Feeling conscious
Neuropsychology could have easily been my first profession. My fascination for the brain and appreciation for how little and much we know of it has always captivated my logical and imaginative thought.
I just finished the book, Wider Than The Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness, where Gerald Edelman, M.D., Ph. D. covers an impressive amount of information refuting that consciousness is solely metaphysical. While anyone can argue there is mystery to the brain, Edelman’s work is persuasive – there are neurological constructs which give rise to consciousness.
Quale (IPA [ ˈkwɑːle]) is the way something feels, an experienced conscious moment. The definition’s subtly fails to describe the complex recipe that comprises a feeling –
sensory input, consequences of motor activity, imagery, emotions, fleeting memories, bodily sensations and a peripheral fringe. (p. 61)
Our experience, being conscious of being conscious naturally contains all of these things all of the time. It would be trivializing to say it is like a movie where only audio and visual aspects are perceived. Qualia consider the past, the current and the possible future, all at the same moment, all the time, becoming part of the categorized catalog of discriminated conscious states influencing future qualia.
In order to fully understand the data set that is flowing throughout the brain, we would actually need to be that body, that brain. The information outside of that context can only be imagined. An example used was, “what would it be like to be a bat?” illustrating the complexity – it would actually be easier to understand what it would be like to be another human, but is quite literally, impossible.
Recently on CBS Sunday Morning, Mo Rocca questioned if as we live longer and medical technology continues to deliver higher quality transplant and artificial replacement, will you still be you? Assuming that the replacement of an organ is successful, the brain would read the new organ as part of new quale. What happens to the qualia associated with the failed organ? Does the brain simply treat those discriminations as part of a phantom part of a quale – similar to the sensation some people experience when losing a limb, or, is some of the data lost forever? Does the new organ have the ability to read the data stream as part of the body and brain? Does the replacement organ, know something that the failing organ did not?
So, Mo, I think the answer is yes, probably, you will still be you, but a different you.
November 3rd, 2006 at 4:13 pm
Hey Brian– if you’re interested in neuropsych, I read a cool book called “Magic Trees of the Mind”. Don’t let the cover fool you– to me the book isn’t so much about parenting, raising kids, etc (tho there’s a lot of that in there) as it is about how our brains grow and develop over time. It’s trivial to say that our brains change every day, as we are always subtly adding, dropping, refining the neuronal connections that make up conscious and unconscious thought. However, what I find most appealing is that each of us has the power to profoundly change these structures and hence profoundly affect our abilities. Perhaps I wasn’t born a concert pianist, but with time and practice, I can become one. Maybe my genes/environment dictated that I am a bit of a worrier. With time and the proper repetition, I can change that too…