Varieties of evolved forms of consciousness, including mathematical consciousness

I shall introduce a complex, apparently unique, cross-disciplinary approach to understanding consciousness, especially ancient forms of mathematical consciousness, based on joint work with Jackie Chappell (Birmingham Biosciences) on the Meta-Configured Genome (MCG) theory. All known forms of consciousness (apart from recent very simple AI forms) are products of biological evolution, in some cases augmented by products of social, or technological evolution. Forms of consciousness differ between organisms with different sensory mechanisms, needs and abilities; and in complex animals can vary across different stages of development before and after birth or hatching or pupation, and before or after sexual and other kinds of maturity (or senility). Those forms can differ across individuals with different natural talents and environments, some with and some without fully functional sense organs or motor control functions (in humans: hearing, sight, touch, taste, smell, proprioception and other senses), along with mechanisms supporting meta-cognitive functions such as recollection, expectation, foreboding, error correction, and so forth, and varying forms of conscious control differing partly because of physical differences, such as conjoined twins sharing body parts. Forms of consciousness can also differ across individuals in different cultures with different shared theories, and social practices (e.g., art-forms, musical traditions, religions, etc.). There are many unanswered questions about such varieties of consciousness in products of biological evolution. Most of the details are completely ignored by most philosophers and scientists who focus only on a small subset of types of human consciousness—resulting in shallow theories. Immanuel Kant was deeper than most, though his insights, especially insights into mathematical consciousness tend to be ignored by recent philosophers and scientists, for bad reasons. This paper, partly inspired by Turing’s 1952 paper on chemistry-based morphogenesis, supporting William James’ observation that all known forms of consciousness must have been products of biological evolution in combination with other influences, attempts to provide (still tentative and incomplete) foundations for a proper study of the variety of biological and non-biological forms of consciousness, including the types of mathematical consciousness identified by Kant in 1781

Can Computers overcome Humans? Consciousness interaction and its implications

Can computers overcome human capabilities? This is a paradoxical and controversial question, particularly because there are many hidden assumptions. This article focuses on that issue putting on evidence some misconception related with future generations of machines and the understanding of the brain. It will be discussed to what extent computers might reach human capabilities, and how it could be possible only if the computer is a conscious machine. However, it will be shown that if the computer is conscious, an interference process due to consciousness would affect the information processing of the system. Therefore, it might be possible to make conscious machines to overcome human capabilities, which will have limitations as well as humans. In other words, trying to overcome human capabilities with computers implies the paradoxical conclusion that a computer will never overcome human capabilities at all, or if the computer does, it should not be considered as a computer anymore.Comment: 16th IEEE Cognitive Informatics and Cognitive Computing preprint, 8 pages; Added references and short discussion for section

The lateral habenula is required for maternal behavior in the mouse dam

One of evolution’s key demands is: survive long enough to reproduce. But mammals extend this single demand to also include parenthood, to improve the chances their own offspring also survive long enough to reproduce themselves. Parenthood is a long-term commitment requiring immense energy expenditures by the parent to see the young through to maturity. To maintain motivation for such a monumental task, parenting must be innately rewarding. How did evolution tap into reward circuits to motivate parenting? Previous work in the rat has implicated the lateral habenula (LHb), a conserved epithalamic nucleus, as a potential neuroanatomical intersection of parenting and reward circuitry. In this dissertation, I examine the role of the LHb in maternal behavior in the naturally parturient mouse dam (mother). I show that kainic acid lesions produced a severe maternal neglect phenotype in the primiparous mouse dam towards her litter. Then I show chronic chemogenetic inactivation of LHb using inhibitory designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs (DREADDs) in mouse dams impaired maternal behavior in DREADD-treated dams compared to control- treated dams. Using a random intercepts linear mixed model for longitudinal maternal behavior, I conducted an in-depth comparison of group performance in pup retrieval and nest building. These two behaviors were chosen as examples of a novel component of maternal behavior, and an already-established maternal behavior, respectively. Finally, I examine spatial histology data from both sets of experiments and examine evidence suggesting posterior LHb may house the ii maternally-relevant cells, in an effort to provide a foothold for future work examining maternal behavior regulation in the LHb. In the methods chapter, I describe an open-source home cage behavior data collection and analysis pipeline called Raspberry Pi Experiment (PiE), that I developed together with Dr. Robert Cudmore. Beginning with a physical 24” x 24” x 24” box, and then detailing the work conducted enabling any neuroscientist, regardless of coding background, to purchase a raspberry pi and wire their own home cage behavior box. With a user-configurable approach and the use of affordable and accessible supplies, an alternative to proprietary behavior boxes is detailed. Exemplar maternal behavior data is presented following data capture, scoring, and analysis using PiE

Experimental dynamic characterization of meta-configured structures for aerospace applications

Drawing inspiration from acoustic metamaterials, meta-configuration as a means to improve coactive mechanisms between sub-structures to enhance overall structural performance is investigated with a primary focus on aerospace applications. Two prototypical meta-configured structures for dynamic load manipulation were designed, constructed and experimentally characterized. The first of these is a directional wave guide (DWG) that utilizes tailored spatio-spectral band gap regions to selectively attenuate or propagate frequency components within tunable bandwidths along designated paths. Finite element simulations were performed to evaluate designs for various resonator sub-structures and their patterning within a plate-type wave guide. Relative band structures for the resonators were tuned to span a frequency range from 16 to 20 kHz. The DWG is fabricated by chemically etching a patterned array of cantilever beam-type resonators on a 50-micron thick brass sheet. A custom test-rig consisting of an adjustable mount with low-stiffness boundary, piezo-actuator and a mechanically-staged laser vibrometer was used to conduct the experiments. Overall, reasonable correlation is indicated for the designed versus measured extents for the band gap frequency ranges along each path, although further detuning of global modes and minimization of resonator and boundary variability would help improve correlation. The second prototypical structure investigated is a passive-adaptive tuned vibration absorber (TVA). In contrast to conventional TVAs which are tuned to absorb vibrations within a preset bandwidth, the passive-adaptive TVA would be able to self-tune based solely on the input excitation to deliver appreciable absorption spanning larger bandwidths. An approach based on a riding mass retained under spring force on a cantilever beam resonator is explored for a low-frequency (~40-80 Hz) passive-adaptive TVA. Test articles with various configurations for the riding mass attachment were constructed and dynamically characterized using non-contact transduction techniques. An increase of about 55% over the mass-equivalent, conventional TVA's absorption bandwidth is obtained for the passive-adaptive TVA without altering its lower bound. These results indicate that meta-configured structures may provide improved solutions in applications such as isolation of payloads from structure-borne vibrations having a meandering dominant frequency content

Wright State University\u27s Celebration of Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities Book of Abstracts from Friday, April 21, 2017

The student abstract booklet is a compilation of abstracts from students\u27 oral and poster presentations at Wright State University\u27s Annual Celebration of Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities on April 21, 2017.https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/urop_celebration/1024/thumbnail.jp

Resource acquisition and allocation in mountain bluebirds (Sialia currucoides)

The strategic allocation of resources to maximize fitness is the organizing principle shaping the evolution of life histories. The physiology and behaviour of animals is a manifestation of trade-offs in resource allocation among traits and activities that benefit current or future reproduction. In theory, traits subject to such trade-offs are expected to show negative correlations, but numerous field studies have documented apparent contradictions to theoretical expectations: in some populations, parental effort (allocation to current reproduction) and reproductive performance (i.e., a fitness component) are not negatively correlated to self-maintenance (allocation to future reproduction). One explanation for such findings is that inter-individual variation in resource acquisition can obscure trade-offs by altering the overall quantity of resources individuals are able to invest. Acquisition may influence both the quantity of resources allocated in trade-offs as well as reproductive success. Asymmetries in acquisition may be the product of differences in intrinsic quality (individual phenotypes) and/or environmental factors (territory quality). In a population of breeding mountain bluebirds (Sialia currucoides), I sought to determine how resource acquisition varied, and to identify how it may affect life-history trade-offs and reproductive performance. In my research, I used several lines of inquiry to characterize how resource acquisition varies and affects trade-offs in the study population. First, I showed that offspring quality, a contributor to fitness, is influenced by the types of prey nestling bluebirds are fed by their parents, and that the resources parents provide to their broods vary seasonally and as their nestlings age. Next, I used a short-term manipulation of brood age to find that parents have limited flexibility in their capacity to acquire resources while provisioning broods, which may be due to intrinsic or extrinsic constraints. I then identified relationships among the landscape characteristics of breeding territories (extrinsic factors, potentially influencing acquisition) and the reproductive performance of bluebirds, over an 11-year period. These characteristics, elevation and distance to forest edges, are subsequently linked to differences in microclimate, microhabitat, and parental prey use, providing a partial explanation for why occupancy and reproductive success are spatially clustered and consistent over time. Finally, I used a brood size manipulation to induce changes in parental effort, revealing that acquisition (quantified as both individual and territory quality) influences how mountain bluebirds trade-off one proxy for self-maintenance (energy metabolites) with providing food to their offspring. Interestingly, these effects differed between the sexes. Females generally biased allocation towards current reproduction, increasing provisioning to larger broods, regardless of territory quality; females on low-quality territories subsidized increased provisioning activity by catabolizing stored resources. In contrast, only males on high-quality territories increased parental effort in response to larger broods, and among these individuals, only high-quality males incurred an energy deficit to subsidize this activity. My findings showed that resource acquisition may be critical to understanding why trade-offs differ among individuals, and that both intrinsic and extrinsic limits on acquisition may influence the patterns of allocation we observe in wild populations