How Subjects Can Emerge from Neurons

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-58
Author(s):  
Eric LaRock ◽  
Mostyn Jones ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Binding Problem ◽  
Weak Emergence ◽  
Sensory Features ◽  
Mental Causality ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Strong Emergence ◽  
Mental Objects ◽  
Foundational Problem

We pose a foundational problem for those who claim that subjects are ontologically irreducible, but causally reducible (weak emergence). This problem is neuroscience’s notorious binding problem, which concerns how distributed neural areas produce unified mental objects (such as perceptions) and the unified subject that experiences them. Synchrony, synapses, and other mechanisms cannot explain this. We argue that this problem seriously threatens popular claims that mental causality is reducible to neural causality. Weak emergence additionally raises evolutionary worries about how we have survived the perils of nature. Our emergent subject hypothesis (ESH) avoids these shortcomings. Here, a singular, unified subject acts back on the neurons it emerges from and binds sensory features into unified mental objects. Serving as the mind’s controlling center, this subject is ontologically and causally irreducible (strong emergence). Our ESH draws on recent experimental evidence, including the evidence for a possible correlate (or “seat”) of the subject, which enhances its testability.

scholarly journals VIII. The influence of Molecular constitution and temperature on magnetic susceptibility. Part IV. - Further applications of the molecular field

1920 ◽  
Vol 220 (571-581) ◽  
pp. 247-289 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Susceptibility ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Molecular Theory ◽  
Molecular Field ◽  
Molecular Configuration ◽  
Material Medium ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Molecular Constitution ◽  
Crystalline Symmetry

The present work is a continuation of that published in ‘Phil. Trans., Royal Society,’ vol. 214, pp. 109-146, 1914 (Parts I. and II.) and vol. 215, pp. 79-103, 1915 (Part III.). It will lead to clearness in the following development of the subject if a brief résumé of these papers is given. A t the same time, I wish to discuss one or two points in connexion with the views which have been previously advanced and the relation between mechanical and molecular theory. In Part I. the experimental evidence brought forward has justified the hypothesis of molecular distortion enunciated at the outset. We have thereby been led to regard the molecular configuration of a material medium as a distorted one, and this applies particularly to a substance which is crystalline. The extent of this distortion is small, but is sufficient to account for the observed change of specific susceptibility which occurs on crystallization. Such change will naturally depend upon the particular crystalline symmetry assumed by the substance.

Experimental evidence that acorn woodpeckers recognize relationships among third parties no longer living together

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 1257-1265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A Pardo ◽  
Eric L Walters ◽  
Walter D Koenig
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Social Species ◽  
Living Together ◽  
Melanerpes Formicivorus ◽  
Group Members ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Acorn Woodpeckers ◽  
Group Relationships

Abstract Triadic awareness, or knowledge of the relationships between others, is essential to navigating many complex social interactions. While some animals maintain relationships with former group members post-dispersal, recognizing cross-group relationships between others may be more cognitively challenging than simply recognizing relationships between members of a single group because there is typically much less opportunity to observe interactions between individuals that do not live together. We presented acorn woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus), a highly social species, with playback stimuli consisting of a simulated chorus between two different individuals, a behavior that only occurs naturally between social affiliates. Subjects were expected to respond less rapidly if they perceived the callers as having an affiliative relationship. Females responded more rapidly to a pair of callers that never co-occurred in the same social group, and responded less rapidly to callers that were members of the same social group at the time of the experiment and to callers that last lived in the same group before the subject had hatched. This suggests that female acorn woodpeckers can infer the existence of relationships between conspecifics that live in separate groups by observing them interact after the conspecifics in question no longer live in the same group as each other. This study provides experimental evidence that nonhuman animals may recognize relationships between third parties that no longer live together and emphasizes the potential importance of social knowledge about distant social affiliates.

scholarly journals Further Observations on the Fungicidal Action of Bordeaux Mixtures

1914 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 220-232
Author(s):  
B. T. P. Barker ◽  
C. T. Gimingam
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Copper Sulphate ◽  
Copper Compound ◽  
Fungicidal Action ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Solvent Action

In earlier papers (this Journal, vol. IV. pp. 69 and 76) we have detailed the experimental evidence which led us to conclude (1) that the view as to the fungicidal action of Bordeaux mixtures favoured by Pickering, viz. the liberation of copper sulphate by atmospheric carbon dioxide, is untenable; and (2) that contact between the fungus and the copper compound present in the mixture will account largely for its efficiency owing to a solvent action on the part of the organism under certain conditions. Pickering (this Journal, V. p. 273) has criticised our general conclusions and the deductions which we have drawn from certain of our experiments; and therefore before describing our further work on the subject, a brief reference to some of the points which he has raised is desirable.

The dissociation of dolomite. II

1926 ◽  
Vol 21 (112) ◽  
pp. 21-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecil S. Garnett
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Close Agreement ◽  
Chemical Society ◽  
Related Subject ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Way

In this paper further evidence is put forward in support of a previous paper on the subject. Very soon after the reading of that paper, A. E. Mitchell read a paper before the Chemical Society on a closely related subject. Working quite independently, and employing other methods of investigation, Mitchell arrived at conclusions in close agreement with those detailed in the former paper. H.L.J. Bäckström has criticized Mitchell's paper, raising some objections 'against the experimental evidence produced aud the … way of interpreting it'. Where Bäckström objections touch on anything in Mitchell's paper which is incidentally akin to any of the work described in this or the earlier paper, they will be discussed herein.

scholarly journals Studies on the flexor reflex.-V. General conclusions

1931 ◽  
Vol 107 (754) ◽  
pp. 597-605 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Spinal Cord ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Experimental Work ◽  
Reflex Activity ◽  
Flexor Reflex ◽  
Afferent Nerves ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Afferent Terminals ◽  
Antidromic Volley

The experiments described in the preceding four papers bear on various problems presented by reflex activity. Their results confirm some of the inferences already drawn elsewhere from other experimental work, and they allow certain further inferences. A brief prefatory statement of all these inferences and of the experimental evidence which allows them will advantageously introduce the description of the processes set up in the ipselateral flexor centres of the spinal cord by a single centripetal volley and by a single antidromic volley. Then, finally, discussion of the theories of reflex excitation can be undertaken in the light of the present experimental observations. the statement treats of the subject in its present phase only; the references to relevant papers are therefore restricted in the main to the more recent ones. II. Inferences from Experimental Observations. 1. The convergence of Different Afferent Paths on the same Motoneurones The following evidence shows that this occurs:- (a) Histological .-Each motoneurone receives its “ boutons terminaux ” from many individual afferent terminals (Cajal, 1903). (b) Physiological .-Centripetal volleys set up in different afferent nerves excite the same motoneurones (Camis, 1909; Cooper, Denny-Brown, and Sherrington, 1926; 1927; Sherrington, 1929; Cooper and Denny-Brown, 1929 ; Eccles and Sherrington, 1930 ; 1931, a ; 1931, b ).

Complex systems

2021 ◽  
pp. 155-190
Author(s):  
Jessica M. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Conservation Law ◽  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Self Organization ◽  
Game Of Life ◽  
Weak Emergence ◽  
Strong Emergence ◽  
New Criterion

Wilson considers whether complex systems are either Weakly or Strongly emergent. She first traces the demise of nonlinearity as criterial of Strong emergence, and offers a new criterion in terms of apparent violations of a conservation law. By these lights, the Strong emergence of complex systems remains a live but currently unmotivated possibility. Wilson then argues that while appeals to algorithmic incompressibility, dynamic self-organization, and universality do not establish the Weak emergence of complex systems, cases can be made that these or related features satisfy the conditions in the schema. Most promisingly, complex systems exhibiting universality have eliminated degrees of freedom (DOF), and so are Weakly emergent by lights of a DOF-based account; and other complex systems (gliders in the Game of Life; flocks of birds) may also be seen as Weakly emergent by these lights.

scholarly journals PARITY DOUBLING IN PARTICLE PHYSICS

2007 ◽  
Vol 22 (25) ◽  
pp. 4537-4586 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. S. AFONIN
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Retrospective Review ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Dynamical Symmetries ◽  
Regge Theory ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Light Mesons ◽  
Modern Perspective

Parity doubling in excited hadrons is reviewed. Parity degeneracy in hadrons was first experimentally observed 40 years ago. Recently new experimental data on light mesons caused much excitement and renewed interest to the phenomenon, which still remains to be enigmatic. The present retrospective review is an attempt to trace the history of parity doubling phenomenon, thus providing a kind of introduction to the subject. We begin with early approaches of 1960's (Regge theory and dynamical symmetries) and end up with the latest trends (manifestations of broader degeneracies and AdS/QCD). We show the evolution of various ideas about parity doubling. The experimental evidence for this phenomenon is scrutinized in the nonstrange sector. Some experiments of 1960's devoted to the search for missing nonstrange bosons are reexamined and it is argued that the results of these experiments are encouraging from the modern perspective.

scholarly journals Experimental studies in insect parasitism. I.—Introduction and technique

1934 ◽  
Vol 114 (790) ◽  
pp. 450-454 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Field Observation ◽  
Common Knowledge ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Simple Fact ◽  
Parasitic Species ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Successive Generations

It is a matter of common knowledge that the numbers of most animals are partially regulated by carnivorous and parasitic species that prey upon them. But, although the simple fact is well known, and although the amount of regulation exercised by the parasitic animals has in some oases been measured, the precise nature of that regulation—the numerical interaction that goes on generation after generation between the parasite and its host—is still very imperfectly understood. The reason is not hard to find. Experimental data that might serve as a basis for that understanding are almost entirely lacking. In their absence, mathematical consideration of the subject by Volterra, Thompson, Bailey, and others, has necessarily been based upon field observation. But such information is not amenable to the strict analysis that the problem requires: it is the result of unknown environmental conditions; its quantities are samples; it deals with only one or two successive generations. Consideration, no matter how inspired, of such data can result only in conjecture. The solution of a problem so essentially dynamic must be supported by experimental evidence.

scholarly journals The diffusion of hydrogen through palladium

1915 ◽  
Vol 91 (626) ◽  
pp. 148-155 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Physical Condition ◽  
Temperature Curve ◽  
Pressure Curve ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Diffusion Of Hydrogen ◽  
Diffusion Of Gases

The diffusion of gases through metallic septa has been the subject of much investigation, for by examining the change in the rate at which the gas diffuses with varying pressure the physical condition of the intrametallic gas has been deduced. In this field of research hydrogen-palladium has probably received the closest attention, and as the same conclusion have not always resulted from the experimental evidence, little excuse is necessary in presenting new data. Schmidt, who determined the rate of diffusion between 150° C. And 300° C., and for various pressures, concluded that while the temperature curve is probably quadratic, the pressure curve for the higher pressure may be linear, results which have been questioned by Richardson, since the experimental data when applied to this latter author’s formula for rates of diffusion gave indecisive results.

scholarly journals THE DISCOVERY AND PROPERTIES OF PENTAQUARKS

2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (02n03) ◽  
pp. 209-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
FLORENCE STANCU
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Constituent Quark ◽  
Scattering Data ◽  
Nucleon Scattering ◽  
Exotic Baryons ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Quark Models

The pentaquarks are exotic baryons formed of four quarks and an antiquarks. Their existence has been discussed in the literature over the last 30 years or more, first in connection with kaon nucleon scattering data. The subject has been revived by the end of 2002 when experimental evidence of a narrow baryon of strangeness S=+1, and mass M≃1530 MeV has been found. This is interpreted as the lightest member of an SU (3)-flavor antidecuplet. Here we shall mainly review the predictions of pentaquark properties as e.g. mass, spin and parity, within constituent quark models. Both light and heavy pentaquarks will be presented.

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