How to gain consciousness on the basis of brain structure, neuron-types, three functional systems, and three levels of complexity in the processing of data from our seven senses?(see part one 1/2) 

Summary:

The purpose of this double article has been to show how the brain, through its structure and function, has an inherent capacity; “to being able to surpass itself”. By being structured as a sense-based and linguistic hierarchical organization, with information flow both vertically up and down and horizontally in a network between the systems, the brain can also develop so called recursivity or double feedback. This occurs through a kind of reflexivity, a sort of surveillance window at the front of the skull. It is this window or surveillance tower that can achieve double consciousness or reflexive self-awareness. From this source, the brain can mobilize an intense engagement for a personal cause, or a political goal. It can also provide the system that regulates the body’s wakefulness and excitement with messages to stay awake and alert. Then it can work undisturbed day and night against those goals.

A theory of consciousness based on the findings of A.R Luria.

My own deductions from Luria’s theory:

The following text is based on my long-standing speculations and assumptions about the over mentioned subject: How awareness and self-awareness are possible based on what we know about the brain. You might have ended up with other conclusions, or strongly disagree on this matter. I do hope, however that you will read this short chapter 2, and test my suppositions with your own brain, knowledge and experience.

The third system has the key to advanced consciousness.

In my opinion, we must go to the 3rd and last main system Luria refers to, to answer this crucial question about human consciousness. From this system, the brain programs and organizes your body’s movements and actions, (via motor neurons in the parietal lobes.) From here the brain also checks and regulates your behavior in relation to these goals and plans.

The third system is completely dependent on information from the other two systems to function properly. That is, it bases its planning and executive activities and quality checking, upon the experiences of the senses.

This is because up here on this information-collecting platform, everything the individual has experienced is integrated. Here are the results of all trial and errors, – all successes and defeats memorized.

With the help of our language, images, melodies, motor skills, as well as good and painful experiences, and socially learned norms, these data are combined into a complex whole. Here all the multi-modal pieces of information are woven together into an overall image and understanding of the world. Primarily this means the total context in which the individual is a part of. Both a family, a community, as well as a country and the outside world.

Consciousness is a deep relational experience.

This wide understanding does not happen without the close relationships with caregivers. Mothers and fathers that communicate with their child through a verbal or symbol-based language. Via the child’s language center in the temporal lobes, there is a gradual decoding of the sounds in the public language, to more-or-less meaningful references to the experienced self and world of the child. A world of personal character.

The concepts therefore must be relevant and related to the phenomena that the child recognizes, but which also reflects the family and society’s values ​​and attitudes.

The “hand of wakefulness”, “the hand of the seven senses”, and on top of them, “the hand of programming and processing all the information”

This third main system is pictorially the hand whose fingers have touched the fingers of the other two system’s hands and laid its own fingers on top of them as a guiding hand. In other words, we can visualize this as the superstructure of the human brain’s hierarchical organization. A superstructure that relies on the many experiences of muscle and body action, in addition to the close contact with the first system of energy and wakefulness, and the second system of the seven senses.

The quality of the cerebral superstructure.

Mostly this superstructure is not in itself bound to the specific senses, but rather constitutes an abstraction and synthesis of them. It is neither modal nor multimodal, but so-called a-modal. This fact raises the third system above the other two systems! This placement puts it in a unique position to overview the whole situation. And that brings us even closer to the answer of my question about consciousness.

Awareness and self-awareness

There is a difference between consciousness and self-awareness. Consciousness is present when you are awake and oriented to time and place. That is, if someone asks you who you are, then you remember your name, remember where you live, your birthday, and know approximately what time it is.

Memory plays a significant role in consciousness. If you are normally conscious, you are pretty much aware of much of your past, that you are living now, and that you also have a future. Unlike very young children, you are aware that you are you, and can thus distinguish between yourself and others. This type of consciousness requires figuratively the hand that rises above the other two systems, like the recently mentioned superstructure.

But this form of consciousness is necessary but not sufficiently to achieve self-awareness, defined as a higher degree of consciousness. This is a type of awareness that can put itself in a perspective and be conscious of its own self-awareness.

Back to the picture of the hands and fingers: See before you three forearms with hands standing up in a vertical position. One forearm and hand represent the first system that takes care of your attention and alertness. The other forearm and hand process information from the seven senses and channel the information upwards (see above). While the third forearm and hand represent the central administration of plans and actioning. This is a center that put itself on top of the other two hands of fluid info, and spread its fingers out in the front lobe of our brain.

If we are finally to complete the imaging of your brain with the principle of self-consciousness, we can imagine that your top-steered, “upper hand’s fingers have a mirror on each nail. These “mirror fingernails” can not only reflect the outside world, but also itself.

But this will only happen if the outside world and you yourself are conveyed through the eyes and brain of another person as you develop from infant to toddler and to adolescent.

Consciousness as we speak of it here, is therefore a very complex neuropsychological, bio-social, and relational state of mind. Your brain has as we have seen, absolutely the proper structure and functions to gain conscious awareness. But it needs to interact with other brains to achieve this advanced state of mind.

Psychological theory and psychopathology show us how dependent we are on safe and supportive parenting figures to gain sufficiently conscious awareness. In worst case, this can make the difference between a healthy mind or a mental collapse with total confusion.

What about AI,- artificial intelligence and consciousness?

To be continued......