Chapter 10

Additional Theorems: Theorems VI–X

This chapter consists of two parts. Part I comprises four ancillary theorems, which are direct consequences of Theorems II and IV. Part II contains an independent theorem, which is about another important aspect of the mind.


Part I. Ancillary Theorems

The four ancillary theorems are about identities, similarities, and differences between neural processes, mental processes, and qualia.

 (In this part, the symbol * stands for “in the case that the neural processes have qualia.”)

10.1 Theorem VI

Because similar neural processes have similar information-processing processes and the information-processing process of a neural process is a mental process (Theorem II), similar neural processes have similar mental processes. 

Because similar neural processes have similar special signaling patterns* and the special signaling pattern of a neural process is a quale (Theorem IV), similar neural processes have similar qualia*

Theorem VI: Similar Neural Processes have Similar Mental Processes and Qualia*.

This means that similar neural processes, such as visual perception neural processes in healthy people, have similar mental processes and qualia, such as similar visual perception mental processes and similar visual qualia.


Implications

If a person’s consciousness neural process can access and read the signaling pattern of a perception neural process (such as a visual perception neural process) of another person experiencing the same thing (e.g., looking at the same color), the first person will find that the quale that occurs in the second person’s perception neural process is similar to the one occurring in his or her perception neural process. This seems impossible to test at present, but it can be verified in craniopagus twins (conjoined twins whose craniums are fused together) who share some perception neural processes that are not significantly different. 

Any animal that has a brain with similar neural circuits, connections, and physiology to those of the human brain should have neural processes similar to those of the human brain when sensing the same things that humans do. Thus, it should have similar qualia and consciousness (conscious awareness and experiences) to those occurring in human minds [1–3]. The more similar its brain is to ours, the more similar its qualia and consciousness are to ours. The more different its brain is from ours, the more different its qualia and consciousness are from ours. For example, we can infer that dogs mentally see a house in a way similar to how we do because their visual perception systems are fairly like ours (one noteworthy difference is that dogs are color-blinded by their inherent lack of some type of retinal photoreceptors and thus do not see the colors of the house as we do). Bees, on the other hand, with compound eyes, the ability to sense UV light, and other visual perception aspects that are different from ours [4], probably see the house (consciously experience a visual quale of the house) in a very different way that we cannot imagine because we cannot have neural signaling patterns similar to those in the bee brains occurring in our brains to experience.

As similar neural processes have similar qualia, variable qualia or qualia (of the same thing) that have different manifestations in the minds of similar people (such as Color C quale manifests itself as a red quale in some people, as a blue quale in some people, and as some other color qualia in some other people) are not possible. This topic will be discussed in more detail in Extra Chapter II: Variable Qualia.

Predictions

  1. Craniopagus twins who can access a certain perception neural process (such as visual) of the other twin will find that the quale of something (such as the visual quale of some object) that occurs in his or her own perception neural process is similar to the quale of that thing (such as the visual quale of that object) that occurs in the other twin’s perception neural process that he or she can access, provided that their neural processes for that perception are similar.
  2. If, in the future, there is a way to connect neural processes of different people so that one person’s consciousness neural process can access and read the signaling pattern of a perception neural process (such as a visual perception neural process) of another person who is experiencing the same thing (e.g., looking at the same color), the first person will find that the quale that occurs in the second person’s perception neural process (such as the visual quale of the color) is similar to the quale that occurs in his or her perception neural process.
  3. A transplanted neural tissue that results in a neural process similar to the previously functioning neural process will yield a corresponding mental process (perception, motor, cognition, etc.) and a corresponding quale (visual, motor controlling, thinking, etc.) that are similar to the previously functioning mental process and quale. This principle is the theoretical basis for neural transplantation. According to this theorem, neural transplantations for conditions or diseases such as cortical visual impairment, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease can create mental processes and qualia similar to the impaired or destroyed ones if the procedures result in correctly functioning neural processes. The success of transplantations in rebuilding neural processes can be verified by investigations such as fMRI, MEG, ECoG, and intracortical and single-unit recordings, and their success in restoring mental processes and qualia can be assessed by reports from the processes.
  4. As similar neural processes have similar mental processes and qualia, mind or thought reading and qualia identification will be possible. They can be achieved by comparing the characteristics of neural processes of mental processes or qualia in question with those of known mental processes or qualia, again by investigations such as those just mentioned above [5–9].

Remarks

The concepts behind this theorem are not novel. Similar ideas were proposed before, such as in “The principle of organizational invariance,” in which Chalmers (1995) said that “any two systems with the same fine-grained functional organization will have qualitatively identical experiences,” [10–13] and Moutoussis (2016) said that “… a specific brain-activation pattern, leading to the formation of a specific percept,” and “specific, individual perceptual experiences are caused by specific, individual brain activation pattern.” [14].

10.2 Theorem VII

Because different neural processes have different information-processing processes and the information-processing process of a neural process is a mental process (Theorem II), different neural processes have different mental processes. 

Because different neural processes have different special signaling patterns* and the special signaling pattern of a neural process is a quale (Theorem IV), different neural processes have different qualia*.

Theorem VII: Different neural processes have different mental processes and qualia*.

This means that different neural processes in a person (such as visual-perception, emotion-generation, and thought-formation neural processes) have different mental processes (such as different visual-perception, emotion-generation, and thought-formation mental processes) and qualia (such as different visual, emotion, and thought qualia).

Predictions

  1. If we examine the mental processes or qualia of different neural processes (such as neural processes in different areas in a subject), we will find that the mental processes or qualia of these different neural processes are different, which can be verified by the subject’s reports of the characteristics of the occurring mental processes or qualia concurrently with monitoring the neural processes by investigations such as fMRI, MEG, ECoG, and intracortical and single-unit recordings.
  2. If we cause changes to a neural process, we will also change its mental processes and qualia. This is regularly observed in clinical cases and experimental subjects. An interesting case is gene therapy for color blindness. According to this theorem, gene therapy that corrects color blindness by converting one type of existing photoreceptors to the missing type (such as converting green-sensitive cone cells to red-sensitive cone cells in people with red-color blindness) will be able to create new color perception and a novel quale in the patient. The new color perception and quale occur because they depend on the signals from photoreceptors in the retinae [15–19] and because the signals from those photoreceptors change after some of them are changed by the therapy. The changed signals from the photoreceptors will result in changed signals in subsequent visual processing centers, from retinal ganglion cells to all visual-perception processing centers in the brain, including the final color-perception neural circuit. Finally, after the consciousness neural process receives the new signal from this last circuit, it will interpret the new signal as a new color, and the patient will experience a novel color quale. This type of treatment has been performed successfully in animals such as squirrel monkeys and mice [20–23].

10.3 Theorem VIII

Because mental processes are information-processing processes (Theorem II) and similar information-processing processes require similar neural processes, similar mental processes require similar neural processes.

Because qualia are special signaling patterns (Theorem IV) and similar special signaling patterns require similar neural processes, similar qualia require similar neural processes.

Theorem VIII: Similar mental processes and qualia require similar neural processes.

This means that similar mental processes, such as visual perception mental processes in healthy people, and similar qualia, such as visual qualia in healthy people, require similar neural processes.

Predictions

  1. It will be found that similar mental processes, such as visual perception mental processes in normal subjects, require similar neural processes, which can be verified by the subjects’ reports of the characteristics of the occurring mental processes concurrently with monitoring the neural processes by investigations such as fMRI, MEG, ECoG, and intracortical and single-unit recordings.
  2. It will be found that similar qualia, such as visual qualia of similar things in normal subjects, require similar neural processes, which can be verified by the subjects’ reports of the characteristics of the occurring qualia concurrently with monitoring the neural processes by investigations such as those just mentioned above.

10.4 Theorem IX

Because mental processes are information-processing processes (Theorem II) and different information-processing processes require different neural processes, different mental processes require different neural processes.

Because qualia are special signaling patterns (Theorem IV) and different special signaling patterns require different neural processes, different qualia require different neural processes.

Theorem IX: Different mental processes and qualia require different neural processes.

This means that different mental processes (such as visual-perception, emotion-generation, and thought-formation mental processes) and qualia (such as visual qualia, emotion qualia, and thought qualia) in a person require different neural processes.

Predictions

  1. It will be found that different mental processes, such as visual-perception, emotion-generation, and thought-formation mental processes in a subject, require different neural processes, which can be verified by the subjects’ reports of the characteristics of the occurring mental processes concurrently with monitoring of the neural processes by investigations such as fMRI, MEG, ECoG, and intracortical and single-unit recordings.
  2. It will be found that different qualia, such as visual qualia, emotion qualia, and thought qualia in a subject, require different neural processes, which can be verified by the subject’s reports of the characteristics of the occurring qualia concurrently with monitoring the neural processes by investigations such as those just mentioned above.

Obviously, the two predictions are regularly found to hold in clinical and experimental cases, such as visual and auditory qualia require different neural processes. More difficult but more critical theoretically is to prove that the perception of a certain object without qualia occurring and the perception of that object with qualia occurring requires different neural processes. Indeed, Theorem IX and the closely related theorems, Theorems IV and V, will be invalidated if it is shown that the perception of a certain object A without qualia occurring and the perception of that object A with qualia occurring do not require different neural processes—the concepts of neural processes with special kinds of signaling patterns and signaling states (the SSP and SSS), which function for qualia and consciousness, will be unnecessary and false.

Part II. Mental Interactions are Physical Interactions

10.5 Theorem X

Let us consider the following illustrative example of mental interactions: A mother, seeing her beloved child wandering into the street and about to be hit by a speeding car, decides without hesitation to save her child by jumping into the street, even though this decision means risking her own life. Obviously, her love for the child must be able to affect her thinking, planning, and decision making and cause her to carry out such a life-risking act. However, how can feelings of love affect other mental processes, such as thinking, planning, and decision making? The obvious mechanism is that, as mental processes are information-processing processes of neural processes (Theorem II), interactions between them occur through information transmission between the involved neural processes via their synapses. Thus, mental process interactions are physical interactions between neural processes. This conclusion is also supported by the fact that, at present, exceptions to the principle that the world is physically causally closed have not been found. Hence, all observable events, including interactions between things, must be physical.

10.5.1 Mental force

Nevertheless, no physical laws or principles are truths; they are subject to change with new evidence. Thus, the possibility exists that mental process interactions are not physical. Accordingly, let us examine the possibility that mental processes interact directly between themselves, without utilizing neural synaptic transmissions and any of the four fundamental forces, to learn more comprehensively about this matter as follows: 

As just mentioned, this kind of mental process interaction, which has long been suspected to exist and some people still believe in, is supposed to utilize a force that is none of the four fundamental physical forces. This force is called a mind force, mental force, or mental force field [24–29]. To qualify as a mental force, the force must be directly executable by mental processes and must directly affect other mental processes on its own. As a mental process exists and functions with a certain neural process (Theorem I), when the mental process is affected by a mental force, this neural process must also be affected similarly so that, functionally, they remain in accordance with each other. This implies that the mental force must affect the neural process in the same manner as it does the mental process. This, in turn, means that the mental force must correctly affect all membrane and synaptic channels of millions of neurons in the involved neural circuit. Furthermore, it must accurately move an uncountable number of sodium, potassium, calcium, and chloride ions at the correct channels in the correct manner (e.g., correct amounts of sodium, potassium, and calcium ions are moved at the correct rate, in the correct direction, and at the correct time in each channel in a concerted pattern). These ion movements must bring about appropriate polarizations or depolarizations at the right places and time, resulting in appropriate action potentials or no action potentials in millions of neurons in the neural circuit [30–36]. This entire process must cause the neural process to change identically to and in perfect unison with the mental process that has changed because of the mental force.

The main questions about this mental force are as follows:

  1. What is the nature of this mental force?
  2. How can this force know which neural circuit among innumerable circuits in the brain is the one to affect—the one that has to be changed in accordance with the mental process that this mental force affects?
  3. How can this force determine the exact spatial positions of all neurons in the targeted circuit so that it can affect all of them precisely?
  4. How can this force correctly affect millions or billions of neuronal membrane and synaptic channels, both spatially and temporally, and correctly move countless different ions so that the targeted neural circuit’s process changes in accordance with the mental process?
  5. Energy must be expended or gained in affecting the membrane and synaptic channels and moving ions across channels. Where does this force draw energy from or channel the gained energy to, and how does it execute such actions?

Evidently, affecting a neural process correctly so that it changes in harmony with the associated mental process that has been changed is not a simple physical process. Nevertheless, if a mental force exists, it must be able to do so. However, to date, there are no answers to how such a complex execution can be achieved by an unconventional physical force.

10.5.2 Mental process interactions

In contrast, abundant evidence indicates that mental process interactions occur via signal transmission through synaptic connections between the involved neural processes.

Let us examine how mental process interactions occur through this means. Because the example at the beginning of the chapter is a typical case, we will use it as a case study. When one mental process, such as that for the visual perception of seeing a child in danger, functions, its associated neural process will send the information about this perception, in the form of signaling patterns, through synaptic connections to other neural processes of other mental processes. These information-receiving neural processes will process this information and generate signaling patterns that are their new, specific information (i.e., a decision to save the child, emotion of fright, retrieval of relevant past knowledge and experience of how to save the child, etc.). This newly generated information will likewise be sent to related neural processes via synaptic transmissions. This process will continue successively, creating successive signaling patterns, which are successively processed information related to the incident. Finally, the decision-making neural process will create signals representing the decision to jump into the street to save the child and send the signals to related neural processes to perform the action. Mentally, this moment is when the woman’s mind makes the decision. Overall, because synaptic transmissions can integrate transmitted signals [32,36–49], synaptic transmissions can both transmit and process information. Thus, coherent and appropriate mental process functions for problem solving and other activities can occur via synaptic transmissions.

Evidence indicates that mental process interactions indeed occur through neural processes and synaptic transmissions. Anything affecting neural transmission at synapses or neural tracts that connect the involved synapses can affect mental process interactions. Pharmacologically, central nervous system (CNS) active substances that interfere with synaptic transmissions, such as psychedelic drugs, CNS stimulants, and tranquilizers, alter mental process interactions according to which synaptic transmissions they affect and how they affect them, such as causing hallucination, excitement, or tranquility [50–53]. In patients with CNS diseases that have synaptic transmission dysfunctions, such as bipolar disorder, major depression, anxiety disorders, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease, drugs that can help correct or improve abnormal synaptic transmission can correct or improve the functions of the corresponding neural processes, mental processes, and their interactions, such as improve mood, cognition, and motor control [54–60]. A transection of a CNS nerve tract can affect mental processes’ interactions and their functions; it can be used to treat mental disorders (such as depression), pain, and epilepsy [61–64]. A corpus callosum transection, which is done in some cases of intractable epilepsy, has observable mental effects called “split-brain syndrome,” in which some mental processes on one side of the brain cannot communicate with others on the other side of the brain and in which there is impaired functional connectivity between some modules between the two hemispheres [65–70]. Diseases that damage the neural tracts disrupt signal communication between the connected neural processes and the corresponding mental processes, resulting in various syndromes depending on which connection is damaged. For example, conduction aphasia occurs when the left hemisphere arcuate fasciculus (which connects the sensory and motor language areas) is destroyed [71,72] (such as in the case of cerebral infarction), and pseudobulbar affect (uncontrollable crying or laughter) occurs when the corticopontine-cerebellar circuits (which are part of emotion control) are disrupted (such as in the case of stroke or motor neuron disease) [73]. Additionally, because mental process interactions occur not only through synaptic transmissions but also through the involved neural processes, anything that affects neural processes affects mental process interactions and their functions. This has been demonstrated and discussed in detail in the discussions of physical properties of the mind and mental process in Chapter 1.

10.5.3 Theorem X

Therefore, based on existing evidence, it is not logical to conclude that mental process interactions or, to be concise, mental interactions occur through some unknown, non-fundamental force. Instead, it is rational to conclude that they are neural process interactions mediated by conventional physical forces through neural synaptic transmissions. This theory asserts this conclusion as a specific form of Theorem X.

Theorem X: Mental interactions are neural process interactions.

As neural process interactions involve the generation and propagation of action potentials along axons, dendrites, and somas and through neural synapses, and as these activities are physical activities, neural process interactions are physical interactions. Consequently, mental interactions are physical interactions. This is the basic form of theorem X.

Theorem X: Mental interactions are physical interactions.

This means that physical laws can describe and predict mental interactions. For example, the effects of love, hate, or aspiration on other mental processes, such as thinking, planning, and decision-making, are physical effects and can ultimately be described and predicted by physical laws. The predictions can be definite or probabilistic, depending on the physical laws involved.

10.5.4 Predictions

  1. A mental interaction can be created, identified, measured, monitored, changed, or destroyed by performing the respective actions on its neural process interaction. These actions on the neural process interaction are both necessary and sufficient for the corresponding actions on the mental interaction to occur, and these actions on anything else without involving the neural process interaction will not result in the corresponding actions on the mental interaction.
    Note. A neural process interaction can be identified as the neural process interaction of a mental interaction through investigations that observe and may also manipulate various neural process interactions concomitantly with observing the mental interaction. In various investigations, the neural process interaction that consistently changes correspondingly with the mental interaction will be the neural process interaction of that mental interaction.
  2. It will be found that, in an event or experiment, all predictions valid for a certain neural process interaction, such as whether the interaction will begin, change, or cease, will be identically valid for the mental interaction associated with that neural process interaction.
  3. If all the physical factors involved in a mental interaction (such as the characteristics of the associated neural process interaction) are known, the result of the mental interaction will be predictable. For example, when a person is given a choice between two things, such as a house or a car, if all the physical factors involved are known, it will be predicted definitively or probabilistically (depending on the involved physical laws to be discovered) what he or she will choose.

⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓

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