What is Psychule Theory? 🧵
It is my explanation of the physical basis for the emergence of consciousness. The psychule is to consciousness as the H2O molecule is to water. If the psychule is the molecule, basic physical interactions are the atoms.
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My latest essay: An evolutionary history of cognition and consciousness.
I argue for a naturalistic/physicalist account of how consciousness came about as a result of evolution.
https://t.co/ng4JFI9moP
@mike__wiest@StuartHameroff https://t.co/WPWmiFFSMI
“The cytoskeleton, and in particular microtubules, … participate in the mobilization …, thus influencing … synaptic transmission. Notably, alterations of cytoskeletal dynamics have been linked to alterations of neuronal excitability.”
For All Mankind and Star City
I was leery of the show For All Mankind for a long time. The promotional material made it sound more like a political drama than a space adventure. And sure enough, the first time I tried to watch it a few years ago...
https://t.co/bfy2OWRyI0
@AdamFrank4 Looking forward to an explanation of why a probe, or any AI, would just decide what it wants. Kinda don’t think that’s where “wants” come from.
@sammyhill99@StuartHameroff Information is not bits. My problem is with the equal signs. Consciousness is about information processes, but in humans it’s at least somewhat analog as opposed to digital. Something like “if 57% of synapses active, and <5% inhibited, then fire at 20hz, elsif 80% active and …”
@StuartHameroff It’s not about whether a neuron fires. It’s about the *rate* at which it fires, and about the *coordination* w/ the *rates* at which other neurons fire. It doesn’t matter if you can still make the neuron fire if you can’t make it fire at the right rate at the right time.
@StuartHameroff I have no problem with the action of anesthetics being through microtubules. The question is: how would the effect on microT’s change consciousness? Changing the firing rate of some (not even all) neurons could be sufficient, and changing internal transport could do that.
@StuartHameroff Except the depolarizations are affected in that the rate of depolarizations changes, which of course would be relevant to consciousness. A neuron firing at 40 Hz is not the same as a neuron firing at 10 Hz.
I really enjoyed this conversation between @keithfrankish and @CosmicSkeptic. The questions were probing and gave Keith the opportunity to explain his view clearly. https://t.co/b9EXlTYo4E
@DeivonDrago@m966021 Incarceration is gonna be more expensive for any crime, so does that make execution preferable? And really, how many life prisoners commit significant crimes?
But I haven’t seen any mention of it, so maybe what you should be considering is deterrence for the rest of society.
@DeivonDrago Precise point on our scale, but how are you measuring its location except by hitting it with something else? Suppose you have a room full of long rods hanging from strings and you throw a rod into that room. You can only tell if a rod was hit if the string moves.
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