Does the Human Brain Create or Receive Consciousness?

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Greta
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Re: Does the Human Brain Create or Receive Consciousness?

Post by Greta »

Dubious wrote: Wed Jan 16, 2019 9:34 am
Greta wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 3:23 am
Dubious wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2019 11:03 pm Consciousness derives solely from the physical brain. I realize that so many find this demeaning. What's demeaning to me is giving humans a value they never had, never possessed and never will. Humans seem desperate to give themselves more then was ever granted. The "only real" difference between us and most other animals is the fact that there's more meat stuffed in our craniums making us king of the meatheads.
The brain processes qualia that is generated by whole body system. The brain in a vat thought experiment is a fantasy. It cannot work because, while the brain is largely who we are, the metabolism is what we are. Metabolism came first, then nervous systems evolved to keep the metabolism safe.
Absolutely, no argument here. The brain in the Vat idea wouldn't be a fantasy if the vat were described as the somatic container of the brain which it really is. For the brain to exist it's obvious that metabolism or all the organs from the top down would need to preexist as its supporting infrastructure.
Heh, I think of the brain - and every other organ - as an extension of our core, the gut. The brain's job was always to guide and protect the metabolic organs. However, it appears that, with humans (and especially their augmenting creations), the power balance is shifting. The brain appears to be embarking on a hostile takeover and has long been spreading fake news about its primacy :)
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JohnHermes
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Re: Does the Human Brain Create or Receive Consciousness?

Post by JohnHermes »

The human brain is consciousness. Esoteric research claims that physical matter is spiritual energy on the other side of the spectrum. Positive and negative, ying and yang. The brain is the physical manifestation of the mind, I believe. The mind works through the brain as a conduit of experience of our physical realm
Nick_A
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Re: Does the Human Brain Create or Receive Consciousness?

Post by Nick_A »

Greta
N. The sun is considered the child of the Good. Where the light of the sun is responsible for our visible facts, the light of the Good is the source of consciousness and meaning within our universe. Plato's analogy of the Sun and the Divided Line clarifies this but requires a mind open to a universal perspective and not limited to a secular perspective.

G. It requires more than an open mind, Nicholas, it required a definition of the capitalised "Good".

Re: a universal perspective. The universe is, if it's conscious as you posit (and my guess is you are at least 100 billion years early in believing so), then it's going to love everything and everyone within it because we're all part of Team Universe - there is nothing else. It's not as though it can be infected with parasites - it's ostensibly a closed system (although some aspects of the CMB suggest that's also a premature assumption).

To the universe there would be various tiny innocent beings oblivious to the degree of their smallness... bless their l'il cotton socks ... small creatures doing clever tricks as they collectively slowly wind their way towards whatever maturity may be.
There are those like Greta who limit themselves through the security of superficiality and those who can become open to contemplate the big picture. What is the Good?

Genesis 1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
Why is the light good? How can there be light when the sun doesn’t exist yet? Plato refers to the GOOD and so does the Bible. Why? What does it take to truly understand?

Greta believes consciousness arises from the small. Plotinus describes the first level of existence, of conscious intelligence, as the first devolution into creation. Nous is the highest form of conscious intelligence within creation and all of spirit in matter descends from nous. Greta says it arises in some sort of mysterious way from below. The universlist vs. the secular perspective. Contemplation of the intelligence of the whole as opposed to the glorification of its parts as the ultimate reality. Many will say “why bother?” It is far easier just to condemn Trump in the belief that one is saying something meaningful.

https://www.iep.utm.edu/plotinus/

b. The Intelligence
The Intelligence (Nous) is the true first principle -- the determinate, referential 'foundation' (arkhe) -- of all existents; for it is not a self-sufficient entity like the One, but rather possesses the ability or capacity to contemplate both the One, as its prior, as well as its own thoughts, which Plotinus identifies with the Platonic Ideas or Forms (eide). The purpose or act of the Intelligence is twofold: to contemplate the 'power' (dunamis) of the One, which the Intelligence recognizes as its source, and to meditate upon the thoughts that are eternally present to it, and which constitute its very being. The Intelligence is distinct from the One insofar as its act is not strictly its own (or an expression of self-sufficiency as the 'act' of self-reflection is for the One) but rather results in the principle of order and relation that is Being -- for the Intelligence and Being are identical (V.9.8). The Intelligence may be understood as the storehouse of potential being(s), but only if every potential being is also recognized as an eternal and unchangeable thought in the Divine Mind (Nous). As Plotinus maintains, the Intelligence is an independent existent, requiring nothing outside of itself for subsistence; invoking Parmenides, Plotinus states that "to think and to be are one and the same" (V.9.5; Parmenides, fragment 3). The being of the Intelligence is its thought, and the thought of the Intelligence is Being. It is no accident that Plotinus also refers to the Intelligence as God (theos) or the Demiurge (I.1.8), for the Intelligence, by virtue of its primal duality -- contemplating both the One and its own thought -- is capable of acting as a determinate source and point of contemplative reference for all beings. In this sense, the Intelligence may be said to produce creative or constitutive action, which is the provenance of the Soul.
Dimebag
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Re: Does the Human Brain Create or Receive Consciousness?

Post by Dimebag »

If the brain is simply a receiver of consciousness then that means consciousness would exist both before and after death. But what is it like for consciousness to exist without body? No body means no memory, no senses, and therefore no thought, no emotion (also from the body). What is there left for consciousness to experience which is not of the body? If it has no purpose when not part of the body, then why posit such an idea at all?

This tells me the brain produces consciousness as an emergent property of its functioning.
Wyman
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Re: Does the Human Brain Create or Receive Consciousness?

Post by Wyman »

Nick_A wrote: Mon Jan 07, 2019 2:42 am Does the human brain create consciousness or is it actually a receiver and interpreter of conscious influences?
"My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists." —Nikola Tesla
Tesla believed his brain was a receiver. I agree; do you?
I think that consciousness is an activity of the brain, created by the brain.
Wyman
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Re: Does the Human Brain Create or Receive Consciousness?

Post by Wyman »

"And so the raw data sent to the brain are like a badly pixilated picture with a hole in it. Fortunately, the human brain processes that data, combining the input from both eyes, filling in gaps on the assumption that the visual properties of neighboring locations are similar and interpolating. Moreover, it reads a two-dimensional array of data from the retina and creates from it the impression of three-dimensional space. The brain, in other words, builds a mental picture or model. The brain is so good at model building that if people are fitted with glasses that turn the images in their eyes upside down, their brains, after a time, change the model so that they again see things the right way up. If the glasses are then removed, they see the world upside down for a while, then again adapt. This shows that what one means when one says “I see a chair” is merely that one has used the light scattered by the chair to build a mental image or model of the chair. If the model is upside down, with luck one’s brain will correct it before one tries to sit on the chair." - Hawking, The Grand Design
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