On the Fallacy of Assigning an Origin to Consciousness

Abstract

Recent developments in the theory of nonlinear dynamics applied to brain theory have substantially expanded our understanding of the neural mechanisms by which large scale patterns of brain activity are self organized. In particular, these new concepts give us fresh insight into the neurodynamics of goal-seeking behavior, how it emerges within the brain, and how it regulates the influx of sensory information into the cerebrum. It has become clear that the stimulus-response paradigm fails to address the most basic properties of biological intelligence, which are its autonomy and its creative powers. Chaotic dynamic systems not only destroy information (in the Shannon- Weaver sense), they create it. Our experimental studies of the electroencephalogram (EEG) have shown us that brains are chaotic systems that do not merely "filter" and "process" sensory input; they use sensory stimuli as "instructions" to create perceptual patterns that replace the stimuli. A key concept in our hypothesizing and modeling is that of re- afference. When a neural activity pattern emerges by chaotic dynamics that expresses a drive toward a goal, it has two facets. One is in the form of a motor command that activates the descending motor systems. The other is a set of messages to the central sensory systems, that prepare those systems for the consequences of motor actions that are about to take place. Studies in anatomy and experimental surgery indicate that the neural activity patterns that express goal-directed tendencies emerge in the limbic system which disseminates reafferent information, and that the sensory consequences of actions are fed back into the limbic system through the entorhinal cortex. Philosophical and psychological considerations suggest that the cyclical processes of emergent goal-seeking, reafference, and sensory feed-back constitute the basis for what we perceive as subjective consciousness. This cycle suggests a further inference that the physiological basis for our human conception of cause and efect lies in the mechanism of reafference, namely that each intended action is accompanied by motor command ("cause") and expected consequence ("effect"), so that the notion of causality lies at the most fundamental level of our capacity for acting and knowing. This trait results in the replacement of sensory stimuli be self-organized activity patterns that are contingent on past experience, present motivational state, and expectancy of future action. We cannot truly access what is "out there", the "Ding an Sich" of Kant, yet we experience the perceptual feedback as the consequence of our action. I conclude that the intuition of causality is essential for human understanding and action, but that it cannot validly be applied to the process by which the intuition emerges. Hence consciousness cannot be said to have a cause, an origin, a seat or beginning in time and place within the brain, so that it is fallacious to seek for its cause, its location or its time of onset in phylogeny and ontogeny.