This dissertation will seek to examine the relationship between consciousness and cosmology, looking at how this may possibly be modelled using a connectionist (neural) network, thus giving rise to cognition.
The New Penguin English Dictionary (2000) defines consciousness as 'the state of being aware of one's surroundings, and of responding to them normally'. An editorial note, written by Dr Susan Blackmore, makes the following comment 'In psychology and neuroscience consciousness means subjective experience. Once excluded from scientific study, consciousness is now considered one of its greatest challenges. We know that physical changes in the brain are related to changes in consciousness, but the 'hard problem' of consciousness is to understand how private subjective experience can arise from objective events such as the firing of brain cells'. This will be elaborated later in the dissertation.
The same dictionary describes 'cosmology' as 'the branch of astronomy dealing with the origin, structure and space-time relationships of the universe.'
'Cognition', according to the Dictionary of Psychology, is 'a broad (almost unspecifiaby so) term which has been traditionally used to refer to such activities as thinking, conceiving, reasoning etc. Most psychologists have used it to refer to any class of mental 'behaviours' (using that term very loosely) where the underlying characteristics are of an abstract nature and involve symbolizing, insight, expectancy, complex rule use, imagery, belief, intentionality, problem solving and so forth'.
So how does cognition take place in the human brain? Some scientists try to simulate cognition using parallel computing or neural networks, also known as connectionism; they suggest that human intelligence can be understood as the result of activation levels in large networks of densely interconnected units. The human brain contains at least one hundred billion nerve cells/units or neurons and each of these may make between 10,000 and 100,000 different connections with other nerve cells. According to Professor Steven Rose : 'if you look at the possible computation power this gives us in terms of the range of connections in the brain, there are overwhelmingly more than there are particles in the universe. So the human brain is the most complex structure that we know of as humans'.
The basic terminology about to be employed has now been defined and at this point it would be pertinent to put forward one central theme which will run through this dissertation - is consciousness within the brain or is it out there in the universe? Or, indeed, are the two synonymous? Are we, as sentient beings, at one with the universe and therefore possessing the same consciousness - the cosmic consciousness? These, of course, are philosophical questions, which may, or may not, have an answer. But are these the right question to ask, as philosophy so aptly comments. They surely are but human brain cells are perhaps not sufficiently developed to comprehend the answer!
However, this dissertation will endeavour to address such fundamental questions as existence and meaning, examining the complex relations between philosophy, religion and science as they converge to shape the world view of a culture. Knowledge and consciousness themselves are located in the cosmos. For well over 5000 years cosmological stories have been central to most if not all cultures as humans have sought to understand the nature of their own consciousness and their place in the universe. All humans share an outer cosmos, within which they dwell, and an inner consciousness, which dwells within them.
Traditional western academics often focussed on the differences between cosmology and consciousness whereas eastern philosophers tend to focus on those elements which are shared or which are, perhaps, synonymous. But whichever paradigm is adopted, the parallel between cosmology and consciousness should be quite distinct. It is the difference between the outer and the inner, or the similarity between the two. Consciousness can include everything and anything, just as the cosmos does. In studying the relationship between cosmology and consciousness we are aiming for a way of clarifying the totality of things so that we can situate ourselves in the world and bring meaning to our lives.
This dissertation will be divided into four parts.
- Part 1 will look at aspects of consciousness and examine how western philosophers saw its relationship with cosmology
- Part 2 will look at the quantum side of the relationship between consciousness and cosmology, with particular reference to the works of Sir Roger Penrose
- Part 3 will focus on the religious/mystical area of the relationship
- Part 4 will analyse what part connectionism could play in simulating the relationship and how that relationship could fit in with the principles of Classical Cognitive Science and Connectionism
The many and diverse ways of discussing consciousness are all representational (where representations are the transfer of information from one modality to another). There are philosophical, physiological and connectionist representations, for example; however, these are basically only different ways of talking about the same thing, as this dissertation will try to demonstrate.
What exactly is consciousness? The author believes that consciousness is synonymous with the 'I' or the 'self', the platform from which we view and interact with the world. It is that sense of 'subjective, qualitative states of awareness, sentience or feeling' (John Searle, the modern American philosopher). For the majority of people, consciousness is like a kind of 'inner light' that determines 'what it is like to be me'. Rene Descartes, the French 17th century philosopher and scientist, was also an advocate of the conscious self, as epitomised in his well-known dictum 'cogito ergo sum'. (in modern English 'I am conscious therefore I exist'). But Descartes was also an advocate of dualism, holding the view that consciousness exists independently of the physical world and the body. Possibly he believed that consciousness was 'out there' in the cosmos.
18th century philosophers Kant and Hume sought to disagree with Descartes' account of the conscious self and it was not until the end of the19th century that William James began to extol the virtues of a conscious self, but as a physiological function. He wrote in his 'Textbook of Psychology' (1892): 'The immediate condition of a state of consciousness is an activity of some sort in the cerebral hemispheres..One has only to consider how quickly consciousness may be abolished by a blow on the head.. (or) by a full dose of alcohol..to see how at the mercy of bodily happenings our spirit is..Destruction of certain definite portions of the cerebral hemispheres involves losses of memory and of acquired motor faculty of quite determinate sort..Taking all such facts together, the simple and radical conception dawns upon the mind that mental action may be uniformly and absolutely a function of brain-action, varying as the latter varies, and being to the brain-action as effect to cause'.
The American 20th century philosopher, John Searle, also considered consciousness to be a biological function of certain human and animal brains. He wrote in 'The Rediscovery of Mind' : 'Consciousness, in short, is a biological feature of human and certain animal brains. It is caused by neurological processes and is as much a part of the natural biological order as ny other biological features such as photosynthesis, digestion or mitosis...it is those subjective states of sentience or awareness that begin when one awakes in the morning from a dreamless sleep and continues throughout the day until one goes to sleep at night or fall in a coma, or dies, or otherwise becomes, as one would say, unconscious. Above all consciousness is a biological phenomenon.'
Other contemporary philosophers, such as Daniel Dennett and Marvin Minsky, maintained that consciousness arose solely from neurons and as such was a type of high-level, abstract thinking. Dennett is considered the leading proponent of the computational model of the mind and the leading philosopher of AI. Thomas Nagel, yet another modern philosopher, expounded the theory that an organism has conscious mental states if there is something that it is like to be that organism ('What is is like to be a bat' 1974) and a similar treatise on plants in 1997.
Further good accounts of the philosophical assumptions behind the neurological explanation of consciousness can be found in the work of Paul Churchland (1986), Owen Flanagan (1992), Jack Copeland (1993) and Francis Crick (1994). Copeland distinguishes three 'areas' of consciousness - firstly the capacity to experience the external world through sense organs and to perform cognitive operations on that sense experience. Secondly, a reflexive type of consciousness in which people monitor what they experience, and thirdly the 'ineffable feel' of it all or the experiential qualities of subjective awareness - called by the philosophers 'qualia'. ( it is this last 'area' of consciousness which is the most controversial and dismissed by Dennett as a mirage!). People usually have different levels of awareness, when they are conscious - for example, one may be extremely aware of reading a book or chatting on the internet but only semi-aware of the radio playing or the cat purring.
Yet other contemporary theorists identify consciousness with states which play a central role in human cognition. Bernard Baars, the American psychologist, has developed a 'global workspace' theory of consciousness. Baars claims that there are several distinct cognitive information-processing systems in the human brain, including the various modes of perception, imagery, attention and language. These sub-systems of the brain each have their own tasks to perform and a good deal of their processing takes place below the level of consciousness. The global workspace is therefore an information exchange which could be compared to a TV broadcasting station - other sub-systems can then analyse and interpret the information from the global workspace; it is this general availability that constitutes consciousness. Baars' theory was put forward in the late 1980s, coinciding with the rise in connectionism, and was probably modelled on a connectionist architecture (see part 4 of the dissertation).
D L Schachter, another American psychologist, developed a similar theory to explain consciousness in terms of its central role of information-processing and decision-making. He called it the Conscious Awareness System (CAS) model.
It was David Chalmers, a modern Australian philosopher, who appears to have finally conceptualized the main difficulty in the study of consciousness. This took place in 1994 at the first international symposium on the science of consciousness at the University of Tucson, Arizona, and the first 'Journal of Consciousness Studies' appeared the same year, followed by numerous books on the subject. He distinguished between an 'easy' and a 'hard' problem. The easy problem concerned the objective study of the brain, while the hard problem concerned determining how a physical system (such as that possessed by humans) can behave independently - 'Why is it that physical processing in the brain, no matter how sophisticated, should give rise to any subjective inner life at all? Why couldn't that have all gone on in the dark? That's the real mystery.' (Chalmers 1996).
This hard problem of consciousness has become extremely prominent in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, mainly because the world-view developed by 20th century science has made it difficult to understand how consciousness fits into reality. But does it really need to fit into reality? Possibly consciousness could exist in the world of ideas, so beloved of George Berkeley in the 18th century. 'Esse est percipi', he said , 'to be is to be perceived', and founded idealism.
Sir Roger Penrose had much to say on the quantum state of consciousness in his two lengthy tomes - 'The Emperor's New Mind' (1989) and 'Shadows of the Mind' (1994). Penrose rejects the AI viewpoint that human consciousness is basically computational - 'all there is to mind is running the right program' - because he believes that this model of the mind fails to account for intuitive problem-solving. He considers the brain to be non-algorithmic (it does not operate by mechanically following a set of procedures or rules as does a computer) and that classical physics itself is algorithmic.
Penrose believes that classical physics is inadequate to explain the phenomenen of consciousness, which must be a quantum phenomenon because neurons are too large to account for it. Inside neurons is a cytoskeleton, the structure that holds cells together, whose microtubules (hollow protein cylinders 25-nanometers in diameter) control the function of synapses. Penrose thinks that consciousness is a manifestation of the quantum cytoskeletal state and its interplay between quantum and classical levels of activity. Subjective reduction is what happens when an observer measures a quantity in a quantum system; the system is not in any specific state until it is observed, the observation causes the system to reduce (or 'collapse') to a specific state. This is the only reduction known to the traditional quantum theory.
Objective reduction is a Penrose discovery, which is part of his attempt to unify relativity theory and quantum theory. Superpositioned states each have they own spacetime geometries. Under special circumstances, which microtubules are suitable for, the separation of spacetime geometry of the superpositioned states reaches a point (the quantum gravity threshold) where the system must choose one state. It just then collapse to that one state abruptly. This 'self-collapse' results in particular 'conformational states' that regulate neural processes. These states can interact with neighbouring states to represent, propagate and process information. Each self-collapse corresponds with a discrete conscious event. Sequences of events then give rise to a 'stream' of consciousness. It is the collapse of the wave function which gives rise to consciousness, according to Penrose.
It is the consciousness of the observer that makes the difference. When we become conscious of something we bring about the collapse of the wave function so that the mixed states of life and death appear on the same continuum (This is typified in Schrodinger's experiment with the cat.).
Penrose further believes that 'protoconscious' information is encoded in space-time geometry at the fundamental Planck scale and that a self-organising Planck-scale process results in consciousness. For Penrose conscious states exist in a world of their own, to which our minds have access; these states are somewhere in the cosmos, waiting for us to access them. Different configurations of quantum spin geometry represent varieties of conscious experience. It is possible to draw a parallel here between Penrose's theory and Berkeley's 'world of ideas'.
Henry Stabb, a physicist from the University of California, also put forward arguments for the adoption of a quantum theory of consciousness.
Perhaps it is rather difficult to visualise how Penrose and Stabb's ideas are connected with the relationship between consciousness and cosmology. But if we look at cosmology as being a rather unique science in that it examines a mysterious phenomenon (the universe) and at consciousness as being a rather unique concept in that it so readily eludes definition, we may be part of the way towards comprehending the problem. Cosmology is quite different from other sciences in that there is only one universe available (as far as we know although there is much talk about parallel universes, but the existence of these is only speculative) for experimentation. Martin Rees, Royal Society Research Profesor at Cambridge University, supports the notion that many universes exist and that the Big Bang, which supposedly created 'our' universe, was only one of a series of 'Big Bangs' taking place. Rees believes that some universes may resemble ours, while others may be totally different and yet others may recollapse after a brief existence or because the laws ruling them would not allow complex consequences.
Assumptions must therefore be made on a regular basis. And so it is with consciousness - assumptions are also frequently made by philosophers and scientists alike. Just as the universe is infinitely mysterious, so also is consciousness, which is sometimes claimed to be one of the last great unsolved mysteries. Creatures like humans are the consciousness of the universe. So, when we ask questions about the origins of the universe we are really asking questions about our own origins; in turning to the study of cosmology we are possibly looking for something to replace the concept of god.
Although there is order in the universe and also, apparently, in consciousness, there is also chaos. Related to Penrose's views is the chaotic model of consciousness, which is also non-algorithmic. It is fluid and flexible, not predictable or sequential and there is no limit on the number of states this chaotic model can reach. Chaos theory has its origins in ancient Chinese philosophy. Ancient Chinese thought recognised that chaos and order are related - the world is regulated by these contrasting principles which must remain in balance if order it to be maintained. This is fundamentally true of all issues affecting human life, for if we cannot contrast aspects of life, how can we be aware of the meaning of their existence? And to be aware of their existence, of course, requires consciousness, so we are caught in an endless cycle, comparable to the wheel of life.
The 'wheel of life' leads us quite naturally into part 3 of this dissertation - an examination of the religious/mystical aspects inherent in the relationship between consciousness and cosmology. As stated previously, the study of consciousness can be considered as an attempt to penetrate one of the last great mysteries of humankind in general and of science in particular. But humans are still a long way from conquering the mystery of consciousness and many still tend to link it to a divine agency somewhere in the cosmos, which some religions refer to as God. In contrast to the western idealisation of power, money and science, eastern traditions have honoured the thinker, the sage, the poet and the mystic.
In the late 20th century there has been increasing interest shown by western scientists and philosophers in many of the concepts found in Asian religious traditions, notably Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism. This interest has been in the domain of physics (of which cosmology is a branch) and is documented in the Austrian physicist, Fritjof Capra's, book 'The Tao of Physics' (1975) which I read when it was first published, when this type of thinking was relatively novel in the western world. Capra makes the following comment : 'The two foundations of twentieth-century physics - quantum theory and relativity theory - both force us to see the world very much in the way a Hindu, Buddhist or Taoist sees it... Modern physics leads us to a view of the world which is very similar to the views held by mystics of all ages and traditions.'
Prior to the publication of this 'popular science' book (although 'popular' may be a rather over-enthusiastic term, as it is almost as difficult to read as 'Shadows of the Mind' though slightly shorter!), eastern religious thought had often been considered to have little bearing on the serious issues of science; it was the realm of philosophers and hippies (the ganja-smoking, meditating type who flocked to Kathmandu, Goa and Ceylon, not the new-age hippies who live in muddy camps in England, France and other western countries).
Capra suggests that aspects of physics could form an adequate spiritual path for exploring the mysteries of consciousness and cosmology. He writes: 'The picture of an interconnected cosmic web which emerges from modern atomic physics has been used extensively in the East to convey the mystical experience of nature. For the Hindus, Brahman is the unifying thread in the cosmic web, the ultimate ground of all being...
In Buddhism, the image of the cosmic web plays an even greater role. The core of the Avatamsaka Sutra, one of the main scriptures of Mahayana Buddhism, is the description of the world as a perfect network of mutual relations where all things and events interact with each other in an infinitely complicated way...The cosmic web, finally, plays a central role in Tantric Buddhism, a branch of the Mahayana (see Appendix 1) which originated in India and constitutes today the main school of Tibetan Buddhism. The scriptures of this school are called the 'Tantras' , a word whose Sanskrit root means 'to weave' and which refers to the interwovenness and interdependence of all things and events.'
Capra goes on to emphasise how this universal interwoveness always included the human observer's consciousness and draws a parallel with atomic physics; a process exists in the consciousness of a human observer (remember Schrodinger's cat in part 2). Heisenberg commented that 'Natural science does not simply describe and explain natures; it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves'.
Capra points out that in atomic physics the scientist cannot just play the role of a detached objective observer but must also participate in the world he observes. In the same way mystical knowledge combines observation and participation; Eastern philosophers believe that observer (the conscious being) and observed (the cosmos), subject and object are both inseparable and indistinguishable. In deep meditation consciousness and the cosmos become fused into a unified whole; this is the final perception of the unity of all things.
To quote the Upanishads (Hindu scriptures): 'Where there is a duality, as it were, there one sees another; there one smells another; there one tastes another...But where everything has become just one's own self, then whereby and whom would one see, then whereby and whom would one smell, then whereby and whom would one taste?'
Here again one can see a parallel with quantum theory, which has abolished fundamentally separated objects and introduced the concept of participator alongside that of observer. It sees the universe/cosmos as an interconnected web of physical and mental relations, whose parts are defined only in relation to the whole and where the participator/observer can be human consciousness. And this whole concept is so very similar to the philosophy of tantric Buddhism.
As Lama Anagarika Govinda puts it : 'The Buddhist does not believe in an independent or separately existing external world, into whose dynamic forces he could insert himself. The external world and his inner world are for him only two sides of the same fabric, in which the threads of all forces and all events, of all forms of consciousness and of their objects, are woven into an inseparable net of endless, mutually conditioned relations'. The practising Buddhist seeks to attain this optimum level of fusion between consciousness and the cosmos by using meditation to enter the state of 'nirvana'.
In the late 20th century there was considerable interest in western countries in the practice of 'meditation' - it had begun with the Beatles' visits to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh, North India, in the 1960s, continued in popularity throughout the 1970s, waned somewhat in the more materialistic 1980s and 1990s, to be revived in the late 1990s and continue at the time of writing. The Sanskrit term of meditation is 'samadhi' (mental equilibrium or sometimes translated as 'superconsiousness'). It refers to the balanced and calm state of mind in which the self/consciousness's basic unity with the universe or cosmos is experienced; the meditator is 'conscious' or 'aware' of the absolute oneness of the universe and that his/her consciousness or self is a part of that oneness.
The basic oneness of the universe is also one of the most important revelations of modern physics. According to Capra, models of sub-atomic physics show us that the constituents of matter are all interconnected; they cannot be understood in isolation, but only as parts of the whole. In the same way, consciousness cannot be understood in isolation; it needs to be related to the universe as a whole.
Eastern mystics and philosophers link the concepts of space and time to particular states of consciousness. Once they have bypassed the 'ordinary' state of consciousness through meditation, they have understood that conventional ideas of space and time are not necessarily the only ones that exist. At this point it is necessary to explain what the goal of 'meditation' actually appears to be. Meditation seeks to dissolve the boundaries between inner and outer, between human minds and the universal mind, whether this is called God, Nirvana, Brahman, Tao or any other epithet humans employ. The more refined notions of space and time, which result from their mystical experiences, would seem to be similar to the notions of modern physics, as put forward in Einstein's theory of relativity. In the words of D.T. Suzuki : '...we reach a state of complete dissolution where there is no more distinction between mind and body, subject and object...We look around and perceive that...every object is related to every other object...not only spatially but temporally...As a fact of pure experience, there is no space without time, no time without space; they are interpenetrating'.
Capra's book, which encompasses Taoist, Buddhist and Hindu ways of thinking, was in the 1970s at the forefront of the interface between religion and science and as such demonstrates extremely well the relationship between consciousness and cosmology, as viewed then. Capra went on to write another book - 'The Turning Point' - in 1988, in which he further develops the relationship between the scientific and the religious paradigms and discusses the nature of cognition. He refers to the Santiago Theory of Cognition, proposed by Chileans Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in 1980. According to this theory life is cognition, in the sense that living systems operate by 'knowing' their environment. The relationships within the living system and between that system and its environment are written in its patterns of organisation and express the cognition that the life-form has of itself and of its environment. Cognition is not a representation of an objective world but what each individual brings forth from within a world unique to himself; in the Santiago theory a 'world' is identical with a 'mind'. And if we were to replace 'world' with 'cosmos' and 'mind' with 'consciousness' then the Santiago theory of cognition is a cognitive model for the relationship between consciousness and cosmology.
In 'The Web of Life' (1996) Capra outlines his three criteria for life : a pattern of organization (autopoiesis), a structure (a physical embodiment of the pattern of organisation) and a process (the process of organisation or consciousness, which is synonymous with the process of life itself). These three criteria owe much to the Santiago theory of cognition (see above).
Capra describes modern humans as being in an external state of frustrative anxiety, brought about by a constant grasping after the objects of an external world, which they perceive as permanent, but which are really transient. Similarly, they are constantly searching for an internal self/consciousness which really has no independent existence, since it is part of the whole wider 'picture' of the universe. Capra's new paradigm is similar to the Buddhist 'anicca' (impermanence) and 'anatta' (absence of self), the constant searching for which engenders 'dukkha' (suffering). It is the absence of 'dukkha' which brings about 'nirvana' (the goal state of 'perfect happiness' where the creature is at one with the cosmos).
As time went on and we began to approach the end of the 20th century a sort of 'fin de siecle malaise' began to take hold of western civilisation in general and became increasingly evident in the English-speaking world (notably USA and UK). Counsellors, mystics and therapists of all descriptions began to spring up everywhere alongside schools of meditation, rebirthing, rei-ki and the like - the list is seemingly endless. Alternative 'medical' treatments became increasingly popular; at the time of writing there are more 'therapists' in the UK than actual medical practitioners It would seem from this plethora of practitioners that the general public of the western world is seeking to inject some meaning into their lives, seeking to find out truths which so far seem to have eluded science and religion; they want to achieve that state of cosmic consciousness, where they are at one with the cosmos, at peace with their inner selves (consciousness) and their outer selves (cosmos). The proliferation of sects in mainland Europe and the USA is yet another example of the eternal quest for meaning and purpose, that quest which drives humanity to the brink of discoveries like relativity and quantum mechanics.
It is the search for the essence of life and the relationship of all things within that life, as epitomised in the Hindu scripture the 'Chandogya Upanishad'. VI 12-13. A young boy has returned home to his father after 12 years of study, but his father thinks that, although his son has read a great deal, he has not grasped the 'supreme truth' - the realization of the nature of self (Sanskrit 'atman') or consciousness. To quote the words of the father: 'My son, that subtle essence which you do not perceive there, of that very essence this great nyagrodha tree exists... That which is the subtle essence, in it all that exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou art it.'
Another view of the interface between science and eastern religions is found in Francisco Varela's book 'The Embodied Mind'.(1995). Varela attempts to relate the goals of cognitive science to the insights of Buddhism. He gives a description of consciousness (Pali - vijnana) as the fifth aggregate (skandha) which is being divided into 6 parts - visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile and mental. He explains (in the same way as does Capra) that vijnana is a dualistic sense of experience in which there is an experiencer (Capra's participator) and an object experienced, linked together by a relation. And that relation must be cosmological, although Varela does not actually verbalise this. He writes at great length about the enactment of the embodied, embedded, emergent mind and leaves the reader to draw his/her own conclusions about how consciousness interacts with cosmology. There was, in fact, much collaboration between Capra and Varela in the mid 1990s, which is evident when reading their works.
To conclude this section it can be said that cognition may be the result of subtle interplay between an individual's consciousness (inner realm) and the cosmos (outer realm or environment), an inheritance which eastern religious thought bequeaths on modern science.
'Seek yourself... In the one mind of the cosmos And find the one mind of the cosmos... Within yourself. Be happy... Be at peace' (from 'The Little Book of Bliss', 2000)
How could the relationship between consciousness and cosmology, examined in parts 1-3, be simulated (if at all) by a computer program? Owen Flanagan (1995) refers to the human brain as a 'supremely well-connected system of processors capable of more distinct states than any system ever known by several orders of magnitude...'
The central tenets of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are that minds are analogous to computer programs (strong AI) or that minds function by running various programs (weak AI). At the inception of Cognitive Science (1950s) the belief that cognitive operations presuppose mental representations in the form of symbol-processing and that these symbols exist in brain cells was the dominant paradigm (Classical Cognitive Science). A more recent approach, developed primarily in the 1980s, is connectionism, which dispensed with the symbol-processing but retained representation; no longer do symbols carry meaning but this now occurs as a result of patterns of activity over networks of neuron-like components. And these patterns of activity are simulated by computers which are programmed to learn (or re-program themselves) in the light of experience. For instance, a neural network can be trained to simulate the process of human language learning.
This approach depends on introducing the appropriate connections (whence the name 'connectionism') to the network, which is usually done by employing a mathematical learning rule or algorithm, such as the Delta Rule. The strategy is to build a cognitive system not by starting with symbols and rules but with simple components that connect to each other. Algorithms like the Delta rule provide the neural networks with the ability to synthesize new configurations according to experience; symbolic operations are replaced by numeric operations and meaning or significance is not located in a particular symbol but is a function of the global state of the system.
This global state emerges from a network of units which are more finely tuned than symbols; it is sometimes referred to as the 'subsymbolic paradigm' and is believed to simulate the biological neurons in the brain. Here, with just a little stretch of the imagination, we can draw a parallel with the concept of consciousness being at one with the concept of the cosmos; significance in the connectionist network is a function of not just one particular unit or neuron but of the global state of the whole network. Perhaps future connectionist researchers will be able to use a connectionist framework to simulate and also to demonstrate how various states of consciousness develop and interact with one another to attain superconsciousness or peace within the inner realm (yet another meaning of 'samadhi') as the desired goal state, while at the same time remaining in harmony with the outer realm (the cosmos). Possibly, the Global Workspace Theory, put forward by Bernard Baars (see part 1) could be helpful in this respect.
However, one connectionist architecture which could be a possible candidate for such a simulation is a recurrent network. This particular neural network system could account for learning, memory, attention, qualia (mentioned in part 1), the lack of consciousness when an organism is asleep (this is a debatable point) and also development across time. Most neural networks have an input layer of nodes, a hidden layer of nodes and an output layer of nodes. The recurrent network has an additional layer, called the context layer; this adds a temporal dimension to the system. Learning occurs in the same way as in a multi-layered network, except that now the activation from the previous weights or the hidden nodes are stored in the context nodes for one more cycle.
Theoretically many layers of context nodes can be added, thus giving the network a varying 'memory' length of its previous activation; the network therefore takes into account not only time but also its past history. As such it is probably the type of connectionist architecture best suited to simulate consciousness and attempts to grapple with simulating the relationship between the inner self (consciousness) and the outer world (the cosmos). Of course, it can only do this if 'embodiment' takes place and a 'robot' is developed for, if a system aims to be conscious, it ought to be equipped with human-like sensors, e.g. sight, touch, smell, taste and hearing sensors. With a recurrent neural network as the driving force behind such a robot there is a good possibility for consciousness similar to our own to emerge and cognition to develop.
This dissertation has traced the relationship between consciousness and cosmology through the history of western philosophy, outlined the part quantum physics plays in that relationship, looked in detail at the interface between religion and science in that relationship and finally examined the part that the connectionist paradigm might play in simulating the relationship on a digital platform.
Yet consciousness per se is intrinsic to cognition, not something which arises from it. A typical analogy could be drawn with steam coming out of a steam-train - the steam is the 'stream of consciousness' and may be considered to be the same as 'thought processes' (cognitions). Cognition is the result of subtle interplay between basic cognitive systems and the individual's consciousness/self, cosmos/environment and culture.
I shall conclude with a quotation from Owen Flanagan's 'The Science of the Mind' : 'Three of the greatest perplexities are these. First, why is there something rather than nothing? How is it possible that there is anything at all? Second, how is it possible that among the stuff that exists there is life? Third, how is it possible that some living things are conscious? Alongside and intimately related to the questions of how these things are possible in the first place are questions about the nature of things: what is the nature of what there is (the stuff comprising the universe), of life and of consciousness?'
The questions posed by Flanagan are clearly difficult to answer and, at the time of writing, as yet unanswered, although many suggestions have been put forward and will continue to be advanced. However, this dissertation has tried to show that the 'the nature of what there is (the stuff comprising the universe), of life and of consciousness ' are intimately linked together and cannot be separated; they are all part of the 'cosmic consciousness' which is eternal and infinite.
At the time of writing there is a blurring of the lines between science and speculation and, to quote the words of Rafael Nunez (1997): 'So addressing questions such as whether we will or will not, one day, explain consciousness entirely or whether the difficulty of the problem lies 'beyond' the reach of science...doesn't lie out of the reach of our own understanding and discourse, beyond the reach of scientific enquiry in a disembodied metaphysical realm. Answers and explanatory proposals are stories that make sense at a certain moment in a community of people (or scientists or philosophers)' These are brave words, written by Nunez, words which will take us forward into the 21st century and help us to crack the 'mystery of consciousness'.
After Buddha's death in 623 BC Buddhism developed into two main schools - Hinayana and Mahayana. The Hinayana, or Small Vehicle, keeps exactly to Buddha's teachings, whereas the Mahayana, or Great Vehicle, is more flexible and has been modified. The Hinayana school is established in Sri Lanka and South-East Asia; the Mahayana in Nepal, Tibet, China and Japan.
(In India itself Buddhism 'transformed' into Hinduism and Buddha was adopted as an 'incarnation' of Vishnu.)
The philosophy of Buddhism is called the Dhamma (teaching) and after his death 500 Arahats (disciples) held a conference to compile the Vinaya (discipline). The Tipitaka (three baskets) was drawn up :
- Vinaya Pitaka (basket of discipline)
- Sutta Pitaka (basket of discourses)
- Abhidamma Pitaka (basket of Ultimate Doctrine)
The Abhidamma Pitaka is the most interesting of the three, containing the profound philosophy of the Buddha's teaching. In it consciousness is defined; thoughts are analysed and classified mainly from an ethical standpoint; mental states are detailed. The composition of each type of consciousness is set forth in detail, while the way in which thoughts arise is described with precision. All this and much more go to evolve an ethical system whose aim is to realise the ultimate goal - Nirvana (loosely translated as 'bliss').
Central to the Buddha's philosophy are the doctrines of transiency (Anicca), sorrow or suffering (Dukkha) and non-self or no-soul (Anatta).
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