#] #] ********************* #] "$d_web"'ProjMini/TrNNs-ART/References/0_references notes.txt' - ??? # www.BillHowell.ca 28Jun2023 initial # view in text editor, using constant-width font (eg courier), tabWidth = 3 #48************************************************48 #24************************24 # Table of Contents, generate with : # $ grep "^#]" "$d_web"'ProjMini/TrNNs-ART/References/0_references notes.txt' | sed "s/^#\]/ /" # #24************************24 # Setup, ToDos, #08********08 #] ??Jun2023 #08********08 #] ??Jun2023 #08********08 #] ??Jun2023 #08********08 #] ??Jun2023 #08********08 #] ??Jun2023 #08********08 #] 28Jun2023 Mariana Lenharo: David Chalmers wins 23 year consciousness wager with Christof Koch Ben Davidson of Suspicious0bservers referred to this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-n7oIRI1EM Consciousness, South Atlantic Anomaly, Solar Watch | S0 News June.24.2023 Suspicious0bservers 693K subscribers TODAY'S LINKS: Consciousness: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02120-8 SAA Ion Anomalies: https://agenda.infn.it/event/28874/co... see also last nights video (23Jun2023) +-----+ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02120-8 24 June 2023 Decades-long bet on consciousness ends — and it’s philosopher 1, neuroscientist 0 Christof Koch wagered David Chalmers 25 years ago that researchers would learn how the brain achieves consciousness by now. But the quest continues. Mariana Lenharo ... Koch, who holds the title of meritorious investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, Washington, began his search for the neural footprints of consciousness in the 1980s. Since then, he has been invested in identifying “the bits and pieces of the brain that are really essential — really necessary to ultimately generate a feeling of seeing or hearing or wanting”, as he puts it. At the time Koch proposed the bet, certain technological advancements made him optimistic about solving the mystery sooner rather than later. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures small changes in blood flow that occur with brain activity, was taking laboratories by storm. And optogenetics — which allowed scientists to stimulate specific sets of neurons in the brains of animals such as nonhuman primates — had come on the scene. Koch was a young assistant professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena at the time. “I was very taken by all these techniques,” he says. “I thought: 25 years from now? No problem.” ... Around that time, both researchers had become involved in a large project supported by the Templeton World Charity Foundation, based in Nassau, the Bahamas, that aimed to accelerate research on consciousness. The goal was to set up a series of ‘adversarial’ experiments to test various hypotheses of consciousness by getting rival researchers to collaborate on the studies’ design. “If their predictions didn’t come true, this would be a serious challenge for their theories,” Chalmers says. Decoding the neuroscience of consciousness The findings from one of the experiments — which involved several researchers, including Koch and Chalmers — were revealed on Friday at the ASSC meeting. It tested two of the leading hypotheses: integrated information theory (IIT) and global network workspace theory (GNWT). IIT proposes that consciousness is a ‘structure’ in the brain formed by a specific type of neuronal connectivity that is active for as long as a certain experience, such as looking at an image, is occurring. This structure is thought to be found in the posterior cortex, at the back of the brain. GNWT, by contrast, suggests that consciousness arises when information is broadcast to areas of the brain through an interconnected network. The transmission, according to the theory, happens at the beginning and end of an experience and involves the prefrontal cortex, at the front of the brain. Six independent laboratories conducted the adversarial experiment, following a preregistered protocol and using various complementary methods to measure brain activity. The results — which haven’t yet been peer reviewed — didn’t perfectly match either of the theories. “This tells us that both theories need to be revised,” says Lucia Melloni, a neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, Germany, and one of the researchers involved. But “the extent of that revision is slightly different for each theory”. Unfulfilled predictions “With respect to IIT, what we observed is that, indeed, areas in the posterior cortex do contain information in a sustained manner,” Melloni says, adding that the finding seems to suggest that the ‘structure’ postulated by the theory is being observed. But the researchers didn’t find evidence of sustained synchronization between areas of the brain, as had been predicted. ... As for the bet, Koch was reluctant to admit defeat but, the day before the ASSC session, he bought a case of fine Portuguese wine to honour his commitment. Would he consider another wager? “I’d double down,” he says. “Twenty-five years from now is realistic, because the techniques are getting better and, you know, I can’t wait much longer than 25 years, given my age.” # enddoc