Voices of an Unconsciousness Mind:
One being in the state of awareness knows what it is like to be conscious. But one whose brain functions has been compromised to the extent of severe functional damage which incapacitates the subject to the state of coma or near unconscious state, have in fact much difficulty in interpreting what it is like to be in unconscious state. With the loss of general sensations and perceptual capacities, the subject in vegetative state has little, if any such feelings about the objective reality beyond her capacitate mind of what goes around in the external world. But perhaps, the part of consciousness which may be whispered as consciousness without perception- the inner feelings of subjective mental states, and the mental contents of thought without perception, which still exists as unobserved mental events without any corresponding physical events, set apart what an unconscious mind feels what it feels.
Brain lesions present itself in various degrees, from full blown vegetative state to partial coma, paraplegia or subdued consciousness. The pure state of coma is observable and clinically manifested, but only by objective diagnosis, and brain scans which differentiate functional parts of the brain from the corresponding non-functional parts, with varied clinical manifestations. The cerebral scans offer the neurologists and neurosurgeons with a vision inside the brain, and to detect structural and functional damage, and determine prognosis and possible medical interventions. Brain lesions causing pure vegetative states are often beyond medical interventional, as cortical damage and large scale neuron destruction which is often beyond repair.
Human mind which supports the mental states of consciousness is the most delicate echelon which is imperceptible, but whose attributes are observable in terms of behavioral dispositions. It is not anything like cognitive states in computers, which can be switched on and off. Once the mind is switched off, it is not possible to switch it on, for ever. The final survival of a comatose or unconscious patient depends on such medico-legal issues pertaining to the subsistence of life-support systems, where, it often becomes the question of economic survival of the family versus final survival of the patient who is in life support system, or where, the means of such support becomes constrained. And where, such subtle, yet painful decision to shut down the still functional mind raises as much ethical dilemma and emotional impasse. Where advance resuscitation measures fail to invoke any response, little but is left often for the surviving family members to balance such emotional impasse with economics of life-support system, leaving the patient in more mental trauma from such standoffs.
The delicate, but the most ultimate decisions which append in such living minds are, should we continue with the LSS? Is it over? Is their still any hope of revival? The sympathetic considerations turn into empathetic moral predicament. The glimmerings of hope often turn into glimpses of fading expectations about the final survival of the patient.
Consider the patient above, “when they recited sentences, the parts involved in language lit up. When they asked her to imagine visiting the rooms of her house, the parts involved in navigating space and recognizing places ramped up. And when they asked her to imagine playing tennis, the regions that trigger motion joined in. Indeed, her scans were barely different from those of healthy volunteers. The woman, it appears, had glimmerings of consciousness.” At this hour of obscurity and gloom, what should be the ethical or moral deliberation when there still remains some little hope, where there is still some evidence of brain activity shaping thoughts independently? The mental survival of the helpless patient then rests on the hands of her family members or caregivers, and where, the subject may still have some internal feelings, some urge for life, and perhaps, consciousness without perception?
Can we really afford to allow cases like Terri Schiavo look like child's play? Something becomes truly invisible to someone, or subtly visible to someone else! And that something is the "Still Living Mind"!!!
The link is:
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4716079426173837859&postID=2813490944398004934
Regards,
Sidharta Chatterjee
Our article published in peer-reviewed Journal "Communicative & Integrative Biology". A few major points discussed in the paper:
(1) Brain is not the source of consciousness.
(2) Consciousness is ubiquitous in all living organisms, starting from bacteria to human beings.
(3) The individual cells in the multicellular organisms are also individually cognitive entities.
(4) Proposals like “artificial life”, “artificial intelligence”, “sentient machines” and so on are only fairytales because no designer can produce an artifact with the properties like internal teleology (Naturzweck) and formative force (bildende Kraft).
(5) The material origin of life and objective evolution are only misconceptions that biologists must overcome.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19420889.2015.1085138
Strangely I was just going over questions of a related nature in connection with Daoist ideas about what consciousness is, and what issues may be exposed when there is no division of consciousness into self and other.
It would seem that until researchers began assaying brain responses to directions they gave the patient, the patient may have been largely cut off from awareness of anything "other." If someone were to assume that a patient certainly was brain dead, then the appropriate care of the body would presumably be to keep it in good physical condition, keep it clean, feed it, etc., pending some decision on whether to terminate its existence. Meanwhile the consciousness may be suffering the equivalent of solitary confinement. People in solitary confinement and in behavioral regimens intended to break down ego (for the purpose of eventual political control, perhaps) tend over time to deteriorate mentally. People hate to be put into solitary confinement and/or to be treated with sensory deprivation modalities against their will.
Jill Bolte Taylor details both her experiences being in a quasi-"brain dead" situation after a stroke that affected her language center, and also her path to full recovery. In her case it was possible for her mother and other healthcare providers to get yes and no answers rather directly from her because she could do things like moving her fingers.
Getting feedback on any complex mechanism that is failing can be a great help in making progress. Without feedback, one is operating blindly. In the 1980s I built a "Big Board Computer" from printed circuit boards on up, and I had to repair it many times. Without the ability to interrogate the circuit integrated circuit chip by chip, any effort was sure to be fruitless unless the problem was something like a blown fuse.
In the case of the human brain, we have only recently begun to be able to see into the functioning of its subsystems. In the case of the patients you describe, expensive instruments are needed to "read" the activation of various regions of the brain.
Now that researchers have discovered ways to get a conversation of sorts started, the next step would seem to me to be to interact with the locked-in patient to find some less cumbersome means of communication. Perhaps it would have to be one of the helmets that allows patients to use mental directions to direct robot arms and hands. But the important thing would be to give the patient some way of responding to communications coming from outside.
Once there is some form of communication going, the next task, it would seem to me, would be to explore, with the interaction of the patient, for ways that may be open to expand the bandwidth of that communication. The first thing to do might well be to make a complete inventory of what the patient can and cannot do. For instance, can pupil dilation be changed by an act of will? Can a slight blink be made? Will practice and exercise improve the ability to blink? Can the muscles that tighten the eardrum be controlled? My guess would be that there may be many tiny voluntary movements already being made that are too minor to be noticed without the use of high-tech monitors. But the brain may need help from the physicians to relearn how to better control, and for that the brain may need feedback. Maybe the nose could be wired so that it rings a bell that the patient can hear.
If I were the patient and were condemned to listening to a hospital worker's choice of far right radio "entertainers" such as Rush Limbaugh, I think I'd rather the plug be pulled. On the other hand, if I could listen to BBC on a continual basis I might find things much more tolerable. Being able to tap out a "Don't kill our planet!" message after some broadcast on the abandonment of climate control efforts would be even better.
I hope researchers are aware that a conversation in which some not very benevolent relative advocates pulling the plug "because she wasn't worth a hill of beans even when she was conscious and in action" may be being heard loud and clear by the supposedly mentally isolated individual.
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