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Credit: Getty/Gaetan Charbonne The young woman had survived the car crash — after a fashion. Five months after parts of her brain had been crushed, she could open her eyes, but didn't respond to sights, sounds, or jabs. In the jargon of neurology, she was in a "persistent vegetative state". In crueller everyday language, she was "a vegetable". So imagine the astonishment of British and Belgian scientists when they scanned her brain using a kind of MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) that detects blood flow to active parts of the brain. When they recited sentences, the parts involved in language lit up. When they asked her to imagine visiting the rooms of her house, the parts involved in navigating space and recognising places ramped up. And when they asked her to imagine playing tennis, the regions that trigger movement joined in. Indeed, her scans were barely different from those of healthy volunteers. The woman, it appears, had glimmerings of consciousness. Try to imagine what it is like to be that woman. Do you appreciate the words and caresses of your distraught family, while racked with frustration at your inability to reassure them they are getting through? Or do you drift in a haze, springing to life with a concrete thought when a voice prods you, only to slip back into blankness? If we could experience this existence, would we prefer it to death? And if these questions have answers, would they change our policies toward unresponsive patients — making the heated political battle over the brain-damaged Terri Schiavo in 2005 look like child's play? A report of this discovery in November 2006 was just the latest shock from a bracing new field: the science of consciousness. Questions once confined to theological speculations and grandiose late-night student debates are now at the forefront of cognitive neuroscience. With some problems, a modicum of consensus has taken shape. With others, the puzzlement is so deep as perhaps never to be resolved. And the discoveries have shaken some of our deepest convictions of what it means to be human. *** IT SHOULDN'T BE SURPRISING that research on consciousness is alternately exhilarating and disturbing. No other topic is like it. As French philosopher René Descartes noted, our own consciousness is the most indubitable thing there is. The major religions locate it in a soul that survives the body's death to receive its just deserts, or to meld into a global mind. For each of us, consciousness is life itself, the reason why Woody Allen said, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve it by not dying". And the conviction that other people can suffer and flourish as each of us does is the essence of empathy and the foundation of morality. To make scientific headway in a topic as tangled as consciousness, it helps to clear away some red herrings. Consciousness surely does not depend on language. Babies, many animals, and patients robbed of speech by brain damage are not insensate robots; they have reactions like ours, which indicate that someone's home. Nor can consciousness be equated with self-awareness. At times we have all lost ourselves in music, exercise, or sensual pleasures, but that is altogether different from being knocked out cold. What remains is not one problem about consciousness but two, which the prominent Australian philosopher David Chalmers has dubbed the Easy Problem and the Hard Problem. Calling the first one 'easy' is an in-joke: it is 'easy' in the sense that curing cancer or sending someone to Mars is easy. That is, scientists more or less know what to look for, and with enough brainpower and funding, they will probably crack it in this century. What exactly is the Easy Problem? It's the one that Sigmund Freud made famous: the difference between conscious and unconscious thoughts. Some kinds of information in the brain, like your daydreams, your plans for the day, your pleasures and peeves, are conscious. You can ponder them, discuss them, and let them guide your behavior. Other kinds, like the control of your heart rate, the rules that order the words as you speak, and the sequence of muscle contractions that allow you to hold a pencil, are unconscious. They must be in the brain somewhere, because you couldn't walk and talk and see without them, but they are sealed off from your planning and reasoning circuits, and you can't say a thing about them. The Easy Problem, then, is to distinguish conscious from unconscious mental computation, identify its correlates in the brain, and explain why it evolved. The Hard Problem, on the other hand, is why it feels like something to have a conscious process going on in one's head — why there is first-person, subjective experience. Not only does a green thing look different from a red thing, remind us of other green things, and inspire us to say "that's green" (the Easy Problem), but it actually looks green — it produces an experience of sheer greenness that isn't reducible to anything else. As Louis Armstrong said in response to a request to define jazz, "When you got to ask what it is, you never get to know". The Hard Problem is explaining how subjective experience arises from neural computation. The problem is 'hard' because no one And not surprisingly, everyone agrees that the hard problem (if it is a problem) remains unsolved. *** Readers' comments
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Consciousness research
Your article here seems to ignore the current research on near death experiences. In these studies evidence comes forward to show consciousness does live after the death of the brain and body. Such research has produced non-material neuroscientists. Read the book "The Spiritual Brain."
The article ignores several areas of research
The article assumes the reductionist paradigm to be the only option to understand the mind-brain relationship (or consciousness-brain) and ignores several important areas of research, like transplanted memories and other physiological phenomena, that cast serious doubts on the reductionist paradigm. The article also ignores the research on psychic or anomalous phenomena, like reincarnation (see the works of Dr. Ian Stevenson et al.), mental mediumship (see the works of Dr. Gary Schwartz et al.), ESP (see the works of Dean Radin et al.), NDE, etc.
Consciousness and Special Relativity
This reminds me of an issue never really resolved after the advent of Einstein's relativity theory. There were two possible implications of the 4-dimensional space-time continuum: 1) The universe is a dynamic 3-dimensional system, operating in a manner incapable of rational explanation (other than a purely mathematical representation via Lorentz and Riemann), or 2) The universe is truely 4-dimensional, that is it exists as a true four-dimensional structure.
Physicists have largely put this discussion on the back burner, either intentionally or perhaps just because its pursuit would not be fruitful: Too many other urgent problems in physics that have promise of progress (you would never get a PhD with a subject such as this, or as a researcher would you ever obtain a grant).
However, should the second possibility be correct, it implies that all matter in the universe is fixed in place as part of the 4-dimensional universe--the universe, including neurons would be static 4-D entities. There would be no material motion. All particles would be 4-D fibers wandering along the 4th dimension (called world lines).
What then would be moving? The only thing left to do the moving would be consciousness. By the Special Relativity description, the consciousness would move along a given bundle of neuron fibers at the speed of light. It would just be conscious of the "movie" offered by the neuron bundle--exactly analagous to one watching a movie. The movie film itself is established-once-and-for-all-time as material structure. As is the 4-D world.
The implications are obvious.
4D - and more
Exellent! i am glad this forum is still taking replies, for this is the perfect point to explain some nice mind-blowing ideas.
One fine day when i was wondering about this, i took a sheet of paper and draw on it a box. A 3D box in persective, a little hint of shading, but clear and open. Along the bottom i labelled "x" and "y" and along a vertical side i put "t".
Inside the box i drew a thick line, starting near one side of the bottom face, heading up with a few tiny wiggles, suddenly slanting over a distance (but staying well inside the box) and then as suddenly turning straight to the top face. A world line: a philosopher doing his morning routine at home, driving to the philosophy factory, then sitting at his desk. Or working a Philosomatic 4001X Industrial Philosophotator(tm), i don't know. Whatever.
So, there's a typical morning for the philospher. Had i drawn in more detail, i should have drawn the box much bigger to include the whole town, the whole universe, and maybe if i drew with fine enough detail - quantum details, Planck-scale, maybe - perhaps somehow the philospher would be conscious and wonder about the nature of space time. Of course, i totally left out a 3rd space dimension, but that won't matter for this thought experiment.
Then i decided to change something. I erased part of the philospher's world line - the slanted part, which i replaced with two segments and a little upward jog. The philospher now stops off at the coffee shop for a latte. (If a philosopher isn't puffing on a pipe, then he'd at least better be sipping coffee.)
Now ponder what the philospher's experience has been. He was going straight to work; now he stops at the cafe. But i am using the words "was" and "now" in _my_ time - my changing of the drawing. These aren't in the philospher's time, the "t" dimension of my sketchy box. How would the philospher even think about this? How could he describe _my_ time dimension? This isn't merely a "second time dimension" whatever that would mean, but what we could call "meta-time".
So, jumping up a level to _our_ reality, we describe our physics experiments, the motions of planets and galaxies with our "t" dimension - but could it be our history, at a detailed or cosmic level, changes according to some meta-time? Could history change retroactively as the "now" time proceeds? How would we know?
Another idea followed after that: the sketch universe is constructed only up to a certain point - i did not have an infinitely large sheet of paper! (As a grad student, i couldn't afford it.) With my pencil I could extend the box upward (and downward, for that matter) and extend the world lines, making philosophers and elves and whatever i imagine go where i like. Like a novelist trying to make a clever plot work out by going back to change details in Chapter One, i might revise some of the earlier-drawn world lines. Now, as a sketch on paper, this activity didn't go far, but thinking about our 4D reality, where we know the past by memory and evidence, but the future remains mysterious, perhaps 4D existance is incomplete up to "now" (never mind that being a fuzzy concept in relativity) where creation plows on. Perhaps each new step of creation, like a blanket thrown on a pile of previous blankets, in some sense presses on the past, changing what reality "was" in the meta-time sense. This idea connects the meta-time and physical time dimensions - activity intersecting at some kind of "now" or "creation surface" of 4D reality.
Dynamic 3D or static 4D structure? I hope to have conveyed some idea of dynamic 4D.
Okay, my latte is all sipped up! So that'll be enough metaphysics for now.
Binding problem & subtrate issue
Chief issue of consciousness materialism is why separate neuronal events should give rise to a seemingly singular conscious experience in a brain/body complex. How and why do the individual molecular and electrical events 'fuse' into a single 'gestalt'?
Equally problematic for non-physical minds is why those same neuronal events equally give rise to a singular consciousness, though on occasions to anomalous perceptions. Why a singular experience anchored to a single living skull when non-physical minds could be experiencing things anywhere as anything? Why is this particular physical structure so necessary for a mind?
Seems physicalism needs that unifying process we call consciousness, while non-physicalism needs an account of why some physical structures are experienced as conscious and others are not. If non-physicalism, such as the Jain religion, then claims all living, moving things are conscious and inhabited by minds (jiva), then why living, moving things versus non-living or non-moving things? Why is one particular configuration of matter experienced and another is not?
'Solving' the problem by calling everything 'alive' or conscious is evasive, or solving it by calling singular consciousness an illusion is equally an evasion. Consciousness seems to require a particular configuration of information processing instantiated in neurons in one instance or instantiated in 'non-physical stuff' on the other hand. And that information processing is somehow felt and experienced. I would suggest that the Other World is experienced via some sort of 'duplicate body' formed via conscious or unconscious processes of the experiencer - just as many who experience OBEs claim to do before 'leaving' their physical body. That duplicate maps to our physical brains very closely, perhaps less so to our bodies as the physics of the Other World seems different to the world of Standard Model physics.
But 'explaining' anomalous perceptions via embodiment in another World doesn't explain consciousness as a unifying process - that requires a different phenomena. In our Standard Model world that 'binding' might occur through the electromagnetic field generated by the neurons - all the separate events at neuronal level become changes in the whole that is the brain's em-field. Thus consciousness - in this world at least - could be said to be 'composed' of light.
Many Voices
Adam:
I think there are many, many voices and the conscious is just an illusion. I see this in poker all the time. The noob player has pocket aces and even though his conscious brain is saying nothing, his unconscious brain is telling the world he's got a good hand.
As I stated in the comment below yours, I have MS and this condtion really divides your parts out. I can testify that there are at least four independent brains. There's a left brain and a right brain, there's an autonomic brain and there is a concious brain. I know this because when there are problems communicating between these parts, it become very obvious. OBE is the same halucination as deja vu. I think it has something to do with a fracture between the concious brain and the body map. Sometimes I feel like I'm standing inside a robot body, this usually happens when I've overheated..
I know what it felt like before MS and now I don't think it can be properly explained to someone who has not gone through it. The phrase, "I think, therefore I am" is incorrect. It's more like "We cooperate therefore I am"
anyway - Kmuzu
The Ghost with the Most
Recently I was diagnosed with MS. This has given me a different perspective on how the brain functions. I used think the brain was a type of computer, but now I think of it as more of a holographic image. With a computer any little error and the computer crashes, but the brain can withstand quite a lot of damage and still function and can still maintain the whole image of self.
Having said that; through my own experience, even a small injury to the brain causes painful and horrific results. For instance one small lesion on my spine, has caused my right leg to feel like it's on fire. I can't imagine what someone like Terri Schiavo went through. She could very well have been conscious but in what kind of state? My thinking is more likely her reality is filled with void and pain. Also, the many identities could be so fractured that there is not one overriding voice.
I don't think that I would like to persist in that way. Many good meaning people think that if a person persists that it is God's will, but I think that God is very mysterious and His will may be to tell a loved one, to let the patient die with peace.
Kmuzu
Thinking
Kmuzu, Could you share with us some of how your thought processes have been affected by your MS condition? Stephen Hawking (ALS) evidently developed unusual analytical abilities--he could manipulate equations in his mind that would be the equivalent of what most physicists would replicate using a full page or more of handwritten manipulations. Have you become more of a thinker, I'm not sure how to say it, but maybe more analytical? And how have your priorities in life adjusted? I hope you condition is not too far advanced. If I'm being too personal please just ignore this post.
Thanks for asking
Some of the more funny stuff with MS is: For about a week everything smelled like cheese. I kept asking my wife why she was putting cheese in the oatmeal (this was before I was diagnosed). While playing poker, I will usually get hand tremors and it throws off the whole table. Is he nervous, excited, has to use the bathroom? I have a distinct right side me and a distinct left side me. I have one conscious voice, but the only way to describe it is .. it is like a chariot being pulled by two different horses. Everything is going in the same direction, but I can tell there are two sided.
Rational thought is a very subjective thing for me. MS'ers have terrible times with depression. Montel Williams almost killed himself. I use cognitive and behavioral thearapy to control mine.
MS is like having a super slow stroke. The auto-immune system attackes the sheathing around the neurons and those neurons start misfiring. Almost like short circuiting a computer. So, like right now my foot feels exactly like it is about ten inches above a barbeque. If the slightest bit of water hits my leg, it feels like a bee stings. This is not in my leg or foot but brain. So, I could be loaded on morphine and still feel the exact same pain - I guess in that case, I really wouldn't care about the pain. My body map is screwed up. On my right side, when I crossover to the left side, everything is fifteen degrees off. So, my ballroom and tap dancing days are over.
My "thinking" abilities have not improved since MS. I have some short-term memory problems. I've always had a creative job and my artistic abilities have not changed .. other than hand tremors.
They say that 99 percent of all mutations are bad. Well, I think the same is true with brain damage. The brain is a very tough but yet sensitive organ. A small chemical change or damage can cause major affects. My lesions are so small they cannot be seen on a normal MRI. It takes a TESLA 3 to seem them. Major brain damage scares the hell out of me.
In physical therapy, they put MS'ers with the stroke guys. Some of those guys have lost themselves or worse, there is no central voice and all the parts are not communicating with each other. There is a guy who thinks everyone is an imposter, another guy can read with one eye, but can't recognize pictures and it is the revese with the other eye.
When I think of Terri Schiavo, I cannot imagine a greater hell than to be lost within yourself. You are your reality and that reality for her was most likely complete disembodiedment, darkness and pain. There would be no sense of time or place. I have experienced these things on a small scale and it is absolutely no fun.
As far as my life changing. Yes - and mostly for the better. Before MS I was working my way to a director position, now I spend much more time with my family, I enjoy the work I do and I have swept away many of the demons that plagued me for so long. So, there is always good with the bad.
Kmuzu
Thanks for Talking
Thanks so much for talking. You sure have developed amazing observations and insight. I was really impressed with your ideas about Terri Schiavo. Those hearings in congress should have been listening to people like you instead of some of the publicity seekers.
I get the impression that your background is in the arts as opposed to science. Some of us science types who are attracted to Michio Kaku's site are always interested in the deep mysteries of consciousness and of time. I think you have a unique perspective on that. It's almost like you personally experience effects arising right at the boundry of consciousness and neurons.
As a physicist, for a long time I've had the hunch that the flow of time is tied in much more closely to consciousness than the external spatial world. I get the impression that you've had some unique experiences with time and consciousness phenomena.
Kmuzu, as I sit here trying to communicate with someone out there in cyberworld whom I've never met, my overriding feeling is that I just hope you are able to make whatever good you can of your situation--the best possible--and hope you have good people around you, as I know your wife is.
And please keep that leg away from the barbeque pit!