Consciousness is what starts when you wake and fall asleep each day, and this captures our scientific and philosophical attention precisely because it is highly implausible that there is "a highly excitable piece of brain matter that gives rise to consciousness." To borrow an example from Ned Block, there are about a billion neurons in a brain and there are about a billion people in China, but if the Chinese were to relay information among themselves in a manner identical to a brain, China itself would not suddenly awake and enjoy conscious experiences. This disanalogy is what makes the prospect of a neat localization claim (i.e., "Consciousness is this spot in the brain!") unlikely -- on principled grounds. An expression like "gives rise to," despite sounding so natural, presupposes a host of unexamined metaphysical views that become dubious when examined, so such an expression obscures more than it reveals.

“…What is consciousness? What do the latest neurology findings tell us about consciousness…?….”

The existent neurology till now isn’t able principally to tell something rational about what is consciousness. Why?, and what is indeed scientific basic answer on the question “What is consciousness?”

- see, for example, the last SS post in the thread https://www.researchgate.net/post/Does_Consciousness_Exist_Outside_of_the_Brain

Cheers

Consciousness is not a function of the brain. The brain is only part of the hardware of our body to support the channel of its communication with the Soul. The carrier of consciousness is the Soul. This is confirmed by the fact that in about 25% of cases, consciousness persists after its channel of communication with the physical body is severed. This is a long time ago, at least several thousand years, everyone knows. But other than scientists. Science is only on the way to recognizing this.

Consciousness is the most General classifier of reality, classifying it into objective, subjective and non-existent, into "I" t=and "Not I". At the end of 1978, I developed a criteria-based periodic classification of forms of consciousness, including 49 forms of consciousness. I have a lot of work on this.

I think it’s easy to want to ascribe consciousness to certain specific organs or processes in the body, but this would be reductionistic. Consciousness is a unified totality that is greater than the sum of its parts, so therefore we can’t answer the question of what it is simply by observing certain very specific anatomical and physiological aspects of the body. Therefore, while neurology can certainly observe some of the effects that certain processes in the brain and functions of certain parts of the brain effect consciousness, I don’t believe that it can truly answer the question of “what is consciousness?” This is where I, for one, believe that Phenomenology becomes helpful, as it helps us to understand consciousness without either reducing it to a select organ in the body or also without attempting to remove consciousness from the body entirely—an equally dangerous temptation (if consciousness truly is a unified totality, then while it cannot be reduced just to bodily processes, it also can’t be removed from these processes, either.)

Eugene Veniaminovich Lutsenko As I read over your answer again, I am tempted to agree with you, although there is one counterpoint that I might personally make: as one who generally takes a phenomenological perspective on consciousness, I would agree that consciousness cannot be reduced to being a function of the brain, but I would also argue that consciousness cannot be just seen as a cargo of the soul either. To me, the body and the soul cannot be seen as separate entities at all, as if human beings and human consciousness are a unified totality, then they cannot be seen as separate from either the body or the soul. Both are required for consciousness, and I would argue that without either (a body or a soul) one cannot truly have consciousness.

Christopher Zieske !

You must take into account that consciousness can be not only those people who have a physical body (they are called living), but also those who do not have a physical body (they are called dead). Otherwise you are right

Eugene Veniaminovich Lutsenko This is very true. I, though, would argue that if it is truly possible to have consciousness after death, then we do not lose a body, as one may be inclined to believe—I would argue that we merely shift into a different body, representing a different existence. I, for one, cannot conceptualize of a soul without any body at all, be it a living or "dead" consciousness.

Would you be inclined to agree with me?

Christopher Zieske !

Yes, I agree with that. These bodies, with which we mistakenly identify ourselves in various forms of consciousness, I call "manifestation bodies". I have work in this area. For example, the soul-computer interface or the avatar interface

Eugene Veniaminovich Lutsenko

I totally agree with you point that consciousness does not come from brain, as did Dr. Wilder Penfield in his book "Mystery of the mind" and his famous experiment of "Raising the hand".

As far soul, is concerned, please consider taking some insight from the Bhagavad Gita which is an ancient philosophical classic that offers insights about many things including soul and mind.

Christopher Zieske

Have you heard of "Out of body experience" ?

Eugene Veniaminovich Lutsenko Indeed, a body does not necessarily need to be a material body, it simply needs to be something with the ability to interact with the world around it.

Aman Swaraj Indeed, I have heard of out-of-body experiences. I believe that my conversation with Dr. Lutsenko can answer the question I suspect you want to ask next—I do not see the "out-of-body" experience as an experience in which one truly does not have a body, but rather as an experience in which one's mode of embodiment takes on a different form than that of their material or physical body—the experience can still be described as "embodied", however, as the person having the experience retains theirs senses and is still aware of the world around them using their sight, hearing, touch, etcetera.

I hope you all find these answers satisfactory.

Christopher Zieske

Oh yes, I agree and i want to add on to your answer,

Our Vedic literature explains that we all are originally 'Soul' on a multi life progression towards a spiritual destination or level of reality,

They further explain that our existence is perceived on three levels -

1. Gross body (made of Earth, water, fire, air, ether)

2. Subtle Body (Mind, Intelligence, Ego)

3. Soul (Our Original Identity)

There are many numerous cases of re-incarnation, OBEs, NDEs recorded which highly support this theory.

And I think it would be safe to say that during NDEs and OBEs, its the subtle body which comes out along with the soul,

and similar is the case with Ghosts* which can be attributed as soul+subtle body without any gross body.

NDEs - Near Death Experience

OBEs - Out of Body Experience

Aman Swaraj Very interesting! Thank you for sharing this! It would seem that this theory aligns rather well with how phenomenology would (at least from my perspective) explain out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences. Are there any readings from that tradition that you might particularly recommend?

I have, but specifying a direct link to your work is contrary to the ethical norms of RG. Therefore, I will only say that this is a work about the prospects of human technology and society. In addition, the Shower interface is a computer and a number of other works. There is only one problem. Science does not yet recognize all this. Much as she did not recognize the alchemists ' experiments in converting lead or mercury into gold. But this was back when science was not producing weapons-grade plutonium on an industrial scale from enriched uranium in fast-neutron nuclear reactors. I think the time will come when science will recognize the existence of the soul and all these bodies that support various forms of consciousness and have autonomy in relation to the physical body

У меня, но указание прямой ссылки на свои работы противоречит этическим нормам RG. Поэтому я только скажу, что это работа о перспективах человека технологии и общества. Кроме того интерфейс Душа-компьютер и еще ряд работ. Есть только одна проблема. Наука всего этого еще не признает. Примерно как она не признавала опыты алхимиков по превращению свинца или ртути в золото. Но это было еще в те времена, когда наука не производила в промышленных масштабах оружейный плутоний из обогащенного урана на ядерных реакторах на быстрых нейтронах. Я думаю придет время и наука признает существование души и всех этих тел, поддерживающих различные формы сознания и обладающих автономностью по отношению к физическому телу

Eugene Veniaminovich Lutsenko Thank you for that! I most certainly agree that science has not quite done its part for most of history in recognizing the existence of a soul. I think there have been some recent developments in science that have attempted to counteract this, but they are unfortunately struggling to gain movement. Hopefully they can survive the adversity and eventually come into more favor among the scientific community.

Christopher Zieske

yes there are plenty, but I am attaching some selected links that might be helpful for your work

This book you can read -

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34575799-demystifying-reincarnation

one video you can watch -

https://youtu.be/ly6ivK_WcTE?list=PLhtmKWc6vRTAUBQOk8r5vet0cJE2zsevE

please send feedback if it was useful for your work

Thanks

Aman Swaraj Thank you so much! I am very happy to have the opportunity to learn more about this!

We do indeed need to get away from the brain-centred aspects of apparent consciousness. The body plays a powerful part in establishing our understanding and experience of the world. Also, we simply do not know how the brain functions in the widest sense. Neurology sets reality within the brain but this seems a case of selecting parts of the brain that may respond to external influences, seen orunseen, at present known or unknown.

Consciousness is what starts when you wake and fall asleep each day, and this captures our scientific and philosophical attention precisely because it is highly implausible that there is "a highly excitable piece of brain matter that gives rise to consciousness." To borrow an example from Ned Block, there are about a billion neurons in a brain and there are about a billion people in China, but if the Chinese were to relay information among themselves in a manner identical to a brain, China itself would not suddenly awake and enjoy conscious experiences. This disanalogy is what makes the prospect of a neat localization claim (i.e., "Consciousness is this spot in the brain!") unlikely -- on principled grounds. An expression like "gives rise to," despite sounding so natural, presupposes a host of unexamined metaphysical views that become dubious when examined, so such an expression obscures more than it reveals.

From the last series of posts here seems as is worthwhile to make some comments again.

“…We do indeed need to get away from the brain-centred aspects of apparent consciousness. The body plays a powerful part in establishing our understanding and experience of the world.…..”

- this assertion becomes be indeed informative evidently only if the main terms/notions – “brain”, “body”, and “consciousness” are properly defined, for what, in this case, turns out to be necessary to understand – what are the utmost fundamental in the mainstream philosophy and science phenomena/notions “Matter” and “Consciousness”.

Which – the phenomena – are fundamentally transcendent/uncertain/irrational in the mainstream, and, correspondingly, in the mainstream philosophy – and further in sciences, two main opposite doctrines “Materialism” and “Idealism”, and innumerous different sub-doctrines, schools, etc. quite equally legitimately co-exist thousands of years and till now,

- what is possible just because of the all doctrines etc. are based logically inevitably on transcendent/irrational, and so non-provable and non-disprovable basic premises.

What are “Matter” and “Consciousness” becomes be clarified only in the Shevchenko-Tokarevsky’s Tokarevsky’s “The Information as Absolute” conception https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260930711_the_Information_as_Absolute DOI 10.5281/zenodo.268904,

- where it is rigorously proven that there exist nothing else than some informational patterns/systems of the patterns that are elements of the absolutely fundamental and absolutely infinite “Information” Set,

- from what follows that Matter and any Consciousness, including unique known now “consciousness on Earth”, including this consciousness’s version “homo-two sapiens consciousness”, are fundamentally different informational systems,

- when the consciousness uses material body and practically material brain as the stable residence in the Set, and – the brain – first of all as the source of energy for non-material consciousness’s modules and long-term memory as well.

So the human’s consciousness is real host of human, and, say, that

“…Consciousness is what starts when you wake and fall asleep each day…..”

- isn’t correct, consciousness never slip; and, when indeed the science doesn’t understand now – what is “asleep”, since doesn’t know what is consciousness and mostly is based on the premise that that is some operation [“state”, “process”, etc.] of the brain as a whole, or as “highly excitable piece of brain matter”, etc.,

- when sleeping of mammals rather probably is necessary for some prophylactic service of the “a computer+program shell” “consciousness”, etc.

More adequate to reality correspondingly religions are, including in this case, that

“…They further explain that our existence is perceived on three levels -

1. Gross body (made of Earth, water, fire, air, ether)2. Subtle Body (Mind, Intelligence, Ego)

3. Soul (Our Original Identity)…..”

- is rather rational picture; not, of course, in that “made of Earth, water, fire, air, ether”. However in this case the main human’s problem

- what is “Our Original Identity”?

- remains be unanswered.

More see last SS post in the thread https://www.researchgate.net/post/Does_Consciousness_Exist_Outside_of_the_Brain ,

a few of last SS posts in the thread https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_Philosophy_a_Science_If_yes_what_kind_of_Science#view=5e8ce9724b1865328b56e8e1

- and links in the posts are useful for those, who indeed want to be able to elaborate the “consciousness problem” scientifically.

Cheers

Nice Dear Marc Champagne

Mahesh Premarathna That is a very good article for this discussion, and I would agree with many of its points. The one thing I may not entirely agree with is the idea that the "spirit" or "consciousness" resides in a particular part of the brain—I believe that spirit and consciousness use the brain, but I don't quite believe that they can be located in a specific part of the brain. Would you happen to have any comments on this position?

please read this book https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691642369/mystery-of-the-mind

Mahesh Premarathna Ah, so it was less the idea that the spirit can be located to a specific region in the brain, and simply more that the brain and the spirit are intertwined and cannot be separated from each other entirely? If so, I would be much more inclined to agree with this point.

Again, really the rational, i.e.

- principally outside religious believes in some transcended Gods, spirits, etc., and

- which makes be possible scientifically elaborations of relating to the consciousness and brain problems,

- understanding of “what is consciousness and what is brain” is possible only in framework of the ‘The Information as Absolute” conception, the link see the SS post above.

More concretely what is the “consciousness on Earth”, including human’s consciousness see the paper https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329539892_The_Information_as_Absolute_conception_the_consciousness DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.26091.18720, where the first approximation functional model of the consciousness is given.

More see the SS posts above in the thread, besides to read a few last SS posts in the thread https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_next_paradigm_shift_in_respect_to_neuroscience#view=5ec97d07cb69454f6e57c589

- is useful as well.

Cheers

There seems here a reliance on computers as methods of understanding information while new ideas on the brain suggest something else; and that information exchange or transmission is primarily significant in consciousness.

The commodities of the brain are fine within the religious view of a human centred universe where exchange is determined by the human brain, exaggerating thereby the commanding values of certain understandings of human consciousness, but cannot really provide genuine understanding.

Consciousness where human brains are the switch is easily understood, but if seen in discrete examples produces a consciousness determined by the state of materiality, or at its lowest point environment. Swamped by phenomena would the single brain have any kind of consciousness?

At least the couple of last SS posts – and the links in the posts in the thread https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_we_mathematically_model_consciousness#view=5ed2513e58acd35ed84a3892

- which now are on the visible page, though last time some strange posts appeared again, are relevant to this thread question

Cheers

Sub memory