Consciousness

A recent article in Science 1 describes how a conscious brain can be differentiated from another in a vegetated state using a neural signal. This moves the brain closer to artifacts familiar to humans such as the conventional computer chip. The response from a functioning chip to a predefined stimulus can be fully characterized and measured. If the expected response is not forthcoming or impaired, then the chip can be assumed to be non functional. This fits with the status quo but questions remain on a more fundamental issue – Do humans really understand or are they even capable of understanding, their own brains?

There have been many false starts in medicine, psychology and even in engineering in fully describing the functioning of the human brain. The problem appears to be the lack of a framework – that deviates from prescriptive expectations of a limited and known choice set. Status quo science is comfortable with hypothesis formulation and testing but this invariably means only a formulated hypothesis can be tested. Further, at any moment there are only a finite number of plausible hypotheses in any framework. This also means that most of the scientific energy is directed at incremental refinements of known hypotheses. This is an unavoidable problem in a stagnant framework.

There is yet another complication in the assertion of consciousness by prescriptive testing. If one argues that consciousness is a physical construct and can be broken down into components using status quo methods, that necessarily mean that the testing to prove its existence is at a component level. On the other hand, if consciousness is a holistic entity, that cannot be broken down into finite elements using status quo mathematics, then testing at that level is not useful. For example, if a computer chip produced unexpected or incorrect answers to a known stimulus, will that be sufficient to conclude that the chip is "bad?" Alternately, If the chip produced no response and a response was expected, will that be sufficient to conclude that the chip is dead?'

Humans, seem to have reached a plateau – that is sufficiently constraining. It is unclear we possess tools to make conclusions on phenomena that do not fit the norms – this include the brain's hardware and its software – including consciousness.

 

 

 

1. Preserved Feed forward But Impaired Top-Down Processes in the Vegetative State Science 13 May 2011: 858-862.