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Single Idea 4930

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / e. Cause of consciousness ]

Full Idea

Our hypothesis is that the activity of a group of neurons can contribute directly to conscious experience if it is part of a functional cluster, characterized by strong interactions among a set of neuronal groups over a period of hundreds of milliseconds.

Gist of Idea

Consciousness arises from high speed interactions between clusters of neurons

Source

G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.12)

Book Ref

Edelman,G/Tononi,G: 'Consciousness: how matter becomes imagination' [Penguin 2000], p.139

A Reaction

This is their 'dynamic core' hypothesis. It doesn't get at the Hard Questions about consciousness, but this is a Nobel prize winner hot on the trail of the location of the action. It gives support to functionalism, because the neurons vary.

The 18 ideas with the same theme [what causes minds to be conscious]:

23665 Consciousness is the power of mind to know itself, and minds are grounded in powers [Reid]
20118 Only our conscious thought is verbal, and this shows the origin of consciousness [Nietzsche]
9286 Consciousness is not a stuff, but is explained by the relations between experiences [James]
7394 Conscious events can only be explained in terms of unconscious events [Dennett]
7890 Maybe a creature is conscious if its mental states represent things in a distinct way [Papineau]
4921 Quantum states in microtubules could bind brain activity to produce consciousness [Penrose]
3141 Is consciousness 40Hz oscillations in layers 5 and 6 of the visual cortex? [Rey]
4092 The core of the consciousness problem is the case of Mary, zombies, and the Hard Question [Crane]
2386 Hard Problem: why brains experience things [Chalmers]
2416 What turns awareness into consciousness? [Chalmers]
2423 Going down the scale, where would consciousness vanish? [Chalmers]
4916 There is enormous evidence that consciousness arises in the frontal lobes of the brain [Carter,R]
4930 Consciousness arises from high speed interactions between clusters of neurons [Edelman/Tononi]
9312 Consciousness is reductively explained either by how it represents, or how it is represented [Kriegel/Williford]
9313 Experiences can be represented consciously or unconsciously, so representation won't explain consciousness [Kriegel/Williford]
9315 Red tomato experiences are conscious if the state represents the tomato and itself [Kriegel/Williford]
9316 How is self-representation possible, does it produce a regress, and is experience like that? [Kriegel/Williford]
23516 Maybe a system is conscious if the whole generates more information than its parts [Seth]