Lifeboat Foundation

I recently began to worry that something/someone, some field, force, disease, prion, virus, bad luck and/or natural causes could threaten and perhaps destroy the most valuable entity in the universe, an entity more valuable than life itself. Consciousness. What good is life extension without conscious awareness? What is consciousness?

We know the brain works a lot like a computer, with neuron firings and synapses acting like bit states and switches. Brain-as-computer works very well to account for sensory processing, control of behavior, learning and other cognitive functions. These functions may in some cases be non-conscious, and other times associated with conscious experience and control. Scientists seek the distinction – the essential feature, or trick for consciousness.

Some suggest there is no trick, consciousness emerges as a by-product of cognitive computation among neurons. Others say we don’t know, that consciousness may indeed require some feature related to, but not quite the same as neuron-to-neuron cognition.

In either case, humans and other creatures could in principle become devoid of consciousness while maintaining cognitive behaviors, appearing more-or-less normal to outside observers. Such hypothetical non-conscious behaving entities are referred to in literature, films and philosophical texts as ‘zombies’. Philosopher David Chalmers introduced the philosophical zombie, a test case for whether or not consciousness is distinct from cognitive neurocomputation.

Continue reading “A lifeboat for consciousness” »

Authors:

1. Elizabeth Irvine

A groundbreaking study has provided experimental evidence suggesting a quantum basis for consciousness.

By demonstrating that drugs affecting microtubules within neurons delay the onset of unconsciousness caused by anesthetic gases, the study supports the quantum model over traditional classical physics theories. This quantum perspective could revolutionize our understanding of consciousness and its broader implications, potentially impacting the treatment of mental illnesses and our understanding of human connection to the universe.

Fascinating as this may sound, not all dreams serve as gateways to parallel timelines. Whether dreams return is key here. “Recurring dreams, especially those with vivid and consistent scenarios, might suggest deeper connections to other realities,” Leong claims. On the other hand, dreams tied to personal experiences often feel disjointed, with distorted time. The most surreal and incomprehensible dreams are likely the subconscious processing your life here on Earth, he says. But, if it feels like you’re visiting the dream rather than imagining it—like a play with a beginning, middle, and end—you probably are visiting this other world, under Leong’s hypothesis.

Leong also hints that strong emotions in persistent dreams could offer cosmic clues—signals of how another version of you is experiencing life in a parallel world. “Say you have a repetitive dream of being stuck in high school,” he suggests. “While it may reflect unresolved psychological themes, such as feelings of stagnation or anxiety about personal growth, it could also indicate that in another reality, you are still in high school, dealing with the same challenges your waking self has moved beyond.” This emotional resonance—like the frustration of being stuck—could ripple across dimensions, creating a feedback loop between your conscious mind here and one of your alter egos elsewhere.

YET, AS CAPTIVATING AS THIS HYPOTHESIS MIGHT BE, it runs into a significant problem: there’s no empirical evidence to back it up. Quantum phenomena, such as entanglement and nonlocality, challenge our traditional views on time and space. Yet, no scientific studies conclusively support the idea that dreams are portals to other worlds. Mainstream neuroscience and cognitive science, on the other hand, find this hypothesis heretical—if not downright unscientific.

What is consciousness, and is it really inherent only to humans? In this video, we explore whether consciousness is not only inherent in humans, but also in animals, artificial intelligence, and even the universe itself. We dive into the complex concepts of panpsychism and quantum consciousness, looking at Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff’s Orch-OR project, which claims that quantum processes in microtubules may underlie consciousness. We will analyze Giulio Tononi’s Integral Information Theory, which proposes to quantify the level of consciousness in any system.

Become a channel sponsor.
/ @mindworld.

Continue reading “Who (or what) Possesses Consciousness? From Koko to AI” »

Before I begin, I would like to state that the topics discussed here in reference to Quantum Mechanics represent my own understanding of the science. These ideas may or may not fall in with those who have achieved accreditation for their own understanding of the subject matter. The observations of the author are derived from extensive study of the science from a variety of materials, including audio and visual lectures. It is my hope that the understanding presented here will offer a medium of sorts for those concerned with preservation of personality.

Time, in this view, doesn’t look like a line in which one event causes another. Instead, eight events might be the eight vertices of a cube. Each point may connect with new geometric shapes that arise inside the cube—the vertices of which are also events—or the cube could become a point in a larger geometry. In any case, time is building a geometry like a crystal.

THE TEAM BUILT TWO ARTIFICIAL BRAINS to operate according to these theories so they could observe what happens without the interference of human projections, narratives, and emotions, and compare them with human subjects. An artificial brain doesn’t have an ego or a sense of existential dread, among other things, that might muddy the results. On the other hand, they were limited to a smaller number of primes because the machines don’t have other attributes humans do have.

Continue reading “Scientists Are Developing a Tool That Can ‘See’ Your Consciousness” »

This study explores how the brain processes predictions and what happens to these processes during unconsciousness induced by the anesthetic propofol.

Our brains are constantly making predictions about our surroundings, enabling us to focus on and respond to unexpected events. A recent study explores how this predictive process functions during consciousness and how it changes under general anesthesia. The findings support the idea that conscious thought relies on synchronized communication between basic sensory areas and higher-order cognitive regions of the brain, facilitated by brain rhythms in specific frequency bands.

Previously, members of the research team at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT and at Vanderbilt University had described how brain rhythms enable the brain to remain prepared to attend to surprises. Cognition-oriented brain regions (generally at the front of the brain), use relatively low-frequency alpha and beta rhythms to suppress processing by sensory regions (generally toward the back of the brain) of stimuli that have become familiar and mundane in the environment (e.g. your co-worker’s music). When sensory regions detect a surprise (e.g. the office fire alarm), they use faster frequency gamma rhythms to tell the higher regions about it and the higher regions process that at gamma frequencies to decide what to do (e.g. exit the building).

Continue reading “MIT Scientists Shed New Light on the Critical Brain Connections That Define Consciousness” »