Immateriality of Consciousness (Humans)

by dhw, Monday, October 18, 2010, 10:29 (4958 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt has cited cases referred to in the book Does it Matter? in which people who have suffered massive brain trauma "have not lost the ability to be aware that they are aware; true, they might lose some memories or might lose some "bits" of themselves, but the intriguing fact remains that they are still wholly ... not partially ... conscious. This makes a material case more difficult to prove."-This ties in with NDEs and OBEs, and with the problem we've been grappling with all the time. It's not just consciousness but identity as a whole. Last night I found I'd suddenly forgotten a name I ought to have known, and so I was straining my brain to get the name back. I had lost this particular memory. But WHAT was straining my brain? What was the bit of me that was burrowing into my memory? Eventually I dug the name out ... but WHAT dug the name out? It's as if there is a "me" that uses my brain ... it's not a brain using me. -MATT: All that we see or seem
 Is but a dream within a dream.-Problem solved. In your absence, Tony was able to tell me that it was from a poem by Poe = a Poe(m). The quote remains highly relevant in the context of this discussion.