Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Gopher]

When we become "brain damaged," our personalities change; and when our brain's die, we die; it is all biochemical and doctors and therapists can treat us by altering our brain's biochemistry, right? So is your brain you? Either way, please explain why you think so.

Inspired by Scientology's position and the story Ontheway recently posted.

[stillnotking]

Yep, you summed up the materialist argument admirably.

I am not completely convinced that consciousness is intrinsic or limited to the brain. I think it's at least possible that pure undifferentiated awareness, with no subject/object distinction, is a fundamental property of the universe. Anyone who has experienced this state, even briefly, will know what I'm talking about.

I am quite certain, however, that what we think of as "ourself" (i.e. our personality and memory) is an artifact of the brain and disappears when the brain stops functioning.

[Gopher]

[stillnotking]

[Gopher]

But we have not thus far acknowledged "the soul..."

[JMO]

I voted yes to the 'is your brain you' question. All the evidence points to that. I see no reason to go against the vast majority of experts in the field of neuroscience.

[stillnotking]

[Kuros]

The soul (psuche) is meaningless without activity (en-erg-eia). For the soul to be active, the brain must be functioning. Aristotle was wrong when he said the mind resides in the heart, but he was right to place the highest emphasis on activity in his works on ethics.

[ernie]

are you talking about consciousness or identity?

[Gopher]

[Manner of Speaking]

Here are a couple of personal anecdotes, for what they are worth:

1. For at least the past 15 years, I've had a similar dream just before waking up. The dream is usually some elaboration of the experience of being in a building, or on a campus, or some other crowded and physically complex space, and I am attempting to get somewhere or exit the building in a hurry. I don't think the dream has any intrinsic "meaning" to it; I think what happens is that, neurologically, as I finish sleeping (possibly) as I am ending the REM stage of sleep, my brain passes through a phase which causes me to experience the sensation of attempting to escape from a building.

2. When I eat sushi with a lot of wasabe, I usually experience a sharp, tightening sensation at the top of my head. It seems to occur just under the skull bone. Yet the sensation is distal from the point of contact between the wasabe and my tongue/"smell nerves" in my nose.

3. While dreaming, many people experience a sensation of flying or falling and hitting a door or floor suddenly as they wake up. My doctor once told me that this has been attributed to a sudden drop in blood pressure that many people experience as they are falling asleep.

4. When a man is struck in the scrotum, either accidentally or during a fight, he usually experiences the sensation of pain in the abdomen or lower pelvis, not directly at the point of trauma.

...

I guess my only observation here is that occasionally, sensations we experience sometimes seem to be distal to the point of stimulus, or seem logically unrelated to the nature of the stimulus. Perhaps "consciousnes" consists of the sum total of a very large number of stimuli, or responses to stimuli, that are going on all the time and interact with each other. That sounds very Skinneresque, but the examples above suggest that "consciousness" and reality (in terms of physical, measurable processes) are not always synonymous.

[mistermasan]

well...since you asked...we ain't nothing be electically charged bags of water.

energy cannot be destroyed but merely transformed. "dead" is reference to animate beings is a faulty term. we don't die. our energy transfers.

imprecise words lead to imprecise logic and all.

i will never die. the energy in will continue to be redistributed elsewhere. then toss what is left of this fetid shell in a wood chipper and feed the little beasties. i am immortal. bits of me that were in the dinosaurs and in pontious pilate will continue to get around. in some sense, reinvarnation happens...but without the religion.

just as we are not born neither do we die. life is a continual chain.

[Manner of Speaking]

[Leonidas]

unimportant

[twg]

very important.

It turns a lot of the basis of what we call history, culture into a farce.

While I'm all up for that, a lot of people bristle at the suggestion that their decisions were made by meat for meat.