DrmDoc

You appear to be assessing consciousness solely by a human standard. You appear to be saying here that if an organism doesn't behave the way we do, that organism doesn't possess consciousness. If true, all you're suggesting is that plants, bacteria, and jellyfish doesn't possess human consciousness. In fact, these organisms may possess plants, bacteria, and jellyfish consciousness. When we remove classification bias from our perspective, we should find that consciousness is relative.

Yes! Most assuredly so--IMO Is a thermostat an organism? If you will, consider the wording in my comments, you may find my meaning a bit more nuanced than your perception here.

Any organism, if I may follow up a bit further here, that demostratively responds to stimili possesses, by my definition of the term, consciousness. Whether that organism's measure of consciousness rises to the level of human consciousness is dependent on whether their consciousness measure enables behaviours we perceive as thought driven--essentially behaviours suggestive of intelligent awareness by human standards.

There's quite a bit here that's clearly desevering of a focused response, but it's clear that my perspective requires some clarification centered around my meaning of emergence and sense of self. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe we all agree that our sense of self--our sense of whom and what we are relative to our mental, social, and physical environment--is solely dependent on the the information our brain receives and experiences. If true, that empirically renders our sense of self as secondary to that information, which means our sense of self--relative to brain function--is a response to information about self and that response cannot emerge within or through brain function without that information. For those of us who are fimiliar with the anatomy of our central nervous system (CNS), we know that information about ourselves and our environment is channelled as sensory afference into the hierarchy of our CNS through that heirarchy's afferent neural connections to our body's sensory array. Given this perspective, one might say that it's our sensory array that gives rise to our sense of self, but that wouldn't be, IMO, precisely true. Our sensory array merely provides our brain with information about the separate and diverse affects of life experience, but where those affects initially converge and combine in the brain as an all encompassing sensory perception of self and our environment is indeed the thalamus. Although the corpus callosum serves a critical function as @TheVat noted, that function merely combines the processing power of the two hemispheres after they have received data from the thalamus and its relays through other subcortical structures. Unlike the bombing of all roads to the midwest through Chicago in @TheVat analogy, destruction of the thalamus is fatal to brain function but not the other way around. Abraham Lincoln who, for example, sustain no thalamic damage but did sustain critical damage to his cortex, would have survived his assailant's attack if physicians were as knowledgeable then about brain swelling and wound treatment as they are now. There's a reason why the thalamus is shielded by cortical structure and why the cortex mirrors the thalamus' hemispheric configuration--but that's a discussion for another time. Consciousness, by my definition, is merely that measure of awareness suggested by an organism's responses to stimuli. Relative to brain function, consciousness is an efferent product of brain function that does not occur or emerge without the brain's afferent neural connections to the thalamus, which is what I believe the article findings clearly suggest. Relative to emergence, in my view, consciousness and our sense of self are merely the lights (efference) switched on in brain function by thalamic function (afference).

It would likely have operated the same as it does now in a land based environments. Olfaction essentially involves the detection of scent molecules that can carry well through both water and air environments. If we're settled on "emerging", isn't it reasonable to conclude that our sense of self emerges through our experiences and it we're discussing where detection of those experiences initially converge in the brain before manifesting as consciousness, then the thalamus is likely that solitary brain structure from which our sense of self emerges.

Although gustatory and olfaction operate to provide the brain with an encompassing sense of flavor, from my understanding of brain evolution, they are routed differently because taste perception had the most immediate impact on ancestral species' survival, which required immediate survival responses. Those immediate responses initiate through the thalamus. Olfaction was useful to ancestral species for the immediate but indirect detection or predation of food sources, while gustatory or taste required species to have direct and perilous physical contact with those food sources. Smell made ancestral animals aware of potential food sources without physical risk and taste was likely adapted as these animals learned to mediate what smelled good by what was safe to consume.

Much like my opinion on political polls, I agree that small samplings are not always representative of larger groups. I believe we can both agree that flaws can be found in most if not all studies. However, as you may have preceived through our previous discussions, my thoughts about the thalamus doesn't hinge on single studies but rather the cumulative empirical evidences these studies appear to provide overall. As the author of this article assesses, these Beijing's findings offers support for the role of the thalamus--much like a single vote casted in some grand election. I agree and neither have I in my comments here. If you'll recall my initial comments, I said I beiieve the findings this article reveals support my thoughts on the "central role of the thalamus in the emergence of our sense of self." The article provides support for other research that details the dependence of cortical function on thalamic function. That research empirically details the neural path all sensory afference must traverse to reach our cerebrum. Every sensory neural pathway--other than olfactory--that fills our brain with data about our environment and self, converge at the thalamus first and it is the thalamus that relays or disseminates that data to the cerebrum. We derive our sense of self from the data our brain receives about our environment and self--and if it's the thalamus that disseminates that data, then why is it so difficult to believe that our sense of self emerges from or through the thalamus?

Although I believe your perspective has merit, I think the article speaks for itself by "offering new empirical support for theories that assign a central role to thalamic structures rather than cortical areas alone." I think that's a great question and, as I now consider, all organisms along the evolutionary chain were likely biologically driven by variance of homeostasis and any that acquired a response system sufficient to maintain homeostasis--neural or otherwise--may have been capable of evolving behaviors suggestive of intelligent awareness--awareness that distinguishes thoughtful behaviors from those we may perceive as instinctive.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/thalamic-nuclei-observed-driving-conscious-perception/ar-AA1Cx8yH?ocid=socialshare From the article: "Beijing Normal University-led researchers have identified specific high-order thalamic nuclei that drive human conscious perception by activating the prefrontal cortex. Their findings enhance understanding of how the brain forms conscious experience, offering new empirical support for theories that assign a central role to thalamic structures rather than cortical areas alone." This finding appears to abut nicely to my thoughts on the central role of the thalamus in the emergence of our sense of self.

Oh, I see. That article was just click bait for science readers. Thanks to you both, Swansont and Sohan!

I understood dark matter to be that undetectible matter whose gravitational effects are not explained by visible matter. If I now understand correctly, baryons are not that invisible matter? Just missing protons? Forgive my ignorance but aren't protons matter?

Greetings Astronomers, This may be an old subject but could you help me understand. Does this article suggests that dark matter is no longer dark? This article suggests that the baryonic gas found among the intergalactic medium--the space between galaxies--comprises 79% of our universe's missing matter. Am I reading that article correctly?

Hello All, I began this latest round of discussions declaring the thalamus as the likely brain structure from which our sense of self arises. If it wasn't clear from my previous comments, my reasoning behind this is the well established, empirical truth that all sensory roads to the upper regions of our central nervous system (CNS) lead initially to the thalamus. From the moment in vitro, when our CNS developes the capacity to receive sensory data, it is the thalamus that receives the initial impact of that data and distributes that sensory information to all regions of brain structure. Think about it for moment, everything that has a physical/materail impact on our sensory system is initially and primarily detected by the thalamus and what impacts us physically/materially is how we derive our physical/material sense of self. How we physically determine what we are and who are is dependent on our physical sensory and that sensory doesn't reach any region of the cerebrum without first impacting the thalamus; therefore, it is our thalamus that relays in total what impacts our physical sense of self and the thalamus that, uncontrovertibally and at a minimum, give rise to our physical sense of who and what we are. It's simple algebra--if a=b, and b=c, then a=c!

To clarify, science is a methodology by which objective evidence may be found that either supports or invalidates a hypothesis. The philosophy of consciousness suggest to me a perspective of consciousness that isn't grounded by the evidence good science provides. Espousing some fundamental nature of consciousness without a objective basis in science is philosophy and it's speculative at best, religion at worst. My definition for consciousness speak to an objective method in science for investigating and identifying whether an organism is aware, which is a quality essential for investigating whether an organism possesses that measure of consciousness that produces a mind. True, and my apologies if my comments implied that you did. I was merely conveying the voice of philosophy I hear whenever it speaks in a science forum. It really isn't difficult to understand anticipatory behaviors with an understanding of the likely path of our brain's evolution. Those behaviors are the effects our prefrontal cortex contributes to the thalmocortical loop--but I digress... The difference is that our thoughts and behaviors are exclusive to our central nervous system (CNS) rather kidney function. Kidney function regards what happens within that structure, while our CNS mediates what happens internal and external to the body. As Sohan Lalwani provided in earlier comments, its called the thalmocortical loop in which the thalamus is believed to "largely acts as a relay and modulator". It's well established and well researched. My comments were simplified and provided my perspective of how that loop operates. There is no first, second, or third party to that loop, merely the neural contributions and exchanges between the thalamus and the cerebrum that modulate our thoughts and mediates our behaviors. I welcome your continued interest.

If one is focused on the philosophy of consciousness rather than science of consciousness, then I understand why one may not understand how my definition of consciousness contributes to this discussion. The philosophy of consciousness, in my opinion, perceives consciousness as some singular operant of our being or some etheral, overriding sense of self that comprise our individuality or nature. The science of consciousness tells us that it is merely the measure of awareness suggested by an organism's responses to stimuli. My definition contributes this discussion on the science of consciousness in brain function because science informs us that an organism cannot be assessed as having consciousness without awareness and awareness cannot be assessed without observable behavioral responses to stimuli that suggest an organism is in fact measurably aware. A tenet of evolution suggests to me that those complex physical systems you've described that give rise to complex behaviors are adaptions that likely evolved from less complex, earlier systems. If that tenet is true, then science suggest that some trace of that evolution and those earlier system should be evident among contemporary brain structure and function. "I think; therefore, I am" is true but who would know that I or some other organism is possessed of any measure of consciousness without observable behaviors that, at a minimum, suggest that "I am"? This is important because understanding the nature and path of consciousness in brain function leads to an understanding of how that function creates a mind. As I have tried to convey, I perceive the responses of the brain to homoestasis instability as something akin to noise-cancelling; whereas, other organs reponses appear to employ entirely different processes. The thalamus incessantly disperses neural impulses to all areas of the cortex when impacted by sensory afference, which it is at all times. This creates continuous homeostasis imbalance. Simplistically, those areas receiving thalamic dispersals become neurally attuned to the frequency of those impulses, which is what I perceive as memory and learning, then those areas generate comparable neural impulses or feedback to the thalamus to effectively buffer or suppress the thalamus incessant impulses. That feedback become the thoughts and behaviors our thalamus ultimately execute in response to the sensory afference impacting it's neural function. Unlike kidney function, I perceive the waves of neural exchanges between the thalamus and the cerebrum as I do sound and the entire process as our brain's attempt to modulate the neural resonance impacting its system. I welcome your continued interest.

It appears that you've convinced yourself that consciousness is a "complicated phenomenon" That may be true for you but certainly not for anyone who has read and uderstood the definition for consciousness I provided in my openig comments to this discussion thread. The track I take to understanding consciousness in brain function involves the essence of that function, which involves its primary imperative--homeostasis. Understanding the complexity of the brain begins with evaluating and understanding the function of those basic components that comprise its workings. As I have tried to convey through various posts on this subject, sensory afference, thalamic function and homeostasis are key components of brain function. How these components work in concert to affect cerebral brain responses should comprise our understanding of the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors our brain function produces. You are responding here to my reply to theVat's posted opinion of not finding sufficient basis in my comments for my view of how homeostasis instability is any different in the brain than it is from other organs. The difference, as I tried to convey, is in the responses of the brain and of those other organs. As I explain, homeostasis instability is indeed a "global" concept with the added distinction that our brain responses to that instability produces thoughts and behaviors while other organs do not. Indeed, homeostasis is key to the function of every cell in our body but only our brain function produces thoughts and behaviors in response to homeostasis instability.

A few years ago, I wrote a book about the dreaming brain. In that book, I delivered a perspective of the thalamus basis on my research back then of the studies available. Here is a small list of those studies that help shape my current view of thalamic function, evolution of the dreaming brain, and brain function: Brad, P. “A Diencephalic Mechanism for the Expression of Rage with Special Reference to the Sympathetic Nervous System.” AJP (1928): 84: 490-515. Grill, H. J. and Norgren, R. “Neurological Tests and Behavioral Deficits in Chronic Thalamic and Chronic Decerebrate Rats.” Brain Res. (1978): 143(2): 299-312. Moore, J. W., Yeo, C. H., Oakley, D. A., and Russell, I. S. “Conditioned Inhibition of the Nictitating Membrane Response in Decorticate Rabbits.” Behav Brain Res. (1980): 1(5): 397-409. Oakley, D. A. “Performance of Decorticated Rats in a Two-Choice Visual Discrimination Apparatus.” Behav Brain Res. (1980): 3(1): 55-69. Shewmon, D. A., Holmes, G. L., and Byrne, P. A. “Consciousness In Congenitally Decorticate Children: Developmental Vegetative State As Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.” Dev Med Child Neurol, (1990): 41(6): 364-74. Skinner, D. M., Martin, G. M., Harley, C., Kolb, B., Pridgar, A., Bechara, A., and Van derKooy, D. “Acquisition of Conditional Discriminations in Hippocampal Lesioned and Decorticated Rats: Evidence for Learning That is Separate from Both Simple Classical Conditioning and Configural Learning.” Behav Neurosci. (1994): 108(5): 911-26. Whishaw, I. Q. “The Decorticate Rat,” in B. Kolb and R. C. Tees (eds.), The Cerebral Cortex of the Rat. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990. Whishaw, I. Q. and Kolb, B. “Decortication Abolishes Place but Not Cue Learning in Rats.” Behav Brain Res. (1984): 11(2): 123-34. Although not referenced for the book I mentioned, I recall several cat studies over the years (e,g,, Behaviors of chronically decerebrated kittens) that fueled my thoughts on the position of cortical function in our brain's hierarchy. Decerebrate studies like those involving cats support what have become my perspective of our brain's likely path of evolution. One basic tenet of evolution is that recent biological developments are likely evolved or adapted version of some earlier form. Relative to brain structure our cortex, as I view its evolution, is a more recent development than the thalamus. As a recent adaptation, our cortical functionality is more dependent on thalamic function than thalamic function relative to the cortex. This secondary status of our cortex relative to the thalamus explains why we may survive severe cortical damage but will die when our thalamus suffers similarly severe damage. The importance of our thalamus to our survival and brain function is further emphasized, in my view, by it's shielded position, within our cerebral hierarchy, surrounded by structures that may not imperil our survival if damaged as damage to the thalamus might. In my book, which I wouldn't recommend given how much my understanding of the dreaming brain has grown since then, I referred to the thalamus as a proto-brain remnant of our contemporary brain's evolution. With a right and left hemispherical cortical appearance, our thalamus likely function as the initial iteration of our contemporary brain. Relative to how current science theorize contemporary thalamic function, I have further thoughts but will hold them for now unless there's further interest.

Greetings, I see there's quite a bit here that's deserving of consideration and a thoughtful response, which I will attempt to do: If that feeling is based on the definition of consciousness I delivered in my opening statements to this discussion thread, I assure you a philosophy is not the essence I had hope to convey. As I thought I conveyed quite clearly in prior comments, I don't perceive or define consciousness as some transcendant quaility. I don't ascribe anything more to consciousness other than as the measure of sensory awareness I perceive as essential to the cognitive matrix of brain function that produces a mind. I did and I don't disagree. My compulsion is to find the essence of my choice of study and to build and convey my understanding from that essence. Perhaps it was my oversimplification that has caused some misperception. If I were using homeostasis to explain consciousness, in view of how I define consciousness, that explanation would have been about simple sensory awareness relative to brain function because sensory awareness is essentially all of what consciousness is to me. However, I agree that homeostasis is a global concept and process but, relative to behavioral expressions, it explains everything about what give rise to the brain functions that produce those expressions. Indeed, homeostasis is an imperative of every biological system. but what affects that imperative in the brain ultimately give rise to the behaviors our brain function engages and expresses. For example, consider the drug addicted brain and the behaviors the presences and absences of that drug causes. Empirically, illicit drugs can and do affect the homeostatic status of brain function, which can and does produce thoughts and behaviors centered around those drug. Similarly--and to my point--all senory afferrence bare the same homeostatic destabilizing affect, which can and does produce behaviors and thoughts centered around that afferrence. Also, in furtherance of my perspective, the afferrence our brains are exchanging through this discussion, similarly compells and propells our further discussions and is attributable to the affects of that afference on our brain's homeostatic status. I acknowledge your analogy, but what I'm asserting isn't about cell striving for energy but rather about neural responses to suppress destabilizing effects, which to me is similar to noise cancelling technology. I knew my comment would draw you in and your point is here is well made...I was just having a bit of fun. I couldn't agree more. Cognition is indeed a complex process. In my response to Eise, I talked about the affect of drugs and drug addiction. As for grounds, I've tried to convey how sensory experience is an energy draw that impacts homostasis in brain and the brain's responses to that impact is essential similar to addiction. What make homeostasis in the brain difference from other organs is that the brain responds to destabilization differently that other organs because its reponses produces thoughts and behaviors while other organs don't appear to do so. You are well studied and I cannot deny that thalamic function is more complex than I have commented here. Admittedly, I provided a simplistic view of the neural interplay between the thalamus and cortex to be more engaged by knowledgeable and less knowledgeable respondents to this discussion. However, there was something you stated here regarding the "thalamus largely acts as a relay and modulator rather than a generator of motor or behavioral responses." Much of what I understand about thalamic function is predicated decorticate and diencephalic animal studies, which suggest no cortical activity engages without a subcortical neural connection. I recall further stud[es which suggested decorticate animals at brith thrived and ambulated sufficiently without cortical structure. I will comment further, when I'm able to cite those studies here for your review. Until then, I welcome your continued interest.

Great! I was hoping someone would. You say that as though it's a bad thing. I preceive reductionism as cutting away the fat from a choice piece of meat or simply defining the key components of a simple equation. I disagree. Homeostasis provides and explains the foundation from which brain function and, ultimately, behavioral expression arises. Within the brain, processing sensory stimuli and information (afference) requires energy and that requirement impacts our brain's ability to maintain its metabolic stability. What our brain does in response to that destablizing impact of sensory afference is what ultimately manifests as emotion, thought, and behavioral expression. Wait...you're not a theVat sockpuppet are you???🤔 Consciousness...there goes that word again and, as I have often said, consciousness is nothing more to me than the awareness suggested by an organism's observable behavioral responses to stimuli. In my view, consciousness is merely a prerequisite for determining whether an organism has a mind, which is a quality I perceive as entirely distinct. However, since you've mentioned the "C" word here, I believe you mistook my perspective of the thalamus as where we may find some singular, etheral form of self. To clarify, thalamic function plays a singularly major role in how our sense of self manifest. As I have previously commented, our thalamus is the primary gateway into brain structure for neural afference and, as such, the thalamus is the primary brain structure that is initially impacted by that afference. The thalamus desperses that afferent impact along various neural pathways to various cortical regions throughout brain structure. In turn, those various cortical regions respond to that impact via their reciprocal neural connections. With the reciprocal responses the thalamus receives, it then executes or engages our response to the afference it is or has experienced. In this view, the role of the thalamus is to alert superior brain structures that it has been impacted and the role of those superior brain structure is to deliver feedback defining that impact and how the thalamus should execute a response to that impact. I welcome your continued interest.

Hello All, Just a final bit about the thalamus, which I believe is more important than most of us may realize. If I were asked where in the brain might we discover the structure that manifest our mental and physically sense of self, my answer would undoubtedly be the thalamus.

Hello All, I've been wanting to add a bit more to this discussion and so I shall by providing this perspective of thought relative to brain function. In prior statements, I talked about homeostasis as the basis of brain function and briefly how sensory stimuli affects our brain's effort to maintain its metabolic balance. The neural impact of afference (sensory) stimuli on the thalamus affects our brain's effort to maintain its metabolic balance. Our thalamus is the gateway through which sensory stimuli must traverse to reach the upper regions of our brain structure. Those regions respond by producing neural feedback sufficient to suppress the destablizing neural effects resonating from the thalamus. From the neural impact sensory stimuli appears to have on our neural gateway to upper brain structures, we may confidently conclude that thought is a product of the neural interplay between the thalamus and structutes of the brain exterior to the thalamus. More importantly, the neural impulses released by surrounding brain structures in response to thalamic neural resonance doesn't truly become thought until those impluses reach the thalamus. I welcome your response.

Agreed, my apologies.

Most definitions of consciousness describe some ethereal, unearthly quality, but your definition here is commendable because it encompasses attributes that are both testable and observable--self-awareness & environmental-awareness. Those attributes are certainly applicable to humans and I believe we can test and observe for their equivalency in many but not all subjects/objects of our observations. If we want to refine our tests and observations to include nearly all, shouldn't we refine our definition of consciousness to its testable and observable essence? The essence of consciousness isn't anything ethereal or unearthly and it's right there in your description. Strip away "self" and "environment" from your description and you will have "awareness", which is the essence of consciousness. Awareness is the essence of consciousness because we can test for its iterations in all species, but with one caveat--our test subjects must have the facility to engage observable behaviors. Without testable or observable behaviors there's no basis for our conclusions about a species' equivalency.

I agree; there's no understanding of consciousness without a foundation for reaching that understanding. Definitions based on faith, philosophies, and conjecture aren't a proper foundation because, imo, they reference notions and ideas that are either untestable or unobservable. Our spectulations about the nature of consciousness in other organisms invariably relate to the manifest nature of that quality in humans. Therefore, our definitions and basis for understanding consciousness should arise from our understanding of how that quality arises in humans. That understanding enables our ability to identify consciousness equivalency in other species.

When defining consciousness, shouldn't we begin by exploring and understand its human iteration? The only measure of consciousness that we as humans are capable of fully understanding is that measure expressed by humans because of the commonality share among humans in biology, physiology, and social experience. With humanity's iteration of consciousness as the basis for its definition, that definition should be predicated on some understanding of how human consciousness manifest. For my part in this discussion, I will not entertain any notion that human consciousness manifests without brain function and a nervous system stimulating that function. If we are assessing whether organisms as small as a bee possess's human equivalent consciousness, then we must assess the equivalency of a bee's central nervous system--but, I'm getting ahead of myself. My definition of consciousness is predicated on the empirical truth that human consciousness is a product or output of brain function. As an output of brain function, something else must occur before consciousness is produced. So, the question this raises is, what is that something? To make a much longer post short, brain output is a response to the input it receives via its connection to our nervous system. Consciousness in brain function does not occur without a neural network and the sensory awareness that connection provides--essentially, consciousness doesn't occur without awareness.