Is the brain any closer to the mind than the environment ?

1. Is the brain any closer to the mind than the environment? Riccardo Manzotti 12 March 2014, Sinha Lab Where and when does my consciousness takes place?

2. Some assumptions to start from Consciousnessisreal Ifitisrealithas to be physical (so much the worse for the hard problem) Ifitisphysicalit must share the essentialfeatures of physicalentities Crucially, it must be somewhere and somewhen

3. If consciousness is physical, I want to know • Where does it happen? • When does it happen? • What is it? • How does it happen? • What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for it to happen?

5. Illusions • perceiving things that exists differently from what they allegedly are (argument from illusion, I) • S experiences O as F, but O is not F

7. Therefore, I am inclined to think that these tastes, smells, colors, etc., with regard to the object in which they appear to reside, are nothing more than mere names, and exist only in the sensitive body; insomuch that when the living creature is removed all these qualities are carried off and annihilated; But I do not believe that there exists anything in external bodies for exciting tastes, smells, and sounds, but size, shape, quantity, and motion, swift or slow; and if ears, tongues, and noses were removed, I am of opinion that shape, quantity, and motion would remain, but there would be an end of smells, tastes, and sounds, which, abstractedly from the living creature, I take to be mere words. Galileo, The Assayer, 1623

10. Luigi Galvani (Bologna, 9 settembre 1737 – Bologna, 4 dicembre 1798)

13. Lehar, S. [2003] Gestalt Isomorphism and the Primacy of Subjective Conscious Experience: A Gestalt Bubble Model, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 26, 375-444.

14. Cristof Koch, The Quest for Consciousness, Roberts & Company, 2004

15. A common confusionbetweenneural and physical • The dreaming brain shows us that sensory input and motor output are not necessary for producing a fully realized phenomenal level of organization. The dreaming brain creates the phenomenal level in an isolated form, and in that sense provides us with insights into the processes that are sufficient for producing the phenomenal level. (Revonsuo 2000: 58) • “Ifthereisonethingthatscientists are reasonablysure of, itisthat brain activityisbothnecessary and sufficient for biologicalsentience” (Koch 2004, p. 9). • if you are a physicalist of any stripe, as most of us are, you would likely believe in the local supervenience of qualia – that is, qualia are supervenient on the internal physical/biological states of the subject. (Kim 1995, p. 160) (Crick and Koch 1998; Llinàs 2001; Zeki 2003; Koch 2004; 2010; Tononi2004; 2010; Lamme2006; Kim 1995; Revonsuo, 2000; 2010, etc.).

16. The localization of conscious experience • Langsjo, J. W. et al H. (2012). Returning from oblivion: imaging the neural core of consciousness. Journal of Neuroscience, 32(14), 4935–4943. • Tononi, G., & Koch, C. (2008). The neural correlates of consciousness: an update. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1124, 239–61. • Rees, G., Kreiman, G., & Koch, C. (2002). Neural Correlates of Consciousness in Humans. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3(4), 261–270. • Zeki, S. (2001). Localization and Globalization in Conscious Vision. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 24, 57–86. • Kitazawa, S. (2002). Where conscious sensation takes place. Consciousness and Cognition, 11(3), 475–7. • Portas, C. M., et al. (2000). How does the brain sustain a visual percept? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, 267(January), 845–850.

17. Cristoph Koch, The Quest for Consciousness, Roberts & Company, 2004

18. How itisthat a state of consciousnesscomesaboutas a result of irritatingnervoustissue, is just asunaccountableas the appearance of Djinwhen Aladdin rubbedhislamp. Thomas Huxley, 1866

19. An uncomfortable question (in neuroscience) • If the physical world is devoid of mental qualities, • How is it possible that the brain, which is a piece of the world, had any mental quality?

20. A comparison Succesful

21. A comparison How doesit score?

22. YET … Is the brain really sufficient for conscious experience? • Born blind people lack visual phenomenal experiences • Subjects’ experience seems to reqire direct acquaintance with actual physical phenomenon • If there are no pheomenal qualities in the external world why they should occur in the brain? ?

23. The Myth of pure internal mental content • No evidence of it • With all the conceivable diseases and malfunctions, why don’t we have reports of unexpected mental content • Why are hallucinations so conservative?

24. The myth of the pristine phenomenal content • Forbidden colors, Billock (2010) • Reddish Green, Crane & Piantanida (1983) • Phantom limb in congenitally limbless subjects, Brugger et al (2000), Melzack et al. (1997) • Supersaturated red, Hurvich (1981) • Color imagery in congenitally blind, EsrefArmagan, Kennedy (2006) • Chromatic Synaesthesia in congenitally blind, Wager (1999) • Phantom penises in pre-operated female-to-male transsexuals, Ramachandran & McGeoch (2008)

25. Where to look for consciousness? • I need to look for something that has the properties of consciousness without assuming anything (like internalism does). • What are the properties of consciousness? • Unity • Perspectivalness • Duration • Representation • Quality • Is there anything with these properties?

26. The basic idea: the rainbow First step

27. Skogarfos, Iceland

44. To exist is to be represented and to be represented is to take place

45. The generalizedrainbow:Representationasidentity Second step

46. Peripheral “neural” processes World CNS “neural” processes “neural” processes? Information? Meaning? Phenomenal content? Physical processes

47. The process as a whole contains the object we have an experience of time

48. 30 18 17 7 31 10 u 5 19 16 11 n u n n n n n u u u 6 u 23 n 8 4 u 25 22 u u u 3 9 8 u u 15 n 28 u u 14 29 n 20 u 12 u What are objects? Object = physical process

50. The classic objection • This may be true for direct and veridical percetion (maybe) … but what about all those cases in which there doesn’t seem to be any object to be perceived? Like • Not veridical perception • Illusions • Hallucinations • Dreams • Phosphenes • Migrain • Synesthesia • Etc.