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I of the Vortex: From Neurons to Self

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This is another in a spate of recent popular books by leading neuroscientists attempting to explain consciousness and the mind. They are a bit like the fable of the blind men and the elephant. Damasio, a neurologist, (The Feeling of What Happens) takes a neurological perspective; Freeman (How Brains Make up Their Minds)uses a systems approach derived from his research into olfaction; Edelman (A Universe of Consciousness)takes more of a neuroanatomical approach (massive reentrant systems)and in this book Llinas works from his background in cellular physiology up from the level of the single cell. Llinas' book is the best referenced of the above, and he really has some good insights. His discussion on qualia as a sensory "fixed action pattern," analogous to motor FAPs, I thought particularly original. I also liked his idea of the origin of the self as a brain representation of the body, which has profound implications, for it implies virtually all animals have at least a primitive "sense of self." Although the link between cellular physiology and higher levels of nervous system organization is not (understandably) well bridged in the book, all in all, I think Llinas describes a good chunk of the elephant...definitely worthwhile reading.

Llinas cuts to the chase of consciousness in a quick and original way. Initially, his tack may strike the nonspecialist reader as narrowly technical, and for good reason: he is a benchworking neurophysiologist. On re-reading, his big picture comes into view, and it is utterly convincing without being exclusive, characteristic of the inventive scientist.

The theme of this book is an explanation (not just description) of consciousness as evolutionarily generated from the motor system. This is counterintuitive: we're used to hearing that consciousness emanates from the processing of sensory/perceptual data, a presumption so widely accepted that it seems incontrovertible. Thus, Linas' standing as a recognized expert allows him to cite basic experimental findings, then bring along other ideas at a more speculative (yet still scientific) stage, to build a thesis of substantial generality. In fact, given the unitary quality of subjective experience, such generality is requisite.

So what is the thesis? That the centralization of motricity is constituitive of consciousness. Centralization (`cephalization') takes the intrinsic coupling and coordination of muscular movement and embeds it in progressively higher levels of the nervous system. Again, this might first seem unexciting; but Llinas underpins his ideas with a cogency which few others could muster, then guides us up the neuraxis to higher brain levels.

He starts with a typically astute interpretation: essential tremor as evidence of a pulsatile control system operating at the tactical level, coping with a computationally intractable confusion of sensory data, whose control any mobile life form must develop. Primitive muscular coordination is then shown to require neural coordination at a higher evolutionary level. The command system penultimately culminates in the basal ganglia, the generator of `fixed action (stereotyped) patterns' of behavior; and, from there, goes to thalamocortical and limbic circuitry where such FAP's are now strategic, and ultimately voluntary.

If one describes the transformation of sensory to motor coordinates as occuring in a state space (called vectorial coordinate space) it's then possible to give a principled account of consciousness as that virtual space which describes those transformations in a broader context of social and emotional dimensions. Put more practically, consciousness emerges unforced as a survival necessity, without which we'd never be able to decide whether to whistle or urinate as a predator (one's boss) enters the men's room.

In truth, there are gaps: Llinas' original papers lack the sweep (other than oscilloscopic) which would give detailed rather than general support to the broader issues here addressed. The 40 Hz hypothesis rests upon MEG studies which one is hard-pressed to coordinate with `conventional' fMRI and PET imaging, let alone individual neurons.

But this is a minor caveat on a playing field where few contributors even agree on the rules of engagement. An investment of attention to the thesis of this book proves surprisingly rewarding.

The author presents quite a plausible theory of mind, based on his work as a neuroscientist. I suspect Llinas is very much on the right track to illuminating the physical basis of consciousness.

Building chapter-by-chapter simultaneously on the apparent evolutionary development from the simplest neuronal system to the centralized brain, and on the results of brain scans and other experiments, Llinas brings us calmly and reasonably to the resultant human mind of today.

For Llinas, consciousness is the synchronized 40Hz firing of regions of the cortex over time. That is, consciousness is not just a given pattern of firing in 3-space, but is a 4-space relation. That additional dimension of time multiplies enormously the potential number of brain patterns that could occur in an individual. But it also makes the topic that much harder to study.

The writing feels like it has been written by someone who knows alot: there are many points where conceptual connections are not made entirely explicit (because it probably seemed so self-evident to Llinas) and the reader must fill in those gaps. Also, some of his non-neurologic language is quite technical: the description of the "self" as a calculated eigenvector, or the "vortex" which is essentially an attractor (as known in mathematics), that can make Llinas sound like a cold, hard-nosed scientist.

However, Llinas is refreshingly 'human'. For him, it is quite reasonable to assume (as a common consequence of evolution and similarity of brain structure) that many other species have forms of consciousness. Indeed, he devotes an entire chapter to qualia, and contends that qualia exist as essential brain feature, not only for humans but for cats and dogs and most other animals with brains of the same evolutionary genre (and that even in the case of invertebrate (octopus) brains he argues that the burden of proof is on those who would deny qualia).

One caveat: be aware that Llinas does not explicitly delineate between accepted facts and his theory - the book flows as one whole. It is not intented as deception. As he says in the preface "This book presents a personal view of neuroscience...".

What is the "self" in neural terms? Few would be bold enough to claim an answer to that question. Yet in "I of the Vortex: From Neurons to Self," Rodolfo Llinas sketches a very compelling picture of how the self, consciousness, and intelligence may arise in the brain.

Essentially, Llinas's argument goes as follows. First, brains are really only found in animals that move (so, obviously, plants do not have brains). In fact, at least one animal - the sea squirt - actually devours its own brain once it no longer needs to move. Although simple movements might be caused by oscillatory pattern generators in the spinal cord, the brain is necessary for more complex, sensory-guided movement. Why should this be so?

The answer Llinas provides is prediction, or in other words, a sensorimotor internal model of the world based on "dt lookahead" functions, interfacing the motor and sensory systems. Synchronized oscillations from the cerebellum (Llinas's area of expertise) carry out the motor-side of this computation, giving rise to the characteristic 8-12 Hz periodicity of the neural signals that command voluntary movements. At a higher frequency (40 Hz), other neuronal oscillations throughout the thalamocortical system serve to bind sensory representations together. And the subjective, cognitive correlate of the intersection of these oscillations is no less than the self: "this temporally coherent event that binds, in the time domain, the fractured components of external and internal reality into a single construct is what we call the 'self.'"

But wait, doesn't that mean that all animals have a sense of "self"- even the lowly sea squirt (at least before it eats its brain)? It would seem so. But that's not the end of Llinas's more controversial claims. Llinas also suggests that neural networks explain "very little concerning the actual functioning of the nervous system itself," advocating instead the idea that most of our cognitive abilities are genetically prewired at birth. Along these lines, Llinas endorses Chomsky's idea that genes may to a large extent determine language, and furthermore that language exists in many species besides homo sapiens.

It is here that "I of the Vortex" starts to seem more like a manifesto than a careful scientific analysis. For example, after introducing the basics of neurophysiology and comparative neurology in the first half of the book, Llinas skips the cognitive level of analysis almost altogether and starts extrapolating directly to issues of consciousness, awareness, and selfhood. This bias against direct investigations of cognition (something arguably very important for understanding consciousness) is nowhere more apparent than when he refers to cognitive neuroscience as "neophrenology." But without this important middle-level of analysis, Llinas is mostly shooting from the hip in the second half of the book - and aiming for concepts that are simply too far removed from Llinas's expertise in cellular neurophysiology.

On the whole, Llinas has done an admirable job of outlining one particular view of how neuronal dynamics may give rise to consciousness in an embodied cognition framework. In this sense, "I of the Vortex" makes an excellent companion to other high-level introductions to cognitive neuroscience.

Llinas is of course, a famous neuroscientist, and his views on consciousness in the 90's took the side of the 40 hertz gamma band ocillations in the thalamocortical system. This book reviews his views in almost all aspects of neuroscience. His evolutionary insights, and his discussion of how important action and motor mechanisms are for cognition are truly in accord with recent study in "embodied cognition". As for consciousness itself, we are left with a narrow expansion of his earlier views. Ocillatory behavior on neurons is still the key in Llinas framework, and the thalamus still has its central role, as are his insights on wakefulness and sleep. As for originallity,one can trace his views on the origin of the self in Damasio's writings, his view on qualia in Rodney Cotteril's, and ocillatory ideas on Crick (but Llinas got there before), Singer, Von-Mandlesburg, etc.. All in all, however, the book is a must read for anyone intersested in the neurosciences and consciousness, and is a valuable contribution to the theorist enterprise that has few who venture into an integration of top- down and bottom-up approaches. LLinas is to be praised for his brilliant career, and his valuable contributions to the field, including this volume.

Jorge Borges wrote, "I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities that I have visited, all my ancestors... Perhaps I would have liked to be my father, who wrote but has the decency of not publishing".
In the book "I of the vortex" Rodolfo Llinas gives another perspective on who am "I" and where "I" comes from, looking into the deep and dark recesses of the brain as a neuroscientist and physician, leaving God out from the game, unlike his maestro John Eccles, a dedicated theist, who wrote that "there is a Divine Providence operating over and above the materialistic happenings of biological evolution".
The ultimate thesis Llinas nominates is: "thinking is an internalized movement". He makes his point very clearly, based on his extensive knowledge and experience both as a scientist and writer. Perhaps thinking is an internalized movement? Perhaps not! The book "I of the vortex" is the ultimate read for those who ask Questions. An excellent book.

If you are going to read one book about neuroscience, consciousness, or the meaning of life, this should be it. Dr. Llinas has made some unusually innovative and profound assertions about how the self ("soul") might be generated from the mechanical workings of the brain. While the answer to the hard problem of consciousness remains elusive, I can honestly say after having read many books on the subject, that this is as close as it gets.

Imagine that we could perceive all the happy and sorrow moments of our lives without expressing our feeling, being able to prevent painful events or to hug our loved ones. Perception without action is just a bad construction! In this lovely book, the author presents us the brain's solution: evolve action strategies first and use perceptions and watchful predictions to control them. We are taken through an exciting journey of contemporary neuroscience and learn the building elements of brainworks, the heart of which is endogenously generated oscillations. These tidal waves (guess who rides on their vortex!) provide the context for everything we feel and act upon. So how do we get from here to what really interests all of us, our cognitive mind? Just read on and you'll get the answer! Convincing? It depends what you accept as proof. All I guarantee is that you walk away with argument that will make you think about our existence for a while. A good book.

The book presents an amazing Neuroscience synthesis that covers all the aspects: from ions to synergistic systems. It gives a thought-provoking explanation of the origin of the brain through evolution. It also explains the concepts of 'qualias' and 'fixed action patterns' in such an integrative manner and concludes that everything was perfectly made to synergistically create our predictive brains.

I of the Vortex attempts to synthesize a coherent theory on the origin of consciousness based largely on previous research of the author. It succeeds in presenting this theory from a variety of different angles and builds it up from the basics of neuroscience in a way accessible to those with only a general scientific background.

Llinas' theory of consciousness is derived from the evolutionary need for simplification of complex systems. Based on the neurological wiring of an organism, and indeed the human body, there are an unbelievable amount of actions any such creature could take at a given moment based on its surrounding environment. To simplify decision making, Llinas posits that the brain uses consciousness as the tool for prediction, modulating both learned and hard wired behaviors known as fixed action patterns. This consciousness feature stems from an acute awareness of the self as it relates to its environment and this is driven neurologically by the formation of thalamocortical resonance, which the author later goes on to describe in detail.

Overall, the work was worth the read. Its ramifications on why we think the way we do pull a great deal from our evolutionary history, and it makes one realize just how much we share in common with the neurology of other species (though evolutionary refinement has gifted humanity with more complex wiring capable of speech, among other things). At the same time, the writing style is very technical through the whole of the book. While this is to be expected, and Llinas does try to bring in stories and anecdotal accounts to attempt to make some of the technical passages more accessible, the style choice prescribes one to take it slow, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Breakdown of some of the major sections of the work:

Setting Mind to Mind
Two different views of how the brain works in regards to sensory information from its surrounding environment. The first, proposed by William James in 1890, says that outside information from the senses serves to itself induce actions in the organism. Llinas explains that "from this perspective, the brain is essentially a complex input/output system". Therefore, movement and action decisions do not exist outside of the context of an external cue. The opposing hypothesis, originating from Graham Brown in 1911, was that these neural systems were self-dependent and could operate outside of environmental influences. Llinas believes that the latter hypothesis is more on cue to how the brain operates, and builds off of this by introducing the internal image of the self and its use in relating to the outside world.

Lessons from the Evolution of the Eye
This chapter is somewhat like an introduction to evolution and how it can make significant changes to the development of organs, using the example of the development of the eye from a patch of light sensitive cells to the complex sensory machine it is today. Here, Llinas is basically explaining that evolution has no real end goal, constantly existing in a changing state. The human eye is simply one milestone in this long process, comparing its evolution to making a marble - gradual changes in the "tumbling" process create something near perfection. Overall, you may or may not find this chapter useful depending on how much you know about evolutionary biology as it mainly serves to review the topic.

The I of the Vortex
This chapter in the middle of the book gets to the meat of Llinas' theory. It proposes that the fundamental unit of conscious thought and the internal image of the self lies in the thalamocortical loop. Oscillation at 40 Hz of thalamic neurons exists in resonance with neurons of various parts of the cortex as determined by experiments involving stimulation of cortical and thalamic regions of guinea pigs (Llinas' own work). This 40 Hz oscillation is known as the gamma wave, and is seen coherently across much of the brain during wakefulness and REM sleep. Llinas shows that this cortical loop exists independently of outside sensory information, as during REM sleep, auditory stimulation has seemingly no effect on the gamma wave patterns, contrary to how sound changes this electrical activity while awake. My one complaint about this section is the lack of detail on just how sensory input is integrated into this system. Since sensory information serves to modulate the underlying thought processes of the brain as mentioned by the author, it seems like explaining how the specific nuclei of the thalamus could integrate these inputs into the already existing approximation external reality would have been helpful.

Fixed Action Patterns
FAPs are discrete sets of motor activity that group contractions of multiple muscle groups into a single coherent action. Llinas explains that these sets of "stereotypical" actions are essential to efficient movement. FAPs originate in the basal ganglia. The song of a robin is an example of a fixed action pattern that is embedded genetically. All FAPs are modifiable, the songs being no exception. I thought it was quite interesting that female robins, while not normally capable of song (normally being the ones sung to), can spontaneously sing if supplemented with the male hormone testosterone. This occurs even to birds raised in a lab that have never heard a male's song before, suggesting that this fixed action pattern is indeed a hardwired, genetic behavior and that there are some FAPs in our own brains that may be left over and sitting around unused.

Emotions as FAPs
Discusses the hypothalamus and amygdala, and how these regions of the brain contribute to emotional involvement in fixed action patterns. Llinas explains that FAPs emitted by the basal ganglia are normally in a state of inhibition lest they inappropriately fire (as is the case in Tourette's syndrome). Emotions then are the driving force that uninhibit specific FAPs in response to an outside stimulus (e.g. see lion, become afraid, execute running and avoidance FAPs).

The Collective Mind?
"At least in theory, the Web is a nervous system-like structure in that its functioning seems to be solving, to a certain extent, society's binding problem." Llinas looks here at the development of the Internet and its potential to be another form of consciousness. He explains that its communication modality resembles the speed and bidirectionality seen in the brain, but at the same time it currently falls short of being capable of thought. This chapter was an interesting look into how consciousness may not be dependent on biology and can arise from other systems. Llinas seems to conclude that computers would need similar machinery to explore and manipulate the external world among other things in order to be successful thinkers. I think this chapter was an insightful application of his theories to our electronic world, but as the conclusion of the book I felt there was a missed opportunity here to reiterate more of the main tenants of his book and really drive home his ideas.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to someone with a budding interesting in neuroscience. While Llinas' peer-reviewed work is understandably quite technical and difficult to dive straight into, he does a very good job here in the book of introducing and building off of the basics of neuroscience for the reader so those with a more general scientific/biology background shouldn't have too much trouble breaking into the work. I think if you are curious about how consciousness might be derived from the underlying neuronal activity of the brain, and how complex circuits come together to create this image or approximation of the self in the environment, the completeness in its treatment of most all aspects of Llinas' theory makes the book a fantastic place to start.