Symbols, Meaning, and Origins of Mind

Symbols, Meaning, and Origins of Mind

Abhinav Gautam & Subhash Kak

Received: 17 September 2012 /Accepted: 30 October 2012# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract The mind maps symbols and the extra-symbolic relationships amongstthem to specific meanings. When symbols of various levels are placed in a hierar-chical ordering, one may look at such ordered classes as distinct worlds where oneclass represents objects and the other represents the objects’ corresponding meanings.However, such an explanation can only be partial because the number of potentiallevels in such an ordering is infinite and, therefore, it engenders problems of recursionand infinite regress. There are also logical problems in the form of paradoxes thatemanate from the consideration of sets of sets. Given that most prior studies onlyconsider symbols that are classical objects in associative relationships, we argue thatthere is a need to also consider objects with shifting boundaries and quantum objects.We believe that objects belonging to each of these three classes—that is classicalobjects, objects with shifting boundaries, and quantum objects—play a role in theworkings of the mind.

Keywords Life-mind continuity. Languages of the brain .Quantumobjects . Symboliccommunication

Introduction

Meaning, by definition, presupposes a viewer of the symbol for whom this symbolhas significance within a matrix of symbols together with associated meanings. The

BiosemioticsDOI 10.1007/s12304-013-9169-5

Special Issue “Origins of Mind” edited by Liz Stillwaggon Swan and Andrew M. Winters

A. GautamDepartment of Anesthesiology, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami,FL 33146, USAe-mail: [email protected]

S. Kak (*)Department of Computer Science, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 73072, USAe-mail: [email protected]

larger context is the triad of sign, meaning, and the code that binds the three together.The fact that symbols themselves do not have any meaning has a surprising analogywith the idea of randomness. All binary sequences are equally random since each oneof them may be viewed as a product of a coin-tossing experiment. The complexity, orinformation, we assign to specific binary sequences arises from our expectations, andthe relationships these sequences have to other patterns.

In biology, meaning is always in relation to the behavior of the organism within anenvironment. Even perception is best seen in an ecological sense (Gibson 1979). Theassociation of tasks to specific regions in the brain does not explain the meaningassigned by the mind to these tasks. Such associations can no more explain intelli-gence than phrenology can. This is the reason the code must be viewed as anindependent category.

Symbols and the relationships between them at various levels may be viewed asabstract objects. We see this in the case of two non-numerate autistic kids who are in aglance able to recognize that certain large numbers are prime (Sacks 1985). Theneuronal correlate of the notion of primality may be viewed as the object thatembodies the abstract property of primality. If meaning is not intrinsic to objects, itcan only spring from the mind that reflects on these symbols. But the meaning is not amaterial property (Swan and Goldberg 2010a). This is because if the mind werematerial, then it would be part of the symbolic structure that we have concludedcannot be the source of meaning.

If one considers quantum mechanics, which undergirds classical mechanics, onemust admit to the possibility of nonlocality and behavior that is paradoxical from theperspective of classical logic. The consideration of quantum objects enlarges thedefinition of materiality beyond its normal usage.

Since the symbols are grounded in biology at the most fundamental cellular level,one can also build up a ladder of “meanings” that relate symbols across these levels inthe manner of biosemiotics (Swan and Goldberg 2010b). When speaking of symbolsat different levels of expression, we must consider associative, reorganizational, andquantum languages (Kak 1996; Kak 2004) where the signals are electrical, chemical,or optical. Corresponding to these, the symbols may be defined in terms of number,shape, shifting organization, or as quantum objects that can be in superposition states.

When symbols of various levels are placed in a hierarchical ordering, one maylook at two such ordered classes as “two distinct worlds: a world of objects that wecall signs and a world of objects that represent their meaning” (Barbieri 2008). Butsuch explanations can only be partial because the number of potential levels in suchan ordering is infinite and, therefore, it engenders problems of recursion and infiniteregress, as seen, for example, in the problem of the homunculus. There are alsological problems emanating from the consideration of sets of sets for they areassociated with paradoxes (Kak 2012).

If we think of the mind as a processing unit for various sensory inputs, it is clearthat our biology comes preset with certain preferences. For example, sound is energycausing various frequencies of vibrations within the ear leading to various amountsand types of neurotransmitters to be released that cause signal cascade down theeighth cranial nerve into the brain. If minor notes or chords invoke sadness, it isbecause some meaning comes pre-wired in our biology. The rest of symbolicmeaning comes from one’s personal experiences and the biochemical events that

A. Gautam, S. Kak

occur as a result of those experiences. Good or pleasant things are associated with“positive” neurotransmitters.

In this paper, we review evidence from a variety of fields that shows thatconsideration of classical symbols and objects does not exhaust all possibilitiesrelated to biology and the mind. We present evidence in favor of the view that thesymbols should come in a variety of forms, some of which are classical (that isthey can be defined exactly), and others that are reorganizational, and quantumobjects. We stress that an ecological approach is necessary to deal with all thethree classes of objects.

Life and Intelligence

The problem of the origins of life in respect to how original complex life moleculesarose is similar to the problem of how the code-bridging symbols and meanings arisein the mind. The mainstream view is to see the emergence of life as the emergence ofnew properties due to complexity. In this view, physics leads to chemistry and that, inturn, leads to biology. The immense complexity that even the simplest molecules oflife possess suggests that the odds that such molecules arise out of chance in a deadenvironment are vanishingly small (e.g., see Penrose 2005). To counter this, theproposal of an extraterrestrial origin of life’s most basic molecules has been made andindeed traces of some of the fundamental molecules have been found in comets fromouter space (Wickaramasinghe 2009). The astrobiological theory of the origin of lifesomewhat parallels the postulation of the category of the mind that lies outside thephysical elements.

The idea that machines that only follow instructions should suddenly, onaccount of a greater number of connections between computing units, becomeendowed with self-awareness does not appear credible. If one accepts that ma-chines will never become self-aware, why is the brain-machine conscious, whenthe silicon-computer is not? Perhaps the answer to this puzzle is that the brain is aself-organizing system that responds to the nature and quality of its interactionwith the environment, whereas computers do not do this. Yet other ecologicalsystems, which are biological communities that have complex interrelationshipsamongst their components, are self-organizing, without being self-aware. Thissuggests that while self-organization is a necessary pre-requisite for purposivebehavior, it is not sufficient.

Yet another possibility is that the scientific framework is still incomplete. We maynot have yet discovered all the laws of nature, and our current theories need majorrevision, which has implications for our understanding of consciousness.

When considering evolutionary aspects related to cognitive capacity, conscious-ness is viewed as emerging out of language. Linguistic research on chimpanzees andbonobos has revealed that although they can be taught basic vocabulary of severalhundred words, this linguistic ability does not extend to syntax. By contrast, smallchildren acquire much larger vocabularies—and use the words far more creatively—with no overt training, suggesting that language is an innate capacity.

In the nativist view, language ability is rooted in the biology of the brain, and ourability to use grammar and syntax is an instinct, dependent on specific modules of the


brain. We learn language as a consequence of a unique biological adaptation, and notbecause it is an emergent response to the problem of communication confronted by usand by our ancestors.

In another view, human language capacities arose out of biological natural selec-tion because they fulfill two clear criteria: an extremely complex and rich design, andthe absence of alternative processes capable of explaining such complexity. Othertheories look at music and language arising out of sexual selection. Howsoeverimaginative and suggestive these models might be, they do not address the questionof how the capacity to visualize models of the world that are essential to language andconsciousness first arose. If the evolution of machines is driven by human intelli-gence, the case could be made that biological evolution is driven by Nature’sintelligence, which is an embodiment of consciousness.

One can also assert that biological forms, and by extension machine forms, arelatent in the physical law, just as the excited states of the electron orbits are latent inthe physics of the hydrogen atom even though these states may not be occupied.Furthermore, ideas can be given the same footing as biological forms or machinesalthough they need appropriate biological structure to be articulated.

If the brain must be viewed as a machine, it is still not an ordinary machine (Kak2009). Even with self-organization and hitherto-unknown quantum characteristicsone cannot explain all the capacities associated with the brain. In the philosophicalcritique of the search of a theory of consciousness, all that normal science can hope toachieve is a description of objects. Consciousness is a property of the subject, theexperiencing “I”, which, owing to its nature, forever lies beyond the pale of normalscience. The experimenter cannot turn his gaze upon himself, and ordinary realitymust have a dual aspect. This duality means that the world of objective causality isincomplete, creating a fundamental paradox: objects are described by normal science,but this science is not rich enough to describe the body associated with the experienc-ing subject.

Brain and Mind

Anesthesia provides a unique platform for physiological exploration of some of thefundamental questions of consciousness. Is the construct of reality a physiologicalbyproduct of sequential neurotransmission in specific portions of the cerebrum?Could reality simply be this physiology functioning in a homeostatic fashion? Theidea of quantum realities may be viewed as a trace of altering the physiology bymeditation or by means of drug-induced states.

It is no coincidence that many scientific theories and human inventions have arisenfrom extraordinary states (e.g., Hadamard 1954). These alternate realities may bethought of as stations on the FM radio. There are distinct stations with strongamplitude, and depending on the granularity of the receiver (i.e., focus and processingpower of the mind), a certain number of possible tunable signals can be received andsubsequently processed. The unconscious state is one of the tuned states of the FMtuner in the aforementioned circuit. Although the experienced realities are many, theactual deeper reality must be a unity. Altered states of the mind are thus mereconstructs.

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Although the mind is not physical, it requires specific structures in the brain.Furthermore, there are neuronal traces associated with the activity of the mind.Awareness is a correlate of neuronal activity and it cannot be localized in any specificneurons.

Observations from basic science and clinical practice suggest that anestheticagents induce unconsciousness by altering neurotransmission at multiple sites inthe brain stem, thalamus, and cerebral cortex. Positron-emission tomographic (PET)studies in humans under general anesthesia reveal appreciable decreases in corticalmetabolic activity. The brain stem serves to modulate the most basic functionsincluding heart rate, breathing, sleeping and eating. The thalamus functions as aswitch board that filters and relays sensory input that is destined for the cortex. Thecentral thalamus plays an important role in normal arousal regulation. The conver-gence in this area of ascending pathways from the brain stem and basal forebrain anddescending pathways from the frontal cortex helps regulate forebrain arousal andmaintain organized behavior during wakefulness. All forms of brain injury to thecentral thalamus are associated with the impairment of awareness and functionalintegration via frontal cortex.

In vivo and in vitro molecular pharmacologic studies have identified N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) and γ-amino butyric acid (GABA) receptors in the brain stem,cortex, thalamus, and striatum as two of the most important receptor targets ofsedative or hypnotic drugs. While there is relatively a small number of theseinhibitory interneurons, they control large numbers of excitatory pyramidal neuronsand therefore the GABA inhibition induced by these therapeutic serum levels of theseagents can safely and efficiently inactivate large regions of the brain and lead tounconsciousness.

Let us now consider if the boundary between consciousness and unconsciousnessis a thin line by using an example one of the authors (A.G.) encountered personally.The patient was a 73 year-old male who was having an emergent laparoscopy toevaluate for peritoneal rupture. He had multiple co-existing diseases and during thepre-operative discussion he said that he had an allergy to a benzodiazepine,midazolam. The benzodiazepines act on the GABA receptors that theoretically inhibitthe cortex and thus result in sedation. The patient said he had awakened from priorsurgeries in a “crazed” state.

The induction of anesthesia went extremely smoothly and the procedure was brief.All extubation criteria were met and the patient was extubated without complication.However, the patient was extremely disoriented and kept repeating, “Something is notright. I can’t breathe.” The patient’s vital signs were all stable, and blood oximetrynever fell below 96 %. As the patient continued to complain the team proceededdown the differential diagnosis algorithm. The patient was stabilized and sedated andbrought to intensive care. Fifteen minutes later he was completely lucid and actuallyrecalled his dysphoria. The patient had not been administered a benzodiazepine yethis emergence from anesthesia resulted in paradoxical excitation and disorientation. Itwas as if his baseline neural circuitry included some excitatory pathways connected tohis GABA receptors, which resulted in a discharge of neurotransmitters that causeddisorganized bursts throughout his cortex.

The mind’s constructs of reality rely on a complex signal pathway that processeseach level of reality beginning with brainstem and ending in higher cortical thinking.


The complexity of the interaction between the mind and the body is clear from theplacebo effect and the field of psychoneuroimmunology (Ader et al. 1990).

Ways of Knowing

Ancient cultures expressed ideas about meaning, and especially the paradoxicalaspects of it, in the coded form of myth. The idea that the mind must be energizedby a categorical entity that transcends space and time became important in Indianphilosophy. Indian models of the mind consider it to be a category in itself.

The parallels or analogies between Vedānta and quantum theory (Moore 1989)have motivated many scientists to examine Indian scientific ideas. Indian epistemol-ogy approaches reality differently from Western science and while some haveclassified it as “idealism,” it is distinct from Western idealism in many ways. It isunlike standard scientific epistemology in that it accepts consciousness as an inde-pendent category different from matter. It provides an interesting resolution to theseemingly insoluble problem of interaction between the causally closed worlds ofmatter with the world of consciousness. It accepts the possibility of obtainingknowledge by non-empirical means. In most general terms, Indian epistemologydiffers from Western epistemology in that it includes sentient agency within theuniverse (Kak 2011). The bridging of the worlds of consciousness and matter doesnot occur at the level of matter or mind. Consciousness itself is a transcendentcategory that goes beyond both matter and mind.

Schrödinger endorsed the Indian view of consciousness—that it is a unity and thefeeling of sentient beings as being separated from others is a misapprehension(Schrödinger 1965). Indian tradition accepts that consciousness influences natureby the process of observation. This is very similar to the quantum mechanical viewof the influence of observation on a physical process by the quantum Zeno effect, inwhich the state of a system when observed continuously becomes frozen. Thedifference between quantum theory and Indian ideas is that although one speaks ofobservations in quantum theory there is no place in its ontology for observers.Schrödinger was aware of this limitation of quantum theory and he argued that Indianphilosophy’s sense-categories at the individual or the cosmic level were essential tounderstanding reality.

Quantum Descriptions

There is much research that deals with quantum models of the brain (e.g., Stapp 1993;Hameroff and Penrose 1996; Schwartz et al. 2005). Recently, further evidenceregarding holistic, quantum-like operations in the brain has emerged (Page et al.1999). Additional evidence in support of a biological quantum language is thevibration theory of olfaction. The orthodox theory is “lock and key” based onrecognition of the structure of shape of the odorant molecule. On the other hand,the vibration theory states that the odorant molecule must first fit in the receptor’sbinding site and possess a vibrational energy mode compatible with the receptor, soelectrons can travel through the molecule via inelastic electron tunneling, triggering

A. Gautam, S. Kak

the signal transduction pathway (Turin 1996). In a recent paper (Franco et al. 2011),the hydrogen molecule in the odorant was replaced with deuterium to determine ifDrosophila melanogaster can distinguish these identically shaped isotopes. It wasfound that flies not only differentiate between isotopic odorants, they can also beconditioned to selectively avoid the common or the deuterated isotope. The authorsclaimed that the findings are inconsistent with a shape-only model for smell, andinstead support the existence of a molecular vibration-sensing component to olfactoryreception.

Considering that the physical world is described at its most basic level by quantummechanics, a classical computational basis cannot underlie the description of themind that is able to comprehend the universe. A classical computer cannot reorganizeitself in response to inputs. If it could, it would soon reach an organizational stateassociated with some energy minimum and would then stop responding to theenvironment. Once this state had been reached, the computer would then merelytransform data according to its program. In other words, a classical computer does nothave the capability to be selective about its inputs. This is precisely what biologicalsystems can do with ease.

Most proposals that consider brain function to have a quantum basis have done soby default. In short the argument is: There appears to be no resolution to the problemof the binding of patterns and there are non-local aspects to cognition; quantumbehavior has non-local characteristics; so brain behavior must have a quantum basis.

Newer analysis has led to the understanding that one must consider reorganizationas a primary process in the brain—this allows the brain to define the context. Thesignal flows now represent the processing or recognition done within the reorganizedhardware. Such a change in perspective can have significant implications. Dualsignaling schemes eventually need an explanation in terms of a binding field; theydo not solve the basic binding problem themselves but they do make it easier tounderstand the process of adaptation.

Biological Intelligence

The question of the emergence of intelligence in machines also parallels the problemof the emergence of the mind. Machine intelligence is the ability to solve a specifiedproblem that requires search or generalization. On the other hand, animal perfor-mance depends crucially on its normal behavior. It may be argued that all animals aresufficiently intelligent because they survive in their ecological environment. Even incognitive tasks of the kind normally associated with human intelligence, someanimals perform well. Thus dolphins solve logical problems or problems involvingsome kind of generalization.

It is assumed that the tasks that set the human apart from the machine are those thatrelate to abstract conceptualization best represented by language understanding. Yetnobody will deny that deaf-mutes, who don’t have a language, do think. Language isbest understood as a subset of a large repertoire of behavior.

Since nonhumans do not use abstract language, their thinking is based on discrim-ination at a variety of levels. If such conceptualization is seen as a result of evolution,it is not necessary that this would have developed in exactly the same manner for all


species. Other animals learn concepts nonverbally, so it is hard for humans, as verbalanimals, to determine their concepts. It is for this reason that the pigeon has become afavorite with intelligence tests; like humans, it has a highly developed visual system,and we are therefore likely to employ similar cognitive categories. It is to be notedthat pigeons and other animals are made to respond in extremely unnatural conditionsin Skinner boxes of various kinds. The abilities elicited in research must be taken tobe merely suggestive of the intelligence of the animal, and not the limits of it.

In a classic experiment (Herrnstein 1985), 80 photographic slides of natural sceneswere presented to pigeons who were accustomed to pecking at a switch for briefaccess to food. The scenes were comparable but half contained trees and half did not.The tree photographs had full views of single and multiple trees as well as obscureand distant views of a variety of types. The slides were shown in no particular orderand the pigeons were rewarded with food if they pecked at the switch in response to atree slide; otherwise nothing was done. Even before all the slides had been shown thepigeons were able to discriminate between the tree and the non-tree slides. To confirmthat this ability, impossible for any machine to match, was not somehow learntthrough the long process of evolution and hardwired into the brain of the pigeons,another experiment was designed to check the discriminating ability of pigeons withrespect to fish and non-fish scenes and once again the birds had no problem doing so.Over the years it has been shown that pigeons can also distinguish: (1) oak leavesfrom leaves of other trees, (2) scenes with or without bodies of water, (3) picturesshowing a particular person from others with no people or different individuals.Another experiment (Wasserman 1995) has shown that pigeons could be induced toamalgamate two basic categories into one broader category not defined by anyobvious perceptual features.

An extremely important insight from experiments of animal intelligence is that onecan attempt to define different gradations of cognitive function. It is obvious thatanimals are not as intelligent as humans; likewise, certain animals appear to be moreintelligent than others. For example, pigeons did poorly at picking a pattern againsttwo other identical ones, as in picking an A against two Bs. This is a very simple taskfor humans.

Animal intelligence experiments suggest that one can speak of different styles ofsolving Artificial Intelligence problems and Herrnstein argued (Herrnstein 1985) thatthe manner pigeons process information is different from how humans do it. Are thecognitive capabilities of pigeons limited because their style has fundamental limita-tions? It is possible that the relatively low scores on the sameness test for pigeons canbe explained on the basis of wide variability in performance for individual pigeonsand the unnatural conditions in which the experiments are performed? Is it possiblethat the cognitive style of all animals is similar and that the differences in theircognitive capabilities arise from the differences in the relative size of their mentalhardware? Since current machines do not, and cannot, use inner representations, it isright to conclude that their performance can never match that of animals. Mostimportantly, the generalization achieved by pigeons and other nonhumans remainsbeyond the capability of machines.

A useful perspective on animal behavior is its recursive nature, or part-wholehierarchy. Considering this from the bottom up, animal societies are viewed assuperorganisms. For example, the ants in an ant colony may be compared to cells,

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their castes to tissues and organs, the queen and her drones to the generative system,and the exchange of liquid food amongst the colony members to the circulation ofblood and lymph. Furthermore, corresponding to morphogenesis in organisms, theant colony has sociogenesis, which consists of the processes by which the individualsundergo changes in caste and behavior. Such recursion has been viewed all the wayup to the earth itself seen as a living entity. Parenthetically, one asks whether the earthitself, as a living but unconscious organism, may not be viewed like the unconsciousbrain. Paralleling this recursion is the individual who can be viewed as a collection ofseveral agents where these agents have sub-agents that are the sensory mechanisms,and so on. These agents are bound together and this binding defines consciousness.

Conclusions

Signals and symbols are infused with meaning only by sentient beings and, therefore,this meaning inherently lies within the parameters of consciousness. It is of coursetrue that within cells on a biological system, different molecules or substances bind todifferent receptors and in so doing contribute to various levels of relative meanings.These levels are seen as conditioned behavior or the play of instincts, if considered atthe level of the organism.

We believe that consciousness (which encapsulates the code that lies behindsubjective experience) manifests itself in the everyday world leaving a trace that isopen to scientific examination. Arguments have been made that the rise of complexorganic molecules cannot be explained using only probability considerations. Thecase can also be made that evolved forms are already present as potentialities withinnatural law and natural selection is a restatement of the fact that pure probabilities donot account for the outcomes of random evolutionary processes.

Anomalous events that are a part of social history are evidence of the workings ofthe mind’s code at a grand scale (Kak 2004, 2009). In certain philosophical schools ofthe West (as in Plato’s theory of forms or Kant’s transcendental idealism), ideas arevariously taken to be part of the structure of the mind or even to exist independent ofthe mind. But these schools are not taken seriously in the narratives of science bypracticing scientists. Modern science privileges empiricism, that is knowledge basedon observations by the senses together with logical inference and abstraction, as theonly true source of knowledge. It cannot provide explanations for unusual coinci-dences. Neither can it provide explanations for agency and intentionality in psychol-ogy or the performance of savants (Sacks 1985; Kak 2000).

When considered logically, a system of objects in sets where membership isdefined in a loose way leads to paradoxes. Meaning associated with symbols alsohas subjective and paradoxical features. Since ordinary narrative is limited in de-scribing reorganizational and quantum descriptions, the problem of the origins ofmind cannot be addressed in a theory that deals with classical objects alone.

Machines are deficient compared to biological systems at incorporating intelli-gence because, unlike brains, they do not have the capacity to self-organize.Machines are based on classical logic, whereas Nature’s intelligence may dependon quantum mechanics. Further study of symbols, meaning, and the code mustconsider not only classical objects, but also reorganizational and quantum objects.


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Symbols, Meaning, and Origins of Mind