I take your points.In particular a more refined study of brain function is required to refine understanding of the functionality of consciousness. However, Bob Ulanowicz has used a similar measure for studying ecosystems, and it has proven to be of considerable value there. I realize that what is useful in one discipline might not be in another even if the mathematics apply, but establishing some basic measures, though it does not tell us everything we might want to know (and people do have different questions they want to answer, to complicate things), one has to start somewhere in any rigorous approach, and usually it is at a pretty general point like phi. In any case, I have found Ulanowicz' measure to be a good starting point for understanding functionality in ecosystems, and phi might also be a starting point for more refined measures in consciousness studies. Incidentally, the work referred to in the blog entry (which is original, published Jan. 1 2014) is from 2009, and that is probably based on work that was originally published earlier.
I have subscribed to Scientific American since 1965 or so, and I don't recall it ever containing original work in articles on areas with which I was familiar. As I pointed out in my comment, Leibniz came up with pretty much the same idea a long time ago, distinguishing between confused and clear perceptions, with the latter only involved in what might be called self-consciousness. There isn't much genuinely new under the sun.
I agree that the phi measure is "flat", but I see one of the advantages of information theory is that it can linearize the nonlinear once we understand what information is and how it flows. Just as more refinement of levels is required to understand consciousness, the same can be said of Ulanowicz' measure and levels in ecology, but that doesn't mean the gross measure is useless by any means. I am looking at ways to articulate his measures in ecological hierarchies along the lines of my work on natural instance (as opposed to general) hierarchies, hoping to get more local measures of functionality and competing functionalities at different levels in hierarchies. I have argued that we need to look at this in mental hierarchies, and I would guess that there are hierarchies within consciousness as well that have sometimes competing functionalities.
I am a big fan of Damazio.
John
At 03:23 AM 2014/01/04, Joseph Brenner wrote:
Dear John,
The Koch article is worth reading as a kind of statement within the current reductionist paradigm I believe it is necessary to get beyond. It is all the more insidious because of Koch's research credentials, but it contains all the 'push-button' words that I have seen in his previous work, as well as that of others. Two of these are, in this connection, 'measure' and 'integration'. That 'the mental is too radically different to arise gradually from the physical' is a hypothesis, and begs the questions 'does it?' and 'why shouldn't it?' Despite your comment on the utility of his measure, it seems much too scalar to represent anything fundamental.
There is no indication of the essentiality of properties of process and interaction in the concept of information used by Koch. It also opens the door, as I said in my previous note, to misinterpretations supporting anti-realist positions. I conclude that the lessons the article offers about how to think about subjective experience are (ideologically) biased and miss the necessary connection between subjective and objective.
In his 2010 book, Self Comes to Mind, Anthony Damasio discusses how the consciousness is constructed as a result of what he calls master interoceptive processes that occur between the multiple structures at the level of the brain stem and the cerebral cortex. He first defines a protoself as an integrated collection of separate neural patterns that map, moment by moment, the most stable aspects of the organisms physical structure. The nuclei of the homeostatic processes involved generate one of the two key components of the self the feelings of knowing. The other component, derived from non-homeostatic processes in the brain stem, generate object saliency, Damasios term for the recognition of the self-as-object. The origin of the invariance or relative invariance of a singular self has been the subject of much discussion as we know, and a plausible basis for both the invariance and that singularity must be established. For Damasio, this basis is neither more or less than the organisms single body. Although this body is constantly undergoing change, many internal parameters, both structural and chemical, vary only within a very narrow range during the individuals lifetime. In Damasio's view, the couplings between conscious perceptions and memories and underlying processes at the physiological level are necessary but also sufficient to generate the value-laden processes commonly designated as the conscious self. No 'proto-self' is required at the levels at which Koch sees consciousness.
I had been an assiduous reader of Scientific American from high-school until the late-eighties, when it stopped publishing original scientific work. For me, today, it is not an acceptable reference.
Thank you for calling the article to our attention.
Best,
Joseph
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: John Collier
- To: fis@listas.unizar.es
- Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2014 2:47 AM
- Subject: [Fis] Article on panpsychism
- Folks,
- The article on the Scientific American site at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-consciousness-universal&print=true might be of interest to this group. It discusses an information based measure of consciousness.
Is Consciousness Universal?
- Panpsychism, the ancient doctrine that consciousness is universal, offers some lessons in how to think about subjective experience today
- By Christof Koch | Wednesday, January 1, 2014 |
- I am not a panpsychist, but this is the most reasonable version I have seen (barring, perhaps, Leibniz', with its distinction between confused and clear perceptions, which takes a similar route). I think the measure is of interest independently of panpsychism.
- John
- Professor John Collier colli...@ukzn.ac.za
- Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South Africa
- T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292 F: +27 (31) 260 3031
- Http://web.ncf.ca/collier
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Professor John Collier colli...@ukzn.ac.za
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292 F: +27 (31) 260 3031
Http://web.ncf.ca/collier
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