7 ms·

Neuronal “Superhub” Might Generate Consciousness

76 points by dpflan 12y ago

themgt 12y ago
Fascinating. This is looking more and more likely. I've wondered for a while if one of the main pieces of resistance to this theory is just the tiny size of the claustrum - no one wants to accept that the seat of their own consciousness is so miniscule.
- the8472 12y ago
  From how I understand it it's not so much that all the processing happens there, it's just integrated and coordinated. And that integration is what we think of as conscious thought and action. You have to consider that there are many layers of emergence in play. A mass of neurons doesn't make a brain. A pile of neural networks doesn't make symbolic thinking. Everything needs to be linked together at a higher abstraction level to produce useful results.
niels_olson 12y ago
They're asserting it imposes the singularity of experience, not "defines consciousness". One could think of the claustrum as something that prevents multi-threading.
- hosh 12y ago
  It's actually possible to go enter a state where there are multiple streams of thoughts, feelings, and action while simultaneously remaining in a complete, integrated experience with clarity. It requires decoupling awareness from a single strand of thought. (You are not your thoughts).
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Doubt it. Its possible to scramble your neurons so you think you did this; or so you think you remember doing this. How was it measured? What instrument was used to document this? If the instrument was the same one that was being tinkered with (your brain) then its highly doubtful.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - pluma 12y ago
    I think you may be mixing up something. What you're describing is still a "single strand of thought", just one that is a lot fuzzier. We can hear, see and feel at the same time even though we can at other times be hyper-focused on any one of those experiences individually. We can observe a single fish in a swarm closely, but we can also track the entire swarm and all the fish in it -- albeit with a much higher error rate at the level of the individual fish (e.g. because of "change blindness"). Unless I missed some serious research on the topic, it's not possible to be intensely aware of every single particle (be it a particular sensation or an individual entity that is being observed) in a complex system while observing the system as a whole.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - hosh 12y ago
      What I am not describing is a single strand of thought that is fuzzier. Like I said, it's awareness with clarity.
  - grizzkill2 12y ago
    Yeah, it seems possible, my experience with it is through seizures though. I've had a bunch of temporal lobe seizures (the general area which the article says this neuron superhub lies), and it seems like this superhub malfunctions and sends and receives signals to every part of my brain. My entire subconscious bubbles up at once with no filter. I can feel my heartbeat, I can feel my breathing, I can feel every nerve in my body but the feelings don't make sense, memories from years ago flood my brain, I have simultaneous multiple inner dialogues, I see everything in whatever environment I'm in but I'm confused, I have no idea what I'm doing. My brain then starts to shut down after a few seconds of this, or at least my memory does. The seizure either spreads into a grand mal or stops. It's really overwhelming. Anyway, it feels like these disparate parts of the brain are all working at once but the overarching controller malfunctions.
    - hosh 12y ago
      Thank you for sharing that experience. I didn't know that can happen with seizures. Sorry to hear about your suffering. I've sometimes have that experience during meditation, though, that's often in a controlled, formal setting. Though the idea with meditation is to attain clarity and awareness and not generate more confusion. Not that that always happen in my practice :-D
  - Retric 12y ago
    I find it normal to have several streams of thought going on at the same time. Picking just one to give voice to is sometimes difficult. For example I have two or three independent answers to the same question based on different assumptions. Or only having two hands to move several things at the same time. So, if anything this is a problem not a benefit. Also, split streams tend to be individually dumber.
    - hosh 12y ago
      They can be. It is possible for those individual streams to be entire personalities, though I've only rarely touched that space, and only during peak experiences. I'm not sure yet how I can put that to practical use in ordinary, day-to-day life. In the version you have, the times when I usually have something like that arises is when I'm playing Go or when I'm making architectural decisions. I don't necessarily try to give voice to all of the threads, but rather, keep them in varying states of potentiality, while examining a single thread to check it's validity. It's not always necessary to render a thought stream into a voice until you need it. Kinda like lazy eval, I suppose. I've met people who are significantly more intelligent than I am, and I can usually tell, they are doing something similar with greater clarity. And I'm just barely hanging on to the ride, trying to keep up with them.
  - tjradcliffe 12y ago
    I sometimes think my mental processes must be very weird because I can't even figure out what "You are your thoughts" would mean, yet I'm guessing from your parenthetical remark that it is an idea people find not only meaningful but plausible?
- rnhmjoj 12y ago
  It's the GIL.
- vorg 12y ago
  They say there's two distinct claustrums ("claustra"?) so shouldn't they be asserting there's two singularities of experience? Perhaps there's two consciousnesses in the typical human brain!
devindotcom 12y ago
Wish we could generate a few more words for the various aspects and interpretations of consciousness. It's such a difficult thing to define that to say we've located a region associated with it could mean all kinds of things — to all kinds of people. Some spiritual people will find this to validate ideas of chakras, perhaps, while materialists will decide this is the true and only source of the "self," while behaviorists might interpret it as being merely the executive function. Nevertheless, it's interesting research even if the findings are (as they inevitably are) somewhat overstated.
- hosh 12y ago
  For some of the spiritualists, the premise is reversed: the brain is a receiver rather than generator of consciousness. Going by that premise, the application of electrical current on the claustra doesn't necessarily mean it turns consciousness on or off, though it suggests that the current disrupts the reception of consciousness. I personally don't find anything in here that validates the ideas of chakras. I've been recently probing the nature of awareness (and the experience of awareness) in my meditation practice. One of the things you can find out through meditation is that what you think of as your "consciousness" is not. What meditators and psychonauts consider "consciousness" is very different than the ordinary conception of "consciousness." I agree though, this is an interesting finding.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - thenmar 12y ago
    I would be careful comparing the work of pseudo scientific "spiritualists" to that of neuroscience. Why do you think scientists don't embrace these ideas? Is it really because they're somehow spiritually devoid and foolish and intentionally ignoring whatever truth you think you're grasping? Or is it because what you're talking about is nebulous and inherently impossible to test, with no theoretical underpinning based on experimental observation?
    - 12y ago
hyp0 12y ago
Since mice also have it, it's being awake rather than sapient self-awareness. \tangent I increasingly incline to Dennet's view, even though it seems simplistic, that we have models of the world, of other people, and of ourselves. And that self-model is self-awareness.
chestervonwinch 12y ago
The researcher who wrote this article was also featured on Radio Lab recently: http://www.radiolab.org/story/91503-the-unconscious-toscanini-of-the-brain/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/91503-the-unconscious-toscanin...
amalag 12y ago
This article was originally published with the title "A Brain Structure Looking for a Function." I think that is a far better less click-baity title.
- tjradcliffe 12y ago
  Simple rule for editors: any headline that includes a word like "might" or "may" or "could" can be replaced by a headline with the meaning that has that word replaced with "might not"/"may not". When faced with such a headline, please use the negation of the one you originally thought of, then ask yourself if it makes a terrible headline. If it does, don't use either. If there is no headline that describes the story without such weasel words, consider spiking the story. It contains no interesting information.
  - comex 12y ago
    I disagree. The article mostly consists of evidence for the hypothesis that the claustrum is essential for consciousness. This focus strongly contributes to its interestingness: while just about anything about the brain is interesting, people are naturally most interested in the elusive "consciousness". Not mentioning the focus, as in the original title, is burying the lede, and since people browsing the HN front page are expected to judge whether a link is worth reading from the title and domain alone, it gives them a significantly worse experience without any real benefit.
cpncrunch 12y ago
I have a gut feeling that there needs to be more to consciousness than a bunch of neurons connected to other neurons. If that was the case then we could create a conscoius robot from a bunch of transistors. Roger Penrose's theory is that consciousness is somehow created by quantum superposition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind It would be interesting to see if there are any strange quantum effects at work in the claustrum. Of course there isn't really any evidence towards quantum consciousness, so it's just a highly speculative theory at the moment (albeit a very compelling one).
- burnte 12y ago
  > I have a gut feeling that there needs to be more to consciousness than a bunch of neurons connected to other neurons. Well, considering the brain is just that, and consciousness exists in the brain, then at a physical level that's exactly what consciousness is. But like a computer, it requires more than the simple presence of the hardware. That hardware has to be in an active state executing instructions, the mass of neurons has to be firing in a specific pattern, which seems to me self-booting given how we start out. We know consciousness is just a bunch of neurons, the question is how do they work. Just like we know a given chip is capable of various functions, the question is how. Knowing the building is made of steel does not make one capable of recreating a skyscraper.
  - cpncrunch 12y ago
    Let me rephrase (seeing as someone downvoted me). I meant that I have a gut feeling that consciousness isn't simply a group of neurons communicating using electrical impulses, firing in a specific pattern. If that was the case then it would be physically possible to build a computer out of transistors that had consciousness, and that seems unlikely (again, just a gut feeling). If that is the case then some other physics must come into play, and the other other possible physics is quantum mechanics. Anyway, it's obviously very speculative, but I find it interesting thinking about consciousness - it's one of the few things we don't understand. Regarding downvotes: what's the obsession on HN with people downvoting opinions you don't happen to agree with, but are nevertheless logical and coherent?
moioci 12y ago
Speaking of self-awareness, should there be a test akin to the Turing test to look for this? It seems that it would be fairly simple to simulate self-awareness, given that it is necessarily a subjective experience, so it seems you would want to look for something more than the most successful simulation. I'm sure we're nowhere close with computer programs, but one might also apply such a test to goldfish or oak trees.

76 points by dpflan 12y ago

Fascinating. This is looking more and more likely. I've wondered for a while if one of the main pieces of resistance to this theory is just the tiny size of the claustrum - no one wants to accept that the seat of their own consciousness is so miniscule.

the8472 12y ago
From how I understand it it's not so much that all the processing happens there, it's just integrated and coordinated. And that integration is what we think of as conscious thought and action. You have to consider that there are many layers of emergence in play. A mass of neurons doesn't make a brain. A pile of neural networks doesn't make symbolic thinking. Everything needs to be linked together at a higher abstraction level to produce useful results.

niels_olson 12y ago

They're asserting it imposes the singularity of experience, not "defines consciousness". One could think of the claustrum as something that prevents multi-threading.

hosh 12y ago
It's actually possible to go enter a state where there are multiple streams of thoughts, feelings, and action while simultaneously remaining in a complete, integrated experience with clarity. It requires decoupling awareness from a single strand of thought. (You are not your thoughts).
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Doubt it. Its possible to scramble your neurons so you think you did this; or so you think you remember doing this. How was it measured? What instrument was used to document this? If the instrument was the same one that was being tinkered with (your brain) then its highly doubtful.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- pluma 12y ago
  I think you may be mixing up something. What you're describing is still a "single strand of thought", just one that is a lot fuzzier. We can hear, see and feel at the same time even though we can at other times be hyper-focused on any one of those experiences individually. We can observe a single fish in a swarm closely, but we can also track the entire swarm and all the fish in it -- albeit with a much higher error rate at the level of the individual fish (e.g. because of "change blindness"). Unless I missed some serious research on the topic, it's not possible to be intensely aware of every single particle (be it a particular sensation or an individual entity that is being observed) in a complex system while observing the system as a whole.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - hosh 12y ago
    What I am not describing is a single strand of thought that is fuzzier. Like I said, it's awareness with clarity.
- grizzkill2 12y ago
  Yeah, it seems possible, my experience with it is through seizures though. I've had a bunch of temporal lobe seizures (the general area which the article says this neuron superhub lies), and it seems like this superhub malfunctions and sends and receives signals to every part of my brain. My entire subconscious bubbles up at once with no filter. I can feel my heartbeat, I can feel my breathing, I can feel every nerve in my body but the feelings don't make sense, memories from years ago flood my brain, I have simultaneous multiple inner dialogues, I see everything in whatever environment I'm in but I'm confused, I have no idea what I'm doing. My brain then starts to shut down after a few seconds of this, or at least my memory does. The seizure either spreads into a grand mal or stops. It's really overwhelming. Anyway, it feels like these disparate parts of the brain are all working at once but the overarching controller malfunctions.
  - hosh 12y ago
    Thank you for sharing that experience. I didn't know that can happen with seizures. Sorry to hear about your suffering. I've sometimes have that experience during meditation, though, that's often in a controlled, formal setting. Though the idea with meditation is to attain clarity and awareness and not generate more confusion. Not that that always happen in my practice :-D
- Retric 12y ago
  I find it normal to have several streams of thought going on at the same time. Picking just one to give voice to is sometimes difficult. For example I have two or three independent answers to the same question based on different assumptions. Or only having two hands to move several things at the same time. So, if anything this is a problem not a benefit. Also, split streams tend to be individually dumber.
  - hosh 12y ago
    They can be. It is possible for those individual streams to be entire personalities, though I've only rarely touched that space, and only during peak experiences. I'm not sure yet how I can put that to practical use in ordinary, day-to-day life. In the version you have, the times when I usually have something like that arises is when I'm playing Go or when I'm making architectural decisions. I don't necessarily try to give voice to all of the threads, but rather, keep them in varying states of potentiality, while examining a single thread to check it's validity. It's not always necessary to render a thought stream into a voice until you need it. Kinda like lazy eval, I suppose. I've met people who are significantly more intelligent than I am, and I can usually tell, they are doing something similar with greater clarity. And I'm just barely hanging on to the ride, trying to keep up with them.
- tjradcliffe 12y ago
  I sometimes think my mental processes must be very weird because I can't even figure out what "You are your thoughts" would mean, yet I'm guessing from your parenthetical remark that it is an idea people find not only meaningful but plausible?
rnhmjoj 12y ago
It's the GIL.
vorg 12y ago
They say there's two distinct claustrums ("claustra"?) so shouldn't they be asserting there's two singularities of experience? Perhaps there's two consciousnesses in the typical human brain!

devindotcom 12y ago

Wish we could generate a few more words for the various aspects and interpretations of consciousness. It's such a difficult thing to define that to say we've located a region associated with it could mean all kinds of things — to all kinds of people. Some spiritual people will find this to validate ideas of chakras, perhaps, while materialists will decide this is the true and only source of the "self," while behaviorists might interpret it as being merely the executive function. Nevertheless, it's interesting research even if the findings are (as they inevitably are) somewhat overstated.

hosh 12y ago
For some of the spiritualists, the premise is reversed: the brain is a receiver rather than generator of consciousness. Going by that premise, the application of electrical current on the claustra doesn't necessarily mean it turns consciousness on or off, though it suggests that the current disrupts the reception of consciousness. I personally don't find anything in here that validates the ideas of chakras. I've been recently probing the nature of awareness (and the experience of awareness) in my meditation practice. One of the things you can find out through meditation is that what you think of as your "consciousness" is not. What meditators and psychonauts consider "consciousness" is very different than the ordinary conception of "consciousness." I agree though, this is an interesting finding.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- thenmar 12y ago
  I would be careful comparing the work of pseudo scientific "spiritualists" to that of neuroscience. Why do you think scientists don't embrace these ideas? Is it really because they're somehow spiritually devoid and foolish and intentionally ignoring whatever truth you think you're grasping? Or is it because what you're talking about is nebulous and inherently impossible to test, with no theoretical underpinning based on experimental observation?
  - 12y ago

hyp0 12y ago

Since mice also have it, it's being awake rather than sapient self-awareness. \tangent I increasingly incline to Dennet's view, even though it seems simplistic, that we have models of the world, of other people, and of ourselves. And that self-model is self-awareness.

chestervonwinch 12y ago

The researcher who wrote this article was also featured on Radio Lab recently: http://www.radiolab.org/story/91503-the-unconscious-toscanini-of-the-brain/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/91503-the-unconscious-toscanin...

amalag 12y ago

This article was originally published with the title "A Brain Structure Looking for a Function." I think that is a far better less click-baity title.

tjradcliffe 12y ago
Simple rule for editors: any headline that includes a word like "might" or "may" or "could" can be replaced by a headline with the meaning that has that word replaced with "might not"/"may not". When faced with such a headline, please use the negation of the one you originally thought of, then ask yourself if it makes a terrible headline. If it does, don't use either. If there is no headline that describes the story without such weasel words, consider spiking the story. It contains no interesting information.
- comex 12y ago
  I disagree. The article mostly consists of evidence for the hypothesis that the claustrum is essential for consciousness. This focus strongly contributes to its interestingness: while just about anything about the brain is interesting, people are naturally most interested in the elusive "consciousness". Not mentioning the focus, as in the original title, is burying the lede, and since people browsing the HN front page are expected to judge whether a link is worth reading from the title and domain alone, it gives them a significantly worse experience without any real benefit.

cpncrunch 12y ago

I have a gut feeling that there needs to be more to consciousness than a bunch of neurons connected to other neurons. If that was the case then we could create a conscoius robot from a bunch of transistors. Roger Penrose's theory is that consciousness is somehow created by quantum superposition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind It would be interesting to see if there are any strange quantum effects at work in the claustrum. Of course there isn't really any evidence towards quantum consciousness, so it's just a highly speculative theory at the moment (albeit a very compelling one).

burnte 12y ago
> I have a gut feeling that there needs to be more to consciousness than a bunch of neurons connected to other neurons. Well, considering the brain is just that, and consciousness exists in the brain, then at a physical level that's exactly what consciousness is. But like a computer, it requires more than the simple presence of the hardware. That hardware has to be in an active state executing instructions, the mass of neurons has to be firing in a specific pattern, which seems to me self-booting given how we start out. We know consciousness is just a bunch of neurons, the question is how do they work. Just like we know a given chip is capable of various functions, the question is how. Knowing the building is made of steel does not make one capable of recreating a skyscraper.
- cpncrunch 12y ago
  Let me rephrase (seeing as someone downvoted me). I meant that I have a gut feeling that consciousness isn't simply a group of neurons communicating using electrical impulses, firing in a specific pattern. If that was the case then it would be physically possible to build a computer out of transistors that had consciousness, and that seems unlikely (again, just a gut feeling). If that is the case then some other physics must come into play, and the other other possible physics is quantum mechanics. Anyway, it's obviously very speculative, but I find it interesting thinking about consciousness - it's one of the few things we don't understand. Regarding downvotes: what's the obsession on HN with people downvoting opinions you don't happen to agree with, but are nevertheless logical and coherent?

moioci 12y ago

Speaking of self-awareness, should there be a test akin to the Turing test to look for this? It seems that it would be fairly simple to simulate self-awareness, given that it is necessarily a subjective experience, so it seems you would want to look for something more than the most successful simulation. I'm sure we're nowhere close with computer programs, but one might also apply such a test to goldfish or oak trees.