Consciousness; proposed new research (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, June 17, 2015, 20:34 (3233 days ago)

Looking at membrane electrical potentials and other membrane characteristics:-http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/exclusive-oliver-sacks-antonio-damasio-and-others-debate-christof-koch-on-the-nature-of-consciousness/?WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20150617-"The qualitative argument for considering cation influx to be the “spark of sentience”, as outlined above, is perhaps already plausible, but the quantitative details require further study. As summarized by the foremost contributor to the science of excitable membranes, Bertil Hille, the perceptual significance of cation influx is unlikely to be strong in, for example, the giant motor axon of the squid. Although the large diameter of the squid axon makes it ideal for experimental study, the huge volume of this motor neuron also means that its action potential results in an atypically small change in the voltage gradient (only 1 part in 105). In contrast, sensory potentials and action potentials in the small dendrites and axons of most animal nervous systems (where cation influx results in a 10 percent change in ionic content) are much more likely to be perceptually relevant and therefore motivating stimuli. Could these be the cellular-level phenomena that ignite “awareness” and ultimately drive animal behavior? Is this the relevant membrane biology that underlies “mind” and most clearly distinguishes between the placid existence of flora and the feisty, fidgety behavior of fauna?-****-"What this calls for is a principled, analytical, prescriptive, empirically testable, and clinically useful account of how highly organized and excitable matter supports the central fact of our existence—subjective experience.-DHW PLEASE NOTE:-"Finally, it is quite a different question whether single cell-organisms, worms or other simple metazoans—vastly simpler than mammals with their large brains—have sentience. I do share with the letter writers a hunch that it may well be that “it feels like something to be a worm”. However, that is a question that right now can't be answered in any meaningful empirically accessible manner."-Sentience is a word that has been over-used and over-hyped, as this quote indicates. There are many levels of meaning of the word 'sentience', which simply means the ability to recognize stimuli.