Size and Consciousness

Are flies conscious? Are neurons conscious? How many neurons make up a thought?

Are animals conscious? Descartes thought not, consigning them to mere mechanism. But obviously, he was wrong, as the evidence of feeling and consciousness is all around, in the animals we can see frantically trying to get into our bird feeders, chasing each other around for play and sex, and raising their young with exquisite care. If they are mere mechanism, then so are we. Now, we consign only plants and invisible microbes to the zone of no-consciousness, though we could be mistaken there as well. Consciousness seems to be defined by some mental and emotional engagement with the world that is responsive, built around modeling of how things are and are wished to be, networked in a way that puts the emotions and the models in close relation with each other. Bacteria have desires too, but they do not have the apparatus of feeling about them and planning around them that would suggest that they are conscious.

Flies, however, are a different story. They hunt for food, victims, mates, avoid pain and escape danger, and in most cases have visual, tactile, and olfactory worlds of substantial complexity. Flies have become leading model systems for neurobiology, even up to studies of consciousness. A recent paper asked whether one of the leading theories of consciousness, integrated information theory, could be applied to flies. This theory posits that consciousness is not a single thing or location of mental processing, but the network flexibly binding together many mental modes such as feelings, sensations, memory, planning, and analysis to form that shifting, yet durable, sense of a self at the center of our being. Specifically, it posits that reductions of consciousness, such as induced by anaethesia or sleep, can be analytically, even quantitatively, characterized by reductions of network size that should be commensurate with the reduction of subjective consciousness. This idea has started to inform the quite practical problem of evaluating levels of anaesthesia in humans, as well as rare neurological conditions such as "locked-in" states, using scanning technologies and network analyses of remaining brain function.

The default hypothesis, of low complexity and no consciousness for a fly brain, would postulate a fully one-directional processing system, going from visual inputs to action outputs, with little networking or complexity in between. The rapid, and often stereotypical, reflexes of flies might support this kind of view. But we now know, after decades of trying to make video cameras smarter, that that is no way to build a visual system, let alone a generally intelligent brain. These researchers obviously find something quite different- complex feedback and integrated information systems, detectable with their electrodes which are mercilessly plugged into their subject's tiny brains.

"In stark contrast to a view which assumes feedforward architecture for insect brains, especially fly visual systems, we found rich information structures, which cannot arise from purely feedforward systems, occurred across the fly brain. Further, these information structures collapsed uniformly across the brain during anesthesia. Our results speak to the potential utility of the novel concept of an “informational structure” as a measure for level of consciousness."

Collapse of larger information structures on anaesthesia, in flies.

Flies have about 100,000 neurons, a far cry from the ~100 billion neurons we have. But as recent work has claimed, it only takes about 14 neurons to constitute a distinct thought or response, so flies have plenty of brains for thought, and quite possibly consciousness. The current workers do not, in the end, pronouce on the capability of flies to have consciousness, or have it in a way that resembles ours. But in addition to finding clear markers of integrated information networks that decline on anaesthesia, they cite past literature that shows that flies share molecular, cellular, and structural themes with mammalian brains, and show attention, memory, feature integration, and long term planning. So I think it is fair to assume that they are a good model for some modest level of consciousness, and perhaps we should regard them as more than nuisances.

• We all need to get on board, on climate change, and other biosphere issues.
• The evangelical toxic stew, etc.
• Liberals hate god.
• Thoughts on the Wuhan lab.
• Fossil companies will stop at nothing. Or do anything.
• Some Texas payback.

Worker Exploitation at the Krusty Krab

What does SpongeBob have to tell us about capitalism?

Capitalism is a total cultural system, not just an economic mode or principle. It encompasses class relations, media and consumer culture, and views on the importance of most aspects of life. That includes movies made for children, who are taught how to take their places, and stay in them, in this reigning system.  While SpongeBob SquarePants may have started out as a marine organism, he was animated into a loving friend and happy worker, getting into various scrapes and adventures with his octopus, starfish, and squirrel friends. Positivity is the main theme, since SpongeBob bounces back from every reverse and challenge with renewed enthusiasm, everything works out, and all adventures end happily.

The boss is Mr. Krabs. SpongeBob is the short-order cook, creating the Krabby Patties that draw the entire population of Bikini Bottom to their restaurant, the Krusty Krab. Especially, the patrons are drawn away from the other establishment, Sheldon Plankton's Chum Bucket. We may note at the outset that only one regular character in the series is accorded an honorary title- Mr. Krabs. Like Mr. Potter and other bosses of film lore, the boss position is not just an economic function, but a social pedestal. SpongeBob is the epitome of an exploited worker, happily filling orders, then scrubbing the whole kitchen down at the end of the day, while oblivious to his true value to the establishment. Is he paid fairly? Of course not. He is barely paid at all, and children are taught the lesson of complete abandonment of any hint of whining, disgruntlement, or entitlement to fair treatment in this workplace.

Archetypal capitalist, Mr. Krabs.

This pattern is, incidentally, painfully evident this weekend, as the NCAA tournament exhibits a billion dollar entertainment and gambling enterprise built on the unpaid labor of enthusiastic young athletes trapped in an exploitative system. Only when they join unions in the pro leagues will a few of them be paid fairly. Exploiting youth is still remarkably common, from the fast food industry to the research establishment.

In the current movie, SpongeBob does take some time off, for the important matter of tracking down his pet snail. The Krusty Krab promptly goes down the drain, and Mr. Krabs even goes so far as to join the crew in tracking down SpongeBob and friends to haul them back to Bikini Bottom. He even evinces some feelings. But any recognition of the business value, and monetary value of SpongeBob, in any way that leads to better pay, conditions, or partnership? Not on your life. Not in this ecosystem.

• Review of bad boss behavior.
• US policy in Afghanistan peddles fantasies.
• Happy Easter! 
• And more guns!
• Religion was the basic problem, not sex or race.

Transmission of SARS-CoV2

Reflections on viral spread.

This is a brief update based on studies of SARS-CoV2 transmission over the course of the pandemic. They mostly nail down features that we already know, and offer a comparison with influenza, which has interesting differences in its transmission. One observation is that influenza has been eradicated to an astonishing degree by our efforts to prevent SARS-CoV2 transmission, a testament not only to the lower transmissibility of influenza, but also to the regular round of death and illness that we have been putting up with for millennia without much complaint.

After all the hand-wringing about hand-washing, we gradually learned that this new virus is almost exclusively passed by aerosols through the air, with limited range in space and time. Also that, despite the infinitesimal size of the virus, that face masks of many kinds are effective in knocking down both emission and reception of viral innocula by several-fold. This is doubtless because both the viruses with their lipid coats, and the moist aerosols they reside in, are quite sticky, prone to capture by even rough cloth filters with channels many times the size of a viral particle. The notorious superspreader events are characterized by 

• indoors, close physical proximity to others
• limited air circulation
• an infected person, typically asymptomatic, engaging in
• vocal activity, like singing or loud talking
• with no mask

Scale drawing of surgical mask fibers, against viral and aerosol particle sizes.

Meditation is not conducive to transmission, nor do most infected people transmit their infection. Superspreaders seem to have a very high viral load in key areas of their vocal or respiratory tracts that leads to abundant aerosol emissions with high viral counts. For recipients, it takes numerous viruses to establish an infection- something like 300 for influenza, and something similar for SARS-CoV2. This is a live virus count, not counting inactive viruses, which are always part of the produced and transmitted population of particles. The reason is probably due to our various innate clearance mechanisms, both physical and molecular, meaning that only one virus may get through to successfully infect someone, out of a population of thousands that that person breathed in. 

SARS-CoV2 transmission vs influenza. SARS-CoV2 seems to survive longer in air, leading to more infections in enclosed spaces. Being outdoors subjects the aerosols to getting blown away, and to purifying UV light. This graph does not show it, but SARS-CoV2 also differs in having high viral loads prior to symptom onset, or sometimes without any symptoms, making isolation and contact tracing very difficult.

Additionally, infection by one or few viruses may present a speed problem, where they can not grow an infection fast enough relative to the ability of the immune system to respond and put out small fires. Only if the inoculum immediately generates a large conflagration (think Molotov cocktail) is the fire department overwhelmed, at least for a few days. This leads in turn to the fascinating prospect of mass inoculation with small doses of the virus. Understandably, this is not a popular idea, with its similarity to playing roulette. It resembles the old-fashioned method of small pox inoculation, which used to be done with small doses of actual small pox, not cow pox as was later introduced by Jenner. 

But it may be a significant explanation behind the enormous conundrum of the low impact of Covid-19 on tropical and low-income countries. These countries (India, Central America, Nigeria) show quite high seropositive rates, indicating wide-spread infection. But their death rates and hospitalization rates are very low, and they have escaped this pandemic with relative ease. While reporting issues and pre-existing immune exposure are possible explanations, so is a possible warmer outdoor culture with lower innocula and lower-severity infections. An interesting aspect of inoculum size is that it can have far-reaching consequences, with lower-level infections leading to smaller viral counts in the aerosols emitted, thereby causing smaller, less-severe infections in the next recipients.

The study of viral transmission and infectivity could have profound effects on how we deal with this and similar diseases, and one has to say that it has been frustrating that our knowledge of it remains haphazard, and has been so slow in coming, with such mediocre experiments, false starts and poor messaging.

• Restaurants? Don't do it.
• Reclining on an airplane? Don't bet on it.
• Future nuclear power.

Prospects for Hydrogen

What are the prospects for hydrogen as part of a sustainable, green economy?

Hydrogen is perennially spoken of as a fuel of the future- clean, renewable, light. It is particularly appealing in an environment (like that of California) where solar energy is having a huge impact on the grid and causing rising portions of solar production to be "curtailed". That is, turned off. But even in California, solar power has hardly scratched the surface. Only few roofs have solar and the potential for more power production is prodigious. Over time, as more renewable sources of energy come on line, the availability of excess power at peak times will rise dramatically, prompting a huge need for storage, or other ancillary uses for excess power. Many storage schemes exist or are under development, from traditional water pumping to batteries, flywheels, gravitational weights, etc. Hydrogen is one of them, spoken of as a versatile storage and fuel medium, which can be burned, or even more efficiently put through fuel cells, to return electrical power.

A typical day on California's electrical grid. The top teal line is total demand, and the purple zone is power not supplied by renewables like wind, hydropower, and solar. During the mid-day, most power now comes from solar, an amazing accomplishment. Roughly 2 GW are even turned off at the highest peak time, due to oversupply, either locally or regionally. How could that energy be put to use?

Unfortunately, as a fuel, hydrogen leaves much to be desired. We have flirted with hydrogen-powered cars over the last couple of decades, and they have been a disaster. Hydrogen is such an awkward fuel to store that battery-powered electric vehicles have completely taken over the green vehicle market, despite their slowness in refueling. The difficulties begin with hydrogen's ultra-low density. The Sun has the gravitational wherewithal to compress hydrogen to useful proportions, at the equivalent of 100,000 earth atmospheres and up. But we on Earth do not, and struggle with getting hydrogen in small enough packages to be useful for applications such as transport. The prospect of Hinden-cars is also unappealing. Lastly, hydrogen is corrosive, working its way into metals and weakening them. Transforming our natural gas system to use green hydrogen would require replacing it, essentially.

The awkwardness, yet usefulness, of (reduced) hydrogen as an energy currency in an oxygenated atmosphere is incidentally what led life during its early evolution to devise more compact storage forms, i.e. hydro-carbons like fats, starches and sugars. And these are what we dug up again from the earth to fuel our industrial, technological, and population revolutions.

But how useful is hydrogen for strictly in-place storage applications, like load balancing and temporary grid storage? Unfortunately, the news there is not good either. Physical storage remains an enormous problem, so unless you have a handy sealed underground cavern, storage at large scales is impractical. Second, the round-trip efficiency of making hydrogen from water by electrolysis and then getting electricity back by fuel cell (both rather expensive technologies) is roughly 35 to 40%. This compares unfavorably to the ~95% efficiency of electrical batteries like Li ion, and the 80% efficiency of pumped water/gravity systems. Hydrogen here is simply not a leading option.

Does that mean we are out of luck? Not quite. It turns out that there already is a hydrogen economy, as feedstock for key chemical processes, especially ammonia and fertilizer production, and fossil fuel cracking, among much else. Global demand is 80 million tons per year, which in electrical terms is 3-4 tera watt hours. That is a lot of energy, on the order of total demand on the US electric grid, and could easily keep excess power generator's hands full for the foreseeable future. Virtually all current hydrogen is made from natural gas or coal, so the green implications of reforming this sector are obvious. It already has storage and pipeline systems in place, though not necessarily at locations where green energy is available. So that seems to be the true future of hydrogen, not as a practical fuel for the economy in general, but as a central green commodity for a more sustainable chemical industry.

• Unions
• Afghanistan, inexorably going back to the Taliban.