Theories of Consciousness

Video Map of Fundamental Theories of Consciousness

There are a few ways to divide up all approaches to understanding consciousness. One way is to pit Integrated Information Theory against Global Workspace Theory: is consciousness the anastomotic merger in the posterior cortex, or a top-down broadcast from the anterior cortex/thalamus?

Another way is to separate approaches that are more scientific from those that are more "woo". Scientific conferences like SfN (Society for Neuroscience) keep things rigorously accurate, but often show disinterest or even hostility towards trying to crack consciousness. The Science of Consciousness conferences held by Stuart Hameroff allow more voices, and I must say they are fairly proactive towards understanding consciousness, although openness allows some time-wasting, unserious nutcrackers, even occasionally onto the main stage.

A third approach, which this video takes (see paper: A landscape of consciousness: Toward a taxonomy of explanations and implications (Robert Lawrence Kuhn), is to try to divine the essence or substance of conscious experience, thereby creating fields of materialism, quantum, idealism, dualism, and monism.

Of course, who knows whether hunting fundamental substance, or hunting mechanism, may be more fruitful. The Ring/Bank Theory mostly focuses on understanding the mechanism and hopefully finding neural correlates. This involves using the following approaches:

• Phenomenology: Study experience and subjective reports.
• Philosophy/Logic: Run compatibility checks in your mind, analyze experiences over and over for crystal clear accuracy of phenomenology, postulate plausible mechanisms, test them for legitimacy.
• Alteration: Observe the effects of sleep deprivation, meditation, and other agents.
• Neuroscience: Use tools to observe the intricate behavior of the brain, including electrical signals revealed from SUA (single-unit activity of firing of individual neurons, very accurate, but fairly local), electrical signals from EEG (a fairly muddy happenstantial compilation of events at layers 2/3, 4, and 5 creating a net dipole along axon of pyramidal neurons) and BOLD signals revealed by fMRI/fNIRS (fairly slow/slight fluctuations in oxygenated blood a few seconds after increased neural firing of a region), and including signal analysis techniques that can be used, such as complex Morlet wavelet convolution and AM- and FM-PCA.

The goal is to force as much correlation as possible in the hopes it will finally reveal bits of the mechanism. If I must place the Ring/Bank Theory on this chart, I would say it likely fits best with a materialist, functionalist, computationalist approach (with the disclaimer that agency and/or binding might require quantum).

The fact is, phenomenology from ring/bank theory has seen tremendous correlation in a few tests. Most notably, a study by Deisseroth et. al. found 2 Hz pulsing arising from layer 5 HCN1 channels of retrosplenial cortex in rats that were administered ketamine at sub-anesthetic doses. These pulses entrained the entire cortex, and are almost certain to be correlated with the 2 Hz 'reality frames' reported in ketamine, salvia, hemp, cannabis, and alcohol states (all of these are NMDA antagonists, setting up hyperpolarization and increased burst mode). Another test found that attention (in pulvinar, etc.) can change voices, i.e., can change between air puffs on whiskers to visual stimuli (hello, interrupt-style mic!). This is akin to Michael Graziano's Attention Schema Theory, that the brain makes a model not only of the world, but of the 3D cursor location/shape of attention within that world model, which is practically the same thing as ring/bank theory.

Another pivotal clue linking mind and matter is the discovery, by Mark Churchland, of FM-PCA rings in monkey motor/premotor cortex. A cyclic or repeated behavior like turning a hand-pedal is tied to a tracer making FM-PCA rings. Another study found FM-PCA rings whose duration and 0º phase locked to mental and overt metronome beats. While these rings might sometimes align with percetual rings in timing/phase, they go on even when motor is handled autonomously, and attention is elsewhere, indicating perceptual rings either use a different mechanism, or are free to roam the larger cortex. Nevertheless, these are two tremendous data points showing, functionally, that sequencism by sub-groups of neurons is used to chunk (and progress through) task or tempo. Ring/bank theory says that the worldsim itself is often refreshed in chunked revolvic sweeps or by a tracer following an imperfect ringlike trajectory.

Caldwell's Dynamic Frame Theory (Aka, Ring/Bank Theory) of Consciousness

Do you agree the world around you is the brain's model of it? Good, so do I. This is called representationalism, as opposed to naive realism. Ain't got a clue what I just asked? Check out Steven Lehar's Cartoon Epistemology.

Now, how does the brain render this model? We can say, roughly, there is something like a visual field component, and something like a somatic/body/tactile component. The former I call "paint;" the latter, "frames." The somatic/visual distinction is discussed by Cube Flipper.

If you've heard of Karl Friston's predictive modeling, I actually agree more with a concept from David Eagleman: postdictive modeling! I do appreciate Shamil Chandaria's Bayesian input, priors, and posterior, though. I just think the posterior is deduced after the input arrives.

I think the brain converts signals to interpretations with varying latency, but always postdictively (35-250 ms lag, typical).

I believe it maintains a time schema (3D), where a timeline of events (/amplitudes) is recorded (likely 30 ms lag behind reality or less). The most incipient processing of an event (stimulus) is its record ('print,' 0-2D ringframe on 2D plane) at the 'now' point along the time axis (1D) in time schema.

The salient events in this time schema are given geometrical reification as rings (0-1D) or frames (2D) in time schema, then meaning is added to build out other schemas (real schema (3D), imaginal schema (3D)) (an additional 5-500 milliseconds of latency).

The lifetime agglomeration of ringframe manifolds is a 'rut' collection I refer to as the bank schema (3D) (could also be called the shape schema (3D)).

TL;DR: Perception begins as a time-division multiple access (interrupt style) mic, changing voice 2-4 times a second (audio gets a chance, then visual field, then mood, then body movement). While a voice is at the mic, it spits out varying amplitude over time. This signal is given reification as lower-dimensional ringframes at the location and shape of attention. Finally, the full content of 3D reality is deduced last in the processing pipeline.

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If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to me at caldwbr@gmail.com.