There is an article in Noema Magazine, Panpsychism: The Ancient Idea That Everything Has Consciousness, explaining that, “Derived from the Greek words pan (“all”) and psyche (“soul” or “mind”), panpsychism is the idea that consciousness — perhaps the most mysterious phenomenon we have yet come across — is not unique to the most complex organisms; it pervades the entire universe and is a fundamental feature of reality.”
“Consider this crude breakdown of water. What is water? Water is a colorless, transparent, odorless chemical substance that fills our oceans, lakes, rivers and bodies. But what is it composed of? It is composed of sextillions and sextillions of tiny water molecules. What are they composed of? Well, each molecule contains three atoms: two hydrogen and one oxygen. And what are hydrogen and oxygen made of? Subatomic particles like neutrons and electrons. What is an electron made of? An electron has mass and charge. And what are mass and charge? They are properties of the electron. But what is the electron?”
Matter consists of molecules. Molecules come in varying densities for solid, liquid and gas. The brain has molecules. Water has molecules. Molecules in the brain have their formation, so do those of water. The brain powers consciousness, panpsychism argues that objects have fractions of consciousness.
What does consciousness do for water? Or, what does consciousness do for automobiles, since they may crash and get crumpled? Why was it necessary to have computer vision and algorithms attempt better safety from human driving for vehicles and not the vehicles figure those out? What indicates that a table has consciousness or does its consciousness have stages?
Consciousness can be used as any individual or group chooses, but what does the brain say consciousness is? What is the mechanism of being and experience? How are the outputs, obvious to others produced?
The common factors in all human consciousness are the electrical and chemical impulses of nerve cells. Consciousness exceeds neural types, connections or locations. They are relevant to consciousness as they shape electrical and chemical impulses.
Impulses are involved in all that the brain does. Impulses are not just messages or signals or communication, they are the basis from which functions are determined. So, how? How do impulses produce conscious experiences? Why do some activities similar to conscious states in the brain go on in non-conscious states? How does the brain produce the mind?
It is postulated here that the sum of all electrical and chemical impulses of nerve cells, with their features—in set, their interactions and arrays, are the human mind. Simply, the mind is the impulses of nerve cells.
How do they interact, to interpret [internal and external] sensory inputs?
It is theorized here that they act in sets or loops. Already, there are clusters of neurons in different circuits in the brain, specialized for functions. These clusters have loops of impulses. Loops or sets of impulses are proposed to be how formation for functions comes by. Simply, there are thousands of synaptic connections per neuron. These connections project fibers locally and across areas in the brain, while some project back.
In some sets, these impulses mechanize emotions, modulations, feelings, memories, thoughts, intelligence and so forth. Loops can be structured by the corrugation of the structure, concurrency of activities within close distances, available arrays, axonal and dendritic detours, genes, glial cells and others.
There are features of impulses in loops. For example, stairs or drifts. This is where chemical impulses are rationed or filled, to determine functions. When someone knows blue or a chirp or the scent of a fragrance, they are proposed to be formations accessed in loops.
The scent could be SML, where each letter is a chemical impulse, at a measure, that when combined with others, decides the scent. The degrees could be higher with one letter, or lower, but there has to be the formation, SML, to have that scent, conceptually.
Drifts or stairs are available at synaptic clefts, with vesicles opening to receptors. It is postulated that in a loop, those chemical impulses contribute to that formation, and are not alone. A certain emotion is a formation that is available from a nucleus of an emotional center and so forth.
The sense of self is proposed to be obtainable by the diffusion of [concentration of] chemical impulses, from side to side in a loop. This means that when some synaptic connections are strengthened, Hebbian, there could be more chemical impulses from the vesicles to receptors in that instance. Others in that loop may not be as strong, so, the weak-to-regular-to-strong of chemical impulses from side-to-side in a loop, towards the stronger area, allows for the sense of self, subjective nature, association or attachment possible to experiences.
Also, ration of chemical impulses are not often perfect. There are variations across formations. What determines a higher percentage is prioritization, where a loop changes shape, so the likelihood for a higher outcome for the formation is possible.
Simply, prioritization explains attention. Pre-prioritization explains awareness. Attention is often present for full access to the reaches of the formation. Awareness allows some formation but not the whole. This is what makes peripheral vision, ambient sound possible, but not often processed properly.
There is just one prioritized loop on the mind in a moment, others are in pre-prioritization. There are often fast and numerous interchanges between both, across experiences and activities. This means that when it seems like attention is paid to something, there are interchanges with those in awareness too.
The side-to-side diffusion of chemical impulses in a loop often leaves a space with a regular diameter. It is proposed that this space is where control, intentionality or free will is provided. Simply, since there is concentration variance because of the side-to-side flow, some spaces are left, those that meet a certain diameter present control. This is why many parts of the body can be controlled, and why others cannot, conceptually.
There are other features such as sequences and principal spot of features of impulses. Electrical impulses often carry on from one of the drifts or stairs, distributing to other loops in the array. Electrical impulses do this by some, theoretically, splitting early from others, within a loop, or outside, to carry on with interactions. This split explains predictive coding, processing and prediction error.
Consciousness for humans is complex, but impulses present a path towards solving it. There are several divisions of consciousness that include intelligence, emotions, feelings and so forth. They can be said to be totalized to 1, for humans the highest. Consciousness helps to know, or what consciousness does, with being and experience is to know, provided by loops of impulses.
Organisms without a brain can know, so they have some conscious measures. AI does not have the biological mechanism of consciousness, but it has outputs that can pass knowing tests in the sphere of human intelligence. Human intelligence is a division of consciousness, organized by loops of impulses as well. It is also a quality of output, not just what is in, as it may be there and not be useful, while asleep, or if a person decided to be quiet. Generative AI has the output of this subdivision of human consciousness, so can be rated for it, which could be around 0.1
Objects do not know in a dynamic way, neither do they have mechanisms or outputs that count. They cannot be rated on the organismic scale where humans are present. For their molecules they may have their own scale of -100 to -1. But the calibration of objects will be separate from humans. The Integrated information theory of consciousness was recently labeled pseudoscience for its panpsychism bent. Panpsychism may apply consciousness as it chooses, the brain drives experience, control and self. What do objects have?
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
