Human consciousness is much more than mere brain activity

reply to post by TupacShakur


wow..u are smart..and seem t know more than science..

Äh? Hello? Do u think the radio is making music only because u can measure the electrical signals in the radio?

reply to post by TupacShakur


No amount of complexity of atomic or chemical reactions can justify the existence of the experience. Physics can only so far explain our being as biological robots, but cannot explain the experience of the sights, sounds and thoughts that our machine's respond to and produce. I don't mean the electrons travel down the nervous system and fire neurons, that's all electro-chemical reactions that happen when you cook your food in a microwave. What I mean is the "experience" of the product that those reactions produce in the brain.

Imagine no light ?

In the light of the latest findings, scientists have arrived at a most interesting conclusion: In fact, our world is pitch black. Light is now known to be an entirely subjective concept; in other words, it is simply a perception formed in people's brains. In fact, there is no light in the outside world. Neither lamps, nor car headlights, nor even the Sun, which we regard as our greatest and most powerful source of light, emit any light at all. All that the Sun and other "sources of light" do is emit photons, different kinds of electromagnetic particles of various wavelengths. These particles spread throughout the universe in the manner that their structures allow. Some of these reach our Earth, where again they produce the kinds of effects determined by their structures; and which change, depending on the particle's volume, weight, speed and frequency. For instance, many radioactive particles enter our bodies and pass through them. These can be stopped only by lead shields. Some of these particles are so heavy and energy-charged that usually they shatter any molecule they may encounter and continue on their way, with little deviation. This phenomenon underlies the way in which radiation gives rise to cancer. X-ray machines make use of X-rays-a weaker form of radiation-and turn the effect of electromagnetic radio waves into "visible light," that is, into a form visible to our eyes. Since radio waves contain no particles, they do people no harm at the moment of impact. These waves cannot be perceived by any of our senses, though the radios in our homes translate these into sound waves that our ears can perceive. The crackling noise heard in the absence of any broadcast on our household radios is actually the sound of the cosmic background radiation-energy left over from the "Big Bang," the explosion by which the universe was created. The word "sound" here refers to the perception that forms in our brains after our radios have transformed these waves into vibrations in the air that our ears can hear.Photons, the source of the perception we refer to as "light," are much lighter particles that usually bounce back from the first molecule they encounter. In doing so, they do almost no damage to the place they strike. Due to their frequencies-the speed at which they vibrate-ultra-violet rays are charged with greater energy and can penetrate more deeply into our skin, sometimes damaging the cells' genetic codes. This is why excessive exposure to the Sun's rays can lead to skin cancer.hose photons known as infra-red because of their frequencies leave some of their energy behind, increasing the speed of vibration of the atoms there-in other words, the heat on the surface they strike. For this reason, infra-red rays are also called as heat rays. A burning coal stove or an electric heater give off large amounts of infra-red radiation, which is "seen" or rather, perceived, by our bodies as heat. Some photons' frequencies lie between those of ultra-violet and infra-red rays. When these fall on the retinal layer at the back of our eyes, thecells there turn them into electrical signals. We then perceive these photons, which are actually particles, as "light." If the cells in our eyes perceived photons as "heat," then what we refer to as light, color and darkness would not exist. When we looked at object, we would perceive it as merely "hot" or "cold."

READ MORE : THE LITTLE MAN IN THE TOWER

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There is a potential description of the subjective experience of awareness, thought, and consciousness. It may be as simple as calling it emergent behavior.

Recent research suggests that we may in fact have no free will in the traditional sense, and that our experience of awareness may merely be an illusion - a highly persistent illusion, but an illusion nevertheless - generated as a form of emergent behavior. In some experiments involving electrical stimulation of the brain, they were able to provoke not only physical movement, but the experience of volition. That is to say that the subject believed they were choosing to move, when in reality both that sense of choice and the movement itself were externally stimulated. This proves that it is at least possible for external stimuli, distinct from our awareness or consciousness, to create the illusion of volition.

Emergent behavior is behavior or activity that arises from interactions between complex systems, giving rise to unexpected, often unpredictable new patterns and even distinct systems. A simpler way of putting it might be, "more than the sum of its parts." Our consciousness could be emergent behavior.

I'm not saying that it is or has to be, but it is possible (even if the thought is abhorrent to me personally.) I wrote a topic discussing free will which can be viewed in my profile that expands on this notion to a greater extent. Whether we like it or not, and regardless of how distinct, metaphysical, or intangible our consciousness may seem, it is no doubt at least possible that it is a form of emergent behavior arising from the complexities of the organs of our brains interacting and communicating with one another, after millenia of evolution. Likewise, the subjective concepts we live with (someone gave the example of "light," as a concept rather than a real phenomenon apart from the photons) could be emergent behaviors. Information is communicated from photos to cells in our eyes, and this information is processed by various parts of the brain and an emergent image is generated.

Our consciousness and the subjective experience thereof does not have to be more than brain activity, or at least body-wide neural activity. I wish I could prove that it was. I would sleep better at night. But I cannot eliminate the possibility that that's all we are. And nothing presented in this topic (so far) does either.

When you look out of the window, you think that you see an image with your eyes, as this is the way that you have been taught to think. However, in reality this is not how it works, because you do not see the world with your eyes. You see the image created in your brains. This is not a prediction, nor a philosophical speculation, but the scientific truth. This concept can be better understood when we realize how the visual system operates. The eye is responsible for transforming light into an electric signal by means of the cells in the retina. This electrical signal reaches the sight center in the brain. The signals create the vision you see when you look out of the window. In other words, the sights you see are created in your brain. You see the image in your brain, not the view outside the window. For example, in the picture shown on the right hand side, the light reaches the eyes of the person from outside. This light passes to the small sight center located at the back of the brain after the cells in the eyes transform it into electrical signals. It is these electrical signals which form the picture in the brain. In reality when we open the brain, we wouldn't be able to see any image. However, some kind of consciousness in the mind receives electrical signals in the form of an image. The brain perceives electrical signals in the form of an image, yet it has no eye, eye cells, or retina. So, to whom does the consciousness in the brain belong? The same question can be asked about the book you are reading now. The light coming to your eyes is converted into electrical signals and reaches your brain, where the view of the book is created. In other words, the book you are reading right now is not outside you, it is actually inside you, in the sight center in the back of your brain. Since you feel the hardness of the book with your hands, you might think that the book is outside you. However, this feeling of hardness also originates in the brain. The nerves on your fingertips transmit electrical information to the touch center in your brain. And when you touch the book, you feel the hardness and intensity of it, the slipperiness of the pages, the texture of the cover and the sharpness of the edge of the pages, all within your brain. In reality however, you can never touch the real nature of the book. Even though you think that you're touching the book, it is your brain that perceives the tactile sensations. This book exists as a material thing outside of your brain, but you merely confront the image of the book within your brain. However, you should not be tricked by the fact that a writer wrote this book, the pages were designed by a computer and printed by a publisher. The things that will be explained in due course will show you that you will never know the originals of the people, computers and the publishers in every stages of the production of this book.

READ MORE : The Secret Beyond Matter

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Love this movie , Gives You an Idea!!!

a star and a flag
this is a great article
dealing with a topic that keeps me busy and confused (as it forces me to think outside my scientific materialistic framework)
thanks, OP

What an excellent thread. I'm really enjoying reading this.

Maybe we could explain why all our senses work but one thing could not be explained fore sure. The consciousness of itself. We are looking always for mysterious phenomenon, unexplainable things but most marvelous mysterious and unexplainable phenomenon is that feeling that I'm. This is always with you, everyone know that they are present. This is so obvious that many people even don't wonder how amazing this is. A peace of matter that know itself that is there.

This crush present scientific way of thinking. I'm not against science, in fact I'm rather skeptic in most subject but I can't watch how scientist are closing more and more ways they could explore because they thing they are so smart and know everything. This king of approach to exploration of all phenomenon which are around us is slowing our development as a whole civilization.

reply to post by EthanT


This is what the awkening is, it is our consciousnes that is becoming more and more aware of the restrictions it faces in this consensus reality that we call life.
The program is encoded in our DNA, en this basically tells the consciousness inside a body (the soul) how reality is viewed in this consensus reality with other humans.
This program will finish in 2012 and everything that has happened in the past was a journey to our own elightenment, this is too say that we have evolved to the point that we realise that life and our own consciousness is much more than we were lead to believe.You can`t blame the people who run with the program and hang on to it with their dear lives, as they are not aware of the program and what it is.
This has to come through a longing to something (call it the source or god) and the search for knowledge to figure out what it all means and how it relates to ourselves.
That is why alot of people on ATS are the pioneers so to speak of the mass awakening.

Our DNA is being changed and so will our reality as we are welcomed by our oither brothers and sisters out there and a whole new era for humanity starts.

reply to post by CAELENIUM


hey if you like that book you should try amit goswami the self-aware universe.. It is a real stunner.....

kx)

The Best post since i joined , thank you.I already know about these stuff plus i have more but my laziness is a Bhich

We should have section called : "Best thread of all time"

reply to post by EthanT

Now why do I have a Bible passage, part of Pauls letter to the Galatians included here with this from the article?
It took me many times to read and re read this and the passages it came from to determine what Paul is saying.

Do you think YOU - A SPIRIT BEING - can be made perfect in the flesh?
You are a spirit. You cannot simply abide by laws and do good works to attain your highest self.
You must believe in the supernatural.
That which you cannot see and figure out with your mind.
The same supernatural ability Christ proved is at work on Earth in and among human beings, when he was here.

Paul is saying the same thing people say to skeptics today. We are more than what is written in the Law. We are miraculous and can attract miracles and we may even be able to perform them but we have a ways to go and much to learn first.

"The Law" means the commandments and dictates issued along with our logical rational minds.
Now take "faith" to mean that which you cannot see or prove but somehow sense is there. Hearing of faith is a knowledge and belief in miracles and all of that which is above the rational and thinking mind.

Neuromania arises from the doctrine that consciousness is the same as brain activity or, to be slightly more sophisticated, that consciousness is just the way that we experience brain activity.

If you think the brain is a machine then you are committed to saying that composing a sublime poem is as involuntary an activity as having an epileptic fit.

You will issue press releases announcing "the discovery of love" or "the seat of creativity", stapled to images of the brain with blobs helpfully highlighted in red or blue, that journalists reproduce like medieval acolytes parroting the missives of popes.
You will start to assume that the humanities are really branches of biology in an immature form.

What is astonishing about this rampant reductionism is that it is based on a conceptual muddle that is readily unpicked. Sure, you need a brain to be alive, but to be human is not to be a brain. Think of it this way: you need legs to walk, but you'd never say that your legs are walking.

The same conflation can be exposed in a more complex way by reflecting on the phenomenon of perception. It is what we do every moment of the waking day.

You're doing it right now: casting an eye to the paper in front of you and seeing words on a page. But if you were just a brain, you would not see words.

There'd be just the gentle buzz of neuronal activity in the intracranial darkness.

-------------------------------------------------------------

1 O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?
2 This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
3 Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
4 Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.
5 He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?www.bartleby.com...

Here I will paraphrase: "Oh stupid people, why do you always revert to cold hard facts when Christ himself worked in miracles?" You are spirit beings and communicate that way as well.

And here

For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: Rom. 4.14 but God gave it to Abraham by promise.

Our inheritance is MUCH MORE THAN the simple facts and figures of THE LAW. We are spiritual beings and the law doesn't really matter in the great scheme of things...we still are what we are.

19 Wherefore then serveth the law?

Then why obey the law? It is a natural question one might ask Paul and he explains...because it appeared we NEEDED THE LAW.

It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.

"Until the seed should come to who the promise was made" might mean until everyone interbreeds to such a point that "the seed of Abraham" is in almost everyone on the planet.

21 ¶ Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.
22 But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

To me this passage tells us logical and rational thinking is over rated and our instinctive voice and our sense of the divine, the supernatural and miracles is also very real and needs to be utilized and paid attention to. People knew that then...at least Paul did and we are just learning it again now. This truth must issue from somewhere.

Originally posted by TupacShakur
Human consciousness is nothing more than mere brain activity. Everything we do can be explained by a certain part of the brain having a different function than the next one, which in combination makes us the people we are, who think what we think, do what we do, say what we say, see what we see, etc.

That's what you think.
And it is placing severe and unnecessary limitations on the organism as a whole.

Happy now?

Basic conciousness in higher life forms is a form of neural resonance, where one neuron fires another repeatedly.
This is at it's highest state when awake, lesser in sleep, sleep is necessary to process the stuff from when we were awake.
This "resonance" may be the prime cause for the state of "awareness".
Thoughts, actions and general moment to moment thinking are cascade patterns of neural activity superimposed on this underlying framework.

However, in the insect world we are presented with the notion of the hive mind,
where individual consciousnesses seem interlinked to a collective for the benefit of the whole.

That's reality.

Let's get speculative.

I have always had this idea that the mechanism and composition of the higher evolved brain creates an environment that could be considered analagous to an antenna,
that taps into a higher consciousness,
this concept is difficult for me to articulate but is an interesting hypotheses.
That higher conciousness could be a collective existing in a stratum we don't yet comprehend,
like the insect hive mind,
or for the Religious among us, the God wavelength.

This link could be reinforced with ongoing development and evolution of the brain,
through successive generations or mutations,
it could be degraded or non-existant in the event of brain injury or birth defects,
and is severed at death where the individual ceases to exist,
but what they were and their experiences remain in the collective.

Probably this is where the notion of Star Trek's BORG came out of.

Your opinions, as always?

Originally posted by silvadude12
My Atheist friends, you need to open your eyes. The brain is too perfect to be created by blind random chance. Look what it does. Look at the world around you, with eyes that are part of your brain. The sensations you feel, the sounds you hear, the things you see. can you honestly look around you and tell me that that "chunk of meat" in your head was created randomly? That we are just another part of the world that was accidentally created? I don't think you can. Look into yourself. You have been given a gift. it's a little something called Consciousness. Use it.

You need to find God, my friends.
"There's no such thing as an Atheist in a foxhole."

I'm afraid you are only showing a distinct lack of understanding of evolution over hundreds of millions of years. Presumably you know about the biological mistakes, bad design, evolutionary dead ends, multiple paths of evolution resulting in the same function (that's a good one and a real eye opener and bye bye God!!!).

Personally I prefer the joke about the designer of the Human body being the local council because who else would put a waste disposal system through an area of pleasure!

Unless God is a councillor.......hmmm never thought of that one.

Watch out in the field of robotics. I would guess that between 10-20 years from now we will have machines that think.......spooky

Conciousness is the sum of all your life experiences which are VAST and as such this makes us all unique and fools some into thinking it is more than it is.

This has intrigued me for many many years. I see both sides of the argument, however, I refuse to believe consciousness is only biological.

If it is, and scientists are so adamant it is, then I offer them the challenge of creating a self aware computer. Until I see this happening, I will stand firm that there is much more to consciousness than our brains functions alone.

If I were a fish, this topic is my fish-pond.
I just wanted to make a quick post to this topic for quick reference later.

Absolutely love it!
S&F from me!

Here is my take on consciousness.

Consciousness is more than just brain activity, I see our consciousness as a mass of energy (the soul if you like) and I see the brain as a receiver acting by pulling information out of the world and arranging it (information) so that our consciousness can understand/experience this reality. Different parts of the brain works to decode different parts of reality.

Think of it as a wireless router taking infomation from the "cloud" and arranging it so that we may see it on a screen.

ALS