A Brainful of Consciousness
Consciousness
…This is the castle keep, the central redoubt, the core essence of true mentality, many will argue, and it has so far escaped any plausible reconstruction in neurocomputational terms
Churchland 1994, 212
John and Cho are talking about the following article:
Early Ideas on the Localization of Vital Functions
In this post the dialogue is realised by an interaction of virtual characters, for more information please check the page “Virtual characters“
Cho
So here is a list of examples of people who thought they could find the exact spot where consciousness is located in the brain
Cho
Longet thought it would be in the corpus callosum, Drelincourt in the cerebellum, Lotze and Herbart in the pons
John
Cool! We didn’t have Lotze and Herbart, I think I might add those …
Cho
Be sure to check in with my student, she might have more information for you
John
Certainly, I’ll acknowledge her in the article if I use her paper 😊
Cho
Good! They all tried to put consciousness in some unique, asymmetrical part of the brain
John
Yeah, like Descartes with the pineal gland 😊
Cho
There still are people trying to do that, you know. Churchland wrote a whole Book about it
John
I don’t think we have him in the list … 🤔
Cho
He proposed that consciousness would be located in the intralaminar nucleus
John
I’ll jot that down now, can you mail me the precise reference later?
Cho
Sure, no problem. 😊
John
This has been very helpful!
Cho
So what’s next? 😊
John
We’ve got an article on what the brain is actually made of
Cho
Oh, good one, people make the weirdest assumptions about that
John
Yes, they do!
Cho
Like it would all just be neurons … 😊
… Continue to read the conversation between John and Cho
on Saturday 22nd May…
(4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)
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