How are we still capable of thinking without a brain?

Question

I see a lot of questions asking if there is an afterlife. People almost always say yes.

If you think we can please explain how.

Below are just a few of the things that I do not understand:

*How is it that we can think without a brain?
*What purpose would the brain serve if not for thinking.
*Why do chemicals effect the way we think.
*Why is it possible for a brain injury to completely change the personality of a person.

I have been told I am closed minded for not believing in an afterlife. I just find that there is to much evidence suggesting we require a brain to have a consciousness. From so many cases of people with brain damage we can form a basis of how the brain is required and what occurs to people if they experience brain damage.

While I believe in forces of nature being required for thought, I believe the brain is responsible for organizing such forces of nature (take chemical reactions for an example) and the result is our conscious.

Answer 1

There have been cases of babies born with nothing but liquid in their head and live for a period of time, and acted as any normal child would.

There are people in mental hospitals that can't feed themselves, cloth themselves or in anyway function as a normal person but are smarter then the smartest of people, they are vegetables. The true rain man is one smart dude, but gets lost walking across the room.

Answer 2

You can't think without a brain. When you die, you're dead.

There is plenty of evidence that one's thought and identity deteriorates as a brain becomes damaged. This would not be the case if thinking were independent of brain function.

I like to think of it using this analogy:
Imagine a spaceman in a spaceship communicating with the ground station via radio.

Situation 1: The oxygen is depleted and the man slowly dies as oxygen is used up.

Situation 2: The radio slowly deteriorates until the man cannot communicate with the ground station.

How can one differentiate between those two situations?

It is a matter of quality vs quantity of information transmitted.

If the man is dying, he will be increasingly unable to rationallly think. It's not a matter of him being unable to transmit what he is thinking, but a matter of him not being able to work through problems.

If the radio is going out, the man will continuously be able to transmit information about his situation, but at slower and slower rates as the radio deteriorates and he has to repeat himself more. In this case, it is apparent that the mental processes are there, but the ability to get the message through just takes longer.

Now consider the brain. In an alzheimer patient or someone with brain damage, is it quality or quantity? I say the former. There have been cases where certain emotions are cut off or the person doesn't remember certain things. They usually can otherwise communicate other ideas. Therefore, it is the quality of thought, not the quantity of thought being hampered. There is no independent mind behind the brain that is just taking longer to get ideas through a damaged mechanism. It is actually the mechanism of thought, itself, that is being damaged.

Answer 3

Study a few near death experiences from the following source-quite literally millions of people are experiencing consciousness outwith their body and detached from their brain. Why that is isn't known for certain but when faced with such a volume of evidence we need to start entertaining the possibility that consciousness and mind are seperate. Because I meditate and sometimes achieve a state of complete spiritual detachment I am very open to the idea that my self is seperate from my physical body.

Answer 4

The consciousness is coming from the soul which is situated in the heart. There have been incidents when during clinical death there was no oxigen in the brain of a person, but still after "coming back" they described some experience during clinical death. This dead matter body does not have any consciouness. Consciousnes is coming from the spirit soul.

Answer 5

There is living proof of thinking without a brain,just take a look at what is going on in the Middle East right now ,and for the past 50 years also.

Answer 6

Psm.115:15-17;
Psm.146:3,4; We do not have a brain, or thought when dead.

Adam and Eve were created souls, to them we are born souls to die with no thought but in silence with the spirit of life from God, returned to him.
Then at the time allowed, just as Adam was brought forth a created soul, we born souls are brought forth resurrected souls. Psm.104:29,30 Rev.20:1-6,12,13;

Answer 7

I think we need a physical brain for a physical life. Spiritual life would be different. For example, how can we see without eyes? Yet we do when we dream, or hear without ears in dreams which seem very real occasionally.There is a lot we don.t understand.

Answer 8

Supposedly, or to my way of thinking, anyway...you have never experienced the state that comes after life, so it's not recognizable to us here on earth. It is a "state of being" and you won't need to "think" you will just "be." Sounds pretty boring, actually.

Answer 9

Most of the people that say there is an afterlife don't have a brain as it is.

Answer 10

i cant answer your questions... there are just some things that are beyond our understanding and we wont know untill we meet our creator and ask him ourselves... obviously i believe in an afterlife.... we are supernatural beings having an earthly expierience...