From Dust to Descartes
From Dust To Descartes
M. E. Tson
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2000, 2007 M. E. Tson
All Rights Reserved.
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Table of Contents
The Mystery of Consciousness
I. Instinct & Hard-wiring
Detection
Detection And the External World
“There is more to seeing than meets the eye.”
Reaction
Nothin’ Personal, Just Business
Association
Association
Categorization
Memory - The Mechanics
The Basic Program & The Acquisition of Knowledge
II. Experience
Perceptual Development
Objects
The Binding Problem
Color, Shape, and Size Constancy
Optical Illusions I – Now, you see it. Now, you don’t.
Space/Spatial Awareness
Emotional and Behavioral Development
Attention – “When your house is on fire, you … forget to have dinner.”
Emotional Intensity
Extending Emotional Associations
Short-term and long-term goals
Cognitive Development
Planning
Analogical Reasoning
Subjective Experience of Emotion
Changes in Relative Attention & Energy Allocation:
Associations
Other Cognitive Changes
Physiological Changes
Pain
Detection of Pain
Emotional Aspect
Intensity/Relative Attention
III. Community
Culture
Culture and Perception - Optical Illusions II
Communication
Language Learning
Speech
“…and there is no new thing under the sun.”
What language makes possible
Abstract and Logical Thought
“All I know is what I read in the papers.”
Logic
Language, Culture, and Values
Shared Experience
Self-Awareness
Reflection
Personal Identity Through Time:
Metacognition - How do we know what/that we are thinking?
Other Minds
“I am not an animal!”
The argument from introspection
IV. The View From Here
Color
Detection
Emotional Component
Associations
Do We See the Same Color?
Folk Wisdom
Mary, The Color Scientist – Color & Self-awareness
Personality, Creativity, & Intelligence
Truth
Creativity
Intelligence
Science and Civilization
Alphabet
The Tree of Knowledge
Free Will
The argument from introspection revisited
“It’s not me, Your Honor. It’s my genes.”
Conclusions on Self-awareness and The Philosophy of Mind
Appendix: Boolean Logic
Logic Gates
Neural Networks
Bibliography
Chapter Summaries
Notes
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The Mystery of Consciousness
“Man is the particular being that can know the universal, the temporal being that is aware of eternity, the part that can survey the whole, the effect that seeks the cause.”1
- Allan Bloom
In philosophy’s most famous thought experiment, 17th century thinker René Descartes mused that although he could never be certain that he was not, in fact, dreaming, hallucinating, or otherwise misinterpreting his perceptions, the fact that he is thinking proves at the very least that he exists. Yet, Descartes’ celebrated deduction, “I think. Therefore, I am,” actually leaves quite a bit unsaid. How, by what means, does Descartes know that he is thinking? How could a part ever gain a vantage point from which to evaluate the whole or its role in the whole? The answers to these questions are crucial. Whether and how our awareness of ourselves and of the world differs from that of every other species on earth is the most fundamental question in any moral, political, or legal system, and only by seeking to address it can we begin to think coherently about many other perennial mysteries:
-- How does the mind exist in the body?
-- What is the origin of personal identity? Why do we identify with and care about our past and future selves?
-- Why are humans so different from chimpanzees in spite of the fact that we share 99% of our genetic material? Are animals conscious or self-aware?
-- Could a machine ever really become self-aware?
-- From whence the conflict between desire and virtue?
-- Does free will exist? If so, what is it?
-- Do other people see the world (colors, for example) as we do?
-- What is the difference between the conscious and unconscious? How can we mentally process things of which we are not aware?
-- It is possible to see an optical illusion in different ways or from different angles. The visual input doesn’t change. What does?
-- What does it mean to experience an emotion? What is the introspective experience (qualia) of seeing a color or tasting an apple? What does it ‘feel’ like to see blue? Do animals experience emotion?
-- Why do we experience the color, scent, and shape of a flower as a unity? This is the so-called “binding” problem. We know that these things do not simply come together in a single location in the brain.2
There is little agreement even among modern researchers and thinkers about what consciousness is or if/how the brain produces it. For example, the Cartesian, or dualist, view is that the answers to these questions lie in a brain that is material and a mind or soul that is immaterial. Another theory is that there is a special class of “consciousness” neurons that fire together in some sort of dance to produce human self-awareness.3 Nobel laureate Francis Crick and neuroscientist Cristof Koch have suggested that the synchronous firing of neurons could explain both consciousness and the binding problem. When the brain is not consciously focusing on an object, neurons fire independently, but “under the spotlight of attention” they may fire at the same frequency.4 Oxford mathematician Sir Roger Penrose has speculated that self-awareness may come from the interaction of neurons at the quantum level,5 and one group of philosophers has recently surrendered to the idea that we are incapable of ever understanding consciousness, just as a lobster will never grasp general relativity.6 This book, on the other hand, suggests that the solution is not that hopeless, ethereal, or complicated.
Whatever their approach, most researchers and commentators on the subject do agree that in humans and animals the basic information-processing unit is the nerve cell or neuron. The neuron can be in either one of two states: activated or at rest. The response is “all or nothing.” A neuron is either on or off. Neurons are interconnected in circuits by axons, which are the equivalent of conducting wires. Axons make contact with other neurons at points called synapses. When neurons become active or “fire”, an electrical current is passed from the cell body down the axon to the synapse. As the current reaches a synapse, it causes the release of chemicals known as neurotransmitters, which in turn operate on the receptors of the other neurons to which it is connected. Whether or not these subsequent neurons fire (and release their own neurotransmitters) depends on the cooperative interaction of adjacent neurons.7 The brain is composed of more than 10 billion neurons,8 each of which has on average 1000 synapses (connections to other neurons), although some have as many as 6,000.9 As it only takes a few tens of milliseconds for a neuron to fire, this translates into millions of possible firing patterns throughout the brain in less than a second.10
Unfortunately, the above explanation, though widely-accepted, is still a long way from answering the mystery of consciousness. Nevertheless, the goal of this paper is to explain self-awareness and its perennial enigmas (creativity, free will, subjective experience) in terms of the various firing patterns of these simple on/off switches. It does not presume to be textbook of neurology, child psychology, sociology, linguistics, or philosophy. Volumes have been written about each of the subjects addressed in the following chapters. The intention here is to present a different framework for thinking about these issues and, by implication, self-awareness. The idea is to show how every aspect of human consciousness can be explained by simple physical and chemical processes and, along the way, to discover how and why human awareness of the world and of ourselves differs from that of other animals. Philosopher David Chalmers has pointed out that:
-- the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli;
-- the integration of information by a cognitive system;
-- the reportability of mental states;
-- the ability of a system to access its own internal states;
-- the focus of attention;
-- the deliberate control of behavior;
-- the difference between wakefulness and sleep
are all the “easy” problems of consciousness.11 Modern science has no difficulty in explaining them. Rather, the “hard” problem is explaining experience, namely subjective experience and feelings.12 Yet, we will argue that the “hard” issues can be understood and explained in terms of the “easier”
ones and so the first half of the book will focus on the latter. The first part of the book addresses the innate abilities that an infant or young pup has at birth. Part II shows how these abilities along with experience enable us to gain knowledge about the world. Part III concentrates on the essential role that other individuals play in the formation of self-awareness. Part IV then explores what follows from this explanation of human consciousness, touching on topics such as free will, personality, intelligence, and color perception which are often associated with self-awareness and the philosophy of mind.
The issues we will ultimately be discussing (community, culture, personality, creativity, free will) are all engaging and colorful topics. Dust is not, but that is where we have to start. Do not lose heart if the issues addressed in the first half of the book initially seem far removed from the questions we are ultimately trying to answer. The nature of the book’s argument requires that we go step by mechanical step, covering issues of biology and child psychology before we can finally begin to suggest answers to the more philosophical questions identified at the beginning of this chapter. Nevertheless, what comes first is essential to understanding what comes next, so this paper is best read and understood in the order presented, which is roughly that of the development of consciousness in both the evolutionary and personal sense. As you are reading, try not to think too much about the end product, human self-awareness, until the end. Nature didn’t. Instead concentrate on whether the capabilities addressed in each chapter (and summarized in the italics and bold italics) could be explained in mechanical13 terms.14 Consciousness will eventually and gradually come into focus. That said, the impatient reader might go directly from Part I to Parts III and IV, after quickly skimming Part II (focusing on the italics and bold italics) and when necessary returning to it for specifics on emotional and cognitive development. Also, any reader more interested in the conclusion than the underlying reasoning of any particular chapter or section can consult the Chapter Summaries at the end of the book before moving on to the next chapter or part. Please send any criticisms, comments or questions to comments@Dust2Descartes.com.
One final word before we begin. Of course, any attempt to divine what goes on in the mind of an insect, baby, or spouse is speculation. For all that we know the newborn might already be composing jazz tunes. But, as we work our way from dust to self-awareness, we are going to take a minimalist approach: assuming a universe in which chemical and physical reactions take place (where event Y always follows event X) and then seeing where that assumption alone might lead us before we are forced to assume that there is anything else.
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In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Genesis 3:19
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I. Instinct & Hard-wiring
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15
Iron in the presence of water and oxygen forms a hydrated iron oxide, commonly called rust. The process is slowly corroding these old automobiles.
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Detection
“…an ability to separate out, of all the things there [are] to sense, the one that life itself might depend on.”16
- Toni Morrison
Amoebae, bees, chipmunks, and babies all arrive in the world with some innate abilities and tendencies. Otherwise, there would be little difference between them and rocks. We cannot interact with the world until we can detect bits and pieces of it, making detection the most basic of these instinctual or “preprogrammed” tendencies. Animal sensation is, at its core, an extremely complicated detection system, but comparable information-processing systems are everywhere. The movement of a leaf indicates the presence or absence of wind. Iron can “detect” the presence of oxygen and water by rusting. A bacteria or plant “detects” light because only light will raise the outer electrons in its chlorophyll to the higher energy levels required to initiate the photosynthetic process. In the same way, the ability to detect or sense17 the external world begins with chemical reactions that take place only given the presence/absence of some aspect of the external18 world.
We have no direct information or sensory contact with the external world but are only aware of our reactions to it. At no point, need we assume that our subjective mental representation of an object “resembles” the object’s “objective” qualities (of which we can have no knowledge). Take sight, for example.19 Nowhere in the brain are there any images or photos corresponding to what we see. As University of California at San Diego neuroscientist, V.S. Ramachandran explains,
“If you think about this, you realize at once that [it is logically untenable]. There is no point in having an image being displayed on a screen in the brain, because then you need another eye looking at that image. And it doesn’t solve the problem having an eye looking at that image either because then you need another eye looking at the image of that eye and you get into an endless [regression], without really solving the problem of perception.”20
Actually, at the most basic level, all that is necessary for detection is that certain external stimuli produce consistent and distinct internal effects. Consider, for instance, a leaf blowing in the wind. We can’t see the wind, but we know it’s there by the movement of the leaf. In a similar way, when we see colors or objects, light-sensitive neurons, or cones, on the eye’s retina are stimulated by photons of light emitted by, or reflected off, objects. Light of short wavelengths primarily activates certain of these cones and we detect blue. Other cones are most sensitive to the middle wavelengths and indicate green. And a third type is most active in the presence of long wavelength or ‘red’ light. All of the other colors we are capable of detecting can be explained by some combination of these three sets of cones firing.21, 22
Wavelength
Not only is this simple system capable of detecting differences of hue (blueness, greenness, redness…), it is also sensitive to the relative amount and purity of light reflected. When objects reflect greater amounts of light (stimulating more cones more often), we say that they are brighter, and we see an object of a particular hue and brightness as paler the lower the purity or saturation of the colorants. Whites and blacks have zero hue, but represent extremes of light intensity.23 Blue is relatively darker than yellow because the eye is less sensitive to the lower wavelengths.24 It is estimated that we can thus distinguish up to 10 million colors in terms of the hue, brightness, or saturation of the emitted energy.25
There are also neurons26 that “detect” edges or indicate boundaries between colors. Some are activated by lines at 90 degrees to the horizontal, others by lines at other degrees. A light line on a dark background triggers some, and a dark line on a bright background excites others. Whenever one of these fire, we ‘detect’ an edge. A few, direction analyzers, are activated by a line or edge moving in specific direction, and others signal when the line changes direction. There are form analyzers sensitive to various shapes like rectangles or stars as well as position neurons that react to spots in certain positions of the visual field, to name a few. It is when groups of neurons fire together that we ‘detect’ colors, shapes, and objects. If a particular combination of neurons has fired before, we ‘detect’ an object that we have detected before. If, however, this is the first time this group of neurons has ever fired together, we “see” (detect) something we’ve never “seen” before. (Although with detection alone, we wouldn’t know it. At this level of awareness there is no memory and definitely no type of conscious perception of sensation, just mechanical reactions with no more self-awareness than a rusting piece of metal.)
The other senses work in essentially the same way. With sight, certain forms of electromagnetic radiation excite certain detectors. Whereas in hearing, some detectors react only when a sound starts or stops; some react to the rate of change of frequency telling the organism whether the source of the sound is approaching or withdrawing. Others respond only when the frequency of a sound rises or falls, etc. With taste, certain water-soluble chemicals trigger other detectors. Wine connoisseurs, with their amazing ability to discriminate where, when, and how a wine was made, show how versatile a simple system of discrimination can be. If we had only four different types of taste receptors,27 each capable of responding to different qualities, and if each of those four qualities could be detected at just ten different levels (or rather if the sets of neurons which detect them could fire at ten different levels of intensity), by combining the information into different patterns we would be capable of discriminating 10,000 tastes, each with a unique pattern. 28 This awareness of changes in our environment extends to our internal organs. For instance, sensory receptors in the muscles, tendons, and joints sense posture and movement; others, sensitive to contractions in the stomach, glucose levels in the brain, and changes in blood chemistry, are associated with the sensation of hunger. There is no single, contiguous map inside the brain, which might serve as a precursor of self-awareness, just the interaction and coordination of signals.29