Consciousness as metastructures

I would like to propose a model that spans the spectrum from epistemological to operational considerations. And, of course, the epistemological starting point determines the model. I depict consciousness as a biological-physiological inevitability.

Let’s start with the basic question: What is consciousness? On the ontological level, the question is quite simple: consciousness is a property of the brain, just as the heartbeat is a property of the heart. Asking here why we have consciousness makes no sense at all. Nor is the question of how it is possible for matter to become thoughts. Since the brain is a part of the organism, this is ultimately answered much earlier, namely with the origin of life. Self-organizing life produces ways of working that regulate the relationship to the environment as well as to the inner world. First of all, the method called protein formation in single-celled organisms, later the bioelectrics in nervous systems.

In the end, the brain is nothing more than a navigation system. The theatre of consciousness, the totality of all thinking and feeling, ultimately results from the bundling of various sensory stimuli. No wonder that it flashes and sparkles in the brain and gives the impression that you are dealing with your own spiritual world. And this experience is subjective and individual, so the much-cited hard problem of consciousness does not exist. It cannot be the subject of scientific knowledge, because this would presuppose a subject-object relationship that does not allow the subjectivity of qualia. And this would require a subjective key, the code. And the subject himself does not know this. Statistical correlations capture the qualia only from an objective point of view, not from a subjective point of view.

Consciousness and qualia have nothing to do with each other scientifically. Both are two different frames of reference. By two frames of reference, I mean two scales. Let’s take my brain. When I observe my thoughts and feelings, I take my own personal subjective qualia tape measure. It has its own unit of measurement.The neuroscientist, who also looks at my brain, takes his neuroscientific tape measure with completely different units of measurement. We both look at my brain, not only from different perspectives, but also from different frames of reference (tape measures). By the way, it would be dualism if someone were to say that you have to add both measuring tapes together in order to understand the brain as a whole. But you can’t add apples and oranges. Much more interesting is how thinking arises from diverse and initially diffuse stimuli, i.e. how structures or order are formed. Tononi has made a contribution to this with his Integrated Information Theory [1] by ultimately making the second law of thermodynamics or Shannon’s information theory applicable to neuroscience. According to this, a (living) system has a lot of integrated information that is used to export entropy and establish order, i.e. what characterizes life in general. It is a general theory of consciousness. Since he makes no distinction between animate and inanimate nature, he exposes himself to the accusation of reductionism.

In inanimate nature, states can be analyzed with regard to their constitutive elements and thus reduced to them at the same time, i.e. states can be explained from the elements. In living nature, there is a significant difference between analysis and reduction. This is because it is not possible to reduce it to the elements as an explanation of complex states based on its own reaction cycles. Reduction must therefore take place there on principles that underlie the conditions. Life thus generates its own, namely biological laws of nature. And these are the basis of emergence. Life reverses causal chains (top-down regulation — bottom-up constitution).

Here, ‘elements’ join together according to different valences than in inanimate nature, where such bonds occur according to the known physical rules. Of course, physico-chemical processes in the brain play a basal role and must be analyzed as such. However, they are embedded in biological systems. And this is the only way to understand them. It is simply wrong to look at them in isolation and draw conclusions from them. It becomes even more interesting when one tries to describe the mechanism that produces this order, which can be called thinking. Structures — we speak of patterns [2] — are formed, compared, activated. If we were to store each perception individually as a pattern, the capacity of the brain would quickly be exhausted. Rather, the brain looks for commonalities and reduces the complex patterns. The best way to think of it is this: A pattern, e.g. that of a tree, corresponds to a rasterized sheet of paper on which there are different numbers between 1 and 2 in the boxes. A slightly different tree has the numbers between 1.5 and 2.5, and so on. If you put all the sheets on top of each other and add the numbers vertically in the boxes, you get different sums. These summed numbers reflect the points of the patterns of all trees. Topologically, there are mountains and valleys. Mountains and valleys are thus reductions of many superimposed points. Although all mountains and valleys are connected to each other, only the mountains communicate with each other. The communication of the mountains is different from that of all points. Of course, this communication runs through the valleys (how could it be otherwise), but they are impulse patterns that respond to external and internal impulses. The impulse patterns are therefore used to compare coarse-grained properties, i.e. the mountain peaks and, if necessary, a bit ‘down the mountain’ (similar to gradient descent [3]).

So we have two topologies, the physiological one and one that is also physiological, but is in a superposition [not quantum mechanical] or forms a supersystem. Both topologies are physiological, the upper one appears psychic. The topologies form the totality of all perceptual stimuli.

Patterns of the same class of objects (e.g. tree) overlap and form a topology in which the ‘mountains’ contain the typical features of all patterns and which make up that coarseness, as a difference to mere perception, which makes consciousness possible in the first place. If ‘required’, each individual pattern can be activated in detail. Without this property of the neural system, each life situation would have to be stored on its own. This is exactly the place where mere perception becomes thinking, i.e. consciousness, chaotic stimuli become ordered structures. It is possible that the ‘mountains’ form attractors that create a micro-readiness potential that responds to corresponding impulse patterns. The ‘mountains’ could also be described as neuronal micro-hotspots that communicate with each other. With the difference between the two topologies, a three-dimensionality creates a three-dimensional experience space.

These stored impulse patterns react to corresponding stimuli and thus contain what is called memory. And this can be described as electrochemical information in a specific neuron network.

Such a supersystem works (not ‘is’) holographically. Overall, it forms a virtual holographic overall system, which gains relative causal force compared to the physiological ‘basic’ system, since it has a higher information density, because it contains the summed points of all Muster.Es not only superimposes itself horizontally, but also builds up vertically hierarchically — thinking is thus becoming more and more ‘abstract’, in humans it is most pronounced.

It doesn’t work in binary, so it’s not with YES/NO, but with MAYBE. It works relatively, fuzzy, adaptive. It structures chaotic incoming stimuli — quite the opposite of AI, which is fed with already structured data.

The brain does not work rationally. Rationality comes into play exclusively through social rules. It does not work algorithmically, but adapts through imitation and habituation.

The totality of this supersystem is the ego or consciousness. It has a causal effect and corresponds to the top-down relationship described by E. Hoel, which he showed in his causal theory of emergence. [4].

Intelligence would initially be a relative term here. It refers to the ratio of the action-guiding skills to the total set of skills. Expressed in Tononi’s terms, one could say that intelligence is the quotient of the total amount of integrated information of a central nervous system and the integrated information of the ego (as an action-guiding metastructure). This gives us a general concept of intelligence that affects all central nervous systems.

The specificity of human consciousness arises from a different context. Here, the electrochemical language of the brain encodes social meanings that exist as concrete and abstract concepts, are culturally stored and thus represent an inexhaustible reservoir that allows infinite combinations of meanings to be created. Coding is done at the level of metastructures.

Two things are added in humans: 1. a functional architecture — not identical with brain morphology, but dependent on it — in which the superstructure ICH is reflected in social normatives (The Freudian SUPEREGO) as well as the internal status and evaluates both. and 2. the development of abstract linguistic thought in the form of assimilation and accommodation according to Piaget [5], in which the linguistically coded patterns are applied until the ego is able to compress them into new abstracts (example: 1+1+1+1+1+1 → 5x1), thus reducing complexity.

The terms (such as ‘tree’) are therefore linguistic abstracts in the sense of abstracting insignificant details, they are constructs. In reality, there is no such thing as a tree ‘per se’. Philosophically extended, this would mean that there is no thing in itself in the Kantian sense. The thing itself is a metastructure transcended into the metaphysical, the projection of an abstraction.

Let’s sum up: consciousness does not need to be proven, it is already there. It arises in connection with metastructures that form in the course of necessarily selective, coarse-grained perception. Metastructures are therefore part of consciousness and belong to all central nervous systems. So it is not the case that we have consciousness and now have to think — in a very dualistic way — how I or will arises. Both are part of consciousness as a property of the brain. The brain does not produce decisions that I then consciously perceive at some point, as Libet thinks [6], but it is the integrative ME that produces decisions, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. With these metastructures as physiological functions, the mind-body problem has been solved.

Consciousness then arises as a function of a change of state, from state A (input of chaotic stimuli) to state B (coarse-grained structuring) within the framework of the difference between the two. The metastructures created with B have a controlling effect, since their information density is higher, because the coarse-grained dots of all superimposed compatible patterns add up in them. While there is a ‘noisy’ stimulus level, the metastructure creates order. It may be possible to formulate a mathematical inevitability that describes such an extrapolation. Physiologically, the difference between the two levels should be electrically, chemically or electrochemically observable — assuming suitable examination methods or designs. Basically, the metastructure is the result of a Fourier transform. It can be said that consciousness arises in the course of a Fourier transform carried out by the brain. Perhaps the interneuron network is such a metastructure [6a].

It is possible that there is a general principle behind the metastructures, which is most clearly evident in the brain as the most differentiated development of life: Life forms extrapolations at the respective regulatory level (cell, cell association, organ, nervous system) through the constant difference of states of the respective work logic, which could be described as a master algorithm that speaks the language of the respective work logic.

The emergence of controlling metastructures would be an integral property of all life. Development (evolution) therefore does not arise from endogenous coincidences, but from the exploitation of spaces of possibility that result from the interaction of organism and environment as an experiment/error, quasi as a differential for maintaining dynamic equilibrium (metastructure formation → growth → metastructure formation within a phase space).

Metastructures are the ‘summaries’, the quintessence or extrapolations, which in turn are a prerequisite for the further ‘growth process’.

The task remains to find such structures [e.g. 7,8]. New approaches are already looking for patterns that are constitutive [9].

I refer to the study of canonical neural computations as an indication, if not evidence, for metastructures [10], as well as the concept of sparse coding [10a].

Metastructures are created by symmetry breaks, which in turn form new metastructures. Metastructures would also explain indirect causalities, e.g. if a species has to generate color mutations through camouflage to survive or if an asexually reproducing species switches to sexual reproduction at intervals to get rid of accumulated negative mutations, etc. If we take, for example, a simple activator-inhibitor system [11] consisting of A and B or a closed hypercycle [12] A to B, then this system forms its own metastructure AB. AB is then the functional structure abstracted from the elements, which as such acts independently and interacts with other two- or multi-part systems (CD) to form new metastructures (ABCD) whose properties are not linearly reducible to their elements. As life ‘grows’, i.e. is active, the system processes and evolves in the process.

It is not the objects of the metastructures AB or ABCD that are essential, but the relations that connect them. Physiological correlates will therefore be found in the relations.

Only with such a functional architecture will it be possible to transfer human intelligence to machines in rudimentary form.

Disease means the destabilization of metastructures (with the exception of cancer, where cells grow uncontrollably).

Possible criticisms of the model:1. Why should metastructures arise from coarse-grainedness? Assuming that all stimuli converge in the brain, then one can speak of a ‘global working space’ [13], but it has not yet been explained why this space entails structured thinking. This can be described with the concept of (integrated) information, but it is far too general to understand the actual operational mechanism. Coarse-grained perception ‘forces’ the brain to abstractions and generalizations. This means that a second, namely an abstraction level, i.e. a metastructure, is created.

2. Why should consciousness arise from metastructures? Metastructures, as the name suggests, are structure-forming. It is a process of formation by which stimuli are classified. It is only through this structuring that the ‘global workspace’ as such becomes workable. Basic patterns represent objects, but only impulse patterns structure the basic patterns.

3. Why do we need metastructures at all? can’t the brain simply produce a supervening phenomenon called consciousness? But then one would have the problem of explaining the influence of the brain on the body, e.g. by the placebo or nocebo effect. On the other hand, one could argue that no metastructures are required for this influence, because the brain could do it without them. The admission that the brain has an influence on the body assigns it a subject status, because only a subject can do something, such as moving objects. Now the brain is an organ and therefore part of the body. So if the brain moves something, then it can only be the brain as a subject and not as part of the body. So it does this as a prominent part of the body. Since we know that not always the entire organ called the brain is involved in actions, it must therefore be a specific part — not morphologically meant. At this moment, it occupies a meta-position that has a controlling effect. This subjective part can also be referred to as the I. And the I, according to my reasoning, is the agglomeration of metastructures. It is the part where subjectivity, identity and personality flow together. It is the sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious control unit that simultaneously experiences this theater of consciousness. These metastructures disintegrate into individual patterns and their splinters in the dream and thus play us an unstructured dream theater in which we no longer have control, i.e. we no longer actively create order. One can also say that the brain and psyche are one and the same, just viewed from different angles.

Not that I’m misunderstood, neither ME nor metastructures have anything to do with a homunculus inherent in the brain. They are structures with causal force, no more and no less. In connection with our sensations, they are what we call consciousness, from the point of view of the individual it is his qualia.

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1. G. Tononi, et al., Integrated information theory: from consciousness to its physical substrate, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2016

2. https://www.spektrum.de/lexikon/psychologie/mustererkennen/10194

3. Knyazev,B., Michal Drozdzal, Graham W. Taylor, Adriana Romero-Soriano, Parameter Prediction for Unseen Deep Architectures, arXiv:2110.13100

4. Erik P Hoel et al., Can the macro beat the micro? Integrated information across spatiotemporal scales, Journal Neuroscience of Consciousness, Volume 2016 Oxford University Press

5. J. Piaget: Das Weltbild des Kindes. dtv/Klett-Cotta, München 1978

6. Benjamin Libet: Mind Time. The Temporal Factor in Consciousness. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA u. a. 2004

6a. Loomba, S. et al., Connectomic comparison of mouse and human cortex, Science 23 Jun 2022 Vol 377, Issue 6602 DOI: 10.1126/science.abo0924

7. Ji N. Madan, G. Fabre, G. Dayan, A. Baker, C.N. Wabudike, I. Flavell, (2020) A neural circuit for flexible control of persistent behavioral states Dryad Digital Repository, doi:10.5061/dryad.3bk3j9kh3.
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3bk3j9kh3

8. Ryoma Hattori, Takaki Komiyama, Context-dependent persistency as a coding mechanism for robust and widely distributed value coding, 2021 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2021.11.001

9. https://news.asu.edu/20220228-new-astrobiology-research-predicts-life-we-dont-know-it

10. Kraynyukova, N.,u.a., In vivo extracellular recordings of thalamic and cortical visual responses reveal V1 connectivity rules, in:NEUROSCIENCE October 3, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2207032119

[10a] Beyeler, M., et al., Neural correlates of sparse coding and dimensionality reduction, PLOS Comutional Biology June 27, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006908

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12. Eigen,M., Schuster,P.: The Hypercycle. A Principle of Natural Self Organization. Springer 1979.

13. Bernard Baars: In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind, NY: Oxford University Press, 1997