Immateriality of Consciousness

Martin raises some extremely disturbing points in his discussion of consciousness in his book "Does it Matter?"-He cites neurological experiments where the standard electrical probe is used in an open brain surgery in order to facilitate specific responses, feelings, etc. from the patient. -I've cited an article before where a young lady intimated that she felt the actual presence of an "evil presence" in the room, behind her, and watching her. -However, in my own rush to damning consciousness as a material property...-All of the reported individuals in these experiments can tell that these impulses are not coming from them. In other words, they are conscious that their "reality" is being tampered with. This suggests several avenues of research one could conduct, but it is an extremely interesting observation. -Further, Martin discusses cases where people (like Phineas Gage) who suffered massive brain trauma... didn't lose consciousness itself. A weaker point for sure; but considering that people who have had half of their brains surgically removed--without any ill consequences--this stands as a large quandary for asserting a material-only explanation for consciousness.-To be a bit more clear--these people 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.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

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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.

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One of my fundamental beliefs is tied directly with this conversation, and the conversation of God as Organized energy. Your energy uses your brain. I hate to call it a soul, but we are limited by language. You brain is like a hard drive. It can store all sorts of data that can in turn be used to operate the other machinery of your body, but without your energy/lifeforce/soul/spirit/chi/conciousness (or whichever other word you choose to use), it is useless goo.

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One of my fundamental beliefs is tied directly with this conversation, and the conversation of God as Organized energy. Your energy uses your brain. I hate to call it a soul, but we are limited by language. You brain is like a hard drive. It can store all sorts of data that can in turn be used to operate the other machinery of your body, but without your energy/lifeforce/soul/spirit/chi/conciousness (or whichever other word you choose to use), it is useless goo.-Interesting, but you evade the question--I daresay the only real question here--what is the source of this energy. The brain's redundant network structure--do you call itt cause or effect?

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I was going to post this under "First Hardware NEURONS", but since it ties in with Immateriality as well, this might be a more suitable thread.-MATT: http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/artificial-intelligence/moneta-a-mind-made-from-memri...Been talking about this for awhile... not Quantum, but more tangible.-This is a very long but intriguing article, particularly with its detailed description of the way the brain actually works. (N.B."The brain has some brilliantly efficient components that we just can't reproduce yet.") I do wish scientists would stop jumping up and down with excitement at the prospect of what they are still trying to achieve, and would wait until they've actually achieved it. All the same, with virtually unlimited time at its disposal, who knows how far science might get? At present, though, it's worth noting that the aims are strictly limited:-"However, our goal is not to replicate subjective experienceâconsciousnessâin a chip but rather to build functional machines that can behave intelligently in complex environments. In other words, the idea is to make machines that behave as if they are intelligent, emotionally biased, and motivated, without the constraint that they are actually aware of these feelings, thoughts, and motivations."-Bearing in mind the extraordinary feats of conscious experimentation involved in building such functional machines, which even then will fall massively short of the capacity of the human brain, once again I find it impossible to share the atheist faith in chance as the creative force. -I'd like to tie this in with Tony's post, in which he writes: "Your energy uses your brain. I hate to call it a soul, but we are limited by language." Let's use "soul", as we all know what you mean. This, for me, is indeed a crucial question: does our brain produce the soul or is it used by the soul? Every advance made by man in his attempt to build a human machine is a potential step towards proving that the soul is the product. Personally, I'm inclined to share David's scepticism, but it's a fascinating and ongoing scientific experiment. So long as science fails to recreate consciousness, the door has to remain wide open for belief in a form of energy that remains independent of our physical brain.

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The brain is incapable of producing energy. It is not a battery. The energy has to come from outside the brain. I would even go so far as to say the initial energy has to come from outside the body.-To answer this question we would have to start in the womb. All of the energy to support the growing fetus comes from the mother until the fetus is capable of producing it's own, yet, even before the fetus is fully capable of sustaining its own life, due to the fact that most of its organs are not fully developed, it has consciousness.

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TONY: The brain is incapable of producing energy. It is not a battery. The energy has to come from outside the brain. I would even go so far as to say the initial energy has to come from outside the body.
To answer this question we would have to start in the womb. All of the energy to support the growing fetus comes from the mother until the fetus is capable of producing it's own, yet, even before the fetus is fully capable of sustaining its own life, due to the fact that most of its organs are not fully developed, it has consciousness.-I'm no expert on how the body produces energy, but I can tell you without fear of contradiction that if the heart doesn't pump the blood round your body to carry the necessary oxygen and nutrients, your brain will die and then it will rot. The energy that drives our physical selves is provided physically. The theory that there is another form of energy which is independent of the body, and which ... for want of a better term ... we call the "soul" is precisely what we're discussing, so I don't know why you say the energy that drives the brain "has to" come from outside. We just don't know whether the brain is the source or the medium for consciousness. Nor can I see how a foetus will give us the answer, since whatever consciousness it might have may also be derived from the brain functioning through the mother's bodily energy. But while I dispute your "has to", I'm as mystified as you by the nature of consciousness and identity, and am open to any evidence either way. NDEs and OBEs, paranormal experiences, ESP all suggest that there may be an identity independent of the brain, and even radical atheists have to admit they are nowhere near solving the mystery of consciousness. On the other hand, we know that identity, thought processes and levels of consciousness can be radically changed by purely physical means (e.g. drugs, diseases), and that suggests a physical origin.

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I'm no expert on how the body produces energy, but I can tell you without fear of contradiction that if the heart doesn't pump the blood round your body to carry the necessary oxygen and nutrients, your brain will die and then it will rot. The energy that drives our physical selves is provided physically. The theory that there is another form of energy which is independent of the body, and which ... for want of a better term ... we call the "soul" is precisely what we're discussing, so I don't know why you say the energy that drives the brain "has to" come from outside. We just don't know whether the brain is the source or the medium for consciousness. Nor can I see how a foetus will give us the answer, since whatever consciousness it might have may also be derived from the brain functioning through the mother's bodily energy. But while I dispute your "has to", I'm as mystified as you by the nature of consciousness and identity, and am open to any evidence either way. -LOL I am not arguing that fact our body produces energy. But the question does in fact have to take the womb into consideration. If the energy powering our brain while in the womb is coming from an outside source, does that hold any implications for the initial source of consciousness for an individual? Does, and if so how does, that energy help shape the newly emerging consciousness prior to it being subjected to any form of experience?

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TONY: I am not arguing that fact our body produces energy. But the question does in fact have to take the womb into consideration. If the energy powering our brain while in the womb is coming from an outside source, does that hold any implications for the initial source of consciousness for an individual? Does, and if so how does, that energy help shape the newly emerging consciousness prior to it being subjected to any form of experience?-You're right, and this is a tricky aspect of consciousness and identity in general. I don't think there's any doubt that babies are born with given mental characteristics, just as they're born with given physical characteristics, and there's no reason to suppose that the foetus won't already have these before birth. Just how conscious it is, we don't know, any more than we can measure the consciousness of the newborn baby that provides its own physical energy, but all sorts of questions spring to mind. Not the least is the implication of your own question: if we're going to argue that the "soul" (can't avoid the word) is a form of energy that is independent of the brain, the energy doesn't "shape" the consciousness, it IS the consciousness, and it IS the inborn identity ... which reacts to but is also shaped by experience as we go through life, and which some people believe survives the death of the body. So if a baby dies in the womb, does its soul survive after death as a helpless being incapable of communication, of comprehension, of articulate thought? And if consciousness, identity, thought survive in humans, why not in other animals, since they go through the same processes as we do? We know that other animals think and feel and have degrees of consciousness, too. Where do the boundaries of outside energy lie? If a foetus has a soul, why shouldn't a fertilized chicken's egg have one too? We can hardly argue that the human brain is driven by outside energy, but the chicken brain is driven only by energy from within. I see this as a real problem for those who believe in an individual soul that lives on after death ... just as NDEs, OBEs and paranormal experiences should be a real problem for those who want to confine consciousness and identity to the brain cells. What, I wonder, would be the purpose of a foetus's soul? Or of the soul of an unborn chick?

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Immateriality of Consciousness (Humans)