Tag Archives: Brain

The magic step and the crucial fork

Posted on December 8, 2019 by

Those of you who’ve known me for a while may remember the long fascination I’ve had with Michael Graziano’s attention schema theory of consciousness.  I covered it early in this blog’s history and have returned to it multiple times over … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , | 42 Comments

The layers of emotional feelings

Posted on November 25, 2019 by

One of the ongoing debates in neuroscience is on the nature of emotions, where they originate, where they are felt, and how innate versus learned they are. One view, championed by the late Jaak Panksepp and his followers, see emotions … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , | 46 Comments

Debate: Do split-brain patients have two minds?

Posted on November 16, 2019 by

I went to the NYU Consciousness site this morning hoping to see if the recent debate on the relationship of prefrontal activity to consciousness had been posted yet.  It hasn’t, and based on what I can see, it might be … Continue reading →

Posted in Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Integrated information theory

Posted on October 29, 2019 by

I think most of you know I’m not a fan of integrated information theory (IIT).  However, it is a theory proposed by scientists, and I’ve always had a mildly guilty conscience over not having read about it other than through articles … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , , | 101 Comments

A standard model of consciousness?

Posted on September 29, 2019 by

I’ve often noted that I find more consilience than disagreement between the empirically grounded theories of consciousness.  They seem to be looking at the problem at differing levels of organization, and together they may present a growing scientific consensus about … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , | 129 Comments

A correction: LeDoux’s actual views on instrumental learning in vertebrates

Posted on September 11, 2019 by

I have to make a correction.  In my post on LeDoux’s views on consciousness and emotions, I made the following statement: Anyway, LeDoux states that there is “no convincing” evidence for instrumental behavior in pre-mammalian vertebrates, or in invertebrates.  In … Continue reading →

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Layers of consciousness, September 2019 edition

Posted on September 8, 2019 by

A couple of years ago, when writing about panpsychism, I introduced a five layer conception of consciousness.  The idea back then was to show a couple of things. One was that very simple conceptions of consciousness, such as interactions with … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , , | 73 Comments

Joseph LeDoux’s theories on consciousness and emotions

Posted on September 5, 2019 by

In the last post, I mentioned that I was reading Joseph LeDoux’s new book, The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains.  There’s a lot of interesting stuff in this book.  As its title … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 118 Comments

The problem of animal minds

Posted on August 31, 2019 by

Joseph LeDoux has an article at Nautilus on The Tricky Problem with Other Minds.  It’s an excerpt from his new book, which I’m currently reading.  For an idea of the main thesis: The fact that animals can only respond nonverbally … Continue reading →

Posted in Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , | 17 Comments

Machine learning and the need for innate foundations

Posted on August 25, 2019 by

This interesting Nature article by Anthony M. Zador came up in my Twitter feed: A critique of pure learning and what artificial neural networks can learn from animal brains: Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have undergone a revolution, catalyzed by better … Continue reading →

Posted in Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , , | 36 Comments