RE: Consciousness: Is it seperate from the human body?
September 27, 2014 at 9:53 am
(This post was last modified: September 27, 2014 at 10:21 am by Simon Moon.)
(September 26, 2014 at 11:58 pm)Hezekiah Wrote: Lately I've been fascinated with the idea of consciousness. I've been reading a bit on quantum physics, and have come to the idea that the conscious state of mind is completely seperate from the brain.
All evidence points to the mind and consciousness being an emergent property of the physical brain.
If you can provide demonstrable evidence that consciousness can exist absent a physical brain, lets have it.
Quote:In other words:
1) I feel as though I am not my body. For instance, if I cut my own hand off, my hand is no longer me, I'm still in the larger portion of my own body (of course I know that's mainly because my brain is still communicating with the rest of my body).
Your consciousness is not located in your hand. It is located in your physical brain.
People can suffer brain injuries and have their personalities completely reset.
Mind altering drugs can change a persons perceptions and personality by altering brain chemistry.
These and other facts point directly to your consciousness being an emergent property of the brain, not something that is separate from the brain.
Quote:2) It takes the brain roughly 80 milliseconds to process new stimulus, including getting that information to the brain via the nervous system. Which introduces the idea that time may not exist if it is all according to how fast the brain can process whats going on.
So, the brain takes a while to process stimuli. This is perfectly explainable through how the brain works. No need at all to speculate that it may be because time doesn't exist.
The human brain is really kluged together, with newer evolved parts stuck on, and in many times in conflict with, older evolved parts. It is no wonder it has some issues processing information.
Quote:3) Finally, there are all types of optical, tactile and auditory illusions that can play tricks on the brain. We can only perceive our world through our senses, even certain animals can percieve colors invisible to the naked eye. Which, too me, all says that the brain is a magnificent instrument, but is not perfect. And instruments aren't autonomous.
Yes, the brain is far from perfect. Not sure how this gives any credence to your contentions.
Our brains evolved to survive on the savannah. To come up with ways to get food from day to day, to avoid being eaten by lions, bit by a poison snake, etc.
The fact that our brains can be fooled by optical, tactile and auditory illusions is pretty well understood, given our kluged together brains and our evolutionary history.
Yes, other organisms can see colors we can't. So....?
The study of neuroscience has really come a long way ini recent years, and it continues to accelerate.
Read - "Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind" by Gary Marcus
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
