ULTIMATE COMPUTING - Quantum Consciousness Studies

36 Brain/Mind/Computer
2.2.2 Consciousness as a Property of Protoplasm
Believing that consciousness is a fundamental property of all living things,
some 19th century biologists saw its essence in the irritability of the smallest one
cell organisms. Popular books of this era included, The Animal Mind by M. F.
Washburn, and The Psychic Life of Microorganisms by Alfred Bonet.
Observation of an amoeba hunting food or responding to various stimuli, or
paramecium avoiding obstacles or conjugating led to application of human
psychology to such behavior. These concepts were accepted by Charles Darwin
and E. B. Titchner, who saw such rudimentary consciousness related to man
through the course of evolution.
Circumstantial support for this thesis is found in the inhibitory effects .of
general anesthetic gases on protoplasmic streaming in slime molds, and anesthetic
inhibition of amoeboid and paramecium motility. This suggests a common link
between these primitive organism activities and brain activities related to
consciousness in that all are reversibly sensitive to the same anesthetic gas
molecules at comparable concentrations. Protoplasmic streaming,
amoeboid movement and paramecium motility all depend on dynamic
activities of cytoskeletal structures including “computer-like” cytoplasmic
microtubules, actin sol-gel transitions, and ciliary appendages (Chapter 5). The
cytoskeletal link among anesthetic sensitive processes could be a clue to the
brain/mind/computer triangle.
Jaynes objects to protoplasmic consciousness, suggesting that humans may be
projecting their own mind functions onto protozoan behavior which he believes to
reside entirely in physical chemistry rather than introspective psychology.
However, introspective psychology itself is in all probability a function of
physical chemistry at some level. If an amoeba, or slime mold, or paramecium are
not conscious, at what point in the evolutionary hierarchy does consciousness
emerge Stanford University Professor Karl Pribram (1966), known for his
conceptualization of mind functions as “holographic,” recalls being confronted
with this issue during a lecture at the Montreal Neurological Institute in the late
1950’s. Famed neuroscientist Wilder Penfield asked Pribram whether the
difference between man and the non-human primates was quantitative or
qualitative. Pribram replied that the difference was quantitative but to such an
extent that qualitative changes emerged. He cited the relatively new computer
technology as an example: vast increases in the capacity of memory and central
processors had changed computational power not only quantitatively but
qualitatively. Penfield argued for a more fundamental distinction to distinguish
man. Pribram countered by saying that, although the only difference in brain
structure between man and other animals is quantitative, changes in organization,
chemical composition, developmental sequence, and in time and duration of
critical periods had led to collective emergence of qualitatively distinctive
properties. The quantitative common link of consciousness may be the
cytoskeleton within cells ranging from single cell organisms, viruses, (and
perhaps more simple “life” forms such as “prions,” or independent protein
structures) to neurons within the human brain. The qualitative differences appear
to lie in nonlinear collective properties related through evolution to structural
complexity.
2.2.3 Consciousness as Learning
Proponents of this view believed that consciousness began at some specific
time after life evolved and was directly related to learning. The rationale was: if
an animal modifies its behavior on the basis of experience, it must be having an
experience and therefore must be conscious. By equating learning, experience and