Considering Things Science Can Explain About Consciousness.

"Without deeply, personally appreciating the Pageant of Evolution, trying to ask, and answer, these deep existential questions is like playing basketball in zero gravity."

"Dr. Mark Solms makes it clear: … Modern science shows us that our mind is best understood as “a reflection of your body communicating with itself.” "

"Consider that momentous invention some four billion years ago of the Krebs cycle. Here on Earth, when geology and chemistry learned how to harness electricity, thereby giving birth to this Krebs cycle, which in turn gave birth to biology. There you’ll find the difference between a rock and living creature." 

Introduction

A scientific approach to understanding your “Self” - Nick Lane PhD. A Students Resource.

(I'm happy to report that I have exchanged emails with Nick Lane, and he gives me a supportive thumbs up for this effort.)

Here Dr. Nick Lane describes the source; where the metaphorical spark; that starts the cascade; that makes us, us; is to be found.

I share extensive quotes from Dr. Nick Lane’s recent book Transformer, specifically its epilogue, “Self” — which seems to me the best street level summary of current scientific understanding regarding our physical body, as the ultimate source of our thoughts and feelings, in short our mind & soul.

Why do I believe this is important? Because, Evolution and biological realities receive too much hollow lip service, and too little detailed attention.  Philosophers tend to keep it within the bubble of their thoughts.  Seemingly valuing dialogue more than getting into the weeds of evolutionary biology to find out what nature & evolution has to teach us about the source of consciousness.

What follows is offered as food for thought.  An invitation to explore Nick Lane’s report.  To gain a deeper understanding of how the interaction between body, brain, and life itself gives rise to our consciousness — and while all the details aren’t filled in, an internally consistent outline is becoming clear enough — backed by the consilience of scientific evidence.  We should start taking it seriously.

As Dr. Solms points out elsewhere: the best way to understand consciousness is, as a reflection of our body/brain communicating with itself.   This is my puny challenge to philosophy departments to take notice, and start formulating better, more relevant questions regarding our human condition.

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Professor Nick Lane PhD writes in his epilogue to the book “Transformer”

I claim fair use, to justify this reprinting and sharing

¶1  “ ‘I think therefore I am’ said Descartes, in one of the most celebrated lines ever written. But what am I, exactly? … What is a quantum of solace?”

¶2  “In this book, we’ve explored the dynamic side of biochemistry, the continuous flow of energy and matter that makes us alive. …”

Striving to Understand Consciousness. (with a little help from Nick Lane)

Exploring how science is unraveling philosophy’s eccentric Hard Problem, with some help from Professor Nick Lane. 

David Chalmers leads philosophers who claim scientists, (that is people dedicated to studying physical reality), will never figure out how biological processes can produce subjective experience without adapting some woo.

Then they go on to talk about studying “consciousness” by focusing on neurons and the brain. While the body gets lost like some kind of externality, an irrelevance to minimize and avoid.

Now please consider for a moment, your brain is intimately connected down to every cubic millimeter of your body. Your living body is about a nonstop exchange of information and resources between itself and the outside world. (Same as all other animals, down to single celled creatures.)

It is your body that experiences the bike ride, it is your mouth, nose, fingers, etc. who are experiencing the food being eaten, same with the child or lover being touched — it is not your brain.

Everything your brain has to work with, must be processed and communicated via our individual living body, (with its unique perceptual filters — product of nature via nurture.)

Nick Lane uses the metaphor of our body’s biology and organs, as a full set of orchestra instruments, the physical biology scientists have been studying. Nick suggests it’s time to listen to the music they make. The bioelectrical rhythms and fluctuating fields that convey what those biological instruments are performing.

The brain? That’s the conductor, and the music that’s the thoughts and feeling surging through our bodies. At the end of this article I’ve added a 266 word quote from Dr. Lane, who does a superb job of conveying the concept.

Cellular Basis Consciousness #2 Reber's Q/A - Student's Resource, transcript of highlights.

Prof. Reber's insightful Cellular Basis of Consciousness presents a key understanding regarding the actual physical facts surrounding the origins of our human consciousness.  Metaphysics-enthusiasts will sniff & resent & ignore til the cows come home.  Still, here it is.  The answers are in Evolution!   

If you "believe" in Science., you'll want to learn about Prof Reber's suggestions.

Professor Arthur Reber's Question and Answer Session

The “Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC)”

Reber’s 2018, Institut des sciences cognitives - UQAM presentation.

{Part one, visit The "Cellular Basis of Consciousness" proposal - A Student's Introduction to Dr. Arthur Reber's CBC}

A challenging audience, Professor Arthur Reber rises to the occasion.

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I’m posting this transcript of highlights from Professor Reber's talk, because I’m stunned at how little attention Reber’s "Cellular Basis of Consciousness" conception has received since Reber started sharing this with the academic community over seven years ago. 

I believe the profoundly insightful Cellular Basis of Consciousness holds the key to understanding the actual physical facts regarding the source of our human consciousness.  

The "Cellular Basis of Consciousness" proposal - A Student's Introduction to Dr. Arthur Reber's CBC

Recently I finished listening to Nick Lane’s “Transformer,” with its significant molecular and mitochondrial insights, and its superb epilogue titled “Self.”  Then, someone at medium.com suggested Arthur Reber, and I was amazed by Dr. Reber's 2018 presentation at Institut des sciences cognitives – UQAM. It seems to me to dovetail with Professor Lane's exposition and it feels to me like I've found the last major missing piece of the puzzle that I've been putting together for myself.

An Introduction to Dr Reber's thoughts: 

The “Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC)”

Reber’s 2018, Institut des sciences cognitives - UQAM presentation.

Where, Nick Lane took me down into our physiology and beyond—into chemistry, then into physics, and the Kreb’s cycle—before bringing it around to mitochondria and some mind-blowing new insights. Finishing with an elegant, most informed deconstruction of the so-called Hard Problem.

Arthur Reber took me back into deep time, origins, and to first functional cells. 

Why did only one type of genetic structure succeed, out of what must have been bazillions of reactions over three billion years? Reber’s “Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC)” points the way to where to look for answers.  I find it is consilient with the treasure trove of scientific information I’ve already accumulated. It’s harmonious with my perceptions as a lifelong deep time Evolution enthusiast. Then Reber finished with an impassioned, spot-on deconstruction, and a resolution, to Philosophy’s misguided meta-physical “Hard Problem”—What’s not to love, I ask?

How we formulate our questions often says more about our own expectations, than about the topic.

I want to state that I believe Arthur Reber’s (who died a couple months ago) presentation deserves to be in the public domain and receive a hell of a lot more exposure than it has received!

Philosophy Embrace Evolutionary Biological Sciences.

  When will philosophy departments catch up and embrace evolutionary biological science?

Random musing on the topic and achieving milestones.  In the spirit of "hope as a survival strategy in hopeless times" - the following started as a letter to a specific person.  I've decided to expand and turn it into a sort of message in a bottle, simply because I felt a need to put it down.  Hope springs eternal and there's the satisfaction in sharing.

Okay so, what the hell, after a great many years of effort, questioning, searching, gathering, learning, I'm feeling good that my line up of experts and lessons is getting pretty complete, for the story I've been striving to visualize.  From the grand deep time Evolutionary overview, down to the mitochondria and Kerb's cycle coursing through our bodies, and even the mineral evolution that needed to occur, before biology had the building blocks to go wild.

I was always a dreamer, watching, and asking why, being raised a science enthusiast, it was easy enough to keep up on the news, and learn profound lessons along the way.  Followed my curiosity and learned within a skilled-labor workingman's life.

I think it was David Attenborough who really focused me with his 1979 tour de force, Life on Earth: A Natural History, step by step retelling of biological evolution, using real life examples, and so on.  In the past couple decades with more time on my hands, I've been amazed and informed by the likes of Hazen, Lane, Sloan-Wilson, Solms, Damasio, Sapolski, Levin, and recently Turin bringing physics (vibrations rather than chemistry) into sense of smell, and now my belated discovery of Arthur Reber with his model of the Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC), among many others whom I can't recall off the top of my head right now.  

Bottom up, evolution and science appreciating.  All I know comes from them, digested and reprocessed through my own experiences and perceptions.

Side note, I was saddened to find out that Arthur Reber passed away two months ago, though I was consoled learning about highlights from his amazing 85 years of living.   

Is it Folly Searching for Mind Within the Brain?

 Let me lay out the chain of reasoning that drives this challenge.

It starts with accepting the reality of this physically evolving Earth around me. I know I’m not imaginative enough to conjure up this vision of the miracle planet I live on. Seems to me, it has to be one or the other. If it’s real, it goes back billions of years, and evolution actually happened one day at a time.

Once that’s out of the way, the rest ought to be easy. Evolution, that is — change over time. First Earth, geology, and chemistry, working together with time — lots of time.

Then geology and chemistry figured out how to harness electricity, via the Krebs cycle and such.

I believe it’s honest to suggest this is the birth of biology. By and by, chemistry, geology, and biology created ever more complex “electrified” molecular components — that is, molecular biology — eventually figuring out how to colonize themselves. Up to here, it’s all pretty much spontaneous electro-magnetic interactions.

About the same time, that is, four billion years ago, something else astonishing happened. “Membranes” started showing up. I believe it is reasonable to suppose that this is where “awareness” made its first appearance. The membrane must know what belongs on the inside — and how much of it — also what needs to be excreted. It must also know what to allow in and how to keep the whole cell on an even keel, so to speak.

Since writing those words I've gotten to know the work of Arthur Reber, and it fits right it:

Where We Get Serious: The Cellular Basis of Consciousness. 

Reber, Arthur (2018) Chapter IV of Reber (2019) 

A novel theory of the origin of mind: Conversations with a caterpillar and a bacterium. Oxford University Press.

Arthur Reber: A Novel Theory of the Origin of Mind...Institut des sciences cognitives - UQAM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQy92VjtwZ8

Side note, I was saddened to find out that Arthur Reber passed away two months ago, though I was consoled learning about highlights from his amazing 85 years of living.   

With growing complexity, sensing, processing, motion, and strategy become increasingly important. And we haven’t even made it out of the microscopic scale.

As creature bodies become ever more competent at basic survival functions, they have an increasing amount of processing space and energy available for doing more. We come from a line of animals with increasing skills, physical and mental. Consider our mammalian forbearers with their family bonds and ability to communicate and cooperate with each other. We are a continuation of that trajectory and gene pool.

This brings us to the title question and why I suggest that searching for the mind within the brain is a dead end.

Body + Brain + Interaction (interior & exterior) = Mind (consciousness).
Remove any of those and consciousness collapses. What are we left with?

A realization that our consciousness is best understood as an interior reflection of our body dealing with life. (See Solms, Damasio, Sapolsky, Wilson-Sloan, etc. for details.)

Everything we know and experience is filtered through our body and its many sensing organs and systems. Our body is the only connection to the physical world we have — be it a calculator or a lover. Our body is the instrument through which we present ourselves to the world, and our physical self is what the outside world is looking at and talking to.

Scientists have shown us how our senses work in excruciating detail. Our brain may be our central processing organ, but within our body scientists have discovered other discrete information processing centers, along our spinal cord; in our guts with the enteric nervous system; our immune system’s cytokine signaling; and the heart’s sinoatrial node.

Not to be overlooked is the newly recognized functions of fascia, the connective tissue between muscle bundles that sports curious communication channels running throughout our musculature, communicating with itself, and reporting — helping our brain know what our body is doing.

It’s mind boggling, and I bet I’m missing some, and that scientists still have some to discover.

When it comes to understanding the so-called “hard problem of what gives rise to subjective, qualitative experience,” we need to realize that it takes a whole lot more than simply a brain to create an experience. It requires a holistic, spot-on biological symphony.

The bat feels like the bat, and being there feels different from looking at the postcard, because it’s a whole-body experience — a series of momentary, unique, vital connections to the living experiences as they race through your living body.

Mind is the product of the entire body-brain system interacting with the living moment, interior and exterior. What else can it be?

Philosophically fixating on the brain as the source of consciousness feels to me like a reflection of our own all too human self-absorption, and it is emblematic of our general disconnect from the rest of this planet Earth that created us to begin with.

This is a good place to put in a plug for appreciating the Physical Reality–Human Mind divide, along with its cascading implications. Seems to me it’s a first-base concept, a prerequisite before the rest of our human condition can start making rational sense. Then we can start taking responsibility for the consciousness that our evolved biological body produces.

What do you think?

Thank you for your time and I hope interest.