The brain is everything, literally

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Eduk
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Re: The brain is everything, literally

Post by Eduk »

I am not disputing the claim that the brain is necessary for consciousness. Your claim is that it is also sufficient. It is not sufficient as it has no capacity to create a single self that can see simultaneous events. The brain can create the events but not the self that see’s it. The self because of its ability to see simultaneous events can only be out side the space-time continuum.
Ignorance and magic describe nothing.
Unknown means unknown.
Eduk
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Re: The brain is everything, literally

Post by Eduk »

Does a brain have conscious experiences after death? Don't the physical, material elements of the brain still exist after death? What has been lost or removed, if not the mysterious 'other thing' which you wish to dismiss? What's missing is YOU, or the only bit of you that has any real meaning.
What has been lost is function. Much in the same way if my computer hard drive 'dies' all it's material is still present but it no longer functions. Doesn't it hurt?
Unknown means unknown.
Jklint
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Re: The brain is everything, literally

Post by Jklint »

Fdesilva wrote: January 28th, 2019, 9:03 am
Jklint wrote: January 28th, 2019, 4:45 am

The evidence is that without a brain there can be no conscious experience. If you know of someone who had one without that indispensable utensil, please advise!
I am not disputing the claim that the brain is necessary for consciousness. Your claim is that it is also sufficient. It is not sufficient as it has no capacity to create a single self that can see simultaneous events. The brain can create the events but not the self that see’s it. The self because of its ability to see simultaneous events can only be out side the space-time continuum.
All of this makes absolutely no sense unless you explain clearly and succinctly what you mean by simultaneous events which, btw, still requires the brain as the container of consciousness to register without which nothing can be perceived, simultaneous or sequential. Also, the self is not a single entity. It's a composition of many the truth of which is firmly grounded in both science and experience, not in some useless abstract philosophical concept which tells one nothing and explains nothing.
Jklint
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Re: The brain is everything, literally

Post by Jklint »

chewybrian wrote: January 28th, 2019, 9:19 am
Jklint wrote: January 28th, 2019, 4:45 am The evidence is that without a brain there can be no conscious experience. If you know of someone who had one without that indispendable utensil, please advise!
Does a brain have conscious experiences after death? Don't the physical, material elements of the brain still exist after death? What has been lost or removed, if not the mysterious 'other thing' which you wish to dismiss? What's missing is YOU, or the only bit of you that has any real meaning.
To a brain that's dead it's not only YOU that's missing but ALL of existence as if it never happened in the first place.
Fdesilva
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Re: The brain is everything, literally

Post by Fdesilva »

Jklint wrote: January 28th, 2019, 5:06 pm
Fdesilva wrote: January 28th, 2019, 9:03 am

I am not disputing the claim that the brain is necessary for consciousness. Your claim is that it is also sufficient. It is not sufficient as it has no capacity to create a single self that can see simultaneous events. The brain can create the events but not the self that see’s it. The self because of its ability to see simultaneous events can only be out side the space-time continuum.
All of this makes absolutely no sense unless you explain clearly and succinctly what you mean by simultaneous events which, btw, still requires the brain as the container of consciousness to register without which nothing can be perceived, simultaneous or sequential. Also, the self is not a single entity. It's a composition of many the truth of which is firmly grounded in both science and experience, not in some useless abstract philosophical concept which tells one nothing and explains nothing.
Consider the experience of looking at anything at all.
1. Do you agree that what you see consist of a set of simultaneous events consecutively in time.
2. The self having perceiving is a single thing?
If that is your experience then the self cannot be a physical thing. If you experience of vision is different to the above then please describe it. You need to first describe what the experience of perception is like, before you can evaluate if the physical events in the brain is alone sufficient to produce it.
Jklint
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Re: The brain is everything, literally

Post by Jklint »

Fdesilva wrote: January 28th, 2019, 7:08 pm
Jklint wrote: January 28th, 2019, 5:06 pm

All of this makes absolutely no sense unless you explain clearly and succinctly what you mean by simultaneous events which, btw, still requires the brain as the container of consciousness to register without which nothing can be perceived, simultaneous or sequential. Also, the self is not a single entity. It's a composition of many the truth of which is firmly grounded in both science and experience, not in some useless abstract philosophical concept which tells one nothing and explains nothing.
Consider the experience of looking at anything at all.
1. Do you agree that what you see consist of a set of simultaneous events consecutively in time.
2. The self having perceiving is a single thing?
If that is your experience then the self cannot be a physical thing. If you experience of vision is different to the above then please describe it. You need to first describe what the experience of perception is like, before you can evaluate if the physical events in the brain is alone sufficient to produce it.
...and what about those who have no vision, who are blind and cannot SEE "simultaneous events" or any events?
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Burning ghost
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Re: The brain is everything, literally

Post by Burning ghost »

Hereandnow wrote: January 27th, 2019, 4:45 pm Such confidence in the power of the brain to conceive of what a brain is. Don't forget, Tosen, that the 'brain" is a derivative concept, as are all empirical concepts, as are all concepts whatever.
Exactly! There is no comeback from this. It does open up many difficult avenues though so it appears you’ve been ignored :wink:
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h_k_s
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Re: The brain is everything, literally

Post by h_k_s »

Tosen wrote: January 26th, 2019, 9:55 pm Neuroscience have observed brain activity for years and have correlated these brain states(Observed with instruments) to our first person experience of reality. How we perceive, how we rationalize, how our cognition works and so on. The mind or brain seems awfully mechanistic in nature, and seemingly almost all neurological activity is autonomously done by our central nervous system. This notion of the brain being mechanistic has some drastic implications in how we even experience reality, but they are slyly hidden out of sight.

Let's start with the obvious bit:
1)We have a sense of self, a sense of free will almost intuitively. I don't have to question if I can think or move by my own volition.
2) We are here, right now, presumably existing inside of a body. Here's the thing, this body functions by itself. It is biologically mechanistic.
3) We can say that the brain and body are both physical and also mechanistic. So, at least in regards to our body and brain, they are both physical entities composed of matter which function by themselves(mechanistic).
4) We cannot intervene in these mechanisms. I cannot cause by cells to not absorb nutrients for example. These facts seem obvious.

Now we move on to the less obvious bit:
1) Knowing that my brain is inside this body, and the body is mechanistic in nature, isn't the brain mechanistic in nature too?
2) Do I have control over all the neurological activity that is happening in the brain? All the cognitive activity that enables us to think, feel, perceive and live? The plain answer is no, and I will showcase this.

Emotions can be neurologically explained:
Let's say that I went to watch a funny compilations video on YouTube. I watch it and I laugh uncontrollably. For me to be able to feel this emotion of "funny" and to laugh, my brain has to produces certain chemicals(Dopamine in this case). Otherwise, if my brain never produced the chemicals, I would not feel that sensation of laughter in my body. We, with this sense of self or ego, cannot intervene in these mechanisms. So what if my brain just doesn't produce the chemicals? Then I just don't laugh, as simple as that. Now, the question is, did I cause the emotion or did my brain cause the emotion? It is the latter, the brain who causes this.

Therefore, we have no control of our emotions whatsoever. But the way we experience reality is that we naively think that we are the owner of our emotions. If it were so, did some of you cause yourself to feel love-struck for a person? What about our sexuality, which is a sensual emotion. What if I told an heterosexual to cause him/herself to feel sexually attracted to his/her same sex? This is not the order of things. What about happiness? A lot of humans say that happiness is something that we look for in life. But in looking for happiness, aren't we looking for a joyous, fulfilling emotion? Do you guys understand this observation? Without the brain producing these chemicals, there is no meaning to life. Because anything that we consider valuable or meaningful precisely comes from emotions. Why care for an event like someones death? Because it causes sorrow within you . But what if it didn't cause sadness for you? Then simply you don't care, hence it is meaningless and not a valuable event. But remember always, the brain is producing the chemicals, not you.
I just skimmed through this, but I can keep writing the implications of this.

In order to get this you have to raise your awareness and notice that emotions just "appear".

I have tons of other things I can talk about, but I will end the subject raising an issue of moral responsibility, or with morality as a whole. Emotions like guilt, remorse, moral responsibility, are emotions. You feel them in the body(For example: Guilt might make you feel ashamed, frustrated, etc) and your mind goes rampant with negative thoughts. But what about psychopaths? Psychopaths, especially the severe ones, are cold blooded. They feel no moral responsibility nor remorse if they kill someone . But did they willingly choose to not feel those emotions? They just don't care, because their brains don't care(The brain doesn't produce the necessary chemicals to feel this) What about in the case of some serial killers that they blissfully bathe in their victims death? They feel joy or some kind of fulfillment when doing this, but why? What is morality if you don't feel anything at all and have no control over that? Morality is just a human construct created by brains that release too much of these highly emotive chemicals then(Yes it may sound absurd).\

In conclusion, the brain is everything, literally.
Stoic philosophy and Buddhist philosophy both strive to control ourselves by denying the body mind and soul indulgences that lead to appetites for more.

You just need to choose the right philosophy for yourself in order to better control yourself and your world around you.

It's just a matter of choice.
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meaningful_products
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Re: The brain is everything, literally

Post by meaningful_products »

I almost want to agree with you but i need to reconcile your theory with this hypothetical. Imagine a lady walking down a path. She comes to a fork in the road where she must decide whether to take the path that heads east or the path that heads west. She stops at the fork and completely clears her mind. She waits there and feels no force compelling her to head in either direction. Then she feels compelled to take the eastern path, and all of her emotion begins to push her toward the eastern path. Then, she starts fighing her impulses and exerting fortitude toward the western path. She starts feeling more and more pain the longer her fortitude presses her toward the western path. Eventually she overcomes the forces which direct her toward the eastern path and walks down the western path.

Every impulse in the brain was pushing her down the eastern path but something else drove her to the west. It seems like this must be something other than the brain, since it was the brain that told her to jead east.
Fdesilva
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Re: The brain is everything, literally

Post by Fdesilva »

Jklint wrote: January 28th, 2019, 10:52 pm
Fdesilva wrote: January 28th, 2019, 7:08 pm
Consider the experience of looking at anything at all.
1. Do you agree that what you see consist of a set of simultaneous events consecutively in time.
2. The self having perceiving is a single thing?
If that is your experience then the self cannot be a physical thing. If you experience of vision is different to the above then please describe it. You need to first describe what the experience of perception is like, before you can evaluate if the physical events in the brain is alone sufficient to produce it.
...and what about those who have no vision, who are blind and cannot SEE "simultaneous events" or any events?
Look what I am saying is very simple. You simply cannot know anything if you cannot sense simultaneous events. Firstly you need to realise the following facts.
1. In are minds we recognise many things as single entities. such as the TV screen, a car etc. However the actual TV screen , Car etc in the world is never a single entity. They each consist of billions of molecules separated by space and held together by forces. Do you agree?
2. However because our mind see's, feels (for the blind) these things as single thing we tend to think single things are common place. If we had sensitivity to see/feel molecules and straight to bend iron, we will not think of any of these things as single things. They would feel like sand or dust. Do you agree?
3. The above also applies to the brain. As such at any given instant the brain is simply a distributed set of molecules. It simply cannot create the single thing that the self feels itself to be, because there is absolutely nothing physical that can connect them. As such this self thing must be non physical and able operate across space -time.
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Burning ghost
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Re: The brain is everything, literally

Post by Burning ghost »

Fdesilva -

You seem to be alluding to atomism. It is a topic where things can quickly go off track. I’ve had issues with singular/plural many times in the past. Now I’ve come to use the term phenomenon as only phenomenon. I won’t accept the use of “phenomena” and use the former to encapsulate whatever reach the content is of some given phenomenon - which it is possible to atomise into separate phenomenon.

One thing is clear enough to me. That is change is another term for multiplicity and space-time. It is an un/fortunate thing that we’re biased toward polar views as a species. The concept of a monopole is quite fascinating; for fllights of fancy quite dangerous too if you’re trying to outline something in more tangible terms.

Wherher or not we term the brain as an artifact of consciousness or consciousness an artifact of the brain it makes little difference if we rigidly stick to one as the whole explanation. “Unity” is a nice term. Unit being both singular and suggesting a combination of aspects/parts.

In short I am a “unity” that is in constant flux and cannot live in any other manner than to assume I have a “core” about which my “unity” orbits. I could of course throw in fancy words but in this case I think the best we can do is outline a “gist” then explore the territory as best we can for crack and ripples.
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Jklint
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Re: The brain is everything, literally

Post by Jklint »

Fdesilva wrote: January 29th, 2019, 2:11 am
Jklint wrote: January 28th, 2019, 10:52 pm

...and what about those who have no vision, who are blind and cannot SEE "simultaneous events" or any events?
Look what I am saying is very simple. You simply cannot know anything if you cannot sense simultaneous events. Firstly you need to realise the following facts.
1. In are minds we recognise many things as single entities. such as the TV screen, a car etc. However the actual TV screen , Car etc in the world is never a single entity. They each consist of billions of molecules separated by space and held together by forces. Do you agree?
2. However because our mind see's, feels (for the blind) these things as single thing we tend to think single things are common place. If we had sensitivity to see/feel molecules and straight to bend iron, we will not think of any of these things as single things. They would feel like sand or dust. Do you agree?
3. The above also applies to the brain. As such at any given instant the brain is simply a distributed set of molecules. It simply cannot create the single thing that the self feels itself to be, because there is absolutely nothing physical that can connect them. As such this self thing must be non physical and able operate across space -time.
According to this the same would be true for everything which exists including the universe....proving what, assuming its even true!
Fdesilva
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Re: The brain is everything, literally

Post by Fdesilva »

Jklint wrote: January 29th, 2019, 4:01 pm
Fdesilva wrote: January 29th, 2019, 2:11 am

Look what I am saying is very simple. You simply cannot know anything if you cannot sense simultaneous events. Firstly you need to realise the following facts.
1. In are minds we recognise many things as single entities. such as the TV screen, a car etc. However the actual TV screen , Car etc in the world is never a single entity. They each consist of billions of molecules separated by space and held together by forces. Do you agree?
2. However because our mind see's, feels (for the blind) these things as single thing we tend to think single things are common place. If we had sensitivity to see/feel molecules and straight to bend iron, we will not think of any of these things as single things. They would feel like sand or dust. Do you agree?
3. The above also applies to the brain. As such at any given instant the brain is simply a distributed set of molecules. It simply cannot create the single thing that the self feels itself to be, because there is absolutely nothing physical that can connect them. As such this self thing must be non physical and able operate across space -time.
According to this the same would be true for everything which exists including the universe....proving what, assuming its even true!
In the brain lets assume a group of molecules create the self (set A). Now lets say the vision of the car is created by a group of molecules (Set B) How on earth will the group of molecules in Set A know about set B? If you answer is Set A is changed by Set B then all you need for explaining the conscious experience is Set A, that is to say the car and the self must be made of the same set of molecules. This would mean you cannot have a physical separation between the car and the self.

If you take the known properties of molecules all they have is different energy levels and shapes. They do not have a property of knowing or seeing another molecule (eg car). Combining molecules is not going to magically bring into existence such a property. Even if you believe it can then that very ability sets the self (set A) apart from any other set you can find in the universe, by it ability to know other sets of molecules (set B ) simultaneously.
Fdesilva
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Re: The brain is everything, literally

Post by Fdesilva »

Burning ghost wrote: January 29th, 2019, 3:14 am Fdesilva -

You seem to be alluding to atomism. It is a topic where things can quickly go off track. I’ve had issues with singular/plural many times in the past. Now I’ve come to use the term phenomenon as only phenomenon. I won’t accept the use of “phenomena” and use the former to encapsulate whatever reach the content is of some given phenomenon - which it is possible to atomise into separate phenomenon.

One thing is clear enough to me. That is change is another term for multiplicity and space-time. It is an un/fortunate thing that we’re biased toward polar views as a species. The concept of a monopole is quite fascinating; for fllights of fancy quite dangerous too if you’re trying to outline something in more tangible terms.

Wherher or not we term the brain as an artifact of consciousness or consciousness an artifact of the brain it makes little difference if we rigidly stick to one as the whole explanation. “Unity” is a nice term. Unit being both singular and suggesting a combination of aspects/parts.

In short I am a “unity” that is in constant flux and cannot live in any other manner than to assume I have a “core” about which my “unity” orbits. I could of course throw in fancy words but in this case I think the best we can do is outline a “gist” then explore the territory as best we can for crack and ripples.
"You seem to be alluding to atomism" : Yes because the claim made by the author of this thread is that everything in the brain including consciousness can be explained via chemistry. But chemistry is essentially an atomised view of matter. Taking the properties that chemistry can dish out and trying to explain consciousness experience via it is impossible. It is impossible because chemical properties are a closed set. When chemical combine they create new chemical that will at most have different measures of the same set of properties.

I like you approach to view consciousness as a unity. I am sure you have heard of the Christian concept of God as a Trinity. Whiles the concept of the Trinity is a mystery, I do think that the physical body, the brain and the conscious experiences are a trinity that is also a unity like you say.
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: The brain is everything, literally

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Tosen wrote: January 26th, 2019, 9:55 pm Do I have control over all the neurological activity that is happening in the brain? All the cognitive activity that enables us to think, feel, perceive and live? The plain answer is no, and I will showcase this.
In order to get this you have to raise your awareness and notice that emotions just "appear".
And just like emotions, thoughts just appear.

So your thoughts, including the OP, are things that just appear and which you cannot control.

So you would have no way of knowing if your thoughts are correct.

They appear. They seem right to you. This seeming right to you is also a thought or cognition. It appears also.

You have no idea if you are making any sense at all.

Though it sure seems to you like you do, since that feeling it is making sense just appears and you have no control over that.
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