Consciousness Solved

Posted on August 8, 2026 by James Cross

That’s a bold claim, I know, but a new preprint may very well answer most of our questions about consciousness. It isn’t that different from various thoughts I’ve been kicking around for a while, but this comes from a well-known scientist at MIT, Earl K. Miller. Brain waves are how the brain computes and generates consciousness.

Without further comment:

Miller, E. K., Brincat, S., & Roy, J. E. (2026, July 7). Analog Cognition and Consciousness

https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/z48x7_v3

Abstract

Cognition and consciousness may arise from bidirectional interactions between neuronal spiking and rhythmic electric field activity (brain waves).Goal-directed behavior relies on top-down control to coordinate large neural populations into low-dimensional, task-oriented dynamics. Brain waves are well suited for this role, exerting mesoscale influence over neural excitability. They can also support analog computation, shaping activity patterns according to underlying computational principles. Brain waves can flexibly route and organize neural signals, enabling multifunctional neurons to assume context-dependent roles, a hallmark of cognition. In this view, goal-directed thought, action, and unified consciousness emerge from cortex-wide wave dynamics that both reflect and transform spiking into coherent brain states.

Posted in Human Evolution | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Merlin

Posted on June 14, 2026 by James Cross

No, not the wizard. I’m not much into sword and sorcery, although I loved Excalibur and especially its Merlin. But no, this is the free app from Cornell which is amazing and, so far, totally free of ads, promotions, and other junk. It can identify birds by photo or sound. I turned it on for exactly one minute and this is what I get. These are all the different birds I could hear. When each sounds its background turns yellow. New birds come on the list as they get detected.

This was how I discovered I had two types of crows in my neighborhood. It was amazing I hadn’t realized this before. But here’s at least a partial explanation. First, fish crows and American crows look almost identical.

The American Crow on the right is usually a little larger and the fish crow supposedly has a shaggier look and a slightly more slender beak.

Second, who would have thought a fish crow would be in suburban Atlanta, far from large lakes or rivers (we do have a large pond called a “lake” nearby). Apparently fish crows have been moving inland from the Atlantic coast specializing in waste from fast food restaurants. So likely the bountiful feedings I provide the crows are an extension of their dumpster diving.

The two birds look almost identical, but they sound very different. As soon as my wife showed me the app, it picked up two types of crows. The American Crow is the one that makes variations of the familiar “caw” sound. The fish crow sounds like “uh-huh” or “huh-huh.” Apparently there are at least two groups of crows frequenting my house, although it isn’t uncommon to hear both vocalizations at the same time as the Merlin app shows. The groups seem to tolerate each other, but I have seen occasional squabbling among the crows which I now wonder might have been between the two species.

The Merlin app also does photos identification, but in my experience unless you’re really set up for it, it’s hard to get decent bird photos. The subject is skittish and usually won’t let you get near. However, occasionally I spot a bird I really want to get on camera.

Excuse the blurriness. It had to be enlarged to be able to see anything. This was taken this winter in suburban Atlanta. From searching the best I came up with was the golden-fronted woodpecker for an identification. I ran it through two free online bird identification programs and they rated it 70-80% chance it was the golden-fronted woodpecker. The problem is that the golden-fronted woodpecker is native to Northern Mexico and small parts of southern Texas. So what would it be doing in suburban Atlanta in the winter.

I ran the image through Merlin and it couldn’t identify it.

Posted in Brain size, Intelligence | 2 Comments

Consciousness Might Hide in Our Brain’s Electric Fields

Posted on November 9, 2024 by James Cross

The title of this post is the same as that of an article in Scientific American by Tam Hunt. Hunt has been a fan of electromagnetic theories of consciousness and this article is certainly in line with that view. Hunt makes some interesting claims in the article I would like to discuss. The claim has to do with ephaptic field effects.

Another team compared the speed of ephaptic field effects in various tissues, finding that the speed of propagation of ephaptic fields in gray matter is about 5,000 times faster than neural firing.

This means that what would take normal spike pathways one second to span through the brain, could be traversed 5,000 times during that same time interval with ephaptic effects. If we cube this over the volume of the brain we get an information density up to a staggering 125 billion times more from ephaptic fields than from synaptic firing.

Here’s the problem I have with this claim. In this same article, Hunt discusses a 2019 paper: Slow periodic activity in the longitudinal hippocampal slice can self-propagate non-synaptically by a mechanism consistent with ephaptic coupling. I’ve read this paper before and it demonstrates that an EM field generated by a neuron can activate nearby neurons up to a distance of 400 microns. The study may prove that the EM field can propagate activity to nearby neurons at a very fast rate, but that doesn’t mean a signal could be passed across the entire brain passing through different functional boundaries at the same rate. For that to be possible, each neuron across the brain would have to activate some kind of ionic activity in the dendrites, soma, or axion of other neurons in order to continue the propagation of the signal. What’s more the strength of activity would need to be strong enough to cause other neurons to activate and to pass the signal to other neurons. Not only would the generation of ionic activity require additional time, but also the signal could fade away or become distorted as soon as any gaps appeared in the propagation.

It’s seems misleading at best to suggest neurons using EM fields could be propagating signals across the entire brain at a 0.0002 millisecond rate. However, it certainly might be possible that propagation could occur more quickly that synaptic transmission, but only in relatively small parts of the brain. This could be part of the mechanism that produces the traveling waves that move in the familiar alpha, beta, delta, theta, and gamma bands.

Posted in Consciousness, Electromagnetism | Tagged , | 12 Comments