The informational mind and the information integration theory of consciousness

According to Aleksander and Morton’s informational mind hypothesis, conscious minds are state structures that are created through iconic learning. Distributed representations of colors, edges, objects, etc. are linked with proprioceptive and motor information to generate the awareness of an out-there world. The uniqueness and indivisibility of these iconically learnt states reflect the uniqueness and indivisibility of the world. This article summarizes the key claims of the informational mind hypothesis and considers them in relation to Tononi’s information integration theory of consciousness. Some suggestions are made about how the informational mind hypothesis could be experimentally tested, and its significance for work on machine consciousness is considered

Can we prove that there are computational correlates of consciousness in the brain?

Scientific research on consciousness is attempting to gather data about the relationship between consciousness and the physical world. The basic procedure is to measure consciousness through first-person reports, measure the physical world and look for correlations between these sets of measurements. While most of this work has focused on neural correlates of consciousness, it has also been proposed that consciousness is linked to the computations that are being executed by the brain. If this is the case, we would expect there to be a high level of correlation between some of the brain’s computations and consciousness. This could be scientifically tested if a plausible method for measuring computations could be found. This paper investigates whether Chalmers’ method for identifying computations could be used to measure computations during an experiment on the correlates of consciousness. A number of arguments are used to show that Chalmers’ account of implementation fails for a desktop computer, which makes it unlikely that it could be used to identify computational correlates of consciousness in the brain. While a different account of implementation might be able to rescue computational approaches to consciousness, the problems raised in this paper suggest that it is going to be difficult to develop a method for measuring computations that could be used to test whether there are computational correlates of consciousness in the brain

Could neurolecturing address the limitations of live and recorded lectures?

Lectures are a common teaching method in higher education. However, they have many serious limitations, including boredom, attendance, short attention span, low knowledge transmission and the passivity of students. This paper suggests how a combination of electroencephalography (EEG) and eye-tracking technology could address some of these limitations – an approach that I have called neurolecturing. Neurolecturing could measure students’ attention, learning and cognitive load and provide real time feedback to students and lecturers. It could also play a role in the flipped classroom and artificial intelligence tutoring

From baconian to popperian neuroscience

The development of neuroscience over the past 50 years has some similarities with the development of physics in the 17th century. Towards the beginning of that century, Bacon promoted the systematic gathering of experimental data and the induction of scientific truth; towards the end, Newton expressed his principles of gravitation and motion in a concise set of mathematical equations that made precise falsifiable predictions. This paper expresses the opinion that as neuroscience comes of age, it needs to move away from amassing large quantities of data about the brain, and adopt a popperian model in which theories are developed that can make strong falsifiable predictions and guide future experimental work

Fish consciousness

Woodruff makes two arguments to support his claim that ray-finned fish are conscious: (1) Fish neuroanatomy has similarities with the structures in the human brain that support consciousness. (2) The complexity and flexibility of fish behaviour suggest that they are conscious. This commentary will argue that neither the neuroanatomical nor the behavioural argument can provide conclusive evidence for consciousness in fish. We should suspend judgement until we have discovered mathematical theories of consciousness that can reliably map between states of consciousness and states of the physical world

Genome-wide patterns of polymorphism in an inbred line of the African malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae.

Anopheles gambiae is a major mosquito vector of malaria in Africa. Although increased use of insecticide-based vector control tools has decreased malaria transmission, elimination is likely to require novel genetic control strategies. It can be argued that the absence of an A. gambiae inbred line has slowed progress toward genetic vector control. In order to empower genetic studies and enable precise and reproducible experimentation, we set out to create an inbred line of this species. We found that amenability to inbreeding varied between populations of A. gambiae. After full-sib inbreeding for ten generations, we genotyped 112 individuals--56 saved prior to inbreeding and 56 collected after inbreeding--at a genome-wide panel of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Although inbreeding dramatically reduced diversity across much of the genome, we discovered numerous, discrete genomic blocks that maintained high heterozygosity. For one large genomic region, we were able to definitively show that high diversity is due to the persistent polymorphism of a chromosomal inversion. Inbred lines in other eukaryotes often exhibit a qualitatively similar retention of polymorphism when typed at a small number of markers. Our whole-genome SNP data provide the first strong, empirical evidence supporting associative overdominance as the mechanism maintaining higher than expected diversity in inbred lines. Although creation of A. gambiae lines devoid of nearly all polymorphism may not be feasible, our results provide critical insights into how more fully isogenic lines can be created