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From: segall@CAIP.RUTGERS.EDU (Ed Segall)
Newsgroups: mod.ai
Subject: Re: Emergent Consciousness
Message-ID: <8609291807.AA29461@caip.rutgers.edu>
Date: Mon, 29-Sep-86 14:07:12 EDT
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Posted: Mon Sep 29 14:07:12 1986
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Why must we presume that the seat of consciousness must be in the form
of neural "circuits"? What's to prevent it from being a symbolic,
logical entity, rather than a physical entity? After all, the "center
of control" of most computers is some sort of kernal program, running
on the exact same hardware as the other programs. (Don't try to push
the analogy too far, you can probably find a hole in it.) Perhaps the
hierarchical system referred to is also not structural.

Might the brain operate even more like a conventional computer than we
realize, taking the role of an extremely sophisticated
(self-modifying) interpreter? The "program" that is interpreted is the
pattern of firings occurring at any given time. If this is so, then
moment-to-moment thought is almost completely in terms of the dynamic
information contained in neural signals, rather than the quasi-static
information contained in neural interconnections. The neurons simply
serve to "run" the thoughts.  This seems obvious to me, since I am
assuming that neural firings can process information much faster than
structural changes in neurons.

 I'd be interested to know about what rate neuron firings occur in the
brain, and if anyone has an intelligent guess as to how much
information can be stored at once in the "dynamic" form of firings
rather than the "static" form of interconnections.

I apologize in advance if what I suggest goes against well-understood
knowlege (not theory) of how the brain operates. My information is
from the perspective of a lay person, not a cognitive scientist.