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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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Where is the experience of red in your brain? The question was put to me by Deepak Chopra at his Sages and Scientists Symposium in Carlsbad, Calif., on March 3. A posse of presenters argued that the lack of a complete theory by neuroscientists regarding how neural activity translates into conscious experiences (such as redness) means that a physicalist approach is inadequate or wrong. The idea that subjective experience is a result of electrochemical activity remains a hypothesis, Chopra elaborated in an e-mail. It is as much of a speculation as the idea that consciousness is fundamental and that it causes brain activity and creates the properties and objects of the material world.
Where is Aunt Millie's mind when her brain dies of Alzheimer's? I countered to Chopra. Aunt Millie was an impermanent pattern of behavior of the universe and returned to the potential she emerged from, Chopra rejoined. In the philosophic framework of Eastern traditions, ego identity is an illusion and the goal of enlightenment is to transcend to a more universal nonlocal, nonmaterial identity.
The hypothesis that the brain creates consciousness, however, has vastly more evidence for it than the hypothesis that consciousness creates the brain. Damage to the fusiform gyrus of the temporal lobe, for example, causes face blindness, and stimulation of this same area causes people to see faces spontaneously. Stroke-caused damage to the visual cortex region called V1 leads to loss of conscious visual perception. Changes in conscious experience can be directly measured by functional MRI, electroencephalography and single-neuron recordings. Neuroscientists can predict human choices from brain-scanning activity before the subject is even consciously aware of the decisions made. Using brain scans alone, neuroscientists have even been able to reconstruct, on a computer screen, what someone is seeing.
Thousands of experiments confirm the hypothesis that neurochemical processes produce subjective experiences. The fact that neuroscientists are not in agreement over which physicalist theory best accounts for mind does not mean that the hypothesis that consciousness creates matter holds equal standing. In defense, Chopra sent me a 2008 paper published in Mind and Matter by University of California, Irvine, cognitive scientist Donald D. Hoffman: Conscious Realism and the Mind-Body Problem. Conscious realism asserts that the objective world, i.e., the world whose existence does not depend on the perceptions of a particular observer, consists entirely of conscious agents. Consciousness is fundamental to the cosmos and gives rise to particles and fields. It is not a latecomer in the evolutionary history of the universe, arising from complex interactions of unconscious matter and fields, Hoffman writes. Consciousness is first; matter and fields depend on it for their very existence.
Where is the evidence for consciousness being fundamental to the cosmos? Here Hoffman turns to how human observers construct the visual shapes, colors, textures and motions of objects. Our senses do not construct an approximation of physical reality in our brain, he argues, but instead operate more like a graphical user interface system that bears little to no resemblance to what actually goes on inside the computer. In Hoffman's view, our senses operate to construct reality, not to reconstruct it. Further, it does not require the hypothesis of independently existing physical objects.
How does consciousness cause matter to materialize? We are not told. Where (and how) did consciousness exist before there was matter? We are left wondering. As far as I can tell, all the evidence points in the direction of brains causing mind, but no evidence indicates reverse causality. This whole line of reasoning, in fact, seems to be based on something akin to a God of the gaps argument, where physicalist gaps are filled with nonphysicalist agents, be they omniscient deities or conscious agents.
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Add CommentAre you really in serious debate over this matter?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome people still have compelling, eloquent dissertations on why the Earth is flat and the center of the universe. They may be real nice people that truly believe that stuff, and you may like them personally, and you may be holding on to beliefs that were taught to you as a child by well meaning adults that you care deeply about, and that means everything to some people, but these are not valid in the "scientific" analysis. And THIS is "Scientific American", so what is it doing here?? Has this turned into "Sensational American", or "Attention Seeking Headline American", or just "Journalism American"??
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthere is also a terminological issue. as long as it is hard to define consciousness, one can either apply a rather inclusive vs restricted definition of consciousness. guys like chopra usually like to think of consciousness as "energy." if you replace "consciousness" with "energy" in hoffman's argument it becomes almost trivial, given E=MC2: "energy is fundamental to the cosmos and gives rise to particles and fields."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find that the extensive cellular damage suffered by at least the Arctic ground squirrels' brain cells during hibernation may offer some contradictory evidence. Please see http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=arctic-ground-squirrel-brain
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost of us are not hibernating Arctic ground squirrels, but if we could hibernate would we be 'reborn' upon each reawakening?
This subject is and will only be answered by your personal experience. This doesn't mean you can't get any clear answers you can without a shadow of a doubt that consciousness is not in your brain. And that is on an experience level which is a lot deeper than an intellectual level. You can even test yourself scientifically by repeating results to yourself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis would show little value to this author because his and most of our beliefs are restrictive, cultural and fear reducing.Beliefs make us feel like we are in control. His bank balance would suffer also.
You must want to find out for yourself even if it takes 10 years of meditation to do so.Binaural beats can help.
The US government funded Remote Viewing for 20 years under the Stargate Project. Look it up for a little bit mind opening.
I think you've overlooked the strongest argument for brain causing mind, rather than vice versa - some types of brain damage can cause radical changes in the victim's personality. If mind creates brain, the physical damage should have no impact on personality, but is clearly does. Take the famous case of Phineas Gage, for example (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage). He was a railroad worker who suffered severe damage to his left frontal lobe when an iron rod was driven completely through his head. After the incident, those who new him said he was "no longer Gage". In other cases, damage to the temporal lobe, amygdala or hippocampus has also caused personality changes (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/professor-cromer-learns-read/201203/after-brain-injury-the-dark-side-personality-change-part-i).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Lowndes - I agree. When a "science" magazine posts an article titled "What Happens to Consciousness When We Die", the expectation is that the article will use scientific means to present a conclusive answer. This article is short on science and never comes close to answering the titular question.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@TAdams - "The US government funded Remote Viewing for 20 years under the Stargate Project. Look it up for a little bit mind opening."
And at the end of those 20 years they concluded that is was a giant waste of time and money. From the report terminating the project: "The laboratory studies do not provide evidence regarding the origins or nature of the phenomenon, assuming it exists, nor do they address an important methodological issue of inter-judge reliability." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project)
I agree, but just for the sake of argument, if there was some metaphysical collective source of consciousness then its individual physical expression might be the product of the brain's biological processes. In other words, a fully functional brain lost that its 'network connection' with the 'cosmic consciousness' would no long exhibit the characteristics of consciousness: it'd be unconscious.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLikewise, a damaged brain would exhibit the observed diminished abilities.
I don't prescribe to this idea, but I think it could better explain some of the apparent empirical evidence of some 'greater consciousness', and I can't think how it could be completely disproved...
Yeah, I'd thought of that same sort of 'devil's-advocate' argument too. I fgure it would be analogous to a CPU (mind) trying to process corrupted code (damaged brain). But it still wouldn't require mind as brain's creator - or brain as mind's, for that matter. It would be equally plausible that both were independently created and mind simply inhabits brain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank-you, I enjoyed the article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI like to believe, but not swear, our consciousness instantly begins to see the light at the end of our mothers’ birth canals after death. Instantly because non-consciousness would not perceive the time for the universe to repeat itself from being pressurized from shining on where it has been during the time finite energy has been diffusing into infinite space (nothing). Us again because the whole set has no external influence.
Modern science depends on cause and effect. But it was Buddha who first clearly expressed the theory of cause and effect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn his culture however there was no such strong distinction between the physical and non-physical so he applied cause and effect to consciousness, following the trail back through his own awareness to the basic cause. He arrived at the ground of being, consciousness.
Anyone with the necessary will can do this, using the correct tools. It's very liberating.
SModern science however came about in reaction to religious dogma, and sought to work out the truth of reality by focusing on the physical world. A necessary progression but one which inserts a bias that the physical world is the starting point.
So its hardly surprising that the larger body of evidence supports that assumption.
In areas of physics certainly the physical is being seen more as a result of something else, but a system designed to test physical results is, of course, frustrated by this.
So that essential assumption needs to be tested.
Asking questions that do not yet have an answer and presenting points from both sides of the barricades is a perfectly adequate topic for a science magazine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe fact that such matters often give rise to controversy is, partly because they are as yet undecided, and also partly because some people lose their temper when they hear the reply "We're not sure, more research is needed".
If we want to hear only absolute certainties, then we have to accept that many of them are lies.
All the "evidence" that a physical brain causes subjective experience, provided in this article, is actually evidence that the content of subjective experience and the physical state of the brain are tightly correlated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNobody with any familiarity with neuroscience disputes this, but the author's conclusion does not follow.
The tone of this article is strange. I perceive a great frustration in the author as he attempts to use tried and true techniques for throwing down supernatural assertions made by Christians... and discovers that Chopra's spirituality just slips out of his grasp.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf Shermer tried to get deeper in debate with such Hindu-flavored philosophy, I suspect he would only become more frustrated by the layer upon layer of statements that lie in an ambiguous realm between metaphor and fuzzy truth claims.
I think @limbic is correct that Shermer would see any attempts at debate thwarted by 'arguments' such as "Energy is fundamental to the universe. Energy is a form of consciousness. Therefore, consciousness is fundamental to the universe." If he can define his terms arbitrarily, his can force statements like "Consciousness causes collapse" to be 'true'.
On the other hand, I heartily agree with Shermer's opposition to "God of the Gaps" arguments. Those should be hateful to a wide variety of people who dedicate their lives to probing God, probing gaps, or both.
Shermer- You can't win the game when your opponent doesn't even believe there is a game. Reading about this isn't especially edifying, nor does it make you look good. Stick to talking science.
As the Bible says that all thoughts do perish on death we have to assume that evrything we know is in our brains until we die and then it disappears foreever.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConsidering that at 65 I can minutely visualize and describe in great details a lot of hte places and experiences I have had inccluding some that happened at the house I lived in until 4 our brains really must be capable of storing such avast amount of digitized information such as would make Intel green with envy.
The alternative to our brains doing this is to subscribe to the great computer in the sky theory and our brains being not much more than senders and receivers of information from the Great One.
As we have well developed 6,7,8, 9 and possibel a 10th sense this Great One theory may well be the correct one.
BaldEgalitarian - can you extrapolate? I'm curious as to you are trying to get across.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this*as to what you are trying to get across
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissillofthedoor:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"But it was Buddha who first clearly expressed the theory of cause and effect.
"
Relkigious ignorance isn't confined to Christianity...trendy native spritulism, Buddhism, etc. are equally whacky.
Other levels of being, reincarnation, mother goddess, etc....all sound nice but BALONEY.
It's a fair question, but not one likely to be answered soon, at least not by us. It is possible of course in the tradition of British philosophy that it may be a pseudo-question. Perhaps it is the limitation of approximately 4 lbs of goo trying to comprehend the enormity of the universe that generates mental approximations which only appear to be conundrums. Alternately, the universe may not only be queerer thank we think, it may be queerer than we can think (that needs a citation I don't have right now). Perhaps after the Singularity circa 2045 our successors in the evolution of intelligence may figure it out. But we probably will have no ability to understand how they did it...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUntil then, please be careful about saying that "eastern religion" implies consciousness created the universe. Depaak's might, he's a Hindu. But in Buddhist tradition, one itself fraught with conflicting points of view, the Pali Canon holds that consciousness arises with the material existence of the body (including obviously the brain given modern neurological knowledge) and it passes with the cessation of that body. Thus the mind and body are parts of the aggregate that define a single life cycle. The notion of the ego (self identity) is created by the mind, a self-image full of delusion causing suffering. But the mind, body and individual existence are quite real and bound together until inevitable dissolution at death. They are also naturally and indivisibly connected to the whole universe back into which they will inevitably dissolve.
Thus the mind as an entity does not survive death (anatman), although there is endless debate and speculation about what sort of vague re-assembling thing does keep re-cycling until possible "liberation" from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. This is clearly different than the Western religious idea of the eternal ego (soul) continuing as-is after death (personally, I can think of no worse notion of hell than being "me" for eternity.) Neither it is it the same as other Eastern notions that a forgetful primary self (atman) keeps literally re-inventing itself (Depaak's notion)in perpetual continuity. As a Westerner, I would dispense with the notion of re-incarnation as a cultural artifice, but that could just be my mental limitation. In any case, according to fundamental Buddhist doctrine the mind does not invent the universe, although the universe does support minds continually being assembled. Interestingly this is also compatible with both the Depaak quote in the article and neurological science to date.
I'm just a pedestrian here, but the rebirth idea seems to be strained by recent population growth: there are now more than 7 billion people, whereas prior to about 4,000 years ago the global population likely never exceeded 4 million people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the up to 4 million people in the past had always been reincarnated souls, where'd the billions of 'new' spirits come from? Are old souls now being duplicated, or do most people alive today not have souls? Just wondering...
The Earth is indeed the center of the Universe. In fact, I am the center of the Universe. The Universe extends away from me in equal infinite distances, so therefore I must be at the center. Of course, the same is true for the guy sitting next to me (and you actually), so you and he are also both at the center of the Universe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this:-)
Just the people on Wall Street have no souls.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Alternately, the universe may not only be queerer thank we think, it may be queerer than we can think (that needs a citation I don't have right now). "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBass's proof, only one consciousness assuming QM
http://www.fredalanwolf.com/myarticles/Bass_1.pdf
Bass was a student of Schrödinger.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBass's proof, only one consciousness assuming QM.
http://www.fredalanwolf.com/myarticles/Bass_1.pdf
Obviously, the consciousness creates reality argument is nothing more than an interesting possibility, but, well, it is an interesting possibility.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have nothing in the standard model of physics that can explain consciousness (to the author: it's more than a small "gap"). So expanding the model of physics must be necessary.
Perhaps we should postulate a new fundamental particle, called the conscION. =)
This story belongs in an English supermarket paper, how did it end up here?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis story belongs in an English supermarket paper, how did it end up here?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't see how that has been proved.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are lot of examples of cognition being changed by accidental or deliberate interference with the brain. The is one post using an example of personality being changed by brain damage and of course this is known and documented. But perception cognition, personality, none of these things are consciousness. They are only properties of consciousness.
Maybe what is first needed is a definition of consciousness but then we run into the same conundrum, an external definition, based on observation can only name its properties, whereas a direct study of the consciousness one has yields something that is independent of physical or mental (if you have a distinction between the the two,) result.
I don't think you are asking because you really want to know, you have made up your mind, but it is only very recently that science has been willing to tackle the question of consciousness at all, really. Not too many years ago i had a conversation with a physiologist who had trouble saying whether a thought was real or not.
Now, to me regardless of its physical existence as an electrical pattern in the brain or not, a thought is really a thought. His trouble didn't extend from not knowing a thought was real, he was using thought to try and understand it, but from having an idealised distinction of what was real.
Sciences study of consciousness has come along way since then. But much of it, including your question, still assumes the basic, of physical existence being all that there is, or, for a religious scientist, all that is testable. This is despite knowing that science was developed, not becuase that assumption was tested and found true, but becuase the accepted religious theory was so full of holes it did not stand up to reason so it was rejected.
My example of Buddha, was an example of a scientist (Buddha also said you must test your results carefully to avoid going mad. Something religions, including Buddhism would have done well to take on board) who worked without such a physical/nonphysical distinction, therefore to understand consciousness he worked directly on his own. Your consciousness after all is your most valid experience of consciousness, anything else is second hand and external.
See Teilhard de Chardin's Law of Complexity/ Consciousness where teilhard posits that consciousness is driven by an evolutionary universal propensity to unite ~ from the molecule to the highest and most complex form of matter ~ a consciousness which manifests itself as love in the hominized form. A universe cemented in love ~ see http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/06/13/evidence-of-a-cyclical-universe-cemented-in-love/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMr. Shermer reminds us of why apples are not equivalent to oranges. Not everyone understands the distention, so Mr. Sherman offers us a valuable reminder. The function of science is to describe how nature operates on a mechanical level. Why IS the sky blue? Why DOES the rain fall? A scientific explanation will explore the nuts and bolts of the question without invoking unsupported god-from-the-machine stories to set everything right. So when the mystic or the theist demands to know how science accounts for this or that, and then proffers his mysticism as an answer worthy of equal consideration, the mystic engages in both a bate-and-switch and a logical fallacy. The bait-and-switch where the mystic demands a mechanical explanation from science and then proffers a non-mechanical 'solution' to fill the gaps, and a logical fallacy because it does not follow that ignorance is evidence for mysticism (or the gods). You can not argue that BECAUSE we do not know therefore we DO know the answer -its a God, Cosmic Consciousness or insert your favorite fantasy here. Mysticism, Creationism, Theism, The Metrix or the gods do not win by default. They must stand on their own evidential feet, and ignorance by science is not evidence for any of these. Mystic oranges are not equivalent to Newton's apples, regardless of what the new-age gurus pretend. So believe in mysticism if you wish, just know where to draw the line understand why science and mysticism are not the same.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the exact same thing occurs when I drink too much.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is not exactly true. They did find compelling statistical evidence for remote viewing (at sigma >8) but the applicability to guide military operations and other practical outlets was questioned.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@SHERMER - You said: "... we know for a fact that measurable consciousness dies when the brain dies..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's define "measurable consciousness" as "information". Then, like energy, information cannot be destroyed. In fact, the physicist Leo Szilard proved that information is real, and it converts to energy. See also the holographic principle in physics. So consciousness (information) IS reality (energy). If we describe consciousness as "information", the brain cannot create it or destroy it.
In addition, last month (arxiv.org/abs/1205.6894), a study shows that consciousness (information) is subject to the uncertainty principle. Requiring too much certainty from reality (as physicalism requires), violates the second law of thermodynamics. It's an interesting study in two ways: it's very scientific evidence, and it supports Chopra's position.
If the physicalists say that consciousness is not information, then offer another definition! If they claim to be agnostic on this topic, then they yield the advantage to their opponents who can offered this very scientific, measurable definition.
Before any scientist can answer the above, we should ask what is life, birth? Inanaimate /animate?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs I understand, information in the context of physics relates solely to the configuration of material energy. I don't think that any aspect of physics formally addresses human consciousness.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the context of computer systems, pass a strong magnet over your PC's hard drive - the data stored there and the information it represents _can_ be utterly destroyed.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed. All energymass from the big bang is connected by the speed of light. The energymass we see from stars was with us at the last big bang. The energymass earth re-radiates is no further away than the speed of light. By the time no energymass is left to expand away from the last big bang and decays into nothing, the future big bang would have been receiving incoming energymass from all directions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe are in the 21st century. This is at least a semi-scientific magazine. There can be no question or debate regarding the title. None. So, what exactly am I to expect from this article? Should I waste time reading it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@comment #1 Laughed, my thoughts exactly. As a physical scientist turned medic, I have always been a hard platonist and physicalist in mind-brain matters. Explain to me how anaesthetic agents induce loss of consciousness via some putative mechanism involving 'fields and the universe' or whatnot? Although we do not have a fully explained neurophysiological basis for a theory of consciousness, we are advancing on one from a number of fronts, and it is (in my opinion) still far and away the most rational view. I have a theory that Chopra is an exceptionally elaborate troll on scientists worldwide. Just a thought. Which probably came from neurophysiological activity in my cortex.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut then the correspondence between your and 'mvandongen's thoughts may be direct evidence of a collective 'cosmic consciousness' - :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso see my comment #8 re. loss of brain function. If, for example, individuals are local network nodes linked to a 'cosmic consciousness' 'cloud', local equipment damage would be expected to have the observed effects. Evidence that brain function affects consciousness does not invalidate the potential for some metaphysical source of consciousness.
Most interestingly, please see my comment #4 re. possible evidence conflicting with current neurological hypotheses.
BTW, despite these observations I don't subscribe to such ideas - I only point out that they are not so easily disproven.
Sunspot, you can define a term any way you wish, but that does not mean the definition is valid. You simply beg the question without attaining any deeper understanding. There are many problems with your invocation as a form of information, and the limits of this frame restrict an in depth examination. Here is just one example.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBriefly, consciousness, like the dynamics of chess play which emerge from the rules of play, may be an emergent property and not a form of 'information' which is neither created nor destroyed. Rather, in an utterly deterministic clockwork universe, information can change form with out being 'created'. If the process is completely reversible, than consciousness was unpacked from the mindless fish-eyed laws of nature and can, in principle, be as easily reversed to unconsciousness; implicit, without actualization, but the information is still there.
Consider the value of pi. You know, 3.14158... Pi has a decimal equivalent which runs on forever. The same is true of all irrational numbers. The problem is that our observable universe, being finite, can only hold a finite amount of information. Does the full decimal equivalent of pi (which contains an infinite number of digits) count as true information? Most information specialists would say no because the information is implicit in, is unpacked from the ratio of pi. That value is an emergent property from simpler principles of our universe.
All emergent properties (including consciousness) can be accounted for in the same way. Information may be conserved, but emergent properties can not qualify as a separate class of information for to do so would be to double-dip on the tally, which throws the sums out of whack and leads to contradictions of the very principle you appeal to. It is a stolen-argument fallacy.
Consider this: Physicists working to unravel the cosmological history of our universe have discovered how various forces of nature unite. They emerged from (froze out of) simpler states. The ultimate goal is to find the TOE, a set of fundamental laws so simple they could fit on a T-shirt. If such exists, than the total information content of the universe consist only of quantum law and the one data point description of the big bang singularity. ALL else is emergent properties which are somehow implicit in that scant actual information. Not separate forms of information with some sort external existence as you may wish to portray. I'm afraid your definition beg the question and ignores the problems. It fails to demonstrate a truth in your claim.
Humor, guys and gals. Humor!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you think they may be animal souls that have been promoted to human? Doesn't that theory kinda fit in with some eastern philosophies? After all, many mammals exhibit some human characteristics, don't they?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, that does fit with at least some reincarnation beliefs... I certainly can't disprove that idea. We do seem to be reducing animal populations as we increase ours...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI enjoyed the article, and find it--perhaps I can say unfortunately--yet necessary for general readership. (Especially here on the internet.) I do think it good to cheer Dr. Shermer on in his endeavors to help with public education.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI found it interesting that the opening quote attributed to Dr. Chopra put a cap on its limits--the subjective experience of red is in the brain of that expressed-by-the-same-brain subject, and thus does 'intervene' upon brain tissue.
All the point counterpoint in the above commentaries is exactly what we need. There is one perspective that always "worries" me and that comes from those that would block this type of article from a science magazine. What is the nature of existence doesn't "fit" their idea of "legitimate" science? What is the nature of awareness isn't science? Is consciousness and awareness the same thing? Arising from brain processes? Do other sentient beings have consciousness? Would they block the study of "self awareness" in other animals as a "non-science"? No one has the definitive answers and we all get to play hide and seek with our "selves" in this arena, this chicken and the egg game, which came "first", Nothing or the Big Bang? Death? Like asking scientists AND creationists the nature of the expanding edge of the "known" universe; where space and time are "moving" faster than the speed of light? Cosmic consciousness? What kind of "awareness" might the collective energies and masses of the cosmos have? As if we could detect it or measure it let alone tap into it with the physical mind-brain system currently available to any one of us commentators here. And all of us limited to the current latest most modern scientific "understandings"... hit the playback button and we get to revisit "spontaneous generation" of life until someone put some cheesecloth over the top of the jar and wow, momma fly couldn't do her magic. I want to conclude with the sound of Om, a meditation mantra, the "sound" of creation itself... and the discovery of the background radiation from the Big Bang, a kind of light or electromagnetic energy wave vibration permeating the entire universe, and the Buddhists who sense it, are aware of it, and "ride" it into the center of their beings. "Time" for physicists to get to their gluons holding the quarks together and strange charmed flavors and Planck's "law"... while "preaching" to us the nature of singularities... I mean, gawd almighty, there are some infinitely dense egos out there.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is mind ?Is mere concept or say alternative name to consciousness.Consciousness born from our living brain.When brain die consciousness stopped working than only doctor declared patient is dead
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting Article... When Scientific "Fact" Begins to Wane ....Yes, it is a long article, and well worth the read over the weekend, if you have some spare time... but If you read nothing else in the article..ponder the last paragraph...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all
So what does happen to consciousness when we die? Perhaps it goes to the same place that a flame goes when you blow out a candle... nowhere. The flame is chemical pattern dancing on a wick and sustained by forces entirely natural in nature. Similarly, consciousness may be nothing more than an electro-chemical pattern dancing on the synapses of a brain. Certainly there is insufficient empirical evidence to suppose otherwise, with a tremendous amount leaning this way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo suppose that a dancing pattern of consciousness can exist without a brain is like supposing that one can separate the 'circle' from a pizza by eating from the center to the rim until the pizza is entirely gone. That is fantasy. Without the pizza, there is no pizza-shape and parsimony suggests the same is true of the mind.
Could it be that when the brain dies, the pattern ceases to be? Perhaps. Until there is strong empirical evidence otherwise, this is where the smart money should go. It may well be that the best and only way to know what happens when you die is to go look at some dead stuff. There it is. Nothing more.
-Science_1
Perhaps we become so pretentious as to believe that we have finally become recognized as the most important person in the universe - the person whose thoughts matter more than anyone else - only to realize that we have become the only person in our own little universe...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA few months back, SA published an Article "Much Ado about Nothing" by Michael Shermer which also created lot of ado like this article on consciousness. Why such articles create lot of ado, controversial discussions and confusion? To me it seems that Science has no knowledge of aspects like Mind and Consciousness and when such articles appear on the public platforms of reputed scientific magazines like SA most of the readers who are strongly imbubed in the objective scientific cultures gets confused, gets no clear answers, have no basic belief in subjective empiricalism of spirituality and mysticism but they want to know the reality. To reach to the bottom of reality is the very basic human instinct. Hence such articles generate lot of discussions
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDuring 19th and first half of 20th century, Science was exclusively devoted to pure physical phenomena and discussions on such subjects like Mind, consciousness, re-incarnation was left to the preserve of Mystics, Spiritualists, Sages, Saints and Yogis. However, in 21st century Science is also trying to peer across these areas. To me it appears that Science appears to reach frontiers of Physical reality and now having new issues but facing barriers. Beyond these barriers objective empiricalism methodologies of Science are failing. Beyond the arena of physical reality as known to Physicists and Biologists are also some issues, which are quite alive which Science is tending to address and find solutions. But solutions based upon pure physical paradigm of Physics or Biology are either unsatisfactory or sometimes even lead to quite irrational and even senseless interpretations. Mind and Consciousness are such issues
Shermer and other rational thinkers need to stop giving Chopra and others like him a platform for their nonsense. We may not have a full understanding of consciousness yet but trying to fill in the gaps with spiritual foolishness only serves to line the pockets of these charlatans. Humans flock to this babble for the same reason they flock to religion, to help them deal with the fear of their own death and the death of a loved one. I can understand why someone would want to believe the mind continues on after death as it would bring great comfort after a loss or when facing their own mortality, that being said we must understand that wanting something to be true does not make it true. Now while I like most other humans don't want to die I understand that someday I will die and if I live long enough I will see every person I've ever loved or cared about pass away and it is probable I will never see them again. Understanding this fact helps me spend each day not only cherishing the time I have with them but trying to make their existence a better one. Believing in a life after this one is fine if it helps you move through this existence but all too often the belief that a better world awaits after death causes many to neglect this life,the only one we know without a doubt is real.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe world, the sun, and all the planets are round, but not like you think as in a sphere, or a basketball, etc. They are round like a pizza. Flat and round. If I hold a ball up between a light source and a wall, the resulting shadow looks like a circle. If I hold up a pizza up on end, the resulting shadow is still a circle. If I draw a circle on the wall With a dimension of 2 feet to represent the sun, it will be 2 dimensional. Height and width. Then I hold up a nickel between my eye and the circle on the wall, and then slowly move it across the larger circle, I just duplicated the transit of Venus. See . . . .it’s easy. So what’s all the spherical stuff about the sun and planets anyway.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA few months back, SA published an Article "Much Ado about Nothing" by Michael Shermer which also created lot of ado like this article on consciousness. Why such articles create lot of ado, controversial discussions and confusion? To me it seems that Science has no knowledge of aspects like Mind and Consciousness and when such articles appear on the public platforms of reputed scientific magazines like SA most of the readers who are strongly imbubed in the objective scientific cultures gets confused, gets no clear answers, have no basic belief in subjective empiricalism of spirituality and mysticism but they want to know the reality. To reach to the bottom of reality is the very basic human instinct. Hence such articles generate lot of discussions
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDuring 19th and first half of 20th century, Science was exclusively devoted to pure physical phenomena and discussions on such subjects like Mind, consciousness, re-incarnation was left to the preserve of Mystics, Spiritualists, Sages, Saints and Yogis. However, in 21st century Science is also trying to peer across these areas. To me it appears that Science appears to reach frontiers of Physical reality and now having new issues but facing barriers. Beyond these barriers objective empiricalism methodologies of Science are failing. Beyond the arena of physical reality as known to Physicists and Biologists are also some issues, which are quite alive which Science is tending to address and find solutions. But solutions based upon pure physical paradigm of Physics or Biology are either unsatisfactory or sometimes even lead to quite irrational and even senseless interpretations. Mind and Consciousness are such issues
I'm so happy this is the first comment! It really could be the only comment!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurther to comments 54 and 57 (being duplication of 54 due to inadvertent mistake)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBrain is the physical thinking apparatus in physical body which takes birth in mother's embryo and evolves thro' out the life. With death, this apparatus also dissolves into its ingredients. It is the grossest and lower most link in the entire chain of thinking process. Though not originated at the brain level, entire thinking chain process gets expressed at the level of brain and terminates at its level.
Physical body having the physical apparatus of brain is immersed in a higher dimensional non-physical reality which Mystics and spiritualists of different schools and period have named by different names. A familiar name for this non-physical reality is astral body. Operative part of astral body comprising of mind, 10 senses ( 5 of knowledge and 5 of action) and intellect is seated in brain. Here non-physical connotes to the physicality as known to Physicists and neurologists. Otherwise, reality of astral body and mind are even more higher and true than physical body and brain.
Consciousness is the reality originating neither from physical brain nor from astral plane of mind but it lies in realms beyond physical and astral. It activates mind in astral plane and brain in physical plane and becomes the ultimate seat of all process of " perception and awareness". a signal from the ultimate seat of awareness runs across astral mind and physical brain. However, it has a property that it gets identified with the entity with which it is associated at any time
With death, neurons of brain stops functioning and ultimately dies but astral mind and ultimate consciousness survive. Though menifestational apparatus of personality and thinking process (brain) dies but all the seeds of thinking and personality traits remain intact in astral mind and become cause of next birth. But if seeds remain alive in astral body and this body also re-appears in next birth, why previous personality is not duplicated in next life? Though seeds survive in astral body and mind, characteristics of brain are different than previous life's brain. A new brain with different characteristics can not express the seeds of previous life in tangible and activated form.
Now people groomed thro out the life in culture of scientific evidenceism of objective logical deduction and observational evidence raise a natural query : what is the scientific evidence for astral mind and beyond astral realm of consciousness?
This article should have been published in Scientific American MIND --- what's up with publishing it in the wrong magazine -- the one to which I subscribe. Please SCIAM, don't lose your customers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurther to Comment 59
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrankly speaking there is no hardcore scientific clinching objective evidence. But there is plethora of subjective evidence of host of Mystics, Saints, Yogis of all times and places who have had experience of astral body, mind and consciousness since millenia. Now if one trusts their experiences or not is left up to person's concerned, his/her background, mindset, discretion. Here is choice of accept or reject. during the current modern period also, there have been people who have experienced, seen the existence of astral body and mind and senses and seen their intra and inter process and described the same
A change in the characteristics of brain by electric or chemical properties by artificial manipulation or due to accident brings changes the expressive properties of brain. Due to this change in brain, despite seeds of thinking and personality remaining intact in astral mind and consciousness also remaining intact, brain manifest varrying trends of perception, personality, attitude and thinking process. This is the reason for neurologist's basis due to which they tend to seek mind and consciousness in brain. This is akin to a computer. A change in the hardware expresses different output on screen despite the same data in memory or server. Astral body and mind play the role of a server where all personality traits and functions are stored. Similarly vice verca is also true. A change in the thinking attributes at the mental level in astral plane thro mental assertion brings a change in the brain chemistry or its electric properties. This is just like a computer.
i think psychic awareness "OF BEING" is directly linked to psychic flow of time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRemind me again in what way is the theory of cause and effect balony?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is an interesting quantum physics postulation for that, but even more interesting is that the theory is necessary to arrive at the conclusion, cause and effect it is still therefore fundamental to the scientific method and logic itself.
I am quite aware of the limitations of religious thinking but dismissing something becuase of a generalised associations is poor logic.
How will you combat, say, the creationists plaguing the US scientific community and schools if you use the same logical mistakes they do to arrive at your conclusions?
I loved this article and think that SciAm is a good place to ask such questons. Now, about this subject. Chopra's and Hoffman's point of view seems to be a fairly extreme form of "Cogito, ergo Sum" and it almost reeks of solipsism. After all, if consciousness creates brain and reality, then, with each and everyone having his/her own consciousness, does it not follow that there cannot be a single reality? What then creates this seeming "illusion" of comformity between all these different realities?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy personal view is that brain creates consciousness. While I admit that there is enough unclear about how and where it does this, I find that the available evidence for this far outweighs that for the "consciousnes creates brain/reality"-point of view.
On the whole, I think that Bishop Berkeley got it right.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLOL 20 years ! It took them 20 years of funding to say it doesn't work ? Anyway if you bother here is something to watch with one of the viewers that shows why they used them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3enFKd_ewvU
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn any case this is exactly why you can't get a satisfactory answer from the 'outside'. The nature of consciousness needs to be explored from the 'inside'. Personal experience is the only way to know 100% what is real.
It's all too comforting for most to sit in their own little beliefs trap and dismiss anything that may blow their reality upside down.
And it would ;-)
Outside the realm of scientific understanding and within the gaps Mystics, Spiritualists, Sages, Saints and Yogis have always taken liberty to play. There is nothing wrong with such speculations as such, so long as they are not elevated to the status of empirical knowledge.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs science advances, fantasies must give way; so it is only proper and intellectually honest that we recognize unsupportable notions for what they are and not become so emotionally vested in such that we advocate them towards the status of truthful understanding. Science is ignorant of many things. But this is not a weakness and empirical ignorance is not evidence for mystic truth.
Science thrives on what it does not know. Questing into natures secrets, displacing unsupportable notions as light displaces darkness, is what science is all about. On the day that science runs out of questions to answer, that is the day science dies. May we always have rich fields of ignorance to explore.
The problem comes when mystics, Saints and sinners crave an air of scientific sanction for unsupported notions and suggest that mysticism is of equal worth. It is this hunger to appear scientifically legitimate which motivates mystics to engage science and to roll their banter in the trappings of jargon stolen from science, absent of the empirical integrity to back it up.
We often find mystics such as Chopra seeking to pass counterfeit coin as they speak of 'quantum vibrations' and such and imply that scientific empiricism supports notions which are anything but scientific. Here we should be shrewd enough to discern the con offered us and bold enough to exclaim why that coin must not pass!
It is in service of this cause that Scientific American gives print to Dr. Michael Shermer, educator and editor of Skeptic magazine. Shermer serves an important educational need of the readership as, by measure, he gently pushes back against unscientific notions dearly held. I look forward to his offerings each month.
Those here who have wondered why Shermer's article is found on a science site need wonder no more. As many of the posts seen in this thread demonstrate, the need is very real.
-Science_1
At one time scientists had to seek the
approval of the Church. It is a tribute
to the power of science that today the
church and the mystics hunger for the
approval of science.
The argument the author makes that brain injury affects consciousness or changes personality, and therefore suggests that it's the brain that generates consciousness, is not entirely a logical one. I would point out that there have been documented cases of people who were in a deep coma, or in a persistent vegetative state, who have woken up, sometimes years later, and reported that they were conscious the whole time. They were judged to have no consciousness simply because they couldn't translate their thoughts into action. People who are brain-injured also have trouble forming words, but that is equivalent to someone not having legs, having trouble walking. The same even applies to perceived changes in personality after brain injury. What the person is trying to get across to the world simply comes out that way because their brain is injured. Again equivalent to someone who's injured their legs, walking with a limp. None of what I'm saying proves the case one way or another, but perhaps the materialists among scientists shouldn't be so smug about what they believe. It may be simply that we require a brain and a body to communicate with the material realm and act upon it, and not that consciousness necessarily ends when our brains die.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurther to comments 54,59 and 61
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this10 senses of operative part of astral body, as embedded in brain, activates different parts of brain. Similarly higher level functions of mind viz imagination, planning, visualization, planning, decision making also originate at mind and intellect components of astral body. however, their ultimate effect appears at the computer screen of brain.
When Deepak Chopra has posed a query to Shermer regarding what happens when we see red, he was pointing to some higher dimensional reality. When we visualize and see a red rose in mind, what actually happens, mind at astral and causal planes creates an imaginative picture of red rose, mind sends the signal to brain. in this process, red flower is actually created at astral and causal levels of reality. Though these are distinct process in the chain of thinking process, but the entire process occurs so fast that this appears as single integrated process. Mind in the strictest sense does not comprise of one existential entity at astral body level only. Mind is a common name to all the subtle process emanating from a multi real level existential entities at astral and beyond astral causal level. Mystics and Spiritualists have also experienced and seen causal body in Samadhi (deep meditational stage) and described the same.
This is a fallacy, a sort misinterpretation of neurologists and Physicists that imagination implies "Nothing" or something "non-existent". Just like in actual vision or listening a sound, in imagination also, some internal actual process occurs at causal and astral level, implying a red rose is actually created (though temporarily) at astral and causal level, whose output is seen on the brain screen. In actual physical world also, a red rose is created from physical elements and it survives for few days or hours and then disintegrates into its ingredients. Similarly in astral and causal plane also, on setting of imagination process in progress, red rose is actually created from elements of astral and causal world but it survives for few minutes depending upon the imaginative and fixing power of the person
In the entire thinking process of any kind, no actual change takes place in consciousness - It merely perceives, observes and remains witness. The way water has no color of its own, but it appears in the same color as is added to it, similarly consciousness also gets in the same color with which it is associated at any plane of reality. It implies consciousness "feels" the same whatever is presented to it.
The argument the author makes that brain injury affects consciousness or changes personality, and therefore suggests that it's the brain that generates consciousness, is not entirely a logical one. I would point out that there have been documented cases of people who were in a deep coma, or in a persistent vegetative state, who have woken up, sometimes years later, and reported that they were conscious the whole time. They were judged to have no consciousness simply because they couldn't translate their thoughts into action. Recent research has also indicated that in some cases people who are diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state can still be communicated with by being being hooked up to an MRI and seeing which parts of their brain light up in response to particular questions. They can setup a situation where the patient is able reply “yes” or “no” to simple questions by being asked to think about a particular thing, which will cause a particular part of their brain to light up and being asked to think about a different thing, which will cause a different part of the brain to light up for the opposite reply. Here is a person that for all intents and purposes is “dead” to the world (and some have even been candidates for removal from life support), and yet is very much alive and conscious. People who are brain-injured also have trouble forming words, but that is perhaps equivalent to someone having an injury to their legs, having trouble walking. The same even applies to perceived changes in personality after brain injury. What the person is trying to get across to the world simply comes out that way because their brain is injured. Again equivalent to someone who's injured their legs, walking with a limp. None of what I'm saying proves the case one way or another, but perhaps the materialists among scientists shouldn't be so smug about what they believe. It may be simply that we require a brain and a body to communicate with the material realm and act upon it, and not that consciousness necessarily ends when our brains die.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe brain is among the discrete units of the human being. Including animals with a central nervous system, this is the only structure in the known universe that includes psychological functions. What exclusively characterize the human brain are its physiological functions of an intellect with abstract and rational thinking, an affectivity of feelings and activity of intentionality and freedom. Indeed, in these properties the human brain differs from the psychic structure common to higher animals, which is characterized by function in a smaller scale, since it respectively has the psychological functions of instinct, images and emotions. The human brain generates a reflective thought that is abstract and rational, and can primarily produce ideas and logical conclusions, and secondly produce feelings and intentions, from the combination of affection and intentional action. These specifically human features define the human being as a person. The brain structures that are generated did not appear from an alleged World of Ideas, but arose in the very material course of biological evolution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn a first instance, the multifunctional psychic substructures of human beings are unified by the consciousness of self, worried like all other living organisms to survive and reproduce. The advantage of self-consciousness was a major quantum leap in the process of biological evolution. Self-consciousness reflects on itself in its relationship with other individuals, whether inanimate, animate or humans, and projects and determine courses of action primarily related to self survival and reproduction. The generation of individual self as a psychic structure is based on the biological material of a brain composed of highly differentiated cells, the neurons, and is a product of the human mind and its psychological functions in all its rational and abstract activity, in its affectivity of feelings and in its intentional projection. The nature of this psychic structure is not really material, in the sense of consisting of atoms and molecules, but is the product of the fundamental forces mediated by the complex neuronal structure of the brain and form a structure of specific energies, mainly electrochemical in nature.
In a second instance, when a person reflects intimately about why he himself, coming to the conclusion of his own and radical singularity, the psychological multifunctionality is unified through and in the profound consciousness, which is self sameness. The crux of this activity is that this sameness reflects his own individual self within a particular worldview that the self goes on conforming, generating and creating in his own history the experiences, knowledge, feelings and intentional actions. This worldview reflects the life project that a person constructs. This worldview is varied and can range from an unhealthy self-centeredness to the loss of identity which characterizes idolatry. Indeed a true worldview should be consistent with reality. In this worldview bonds of love, solidarity, goodness and mercy are outlined. In this cognitive, affective and intentional action the self acquires, so to speak, autonomy and independence of the matter of the universe. This self reflection extends the personal self-consciousness to decentralize the action of the sameness self to consider and value all the complexity of the universe, including. The energy, which the deep consciousness structures, is what is called the soul. The soul is not a thing, as it contains no matter. Neither is therefore an object of knowledge. It simply exists and is fully and completely identified with the self.
The generation of a singular selfhood as a reflection of the psychological activities is the highest achievement of the evolution of matter. It happens when the matter-energy through the intelligent and deliberate activity of a person in his profound consciousness structures the energy in a psychological identity that includes all of the uniqueness of his person. There is a conversion of the material into energy, but it is not a regression nor is explained by Einstein's famous equation, E = mc², but it is the generation of a unique immaterial structure. Indeed, this selfhood or sameness is precisely the essence of the person and it is what constitutes him. Hypothetically speaking, as the sameness self is set at a higher level from a discrete non-material, but only through the energies that characterize the psychological functions, this introspective reflection of the profound consciousness goes on generating during the course of life an immaterial structure of differentiated energy, which is being constituted independently from of the laws of thermodynamics and, therefore, subsisting, unique and immutable.
In short, in the scale of the structure of human cognition, affection and intentional action we respectively find rational and abstract thinking, feeling, and intentional action. On this scale the psychological products of central nervous system are unified in the self consciousness, which of all beings in the universe only humans have the ability to structure. When the abstract and logical representations, the feelings devoid of biological drives and the free will reflect their unique sameness, which is the question regarding his existence, it appears or structures the profound consciousness in the person. This structuring is indeed a structure of energy. And although these contents of consciousness now unified in the profound consciousness are seated deep in the material substrate of the neuronal structure, their neurotransmitters and electrical impulses, become independent of t matter and have an subsisting existence in the unity of this consciousness, as it does not constitute now a structure of matter, but of energy. Thus, humans are the only beings in the universe that produce energy structures of self sameness that also survives death.
TAdams...why on earth are you reading Scientific American? Fortean Times is thataway ------------------->
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDuh! The "souls" that constitute the human race weren't always human. If every living thing has a soul, then I think the numbers are covered. I don't actually believe this. I just know a few froot flakes who have explained it to me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems to me we start in a womb of darkness. We inherit a brain configuration. We might start to experience pressure points and begin to differentiate pleasure from pain. After we pop out, we receive input to our brain. If born in America, we might become a democrat or republican; if born in Afghanistan we might become Taliban or al-Qaeda.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow stupid is this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen you die, your consciousness dies with you, in fact it dies before your body truly dies. Anaesthetics temporarily kill of your conciousness, so if you have been for a procedure that needed you to be anaesthetised you have experienced what it means to be dead.
PS: In my opinion Deepak Chopra is a fraud, his object is to coerce rational people to accept some form of a god may exists. Then he will use that statement in exaggerated form to claim even the must advanced scientists accept his god.
Michael Shermer has hit the nail on the head, only it didn't go in. anyone who says that consciousness comes first, the brain second, must show how mind creates matter. But by the same token, the opposing camp, who claim that matter creates mind, must show how sugar and water molecules learned to think.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTwo things are agreed upon in this dilemma, although Shermer chooses to ignore them.
1. No one has made the slightest progress in showing how molecules learned to think.
2. Consciousness creates matter all the time.
The second point is evident in the brain, because when you have thoughts, emotions, and sensations, not only are chemicals produced at the synaptic gap, new neurons are produced as well as new synaptic connections. The brain isn't self-generating. It produces synapses, neurons, and electrochemical charges according to what we - the experiencers - are thinking and doing - our consciousness.
By stacking the deck in favor of the materialist camp, Shermer falls in line with the orthodoxy of current neuroscience. But his argument that brain activity produces subjective experience is naive. It only correlates with subjective experience. Seeing a radio light up when Mozart is being broadcast doesn't mean that the radio wrote Mozart's music or is having the experience of hearing the music. Likewise, the molecules in the brain are not having any experiences, much less producing them.
Michael Shermer never gets past his first example. When a person sees the color red, there is no color in the brain, and no light of any kind. So the production of a complete world via the brain is being caused elsewhere, in consciousness, using the brain as receiver and transmitter.
Deepak Chopra
Hi Rishi,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI must tell you, my friend, that the Deepak selection pasted to our thread is anything but scientific. Most of it consists of mystical banter, logical fallacies, arguments by assertion, with a few outright falsehoods sprinkled in for savor. The man writes well but his thinking is crap. Space is limited, so I can only scratch the surface of his failings.
I have already written on the fallacy of trying to leverage ignorance in support of mysticism. There is no burden on science to explain how 'molecules learned to think' before rejecting Deepak Copra. Ignorance is not evidence for mysticism and mysticism must pay its own way. (See posts 32 & 65.) All agree that nature exits. If someone wants to propose something more, the burden of evidence is on him alone.
Deepak acknowledging that he has a burden to show how 'mind creates matter'. Unfortunately he never gets around to meeting this burden. Either his idea of 'proof' is as fluffy as his teachings, or he knows well what constitutes the sort of evidence science would find compelling but is empirically bankrupt to deliver. (I'll bet the first.) What Deepak does offer is a 'just so' narrative, utterly lacking in empirical substance, delivered with a chiding accusation that Shermer 'stacks the deck in favor of the materialist camp' when he refuses to accept fluffy mystical thinking. None of this provides support for his grander claims.
The goal of science is to describe how nature works on a mechanical level, sufficiently to be useful in making testable predictions (and later applications). Successful predictions lend support to the underlying theories, while a failure demands revision. A sufficiently grievous failure may require that entire theories be uprooted. As only things within nature are testable, and as Deepak's fantasies make no testable predictions, bare no useful fruit, and are immune to countervailing facts, science has no use for them.
With this in mind can you see why Deepak provokes waves of incredulous laughter at the absurd pretension that the only obstetrical to his scientific legitimacy is Shermer 'stacking the deck in the materialist camp'?
Deepak exposes his naked ignorance towards science. This coupled with his cluelessness towards evidence of merit makes him just one more crank in a sea of cranks, each peddling his baseless wares. Why should we conclude that he over his fellow cranks, over empirical science even, holds the keys to wisdom? All he offers is so much hot air. You admire this fellow? Good heavens Why??
-Science_1
"TAdams...why on earth are you reading Scientific American?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI thought I'd like to read some comedy :-)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are a lot of 'may-be's in what Chopra says.
Science doesn't operate on those principles.
No need to attempt to give serious replies to baseless monologues of the kind that Chopra makes.
If people can be persuaded that the Moon landings were a hoax, they can be persuaded that almost anything can be a hoax.
Is anyone seriously suggesting that the visible universe that we have come to just observe won't be there if by a chance of evolutionary or geologic accident humans were not here on Earth to observe all that?
Come on. How more anthropocentric can anyone get?
Was the universe around or not -- 10,000 years ago and a million years ago and a billion?
I am surprised by your claim that information can be destroyed, as in erasure of a hard drive. Check out the history of the Watergate tapes. Restoring information is merely a techno challenge. I do enjoy (most of) your comments, but you usually check your facts better.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust to stay on topic, here's a recent SciAm reference (11/14/2010) from a quantum physicist from Oxford, Vlatko Vedral: "... all living systems are 'Maxwell's demons', trying to defy the tendency for order to turn back into randomness." To me, that sounds like consciousness creating energy, and if Shermer reads that article, he'll find that no philosophers or mystics were required for that experiment!
The universe is full of "spooky" but real things, like quantum tunneling, and entangled photons. It's a little early in the game to be concluding so emphatically that "information" cannot create the mind that emerges from a physical brain, just because we can't imagine where this information (consciousness) comes from!
Conciousness, Mind, etc. for lay persons.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://whatcausesmentalillness.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/my-step-one.html
@comment 41. Science_1
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou said: "... you can define a term any way you wish, but that does not mean the definition is valid."
In science, a definition must precede a hypothesis. That doesn't make it valid or invalid. Only experiment can falsify a definition. Shermer did not define "measurable consciousness", so how can he conclude that it dies? Where is the evidence? When a brain is damaged or dies, Shermer merely assumes his conclusion that there is a direct correlation with his subject: consciousness.
I proposed the definition "information". At least with this definition, you and I can proceed to hypothesize and experiment. And there are many, many scientific reports published on experiments with respect to information physics.
YOUR definition of consciousness as an "emergent property" leads to the stolen argument fallacy! You changed my words to reach your conclusion, which is called a straw man argument. Equating "measurable consciousness" with the scientifically defined term "information" still stands as a valid subject for scientific testing.
To Michael Shermer and others
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA lot of discussions into topic of consciousness without defining or arriving at some consensual view on consciousness. I am proposing some of the essential attributes for consciousness :
1. A feeling of " am-ness" i.e. a feeling in the subject that he "is" - exists --- a sort of meta cognition.
2 A feeling in subject that he/she is "this/that" i.e. association of "am-ness" with some identity
3 An observer centric feeling of "is-ness" in subject regarding existence of other objects -- conscious or unconscious ( animate or inanimate)
4 An observer centric feeling in subject imparting identification to other objects.
5 An expression of some degree of self propagated motion in physical bodies
6 An expression of some degrees of mental activities with intelligence being one ingredient
Above 6 attributes are the most fundamental attributes of consciousness and neither of the consciousness , whether originating from brain or operating down in brain from some higher dimensional plane, can exist without these attributes.
All type of living beings from insects to human beings will show above attributes in some degree or other.
I pose a simple and direct query to Shermer if his model of consciousness emerging out of material brain can explain any of the above attributes.
Consciousness model of Eastern Mysticism and Spiritualism provides following attributes for consciousness :
1 A boundless ocean of consciousness exists beyond dimensions of space and time. Self awareness and awareness of others is the basic nature of this fundamental reality. This ocean is not composed of any matter or energy of nature
2 The ocean of consciousness exist by to virtue of its existence. This is the MOST FUNDAMENTAL existence and beyond cause-effect relation.
3 A signal from the ocean perculate down in individual objects in nature and degree of expression of consciousness in individual plants/insects/animals/ human beings depends upon evolutionary development of their biology particularly brain.
4 Both at macro universal scales and micro animal and human being scales, ocean of consciousness provides necessary inputs for : i) Motion -- from atom to a galaxy ii) Knowledge (with intelligence being one ingredient) for basic design and working of nature.
In Mystical and spiritual history of millennia, there are records of subjective experiences by individuals for the existence of ocean of consciousness. But a Skeptic is skeptic. He will not trust without scientific empirical evidence
As far as I know, neuroscientists have not been able to scientifically prove that our counsciousness survives the death of our bodies. Is there any evidence contrary to this?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article about the arctic ground squirrel was obviously written by someone who does not understand the neurological implications of what he was writing about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAccording to the article, none of the neurons in the brain of this ground squirrel die during hibernation. Not one.
What happens is what commonly happens when the human brain is starved of stimulation: the neurons shrink and the connections between them shrivel. In humans many of the cells that supply support and nutrition for functioning neurons die. The cortex (brain rind) becomes thinner. This probably happens in the hibernating squirrel brain as well.
In humans (and apparently also in squirrels) the process is reversible as soon as stimulation, exercise and good nutrition is recommenced.
Real brain damage implies neuron death, not neuron shrinkage. When neurons die brain functions are lost permanently. The brain has a very limited capacity to grow new neurons. Unlike other cells in the human body, neurons do not generally regenerate. It is for this reason that our brains become progressively sluggish as we age.
On the other hand, the brain is quite good at reconditioning shrunk neurons, regrowing axon connections between the neurons and growing new nutrient and supporting cells between them.
The squirrel brain does not appear to be doing anything especially different from what already happens in human brains that are poorly stimulated and then put back in a normal environment. The process is certainly no cure for Alzheimer's as the neurologically naive writer suggests. It is most certainly no proof that consciousness exists independently of brain function.
@comment 81 rja2012
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the term consciousness is not defined in a measurable way, then no scientist can produce evidence that consciousness does or does not exist either before or after death.
However, if "measurable consciousness" is defined in terms of "information", then measurable consciousness is just a form of energy, which can neither be created nor destroyed, but only changes form, subject to the uncertainty principle. At least this topic can be discussed scientifically (see the debate on the Black hole paradox).
Think about this ; how could a neuroscientist possibly prove something that is out of this reality ? If the brain isn't working they are not able to prove anything. There is plenty of documented experiences that have happened when the brain to a neuroscientist is dead.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNeuroscience deals with this physical reality, not anywhere else we go. They will never prove anything about this.
Participatory Anthropic Principle
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis “either-or” analysis is simplistic and fails to explore well-known philosophical alternatives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn theory, it's entirely plausible that there could be an aspect of consciousness that ceases with death while there's another aspect that co-exists and interacts with the former during life and persists after death. Let's call it a "soul".
This is far from a novel model. Religions have claimed this in one way or another for millennia. It provides a way to account for reincarnation, which is a common belief worldwide. While the evidence for reincarnation may not be very compelling, it's also not possible to totally dismiss the theoretical possibility. In fact, that would be so even if all of the available evidence is disproven.
One might complain that it's "logically and scientifically meaningless" to even talk about the "soul", since it's a totally metaphysical construct, i.e., we can't validate its existence in the "lab". OK. Perhaps we can't distill a soul in a test tube. But once the claim is made that the soul effects human experience, it’s no longer a strictly metaphysical entity and the complaint now lacks validity. People do in fact report various experiences that could be interpreted as manifestations of the soul's interaction with the consciousness of a living person. Again, an obvious example would be someone reporting past-life experiences, which, in theory at least, could be verifiable.
Other examples would be various reports of personal revelations/religious experiences. Granted, these are pretty tough to verify. But by the same token, it's rather difficult to "prove" that all such experiences are hallucinations.
If so, the most scientifically honest position would seem to be to remain open-minded rather than to summarily dismiss the domain of spiritual experience or ignore it as a legitimate area of inquiry.
from the Higgs to the snowy Alps-
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswe are on the Wind...
out of the Fire.
I dedicated a blog post to the inspirations I got from the particular wordings used to describe some of the phenomena in this article. Would love some comments!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://philoneuro.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/the-explanatory-gap-where-all-the-subtleties-are-derived/
It is not obvious that the statement, “subjective experiences are neurochemistry,” has been shown to be true. More to the point, there is good reason to believe that subjective experiences cannot even in principle be caused by chemistry.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConsider the particular subjective experience of feeling pain. Is it possible that atoms, which cannot feel pain, can combine to produce brains that can? While the question is arguable, I believe the answer is no.
Look at some of the “properties” of large-scale objects in the universe – properties such as color, shape, hardness, energy, motion, temperature, and metabolism. There is no property large objects possess that is not possessed in exactly the same kind but to a lesser degree by the atoms out of which they are made. Atoms have shape, color, energy, motion, hardness, electromagnetic interactions, etc. If atoms do not possess any slightest amount of the property of subjective experience, I do not see how anything made of atoms can produce objects with that property. If this interpretation is correct, the presence of consciousness requires something more than atoms as we know them: the presence of conscious nonphysical objects (Dualism), the presence of consciousness as a fundamental property of matter along with mass, charge and spin (Panpsychism) or the presence of consciousness as the fundamental property of the universe (Conscious Realism). If it is in fact not possible that physical universe can create consciousness, then something else, no matter how seemingly improbable or unappealing, must be the cause.
Awareness is useless without inputs and outputs. The inputs either come from the brain or seem like they come from the brain but actually come from somewhere else. We cannot verify the existance of the brain without inputs to awareness. If the inputs are illusory, we cannot conclude that reality and the brain exists.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI cannot think how to prove that the inputs are illusory or real.
Underneath the academEnglish verbiage...:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore On Brain-Mind Origin-Evolution
Again, the neural system, including the brain, was evolved by unicells communities (cultures)
to react to, exploit, the environments for survival-natural selection.
IMO plants’ “brains-mind” are not as developed as in mobile organisms simply because
stationary organisms face much fewer survival-natural-selection challenges than mobile organisms.
It takes survival-natural-selection challenges to modify expressions of RNA nucleotide genes,
the Earth life primal ORGANISMS. See Pavlov.
This is further to
“Seed of Human-Chimp Genomes Diversity”
http://universe-life.com/2011/07/10/seed-of-human-chimp-genomes-diversity/
Dov Henis (comments from 22nd century)
http://universe-life.com/
Wow, ive often thought that myself, we can only know consciousness we cannot know unconcsciousness, after we die even if it takes trillions of years or another big bang, and i feel thats being pessimistic, we possibly could experience conssciousness again and again and the effect would be instantanious as there is no perception of time when you are dead and with absolutely no memory of any life previously lived, if we are here and alive today then why not many, many times before and after, different forms of life, on different planets, galaxys, too infinity lol, just a thought:p
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe thing is, conciousness goes beyond simple things like personality. It's more like a mirror of the universe, pointed towards itself, trying to figure out the mess. Well that's what I think anyway.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI get it... the engine that spontaneously arose out of a fathomless abyss of pure ignorance for no good reason drives the car and the driver ... well He is a figment of our imagination. Clever aren't we? And we of course who cannot make an atom all by our little selves have it all sussed. When we do eventually blow ourselves to smithereens by abusing the bejaysus out of what the Good Lord in his Infinite compassion gave us all to venerate and enjoy we will truly deserve all we get.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe universe is guided by laws. Rocks form in a certain way because of the natural laws we somewhat take for granted. Rocks are part of the objective world and lack consciousness but still adhere to these laws.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we assume consciousness and human intent are part of these natural laws we are a result of the intent of the laws. "I am, therefore I think" doesn't apply because the natural intent of our creation came before our existence.
The rock can therefore also been seen as a type of conscious being in the sense that its existence was directly dependent on the intent of the natural laws.
I am not proposing god here. But as the author quotes in the beginning of the article, the world as we know it is only our sensual interpretation of it. What we call a rock is actually a mostly empty structure existing according to natural laws that governs it.
What happens to consciousness when we go to sleep? The brain remains active but the person is unconscious. What would happen if the brain becomes active? The person would remain unconscious. This is what happens to consciousness when the person dies. He becomes unconscious forever. He would regain consciousness only if the brain is revived, but it never happens.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat happens when we die: We never have to put up with the fact Deep-pack breathes the same air as us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMr. Shermer you allowed Chopra to waste your time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnly confused and delusional non scientific minds do not understand this very simple concept of consciousness, but i guess the article reinforces that Chopra is a huge crackpot, alright charlatan.
What does Nicholas Coke (the boy with anencephaly who lived until 3 years old) say about consciousness residing within the brain. People say that he must have no awareness or emotions, but the family would argue to differ, and videos would also suggest he was far from a vegetable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this