[RD] Your Body is Only a Shell: Naive or Truthful?

[Narz]

which brains without a creature attached do we witness consciousness?

Devils advocate, I see. There are folks working on it I'm sure.

I'm pretty sure this wouldn't be the case. After all, where does the brain begin and the body end?

And are you saying that if a part of your brain is removed (like a tumour) a part of you has gone?

Of course, when the brain is damaged or degraded due to disease the personality undergoes massive change, like Phineas Gage, a friend commented "Gage is no longer Gage". If he lost a leg he'd still be himself.

Consciousness is a really tricky subject, imo. I think we know hardly anything at all about it.

We know it's created in the brain.

 

[warpus]

I mean, it could be the liver. But it's probably the brain

 

[Lexicus]

We know it's created in the brain.

Do we know what "it" is?

 

[Narz]

I mean, it could be the liver. But it's probably the brain

After a liver transplant (is that even possible) you won't be you. If a head transplant is ever possible "you" will go wherever the head is (like a pervert looking for the red light district).

Do we know what "it" is?

We don't need to know what it is to know where it is.

 

[Lexicus]

We don't need to know what it is to know where it is.

How can we know where it is if we don't know what it is?

 

[Narz]

Someone can be an electrician without understand electricity in depth. They don't know what it is but they know how to work with it.

 

[Borachio]

I have an uncle with half a brain. They removed half of his brain back in the 60's because of severe epilepsy.

The question is whether he's still a whole person with half a brain. But if it happened back in the 60's, I'm guessing you won't have known him before the operation.

 

[Borachio]

We know it's created in the brain.

It's likely to be created in the brain, yes. Or rather it's an emergent property of the brain. But I doubt whether it emerges from a brain in isolation.

So I'd guess it's an emergent property of a brain which is connected to the surrounding world.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Has consciousness been defined to the satisfaction of all parties?

It would not seem so. There is a wide variety of opinions expressed, with a lot of undeclared assumptions presented as fact.

 

[Borachio]

And are we talking about just consciousness or self-consciousness too?

 

[Lexicus]

Someone can be an electrician without understand electricity in depth. They don't know what it is but they know how to work with it.

You cannot talk to other people about consciousness without a common definition of consciousness.

 

[Narz]

The google definition works for me : https://www.google.com/search?q=consciousness

 

[Borachio]

It doesn't work terribly well for me.

This from wiki:

Western philosophers, since the time of Descartes and Locke, have struggled to comprehend the nature of consciousness and identify its essential properties. Issues of concern in the philosophy of consciousness include whether the concept is fundamentally coherent; whether consciousness can ever be explained mechanistically; whether non-human consciousness exists and if so how can it be recognized; how consciousness relates to language; whether consciousness can be understood in a way that does not require a dualistic distinction between mental and physical states or properties; and whether it may ever be possible for computing machines like computers or robots to be conscious, a topic studied in the field of artificial intelligence.

And again:

Consciousness—The having of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings; awareness. The term is impossible to define except in terms that are unintelligible without a grasp of what consciousness means. Many fall into the trap of equating consciousness with self-consciousness—to be conscious it is only necessary to be aware of the external world. Consciousness is a fascinating but elusive phenomenon: it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it has evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written on it

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Im not sure that consciousness actually exist, it could just be an illusion. The closest thing to consciousness I can think of is a computer screen.

Anyway the reality we experience is a virtual reality created in the brain with the input of the senses. If the brain is damaged so will the reality of that person. Actually the reality we experience probably have more in common with dreams than the actual reality that our senses try to picture as both are creations in the brain.

That death is the end of consciousness X forever and ever is just a guess especially since the whole thing started from pretty much the same point as death eventually comes to.

Add in that different realties and universes can exist as well but actually to us not exist (especially if we are a computer simulation or something), the possibilities may be pretty much infinite. I mean every story that we can write may actually exist in its own world in such case.

 

[warpus]

I mean, yeah we might actually be living inside a vast simulation, and when you die you get unplugged and get to go home.

But Occam's Razor and all..

 

[Blue Monkey]

I liked and substantially agree with your post, Denkt.

If the brain is damaged so will the reality of that person.

It's important to avoid the mistake of confusing this true statement with an assumption that the brain is the sole source of perceived reality. To cite but one example: catastrophic hearing loss will change a person's reality in the sense you mean. But the ears are not part of the brain. As Hansen's disease progresses a person's reality changes, so it's not simply a matter of those portions of the body directly connected to the brain. My reality changes based on whether or not my glasses are dirty - so the issue of "damage determines reality" extends to prosthetics.

Thanks for posting those paragraphs, Borachio. They lay out the issues pretty well.

 

[Borachio]

Thanks.

But I'm not sure that the ear isn't strictly speaking part of the brain. At least, the cochlear nerve connects directly to the brain. As do all nerves, I guess

The picture is fairly confused though.

I mean, a good case could be made for the spinal chord being part of the brain.

You might prefer not to, of course. But it seems fairly arbitrary to draw the line at the base of the skull, to me. Or wherever.

Oh, and let's not get started on the gut.

 

[Narz]

My reality changes based on whether or not my glasses are dirty - so the issue of "damage determines reality" extends to prosthetics.

Because the incoming signals from the eyes to the brain are changed.

No matter how you wiggle it all comes back to the brain.

 

[Hygro]

Sure but that doesn't exclude the other parts, particularly ones that might be essential.

 

[warpus]

It's important to avoid the mistake of confusing this true statement with an assumption that the brain is the sole source of perceived reality. To cite but one example: catastrophic hearing loss will change a person's reality in the sense you mean. But the ears are not part of the brain

Ears are an input device for the brain to receive input from the outside. Kind of like a keyboard, right? You smash the keyboard with a hammer and your computer is going to perceive a slightly different outside reality, because when the user types "google" instead what might appear on the screen now might be "gglet"