What is it like to be a fly? Flashcards
Give a second way to categorise these theories of consciousness
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
Why does IIT guy not like functionalist theories?
As he explained, one function can be carried out by various structural arrangements (e.g integrated or feedforward.)
What is meant by dualism?
Mind and body are different entities, different substances, with different properties.
Name and describe two forms of dualism
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)
What is meant by monism?
Mind and body are the same entities, you can ‘translate’ one into the other
Describe two types of monism
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
Name and describe four types of materialism
- 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
How did David Chalmers turn this discussion on its head?
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’
What is meant by E.G in relevance to the hard problem?
The Explanatory Gap (E.G.): explaining the function does not explain the experience
The hard problem opens up the possibility of the existence of what theoretical entity? Describe these
philosophical zombies- These are functionally identical to normal humans, except they have no Qualia, no experience.
Who was the strongest opponent of this and what did they argue?
Daniel Dennett; consciousness is all about reactive dispositions (behavior)
What previous studies mentioned came close to the philosophical zombie? (2)
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
Why are these studies not proof of ‘real’ philosophical zombies?
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
Name and describe two other thought experiments that argue for Qualia
- 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?
What solution did Chalmers propose for the hard problem?
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)
How has the original version of the hard problem changed to a milder version?
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)
What theories which we have discussed are more regarding phenomenal and which are mostly regarding access consciousness
Phenomenal/ P-consciousness= ‘sensory’ theories (IIT, RPT)
Access or A-consciousness - ‘frontal theories (GNWT, HOTT)
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?
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.
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?
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
Describe an argument for why it would matter that the system is biological?
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.
What conclusions (extension) could be drawn from this explanation of neurotransmitters?
Consciousness happens when your brain changes. - NMDA receptor activation can allow you to make changes on the fly
What happens as you increase the dose of anaesthesia in humans? Is this different to animals? If so, how?
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
What did a more detailed investigation of the neural signalsin a fly reveal?
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.
What did a study of how these brain areas of a fly respond to isoflurane anesthesia reveal?
Anesthesia most strongly affects the low freq FB Granger causality
How do flies differ from humans in how they respond to anaesthesia? Explain
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
what could be concluded based on these studies on anaesthetised flies?
According to a behavioral/ neural definition/ marker of consciousness one should conclude that flies lose consciousness when anaesthetised, so have consciousness
Describe the plant nervous system
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
Describe a study which studied the effects of anaesthesia on a plant and the results
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
What mediates the effects of anaesthesia on Venus flytraps ?
The blocking of action potentials
How is the reaction of plants to anaesthesia like that of animals? (2)
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.
When did sentience begin? (panpsychist view)
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
What is panpsychism? (strict definition)
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.
What three effects does anaesthesia have on all animals, some plants and even protozoa?
- 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
However do animals portray the functionalist requirements of many theories of consciousness?
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.
how has metacognition been observed in bees?
Bees learn to associate target below with punishment (quinine), above with reward (honey)
- Rule transfers to other targets
- They opt out when task too difficult, thus optimizing their total % correct
This is a higher order thought = conscious?
In what way has decision making been studied in plant?
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.
Do single cell species seem to have cognition?
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.”
Give three arguments then for panpsychism
- 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
