Hello Arturo,

I hope you are doing fine! It is a really interesting question the one you posit. I am not sure if this is exactly what you a re looking for, but I recommend you check out this paper by Carhart-Harris and colleagues (2014) in which they put forward a theory of brain functioning informed by neuroimaging research with psychedelic drugs (non-addictive, relatively safe compounds that transform consciousness and brain activity in a robust manner). The theory incorporates some of the aspects and dynamics that you mention, so I thought it might interest you. You can gain access to it in here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260254473_The_entropic_brain_a_theory_of_conscious_states_informed_by_neuroimaging_research_with_psychedelic_drugs

I hope this helps.

Best regards,

José Ml. Rodríguez Arce

Article The Entropic Brain: A Theory of Conscious States Informed by...

dear José,

thanks a lot! It is a very useful paper! I did notice it before!

thanks again, and I hope you liked my figure.

if you have any suggestion for further developments, let me know!

That would be impossible. To illustrate, take Stapp's quantum theory of consciousness. While there are many advocates for the idea that the mind or consciousness emerges via the brain through quantum processes, only a few have done much in the way of trying to create as fleshed-out an idea as to how this might work to be said to have theories of how the brain works. Stapp is one, and he begins the most complete presentation of his theory in Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics. In the first chapter, he compares his view with other theories closest to his own and notes incompatibilities. A much, much, much larger incompatibility exists between anybody who argues that quantum processes are relevant to brain function beyond the way they are for e.g., your heart or lung function, and the vast majority who see quantum physics are irrelevant here.

One interesting proposal fleshed out over the years through various papers and much research is that expressed by Andrei Khrennikov. He posits Quantum-like Consciousness (essentially, a classical theory of brain activity using the mathematics/formalism of quantum mechanics). That's about as close as you can get to a theory of how the brain works that isn't based on quantum physics yet is compatible with one that is. Most theories of mind or consciousness are not quantum nor remotely compatible with those that are.

Moving down a level in cognitive processes to, well, cognition in general, we find a lot of theories. However, from linguistics to cognitive neuroscience, one central controversy that has lasted for ~30 years is whether cognition is embodied or whether (according to the view that arose in the 50s and 60s) it is an abstract symbol processing machine. These views (each a sort of overarching framework under which many different theories may be found) are incompatible.

Moving down to a neurophysiological level, we can go straight to the most basic: the neural code. I think it's safe to say that the rate vs. timing paradigms no longer describes so basic a divide as it once did, but this is only because more theories as to what the neural code actually is (or should be considered to be) has broadened, rater than been clarified.

Moving up briefly, there does not exist as much disagreement over brain function in areas smaller than massive structures like the occipital lobe or the PFC in terms of things like memory or higher-level cognition mainly because nobody has much of an idea how these work. There are many reasons and examples, but I’ll simply give 2 examples. Take the occipital lobe. Everybody knows this is the “vision center” of the brain, fed by V1 and V2 (and we know both pathways differ functionally). We know a lot about the vision system. It’s one of the most studied cognitive system in existence. However, one the one hand embodied cognition theorists would argue that the visual center of the brain encodes modal-specific concepts. Then there is the ol’ binding problem. Whether the consciousness is amodal or the occipital lobe is required for processing modal (in this case visual) specific conceptual content or does not, neuronal activity involved in everything from one’s regulatory system to facial recognition requires an enormous amount of interconnectivity. One solution proposed involves nearly-zero lag time synchronization between brain regions that do not share the same input. Otlhers regard the binding problem as a Scheinproblem. The issue is that when it comes to integrating lower-level neural processes with higher-level brain function, we are mostly in the dark. The brain regions that cognitive neuroscientists examine using fMRI, for example, are little regions that have no name like the hippocampus nor a Brodman number. They are too small, yet they are too big to deal with using computational models of neuronal network activity.

The second example is the memory system. All I need here is to refer to Tulving’s paper “Are there 256 different kinds of memory?”, a survey of the memory literature which notes the complete disarray of the field thanks to different models, approaches, changes due to functional neuroimaging to concepts of memory that date back to behaviorism, etc. Just in terms of memory, then, you’re talking about integrating possibly over 200 different views (actually, much less, but the task is no less difficult).

Moving down even below the neural code we find interesting research (and debate) on the relevance of non-neural activity in cognitive function and the relevance of which neuronal components have in what neurophysiological processes and how, such as the role of The Computing Dendrite: From Structure to Function.

These are a tiny, tiny, tiny sample of glimpses into the ways in which different theories about different aspects of brain function are incompatible with a great many others.

 Dear Andrew, thanks a lot for your wide and skillful excursus.

Which is your favourite theory? what do you think? 

An updated version: 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279962475_Tozzi%27s_brain._My_personal_brain_theories_%28to_whom_it_may_concern...%29

Technical Report Tozzi's brain. My personal brain theories (to whom it may concern...)