Why I Don't Read Anything On Consciousness & Inside Of Neurons - An Interesting Idea Of All Sciences

I don't remember exactly when but around a couple of years before Max was diagnosed with cancer; I decided to stop reading anything related to consciousness. I didn't care if it was written by a "wise" philosopher centuries ago or a paper published on nature by a "brilliant" neuroscientist two days ago. 

I understood it was a pointless quest and a complete waste of time.  The only upside - it's the pinnacle of virtue signaling to sound and look smart. I decided to even throw away the books I had on consciousness. Throw away to recycle the paper and not donate the books so that it doesn't corrupt minds. 

But why? 

For starters, we don't know how and where the memory is formed and stored. We don't know if that question is even correct. 

Imagine Sapiens roaming in savanna who are yet to invent the rudimentary wheel and we are debating now their thoughts on driverless cars and lithium-powered automobiles.  Our understanding of the basics and fundamentals of how memories are formed and stored (leave alone consciousness) is worse than that. 

If you don't believe me, please search for "Blue Brain Project" on this blog or save some time and read this insightful interview with neuroscientist Randy Gallistel:

How does the “ferret experiment” work, what were the results, and why are the results significant?

The ferret-experiment shows that the measuring of—and then storage of—a maximally-simple experiential-fact (the duration of the interval between two simple events) occurs within a single huge cell (neuron) in the cerebellum. It also shows that subsequent single-spike input to this cell triggers the reading-out of this memory into a simple behavior: an appropriately-timed blink.

The blink occurs in response to a simple stimulus (a touch on the paw) that warns of a soon-to-occur threat to the eye (a shock to the skin near the eye). The interval-duration between the warning-signal and the shock itself has been stored in the engram inside this huge cell in the cerebellum—as a result, the brain can time the blink so that the eye is closed (hence protected) at the moment when the predicted threat occurs.

Johansson has also identified the first molecular stage in a sequence of molecular events inside this huge neuron. Somewhere in that sequence is the molecular substance that encodes the duration of that interval. It performs the same function as the memory-registers in a conventional computer.

Biological molecules are tiny interconnected machines. Johansson identified the first in a sequence of these machines. The sequence must lead to the engram. Fredrik Johansson has done for molecular biologists what Ariadne did for Theseus when she handed him the ball-of-thread. Theseus used the ball-of-thread to find his way through the labyrinth to the Minotaur and back out again.

Each neuron contains billions of (almost) incomprehensibly-tiny molecular machines. Molecular biologists have developed an astonishing array of techniques for visualizing/manipulating the actions of these little machines. These techniques will allow molecular biologists to follow the machines inside this huge neuron to the engram—to the tiny machine that encodes the experience-gleaned facts so that these learned/remembered facts can inform later behavior. 

How hard has it been to shine the spotlight on the ferret-experiment?

Very hard.

What explains the difficulty?

The difficulty is due to the mental energy required to climb out of intuitive Aristotelian energy-pits. The current approach to the engram is founded on an intuition that dates back to Aristotle.

The intuition is that memory consists of associations—conductive connections—between primitive sensations (color, texture, shape, smell, etc.). This intuition was the foundation of behaviorist psychology, which dominated theory/experiment in psychology during the first half of the previous century. The associative theory of learning is still widely taught in introductory psychology courses/textbooks. And it’s been given new life by the grossly-misleading hype surrounding deep learning.

Neuroscientists embrace Aristotle’s theory. But the most basic fact about memory is that memory is full of learned facts (time, distance, duration, probability, numerosity) that are unrelated to simple sensory-experience. And Aristotle’s theory makes no attempt to explain this basic fact.

This Aristotelian theory directs neuroscientific experiment/theorizing about learning/memory. It would be a far-reaching transformation to abandon this theory and instead focus on how brains encode maximally-simple abstract facts.

In the history of most sciences (physics, chemistry, physiology), the most important stage was when scientists finally abandoned the intuitive-but-useless conceptions that Aristotle left us with. Aristotle’s highly-intuitive natural science became the foundation of medieval philosophy/science. (There was no distinction between philosophy and “natural science” in the Middle Ages.)

In the early history of almost all sciences, it’s striking how difficult it was for thinkers to abandon these intuitively-appealing concepts in favor of much less-intuitive conceptions. Consider caloric theory.

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But what exactly is so hard to understand?

Mainstream brain-scientists have no idea how brains could store a number, retrieve that number and other relevant numbers, operate on pairs of number arithmetically, and return the results to memory. That whole way of thinking (the computational theory of mind) is not part of their conception regarding how the brain works.

And a memory-code is not part of their conception either. It’s like how biochemists had no conception of a code that was realized in molecular structure until the revelation from Watson, Crick, and Franklin.

We know the first step on the way to the actual storage-site of the number, but how hard will it be to follow the “ball of thread” to the storage-site? 

Molecular biologists have repeatedly accomplished astonishing things. So I think they can do it. I judge that it can be done with the tools molecular biologists already have.

It won’t be easy. It could take 10 years—maybe 20—once molecular biologists really start to work on it.

What do we know about the storage-site itself and about the mechanism that allows the number to be transmitted to—and retrieved from—that storage-site? 

Nothing.

Are both the storage-site and the mechanism equally mysterious? 

Yes.

Is the idea that every neuron in the human brain has a storage-site, or just some of them? 

Every neuron.

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Would mainstream neuroscientists raise their eyebrows at the idea that numbers are somehow stored inside cells and retrieved from inside cells? 

Most of them would think it’s about the craziest, stupidest, and most implausible idea they ever heard suggested.

Despite the fact that they all know that the polynucleotides that are abundant inside every cell can store huge amounts of information at negligible energetic cost. They know that. But they don’t think that it’s relevant to thinking about how the brain works.

Not a few neuroscientists think that the scientific concept of information is irrelevant to neuroscience. This school of thought thinks that the concept of information has no useful role to play in understanding how brains do what they do.

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The public would like to think that scientists look at data and take data seriously. What do brain-scientists say when you show them this data? It’s disturbing to think that they refuse to look at data, since data is supposed to be what science is all about. 

Scientists are human. Like all humans, they’re prisoners of preconceptions. When a preconception takes strong hold, it becomes almost unshakable. Max Planck is often quoted as saying: “Science progresses one funeral at a time.”