Self-Consciousness: Body Image from Feelings

                                                                  Self-awareness.

Israel Rosenfield presents in his book The Strange, Familiar and Forgotten a view of consciousness emerging from self-awareness as body image:

• My memory emerges from the relation between my body (more specifically my bodily sensations at any given moment) and my brain's "image" of my body (an un­ conscious activity in which the brain creates a constantly changing generalised idea of the body by relating the changes in bodily sensations from moment to moment). It is this relation that creates a sense of self.

John Searle captures this idea in his book The Mystery of Consciousness as follows:

• Our sense of self is sense of experiences affecting the body image, and all experiences involve this sense of self, and hence involve the body image. This is what he calls the "self-reference" of all consciousness. All of our conscious experiences are "self-referential" in the sense that they are related to the experience of the self which is the experience of the body image. The coherence of consciousness through time and space is again related to the experience of the body by way of the body image, and without memory there is no coherent consciousness.

This makes a lot of sense to me connecting to recent posts. No doubt the sensations in your own body has a special meaning to you. Your mind is thus connected to your body through sensory input to the brain and then projected back to their bodily origin as part of a body image, as feeling of pain in your thumb when hit by hammer, or the feeling of your feet meeting the ground, or the warm feeling in your breast when hugging a loved one. 

Feeling are supported by persistence of sensations over time carrying a memory giving meaning, like listening to music as a flow of new tones with memory of old.

This supports my intuitive feeling expressed in this post, that consciousness is closely connected to a body image carrying bodily sensations including feelings of pain and pleasure, something which is beyond the capacity of an AI robot. 

Maybe consciousness acts like a very compassionate agent/mind for an artist/body seeking to find new engagements, continuously updating an artist image including the mood swings of the artist.

Maybe this says something about the hard problem of consciousness to explain subjective experience, in the sense that each body carries a unique body image/subject rooted in bodily sensory feelings.  

 

Consciousness: Preparation to Action

This is a continuation of the post Picasso and his Model: Feelings.

Henri Bergson summarises his view on consciousness exposed in Matter and Memory as follows : 

• The idea that we have disengaged from the facts and confirmed by reasoning is that our body is an instrument of action, and of action only. 
• In no degree, in no sense, under no aspect, does it serve to prepare, far less to explain, a representation. 
• Consider external perception: there is only a difference of degree, not of kind, between the so-called perceptive faculties of the brain and the reflex functions of the spinal cord. 
• While the spinal cord trans­forms the excitations received into movements which are more or less necessarily executed, the brain puts them into relation with motor mechanisms which are more or less freely chosen; but that which the brain explains in our perception is action begun, pre­pared or suggested, it is not perception itself. 
• Consider memory. The body retains motor habits capable of acting the past over again; it can resume attitudes in which the past will insert itself; or, again, by the repetition of certain cerebral phenomena, which have pro­longed former perceptions, it can furnish to remembrance a point of attachment with the actual, a means of recovering its lost influ­ence upon present reality: but in no case can the brain store up recollections or images. 
• Thus, neither in perception, nor in memory, nor a fortiori in the higher attainments of mind, does the body contribute directly to representation. 
• By developing this hypoth­esis under its manifold aspects and thus pushing dualism to an extreme, we appeared to divide body and soul by an impassable abyss. In truth, we were indicating the only possible means of bringing them together.
• All the difficulties raised by this problem, either in ordinary dualism, or in materialism and idealism, come from considering, in the phenomena of perception and memory, the physical and the mental as duplicates of one another.

Bergson thus refutes one of the ideas expressed in the post of mental models of the physical world naturally connecting to mathematical models of the physical world.  

But the other idea in the post is in line with Bergson's view of the importance of feelings to guide actions as responses to the world supporting intuition and transforming intellectual deliberation into lived experience. 

Both aspects connect to AI viewed to offer mathematical models of the world while lacking feelings, which is not at all in line with Bergson's view on consciousness or Human Intelligence HI. 

Bergson points to limitations of mathematical models of his time as static and unable to capture the complexity of the world. Today mathematics + computer offers a very rich world of dynamic simulations expanding reality to virtual reality, while human consciousness remains the same.  

Notice that Bergson connects matter to memory instead of body to soul, thus emphasising memory. 

Bergson offers some hope that HI will continue to have a role. 

Euclide vs Big Bang vs Standard Model

• ESA's Euclid mission is designed to explore the composition and evolution of the dark Universe. 
• The space telescope will create a great map of the large-scale structure of the Universe across space and time by observing billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years.
• Euclid will explore how the Universe has expanded and how structure has formed over cosmic history, revealing more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark energy and dark matter.

Big Bang is a cosmological theory stating that the Universe was created from a very hot very dense state of temperature $10^{32}$ Kelvin and size of a pinhead after $10^{-44}$ seconds, and then inflated/expanded into it's presently observable size of 10 billion light-years and average temperature of 3 K. Big Bang was invented by modern physicists in the 1960s searching for a mission after having completed the Standard Model of elementary particle physics, and is today accepted by almost all physicists. 

The previous post recalls that Leonard Susskind as leading theoretical physicists today, has come to the conclusion that the work on the Standard Model has to start over again, and so also the cosmological theory including Big Bang based on the Standard Model. OK?  

The main weakness of Big Bang is that no explanation is even attempted for the existence of a very dense very hot initial state: Creation of a 10 billion light-years Universe from a pinhead lacks physics. Of all Creation Myths in world history, Big Bang must be the most nonsensical.

So we have to start over again. I have been led to a model described in these posts as Neo-Newtonian Cosmology based on viewing gravitational potential $\phi (x,t)$ with $x$ a Euclidean coordinate and $t$ a time coordinate, as primordial role from which mass density $\rho (x,t)$ is "created" by the local action of the Laplacian differential operator $\Delta$:

• $\rho (x,t) = \Delta \phi (x,t)$ for all $x$,         (G1)

assumed to act without time delay for all $t$. Mass of variable sign is thus created locally for each $x$ by differentiation of a fluctuation as an instant local operation acting at each time instant $t$.  

The model is complemented by viewing electric potential $\psi (x,t)$ with $x$ a Euclidean coordinate and $t$ a time coordinate, as primordial from which charge density $\epsilon (x,t)$ is "created" by the local action of the Laplacian differential operator $\Delta$:

• $\epsilon (x,t) = \Delta\psi (x,t)$ for all $x$,         (G1)

assumed to act without time delay for all $t$. Charge of variable sign is thus created locally for each $x$ by differentiation of a fluctuation as an instant local operation acting at each time instant $t$.  

Let us collect basic elements of Neo-Newtonian Cosmology:

1. Mass/matter (ordinary and dark) and charge densities of variable sign are created by the Laplacian acting on fluctuations of zero gravitational and electric potentials. 
2. Attraction/repulsion of mass of same/different sign and charge of different/same sign creates microscale charges of different sign (Hydrogen atoms = proton + electron) and macroscale mass Universa of different sign moving away from each other (dark energy).
3. Kinetic energy in each Universe created by gravitational collapse. 
4. Start from 0 mass. Split into 0 = (+mass) + (-mass). Separate macroscale (+mass) from (-mass).
5. Start from 0 charge. Split 0 =(+charge)+(-charge). Combine microscale (+charge) with (-charge).

 

Testimony by Leading Physicist Leonard Susskind

Leading theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind sums up his experience at the end of his career as follows:

• I can tell you with absolute certainty that String Theory is not about the world we live in.
• We have to describe our world. That is our purpose.
• So we need to start over. We have a lot of work to do. I do not know of any young people doing that. 
• String Theory combines quantum mechanics and relativity in a very beautiful way. There is no other theory that reconciles quantum mechanics and relativity. 
• String Theory does not describe the real world. 
• Is there anything else? Not to my knowledge.Wolfram's hypergraph is a failure. I do not know who Eric Weinstein is. Penrose believes in all sorts of stuff that I do not believe in.
• So we need to start over again.
• To students: Think for yourself and do not listen to old people. What should you work on? I don't know and if I knew I would be working on it myself. Don't be afraid, follow your curiosity. 
• If you do not think that you can do that, you are probably in the wrong field.
• So we need to start over...

What can we get out of this? Well, yet another confession that modern theoretical physics is in deep crisis.

Anything new? Yes, Real Quantum Mechanics is in perfect harmony with Neo-Newtonian gravitation/cosmology. Don't be afraid to check out. Do not listen to old physicists. 

See also Sabine Hossenfelder: The Crisis in Physics is Real: Science is Failing.  

The Hard Problem of Consciousness: Feelings?

Continuation on recent posts on consciousness.

David Chalmers in The Character of Consciousness identifies Easy Problems of Consciousness EPC (see PS below) as those that seem directly susceptible to the standard methods of cognitive science, whereby a phenomenon is explained in terms of computational or neural mechanisms. The Hard Problems of Consciousness HPC are those that seem to resist those methods, more precisely:

• The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. 
• This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. 
• Then there are bodily sensations from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion; and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.
• What makes the hard problem hard and almost unique is that it goes beyond problems about the performance of functions. To see this, note that even when we have explained the performance of all the cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience—perceptual discrimination, categorization, internal access, verbal report—there may still remain a further unanswered question: Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience?

Chalmers evidently connects feelings to experience: An organism able to observe/experience things while completely lacking any form of feelings, would not be considered to be conscious, more like a robot. 

We may have the idea that a fish is not conscious and in particular has no feeling of pain and so can be killed without any remorse. On the other hand, a human being often overwhelmed by feelings, would be the prime example of a conscious being. 

What to say about this? Well, a simple idea is that we are equipped with feelings to help us survive in a variable environment. We feel pain when hit by an enemy arrow and so seek protection behind a shield and we feel love to reproduce, or more generally seek pleasure of both body and soul. The role of feelings is to make us focus on something important for survival, as not only a note from the bank that our account shows minus but as a hit in solar plexus.  

Of course any living organism could be expected to benefit from feelings and so from this perspective even a simple flatworm can feel pain and so be conscious in this sense.

It seems that HPC does not select human consciousness as special, which instead connects to the EPC of cognitive capacities. 

I have been led to an idea of consciousness as a brain representation/model of an exterior reality, which is constructed from sensory input/experience from the body, which ultimately is connected to sensations of pain or pleasure as lack of pain. The mind model then does not only have an exterior source, but also a bodily representation as (stomach) feeling.

Many books have been written on both EPC and HPC without any clear agreement. 

Again: Is self-consciousness an emergent cultural phenomenon? If you are fully occupied with survival of the group, do you have time/need for self-introspection?

PS The easy problems of consciousness, according to Chalmers, include those of explaining the following phenomena:

•  ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli
•  integration of information by a cognitive system
•  reportability of mental states
•  ability of a system to access its own internal states
•  focus of attention
•  deliberate control of behavior
• difference between wakefulness and sleep

Consciousness: From Unity to Diversity to Unity

We read in the book A Universe of Consciousness by Edelman and Tononi as intro to Chapter 3: Everyman's Private Theatre: Ongoing Unity, Endless Variety:

• Our strategy for explaining the neural basis of consciousness is to focus on the properties of conscious experience that are the most general, that is, that are shared by every conscious state. 
• One of the most important of these properties is integration or unity. Integration refers to the fact that a conscious state cannot be subdivided at any one time into independent components by its experiencer. This property is related to our inability consciously to do more than two things at once, such as adding up a check while carrying on a heated argument. 
• Another key, and apparently contrastive, property of conscious experience is its extraordinary differentiation or informativeness: At any moment, one out of billions of possible conscious states can be selected in a fraction of a second. We thus have the apparent paradox that unity embeds complexity—the brain must deal with plethora without losing its unity or coherence. Our task is to show how it does so.

We learn that unity and differentiation are (apparently contrastive) important aspects of consciousness. 

We find precisely these aspects in the connection between gravitational potential $\phi (x,t)$ and mass density $\rho (x,t)$ as the basic relation of Neo-Newtonian Cosmology in mathematical terms expressed as follows, with $x$ a Euclidean space variable and $t$ a time variable:

• $\Delta\phi (x,t)=\rho (x,t)$     for all $x$ and $t$         (1)
• $\rho (x,t) := \Delta\phi (x,t)$  for all $x$ and $t$        (2)

where $\Delta$ is the Laplacian differential operator acting on the space variable $x$ and $:=$ is computer code for assignment. We thus express the connection between $\phi$ and $\rho$ in two different forms: 

In (1) $\phi (x,t)$ appears as a global solution for all $x$ and given $t$ of the Poisson-Laplace equation $\Delta\phi =\rho$ with $\rho$ given, which can be expressed as an integral over all of space:

• $\phi (x,t) =-\frac{1}{4\pi}\int\frac{\rho (y,t)}{\vert x-y\vert}dy$       (3)

In (2) $\rho (x)$ for a given $x$ is assigned the value $\Delta\phi (x)$ involving given local values of $\phi (y)$ for $y$ close to $x$. 

We understand that (1) represents a global summation process as integration, while (2) is a local process of extraordinary differentiation or informativeness. 

We thus find a mind-body relation in terms of $\phi$-$\rho$ expressed in (1) + (2) with $\phi$ representing global unity/mind/logos and $\rho$ local diversity/body/spirit. 

With the same $t$ on both sides in (3) formally requires instant action at distance, but since the kernel $\frac{1}{\vert x-y\vert}$ in (3) is quickly decaying with increasing $\vert y\vert$, instant action at distance is not required. In other words, (1) can be slow, while (2) as local process can be fast and must be to fit observation. 

Altogether, we see that the general features of consciousness presented by Edelman and Tononi, can be expressed in precise mathematical form in a cosmology context. 

Unity of consciousness restricts attention to only one thing at the same time, which can be seen as a limitation of performing (1) + (2) for only one mass density distribution/thing at a time, because of limited processing brain power.   

Incompressible Turbulent Fluid Mechanics vs Mind-Body

     Da Vinci contemplating incompressible fluid flow to solve the hard problem of consciousness.

Recall the previous post and the basic model of Neo-Newtonian Cosmology in terms of gravitational potential $\phi$ as primordial, mass density $\rho$, momentum $m$ and $u=\frac{m}{\rho}$ material velocity all depending on a Euclidean space coordinate $x$ and time coordinate $t$ with the dot on top representing differentiation with respect to time, as a model describing all of celestial mechanics:

• $\rho = \Delta\phi$                                    (inverse square law in differential form)
• $\dot\rho +\nabla\cdot m=0$                       (conservation of mass)
• $\dot m +\nabla\cdot (um)+\rho\nabla\phi=0$    (conservation of momentum: Newton's 2nd Law)  

We compare with the basic model of all of (inviscid) incompressible turbulent fluid flow as Euler's equations:

• $\nabla\cdot u=0$                                        (incompressibility)
• $\dot\rho +\nabla\cdot m=0$                       (conservation of mass)
• $\dot m +\nabla\cdot (um)+\nabla p=0$    (conservation of momentum: Newton's 2nd Law)  

where $p$ is pressure. Here incompressibility is imposed as a stipulation rather than law of physics, which can be realised through the physical law:

• $\Delta p = -C\nabla\cdot u$                        (pressure law)

where $C$ is a large positive constant forcing $\nabla\cdot u$ to be small. We see that pressure $p$ and gravitational potential $\phi$ serve similar roles in Newton's 2nd Law steering the dynamics, and that both appear as solutions to a Poisson equation with infinite speed of propagation of effects from source to solution. We see that the pressure has the double role to drive the flow while securing incompressibility.  

We thus see that both $p$ and $\phi$ act as omnipresent immaterial controls of dynamics with instant connection to a whole material universe, as solutions to Poisson's equation with source of material form, thus as connection immaterial-material or mind-body in the setting of consciousness in recent posts.

Gravitational Potential - Matter vs Mind - Body

This is a continuation of previous posts on the mind-body problem of consciousness.

In Neo-Newtonian Cosmology the gravitational potential $\phi (x,t)$ is immaterial, omnipresent and primordial assigning mass density $\rho (x,t)$ to matter by the action of the Laplacian differential operator $\Delta$ acting without delay on the Euclidean space coordinate $x$ for all time $t$:

• $\rho (x,t) = \Delta\phi (x,t)$              (1)

Immaterial potential thus meets material mass density in (1) as instant top-down local assignment. Material matter moves by gravitational force field $\nabla\phi$ according to Newtons laws of motion

• $\dot u = -\nabla\phi$            (2a)
• $\dot x =u$,                                        (2b)

where $u$ is material velocity, $x$ is position and the dot signifies differentiation with respect to time. There is also a feed back from mass density distribution $\rho$ to gravitational potential as solution of the equation $\Delta\phi =\rho$ as a slow bottom-up global process. 

We can find a parallel as connection between an immaterial omnipresent mind/soul and material body of a human being. The mind top-down assigns meaning/life to all the cells making up the body. There is also a bottom-up process giving sensory feed back from the body to the mind. The mind is then different from the material brain and embraces the whole body like the gravitational field embraces the Universe. 

The material brain would serve a crucial role of processing sensory input in an analog of (2) into planning and action, but the mind would stretch outside the brain.

It thus seems possible to relate ideas about morphic fields presented by Rupert Sheldrake to physics as a synthesis of immaterial and material or mind and body.  

It is natural to compare with Leibniz idea of pre-established harmony as a form of parallelism between gravitational potential and mass density in the form $\Delta\phi =\rho$, where neither $\phi$ nor $\rho$ has clear primordial priority. They just go together in a perfect way without discussion. The above argument can accommodate also Leibniz view.    

Picasso and His Model: Feelings

Let us see if the relation between Picasso/Painter and his Model can tell us something about the nature of consciousness, connecting to the previous post with a brain model of the exterior world as central concept (cf Nobel Prize in Medicine 2014).

We see Picasso looking at the Model to make a Painting or model of the Model on the canvas, which we can assume agrees more or less with some form of mental model in Picasso's brain. We see Picasso watching both the Model and the Painting to see if they agree and if not update the Painting. 

We see that Picasso is very aware about the whole situation with his mind switching between  (i) looking at the Model, (ii) looking at the Painting, (iii) making a comparison by projecting the Painting on the Model and (iv) deciding next brush.  

Here (i) and (ii) connect to direct perception, while (iii) seem to depend on some higher level evaluation and (iv) represents action after evaluation. 

More generally, we may think of watching a Landscape as making a model landscape in the brain which is projected on the Landscape and updated until fit, to make us experience the Landscape as something real outside us and not its brain model.

The brain model of your body is projected back onto the body, so that you experience the pain from a wound at its physical location and not in brain. This makes it possible to experience pain in a limb, even if the limb has been amputated, thus as a phantom limb.

Where does consciousness come in? Well, of course in the form of awareness as readiness to input from (i) and (ii) but also in the evaluation (iii) and action (iv). 

What is missing, as the so called hard problem of consciousness, is here Picasso's feelings for both Model and Painting. Picasso may be in love with Model (pleasure) but may not be happy yet with the Painting (pain) and this in not captured in (i)-(iv). 

Does it matter? Probably so, because this is gives Picasso motivation to decide to paint the Model and then actually do it under pain to eventually reach a state of pleasure with a finished Painting. 

Of course, motivation is central to get anything done and so may be an important aspect of consciousness as a goal and road to reach the goal. This seems to connect to self-consciousness offering a mental model where the capacities of the Self can be tested to set goals.

A robot painter with AI can be envisioned to carry out (i)-(iv) in a mechanical way and then without the burden of feelings, which often appear as bodily sensations even if not coming from the body, like love or fear felt in your breast. 

Ultimately, we may connect feelings to (early) sensory input of pleasure and pain, which would serve as basis for motivation to reach pleasure. This is something a robot would miss and so the goal for a robot would have to be set by some consciousness equipped with feelings setting the goals for the robot. 

Is it possible to equip a robot with feelings?

 

What is Consciousness?

The present hype of AI brings up questions about consciousness:

• Does ChatGPT express some form of consciousness?
• What are basic features of consciousness?
• What is the connecting to intelligence?  

A simple intuitive idea of consciousness of an organism might include, all for best survival: 

1. model of the external world formed in the brain and projected onto the world
2. updated by sensory organs and kept in a memory
3. guiding actions 
4. to reach certain goals
5. in a variable environment
6. self-consciousness allowing self-evaluation.

If the goals are reached one could say that the organism has some form of intelligence. The organism could be biological from flatworm to human being or some mechanical robot with AI. 

The model would be used to predict changes in the environment requiring actions by the organism. The prediction would involve testing different actions in the model as simulations and choosing the best to meet the goal.

A self-driving car continuously updates a 3d model of a variable environment and takes actions to reach a certain destination and so may be viewed to fulfil 1-5, while a human being would also meet 6.  ChatGPT would come near only to 1. 

A goal of seeking pleasure rather than pain would require sensory organs allowing the organism to feel pleasure and pain. This is not so far possible for mechanical robots (as far as we know), but maybe flatworms can. Pain is experienced in the brain and projected to the perceived origin of sensory input. 

One may ask if self-consciousness is a cultural phenomenon, which is not fundamental in primitive cultures where group-consciousness may be more useful? Maybe Greek gods served as some form of exterior self-consciousness.