Where does consciousness come from?

[DreamEnd]

Does it originate in the brain? Or is the brain simply a receiver of information transmitted by something else? I have heard the claim thrown around that science hasn't proven that consciousness comes from the brain only

 

[Pluto]

This is the Hard Problem of Consciousness. Reductionist materialists are very eager to come up with a theory by which physical matter - protons, neutrons and electrons - in a particular combination gives rise to the first-person-view perspective that we call consciousness. They are set up to fail. Instead, a more likely outcome will be a new understanding with major implications for science, as proposed by Prof. Donald Hoffman.



There is no life and no existence without consciousness. Hence why the physical world and even the normal sense of being a 'me' (ego) is viewed as subordinate to pure consciousness in Eastern thought.

In the Mandukya Upanishad - merely number 6 of 108 in the canon of ancient Hindu texts - it describes 4 states of consciousness.

1) The waking state.
2) The dreaming state.
3) Deep sleep.
4) Turiya, the 'fourth' state of pure infinite consciousness which underlies and transcends the other three.

Ramana Maharshi remarked as follows:
There is only one state, that of consciousness or awareness or existence. The three states of waking, dream and sleep cannot be real. They simply come and go. The real will always exist. The 'I' or existence that alone persists in all the three states is real. The other three are not real and so it is not possible to say they have such and such a degree of reality. We may roughly put it like this.

Existence or consciousness is the only reality. Consciousness plus waking, we call waking. Consciousness plus sleep, we call sleep. Consciousness plus dream, we call dream.

Consciousness is the screen on which all the pictures come and go. The screen is real, the pictures are mere shadows on it. Because by long habit we have been regarding these three states as real, we call the state of mere awareness or consciousness the fourth. There is however no fourth state, but only one state.

There is no difference between dream and the waking state except that the dream is short and the waking long. Both are the result of the mind. Because the waking state is long, we imagine that it is our real state. But, as a matter of fact, our real state is turiya or the fourth state which is always as it is and knows nothing of the three states of waking, dream or sleep. Because we call these three avasthas [states] we call the fourth state also turiya avastha. But is it not an avastha, but the real and natural state of the Self. When this is realised, we know it is not a turiya or fourth state, for a fourth state is only relative, but turiyatita, the transcendent state.

 

[Ulrich]

It's probably not reducible to neuro-anatomy. It is a computational feature. It's a problem for neuroscience, not philosophy. A lot of modern philosophy consists of posturing. The greatest contribution so far from the philosophers was the hard problem.

Information is not something tangible. I agree that the brain is like a receiver, but not in the sense that it's able to pick up hidden frequencies in the world. Information is a property of neural networks in the brain. Information is immaterial; it is a feature of basic cognition. It is a receiver, but not of tangible frequencies, but unordered chaos.

Take the calculation of entropy in the possible states of a random variable. Calculating this allows us to determine the 'surprise' of these occurrences. Essentially, if the occurrence of an event has a lower probability, it's surprisal will be higher. Well, doesn't that seem like common sense? And yet, such a thing could not have been known to the Greeks. Entropy in information theory arises from computational theory, of which arises from the paradigm of that time.
It would seem that surprisal is an inherent property of the random variable, but not necessarily an innate concept. It required formal articulation, which rests on mathematical, logical, and philosophical assumptions. We must ask ourselves: can such a thing exist independently of mind? This seems to be a problem for the philosophy of science, though I feel mentioning it is relevant.

The brain is limited in its capacity to make valid inferences. The information available is determined by the inputs. The brain cannot function outside of this capacity.

For the sake of clarity, it's likely better to model our own minds on a condition similar to Occam's Razor. I believe that any epistemic representation of the mind is cyclical to a degree. If I believe my mind to be equivalent to a radio transmitter, that model will certainly factor into how I rationalize my own thought processes, and in doing so solidify my adopted model. This is the same with viewing the mind as a computer, or anything in particular.
For instance, if you were trying to explain gastrointenstinal movement, you may develop a model to help visualize it. This is what psychologists call heuristic thinking. I take sense data, information, stimuli (the nomenclature is unimportant), and make it articulate. But if I am trying to model cognitive processes, won't this mechanism skew my thought? And even if I am aware of this, is there not danger in viewing this as an independent property of the mind? How can I develop a model of mind when my own preconceptions limit this ability?

Hence, from a philosophical perspective I don't think much can be achieved. The most philosophy can do is answer inquiry with disproof. Neuroscience will likely prevail in this respect.

 

[sserafim]

Nobody knows

 

[Meteora]

Does it originate in the brain? Or is the brain simply a receiver of information transmitted by something else? I have heard the claim thrown around that science hasn't proven that consciousness comes from the brain only

That is a very interesting question and I don't think there is an answer.
Personally, I think conciousness is much more than our brain.

 

[sserafim]

That is a very interesting question and I don't think there is an answer.
Personally, I think conciousness is much more than our brain.

Wdym? Where do you think it comes from?

 

[Meteora]

Wdym? Where do you think it comes from?

Spiritual maybe.
I think in our world and society we use certain parts of our conciousness. Yes, maybe the brain-associated part. But I believe there is more than this.

 

[DreamEnd]

Spiritual maybe.
I think in our world and society we use certain parts of our conciousness. Yes, maybe the brain-associated part. But I believe there is more than this.

Yes I was reading a long article by stanislav grof who said that there has been absolutely no proof so far that consciousness originates in the brain.

It's probably not reducible to neuro-anatomy. It is a computational feature. It's a problem for neuroscience, not philosophy. A lot of modern philosophy consists of posturing. The greatest contribution so far from the philosophers was the hard problem.

Information is not something tangible. I agree that the brain is like a receiver, but not in the sense that it's able to pick up hidden frequencies in the world. Information is a property of neural networks in the brain. Information is immaterial; it is a feature of basic cognition. It is a receiver, but not of tangible frequencies, but unordered chaos.

Take the calculation of entropy in the possible states of a random variable. Calculating this allows us to determine the 'surprise' of these occurrences. Essentially, if the occurrence of an event has a lower probability, it's surprisal will be higher. Well, doesn't that seem like common sense? And yet, such a thing could not have been known to the Greeks. Entropy in information theory arises from computational theory, of which arises from the paradigm of that time.
It would seem that surprisal is an inherent property of the random variable, but not necessarily an innate concept. It required formal articulation, which rests on mathematical, logical, and philosophical assumptions. We must ask ourselves: can such a thing exist independently of mind? This seems to be a problem for the philosophy of science, though I feel mentioning it is relevant.

The brain is limited in its capacity to make valid inferences. The information available is determined by the inputs. The brain cannot function outside of this capacity.

For the sake of clarity, it's likely better to model our own minds on a condition similar to Occam's Razor. I believe that any epistemic representation of the mind is cyclical to a degree. If I believe my mind to be equivalent to a radio transmitter, that model will certainly factor into how I rationalize my own thought processes, and in doing so solidify my adopted model. This is the same with viewing the mind as a computer, or anything in particular.
For instance, if you were trying to explain gastrointenstinal movement, you may develop a model to help visualize it. This is what psychologists call heuristic thinking. I take sense data, information, stimuli (the nomenclature is unimportant), and make it articulate. But if I am trying to model cognitive processes, won't this mechanism skew my thought? And even if I am aware of this, is there not danger in viewing this as an independent property of the mind? How can I develop a model of mind when my own preconceptions limit this ability?

Hence, from a philosophical perspective I don't think much can be achieved. The most philosophy can do is answer inquiry with disproof. Neuroscience will likely prevail in this respect.

Scientists have not and are unable to prove that consciousness originated in the brain. They also refuse to acknowledge experiences they cannot measure or repeat with a scientific experiments. So therefore they conclude that just because they can't prove something anecdotal let's say then consciousness must originate in the brain. I disagree with that

 

[Homo erectus]

If consciousness is in the brain, does it mean that we never sense the world? It has to be imagination, simulation, or alike, because it is always mediated by something unreal, such as photons.

 

[Proteus]

This is the Hard Problem of Consciousness. Reductionist materialists are very eager to come up with a theory by which physical matter - protons, neutrons and electrons - in a particular combination gives rise to the first-person-view perspective that we call consciousness. They are set up to fail.

Hard disagree. The more we know about the physical brain, the more explanations we find for lots of things. Many illnesses were thought to be spiritual, until it was found the structure of the brain is guilty of it. Brain scans allowed to study what parts of the brain work at any time, and it was achieved to scan people¡s thoughts with their activity, further confirming it's physical. It's matter and energy all the way. IMO, we only think this way because the brain isn't too known yet, but I have no reason to think, once we do, we will explain consciousness pretty well.

There is no life and no existence without consciousness.

People doesn't "stop existing" after losing consciousness, nor they are medically dead for it. Also, a lot of life has no consciousness: plants, fungi, bacteria...

If consciousness is in the brain, does it mean that we never sense the world? It has to be imagination, simulation, or alike, because it is always mediated by something unreal, such as photons.

The brain doesn't "imagine" those things, in the sense that, the sources are gathered from outside. Yes, there is some subjectivity, because those signals need to be interpreted, but aren't just made up.

something unreal, such as photons

???

 

[DreamEnd]

Hard disagree. The more we know about the physical brain, the more explanations we find for lots of things. Many illnesses were thought to be spiritual, until it was found the structure of the brain is guilty of it. Brain scans allowed to study what parts of the brain work at any time, and it was achieved to scan people¡s thoughts with their activity, further confirming it's physical. It's matter and energy all the way. IMO, we only think this way because the brain isn't too known yet, but I have no reason to think, once we do, we will explain consciousness pretty well.

People doesn't "stop existing" after losing consciousness, nor they are medically dead for it. Also, a lot of life has no consciousness: plants, fungi, bacteria...

Idk I think of a brain as a tv set. We know it works and shows channels but we don't know where the signal is coming from. If you damage the tv you are only influencing how that signal is transmitted but not the source of the signal itself

 

[SexyIncél]

Some might like this:

Philosophers of science, faced with the puzzle of how life might emerge from dead matter or how conscious beings might evolve from microbes, have developed two types of explanations.

The first consists of what's called emergentism. The argument here is that once a certain level of complexity is reached, there is a kind of qualitative leap where completely new sorts of physical laws can "emerge"—ones that are premised on, but cannot be reduced to, what came before. In this way, the laws of chemistry can be said to be emergent from physics: the laws of chemistry presuppose the laws of physics, but can't simply be reduced to them. In the same way, the laws of biology emerge from chemistry: one obviously needs to understand the chemical components of a fish to understand how it swims, but chemical components will never provide a full explanation. In the same way, the human mind can be said to be emergent from the cells that make it up.

Those who hold the second position, usually called panpsychism or panexperientialism, agree that all this may be true but argue that emergence is not enough. As British philosopher Galen Strawson recently put it, to imagine that one can travel from insensate matter to a being capable of discussing the existence of insensate matter in a mere two jumps is simply to make emergence do too much work. Something has to be there already, on every level of material existence, even that of subatomic particles—something, however minimal and embryonic, that does some of the things we are used to thinking of life (and even mind) as doing—in order for that something to be organized on more and more complex levels to eventually produce self-conscious beings. That "something" might be very minimal indeed: some very rudimentary sense of responsiveness to one's environment, something like anticipation, something like memory. However rudimentary, it would have to exist for self-organizing systems like atoms or molecules to self-organize in the first place.

— David Graeber, "What's the Point If We Can't Have Fun?"

 

[Pluto]

Hard disagree.

Nothing wrong with that. Nobody has a crystal ball.

Galileo being abused for 'breaking' a traditional worldview is an extreme historical example, but what remains true is that nobody likes their basic assumptions threatened.

The shoe is now on the other foot, with the possibility of the scientific community's strict adherence to anti-spiritual views (materialism, atheism, etc.) being challenged as the issue of consciousness comes under scrutiny. In an interview, Donald Hoffman argued that it may be possible to actually prove or disprove the claims made by various religions to the satisfaction of proper scientific investigation. That would make for a very interesting time for humanity, though also a turbulent one for reasons described in the above paragraph.

 

[Ulrich]

Yes I was reading a long article by stanislav grof who said that there has been absolutely no proof so far that consciousness originates in the brain.

Scientists have not and are unable to prove that consciousness originated in the brain. They also refuse to acknowledge experiences they cannot measure or repeat with a scientific experiments. So therefore they conclude that just because they can't prove something anecdotal let's say then consciousness must originate in the brain. I disagree with that

If you believe in the soul rather than some material condition, then I am not sure what I can say here. It seems like you already have your own idea.

Idk I think of a brain as a tv set. We know it works and shows channels but we don't know where the signal is coming from. If you damage the tv you are only influencing how that signal is transmitted but not the source of the signal itself

See last paragraph of my previous reply.

 

[dreamscape1111]

"That which is not present in deep dreamless sleep is not real."
~Ramana Maharshi

"Existence or Consciousness is the only reality. Consciousness plus waking we call waking. Consciousness plus sleep we call sleep. Consciousness plus dream, we call dream. Consciousness is the screen on which all the pictures come and go. The screen is real, the pictures are mere shadows on it."
~ Ramana Maharshi

 

[DreamEnd]

If you believe in the soul rather than some material condition, then I am not sure what I can say here. It seems like you already have your own idea.

See last paragraph of my previous reply.

I saw it yeah. But neuroscience still can't answer the question of where does consciousness come from and I don't think it will ever be able to so we have to go out of bounds and explore other possible explanations

 

[Ulrich]

I saw it yeah. But neuroscience still can't answer the question of where does consciousness come from and I don't think it will ever be able to so we have to go out of bounds and explore other possible explanations

Even if we don't have an explanation now, who is to say that we may not yet find one in the future? I don't understand this line of reasoning. If thinking outside the box entails accepting pseudoscientific claims, then there should be no point at which we begin to steer towards this direction. Historically, most phenomenon which have pseudoscientific explanations have been refuted and consequently proven false by relevant inquiry.

There is certainly the possibility that consciousness may exist independently of the brain, and that our (current) ideas of information, physics, etc. are fundamentally underdeveloped. But as of now, there is certainly nothing that can justify quasi-empirical claims which amount to mere pseudoscience.

It's fine to have a philosophical perspective on the topic. But if we reject scientific rigor, what are we left with? We are left only to speculate, never to prove. Of course, we could conjure some grand hypothesis of why such and such is the case, but how could you prove it to the skeptic? Is the skeptic deluded in not accepting your hypothesis or are you? When will the general consensus be satisfied with your claim? How much time shall it take?
Descartes thought that the pineal gland functioned as the seat for the rational soul. Of course, this claim doesn't amount to much, as we aren't being taught this in schools decades later. Even if it were hypothetically true, the results proving such would remain inconclusive, and thus we would have no way of sufficiently acknowledging that fact. It could never be proved, because the existence of a 'soul' is already a suspicious claim. You would need to prove that it can exist, first and foremost.

If you had read the last paragraph in my first reply, you would see that the first condition for true inquiry would be, in our case, to establish parameters to our thought. After we have determined an axiomatic foundation for what truly is the case with the available data, and how our thought may be lead to dwell in error, we can then proceed to follow through with formulating a model which is consistent with our findings. The axiomatic difficulties are for the philosopher. The empirical data is for the neuroscientist. The spiritualist has no say in the matter.

 

[DreamEnd]

Even if we don't have an explanation now, who is to say that we may not yet find one in the future? I don't understand this line of reasoning. If thinking outside the box entails accepting pseudoscientific claims, then there should be no point at which we begin to steer towards this direction. Historically, most phenomenon which have pseudoscientific explanations have been refuted and consequently proven false by relevant inquiry.

There is certainly the possibility that consciousness may exist independently of the brain, and that our (current) ideas of information, physics, etc. are fundamentally underdeveloped. But as of now, there is certainly nothing that can justify quasi-empirical claims which amount to mere pseudoscience.

It's fine to have a philosophical perspective on the topic. But if we reject scientific rigor, what are we left with? We are left only to speculate, never to prove. Of course, we could conjure some grand hypothesis of why such and such is the case, but how could you prove it to the skeptic? Is the skeptic deluded in not accepting your hypothesis or are you? When will the general consensus be satisfied with your claim? How much time shall it take?
Descartes thought that the pineal gland functioned as the seat for the rational soul. Of course, this claim doesn't amount to much, as we aren't being taught this in schools decades later. Even if it were hypothetically true, the results proving such would remain inconclusive, and thus we would have no way of sufficiently acknowledging that fact. It could never be proved, because the existence of a 'soul' is already a suspicious claim. You would need to prove that it can exist, first and foremost.

If you had read the last paragraph in my first reply, you would see that the first condition for true inquiry would be, in our case, to establish parameters to our thought. After we have determined an axiomatic foundation for what truly is the case with the available data, and how our thought may be lead to dwell in error, we can then proceed to follow through with formulating a model which is consistent with our findings. The axiomatic difficulties are for the philosopher. The empirical data is for the neuroscientist. The spiritualist has no say in the matter.

You are looking at it from the western scientific paradigm. And I respect that that's your choice. I thought of it the same way until I had my first perspective shattering psychedelic experience and started reading more into this specific area. Turns out there are hundreds if not thousands of years of history full of different kinds of cultures, tribes, having very certain beliefs on the nature of consciousness, afterlife, the soul, spirit etc. eastern spirituality and it's complications and conclusions. Different religions. Different alterations of consciousness producing out of body experiences, deep meditations, past life memories of kids, hypnosis, ndes, etc

Are all of them correct? No, most of them are probably bullshit. But, the sheer amount of all that information in my opinion should be enough to question whether our primary western way of looking at things from a purely scientific perspective is enough to account for all that information and it's vast and impressive history. From what I have read, I still can't tell anyone what is after death. I can only assume based on my personal experience and based on what I have read and heard. None of which of course, can be confirmed or tested repeatedly in any scientific way. So it's up to the individual whether they decide to disregard all of that information in favour of the western scientific view or not and I m not gonna judge either way.

At the end of the day, I think our society lives in a denial of death which is because we have lost connection to the meaning of it. If we could bridge somehow our life and death in a meaningful way so that people aren't scared of passing, we would have a much larger and cohesive social structure surrounding death and perhaps we would be able to let people go instead of making them suffer in an endless pursuit of holding them alive for as long as possible.

 

[Ulrich]

You are looking at it from the western scientific paradigm. And I respect that that's your choice. I thought of it the same way until I had my first perspective shattering psychedelic experience and started reading more into this specific area. Turns out there are hundreds if not thousands of years of history full of different kinds of cultures, tribes, having very certain beliefs on the nature of consciousness, afterlife, the soul, spirit etc. eastern spirituality and it's complications and conclusions. Different religions. Different alterations of consciousness producing out of body experiences, deep meditations, past life memories of kids, hypnosis, ndes, etc

True, I may be biased, but only because the current paradigm produces consistently meaningful results. An object needn't be observable to be proven to exist, but require certain assumptions as to how it could exist given our current scientific model. Rejecting this model and adopting an alternative would require that we can produce results which are consistent with all axioms in the new model. I don't see how you could produce anything meaningful from, say, tribal science. But there is a fundamental logical error. Western science does not purport for a soul to exist. If it did, then we could prove it within a certain margin of error, if the very idea was dependent on our current understanding of reality. However, alternative pseudoscience may likely claim the soul exists as a founding axiom. It is something which you cannot prove, but is a fact from which we derive all lemmas and corollaries related to our tribal science. So, if we assume that it already exists, model our inquiry on this presupposition, and present conditions in which there is no direct contradiction, then we can prove that the soul can exist.

I think I already mentioned this in a post to you, but it is my belief that such statements are not altogether wrong, but meaningless. If I say 'the weight of a soul consists in . . . etc.,' then it may be the case that I am not wrong, but not right either.

Are all of them correct? No, most of them are probably bullshit. But, the sheer amount of all that information in my opinion should be enough to question whether our primary western way of looking at things from a purely scientific perspective is enough to account for all that information and it's vast and impressive history

No. The condition for truth is not reiterative with respect to the quantity of data available. There is nothing conclusive. Just because God seems to be a common theme in virtually all cultures does not prove the existence of God..

 

[DreamEnd]

True, I may be biased, but only because the current paradigm produces consistently meaningful results. An object needn't be observable to be proven to exist, but require certain assumptions as to how it could exist given our current scientific model. Rejecting this model and adopting an alternative would require that we can produce results which are consistent with all axioms in the new model. I don't see how you could produce anything meaningful from, say, tribal science. But there is a fundamental logical error. Western science does not purport for a soul to exist. If it did, then we could prove it within a certain margin of error, if the very idea was dependent on our current understanding of reality. However, alternative pseudoscience may likely claim the soul exists as a founding axiom. It is something which you cannot prove, but is a fact from which we derive all lemmas and corollaries related to our tribal science. So, if we assume that it already exists, model our inquiry on this presupposition, and present conditions in which there is no direct contradiction, then we can prove that the soul can exist.

I think I already mentioned this in a post to you, but it is my belief that such statements are not altogether wrong, but meaningless. If I say 'the weight of a soul consists in . . . etc.,' then it may be the case that I am not wrong, but not right either.

No. The condition for truth is not reiterative with respect to the quantity of data available. There is nothing conclusive. Just because God seems to be a common theme in virtually all cultures does not prove the existence of God..

Yes I know and I agree with you if you look at it from that perspective. Well, with current our western worldview we have seemed to make out of people machines whose sole purpose becomes procreation and consumption. If there is nothing materialistic those other perspectives could offer, at least they could offer spiritual peace and content with what the purpose of the human existence is in the broad scheme of things. And we seemed to have pivoted away from that towards a materialistic worldview which is not satistfying in any way the need for the spiritual which can in turn affect one's emotional and psychological well being. It has been shown for instance, that encounters with psychedelic induced death reduces persons anxiety about his eventual demise and changes his perspective on life. Same thing has been shown with Nde encounters.There are many things like that. And it is in my personal view that once science comes to the point where it can prove these things it will eventually come to the same conclusion people already came to thousands of years ago, through different methods of course. We are in the verge of a huge psychedelic therapy progress, just recently they have produced a study of lsd providing immediate relief for anxiety. Something people already knew 60 years ago.

 

[Ulrich]

Yes I know and I agree with you if you look at it from that perspective. Well, with current our western worldview we have seemed to make out of people machines whose sole purpose becomes procreation and consumption. If there is nothing materialistic those other perspectives could offer, at least they could offer spiritual peace and content with what the purpose of the human existence is in the broad scheme of things. And we seemed to have pivoted away from that towards a materialistic worldview which is not satistfying in any way the need for the spiritual which can in turn affect one's emotional and psychological well being. It has been shown for instance, that encounters with psychedelic induced death reduces persons anxiety about his eventual demise and changes his perspective on life. Same thing has been shown with Nde encounters.There are many things like that. And it is in my personal view that once science comes to the point where it can prove these things it will eventually come to the same conclusion people already came to thousands of years ago, through different methods of course. We are in the verge of a huge psychedelic therapy progress, just recently they have produced a study of lsd providing immediate relief for anxiety. Something people already knew 60 years ago.

I agree with you. I think spiritual needs are very important. I don't need to believe in a soul to believe in the spirit. The spirit, to me, is a placeholder for some property of consciousness, which we have found a rather roundabout way of talking about.
The same is true of God. Even if we cannot prove that He exists, are we then to diminish the needs of religious people? Should materialism have precedence over idealism? Certainly not.

Until we have reached that point, however, it is best to view our conclusions with a tincture of empirical skepticism.

 

[DreamEnd]

I agree with you. I think spiritual needs are very important. I don't need to believe in a soul to believe in the spirit. The spirit, to me, is a placeholder for some property of consciousness, which we have found a rather roundabout way of talking about.
The same is true of God. Even if we cannot prove that He exists, are we then to diminish the needs of religious people? Should materialism have precedence over idealism? Certainly not.

Until we have reached that point, however, it is best to view our conclusions with a tincture of empirical skepticism.

Yeah unfortunately even in spiritual communities some people tend to take advantage of that need and form cults. I would sort of consider modern Christianity as one as well. I guess the extremes on both sides are dangerous and worth fighting against.

 

[Pluto]

 

[Andro_USYD]

Well I am currently studying this topic in philosophy of mind (Advanced) at USYD. After hearing arguments for dualism, arguments for non reductive and eliminative materialism I'll explain my current position with regards to this topic.

Material things are always subject to change at least at the atomic and molecular levels meaning if one is to be a non reductive physicalist/Monist. It would mean their is no continuous part of you that actually endures through time as you're physically different and there's no immaterial part of you that ever endures leading Monists to the absurd conclusion that you are a different person over time. So if you think you're the same person as you were a moment ago U ought to be a dualist.


Also all material things are divisible, meaning if people lost parts of the brain in an accident or had parts surgically removed, or in extreme cases the case of Phineas Gage who survived the nearly improbably accident of a metal rod going straight through his head, these people that lose body parts should be 50% of a person (if they lost 50% of their brain) however notice consciousness doesn't act like that: people are "all-or-nothing" concepts. While it's always been known that changes to the brain do have effects correlation does not imply causation.

In the book Mysteries of Mind by Wilder Penfield he(a neuroscientist) used electrical stimulation to make people do things. He states "When I have caused a conscious patient to move his hand by applying an electrode to the motor cortex of one hemisphere, I often asked him about it. Invariably his response was 'i didn't do that. You did'. When I have caused him to vocalise he said 'i didn't make that sound. You pulled it out of me'." Penfield's observations of patients who, under electrical stimulation of the brain recognised the movements and vocalisations as caused by the surgeon, rather than their own volition which seems to point out that their "will" or "mind" exist separately because on eliminative materialism there's simply noting there that would account for this. It should be possible that someone can in theory control a person if their is no mind yet there isn't a way to do this without them noticing.

Keep in mind he was a Stanford expert in this area so he concludes by saying "There is no place in the cerebral cortex where electrical stimulation will case a patient to decide. "For my own part, after years of striving to explain the mind on the basis of brain action alone I have come to the conclusion that it is far simpler ( far easier and logical) if one adopts the hypothesis that our being consists of two fundamental elements". Wilder Penfield -"Mysteries of Mind".

 

[DreamEnd]

is far simpler ( far easier and logical) if one adopts the hypothesis that our being consists of two fundamental elements". Wilder Penfield -"Mysteries of Mind".

What are they lol?

 

[Andro_USYD]

The mind and the brain.

 

[DreamEnd]

The mind and the brain.

Based

 

[Andro_USYD]

What does that mean lol?

 

[DreamEnd]

What does that mean lol?

Good take. I believe in consciousness continuing after death

 

[Andro_USYD]

It certainly makes it possible. It would also account for free will whereas on determinism everything is under the control of the laws of nature. Non reductive and eliminative forms of physicalism don't account for our mental lives and I think this discovery is very important. I'd recommend getting the full book if you're interested in this more. This is my favorite area of philosophy (philosophy of Mind).