Consciousness: what is a priori, the brain or mind?
posted by Symbioid | July 27, 2009
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IcerocketFor the past decade I've pretty much been a fairly strict materialist. At least when it came down to asking what I would stake my life on. I don't know if I will ever NOT be that way. But I have always considered myself open-minded, and I feel that having taking the traditional materialist view of consciousness as arising from complexity and the internetwork of electrochemical processes between neurons has prevented me from exploring other potentialities.
Right now, I'm kind of pondering this concept that I think I've heard Terence talk about occasionally -- that the brain acts as a sort of radio receiver. So does consciousness exist as an entity outside of the body and we "tune in" to it? Or does it legimately arise as a phenomenon of complex interactions of our neural circuitry?
I do tend towards the latter, but I think I want to open myself to the possibility that we're all a sort of "waveform" of consciousness, and that each body "tunes in" to whatever frequency it's running on.
What if the brain is really just a very meticulous clock running at certain frequencies, like a timing crystal in a computer, or like a radio receiver. The fact our brain generates waves and works in rhythms indicates some sort of link between these concepts.
I'm quite tired now, so can't think much more clearly, but hope to pursue these ideas in the coming days ahead...
Comments
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— Jul 27, 2009
I think of it this way sometimes,
consciousness and mind definitely exist and are experienced, alive, and happening in the world with human beings right now in the moment of earth's and life's existence...I would not be able to communicate to you right now if not.
The location of our human mind probably lives inside a working brain. The brain and its sensory inputs. So yes it is a materialistic phenomenon. If we weren't born physically and grew brains that didn't function we would know nothing of mind or consciousness.
But that means each of us have an independent connection to the whole mind that we all subscribe to.
And maybe a cheesy philosophical question would be if there were no humans around to experience mind and consciousness does it exist?
Well, it is my contention that all logical evidence points to Earth as the providing life force in all our lives, therefore it seems to me that if and when we as individuals become aware of our awareness or rather are able to experience mind and consciousness, we are not causing its existence but simply staring a personal relationship with something previously around.
So that makes me wonder why many adults who seem to have functioning brains and healthy working minds with the ability to express, communicate, remember, self educate, and adapt, can not feel or be consciously connected to a larger collective human consciousness or world mind.
And that is the chasm we each must traverse as individuals on a collective life planet to know the difference. To bridge the gap from interpersonal mind to global and universal mind. Collective mind.
Is it a leap of faith?..ya probably at first but there is ample evidence out there to suggest that leaping into the unknown has patterns and similarities that every human shares to some degree. If you go out on a spiritual limb for a couple years and find no real discernible psychic connection to the outer and inner worlds than fine, being a materialist is a logical sensible perspective to have. But if you become sensitive to the living world we live in and you become aware of your mind receiving and transmitting information and how that is changing and navigating your surrounding reality circles, then be honest and know it is of a spiritual nature. Or rather it is from energy which is not material or chemical, yet exists for real.
Which came first the electrical or chemical synapse?
maybe it all just happens at the same time and that's the magic of life, that we get material and spiritual all at once.
