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A simple argument for electromagnetic fields being the seat of consciousness: The brain is composed of discrete units undergoing local interactions following t

A simple argument for electromagnetic fields being the seat of consciousness: The brain is composed of discrete units undergoing local interactions following the laws of physics. Conscious experience is a seamless unified whole. But there is no way to arrange parts into a whole; it is necessarily a collection of parts. Therefore the brain, a collection of neurons, does not constitute the seat of consciousness. The brain's electrochemical dynamics constitutes the fluctuations in the electromagnetic field within the brain. The electromagnetic field of the brain is a seamless unified whole. Therefore (as the only remaining possibility), the seat of consciousness is the electromagnetic field within the brain.

kazinator 6y ago
That seems like useless hair splitting. It's similar to pondering whether, in the cell of a DRAM chip, it is the electric field of the stored charge that is representing the 1 or 0 meaning, or whether it is the presence or absence of electron particles which is doing the representing.
- hackinthebochs 6y ago
  In the case of the DRAM chip, the only relevant feature is its functional behavior. The stored charge and its electric field are isomorphic, i.e. have the same functional properties. So the difference is meaningless. But the question of what constitutes consciousness isn't merely about functional equivalence. If we took away the brain but left the dynamics of the electromagnetic field in tact, would there still be consciousness? Or vice-versa? The distinction I point out points to different answers to this question. This is a relevant philosophical difference, although no practical difference.
ncmncm 6y ago
Nonsense. Your DNA is made of atoms. Those are parts. Your cells are made of proteins and fats. Those are parts. Your computer is made of transistors and wires. Those are parts. Cities are made of people, buildings, and streets. Those are parts.
- hackinthebochs 6y ago
  What premise of my argument are you objecting to? Nothing you have said appears to contradict anything I have said. I obviously agree that the body is made out of many individual parts at all levels of analysis.
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  - ncmncm 6y ago
    Cars, when driving, have speed that is a continuous, seamless "whole". Therefore, the driver, engine, and wheels have nothing to do with speed because they are parts? Or, the driver must be connected to the wheels via magickal electromagnetic fields? It is meaningless even to say.
    - hackinthebochs 6y ago
      Your points are not analogous to my argument which suggests you don't really understand it. Wheels can have continuous angular velocity which cashes out the continuous speed of a car. I don't preclude collections of parts from correlated behavior, which is what a rotating tire is. A road in contact with a tire is interacting with the complex of correlated parts and so the road's perspective of the tire is that of a unified whole. Similarly, our perspective of a table is that of a unified whole due to electromagnetic forces that keeps the dynamics of the constituent molecules highly correlated and our inability to perceive the seams between the parts (without the aid of tools). But when it comes to consciousness, there is no perceiver distinct from the perception, and so you cannot rely on such a distinction to cash out the apparent unified whole of consciousness.
      - ncmncm 6y ago
        None of that has the slightest bit to do with how brains work to weave the activity you have chosen to noun as "consciousness". Minding is activity brains perform, exactly as motion is activity cars perform. To imagine that mind can't come out of brain cells being brain cells is woolly mysticism that is pointless even to write: rejecting reason, you reject language and communication, and there is nobody to talk to and nothing meaningful to say. You could equally well say that, being in the car, you can't experience the motion. But that is also nonsense: you do. There is nothing profound about noticing yourself noticing. Brain activity is not distinct from other activity, just because it can react to itself. Individual, nanoscopic transistors do it all day long.
fifnir 6y ago
>Conscious experience is a seamless unified whole. That's not necessarily true. We experience vision as a unified whole as well, but we have a blind spot as well. How would you argue that consciousness is a seamless whole and not just the illusion of one?
- hackinthebochs 6y ago
  Our awareness of the outside world isn't seamless, e.g. our blindspot. But our experience of the outside world is seamless. This experience is normally what consciousness refers to, i.e. qualia.
- musingsole 6y ago
  You also have an argument with saccades, not just the eye's blind spot. And in looking closely at electrical currents, is there really an entity or is it just a of collection independent electrons acting on each other? Still, to look at the current and imagine that collective action creates a higher order entity (like the water in a river) is really poetic -- even if it doesn't turn out to be the case.
o_p 6y ago
The neurons, chemicals and electrons flowing through them are the electromagnetic field too (and the other 3 fields). Its a useless definition, we could literally say everything is the interaction of the em field, that would be correct but doesnt give us any information.
bigbubba 6y ago
> Conscious experience is a seamless unified whole I disagree, it seems to be totally disrupted by general anesthesia. Having experienced it, from my perspective it was time travel in a way that normal sleep never is. When you wake up from sleep there is some perception of time passed, and therefore a sort of continuity. Not so under general anesthesia. The time spent under is simply gone without even leaving a sensation of a missing gap.
- hackinthebochs 6y ago
  It's seamless to the experiencer (you don't experience the moments or the objects unexperienced), but not necessarily at a 1 to 1 correspondence with properties of the world. Discontinuities in time is a good example.
- entitydc 6y ago
  There are some interesting hypotheses around microtubules and their potential role in consciousness; this directly ties in with your comments around anesthesia - I've certainly had a similar subjective experience under anesthesia, when compared to other forms of consciousness disruption (sleep, psychedelics, and seizures). This talk is definitely out on the fringes, but I find it interesting for stimulating thinking about a lot of this: https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/video/a-brief-history-of-the-study-of-consciousness-stuart-hameroff-at-sand15 https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/video/a-brief-history-o...
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hobby-coder-guy 6y ago
No

kazinator 6y ago

That seems like useless hair splitting. It's similar to pondering whether, in the cell of a DRAM chip, it is the electric field of the stored charge that is representing the 1 or 0 meaning, or whether it is the presence or absence of electron particles which is doing the representing.

hackinthebochs 6y ago
In the case of the DRAM chip, the only relevant feature is its functional behavior. The stored charge and its electric field are isomorphic, i.e. have the same functional properties. So the difference is meaningless. But the question of what constitutes consciousness isn't merely about functional equivalence. If we took away the brain but left the dynamics of the electromagnetic field in tact, would there still be consciousness? Or vice-versa? The distinction I point out points to different answers to this question. This is a relevant philosophical difference, although no practical difference.

ncmncm 6y ago

Nonsense. Your DNA is made of atoms. Those are parts. Your cells are made of proteins and fats. Those are parts. Your computer is made of transistors and wires. Those are parts. Cities are made of people, buildings, and streets. Those are parts.

hackinthebochs 6y ago
What premise of my argument are you objecting to? Nothing you have said appears to contradict anything I have said. I obviously agree that the body is made out of many individual parts at all levels of analysis.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ncmncm 6y ago
  Cars, when driving, have speed that is a continuous, seamless "whole". Therefore, the driver, engine, and wheels have nothing to do with speed because they are parts? Or, the driver must be connected to the wheels via magickal electromagnetic fields? It is meaningless even to say.
  - hackinthebochs 6y ago
    Your points are not analogous to my argument which suggests you don't really understand it. Wheels can have continuous angular velocity which cashes out the continuous speed of a car. I don't preclude collections of parts from correlated behavior, which is what a rotating tire is. A road in contact with a tire is interacting with the complex of correlated parts and so the road's perspective of the tire is that of a unified whole. Similarly, our perspective of a table is that of a unified whole due to electromagnetic forces that keeps the dynamics of the constituent molecules highly correlated and our inability to perceive the seams between the parts (without the aid of tools). But when it comes to consciousness, there is no perceiver distinct from the perception, and so you cannot rely on such a distinction to cash out the apparent unified whole of consciousness.
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      None of that has the slightest bit to do with how brains work to weave the activity you have chosen to noun as "consciousness". Minding is activity brains perform, exactly as motion is activity cars perform. To imagine that mind can't come out of brain cells being brain cells is woolly mysticism that is pointless even to write: rejecting reason, you reject language and communication, and there is nobody to talk to and nothing meaningful to say. You could equally well say that, being in the car, you can't experience the motion. But that is also nonsense: you do. There is nothing profound about noticing yourself noticing. Brain activity is not distinct from other activity, just because it can react to itself. Individual, nanoscopic transistors do it all day long.

fifnir 6y ago

>Conscious experience is a seamless unified whole. That's not necessarily true. We experience vision as a unified whole as well, but we have a blind spot as well. How would you argue that consciousness is a seamless whole and not just the illusion of one?

hackinthebochs 6y ago
Our awareness of the outside world isn't seamless, e.g. our blindspot. But our experience of the outside world is seamless. This experience is normally what consciousness refers to, i.e. qualia.
musingsole 6y ago
You also have an argument with saccades, not just the eye's blind spot. And in looking closely at electrical currents, is there really an entity or is it just a of collection independent electrons acting on each other? Still, to look at the current and imagine that collective action creates a higher order entity (like the water in a river) is really poetic -- even if it doesn't turn out to be the case.

o_p 6y ago

The neurons, chemicals and electrons flowing through them are the electromagnetic field too (and the other 3 fields). Its a useless definition, we could literally say everything is the interaction of the em field, that would be correct but doesnt give us any information.

bigbubba 6y ago

> Conscious experience is a seamless unified whole I disagree, it seems to be totally disrupted by general anesthesia. Having experienced it, from my perspective it was time travel in a way that normal sleep never is. When you wake up from sleep there is some perception of time passed, and therefore a sort of continuity. Not so under general anesthesia. The time spent under is simply gone without even leaving a sensation of a missing gap.

hackinthebochs 6y ago
It's seamless to the experiencer (you don't experience the moments or the objects unexperienced), but not necessarily at a 1 to 1 correspondence with properties of the world. Discontinuities in time is a good example.
entitydc 6y ago
There are some interesting hypotheses around microtubules and their potential role in consciousness; this directly ties in with your comments around anesthesia - I've certainly had a similar subjective experience under anesthesia, when compared to other forms of consciousness disruption (sleep, psychedelics, and seizures). This talk is definitely out on the fringes, but I find it interesting for stimulating thinking about a lot of this: https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/video/a-brief-history-of-the-study-of-consciousness-stuart-hameroff-at-sand15 https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/video/a-brief-history-o...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

hobby-coder-guy 6y ago