For starters, it can tell me that qualia may depend on neural activity because the fainter look of memories or imaginations correlates with a fainter activation of responsible brain areas.

Hi Vahid Rakhshan I attribute this to the memory being primarily stored in higher areas. In addition only as many synapses will be used as needed.

Primary centers take all traffic so storing all we've seen there would be impractical. In higher centers things are categorized and stores more locally. The way in which these memories are vaporous is interesting, I've noticed that too. Good catch.

As to consciousness, just confirms that we digest into higher concepts such as objects, and our minds traffic in these. BUT this does yield a slight clue that the supposedly raw feels of the typically mentioned "qualia" are actually much higher, more elaborate things, like a complex surface felt against a fingertip.

Vahid Rakhshan Good time to note that the sensory processing hierarchies deliver their end results into the prefrontal areas, which is where you choose to create and manipulate imaginary things. The top of the hierarchy becomes also a workspace for your will.

Karl Sipfle , the frontal and prefrontal are not higher processing centers exactly, but instead they are co-experiential lobes that contribute to overall mental contents (and memory formation & perception) by passively aggregating from other lobes, which may makes them appear hierarchically related.

The frontal and prefrontal can learn to impose hypothalamic suppression (some FC, PFC neuron axons feed into the hypothalamus) which enables associatively learned activations that perform top-down (perceptive) content attenuation which favors sensory input to mental contents over reflexively perceived input Thus we are able to remember what we see sometimes, not what we think we see, and we can remember what we hears instead of what we think we heard - that is the facility that FC and PFC provide in suppressive focus via hypothalmic actuation).

This includes Pausing to pay attention and not performing learned reflex actions in inappropriate contexts. And that intelligent behavior certainly seems hierarchical but it is more conarchical.

The freshest clearest mental contents are new sensory signals.

Hi Karl Sipfle thanks for your responses. That "vaporous" nature of qualia in memories or imagination (in contrast to their solid look in first-hand experience and hallucinations) is something worthy of investigation. Perhaps that even might help to understand or at least quantify qualia in an objective manner.

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Besides, I understand and agree that the pattern of brain activation differs (and is weaker) in memory recall or imagination, compared to first-hand experience (or hallucination).

As I mentioned in the question, this tells me that consciousness arises from neural activity (at least mainly from it), and not from, say, "quantum particles of consciousness".

not weaker, perceptive reflex reactivations of memory engrams are usually just less pristine compared to the first exposure which activated the neurons without interference unless ongoing perceptions are included.

however when the C-T feedback loop is extended, the experience of a memory engram being recalled can seem to be much sharper than the first time, and way more beautiful.

Dear Karl Sipfle and Jerry Waese I just added this hypothesis: Can we close the explanatory gap of phenomenal consciousness through quantifying the vividness of qualia felt at different states of consciousness?

Research proposal by Vahid Rakhshan

It appears that qualia are fainter in memory recall or during imagination, compared to first-hand experience or perhaps even in hallucinations or memories remembered under very deep, strong hypnosis or hypnotic illusions (and of course, hypnotic hallucinations).

This has some implications:

1. The correlation between weaker brain activation during memory recall or imagination compared to first-hand experience implies that phenomenal consciousness is likely caused by neurobiological activity (neural and even perhaps neuroglial activations) and not by quantum particles of consciousness, proposed by some theories.

2. I hypothesize that this vividness and solidity of first-hand experience and its contrast with the fainter “look” of remembered memories or imaginations [and hallucinations and hypnotic illusions / memories in between] might help us quantify qualia (at least their strength) and through that, to help us close the explanatory gap between the outside objective world and phenomenal consciousness. The question is how? And where to begin? Let’s begin designing the study. Collaborations are welcome. [email protected]

Preprint Can we close the explanatory gap of phenomenal consciousness...

Dear Karl Sipfle I couldn't understand this sentence at all; can you elaborate?

Karl: "As to consciousness, just confirms that we digest into higher concepts such as objects, and our minds traffic in these."

• Karl Sipfle "Good time to note that the sensory processing hierarchies deliver their end results into the prefrontal areas, which is where you choose to create and manipulate imaginary things. The top of the hierarchy becomes also a workspace for your will".

Sure, I understand this (I am a cognitive neuroscientist (PhD)).

About "will"; I would use the word "the illusion of will". But I know what you mean.

• Jerry Waese : "not weaker, perceptive reflex reactivations of memory engrams are usually just less pristine compared to the first exposure which activated the neurons without interference unless ongoing perceptions are included.

I think they are really weaker, as shown by fMRI activation. Of course, they might be less pristine too, because they are not really first-hand experience. But I can't comment on that with such a great degree of certainty unless I have experimental data to back it up.

• Jerry: however when the C-T feedback loop is extended, the experience of a memory engram being recalled can seem to be much sharper than the first time, and way more beautiful."

This is an interesting hypothesis. Thanks.

Vahid Rakhshan the signals you think are weaker in the fMRI are not weaker signals signifying weaker memories, you are seeing fewer activated neurons.

each activation is as strong as any other activation.

The apparent "strength" of any recollection is dependent on the contextual cues that are active which in turn reactivate the memory engram neurons.

"strong" memories are those that are more easily accessible, more instanced of experience have laid out more pathways to recollection, more different cues will bring it back to the active state.

More vivid memories are memories that have additional ramification (due to longer C-T cycles (dreams, emotions, psychedelics etc.)) in which case progressive perception continues as the memory image resolves instantly and changes over a period of time - seconds or minutes. This kind of mental construct is less likely to resemble the actual memory instance, as it is shored up by other unfolding perceptions and it continues to waver, undulate, solidify, and become more beautiful or threatening as the person experiences it.

Jerry, of course that (fewer neurons) is at play too; it is a given. But theoretically speaking, it is not necessarily the Only option, unless we can back it up with hard poof that it is necessarily the only option.

In fMRI, weaker activation means less oxygenation and blood flow. This might theoretically point to any situation that needs less blood and not just fewer neurons. For example, a combination of the following:

Fewer activated local neurons at the memory sites

Slower firing of the activated local neurons at the memory sites

More activated distant inhibitory neurons that reduce the activity and number of neurons at the memory sites

Faster firing of distant inhibitory neurons

These came to my mind right now but there might be more too.

I don't say it might not be JUST a smaller number of neurons. But in order to be so sure about your hypothesis, we should first gain hard proof. That't what I am saying.

Larry Carlson:

Yes, despite the presence of various thresholds, this approach suggests that whatever it is we are studying here is quantifiable, and not some single elusive condition, force, or "immaterial material" (as it were) that either exists (in some place or time)... or does not. Here are, perhaps, some quantifiable factors to consider:

Signal strength and organization: As a binary extreme, recent evidence confirms the belief that the blindsighted use "an independent pathway which exists in the brain."* Comparison with normal sightedness involves "higher activity in the prefrontal and parietal cortices. [But] these results indicate that the activity in the prefrontal and parietal areas that has been reported in previous studies of awareness is not just due to a (signal strength or performance) confounds. One possibility is that it reflects the superior 'metacognitive' capacity that is associated with awareness." * *

Multi-scalar modularity: As per the above paragraph, in terms of 'metacognitive' capacity, one cannot ignore the consideration that, as per Poznansky et al., "the holarchical organization of brain functionality treats parts of a whole to be interconnected within the whole in the context of modularity." Arguably, there are (somewhat quantifiable) variations in the "fluctuations across scales at the juncture of each scale of organization." ***

Attention levels: Even normal sighted people may experience what seems tantamount to (levels of) blind sightedness when daydreaming while driving. Indeed, it seems that they are more likely to remember what was was daydreaming about when than they 'snaps out of it,' than what they had seen subliminally, (but not been very vividly or intensely aware of) over the time and distance that they were daydreaming. A person who was daydreaming might argue (as those normal-sighted who "blind drive" in their sleep have done), that they were not consciously aware of that child running from the yard into the street to chase a ball, and therefore did not consciously 'intend' to hit him or her.

Oxygen levels: As another factor related to vividness, intensity, and salience of experience and/or memory, we might measure the extent of correlation between levels of performance and/or awareness in a given brain area with respect to the amount of blood flow /oxygen to it.

Conclusion: These are but a few areas to consider. In general, there are many variations in the manner in, and extent to, which people (meaningfully) perceive and interact with (i.e., are aware of) objects in their external, physical landscape while in a normal state of wakefulness (aka, consciousness). In what is commonly regarded as the hallmark of consciousness (imho), people's thoughts and feelings are typically directed towards 'objective' reality when awake: A person who is conscious is typically presumed to be conscious of his or her surroundings in the same way as most people are, as opposed to a previous state in which they were not.

There are also (self-referential) variations in which people (meaningfully) interact with the concrete and abstract elements of their own internal, subjective, "mindscape" (e.g., abstract thinking, dreaming calculating, reminiscing, daydreaming).

Finally, there are states of awareness which tend to involve a focus on subjective and objective realities in what are often referred to as "abnormal" states of awareness, e.g., hypnosis, psychotic hallucination, delusional thinking, intoxication, fainting spells, and the like.

All such variations give researchers a wide range of quantifiable factors to experimentally measure and compare.

*https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21763441/

**https://qbi.uq.edu.au/article/2019/01/brain-pathway-explains-blindsight-confirmed

Vahid Rakhshan of course, more specific experimentation to follow those ideas would make sense.