Very good.
Now all you need to do is provide evidence by which to conclude that your premises are true statements.
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Any Arguments by which to Conclude that Consciousness Is a Product of Brains?
- Thread starter Nous
- Start date
Now all you need to do is provide evidence by which to conclude that your premises are true statements.
Prove it.
The death rate in hospitals is much higher than it is in the general population. So being a patient in a hospital causes an increased risk of dying. What's wrong with that inference?
You misunderstood what I have said.
All causations are inferred from correlations. But not all correlations are inferable as causation. You can find no example of a causation where the evidence is not a correlation. Can you find any?
DId you read the link, the whole thing talks about the subject of perception. We are actually experiencing a little after an actual even occcurs. It talks about the evidence we have on how the brain works.
Here was one of the theories presented and had everything to do with memory.
- The strength model of time memory. This posits a memory trace that persists over time, by which one might judge the age of a memory (and therefore how long ago the event remembered occurred) from the strength of the trace. This conflicts with the fact that memories of recent events may fade more quickly than more distant memories.
Cognition is "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses."[1] It encompasses processes such as knowledge, attention, memory and working memory, judgment and evaluation, reasoning and "computation", problem solving and decision making, comprehension and production of language, etc.
Cognition - Wikipedia
Cognition - Wikipedia
dust1n
Zindīq
The correlation extends beyound:
Brain there = Consciousness happening
Brain not there = Consciousness not happening
Therefore, Brain leads to Consciousness.
In instances of traumatic brain injuries, entire aspects or parts of what we consider a person to be can foundationally change. Our cognitive processes, our memories, our feelings-- all subject to immense difference at a time of a traumatic brain injury. On the flip side, no one goes through a significant change in personality, and then that change causes a physical alteration to happen to the brain. No one loses their memory, and then we find out that that loss of memory is the cause of their Alzheimer's disease.
It's not really the brain specifically that is important, there are all kinds of brains. It's the fact that data is being processed in an insane logical network of interconnected nerve cells...
It strikes me as peculiar though that we even have this conversation. No one ever claims that the images they see are not a byproduct of their optic nerve... That their vision of the world around them doesn't arrive from the anatomy that physically houses the pathways where electrons are used as a means for cellular communication.
Like Energy is bad choice of word there, since it already has a pretty specific meaning. Energy obviously plays a role, considering the nervous system is a series of electrical impulses used to relay information from a certain cluster of cells with another.
QuestioningMind
Well-Known Member
You keep talking as if we have the mysteries of the human brain all figured out. We don't. "...therefore consciousness would be expected to be lost." Note the use of the word EXPECTED in your quote. That means based upon the knowledge we presently possess one would not EXPECT to retain such abilities, but it does not state unequivocally that consciousness WILL be lost, that's because we don't know enough about how it works to make such blanket statements. Does a person on the operating table who is clinically considered brain dead still capable of having dream-like images? We don't know. Not enough is known about the dream state or exactly how the brain functions to be able to say.
The fact that you find it highly unlikely doesn't mean you're right and claiming that a person's near-death experience is somehow proof that consciousness exits beyond the brain it simply not true. You're making assumptions that aren't in evidence.
If observation of correlations is the only way to infer causation, then the evidence of people having, remembering and subsequently reporting complex, coherent experiences, logical thought processes, and veridical perceptions from an out-of-body perspective during clinical death or impaired brain functioning certainly thwarts the inference that consciousness is a product of brains.
Perhaps an even more definitive repudiation of the idea that brains produce consciousness are the correlations produced by the US government's own research on anomalous cognition, as statistics professor Jessica Utts noted when asked to examine the findings:
Research on psychic functioning, conducted over a two decade period, is examined to determine whether or not the phenomenon has been scientifically established. A secondary question is whether or not it is useful for government purposes. The primary work examined in this report was government sponsored research conducted at Stanford Research Institute, later known as SRI International, and at Science Applications International Corporation, known as SAIC.
Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted. Effects of similar magnitude to those found in government-sponsored research at SRI and SAIC have been replicated at a number of laboratories across the world. Such consistency cannot be readily explained by claims of flaws or fraud.
The magnitude of psychic functioning exhibited appears to be in the range between what social scientists call a small and medium effect. That means that it is reliable enough to be replicated in properly conducted experiments, with sufficient trials to achieve the long-run statistical results needed for replicability.
Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted. Effects of similar magnitude to those found in government-sponsored research at SRI and SAIC have been replicated at a number of laboratories across the world. Such consistency cannot be readily explained by claims of flaws or fraud.
The magnitude of psychic functioning exhibited appears to be in the range between what social scientists call a small and medium effect. That means that it is reliable enough to be replicated in properly conducted experiments, with sufficient trials to achieve the long-run statistical results needed for replicability.
The cause of black holes was not inferred from observed correlations, but was deduced from the mathematics of General Relativity.
The various effects that are the result of the Higgs field were not inferred from observed correlations. Rather, a field was hypothesized to exist and exhibit characteristics that resolved certain observed anomalies (such as by giving mass to some fundamental particles). Perhaps one can say that the detection of the Higgs boson involved observation of correlations, but causation was not inferred from such correlations.
The cause of an incident of anesthetic awareness is not inferred from observed correlations. Under normal circumstances, there are 3 possible causes: the patient received an inadequate amount of anesthetic due to doctor error, equipment failure, or characteristics of the patient (e.g., tolerance to one or more of the drugs). The possible causes are eliminated until there is only one left.
To observe that thunder often follows lightning doesn't provide much information about the cause of thunder. For thousands of years, humans presumably noticed that correlation without being able to make any correct deduction about what causes thunder--Aristotle was probably not unusual in that he didn't connect thunder as an effect of lightning (he thought thunder was a result of the wind that occurred during storms). I remember as a child being told by someone that thunder was the sound of clouds slamming back to together after being split apart by lightning. The correlation with lightning doesn't inform one that was causes the sound known as thunder is a shock wave produced by the pressure of rapidly heated gas molecules. It's understanding the mechanics of the atmosphere, the nature of molecules in it, and actions of lightning that lead to understanding what causes thunder.
That sort of coherent explanation in which consciousness (intentions, beliefs, awareness, free will, etc.) is deduced as a logical consequence of the processes and components in the brain is what is missing in the hypothesis that consciousness is produced by brain matter.
One has to have more information than mere correlations in order to construct a causal model.
A causal model is an abstract model that describes the causal mechanisms of a system. The model must express more than correlation because correlation does not imply causation.
What correlations would enable one to rule out the hypothesis that consciousness is, like energy, a fundamental phenomenon, that brains are receivers and transmitters of consciousness?
I agree with your statement that "we are actually experiencing a little after an actual event occurs." And what you have quoted sounds reasonable. None of it helps to substantiate your premise, "Consciousness is dependent on memory."
I don't have a clue as to how memory could possibly be primary to consciousness. As far as I know, one can only remember something that one is first conscious of.
Is there an argument somewhere in what you have written by which to conclude that consciousness (intentions, beliefs, awareness, free will, etc.) is produced by brains? If so, enumerate your premises and conclusion.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying something contrary to this:
It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that there is at least one type of information processing and manipulation that does not readily lend itself to explanations that assume that all final causes are subsumed within brain, or more generally, central nervous system mechanisms. The cases in question are those in which the conscious act of wilfully altering the mode by which experiential information is processed itself changes, in systematic ways, the cerebral mechanisms used. There is a growing recognition of the theoretical importance of applying experimental paradigms that use directed mental effort to produce systematic and predictable changes in brain function (e.g. Beauregard et al. 2001; Ochsner et al. 2002). These wilfully induced brain changes are generally accomplished through training in, and the applied use of, cognitive reattribution and the attentional re-contextualization of conscious experience. Furthermore, an accelerating number of studies in the neuroimaging literature significantly support the thesis that, again, with appropriate training and effort, people can systematically alter neural circuitry associated with a variety of mental and physical states that are frankly pathological (Schwartz et al. 1996; Schwartz 1998; Musso et al. 1999; Paquette et al. 2003). A recent review of this and the related neurological literature has coined the term ‘self-directed neuroplasticity’ to serve as a general description of the principle that focused training and effort can systematically alter cerebral function in a predictable and potentially therapeutic manner (Schwartz & Begley 2002).
Quantum physics in neuroscience and psychology: a neurophysical model of mind–brain interaction
?
I used energy as an example of a fundamental phenomenon because it is just that; it is a quantity (a conserved quantity) that no one has ever seen or touched. I could have used momentum as an example of a fundamental phenomenon, but I think that would have been confusing.
Actually Parnia is not referring to any "mysteries of the human brain," but to the evidence that contradicts what has been assumed (by some people) about the brain causing consciousness. And that assumption is definitely, unequivocally, not maybe, that when cerebral functioning is so impaired as it in during and after resuscitation from cardiac arrest, people should not be having complex, coherent experiences, forming memories, engaging in logical thought processes, and (even with a fully functioning brain) shouldn't ever be having veridical perceptions from an out-of-body perspective.
During (and immediately after resuscitation from) clinical death, a person should be having no experiences, much less coherent ones that include logical thought processes, and which the person can subsequently recall . . . if consciousness were a product of brain functioning.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
What's funny about consciousness is that some people perceive that they're constantly winning arguments when they're not.
It's even funnier that you might think you're making sense.
I think the problem, Nous, is that NDE's really aren't conclusive proof that consciousness exists sans brain function. It's possible that our detection of brain function isn't fine enough. And there's been plenty of other, mundane explanations of NDE's.
We simply don't know enough about brains and consciousness to say anything definitively. Not yet.
But so far, we what evidence we do have, points to the need for a relatively complex brain for consciousness to exist.
We simply don't know enough about brains and consciousness to say anything definitively. Not yet.
But so far, we what evidence we do have, points to the need for a relatively complex brain for consciousness to exist.
Terrywoodenpic
Oldest Heretic
There is no known case where some one or thing with out a functional brain has consciousness.
However there is no reason to suppose a brain can not be in some way distributed.
However there is no reason to suppose a brain can not be in some way distributed.
This is the straw man argument that I pointed out a couple of times on this thread: "They're not really, really, totally dead! There might be a flicker of electricity somewhere in their brains." Not only did I quote Dr. van Lommel addressing that objection, I spend dozens of posts addressing it. A spark of electricity in the brain of someone during cardiac arrest does not account for the having of complex, coherent experiences, forming memories, engaging in logical thought processes, or veridical perceptions from an out-of-body perspective.
And as the evidence cited by Parnia demonstrates, cerebral functioning does not return to anything resembling normal immediately after successful resuscitation from clinical death, especially when the patient has been clinically dead for more than a few seconds.
You are welcomed to provide those "mundane explanations" of NDEs--especially of those of Pam Reynolds, Dr. Rudy's patient, the Parnia 2014 patient, and the congenitally blind patients--on that thread. As you can see, no one else provided any explanation deduced from any fact, much less any "mundane explanation."
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
Likewise, how do I know that my poop is actually digested food that I ate? That all the food I eat ends up turning into the same brown logs seems rather preposterous when you actually think about it.
Cardiac death and brain death are different things. Someone in cardiac death is not necessarily brain dead, and vice versa. I assume you know this, but your post above seems to conflate them.
Near Death Experiences explained by science
- Out of body experiences can be caused by stimulating the right temporoparietal junction of the brain
- Abnormal functioning of neurotransmitters, like dopamine, can cause hallucinations
- The locus coeruleus controls memorial and emotions and it releases a ton of noradrenaline during periods of high stress
- The famous tunnel of light is caused by restricting blood and oxygen to the eye, common during periods of high stress and fear.
- Self-fulfilling prophecy: you expect some things to happen, and your brain obliges.
Ooh, neat. What do you mean by distributed?