Interesting Ian

Hi,

I've been suspended from the James Randi forum, so I thought I may as well post here. I posted the following a couple of months ago in the Randi forum. Anyway, I'm just wondering if anyone has anything of interest to say regarding my ideas? Anyway, here is what I said:

I do not favour the hypothesis that the brain generates the mind or consciousness. This of course is not to deny that brain states may not in an appropriate sense "cause" particular mind states, it's just that mind states do not originate from brain states. As I have put it before:

The fact that states of "A" may be correlated with "particular states of "B", means neither that "A" and "B" are one and the same thing, nor does it entail that "B" originates from "A", or indeed "A" from "B". It could be that both "A" and "B" both independently are generated by "C". Or it could be the case that although states of "B" are modified by states of "A", "B" ultimately originates from "C".

However, if the brain only modifies consciousness or minds, rather than being the progenitor of the mind, the question then arises as to why we need brains at all.

The first thing to recognise here is that processes within the brain are akin to any information processing system. As with any such information processing system there are architectural constraints and these serve to limit the mind so we only have access to those perceptions that follow the familiar and regular patterns that we associate with the physical world. This then allows us to function proficiently whilst we subsist in this empirical reality.

Now when the mind operates in detachment from the brain, when it is temporarily or permanently disembodied, then its processing is released from the constraining influence of the arrays of primitive processing units (essentially the brain). It will then have access to all other perceptions apart from our everyday perceptions. Those other perceptions will be driven by some other "engine", and the person may seem to be passing through other worlds. This would be broadly consistent with the anecdotal experiences of some out-of-body experiences, especially near-death experiences - and indeed with reportedly channelled descriptions from the dead, as well as with traditional accounts such as those found in the "Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Anyone have any other plausible hypothesis of why we need brains?

Kevbo

What makes you think that brains are not the source of consciousness? Mental retardation has a direct corrolary to brain state. Parts of the brain have been shown to create certain conscious experiences when stimulated. In the absence of any good outside evidence, why would the brain not be the source of consciousness?

SimplyAtheistic

I'm sorry, but the brain DOES create your consciousness, and your descreption of an "out of body experience" does not suggest the brain isnt responsible for you consciousness. If you were near death and in a traumatic situation, it is very possible you will remember it oddly, and you could feel oddly too. Say your heart stopped, you lose blood circulation to the brain, your ability to think, and your ability to make coherent sense of your surroundings. You may think about yourself, and your brain fires a neuron section that stores your latest memory of self image, or a newly created one based upon your surroundings and limited knowledge of your what has happened. You try to grasp your current situation, so it builds the room around you from previous knowledge. Then, in your mind, an image is assembled from an overhead perspective, looking down on your body and the doctors. You lose the ability to activate neurons because of blood loss or what have you, so that image stays and you cannot think in a normal fashion. Finally when you are revived you gain normal control of your brain and the image disappears. Your "out of body" experience is over and you can still remember it vividly. This little example illustrates the fact that there is a plausible explanation for everything, and going off on notions that your brain isnt essential to your consciousness simply confuses people.

Interesting Ian

But if a person disagreed with you here, and maintained that the brain is not the source of consciousness, do you believe the explanation that I have given as to why we need brains is a plausible one?

Interesting Ian

Nevertheless do you believe it is possible that there could exist a disembodied consciousness? If for the sake of argument we assume it is indeed possible, is my explanation of why we need brains plausible?

Godot

Possible: yes. Likely: er, no.
Maybe I'm incapable of reading english, but I didn't see you advance an alternate mechanism for the functioning of consciousness. If you do not accept the dominant paradigm, you must suggest something that will supplant it. Your explanation, as I see it, is inplausible without one.

John Page

Hi Ian!

The following only partly in jest.

One purpose of the brain is to work out whether our consciousness is a phenomena of said brain or something else altogether different.

Bodies without brains exhibit no consciousness, whereas brains without bodies can exhibit the opposite. Great thread on this started by croc . BTW read through to the guillotine examples.

Theer is also this argument. Do you believe that one's brain is the organ that one uses to think? Is it not true, then, that the brain is what thinks it is conscious?

Cheers, John

Inconnu

I would like to see a definition of consciousness. You can tag the brain as the CPU of the human system that does not require conscious thought to function. Is consciousness an illusion (as free will has been argued very convincingly as such)? Conscious thought and free will appear to be inextricably linked, so, if one is an illusion, why not the other?

John Page

Me too. See below from the Oxford Companion to Philosophy. I think that consciousness is characterized by awareness of self i.e. the ability to contemplate self.

No, I don't think so. IMO, if consciosuness (awareness of one's corporeal existence) was an illusion then I wouldn't exist (absurd reduction).

Free will is not an illusion, we demonstrably have choices, the debate appears to be about what does the choosing - is it a function of the mind/brain or some etheral spirit. Even if its an ethereal spirit, we should need some evidence of how it interacts with the coporeal world.

Cheers, John

jpbrooks

Hello Ian!

Your critics would probably tend to argue that any "physicalistic" hypothesis would be more plausible than one that created a non physical entity as a source of consciousness on the basis that the existence of such an entity cannot be ruled out of consideration. They would probably tend to use Occam's Razor to "cut" it out of existence.

I have to run.