Another question about neurons

[jjjjj]

Which part of neurons is consciousness???

[Ringer]

There is not a single section, part, or anything else of neurons 'are consciousness'. Not to mention there is no clear definition of consciousness.

[jjjjj]

OK which parts are consciousness?

Is anything known about consciousness????

[Ringer]

Define what you mean by consciousness.

[jjjjj]

Self awareness, probably.

[Ringer]

It's hard to say really. I think it's, in part at least, the cortex that allows more top-down processes that may lead to a type of self-awareness.

 

The problem is that it is hard to really say what consciousness or self awareness really is and how to test for it in other animals. Even things such as theory of mind is extremely hard to pinpoint what causes one to gain this. It obviously has something to do with the frontal lobe because that has a large part of our social skills. But I don't think there is a way, now at least, to pinpoint where these things happen because even brain imaging is very approximate.

[granpa]

consciousness is just awareness of awareness

'awareness' is just knowing 'what' you are doing

computers know 'how' to do things but dont know 'what' they are doing

(in theory 'logic programming' would allow a computer to know 'what' it is doing)

[Ringer]

consciousness is just awareness of awareness

'awareness' is just knowing 'what' you are doing

computers know 'how' to do things but dont know 'what' they are doing

(in theory 'logic programming' would allow a computer to know 'what' it is doing)

 

That explains exactly as much as saying self awareness. . . nothing. Is there awareness without being aware? If not then there is only awareness not awareness of being aware. What cognitive processes are involved in this. If it is only knowing what one is doing I would assume there are a vast amount of animals that are like that.

[ewmon]

Which part of neurons is consciousness???

Maybe you're talking about specific parts of a neuron that contribute to consciousness (as compared to contributing to a cell's support function). It seems reasonable to rule out protein biosynthesis (DNA-RNA transcription, RNA-protein translation, etc) as part of consciousness because they're too slow. The mitochondria also apparently play a support role.

 

But maybe you have the perspective turn around a bit ... like saying "Which part of a transistor actually does the computing?" And the answer is that everything about a transistor contributes to the computer's ability to compute.

 

So, the function of the neurons, actually the gray cortical cells, contributes to consciousness. Humans have about 7 billion cortical cells arranged in seven layers that compose the cortex. The cortex is the wrinkled surface of the cerebrum, and within it exists a person's perception, judgment, motor functions, memory, morality, and personality. It's a fairly safe bet that the conscience also exists there. The white brain cells under the cortex are pretty much the interconnections between the different parts of the cortex as well as between the cortex and the sensory organs and the muscles.

 

Someone here may tell you that I oversimplified what's under the cortex, and they'd be right.

Edited August 1, 2011 by ewmon

[jjjjj]

WHich part of cell specifically?????????????

Or is it the whole entire cell conscious???

[Ringer]

WHich part of cell specifically?????????????

Or is it the whole entire cell conscious???

 

Probably the interactions of many cells is what causes consciousness. Like I said, I think I said this already, consciousness is poorly understood because there is no accepted definition of consciousness.

[ewmon]

WHich part of cell specifically?????????????

Or is it the whole entire cell conscious???

As to the parts that contribute directly to its electrophysiological characteristics (consciousness in particular), your best path at this point is probably to read the Wikipedia article on neurons and also on biological neural networks. I could tell you a little about dendrites, axons etc, but Wikipedia has more info, is better organized, and has helpful links.

 

Probably reading about Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) can help you to understand the principle of distributed processes. ANNs can give you a simpler view of neurons because real neurons generally receive inputs from tens of thousands of neurons, and send their outputs to hundreds of neurons. "Neurons" in ANNs typically perform simple understandable functions, have low connectivity (perhaps several inputs and a few outputs), and you can easily "remove" an artificial neuron from its network and see how it degrades the network's performance. I'm sure there's software out there somewhere that let's you play around with ANNs and learn about neural networks (both biological and artificial).

[Kookas]

"Consciousness" is something that really intrigues me. You can't really study it scientifically. Along the same lines, how do you prove to someone else that you are conscious?

 

Anyway, to say that consciousness arises from complex cell structures seems a bit off to me and I beg to differ. I'd say it's a lot deeper than that. I'm not talking "spiritual" or any of that, I'm talking a lot more general. Perhaps sentience arises from certain electrical impulses? In which case there would be far more to the world than could ever be reliably studied.

 

I wouldn't attribute any single part of the brain to the creation of sentience. It strikes me as quite possible that certain interactions within every single neuron create "us". The problem is that in order to even get close to answering this question, you have to really delve deep into the realms of what the mind is and how it really works. Neurons create the complex and sophisticated system that is our brain and each one feeds information to another. Our conciousness leads us to believe that we can control what each neuron feeds the other - we work arbitrarily, out of our own free will. In reality, free will is a complicated process of decision-making and comprehension that is, to some extent at least, predictable. The consciousness is, if you will, merely the output of this system, a sort of "collage" of all the inter-neuron communications currently going on in the brain.

 

So from that perspective, consciousness does not arise from one particular neuron, but from the brain as a whole. It seems a bit mumbo-jumboy and baseless, but I think it's as scientific as you can get when it comes to something that can't be observed in anything but yourself - in my opinion, you can't really get beyond speculation. Perhaps I'm wrong, though. Perhaps conciousness only occurs in the parts of the brain that manage thought. Still, you won't be able to investigate anyone but yourself if you want a reliable study.

 

http://www.sciencefo...616#entry619616

In the above article Paul Thagard, of Psychology Today, recommends checking out the websites of the following people for further reading:

Antonio Damasio, Los Angeles

Stanislas Dehaene, Paris

Christof Koch, Pasadena

Guilio Tononi, Madison

 

It might seem off-topic, but you can't really answer your question without defining what conciousness is, and to do that you have to look at this type of thing. (By the way, psychology and neuroscience are directly linked. I wouldn't recommend studying one without the other if you want to gain a true understanding of the nature of the mind.)

Edited August 2, 2011 by Kookas