Solms’s Affect as the Hidden Spring of Consciousness

Neuroscientist and psychoanalyst Mark Solms applies Friston's free energy principle to the hard problem of consciousness. He identifies the elemental form of consciousness as affect and locates its physiological mechanism (an extended form of homeostasis) in the upper brainstem. Free energy minimization (in unpredicted contexts) is operationalized “where decreases and increases in expected uncertainty are felt as pleasure and unpleasure, respectively.” He offers reasons “why such existential imperatives feel like something to and for an organism” (Solms, 2019).

Dual-Aspect Monism and the Brain–Mind Problem

A physicalist, Solms argues that the brain does not “produce” or “cause” consciousness. “Formulating the relationship between the brain and the mind in causal terms,” he says, “makes the hard problem harder than it needs to be. The brain does not produce consciousness in the sense that the liver produces bile, and physiological processes do not cause—or become or turn into—mental experiences through some curious metaphysical transformation” (Solms, 2019).

Objectivity and subjectivity are observational perspectives, he says, not causes and effects. “Neurophysiological events can no more produce psychological events than lightning can produce thunder. They are dual manifestations of a single underlying process. The cause of both lightning and thunder is electrical discharge, the lawful action of which explains them both. Physiological and psychological phenomena must likewise be reduced to unitary causes, not to one another. This is merely a restatement of a well-known position on the mind–body problem: that of dual-aspect monism” (Solms, 2021b).^[1]

(See “Is consciousness primitive/fundamental?” under “Exploring Consciousness.”)

Affect as Foundational Consciousness

Given the centrality of affect in Solms’ theory of consciousness, he must argue that emotion is the most efficient mechanism, perhaps the only effective mechanism, to optimize survival. His reasoning applies the free-energy principle in neurobiology such that feelings would uniquely enable humans to monitor interactions with unpredictable environments and modify their behaviors accordingly.

Solms explains that “complex organisms have multiple needs, each of which must be met in its own right, and, indeed, on a context-dependent basis, they cannot be reduced to a common denominator. For example … fear trumps sleepiness in some contexts but not in others.” So, he says, the needs of complex organisms like ourselves must be coded as categorical variables, which are distinguished qualitatively, not quantitatively. Thirst feels different from sleepiness feels different from separation distress feels different from fear, etc., such that their combined optimized resolution must be computed in a context-dependent fashion, which would lead to “excessively complex calculations,” a “combinatorial explosion.”

In terms of time spent and energy expended, the invention of affect, emotion, feeling is a much more efficient algorithm. Moreover, Solms adds, since “the needs of complex organisms which can act differentially, in flexible ways, in variable contexts, are ‘color-coded’ or ‘flavored,’ this provides at least one mechanistic imperative for qualia” (Solms, 2021a, 2021b).

Solms seeks to demystify consciousness by showing that “cortical functioning is accompanied by consciousness if and only if it is ‘enabled’ by the reticular activating system of the upper brainstem. Damage to just two cubic millimeters of this primitive tissue reliably obliterates consciousness as a whole.”

He rejects arguments that the reticular activating system generates only the quantitative “level” of consciousness (consciousness in a waking/comatose sense) and not its qualitative “contents” (consciousness as experience). This is affect, Solms says, and it is supported by “overwhelming” evidence. Therefore, since cortical consciousness is contingent upon brainstem consciousness, and since brainstem consciousness is affective, Solms concludes that “affect is the foundational form of consciousness. Sentient subjectivity (in its elementary form) is literally constituted by affect” (Solms, 2021a).^[2]

Implications for Consciousness and AI

Solms distinguishes between information processing models in cognitive science, which seem to lack question-askers, and self-organizing systems, which are obliged to ask questions—“their very survival depends upon it. They must chronically ask: ‘What will happen to my free energy if I do that?’ The answers they receive determine their confidence in the current prediction.” This is why Solms states “not all information processing (‘integrated’ or otherwise) is conscious; sentience appears to be a property of only some information processing systems with very specific properties, namely those systems that must ask questions of their surrounding world in relation to their existential needs” (Solms, 2021a)

In summary, Solms claims that the functional mechanism of consciousness can be reduced to physical laws, such as Friston's free-energy law, among others. These laws, he says, “are no less capable of explaining how and why proactively resisting entropy (i.e., avoiding oblivion) feels like something to the organism, for the organism, than other scientific laws are capable of explaining other natural things. Consciousness is part of nature, and is mathematically tractable.”

As a corollary, with respect to Crick's research program on the neural correlates of consciousness, Solms declares that there can be no objects of consciousness (e.g. visual ones) in the absence of a subject of consciousness. To Solms, the subject of consciousness is literally constituted by affect (Solms, 2021a).

Regarding AI consciousness, Solms posits that if his theory is correct, “then, in principle, an artificially conscious self-organizing system can be engineered.” The creation of an artificial consciousness would be, he says, “the ultimate test of any claim to have solved the hard problem.” But, he warns, “we must proceed with extreme caution.”

Footnotes

[1]. Although Solms refers to “dual-aspect monism,” his ideas relate more to the elemental properties of bodies, namely an insulating membrane (the ectoderm of complex organisms, from which the neural plate derives) and adaptive behavior, rather than a theory of fundamental ontology. Hence, the inclusion here under Materialism Theories, Homeostatic and Affective, not under Monisms.

[2]. Referencing Zeman, A. (2001). Consciousness, Brain, 124 (Solms, 2021a).