Any Arguments by which to Conclude that Consciousness Is a Product of Brains?

[EverChanging]

I don't see how consciousness could be immaterial. How could information be processed without physical senses? And we loose consciousness at some point every night while sleeping.

What would consciousness even be apart from the body and senses? Consciousness is only known by what it is conscious of: we do not know consciousness apart from its object.

Many times in a day I do not experience conscious awareness unless I stop to ask myself what I was just doing. Many activities like driving come automatically and we are only aware of having done something afterward. I suspect consciousness is a narrative put together by the mind. Unless a narrative binds various sensations together in a coherent way we have no subjective "I" and are just operating on autopilot.

Arguments about free will are a separate topic, but since it was mentioned I will state now that such a concept is logically incoherent.

 

[Falvlun]

So you're still knocking down straw man: "They're not really, really, completely stinking dead!"

No. I am saying that the papers you are using to support your theory are based on cardiac arrest, which is distinctive from brain death.

Do you dispute this:

Monitoring of the electrical activity of the cortex (EEG) has shown that the first ischemic changes in the EEG are detected an average of 6.5 seconds from the onset of circulatory arrest, and with prolongation of the cerebral ischemia always progression to isoelectricity occurs within 10 to 20 (mean 15) seconds
(De Vries et al., 1998; Clute and Levy, 1990; Losasso et al., 1992; Parnia and Fenwick, 2002).​

Changes in brain function would be expected with a loss of oxygen. However, Their timeline does seem a bit suspect. Are they claiming that anyone without a pulse for a mere 20 seconds ends up with 0 detecteable brain function?

Here's a little article of my own I found (because I had to look up what the hell "isoelectricity" meant), from 2013:

Human Brain Activity Patterns beyond the Isoelectric Line

A salient quote:
"The results presented here challenge the common wisdom that the isoelectric line is always associated with absent cerebral activity, and demonstrate that the isoelectric line is not necessarily one of the ultimate signs of a dying brain. We show that if cerebral neurons survive through the deepening of coma, then network activity can revive during deeper coma than the one accompanying the EEG isoelectric line by the change in the balance of hippocampal-neocortical interactions."

So, maybe they're not really really dead isn't that far off.​

As far as being able to account for the phenomena of NDEs (complex, coherent experiences, formation of memories, logical thought processes. and veridical perceptions from an out-of-body perspective), "brain dead" (whatever you mean by that) and "clinical death" are equally incapable. If you dispute that, then say so and provide your evidence.

In the Parnia paper I quoted at length above, which apparently bored you, he cites the evidence explaining why peoples' brains are not functioning immediately after resuscitation from clinical death: Please read and summarize that information for us, especially the underlined sentence
s.

It's not that it bored me. It's that you throw so much stuff out at once it's impossible to respond, adequately, to all of it. It also makes it difficult to find any one particular point you might be making. This isn't my job; I do it for fun.

If you wouldn't mind posting that one particular passage from Parnia to which you are referring, i will try to respond to it. I don't want to go guessing which passage you are referring to.

 

[Nous]

Dr. Rudy said that his patient had not had a heart beat or blood pressure for more than 20 minutes. That isn't a "brief period of clincal death". That's why Dr. Rudy declared him dead.

That doesn’t mean zero brain activity for the full 20 minutes

How did the patient get oxygen to his brain cells for that 20-25 minutes?

And what is your point about "zero brain activity"? He described Drs. Rudy and Amado-Cattaneo talking in the doorway with their arms folded while his eyes were closed, mostly likely taped shut.

We can assume that you don't have "zero brain activity". Close your eyes and look at the back of your head.

That would require getting in to exactly what the patients reported and how the reporting, recording and later validation of those experiences were managed. The problem with these cases is that they come up in normal practice so aren’t (and can’t be expected to be) managed in a structured scientific manner.

So you're not able to account for the phenomena of NDEs (complex, coherent experiences, formation of memories, logical thought processes, and veridical perceptions from an out-of-body perspective) as a product of the brain. Correct?

It’s a difficult area for various reasons but there are formal experiments to try to get better quality data on these experiences, like ones where they have images printed on high shelves in operating theatres so if anyone reports a NDE or out-of-body experience, they can be asked about that. As far as I’m aware, these experiments remain inconclusive.

It's Parnia's AWARE study. 78% of the cardiac arrests took place in areas where there were no signs. One patient had verified perceptions (including from an out-of-body perspective) "during which time cerebral function was not expected."

In hindsight I think I was unfair to him, putting too much credit in the context you’re quoting him in. I don’t think he is actually saying what you’d like to believe he’s saying.

Dr. Parnia cites and reviews the evidence by which one can only conclude that the conscious phenomena of NDEs during and immediately after resuscitation from clinical death is unaccounted for as a product of brain functioning. Right? He summarizes these findings and makes an analogy:

Today, the problems facing researchers into understanding the nature of consciousness are similar to the problems faced by physicists at the turn of the 20th century where it was discovered that classical physics cannot account for the observations made at the subatomic level. This thus led to the eventual discovery of quantum physics. In a similar way, current conventional neuroscientific models involving neuronal processing and plasticity cannot account for the observations being made as regards human consciousness.​

http://www.newdualism.org/nde-papers/Parnia/Parnia-Medical hypotheses_2007-69-933-937.pdf

If you dispute the underlined part, be sure to cite your evidence on which your dispute is premised.

The only definitive statements I’m making is that the assertion these phenomena could never be explained by mental activity exclusively within the brain is wrong

What sort of explanation are you imagining whereby the phenomena of NDEs, especially the veridical perceptions from an out-of-body perspective, would be accounted for as a product of the brain? Such an explanation would apparently be indistinguishable from an explanation in which consciousness is not a product of the brain. Right?

 

[Nous]

No. I am saying that the papers you are using to support your theory are based on cardiac arrest, which is distinctive from brain death.

I asked if you dispute this statement:

As far as being able to account for the phenomena of NDEs (complex, coherent experiences, formation of memories, logical thought processes. and veridical perceptions from an out-of-body perspective), "brain dead" (whatever you mean by that) and "clinical death" are equally incapable.​

If you do dispute it, then provide your evidence on which your dispute is based.

Changes in brain function would be expected with a loss of oxygen. However, Their timeline does seem a bit suspect. Are they claiming that anyone without a pulse for a mere 20 seconds ends up with 0 detecteable brain function?

When a person's hearts ceases to pump blood, within 20 seconds there is no detectable electrical activity on an EEG.

Here's a little article of my own I found (because I had to look up what the hell "isoelectricity" meant), from 2013:

​

Human Brain Activity Patterns beyond the Isoelectric Line

A salient quote:
"The results presented here challenge the common wisdom that the isoelectric line is always associated with absent cerebral activity, and demonstrate that the isoelectric line is not necessarily one of the ultimate signs of a dying brain. We show that if cerebral neurons survive through the deepening of coma, then network activity can revive during deeper coma than the one accompanying the EEG isoelectric line by the change in the balance of hippocampal-neocortical interactions."

So, maybe they're not really really dead isn't that far off.

Here's the abstract:

Abstract
The electroencephalogram (EEG) reflects brain electrical activity. A flat (isoelectric) EEG, which is usually recorded during very deep coma, is considered to be a turning point between a living brain and a deceased brain. Therefore the isoelectric EEG constitutes, together with evidence of irreversible structural brain damage, one of the criteria for the assessment of brain death. In this study we use EEG recordings for humans on the one hand, and on the other hand double simultaneous intracellular recordings in the cortex and hippocampus, combined with EEG, in cats. They serve to demonstrate that a novel brain phenomenon is observable in both humans and animals during coma that is deeper than the one reflected by the isoelectric EEG, and that this state is characterized by brain activity generated within the hippocampal formation. This new state was induced either by medication applied to postanoxic coma (in human) or by application of high doses of anesthesia (isoflurane in animals) leading to an EEG activity of quasi-rhythmic sharp waves which henceforth we propose to call ν-complexes (Nu-complexes). Using simultaneous intracellular recordings in vivo in the cortex and hippocampus (especially in the CA3 region) we demonstrate that ν-complexes arise in the hippocampus and are subsequently transmitted to the cortex. The genesis of a hippocampal ν-complex depends upon another hippocampal activity, known as ripple activity, which is not overtly detectable at the cortical level. Based on our observations, we propose a scenario of how self-oscillations in hippocampal neurons can lead to a whole brain phenomenon during coma.​

The authors here do not suggest that these substance-induced "v-waves" could possibly account for such conscious phenomena as found with NDEs (complex, coherent experiences, formation of memories, logical thought processes, and veridical perceptions from an out-of-body perspective). Right?

If you wouldn't mind posting that one particular passage from Parnia to which you are referring, i will try to respond to it.

Geez, you couldn't find the underlined sentences? I think you're not really reading. Interpret this:

As seen these experiences appear to be occurring at a time when global cerebral function can at best be described as severely impaired, and at worse non-functional. However, cerebral localisation studies have indicated that the thought processes are mediated through the activation of a number of different cortical areas, rather than single areas of the brain and therefore a globally disordered brain would not be expected to lead to lucid thought processes or the ability to ‘see’ and recall details.​

 

[Nous]

Saying dependent on something and saying its primary are two different things. Its more saying consciousness would not work without memory, but there are more than just memory that can possibly hinder consciousness, like the brain being able to process input for example is highly necessary but only further substantiates the premise.

So you don't have any argument that concludes that the various aspects of consciousness (intentions, beliefs, awareness, self-awareness, volition) are the products of something happening in brains, do you?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Try this experiment: cut off your head and see how long you stay conscious for. Have them reattach it and see if you regain consciousness. Let me know the results.

 

[Nous]

So no, I don't have the ability to choose to assert a true proposition rather than a false one

Then there is no rational reason that anyone who is able to choose to assert and believe a true proposition rather than a false one would find any value in your assertions. We can get answers from the 8 Ball toy that would be just as reliable as your answers are. Right?

I noted this:

. . . agreeing to perform a particular act or set of acts--such as paying a mortgage company a certain amount of money by a certain date each month--is quite common. People can and do say that they will perform such a series of acts for 30 years, and 30 years later have done exactly what they said they would do.

There are 2 possible ways to account for these acts that people promise to perform far into the future and then fulfill: Those are either willful acts or they are involuntary bodily movements. But people can't correctly predict their involuntary bodily movements 30 years into the future. People can't predict such involuntary bodily movements even hours into the future. People can't accurately predict the day or hour they are going to have a heart attack or stroke. People can't accurately predict the day or hour they are going to have their next headache or hiccup. The only way to explain making and fulfilling their contracts such as writing a check to a mortgage company each month is that those acts each month are willful acts that they can choose to perform and do choose to perform. ​

Evidently you don't have any alternative way to account for the commonplace activity of making and fulfilling of contracts (e.g., a mortgage) than as a series of willful acts.

So is the "m", the "c" and the "^2"... okay?

This equation is literally saying that Mass (I.E. Physical stuff) and Energy can be seen having the same fundamental conserved physical entity...



It's just a linguistic nonsense statement. Strictly speaking... no one has ever seen or touched anything. Depending on how one goes about defining those terms, it can make so many things metaphorically, and just as many things literally.

But, if "seeing energy" means "electron hits my eyeball, which my eye can detect the frequency of, and then translate that frequency into a specific color."

This is literally radiant energy hitting your eye balls, which your nervous system is capable of transcribing into an image...

I have no idea what else is necessary before one is actually "seeing the energy"

If you come across any evidence by which to conclude that the following passage from The Matter Myth by Davies and Gribbin is false, then be sure to cite it:

The concept of energy, for example, is a familiar one today, yet it was originally introduced as a purely theoretical quantity in order to simplify the physicists' description of mechanical and thermodynamical processes. We cannot see or touch energy, yet we accept that it really exists because we are so used to discussing it.​

The Matter Myth

 

[Nous]

I don't see how consciousness could be immaterial. How could information be processed without physical senses?

If you have an argument by which to conclude that the various phenomena of consciousness (intentions, beliefs, awareness, self-awareness, volition) are produced by something happening in brains, then provide it.

Arguments about free will are a separate topic, but since it was mentioned I will state now that such a concept is logically incoherent.

Prove it.

When people agree to and fulfill their mortgage agreements, by paying a mortgage company a certain amount of money by a certain day each month for 30 years, there is only one coherent way to account for these monthly acts, namely as willful acts. Otherwise one would have to say that by entering into and fulfilling such contracts, people are correctly predicting their involuntary bodily movements 30 years in advance. People can't predict involuntary bodily movements even a few minutes in advance.

 

[EverChanging]

I am always skeptical of how supposed observed out of body event are verified. They are anecdotal accounts from what I have seen. Overall I am not familiar with these particular accounts but I am not the only skeptical one: NeuroLogica Blog » AWARE Results Finally Published – No Evidence of NDE

I would also ask how we know the NDE did not occur prior to brain death or whether there may be brain activity we are unaware of and if fewer thoughts and sensations may seem more vivid or how accurate our memories are. It is also interesting to me that near-death like experiences can be induced by drugs, dreams, and other altered states.

As to free will there are various social pressures to account for paying the bills. Either behavior is accountable or it isn't. There is plenty of evidence for the emergence of behavior from genes, environment, conditioning, and possibly a random chance element.

Can you will what you will? If not -- this leads to an infinite regress -- behavior must be otherwise accountable.

 

[EverChanging]

If you have an argument by which to conclude that the various phenomena of consciousness (intentions, beliefs, awareness, self-awareness, volition) are produced by something happening in brains, then provide it.

Prove it.

When people agree to and fulfill their mortgage agreements, by paying a mortgage company a certain amount of money by a certain day each month for 30 years, there is only one coherent way to account for these monthly acts, namely as willful acts. Otherwise one would have to say that by entering into and fulfilling such contracts, people are correctly predicting their involuntary bodily movements 30 years in advance. People can't predict involuntary bodily movements even a few minutes in advance.

No one knows entirely how memory and thought and volition proceed from brain activity, but we know there is no unified center in the brain directing it -- vision is processed in over 30 parallel pathways at different times for example -- and we know we can alter thoughts, perceived intention and other reported mental activity by electrical stimulation and chemical means.

Positing and immaterial soul explains nothing about mental phenomena and rather creates the problem of how an immaterial soul interacts with matter and physical information.

 

[Nous]

I am always skeptical of how supposed observed out of body event are verified.

In the case of the veridical perception of the Parnia 2014 patient:

. . . a 57 year old man described the perception of observing events from the top corner of the room and continued to experience a sensation of looking down from above. He accurately described people, sounds, and activities from his resuscitation (Table 2 provides quotes from this interview). His medical records corroborated his accounts and specifically supported his descriptions and the use of an automated external defibrillator (AED). Based on current AED algorithms, this likely corresponded with up to 3 min of conscious awareness during CA and CPR.2​

In the case of Dr. Rudy's patient, both Drs. Rudy and Amado-Cattaneo confirm the patient's report of seeing the two of them standing in the doorway chatting, which occurred while the patient had not had a heart beat or blood pressure for more than 20 minutes:

Pam Reynolds was able to accurately describe the surgical saw and tray of interchangeable blades, which her surgeon confirms remained sealed and covered until after anesthesia was induced and her eyes were taped closed (at ~18:00).

They are anecdotal accounts from what I have seen.

See above.

Overall I am not familiar with these particular accounts but I am not the only skeptical one: NeuroLogica Blog » AWARE Results Finally Published – No Evidence of NDE

In that study, there were 9 patients who had experiences compatible with NDEs.

In the van Lommel et al. study of 344 consecutive patients who were resuscitated from clinical death, 62 (18%) subsequently reported some memory during the episode, with 41 of these describing elements commonly associated with NDEs, such as awareness of being dead, positive emotions, moving through a tunnel, meeting with deceased relatives, involvement in a life review, interacting with a bright light. The authors found that whether or not a patient had an NDE was not associated with the duration of cardiac arrest (presumably a proxy measure of degree of hypoxia) or unconsciousness, medications, fear of death before cardiac arrest, religious beliefs (or lack thereof) or education.

I would also ask how we know the NDE did not occur prior to brain death

As Drs. van Lommel, Parnia, Fenwick and many others point out, with the onset of cardiac arrest people lose consciousness very quickly, and if they are not immediately resuscitated, they don't remember becoming unconscious (or the time just before becoming unconscious).

or whether there may be brain activity we are unaware of

Dr. Parnia addresses all of the issues you have raised in this paper, for example:

As seen these experiences appear to be occurring at a time when global cerebral function can at best be described as severely impaired, and at worse non-functional. However, cerebral localisation studies have indicated that the thought processes are mediated through the activation of a number of different cortical areas, rather than single areas of the brain and therefore a globally disordered brain would not be expected to lead to lucid thought processes or the ability to ‘see’ and recall details. This consistent yet paradoxical observation needs to be considered in the search for understanding the relationship between mind, consciousness and the brain. In addition, from a clinical point of view any acute alteration in cerebral physiology such as occurs with a reduction in cerebral blood flow leads to impaired attention and impairment of higher cerebral function [30]. The experiences reported from cardiac arrest are clearly not confusional and in fact indicate heightened awareness, attention, thought processes and consciousness at a time when consciousness and memory formation are not expected to occur.

An alternative explanation is that the experiences reported from cardiac arrest, may actually be arising at a time when consciousness is either being lost, or regained, rather than from the actual cardiac arrest period itself. Any cerebral insult leads to a period of both anterograde and retrograde amnesia In fact memory is a very sensitive indicator of brain injury and the length of amnesia before and after unconsciousness is a way of determining the severity of the injury. Therefore, events that occur just prior to or just after the loss of consciousness would not be expected to be recalled. At any rate recovery following a cerebral insult is confusional and cerebral function as measured by EEG has in many cases been shown not to return until many tens of minutes or even a few hours after successful resuscitation.​

As to free will there are various social pressures to account for paying the bills.

Show that people are able to accurately predict their own involuntary bodily movements (such as a heart attack or stroke) 30 years in advance.

 

[Nous]

No one knows entirely how memory and thought and volition proceed from brain activity, but we know there is no unified center in the brain directing it -- vision is processed in over 30 parallel pathways at different times for example -- and we know we can alter thoughts, perceived intention and other reported mental activity by electrical stimulation and chemical means.

We know that we can alter the picture on a TV by altering the components inside the TV set. That's isn't a sound reason to conclude that the components inside the TV set create the TV shows. This is why correlation does not mean causation.

So you have no valid argument that the various phenomena of consciousness (intentions, beliefs, awareness, self-awareness, free will) are produced by something happening in brains, do you?

 

[EverChanging]

We know that we can alter the picture on a TV by altering the components inside the TV set. That's isn't a sound reason to conclude that the components inside the TV set create the TV shows. This is why correlation does not mean causation.

So you have no valid argument that the various phenomena of consciousness (intentions, beliefs, awareness, self-awareness, free will) are produced by something happening in brains, do you?

A sense of vivid experience, time distortion, and other effects are reported in other life and death scenarios. Besides this, it is well known that memory is often unreliable, probably more so after brain trauma. If certain circuits are switched off others may work more robustly and leave vivid impressions that are sometime later woven into a vivid narrative. I do not know -- there are lots of possibilities.

If you are interested in brain activity in relationship to behavior I suggest reading some neuroscience and you will have plenty to read. I am not a brain scientist, but I know brains exist, and lots of interesting research has been done on the confabulation of memories and even conscious will (I suggest The Illusion of Conscious Will, by Daniel Wegner.) Electrical stimulation of the temporal lobe and other places in the brain can induce reports of OBEs as well as observed bodily movements and confabulated intentions. Why such would be irrelevant beats me, especially since there is no data on how a soul could create intentions, will, physical movement, or thoughts from nothing or at all.

If you really believe such activities cannot be explained in terms of brain activity I am clueless why you think they are any more explainable in terms of a soul.

Why a person should be able to predict a heart attack thirty years from now given all the unknown variables involved is also far beyond me.

 

[HonestJoe]

He described Drs. Rudy and Amado-Cattaneo talking in the doorway with their arms folded while his eyes were closed, mostly likely taped shut.

If you need the "most likely", the incident was clearly not able to be reviewed with sufficient accuracy to be certain of anything. For example, can you guarantee there was no subconscious (or indeed conscious) confirmation bias in her initial reporting of her experiences?

So you're not able to account for the phenomena of NDEs (complex, coherent experiences, formation of memories, logical thought processes, and veridical perceptions from an out-of-body perspective) as a product of the brain. Correct?

Nobody has accounted for the various type of phenomena and experiences lumped under "NDE". I can conceive of explanations that don't involve anything other than the product of the brain and I can conceive of explanations the involve other elements. There remains zero evidence that anything in the latter category actually exists though.

If you dispute the underlined part, be sure to cite your evidence on which your dispute is premised.

No, I agree with it. We don't yet understand what causes these phenomena. Maybe we'll come to understand it in the future.

Such an explanation would apparently be indistinguishable from an explanation in which consciousness is not a product of the brain. Right?

No. If there is an explanation involving something outside of the physical brain, that thing would need to be formally identified outside of the brain and the physical process by which it influences the brain established.

 

[EverChanging]

If you need the "most likely", the incident was clearly not able to be reviewed with sufficient accuracy to be certain of anything. For example, can you guarantee there was no subconscious (or indeed conscious) confirmation bias in her initial reporting of her experiences?

Nobody has accounted for the various type of phenomena and experiences lumped under "NDE". I can conceive of explanations that don't involve anything other than the product of the brain and I can conceive of explanations the involve other elements. There remains zero evidence that anything in the latter category actually exists though.

No, I agree with it. We don't yet understand what causes these phenomena. Maybe we'll come to understand it in the future.

No. If there is an explanation involving something outside of the physical brain, that thing would need to be formally identified outside of the brain and the physical process by which it influences the brain established.

Exactly. There are lots of possibilities, though an undetected soul with no apparent physical effects is not high on my list.

 

[dust1n]

Then there is no rational reason that anyone who is able to choose to assert and believe a true proposition rather than a false one would find any value in your assertions. We can get answers from the 8 Ball toy that would be just as reliable as your answers are. Right?

Strictly speaking yea. If there is no epistemological certainty, than it is impossible to say with certainty whether something is true or not. If it's impossible to say with certainty, any claim at all, then I can't make a choice to pick something true with epistemological certainty that is entirely inaccessible to me.

I noted this:

. . . agreeing to perform a particular act or set of acts--such as paying a mortgage company a certain amount of money by a certain date each month--is quite common. People can and do say that they will perform such a series of acts for 30 years, and 30 years later have done exactly what they said they would do.

There are 2 possible ways to account for these acts that people promise to perform far into the future and then fulfill: Those are either willful acts or they are involuntary bodily movements. But people can't correctly predict their involuntary bodily movements 30 years into the future. People can't predict such involuntary bodily movements even hours into the future. People can't accurately predict the day or hour they are going to have a heart attack or stroke. People can't accurately predict the day or hour they are going to have their next headache or hiccup. The only way to explain making and fulfilling their contracts such as writing a check to a mortgage company each month is that those acts each month are willful acts that they can choose to perform and do choose to perform. ​

Evidently you don't have any alternative way to account for the commonplace activity of making and fulfilling of contracts (e.g., a mortgage) than as a series of willful acts.

I actually did. You just literally chose not to respond to any point I made, and just went with quoting yourself a second time. I also noticed you literally ignored the majority of my post.

It's also strange that you decided to go with this particular branch to digress on. We are supposedly suppose to be talking about how consciousness derives from the brain. You grabbed on to what little side note I made about free will, and now that's what you want to talk about, instead of the argument you ask me make.

Any question I made, like, "Please define what this means" was basically just ignored, so...

If you come across any evidence by which to conclude that the following passage from The Matter Myth by Davies and Gribbin is false, then be sure to cite it:

The concept of energy, for example, is a familiar one today, yet it was originally introduced as a purely theoretical quantity in order to simplify the physicists' description of mechanical and thermodynamical processes. We cannot see or touch energy, yet we accept that it really exists because we are so used to discussing it.​

The Matter Myth

For someone who just a second ago seemed so obsessed about LOGICAL DEDUCTION, you've avoided doing any yourself in its entirety, and for some reason avidly produce these appeals to authority and to supposedly common practice. Ain't that something.

The passage you quote me... doesn't define any of the terms the guy is talking about. It is simply completely out of context. What does mean when we cannot see or touch energy, and what is his conception of seeing and touching energy that we are incapable of.

Also, are you trying to get me conclude that because we "cannot see or touch energy" that it is a "fundamental phenomenon" (whatever the means, you refuse to define) and that it is "non-physical", therefore it doesn't arrive from the brain? Since you refuse to deduce anything logically, it's sort of hard to tell what the hell your arguing for.

If it is the case, it doesn't really follow. I cannot see or touch Jupiter, can I? If I can't, does that mean that Jupiter is also a fundamental phenomenon? I can't touch or see a virus, does that mean it is also a fundamental phenomenon and also non-physical? Please clarify.

Or don't. I'd honestly prefer if you were just straight forward and were like, I don't like putting this much effort into the conversation, as opposed to the half-addresses and deflections.

 

[siti]

Give us that "naturalistic explanation of consciousness [and volition] based on chemistry and QM (the former reduces to the latter). That's what I asked for in the OP.

You're asking for an elucidation of a theory that does not yet exist. If I could do that, I would be making plans for a trip to Stockholm not wasting my time on RF. My previous post gave a link (which I am giving again) to a review article from Nature Physics that considers work done towards the goal of understanding how quantum mechanics might work in biological systems (I'm not just talking about our 'observer' effect on QM experiments that's a different question). I really can't go along with an argument that says (in effect) "we don't have a scientific theory for it so it must have a fundamentally mysterious cause" - that approach has been tried over and over again and has failed to stand the test of time for planetary motion, disease, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, the weather, ... etc...etc...I believe we are on the road to discovering more about the quantum mechanical aspects of life, but we have a long way to go yet - and consciousness is not going to be an easy nut to crack - but I have faith that we will get there eventually, just as we did for the other mysteries of reality that now have plausible scientific explanations.

 

[idav]

So you don't have any argument that concludes that the various aspects of consciousness (intentions, beliefs, awareness, self-awareness, volition) are the products of something happening in brains, do you?

I cited you aspects of consciousness which go beyond the ones listed in your loaded question. Memory, processing, sensory to name a few are fundamental, all of which require a brain, neurons. Not agreeing doesn't mean I didn't make an argument.

What I've been saying is similar to the global workspace theory.
Global Workspace Theory - Wikipedia
I understand the criticism to the theory but feel all the criticism does is try to mystify something explained through working memory and time perception as I have thoroughly referenced.

 

[Nous]

A sense of vivid experience, time distortion, and other effects are reported in other life and death scenarios. Besides this, it is well known that memory is often unreliable, probably more so after brain trauma. If certain circuits are switched off others may work more robustly and leave vivid impressions that are sometime later woven into a vivid narrative. I do not know -- there are lots of possibilities.

If you are interested in brain activity in relationship to behavior I suggest reading some neuroscience and you will have plenty to read. I am not a brain scientist, but I know brains exist, and lots of interesting research has been done on the confabulation of memories and even conscious will (I suggest The Illusion of Conscious Will, by Daniel Wegner.) Electrical stimulation of the temporal lobe and other places in the brain can induce reports of OBEs as well as observed bodily movements and confabulated intentions. Why such would be irrelevant beats me, especially since there is no data on how a soul could create intentions, will, physical movement, or thoughts from nothing or at all.

If you really believe such activities cannot be explained in terms of brain activity I am clueless why you think they are any more explainable in terms of a soul.

Why a person should be able to predict a heart attack thirty years from now given all the unknown variables involved is also far beyond me.

So I take it we conclude from this that you are unable to account for the phenomena of NDEs (complex, coherent experiences, formation of memories, logical thought processes, and veridical perceptions from an out-of-body perspective) during or immediately after clinical death. Correct? And you have obviously not articulated any argument by which to conclude that the various phenomena of consciousness (intentions, beliefs, unified awareness, volition, etc.) are a product of something happening in the brain?

So your answers to the two questions in the OP are "No." Right?

 

[Nous]

If you need the "most likely", the incident was clearly not able to be reviewed with sufficient accuracy to be certain of anything. For example, can you guarantee there was no subconscious (or indeed conscious) confirmation bias in her initial reporting of her experiences?

What does any of this mean? Did you either watch the video of Dr. Rudy or read the account that Rivas provided by Dr. Amado-Cattaneo? Who are you referring to as "her"?

How does someone have a conscious (or subconscious) experience, memory, or perceive people's activities when his eyes are closed and he hasn't had a heart beat or blood pressure in 20 minutes? Such phenomena are not accounted for by anything happening in the dead brain on the table, right?

I can conceive of explanations that don't involve anything other than the product of the brain

Go right ahead. Begin with Dr. Rudy's patient. Or, if you wish, begin with Pam Reynolds.