Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[psyreporter]

Baby born without a brain amazes doctors by celebrating his second birthday - and says 'mummy' for the first time
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/arti ... -time.html

With his lack of a brain, he wouldn’t be expected to giggle when someone is near, play with others, open presents, or watch TV, and he especially should not be able to talk. Even after all of these years of beating the odds and surviving without a brain he should have no more mental function than a newborn, this is an aspect of his case that continues to confound the medical community. One doctor, a Jill Yaz, from the Association for Spina Bifidia and Hydrocephalus, has said of Aaron Murray’s miraculous condition:

What is remarkable about this case is that the [scientific community believes that the] brain stem doesn’t control our thinking or consciousness, so the fact that he can do things like giggle and smile and say words like ‘Mummy’ as a baby is fascinating. There is no known explanation for it. I’ve never seen anything like this brain scan in 20 years. It is remarkable that he has managed to survive and say ‘Mummy’ for the first time – it shows how little we really understand about how the human body works. And the body can surprise us and do remarkable things.

Miraculous Cases of People Who Lived Without a Brain
https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2017/07/ ... t-a-brain/

(2020) Carl Jung on the possibility of consciousness without a brain
… Henri Bergson is quite right when he thinks of the possibility of relatively loose connection between the brain and consciousness, because despite of our ordinary experience the connection might be less tight than we suppose. There is no reason why one shouldn’t suppose that consciousness could exist detached from a brain . . . the real difficulty begins … when you should prove that there is consciousness without a brain. It would amount to the hitherto unproven fact of an evidence that there are ghosts.

I think that this is the most difficult thing in the world to create an evidence in that respect entirely satisfactory from a scientific point of view . How can one establish an indisputable evidence of a consciousness without a brain?

I might be satisfied if such a consciousness would be able to write an intelligent book, invent new apparatuses, provide us with new information that couldn’t possibly be found in human brains, and if it were evident that there would be no high power medium among the spectators.
https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blo ... t-a-brain/

[Consul]

Baby born without a brain amazes doctors by celebrating his second birthday - and says 'mummy' for the first time
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/arti ... -time.html

With his lack of a brain, he wouldn’t be expected to giggle when someone is near, play with others, open presents, or watch TV, and he especially should not be able to talk. Even after all of these years of beating the odds and surviving without a brain he should have no more mental function than a newborn, this is an aspect of his case that continues to confound the medical community. One doctor, a Jill Yaz, from the Association for Spina Bifidia and Hydrocephalus, has said of Aaron Murray’s miraculous condition:

What is remarkable about this case is that the [scientific community believes that the] brain stem doesn’t control our thinking or consciousness, so the fact that he can do things like giggle and smile and say words like ‘Mummy’ as a baby is fascinating. There is no known explanation for it. I’ve never seen anything like this brain scan in 20 years. It is remarkable that he has managed to survive and say ‘Mummy’ for the first time – it shows how little we really understand about how the human body works. And the body can surprise us and do remarkable things.

That baby isn't brainless, because the brain stem is part of the brain, and brainlessness requires a complete absence of brain tissue. Moreover, "the fact that he can do things like giggle and smile and say words like ‘Mummy’" doesn't prove that he is a subject of phenomenal consciousness. Actually, I doubt that his extremely underdeveloped brain can realize phenomenally conscious states.

[Sy Borg]

Baby born without a brain amazes doctors by celebrating his second birthday - and says 'mummy' for the first time
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/arti ... -time.html

With his lack of a brain, he wouldn’t be expected to giggle when someone is near, play with others, open presents, or watch TV, and he especially should not be able to talk. Even after all of these years of beating the odds and surviving without a brain he should have no more mental function than a newborn, this is an aspect of his case that continues to confound the medical community. One doctor, a Jill Yaz, from the Association for Spina Bifidia and Hydrocephalus, has said of Aaron Murray’s miraculous condition:

What is remarkable about this case is that the [scientific community believes that the] brain stem doesn’t control our thinking or consciousness, so the fact that he can do things like giggle and smile and say words like ‘Mummy’ as a baby is fascinating. There is no known explanation for it. I’ve never seen anything like this brain scan in 20 years. It is remarkable that he has managed to survive and say ‘Mummy’ for the first time – it shows how little we really understand about how the human body works. And the body can surprise us and do remarkable things.

That baby isn't brainless, because the brain stem is part of the brain, and brainlessness requires a complete absence of brain tissue. Moreover, "the fact that he can do things like giggle and smile and say words like ‘Mummy’" doesn't prove that he is a subject of phenomenal consciousness. Actually, I doubt that his extremely underdeveloped brain can realize phenomenally conscious states.

I would say that recognising one's mother and associating a word to symbolise the mother looks like consciousness to me. The child is not looking at Mummy and referring to her when he is asleep. Even parroting the word without understanding its association takes some level of cognition.

To me, this looks like a case of brain elasticity, where the functions of missing brain parts are taken over by existing brain parts.

[Consul]

I would say that recognising one's mother and associating a word to symbolise the mother looks like consciousness to me. The child is not looking at Mummy and referring to her when he is asleep. Even parroting the word without understanding its association takes some level of cognition.
To me, this looks like a case of brain elasticity, where the functions of missing brain parts are taken over by existing brain parts.

As you know, the word "consciousness" is ambiguous, there being a distinction between phenomenal consciousness and perceptual (or cognitive) consciousness. The latter doesn't entail the former; so even if that baby has some form of perceptual (cognitive) consciousness, it doesn't follow that it also has some form of phenomenal consciousness.

"[S]ophisticated, flexible, sensorimotor behavior in humans can be guided by perceptions that are unconscious."

(Carruthers, Peter. Human and Animal Minds: The Consciousness Questions Laid to Rest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. p. 68)

(By "unconscious" he means "phenomenally unconscious".)

[Papus79]

Talking about this (and seeing it veer in the direction of 'missing cerebral cortex'), has anyone heard any of Mark Solms's lecture on the notion that consciousness is really a product of certain structures in the mid-brain? He has a series of patients that he discusses who either have very little left but verbal center (the 'dogs ate the chicken' guy) as well as the emotional responses of children who were born without cerebral cortex (in the context those who are too handicapped to speak). He also often goes in further about emotion being a homeostasis and self-balancing mechanism, something that makes a lot of sense from my experience.

[psyreporter]

That baby isn't brainless, because the brain stem is part of the brain, and brainlessness requires a complete absence of brain tissue. Moreover, "the fact that he can do things like giggle and smile and say words like ‘Mummy’" doesn't prove that he is a subject of phenomenal consciousness. Actually, I doubt that his extremely underdeveloped brain can realize phenomenally conscious states.

You are factually correct and that argument has been the primary defense since the start of the topic for the idea that consciousness originates in the brain, however, one could argue that 'a' equels one equals oneness.

When up to 50% brain tissue is missing, one could argue that someone has half a brain. When up to 70% is missing, one could argue 'with most of the brain missing' and when 90% or more brain tissue is missing, it may be most applicable to argue that someone has no brain.

The tiny parts of brain tissue that remain could be seen as a few remaining toes when a complete feet is missing. It would then not be logical to maintain that it cannot be said that someone has no feet.

The reason that the defense is made to maintain that 5-10% brain tissue is to be considered 'a brain' is primarily to maintain the belief that consciousness, or a specific qualitative variant thereof (phenomenally conscious states), is 'caused' in the brain.

The following philosophy blog by philosophy professor Gualtiero Piccinini addresses phenomenal consciousness without cerebral cortex.

Phenomenal Consciousness without Cerebral Cortex?
Contrary to what many doctors apparently assume, there is overwhelming evidence that hydranencephalic children, who lack a cerebral cortex, are creature conscious in a robust sense.
http://philosophyofbrains.com/2007/05/2 ... ortex.aspx

To me, this looks like a case of brain elasticity, where the functions of missing brain parts are taken over by existing brain parts.

It is brain plasticity or neuroplasticity However, when it concerns 95% missing brain tissue, the concept 'plasticity' as it is known in neurology may not cover the phenomenon.

[Sy Borg]

Yes, plasticity, thanks. Never mind me. Just another old fart losing her marbles.

[psyreporter]

Yes, plasticity, thanks. Never mind me. Just another old fart losing her marbles.

Nice new avatar btw! Does it include a picture of you and an animal?

[Sy Borg]

Yes, plasticity, thanks. Never mind me. Just another old fart losing her marbles.

Nice new avatar btw! Does it include a picture of you and an animal?

I just applied some PS filters to the old one and, yes, I snuck tiny images of those two animals in there :)

[NickGaspar]

I would say that recognising one's mother and associating a word to symbolise the mother looks like consciousness to me. The child is not looking at Mummy and referring to her when he is asleep. Even parroting the word without understanding its association takes some level of cognition.
To me, this looks like a case of brain elasticity, where the functions of missing brain parts are taken over by existing brain parts.

As you know, the word "consciousness" is ambiguous, there being a distinction between phenomenal consciousness and perceptual (or cognitive) consciousness. The latter doesn't entail the former; so even if that baby has some form of perceptual (cognitive) consciousness, it doesn't follow that it also has some form of phenomenal consciousness.

"[S]ophisticated, flexible, sensorimotor behavior in humans can be guided by perceptions that are unconscious."

(Carruthers, Peter. Human and Animal Minds: The Consciousness Questions Laid to Rest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. p. 68)

(By "unconscious" he means "phenomenally unconscious".)

Since the Ascending Reticular Acrivating System (ARAS) is located at the brain stem and its known for its role in our conscious state , its not surprising at all that such cases can display conscious behavior.

The following paper explains our early understanding of the role of this brain module in conscious awareness of our environment and mental stimuli.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3722571/

[NickGaspar]

Scientific knowledge is needed before philosophizing in favor of the supernatural ontology of a hypothetical substance.
Here is some basic knowledge.

The scientific Position is clear. Conscious behavior and mind properties in general are enabled by our brain states. The working hypothesis have being verified beyond the level of Strong Correlations.
A brain(independent of size) is a Sufficient and Necessary condition for mind properties to emerge and be observed.
Science , the last 10 years have discovered amazing things on how the brain does what it does.

neurobiology of consciousness
1.https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/neuro ... -explained

Monkey brain study reveals the 'engine of consciousness'
https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/tiny- ... sciousness

CMU Scientists Harness “Mind Reading” Technology to Decode Complex Thoughts (we have direct access to the content of subjective complex conscious thoughts).
https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news- ... ughts.html

Anil K Seth It looks like scientists and philosophers might have made consciousness far more mysterious than it needs to be (why the hard problem of consciousness is not a real problem)
https://aeon.co/essays/the-hard-problem ... e-real-one

The Brain Network Driving Changes in Consciousness
https://neurosciencenews.com/consciousn ... ork-17491/

A great podcast on the competing theories on consciousness in science by Ginger Cambell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGwOfSKmo_I&t=

An basic Academic Mooc on what is a Mind and how the brain produces such properties.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/what-is-a-mind

the best data base for peer reviewed studies on the brain and how it works.
https://neurosciencenews.com/?s=how+does+the+brain

[Sy Borg]

All that science is very impressive but the fact remains that researchers have *no idea whatsoever* how consciousness comes about.

I repeat - no one has the slightest idea how consciousness comes about. There are many impressive guesses, and they are all just that - guesses. IIT seems promising, but the configurations needed to "turn on the lights" is unknown. By that, I mean completely unknown.

If you gave any researcher the brief to create a conscious mind, the honest ones would have no idea where to start and the rest would construct a machine that imitates the responses of animals, that pretends to be conscious.

The example was obviously a case of brain plasticity. It's not as though the brain stem is normally responsible for speech. New structures clearly emerges, enabling the baby to (at least) parrot the word "Mummy". I am also open to the idea that other structures can perform equivalent functions of the brain in simple organisms. Not so long ago it was believed that birds lacked the cognition of mammals due to a lack of a cerebral cortex. It never occurred to anyone form many years that the pallium would perform the same function.

Two papers published today in Science find birds actually have a brain that is much more similar to our complex primate organ than previously thought. For years it was assumed that the avian brain was limited in function because it lacked a neocortex. In mammals, the neocortex is the hulking, evolutionarily modern outer layer of the brain that allows for complex cognition and creativity and that makes up most of what, in vertebrates as a whole, is called the pallium. The new findings show that birds’ do, in fact, have a brain structure that is comparable to the neocortex despite taking a different shape. It turns out that at a cellular level, the brain region is laid out much like the mammal cortex, explaining why many birds exhibit advanced behaviors and abilities that have long befuddled scientists. The new work even suggests that certain birds demonstrate some degree of consciousness.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... e-thought/

[popeye1945]

Personally, I believe the whole body is consciousness, the body produced the brain the brain did not produce the body. The brain is a secondary organ in serves to the body. If one is looking for the origins of consciousness it is a really good idea to look to the body. How did the community of organisms work together to affect a mind? I think what one is looking at is a community consciousness affecting a centre of organization which we call the brain. It a community project.

[NickGaspar]

All that science is very impressive but the fact remains that researchers have *no idea whatsoever* how consciousness comes about.

I repeat - no one has the slightest idea how consciousness comes about. There are many impressive guesses, and they are all just that - guesses. IIT seems promising, but the configurations needed to "turn on the lights" is unknown. By that, I mean completely unknown.

If you gave any researcher the brief to create a conscious mind, the honest ones would have no idea where to start and the rest would construct a machine that imitates the responses of animals, that pretends to be conscious.

The example was obviously a case of brain plasticity. It's not as though the brain stem is normally responsible for speech. New structures clearly emerges, enabling the baby to (at least) parrot the word "Mummy". I am also open to the idea that other structures can perform equivalent functions of the brain in simple organisms. Not so long ago it was believed that birds lacked the cognition of mammals due to a lack of a cerebral cortex. It never occurred to anyone form many years that the pallium would perform the same function.

Two papers published today in Science find birds actually have a brain that is much more similar to our complex primate organ than previously thought. For years it was assumed that the avian brain was limited in function because it lacked a neocortex. In mammals, the neocortex is the hulking, evolutionarily modern outer layer of the brain that allows for complex cognition and creativity and that makes up most of what, in vertebrates as a whole, is called the pallium. The new findings show that birds’ do, in fact, have a brain structure that is comparable to the neocortex despite taking a different shape. It turns out that at a cellular level, the brain region is laid out much like the mammal cortex, explaining why many birds exhibit advanced behaviors and abilities that have long befuddled scientists. The new work even suggests that certain birds demonstrate some degree of consciousness.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... e-thought/

Well your statement "researchers have *no idea whatsoever* how consciousness comes about." is correct to a point.
First of all this problem exists in all emergent properties in nature, not just conscious states of a brain.
Its the disconnection of the "qualities" displayed by the causal mechanism and the emerged phenomenon that doesn't allow us to be completely knowledgeable.
i.e Gravity, we still haven't pin point its ontology even if we have identify the necessary and sufficient mechanism.(particle, emergent quality ?etc).
I think this is as far as we can go in describing the mechanisms responsible for any emergent property.
We just observe the causal mechanism and establish strong correlations with the produced phenomenon.
In reality we can not prove anything, we just identify the Necessary and Sufficient conditions for a phenomenon to emerge.
We may even stare the actual cause in the face but because of the emergent quality of the phenomenon we will always believe we miss something!

Sure in the complex case of brain states we have some more descriptive work to do in order to identify all the mechanisms of the system.
But we do know way to many thing to even have a discussion under the Opening Question of this thread.
i.e.We can arouse a specific brain area of patients (central lateral thalamus) who are under general anesthesia and bring them in to a conscious states where they are aware of all environmental stimuli without any signs of the side effects of the drug!!!. We can diagnose loss of consciousness (or a specific quality of it) based on the injury of a specific brain module and we can tell when a guy is conscious and what is the conscious content of a specific thought through fMRI scanning. Sure we have some miss fires now and then, but we can never claim absolute knowledge or absolute uniformity in complex biological systems.
So we don't really need to "build" an machine to imitate consciousness in order to say that we understand the neurology of our conscious states.
Like in Gravity, or mitosis, or photosynthesis or digestion, we just have to describe the causal mechanisms and produce testable predictions and technical applications.

I don't know why we need a paper to tell us something so obvious...that birds have some degree of consciousness!
All that sensory input of stimuli (eyes,hearing, smell,touch) need to be consciously processed, categorized and retrieved under different conditions.
We know birds interact and learn their environment and their behavior can be affected by previous experiences/They even display superstitious behavior because of their learning abilities and they need to deal with a chaotic environment!
If we "make the mistake" and decide to talk about crows, then we are dealing with puzzle solving machines capable to grasp "meaning", see purpose and intention(mind theory) and develop different "culture" within different populations.
I think people confuse conscious states with conscious content of a state and that is also a problem in the different scientific definitions of consciousness!
It is a fact that a bird can prioritize an important stimuli and process it nature and quality consciously based on inputs from other areas of its brain responsible for i.e. memory, pattern recognition, urges and emotions,social behavior.
In humans thought our conscious content is enriched by our ability to use symbolic language and reason our emotions in to feelings allowing us to introduce way deeper meaning and high number of concepts.
Consciousness is the third most important mind property (According to Cognitive Science and Neuropsychoanalysis) after Awakeness and Unconscious Self awareness. This is an other huge problem. Most people who participate in discussions like this one aren't able to distinguish consciousness from the rest of the properties of the mind or the mind it self. So in order to even talk about what consciousness is or how it emerges, we need to define the different aspects and qualities of the phenomenon and understand what other people mean by that word.

[NickGaspar]

Personally, I believe the whole body is consciousness, the body produced the brain the brain did not produce the body. The brain is a secondary organ in serves to the body. If one is looking for the origins of consciousness it is a really good idea to look to the body. How did the community of organisms work together to affect a mind? I think what one is looking at is a community consciousness affecting a centre of organization which we call the brain. It a community project.

That is a really vague use of words and it is in direct conflict with our epistemology. First you need to define what the word consciousness means to you.
Then you need point to the phenomenon that conscious is responsible of and identify the causal mechanism that enables it.
Again your approach and description has zero epistemic or instrumental value.