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The electromagnetic theory of consciousness is a theory that says the electromagnetic field generated by the brain (measurable by EEGs) is the actual carrier of conscious experience. The word theory has a number of distinct meanings in different fields of knowledge, depending on their methodologies and the context of discussion. ...
The electromagnetic field is a physical field that is produced by electrically charged objects and which affects the behaviour of charged objects in the vicinity of the field. ...
In animals, the brain or encephalon (Greek for in the head), is the control center of the central nervous system, responsible for behaviour. ...
“Brainwave†redirects here. ...
Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and ones environment. ...
This theory was initially proposed by scientists such as Johnjoe McFadden, Susan Pockett and E. Roy John (For the recent account see Andrew and Alexander Fingelkurts). It is a tentative hypothesis as are all current hypotheses about consciousness and is an example of protoscience rather than pseudoscience. Johnjoe McFadden was born in Donegal, Ireland but raised in the UK. He obtained his PhD at Imperial College London and went on to work on human genetic diseases and then infectious diseases, at the University of Surrey in Guildford, UK. For more than a decade, Professor McFadden has specialised...
Andrew and Alexander Fingelkurts (identical twins, November 23, 1969) are neuroscientists known in the fields of academic cognitive neuroscience, psychophysiology, and clinical research, with a considerable number of publications in scientific journals, book chapters and a lecturing practice. ...
Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and ones environment. ...
This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
Phrenology is regarded today as a classic example of pseudoscience. ...
The starting point for the theory is the fact that every time a neuron fires to generate an action potential it also generates a disturbance to the surrounding electromagnetic (EM) field. Information coded in neuron firing patterns is therefore reflected into the brain's EM field. Locating consciousness in the brain's EM field, rather than the neurons, has the advantage of neatly accounting for how information located in millions of neurons scattered throughout the brain can be unified into a single conscious experience (sometimes called the binding problem): the information is unified in the EM field. In this way EM field consciousness can be considered to be 'joined-up information'. Drawing by Santiago Ramón y Cajal of neurons in the pigeon cerebellum. ...
A. A schematic view of an idealized action potential illustrates its various phases as the action potential passes a point on a cell membrane. ...
Electromagnetism is the physics of the electromagnetic field: a field which exerts a force on particles that possess the property of electric charge, and is in turn affected by the presence and motion of those particles. ...
The binding problem is, basically, the problem of how the unity of conscious perception is brought about by the distributed activities of the central nervous system (Revonsuo and Newman (1999)). In its most general form it arises whenever information from distinct populations of neurons must be combined. ...
This theory accounts for several otherwise puzzling facts, such as the finding that attention and awareness tend to be correlated with the synchronous firing of multiple neurons rather than the firing of individual neurons. When neurons fire together their EM fields generate stronger EM field disturbances; so synchronous neuron firing will tend to have a larger impact on the brain's EM field (and thereby consciousness) than the firing of individual neurons.
The different EM field theories disagree as to the role of the proposed conscious EM field on brain function. In McFadden's cemi field theory, the brain's global EM field modifies the electric charges across neural membranes and thereby influences the probability that particular neurons will fire, providing a feed-back loop that drives free will. However in the theories of Susan Pockett and E. Roy John, there is no causal link between the conscious EM field and our consciously willed actions. Free-Will is a Japanese independent record label founded in 1986. ...
If true, the theory has major implications for efforts to design consciousness into Artificial intelligence machines; current microprocessor technology is designed to transmit information linearly along electrical channels, and more general electromagnetic effects are seen as a nuisance and damped out; if this theory is right, however, this is directly counterproductive to the process of creating an artificially-intelligent computer, which would instead have electromagnetic fields that synchronized its outputs. Garry Kasparov playing against Deep Blue, the first machine to win a chess game against a reigning world champion. ...
A microprocessor is a programmable digital electronic component that incorporates the functions of a central processing unit (CPU) on a single semiconducting integrated circuit (IC). ...
Damping is any effect, either deliberately engendered or inherent to a system, that tends to reduce the amplitude of oscillations of an oscillatory system. ...
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