Abstracts:

Anton P. Zeleznikar
An Active Member of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volariceva ulica 8, SI-1111 Ljubljana, Slovenia; anton.p.zeleznikar@ijs.si

What is consciousness from a philosopher's, cognitivist's, physicist's, and informatician's point of view? Physicists attempt to tackle the problem by theoretical means of quantum theory (20, 10, 16, 30, 17, 14), philosophers by a debate on qualia cole,schweizer, cognitivists claim description and explanation (bechtel,rosenberg), for example. Informaticians develop a theory of the informational based on the new ground of informational arising (33, 34, 36, 37, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45). This theory together with its formalism seems to meet the requirements for consciousness description, development, emerging, vanishing, modeling, and non-computability, although the principles of informational arising must be thought and elaborated to the new possible and necessary details. The paper presents two basic metaphisicalistically organized concepts of consciousness: the general (Fig. 2) and the standard one (Fig. 3). On this ground, an initial informational shell of the generalized and standardized metaphysicalism of consciousness system z in Fig. 7 is presented. The shell can be filled with concrete consciousness components (e.g., intention, experience, memory, understanding, etc.), functioning as operand markers in the scheme; they can be further and additionally (in parallel) decomposed in the form of their own and arbitrarily complex informational systems. (pp. 345-369)

Keywords:consciousness: arising, artificialism, causalism, circularism, components, concrete formal structure and organization, decomposition, distributivism, emerging, externalism, gestaltism, informational graph, informing, internalism, metaphysicalism, non-computability, parallelism, serialism, spontaneism, phenomenalism, star-gestaltism, understanding

Vladimir A. Fomichov
Department of Discrete Mathematics, Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, Moscow State University, Vorobyovy Hills, 119899 Moscow, Russia; sf vaf@nw.math.msu.su
and
Department of Information Technologies MATI--K.E. Tsiolkovsky Russian State Technological University, Moscow, Russia
Olga S. Fomichova
Studio ``Culture, Ecology, and Foreign Languages'' Moscow Children and Teenagers Palace for Creative Work

An original conception of effective developing the consciousness of the child (from five-year olds to teenagers) is stated. Its main part is information transfer oriented and was developed proceeding from the analysis of the peculiarities of the work of young child's and teenager's consciousness and from ideas of artificial intelligence theory. The stated conception is a central constituent of a new theory of teaching suggested by the authors, called the Theory of Dynamic Conceptual Mappings, and presented in a number of previous publications. One of the most important insights of the conception is a new look at the role of impressions from the nature in the development of the consciousness of 4-7-year-old children. The suggested method (a component of the conception) of teaching young children to describe figuratively the nature is interpreted as a universal starting engine for effective developing the consciousness of each young child of average abilities. The ideas of the conception have been implemented in the new methods of teaching languages called the Methods of Emotional-Imaginative Teaching (EIT-methods) and destined for positive developing the thinking and mental outlook of young children and teenagers at lessons of English as a foreign language. (pp. 369-388)

Keywords:developing consciousness, information transfer approach to consciousness, developing thinking, developing mental outlook, young child, teenager, artificial intelligence approach, cognitive science, theory of dynamic conceptual mappings, methods of emotional-imaginative teaching, metaphor, theory of teaching, foreign language, mother tongue, developing the personality of the child, conflicts-free teaching, nature, ecological education, symbolic thinking, language of painting, language of poetry.

Horst Hendriks-Jansen
2 Burlesbridge Cottages, Dippenhall, Farnham Surrey GU10 5DN; 100725.3554@compuserve.com

Cognitive science has traditionally assumed that all mental phenomena except consciousness can be explained by an information-processing account. Natural selection has been seen as the best hope for legitimising the explanatory entities of such an account. The problem of explaining phenomenal consciousness then reduces to that of getting subjective experiences or ``qualia" out of functionally and/or causally defined internal representations that can be ``grounded" or ``naturalised" through evolution. I shall argue that this model is unhelpful even for the so-called ``easy" problems of mind, and that its general acceptance in cognitive science has become part of the ``problem" of consciousness. The informational content of neural signals and changes of state is not so easily brought into concordance with ``information about the world" as has generally been assumed. This paper proposes an alternative approach to explanations of human behaviour that draws on ethology, developmental psychology, situated robotics, and dynamical systems theory. It suggests that human infants are born with (or develop soon after birth) species-typical activity patterns that have been selected by a specifically human environment of man-made artifaCTS, language, and conspecifics who interpret behaviour in intentional terms. Complex and apparently purposive behaviour arises by interactive emergence from the operation of these activity patterns within a dynamic developmental context. An evolutionary explanation of human behaviour and mental phenomena along these lines implies that there is no specific physical, neurophysiological, or ``software" ingredient that human beings inherit through their genes and that makes them conscious. Nor can consciousness be conceived as a virtual architecture that is installed by learning in an exceptionally large and plastic brain. The explanation for consciousness cannot be found in entities and processes that reside in the head: it requires an historical explanation that embraces the environment-infant-caregiver system as a whole. (pp. 389-404)

Keywords:consciousness; cognitive science; development; dynamical systems theory; embodiment; ethology; evolution; functional decomposition; historical explanations; information processing; interactive emergence; internal representation; language; natural kinds; physical symbol system; scaffolding; situated activity; situated robotics; species-typical activity patterns; systematicity.

S.K. Dey
Professor of Mathematics, Eastern Illinois University Charleston, IL 61920, USA; cfskd@eiu.edu

Vedanta philosophy was developed in ancient India by the Aryan seers, saints and scientists. Consciousness is considered here, as the very core of our existence. It is the Absolute Operator which exists in both animate and inanimate objeCTS, causing projections, preservations and destructions. Nature is conscious. The state of Consciousness is the Absolute state. It can be attained by an individual only by applying the principle of detachment. In this article, these philosophical tenets have been analyzed mathematically. It has been found that many conjectures and conclusions of Vedanta are fully in conformity with recent scientific investigations. This concord is the output of a logical analysis conducted in this work. (pp. 405-419)

Keywords:analysis, consciousness, mathematics, Vedanta philosophy

Amy Ione
PO Box 12742, Berkeley, California 94712, U.S.A.; ione@demog.berkeley.edu

Juxtaposing the work of Baars, Chalmers, Scott, Varela, and others with a detailed analysis of historical case studies, this paper uses a multilevel and multilateral model to explore how information, consciousness and culture interpenetrate. This model formally demonstrates that what we mean by information exchange must be a key component of consciousness studies if we are going to adequately acknowledge that how we build informational bridges connecting personal, cultural, and intergenerational perceptions cannot be separated from our living as individuals and cultures in time and space. Particular attention is given to illustrating that while information itself may be personal or impersonal, our conclusions about the processing of information must address consciousness, experience, exchange, and feedback multidimensionally. I conclude that the key phenomenological concern we must probe when combining consciousness and information studies is what communication is, what information exchange implies, and why theoretical analyses must address the significant difference between information that is primarily descriptive and information that actually enlarges the scope of our communication process and includes some measure of cognitive development. (pp. 421-434)

Keywords:emergence, self-organization, information, creativity, cognition, innovation, consciousness

Alexander D. Linkevich
Polotsk State University, 211440 Novopolotsk, Blokhin 29, Belarus; linkevich@psu.belpak.vitebsk.by

It is considered how some mental phenomena can be imitated with the aid of neural networks. Representation of information in neural systems is discussed as well as two levels of their description (``hardware`` and ``software"). Perceptual, lexical and semantic spaces are introduced at the level of ``software". Data on the meaning of phonemes, words and nonverbal signs are summarized in three theses, and ways of producing new meanings are considered. The conception is developed that perception consists of attempts to recognize the object and includes generation and verification of hypotheses. Any such a hypothesis being produced in advance yields a forecast of the future. Two mechanisms of such anticipation are discussed: (i) pre-excitation of attractors of the network dynamics; (ii) associative generation of information in the semantic space. Existence of different kinds of thinking and memory is explained. Reflection and self are considered as mathematical constructions in the semantic space. Consciousness is finally interpreted as a process of neural activity structured so that a hierarchy of attractors appears in the activity space. Nonlinear stochastic models of dynamics of neural activity are suggested. Their general properties are analytically studied: bounds of phase trajectories, global attractors, restrictions on the storage capacity and sizes of basins of attraction around stored patterns. Particular models are investigated as well. The learning problem is reduced to a standard form. (pp. 435-464)

Keywords:consciousness, mind, thinking, memory, anticipation, perception, reflection, self; language, semantics; neural network, attractor, chaos, learning algorithm; nonlinear dynamical system; stochastic process

Shigeki Sugiyama
(Foundation) Softopia Japan 4-1-7, Kagano, Ogaki-City Gifu-Ken, Japan; suggy@softopia.pref.gifu.jp

Consciousness is something concerned with our knowing things of the bodily senses and mental powers. So, with five senses of our body, we can be aware of things, and with our mind, we can be aware of things too. But only the five senses cannot do with consciousness. This is obvious indeed, because we cannot make ``consciousness'' with only five senses, implemented by electric sensors. With only five senses, we cannot feel and think anything. We need something extra, which is consciousness, mental power, mind. Thus, the point in consciousness is ``mind''. Mind is the ability to take information from five senses, and to digest it, and to react in order to survive and to protect an individual. In this paper, the following hypothetical structure of ``mind'' is used. ``Mind'' is divided into two parts: one is the ``lower mind'' and another is the '``higher mind''. With lower mind, the mind realizes ``protection''. With the higher mind, most of the mind is '``protection and self-recognition of reasons''. So, using these hypotheses, I have tried to propose simple examples for the two kinds of mind, using neural networks. (pp. 465-470)

Keywords:consciousness: basic models, lower, higher, structure; examples; theories; unique personality

Mari Jibu
Research Institute for Informatics and Science, Notre Dame Seishin University Okayama 700, Japan; f mariej@ndsu.ac.jp
and
Department of Anesthesiology and Resusitology Okayama University Medical School
Kunio Yasue
Research Institute for Informatics and Science Notre Dame Seishin University Okayama 700, Japan; kunio@ndsu.ac.jp

Quantum field theory of evanescent photons is proposed as one and only reliable quantum theory of fundamental macroscopic dynamics realized in the brain. External physical stimuli flowing into the brain are shown to generate macroscopic condensates of evanescent photons which can be interpreted as memory storage of the information carried by the incoming stimuli. Each macroscopic condensate manifests two different types of quantum dynamics; creation-annihilation dynamics of a finite number of evanescent photons requiring microscopic amount of energy, and that of an infinite number of them requiring macroscopic amount of energy. The former is a fundamental process of memory retrieval by which the macroscopic condensate of evanescent photons (memory storage) itself is kept unchanged. It can be induced by even a very small physical stimulus flowing into the brain. The latter is a macroscopic phase transition process in which the macroscopic condensate is deformed into another one, thus resulting in the development of memory storage. This can be induced only by large physical stimuli, and superposition of the information carried by such an external stimulus and the information previously stored in the macroscopic condensate is maintained in the new macroscopic condensate. Consciousness (and unconscious if necessary) can be understood as arising from those creation-annihilation dynamics of evanescent photons, thus mind lives in memory and by memory. (pp. 471-490)

Keywords:condensate, consciousness, evanescent photons, Goldstone boson, memory, mind, ordered water, quantum brain theory

Mitja Perus
National Institute of Chemistry, Lab. for Mol. Modeling and NMR Hajdrihova 19 (POB 3430); SI-1001 Ljubljana; Slovenia; mitja.perus@uni-lj.si

The article shows how can associative neural networks, quantum systems and their virtual structures (patterns-qua-attractors having the role of mental representations) realize the system-theoretical or processual backgrounds of consciousness. Although ``basic units" of neural and quantum parallel- distributed processes are very different, complex systems of neurons and quantum systems obey analogous collective dynamics which contributes to conscious information processing. (pp. 491-506)

Keywords:consciousness, neural network, attractor, quantum, dendrites, microtubules, multi-level coherence

Dejan Rakovic
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Belgrade University P.O.Box 816, 11001 Belgrade, Yugoslavia
and
European Centre for Peace and Development (ECPD) of the United Nations University for Peace Terazije 41, 11000 Belgrade, Yugoslavia

The key problem of the future theory of consciousness is how to incorporate altered states of consciousness within a new paradigm, as purely biochemical mechanisms are not accelerated up to several orders of magnitude, in comparison with subjective time sense dilation in altered states of consciousness - in respect to the normal awake state. The electromagnetic (EM) component of ultralowfrequency (ULF) ``brainwaves" provides an extraordinary biophysical basis for consciousness-like displays in both normal and altered states of consciousness: it enables perfect fitting with narrowed limits of conscious capacity in normal awake states, very extended limits in altered states of consciousness (due to the relativistic mechanism of dilated ``subjective" time base), and most peculiar space-time transpersonal interactions in transitional states of consciousness during the interchange of normal and altered states of consciousness (due to the relativistic generation of wormholes in highly noninertial ``subjective" reference frame, fully equivalent to extremely strong gravitational fields according to Einstein's Principle of equivalence); it also enables the dream-like mixing of the normally conscious and unconscious contents in altered states, due to the relativistic Doppler mapping of the EM component of the ``objective" ULF brainwave power spectrum on the zero-degenerate-frequency ``subjective" one. As the rather complex additional low-dielectric (eps ~ 1) weakly ionized gaseous ``optical" neural network is necessary in these processes, it seems that biological molecular hardware will essentially determine further development of brain-like computers with artificial consciousness, in the form of neural networks with embedded brainwaves-like ULF ionic electrical activity. In transitional states of consciousness such nonprogrammable brain-like computers could be able to solve even most subtle problems creatively, by multiple re-addressing the problem and taking the most frequent solution as the optimal one. As the whole situation resembles on the quantum theory of measurement, such creative brain-like computers with artificial consciousness might be named quantum computers. (pp. 507-516)

Keywords:Altered states of consciousness, transitional states of consciousness, theoretical model, biophysics, relativistic and quantum physics, brainwaves, neural networks, ionic structures, brain-like computers

Peter J. Marcer
53 Old Vicarage Green, Keynsham Bristol BS18 2DH, U.K.
Walter Schempp
Lehrstuhl f�r Mathematik I, University of Siegen D-5900 Siegen, Germany

The objective is to predict the information processing morphology and dynamics of the human neuron as required by the model of the brain working by quantum holography set out in an earlier paper (Marcer and Schempp, in press), and summarised in section 2. This model of a conscious system employing brain/mind interaction is in excellent broad agreement with the facts of human cognitive behaviour, neurophysiology and neuropsychology. This paper extends that agreement. (pp. 517-532)

Keywords:brain, consciousness, human neuron dynamics, information processing, modeling, neuron, quantum holography

George L. Farre
Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA; farre@guvax.georgetown.edu

This paper is an outline for the examination of the validity of some fundamental assumptions encountered in the computational approach to consciousness. The chief point is that the existence of two distinct and irreducible kinds of interactions, rules out the possibility of a computational strategy in the modelling or simulation of the energetic complexification of natural systems. The work of Schempp on the use of group transforms for bridging the gap between adjacent strata in any energetic hierarchy is cited as the model for the analysis of the relation between consciousness and the physical substrate where information is generated. (pp. 533-540)

Keywords:computability, emergence, hierarchies, interactions, limitations, strata

Walter Schempp
Lehrstuhl fuer Mathematik I, Universitaet Siegen D-57068 Siegen, Germany

Coherent wavelets form a unified basis of the multichannel perfect reconstruction analysis-synthesis filter bank of high resolution radar imaging and clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The filter bank construction is performed by the Kepplerian temporospatial phase detection strategy which allows for the stroboscopic and synchronous cross sectional quadrature filtering of phase histories in local frequency encoding multichannels with respect to the rotating coordinate frame of reference. The Kepplerian strategy and the associated filter bank construction take place in symplectic affine planes which are immersed as coadjoint orbits of the Heisenberg two-step nilpotent Lie group $G$ into the foliated three-dimensional real projective space P (R x Lie(G)*). Due to the factorization of transvections into affine dilations of opposite ratio, the Heisenberg group G under its natural sub-Riemannian metric acts on the line bundle realizing the projective space P (R x Lie(G)*). Its elliptic non-Euclidean geometry without absolute quadric, associated to the unitary dual G^, governs the design of the coils inside the bore of the MRI scanner system. It determines the distributional reproducing kernel of the tracial read-out process of quantum holograms excited and coexisting in the MRI scanner system. Thus the pathway of this paper leads from Keppler's approach to projective geometry to the Heisenberg approach to the sub-Riemannian geometry of quantum physics, and finally to the enormously appealing topic of ensemble quantum computing. (pp. 541-562)

Keywords:human brain mapping, magnetic resonance tomography, quantum computing, quantum holography