Here’s an idea that occurred to me while reading What a Contest of Consciousness Theories Really Proved.
Let suppose a couple of things:
- Consciousness is not continuous across the entire brain. It appears in dozens or hundred of bubbles in many different parts of the brain.
- Consciousness is not integrated by consciousness. It is integrated by underlying unconscious processes and the regularities of the organism and the external world.
- Consciousness arises at points where the local EM field generated by neurons rises to the point that it provides feedback to the neurons themselves. Neurons “feeling” their own feedback is consciousness.
- The function of the bubbles is to increase the strength of signals to other functional parts of the brain and modulate learning and neural plasticity.
Looking for the neural correlates of consciousness in any single place has likely been a mistake. The evidence from the contest may be telling us it is all over the brain at a changing set of different places. Consciousness bubbles up from the underlying unconscious dynamics of the brain.
Broad Speculations 
Seems a bit . . . frothy to me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
No beer involved in this speculation. 🙂
LikeLike
Well, I’m onboard with the idea that looking for the correlates in any one place is probably a mistake. But in my case it’s because I think we’re trying to localize something that a causal chain throughout the brain.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Could a causal chain of air molecules bopping about in a room be conscious?
Saying it’s a causal chain doesn’t really tell us much unless there is a bit more info. What isn’t a causal or caused?
What struck me in the Contest article was it seemed that GWT and IIT both seemed focused on integrative functions of consciousness; hence, they have a problem explaining where or how the integration happens. Even McFadden wants to use the EM field (as consciousness) to integrate across the brain. I am proposing a radically fragmented model of consciousness and that the unconscious processes are doing all of the integration. Are there any mainstream theories out there that take a similar approach to your knowledge?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Obviously not all causal chains are created equal. And the exact chain depends on which theory you favor.
If you really want a radically fragmented model, consider Dennett’s multiple drafts theory, where it all happens after the fact (and then only to the extent necessary for whatever reason it’s needed). It’s very counter intuitive, but the more data I see, the more it looks prescient.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I did a brief google of multiple drafts to refresh my memory and, yes, there is a resemblance. The problem with it that I can’t see is where is there actually any reason for consciousness in the model. Would there be any difference if the drafts were unconscious or conscious?
Here’s part of Wikipedia on Searle’s critique:
The role of information processing in consciousness has been criticised by John Searle who, in his Chinese room argument,[12] states that he cannot find anything that could be recognised as conscious experience in a system that relies solely on motions of things from place to place. Dennett sees this argument as misleading, arguing that consciousness is not to be found in a specific part of the system, but in the actions of the whole.
I could agree it is not in a specific part but it isn’t in the whole either. It’s all over. But not all the drafts are conscious either. Only the computationally intensive ones are conscious that generate the strongest EM fields. These are the ones that are going to deliver the strongest/fastest/most detailed messages to other functional centers. The low level drafts get delivered too but might end up in the spam box of receiver.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I tried to post a longer reply and WordPress discarded it. I’ve been having several unhappy experiences with WordPress recently but I’m not sure how peculiar they are to me. The Reader has changed with comment order reversed and comments junking up the the main page. And the editor, which I haven’t been a fan of but have learned to live with, is now getting caught in a “saving” mode and locking up regularly. I may moving on to something else if this stuff keeps up. Are you experiencing anything like this with WordPress?
The gist of the comment was I’m not sure what level of granularity there is in a “draft” because I am thinking very fine.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I haven’t seen the commenting issues, at least not lately. Although I usually use the sites directly, and have had issues over the years with it.
But I did get stung by that post editor issue yesterday. I had just finished writing the post when I noticed that I couldn’t preview it, and it kept saving it was saving. I pulled up the post in another editor window and was alarmed to see that most of it hadn’t been saved at all. I had to create a new post and copy the contents over to it. But given how the block editor works, I couldn’t just copy the whole thing. I had to do it one block at a time, which was maddening.
I agree, they need to fix that, and fast. I haven’t been posting much lately, so I haven’t felt it. But I’m not going to go through that very often before I start looking at other options.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What options are you looking at? I have a subscription to Medium but haven’t posted anything to it yet. Substack is another one.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can’t say I’ve done any serious looking, at least not in a long time. I did set up a Substack account months ago, but just as a placeholder. I’m not a fan of Medium. I also have a Tumblr account, but it’s really just a mirror of my WordPress blog. I also have an ancient Blogger placeholder, but I haven’t heard good things about it in a while.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This apparent fragmentation is likely the result of human conceptualization.
The false mind-matter polarity implicitly frames ‘mind’ and ‘matter’ as contradictory concepts at the same level of abstraction, so that a reduction to either of them is seen as equally abstract. Mindmatter would probably be the best neologism.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Or, vice versa, the apparent integration is likely the result of human conceptualization.
LikeLike