The Brain Does NOT Create Consciousness

[Constance]

It is my own statement. What I am referring to is an attraction process much like would be the case with particle charge interactions. This has NOTHING, and I thoroughly and completely repeat, NOTHING, to do with "the law of attraction" which is total BS. This process or system are in no way definitively understood at this time. The parapsychological aspect of the consideration is a great model primer. It serves to render intuition and foresight as being the cognitive part of us that anticipates consciousness and orientates consciousness experience temporally. This is a fun article by whom I feel to be a rather balanced individual in this area of interest we call the paranormal. It will introduce you to several VERY key theoretical ideas and studies. It is only meant as a surface scratcher. Consciousness and the Zero Point Field: Are Akashic Records Real? | PARANORMAL PEOPLE

http://www.paranormalpeopleonline.com/to-be-or-not-to-be-the-question-may-be-irrelevant/

Thanks for the citation; I will read it.

 

[nameless]

A very interesting post, nameless. Re the underscored portion, I gather you mean intentional interference with/manipulation of our species by some outside agency (outside nature as we have evolved in it) that seeks for some reason to confuse our normal perceptions through illusions broadcast to our brains (as receptors of information). Is that an accurate summary?

..not quite sure Constance , just thinking this out...

an outside agency could be ourselves, like cults around sacred drugs or it could be

 

[Jeff Davis]

Thanks for the citation; I will read it.

It's not a speeding ticket. Enjoy.

 

[Randall]

... The marvel is that it usually does 'come back the same', as in recovery from anesthesia and coma and 'brain death' in some medical crises ...

Actually the claim that the brain can come back after brain death is mostly urban myth. In every case where someone has made that claim that I've looked at, the pronouncement of death was made on what was called "clinical death" or assumed brain death, not certified brain death, and what's more, I just watched an investigative news story on how the various medical districts in different parts of the country and the world can vary significantly in their definition of death. Plus it wasn't long ago that I heard on the news about yet another patient being mistakenly pronounced dead when they weren't and who woke up in a morgue.

On top of this, the tests for certified brain death are fairly elaborate. My brother suffered brain damage in a car accident, and hung on for several days but ultimately succumbed to his injuries. However I wouldn't let them pronounce him dead until I was absolutely certain that there was no brain activity. They were not happy because it was an expensive and unusual procedure where they attached dozens of sensors to his head and did sensory testing. This is rarely done before someone is pronounced dead. Instead it is simply assumed that the brain is dead after so much time following cardiac death.

And on top of that again, today there are even more sensitive tests that have shown that the brain can operate on very low, almost undetectable levels, especially when the body has been subjected to very cold temperatures. It is even used to help preserve brain function in cardiac patients. It is called the "The therapeutic hypothermia protocol".

The ultimate test is to have some interaction with a discarnate consciousness that can be verified as once belonging to some deceased person whose brain is certifiably dead ( e.g. cremated ), and to date there is no such evidence, only presumptions based on experiences. I don't doubt that such experiences take place. I only doubt the conclusions that experiencers leap to when they assume a discarnate consciousness is responsible.

 

[Soupie]

Great discussion! I wanted to pass along some concepts/resources that have helped me tremendously when thinking about this topic. (These concepts/resources were shared by @smcder in another topic here at the paracast. I can't thank him enough! However, that's not to say that he agrees with anything I'm about to write below, haha.)

There are two common approaches to the nature of reality: physical monism and physical/mental dualism. However, when it comes to describing consciousness, issues arise with both of these views.

The issue with physical monism - the idea that reality is composed of one primal physical substance - is that upon truly deep reflection/investigation, the mind (thoughts, emotions, experiences, etc.) does not appear to be made of physical substance. The mind may correlate with physical processes involving the manipulation of physical information, but does not appear to be one and the same. That is to say, the physical process of a brain and a stream of particles exchanging information correlates with, but is not the same as, experiencing the color red.

Many smart people reject the idea that this is an issue; they might say that the physical processing of the particles by the brain is also the physical experience of red by the brain. However, there is no objective, scientific way to observe experience. We can observe via an MRI areas of an individual's brain lighting up while they are experiencing, and we can record their descriptions of what they are experiencing, but we cannot objectively observe their experiences. Thus, experience/mind does not appear itself to be physical, though it is closely correlated with the physical exchange of information.

The issue with physical/mental dualism - the idea that reality is composed of two primal substances that cannot reduce into one another - is one of interaction. If the universe is composed of two entirely separate substances, how do these substances interact?

A common argument is that the physical brain has a spiritual mind/soul beamed into it from a non-local locale. If this beamed mind/soul is indeed non-physical, how might it interface with and control the physical body?

A competing idea is Reflexive Monism and/or Property Dualism. While these concepts may not be perfectly identical, I believe that overlap in many ways.

The idea seems to be that reality (what-is) is composed of one primal, irreducible substance of which everything else is composed (differentiated).

But, every unit of this substance has both a physical and a mental property. (Keep in mind that "unit" is non-specific; we don't know the form of this primal substance: it might be a field, a vibration, a particle, a string, a charge, a spin, etc.)

When units of this primal substance differentiate, various physical and mental phenomena occur such as physical bursts of light and mental streams of consciousness.

When the primal substance differentiates into systems such as brains, physical information is exchanged between the brain and the environment. This differentiated exchange of information results in an accumulated, differentiated stream of the mental property.This stream of mental is experience/mind. So while the exchange of physical information gives rise to this stream of mental, it is not actually the stream of mental (commonly called a stream of consciousness).

This concept is a panpsychist one, in that mental is a fundamental aspect of reality. Mental is present at even the most primal level of reality. However, the mental is not to be confused with mind/experience or self-aware consciousness.

The stream of mind/experience results from the exchange of information between complex, differentiated physical systems. Self-aware streams of mind/experience result from the exchange of information between uber complex physical systems such as the human brain.

So a non-self-aware creature such as a mouse will have a stream of mind/experience just as human has a stream of mind/experience, but a human will have a stream of mind that is aware of itself.

 

[Randall]

Great discussion! I wanted to pass along some concepts/resources that have helped me tremendously when thinking about this topic. (These concepts/resources were shared by @smcder in another topic here at the paracast. I can't thank him enough! However, that's not to say that he agrees with anything I'm about to write below, haha.).

Excellent post Soupie, and I share your sentiments when it comes to @smcder. We had also been discussing this on a thread called Philosophy Science & the Unexplained prior to it being derailed onto the "other" thread you mention ( where I refuse to participate ). To pick-up the trail prior to that, see this post: https://www.theparacast.com/forum/threads/philosophy-science-and-the-unexplained.14196/page-30#post-175977 I'm not an adherent of panpsychism, it's too close to the concept of subjective idealism, which is obviously faulty.