What's Changing? - Consciousness

Please see below selected recent consciousness-related change.

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November 2024

A scholarly review outlined the case for consciousness in early infancy. But the debate isn’t over. Since infants can’t tell us about their experiences - and adults typically cannot remember their own first year of life - firm evidence of when consciousness starts is hard to establish.

October 2024

Hundreds of scientists have been working since 2013 to map the intricacies of the neural networks in an adult female Drosophila melanogaster, which connect through 490 feet of wiring. The research is accompanied by reconstructions of the brain that illustrate how its myriad cells connect. The study is the most detailed map of an animal’s brain in existence.

September 2024

Ralph Ammer noted that consciousness is not “out there”, it is “in here“. Like pain, it is personal and subjective. When I say that I like squirrels or that my foot hurts, then you will have to take my word for it. You can’t know what it is like to be me, and I cannot know what it is like to be you. Consciousness can only be observed from the inside, not from the outside.

August 2024

David Mattin from New World Same Humans is convinced that it’s going to become a high-status, elite play to renounce phones, social media, and many other aspects of digital culture, as a reaction against a world of information abundance and always-on connection. Mattin sad: "If I’m right, we’ll see a growing divide between those who can afford to disconnect and those who must remain connected. Replete with material and cultural capital? Ditch your phone, delete X and Instagram, and luxuriate in the privilege that is Undistracted Human Consciousness. Need to pay the rent? Keep (doom)scrolling, and don’t worry too much about all those flame wars and ads: most of them are AI generated!"
One-quarter of people who are unresponsive after brain injuries are actually conscious. A first-of-its-kind study examined 353 people with brain injuries across four countries.

March 2024

Severe brain injuries can cause “disorders of consciousness” (DoC), such as vegetative states, in which a person looks awake, but lacks any indication they are aware of their surroundings, and comas, where they appear neither awake nor aware. An estimated 15-20% of people with a DoC are also experiencing a phenomenon called “cognitive motor dissociation”, or “hidden consciousness”, which means they are aware of what’s going on around them, but they can’t physically respond to it.

November 2023

The nature of consciousness and the existence of the self has been a long-standing debate in science and philosophy, with two main opposing views: the belief in a real, intrinsic self and the idea that the self is an illusion. Modern neuroscience suggests that the self is an informational entity that emerges from cognitive processes within the brain. This self is not material in the traditional sense but is nevertheless real and detectable. The acknowledgment of the self has profound implications for human experience, mental health, moral reasoning, and our overall comprehension of reality.
The science of consciousness is beset with philosophical difficulties and a scarcity of experimental data, so in 2023, when the results of a head-to-head experimental contest between two rival theories were announced, they were met with some fanfare. The results were inconclusive, with some favouring “integrated information theory” and others lending weight to the “global workspace theory”. The outcome was covered in both Science and Nature, as well as larger outlets including the New York Times and The Economist. A group of 124 consciousness scientists and philosophers – many of them leading figures in the field – then published an open letter attacking integrated information theory as “pseudoscience”; the letter generated an uproar.

October 2023

Researchers created the largest atlas of human brain cells so far, revealing more than 3,000 cell types - many of which are new to science. The work, published in a package of 21 papers in Science, Science Advances and Science Translational Medicine, will aid the study of diseases, cognition and what makes us human, among other things, according to the authors. Researchers have previously mapped the human brain using techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging, but this is the first atlas of the whole human brain at the single-cell level, showing its intricate molecular interactions.

June 2023

Plato described the human psyche as two horses and a charioteer: One horse represented instincts, the other represented emotions, and the charioteer was the rational mind that controlled them. Carl Sagan continued this idea of a three-layer, “triune brain” in his book The Dragons of Eden. Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett challenged this idea of the brain evolving in three layers, instead revealing a common brain plan shared by all mammals and vertebrates. However, despite advances in neuroscience and genetics, the question of why the brain evolved remains elusive, cautioned Big Think.
Meanwhile, a new scientific paradigm may be emerging that presents a radically different cosmic narrative. The big idea is that the Universe is not just an arbitrary physical system, but something more like an evolving computational or biological system - with properties strikingly similar to a complex adaptive system, like an organism or a brain.

May 2023

There is little consensus about when consciousness begins. Some endorse a "late onset" (well after birth), while others endorse an "early onset" (at or prior to birth). One line of research suggests that 35-week-old foetuses possess some level of consciousness. Whenever consciousness first emerges, it may do so in a form that is radically unlike that with which adults are familiar, leading Big Think to note that the bigger question might be: when does distinctively human consciousness begin?
Research suggested tat just a tiny part of the brain plays a key role in enabling consciousness. The findings might someday be used to bring people out of comas, treat consciousness disorders or ensure patients stay anesthetised during intensive procedures.

December 2022

Further reading:

June 2022

Further reading:
- Can Thoughts Exist Outside the Brain? - John Templeton Foundation
- Is your mind just a parasite on your physical body? - Big Think

May 2022

The Extended Mind by Annie Murphy Paul argued that the mind constructs our thought processes from the resources available outside the brain. These resources include the feelings and movements of our bodies; the physical spaces in which we learn and work; and the other minds with which we interact - our classmates, colleagues, teachers, supervisors, friends, while scientists, artists, authors; leaders, inventors, entrepreneurs all use the world as raw material for their trains of thought.

January 2022

In recent years, a body of experiments have shown that fungi operate as individuals, engage in decision-making, are capable of learning, and possess short-term memory. These findings highlight the spectacular sensitivity of such ‘simple’ organisms, and situate the human version of the mind within a spectrum of consciousness that might well span the entire natural world.

December 2020

Consciousness is seen as one of the top unsolved problems in science. Nothing we can observe about the arrangement of atoms constituting the brain allows us to deduce what it feels like to smell an orange, fall in love, or have a belly ache. The intractability of the problem has led some to even claim that consciousness doesn’t exist at all: Daniel Dennett and his followers argue that it is an illusion, whereas neuroscientist Michael Graziano proclaims that “consciousness doesn’t happen. It is a mistaken construct. The denial of phenomenal consciousness is called ‘eliminativism’ or ‘illusionism.’

July 2020

The problem of consciousness is one of the hardest facing science and philosophy today, noted IAI, adding that, in order to inquire fruitfully into this great problem, we first need to make sure we are asking the same question, and have an adequate initial clarification of what we are talking about. IAI adds that there are perhaps five leading ideas in the existing philosophy and science of consciousness: qualia; what it is like for something to be that thing; subjectivity; intentionality; and phenomenality. Each of these five ideas has advanced inquiry in different directions, but they have all failed to provide an initial clarification of the subject. They demonstrate the unfortunate fact that minds are not meeting - we seem concerned with different subjects.
A study from psychologists at Queen's University in Canada reported observations of the transition from one thought to another in fMRI brain scans. Though the researchers didn't detect the content of our thoughts, their method allowed them to count each one. Referred to as "thought worms," the team said that the average human has 6,200 thoughts per day. While we average 6,200 thought worms a day, the team anticipates further research tracking the manner in which the number of daily thoughts an individual has may change over the course of a lifetime and in investigating potential associations between how quickly a person jumps from one thought to another and other mental and personality traits.

May 2020

Is the brain a conscious control centre? Where is the mind? Many believe the mystery of consciousness will be solved once we understand the physical brain. Philosopher and author of I Am Not A Brain Markus Gabriel has challenged scientific complacency and argued for a different view of the self, the mind and human freedom.

August 2019

We are increasingly living in a world of belief-driven buyers, where two thirds of people will boycott a brand if they do not like the company’s stance on social or political issues, according to a worldwide study of 8,000 people in late-2018. Yet what people say and what they actually do are very different, which is forcing brands to explore technologies such as eye-tracking software, brain scans and reaction-time studies, and using ethnography for marketing and consumer research. The subconscious mind reportedly makes 95% of our decisions, so tapping into that is how organisations might drive behavioural change.

April 2019

The question of whether other brains - quite alien to our own, such as those of non-human animals – are capable of awareness, is just one of the many conundrums that arise when scientists start thinking about consciousness. When does an awareness of our own being first emerge in the brain? Why does it feel the way it does? And will computers ever be able to achieve the same internal life?

January 2019

The more scientists find out about the human brain, the more obvious many claim it becomes that who we are and what we do is the result of neural processes- chemistry and biology rather than any immaterial soul or spirit. According to some philosophers, this understanding is prompting a “neuroexistentialist” crisis. But they argue that we needn’t despair, and can even take solace in the knowledge. As Quartz explained, the philosophers argue that we should “make use of the knowledge and insights of the behavioural, cognitive, and neurosciences to satisfy our existential concerns and achieve some level of flourishing and fulfilment".

October 2018

We seem to make constant progress in understanding the world and yet the biggest questions from the nature of consciousness to the nature of matter remain unsolved. An IAI debate asked therefore: can we ever have a complete description of reality? Are we mistaken to assume that such questions can be answered? Might the solutions be beyond us or is the world itself beyond description? Or round the corner are the world's secrets to be found?

July 2018

Consciousness is a deep puzzle. There was hope that neuroscience might find some answers. But we still have no explanation for where brain activity ends and experience begins. Is it a mistake to think we can explain consciousness by examining the brain? Should we look elsewhere to our evolutionary roots perhaps? Or might neuroscience pull the cat from the bag after all, asked the Institute for Arts and Ideas.
A neuroengineer predicted the next 100 years in neuroscience, envisioning strange and sometimes frightening innovations that may be the key to understanding and treating brain disease - such as lasers that drill tiny holes in our skulls and probes to study the electrical activity of our neurons.

June 2018

Prospect argued that even physicists are denied access to the holiest of holies: human consciousness. The anointed guardians of this sacred space are neuroscientists. Almost everyone now knows that the brain is the organ of thought and feeling, making those who study it the closest people we have to experts on the human soul.
A neuroscientist wrote in his new book, The Consciousness Instinct: Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind, quoting the linguist Noam Chomsky, that consciousness is a “word worn smooth by a million tongues.” Consciousness, he claimed, “is the word we use to describe the subjective feeling of a number of instincts and/or memories playing out in time in an organism.” Whatever captures our attention at that moment is therefore what exists in our consciousness, claimed Big Think.
The inner life of plants arouses the passions of even the mildest-mannered naturalists. A debate over plant consciousness and intelligence has raged in scientific circles for well over a century—at least since Charles Darwin observed in 1880 that stressed-out flora can’t rest.There’s no doubt that plants are extremely complex, noted Quartz. Biologists believe that plants communicate with one another, fungi, and animals by releasing chemicals via their roots, branches, and leaves. Plants also send seeds that supply information, working as data packets. They even sustain weak members of their own species by providing nutrients to their peers, which indicates a sense of kinship.

Pre 2018

Will the technology of mind uploading will eventually become universally adopted by all who can afford it, similar to the adoption of modern agriculture, hygiene, or living in houses?
In 2011, philosopher Raymond Tallis and RSA CEO Matthew Taylor debated competing claims about the ability of neuroscience to explain behaviour, culture and society. Tallis argued that recent "mania" for putting neuro- in front of concepts as diverse as aesthetics and law is based on a reductionist overestimation of our current understanding of the brain. Tallis also argued that e.g. fMRI scans are a necessary, but not a sufficient explanation of everything we feel, from anger to love, and made the intriguing, if rather scientifically problemetic claim that such feelings actually stem from a collective "community of minds" - i.e. more from nurture than from nature.
The ability to read others' thoughts may have taken a step closer to reality with the news that a group of neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, reported they may have come up with a scientific way to read people’s minds.

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