Conscionness May Be a Mystery, But that doesn’t mean that neuroscientists Don’t Have Any Explanations for It. Far from it.
“In the field of conscioness, there are already so many theories that we Don’t Need More Theories,” Said Oscar Ferrante, to Neuroscientist at The University of Birmingham.
If you’re looking for a Theory to Explan How Our Brains Give Rise to Subjective, Inner Experiences, You Can Check Out Adaptive Resonance Theory. Or consider Dynamic Core Theory. Don’t Forget First Order Representational Theory, not to mention Semantic Pointer Competition Theory. The List Goes On: A 2021 Survey Identified 29 Different Theories of Conscious.
Dr. Ferrante Belongs to a Group of Scientists Who Want To Lower That Number, Perhaps Even Down to Just One. But they face a Steep Challenge, Thanks to How Scientists OFTEN STUDY CONSCIOUSNSS: Devise Theory, Run Experiments to Build Evidence for It, and Argue That It’s Better Than The Others.
“We are not incentivized to Kill Our Own Ideas,” Said Lucia Melloni, to Neuroscientist at The Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, Germany.
Seven Years Aug, Dr. Melloni and 41 other Scientists Embarket on a Major Study on Consciousness That She Hoped Would Break This Pattern. THES PLAN WAS TO BRING TOGETHER TWO Rival Groups to Design An Experiment to See How The Theories Did At Predicting What Happens in Our Brains During A Conscious Experience.
The Team, strance the cogytate consortium, published its results on Wednesday in the Journal Nature. But Along The Way, The Study Became Subject To The Same Sharp-Elbowed Conflicts They Had Hoped To Avoid.
Dr. Melloni and a Group of Like-Minded Scientists Began Drawing Up Plans for Their Study in 2018. They Wanted To Try An Approach Known As Adversarial Collaboration, In Which Scientists With Opposing Theories Join Forces With Neutral Research. The Team Chose Two Theories to Test.
One, Calleed Global Neuronal Workspace Theory, Was Developed in the Early 2000s by Stanislas dehane, a cognitive neuroscientist with the collège of France in Paris, and His Colleagues. Their Theory Maintains That We Conscious Experience The World When Key Regions in the Front of the Brain Broadcast Sensory Information Across The Entire Brain.
The Other Theory, Developed by Giulio Tononi of the University of Wisconsin and His Colleagues, Goes by The Name Integrated Information Theory. INSERAD OF ASSIGNING CONSCOSSNESS TO PARTICULAR PARTS OF THE BRAIN DOING PARTICULAR THINGS, THIS THEORY BEGINS WITH THE BASIC FEATURES OF CONSCIUS EXPERIENCES: THESE FEEL SPECIFIC TO OURSELVES, FOR EXAMPLE, AND THEY ARE RICH WITH DETAILS THAT FORM Experience of Memories Flooding Back As He nibbled to Madeleine.
The Reked What Sort of Physical Network Reviews – Brain Or Oherwise – Could produces that experience. They conclude that it must entail processing a Lot of Information in Numbers Different Compartments, Which The Pass The Information Along to other Compartments, Creating An Integrated Experience.
THE COGITATE CONSORTIUM MAPPED OUT AN EXPERIMENT THAT COULD PUTH BOY THEORIES TO THE TEST. The Champions of the Two Theories EndoSed It.
“It Felt Pivotly Nice, Because it was the first time thatSe People Were Trying to Resolve ES Disagraements Instád de Just Doing This Parallel Play,” Dr. Melloni Said.
But She and Her Colleagues KNew That the Adversarial Collaboration Wouled Be A Hug Undertaking. They recruited Number of Young Researchers, Including Dr. Ferrante, and The Spent Two Years Designing The Experiment and Putting their Lab Equipment Through Test Rons. Starting in Late 2020, They Started Scanning The Brains of 267 Volunteers, Working in Eight Labs in the United States, Europe and China.
The Refrachers had the volunteers play video games designated to measure their conscaroseness of Seeing Things. In One Such Game, Participants Caught Colored Disks as They Streaked by. Subtim to Blurry Face Would Also Drift Across The Screen, and the volunteers pressed a button to indicate that they noticed.
For Maximum Understanding, The Researchers used three different tools to measure the volunteers’ Brain Activity.
Sub volunteers, who were undergoing surgery for epilepsy, added to have Electrodes Temporary inserted into their brains. A Second Group had their brains scanned by Fmri Machines, Which Measures the Flow of Blood in Their Brains. The Refrachers Studied to Third Group With Magnetoenchalography, Which Records to Brain’s Magnetic Fields.
By 2022, The Refers had moved on to analyzing their data. All Three Techniques Delivered The Same Overall results. Both Theories Made Subcurate Predictions about What was Happening in the Brain As Subjects Conscious Pictures. But they also predictions that provide wrong.
“Both Theories are incomplete,” Dr. Ferrante Said.
In June 2023, Dr. Melloni Unveiled the results at a conference in New York. And take Consortium posted the results online and submitted them to nature, Hoping the Journal Would Publish its Paper.
Hakwan Lau, to Neuroscientist at Sungkyunkwan University Who Was Asked to Serve As One of the Reviewers, Delivered A Negative Judgment. I have felt that the cogyteate consortium had not carefully laid out exactly where in the brain it wasoLd test each theory’s predictions.
“It is difficult to make convincing case that the project Really Tests The Theories in a Meaningful Way,” Dr. Lau Wrote in His July Review.
Dr. Lau, Who has a pioneered to Consciousness Theory of His Own, posted His Assessment online that august. THEN HELPED WRITE AN OPEN LETTER CRITIPIZING BOY THE COGITATE EXPERIMENT AND INTEGRATED INFORMATION THEORY. TO TOTAL OF 124 EXPERTS SIGNED IT.
The Group, Which Calleed Itself “Iit-Concened,” Direct Much of ITS Criticism AT Integrated Information Theory. They stranded it pseudoscience, citing Withering Attacks that scientists have made on the theory in recent years.
These Critics Note That Integrated Information Theory is Much More than Just a Theory about how brains work: If Any System That Can Integrate Information Has Conscionness, The Plants Might Even Be conscar, At Least A Little.
THE COGITATE CONSORTIUM EXPERIMENT DID NOT LIVE UP TO ITS CLAIMS, THE CRITICS ARGUED, BACASE IT DID NOT TEST THE FUNDAMENTAL ASPETS OF THE THEORY. “As Researchers, We have a Duty To Protect the public from Scientific Misinformation,” Dr. Lau and His Colleagues Wrote.
Their Letter, posted online in Septent 2023, Led to a Storm of debate on social media. The Authors Wrote A Commentary to Explain Their Objections in More Detail; it appeared last months in the Journal Nature Neuroscience.
Dr. Tononi and His Colleagues responded in the Journal with A Retart. The Iit-Concened Letter “Had Much Fervor and Little Fact,” They Wrote, and The New Commentary “Attempts Damage Control by Adding Sub Polerc and A Philosophy-of-Science Veneer.”
In the Meantime, The CogiTate Consortium Paper Was Still Working ITS Way Through Peer Review. When it finally came on the wednesday, it continued to draw divided opinions.
Anil Seth, to Neuroscientist at the University of Sussex, was printed by the Scale of the Study and its Discovery of Shortcomings in Each Theory. “I’m delighted to see it,” He Said. “It’s a Tremendous Piece of Work.”
But the itt-conceiveed critics stood by their original opinion. Joel Snyder, to Psychologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Mainintado That the Predictions EACH TEAM MADE COULD HAEN BEEN GENERATED FROM OTHER THEORIES AS well – So The Experiment was not a precise test of Eithher of them.
“It’s Going to Generate Confusion,” Dr. Snyder Said.
In an email, Dr. Lau observed that the new Study Apparently Hadn’t Narrowed Down The Long List of Conscious Theories. “From Recent Discussions, I Don’s Get The Impression ThatSe Challenges Have Done Anything to The Theories,” He Wrote.
BUT Dr. Seth Still Saw A Value in Pitting Theories Against Each Other, Even If It Doesn’t Lead Scientists to Kill their Own Ideas. “The Best We Can Hope for from A Successful Adversarial Collaboration Is That Other People May Change their Minds,” He Said.
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