Is the brain necessary for consciousness?

Discussion in 'Parapsychology' started by Magical Realist, Jan 27, 2014.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. river

    Messages:
    17,307
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    The Universe is "universing"........

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Might that be a form of life? Other than the violent and chaotic production of the necessary chemistry and biochemistry, it seems evolve in a fairly orderly manner.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. river

    Messages:
    17,307
    It might be . Or the inside of the brain of a being , some call this being god .
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    Well, I believe the term God identifies a willful being and I don't believe the universe is willful,

    But when I think of chaos theory; "a butterfly flaps his wings in China and eventually causes a storm in Texas, US" by sheer mathematical functions, I begin to wonder, at what stage does "life" begin.

    Or a star blows up and 10 billion years later a butterfly hatches from a cocoon that used to be a caterpillar. One organism morphing into a completely different organism, using the atomic waste from a supernova.

    How Does a Caterpillar Turn into a Butterfly?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caterpillar-butterfly-metamorphosis-explainer/

    What exactly is the meaning of "anime" (other than cartoons) ?
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2021
  8. river

    Messages:
    17,307
    Highlighted

    You have to figure that out for yourself . And why it matters , here .
     
  9. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    Well, it doesn't mean "elan vital" or "'Joie de vivre"
     
  10. river

    Messages:
    17,307
    In English Write4U . Please .
     
  11. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    Why don't you tell me what you think it means. In English.
     
  12. river

    Messages:
    17,307
    No idea . Seriously no idea .
     
  13. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    But you do know what it is not?
     
  14. river

    Messages:
    17,307
    Obviously not . Logically . Post#227
     
  15. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    Elan vital

    Definition of élan vital;
    Joie de vivre

    Definition of joie de vivre

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    Eduard von Grützner's depiction of Falstaff, a literary character well known for his joie de vivre

     
  16. river

    Messages:
    17,307
    A joy in anything that one might do . Careful .
     
  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    The expression is also used as a kind of self-generating process of finding comfort in balance or symmetry.
     
    river likes this.
  18. river

    Messages:
    17,307
    Joy

    Being in a good place . Physically , mentally , and spiritually . All three or getting there . And with good people , sometimes .
     
    Write4U likes this.
  19. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    This is an in-depth examination of how consciousness actually takes place.

     
  20. TheVat Registered Member

    Messages:
    77
    Erm, answering the OP: consider the line of evidence of patients with dementia. As neural tissues and synaptic connections are destroyed, and functional brain mass decreases, the patients consistently show a loss of cognitive ability and awareness. In the terminal phase, every indication is that mind and consciousness have eroded until there is "nobody home." The patient falls into a vegetative state, and lingers until basic brain stem functions fail and death results. Another line of evidence is victims of massive stroke or head trauma.

    Weighing this against the minuscule sliver of poorly documented anecdote in the OP, it seems fair to say the evidence strongly points to two possibilities.

    1. The brain is the location of consciousness, and its processes are the objective physical ones that generate consciousness and our interior sense of a self. When it dies, so does consciousness.

    or

    2. The brain is some form of transducer which allows some universal property of consciousness to be accessed by a biological body and identified with it. When the brain dies, so does the linkage, and so the body loses consciousness as a radio loses its signal. This view was first presented to me, decades ago, as the "radio theory" of mind, at that time associated with famed neurologists John Eccles and Wilder Penfield.
     
    Pinball1970 likes this.
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    Considering that #2 assumes a universal conscious field from which individuals gather different "relative" information seems needlessly complicated.

    To me, #1 sounds the most plausible and well within the potential of evolutionary processes.
    An individual internal field generated by the brain itself seems a much simpler explanation and would account for the differences in individual perception and interpretation, especially if we include the range of consciousness in other organisms in the equation.

    It is known that any sharing and experiencing the same emotions from observing an external object or event is a result of "empathy", that is produced by "mirror neurons" in the brain.
    example: watching someone hit their thumb with a hammer, may cause the same cognitive responses in the observer as in the person hurting himself.
    Why do we wince while observing another experience pain? This seems to be totally removed from any universal involvement.

    I ran across this article that lists the known abilities of the human brain and it is impressive.

    Human Brain Facts:
    Human Brain Facts:
    https://www.winstonmedical.org/human-brain-facts/#

    I showed this before but I think this comparison has merit.

    This is how I imagine "consciousness" emerging from EM fields generated by data transmission.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    This happen back in 2004, but it’s still very interesting – thousands of fluorescent lights from the emissions of the cables above–

    This is a quote, but I could not have said it better.
    This seems very much related to what goes on inside the brain and the microtubule network.
    The processing and transmission of sensory data by the neural network generates a field which in turn generates biochemical data that is compared to prior stored data in memory provided by microtubules in Pyramidal cells (neurons).
     
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2023
  22. Write4U Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,069
    As I understand it, here is where consciousness emerges

    Pyramidal Cell
    From: The Brain, 2010

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    4.13.1.3 What Is a Pyramidal Cell?

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/veterinary-science-and-veterinary-medicine/pyramidal-cell
     
  23. Pinball1970 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,001
    yes, the consciousness failing after a brain injury is not more mysterious than not being able to walk after a leg injury.
    The brain can deteriorate in many different ways leading to all sorts of weird effects. Nick Lane gives a nice summary of some of these diseases in his book "Life Ascending" Chapter ten, I recommend it, especially if you have an interest in abiogenesis.

    I would also check out "split brain" via corpus callosotomy, some very strange effects there that dispense with the idea consciousness is somehow separate and ethereal not needing a brain.
     
    TheVat likes this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page