Where does consciousness end, and the brain begin?

[GabeDupuis]

Originally Posted by paqart

A funny aside: without my glasses I read the title of the thread and thought (momentarily) that it was "where does consciousness end and skepticism begin?"

AP

Ha! Yes, all skeptics are actually philosophical zombies!

[robbiehouston]

Gabe to answer your question, I feel the brain is reducing mechanism, allowing information through that is essential to an organisms survival.

I feel that there are neurological correlates to brain activity, but the brain doesn't produce consciousness. There is no evidence that it does, but much evidence that the mind can exist independently

If you compare the two prevailing notions (mind equals brain, mind doesn't equal brain), the materialist position/theory can not adequately account for a wide range of phenomena, where as the transmission theory can. So, for me at least, it seems more intellectually responsible to adhere to the transmission theory.

As a linguist with knowledge of over 10 languages, I've thought a lot about how memory works and have made some very interesting observations regarding this. How is it some words are learned after just one exposure, and others (typically mundane, uncommon, or lacking emotional significance to the learner) are much harder to remember? I think the brain filtres the information our consciousness can access. So when I see a word repeated many times, my brain makes the assumption that this piece of information is important, neurological correlates are established that can pick up on the precise frequency of the word, and I'm able to easily recall it later. Other words, such as ''mortar'', for example, are so rarely used and have no particular significance in my life. As a result, my brain deems it unimportant and it's very difficult to make the transfer from passive to active vocabulary until a sufficient number of repetitions are made that my brain is finally convinced that it is important.

This is my theory based on the research I have read. Any thoughtS?

[GabeDupuis]

Originally Posted by robbiehouston

Gabe to answer your question, I feel the brain is reducing mechanism, allowing information through that is essential to an organisms survival.

I feel that there are neurological correlates to brain activity, but the brain doesn't produce consciousness. There is no evidence that it does, but much evidence that the mind can exist independently

If you compare the two prevailing notions (mind equals brain, mind doesn't equal brain), the materialist position/theory can not adequately account for a wide range of phenomena, where as the transmission theory can. So, for me at least, it seems more intellectually responsible to adhere to the transmission theory.

As a linguist with knowledge of over 10 languages, I've thought a lot about how memory works and have made some very interesting observations regarding this. How is it some words are learned after just one exposure, and others (typically mundane, uncommon, or lacking emotional significance to the learner) are much harder to remember? I think the brain filtres the information our consciousness can access. So when I see a word repeated many times, my brain makes the assumption that this piece of information is important, neurological correlates are established that can pick up on the precise frequency of the word, and I'm able to easily recall it later. Other words, such as ''mortar'', for example, are so rarely used and have no particular significance in my life. As a result, my brain deems it unimportant and it's very difficult to make the transfer from passive to active vocabulary until a sufficient number of repetitions are made that my brain is finally convinced that it is important.

This is my theory based on the research I have read. Any thoughtS?

I agree with everything you said here Robbie. I feel that if we just look at the evidence at hand (say, NDE's, dreaming, Psychelidics), we can tell that when the brain looses it's grip on the entity, lots of strange things can happen, new information can flow in, and the entity becomes much more influential... Perhaps some lyrics will sum this up nicely:

I Have Not Yet Learned Enough
My Hands In Chains
The Brain-

[GabeDupuis]

hey, what's say we give this one another look?