Conversation with Neil Theise

Absolutely. I'd love to see the studies. I interviewed Dehaene about NDEs, and of course, Blanke about OBEs. And I've read their papers, in preparation for that. But that was a long time ago, and I don't pay much attention to that literature. I just don't have the bandwidth. If you have something that is blood-chillingly convincing and compelling, I'd love to see it.

And I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to explicate the parameters of my theory. I've done a lot of thinking about it since the paper was published, especially about experience. But I don't often get the chance to explain my arguments, especially with someone who understands complexity and emergence. Obviously I can't convince someone who already loves a different theory; that's too much to ask. But it's great to be heard! Thank you for that.

No, I'm open to being wrong. If there is evidence that is powerful, I'm happy to look at it. I am quite sure that science has many more unanswered questions than it thinks. But it would be extraordinary for minds to work without brains, especially since we have a billion head injury examples of how brains and minds are intimately linked. I think I have a model which explains all of the data which I currently know. If someone has evidence that my theory cannot work, then I'm happy to see it.

I'm also an atheist. But not because I think I must be right. But because the model of 'a universe with no god' seems to map so much better onto the world we have, than the model 'universe with a god'. I'm all about a good model. If the model explains the world, great! If not, then it should be traded in for a better one.

Experience is a parallel world. It's a dream world. It represents the actual world, but it is totally orthogonal to the physical world.

The experience VR world is a user interface. Does that help? It's like the UI on an app. Obviously the UI just represents the data that is included on your computer or phone. But it is user-friendly, so the Core Network can interact with it. The brain developed a UI that would be capable of recording events and playing them back.

I don't know whether to put any weight behind the OBE / NDE claims. In general, that seems like one of those 'extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence' kind of things. Especially when we know how faulty and weird memory gets under duress. My base assumption is that minds need brains and brains need bodies.

I'm talking about the experience itself, not the contents, not the mechanism.

Again, Experience is a noun to me. Not a verb. The movie of Experience includes the fringe sense of 'me becoming aware', but that's just a construct for memory. It's helpful to remember when I became aware of things, so I have that sense. But it is a fiction, just as the 'I' is a fiction. The movie is just a cluster of qualities and concepts, which I can later replay and learn from.

And again, Subjective Experience is the activation of the entire brain by the hippocampal signal. That's why experience is so vivid and feels so real. Because it uses the entire brain. The color region handles color, etc. So experience is not just a code; it's full-on brain activity.

Sure, real-world VR set-ups require that their be a person inside, but I don't see why that has to be the case. Why can't the VR be for the Core Network? Since the Core Network evolved to make sense of memory, then it needed some way of saving episodes, and playing them back. That method is a virtual experience.

There is no ONE in the holodeck. But there is a network.

Redness is not something in the world. Your tetrachromat friend can tell you that the rest of us are fooling ourselves, when we think we see this or that color. Because her mechanism is more sophisticated, she gets more accurate representations. Qualia are like a language, that the brain self-creates, to map internal representations onto the external world. Most brains are born with the capacity for color mapping, but the actual mapping has to involve actual input from the world, because it's all about comparison. So 'red' is just your brain's way of representing objects of a certain quality, within memory. It's a way for the rat to remember the poison berry. It's a mnemonic.

Lucid dreaming is fun. I used to fly in them, a lot. But in non-lucid dreaming was does it mean to 'be aware' of a dream? You're asleep, aren't you? Can you be 'aware' while asleep? Also, how can you be 'aware' of something that's not there? A dream is just a movie.

A dream is an example of fake perception, fake awareness. And so is subjective experience.

I think you're pointing at the most difficult aspect of my model; it's so counter-intuitive. All the information flow stuff makes perfect sense, but we just don't feel 'fictional'! We feel like 'I'. We feel like minds, to ourselves. Descartes found the existence of his own mind to be irrefutable. He says "I think, therefore I am." But I say: "unless, dear Rene, you are just part of the thought itself."

Why do you think our minds think in English? Our brains don't think in English. Our brains think in spike trains. In my model, the hippocampus evolved to record sound, including speech. So speech was already represented and reportable by the hippocampus. So the core network, which controls the hippocampus, uses the tools that the hippocampus already evolved, in order to create mental simulations. And of course, language is very powerful in its ability to distinguish between things. So 'mind' is the core network using the hippocampus' simulation powers to create temporary mental representational structures that can be buffered and manipulated virtually.

One more thing. Won't convince you, but... Dreams. In dreams, you seem completely real. Perceptions seem completely real. Behavior feels real. But all of it is virtual, clearly. And that's true with subjective experience, as well. Experience is entirely virtual. It's a simulation. The self in perception is like the self in dreams. The only difference is: it's constrained by input from the neocortex, and thus from the outside world. That's the only difference.

Thanks so much for your time, and best to Mark!

I feel like I can reply now, knowing I won't take you from Mark and biopsies. Indeed, agreed that the self, the 'I' does not = experience. I definitely agree with that from Buddhism: both the self (anatta?) and the world (maya?) are illusions, creations of my brain. Personally, I take that to mean that my perceptions of world and self are highly constructed, and therefore, highly suspect.

I have an analogy about experience, which I think is helpful. I call it pixels-in/pixels-out. The technical analog to our episodic memory system is a video camera. Of course, memory is much less accurate, and records all the senses, emotions, etc., but there are key similarities. With the camera, stimulus from the outside world strikes pixels (in the camera's CCD). The pixels activate, sending a signal to the video processor, which turns the whole video into code, for storage. Upon replay, the code plays back on the video processor, which activates other pixels, the ones on a video monitor. The pixels on the video monitor are a proxy for camera pixels, and creates a representation of the event that was recorded.

Likewise, our sensory nodes are like the pixels, activating due to stimulus from the outside world, sending code to the hippocampus, which binds it together and records it. Upon recall, the code is played back from the hippocampus, activating the same brain nodes that contributed to the original memory. The activation of those brain 'pixels' creates a proxy representation for the original event. Subjective Experience is like the viewfinder of the camera. It's a continual video feed, for operator use. The operator in this situation is the Core Network.

I can't speak to the specific NDE cases, and I certainly don't mean to try to invalidate your personal experiences. But I think Blanke's patients were only constrained because the rest of their brains were still working as normal. I've also had slight OBEs, but always while in a hypnagogic / hypnopompic state. I think it's entirely plausible to have a 'waking dream' that feels entirely real, in the same way that during a flashback or intense memory, it's entirely possible to have a memory which feels utterly like it's happening right now. The brain does weird things.

I'm so glad you asked about OBE and NDE. I think they are very explainable in our model.

Experiences are generated by the hippocampus, which also generates dreams and imagination. When altered on fatigue or substance or anesthesia, it's easy to blend dream and waking material.

I interviewed Olaf Blanke, who generates OBEs with electrical stimulation. He stimulates (i.e. inhibits) the angular gyrus, which is a comparison node for several body-in-space regions of the brain, including somatosensory cortex, cerebellum, and the hippocampus.

https://vimeo.com/146961618

The model's interpretation of his findings: When the communication between these various body-in-space nodes breaks down, the hippocampus becomes unconstrained by the the more functional nodes, and its body-in-space representation can become unmoored from the body's actual position. That allows the hippocampus' native dream logic to take over, and physical logic becomes irrelevant.

Since hearing was still functional, Blanke's OBEs always stayed in the room, because (in my interpretation) the hippocampus was still constrained by the auditory cortex. All auditory data (i.e. Doctors making sounds) would keep them from wandering too far.

Unconstrained, the hippocampus can be a very silly machine, which is what dreams are.

NDEs also, I think can be explained by the breakdown in communication between brain regions. The hippocampus is trying to make an experience out of failing input, and so it is likely to elicit previous memories (i.e. life flashing before one's eyes, the recall of dead loved ones).

LOL, I am definitely aware of my sense of awareness!

But... I have had many experiences which made me doubt my sense of AGENCY. Especially dancing.

As a freestyle dancer, I could observe my own dancing behavior, without seeming to be willing it. My body just moved itself, when I was 'in the flow'.

I have had innumerous peak dance experiences without any fringe sense that I was 'willing' any of it.

Those experiences shook me from my previous sense of 'I'. Who am I, if I'm not even willing my body's behavior?

So, by the time I started working on the doc back in 2011, I was already convinced that the 'I' was a construct, part of perception, not part of reality.

It wasn't until the EMMOSE idea coalesced in 2013, that I realized that the I is a construct, purely for the sake of episodic memory, and psychological continuity.

The 'I' is a useful fiction to help the organism learn, but it can also take over, (yikes!) and warp the organism's life.

You're right; I think we'll have to have AI debate at some point. I don't see any fundamental problem, as long as the AI has a memory movie process, and a sense of self and ownership.

Yes, you're right; the North Korean state TV metaphor is imperfect. Most regions of the brain use Subjective Experience for error correction, not for learning a narrative.

It is the Core Network 'interpreter' (as Gazzaniga would call it) which creates narratives, based upon the flow of memory experiences.

But there ARE many parallel algorithms for decision-making in the brain, which argue among themselves.

And they work from a common understanding of what the personal history of the organism has been, in order to make their decisions.

Every night, during REM sleep, the hippocampus trains the neocortex, by playing event memories back and forth.

For example, a guitarist learns a new phrase, or a rat learns a new route.

This gives the neocortex 'artificial exposure', so fewer exposures to a stimuli are needed to learn a lesson.

So even though individual neurons aren't carrying around narratives, they are shaped by them constantly.

About meditation. I am sure that there is lots of good data there, but of course my studies have been about pathologies, single-unit recordings, and rat studies. That's what most of the hippocampal literature is about, and that's the core of the model.

Again, I don't dispute evidence that contradicts my model; I'm just not aware of any.

If you're ever interested, one of the other 2012 interviews I turned into a video was that with Dr. Jonathan Shear, all about meditation and the self. Great interview.

https://vimeo.com/46695760

I'm agreeing with you that there's something we could call a 'screen', which is the neocortex, as played by the hippocampus. And I'm not saying that what you experience during meditation is false, in any way.

I'm just saying that 'awareness' is a tricky word for what I think happens.

Since the contents of memory are based upon what the rest of the brain thinks is 'newsworthy', then only the newsworthy stuff is reportable. We quickly forget the feeling of our clothes, the sound of an AC hum, or a mild smell, because they stop being 'newsworthy'.

It doesn't mean our brains aren't still processing that information. It just stops being reportable. That's what 'awareness' means, on a colloquial level. It just means 'reportable'.

When we go for a drive while talking to a friend, we may barely be 'aware' of the driving task, but obviously our brain is active, doing the driving. Because the 'awareness' is about which task occupies the hippocampus more.

Perhaps you mean something more profound by 'awareness', based upon your personal experience, and I don't know if I have anything to say about that. I have no theories about peak experiences or meditation, etc. I only have this one about how Subjective Experiences come about.

I mean 'experience' as a noun, not a verb. Subjective Experience is a movie, pure and simple, but unlike a normal movie, which just has audio and video, it has all the feels, and even the perception of mind, ownership, volition, etc. But it's still a movie, about a constructed first-person perspective.

However, there is no ONE who is having the experience. There is, instead a collective, a colony of cells (i.e. the brain) which is collectively having the experience.

I liken it to North Korean State TV. The whole collective sends in reports to the central media station, which puts them together into a master news report, the new memory. That memory is broadcast all over the collective, and its unifying message helps keep them all united in one common goal.

The logic is the opposite of the Cartesian Theater. Instead of there being one self, which watches all the feeds, there is instead a unifying of the feeds, which is then reciprocally sent back to the entire collective, giving the illusion of being one coherent self. The brain is actually in a constant state of argument within itself, as different factions of neurons pull and tug on decisions that no one neuron can understand. But large scale informational structures, like theta memory episodes, can unite the collective behind a common story.

I don't reject data from meditation studies. I've interviewed Josipovic and Jonathan Shear and I think what they have to say is interesting. It's just not a focus of mine. And I know Godel only through Hofstadter's "I Am a Strange Loop". I know he insisted that mathematics needed to be incomplete, but I don't know what you're referring to. What is it that he's saying, which is relevant?

Regarding "awareness". In experience, we have this feeling of 'becoming aware'. And only the things within experience are reportable, and thus we say that experience = awareness. But to be clear, that's not what my model says.

'Awareness' is when the fictional character 'I' becomes aware of the detail, not when the brain becomes aware. Parts of your brain were already 'aware' of some detail, but it doesn't become reportable, until that detail enters memory, and is shared with the rest of the brain. Thus, the Libet timing results.

So, there's not a special demarcation of 'awareness'. And there's certainly not an 'I' who becomes aware. There's just what made it into memory, which is reportable. And then what is left out, which is not.

And to follow up on an earlier comment, I am absolutely NOT a Dennet-like illusionist. He says experience is an illusion; I say the opposite. Experience is the ONLY obvious thing.

But, to be clear, experience IS a simulation, including experience of the self.

It is based upon an actual organism, but the perception is (brain) self-constructed.

for example: The fact that some gay people are not out to themselves shows that self-perception is motivated, and can be divorced from the organism's reality.

for example: People who say 'um' and 'like' a lot don't experience themselves saying those words, because the self is the most fudged part of experience.

The system is a loop-within-a-loop.

Inner loop: The IAN neocortex sends its code to the hippocampus, which compiles it, and sends the memory code back to the IAN, for error correction and future familiarity matching, activating the IAN into an experiencing, which we know as subjective experience.

Outer loop: The Core Network receives the hippocampal signal, plus it has afferents from all over the IAN (that's why it's in the middle of the cortex, so it has access to everything). The Core Network witnesses the Subjective Experience, and uses that witnessing to do things like think thoughts or imagine scenarios or immediately replay the scene that just happened.

The Core Network then feeds back into the hippocampus. Since the hippocampus evolved to create experience movies, and the Core Network evolved to control the hippocampus, the vmPFC uses the hippocampus as a simulator, to create language and image thought, in order to solve things 'in our head'. And of course, it drives memory recall.

And all those mental acts play out, as part of the hippocampal signal, to also be expressed on the IAN neocortex instrument, or 'screen' I should say. The reason why mental life has qualia (e.g. verbal and image thought, emotions) is because it is played out on the same loop as regular experience. Because there is a loop,

I don't see why there need to be any contents. It could very well just be the Core network, witnessing its own witnessing. I don't know much about meditation, but I don't think that data is in contradiction to my theory.

BTW, I want to be clear, I don't have a prediction about what a baby's inner life is like. Nor about HM. My model is only about what people with working hippocampi experience. That said, I do think it's safe to say that babies and HM don't have the same thing we have. Whatever they have will be missing a lot of context that we take for granted. Every moment of adult experiencing is freighted by concepts, associations which we have built up over the years. Our perception of beauty or risk or taste are all shaped by our constructed ways of experiencing. We build up our world. I think that the pre-hippocampal stage in a child's life is the beginning of the dialogue between these 3 networks (4, including limbic system, which is also part of the 'screen'). Their job, collectively is to learn to map concepts and qualia onto the real world, so that memory can be accurate and useful. Only once a world is constructed, can the memories begin to be created, somewhere between 3-5. We essentially teach ourselves (self-organizationally) to construct a model of the world, and start using that model to help learn.

The experience = the movie. There is no 'experiencer', per se. The movie contains a fictional character, called "I", and within that movie, the I seems to have experience, but it is just a character in the movie. So, I do not become aware of the world, rather this brain creates a movie of me becoming aware.

Subjectivity exists to give memories context. The perceived but fictional 'I' frames the memory's feelings, behaviors, etc. There is a reason why there is a time lag before 'awareness', because that is how long it takes for the information to be put together in the hippocampus. Libet's experiments were showing how long it took the premotor signal to enter into the memory, giving the subjective fringe sense that 'I' chose to move.

Behind the scenes, what's really happening is a dialogue between three networks. The Immediate Action Network (IAN) is mostly the neocortex, all inputs and outputs (i.e. senses and motor/speech), and the decision-making areas (like premotor) that connect the two.

This network was the first of the three to evolve, and can handle most tasks in life. But it has a hard time navigating or learning from single-exposure events, so a second network evolved to help the IAN learn better. That network is the hippocampal one, and made movies of events that happened, for the sake of later learning.

And those two networks needed a third network, the Core or Default Mode Network, to evolve alongside the hippocampal one. The IAN would create codes, based upon its interaction with the outside world. Those codes were sent to the hippocampus, which stitches them together into a master code, the new episodic memory.

That master code is sent back to the neocortex, and it is that reciprocal activation of the neocortex by the hippocampal code that = subjective experience now, and later, = a recalled memory.

So, who experiences it? The Core Network does. The experience itself is the activation of the IAN, but the 'observer' of the experience is the Core Network. The IAN evolved to make sense of the outside world, but didn't evolve to make sense of memories. So the Core Network evolved to do that. It drives the recall process, and tries to learn lessons from the memory.

The Core Network further evolved, not just to make sense of the past, but also the future. The Core Network is in charge of planning for the future.

It uses memory to give the organism psychological continuity, connecting present events to past memories.

And even more important to the HP, the Core Network is constantly receiving information both from the hippocampus and the neocortex about the brand new memory, the subjective experience.

The Core Network uses the information about the new memory to help extrapolate beyond the scene. For example, it's in charge of Theory of Mind, trying to figure out what other people are thinking.

So, there is no 'screen' per se, but the neocortex is as close as we come to a screen. It is the instrument upon which subjective experience plays out. And the observer of that screen is the Core Network, which is our inner watcher.