Consciousness Thought Experiment

We do not yet know how consciousness comes to be. What if a functional human consciousness begins to appear when the brain is capable of forming complex and long lasting connections that arise from external stimuli, in our case, our senses?

Imagine the following thought experiment.

1. Imagine a baby being born. Now imagine this baby not possessing a body. But just a free standing brain.  (for the sake of simplicity, assume we can keep it alive)
2. If the brain is kept in an isolated environment away from any external stimuli but alive
3. Would it eventually develop an awareness?

If we assume the initial question to be valid. I believe that the baby would not form awareness and that it would have very few connections as opposed to a 2 month old baby.

Then we ask ourselves what allows the human brain to form a more complex consciousness than other mammals if mammalian brains are very similar in structure?
It could be the ability to form complex connections through the culmination of external stimuli and the ability to retain those connections. It could be possible that animals such as dogs and cats are not capable of forming very complex connections within the different sectors of the brain. If so it could either be a physical limitation of their brain or some gene that is not present.
This does not mean animals are not conscious. I believe they do posses a form of awareness but not a very complex one like “functional human consciousness” as defined in an earlier post.

The idea of a spectrum for consciousness begins to present itself.

Functioning Human Consciousness

Is it conceivable that your everyday person has what I call a “Functioning Human Consciousness”. This term may refer to the level of consciousness that this person has. But you would ask how can we have different levels of consciousness?

Think of a baby, around the age of 7 months. Could it not be possible that this young human has a consciousness that falls lower on the spectrum of adult functioning consciousness?

Could an animal such as a dog or a dolphin have a level of consciousness that is not as “aware” as our own but is still experiencing consciousness? Would we not have the ethical and moral responsability to take care of such life since we are able to perceive our own and their consciousness?

But even if most humans possess a functioning human consciousness, there must be a common denominator for this consciousness. Could the following properties be some of the underlying common properties of FHC?
1. Self Awareness
2. Awareness of other beings’ awareness

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More info to come later

Understanding Neurons

Questions
– Do Neurons form connections to similar neurons or are different types of neurons

    1. If there are different types of neurons are they stored in groups and what is the bridge that connects the different groups of neurons
    2. Will the connections amongst the same type of neurons be more complex with a less complex connection to different groups thus creating clusters of connections

Human Consciousness

Questions

    – Does consc. happen at birth or after being stimulated by the environment through senses at a later point possibly close to 1 year of age?
    – Does consc. arise due to connections formed by neurons, whereas most non-human animals neurons don’t have the capacity to form many connections or
    there are not enough neurons to develop a sense of self-awareness?
    – Is it an requirement for the neurons and their connections to maintain previous connections for a prolonged period of time?

Postulations

    – If consc. occurs because of many types of connections to different parts of the brain along with a minimum number of neurons and/or connections, then consc. is an inevitable part of the brain given more neurons, connections.

Human Mind (Thinking Process)

– Does the mind think in steps? we may not know but could there be an algorithm that the mind performs while going through the process of thinking?

    1. Start with input of data
    2. And the mind directs the sector of the brain to be utilized deterministic
    3. As each “sector” is accessed, a different thought occurs
    4. Or are all thoughts randomly created with different parts of the brain lighting up
    and then connecting