Abstract
Recent developments in the theory of nonlinear dynamics that have been applied to brain theory have substantially expanded our understanding of the neural mechanisms by which large-scale patterns of brain activity are self-organized. In particular, these new concepts give us fresh insight into the neurodyanmics of goal-seeking behavior, how it emerges within the brain, and how it regulates the influx of sensory information into the cerebrum. It has become clear that the stimulus-response paradigm fails to address the most basic properties of biological intelligence, which are its autonomy and its creative powers. Chaotic dynamic systems not only destroy information (in the Shannon-Weaver sense) but they also create it. Our experimental studies of the electroencephalogram (EEG) have shown us that brains are chaotic systems that do not merely “filter” and “process” sensory input; they use sensory stimuli as “instructions” to create perceptual patterns that replace the stimuli.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Blake, William (1793): The marriage of heaven and hell. New York: Random House (published in 1944 )
Broca, P. (1873): Memoires and d’anthropologie. Paris: C. Reinwald
Dewey, J. (1896): Mind and consciousness. In: Intelligence in the modern world. Ratner, J. (ed.). New York: Random House (published in 1939 )
Freeman, W.J. (1984): La fisiologia de las imagenes mentales. Salud Mentale 7, 3–8
Freeman, W.J.: (1986): Petit mal seizure spikes in olfactory bulb and cortex caused by runaway inhibition after exhaustion of excitation. Brain Res. Rev. 11, 259–284
Freeman, W.J. (1987): Simulation of chaotic EEG patterns with a dynamic model of the olfactory system. Biol. Cybernetics 56, 139–150
Gibson, J.J. (1979): The ecological approach to visual perception. New York: Houghton Mifflin
Goldman-Rakic, P. (1986): Circuitry of primate prefrontal cortex and regulation of behavior by representational memory. In: Handbook of physiology The nervous system V. Plum, F. (ed.). Baltimore, MD: William and Wilkins, pp. 373–417
Hebb, Donald O. (1949): The organization of behavior. New York: Wiley
Helmholtz, H. von (1879): Physiological optics: vol 3: The perceptions of vision. Southall, J.P.C. (trans. and ed. ). Rochester, NY: Optical Society of America (published in 1925 ).
Herrick, C. Judson (1924): Neurological foundations of animal behavior. New York: Hafner Publishing Company
Kandel, E., Schwartz, J.H. (1981): Principles of neural science. New York: North Holland/Elsevier
Kant, Immanuel. (1787): Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Taschenbücher Wissenschaft (reprinted in 1968 )
Klopf, A. H. (1982): The hedonistic neuron. Washington, DC: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation
Maturana, H. R., Varela, F. (1980): Boston studies in the philosophy of science: vol 42. Autopoiesis and cognition. Cohen, R.S., Wartovsky, M.W. (eds.). New York: Reidel
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1942): La structure du comportement. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France
O’Keefe, J., Nadel, L. (1978): The hippocampus as a cognitive map. Oxford: Clarendon Press
Papez, J. W. (1937): A proposed mechanism of emotion. Arch. Neurol Psychiatr. 38, 725–743
Pavlov, I.P. (1927): Conditioned reflexes. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press
Prigogine, I. (1980): From being to becoming: Time and complexity in the physical sciences. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman
Ramon Y Cajal, S. (1904): Textura del sistema nerviosa del hombre y los vertebrados. Madrid: Nicolas Moya
Sacks, O. (1985): The man who mistook his wife for a hat. New York: Summit Books
Skarda, C. A., Freeman, W.J. (1987): How brains make chaos in order to make sense of the world. Behay. Brain Sci. 10, 161–195
Sherrington, C. S. (1937): Man on his nature. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press
Sperry, R. W. ((1950): Neural basis of the spontaneous optokinetic response produced by visual inversion. J. Comp. PhysioL 43, 482–289
Viana di Prisco, G. (1984): Hebb synaptic plasticity. Prog. Neurobiol. 22, 89–102
Viana di Prisco, G., Freeman, W. J. (1986): Representation espcacio-temporal dinamica de la informacion sensorial en el bulbo olfatorio. Acta Cientifica Venezolana 37, 526–531
von Holst, E., Mittelstaedt, H. (1950): Das Reafferenzprinzip (Wechselwirckung zwischen Zentralnervensystem und Peripherie). Naturwissenschaften 37, 464–476
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1990 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Freeman, W.J. (1990). On the Fallacy of Assigning an Origin to Consciousness. In: John, E.R., Harmony, T., Prichep, L.S., Valdés-Sosa, M., Valdés-Sosa, P.A. (eds) Machinery of the Mind. Birkhäuser, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-1083-0_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-1083-0_2
Publisher Name: Birkhäuser, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-1085-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-1083-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive