’ behaviours

Higher cognition (consciousness?) more susceptible to anesthesia

Question 23

What did a more detailed investigation of the neural signalsin a fly reveal?

Answer 23

They examined:

• Power spectrum, Coherence
• Granger Causality (= an analysis of the direction of neural signalf low)

Flow of information from eyes:

• Periphery> Center = Feedforward
• Center > Periphery= Feedback
• FB Granger causality stronger in lower frequencies
• FF causality stronger in higher freqs.

Question 24

What did a study of how these brain areas of a fly respond to isoflurane anesthesia reveal?

Answer 24

Anesthesia most strongly affects the low freq FB Granger causality

Question 25

How do flies differ from humans in how they respond to anaesthesia? Explain

Answer 25

No differences between humans and flies with respect to

> Behavioral effects of anesthaesia

• Comparable doses
• Complex behavior goes before simple

> Neural effects of anaesthesia

• High freqs are FF, low frequencies are FB
• Anaesthesia more strongly affects FB / low freqs than FF / high freqs
• ‘globalworkspace’ neurons (central lobe) affected strongest by anesthesia

Question 26

what could be concluded based on these studies on anaesthetised flies?

Answer 26

According to a behavioral/ neural definition/ marker of consciousness one should conclude that flies lose consciousness when anaesthetised, so have consciousness

Question 27

Describe the plant nervous system

Answer 27

Cells of the root apex transmit signals via action potentials. These occur in synchronous bursts, where activity spreads over the root with speeds of ~100 –200 mm/s. Spread of activity depends on Ca+, and Ca+ channels (blocked by Gd3) Glutamate increases activity, Glu-receptor antagonist DNQX blocked

Question 28

Describe a study which studied the effects of anaesthesia on a plant and the results

Answer 28

French physiologist Claude Bernard performed many anesthesia experiments in the last 10 years of his life before his death in 1878 in Paris. He convincingly demonstrated that leaves of Mimosa pudicawere unresponsive on touch stimuli under diethyl ether atmosphere (usually move in response to touch). He performed many experiments in animals and plants and arrived at the conclusion that ‘ . . . plants and animals must share common biological essence that must be disrupted by anesthetics’. Our recent report on anesthesia and plants was conducted based on Bernard’s work

Question 29

What mediates the effects of anaesthesia on Venus flytraps ?

Answer 29

The blocking of action potentials

Question 30

How is the reaction of plants to anaesthesia like that of animals? (2)

Answer 30

Like in animals, some plant cell functions are more susceptible to anesthesia than others

The concentrations of anaestheticsmwhich depressed motility by 50 % were of the same order as those required for anaesthesiain mammals, except in the case of cyclopropane, for which the required level was 4 times higher than the anaestheticlevel.

Question 31

When did sentience begin? (panpsychist view)

Answer 31

Sentience (consciousness?) started when life made a difference between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, and the need arose to keep this difference stable, or defend it against disturbance

Question 32

What is panpsychism? (strict definition)

Answer 32

Panpsychism is the idea that everything that processes information (humans, animals, plants, bacteria, robots, thermostats), or even anything at all (rocks and air) has some sort of mental ‘life’. Or even is conscious.

Question 33

What three effects does anaesthesia have on all animals, some plants and even protozoa?

Answer 33

• Blocking some (generally higher) functions but not other (lower level) functions
• Blocking some(generally feedback) neural circuitry, while having less effect on other (generally feedforward) neural circuitry
• At doses that are remarkably similar for all species on the planet

Question 34

However do animals portray the functionalist requirements of many theories of consciousness?

Answer 34

Yessir- e.g The amazing ‘Home Vector’ capabilities of desert ants; uses Working memory, integration, access, flexible use, cognitive manipulation of information,

May take an awkward route to find food but can make a straight line back home.

Question 35

how has metacognition been observed in bees?

Answer 35

Bees learn to associate target below with punishment (quinine), above with reward (honey)

1. Rule transfers to other targets
2. They opt out when task too difficult, thus optimizing their total % correct

This is a higher order thought = conscious?

Question 36

In what way has decision making been studied in plant?

Answer 36

Pea plants show risk sensitivity.
When placed so that roots enter a pot with constant, or variably distributed nutrition plants will detect whether there will be enough nutrition in the constant condition. If there is, they will grow their roots there, if not they will take the risk of growing their roots in the variable pot.

Could be seen as a form of metacognition.

Question 37

Do single cell species seem to have cognition?

Answer 37

Prokaryotes such as bacteria are extremely adept organisms. They have elaborate sensory systems, learn to navigate their environments, anticipate regular shifts in events about them, lay down surprisingly resilient memories, communicate with each other, display a primal form of altruistic behaviour, detect and evaluate in a contextual manner diverse aspects of their environment including temperature gradients and nutrient levels, determine the valence of objects they encounter, and use this information to make adaptive decisions.[11] Biophysicist JanéKondevwas so taken with the range of behavioursof E. coli that he expressed the opinion that they seemed to simply have “free will.”

Question 38

Give three arguments then for panpsychism

Answer 38

• All biological beings have separate states, that can be qualified as conscious vs unconscious
• All biological being shave lower and higher levels of ‘control’ over the environment
• All biological being shave cellular/ neural mechanisms that would fit a definition of consciousness according to all current theories of consciousness