Why it's unreasonable to assume that the brain somehow produces consciousness

First we have no idea what consciousness in fact philosophers and mystics have a much closer colloquial understanding of consciousness than anything proposed by neuroscientists. We know that the brain can influence the consciousness and also that consciousness can influence the brain. This evidence fits perfectly into interactionism substance dualism. Where materialist's run into a big problem how can the mind have a great influence on our brain/body if the universe is a closed system?. Materialist's often come back by saying we don't deny the science evidence that the mind can influence the brain/body. Really? when they keep saying that it points in only one casual direction mind is caused by the brain or mind is what the brain does. Instead of saying the casualty is equally balanced. Which fits into a interactionism substance dualist view. However, it's often point out how can something immaterial like the mind affect something material. Well, it's rather easy if you let go of the assumption of seeing the universe as a closed system. Also, the evidence for survival of bodily death which has I have mentioned numerous times on here as well as the evidence for psi shows how untenable the assumption is that the brain somehow creates consciousness.

https://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/08/the-mind-matters.html

More on the Phineas Gage Case

There is a nice writeup about this case showing that the case doesn't deliver any evidence to demonstrate the view that personality has dependence on the brain.

Here a couple of quoted material from it

1850, two years after the accident, a Harvard professor of surgery stated that he was "completely recovered in body and mind", making no mention of any personality change.

In subsequent accounts by other writers Harlow's later testimony was embellished. Gage was now said to have become a drunkard and a boastful exhibitionist, as well as suffering an absolute lack of foresight - all unmentioned by Harlow. In fact most of what has been said about Gage subsequent to his physical recovery, Macmillan says bluntly, is "fable".

As we see then the case that many materialists use to bolster their case up is a mere fabrication. Sure there was some impact on his personality but not to the point where materialists proclaim it is.

You can read the rest of it here

http://monkeywah.typepad.com/paranormalia/2011/09/the-man-with-the-hole-in-his-head.html

AdamWho at it again

First he makes the statement that the mind body problem has been solved well over 100 years ago. Completely false there are many scientists that would disagree with that statement. Then he says FMRI can detect thoughts that that can decoded from brain activity. Yes, the brain is a decoder, filter, receiver of consciousness that doesn't prove that consciousness is produce by the brain. Apparently many other new agers as they are referred to on there have been banned as well. That doesn't surprise me in the least as I mentioned before the forum and the site has an agenda to promote naturalism.

From another user on there he or she says:

While fMRI does not show 'consciousness' it does appear to show a correlation between brain activity and perception, thought, response to stimuli, etc: what we generally refer to as being 'consciousness.

Correct a correlation a strong one but a strong correlation does show causation.

Adamwho then says

The point being that there need not be any such activity if the 'mind' is located elsewhere.

Wrong their is activity in a tv set as well as a radio. The question remains where the source of consciousness at?. Is it the brain? Is it the brain plus the interaction with the environment? EM field? Quantum Mechanics?. What if consciousness is primary and matter and energy are secondary?.

He also mentions that no transmission parts or receiver parts have been found in the brain. The brain is a very complex organ and we know there are neurotransmitters in the brain so its wrong that no transmissive parts have been found. The brain also receives information from the cerebral cortex. The questions remains is the brain the generator of consciousness or the receiver, decoder, filter of consciousness?

Here's something to think about by Dr. Larry Dossey

We can damage a television set so severely that we lose the image on the screen, but this doesn’t prove that the TV actually produced the image. We know that David Letterman does not live behind the TV screen on which he appears; yet the contention that brain equals consciousness is as absurd as if he did.

Rebuttal to Steven Novella's Body Snatchers, Phantom Limbs, and Alien Hands

Dr. Steven Novella says that we cannot trust are own experiences, well of course we can't unless of course their is strong collaboration by highly credential scientists, as well as evidence to support it. Steven Novella then goes us to say that brain activity is sufficient cause to explain consciousness how so?. Simply saying so, is not going to do. Many neuroscientists have also lump into this false assumption perhaps brain activity strongly correlates with consciousness but isn't the sole cause of consciousness.

Steven Novella Once Again on Skeptiko Discussing Why in his opinion Nde/Obe is Neurophysiology and Psychological

I like to respond to some of Novella's Remarks on NDE's

He seems to ignore the fact that at least 92 percent of people who have ndes report seeing deceased love ones, where only a small percentage see living people this set of evidence weighs against a view that ndes are hallucinatory [Psychological, Neurophysiology].

Also he mentions how newer studies on magnetic stimulation on the brain show that nde's, are just a part of the brain [temporal lobe] that creates the out of body experience etc]. I think he is referring to this study here.

Out of body experience recreated

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6960612.stm

This study doesn't explain how people with flat lined EEG's lying on an operating table with no pulse can have this same experience without video cameras or virtual reality goggles while at the same time seeing and hearing things that could only have been percieved from a different location. Even miles away!!!. Neither doesn't it explain the complex lucidity either.

Also doesn't explain how blind people at birth can see perfectly unconsciousness.

http://atwaterndenews.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-i...

Here is the link to the recent Skeptiko podcast where Dr. Steven Novella discussed why in his opinion nde/obe don't point to an afterlife.

http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-research-debate-with-steven-novella/

Here are the compelling empirical reasons why Nde/Obe get lots of support to the
Survival Hypothesis

1.) Over 90 percent of nde see deceased loved ones but only a small percentage see living people.

2.) A Very large database of ndes show that patients who have obe can see things and hear conversations inside and outside and even well outside the emergency room well having a flat EEG. This as well as interviewing patients immediately after being flat lined shows that these out of body experiences are probably having when the brain goes completely flat-lined. These experiences have also been verified that they actually occurred they are well documented.

3.] EEG expert and Neurologist Dr. John Greenfield points out clearly that human studies as well as animal studies have typically shown very little brain perfusion [blood flow] or glucose utilization when the EEG is flat. Their are deep brain areas involved in generating memories that might still operate at some very reduced level during cardiac arrest, but of course any subcortically generated activity can’t be brought to consciousness without at least one functioning cerebral hemisphere. So even if there were some way that NDEs were generated during the hypoxic state [while the brain is shut off from oxygen], you would not experience them until reperfusion [blood flow] allowed you to dream them or wake up and talk about them”,

4.) All neurophysiological and psychological models fail to explain any of the evidence above. As much as it hurts materialist's like "Dr. Steven Novella" to admit it the evidence is very straightforward and precise to ignore and avoid the evidence above, for nde/obe is only avoiding the facts that are clearly there.

On Phineas Gage Case And Brain Localization Studies

Phineas Gage is written to have "dramatic brain damage which resulted in dramatic personality changes". Oh boy, but this where we run into some serious problems based on recent evidence that has been uncovered.

I quote

"By late 2008 an advertisement for a previously unknown public appearance by Gage had been discovered, as well as a report of his physical and mental condition during his time in Chile, and a description of what may well have been his daily work routine there as a long-distance coach driver. This new information suggests that the seriously maladapted Gage described by Harlow may have existed for only a limited time after the accident—that Phineas eventually "figured out how to live" despite his injury,[40] and was in later life much more functional, and socially much better adapted, than has been thought".[41]

So as we see that his personality back, however their is good reasons to doubt Harlows account.

I quote

"The uncertainty of Harlow's sources for the changes he describes in Gage, combined with the fact that he waited almost twenty years (between his first and second papers) to communicate those changes, constitute one of the main puzzles of the case."

So as we still it is looking more and more less likely that he suffered dramatic personality change to the point of showing evidence for full blown mind-brain dependency. This case is often cited by full blown support for very strong mind-brain dependency. But as i have shown it's no where near supportive of it.


Brain localizations studies all of them indicate the words "associated with". Of course no dualist denies that particular brain functions will be associated with different mental phenomena. Brain localizations studies, don't tell us one way or another if mind and consciousness are separate from the brain or produced by the brain.

A side note, wordy a member on infidels forum wondered what i mean by "Survivalism". Simple, survivalism refers to the belief in the survival of the conscious self after the death of the physical body. Survivalists attempt to prove survival with the methods of science, using as evidence such things as psychic phenomena, near death experiences, out-of-body experiences, electronic voice phenomena, mediumship, reincarnation research,and various forms of photography.Survivalism is by implication a form of philosophical dualism.

My Response To Keith Augustine's View That The Production Theory Is The Most Parsimonious Explanation For The Evidence In Neuroscience

Keith,

Who ever said the better the brain, the better the filter?. If you assume that the main source of consciousness and mind is a medium but not the brain. Your saying that from outside observation that what we observe is damage brain equals damage mind and consciousness. But evidence coming from near death experiences and out of body experiences show that the inner subjective consciousness along with mind[information] is not damaged or destroyed, rather restricted by the brain.



Their is another argument for dualism which i have come across from this site

http://www.afterlifedebate.com/for.html

The argument from geometry, this is based on two premises

1. Additional dimensions besides our own
2. A Additional dimension of space and an additional dimension of time would affect our experience, and this conception seems to correlate with dream experience


More about the argument from geometry can
be found here

http://www.afterlifedebate.com/bookshop.html


Keith it depends on what you view mind and consciousness

Mind- Dreams, Thoughts, Memories,
Consciousness- Personality, Inner Subjective experience.



I seen you mentioned Phineas Gage before where he had a spike go through his
head. You probably see this case as supportive of the production hypothesis. Here is why it isn't consistent with the production hypothesis.

- The uncertainty of Harlow's sources for the changes he describes in Gage, combined with the fact that he waited almost twenty years (between his first and second papers) to communicate those changes, constitute one of the central puzzles of the case.


Current Research

- Recently, an advertisement for a previously-unknown public appearance by Gage has been discovered, as have a report of his behavior during his time in Chile and a description of what may have been his daily work routine there as a long-distance coach driver. This new information suggests that the seriously maladapted Gage described by Harlow may have existed for only a limited time after the accident—that Phineas eventually "figured out how to live"[39] despite his injury, and was in later life far more functional, and socially far better adapted, than has been thought.

If this is so then (along with theoretical implications) it "would add to current evidence that rehabilitation can be effective even in difficult and long-standing cases," according to Macmillan. To better understand the question, Macmillan and collaborators are actively seeking additional evidence on Gage's life and behavior.[40]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

The case above is usually presented to be one of the best cases if not the best evidence that materialists have used based on.

-Harlow's observation which is very questionable based on him taking almost 20 years to communicate changes he saw in Phineas Gage, between his first and second papers. Possible embellishment, could be. However, materialists insists on taking Harlow's account as a trustworthy source. Now with new evidence which i posted above it's even more likely that the personality changes that Harlow's said occur weren't as dramatic as he said they were.

This case based on these facts show that this case is consistent with the filter or transmission theory. It also shows that the mind brain close link to eachother is not as close as what is assumed.

Another piece of evidence which appears to be consistent with the production hypothesis is the split brain experiments, HOWEVER, it appears that two conscious streams of consciousness didn't happen at all.

Due to its inherent private character, an actual co-consciousness is impossible to prove conclusively, and one self with only temporary functional dissociation is even the best explanation as split-brain patients normally show a remarkable psychological and motoric unity that can hardly be reconciled with the somatogenic creation of a new nonphysical subject by commisurectomy.

More here about split brain experiments

http://www.geocities.com/athanasiafoundation/Dualismlives.htm

Keith says


We're not talking about mere influence here. We're talking about radical modification. When you strike a tuning fork against a status, that strike influences the statue in barely noticable ways. When you light some dynamite placed in the middle of it, the dynamite radically modifies the statue. The latter is the sort of brain "influence" on mind we're talking about. And it occurs in contradiction to what dualism predicts: that the mind is one thing, the brain another thing, and the two things interact with each other (hence: interactionist substance dualism). Just as I can't modify my body (get a facelift, say, or make myself grow 3 more feet overnight) merely by "willing it," my brain should not be able to turn my personality into that of a totally different sort of person merely by interacting with it. The PCP example does not fit what one would expect if substance dualism were true. Radical brain changes can result in radical changes of one's mind. There is no evidence that the mind can change the body in so radical a way. You can't think "grow muscles" really hard and make it so. Only physical activity can do that. So clearly the mind is far more more dependent on the brain than any converse claim that the brain depends on the mind. Schizophrenics can't just wish their schizophrenia away. This is why the brain is treated as primary and the mind as secondary. If their powers were reversed, and the brain hardly influenced the mind at all, but one could will changes in the physical world and watch them happen (think: changing the channel without a remote control), the mind would be considered primary and the brain secondary. The reason that this is not the case is because that's now how it works in the real world.

My response


Experiments on humans (some of the Buddhist monks under the Dalai Lama’s direction) seem to demonstrate that the physical organ of the brain can be shaped and transformed by choices made by the mind.

Without mind though you can't make goals to acheive arm muscle. Then their is introspection studies down that bring further evidence for dualism. Let's also not forget the failure of behaviorism which goal was to provide evidence that the mind was produced by the brain. Also artifical intelligence main goal was to show the mind can be put into an robot another failure.




Keith says


"It seems inescapable to me that any form of substance dualism is committed to predicting that the mind (the controller) is largely independent from the brain (the drone's transmitter/receiver). The worst you can do to the controller by manipulating the drone's transmitter/receiver is make the controller deaf or blind regarding the drone's environment, or unable to move the drone. You cannot affect the the controller's ability to do math, to understand language, or recognize undistorted faces. You cannot get the controller to go into a psychotic rage by manipulating the drone's radio. But you can make someone psychotic by spiking his drink with PCP, or prevent him from being able to do simple addition by lesioning certain areas of his brain. In short, basic neuroscientific facts are simply inexplicable on any variety of substance dualism."


My response


Unless that receiver is very advanced, the maybe a very advanced receiver. Also you seem to be assuming that dualists believe a soul is controlling the physical body, i don't think many dualists hold that view, they hold that this soul is restricted and heavily constrained by the physical body. The brain is a reducing valve to consciousness.

Also i like to quote Keith here when he says


That Phineas Gage's personality changes might not be as dramatic as previously reported does not show that his brain damage resulted in no dramatic personality changes. The Gage example is commonly used in Introduction to Psychology textbooks, and that is why it is typically cited, but numerous other examples could be mentioned.

Here he is begging the question why you ask?. Here is why.


The uncertainty of Harlow's sources for the changes he describes in Gage, combined with the fact that he waited almost twenty years (between his first and second papers) to communicate those changes, constitute one of the central puzzles of the case.

-Harlow's observation which is very questionable based on him taking almost 20 years to communicate changes he saw in Phineas Gage, between his first and second papers. Possible embellishment, could be. However, materialists insists on taking Harlow's account as a trustworthy source. Now with new evidence which i posted above it's even more likely that the personality changes that Harlow's said occur weren't as dramatic as he said they were.

No doubt Phineas Gage that their was some effect on his personality, any theory that looks to Gage for support faces the difficulty that the nature and extent of the injury's effects on his mental state are highly uncertain. In fact, very little is known about what Phineas was like either before or after his injury (almost none of it first-hand),[22] the mental changes described after his death were far more dramatic than anything reported while he was alive, and even those descriptions which seem credible do not tell us the period of his post-accident life to which they are meant to apply.
This shows also that the mind brain linkage often cited by materialists is not as close as what is assumed.



Keith says


First, Leo, I'd recommend you stop pushing the Houdini Code stuff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ford#The_Three_Houdini_Messages_and_others

Douglas Stokes also says in one of his parapsychological books that the medium Arthur Ford, who "broke" the Houdini code, "was discovered to have kept elaborate files on prospective sitters." So the Wikipedia entry's explanation of how Ford broke it, by reading the solution off of Houdini's wife's engraved ring when he handled it for "psychometry," certainly seems plausible. (That said, I don't know more about this case than that tidbit; and I'm characterizing it from memory, so see the Wikipedia entry itself for the specifics.)


My response

So i am suppose to assume that Arthur Ford was a fraud, because of an anecdote says that may of happened?.


Keith also says

I don't suppose that you'd argue that Rosemary Kennedy's mind was hardly affected by her lobotomy: "Instead of producing the hoped-for result, however, the lobotomy reduced Rosemary to an infantile mentality that left her incontinent and staring blankly at walls for hours. Her verbal skills were reduced to unintelligible babble. Her mother, Mrs. Rose Kennedy, remarked that although the lobotomy stopped her daughter's violent behavior, it left her completely incapacitated."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy#Lobotomy

Yes her verbal skills were affected, no dualist deny's the face that information[memories, thoughts, verbal skills etc.] get affected by a host of thing such as brain damage, lomotomies etc. But the question is this information being constrained and restricted by the brain or the brain is like a reducing valve, or is that information so dependent that it couldn't survive death?. Certainly this case don't tell us anything about this. It is compatible on both views, it's really about which theory accounts for all of the data. This is what the transmission theory does.

Can Dualism Account For Changes In Personality With Brain Damage?

I shall argue that it can. For example with the evidence for a soul, it is claimed by many materialists that Phineas Gage personality change was not just temporary but permanent. This however appears not to be so.

For example

Recently, an advertisement for a previously-unknown public appearance by Gage has been discovered, as have a report of his behavior during his time in Chile and a description of what may have been his daily work routine there as a long-distance coach driver. This new information suggests that the seriously maladapted Gage described by Harlow may have existed for only a limited number of years after the accident—that in later life Phineas may have been far more functional, and socially far better adapted, than has been thought. If this is so then (along with theoretical implications) it "would add to current evidence that rehabilitation can be effective even in difficult and long-standing cases," according to Macmillan.[36]

Now the materialists would say well that is just one case, what about other cases?. Those other cases that do show permanent change but perhaps instead of personality changed permanently maybe the personality is being constrained and restricted. With the overhype that Phineas Gage's personality change being permanent, it should make materialists not jump to an conclusion. if their are cases that may show that brain damage also results in permanent personality change.

Also their are accounts and physician Benjamin Rush an physician author of the first American treatise on mental illness. He observed that most mad people discover a less degree of reason in the last days or hours of their lives.

Here is a study involving this

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/79473/Alexandre-Jacques-Francois-Brierre-de-Boismont

Here's another link with more informaiton on the french studies

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/nineteenth_century_french_studies/v033/33.1vatan.pdf

Meditation found to increase brain size

Here's more evidence to show that meditation can change the physical structure of our brains. So it appears that mental practice can change the brain.

People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don't. Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input. In one area of gray matter, the thickening turns out to be more pronounced in older than in younger people. That's intriguing because those sections of the human cortex, or thinking cap, normally get thinner as we age. "Our data suggest that meditation practice can promote cortical plasticity in adults in areas important for cognitive and emotional processing and well-being," says Sara Lazar, leader of the study and a psychologist at Harvard Medical School. "These findings are consistent with other studies that demonstrated increased thickness of music areas in the brains of musicians, and visual and motor areas in the brains of jugglers. In other words, the structure of an adult brain can change in response to repeated practice." The researchers compared brain scans of 20 experienced meditators with those of 15 nonmeditators. Four of the former taught meditation or yoga, but they were not monks living in seclusion. The rest worked in careers such as law, health care, and journalism. All the participants were white. During scanning, the meditators meditated; the others just relaxed and thought about whatever they wanted. Meditators did Buddhist "insight meditation," which focuses on whatever is there, like noise or body sensations.

It doesn't involve "om," other mantras, or chanting. "The goal is to pay attention to sensory experience, rather than to your thoughts about the sensory experience," Lazar explains. "For example, if you suddenly hear a noise, you just listen to it rather than thinking about it. If your leg falls asleep, you just notice the physical sensations. If nothing is there, you pay attention to your breathing.

Why Classical Neurocomputation Fails To Explain Consciousness

First I want to make clear in my opinion computers are not conscious and many scientists agree with me such as John Searle, Stuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose etc.]

Evidence against classical neurocomputation are as follows:

The major difficulties it has with unconscious-to-conscious transitions, binding, synchrony, subjectivity.

To bridge that gap though Stuart Hameroff suggests that the brain is both a neurocomputer and quantum computer.

Orch OR and neurocomputation are compatible and question whether neurocomputation alone can physiologically account for coherent gamma synchrony EEG, a candidate for the neural correlate of consciousness.

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/cogsci.htm

The theory of orch or does has a interesting twist to it if proven true one of the conseguences would be

1. Interconnectiondness among living beings in the universe: entanglement
2. Cosmic Intelligence/Platonic values in touch with our conscious perceptions and choices Penrose non-computable effect.
3. Conscious existence after death Soul: Quantum information in spacetime geometry where that information released by the microtubles into space gets entanglment causing a dreamlike afterlife.

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/Springclergy_000.swf?POPUP_ENABLED=true

The mystery of consciousness

Consciousness remains a big problem for neuroscientists there are many of things that not as clear cut as some people assume. For example Experiments have shown that memory is not localized in any particular part of the brain. It seems to be stored everywhere - and nowhere. This is just the kind of thing we might expect if consciousness, including memory, is really a nonphysical phenomenon existing outside the nervous system. While other neuroscientists believe that long term memories are created by the hippocampus area of the brain now here if the problem that may not be so as thesequestions are still open.


Some of the yet unsolved problems of neuroscience include:


* Self awareness: What is the neuronal basis of subjective experience, wakefulness, alertness, arousal and attention? What is its function?

* Perception: How does the brain transfer sensory information into coherent, private percepts? What are the rules by which perception is organized? What are the features/objects that constitute our perceptual experience of internal and external events? How are the senses integrated? Is face perception special (e.g. innate)? What is the relationship between subjective experience and the physical world?

* Learning and Memory: Where do our memories get stored and how are they retrieved again? How can learning be improved? What is the difference between explicit and implicit memories? How plastic is the mature brain?

* Development: How and why did the brain evolve (the way it did)? What are the molecular determinants of individual brain development?

* Sleep: Why do we dream? What are the underlying brain mechanisms? What is its relation to anesthesia?

* Cognition and Decisions: How and where does the brain evaluate reward value and effort (cost) to modulate behavior? How does previous experience alter perception and behavior? What are the genetic and environmental contributions to brain function?

* Language: How is it implemented neurally? What is the basis of semantic meaning?

* Diseases: What are the neural bases (causes) of mental diseases like psychotic disorders (e.g. mania, schizophrenia), Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease or addiction? Is it possible to recover loss of sensory or motor function?

Of course all materialists believe that these problems will be solve by the production theory. However, the lack of progress on many of these items should bring that unstinting faith into some question. . .