Is the Mind really a spirit?

[Beyondo]

If you remove enough neurons, you lose "self". A case can be made that we are little more than organic robots.

logician "you da man!", Good point!

We could make an analogy of "self" as being like an image and is dependant to a degree of minimum resolution. If you take an image and just remove a few pixels you can still make out the image, but remove enough pixels and the image becomes incomprehensible. So the case can be made that you need x-number of neurons to represent conciousness, "self". Even to produce a universe requires minimum degree of resolution, if you only have a few particles then particles never converge to our experience of a universe.

So "self" as information can be measured...

 

[Beyondo]

So "self" as information can be measured...

Note that "self" measured simply as raw information does not in itself determine if the information being measured is a "self". e.g. Computer hard drives can store the equivalent of what human brians store, but is that information a "self"? No. Also not all information stored by the brain represents the ability to produce a "self"

 

[Beyondo]

Simply put, humans do not have a mind, we have a brain. The mind is a referral to our conscious awareness.

That's like saying "Excel" isn't a spreadsheet but is a computer, the term "spreadsheet" is referring to how we use the computer.

This notwithstanding, that which is generated within the brain, doesn't only remain in the brain or in the physical body which contains the brain. Under MRI, images of the body's aura (magnetic field produced from the electrochemical reaction) can clearly be identified. The stronger the electric field, the stronger the magnetic field extends from the mortal body.

Here again this is like saying: We can clearly detect the heat and electrical energy in a desktop computer. The more energy the cpu uses the hotter it gets and more electrical noise will be produced that could interfere with other devices.

So?

 

[footprints]

That's like saying "Excel" isn't a spreadsheet but is a computer, the term "spreadsheet" is referring to how we use the computer.

Hmmm, relating a software package to a computer.

If you wish to try and associate the human brain to a computer, which by the way is a very warped analogy, for they are not one in the same, but I would suggest the analogy would go like this;

The physical brain is your hardware with the grey matter being your memory and ram.

Firmware written into the processors, would be on a similar level to fixed knowledge stored in the white matter of the brain, where intelligence waits to decipher it all.

Hardwire connections of the brain would relate to the interconnections of wiring and plugs which interconnect with the motherboard and power supply to other sundry equipment. Where information can be transferred from one section to the next. Knowledge poked and popped in and out of accumulators, to form a logical pattern.

Software, such as your excel program, would equal knowledge gained via life experience which intermix with the inbuilt firmware. The brain working more like programming in assembly language rather than C++ et al.

The mind as you like to call it, is the output seen on your computer monitor.

Here again this is like saying: We can clearly detect the heat and electrical energy in a desktop computer. The more energy the cpu uses the hotter it gets and more electrical noise will be produced that could interfere with other devices.

So?

Here is where your analogy with a computer really falls down. The human brain would be more like a computer with superconductors. Alpha, beta, theta, and delta waves all speeding along the same super highway. Each wave containing their own knowledge and processed all at the same time.

You are looking at magnetic fields and relating them to heat and electrical noise (therefore losses). Look at magnetic fields again, this time relate them to conductors.

 

[Beyondo]

Hmmm, relating a software package to a computer.

If you wish to try and associate the human brain to a computer, which by the way is a very warped analogy, for they are not one in the same, but I would suggest the analogy would go like this;

The physical brain is your hardware with the grey matter being your memory and ram.

Firmware written into the processors, would be on a similar level to fixed knowledge stored in the white matter of the brain, where intelligence waits to decipher it all.

Hardwire connections of the brain would relate to the interconnections of wiring and plugs which interconnect with the motherboard and power supply to other sundry equipment. Where information can be transferred from one section to the next. Knowledge poked and popped in and out of accumulators, to form a logical pattern.

Software, such as your excel program, would equal knowledge gained via life experience which intermix with the inbuilt firmware. The brain working more like programming in assembly language rather than C++ et al.

The mind as you like to call it, is the output seen on your computer monitor.

Yet a computer can emulate, to a certain degree, a biological neuron's computation. Neural networks are a form of software that is used in main stream aplications that learn from experience. Hardly just an output on my monitor.

Here is where your analogy with a computer really falls down. The human brain would be more like a computer with superconductors. Alpha, beta, theta, and delta waves all speeding along the same super highway. Each wave containing their own knowledge and processed all at the same time.

You are looking at magnetic fields and relating them to heat and electrical noise (therefore losses). Look at magnetic fields again, this time relate them to conductors.

What do super conductors have to do with brain waves? The brainwaves are super slow in comparison to electromagetic waves, Brains use ion power, move substaintialy below the speed of sound and yes whatever radiates from the brain are losses because the brain can't use electromagnetic radiation directly.

The brain's real horse power comes from the brute force of the astronomical number of neurons and their interconnections, 10,000 per synapse! While neurons can just switch on an off at 40 hz there are 100s of billions of fiber axons interconnecting lobes. The waves are not speeding along on the same superhighway as you state but are slowly moving along a very wide communications bus. Its more like having 100s of billions of copper wires connecting your Local Area Network and using morse code manual keyers, instead of just one coax cable using 1000 mhz ethernet protocol.

As far as the waves having somekind of knowledge is ridiculous! Do some reading on neural networks and biological neurons, read a book called "Sipkes" and you'll see how digital you really are. I also recommend reading "Rethinking Inateness". :sarcastic

 

[footprints]

Yet a computer can emulate, to a certain degree, a biological neuron's computation. Neural networks are a form of software that is used in main stream aplications that learn from experience. Hardly just an output on my monitor.

A computer can in no way emulate a bioligical neurons computation. Neural networks are nothing like software, and you are confusing this with neurotransmitters, which is the chemical reation which gives us emotion and our reaction to life experience, which a computer just doesn't have.

What do super conductors have to do with brain waves? The brainwaves are super slow in comparison to electromagetic waves, Brains use ion power, move substaintialy below the speed of sound and yes whatever radiates from the brain are losses because the brain can't use electromagnetic radiation directly.

Absolutely nothing. Which is why trying to associate the human brain to a computer is completely irrational.

What radiates from the brain isn't losses. It is the same field as is inside the brain.

The brain's real horse power comes from the brute force of the astronomical number of neurons and their interconnections, 10,000 per synapse! While neurons can just switch on an off at 40 hz there are 100s of billions of fiber axons interconnecting lobes. The waves are not speeding along on the same superhighway as you state but are slowly moving along a very wide communications bus. Its more like having 100s of billions of copper wires connecting your Local Area Network and using morse code manual keyers, instead of just one coax cable using 1000ghz ethernet protocol.

Sheeze.

As far as the waves having somekind of knowledge is ridiculous! Do some reading on neural networks and biological neurons, read a book called "Sipkes" and you'll see how digital you really are. I also recommend reading "Rethinking Inateness". :sarcastic

Personally I found my education much more revealing. Each of course to their own.

 

[Beyondo]

A computer can in no way emulate a bioligical neurons computation. Neural networks are nothing like software, and you are confusing this with neurotransmitters, which is the chemical reation which gives us emotion and our reaction to life experience, which a computer just doesn't have.

Let's just start your education from here shall we?

Try:

Neural network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and
Artificial neural network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now this is just to start mind you, if you would like me to point you to more advance material I will. You could also google for more info yourself. :yes:

 

[Beyondo]

What radiates from the brain isn't losses. It is the same field as is inside the brain.

This makes no sense, you're saying that the heat generated by the metabolism of neurons isn't a lose? Or any electrical noise, which means the energy is nolonger moving along the axon but is radiating through the body, isn't a lose?

 

[footprints]

Let's just start your education from here shall we?

Try:

Neural network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and
Artificial neural network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now this is just to start mind you, if you would like me to point you to more advance material I will. You could also google for more info yourself. :yes:

LOL when wikipedia or the internet for that matter, replace higher education, they will demolish all universities. Until that time, you keep your sources of knowledge, and I will keep mine.:yes:

 

[tumbleweed41]

LOL when wikipedia or the internet for that matter, replace higher education, they will demolish all universities. Until that time, you keep your sources of knowledge, and I will keep mine.:yes:

Rather than dismissing out of hand, you might want to go to the suggested site. The references are listed at the bottom. Check the credentials , and read the papers listed.
Then, if your "higher education" is in conflict with the "higher education" of those listed, and their papers, you can call them up to have a little p***ing contest with them.

 

[footprints]

This makes no sense, you're saying that the heat generated by the metabolism of neurons isn't a lose? Or any electrical noise, which means the energy is nolonger moving along the axon but is radiating through the body, isn't a lose?

When a neurological pathway in the brain breaks down (break in the myelin sheath) we end up with epilepsy. That is the loss, signals get cross wired, which by your computer analogy would relate to a short circuit.

Otherwise, the brain is perfectly balanced. There are no losses due to heat in the normal brain under the normal operational range of human existance, nor is there any electrical noise generated.

 

[tumbleweed41]

Otherwise, the brain is perfectly balanced. There are no losses due to heat in the normal brain under the normal operational range of human existance, nor is there any electrical noise generated.

Well that explains why EEGs don't work.:areyoucra

 

[footprints]

Rather than dismissing out of hand, you might want to go to the suggested site. The references are listed at the bottom. Check the credentials , and read the papers listed.
Then, if your "higher education" is in conflict with the "higher education" of those listed, and their papers, you can call them up to have a little p***ing contest with them.

Tumbleweed, I am sure the reference sites offered were highly credible. A small snippet of knowledge, doesn't amount to much, unless, the whole knowledge is gained.

Albeit, I know from past history, many posters work on limited knowledge, as you have done here.

 

[footprints]

Well that explains why EEGs don't work.:areyoucra

LOL. EEG's detect pure electrical signals, not electrical noise. Albeit if electrical noise was generated, it would detect those as well. Simple fact is, EEG's do not detect any electrical noise, in a normal functioning brain.

 

[Walkntune]

Suppose that m-theory is correct and all that exists is strings of energy making all matter and forces in existance.This would leave a lot more room for your mind to just be a source of energy perhaps able to change frequencies through positive or negative thinking. Is it a coincidence that positive people attract other positive people and likewise with negative people?This might cause strange things to happen when certain frequencies line up through thought, maybe things unexplained?

 

[footprints]

Suppose that m-theory is correct and all that exists is strings of energy making all matter and forces in existance.This would leave a lot more room for your mind to just be a source of energy perhaps able to change frequencies through positive or negative thinking. Is it a coincidence that positive people attract other positive people and likewise with negative people?This might cause strange things to happen when certain frequencies line up through thought, maybe things unexplained?

Basically speaking, the human brain is a virtual transmitter and receiver. Providing something is on the same wavelength and frequency, the human brain would be capable of translating it. On the same premise, if it were possible to interconnect one brain to another, thoughts from one brain could be interpreted by the other. All brains work and function in the same way, and the signals from each are identical.

During motor vehicle accidents, some very strange phenomena is alleged to occur. This relates to, the whole immediate world of the victim(s) slowing down to a slow motion state, to many people declaring, that they saw the whole accident occuring before it actually happened. Many others have testified, they could litterally see the other vehicle, see the occupants of the other vehicle, some even knew what they were talking about, when it was totally impossible from their position on the road, to see the vehicle at all.

 

[Walkntune]

Basically speaking, the human brain is a virtual transmitter and receiver. Providing something is on the same wavelength and frequency, the human brain would be capable of translating it. On the same premise, if it were possible to interconnect one brain to another, thoughts from one brain could be interpreted by the other. All brains work and function in the same way, and the signals from each are identical.

During motor vehicle accidents, some very strange phenomena is alleged to occur. This relates to, the whole immediate world of the victim(s) slowing down to a slow motion state, to many people declaring, that they saw the whole accident occuring before it actually happened. Many others have testified, they could litterally see the other vehicle, see the occupants of the other vehicle, some even knew what they were talking about, when it was totally impossible from their position on the road, to see the vehicle at all.

Can you imagine being able to shape the cage you live in through your thoughts?
It would be like an iguana or some animal not outgrowing the cage it lives in and its thoughts having this effect on its body??????(sort of sounds like a method creatures would use to evolve but i dont want to get too far ahead of science ?)
As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he!

 

[footprints]

Can you imagine being able to shape the cage you live in through your thoughts.
It would be like an iguana or some animal not outgrowing the cage it lives in and its thoughts having this effect on its body??????
As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he!

In essence, I believe we already do shape the cage we live in by our own thoughts. Evidence of this, abounds in the world around us. What you see, all the good, the bad and the downright ugly, is the end produce of human intelligence to date.

What the implied or suggested evidence of motor vehicle accident victims does say is, human consciousness, may be possible, away from the physical, human body. A soul or a spirit, if you may. Research still continues down this path, but does go hand in hand with inintial reasearch as it pertained to phenomena which occurred during the first and second world wars. Spouses/Mothers/Lovers back at home, litterally knew, with witnesses to prove it, the exact time and date a loved one passed away. Many even knew the causes. And this was well before any official report of it.

Truth sometimes is a lot stranger than fiction. There is more to the earth and the universe than meets the naked eye.

 

[zenzero]

Friend Beyondo
,

Is the Mind really a spirit?

The soul has been deemed integral or essential to consciousness and personality, and may be synonymous with spirit, mind or self.[2] Although the terms soul and spirit are sometimes used interchangeably, soul may denote a more worldly and less transcendent aspect of a person.[3] According to psychologist James Hillman, soul has an affinity for negative thoughts and images, whereas spirit seeks to rise above the entanglements of life and death.[4] The words soul and psyche can also be treated synonymously, although psyche has more physical connotations, whereas soul is connected more closely to metaphysics and religion.[5]

Personally agree with the above.

Love & rgds

 

[Walkntune]

In essence, I believe we already do shape the cage we live in by our own thoughts. Evidence of this, abounds in the world around us. What you see, all the good, the bad and the downright ugly, is the end produce of human intelligence to date.

What the implied or suggested evidence of motor vehicle accident victims does say is, human consciousness, may be possible, away from the physical, human body. A soul or a spirit, if you may. Research still continues down this path, but does go hand in hand with inintial reasearch as it pertained to phenomena which occurred during the first and second world wars. Spouses/Mothers/Lovers back at home, litterally knew, with witnesses to prove it, the exact time and date a loved one passed away. Many even knew the causes. And this was well before any official report of it.

Truth sometimes is a lot stranger than fiction. There is more to the earth and the universe than meets the naked eye.

Well I believe thought travels as frequencies of energy and can be picked up by intuition.Many mothers know when something is wrong with their babies even across country before ever hearing any news.Sometimes a person may call or cross your path after you were thinking about them etc...I believe also a form of deja vu