Do You See What I See?

Upon learning about brain development and plasticity, it was interesting to contemplate the future possibilities in brain treatment and modification.  There are many diseases and traumas (Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's, comas, strokes, hemorrhages, etc.) that can damage the brain indefinitely, leaving victims with impaired brain functions, such as memory loss, speech impediments, and vegetative mind-states.  However, many advancements in stem cell research are paving a promising path toward finding ways to cure or improve the crushing effects of such diseases/traumas.  For example, researchers have recently found the proper factors to induce human stem cells to differentiate into dopaminergic neurons—the neurons that are degenerated by Parkinson's Disease in the brain.  Findings of this magnitude can have tremendous impacts on treatments of all kinds in the future.

The manner in which different brain regions specialize on different sensory information was rather intriguing as well, such as Broca's area being the center for language production.  What I found more interesting was the binding problem, which questions how various brain areas integrate sensory information to produce a perception of a single object.  In other words, how do we know that what we see is also what we hear?  At first, many scientists believed that the information would converge at various association centers within the brain.  It wasn't until later that researchers debunked the hypothesis of data convergence at association centers because they found that few neurons combine one sense with another.  So the question remained—how do we know that what we hear is coming from what we see?

After inquiring the binding problem, I'm driven to go a little further and contemplate the variations across consciousness.  What happens when someone has a mental ability most others don't, and how does this difference in mental ability affect that person's consciousness and perception of reality?  A recent analysis on synaesthesia—a condition caused by an unusually high number of connections between two areas of the brain's sensory cortex, making the senses inseparable—demonstrates the different kinds of associations one sensory datum can elicit on the perception of the observer.  For instance, a synaesthetic individual may perceive a certain color when shown a specific number, or the individual may experience a certain taste or smell that is triggered by a specific sound.  Another way to think of synaesthesia is that it is the predisposition to have extra pathways between areas of the brain, thereby making it easier for these individuals to associate one set of sensory information with different regions of the brain.  Synaesthesia serves as a great example for the evolutionary changes occurring in human consciousness.  Not all humans fall under this condition, and even those that do vary in their perceptual capabilities.

This is where the boundaries of reality blur when it comes to consciousness because one is left to wonder what reality really is and whether we all experience it similarly.  Without a doubt, most of us share common perceptions upon which we are able to build on the reality that we perceive, but what of those people who we categorize as "abnormal," such as schizophrenics?  I can say with absolute certainty that the reality schizophrenics perceive is much different than the one that I perceive, but is that because my reality is real and theirs is less so?  Is it that dopamine imbalances occurring in their brains causes their reality to be less real than my own?  I think not.  Perceptions are highly varied across the human species with reason, both good and bad.  Perhaps we're each meant to explore reality in different ways and perceive different aspects of it, each of us representing one piece of the multi-dimensional puzzle that is reality.  Conceivably, what may be real to me may not yet be real to you, and vice-versa, the point being to communicate the differences and fill the gaps between them.  Do you see what I see?

Mind/Matter?

Of all aspects from this week's readings, I must admit the "hard problem" of philosophy caught my interest the most: what exactly is the purpose of consciousness?  Psychologists tend to be more concerned with the relationship between mental experience and brain activity.  In psychology, this is called the mind-body problem, as proposed to us by the philosopher Rene Descartes of the 17th century.  "I think, therefore I am" was his famous philosophical statement, and Dualism his theoretical tribute to the mind-body problem which suggests that the body functions like a machine following the laws of nature and that the mind, or soul, operates independently from nature and is seated at the pineal gland of the brain.  There is a fundamental problem with Descartes' premises, however.  One can easily refute the mind's independence from nature with practically endless piles of empirical data, from Pavlov and Skinner's findings on conditioning behavior to modern technologies, such as fMRI, that are currently being used to illustrate the associations between brain activity and mental experience.  Of particular significance to this topic is a recent study conducted by the University of Southern California.  The idea behind the study was that certain types of eye movements are characteristic of particular disorders.  The researchers asked their subjects to watch 15 minutes worth of video clips and used eye-tracking data with machine learning technology to predict with relatively high accuracy which of their subjects were classified as having either Parkinson's disease (PD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).  This type of innovative technology along with others (MRI, fMRI, PET, MEG, etc.) can give us further insight to the dependent relationship of both mind and body.  For example, a person with ADHD surely views the world differently from someone without the disorder precisely because the disorder has molded and distorted the mind of the disordered individual.  Any advantage or disadvantage set by nature will affect the mind of any being, and whether the effect inflicts the conscious or the unconscious mind is of a more profound and controversial matter.

Finally, and most importantly, I can get to the central issue at hand: what is the purpose of consciousness?  With the rapid advances in technology of this age, we are becoming more and more acutely aware of the association between the mind and the body.  If indeed they are inseparable, then should we dare to entertain the possibility of life after death?  I like to think so.  I believe there is so much more to nature than we can possibly fathom at this point in time.  

One of my favorite writers is Terence McKenna who happened to be a rather well-known ethnobotanist until his untimely death in April of 2000.  In one of his documentaries he expressed his beliefs about the extra-dimensional workings of nature and stated: "Nature is some kind of minded entity.  Nature is not simply the random flight of atoms through electromagnetic fields.  Nature is not the despiritualized  lumpen matter that we inherit from modern physics, but it is instead a kind of intelligence, a kind of mind."  I contend with his beliefs to a high degree.  From what I understand, nature has an order—a structure or form if you will—and out of these forms all of life is rendered to achieve certain functions.  One of the forms that I find most convincing of such convictions is the apparent construct of the cosmos, as we know it, and its striking similarity to the shape of a neuron:

Currently, I hold to the idea that a collective consciousness exists and that nature is the entity to which it belongs.  Each living creature contributes with the use of its senses what it can to this collective consciousness and feeds it with the experience that it craves.  This feed, in turn, builds it up and continues to shape nature and vice versa.  I suppose you can call this minded entity of nature God.  In saying this, I admit that I am both an evolutionist and a creationist.  My theories are not set, however.  They are still evolving as time progresses, and I will make sure to keep you posted on them as they change.

We may never come to understand fully the purpose of consciousness while we are alive, but surely we all come to discover its purpose on our final day.  During our seven-minute process of death, after our hearts have stopped beating, we will experience the mitosis that severs the mind from the body.  Will our consciousness survive the pitfall of death?  Will we be born to a higher state of existence?  I suppose we'll find out...someday. Until then, I guess our minds will continue to probe and dissect the mind of nature, or the nature of mind.