https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yosn_GHYiR4[url]

Plaetton, with reference to your repeated questions on consciousness and the brain, I believe this lecture by a Professor of Psychiatry will be especially illuminating.

Its long, but especially worthwhile.

Bigfrancis21, Benodic, Rossikke - Tagged: loads corroborate a lot which you have said

DeepSight:
Plaetton, with reference to your repeated questions on consciousness and the brain, I believe this lecture by a Professor of Psychiatry will be especially illuminating.

Its long, but especially worthwhile.

Bigfrancis21, Benodic, Rossikke - Tagged: loads corroborate a lot which you have said

Thanks Depardo.
I have watched the video.

But the prof says nothing we haven't heard before about near death, out of body and previous Life experiences.

Although for me, previous Life experiences are the most difficult to scientifically articulate, I still maintain that the brain's quantum mechanical properties allows it to protect consciouness beyond locality, beyond local space and time.

In all of this, I am still very positive that the neural/electrical activities of the brain generates
, which then takes a semi-independent Life of its own.

If you watch the first few minutes of the video, and like I did, do a simple substitution of consciouness with the stock Markets, and substitute individual traders as neurons, You get my general idea that the stock is similar to consciouness.
Millions of individual traders make up and participate in the Markets, but the Market itself is independent, being the collective interactive of all players in the Market.

If you wish, I would give a lengthy explanation of how Markets, particularly the stock Markets ( due to their size and dynamism) mimic, and is the simplest way to understand how consciouness is generated and operates.

It would seem to me that you have watched the video right from the "first few minutes" (as you put it) through the lenses of your previously conceived ideas - i.e: stock market. This is as dogmatic as you accuse anyone else of being.

I am not certain that you watched the entire video?

Did you see the evidence of persons with virtually no brain tissue at all who remained articulate, clear, sane and intelligent - even having higher I.Qs than normal?

Did you see the particular case of a person who only had virtually a stump left in the head, and scientifically should not be able to even function at all but showed normal consciousness and intelligence all the same?

Did you really go through everything that was said and presented and really ponder it or just took a dogmatic pair of glasses from the "first few minutes?"

There is not much in the first few minutes by the way. The real evidence is presented further on.

DeepSight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yosn_GHYiR4[url]

I believe you need your brain to be concous.

^^^ Did you watch the video?

DeepSight:

^^^ Did you watch the video?

No. But the human brain is like a special transponder, designed to convert signals at different depths of neural stimulations. This is my personal opinion after years of psychedelic inquiry. The brain itself, being composed of matter, is a product of consciousness. There is no matter without an observer.

Our ego and super ego may rely on brain matter, but the ID is brain independent.

^^^ Fair enough. it appears many people including myself may have misconceived you for atheist. You are anything but.

DeepSight:

^^^ Fair enough. it appears many people including myself may have misconceived you for atheist. You are anything but.

I wrote about consciousness being remote about 2 years ago here on NL. Anyone who has tried entheogens understands this.

^^^ Fair enough, but doesn't hammer home the point effectively. A Plaetton for example would actually use it to underscore his point about the effect such chemical substances have on the brain.

DeepSight:

^^^ Fair enough, but doesn't hammer home the point effectively. A Plaetton for example would actually use it to underscore his point about the effect such chemical substances have on the brain.

After eating those bitter mushrooms, one realizes that nature is far bigger and more complex than previously imagined.

Our brains are mostly under a similar level of stimulation at all times. The market woman selling onions and you with the money trying to buy are both functioning at the level of this present reference frame.

However, entheogens (I take psilocybin), temporarily disconnect the subject from this reference frame and put him in another nearby one, complete with different occupants and everything. How? I dunno. Some say that it activates the pineal gland in the middle of your brain, and the eyes cease to be the primary organs for vision. It takes the responsibility away from your eyes and gives it to the pineal gland, which has its own photoreceptors and everything.

Trust me when I say that this will be the LEAST of your concerns.

What cannot be proven is the fact that those experiences are real. They certainly can be replicated over and over, and anyone (with proper supervision) is able to share the experience. But one has to allow for the possibility that the brain is hallucinating, although I don't buy that explanation at all.

http://www.skeptiko.com/rick-strassman-psychedelic-drugs-prove-we-are-more-than-our-brain/

Holy me.

I hope I am not too late?

DeepSight:

^^^ Did you watch the video?

Macof pls I reserve a seat for you bro.

Weah96:


No. But the human brain is like a special transponder, designed to convert signals at different depths of neural stimulations. This is my personal opinion after years of psychedelic inquiry. The brain itself, being composed of matter, is a product of consciousness. There is no matter without an observer.

Our ego and super ego may rely on brain matter, but the ID is brain independent.

I create a thread on this topic last year https://www.nairaland.com/1460798/universe-conscious . Yoruba people believe that everything that exist is alive (not in the biological sence but something like active) and conscious. The universe and everything thing therein is conscious.

Make I dey watch from sideline

Following.

FOLYKAZE:


I create a thread on this topic last year https://www.nairaland.com/1460798/universe-conscious . Yoruba people believe that everything that exist is alive (not in the biological sence but something like active) and conscious. The universe and everything thing therein is conscious.

Make I dey watch from sideline

Science says that everything in the universe is pregnant with Life,.. Just waiting for the right conditions and right Arrangements.

Its funny that a thinker (?) like Deepsight cannot see the universe in such simple terms, but would rather award the creation of Life to some mysterious extraneous consciouness existing beyond the boundaries of the universe.

Weah96:


No. But the human brain is like a special transponder, designed to convert signals at different depths of neural stimulations. This is my personal opinion after years of psychedelic inquiry. The brain itself, being composed of matter, is a product of consciousness. There is no matter without an observer.

Our ego and super ego may rely on brain matter, but the ID is brain independent.

I Say consciouness is generated by electrical activity, interactive information.
My opinion opinion is that once consciouness is generated by the brain, during the 5th month of pregnancy, then quantum mechanical properties of the brain kick in to elevate consciouness into a whole new realm, where, at times it seems independent, capable of operating beyond its locality.

We know that at the quantum level, a photon/electron operates beyond the simple laws of classical physics by expanding beyond its locality.

We should try to imagine how this occurs at the neural cellular level, and how it would radically affect the interactive information that the neural networks transmit and recieve, and hence, our conscious experiences.

All these isolated mysterious phenomena of consciouness only show the complexity of neural interactions, and reminding us that we still have a long long way to go.

The anecdotes in Deepsight's video link do not show proof positive what consciouness is, from whence it comes, or precise ways that it operates.

^^
Let me try again to use the analogy of the stock Markets to get the simple idea through.

Lets say that the 1.5 million Nairaland members are active independent neural cells.
Lets say that each Nairaland member has something to sell or buy.
Lets say that, by necessity, we decide to create an interactive forum to buy, sell and trade our products. So we create an information medium for trading interactions.

Now, once we start the platform, the interactive medium starts out slow, sluggish and haphazard.
But over time, as the more trades occur, more information is gathered and exchanged, the system grows more dynamic and complex.

As the complexity increases, the Market, the interactive medium, now grows beyond the control of any individual member.
It become independent, operating on it's own rules, which now must be understood and adhered to by the individual members.

Here, we see that Market, the Market pulse, the interactive medium, although a sum of the collective, has leaped out beyond its locality to become an independent entity, almost impervious to individual manipulation.

This is a simple Illustratiom of how similarly, consciouness, generated by billions of neural interactions, becomes dynamic, complex, and then expands beyond and independent of the brain that generated it.

DeepSight:
It would seem to me that you have watched the video right from the "first few minutes" (as you put it) through the lenses of your previously conceived ideas - i.e: stock market. This is as dogmatic as you accuse anyone else of being.

I am not certain that you watched the entire video?

Did you see the evidence of persons with virtually no brain tissue at all who remained articulate, clear, sane and intelligent - even having higher I.Qs than normal?

Did you see the particular case of a person who only had virtually a stump left in the head, and scientifically should not be able to even function at all but showed normal consciousness and intelligence all the same?

Did you really go through everything that was said and presented and really ponder it or just took a dogmatic pair of glasses from the "first few minutes?"

There is not much in the first few minutes by the way. The real evidence is presented further on.

Wordy Sire,

I am sure you know the meaning of " anecdotal conjecture".

The video only highlites the mystery of consciouness, and approaches these mysteries from the perspective of classical physics.

The brain has and does exhibit quantum mechanical properties. That is fact.

Therefore, any study of brain's connection to consciousness without approaching from a quantum mechanical perspective is bound to come up with erroneous and confusing conclusions.

We have long way to go.
But lets be smart and meek.
Lets start from the position of unknowing rather than pontificate on the wishy washy.

plaetton:

Wordy Sire,

I am sure you know the meaning of " anecdotal conjecture".

The video only highlites the mystery of consciouness, and approaches these mysteries from the perspective of classical physics.

The brain has and does exhibit quantum mechanical properties. That is fact.

Therefore, any study of brain's connection to consciousness without approaching from a quantum mechanical perspective is bound to come up with erroneous and confusing conclusions.

I must be that you did not watch the video because it by no means addresses only classical bio-physics it discusses the quantum issues at play.

plaetton:


My opinion once consciouness is generated by the brain, during the 5th month of pregnancy, then quantum mechanical properties of the brain kick in to elevate consciouness into a whole new realm, where, at times it seems independent, capable of operating beyond its locality.

We know that at the quantum level, a photon/electron operates beyond the simple laws of classical physics by expanding beyond its locality.

We should try to imagine how this occurs at the neural cellular level, and how it would radically affect the interactive information that the neural networks transmit and recieve, and hence, our conscious experiences.

All these isolated mysterious phenomena of consciouness only show the complexity of neural interactions, and reminding us that we still have a long long way to go.

The anecdotes in Deepsight's video link do not show proof positive what consciouness is, from whence it comes, or precise ways that it operates.

Scientists know that the pineal gland develops at roughly a month and a half following conception, and I believe that is precisely the moment when a fetus becomes a quantum observer in some unknown reality. What they don't know, or are hesitant to admit, is the exact connection between this collection of cells and awareness. The article below, for example, assumes that awareness is the product of a marginally developed neural network, and that the actions of hormones on this network of cells produce what we consider conscious reality.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-does-consciousness-arise/

However, as Deepsight noted, there are reliable incidents of patients who were able to recall events, in this reality, even though their CNS was operating at a level of zero neuronal excitability. In other words, communication between neurons was absent.This leads one to believe that awareness can be generated by an alternative route, and that the "normal" neuron to neuron form of transmission isn't necessary to produce it, if at all.

The pineal gland happens to be one of the 7 areas in the CNS that don't possess a blood brain barrier. In addition to its electro chemical connection to the rest of the brain (done via a small number of neurons), it also has the ability to absorb materials from the bloodstream, directly, as opposed to having it filtered through synapses. This is possible because the gland itself is made up of very few neurons, even though it is technically considered a part of the brain.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK28180/


If we examine the process of death from a common sense perspective, every dead person has a moment, immediately preceding the creation of new diamonds, or worm food (depending on your level of cynicism), when they are NOT YET dead. In that very moment, the brain is dead, everything is dead, but the pineal gland, and the rest of these areas may have released their products into the blood for the last time. The pineal gland releases melatonin, and DMT, which put the imminently dead person in the most vivid dream state possible. What becomes of the quantum observer human being in that potentially nanosecond long dream when the blood stops circulating and the pinealocytes themselves die off is anybody's guess. Does the observer in the dream get jolted back to this reality? They wouldn't be DEAD if they were. In fact, there's nothing here to come back to, the organic meat ship can't even send a signal to the dream observer.

From everyday observation, dreams only turn off or go off when when there is some motor activity, muscles to open the eyelids for example. Dead people have none of these things. You could slap them and they would remain in that dream.

Maybe it is possible for a dream to get shut off without moving your eyelids, but I doubt it. Dead people have complete ataxia, and at such their eyelids won't move, even if their eyes are wide open.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK28180/


If you asked me, I believe that the quantum observer bails out, as in commot leave the broken vehicle, and stays wherever he or she was observing last.

Brilliant observations. Utterly brilliant.
From my point of view though it troubles me that some fellow humans cannot recognize such obvious things. . .

I have watched this video over and over. I think I do not understand one particular thing in it. The speaker does not explain what he means by death. He does not specify if he meant Biological death or clinical death. My point is near death exprience is not the samething as biological death. I dont think the brain stops functioning during a near death experience. Though this brain activity might not be detected or measure but I believe there are still some electrical interaction among the neuron cell.

Life ends when all brain activity ceases. This mean there are still brain activities during NDE and CD which could produce illusionary self of been outside the body.

Another funny thing, how do 8months and 2years baby share experience? This is very hard to believe. I may be wrong though but this is how I see it.

I am sorry for going spiritual and local. Yoruba peoplee have a related believe in this subject. It is called Asheyinwaye. The case of birthmark shown on new babies which have traces to a dead person is one of the features of Abiku. Another thing the speaker didnt measure is contiual physical existence outside a dead body which the Yoruba called Akudaya. One thing is, the Yoruba people can communicate with dead one consciosness, they can read it and measure it. This process is called Oro. Those who engage in reading dead person consiousness are called Abokusoro. But the fact remains that all these is not scientifically approved.

I think plants could prove consciousness does not need a brain

KingEbukasBlog:
I think plants could prove consciousness does not need a brain

Not a brain per se but it would need some form of analogous structure.

CoolUsername:
Not a brain per se but it would need some form of analogous structure.

To coordinate mental activities ?

KingEbukasBlog:

To coordinate mental activities ?

At least to process and interprete stimuli.

CoolUsername:

At least to process and interprete stimuli.

Says it all about consciousness

plaetton:

I Say consciouness is generated by electrical activity, interactive information.
My opinion opinion is that once consciouness is generated by the brain, during the 5th month of pregnancy, then quantum mechanical properties of the brain kick in to elevate consciouness into a whole new realm, where, at times it seems independent, capable of operating beyond its locality.

We know that at the quantum level, a photon/electron operates beyond the simple laws of classical physics by expanding beyond its locality.

We should try to imagine how this occurs at the neural cellular level, and how it would radically affect the interactive information that the neural networks transmit and recieve, and hence, our conscious experiences.

All these isolated mysterious phenomena of consciouness only show the complexity of neural interactions, and reminding us that we still have a long long way to go.

The anecdotes in Deepsight's video link do not show proof positive what consciouness is, from whence it comes, or precise ways that it operates.

Humans have been perturbed by the issue of consciousness not just in the general simplest way of being Aware but this time as in the case of higher developed organisms include thought, emotions etc.

Though immense study is still being carried out on it, Human consciousness has never been unrelated to the brain.

Even though humans are yet to understand the very nature of human weird consciousness the immense relationship with the brain is inseparable.

In as much as humans are still a long way in explaining consciousness in totality many breakthroughs has been reached in that field of study as the part of the brain directly responsible for the control of consciousness has been determined.

The part of the brain that controls consciousness is the frontal lobe. Other
activities controlled by the frontal lobe include problem solving, decision
making, emotions and control of purposeful behaviors.

http://www.ask.com/science/part-brain-controls-consciousness-61bdc0f2234e1a6c

People who suffer brain loss of this part of the brain tend to become more like vegetables, one may loose majority of the brain and remain ever conscious and vibrant but once it involves this part their consciousness is greatly dwindled to a minute state.

Personally to me the brain is not totally the sum of our conscious self but rather the totality of our being directly is the sum of our consciousness.

Every inch of neuroreceptive and chemical, electrical and biological firings and connections all in unity with the centrality of our perception (Brain) sums up the whole of our consciousness.

I think in recent years ahead more breakthroughs in that neurological branch of study will paint clearer pictures.

According to Christof Koch, who is probably the leading researcher in
consciousness, - it's probably coalitions of synchronous neurons that fire
so actively that they "win out" and can then manage to occupy working
memory in the prefrontal cortex (through neuron fibers that stretch from the
region to the prefrontal cortex [although I'm still trying to figure out whether
they're directly connected to the prefrontal cortex or if they have to go
through the basal ganglia first

CoolUsername:


At least to process and interprete stimuli.

The root of plants operate as a neural network . Plants are indeed conscious . Brain activities that give rise to consciousness can be replicated in by the plants' neural network . We could have reached that inference but the brain is inactive during experiences by people during NDEs . So consciousness does not need a brain

KingEbukasBlog:


The root of plants operate as a neural network . Plants are indeed conscious . Brain activities that give rise to consciousness can be replicated in by the plants' neural network . We could have reached that inference but[b] the brain is inactive during experiences by people during NDEs [/b] . So consciousness does not need a brain

How so is it independent of the brain when the brain is needed to recollect the experience? How can the brain recollect that which it never experienced?

There is only one way we have ever been able to achieve that and it is not recollection rather Imagination

So how can NDEs recollect an experience they had without the brain with the brain? (More like the brain giving what it doesn't have) that is most unlikely.

Can you recollect us for an experience you never had?

johnydon22:


How so is it independent of the brain when the brain is needed to recollect the experience? How can the brain recollect that which it never experienced?

There is only one way we have ever been able to achieve that and it is not recollection rather Imagination

Apparently , you have this preconceived idea that consciousness needs a brain . And thus whatever experienced is not real but imagined . But the experiences of the NDE-people refute that . For you to understand a difficult subject like consciousness you have to be open mined . You just dont conclude they are wrong because of your prepossession .

So how can NDEs recollect an experience they had without the brain with the brain? (More like the brain giving what it doesn't have) that is most unlikely.

Can you recollect us for an experience you never had?

Isn't that reason for researches ? If progress is to be made in this research , then the researchers should be open to possibilities and that include the immaterial realm .

I think , there has to be a door or link that leads or connects to another realm .