What is energy?

[atanu]

Also Gambit, I have asked you numerous times here to show anything that is conscious without a nervous system and brain. You haven't provided anything yet, so still waiting.

Have we ever seen a brain ( or any object) without help from a pre-existing awareness? And, whether we have seen a brain separate from a living system generating consciousness? Do we understad the living system?

No fuel upon death. No fuel, no function.

Okay, I agree. But tell us what is that fuel?

 

[shawn001]

A bacterium doesn't have any nervous system, yet there is evidence that bacteria exhibit decision-making abilities. Also, NDEs (near-death experiences) provide evidence that a functioning brain (or nervous system) is not required to have conscious experiences.

bacteria exhibit decision-making abilities.


Why microbes are smarter than you thought

"
The vast majority of species on Earth are single-celled. Most of these languish in obscurity – many have never even been named – but some of the relatively few species that have been studied exhibit remarkable abilities.

Many of these are physical: some micro-organisms are amazingly strong; others can hibernate for hundreds of thousands of years or thrive inenvironments so extreme that they would kill off most other life forms in a flash.

But many bacteria and protists also exhibit behaviour that looks remarkably intelligent. This behaviour isn't the result of conscious thought – the sort you find in humans and other complex animals – because single-celled organisms don't have nervous systems, let alone brains.

A better explanation is that they're "biological computers" with internal machinery that can process information (see our review of Wetware: A Computer in Every Living Cell). Here are some of the most striking examples of this "intelligent" behaviour from the New Scientist archive.

Communication
Bacteria talk to each other with chemicals. They do so for a host of reasons, some of them hard to understand unless you are another bacterium (or a dedicated bacteriologist), but one of the most straightforward is demonstrated by Bacillus subtilis.

If B. subtilis individuals are growing in a food-poor area, they release chemicals into their surroundings. These essentially tell their neighbours: "There's not much food here, so clear off or we'll both starve."

In response to these chemical messages, the other bacteria set themselves up further away, completely changing the shape of the colony.
See
The secret language of bacteria

Decision-making
Many single-celled organisms can work out how many other bacteria of their own species, are in their vicinity – an ability known as "quorum sensing".

Each individual bacterium releases a small amount of a chemical into the surrounding area – a chemical that it can detect through receptors on its outer wall. If there are lots of other bacteria around, all releasing the same chemical, levels can reach a critical point and trigger a change in behaviour.

Pathogenic (disease-causing) bacteria often use quorum sensing to decide when to launch an attack on their host. Once they have amassed in sufficient numbers to overwhelm the immune system, they collectively launch an assault on the body.
Jamming their signals

Why microbes are smarter than you thought - life - 30 June 2009 - New Scientist

 

[shawn001]

Have we ever seen a brain ( or any object) without help from a pre-existing awareness? And, whether we have seen a brain separate from a living system generating consciousness? Do we understad the living system?


Okay, I agree. But tell us what is that fuel?

Life on Earth can be traced through evolution from single cell organisms to multiple celled organisms all the way up to complex organisms and the development IMPORTANTLY of a NERVOUS SYSTEM and the BRAIN and consciousness.


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 system—or a brain—in 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.
  
  Why would it die if it didn't have a nervous system?
  Because if you move, the variety of environments that you find is very large. So if you happen to be a plant you have to worry only about the very small space you grow into. You don't have to do anything other than maybe move up and down. And you're following the sun anyhow, so there is no planned movement, and therefore there is no necessity to predict what is going to happen if, which is what the nervous system seems to be about. It seems to be about moving in a more or less intelligent way. The more elaborate the system, the more intelligent the movement.
  
  So you need a nervous system in order to be able to predict the future?
  Yes, and in order to predict you have to have, at the very least, a simple image inside that tells you something about the purpose of the outside world. That is common to all nervous systems of all forms that we know of. Each animal has a different universe—the universe it sees, the universe it feels, the universe it tastes. Earth probably looks very different not only for all of us as individual humans, but also for different animals.
  
  NOVA | The Electric Brain

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Ben, you have "labeled" me throughout many posts, called me a Catholic who didn't know what he was talking about, then when I told you I wasn't a Catholic, you then called me an atheist and I told you I wasn't, and now the label of uneducated. "lacking even quite basic English language comprehension" I majored in English. No need to reply Ben, putting you on ignore.

All you have done in raising these issues is to create a distracting strawman that avoids responding to my drawing attention to the fact that my statement....."As science proceeds to find out about dark matter and energy, knowledge about the nature of the non-physical will arise...and its causal relationship with physical matter.", means more or less what you stated...."Even dark matter which we don't understand yet, acts physically on the universe."....and that you can't see it....

 

[atanu]

Life on Earth can be traced through evolution from single cell organisms to multiple celled organisms all the way up to complex organisms and the development IMPORTANTLY of a NERVOUS SYSTEM and the BRAIN and consciousness.

The Electric Brain.....

Shawn, you have pasted this electric brain thingy may be more than 10 times.

I asked why a brain in a dead body does not generate Consciousness. You or someone said that stoppage of fuel caused heart to stop pumping and the brain to die (or the machine to stop). I asked what was that fuel?

And you simply paste "The Electric Brain". Now will you be kind enough to tell us what actually is that fuel, stopping of which makes the brain lifeless and unconscious?

 

[Gambit]

No and no dualism.

The fact is that you presuppose dualism in practice. And your previous post makes this abundantly clear.

 

[Gambit]

"A bacterium doesn't have any nervous system, yet there is evidence that bacteria exhibit decision-making abilities."

Please provide a link. They have reactions to environments .

I have already provided you with a link. On the materialist view, we are all "stimulus-response" systems. The only difference between a human being and a bacterium is that a human being is a more complicated one. IOW, it's a difference of degree, not of kind. If you believe single-cell organisms are not conscious, then you have to explain why sentient stimulus-response systems were naturally selected over insentient stimulus-responses systems, because there isn't anything a sentient stimulus-response system can do that an insentient one cannot do in theory.

"Also, NDEs (near-death experiences) provide evidence that a functioning brain (or nervous system) is not required to have conscious experiences"

What? They didn't have a nervous system?

Someone who is declared clinically dead neither has a functioning brain nor a functioning nervous system. (Someone who is declared clinically dead is dead, and will remain dead unless successfully resuscitated.) The bottom line is that I have furnished you with evidence.

 

[Bunyip]

I have already provided you with a link. On the materialist view, we are all "stimulus-response" systems. The only difference between a human being and a bacterium is that a human being is a more complicated one. IOW, it's a difference of degree, not of kind. If you believe single-cell organisms are not conscious, then you have to explain why sentient stimulus-response systems were naturally selected over insentient stimulus-responses systems, because there isn't anything a sentient stimulus-response system can do that an insentient one cannot do in theory.

What? That is ludicrous. How was that argument supposed to follow?

Someone who is declared clinically dead neither has a functioning brain nor a functioning nervous system. (Someone who is declared clinically dead is dead, and will remain dead unless successfully resuscitated.) The bottom line is that I have furnished you with evidence.

Evidence of what? Your 'evidence ' seems to be little more than rather hopeful non-sequiturs.

 

[Gambit]

What? That is ludicrous. How was that argument supposed to follow?

I don't see any counterargument here.

Evidence of what? Your 'evidence ' seems to be little more than rather hopeful non-sequiturs.

If you believe a functioning brain is required to experience consciousness, then you have to explain how people (in NDEs) are having conscious experiences during clinical death.

 

[Bunyip]

I don't see any counterargument here.

Why would you expect a counter argument to your non-sequitur? I was simply pointing out that your argument is just a non-sequitur, there is no argument to counter.

If you believe a functioning brain is required to experience consciousness, then you have to explain how people (in NDEs) are having conscious experiences during clinical death.

Well that's easy - the 'N' in NDE refers to NEAR, so they were not dead. The people reporting NDE's ALL have functioning brains. You are holding the wrong end of the stick - NDE's do not evidence a non-physical source of consciousness. On the contrary, they provide evidence that a physical brain IS required.

 

[Gambit]

Why would you expect a counter argument to your non-sequitur? I was simply pointing out that your argument is just a non-sequitur, there is no argument to counter. Well that's easy - the 'N' in NDE refers to NEAR, so they were not dead. The people reporting NDE's ALL have functioning brains. You are holding the wrong end of the stick - NDE's do not evidence a non-physical source of consciousness. On the contrary, they provide evidence that a physical brain IS required.

Brain stem activity flatlines during cardiac arrest. So, you have to explain how conscious experiences are occurring during a state when the brain is nonfunctional.

 

[psychoslice]

What isn't energy ?.

 

[Gambit]

What isn't energy?

It seems to me that we speak of both spirit and matter in terms of energy.

 

[Bunyip]

Brain stem activity flatlines during cardiac arrest. So, you have to explain how conscious experiences are occurring during a state when the brain is nonfunctional.

No, not at all. The memories come later, from when the person awakes. They communicate nothing during unconsciousness. NDE's are the accounts of living, conscious people

 

[psychoslice]

It seems to me that we speak of both spirit and matter in terms of energy.

Yea thats true, I think that the pure source or consciousness is before matter or energy, for energy had to come from somewhere, and like the big bang which came from, well really nowhere, energy had to be there for the big bang to happen, but where did all this compressed energy come from ?.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Why would you expect a counter argument to your non-sequitur? I was simply pointing out that your argument is just a non-sequitur, there is no argument to counter. Well that's easy - the 'N' in NDE refers to NEAR, so they were not dead. The people reporting NDE's ALL have functioning brains. You are holding the wrong end of the stick - NDE's do not evidence a non-physical source of consciousness. On the contrary, they provide evidence that a physical brain IS required.

Interesting discussion here:Near-death experience - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To me using NDEs to argue for an afterlife or "independent" consciousness looks like a real stretch.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

What isn't energy ?.

Matter?

 

[Bunyip]

Yea thats true, I think that the pure source or consciousness is before matter or energy, for energy had to come from somewhere, and like the big bang which came from, well really nowhere, energy had to be there for the big bang to happen, but where did all this compressed energy come from ?.

But the net energy of the universe is zero. Why would a total energy of zero need to come from somewhere?

 

[psychoslice]

But the net energy of the universe is zero. Why would a total energy of zero need to come from somewhere?

I don't really know, but I feel that it had to come from something, or somewhere, this somewhere I call Consciousness, or pure Source.

 

[psychoslice]

Matter?

Can energy be before matter in some state ?.