Memories may be stored outside the brain

Originally posted by soulwaxer

Great topic OP!

Have you heard of the Dutch cardiologist Dr Pim Van Lommel? He did a broad scientific study on the non-locality of consciousness, involving around 400 people who were brain-dead during cardiac arrest. Here is a very interesting interview with him (his book on the topic is a must read):

interview Dr Pim Van Lommel

He describes the brain as a transmitter and receiver of consciousness. Much like a radio. Consciousness is non-local, or basically everywhere in the universe at the same time (sort of like gravity). The brain does not produce consciousness. After researching several other studies by open-minded scientists in different fields, I am absolutely convinced of this. Every mystery about consciousness, memory, ESP, etc becomes much less mysterious once you have grasped this concept.

Mark my words: This will, in time, become the new paradigm.

Yes I am saying this for the longest time already. I came across mentioning this guy in some books, so yes I heard of him. I personally, after some study and thinking am ALSO convinced that the brain is merely a receiver/medium for consciousness, but it's not *creating* consciousness nor is it essential for consciousness. Consciousness is independent from our brain. The brain "only" serves the purpose to house our consciousness for the time being as long as we're in physical form (eg. born as humans), it's a temporary thing.

This is not some "out there" new age mumbo-jumbo, I mean science more and more comes to the same conclusion.

Originally posted by ChaoticOrder
Call me crazy, but I'm leaning more and more towards the theory that our memories are stored in some sort of "global consciousness field". Or some sort of field which extends outside of our physical body, whether global or not.

You're not crazy. See my post above yours.

Originally posted by NoRulesAllowed

Originally posted by soulwaxer

Great topic OP!

Have you heard of the Dutch cardiologist Dr Pim Van Lommel? He did a broad scientific study on the non-locality of consciousness, involving around 400 people who were brain-dead during cardiac arrest. Here is a very interesting interview with him (his book on the topic is a must read):

interview Dr Pim Van Lommel

He describes the brain as a transmitter and receiver of consciousness. Much like a radio. Consciousness is non-local, or basically everywhere in the universe at the same time (sort of like gravity). The brain does not produce consciousness. After researching several other studies by open-minded scientists in different fields, I am absolutely convinced of this. Every mystery about consciousness, memory, ESP, etc becomes much less mysterious once you have grasped this concept.

Mark my words: This will, in time, become the new paradigm.

Yes I am saying this for the longest time already. I came across mentioning this guy in some books, so yes I heard of him. I personally, after some study and thinking am ALSO convinced that the brain is merely a receiver/medium for consciousness, but it's not *creating* consciousness nor is it essential for consciousness. Consciousness is independent from our brain. The brain "only" serves the purpose to house our consciousness for the time being as long as we're in physical form (eg. born as humans), it's a temporary thing.

This is not some "out there" new age mumbo-jumbo, I mean science more and more comes to the same conclusion.

Yep. Once you understand this concept and have been applying it to your thinking for a while, you start to see how ridiculous the current concept is.

Matter doesn't create consciousness. If anything, consciousness creates matter.

This concept is also very useful in interpreting the bible. God is consciousness and so we are all God...

Originally posted by pheonix358
reply to post by angrysniper

 

You erroneously assume that memories and personality are equal to awareness. Memories do not need to persist after death for there to be an afterlife. Only awareness.

I disagree. The memories and personality continuously add to awareness.

My personal view is that the combination of soul, brain and body make up an entity. At reincarnation a soul gets a new brain and body. Every reincarnation is different not only for the experiences but also for the gifts and challenges that every body / brain combination gives us.

To put it perhaps very simply, awareness is awareness of our surroundings and to do that you have to know your surroundings and that uses the application of memory. To suggest that the soul could even function without memory is unrealistic.

P

Why does it have to be memory that 'moves' souls? Why can't it be a magnetic force or something like gravity?

Originally posted by soulwaxer


Matter doesn't create consciousness. If anything, consciousness creates matter.

This concept is also very useful in interpreting the bible. God is consciousness and so we are all God...

I wanted to bring this up as well but didn't know whether it fits here, but I guess it does. Yes, of course it goes way farther than just realizing that consciousness is indeed "outside" the brain.

To quote what it comes down to: "Things are thoughts".



Funny again how quantum theory etc. ALSO confirms this more and more.

Here is also a cool comparison I just saw a couple days ago...imagine that science/scientists are like mountain climbers who for a very long time try to climb a mountain (eg. allegory for trying to understand how the universe works)....so after a loooong time of climbing the scientists finally get up on top of the mountain and then find there sitting a bunch of shamans & gurus welcoming them...(Because the shamans knew about the true nature of the universe long ago already

Likewise, this is no new-age mumbo-jumbo anymore since some quantum theorists in fact say now that there IS a relationship between thoughts and what we actually "observe". I mean we can literally influence particles, their state/appearance with our "thoughts", this is more or less a fact now. So..science does indeed confirm those spiritual philosophies

reply to post by jiggerj


That I have no idea about. But they apparently did. Maybe some kind of nutrient bath? Is it important to the scope of the study?

It could be that the flatworms are laying out some kind of scent or chemical trail as they wander back from wherever they went, "Hey, there's water in this direction, or go this way if you need some minerals, this is a nice dry warm place".

It wouldn't matter if they lost their heads, they would still be able to nagivate around using what previous trails had been laid.

Originally posted by kmb08753
reply to post by jiggerj

 

That I have no idea about. But they apparently did. Maybe some kind of nutrient bath? Is it important to the scope of the study?

Important only in the fact that if a thing dies within a very short amount of time, then it's a complete lie.
I don't think it is, but we have to question such things. I'm REALLY surprised that the head didn't grow a body, instead of the body growing a new head.

Originally posted by NoRulesAllowed

Originally posted by soulwaxer


Matter doesn't create consciousness. If anything, consciousness creates matter.

This concept is also very useful in interpreting the bible. God is consciousness and so we are all God...

I wanted to bring this up as well but didn't know whether it fits here, but I guess it does. Yes, of course it goes way farther than just realizing that consciousness is indeed "outside" the brain.

To quote what it comes down to: "Things are thoughts".

Funny again how quantum theory etc. ALSO confirms this more and more.

Here is also a cool comparison I just saw a couple days ago...imagine that science/scientists are like mountain climbers who for a very long time try to climb a mountain (eg. allegory for trying to understand how the universe works)....so after a loooong time of climbing the scientists finally get up on top of the mountain and then find there sitting a bunch of shamans & gurus welcoming them...(Because the shamans knew about the true nature of the universe long ago already

Likewise, this is no new-age mumbo-jumbo anymore since some quantum theorists in fact say now that there IS a relationship between thoughts and what we actually "observe". I mean we can literally influence particles, their state/appearance with our "thoughts", this is more or less a fact now. So..science does indeed confirm those spiritual philosophies



Thanks for that! Great story about the shamans on top of the mountain.
I thought it would end like this: The scientists finally reached the top of the mountain, and to their amazement, saw a second mountain standing right next to it.

Will have to check back on this thread later. Parental duties calling!

reply to post by benrl


I'm pretty sure this "elsewhere" you speak of for receiving information is a spooky place called the environment. We interact with it all the time, yet act as if it has no influence on us. Spooky, eh?

reply to post by Daughter2


Just like the 100th Monkey Theory.

reply to post by Druscilla


Agreed, we are on a much higher order of complexity than flatworms. Maybe it was just a form of muscle response the worms were demonstrating? Research has shown that severed limbs of octupi retain some learned behaviors, like where to find an exit to a test field. They have a highly developed distributed nervous system.

So yeah, maybe only simple skills should be considered. I guess I won't be able to do calculus after getting an injection. Boooo.

I still think its and interesting and telling study, however.

reply to post by pheonix358


Unfortunately I still haven't seen any studies that suggest an existential soul might be anything more than emergent consciousness/awareness brought on by a complex physical "orchestra" of reasoning memory and our fear of non-existance(death). In my opinion, even near death experiences(an often stated argument) just mimic the brain functioning in a sensory void. It makes up all kinds of stuff during sensory deprivation tests.

But the scope of the reported study was not meant to address body-mind duality.

reply to post by soulwaxer


What studies have shown, empirically, that we can alter real world objects with thought? Sure it isn't just our perception of those object that is being changed?

While taking hallucinogenic substance many years back, I would swear objects would change shape, but as no one else ever saw the same change, it was clearly just my view that was altered.

I'm not arguing against it per say, a study showing someone changing the real world with their brain would be interesting to me.

But yeah, this type of discussion wasn't the point of the original post.

reply to post by kmb08753


THis is not really news, Karl Lashey (en.wikipedia.org...) discovered a while back tbhat you could train a rat, then cut out a random part of the brain and not impair its memory.

Karl cut out a different part of the brain of each of his trained rats, and found they all remembered their mazes just fine.

Memory is part of consciousness, which is not part of the brain - but rather part of the mind. The mind is responsible for observations, and does not appear to exist in physical reality - as determined by application of quantum mechanics(en.wikipedia.org...);

Excerpt - 'The nature of observation has often been a point of contention in quantum mechanics,[7] because quantum mechanics describes the experiences of observers with different numbers than it uses to describe material objects.'

From the information I have available, it seems reasonable to conclude that consciousness and mind are somehow different from physical reality as we currently understand it.

TO speculate, the mind and consciousness reside at some more fundamental level of reality - that is below that which is exposed by application of quantum mechanics. If this was true, then perhaps there is a more fundamental way of describing reality than (the very successful) model proposed by quantum mechanics.

There are still many physicists (myself included) who feel that there is indeed another layer of reality waiting below the quantum mechanical world that is yet to be revealed. A black hole as envisioned by Stephen Hawking violates the conservation of information, and is challenged by the holographic universe theory.

Some advocates of the holographic universe theory still hold to the idea that quantum mechanics is incomplete, and that a complete understanding will likely reveal this layer of reality under it - and that it may well be deterministic.

reply to post by kmb08753


Personally I believe in the soul but there have been documented case study's of patients whom have received heart transplant's only to begin to manifest behavioural patterns and habits, tastes and attitudes that were not formerly there own but were of the donor.
One man after finding out who his heart donor was contacted his family and he formerly had been a couch potato but after ward became a sport addict and found that many traits he seemed to have received with his new heart as they were traits of his donor.

reply to post by jiggerj


Ah, the wonders of biology. Maybe when we understand how regeneration in nature works we will be able to answer why it didn't grow a second body segment instead of a head.

Maybe the body had an automated form of feeding. A reflex to absorb nutrients. Assuming they aren't lying about the head regrowing and regeneration not being the point of the study, I'm not really going to follow up on how it lived long enough to regrowing a head.

Good question for validating the study though, if that was my intent.

reply to post by stormcell


I will need to dig further into the study, but I would assume they also used a control group of non-trained worms to validate the results. If not the whole thing would be bunk.

It does say they used light as the motivator, as the worms use light to navigate around dangers.

.

reply to post by soulwaxer


I agree Consciousness is energy and part of the field of the universe .

I was so called brain dead from a drowning and was totally conscious .

Some people love to take a phony scientific view while ignoring the true nature of our being .

We are Energy ! Everything is Energy !

And I will not censor myself to conform to the ignorant ... it's time to move on and understand what we really are and how we fit into the universe .

.

reply to post by Amagnon


Quantum entanglement alone smacks of a connection beyond 3 dimensional space. I can't wait until we can explain, definitively, how it works. I'm am a layman, but quantum physics is fascinating and surprisingly accurate in its descriptions/predictions.

As far as parts of the brain being cut out... The same can be said for people with severe brain damage. According to what I've seen, they believe the brain can re-organize itself to function as normally as possible. Areas usually attributed to one function will take over tasks that were performed by the damaged areas. Also, memories can be stored and accessed from different parts of the brain. Redundancy, kinda like cloud computing.

In this study, the whole thing was cut out and regrown. The information had to be stored somewhere else in the nervous system, or some other system. I think that was the whole point. Since DNA is used for generation/replication, maybe it somehow stores a copy of some type of memories. In this case at least, it stored what enviroments were safe and containing food.

I acknowledge this wasn't a novel study, but a good, convincing recent one. I thought I would share it with you all.