1. Only certain animals with highly complex and connected brain networks can be conscious, including all mammals and some birds. 2. Everything that arises in the mind or body comes from the dynamics of brain states interacting with each other, not between brain and mind. 3. As brains evolved and enlarged over time, the range of possible brain states and associated mental states expanded, allowing for richer conscious experiences and creativity. However, consciousness remains profoundly mysterious and difficult to explain through normal scientific means alone.

1. Conjectures on Consciousness F. Eugene Yates M.D. Scientific Advisor The John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation February 26, 2010

2. The Phenomenon of Emergence Does it make technical sense to say that: The mind emerges from the brain and Consciousness emerges from the mind? NO!

3. Three Kinds of Emergence 1. A material thing “emerging” from a material thing ( Bénard cells –not yet fully analyzed!) 2. An immaterial quality associated with a material thing (qualia , e.g., the perceived color RED ) 3. An immaterial illusion emerging from another immaterial illusion (conscious awareness “emerging” from a mind state)

5. A Criterion for Consciousness Animals - with brains having highly connected networks allowing a large repertoire of goal-directed behaviors under their normal conditions. (i.e., A minimal complexity threshold is reached .) No Invertebrates pass. ( Social bees and ants use non-conscious, limited – repertoire instincts. Instincts ≠ consciousness.)

6. Norelco Reporter (cover) Vol 27 Dec. 1980 Photo by Jack Leonard

8. All mammals (Terrestrial consciousness first appeared here 200 million years ago) with increasing complexity -> Primates: chimpanzees, gorillas (60 mya), Hominids ( 7 mya), Hominins (Genus Homo 3 mya) Some birds (parrots, corvids) (54 mya) (feathered dinosaurs 150 mya –not conscious) Who is conscious and when did it appear?

11. Power consumption is ~ 20 Watts It’s a dim bulb!

12. What drove the trend to bigger Hominid/ Hominin brains? Answer : ( Diet and mutations -> Bipedalism - walking upright - not to see farther, but to save calories. Upright walking is much more energetically efficient than climbing and swinging in trees, or knuckle-walking. We are uniquely designed to RUN!! And, as brains enlarged, so did the scope of consciousness : migration ranges, tools, ornaments, symbols, hearths, speech .

13. Who had speech? Possibly all hominins since H. habilis (2.3 mya). Definitely H. neanderthalensis as well as H. sapiens - for the last 200,000 years. All animals seem to have the FOXP2 gene - necessary (but not sufficient) for speech . The protein product of that gene in us, who have speech, differs from that in chimps, who don’t, by only two amino acids out of 740!

14. Mystery about Hominin Survivors About 100,000 years ago- maybe just 50,000 five hominins were simultaneously alive : Homo: habilis, erectus,heidelbergensis, neanderthalensis and sapiens. Question : Since 25,000 years ago, we are the only survivors! WHY?? Answer: Because we have a special brain supporting the widest range of diets and adaptations to severe climate changes.

16. Elements of Alert Consciousness Alert consciousness has three components : 1. Awareness of “now” ( sensory inputs from body + environment-> RAS, pons, mesen. tegmentum, subthal, hypothal, int cap.->neocortex -> consciousness) 2. Attention (focused awareness) 3. Memories

20. DESPERATELY SEEKING CONSCIOUSNESS OUT OF QUANTUM PHYSICS

22. ► Symmetry-breaking -> ordering -> information ► QFT resolves conflict between reductionism and holism! 2001 The dissipative quantum model of brain

23. (Search in Classical QM , QFT or QED?) Six Profound Quantum Physical Principles Superposition of (quantum) states Bohr Complementarity ( views not states ) ----------------------------------------------- Heisenberg Indeterminancy (uncertainty) Correspondence (Bohr) Quantum Coherence Entanglement (strange entailments)

24. A Metaphor: The Omega “entailer” Fact : Brain state α ↔ Brain state β ↔ Brain state γ (Brain states in red are special.) Brain states are material ;mental states are not. ----------------------------------------------------------- Hypothesis : Brain state β Ω Mental state β Ω asserts the influence of a “ quantum-like conjugate ” -a non-causa l, immaterial companion ( an entailment ).

25. What is Omega Ω ? An entailment, indicating a non-causal association involving a complementary pair (a “brain state” and a “mind state”) that require a different descriptive language for each. Both are there together, superimposed as if quantum states. Awareness occurs when the brain measures itself . One set of neurons checks on the state of another set, and in doing so “collapses” the probabilities of the observed state to a perceived image.

27. Second Consequence of Ω There are no efficacious interactions between “mind” and “brain” states! The mind is an impotent image- in visual terms a reflection - of an efficacious brain state. (All other senses, besides vision, also have Ω entailments). SUMMARY ->

29. SUMMARY- 2 Only mammals and a few birds have known consciousness potential. ( They are all warm-blooded !) Question: Should my proposed “consciousness detector” measure body temperature”?

30. SUMMARY 3 Everything that happens in mind or body arises from dynamics of brain states. All “interactions” are among brain states, not between brain & “mind”.

32. The big problem always has been to describe mechanistically the associations between objective physical situations and our subjective (conscious) experiences of them. It can be done without invoking the concepts of “emergence” or of physical, mechanistic “causalities”. SUMMARY 5

34. A Thoughtful Opinion “ It is quite possible – overwhelmingly probable, one might guess – that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology.” ( Noam Chomsky ) Now, let the poet speak ->

35. We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows. Robert Frost The Secret