Why? What is it that is explained about the veridical perception of Dr. Rudy's patient due to the fact that he had no heart beat or blood pressure for "just" 20 minutes?
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Any Arguments by which to Conclude that Consciousness Is a Product of Brains?
- Thread starter Nous
- Start date
leibowde84
Veteran Member
This is what I am pointing to. What evidence do you have that this is true, beyond the logically flawed argument from ignorance that no evidence can be produced that this is false?
The fact that there is nothing that cells do (no products of cells) and no effects of electricity that, added together, produces any concept resembling a unified conscious experience, beliefs, intentions, or the ability to choose between available options.
I believe you would have been just slightly more accurate to have said "I don't know of anything that cells do...etc." rather than to make a pseudo factual statement about which you do not and cannot know enough.
Satans_Serrated_Edge
Deicidal
siti
Well-Known Member
The general understanding of the physical world is that it is composed of matter and energy. Mass-energy equivalence is a general (and generally accepted) principle arising from relativity theory and space-time symmetries. You cannot take energy out of the physical picture of the world and you cannot take the physical picture of the world out of any explanation of energy. In the quote I posted earlier, Stapp makes the exact same point about consciousness (which you simply deny - that he makes that claim - despite the fact that it is patently obvious that that is exactly what he is saying). If one can make the argument that consciousness is accounted for by the quantum-mechanical account of physical reality, then one can certainly make the same argument for matter/energy - the entire point of quantum mechanics is to account for matter/energy.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Nothing that we know of yet. Are you claiming that our knowledge of this subject is exhaustive?
Your statement is false. We do know what cells do. There are no mysterious effects of cellular activity, and certainly nothing that logically would produce unified awareness or the ability of persons to choose between available options.
We know enough to deduce that elephants are not hiding in mouse holes.
Was my question just too difficult?
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Yes we do. What does that have to do with our conversation here?
What "point about consciousness" did Stapp make that I denied? Quote it.
And who said anything about "tak[ing] energy out of the 'physical' picture of the world"?
You claimed that quantum mechanics accounts for energy. But you haven't even begun to explain how it supposedly does. Be sure cite your sources.
We similarly know enough about the functioning and effects of biological cells in order to deduce that none of it logically produces unified awareness or volition.
siti
Well-Known Member
I'm not going to waste any more time - read what you wrote, read what I wrote, read what Stapp wrote.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
No, we certainly do not. Some experts claim that we cannot be sure that consciousness is created by brain activity and might exist apart from the body. But, you have not provided any evidence that it is absolutely impossible.
It really isn't all that mysterious, our brains give humans an evolutionary advantage developed over billions of years of evolution. There is plenty to indicate, in neurology how the the brains many many cells work together just to produce singular memories and there is plenty to indicate how neurons work in making decisions.
"Each part of the memory of what a "pen" is comes from a different region of the brain. "
How Human Memory Works
Making Choices: How Your Brain Decides | TIME.com
Not quite. While you might know "what cells do," you do not know what "networks of interconnected cells with feedback" do in complete detail.
We know what oxygen atoms and hydrogen atoms do, too. Yet, when they are combined into water, there is no difference in either -- neither, for example, is wet or a strong solvent -- and yet the water which they make up is both of those things. Those qualities "emerge" without the slightest change to the atoms involved.
I am completely aware of the arguments against "emergentism," but they are incomplete and do not stand up. Systems are not the same as the the discrete parts of which they are made. Watch as a flock of starlings does something that no individual starling is doing on its own.
Here are my reasons:
- In all of neurological science, there has never been proposed a method to test for or measure consciousness as a property of matter.
- We do know that an awake brain is conscious -- ours and others', but we also know (or you would if you'd ever had surgery under a general) that the sleeping (dreamless sleep, as in under anaesthetic) is not conscious. I've had several such surgeries, and I assure you that the "conscious me" was not there. I'd remember, as I frequently remember dreams. This suggests that there is a real reason to believe that consciousness results from some activity happening in the brain.
- Furthermore, it is know that both sleeping and awake brains (even under anaesthetic) are almost equally active, neurologically. It has been demonstrated that such sleeping brains (even when under) process sensory information such as sound, yet there is no consciousness of it. This suggests, to me at least, that consciousness is not just neurological activity, but activity of a very special kind.
- Finally, the change in conscious states (waking, dreaming, dreamless sleep, and general anesthesia) are observable as wave patterns measured via EEG. The EEG measures wide-spread synchronized neural activity. So whatever consciousness is, it seems to be correlated to some types of global neural activity patterns.
No, it just wasn't worth answering, since the answer has already been provided. Heartbeat and blood pressure are not correlated with activity in the microtubules of neurons.
Obviously I haven't misrepresented anything Stapp has said. In contrast, you claims that Stapp has argued that consciousness of something happening in brains is flagrantly false.
It certainly wasn't my objective to provide any evidence here about what (supposedly) consciousness. The challenge of the thread was for people to articulate a non-fallacious argument that consciousness is created by something happening in brains. As hopefully you have noticed, no one here has articulated any such non-fallacious argument.