Seeing red

[bennyboy]

You will be surprised to find, maybe, that in the context of talking about brain and mind, I doubt there are any experiences we have that don't have some neural correlate. Keep in mind that this is throwing out skepticism about the source of experiences, etc., which we've already probably talked about enough.

I'd like to list a few possibilities for consideration, not all (maybe not any) which are my own ideas.

First of all, let's start with the assumption that there's a physical universe, and that mind is exclusively a product of brain function, or at least of properties or functions of material in the brain. Even given this, there are many levels upon which mind could supervene. Let's list out a few of these levels just for hoots.

1) Experience only supervenes through the coordinated effort of at least several brain parts. Perhaps you need at least enough input to determine patterns, you need an organ capable of measuring events through a sense of time, etc. Without all these components, you can't have anything said to be remotely conscious.
2) Experience supervenes whenever certain brain parts (say the visual cortex) receive sufficient stimulation. So if you stimulated a dead brain, little bubbles of "consciousness" would flash into that mental canvas for a moment despite the total lack of coherence of function in the brain in death.
3) The essence of consciousness exists at a neuronal level-- this is the basis of perception, and every firing neuron has a kind of miniscule "awareness," although the person himself may not actually have access to it. The conscious mind would be a kind of dynamic structure composed of billions of these tiny "idealets," if I can coin a word here.
4) The most elemental "spark" of consciousness exists whenever information is exchanged, anywhere in the universe-- for example when a photon is absorbed with light information from a distant star by a receiving atom-- even if this is not part of an organism. In this case, the cascade of information through electrochemical transmission in a single neuronwould represent already a relatively massive corridor of "consciousness", though it would likely still be too insignificant to raise the conscious attention of a human being.

I think the latter case is interesting. It would mean that mind is intrinsic to all matter, not just special systems. It would be the coordination of idealets into larger ideas, then concepts, and then a world view that WE would perceive as conscious awareness, much like only a gazillion particles working together can appear as a "thing" to us.

This would then eliminate the need to ask how mind supervenes on a physical brain. Instead, all material interactions would be seen as mindful, with ours just being a unique case.

Let's try a reductio process here, because that's how I arrive at this idea. Take a brain, and kill a single neuron. Then another. Then another. What would happen? Would there be a kind of critical mass, at which the brain would suddenly go into a coma? Or would the quality of experience degrade imperceptibly but steadily, neuron after neuron, after neuron? I suspect the latter, in which case not more than 2 neurons would be needed to support at least some kind of experience, although so primitive it would be almost quantum.

Now, let's take our 2 neurons, and start pulling molecules, 1 by 1. Would there be a critical mass at which the neuron could no longer function, or would it gradually become less and less responsive? Again, I suspect the latter. I don't think any 1 particular pulled molecule would "turn off the lights," but instead you'd have shades of gray. At some point, you'd have that structure which would allow the most minimal possible perception, though again I'd call it something like a "perceptling" or something like that to indicate its primitive elemental nature.

What, now, if you replaced the body of the neuron with wiring? Would it still function? One might suppose that so long as the emission and reuptake of neurotransmitters was possible, the method of transmission along the body wouldn't matter. What now if you swapped out the synaptic mechanism with an electric mechanism, would it matter? It's hard to see how, right? So this would mean that a simpler system-- an electric wire-- should also be able to support the same elemental "perceptling."

Now we can go freaking nuts and continue pulling out metal molecules, maybe replacing them with fiber optics, or even just photons transmitting across a "synapse" of empty space."

Well, this is not really different than say a photon leaving the sun and being absorbed by an atom in a rock on Earth.

Sorry for the long ramble, but my point is this: without being able to determine otherwise, it seems to me that the most elemental structure capable of having some primitive perception would be a single body transmitting or receiving a photon. In other words. . . mind is intrinsic to all matter, and matter is therefore not energy/matter, but energy/matter/mind.