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Kenelm Murray. Advances in Neuroscience
Sir,Having led teams in the design of silicon chips with many millions of transistors, and having often had to ‘reverse-engineer’ competitor’s designs, I note a parallel with methods to understand the functioning of the human brain. For silicon chips we had the benefit of electron-microscopes, hyper-vision and probe stations, which allowed us to study the silicon, whilst the chip was functioning. We had the big advantage that we could sacrifice the odd silicon component as there were always many more devices to continue our analysis with. I first built redundant cicuitry on to a chip, to counter operational failure, way back in 1980 or thereabouts, when designing a complicated automotive chip for the BMW 700 series. Clearly the brain is able to call on massive redundancy (spare brain tissue!) to cope with the extensive damage that might follow a stroke or blow to the head.When I had a brain tumour removed in 2002, I underwent brain scans with CT and MRI, at Stanford University, California. The tumour was removed using imaging technology, which allowed the neurosurgeon to control the operating instrument as it entered the head and did the excision, all by watching 2D images on a screen, of tumour, head and operating instrument. However, I do remember asking myself: ‘surely one of the most powerful tools at the disposal of the neurosurgeon, was my brain itself?’ Indeed, why didn’t I remain awake during the operation so that I could advise the surgeon of progress and maybe give advance warning of problems! Well, I chickened out because it was unprecedented and, anyway, I might go into shock or something, and do myself even more harm than good. So, a few years later, I was very surprised to hear of a similar operation, in which the patient did actually stay awake, and help give feedback to the surgeon.Clearly it is very important to understand the basic function of the part of brain that is about to undergo surgery. I was warned about a small likelihood of short-term memory loss and of reduction in my visual field. In fact, I wasn’t affected by the first and only slightly by the second. I was lucky.My point is though, how much does this mapping of the brain’s functions really help in understanding the brain. The study of neurons and synapses and how the brain uses redundancy to repair (or reconnect itself) certainly must be very important. In the silicon chip lab we are able to probe the interconnections to try to make sense of the data-traffic between functional blocks, to stimulate the inputs to a circuit and gauge the reaction at outputs. So why-oh-why does every talk, on advances in neuroscience (and I have been to several), become a cataloguing of functional roles played by each part of the brain? Why this obsession with describing solely, this functional map of the brain? What about the inputs and the outputs? Doesn’t it ever occur to a neuroscientist that the finest lab he has at his disposal sits between his own ears? More powerful than today’s most powerful computers, we are always reminded. Yet I never hear a neuroscientist comment “When I made my mind think exclusively of my left arm, I noticed that …”. Is this too personal for them? I there a danger that this experience might not be repeated by others? Might they be thought of as cranky?From the world of electronics I know only too well, the importance of maintaining control of inputs to a circuit at all times. When you are tired, do you control the inputs to all your muscles correctly? I have learnt to do this now, for instance, for situations where I get involuntary flickering of the eyelid, a most embarrassing affliction when I am tired. The effect is very quick and is permanent. Could we teach patients with a class of severe disability related to the brain, to do something similar?Surely it is at this basic functional level that we are going to make the most immediate advances in neuroscience. Can I therefore plead that neuroscientists tap in to their own brain power to help unravel the complexity of the brain. Later, if
Paul Caddle - Neuroscience
My father's life was cut short by Parkinson's disease, and so needless to say I'd be very pleased with the news that medical advances were leading to a cure. However, I remain vehemently experimenting on primates, particular chimpanzees and similar members of the class of great apes. The end may be noble but it cannot justify such cruel and drastic means. Your newsletter seemed to suggest that your guests regretted the closure of the "centres of study, St Andrews". For all their collective genius, were they not able to muster some understanding as to why some of us lesser mortals find such experiments ethically horrific. The brain drain to Texas and China (one can just imagine how the apes are treated there) paints a despairing image of neuroscientific regard for the philosophy of ethics. If chimpanzees were capable of giving their permission to further otherwise laudable medical causes then so be it, but as that is not likely to happen then why not ask humans who are suffering from these deseases to become the guinea pigs. After all, they have little to lose and probably much to gain. (A suggested topic for a future progamme could be speciasism as per Peter Singer.)Keep up the great work of In Our Time, and is it possible to lobby Radio 4 to make it an hour long. Best wishes,Paul Caddle,Stroud,Gloucestershire
David in Brussels: neuroscience &gorillas
Are materialists victims of the ‘gorilla at the basketball match’ syndrome and thus blind to what they refuse to observe scientifically? A young child who has found a cellphone or even a telephone book (neuronal map) may self-confidentially think he understands global telephony. He knows nothing of how the voice is transmitted by landline, microwave or satellite. Niggling question arise: why are there sometimes delays or echoes or bad quality communication. The child has no notion of electromagnetic waves, which like the spirit of John 3:8 can be detected but cannot be seen. Our brain, uses humanly unreproducible nanotechnology. It observes only a minute fraction of reality. It can also be wilfully ignorant. Curious! The brain has 100 billion nerve cells, the neurons. That number is equivalent to 15 planet earths full of people. But all of these people can connect with each other. Human communications can’t even deal with one planet. Each person, that is each finely engineered neuron, is currently speaking via complex electro-chemical signals to around 10,000 others. The total number of connections of brain cells in each brain is about 1000 trillion. The mind is bigger than the brain. It is intimately connected with the trillions of non-brain cells of the body and hormone messengers, all affecting mental states. The mind is connected to independent cells. Most cells of each ‘human’ are independent cells like bacteria. They are also vital in the thinking process. ‘Independent’ humans also change other people’s minds by persuasion! Illogical problem for an independent material computer! Try persuading my computer on a question of morals or wilful ignorance! Predictability is a scientific process. The cult of materialism makes no more scientific sense than denying invisible electromagnetism exists. Most humans experience common sense values about a spiritual dimension to mind and conscience. Without even asking where did the first neuron or the first protein comes from, most believe it impossible that the colossal computer we all have in our head is random materialism. So why assume it is? Mathematical physics confirms the impossibility in 15 billion years of creation even to combine the elements in a simple protein. I hope a future programme will analyse logically the obvious.
Does the mind rule the brain or vice versa
The brain and the mind are connected but separate, like computers and the internet. The brain is limited by time and space, the mind is not. And the mind can 'download' information into the brain, and we can ask it questions, just as we can the internet. Neuroscientists are trying to understand how the brain works by looking at its inside mechanics. What people need to know is not the nuts and bolts, but how we can make use of the whole system to help us achieve our aims.
Nick White - Neuroscience - beautifully executed
Back on course with the ever erudite Melvyn, the renaissance man par excellence, wonderfully chaired - so much so that you didn't appear to notice that you had run out of time. This program really stood out because it threw up a few surprises - the matter-of-factness with which consciousness was dismissed. It would be great to tie in some of the concepts here with those which arise in the programs discussing mathematics/physics. I would really appreciate a program which dealt with music on a deeper level and aligned it with consciousness and mathematics.Just keep it coming please.
e, neuroscience
So if we remove the cortex, are we removing something more than just language?
e, neuroscience
In response to ' I suppose if you remove the cortex, broadly speaking, we'll still be able to perform some simple behaviours, but we wouldn't have language and wouldn't be able to reflect on our thoughts.'I think it is too confining to claim 'without language, people can not think or reflect'. Cognitive power may not show only in the form of reflection. Animals may not be able to reflect, but there are so many more things that they may not be able to do.We can be thinking, although we are not reflecting. Moreover, it may be very difficult to pin down the process of thinking with language when language itself is the product of that which it tries to portray. In addition, there is no such a thing as a 'neutral language'. When people speaks, a lot of what is being said is below their own awareness despite language was involved in the process of speaking. So while language is particular to human species, its status in cognition may not be overrated'What do you think in?' 'I think in thought'.Is it right to say language codes and thus provides the means to express thoughts? But by such coding, we are actually giving up a lot of things in whatever we are saying.
tony fleming neuroscience
this is not a joke,after listeniing to the programme about neuroscience and the way our subconscious can work,I applied it to my golf game and it worked astonisingly well .I had my best score ever.
James Leahy Neuroscience
I suspect that many people with a background in the creative arts will not be surprised by the finding of neuroscience that much/most human activity is generated by decisions made outside conscious awareness, decisions which consciousness then notices, explains, describes or rationalises. The experience of writing fiction and studying the ways in which performers generate emotion and meaning led me to subscribe to arguments Gregory Bateson put forward more than forty years ago. He repeatedly invoked Pascal (“The heart has its reasons which the reason does not at all perceive”) and believed: “Much of early Freudian theory was upside down. At that time many thinkers regarded conscious reason as normal and self-explanatory while the unconscious was regarded as mysterious, needing proof, and needing explanation. Repression was the explanation, and the unconscious was filled with thoughts which could have been conscious but which repression and dream work had distorted. Today we think of consciousness as the mysterious, and of the computational methods of the unconscious, e.g., primary process, as continually active, necessary, and all-embracing.”He goes on to argue: “These considerations are especially relevant in any attempt to derive a theory of art or poetry. Poetry is not a sort of distorted and decorated prose, but rather prose is poetry that has been stripped down and pinned to a Procrustean bed of logic.”
Neuroscience - Steve
"The simplicity of complexity" wow - that's wonderful 'coining'. It also reverses meaningfully into "the complexity of simplicity" - there's quite a difference both in the functional and the positional sense. Best wishes and thanks for a little 'moment of truth'.
rmcmurdo 'The mind and it's location
it is my belief that an aura surrounds living things, and in regard to human beings, it is within this aura that the mind is located.The mind being out of the body would explain the tenous control that we have over it. We can smell a flower, see and interpret a picture because of the interaction of our brain and our senses within our body over which we have control. As for our mind however, there is a much looser attachment and consequently our thoughts can roam far and wide, despite our best efforts to control them.There is something quite different between an unconscious body and a cadaver, and I would suggest that this is due to the absence of the individual's aura. As death approaches it would seem that the aura detaches itself from the body thus enabling the mind to look back and observe the body, as is suggested by so many Near Death Experiences. The whole subject of which is currently being investigated by Southampton University.I also think the above would help to explain our general inability to recollect our dreams. Our conscios experiences are sensed and stored in the memory. Our dreams on the other hand, generated by the mind, are not deposited in the memory, and consequently are much harder to recall.Finally,it might be useful to think of the physical body as just another car or other form of transport, not a lot of use, value or meaning, without the all important driver, 'I'
Gillian Jones: Neuroscience
I was surprised that more attention was not paid to Language and consciousness. language, I think , does not come into play below the level of awareness but plays a big role at the level of consciousness.
Kevan AC Martin. Neuroscience
The neuroscience program has obviously struck a cord. Neuroscience did not begin in the mid 1990’s. It has its origins in the late 19th century with dominant figures like the neurophysiologist Charles Sherrington, the great neuroanatomist Ramon y Cajal, and physicists like Herman von Helmholtz, Ernst Mach, and Charles Wheatstone, who were pioneers in what is know as psychophysics. Compared to these figures Freud’s contribution to neuroscience was marginal. The 38th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience is about to begin in Washington and most of the 30 000 neuroscientists attending are not primarily concerned about the neural basis of mind – an area that occupies one small corner of current concerns in neuroscience. Most of them are looking at the nuts and bolts of the nervous system – its circuitry, how it develops, its molecular and cell biology, how synapses work, how the autonomic nervous system regulates heart rate, breathing, digestion, how patterns are generated in the spinal cord, how diseases like Lou Gherig’s disease (which Stephen Hawking’s has) occur and might be cured, and also how bats echolocate, how electric fish detect prey, how mating behaviour in fruit flies is controlled, how the nematode work nervous system is specified genetically, and so on. i.e. not much to do with ‘mind’, yet all mainstream neuroscience. The panel discussion on ‘triune’ brain was anachronistic, even Wikipedia dismisses it as a contemporary concept. Biologists of course accept the conservative process of evolution – you don’t invent a whole new stricture if you can co-opt an existing piece – like the bones of the middle ear that co-opted jaw bones. Thus we should not assume that co-opted neural circuits and functions remain the same through evolution. A human with a severed spinal cord cannot walk, whereas a cat with a severed spinal cord can, as Rudolf Magnus showed in the 1920’s. Much of what was done in the early days of functional imaging (fMRI) was essentially low resolution brain mapping, which has been rightly criticized as a neo-phrenology. fMRI is a very indirect measure of mass activity in the brain. It measures a signal that depends on the blood oxygen level (the BOLD signal). The causal links from the activity of nerve cells to the BOLD signal are not clear and are still being intensively investigated by scientists like Nikos Logothetis (Max Planck, Tuebingen) using monkeys. The notion that consciousness is just there for high level planning and that it occurs just in the prefrontal cortex is misleading. When sports people, or musicians or actors are at their peak of performance, they report very little awareness of how they do what they do – they are ‘in the zone’. The procedural memory systems are not neocortical, but reside in subcortical structures like the basal ganglia. Indeed there are many memory systems in the brain, which mostly, but not always co-operate with each other. It is clear also that consciousness is not localized , as the innumerable stroke patients attest. Even frontal lobotomy patients were not unconscious, they just behaved in a florid way, as Phineas Gage did after a tamping rod exploded through his frontal lobe. Similarly, Karl Lashley’s fruitless search in the 1950’s for the ‘engram’ – the memory trace- showed the difficulty of localizing any memory to a place in the brain. Memory in the brain is quite unlike a computer, instead of being localized, it is highly distributed so that all of our 10000 billion synapses are plastic and store information about their history of use. This is what makes our brain plastic and adaptable to change. However, there are limits to this plasticity. Adult humans generate almost no new neurons, so they cannot grow new brain tissue. Even if we accept a causal effect of ‘the knowledge’ for the London taxi drivers who had a larger posterior hippocampus, it should be noted that their anterior hippocampus.
Nana Kofi; neuroscience
Great programme! I believe the soul exits only that it is 'auto-accessible' I am personally never dismissive of others' side of the story.However the issue of the unconscious controlling the conscious seems beyond scientific reach. So much for using common-sense language to explain the work of the unconscious! Can we prove it scientifically?The case of brain=mind is laughable at least. I see your mind when I see your brain?
Tom Milner-Gulland - Neuroscience
I find it curious how, the more fundamental, to our general being, is any aspect of mind, the less obviously there appears to be an identifiable region of the brain associated with it. What about beliefs about abstract principles? What about the specifics of moral reponsibility? What about *pre-conscious*, co-ordinated knowledge we all have of the extension of the anatomy (one symptom of which is the 'phantom limb' of the amputee)?So much talk of consciousness, and only an inadequate examination of unconsciousness. With the unconscious, it becomes immediately apparent thatthe complex combination of perceived phenomena - colour, sound, action etc. -, making meaningful sequences of ideas, transcends the notion of stimulation of parts of the brain. In other words, to work in concert and generate ideas, the stimuli require a higher level of co-ordination. What part of the brain, we must ask, could possibly operate on a level beyond mere sytematic stimulation?Isn't it interesting that philosophers (and indeed physicists) will rightlytend to describe many qualities of objects of perception as being mental,while neurophysiologists - denying that the concept of qualia identifies anirreducible reality - will tend to pass the problem back, so to speak, byimplying that they are physical phenomena that are recognised by way of stimuli. That's a poor show.PS In my view the seat of the soul is in the hypothalamus (right next towhere Descartes places it).
Robin Witting
P.S. Even when/if ever the mind/soul is rationalised don't you find a little strange and convenient that such neuro development is possible in the first place and that an organism can - excuse me! - have a vision of eternity? I speak as a battling agnostic.
Dr. P.T.Walling.. Neuroscience-Does the brain rule
Look at your own finger. From the retina backwards,all that enters the brain are electrical signals. Next thing you know, the finger appears in your perceptual space. The percept is not a physical object. The brain is.The percept exists in non-physical, perceptual space and is neither inside nor outside the brain. It is a derivative of the brain residing in a different kind of space altogether. How, then , are the mind and the brain the same thing? Peter Walling MD. Texas
Jim Hewitson: conscious thought
Listening to the programme, I was reminded of something George bernard Shaw is reputed to have said to a questioner - I'm glad you asked me that. I shall be interested to hear what I have to say on the matter.
To the IOT team
I liked the chairing of the neuroscience discussion, not wasting time on the mind-brain subject when all three participants were hard-nosed materialists, so that more time could be spent on the fascinating brain details. I contributed the only forthright statement I could see in the feedback so far that there was adequate secular evidence of a separate mind. I have also commented on the claim by Olly Cooper that there was interaction between his dog's brain and his own. (A little off the point so you might not publish it.) Perhaps some day you will have three non-religious, indeed anti-religious, believers in a separate mind and afterlife, like Michael Roll from the Campaign for Philosophical Freedom website, engineer/scientist Ronald Pearson ("Intelligence Behind the Universe") and New Zealand lawyer Victor Zammit (see his websites) to have an interesting discussion free from time wasting interjections from professional skeptics and religious Spiritualists. Kind regardsGeorge Barker, B.Sc.(Engineering), M.I.Mech.E.
Tom Merrington - Neuroscience
I was disappointed that the program did not refer to the work of Sue Gerhardt which looks at the ways in which early physiological brain 'wiring' may be affected by the quality of the caring environment. Also I was amazed that no contributor referred to the definitively human neurological property of self-consciousness.
neuroscience
Studying the brain is hugely important for many reasons and given the exponential nature of science in our age, who knows how much ground might be covered and what might be revealed, at least somewhat objectively. I don't think we've even got the questions yet to know who or what we are or what our place in the universe might be but surely, we are incredible in our way. The subjects which we listen to and grapple with in 'In our Time' lay testament to the stuff we are made of. We have a biology of intimation as well as realization. I have really enjoyed reading the splendid comments and would like to reiterate what somebody else said....."Long may Melvyn grace our airwaves with this wonderful programme".
George Barker Nueroscience - Olly Cooper and Dog
Olly Cooper was sure that his mind and that of his dog were telepathicaly linked watching the spider on the ceiling. One of my so-called psychic surgeons who also heals horses tells me that she links with their minds, and they "tell" her things about how they had an accident (confirmed later by the owner)and even what their owners are worried about. Although domesticated creatures are animals and not differently shaped humans it looks as if their minds (or brains if you are a materialist) have more interesting properties, including very active telepathic powers, than most of us suspect.
Steve - Neuroscience
The hard problem is only hard if you're a reductionist-materialist, and will remain so forever for those 'unable' to perceive wholes greater than the sum of their parts. So much of the discussion is given more depth and light in the context of the work of Tony Wright contained within Left In The Dark, which puts the brain and consciousness in an evolutionary perspective, and also helps explain why it is so 'hard' for our brains, or rather for certain dominant yet poorly equipped parts of our brain to perceive our perception, or be consciousness of our own consciousness. (I believe the BBC may be considering this ground-breaking work as subject matter for a programme).The great insights of science and mathematics again and again are described by those that experienced them as non-rational essentially transcendental experiences, i.e. not arising from the typical, dominant processing system, and the patterns of 'thinking' and 'understanding' which that dominant system generates. This implies that for great insights into the brain and the mind (e.g that move us beyond the simplistic linear cartesian view of brain = mind) we must transcend language (a linear processing function), and understand that the only real way to understand complexity and to experience deep insights into 'the simplicity of complexity' (such as that associated with the mind, consciousness and so on), is to use language to logically understand that logic is not the tool to use. Do you try to mend a vase with a hammer? Do you try to use the views of a reductionist to gain insights into subject matter arising from vastly complex relationships between wholly holonic interconnected elements ... etc etc? Great programme. Would be interesting to try the same subject matter explored between poets. Also interesting for readers to try sitting and the carefully emptying your mind of words after the programme, and then seeing what insights into the subject matter arise ...
WRobert D, A more respectful neuroscience?
My chosen starting point is Sigmund Freud's speculations on consciousness, given proper authority "as deep" by David Papineau quoting Freud's rarer writings. My prior realisation of Freud's acuteness lies still in the aporism that "Freud brought the subconscious from the shadows, and let people apply the idea to each other, also to him/themselves
Robert Dunham, An HOLISTIC Neuroscience
My chosen starting point is Sigmund Freud's speculations on consciousness, given proper authority "as deep" by David Papineau quoting Freud's rarer writings. My prior realisation of Freud's acuteness lies still in the aporism that "Freud brought the subconscious from the shadows, and let people apply the idea to each other, also to him/themselves
Robert Dunham, Oxford U Arts then Pathology to FR
My chosen starting point is Sigmund Freud's speculations on consciousness, given proper authority "as deep" by David Papineau quoting Freud's rarer writings. My prior realisation of Freud's acuteness lies still in the aporism that "Freud brought the subconscious from the shadows, and let people apply the idea to each other, also to him/themselves
Caroline: the subconscious and sketching
I have long been aware of the workings of my subconcious brain. I used to do a lot of sketching. I would discover I had drawn things I had never even noticed. I sometimes allow my subconscious to make decisions for me, such as when I'm cycling, which way to turn at a junction.
patrick: neuroscience
Developing further the notion I gave yesterday i.e. a version of the computer analogy - if the core of the brain [the 'default section' see this week's New Scientist] is central to each of us as an individual i.e it is 'us' - then what purpose does the rest of the boy serve including the face?. Well the locomotor apparatus i.e. muscles and skeleton give us mobility to enable us to gather information for the brain - and the face etc are analogous to a computer 'screen' i.e. their purpose is to give messages to others so that the brain can by proxy interact with those others - and the digestive system etc are there to maintain the brain's nutritional input from a diverse range of food substances.
Peter Bolt : Nueroscience
Can your neuroscientists explain the following ?How can a thickie such as I with little interest in Neuroscience and even less knowledger about it, become so enthralled by their discussion ?
Angela O'Connell: Neuroscience
Great programme! How about a programme on how the mind works? Neuro Linguistic Programming (developed in the 70s) is an easy to understand approach to how our mind works. Based on observation it has theories and techniques to explain our thinking styles. Through this I realise just how much unconscious processing I and others do - its fascinating to make the connections and realise both how different and similar we all are.
Brain - Interesting phenomena
Placebo - don't know whether scientists have begun to understand this. (Is there a gullible part of the brain?!). It's not universal - only some people respond but there are interesting and documented cases of extreme placebo effect. Multiple personality cases in which the whole physiology changes to a dramatic degree. It's a really fascinating subject. Hypnosis - I once read that in an experiment, people programmed under hypnosis would hold their hand in very hot water, having been told it was cold, with no reddening of the skin at all. Conversely, holding their hand in cold water but being told it was hot produced definite reddening of the skin. This flies in the face of our understanding of physics. I saw something about an experiment done with identical twins in which they were put into separate rooms some distance apart and their brains monitored. One twin plunged his hand into a bowl of ice and the other twin's brain registered the effect. Interestingly, it only worked in one direction (unfortunate for the one who got the double cerebral hit of his twin's traumas as well as his own!). There are obviously many ways in which the brain's abilities exceed average but that is far more easily accounted for. Best wishes
Violet:: neuroscience
There are many aspects to this topic:the mind,brain soul aspect, the ability to determine what is emotion,and the prospect that if these can be determined clearly would this enable the neuroscience to influence the structure of physiological development in the future.Another idea occurs, that of what affect does the content of diet have on the structure of nerve cells.Can the consciousness or unconscious brain activity be limited and how does this affect the individual.What exactly is perceived by anyone.Modern technology in the shape of MRIscans seems to prove many things.But the theory of relativity is still present.
George Barker - neuroscience
The discussion about the material brain was fascinating and the chairman guided it well. Since all three contributors were ardent materialists it was wise not to waste time dwelling too long on the concept of the brain linking with a mind and body that is non-mateial or perhaps of more refined matter. I have no difficulty envisaging the brain sensing light of wavelength between 620 and 750 nm, but that a blob however complex of adipose jelly can from this see the colour red is to me hard to grasp.I sympathise with hard-nosed sceptics, having been one. It's no good just reading recorded evidence; one has to be in some way provoked into investigating the facts to be able to take an informed posture in this field. Not everyone has the time or inclination to do so.The truth about the human psyche not being of earthly material is secular and not at all religious and there is ample evidence of interaction between minds in this world and in an afterlife. It is worth looking at Victor Zammit's internet summary of such evidence.The concept of a separate mind would then not seem too far-fetched
Karin: neuroscience
When we listen to In Our Time on the radio, do we regard the radio as the originator of the discussion just because it emits the sounds of the voices? Neuroscience may be able to research correlations between charged feelings or thoughts and brain areas. However, as Martin Heidegger once said:"We hear, not the ear."What this 'we' is is not within the scope of scientific research as there are no instruments with which to measure the immaterial - only our physical response to it. This physical response might be found as much or even more so in the neural networks of the guts, our second brain, as in the head. With all respect for the scientists involved in neuroscience, the question what the mind as such is has been answered by eastern thinkers more than 1000 years ago. A contemporary western version of that thinking, easily accessable in our time, is published as The Awareness Principle by Peter Wilberg.
Neuroscience
Reading the many comments,this was obviously a much enjoyed programme. A few meanderings of mind: 1. I saw a television documentary in which the brain was monitored as someone listened to music. There seemed to be the equivalent of a keyboard within the brain which you could visibly observe moving up and down in synchronization with the notes. This was well over a decade ago. (God knows what my brain looks like since my six year old's discovered rock music on the car radio!). 2. A friend's daughter suffered from periods of epilepsy. What preempted them was a growing sense that she was on a mission from God - as though the part of the brain which either accommodates, facilitates, or actually creates (not necessarily constructs) Godly/religious orientation became particularly active. 3. The voices heard in schizophrenia being physically registered in the aurally receptive part of the brain was of interest (with enormous respect to schizophrenics) and leads to many questions. 4. The brain and the ...what? owner? Which owns which? Is there a particular hegemony - or is the relationship bilaterally partial? The conscious mind probably has a certain superficial control but the unconscious in Jungian, Freudian and autonomic terms is the leviathan - dauntingly so in truth, and doesn't give its dark self up easily. The human and its brain seem to live in almost a strange symbiosis - ie. the development of the one is contingent upon the development of the other - ongoingly, in a reciprocally responsive way. I have personally found that being very objective with and about my own brain has been a useful tactic but I become suddenly and rather pathetically unable to sustain it around chocolate, houmous and mowing the lawn willingly every week, which I've just humbly accepted as part of "being human". Maybe I can justify it more after today's programme. Thank you for galvanizing our grey matter into some good action. We don't need life diminishing brain gym strategies when we've got Melvyn Bragg and company. It's the difference between a treadmill at the health club and an invigorating walk through the Lake District. Best wishes
Olly Cooper
Shortly after listening to the neuroscience programme my dog and I were in the kitchen. One of us, I can't remember which spotted a spider on the ceiling. I gently put my finger towards it and it began to move. Dog and I looked at each other. She wagged her tail and we went back to watching the spider as it descended. Both of us knew what the other was looking at and we enjoyed sharing the moment. Mutually conscious but different species of brain. I wonder if her time delay is greater or less than mine?
Miss L Shepherd: Neuroscience
What is the point of consciousness? Lots of ideas raised in the discussion and on this board, though I don't think anyone mentioned memory. Our conscious thoughts go into our memory banks, unlike the unconscious. Perhaps consciousness exists to create memory.
Tim - neuroscience - mind and brain
I am not a dualist, but I think there are problems with a simple mind = brain activity equation. For example, if a person reads a Times article about Afghanistan and understands and reflects on it, could we read off from the brain the meanings of the English words that the person understands? Or tell that their thoughts were about Afghanistan? Such comprehension and such thoughts could only be brain activity if that activity is taken together with its relation to its social and physical context.
Siddhartha: Neuroscience.
Thank you Melvyn for making Thursday mornings interesting. Long may you continue.Three points to make.1) Consciousness is exactly equivalent to working memory. It is possible to create a memory of an experience if and only if it has been conscious. (i.e. Conversely, you do not experience reflex actions.)2) All awareness is only of the content of the sensory half of the neocortex. The frontal necortex is "only" the repository of all of our motor skills. Both halves of the neocortex contain the results of learning but only the sensory memories may be converted into consciousness recollections. However the motor skills of the frontal cortex contain the essence of who we are, namely all of our abilities including speech.3) The solution to the "hard problem" of consciousness is Information. This is a conserved attribute that is transferred during every physical event. ( This is also the solution to the observer problem in QM and is the essential idea in the Bohmian approach ). That the frontal cortex becomes active during recall of memories is because recall is an unconscious motor activity that activates areas in the sensory cortex which can then become available for working memory. I think that consciousness/working memory requires the sustained activity of a sensory pathway in which information is being concentrated from sensory organ to higher level perceptions. This is in contrast to the motor cortex where information is being spread to produce complex activities. Although my approach may seem to say that our conscious "self" is just an observer in an unconscious body, in fact our sense of self identity arises from the repeated cycling of unconscious acivity through the physical environment including our body back to our conscious sensory system. In our human case that unconscious activity includes (silent) speech. Interestingly you never know what you are going to say/think next until you hear yourself say it. The advantage of silent speech is that you can then decide whether or not to repeat you thoughts aloud. Also, the structure of language must model the processes of sensory perception for it to be converted by the language understanding sensory cortex into its equivalent in meaningful sensory perceptions. That is a whole other subject!
Paul people apart
Aparently it is our brain that separates us from other life. And people are the only species that can conceive of a 4 th spatial dimension. So, maybe; that's the function of conscienceness.
Edward / Neuroscience
To say that the mind is no more than the observable workings of the brain is liking saying a CD of Bach's Magnificat is no more than the indentations on the disc.
Derick Wilson
It may seem a very simple question but worth asking anyway - since its well known that women can deal with two bits of information at the same time I wonder if there is any evidence for instance whether they can access their sub conscious in parallel to their conscious parts, and in addition whether during the ''gorilla'' test women perhaps observed the animal? Regards, Derick.
Don: Neuroscience
Maybe I was not fully conscious this morning after a wakeful night but it seemed to me there was an agreement that the Hard Problem of consciousness dealt with the question as to why consciousness evolved at all. This was in fact answered by pointing out that consciousness allowed high level planning. As such it would engender survival value in the organism. I do not take issue with this point other than to say, it is not the answer to the Hard Problem, although we must have consciousness for there to be a a Hard Problem in reference thereto. My understanding of the Hard Problem has its origin in the work of philosopher David Chalmers who coined the term in his book Understanding Consciousness (1996). Briefly he described it as the problem of explaining why we have qualitative phenomenal experiences like movement, colour, sounds, shape etc, which all apparently emerge from a neurological basis. I think T H Huxley (1866) makes the point very clear when he states, “How is it that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of Djin when Aladdin rubbed his lamp”. As yet it seems that despite much effort from The Biological sciences and Philosophers of Mind the Hard problem remains unresolved.
tony woodd ..neuroscience
does the brain rule the mind or does the mind rule the brain? the programme's example of the consciousness of the brain of the "button pushing" experiment seems to imply that mind and brain are not one and the same,and that their function differs. is it mind's function to decide and action and the brain's job to be conscious of mind? is the brain the organ of consciousness of the expression of mind? in another example given of the gorilla in the picture not seen while counting the ball passes, is the selective attention of the consciousness of the brain,yet mind knew it was there. the investigation of the brain as matter seems to involve the same selective attention in its conclusions about mind.it looks as if our understanding of all that we believe ourselves to be and all that we believe we see is limited and also our limitation. does science have to develope it's own consciousness of the non material to answer it's own questions, maybe with a marriage of orthodox science and quantum physics.
Charles neuroscience
Fascinating programme - what is driving our lives? The unconscious? It would seem so. The conscious mind implements the 'decisions' taken by the unconscious in terms of when to scratch your nose and what career to pursue. Intuitively I have felt this to be true for many years but amazing to hear a scientific rationale for something so counter-common-sense.
Keith Martin - Neuroscience
I believe that there may be an insoluble paradox at the heart of any investigation into the nature of human consciousness.This arises because the investigator and the subject of investigation are essentially the same thing. To use an (admittedly crude) computer analogy: it is rather like asking the Windows operating system to give a precise demonstration of how it, itself functions.
Patrick: neuroscience
With 100% accuracy when I am typing if I make a mistake by hitting a wrong key - something deep inside informs me of that - and I make a correction - for this to happen something must be monitoring what I am doing and that something is programmed to interrupt me permitting me to make a correction. The process is not under conscious control.
Patrick: neuroscience
In the discussion there seemed to be some doubt about what consciousness is, here's the answer.The brain runs 'on automatic pilot' and occasionally reports on what is happening - that report is consciousness.It's like a computer in that - a computer works without the intervention of the operator and occasionally puts information on a screen to say what it is doing.It seems highly unlikely that nature would create such a fine and powerful machine as the human brain and body - then leave it to be used by someone or some thing that has no proven competence, especially when there is such a great chance of environmental factors influencing the ability of that someone or some thing - and that on occasions other parts of nature may be interfered with by that someone or some thing to the disadvantage of all.We have been looking down the wrong end of the telescope until now - all matters of consequence are dealt with by the unconscious.
Marcus Small Neuroscience
I really found this week interesting. What is mind? Or what is the soul? I have just watched a video with John Polkinghorne, in which he states that we are totally material, so no ghost in the machine, and yet most of our body contains very few of the atoms they had even three years ago. He talks about the Information Bearing Pattern, as that which is the 'me' throughout our lives. Is not mind brain in body?
Pamela Creed 'Neuroscience'
Not my field but I was caught up in this discussion and delayed leaving car for work! I have sent on info to a friend's daughter who is a Medical Postgraduate student to listen to from website. Fascinating listening.
michael brownlie
is the idea of pre-thought a fifth of a second before conscious because the brain has to translate the thought into the language we think in-- which begs the question
Maritn W, Mind/Brain
I was quite surprised that the computer/brain analogy did not surface - even if only to be refuted. There is the usual sigh that every leading technology is used as an analogy for the brain; however I feel there really is some merit it the analogy between "hardware" and "software" in illustrating the mind-brain illusion. So much time was used up in the programme on the subject that it would have been useful.Our language, and culture, is so infused with dualism - perhaps because of the dualism of religion, or even the dualism inherent in modern English (e.g. sheep/mutton)If the brain is a structure is a structure which has evolved (to support/in concert with) electro-chemical phenomena which creates an illusion of reality (e.g. we receive an upside-down picture of our environment, but experience the world the correct way up) - this is little different to the hardware/software view that ephemeral processes represent mind, whereas hardware represents brain.The argument is that hardware and software are so intrinsically linked that they are the same thing - "the computer". Is there no word which expresses this essentially materialist approach?
Jane - neuroscience
I've just had another thought on the nature of brain and it is this. It's a very strange phenomenon, but just about everybody goes about life with a completely edited version of themself. Many people would actually faint if they were to behold their innards - or in this case, their own cerebral "porridge", to borrow Melvyn's term. They go to the hairdressers and pay attention to their hair, completely oblivious to the incredible workings going on under their skull. Women (generally) choose eye makeup to enhance the colour of their eyes, completely unaware that they are part of their brain etc etc. It's truly odd, if in a way understandable, that we do this to the extent we do. Medical students possibly have a shift of perspective in their first year of study but it's probably accommodated by the psyche over time. I have pondered this on occasion and find it bizarre that we are so horrified by what we are made of - I'm no exception 'though I try to live with acceptance. The red of blood is graphic - children howl when they see it (not only children!) - but the alarm of injury is a separate thing. This is more about the external emphasis we naturally place on ourselves to the exclusion of the internal. I'll bet many people don't even know where the various parts are....come to think of it... Anyway, on with the day.
neuroscience discussion nigel jones
I'm a big fan of C G Jung. I know he wasn't a neuroscientist, but I think his views on the psyche are relevant nevertheless, to the 'In Our Time' discussion, even though he seems to be out of fashion now. Jung dismissed the mind/matter dilemma one hundred years ago when he said that there's clearly only one reality, which is 'matter'! But then (he says) we haven't really said anything because we don't know what 'matter'is! (Forgive me if I can't quote him chapter and verse because I'm writing off the top of my head.)He speculated (and he insisted it's only speculation) that the psyche may be the ivisible aspect of matter or 'for those of a mystical bent'(as he put it) matter may be the material aspect of the pyche. But, he would agree with the 'In Our Time' guests that there's only one 'reality'.However, what I find the most significant and interesting of Jung's statements, is that consciousness is not the centre of the personality - it's not the heart of the psyche! (All you atheists take careful note of the implications of this!) When we view the unconscious mind as somehow annexed to consciousness (which suits our ego-centred view of ourselves) we are looking down the wrong end of the telscope. The unconscious mind has its own agenda (according to Jung)which we would do well to wake up to. The agenda is called 'becoming human'- the Jungian term is 'individuation' - and the unconscious mind will have its way with us whether we like it or not. As T S Elliot put it ..'we burn at either pyre or pyre, consumed by either fire or fire'. This view of the psyche involves a relative resizing of the conscious and unconscious minds. The 'In Our Time' discussion touched on this, but unfortunately only briefly.
APC - Neuroscience (brain v mind)
The relationship between the brain and "the mind" makes for some fascinating speculation. But discussions are often based on the premise that we each have a mind of our own. But what if we all share one universal mind ("mind-field") with which we each communicate via our individual brain? ie What if we are like a population PCs, each built and programmed/re-programmed differently, but all on-line to the common resources of the "intermind".PC's come and go, but the intermind goes on. Maybe.
jane - neuroscience
What a super programme thanks and as usual,it's lovely to hear people who are passionately interested in what they do. Won't even begin to go into it all - especially the tempting area of mind/brain. Understanding comes in its time and my own experience of life is anything but that of the 'dyed in the wool materialist' - that's where empiricism becomes a subject in itself. Also, mind/brain dichotomy is an extremely narrow concept. Really interesting, 'though not altogether surprising, about the powerful role of the unconscious.The body is a veritable Stradivarius isn't it, so we're probably well advised to just keep on playing whilst there are hairs in the bow...(On second reading, that's an unfortunate analogy!). Whatever the enigmatic whole truth, the human form is an incredible feat of organic technology. Saw the hidden gorilla a few weeks ago.I counted the catches okay but missed the gorilla. To be honest, I spend most of my life like that. When I was once immersed in gardening at my flat in London I suddenly noticed a man trying to get his car going so obligingly went over and helped him to push it. Turns out that I'd unwittingly aided and abetted in a car theft as he was actually stealing it. I just hadn't been consciously aware of him tinkering about right next to my fence. Do you think it might indicate an excess of male hormones? Very best wishes and thanks once again
Celeste de Mazia re neuroscience and the brain
My understanding is that, although the brain is the central control system for the body, the mind facilitates the flow of consciousness between brain and organs/tissues etc - which is an interactive process - and not confined to the brain tissue itself. Our various organs each 'have a mind of their own' - and in a healthy organism work together synergistically. The fact that most of this is autonomous and therefore unconscious speaks for itself! Whether one attributes this to divinity or not - there is a master at work!
Prof Max Velmans - on Neuroscience
I enjoyed this morning's session on Neuroscience with a good airing of some basic issues by the speakers. But it was a pity that such limited options were presented on how to understand the function of consciousness, and how best to understand the relation of mind and brain. The options are not just "unscientific" dualism versus "scientific" materialism. In fact both positions have serious problems which were not even touched on - and there interesting, plausible ways of accommodating the scientific findings with our common-sense understanding of the human condition that are widely discussed in the field but were not even mentioned! The issues are really important as they touch on what it means to be human.
B. Aston The Brain
For millions of years people looked up at the sky and thought that what they saw was what there was. When people developed ever more powerful telescopes, they where able to see even further away and see more objects. But it was only in the last hundred years that they realized that there were objects that could only “be seen” using radio, X-ray, micro wave receivers. However in recent times cosmologist only realized that what they where looking at was only that which responded to variation in electromagnetic output. What they where looking at was only a very small percentage of what there was. Vast thought the ordinary stuff of the universe that they could investigate through various telescopes, things like Dark Matter and Dark Energy made up a vast amount more of what the universe is made of.People looking at the brain even with modern scanning instruments are only looking with “optical telescopes”. What they are seeing and deducing what the various bits of the brain is doing is limited to their sightings from these “optical telescopes”. They have not yet started to view with the “radio or X-ray” equivalents. Nor have they realized that they have not accounted for all the “Dark matter and Dark energy” which is there but dose not consist of that response which dose not involve electrical stimulation.” There is a lot more out there than you can see buy just looking up at the night sky. Did you hear about the amoeba that was involved in an accident? It was rushed to hospital where it was examined by a neurosurgeon. After being pronounced brain dead it swam of back home ! Brendan Aston
Shaun Leonard, mental recall
I listened to you most recent programme with interest as it relater to my situation.I am a registered blind person and have had to adapt in or de to obtain gainful employment.The skill I have developed over some 40 years is to be able to recall the UK rail network in what some describe as very unusual detail. I can recall, hundreds of routes, departures, train operating companies, ticketing procedures and connection for many areas of the UK, along with this is an unusual knowledge of UK geography.It was for this reason I applied successfully to the National Rail Enquiry service in Yorkshire, where I answer in excess of 15000 call per year and gained the companies highest award for service.So when colleagues are struggling with the intricacies of the underground map while making connections to long distance express departures it is for me a simple process of recall.Where I struggle is reading large amounts of text at high speed when inpatient callers require information on the fly, for example special promotions or where to catch a bus replacement! This is time for me to ask help from colleagues. It is about teamwork and it really works very well.
Darkhorse2000 - the three brains
In this morning's discussion, the question was raised as to how humans would behave if the 'higher' neocortical functions could be switched off. It seems to me that we conduct this experiment rather too regularly and the results (disinhibition, antisocial behaviour, lack of forethought or concern for consequences) can be seen in most city centres on a Saturday night.....
oliver leech: neuroscience
A fascinating discussion but it needs a philosophical balance. The case for materialism is not nearly as clear-cut as the three speakers implied. There needs to be a discussion about the non-reductive nature of consciousness, the concept of the first-person point of view, not to mention a discussion of a)the way that matter dissolves under scientific scrutiny and the role of consciousness in quantum physics
John Jacob Lyons, Consciousness
I am an evolutionary psychologist and I would like to add to your discussion of consciousness this morning.I think of consciousness quite simply as our subjective awareness of ourselves, our surroundings and the relationship between these two entities. I believe that consciousness evolved to provide an adaptive, consilient, integrated model of reality from the many individually evolved sensory inputs we are able to receive from outside the body and from the body itself. Such a model is adaptive since it speeds up our evaluation of confirmatory/ contradictory evidence when making conscious decisions about the actions we need to make in response to the state of world and/or our physical needs. This emergent model of reality also enables us to take ‘snapshots’ of states of the world associated with emotionally charged experiences. These may then be stored in long-term memory and used, unconsciously, to pattern-match to real-time experiences and thus enable very fast, unconsciously mediated and adaptive actions to be generated when similar states of the world are encountered.Because scientists understand the relationship between each of our individual senses and its neural and physiological correlates, (eg, 'sight' in terms of light-sensitive cells and the relevant neuronal areas) the 'hard' problem of consciousness disappears when we think of consciousness as the integrated model that I suggest.
Jim McMullen on Neuroscience Discussion , 13th Nov
Absolutely rivetting. It is so good to listen to people working in the cotton wool who have the ability to describe such complex things in a coherent way often using concrete examples of such abstract and difficult concepts. Thank you to all who contributed to this excellent programme.
neuroscience
Great programme with some ify interpretations of experimental data though. I first heard of the gorilla demonstration as used in the opening lecture at a US law-school - illustrating unreliability of eye-witness accounts. 'Late students' tried to break into the Theatre causing uproar on the podium, gorilla runs across the podium, most students fail to recall him when asked immediately afterwards.
Steve - NEUROSCIENCE (13/11/08)
What an excellent programme. Especially when it wandered into the field of conciousness. I had recently come across a basic book on the subject of conciousness (Susan Blackmore) - an area I had hitherto been entirely ignorant of, other than my own personal use of it! I hadn't realised how much research had been done on this field, and how fascinating it was. I hestitate to suggest a follow up soon, but eventually a whole programme dedicated to conciousness and the recent research would, I'm sure, be as interesting as this programme was. Talk about 'meaning of life' concepts! If I had ever really believed in a dualist mind-brain model of 'our self' then the recent reading and this programme hve finished that model off for me as unsupportable from the evidence.
JohnB, brain function
I think we are still creatures dominated by our basic instincts. Everything we do is related in some way to our basic requirements, be it nutritional, survival or procreation. All our 'higher' senses do, is increase the complexity of our instinctive behaviour. I believe, following on from the reptilian model, our brains first evolved a greater capacity for memory. With a bigger memory, we were able to evolve more complex behaviour patterns exploiting the greater memory. Ultimately, this evolved into our so-called 'intelligence' and 'consciousness'.
Brian Hughes - Neuroscience
An excellent and fascinating programme. Unusually I listened live rather than to the podcast - well I thought I was listening but I was also dusting and putting things away I think so I can’t be sure what my mind was up to.Best read this back before pressing the “go” button so that my consciousness can get up to speed with what I’ve typed and check (with the help of Bill Gates and his pals) its spelling. I wonder why my unconscious mind can’t spell properly...
Richard, Hudds - neuroscience
Dear Melvyn That was awesome, one of the most accessible shows on a subject that is undoubtedly of infinite complexity - muchos gracias and great guests - as always. Cheers - err.. back to reality now then!!
Brain
Interested in comment about Taxi drivers having larger that average hippocampus, as demonstation that by excercising the brain it adapts. Are we sure that these taxi drivers have grown their brains, rather than gravitating to a job where the larger hypo's predispose them to being good at the job ??
Katherine Shock. Conscious brain
Your speaker who talked about pressing buttons shortly after the unconscious decision was registered rang bells with me. When first learning the piano this subject troubled me particularly. All adult beginners had to agree to take part in a small concert at the end of term with the other adult students listening. I had a very simple piece to play that I knew reasonably and was perfectly aware that everyone else would have been through the experience. Consciously, I had no problem with this and was not being 'competitive' and felt I was not there to prove anything, simply do my bit. When it came to the performance my hands shook so much I had real trouble hitting any of the keys I chose. I was aware that this was ridiculous but had no control whatever in spite of this. I got an ovation for being able to get to the end of this 'performance' because I was determined to overcome it, but nothing improved. It was suggested that next time I should take a beta blocker to enable me to do what I wanted, rather than what my unconscious wanted. A similar experience years back happened when trying to pass my driving test. The only way I was able to achieve it on the 3rd attempt was by having a half a tranquilizer. In both cases I had no surface problem with the activity.
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