Glimpses of an ontological model of cognition

Here are just notes to help me remember some observations for arguments of a speculative model.

Memory and sensations

Hardly an easy entry point to start with, but a vivid one nonetheless.

Sensations occur to the sensory organs of the human body (its inputs). Interestingly, the external human body is, as a whole, a sensory organ because the sense of touch applies to all of its external cells. Of course, internal organs as well have sense, exemplified by the sense of pain. So we can say that each cell receives sensations.

Furthermore, it is noticeable that when we remember past events, our sensory organs that were involved in the event undergo a sort of re-enactment of the original event, but dampened. For example, remembering eating chocolate. It is thus fair to say that the cells, those sensory organs, keep a record of how they behaved in the past.

How is that record kept? Attempts to pinpoint specific memory locations in the brain have failed. I wonder if the body has been measured as a whole for memory activities, but I would speculate that sensory organs would exhibit some behaviour. However, this would still not fully answer the question of how the memory is preserved.

At this point, it is useful to think of music. Specifically, how the melody advances in time, and yet forms a whole where the present note being heard interacts with the past ones, that are heard no more physically. Of course, the melody is also cyclic, thus reinforcing past notes and motifs by replaying them. But the point is that the melody is a thing that resonates with its own past.

The argument presented here is that cells exhibit similar behaviour with their past. This is not a new argument, Rupert Sheldrake advanced it in the mid-80's in his book The Presence of the Past, Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature. The argument is simple: a sensation causes a cellular response with a certain amplitude. The response, like the music melody, forms a curve in time that the cell can readily "tune into", i.e., respond again in the same manner. Because in time, memory fades, we expect the amplitude of the sensory-response to fade as well (due to as yet undefined dampening forces). However, when the mind actively recalls the occurrence of the event, the cells are "tuned" again to the sensory-response curve and they react again in a similar manner.

A time curve implies frequencies, and frequencies imply a clock that measures the qualities "slow" and "fast". Here another organ comes to the rescue, namely the heart. We can recall that vivid sensations are often accompanied by rapid heartbeats. That can be interpreted as the heart having to supply a faster clock for the cells, to fulfill their need for a rapid reaction to the incoming sensation. And indeed, when we recall a frightening moment, our heart beats faster, due to the cells re-enacting their response to fear, and calling upon the heart to quicken its pace again even though no current event calls for fear.

How is the re-enactment performed given the sensation-response curve? The analogy of a radio is useful here, although it sheds no light on the biological apparatus needed to accomplish this task. The radio works by tuning a frequency receiver into a specific wavelength to receive a signal. The signal is then amplified by an internal energy source, but the signal source itself is not contained within the radio, it is an external field. Similarly with cells, their internal rhythm of operation (as seen in phase space for example) can tune to the frequencies of the sensation-response curve, and respond to it, in superposition with its response to current sensations. The superposition is weighted by the amplitude of the sensory-response curve at the moment of recall.

Consciousness

The problem of defining consciousness has proven very difficult indeed. There is, however, one valuable clue that we can try to use.

A great deal of processes inside the human body and mind, happen while we are unaware of them. I will take this awareness (or lack of it) to be synonymous with consciousness. Now in some situations, we do become aware of these processes as they are unfolding. For example, while playing a game of squash, jamming with other musicians, or during sexual intercourse. The sudden awareness has an initial destabilizing factor on the execution of the process, and it is only through mental relaxation that the process can resume its course, but with our consciousness guiding it as best as it can.

So one of the characteristics of consciousness is that it is a destabilizing factor. Taking this point further, we can agree that being conscious of something means measuring it and judging it. Observing it in other words. This last verb is very potent, because it leads us right into the quantum realm.

From these premises, the thesis that I advance is that consciousness is the willful act of observation, which posits the human being as the most advanced quantum device at its level of scale. Thanks very much.