Do you think consciousness is the sole product of brain activity?

Question

.. and since our current understanding of human mind is woefully inadequet are you, as a scientifically minded and enlightened individual, satisfied with the answers we have now from either science or religeon?.. im not knocking anyone here especially religeous beliefs but heres my point ::: couldnt spiritual traditions be accepted as a good starting point for researchers to look at what might be going on, not to accept religeon as a source for definitive answers, but accept some religeous beliefs as a starting point for developing hypotheses that we can possibly test ... examine various aspects of the consciousness to see if it functions independently of the physical brain, implying existance of an idependent spirit .. things like that ... i see alot of people totally debunk and throw out the window and refuse to even look at anything to do with religeous belief ..

Answer 1

Yes

Answer 2

Energy is the sole product of brain activity...I agree many of the answers here have no true destination or real moral stature, most of the answerer's here fight alot, why...not sure, I'm not positively sure why scientist won't expand the area of the Science into another form of Study, I think its fear, but at the same time I thought this was an instrument that scientist used in some form for expansion, I also think that heritage and culture play a big role on Spirituality, this arouses a little to much conflict in the Subject of science, technology is becoming a stronger study, stem cell, nano biology, and psychology, the only way to expand the entity of Spirituality is to apply it to whatever we decide to pursue and hopefully growth will begin, Religion doesn't have to be tied to Spirituality, Science still has a long ways to go, Hopefully I'll be apart of the impact of spirit upon Science, Science is only Truth and I see nothing wrong with that.

Answer 3

~~~dze ,,,, Most Respectfully, conciousness is not a "product of brain activity". On the contrary. You actually have it reversed. As Western Medicine matures it now accepts the notion that "Brain Dead" infers that the Soul has Departed. It is very rare, if at all, that the Autonomic System still functions to keep the body alive in this state, hence the machines. Pull the plug and there is no Lifeforce (prana, qi, ki, manna, mana, etc,) to maintain The Body. There are many existing "Spiritual Traditions" that recognize "various aspects of conciousness". This information has gone underground, or Occult(hidden knowledge), because of the Anathemation by The Clergy. Psychology is also a Young Modern Science and not yet fully acknowledged by Western Medicine despite the works of Carl Jung and his mentor Siggy Freud. However it is fully accepted in most Eastern Traditions. What your aim is directed at is The Collective Conciousness of Mankind to accept The Concept. ~ Namaste`

Answer 4

I don't believe consciouness is a product of brain activty. Consciousness is part of soul ... a unit of awareness. When the brain dies (physical body) the soul continues to exist as a unit of awareness (consciousness). I agree with Sensei.

I do like your suggestion of using some religious beliefs as a starting point for developing hypotheses that can be tested. After all, what do they have to lose?

Answer 5

I think I'll answer with a question. What part of your computer's software doesn't require the hardware in order to function? The science of neurophysiology has made enormous progress in the last twenty years. Science understands far more about the human brain and the nature of consciousness than you imagine.

Answer 6

Er, haven't you noticed that religious beliefs don't provide any answers?

Just because science can't (yet) explain everything doesn't mean that we should stop thinking about it and accept ungrounded assertions.

Dualism - the notion that there is a nonphysical "mind" that is responsible for consciousness - has been examined very carefully by philosophers for centuries. Descartes of course firmly believed that such a thing existed. Gilbert Ryle demolished the idea pretty thoroughly in 1949 (I think), with his book "The Concept of Mind". I don't think that his points have been effectively refuted, and in fact I've never seen a pro-dualism argument that wasn't simply ignorant of Ryle's arguments.

Answer 7

I am amazed as to how little we know. We have no idea why we can learn languages as a child, but have accents when we learn them as adults. And the list goes on from there.

So where is our spirit, our conciousness? We have no idea. Maybe your idea has merit, start from religion or traditions to study who we are. But I think we should also explore the learning centers in the brain to approach the issue from both sides.

So to answer your question, yes, I think brain activity is required for conciousness. But that is also part of my definition. I think after conciousness, there is something else.

Answer 8

I read a wonderful book called Shadows of the Mind by Roger Penrose. He describes consciousness as a physical state which cannot be described by computable physics. There are some math problems which have no computable solutions and he describes the problem of consciousness as a math problem with no computable solutions. We find answers to these math problems by consulting an "oracle" out there in the Platonic realm.

Answer 9

I am of the opinion that conciousness is the sole product of brain activity, however our understanding of the brain is deeply inadequate andwe need to know more about quantum computers and mechanics to truly find answers. Just because we don't know doesn't mean we should leap to God. However I have a textbook on experimental psychology which has a section on buddhist psychology, and I believe that the buddha's theories of the mind are pretty accurate and several have been scientifically verified.

Answer 10

Well i agree if you're talking about the mind as opposed to the brain; the latter is just a fancy machine and it doesn't "produce' consciousness; that's the little spark of God in all of us. As far as what else the brain produces,it produces horrible goop if somebody takes a long tumble off a high cliff but that's not nice so i won't say anything more.

Answer 11

Good question!... Now.. science has to be regarded as a language, created to explain most natural phenomena.
All scientific "theories" must be backed up with empirical observation to be of any value. Consciousness, I believe has to do with the imperative of being alive and reproduce.
All life forms have that condition! Is it a form of consciousness? I believe it is!