I of the Vortex: From Neurons to Self

I of the Vortex attempts to synthesize a coherent theory on the origin of consciousness based largely on previous research of the author. It succeeds in presenting this theory from a variety of different angles and builds it up from the basics of neuroscience in a way accessible to those with only a general scientific background.Llinas' theory of consciousness is derived from the evolutionary need for simplification of complex systems. Based on the neurological wiring of an organism, and indeed the human body, there are an unbelievable amount of actions any such creature could take at a given moment based on its surrounding environment. To simplify decision making, Llinas posits that the brain uses consciousness as the tool for prediction, modulating both learned and hard wired behaviors known as fixed action patterns. This consciousness feature stems from an acute awareness of the self as it relates to its environment and this is driven neurologically by the formation of thalamocortical resonance, which the author later goes on to describe in detail.Overall, the work was worth the read. Its ramifications on why we think the way we do pull a great deal from our evolutionary history, and it makes one realize just how much we share in common with the neurology of other species (though evolutionary refinement has gifted humanity with more complex wiring capable of speech, among other things). At the same time, the writing style is very technical through the whole of the book. While this is to be expected, and Llinas does try to bring in stories and anecdotal accounts to attempt to make some of the technical passages more accessible, the style choice prescribes one to take it slow, which is not necessarily a bad thing.Breakdown of some of the major sections of the work:Setting Mind to MindTwo different views of how the brain works in regards to sensory information from its surrounding environment. The first, proposed by William James in 1890, says that outside information from the senses serves to itself induce actions in the organism. Llinas explains that "from this perspective, the brain is essentially a complex input/output system". Therefore, movement and action decisions do not exist outside of the context of an external cue. The opposing hypothesis, originating from Graham Brown in 1911, was that these neural systems were self-dependent and could operate outside of environmental influences. Llinas believes that the latter hypothesis is more on cue to how the brain operates, and builds off of this by introducing the internal image of the self and its use in relating to the outside world.Lessons from the Evolution of the EyeThis chapter is somewhat like an introduction to evolution and how it can make significant changes to the development of organs, using the example of the development of the eye from a patch of light sensitive cells to the complex sensory machine it is today. Here, Llinas is basically explaining that evolution has no real end goal, constantly existing in a changing state. The human eye is simply one milestone in this long process, comparing its evolution to making a marble - gradual changes in the "tumbling" process create something near perfection. Overall, you may or may not find this chapter useful depending on how much you know about evolutionary biology as it mainly serves to review the topic.The I of the VortexThis chapter in the middle of the book gets to the meat of Llinas' theory. It proposes that the fundamental unit of conscious thought and the internal image of the self lies in the thalamocortical loop. Oscillation at 40 Hz of thalamic neurons exists in resonance with neurons of various parts of the cortex as determined by experiments involving stimulation of cortical and thalamic regions of guinea pigs (Llinas' own work). This 40 Hz oscillation is known as the gamma wave, and is seen coherently across much of the brain during wakefulness and REM sleep. Llinas shows that this cortical loop exists independently of outside sensory information, as during REM sleep, auditory stimulation has seemingly no effect on the gamma wave patterns, contrary to how sound changes this electrical activity while awake. My one complaint about this section is the lack of detail on just how sensory input is integrated into this system. Since sensory information serves to modulate the underlying thought processes of the brain as mentioned by the author, it seems like explaining how the specific nuclei of the thalamus could integrate these inputs into the already existing approximation external reality would have been helpful.Fixed Action PatternsFAPs are discrete sets of motor activity that group contractions of multiple muscle groups into a single coherent action. Llinas explains that these sets of "stereotypical" actions are essential to efficient movement. FAPs originate in the basal ganglia. The song of a robin is an example of a fixed action pattern that is embedded genetically. All FAPs are modifiable, the songs being no exception. I thought it was quite interesting that female robins, while not normally capable of song (normally being the ones sung to), can spontaneously sing if supplemented with the male hormone testosterone. This occurs even to birds raised in a lab that have never heard a male's song before, suggesting that this fixed action pattern is indeed a hardwired, genetic behavior and that there are some FAPs in our own brains that may be left over and sitting around unused.Emotions as FAPsDiscusses the hypothalamus and amygdala, and how these regions of the brain contribute to emotional involvement in fixed action patterns. Llinas explains that FAPs emitted by the basal ganglia are normally in a state of inhibition lest they inappropriately fire (as is the case in Tourette's syndrome). Emotions then are the driving force that uninhibit specific FAPs in response to an outside stimulus (e.g. see lion, become afraid, execute running and avoidance FAPs).The Collective Mind?"At least in theory, the Web is a nervous system-like structure in that its functioning seems to be solving, to a certain extent, society's binding problem." Llinas looks here at the development of the Internet and its potential to be another form of consciousness. He explains that its communication modality resembles the speed and bidirectionality seen in the brain, but at the same time it currently falls short of being capable of thought. This chapter was an interesting look into how consciousness may not be dependent on biology and can arise from other systems. Llinas seems to conclude that computers would need similar machinery to explore and manipulate the external world among other things in order to be successful thinkers. I think this chapter was an insightful application of his theories to our electronic world, but as the conclusion of the book I felt there was a missed opportunity here to reiterate more of the main tenants of his book and really drive home his ideas.Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to someone with a budding interesting in neuroscience. While Llinas' peer-reviewed work is understandably quite technical and difficult to dive straight into, he does a very good job here in the book of introducing and building off of the basics of neuroscience for the reader so those with a more general scientific/biology background shouldn't have too much trouble breaking into the work. I think if you are curious about how consciousness might be derived from the underlying neuronal activity of the brain, and how complex circuits come together to create this image or approximation of the self in the environment, the completeness in its treatment of most all aspects of Llinas' theory makes the book a fantastic place to start.

The author presents quite a plausible theory of mind, based on his work as a neuroscientist. I suspect Llinas is very much on the right track to illuminating the physical basis of consciousness.Building chapter-by-chapter simultaneously on the apparent evolutionary development from the simplest neuronal system to the centralized brain, and on the results of brain scans and other experiments, Llinas brings us calmly and reasonably to the resultant human mind of today.For Llinas, consciousness is the synchronized 40Hz firing of regions of the cortex over time. That is, consciousness is not just a given pattern of firing in 3-space, but is a 4-space relation. That additional dimension of time multiplies enormously the potential number of brain patterns that could occur in an individual. But it also makes the topic that much harder to study.The writing feels like it has been written by someone who knows alot: there are many points where conceptual connections are not made entirely explicit (because it probably seemed so self-evident to Llinas) and the reader must fill in those gaps. Also, some of his non-neurologic language is quite technical: the description of the "self" as a calculated eigenvector, or the "vortex" which is essentially an attractor (as known in mathematics), that can make Llinas sound like a cold, hard-nosed scientist.However, Llinas is refreshingly 'human'. For him, it is quite reasonable to assume (as a common consequence of evolution and similarity of brain structure) that many other species have forms of consciousness. Indeed, he devotes an entire chapter to qualia, and contends that qualia exist as essential brain feature, not only for humans but for cats and dogs and most other animals with brains of the same evolutionary genre (and that even in the case of invertebrate (octopus) brains he argues that the burden of proof is on those who would deny qualia).One caveat: be aware that Llinas does not explicitly delineate between accepted facts and his theory - the book flows as one whole. It is not intented as deception. As he says in the preface "This book presents a personal view of neuroscience...".

For those trying to figure out consciousness and an explanation for the qualia problem (how electrochemical activities in the brain give rise to "raw feels") this book is essential reading. It is truly remarkable how little known this book while "lesser" books are much more popular. The only reason I can think of that accounts for this, is that Llinas, does not use the "syrupy human interest" approach found in books that though less thought provoking are more commercially successful.For me the book was remarkable for its honest, rigorous approach--Llnas does not shrug away the qualia problem--he does not claim (like many others) to have an explanation for it. Nonetheless, his thoughts on how the brain may be creating a framework within which the solution to the qualia problem lies, is, to put it in one word, remarkable! Just the chapter on qualia was for me, worth the price of admittance.The other remarkable thing about this book is how Llias idea of consciousness (centralization of voluntary motoricity) does not just give us the evolutionary reason why it arose (to a computer scientist like me, standard explanations for the evolutionary benefits of consciousness just do not cut it, I do believe a non-conscious entity can, in theory, do all that humans do and more!). Also, this centralization of voluntary motoricity matches with uncanny exactness, the state of "pure consciousness" described in ancient literature such as the Vedanta's Mandukya Upanishad.It is a pity this book (and Dr. Llinas) haven't attained the "rock star" status that other lesser neuroscientists seem to have reached--I accidentally stumbled on his book, and I thank my stars that I read it!

Llinas is of course, a famous neuroscientist, and his views on consciousness in the 90's took the side of the 40 hertz gamma band ocillations in the thalamocortical system. This book reviews his views in almost all aspects of neuroscience. His evolutionary insights, and his discussion of how important action and motor mechanisms are for cognition are truly in accord with recent study in "embodied cognition". As for consciousness itself, we are left with a narrow expansion of his earlier views. Ocillatory behavior on neurons is still the key in Llinas framework, and the thalamus still has its central role, as are his insights on wakefulness and sleep. As for originallity,one can trace his views on the origin of the self in Damasio's writings, his view on qualia in Rodney Cotteril's, and ocillatory ideas on Crick (but Llinas got there before), Singer, Von-Mandlesburg, etc.. All in all, however, the book is a must read for anyone intersested in the neurosciences and consciousness, and is a valuable contribution to the theorist enterprise that has few who venture into an integration of top- down and bottom-up approaches. LLinas is to be praised for his brilliant career, and his valuable contributions to the field, including this volume.

according to Llinas, the dialectical reverberation between the thalamus and the association nuclei of the cortex at 40 Hz, establishes the "conscious" self or "selfness". there is no non-biological substrate that exists for establishing the self. this is pure Darwinism in the strict sense. his examples come from the ocean because that is where experiments by Nature still exist to be examined. In particular he is interested in the sea squirt and the shark. they both are creatures that develop brains based on the need for "movement". the human brain is all about movement. it should be understood that he is not addressing "self-consciousness", just "consciousness" of the self. As he says, his philosophy stops at Kant ; with a-priori categories that are hypothetically and experimentally carried out in a dialectic with empirical experience to define the sub-categories. There is no "speculative " thought. Things end with Kant. I disagree with his premiss and his conclusions , because I do believe that we do form semantic models in the brain and that sometimes this drives us beyond the empirical dialectic. but I "loved" this book. I consider it a treasure of discovery. It sent me off on additional research many times, but that is not necessary to enjoy the book. It is accessible at all levels ; it is very articulate but understandable to those without scientific or philosophical backgrounds. this book will not leave my library. it was a fun read.