Complex Numbers

Pros and Consciousness

If you're not conscious, this article isn't for you.

    The nature of consciousness, and how to enjoy it while you can  
In his new book, Christof Koch views consciousness as a theorist and an aficionado.

Well, I guess he's solved the Hard Problem,   then.

Now, with AI systems behaving in strikingly conscious-looking ways, it is more important than ever to get a handle on who and what is capable of experiencing life on a conscious level.

Oh, that's an easy one. Only I experience life on a conscious level. The rest of you, including the AIs, only mimic actual consciousness.

Solipsism makes everything simpler.

Koch, a physicist, neuroscientist, and former president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, has spent his career hunting for the seat of consciousness, scouring the brain for physical footprints of subjective experience.

So, okay, someone with credentials, and not just some guy (like me). Doesn't mean he's right, mind you (pun intended), but it does mean it catches my interest.

It turns out that the posterior hot zone...

Posterior hot zone? Seriously? That's what you geeks are going with? You're just begging for it, aren't you? Okay, I'll bite: "Scarlett Johansson has a gorgeous posterior hot zone."

(In reality, I don't find asses to be attractive. But that's never stopped me from making jokes.)

Seriously, though, shouldn't they have looked up those words in their handy Latin dictionaries and called it that, like they do with most chunks of anatomy? Google tells me it's "calidum zona," because I haven't had an actual Latin course in 40 years.

Moving on...

...a region in the back of the neocortex, is intricately connected to self-awareness and experiences of sound, sight, and touch.

This ties in with what I believed to be the reason for consciousness: the nervous system had to evolve in such a way as to integrate sensory experiences, and those mechanisms got hijacked into "awareness." But I'm just some guy, so you shouldn't take that seriously.

Dense networks of neocortical neurons in this area connect in a looped configuration; output signals feedback into input neurons, allowing the posterior hot zone...

Snort.

...to influence its own behavior. And herein, Koch claims, lies the key to consciousness.

Makes sense, sure, but has he, or anyone else, done the science to back that up?

This declaration matches the experimental evidence Koch presents in Chapter 6: Injuries to the cerebellum do not eliminate a person’s awareness of themselves in relation to the outside world.

Okay, so there is some support.

His impeccably written descriptions are peppered with references to philosophers, writers, musicians, and psychologists—Albert Camus, Viktor Frankl, Richard Wagner, and Lewis Carroll all make appearances, adding richness and relatability to the narrative.

I mean, that's probably good writing; I'm not sure it's good science. As this is basically a book ad, though, I can cope.

The takeaway from the first half of Then I Am Myself the World is that IIT might offer the best-fit explanation for consciousness—a view, it’s worth mentioning, that is highly contested by many other neuroscientists.

Good. That's how science gets done.

Koch discusses transformative states of consciousness in the second half of his book, including near-death, psychedelic, and mystical experiences.

Aaaaaand that's not.

He also discusses the expansive benefits of sustained exercise—drawing upon his personal experiences as a bicyclist and rock climber—through which a person can enter “the zone.”

The zone? You're telling us how to enter the posterior hot zone?

Koch suggests that exercise, meditation, and the occasional guided psychedelic might be beneficial to many people.

Jokes aside, he's not the first scientist to come up with that nugget. Timothy Leary comes to mind, though it's arguable whether psychologists are real scientists.

Oh, and no, he didn't solve the Hard Problem of anything except "how to market your book." Nevertheless, I found this review/ad interesting enough to share. Even if he is talking out of his posterior hot zone.