Consciousness

[yepimonfire]

Something that has always intrigued me. Is it possible for consciousness to be separate from the brain or exist outside of it? I find it so fascinating that we actually recognize our existence and can truly have a real experience of it. i understand the brain has parts that have to do with forming a conscious experience, but regardless, sit back, and think about it for a second......my mind=blown

i'm not necessarily suggesting the existence of the soul, or an existence of any ghostly illogical entity, but perhaps something more is going on that we don't see, or yet know.

discuss.


(sorry if this is in the wrong section, couldn't figure out where else to place it)

[AnefIsEnuf]

For me, personally, no I don't believe that there is anything more than the brain. Though, for that sense of being, that awareness, I prefer to refer to it as the "mind." Same thing, ultimately.

[Ali]

Yes, I agree with AisE.  I think that all of the functions of the brain make up what we call the mind.  The mind is incredibly complicated and fascinating, but at the end of the day, it's all just synapses firing and hormones releasing and being taken back up.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

On Project Reason (part of the Sam Harris website) we debated whether or not consciousness could be considered a priori: that is, whether it was part of the fabric of the universe, like space-time.  One of the tenured posters, a physicist/mathematician from British Columbia, argued that consciousness was, in fact, a fundamental reality of the cosmos, but that organs such as brains were required to allow an entity to achieve self-consciousness.  He arrived at this conclusion through a philosophical exercise that involved honing in on that which had no internal distinctions.  However, he admitted that his hypothesis could not yet be tested or falsified, so that's about as far as the conversation got. 

[Crow]

As Ali pointed out the brain is "incredibly complicated and fascinating" and therefore no less wonderful than the concept of a soul, but possibly better because its something that can be researcher and understood (eventually). I have always enjoyed science fiction that takes the notion of the wetware consciousness and is integrated with hardware of some sort, technology may one day advance so far like the underlying issue of the film Ghost in the Shell that interactions between humans and machines that the definitions blur into one another and the machine and brain are one and the same.

[OldGit]

I'm just reading The Self Illusion by Prof. Bruce Hood on my Kindle.  It covers this question in detail for the layman.  I got it free, now Amazon seems to want £7.99 for it, but this link http://twitter.com/#!/nickycast/statuses/151765666586832896 gets it free.  

You can choose to download it to your computer, but I'm not sure if they'll let you have it if you don't have a registered Kindle.  If they will, there are plenty of free converters to turn the .azw file into a .pdf.  The book is well worth a bit of trouble to get.

Edit:  Damn - DRM, I can't convert it.

[pytheas]

I agree it is fascinating

The self-awareness, phenomenal consciousness, the higher self of yoga and meditation, the observer within .

parts of the brain sychronize their firing rate causing a electromagnetic, self-refering "theatre" of being, in the centre of which conscious egoic talk plays its ever-blabering part.
The parts of the brain are not fixed. If you damage one part, another previously unrelated area assumes position and contributes to the hosting of the consciousness theatre. In lobotomy were communication between the lobes is severed (flying over the cuckoo's nest) in both isolated brain parts consiousness reorganises and arises like 2 individual selfs.

the qualia argument could be strung out to propose a universal constant -outside the body-neurochemical existence to be a necessary part, (a bit like the constant needed for gravity and the union of physical forces to compute reflecting  actual reality) with which neyral activity combines and produces the higher self. One indication of that is the fact that we share the same Higher eyes, at that level we are One and existing in the here and now includes all the consciounesses of the past and of the future. So the universal constant is present in space and we are showered by it like cosmic neutrinos

the -ditch the qualia-argument says it doesnt need the universal constant, the whole argument is crap since it is self-refering and adding independent value in descriptive communication- a bit like a laboratory construct, apparently there but not really in nature. the identical nature of our consciousness boils down to the identical nature of our DNA, or building blocks making us human. different consciouness is chimpanzee or dolphin conscioussness, and hey! they do have a different DNA that makes them separate species

whatever the case, as we participate in life here and now we have access into the spread of timespace and can experience heaven, bliss and the timeless i.e. eternal- together with the usual hell we have to toil in usually

kisses   

 

[znk666]

Brain grants you consciousness,without it you are a mere peace of flesh and bones without the ability of movement,self realization or thinking.

[Guardian85]

Conciousness is for now restricted to the wetware of the brain, but I can't wait for the day we achieve a workable neural interphase for datatransfer. That will be one of the greater scientific leaps in human history.

[pytheas]

Brain grants you consciousness,without it you are a mere peace of flesh and bones without the ability of movement,self realization or thinking.

without brain, for sure

without consciousness, it is incorrect for movement(amoebas and our cellular populations among plenty examples) and of thinking (subconsious automated behavioural loops-everywhere, driving, washing dishes and most tragically during sex- in many around you).

Self realization, well, hear, hear, spot on.

[NatsuTerran]

Every day I spend in my classes (psych major) it becomes more and more impossible to believe consciousness as anything but a bi-product of the brain that is just along for the ride. Look up experiments on severing the corpus callosum. People behave on a set track even if they aren't consciously aware of what they are doing at all. For example, your left hand connects to the right brain, which holds spatial skills mostly. The left brain connects to the right side of the body, and this is what holds language. In people who have had the communications between the two hemispheres severed, there are some interesting results.

Some examples include the person seeing a funny picture only exposed to their right brain, and they smile and react to it as they normally would, but they are 100% consciously unaware of a picture and say they have seen nothing new pop up at all. And when exposed to the left brain they do the same but are actually conscious for it. Another thing is spelling words with blocks. They can be told to spell something using only the right brain and they have no idea what they are doing, but somehow, someway, their left hand still moves the letter blocks into the proper position to form a word. And their consciousness is completely unaware of what's happening. People can completely lose their understanding of how mirrors work, and they can be seen trying to reach into mirrors to grasp objects under these circumstances.

I don't doubt that there are plenty of theists who study psychology and still somehow keep their faith. But to me, the sheer amount of correlation between the physical brain and the mind is so closely knit that there isn't any need for a hypothetical "soul" to explain anything at all. Everything about behavior, personality, and thinking can be more than adequately explained by the biology of brains.

[pytheas]

Everything about behavior, personality, and thinking can be more than adequately explained by the biology of brains.

Explained as such, not yet
Accounted for, certainly

btw, theists are welcome to disagree in this subject, but with no capacity to negate neuroscientific findings that correlate the subjective impression of what soul god and whatever can be falsely classified as supernatural, or paranormal and litterary taken metaphysical i.e after/beyond the physical reality, with just exactly that.
physical reality, in fieldcharge and boson, juice and exothermy

Any informed people like neuroscientists that search and picture the active human brain, even if they belong to what was originally a catholic university in Nijmegen in Holland, can only retreat (retaining some  respect) to an abstract "deist" position, of some fuckin alien that possibly spunked some founding DNA on early earth and that's about it, as far as their involvement goes. Souls and ghosts you can witness if you so fancy, outside the neuroimaging neuroscience centre, and in the adjacent smart cafe with the necessary consumption of appropriate perception-altering products.

[Tank]

Everything about behavior, personality, and thinking can be more than adequately explained by the biology of brains.

Explained as such, not yet
Accounted for, certainly

btw, fuck theists out of this subject, no room for donkeybrains

Any informed people like neuroscientists that search and picture the active human brain, even if they belong to what was originally a catholic university in Nijmegen in Holland, can only retreat (retaining some  respect) to an abstract "deist" position, of some fuckin alien that possibly spunked some founding DNA on early earth and that's about it, as far as their involvement goes. Souls and ghosts you can witness if you so fancy, outside the neuroimaging neuroscience centre, and in the adjacent smart cafe with the appropriate perception-altering products.

pytheas - If theists on this forum wish to post on any subject they are perfectly entitled to do so. Please do not make comments that might make any member feel they cannot get involved in any thread. - Tank

[pytheas]

pytheas -

Sorry, I stand corrected

[Ecurb Noselrub]

btw, theists are welcome to disagree in this subject, but with no capacity to negate neuroscientific findings that correlate the subjective impression of what soul god and whatever can be falsely classified as supernatural, or paranormal and litterary taken metaphysical i.e after/beyond the physical reality, with just exactly that.
physical reality, in fieldcharge and boson, juice and exothermy

Since you do not always write in complete sentences, I'm not always clear on what you are saying. As a theist who does not intend to negate any scientific finding, I'm unclear on how a neuroscientist can negate the existence of God or of what is commonly referred to as "the supernatural."  Or maybe I'm not understanding you.  Certainly a neuroscientist can make determinations about what happens in the brain when a person experiences something.  But beyond that, I'm not sure what can be determined by that particular field.  Perhaps you can enlighten me.