A Model of Consciousness
This is a post from a different thread that is enough of a diversion from the main topic to start a new discussion. The following is a brief summation of a model of consciousness that I've presented previously at this forum, but since I seem to be getting interest and we have some new contributors, maybe you guys would like to talk about it. I certainly appreciate anyone's input as it helps me refine and expand these ideas.
In exactly what way consciousness emerged via evolution is a mystery, but we can be fairly certain about what had to obtain in order for it to be possible. Initially, electrical properties in aggregates of tissue such as the brain needed to be robust enough that a stable supervenience of electromagnetic field (EMF) was created by systematic electrical fluxing.
Quantum effects in molecules of the body are sensitive to trace EMF energy sources (similar to magnetoreception), creating a structural complex of relatively thermodynamic mass containing pockets of relatively quantum biochemistry integrated by sustained radiation.
EMF/quantum hybridization is likely responsible for our synthetic experience of qualia, how we perceive unfathomably minute and diverse fluctuating in environments as a perpetualized substrate, perturbed by its surroundings but never vanishing while we are awake and lucid, the essence of perceptual “stream of consciousness”.
Nonlocal phenomena are ever underlying the macroscopic substance of qualitative consciousness, its EMF properties as well as bulked matter in which nonlocality is partially dampened, and quantum processes in cells interface perception instantiated in bodies with nonlocality of the natural world which is still enigmatic to scientific knowledge.
Quantum features of biochemistry have likely been refined evolutionarily so that mechanisms by which relative nonlocality affects organisms, mechanisms of EMF/matter interfacing, mechanisms targeting particular environmental stimuli via functionally tailored pigments along with further classes of molecules and cellular tissues, and mechanisms for translation of stimulus into representational memory all became increasingly coordinated until an arrangement involving what we call ‘intentionality’ emerged, a mind with executive functions of deliberative interpretation and strategizing, beyond mere reflex-centric memory conjoined to stimulus/response.
Qualitative consciousness precedes the degree of unification we experience as humanlike awareness, for qualia can exist and perform a functional role in consort with quantum effects and additional gradations of nonlocal reality while an organism is almost entirely lacking the centralized control we would classify as intention.
Every facet of this consciousness theory is observable via research: quantum biochemistry in a thermodynamically physiological substrate that also includes more traditionally neuronal mechanisms, integrated by EMFs. All we require is to find the anatomical systems and classes of molecules involved, then correlate with subjectivity and the dynamics of nonlocality in general. Some of this will be psychology, some traditional chemistry, some quantum, and some will exceed what has thus far been discovered of nonlocal processes in nature by physical science.
Also key to the model is the assertion, yet to be verified, that many forms of quantum process such as entanglement and superposition produce qualia at a fundamental level. Essentially, it is intrinsic of matter to perceive and feel, or at least contain fragments of perception and feeling, and these quantum resonance properties will be as objective as shape and size.
In exactly what way consciousness emerged via evolution is a mystery, but we can be fairly certain about what had to obtain in order for it to be possible. Initially, electrical properties in aggregates of tissue such as the brain needed to be robust enough that a stable supervenience of electromagnetic field (EMF) was created by systematic electrical fluxing.
Quantum effects in molecules of the body are sensitive to trace EMF energy sources (similar to magnetoreception), creating a structural complex of relatively thermodynamic mass containing pockets of relatively quantum biochemistry integrated by sustained radiation.
EMF/quantum hybridization is likely responsible for our synthetic experience of qualia, how we perceive unfathomably minute and diverse fluctuating in environments as a perpetualized substrate, perturbed by its surroundings but never vanishing while we are awake and lucid, the essence of perceptual “stream of consciousness”.
Nonlocal phenomena are ever underlying the macroscopic substance of qualitative consciousness, its EMF properties as well as bulked matter in which nonlocality is partially dampened, and quantum processes in cells interface perception instantiated in bodies with nonlocality of the natural world which is still enigmatic to scientific knowledge.
Quantum features of biochemistry have likely been refined evolutionarily so that mechanisms by which relative nonlocality affects organisms, mechanisms of EMF/matter interfacing, mechanisms targeting particular environmental stimuli via functionally tailored pigments along with further classes of molecules and cellular tissues, and mechanisms for translation of stimulus into representational memory all became increasingly coordinated until an arrangement involving what we call ‘intentionality’ emerged, a mind with executive functions of deliberative interpretation and strategizing, beyond mere reflex-centric memory conjoined to stimulus/response.
Qualitative consciousness precedes the degree of unification we experience as humanlike awareness, for qualia can exist and perform a functional role in consort with quantum effects and additional gradations of nonlocal reality while an organism is almost entirely lacking the centralized control we would classify as intention.
Every facet of this consciousness theory is observable via research: quantum biochemistry in a thermodynamically physiological substrate that also includes more traditionally neuronal mechanisms, integrated by EMFs. All we require is to find the anatomical systems and classes of molecules involved, then correlate with subjectivity and the dynamics of nonlocality in general. Some of this will be psychology, some traditional chemistry, some quantum, and some will exceed what has thus far been discovered of nonlocal processes in nature by physical science.
Also key to the model is the assertion, yet to be verified, that many forms of quantum process such as entanglement and superposition produce qualia at a fundamental level. Essentially, it is intrinsic of matter to perceive and feel, or at least contain fragments of perception and feeling, and these quantum resonance properties will be as objective as shape and size.
Comments (37)
EMF refers to an electromotive force; are you denoting the emergence of one, or merely abbreviating an Electromagnetic Field?
Quoting Enrique
How are you substantiating, if at all, these assertions? Relative Nonlocality is not a notion pertinent to evolutionary concepts. I'm not educated enough to meaningfully apprehend your statements on representational memory, though.
I mean electromagnetic field.
Quoting Aryamoy Mitra
To my knowledge, nonlocality has been scientifically modeled to a minimal extent. What comes to my mind is causal connections that transcend Newtonian locality in objects and forces, as if reality has a wormholelike foundation so saturated with nonlocal processes that it is more akin to what I call a coherence field, a supraspacetime substrate of wavelike currents that synchronize matter, move across large distances almost instantaneously, and can transmit through matter as if it is stationary by comparison. Body and mind can feel and perceive this nonlocality just like eyes see color and ears hear sound, and like the senses as conventionally construed, some of this awareness is conscious, some semiconscious, and some unconscious.
My theory is that it is trillions of pockets of quantum biochemistry within the body which enable an organism to experience this nonlocality, in mechanisms resembling magnetoreception. Chemical reactions that involve tunneling, superposition, entanglement and coherence are like microscopic nonlocal machinery functioning to link with the nonlocal causality permeating nature behind the scenes of our five senses.
That's my intuition, the truth has yet to be modeled by science.
Quoting Aryamoy Mitra
I'm suggesting that the electromagnetic field of the brain and body is the binding agent of consciousness. We perceive and feel sensations with our quantum and thermodynamic biochemistry, and the organic emf makes this chemistry seem like a unified medium, an experiential field that biochemical processes occur within. Perception is the additiveness of quantum biochemistry within an emf substrate, amounting to extremely complex superpositions of entanglement systems within entanglement systems which take effect in both bottom up and top down ways. This quantum/electromagnetic hybridization is especially prevalent in the nervous system, and responsible for brain waves as registered by an EEG.
Quoting Aryamoy Mitra
Exactly, by neuropsychological constructs, but subjects must report their personal experiences in a detail that has not yet been approached, and entirely new classes of molecule will probably need to be discovered before we solidly grasp quantum features of qualia and qualitative perception.
I'll stop to see what you guys think of that, and then maybe we can get into more specifics where you're interested or willing.
I know, kind of a left-field idea but thought I put it out there.
Since standing electromagnetic wave signatures as measured by EEG are so closely tied to states of awareness, and these states correlated with biochemistry, it seems to me that the primary agent binding cellular anatomy into an integrated stream of consciousness within the brain is probably electromagnetic force exerted upon microscopic quantum nonlocalities such as superpositioned entanglements.
But as far as coherence fields more generally, they doubtless have psychic properties which extend beyond the brain itself and interact with it via nonlocal causation. So electromagnetic fields may be one of a wide variety of coherence fields types. I think science will be able to eventually discover all kinds of coherence fields that have not to this point been classified for various reasons, and this will greatly enrich our technology and comprehension of psychology.
Does your model follow certain aspects of Penrose's and Hammeroff's theory?
It's hard to say if quantum processes produce consciousness. It's plausible. We now know that physical stuff is far more sophisticated than what is initially apparent in common sense thought, so in some vague sense, the potential for consciousness and for everything else, can be found at bottom level of the universe. On the other hand, it may not be necessary for these new properties to arise.
If it turns out that it is not the case and that consciousness arises much later in evolution, then we have to look at the issue by way of emergence, which is a real phenomenon, but one that doesn't say much. There's also a huge leap between experience, such as the type of experience we attribute to say birds and self-consciousness, where we can reflect on this experience. That's also a very hard problem. At this stage, it's worth pursuing all options.
What would be the instrument that does that, if it is not psyche?
The Orch-Or theory of Penrose and Hameroff as I grasp it seems to propose the qualitative as a cycle of coherence states occurring in microtubules, comprised of superpositions punctuated by wave function collapse. I agree that qualitative perception probably involves cyclical processes, feedback loops and such, but from what I read the microtubule mechanism has been discredited.
My theory claims that emfs blended with the superpositioned entanglements of molecular complexes are responsible for qualitative perception. What better explanation for qualia than the same wave synthesis mechanism that produces a visible spectrum? Solves the biochemistry to qualia translation problem rather simply: most matter has qualialike features at a very basic level.
The challenge will be to find these molecules that participate in highly organized additive (superpositioned) wavelength and which are also sensitive to emfs. I imagine the mechanism will be a synchrony of the electromagnetic fields generated by neuron synapsing with more conventional biochemistry in glial cells or the soma.
Quoting Manuel
I'm guessing that a bird's brain generates qualitativity in much the same way as our rather closely related human brains - emf/superposition hybridizing within a coordination of lobes - though the specifics of biochemistry are of course somewhat different.
Quoting Wayfarer
The psyche will be proven to arise from physical principles, though this physical science of the future may be a collaborative synthesis with psychology and spirituality that we in the present day can barely fathom. I hope so!
I think the mechanisms for consciousness presented in this post are highly unlikely. To tell the truth, I don't understand what the descriptions mean. I doubt that quantum mechanics has anything special to do with consciousness beyond it's influence on all small scale phenomena. If you are going to provide novel theories of mental phenomena, you should provide references that support your beliefs.
I can't go too deeply into technical matters, cause I'll get lost. So I'll try to keep it fairly basic, if that's OK with you. I can see the attractive appeal of linking "wave synthesis mechanism that produces a visible spectrum", but this presents several issues, quite apart from what mechanisms may be involved in such an act.
One would be that by staying at the visible spectrum, we are putting aside non-visual qualia, such as sound and taste. It's quite hard, if not impossible, to try and figure out how what we hear resembles anything in nature. With sight, the issue seems to be easier (but maybe it is not): the color red resembles that apple I see.
So what mechanism would have to be invoked that solves the problem of non-visual qualia?
Quoting Enrique
I think this could very well be plausible. Of course, we have no way of testing this, but there appears to be no logical contradiction here. Self consciousness, however, is particularly sophisticated with human beings. It brings forth, to my mind, significantly more complexity than experience by itself, which is also very hard to grasp theoretically.
The idea is that all qualia are various kinds of superposition amongst large collections of waves or wavicles, and the range of possibilities is vast. So sound, touch, taste, smell, sight, feel are all at base different types of quantum resonance composed of diverse matter.
Quoting Manuel
Not yet, though researchers will find ingenious ways to accomplish it.
I can give you a reference that a poster at this forum pointed me towards, written by a very well-respected science author, Johnjoe McFadden: https://aeon.co/essays/does-consciousness-come-from-the-brains-electromagnetic-field. It proffers similar concepts related to the role of emfs.
I found the article very unconvincing, but it is at least a source to back up your ideas and give them some credibility. I must admit, it don't get the whole "hard problem of consciousness" thing. For me, consciousness appears to be an emergent phenomena that arises through the interaction of physical and biological processes in the same way that life arises from chemistry. What's the big deal?
Perhaps. But it would make more sense to try and establish how other people have experience first. We take it for granted, but we can't find a way to test it, i.e. I can't get into your or anybody else's head. I
I tend to agree very much with that view.
I only would add that I think there are many hard problems: gravity, life, matter, etc.
You don't have a personal "hard problem" in philosophy, meaning a question that is particularly difficult that you'd like to understand?
It seemed to me that McFadden's article and your explication were both based on the idea that we need some sort of special explanation for consciousness. That, for me, is just another way of describing the "hard problem." Maybe I misunderstood.
Quoting Manuel
I believe that reality is a function of an external universe of some sort processed through our particular human bodies and minds. If that's true, is it possible for us to know, understand, perceive anything outside those limits?
No, I'm not convinced either that physics will tell us much about consciousness. But, I could be wrong so I like to follow different arguments, in so far as I can roughly understand them. I don't propose to have any answer, and what you suggest, in terms of emergence and biology, rings true to me.
Quoting T Clark
Interesting. We have essentially the exact same "hard problem". I frame it in terms of "things in themselves", but it's the same problem, in essence.
If you mean what I think you mean when you say "things in themselves," I think we are talking about different issues. To me, the nature of "things in themselves" is dependent on the structure of our minds. I am involved in two discussions right now, one on Taoism and one on mysticism, which try to address "things in themselves." Taoism and other forms of mysticism are fundamentally human and don't get us beyond the limits I am talking about.
I think I've gone off on a tangent from the subject of the opening post.
Consciousness is a series of impulses in “pursuit of gratification” and “avoidance of consequence” being the 1 and 0 of programming.
Consciousness purpose is to try to navigate the physical and emotional maze. And how intelligence reasons each action action.
Basic core of human programming is pursue gratification while avoiding moral dilemma.
It seems to me that your model of Consciousness is unduly broad in that it incorporates a variety of systematical frameworks, such as may each apply in a very narrow context and with ideas of Quantum Nonlocality being an example of this, that aren't themselves requisite, nor necessary a priori for the emergence of Conscious Thought. Your manner of phrase also, is not so much unusual as indefinite in its implication; for instance, you refer to the so-called 'stable supervenience of an electromagnetic-field as created by systematic fluxing', presumably when describing the voltage-based outputs and channels associated with both large and well-defined neural substrates that themselves serve as the foundation for all cognitive processes so far as we know. Yet, any corresponding subject is left unspecified in this case, in that one doesn't find or otherwise cannot decide what the field is meant to supervene upon so as to leave the phrase itself semantically incomplete. Moreover, neural-structures aren't electromagnetic, in that while a voltage-based component indeed applies, it doesn't follow that there applies a magnetic component as well, or at least its effect is so minimal as to not even exert a perceptible force when active, and the latter term may therefore be omitted outright in applications of neural-modelling. To cite another example of the deficiencies of your choice of phrasing and theoretical exploration, consider the following; you regard a sustained radiative exposure as per your own words, as allowing for the integration of conscious perception, but the only influence which this has is to increase the available degree of radiation to measurement within that area immediately proximate to the organism. Granted, the examination of such exposure within a clinical context could conceivably result in DNA breakage, and in consequence a later development of cancer as those genes which regulate various growth factors, and tumor suppression, cease to act in the way they should; none of which, however, necessarily pertains to Consciousness, let alone the exact mechanisms which give it rise. Thus, there is beget the question of what facts of life you think yourself to have stumbled upon besides so vague an outline as you have presented?
On a secondary note, you leave me with the impression of one who has a great potential to contribute to the furtherance of man's knowledge of the world, and just as well his own understanding of his place within its sphere, but who for lack of opportunity has been disallowed from gaining that betterment of education which is a most essential step in refining one's ideas so far as to receive in them a proper credence and exploration of the reality of things. To this end, I would mean to suggest that you seek out any number of formal research papers on the subjects of both Biochemistry, the neural-structures associated with Consciousness, among others, and thereby establish a much finer understanding of those sets of notions which you have since invoked so carelessly, albeit in that most noble pursuit of self-knowledge. And, bearing in mind the nobility of this pursuit, I suppose what carelessness you have hitherto shown may be excused.
I think consciousness is considered a difficult problem in philosophy because for hundreds of years it has proven impossible to explain how chemistry which is essentially nonexperiential produces the experience of "what it is like" to be someone. The experiential elements philosophy of mind terms qualia aren't simply in the objects of perception themselves, they're in the brain or somewhere else, and are not merely neurons but much more complex. Something further exists, but what it is has long been a mystery.
I think I've figured out what the solution is going to look like, but the research is still to be performed that will identify exactly what molecules, anatomical systems and nonlocal phenomena are involved. I also consider solving the hard problem to be relatively typical as scientific progress, not anything constrained to the purview of philosophy as especially arcane or abstract, though Dennett, Nagel and more have made great thought experiments outlining some of the issues involved. The trick is seeing through the mind/body duality illusions which have been perpetuated.
I'm going to rewrite this:
I think [s]consciousness[/s] life is considered a difficult problem in philosophy because for hundreds of years it has proven impossible to explain how chemistry which is essentially [s]nonexperiential[/s] non-living produces [s]the experience of "what it is like" to be someone[/s] living organisms.
Do you agree with that sentence? It wasn't so long ago that philosophers and scientists couldn't imagine life arising without some sort of outside influence - they called it "vital essence." That's pretty much gone by the wayside now. Although there is no final answer yet, scientists have hypothesized and are studying mechanisms by which non-living materials can create life. It's called abiogenesis.
I think the analogy to consciousness is a good one. I think people are blinded because consciousness is so personal. It must be special. But it's not.
You keep making good comments here. :)
Quoting Enrique
You are correct, it is a hard problem. There are others too, mentioned by smart people:
As Darwin said: "Why is thought, being a secretion of the brain, more wonderful than gravity, a property of matter? It is our arrogance, it is our admiration of ourselves…"
— Charles Darwin
Or Schopenahuer: "The tendency to gravity in the stone is precisely as inexplicable as is thinking in the human brain, and so on this score, we could also infer a spirit in the stone. Therefore to these disputants [between 'spiritualists' and 'materialists'] I would say: you think you know a dead matter, that is, one that is completely passive and devoid of properties, because you imagine you really understand everything that you are able to reduce to mechanical effect. But… you are unable to reduce them… If matter can fall to earth without you knowing why, so can it also think without you knowing why… If your dead and purely passive matter can as heaviness gravitate, or as electricity attract, repel, and emit spark, so too as brain pulp can it think."
Finally Chomsky: "History also suggests caution. In early modern science, the nature of motion was the "hard problem." "Springing or Elastic Motions" is the "hard rock in Philosophy," Sir William Petty observed, proposing ideas resembling those soon developed much more richly by Newton. The ''hard problem" was that bodies that seem to our senses to be at rest are in a "violent" state, with "a strong endeavor to fly off or recede from one another," in Robert Boyle's words."
:up:
Exactly why I said, "I also consider solving the hard problem to be relatively typical as scientific progress, not anything constrained to the purview of philosophy as especially arcane or abstract". So we agree.
Note the original essay by David Chalmers was Facing up to the Hard Problem of Consciousness.
At issue is the nature of first-person experience, which according to the essay, is categorically different to the third-person description of neural activities and physiology. The key paragraph is:
Chalmers acknowledges that you can provide a functional description of cognition:
You could theoretically reproduce all the findings of cognitive science in symbolic form, such that an alien intelligence could interpret and understand them. But you could not reproduce the experience of being human in such an objective medium. It is not amenable to third-person reduction.
Quoting Manuel
Darwin also said
Sure. It's the phenomenon we are most intimately acquainted with, it's awesome. But I don't see how this quote contradicts his earlier point at all.
I reacted against that other Darwin statement because it's classical materialism, 'the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile'. If that were true, then the same 'horrid doubt' should apply, because if to accept something purely on the basis of chemical necessity is to reject the sovereignity of reason.
Quoting Enrique
I think it's like what Karl Popper calls 'the promisory notes of materialism'. 'We don't understand it yet, but we're making terrific progress, and we'll crack it in the end'. Francis Crick was sure it was within reach, and wrote his last book on that very premise, but I think it's un-crackable in principle.
The problem is not a technical issue but one of perspective. Scientific analysis relies on the ability to objectively frame a problem, to examine its parts and understand how they work together. But the nature of the mind (in philosophical terms, not in terms of cognitive science) is such that we're never able to 'objectify' it in that sense. I don't believe that obtaining insight into the real nature of the mind is dependent on the physical sciences whatever, it's not something we're progressing towards by painstaking assembly of data.
I wouldn't think about it that way. I don't see any contradiction between brain secreting thought and reason being sovereign. You can think of emergence, if that helps. I probably, a while back shared this quote to you, maybe not. I think Priestley has is correct when he says (this is taken from another thread):
"It is said that we can have no conception how sensation or thought can arise from matter, they being things so very different from it, and bearing no sort of resemblance to anything like figure or motion; which is all that can result from any modification of matter, or any operation upon it.…this is an argument which derives all its force from our ignorance.Different as are the properties of sensation and thought, from such as are usually ascribed to matter, they may, nevertheless, inhere in the same substance, unless we can shew them to be absolutely incompatible with one another.”... this argument, from our not being able to conceive how a thing can be, equally affects the immaterial system: for we have no more conception how the powers of sensation and thought can inhere in an immaterial, than in a material substance..."
(Italics mine)
"...there [is] in matter a capacity for affections as subtle and complex as any thing that we can affirm concerning those that have hitherto been called mental affections."
So I don't have a conception of matter that excludes thought at all. This plays no contradictory role for me when I speak about Platonism, for example.
'Emergence' doesn't help. If a brown bear emerges from a cave, then I will presume it went in there some time previously, or was born in there.
Whatever the substance is that Priestly proposes, it is not something known to science.
Emergence meaning a totally new property arising from what went before. Some go as far as calling it radical emergence, which means that we have no idea how this happens in nature. Chomsky, for example, takes it as a given, as did Priestley.
Priestley was writing this as a reaction to Newton's work. So it's totally because of science that Priestley said what he said. And now we have quantum physics which goes way beyond anything Newton could have dreamed of. Again, this is well documented by Chomsky. I can send you the essay, if you like. It's extremely interesting, I think.
Newton was shocked that the matter he thought existed, is not that matter of which the world is made of. As he famously said:
''It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact, as it must be, if gravitation in the sense of Epicurus, be essential and inherent in it.... That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it."
Notice he said "is not material" meaning mechanical. We have not recovered from that insight. Yet any scientist today will tell you that gravity is physical.
I want to say "I just don't get it," when I talk about the so-called hard problem, but I do get it. I get why people see it as a problem. It's because they somehow think their self-awareness is special and wonderful. But it's not. It's just one more mental process/behavior. We deal with that kind of thing all the time in our lives.
We look at animal behavior and the behavior of other humans. We see behavior and infer mental processes. That dog is angry. I can tell by the way he growls and snarls. That rabbit is afraid. I can tell by the way he startles and runs. That woman loves her children. I can tell by the gentle way she treats them. Also, if we speak the same language, she can tell me that she loves them. We have stories we can narrate for all of them. It's only when we start dealing with ourselves that things fall apart. We no longer want to recognize that we are telling stories. It must mean more. I can feel that it means more. We are untrustworthy narrators of our own story.
That’s not what Chalmers says, so maybe you don’t ‘get it’. But, hey, you’re in good company - Daniel Dennett doesn’t ‘get it’, either.
Quoting T Clark
[quote=Jacques Maritain] what the Empiricist speaks of and describes as sense-knowledge is not exactly sense-knowledge, but sense-knowledge plus unconsciously introduced intellective ingredients, -- sense-knowledge in which he has made room for reason without recognizing it. A confusion which comes about all the more easily as, on the one hand, the senses are, in actual fact, more or less permeated with reason in man, and, on the other, the merely sensory psychology of animals, especially of the higher vertebrates, goes very far in its own realm and imitates intellectual knowledge to a considerable extent.[/quote]
That's part of it, but he mentions that specific point in many places.
He also discuses how Hume concluded that Newton's greatest merit was that Newton "seemed to draw the veil from some of the mysteries of nature, he shewed at the same time the imperfections of the mechanical philosophy; and thereby restored [Nature’s] ultimate secrets to that obscurity, in which they ever did and ever will remain."
He talks about how Locke saw no contradiction in God "supperadding" thought to matter. He describes Russell's idea that Physics "seeks itself seeks only to discover "the causal skeleton of the world, [while studying] percepts only in there cognitive aspects; their other aspects lie outside its purview" - though we recognize their existence, at the highest grade of certainty in fact."
And much else. If these ideas sound familiar, then you probably read it. If not, whenever you want, I can send it to you.
I conceptualise thought as an intermodulation between sensory input and the mind resulting in the formation of ideas, emotions, shared perspective etc. Intermodulation examples can be seen in non- linear devices and radio waves where two signals modulate to form an intermodulation.