conscious thought

[shimsham]

how does the brain develop thought? does science have a biological explanation for conscious thought? does science attempt to explain the need and purpose for it? i know(in the most elementary sense) of the synapse and electrical charges, and of chemical reactions, but do we have any understanding of how those end up as thoughts and voices in our head?

im sure there is some research that attempts to answer this question, but ive never really tried to look it up, for some reason. anyone have any ideas, links, or suggestions for reading?

 

[mobobuff]

I'll quote myself from the first thread...

Originally posted by: mobobuff
The brain thinks in English because that's the language you use to communicate.

Conscious thought when translated into English in our heads just helps us keep track of thoughts easier and gives it more context. If humans communicated using only mathematical expressions, then the brain would think in mathematical expressions Pretty crazy once you think about it, but also simple at the same time.

Concentrate on a problem, or pretend an answer doesn't exist for a simple occurance, and try to solve it without thinking in words. It's extremely difficult but it can be done.

This leads to many other complex questions such as in what form does cognitive thought exist in animals? You can see it when observing them, that they constantly make observations, predictions and decisions that require some amount of thought outside of basic instinct. But what form does it take in their mind? Or how does a mute human solve complex issues without internal speech functions?

Speech is nothing more than sound that can be interpreted inside the brain. Something we hold so dear, something so personal, is extremely impersonal when you think about it. Air from your lungs and muscles in your throat combine to make a series of unrelated sounds that travel through the air, enter the ear canal of other humans, and are deciphered in realtime. Sounds that, when isolated, have no significance whatsoever. But humans are so personal and intricate as a system - that any individual could easily pick the soundwaves formed by a loved one out of millions of other similar soundwaves.
A good example of this is listening to different African dialects. Your brain contains no primer with which to decipher the language, so to you it sounds like random noises and contractions. Just as English would probably sound to them.

Ah man, the human mind is just so frickin' amazingly complex when you think about it. And when you DO think about it, it's analyzing ITSELF!

A good book to read alongside the previously mentioned one is "Phantoms in the Brain" by V.S. Ramachandran.

Doesn't answer the question, of course, it's just pondering and observation

 

[CycloWizard]

There is an entire discipline around this question: cognitive science. I have a brother studying it now. Maybe I can beat some info out of him and get back to you.

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: shimsham
how does the brain develop thought? does science have a biological explanation for conscious thought? does science attempt to explain the need and purpose for it? i know(in the most elementary sense) of the synapse and electrical charges, and of chemical reactions, but do we have any understanding of how those end up as thoughts and voices in our head?

im sure there is some research that attempts to answer this question, but ive never really tried to look it up, for some reason. anyone have any ideas, links, or suggestions for reading?

Here are a few book recommendations:

How the Mind Works , Stephen Pinker, 1999. It's a fairly easy to read popular account that comes at consciousness from the viewpoint of language.

The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach, Christof Koch, 2004. This book provides a deeper scientific look at consciousness, with close connections to neurology from one of the best researchers in the field. It's harder to read, but closer to the state of the art than the previous book.

 

[sao123]

i believe the technical term is called a soul.

 

[Gannon]

Originally posted by: mobobuff
I'll quote myself from the first thread...

Originally posted by: mobobuff
The brain thinks in English because that's the language you use to communicate.

Conscious thought when translated into English in our heads just helps us keep track of thoughts easier and gives it more context. If humans communicated using only mathematical expressions, then the brain would think in mathematical expressions Pretty crazy once you think about it, but also simple at the same time.

Concentrate on a problem, or pretend an answer doesn't exist for a simple occurance, and try to solve it without thinking in words. It's extremely difficult but it can be done.

This leads to many other complex questions such as in what form does cognitive thought exist in animals? You can see it when observing them, that they constantly make observations, predictions and decisions that require some amount of thought outside of basic instinct. But what form does it take in their mind? Or how does a mute human solve complex issues without internal speech functions?

Speech is nothing more than sound that can be interpreted inside the brain. Something we hold so dear, something so personal, is extremely impersonal when you think about it. Air from your lungs and muscles in your throat combine to make a series of unrelated sounds that travel through the air, enter the ear canal of other humans, and are deciphered in realtime. Sounds that, when isolated, have no significance whatsoever. But humans are so personal and intricate as a system - that any individual could easily pick the soundwaves formed by a loved one out of millions of other similar soundwaves.
A good example of this is listening to different African dialects. Your brain contains no primer with which to decipher the language, so to you it sounds like random noises and contractions. Just as English would probably sound to them.

Ah man, the human mind is just so frickin' amazingly complex when you think about it. And when you DO think about it, it's analyzing ITSELF!

A good book to read alongside the previously mentioned one is "Phantoms in the Brain" by V.S. Ramachandran.

Doesn't answer the question, of course, it's just pondering and observation

Actually all language IS mathematical expression, humans just dont realize it because the brain does not express it in the form of numbers. Language and mathematics are intimately connected. Believe me we are performing mathematical operations all the time, our thoughts are mathematical operations even though we cannot express them numerically they are at their base complex mathematical functions. For instance everyday walking and navigation requires a lot of complex calculations of your brain because your body (even though you aren't really "Aware" of it) is constantly adapting to your bodies changing positions in space.

 

[Loki726]

Originally posted by: Gannon

Actually all language IS mathematical expression, humans just dont realize it because the brain does not express it in the form of numbers. Language and mathematics are intimately connected. Believe me we are performing mathematical operations all the time, our thoughts are mathematical operations even though we cannot express them numerically they are at their base complex mathematical functions. For instance everyday walking and navigation requires a lot of complex calculations of your brain because your body (even though you aren't really "Aware" of it) is constantly adapting to your bodies changing positions in space.

mathematics has no more intrinsic value than language. They are both merely attempts to describe real events and situations. The mathematical operation 2+2 equals 4 ONLY because it corresponds to an event that occurs in the real world. I can use two noncollinear 3 dimensional vectors in IR3 space to describe a new object in IR4 space. Does the mere fact that I can describe this new dimension with mathematics mean that it corresponds to a new dimension that actually exists?

Mathematics and language are descriptions of events, not the events themselves. Consciousness can be described in terms of mathematics or language, but it is neither mathematics nor language.

 

[Stas]

Well, a brain is an analog device. So, it is not really calclating anything. Everyting you do every day is mostly based on experience. When you see a stair you know that your body will "fall" down that stair, so that you can go down the stairs. The brain is not calculating gravity, mass, velocity, and other stuff. It simply remembers it since the day when you were a kid and went down stairs at the first time.

 

[Gannon]

Originally posted by: Stas
Well, a brain is an analog device. So, it is not really calclating anything. Everyting you do every day is mostly based on experience. When you see a stair you know that your body will "fall" down that stair, so that you can go down the stairs. The brain is not calculating gravity, mass, velocity, and other stuff. It simply remembers it since the day when you were a kid and went down stairs at the first time.

Actually that is entirely incorrect, the brain is calculating all the time. Your confusing computation, with the definitions and ideas of digital and analog. Experience is the storage, retrieval and processing of values into useable and functional forms. By all definitions the brain does calculate, where you get the idea that it doesn't is beyond me.

Memory involves some basic operations:
1. Encoding
2. Consolidation: memories at this stage are susceptible to disruption but become less so
over time.
3. Storage
4. Retrieval

This has been proven in brain studies after operating peoples brains and taking sections out (as in epilepsy for example) that they can no longer perform tasks because they are missing these computational, storage and retrieval structures. One man was not able to record his experiences in long term memory because the part of his brain they took out disabled the storage of and creation of new memories in long term memory. He could remember most everything about his past up until his operation and from then on could not form new long term memories at all and only had short term memory in which he would not store new experiences in long term memory.

 

[CrimsonChaos]

Originally posted by: Stas
Well, a brain is an analog device. So, it is not really calclating anything. Everyting you do every day is mostly based on experience. When you see a stair you know that your body will "fall" down that stair, so that you can go down the stairs. The brain is not calculating gravity, mass, velocity, and other stuff. It simply remembers it since the day when you were a kid and went down stairs at the first time.

Ever play chess??

True, knowing the way the pieces move are sheer memorization and experience. However, just knowing how these pieces move will not win you a single game. In any position, your mind must calculate hundreds of possibilities for future moves -- masters supposedly calculate as far as 16 moves ahead.

Obviously this is just one very simple example of the power of the human mind. True, experience shapes who we are intrinsically -- and while the mind may not be constantly calculating, it is most certainly capable of it.

 

[f95toli]

Originally posted by: Stas
Well, a brain is an analog device. So, it is not really calclating anything. .

So how do you think an analog computer works? In case you don't know they were used to solve some pretty complicated problems in the past ((and still are, some problemes are easiers to handle using analog computers).

I know a guy who was involved in building one of the first "real" flight simulators used by the military, they used an analog computer to handle the graphics.
The computer was actually built by Singer.

 

[everman]

One thing that really amazes me is how we remember things. Everyone has tried to remember something and need a minute to actually recall what they needed. This tells us that yes the correct information was in storage, but for some reason the access time was very slow. What was happening in that one minute period of time when you were simply "thinking hard" to remember? (no devices used to remember, just thinking about it) I have also read that certain kinds of stimulus when trying to memorize something can aid your memory in recording it, I guess mnemonic devices fall into this category.

 

[shimsham]

good posts, but im not really asking how the mind works mechanically. im looking for some ideas or studies on how chemicals with no mind or consciousness can combine and interact to create any type of thought or calculation.

what, if any, are the leading theories on how that jump is made?

 

[d3n]

Is it still accepted that Dejavu is simply the act of a synapse mis-firing in rapid succession?

 

[pakigang]

What about imagination, creativity etc. To think that all brain does is calculation or maybe the defination of calculation we are taking is just wrong. For example thinking of something that never existed. Every calculation has some values it needs to calculate on. Thats not the situation with the brain, it can just bring out an imagination/idea from nothing.

Just my thought

 

[f95toli]

Originally posted by: pakigang
Every calculation has some values it needs to calculate on.

No; there is a whole field in mathematics that deals with stochastic equations which are basically equations that involve random numbers.
A famour example is the Langevin equation which when used as a part of a more complex models can give rise to extremely complicated, and unpredictable, behaviour.

So there is no reason to assume that you can not explan imagination etc using mathematical formulas, and there are plenty of good sources for random numbers in the brain (various types of noise).

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: everman
One thing that really amazes me is how we remember things. Everyone has tried to remember something and need a minute to actually recall what they needed. This tells us that yes the correct information was in storage, but for some reason the access time was very slow. What was happening in that one minute period of time when you were simply "thinking hard" to remember? (no devices used to remember, just thinking about it) I have also read that certain kinds of stimulus when trying to memorize something can aid your memory in recording it, I guess mnemonic devices fall into this category.

Try Higbee's Your Memory: How It Works and How To Improve It. It's an excellent book.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de...7753-2539808?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: shimsham
good posts, but im not really asking how the mind works mechanically. im looking for some ideas or studies on how chemicals with no mind or consciousness can combine and interact to create any type of thought or calculation.

what, if any, are the leading theories on how that jump is made?

Both the books I suggested explain this.