John Hobson

This essay addresses Cartesian duality and how its implicit dialectic might be repaired using physics and information theory. Our agenda is to describe a key distinction in the physical sciences that may provide a foundation for the distinction between mind and matter, and between sentient and intentional systems. From this perspective, it becomes tenable to talk about the physics of sentience and ‘forces’ that underwrite our beliefs (in the sense of probability distributions represented by our internal states), which may ground our mental states and consciousness. We will refer to this view as Markovian monism, which entails two claims: (1) fundamentally, there is only one type of thing and only one type of irreducible property (hence monism). (2) All systems possessing a Markov blanket have properties that are relevant for understanding the mind and consciousness: if such systems have mental properties, then they have them partly by virtue of possessing a Markov blanket (hence Markovian). Markovian monism rests upon the information geometry of random dynamic systems. In brief, the information geometry induced in any system—whose internal states can be distinguished from external states—must acquire a dual aspect. This dual aspect concerns the (intrinsic) information geometry of the probabilistic evolution of internal states and a separate (extrinsic) information geometry of probabilistic beliefs about external states that are parameterised by internal states. We call these intrinsic (i.e., mechanical, or state-based) and extrinsic (i.e., Markovian, or belief-based) information geometries, respectively. Although these mathematical notions may sound complicated, they are fairly straightforward to handle, and may offer a means through which to frame the origins of consciousness.

This paper considers the Cartesian theatre as a metaphor for the virtual reality models that the brain uses to make inferences about the world. This treatment derives from our attempts to understand dreaming and waking consciousness in terms of free energy minimization. The idea here is that the Cartesian theatre is not observed by an internal audience but furnishes a theatre in which fictive narratives and fantasies can be rehearsed and tested against sensory evidence. We suppose the brain is driven by the imperative to infer the causes of its sensory samples; in much the same way as scientists are compelled to test hypotheses about experimental data. This recapitulates Helmholtz's notion of unconscious inference and Gregory's treatment of perception as hypothesis testing. However, we take this further and consider the active sampling of the world as the gathering of confirmatory evidence for hypotheses based on our virtual reality. The ensuing picture of consciousness resolves a number of seemingly hard problems in consciousness research and is internally consistent with current thinking in systems neuroscience and theoretical neurobiology. In this formalism, there is a dualism that distinguishes between the process of inference and the process that entails inference. This separation is reflected by the distinction between beliefs and the physical brain states that encode them. This formal approach allows us to appeal to simple but fundamental theorems in information theory and statistical thermodynamics that dissolve some of the mysterious aspects of consciousness

Dreaming consciousness can be quite different from waking consciousness and this difference must depend upon the underlying neurobiology. Our approach is to infer the underlying brain basis for this difference by studying dream reports and comparing them with waking. In this study we investigated mentation during dreaming by asking subjects to provide us with dream reports and by asking them to create a dream log. In the dream log, the subjects recorded all implausibility, illogicality or inappropriateness of character during the dream narrative when compared to the character’s real-life waking counterpart. Thus, the dream acted as its own control in comparing waking and dreaming mentation

First published in 1931, this _Routledge Revivals_ title reissues J.A Hobson’s analysis of financial distribution in the early years of Twentieth Century Britain. The book focuses on the moral questions that he considered to be important in regard to the economic reforms that were necessary to secure the utilisation of modern productivity for the welfare of mankind. In this work, Hobson considers the wasteful working of the economic system, with its over-production, under-consumption and unemployment and states that these errors are due to the unfair way in which income is apportioned among the nations, classes and individuals that produce it. _Poverty in Plenty_ argues for a conscious economic government inspired by a sense of justice and humanity. It makes suggestions towards the establishment of such a government and presents business prosperity as a problem of morals.

First published in 1930, this book endeavours to trace and express the relations between economic and human values, between wealth and life. Hobson studies everything from the role of production processes and consumption in the determination of human welfare; to the changing attitudes of economic science towards ethical considerations; as well as the tendency of organised society to exercise a control of economic processes in the interests of equity, humanity, and social order. Part I of the book deals with an attempt to provide an intelligible and consistent meaning for human value and welfare. Part II sketches the emergence of an economic science and its formal relations to ethics. Part III discusses the ethical significance of certain basic factors in the modern economic system, especially property and market processes. Part IV is addressed to the notion of industrial peace and progress in the light of modern humanism, with especial regard to the new problems emerging in a world becoming conscious of its widening unity.

Where does consciousness come from and how does it work? Is it a purely biological thing? Where does the brain leave off and the mind begin? These questions, once viewed as ethereal and impossible to study empirically, are now being addressed by science in bold and startling new ways.In Consciousness, world-renowned neuropsychiatrist J. Allan Hobson presents a witty and introspective consideration of this mysterious concept, connecting it to specific areas of the brain and their chemical and physical states. Hobson guides his readers through the various states of waking, dreaming, and nonconsciousness using the theories and data of neuroscience, psychiatry, and neurophysiology. Although his ideas are based in science, his imaginative approach keeps us in touch with the mysterious and seductive nature of his subject.Richly woven, with references to literature, philosophy, and the author's personal experiences, Consciousness is a delightful and compact introduction to a concept central to the human experience.

What is dreaming, and what causes it? Why are dreams so strange, and why are they so hard to remember? Replacing dream mystique with modern dream science, J. Allan Hobson provides a new and increasingly complete picture of how dreaming is created by the brain. Dreaming explores how the new science of dreaming is affecting theories in psychoanalysis, and how it is helping our understanding of the causes of mental illness. Through an investigation of his own dreams to illustrate and explain some of the fascinating discoveries of modern sleep science, Hobson challenges some of the traditionally accepted theories about the meaning of dreams and reveals why sleep is not just good for health but essential for life.

Consciousness undergoes dramatic and stereotyped changes in parallel with changes in brain state over the sleep‐wake cycle. No change is more striking or more informative than that which differentiates waking and REM sleep dreaming. For example, dreaming is characterized by internally generated perceptions, by false beliefs, by cognitive impairments, by emotional intensification, and by amnesia. When they occur in waking, these formal state features characterize what is called mental illness. Because the underlying changes in brain state are well described, it is possible to create a model which links the formal features of the mental state to changes in brain physiology and chemistry. The resulting synthesis of conscious state phenomenology and brain neurophysiology provides a solid foundation for mind‐body integration in both normal and abnormal conditions.

In this paper, a new method of quantitatively assessing continuity and discontinuity of visual attention is developed. The method is based on representing narrative information using graph theory. It is applicable to any type of narrative report. Since dream reports are often described as bizarre, and since bizarreness is partially characterized by discontinuities in plot, we chose to test our method on a set of dream data. Using specific criteria for identifying and arranging objects of visual attention, dream narratives from 10 subjects were obtained and mapped onto graphs. The interrater reliabilities were 76% and 91% . Discontinuities in visual attention were quantified by plotting transitions from one part of a graph to another, which provided a spatiotemporal map of attention shifts within a narrative. This procedure was compared with other approaches to discontinuity and also applied to a set of 10 fantasy reports from the same subjects. The results showed that our method includes but transcends other approaches and has the capability to distinguish dream and fantasy reports. To our knowledge, the method provides the most rigorous and reliable measure to date of continuity and discontinuity of attention in narrative reports

A novel "dream splicing" technique allows the objective evaluation of thematic coherence in dreams. In this study, dream reports were cut into segments and segments randomly recombined to form spliced reports. Judges then attempted to distinguish spliced reports from intact ones. Five judges correctly scored 22 spliced and intact reports 82% of the time ; 13 of the 22 reports were correctly scored by all five judges . We conclude that most dream reports contain sufficient coherence to allow judges to distinguish intact from spliced reports. In contrast, abridged reports, which had all but their first and last five lines removed, were correctly identified in only 10 of 38 reports, suggesting that thematic continuity does not normally extend from the beginning to the end of dreams. The continuity identified in this minority of the reports depended on easily identifiable features, such as specific characters, objects, locations, and emotions, rather than on "latent" themes

The "Nightcap," a relatively nonintrusive and "user-friendly" sleep monitoring system, was used by 11 subjects on 10 consecutive nights in their homes. Eighty-eight sleep mentation reports were obtained after spontaneous awakenings from Nightcap-identified REM sleep and 61 were obtained from NREM awakenings. Sleep mentation was recalled in 83% of REM reports and 54% of NREM reports. The median length of REM reports was 148 words compared to 21 words for NREM reports. Twenty-four percent of the REM reports were over 500 words long; no NREM reports over 500 words were obtained. REM report lengths were lowest during the first 15 min of the REM cycle and longest 15–45 min into the period. In contrast, 7 of the 9 NREM reports more than 100 words long occurred within the first 15 min of NREM periods. The Nightcap thus appears to be an effective and efficient method of collecting large numbers of sleep mentation reports with correlated sleep staging under normal ecological conditions

To extend the hypothesis that bizarre discontinuities in dreams result from the interaction of chaotic, "bottom-up" brainstem activation with "top-down" cortical synthesis, we have performed a detailed analysis of dream discontinuities using a new methodology that allows for objective characterization of this formal dream feature. Transformations of characters and objects in dream reports were found to follow definite associational rules. While there were 11 examples of character–character transformation and 7 of inanimate object–inanimate object transformation, transformations of characters into inanimate objects and vice versa were never observed. Judges′ scores on a transformation-matching task further showed that the nature of the transformed character or object is highly constrained by the features of the initial character or object . We conclude that despite the threat to dream coherence posed by bizarre discontinuities, significant coherence is maintained by associational constraints, especially in the case of object and character transformations

We have conducted a home-based study of children′s dream reports in which parents used open-ended interviewing styles to collect 88 dream reports from their 4- to 10-year-old children in the comfortable and supportive environment of their own homes. Particular attention was paid to formal properties including characters , settings, self-representation, and bizarreness. In contrast to previous studies, our data indicate that young children are able to give long, detailed reports of their dreams that share many formal characteristics with adult dream reports. Because this wide range of dream mentation is only revealed to trusted confidants in a familiar and comfortable environment, an important implication is that the sleep laboratory may not be the best source of naturalistic dream data

We have investigated the emotional profile of dreams and the relationship between dream emotion and cognition using a form that specifically asked subjects to identify emotions within their dreams. Two hundred dream reports were collected from 20 subjects, each of whom produced 10 reports. Compared to previous studies, our method yielded a 10-fold increase in the amount of emotion reported. Anxiety/fear was reported most frequently, followed, in order, by joy/elation, anger, sadness, shame/guilt, and, least frequently, affection/eroticism. Unexpectedly, there was no significant difference in the profiles of emotion reported by men and women. When the reports were scored for bizarreness, a significant correlation was found between the occurrence of bizarreness and major shifts in emotion. These results support the conclusion that dreaming is a mental state whose general emotional features are widely shared across individuals and strongly linked to cognitive features within individual dreams