Marcin Koculak

Ph.D. student in cognitive neuroscience of consciousness. Brains, python, robots and in between.

[Marcin Koculak @mkoculak]

That feels like the only way we can explore the full potential of complexity and be sure it actually reflects consciousness and not some other phenomena (e.g. cortical excitability). Hope You'll find the paper interesting! :)

[Marcin Koculak @mkoculak]

It has been 2 months already, but haven't got around to post about it. So here it is:
New publication with @WierzchonMichal about consciousness and complexity! [ μ🧵]:
https://t.co/f0UrhVoNpu

[Marcin Koculak @mkoculak]

Our proposition is fairly straightforward. Decouple the method from this particular theory and apply it data supporting various other approaches that claim to track consciousness. Especially those that focus on content and not only the state.

[Marcin Koculak @mkoculak]

@TrikBek @eegmanylabs @AcademicEEG Sure, although we have rather video stories versions. Our colleagues made this: https://t.co/govM1bgeyx
Still, happy to chat about our approach.

[Marcin Koculak @mkoculak]

@VictorLamme @conscious_tlab So assuming that at least some of those come in degrees, would you describe a richer experience as more conscious?

[Marcin Koculak @mkoculak]

Hey, #consciousness people!
Papers and researchers often describe conscious experience as rich or complex, giving one example and moving on. Do you know any work that would systematically analyse what it might mean?
I am digging through papers but not finding anything useful.

[Marcin Koculak @mkoculak]

@conscious_tlab @conscious_tlab @VictorLamme thanks for suggestions! Didn't know all the papers, but I'm familiar with the rich/sparse debate. I am looking for a general discussion of what "rich" means. E.g. seeing many objects vs one is richer? Or when I close my eyes, is my cons. perc. poorer?

[Marcin Koculak @mkoculak]

@TobyJWoods Thanks! Haven't thought about looking into meditation studies. I skimmed through it, so would you consider each of your groupings a separate dimension of conscious experience?

[Marcin Koculak @mkoculak]

@shimonedelman @theASSC My initial thought was that it seems too trivial. But we are now writing a paper and came up with three different interpretations of "more rich/complex experience" so now I am looking for something to bounce our ideas of.

[Marcin Koculak @mkoculak]

@shimonedelman @theASSC Thanks! I did forgot about this paper, but it seems it does not characterise the qualities of phenomenal experience, only compares the ways of measurement.
I am actually looking through Overgaard's writing, but he limits his understanding of richness to precision and vividness.

[Marcin Koculak @mkoculak]

@Jake_Toth_ Yeah, the link above has an example scan made this way. Stickers would be an option, but with 64+ electrodes it would probably take a lot of time.

[Marcin Koculak @mkoculak]

@Jake_Toth_ We started using the cheap DIY 3D head scan approach with the Structure Sensor:
https://t.co/U5ypsOM3AF
The scanning is fast and reliable. The downside: you have to manually pinpoint electrodes in software (also no python version). So a solution automating this would be nice.

[Marcin Koculak @mkoculak]

@theBjornErik @conscious_tlab @OSFramework For the last year I was wondering why this paper is not out yet (I found it very useful in my work and hoped to cite the published thing). If you still have a resource problem and I could be of any use, I would be happy to help. :)

[Marcin Koculak @mkoculak]

And to put the money where are mouths are, we are working on implementing our own suggestions and testing if they actually make a difference. Moreover, we hope to be able to provide tools for investigating improved resting state for anyone interested. So stay tuned! ⚗️7/7

[Marcin Koculak @mkoculak]

Very happy about my first first author publication from my PhD! 😃
With @WierzchonMichal we ask what consciousness science can get out of resting state data and what can be done better.
https://t.co/mAXw1RewDi
[mini thread 🧵]

[Marcin Koculak @mkoculak]

Finally, spontaneous or background conscious content is rarely accounted for in theories of consciousness, yet might account for the majority of our experience. We hope to bring it more to the forefront of research. 🗣️6/7