Machines Like Us interviews: Johnjoe McFadden

Johnjoe McFadden is Professor of Molecular Genetics at the University of Surrey, and has published more than 100 articles in scientific journals on subjects as wide-ranging as bacterial genetics, tuberculosis, idiopathic diseases and computer modeling of evolution. He lectured extensively in the UK, Europe, the USA and Japan and his work has been featured in radio, television and national newspaper articles. He wrote the popular science book, Quantum Evolution, which examines the role of quantum mechanics in life, evolution and consciousness. He also writes articles regularly for the Guardian newspaper in the UK on topics as varied as quantum mechanics, evolution and genetically modified crops. Most controversial were two papers published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, in which McFadden proposed that the brain's em information field is the physical substrate of conscious awareness: Synchronous Firing and its Influence on the Brain's Electromagnetic Field: Evidence for an Electromagnetic Field Theory of Consciousness, and The Conscious Electromagnetic Information (CEMI) Field Theory: The Hard Problem Made Easy?

Interview conducted by Norm Nason.

MLU: Welcome, Johnjoe. It's a pleasure having you here.

JM: And its always a pleasure to chat with you, Norm.

MLU: I want to ask you about the particulars of your work, but before I do, perhaps we should first touch on some of the problems cognitive scientists face when trying to construct a viable theory of consciousness. The so called "binding problem," for instance, refers to how neurons associated with different aspects of perception are able to combine to form a united perceptual experience. The "mind-body problem" deals with the question of how the mind is able to move our physical bodies. Please tell us more about the difficulties one faces when trying to construct a cohesive model of consciousness.

JM: The basic problem is that our subjective experience of consciousness does not correspond to the neurophysiology of our brain. When we see an object, such as a tree, the image that is received by our eyes is processed, in parallel, in millions of widely separated brain neurons. Some neurons process the colour information, some process aspects of movement, some process texture elements of the image. But there is nowhere in the brain where all these disparate elements are brought together. That doesn’t correspond to the subjective experience of seeing a whole tree where all the leaves and swaying branches are seen as an integrated whole. The problem is understanding how all the physically distinct information in our brain is somehow bound together to the subjective image: the binding problem.

MLU: The famous experiments conducted by neurobiologist Benjamin Libet suggest that we are consciously aware of making a decision to act after our brain initiates that action -- but before the action actually takes place (moving an arm, for instance). This raises the question: do we have free will, or is the feeling that we are in control of our destiny merely an illusion?

JM: I am puzzled why Libet’s findings are considered at all surprising. In fact anything other than his findings would be astonishing. Consider if Libet (and further studies) had been unable to detect any changes in brain activity prior to our awareness of an intention to perform an action. Awareness would then be an uncaused cause -- a ghost in the machine -- an effect that had no physical cause. This would mean that awareness would contradict all the laws of causality -- it would be magic. Consciousness would then stand apart from the rest of science and force us to revaluate every scientific notion based on causality and determinism.

But of course awareness, like all other events, is caused by preceding event in our brain. So it is not causality that is problematic but our notion of free will. Again, this is only problematic if we think of free will as an uncaused cause -- a ghost in the machine. My conception of free will is that it is the influence of the brain’s em field -- our conscious mind -- on the operations that the brain directs: our actions. So consciousness is not a mere steam whistle of brain action (as Huxley suggested) but plays a vital role in determining our actions. To put it another way, if consciousness was not playing a role our actions would be very different -- we would act like be robots. But this conscious em field -- our ‘free’ will is not an uncaused cause: its structure and dynamics are determined by earlier activity in the brain. It isn’t really free in the sense of non-deterministic. But then how could it be without invoking magic?

MLU: Your explanation for consciousness is one of the most unique and intriguing that I have come across. You have done an excellent job of both providing evidence for your theory, and defending it against criticism. Please give us an overview of your cemi field theory.

JM: Put simply the cemi field is that component of the brain’s electromagnetic (em) field that influences our actions. The theory proposes that the seat of consciousness is the brain’s em field. This then solves the binding problem because all the information in scattered neurons will be unified in the brain’s em field. A number of researchers (e.g. Sue Pockett) have proposed this much but the cemi field goes one step further and proposes that the cemi field loops back to influence brain activity via electromagnetic induction: the brain’s em fields influences neuronal membrane potentials and thereby the probability of neuron firing and thereby influence our actions. This influence we experience as ‘free will’.

MLU: You have pointed out that all aspects of your cemi field theory are testable. Has any progress been made on this front?

JM: The cemi field theory predicts that synchronous firing of neurons will have a greater influence on our actions than asynchronous neuron firing. This is because synchronous activity will generate in phase em field disturbances that will have a greater chance of influencing neuron firing patterns. So a major experimental prediction of the model is that willed actions and awareness will correlate with synchronous neuron firing. In my papers I describe lots of experiments that have demonstrated this in animal models and human studies (eg. EEG studies). Since then there have been lots of additional studies that support this coupling of synchrony and neuronal activity. For instance:

Womelsdorf T, Schoffelen JM, Oostenveld R, Singer W, Desimone R, Engel AK, Fries P. (2007) Modulation of neuronal interactions through neuronal synchronization. Science. 2007 Jun 15;316(5831):1609-12.

Abstract: Brain processing depends on the interactions between neuronal groups. Those interactions are governed by the pattern of anatomical connections and by yet unknown mechanisms that modulate the effective strength of a given connection. We found that the mutual influence among neuronal groups depends on the phase relation between rhythmic activities within the groups. Phase relations supporting interactions between the groups preceded those interactions by a few milliseconds, consistent with a mechanistic role. These effects were specific in time, frequency, and space, and we therefore propose that the pattern of synchronization flexibly determines the pattern of neuronal interactions.

And that this mechanism is involved in awareness:

Melloni L, Molina C, Pena M, Torres D, Singer W, Rodriguez E. (2007) Synchronization of neural activity across cortical areas correlates with conscious perception. J Neurosci. 2007 Mar 14;27(11):2858-65.

Abstract: Subliminal stimuli can be deeply processed and activate similar brain areas as consciously perceived stimuli. This raises the question which signatures of neural activity critically differentiate conscious from unconscious processing. Transient synchronization of neural activity has been proposed as a neural correlate of conscious perception. Here we test this proposal by comparing the electrophysiological responses related to the processing of visible and invisible words in a delayed matching to sample task. Both perceived and nonperceived words caused a similar increase of local (gamma) oscillations in the EEG, but only perceived words induced a transient long-distance synchronization of gamma oscillations across widely separated regions of the brain. After this transient period of temporal coordination, the electrographic signatures of conscious and unconscious processes continue to diverge. Only words reported as perceived induced (1) enhanced theta oscillations over frontal regions during the maintenance interval, (2) an increase of the P300 component of the event-related potential, and (3) an increase in power and phase synchrony of gamma oscillations before the anticipated presentation of the test word. We propose that the critical process mediating the access to conscious perception is the early transient global increase of phase synchrony of oscillatory activity in the gamma frequency range.

MLU: What are the consequences of your cemi field theory for artificial intelligence?

JM: One of the proposals of the cemi field theory is that the cemi field performs field computation in the brain (a process very similar to quantum computing) and this is the major advantage of consciousness that has been selected by natural selection. Computers currently lack this level of interaction and thereby lack the cemi field mediated general intelligence that is provided by field computing. I therefore predict that computers that compute only through wires will never acquire general intelligence and will never be aware.

However, there is nothing magical about cemi field awareness: it could be simulated by a computer with an architecture that allowed computations to take place through field interactions. Such computers would acquire natural intelligence and awareness.

MLU: Sounds like a marvellous post graduate student project. Do you know of any efforts to build a computer in this way?

JM: Bruce MacLennan at the The University of Tennessee has proposed that field-level information processing might be able to perform some computational manipulations, such as Fourier transforms and wavelet transforms, linear superpositions or Laplacians, more efficiently than digital computers. Efforts to design optical computers through -- for instance, the use of Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser arrays (VCSEL) to interconnect circuit boards and thereby exploit field-level information transfer and processing -- is also ongoing.

An intriguing experiment performed by the School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences (COGS) group at Sussex University that appears to have (accidentally) evolved a field-sensitive electronic circuit. The group used a silicon chip known as a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), comprised of an array of cells. Electronic switches distributed through the array allow the behaviour and connections of the cells to be reconfigured from software. Starting from a population of random configurations, the hardware was evolved to perform a task, in this case, distinguishing between two tones. After about 5,000 generations the network could efficiently perform its task. When the group examined the evolved network they discovered that it utilized only 32 of the 100 FPGA cells. The remaining cells could be disconnected from the network without affecting performance. However, when the circuit diagram of the critical network was examined it was found that some of the essential cells, although apparently necessary for network performance (if disconnected, the network failed), were not connected by wires to the rest of the circuit. According to the researchers, the most likely explanation seems to be that these cells were contributing to the network through electromagnetic coupling -- field effects -- between components in the circuit. It is very intriguing that evolution of an artificial neural network appeared to capture field effects spontaneously as a way of optimizing computational performance. This suggests that natural evolution of neural networks in the brain would similarly capture field effects, precisely as proposed in the cemi field theory. The finding may have considerable implications for the design of artificial intelligence.

It would be fascinating to follow up these ‘accidental experiments’ with a targeted research programme to develop field-sensitive computers; but sadly, the funding bodies (at least those in Europe) have not been convinced by several of my grant proposals. But if anyone is out there who would like to sponsor some really exciting blue-sky research, get in touch!