What is Consciousness

"Electromagnetic energy in the brain enables brain matter to create our consciousness and our ability to be aware and think, according to a new theory developed by Professor Johnjoe McFadden from the University of Surrey.

Publishing his theory in the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness, Professor McFadden posits that consciousness is in fact the brain’s energy field. This theory could pave the way toward the development of conscious AI, with robots that are aware and have the ability to think becoming a reality."

"Consciousness is physically integrated, and causally active, information encoded in the brain’s global electromagnetic field, according to the conscious electromagnetic information (cemi) field theory developed by University of Surrey’s Professor Johnjoe McFadden.

Early theories on what our consciousness is and how it has been created tended towards the supernatural, suggesting that humans and probably other animals possess an immaterial soul that confers consciousness, thought and free will — capabilities that inanimate objects lack.

Most scientists today have discarded this view, known as dualism, to embrace a ‘monistic’ view of a consciousness generated by the brain itself and its network of billions of nerves.

By contrast, Professor McFadden proposes a scientific form of dualism based on the difference between matter and energy, rather than matter and soul." Disorders of consciousness Disorders of consciousness typically occur following severe acquired traumatic brain injury that disrupts the brain systems involved in arousal and conscious awareness. Coma patients show no signs of being awake and no signs of conscious awareness. A coma usually lasts up to one month; after that, a patient may progress into a vegetative state, in which they are awake but show no overt signs of awareness, or into a minimally conscious state, in which they inconsistently show a little awareness of themselves and their environment. Patients are more likely to recover from the minimally conscious state than from the vegetative state; currently, however, it is very difficult for clinicians to tell these two conditions apart.
 The proposal to use psychedelics as a treatment for patients with consciousness disorders is based on the theoretical concept of brain complexity. The vertebrate brain is segregated into localized areas that differ in their structure and function, but perception and behavior require global integration of information from these multiple areas. Brain complexity is a measure of the interplay between segregation and integration, and can be defined as the extent to which individual neurons interact across multiple scales.

Thanks

Robert Stonjek,https://dana.org