The Brain as a Conscious System∗

A mathematically specified model of the brain/mind working by the physically realisable processes of quantum holography is proposed, in which mental events autonomously cause neural events. These are made manifest by adaptive resonance so as to elicit the stream of consciousness of which we are all aware. This takes place against a background of unconscious activity, for example the taxonomization and storage of sensory experience and mental activity in the form of a distributed, paged, holographic memory. The very considerable benefits of this form of memory and the associated image and signal processing by adaptive filtering are explained. It is shown that such a model exhibits many of the basic features of the actual morphology and dynamics of human brains including the possibility of language and logic as enhancements to the primary capabilities of perception and cognition. It confirms the nature of our personal experience as having a conscious mental self or ghost in the machine, in accordance with the traditional dualist-metaphysics of a physical brain and a separate mind which interact.