Quick Poll - Do you believe in God?

[Little Rik]

The brain is made of matter and the matter can not possibly build up the consciousness mind.

How about providing some reasoning for this instead of just flopping out a baseless assertion.

After a million or so of years that human beings exist nobody so far has ever managed to get some sort of mind out of matter.
Cells do have some sort of consciousness but they need a bigger mind in which to merge in order to keep what they got and to expand.
By themselves they could not do much.
It is important to understand that cells are a combination of matter and undeveloped mind.
In the cells that compose the body the matter will last a short period but the mind in the cells will not die. 
If you keep on believing that there is no distinction between matter and consciousness i am afraid that you still have a long long way to go
before you understand how the whole system works. 

The two as far as the body is alive are connected to each other as the driver and the car would
allow the vehicle to move so so far one can not do anything without the other.

How are the mind and brain connected?

The brain made of matter could not function without a mind unless you are a zombie.
From here you can understand that two elements are necessary to make them function.
And when two elements work as one there is a connection. 

Does this means that when the vehicle rot down also the driver rot down?

So, from your point of view, is dementia an example of the driver rotting while the car remains intact?

You are making a hell of a confusion.
The first saying...........Does this means that when the vehicle rot down also the driver rot down?
refer to when your body die.
In this case the consciousness is still alive.
In your saying instead the body doesn't die.
Here the situation is different.
In dementia both body-brain and consciousness are damaged.
At this stage so far nobody die but both elements are in a dire situation.
The body-brain will eventually die.
The consciousness is immortal so will not die (according to my believes) but will loose in power so to speak.
Suppose that particular consciousness belong to an intelligent person.
By doing the wrong thing (maybe eating saturated fat) not only his body will suffer but because an action produce a reaction also
his consciousness will loose in power so in the next life that person may be reborn into a carnivorous animal that like saturated fat (meat).

---

The brain is not a car of course but nevertheless is a vehicle.
A vehicle that carry a passenger.

Do you have any actual evidence that consciousness is the passenger rather than the vehicle? (Aside from NDEs, see below, and unverified claims about piercing rituals.)

Consciousness is something abstract while the vehicle is something made of matter.
Have you ever seen the matter from moving by itself?
Have you ever seen a stone jumping around?
Are you serious yogini? 

The atheistic idea that the consciousness mind is a product of the brain will
have sooner or later be smashed in pieces.

It's fine to speculate, just as I can speculate that it will not.  Do you have any reason, besides sheer belief, that you think it will be?

Have you ever seen a stone or any piece of matter pop up and do something?
Some idiot scientists keep on guessing and some even more idiot people believe what these scientists say
but so far they still have to come up with any solid evidence that the matter can generate consciousness.
While they still bang their heads on the wall        i believe what make more sense which is that the conscious mind produce or better say
introduce herself into a medium (body-brain) that will suit it most.

The human being build up the vehicle not the other way around.
The brain is made of matter and the matter can not possibly build up the consciousness mind.

Now you're just engaging in an argument from ignorance.  How do you know that it "can not possibly" build up the conscious mind.  Try answering without resorting to vapid analogies about cars and such.

Have you ever seen a vehicle that has not been created by a mind?   

The two as far as the body is alive are connected to each other as the driver and the car would
allow the vehicle to move so so far one can not do anything without the other.
Does this means that when the vehicle rot down also the driver rot down?
What would you do when your car fail?
Would you fail and die with your car?
You never thought about it guys, did you?

You keep saying that, but I'm sure most of us have had such thoughts.  Is that phrase from your Ananda Marga handbook?
Regardless, what evidence do you have that the brain and consciousness are not the same thing?

The consciousness is something abstract while the brain is pure matter.
If the consciousness would be the brain the brain would be abstract or if the brain would 
be the consciousness mind the mind would be made of matter.
Have you ever seen something abstract turning into matter or the other way around?
Suppose you think of a lion.
Do you think this lion would be real?
Or suppose you see a real lion in front of you.
Just imaging how nice would be if the lion would be abstract so he wouldn't eat you alive.
Yogini, please try to be a bit more careful before you ask these sort of silly questions. 

All you will do is leave your rotting car and buy a new car in order to carry on toward the goal.
This has already been experiences by thousand of NDEs beside be part of billion of people who believe in reincarnation.

The International Association for Near-Death Studies sent out a questionnaire in 1992 inquiring about those who considered themselves to be near-death experiencers.  How close had they been to physical death when their episode occurred? ... 37 percent had theirs in a setting unrelated to anything that could be construed as life threatening. ... The 37 percenters claimed to have experiences every bit as real, involved, and life-changing as those that happened to people during death or close-brush-with-death crises; and their reports duplicate or parallel the same spread of scenario types and a pattern of psychological and physiological aftereffects.

— P.M.H. Atwater, The Big Book of Near-Death Experiences

If a third of those NDE experiencers weren't anywhere near death, it cuts the link between NDEs and death.  Your evidence is worth squat.

Everybody is different so everybody will experience different things under the circumstances.
Some people think that they had a real NDEs when in reality was just some sort of allucination.
Atwater can not possibly read in people mind and understand what is a real NDE and what is not.
She only collect statistics based on what people tell her.
If she could read in people mind she would be God.

I am afraid that as soon as physical science will work together with intuitional science and will find out that the brain is a 
product of the consciousness mind all atheistic ideas will be shredded in pieces. 

[quote pid='957960' dateline='1433430741']
Your proof and your evidence are always "someplace else" aren't they?  You know what they say: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.  If your speculations were based on something solid, that would be different, but all we get from you are analogies, empty claims, and speculations about "the future."  Where's your bird in the hand, Rik?

My experiences based on hard mental-spiritual work make the vision clear compared to the vision of people who believe what some researchers say.
These researchers just guess and you take these researchers studies for granted.
How it is possible for researchers that study physical science come up with conclusions related to non physical matters? 
You never thought about it, yogini, didn't you? 

[Angrboda]

Your proof and your evidence are always "someplace else" aren't they?  You know what they say: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.  If your speculations were based on something solid, that would be different, but all we get from you are analogies, empty claims, and speculations about "the future."  Where's your bird in the hand, Rik?

My experiences based on hard mental-spiritual work make the vision clear compared to the vision of people who believe what some researchers say.
These researchers just guess and you take these researchers studies for granted.
How it is possible for researchers that study physical science come up with conclusions related to non physical matters? 
You never thought about it, yogini, didn't you? 

You're all bush and no bird, Rik.

I ask you for evidence and all you return are empty assertions.

We have evidence from brain surgeries and brain injuries that the bulk of our conscious experiences can be altered by altering the physical brain.  What's more, similar traumas result in similar changes.  The changes observed cover a spectrum of mental behaviors which strongly implies that all mental behaviors likely have a physical source in the brain.  This is not mere guesswork.  We also have evidence from animal studies, directly probing the brain and nervous system.  This is the accumulation of multiple lines of evidence about the role of the brain in the creation of mental phenomena.  It is not completely conclusive, but it isn't solely the work of 'guesses'.  It is the conclusion of many independent studies of neurological disorders and human psychophysiology.

We’ve Put a Worm’s Mind in a Lego Robot's Body
A wheeled Lego robot may not look like a worm, but it "thinks" like one after programmers gave it the neuron connections in a C. elegans roundworm

---

If the brain is a collection of electrical signals, then, if you could catalog all those those signals digitally, you might be able upload your brain into a computer, thus achieving digital immortality.

While the plausibility—and ethics—of this upload for humans can be debated, some people are forging ahead in the field of whole-brain emulation. There are massive efforts to map the connectome—all the connections in the brain—and to understand how we think. Simulating brains could lead us to better robots and artificial intelligence, but the first steps need to be simple.

So, one group of scientists started with the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, a critter whose genes and simple nervous system we know intimately.

The OpenWorm project has mapped the connections between the worm’s 302 neurons and simulated them in software. (The project’s ultimate goal is to completely simulate C. elegans as a virtual organism.) Recently, they put that software program in a simple Lego robot.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news...99/?no-ist

It's been done, Rik.  The mind of a worm, simulated, and put inside a lego robot.  It behaved just like a worm.  So much for your claim that matter can't organize movement by itself.

...But the behavior is impressive considering that no instructions were programmed into this robot. All it has is a network of connections mimicking those in the brain of a worm.

[Cato]

By doing the wrong thing (maybe eating saturated fat) not only his body will suffer but because an action produce a reaction also
his consciousness will loose in power so in the next life that person may be reborn into a carnivorous animal that like saturated fat (meat).

Dude, you crack me the fuck up.

[IATIA]

By doing the wrong thing (maybe eating saturated fat) not only his body will suffer but because an action produce a reaction also
his consciousness will loose in power so in the next life that person may be reborn into a carnivorous animal that like saturated fat (meat).

Is not that person already a "carnivorous animal that like saturated fat (meat)"?

[Tonus]

You don't even realize how you contradict yourself.

That's because I did not contradict myself. Your reading comprehension is simply lacking. This is not surprising, from someone who thinks that "sentient" means "salad." I won't explain it further because my previous comment is clear enough. Your inability to understand something so basic is, as I continue to point out, not my problem.

All important discoveries always start with guessing and experiments.

No, they don't. They begin with observations, and from those observations come hypotheses, then testing and experimenting and finally theories. Those researchers that you try to dismiss out of hand are not making guesses, they are making testable claims. YOU make guesses, pulled out of thin air and supported by similarly baseless nonsense. Once again, your ignorance is not my burden to bear, it is yours. That you bear it willingly and seemingly joyously is amusing, but mostly kind of sad.

One of these days i will charge you for giving all these tips. 

Fair enough. It wouldn't be the first time I paid for something that made me laugh a lot.

G-forces may not use any drugs and the experiences produced by that experiment may well be natural
as the force may produce a similar effect to when someone die.

It's not an effect similar to when someone dies; I'm not sure that there is such a thing. It's the same experience as those who claim to have been NEAR death. You point out that people are different, but that is irrelevant. We enjoy many experiences in very similar ways. And people who have survived near-death experiences describe them in almost the exact same way as those pilots who are exposed to high G-forces.

You are free to try and shift the goal-posts about what is or isn't natural, if you think it helps you to maintain your delusion. But it's just not very convincing to me. Neither is dismissing the work of researchers as "guesses" when you have nothing to offer on behalf of your own crackpot ideas. You've got to come up with something better than denial and gibberish. Step it up, Rik. You're threatening to become boring.

[Little Rik]

My experiences based on hard mental-spiritual work make the vision clear compared to the vision of people who believe what some researchers say.
These researchers just guess and you take these researchers studies for granted.
How it is possible for researchers that study physical science come up with conclusions related to non physical matters? 
You never thought about it, yogini, didn't you? 

You're all bush and no bird, Rik. I ask you for evidence and all you return are empty assertions.
We have evidence from brain surgeries and brain injuries that the bulk of our conscious experiences can be altered by altering the physical brain.  What's more, similar traumas result in similar changes.  The changes observed cover a spectrum of mental behaviors which strongly implies that all mental behaviors likely have a physical source in the brain.  This is not mere guesswork.  We also have evidence from animal studies, directly probing the brain and nervous system.  This is the accumulation of multiple lines of evidence about the role of the brain in the creation of mental phenomena.  It is not completely conclusive, but it isn't solely the work of 'guesses'.  It is the conclusion of many independent studies of neurological disorders and human psychophysiology.

You don't get it yogini, do you?
We are stuck inside a body and we can only get out this body when we die.
If the vehicle don't go properly or the driver doesn't do the right thing they all suffer.
If the vehicle is not good that is too bad for the driver and if the driver is not good is
too bad for the vehicle so no wonder that this and other studies show a connection
among brain and mind.
You may think that brain and mind are one but it is only the fact that they are
INSEPARABLY connected (until death come) that they look like one. 
Sorry yog. Wrong again. 

We’ve Put a Worm’s Mind in a Lego Robot's Body
A wheeled Lego robot may not look like a worm, but it "thinks" like one after programmers gave it the neuron connections in a C. elegans roundworm

---

If the brain is a collection of electrical signals, then, if you could catalog all those those signals digitally, you might be able upload your brain into a computer, thus achieving digital immortality.

While the plausibility—and ethics—of this upload for humans can be debated, some people are forging ahead in the field of whole-brain emulation. There are massive efforts to map the connectome—all the connections in the brain—and to understand how we think. Simulating brains could lead us to better robots and artificial intelligence, but the first steps need to be simple.

So, one group of scientists started with the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, a critter whose genes and simple nervous system we know intimately.

The OpenWorm project has mapped the connections between the worm’s 302 neurons and simulated them in software. (The project’s ultimate goal is to completely simulate C. elegans as a virtual organism.) Recently, they put that software program in a simple Lego robot.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news...99/?no-ist

It's been done, Rik.  The mind of a worm, simulated, and put inside a lego robot.  It behaved just like a worm.  So much for your claim that matter can't organize movement by itself.

...But the behavior is impressive considering that no instructions were programmed into this robot. All it has is a network of connections mimicking those in the brain of a worm.

Wait a minute.
First you argue that the matter CAN organize movements by itself and then you clearly say that it is because ....... The mind of a worm, simulated, and put inside a lego robot....
Where is the logic?
Here we go back to square 1.
Just as i already said that we need both mind and matter to do something.
Sorry yog. Fail again. 

[Little Rik]

All important discoveries always start with guessing and experiments.

No, they don't.  They begin with observations, and from those observations come hypotheses, then testing and experimenting and finally theories.  Those researchers that you try to dismiss out of hand are not making guesses, they are making testable claims.  YOU make guesses, pulled out of thin air and supported by similarly baseless nonsense.  Once again, your ignorance is not my burden to bear, it is yours.  That you bear it willingly and seemingly joyously is amusing, but mostly kind of sad.

Good, let us see these testable claims and let us see where is the evidence that the consciousness mind die when the body die. 

One of these days i will charge you for giving all these tips. 

Fair enough.  It wouldn't be the first time I paid for something that made me laugh a lot.

An old saying...........THE ONE WHO LAUGH LAST LAUGH BEST. 

G-forces may not use any drugs and the experiences produced by that experiment may well be natural
as the force may produce a similar effect to when someone die.

It's not an effect similar to when someone dies; I'm not sure that there is such a thing.  It's the same experience as those who claim to have been NEAR death.  You point out that people are different, but that is irrelevant.  We enjoy many experiences in very similar ways.  And people who have survived near-death experiences describe them in almost the exact same way as those pilots who are exposed to high G-forces.

You are free to try and shift the goal-posts about what is or isn't natural, if you think it helps you to maintain your delusion.  But it's just not very convincing to me.  Neither is dismissing the work of researchers as "guesses" when you have nothing to offer on behalf of your own crackpot ideas.  You've got to come up with something better than denial and gibberish.  Step it up, Rik.  You're threatening to become boring.

That is bizarre.
You guys keep on saying that the consciousness is a product of the brain but when i ask for solid evidence it is you guys that come up with no evidence.
So who is boring? 

[Little Rik]

By doing the wrong thing (maybe eating saturated fat) not only his body will suffer but because an action produce a reaction also
his consciousness will loose in power so in the next life that person may be reborn into a carnivorous animal that like saturated fat (meat).

Is not that person already a "carnivorous animal that like saturated fat (meat)"?

Eh IAT, is not that you are like that guy that say that he salivate at the sight of raw meat? 

[Tonus]

Good, let us see these testable claims and let us see where is the evidence that the consciousness mind die when the body die.

Let's try something: I'll explain it again, and you pretend that I'm talking very slowly, okay? You are asking the impossible.  There is no way to disprove that the mind does anything except die upon the death of the body.  But since we DO know that the mind is a function of the brain, it is reasonable to conclude this.  In other words, it is YOUR claim that must be proven, and you have admitted that no one can prove it.  So you have no standing for your claims.  None.  I at least can point to knowledge and understanding and make a logical inference.  You simply make something up and demand that it be disproved.  Your claims are meaningless.  And outside of religious belief, you wouldn't pretend that such claims are anything but ridiculous.

That is bizarre.
You guys keep on saying that the consciousness is a product of the brain but when i ask for solid evidence it is you guys that come up with no evidence.
So who is boring?

You keep asking two different questions, and seem unable to keep up with the discussion.  And that IS bizarre.

1- The mind is a function of the brain, as has been discussed here for a few pages.  Aside from concepts that should be pretty obvious (the way we can use drugs to affect the mind by altering brain chemistry; the way we can alter the mind by affecting the physical structure of the brain) I have referred to books on research that show how different parts of the brain affect specific functions of the mind. So yes, I have provided evidence.  More than enough to support the claim I have made.  You reject this out of hand by introducing a completely different claim and pretending that it's the same thing (while producing no evidence of your own, I might add).  It's not the same thing.

2- The idea that the mind survives the death of the brain is not reasonable to hold based on the above facts.  But it cannot be definitively disproved, in the same way that the Tooth Fairy and Leprechauns cannot be disproved.  Nor can it be proved, as you have admitted.  To believe in the concept of the mind that you describe is to accept any belief that we wish to be true regardless of what reality tells us.  Your support for your claims so far is to make bad analogies and back them with further claims that you don't bother to support, while insisting that we prove a negative claim even as you admit that you cannot prove the positive claim.

You constantly accuse us of having no evidence against something that you have no evidence FOR.  Either you are simply unable to grasp the two separate points being made, or you are deliberately trying to conflate the two.  The first implies that you are ignorant or confused.  The latter implies that you're being disingenuous in order to avoid having to face the issue honestly.  Neither is my problem, aside from the boredom I mentioned before.

[Angrboda]

You may think that brain and mind are one but it is only the fact that they are
INSEPARABLY connected (until death come) that they look like one. 

It's a fact, is it?  What is your evidence that it is a fact?

It's been done, Rik.  The mind of a worm, simulated, and put inside a lego robot.  It behaved just like a worm.  So much for your claim that matter can't organize movement by itself.

Wait a minute.
First you argue that the matter CAN organize movements by itself and then you clearly say that it is because ....... The mind of a worm, simulated, and put inside a lego robot....
Where is the logic?

The mind inside the Lego robot is made of nothing but matter.  Do you really need me to point this out to you?  You claimed that matter couldn't move itself unless it was programmed to do so.  The Lego robot wasn't programmed to move.  All its movements are caused by a completely material brain, just as in a real worm.  There is no separate mind or consciousness connected to the robot brain -- it's all matter.  There is no programming and no immaterial mind there.

Consciousness is something abstract while the vehicle is something made of matter.
Have you ever seen the matter from moving by itself?

Yes, I have.  And now, so have you.