7 ms·

> In contrast, when shown numbers with embedded faces, the number’s effect apparently swamped that of the face: RFS reported seeing neither; everything looked l

> In contrast, when shown numbers with embedded faces, the number’s effect apparently swamped that of the face: RFS reported seeing neither; everything looked like spaghetti. Yet an EEG still showed the characteristic N170 spike for registering faces. Somehow, his brain was still processing and identifying a face—a fairly high-level skill—even though his conscious mind was oblivious. This deficit shows high-level cognitive processing and consciousness are distinct, Koch says. “You can get one without the other.” I think this misses another possibility besides "cognitive processing and consciousness are distinct". Namely, "the part of them that is conscious of the cognitive processing is not well-connected to the part of them that is generating speech and controlling their motor systems."

andai 6y ago
Sometimes I read about split-brain experiments and wonder, if my brain were to split, which side I'd end up on?
- all_blue_chucks 6y ago
  Both.
- komali2 6y ago
  What even is I though?
  - mojuba 6y ago
    "I" is something that knows its place in space and time, the here-and-now, but also has a memory of here-and-now moments of the past. As such "I" is an illusion. If a quantum clone of you is created both I's will have the same memory of the past here-and-now moments, so both will be you at the same. So probbaly something similar happens if a brain is split.
    - apoorvkumar 6y ago
      About your analogy - quantum cloning may not be allowed by laws of nature. That would make any consciousness unique at any point in time. Also I feel the experiment suggests split brains would most likely become 2 very different (new?) entities with different behavior after losing integrity.
      - mojuba 6y ago
        > quantum cloning may not be allowed by laws of nature It might be that the original should be destroyed, I understand. So be it, destroy the original and create N clones. But the thought experiment is an interesting one regardless.
        ivalm 6y ago
        No, nothing about destroying. It's just you cannot know something sufficiently at infinite precision due to uncertainty principle. It just depends if maximally allowed knowledge of all of person's chemical states is sufficient to reproduce consciousness "sufficiently" closely (I bet it is).
    - behringer 6y ago
      "I" isn't a memory or a here and now. It's the universe experiencing itself. It's an observer. What would happen to that experience if it was split? Would it make a new independant observer?
    - xelxebar 6y ago
      By that definition, a GPS module with an SSD is an "I". In discussions that invoke the words "self" or "consciousness", I find it common to hear pithy or clever definitions. However, rarely do those answers offer any actionable insight. Are you sure that your words "I" or "consciousness" point at extrinsic things in the world? Have you not just invented a new kind of elan vital? If you claim that "consciousness" is a useful category of phenomena within consensus reality, then great. Demonstrate that. Dark matter is a mystery, but it is a mystery comprised of concrete phenomena. Terrestrial biogenesis is a mystery, but it too is comprised of concrete phenomena. Heck, even the amorphous term "love" points to a more concrete category of phenomena than the word "consciousness" typically seems to. FWIW, I think there are concrete approaches to the problem. One method HN might like is to study how we judge subjects as being conscious. Anyone want to build a NN classifier for this?
- pengstrom 6y ago
  There's very interesting research into this question. This video is easily digestible. https://youtu.be/wfYbgdo8e-8 https://youtu.be/wfYbgdo8e-8
the8472 6y ago
> his brain was still processing and identifying a face—a fairly high-level skill Is it? I thought the brain has specialized parts for identifying faces (hence prosopagnosia) which makes this more of an automatism than higher reasoning.
- eddytrex_ 6y ago
  Yeah, I remember learn that in this playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyGKBDfnk-iAQx4Kw9JeVqspbg77sfAK0 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyGKBDfnk-iAQx4Kw9JeV... very cool
  - fao_ 6y ago
    Thank you for this, it's fascinating!
  - mistermann 6y ago
    This looks great, do you have any other similar lectures bookmarked?
- rocqua 6y ago
  if you special case a high level skill, does it stop being a high level skill?
User23 6y ago
Makes me think of this silliness I saw today: https://mobile.twitter.com/BFriedmanDC/status/1289283118730534912 https://mobile.twitter.com/BFriedmanDC/status/12892831187305... I recommend first watching it with you eyes closed and after that seeing how you can manipulate your perception. It was easy to hear “brain needle” with my eyes closed.
- ladberg 6y ago
  This is insane. Does anyone know where I could read about how this works or how the audio is generated?
  - TallGuyShort 6y ago
    I don't and that's a good question, but you may be interested to know that it need not be generated. Look up some YouTube videos relating to the "Paul is dead" conspiracy theories and there are several examples. People swear they can hear "I buried Paul", but you can also make yourself hear "Cranberry sauce" (which is what a Beatle said was actually the line).
- jb775 6y ago
  I heard "brain needle" with my eyes closed also. I could hear "green needle" but couldn't hear "storm" at all.
- Johnjonjoan 6y ago
  Whichever word I repeated in my head as I heard it was what I heard even if looking at another. I could easily and reliably make it change between brainneedle, brainstorm, greenneedle and greenstorm using this method. Edit: kind of think this is to do with the n at the start of needle being implicit as you already get the n sound at the end of green and brain. I think if you register another n the remaining sound sounds most like eedle and if you don't the remaining sound sounds most like storm... Or I may have listened to this too many times
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
dumbneurologist 6y ago
You nailed it. This is a reported piece, so the description could be completely off the mark. But the quote from the neuroscientist is > “What it tells me,” says Christof Koch, a neuroscientist at the Allen Institute who specializes in consciousness, “is that … you can get dissociation between cognition and consciousness.” which is a wild overintepreretation. Gerstmann syndrome is the same kind of deficit where you have preserved consciousness and severe impairments in one very specific cognitive domain. Aphasia is a more common version of a focal neurological deficit which is equally analogous. This whole article is just pop science nonsense (although it's entirely possible the underlying research has merit; it's not easy to tell based on an article about it).
arikrak 6y ago
Since he couldn't process numbers in any useful manner (when communicating, to remember his hotel room, to draw it, etc.) the simplest explanation is that it didn't reach the "central brain processing" area. While this might not be the same thing as "consciousness", it's unlikely that this visual recognition made it very far in the brain. (Maybe the brain damage blocked it from going anywhere at all.)
- eminence32 6y ago
  > Since he couldn't process numbers in any useful manner I don't think this is true, because the article says: > Yet he could still do mental arithmetic and perform other mathematical operations. > He eventually mastered an entirely new digit system (where ⌊ stood for 2, ⌈ for 8, etc.); determined to keep working, he had his computer rigged to present the new numerals onscreen. That suggests to me that he could indeed process numbers, but just couldn't see them

andai 6y ago

Sometimes I read about split-brain experiments and wonder, if my brain were to split, which side I'd end up on?

all_blue_chucks 6y ago
Both.
komali2 6y ago
What even is I though?
- mojuba 6y ago
  "I" is something that knows its place in space and time, the here-and-now, but also has a memory of here-and-now moments of the past. As such "I" is an illusion. If a quantum clone of you is created both I's will have the same memory of the past here-and-now moments, so both will be you at the same. So probbaly something similar happens if a brain is split.
  - apoorvkumar 6y ago
    About your analogy - quantum cloning may not be allowed by laws of nature. That would make any consciousness unique at any point in time. Also I feel the experiment suggests split brains would most likely become 2 very different (new?) entities with different behavior after losing integrity.
    - mojuba 6y ago
      > quantum cloning may not be allowed by laws of nature It might be that the original should be destroyed, I understand. So be it, destroy the original and create N clones. But the thought experiment is an interesting one regardless.
      - ivalm 6y ago
        No, nothing about destroying. It's just you cannot know something sufficiently at infinite precision due to uncertainty principle. It just depends if maximally allowed knowledge of all of person's chemical states is sufficient to reproduce consciousness "sufficiently" closely (I bet it is).
  - behringer 6y ago
    "I" isn't a memory or a here and now. It's the universe experiencing itself. It's an observer. What would happen to that experience if it was split? Would it make a new independant observer?
  - xelxebar 6y ago
    By that definition, a GPS module with an SSD is an "I". In discussions that invoke the words "self" or "consciousness", I find it common to hear pithy or clever definitions. However, rarely do those answers offer any actionable insight. Are you sure that your words "I" or "consciousness" point at extrinsic things in the world? Have you not just invented a new kind of elan vital? If you claim that "consciousness" is a useful category of phenomena within consensus reality, then great. Demonstrate that. Dark matter is a mystery, but it is a mystery comprised of concrete phenomena. Terrestrial biogenesis is a mystery, but it too is comprised of concrete phenomena. Heck, even the amorphous term "love" points to a more concrete category of phenomena than the word "consciousness" typically seems to. FWIW, I think there are concrete approaches to the problem. One method HN might like is to study how we judge subjects as being conscious. Anyone want to build a NN classifier for this?
pengstrom 6y ago
There's very interesting research into this question. This video is easily digestible. https://youtu.be/wfYbgdo8e-8 https://youtu.be/wfYbgdo8e-8

the8472 6y ago

> his brain was still processing and identifying a face—a fairly high-level skill Is it? I thought the brain has specialized parts for identifying faces (hence prosopagnosia) which makes this more of an automatism than higher reasoning.

eddytrex_ 6y ago
Yeah, I remember learn that in this playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyGKBDfnk-iAQx4Kw9JeVqspbg77sfAK0 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyGKBDfnk-iAQx4Kw9JeV... very cool
- fao_ 6y ago
  Thank you for this, it's fascinating!
- mistermann 6y ago
  This looks great, do you have any other similar lectures bookmarked?
rocqua 6y ago
if you special case a high level skill, does it stop being a high level skill?

User23 6y ago

Makes me think of this silliness I saw today: https://mobile.twitter.com/BFriedmanDC/status/1289283118730534912 https://mobile.twitter.com/BFriedmanDC/status/12892831187305... I recommend first watching it with you eyes closed and after that seeing how you can manipulate your perception. It was easy to hear “brain needle” with my eyes closed.

ladberg 6y ago
This is insane. Does anyone know where I could read about how this works or how the audio is generated?
- TallGuyShort 6y ago
  I don't and that's a good question, but you may be interested to know that it need not be generated. Look up some YouTube videos relating to the "Paul is dead" conspiracy theories and there are several examples. People swear they can hear "I buried Paul", but you can also make yourself hear "Cranberry sauce" (which is what a Beatle said was actually the line).
jb775 6y ago
I heard "brain needle" with my eyes closed also. I could hear "green needle" but couldn't hear "storm" at all.
Johnjonjoan 6y ago
Whichever word I repeated in my head as I heard it was what I heard even if looking at another. I could easily and reliably make it change between brainneedle, brainstorm, greenneedle and greenstorm using this method. Edit: kind of think this is to do with the n at the start of needle being implicit as you already get the n sound at the end of green and brain. I think if you register another n the remaining sound sounds most like eedle and if you don't the remaining sound sounds most like storm... Or I may have listened to this too many times
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

dumbneurologist 6y ago

You nailed it. This is a reported piece, so the description could be completely off the mark. But the quote from the neuroscientist is > “What it tells me,” says Christof Koch, a neuroscientist at the Allen Institute who specializes in consciousness, “is that … you can get dissociation between cognition and consciousness.” which is a wild overintepreretation. Gerstmann syndrome is the same kind of deficit where you have preserved consciousness and severe impairments in one very specific cognitive domain. Aphasia is a more common version of a focal neurological deficit which is equally analogous. This whole article is just pop science nonsense (although it's entirely possible the underlying research has merit; it's not easy to tell based on an article about it).

arikrak 6y ago

Since he couldn't process numbers in any useful manner (when communicating, to remember his hotel room, to draw it, etc.) the simplest explanation is that it didn't reach the "central brain processing" area. While this might not be the same thing as "consciousness", it's unlikely that this visual recognition made it very far in the brain. (Maybe the brain damage blocked it from going anywhere at all.)

eminence32 6y ago
> Since he couldn't process numbers in any useful manner I don't think this is true, because the article says: > Yet he could still do mental arithmetic and perform other mathematical operations. > He eventually mastered an entirely new digit system (where ⌊ stood for 2, ⌈ for 8, etc.); determined to keep working, he had his computer rigged to present the new numerals onscreen. That suggests to me that he could indeed process numbers, but just couldn't see them