now we can start getting into the difference between living and non-living entities... rocks contain information - about the stream that carved their surface, or the orientation of the earth's magnetic field when they cooled from magma etc. etc. but then...
Information - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message" - a message to who? between what and what? - information is connected with "who" and between "who" - often the who of it is a conscience being... and that starts getting into not just information, but intelligence.. and intelligence - an entity that is able to think/act/create/has free will etc. etc. - and this entity, intelligence, exists also - as matter and energy and information exist....
talking about intelligence - what it is, where it comes from, where it goes - this gets into the religious realm of what spirit is...
The Electric Brain
How does a three-pound mass of wet gray tissue (the brain) succeed in representing the external world so beautifully? In this interview with noted neuroscientist Rodolfo Llinás of the New York University School of Medicine, find out how the rhythm of electrical oscillations in the brain gives rise to consciousness, and how failures in this rhythm can lead to a variety of brain disorders.
Why brains are important
NOVA: Let's start by talking about why one needs a nervous systemor a brainin the first place.
Rodolfo Llinás: That's a very intriguing issue. The nervous system is about 550 million years old, and it first came about when cells decided to make animals. Basically there are two types of animals: animals, and animals that have no brains; they are called plants. They don't need a nervous system because they don't move actively, they don't pull up their roots and run in a forest fire! Anything that moves actively requires a nervous system; otherwise it would come to a quick death...
How does consciousness come into this view of the brain? Is consciousness a mysterious phenomenon, in your opinion?
I don't think so. I think consciousness is the sum of perceptions, which you must put together as a single event. I seriously believe that consciousness does not belong only to humans; it belongs to probably all forms of life that have a nervous system. The issue is the
level of consciousness. Maybe in the very primitive animals, in which cells did not have a single systemic propertyin which each cell was a little island, if you wishthere may not have been consciousness, just primitive sensation, or irritability, and primitive movement. But as soon as cells talked to one another there would be a consensus. This is basically what consciousness is aboutputting all this relevant stuff there is outside one's head inside, making an image with it, and deciding what to do. In order to make a decision you have to have a consensus.
But it all just boils down to cells talking to one another?
Some people believe we are something beyond neurons, but of course we are not. We are just the sum total of the activity of neurons. We assume that we have free will and that we make decisions, but we don't. Neurons do. We decide that this sum total driving us is a decision we have made for ourselves. But it is not.
NOVA | The Electric Brain
)
