quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata
That first statement is a recitation from your catechism. It is an assumption that consciousness exists only in the brain, and equating electrical activity with consciousness is provably wrong. There is a great deal of electrical activity in the brain that has no correlate in consciousness. We process an enormous amount of information that never reaches consciousness. Not to put too fine a point on it, people who are unconscious have electrical activity in their brain.

K.
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quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen

quote:

ORIGINAL: NoBimbosAllowed

Uh, no, and I doubt you've actually BEEN here, instead of just taking what you've read/heard about the Black Swan thing secondhand (kind of like people complain that Christian stuff is second-hand and third-hand). Which would allow you the empirical data you'd need to make that statement, like when I speak of things in the USA, I can speak from empirical evidence and sensory experience from HAVING BEEN THERE AND LIVED THERE.

Have YOU, Dom Ken, ever set foot in Australia outside of Sydney or Melbourne for more than a week, yes or no?

because if you HAVE NOT, you lack all the empirical data you ... 'preach' about. You are acting on FAITH of something you heard or read from someone else and other sources.

JUST LIKE A FERVENT CHRISTIAN.

have you lived in Oz, outside of Melbourne or Sydney, for more than 2 weeks, YES OR NO, Dom Ken?

How is this discussion about Oz? You've been attacking science over the supposed big deal that black swans exist.

Actually I've been in Oz twice, both times in the Navy. Once for a weekend in Perth and once for a week at the VLF communications station near Exmouth so only 9 days.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Zonie63

While reading this, I was thinking about different religions and their burial rites, oftentimes viewed as extremely important, as if the soul/consciousness is not just dependent upon the brain, but the entire body. Some religions forbid embalming - or at least anything that might lead to removing of the blood. I remember a guy had his leg amputated, and the leg had to be buried in what would be his future grave, since all of his parts had to go with him.

The heart is also an indispensable component to a person's life, and it seems to be more commonly associated with the human soul and human spirit. I know that when I'm conscious, it at least feels like it encompasses my whole body, not just all locked up inside my brain. If I get nervous or scared, the "butterflies in the stomach," I can actually feel it in that region, not necessarily in my brain.

The article linked by GotSteel was rather interesting, as it suggested that human consciousness is a unified process within the brain, which is connected to the entire nervous system, and being unconscious is when the flow of neurons is limited or interrupted. But at the very least, something has to keep telling the heart to keep beating and the lungs to keep breathing. The body still functions at a minimal level during unconsciousness.

I've heard some people talk about near death experiences, so maybe there's something to it.

This is one of those things where I might say "I want to believe," since I like the idea of going to a place called Heaven when I die. But without any proof, without any firm, conclusive evidence, then I'll expect the end to be the end. I had no consciousness before I was conceived (at least none that I'm aware of), so if I have no consciousness after I die, then that'll be that. I'll admit it is kind of a drag to contemplate, to just be...dead. But at least it would be better than Hell, which is an even bigger drag to contemplate.

I was also thinking of how perceptions of time can also become altered during different states of consciousness, as well as the idea of people on the verge of death having their "life pass before their eyes," where it might seem that they're experiencing events over a long period of time when it's only for a few moments.

Is it possible that our consciousness could still "exist" from our own perceptions, frozen in time? Those who are still alive advance along the continuum of time, so all they see is a dead body, no brain function and no evidence or reason to believe that there's any consciousness whatsoever. That is, if you could look from a dimension above the fourth dimension and see the duration and course of one's life, you would see it as one long line which would always be there along that dimensional continuum. It would always exist, even if it no longer exists from the perceptions of the living, since the living have no choice but to move along that continuum. Of course, this is all late-night speculation, trying to remain conscious when I should be unconscious.

But this is an interesting topic to ponder.

quote:

Kirata
[..] individual consciousness, although normally coincident with the physical body, can nevertheless function independently and separate from it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

quote:

Kirata
[..] individual consciousness, although normally coincident with the physical body, can nevertheless function independently and separate from it.

Those of us who have enjoyed an out-of-body experience (OBE, often called 'soaring') can attest to the validity of this claim.

For those who have experienced an OBE, the experience itself is sufficient verification. Independent verification is another matter. I'm not sure how it might be done, especially to the satisfaction of a materialist skeptic.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

quote:

Kirata
[..] individual consciousness, although normally coincident with the physical body, can nevertheless function independently and separate from it.

Those of us who have enjoyed an out-of-body experience (OBE, often called 'soaring') can attest to the validity of this claim.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Zonie63
I've heard some people talk about near death experiences, so maybe there's something to it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Heavens full of vermin http://www.collarchat.com/m_4550897/mpage_1/key_/tm.htm#4550897
The team believes that this electrical surge may be a mechanism the brain uses to rescue itself from a sharp drop in glucose and oxygen. Though it may not work for animals in cardiac arrest, Borjigin speculates that this mechanism spurs alertness or hyperawareness in less critical situations.

(in reply to Zonie63)

quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
For those who have experienced an OBE, the experience itself is sufficient verification.

quote:

ORIGINAL: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/health/psychology/03shad.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
When otherwise normal people experience bodily delusions, Dr. Blanke said, they are often flummoxed. The felt sensation of the body is so seamless, so familiar, that people do not realize it is a creation of the brain, even when something goes wrong and the brain is perturbed.

Yet the sense of body integrity is rather easily duped, Dr. Blanke said.

And while it may be tempting to invoke the supernatural when this body sense goes awry, he said the true explanation is a very natural one, the brain’s attempt to make sense of conflicting information.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

quote:

ORIGINAL: vincentML

On a rational level I would have to see a convincing explanation for the notion of duality, i.e. that there is a ghost in the machine.

Well I might have a quibble there, Vincent. Our entire scientific enterprise is based on the assumption of a subject-object duality. Otherwise, there would be no basis for calling science "objective".

quote:

ORIGINAL: vincentML

Good question, K. What would it take to convince you to the contrary?

Well I can't say I'm convinced of it in the first place. But I'm sufficiently convinced that individual consciousness, although normally coincident with the physical body, can nevertheless function independently and separate from it.

How long it can do so, and what happens then, is another matter.

K.

quote:

Firstly because correlation does not prove causation. But also because it is equally true that I (my consciousness) can alter the pattern of electrical activity in my brain, and even physically change my brain. I can enrich my brain's connections along any motor pathways I desire, or, for example, between my pre-frontal cortex and other parts of my brain. I can cause parts of my brain to enlarge, my hippocampus for example, or increase the gyrifcation of my neo-cortex. And following the logic exhibited in your post, this "shows" that the brain "arises from" the actions of consciousness.
Except that it doesn't.

quote:

The article linked by GotSteel was rather interesting, as it suggested that human consciousness is a unified process within the brain, which is connected to the entire nervous system, and being unconscious is when the flow of neurons is limited or interrupted. But at the very least, something has to keep telling the heart to keep beating and the lungs to keep breathing. The body still functions at a minimal level during unconsciousness.

quote:

ORIGINAL: NoBimbosAllowed

quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen

quote:

ORIGINAL: NoBimbosAllowed

Uh, no, and I doubt you've actually BEEN here, instead of just taking what you've read/heard about the Black Swan thing secondhand (kind of like people complain that Christian stuff is second-hand and third-hand). Which would allow you the empirical data you'd need to make that statement, like when I speak of things in the USA, I can speak from empirical evidence and sensory experience from HAVING BEEN THERE AND LIVED THERE.

Have YOU, Dom Ken, ever set foot in Australia outside of Sydney or Melbourne for more than a week, yes or no?

because if you HAVE NOT, you lack all the empirical data you ... 'preach' about. You are acting on FAITH of something you heard or read from someone else and other sources.

JUST LIKE A FERVENT CHRISTIAN.

have you lived in Oz, outside of Melbourne or Sydney, for more than 2 weeks, YES OR NO, Dom Ken?

How is this discussion about Oz? You've been attacking science over the supposed big deal that black swans exist.

Actually I've been in Oz twice, both times in the Navy. Once for a weekend in Perth and once for a week at the VLF communications station near Exmouth so only 9 days.

A: If you prefer evolutionary evidence OVER any notion of the world being created in a little over 6000 years, then any scientist who had been granted even a SIDEBAR article in Scientific American or Lancet would scoff at you openly for even typing the phrase "How is this discussion about Oz?" I mean ARE YOU KIDING or just lazy in your replies here? Oz the home of the Parkes Dish that ALLOWED Space Cowboys to make it to the Moon. Oz the place where science INVENTED the use of of cortical steroids which has led to millions of lives saved via inhaled salbutomol and seretide, and you question why Oz is referenced?

Your question "How is this discussion about Oz?" is like someone CLAIMING to be pro-science saying "what do fossil records have to do with people supporting the notion that our direct ancestors climbed from the sea-brine onto the sand?".

Fossil records from AUSTRALIA, buddy. Australia which has been SO MUCH of what people have found, analyzed, and then comprehended, thus SCIENTIFICALLY UNDERSTOOD, leading a better understanding of what makes your chromosomes 'tick'.

i. : Your question is like someone claiming to be a part of the comedy scene and asking "What does Chaplin and Jewish Emmigres have to do with Hollywood Comedies and Sit Coms that are made in California?"

2: Lazy reductionist thinking and commentary is ANTI SCIENCE, DOM. You are behaving like a good religious field-bull, but a BAD scientist, because your behaviour is off-hand, presumptive, and would get you booted OUT of any reputable scientific institution. You are answering this thread in an emotionalist manner, and are also resorting to reductive counterpoint which ignores aspects of the problem and debate. That is what half-assed country clerics do, and what scientists who invent x-ray applications to locate tumours would DERIDE.


A: The first thing anyone claiming to support science must do *first* is ASK, not declare. You get to declare AFTER you ask. You have simply made emotional assumptions and reacted in a manner no different to a sarcastic Parson during the Scopes Monkey trial.

i. : You at no point asked me if I believe in evolution or not, before proclaim (like a new convert to 7th Day Adventism) that I was "attacking science".

a.) If I believe in evolution I cannot be someone who attacks science unless you wish to unscientifically, but most religiously, want to 'shift the goal-posts' and suddenly throw the definitions of 'attack' and 'science'.

b.) You cannot be scientific or support science by declaring I am attacking science without asking questions, such as what I accept and what I believe in, then receiving answers, then analyzing the answers, then coming to a considered (and NON EMOTIONALIST) conclusion, Dom, which is what scientists do.

c.) Scientists never choose to be emotionalists at the expense of observation and analysis. If your posts here are fail to to question, then hypothesize, then experiment, then conclude, they are more social than scientific. If I reject a post that is more social than scientific, I am not being anti-scientific.

If some white boy with dreadlocks is banging the bongos in front of paper-factory,
while he protests against the carbon imprint of that factory,
thinking this makes him 'green',
and then the Dreadlock Duhrwad packs up his bongos into a 1967 VW van which runs entirely on gas and hasn't had a smog-check in 7 years,
while he sits next to his factory-made bong which has a carbon foot-print that would match the footprint of Sasquatch in size,
he ain't no greenie, he ain't no hippie, he's just as much of a contributor to pollution as any individual working at the paper-factory. he is as non-green, as non-environmentally-friendly, as any corporate he sneers at.

Any reductionist response presented without asking any questions beforehand is JUST as unscientific as any person singing in any choir, Dom.

Welcome to the choir, Dom.