# Lekatt's Thread: The \*only\* place to find out about Lekatt's beliefs! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 7, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273 "2010-04-07T14:05:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/261 "2010-04-13T13:00:09Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > I realise I failed to answer your question about memory. While this is more GQ territory and I am a rank amateur, there are resources out there explaining this stuff and how it is all linked into that amazing organ nestled in our cranium. > [This](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=00UOAAAAQAAJ&dq=brain+memory+capacity&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=vNTDS-ntF4-i0gSIvvGUCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=11&ved=0CDEQ6AEwCg#v=onepage&q=brain%20memory%20capacity&f=false) book is an in depth look into ‘working memory’ and the capacity of the brain - it is a finite space, after all, and cannot hold infinite information. > > In layman’s terms there are attempts to equivocate the brain’s capacity with that of a computer. It doesn’t really work as the two aren’t directly compatible, but [here’s](http://www.merkle.com/humanMemory.html) an attempt at it. > > [Here’s](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20775068/) a news story discussing the direct link between memory capacity and our neurons, or more specifically the connections between them. I want to think you for being such a gentleman, they are rare in these debates. I would like for you to read some of the research being done on near death experiences when you have time. I believe the research is solid evidence of consciousness living after the brain is dead. We have hundreds of cases of individuals who die and are then brought back to life. They can describe accurately what happened around their body while they were clinically dead. Even individuals who were born blind can see while they are out of body in a near death experience. There is too much of this research to ignore. Since the beginning of recorded history people have believed in life after death. Not because of wishful thinking, but because of their near death experiences. Then while we have touched on the research of adult NDEs, we have not explored the NDEs of children. Dr Melvin Morse, a pediatrician has compiled a few studies of children’s near death experiences. Another area is those who have been born with brain deformatives, and in some ways are more intelligent by far than those with normal brains. Then there are children 4-7 years old with talents they never studied for. There is a 6 year old that will play the piano at Carnegia Hall. His mother says he knew the notes on the piano without any lessons and started to play at 4. These things can not be explained by the science model of the brain, but can be explained by the spiritual nature of man. It is just beginning, there is much work to do and much to learn. I wish you well. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/262 "2010-04-13T13:51:15Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > They can describe accurately what happened around their body while they were clinically dead. Quick question - how do you know it’s accurate? What do you have to compare it with? Note that “everyone reports the same thing” doesn’t count, because there could be some underlying common mechanism that prevents the human brain from correctly processing the data. If someone reported something inaccurately, how would you know that? ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/263 "2010-04-13T13:51:19Z")
In fact, we now have evidence that patients who appear brain dead may in fact be capable of conscious thought. In 2006, scientists in the UK and Belgium did an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) on a woman in a vegetative state and found that parts of her brain showed activity when she was spoken to and asked to think about things like playing tennis. [http://www.skepdic.com/nde.html](http://www.skepdic.com/nde.html) ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/264 "2010-04-13T14:00:56Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > Quick question - how do you know it’s accurate? What do you have to compare it with? Note that “everyone reports the same thing” doesn’t count, because there could be some underlying common mechanism that prevents the human brain from correctly processing the data. If someone reported something inaccurately, how would you know that? In the same manner we know it’s accurate, the doctors and staff in attendence verify the accuracy or inaccuracy of the information given to them by the revived patient. The patient says I saw you kick that chair while I was out of body (floating around the ceiling). Easy to verify, just ask if the doctor kicked the chair while the patient was without heart and brain activity. If the doctor says yes, I kicked the chair trying to resusitate the patient, then you have a verified near death experience or veridical NDE. There are hundreds and hundreds of them on record. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/265 "2010-04-13T14:17:15Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > I want to think you for being such a gentleman, they are rare in these debates. I would like for you to read some of the research being done on near death experiences when you have time. I believe the research is solid evidence of consciousness living after the brain is dead. We have hundreds of cases of individuals who die and are then brought back to life. They can describe accurately what happened around their body while they were clinically dead. Even individuals who were born blind can see while they are out of body in a near death experience. There is too much of this research to ignore. Well, I’ve been called a gentleman but never a gentle man. To address your points in sequence; As part of this discourse I have been reading up on NDE and the phenomenon associated with them, of which I was fairly ignorant I must admit. The scientific research done seems to point to a chemical explanation for these light shows, which is entirely without our realm of understanding - as the human body is chemical and interacts with them on a daily basis. For example, research has shown that these light shows you interpret to be evidence of a disconnected conciousness can in fact be induced using ketamine; > [@](#): > > Near-death experiences (NDE’s) can be induced using the dissociative drug ketamine. Advances in neuroscience have recently provided us with new insights as to the mechanisms involved at the mind -brain interface. On the ‘brain’ side, it is now clear that these NDE’s are due to blockade of brain receptors (drug binding sites) for the neurotransmitter glutamate. These binding sites are called the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors. Conditions which precipitate NDE’s (low oxygen, low blood flow, low blood sugar, temporal lobe epilepsy etc.) have been shown to release a flood of glutamate, over-activating NMDA receptors. This overactivation can kill brain cells (‘excito’ toxicity). Ketamine prevents excitotoxicity. Conditions which trigger a glutamate flood may also trigger a flood of ketamine-like brain chemicals which bind to NMDA receptors to protect cells, leading to an altered state of consciousness like that produced by ketamine [http://www.lycaeum.org/leda/Documents/Using\_Ketamine\_to\_Induce\_the\_Near-Death\_Experience.9260.shtml](http://www.lycaeum.org/leda/Documents/Using_Ketamine_to_Induce_the_Near-Death_Experience.9260.shtml) As well as the CO2 factor I linked to earlier. If this mystic experience can be replicated and monitored entirely within the brain using chemicals, it rather speaks against the ineffable conciousness, whose presence can be replicated using horse tranquillisers. I’d furthermore reiterate what I said about the beauty of the scientific method earlier - if this phenomenon did have repeatable, empirical evidence to support your conclusion of an afterlife and conciousness outside of the brain not only would it be in every neuroscience journal but on the front page of every paper, it would be the biggest scientific discovery since…ever. If it is part of reality it is by definition scientific, we don’t pick and choose because we don’t like the theory. For example, I don’t particularly like the findings of scientists who say that our current understanding predicts that in ~5 billion years Earth will end up as a blob of molten iron on the surface of an expanding sun. This falls into the realm of ‘TS’. Likewise, I’m sure you don’t like the idea that once we’re dead that’s it, but so far that’s what all scientific understanding points to. Personally I’m rather glad about it, it gives infinite value to my existence now. > [@](#): > > Since the beginning of recorded history people have believed in life after death. Not because of wishful thinking, but because of their near death experiences. Then while we have touched on the research of adult NDEs, we have not explored the NDEs of children. Research suggests that this is a logical non sequitur. Because people experience NDEs, therefore there is life after death. That’s one mighty big jump. I’d be more inclined to say that because people experience NDEs, therefore some chemicals are interacting unusually with the brain. Or I’d even be willing to meet you halfway and say because people experience NDEs, we can’t draw any concrete conclusions due to lack of understanding. > [@](#): > > Dr Melvin Morse, a pediatrician has compiled a few studies of children’s near death experiences. Another area is those who have been born with brain deformatives, and in some ways are more intelligent by far than those with normal brains. Then there are children 4-7 years old with talents they never studied for. There is a 6 year old that will play the piano at Carnegia Hall. His mother says he knew the notes on the piano without any lessons and started to play at 4. These things can not be explained by the science model of the brain, but can be explained by the spiritual nature of man. It is just beginning, there is much work to do and much to learn. I wish you well. There are all sorts of bizarre phenomenon involving the brain which we can’t yet fully explain. Take [this](http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23378059-the-woman-who-woke-up-thinking-she-was-french.do) amusing case of a woman who woke up thinking she was French. What does that tell us? That our separated concious sometimes likes to play practical jokes on us? I rather think it tells us that the brain is an extraordinarily complex organ and any changes in it necessarily change us. It is us. This does not mean we should commit intellectual suicide and accept a ‘magic did it’ explanation and be satisfied. I’d like to return to the character of your ‘director’ and what we carry on with us after death. I’ll stick with just one aspect of ‘us’ this time, memory, since we’ve been discussing it. Let’s not even talk about the entire physical brain in regards to it, but just one component, the [hippocampus](http://research.physics.lsa.umich.edu/zochowski/Images/Gray739-emphasizing-hippocampus.png). I think we can both agree that this component is of vital importance in making us, well, us, and furthermore has been shown to do this in a physical, repeatedly demonstrable way. For example, research reported in the New Scientist came up with this conclusion; > [@](#): > > The team concluded that the hippocampus creates and stores concepts, and passes this information onto the vMPFC where it is put to use during the making of decisions. > > People with amnesia are also known to have problems forming concepts, so Kumaran hopes his findings will lead to the development of improved teaching methods and other tools for the treatment of amnesiacs. > > “Knowing what specific computations and processes the hippocampus is important for will allow us to develop better learning procedures for those with amnesia,” said Kumaran. > **[Concepts are born in the hippocampus](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17862-concepts-are-born-in-the-hippocampus/)** > > File under "dog" A diminutive chihuahua and a lumbering Irish wolfhound look completely different, yet most us know they both belong to the concept called "dog". Now the brain regions responsible for our ability to organise the world into separate... As well as disorders like amnesia we know diseases like Alzheimers attack the hippocampus, leading to the awful symptoms of that disease. > [@](#): > > Using an innovative three-dimensional imaging technique, a team of UCLA researchers have tracked how Alzheimer’s disease spreads through the hippocampus – the area of the brain linked with memory – in a pattern consistent with the known trajectory of neurofibrilliary tangle dissemination, an accumulation of diseased proteins in the brain cells. > **[Researchers Track Spread Of Alzheimer's Disease Through The Brain's Hippocampus](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061025185625.htm)** > > Using an innovative three-dimensional imaging technique, a team of UCLA researchers have tracked how Alzheimer's disease spreads through the hippocampus -- the area of the brain linked with memory -- in a pattern consistent with the known trajectory... So, there are two after death possibilities for your director, both of which present problems for your hypothesis. We shall take as read that after death the brain, and consequently the hippocampus are non-functioning - they are destroyed, by rot, fire, however you want to send off. It doesn’t exist as a functioning component any more. So, possibility one - the possibility I’m assuming you’re envisioning. After death we still retain the function of the hippocampus and all the processes associated with it, with no ‘break’ in function due to its destruction. Our memory works just fine for the director without it. The problem: This isn’t some disembodied ‘conciousness’ or ‘director’ floating around linked to the body, it is a disembodied brain. This renders the brain itself redundant and leads to all sorts of questions. Why, in cases of Alzheimers, can’t this invisible hippocampus take up the slack if physical matter is of no importance for the formation of memory? How could we possible form or store memory with no physical medium? It also raises unfortunately implications, in this view someone with a neural disorder would be advised to terminate their flawed physical hardware in favour of an undamaged invisible process that somehow gives us all the same functions back. Possibility two, the one I discussed earlier. This is even conceding, for the sake of argument, your central premise that the conciousness is not a result of the brain. After death, the hardware is destroyed and so is its function. As the hippocampus ceases to function we lose what it does for us, its roles in long-term memory and spacial navigation cease. The problem: Your ‘director’ is not you, but some clueless, vague ‘awareness’ that lacks the hardware necessary to form or keep memory. You require your hippocampus to function as the individual you know yourself to be currently. Lose it, and you’re no longer that person, you’ve lose an essential component of your person. And this is just \*one \*component in the brain. Imagine losing the whole thing. It would be a nightmarish existence, truly more of a hell. I don’t know why anyone would want this vague existence for all eternity (do you believe it is eternal?) which would render of ~75 years, if that, on this planet a meaningless drop in the ocean compared to trillions of years as a disembodied floating ‘conciousness’ that lacks anything that makes us, us. So your work is all ahead of you, you need to not only prove some link with an afterlife or director but also demonstrate that the functions of the brain can work perfectly fine with no hardware whatsoever, which I think is an impossibility. Posters above me talk of the human mind as like a computer, which is simplistic but works an analogy - if you smash up your HDD you ain’t getting those files on it back. The hardware that supports the neural signals no longer exists, the neurons can no longer fire. Once the brain is costa del blowfly, how do memories exist? My position is clear; they don’t, you’re dead. Your position I think is decidedly opaque, barring a non-explanation of ‘it’s spiritual’, which for all intents and purposes amounts to ‘magic did it’. I reject this dead-end for reasons I’ve gone into, it stultifies progress. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/266 "2010-04-13T14:18:46Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > In fact, we now have evidence that patients who appear brain dead may in fact be capable of conscious thought. In 2006, scientists in the UK and Belgium did an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) on a woman in a vegetative state and found that parts of her brain showed activity when she was spoken to and asked to think about things like playing tennis. > > [near-death experience (NDE) - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com](http://www.skepdic.com/nde.html) I advise all to read the link that **lekatt** has provided here. As with most of the links he provides, it doesn’t say at all what he thinks it says-in fact, most of the article flies in the face of all that he claims. The fact that one woman thought to be in a vegetative reacted (via brain activity) to questions asked has nothing to do with the topic at hand and, until this phenomenon is repeated with other people, is best explained by a simple misdiagnosis. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/267 "2010-04-13T14:27:37Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I advise all to read the link that **lekatt** has provided here. As with most of the links he provides, it doesn’t say at all what he thinks it says-in fact, most of the article flies in the face of all that he claims. The fact that one woman thought to be in a vegetative reacted (via brain activity) to questions asked has nothing to do with the topic at hand and, until this phenomenon is repeated with other people, is best explained by a simple misdiagnosis. Indeed. There’s a bunch of people who say they’ve had these experiences, which is good for discerning that…a bunch of people have said they’ve had these experiences. Hundreds of people claim they’ve been abducted by aliens, but this doesn’t necessitate the jump to ‘hundreds of people have been abducted by aliens’. The evidence suggests that this phenomenon is in fact observable and testable, so but I don’t dispute that this phenomenon happens, rather why it happens. I’ll repeat this report because I think the significance has been missed: > [@](#): > > “Yes it was brain chemistry that might have fine tuned my ability to pick up this,” said Whitfield, 67, an author and therapist in private practice in Atlanta, Ga. “I think the brain is like the radio, and what [science is] explaining is the hardware of the radio, but what we can’t explain is the broadcast.” > … > The study, published in the journal Critical Care, surveyed 52 people in local hospitals who were revived from clinical death. Eleven people or 21 percent of the group, remembered experiences commonly reported in nearly all near-death experience descriptions. The survivor’s religious beliefs, age or sex weren’t statistically significant influences on whether they had a near-death experience or not. > > But the higher the carbon dioxide level, the more likely the person was to report a near-death experience. > **[ABC News – Breaking News, Latest News and Videos](https://abcnews.go.com/Health/)** > > Get the latest health news, diet & fitness information, medical research, health care trends and health issues that affect you and your family on ABCNews.com These people are reporting NDEs, as valid as any other claim. Moreso, in fact, since they were being actively monitored and not relaying an anecdote. In these people CO2 was an important factor, no matter what they thought about the experience being some sort of ‘broadcast’. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/268 "2010-04-13T14:35:47Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Well, I’ve been called a gentleman but never a gentle man. To address your points in sequence; > As part of this discourse I have been reading up on NDE and the phenomenon associated with them, of which I was fairly ignorant I must admit. The scientific research done seems to point to a chemical explanation for these light shows, which is entirely without our realm of understanding - as the human body is chemical and interacts with them on a daily basis. For example, research has shown that these light shows you interpret to be evidence of a disconnected conciousness can in fact be induced using ketamine; > > [http://www.lycaeum.org/leda/Documents/Using\_Ketamine\_to\_Induce\_the\_Near-Death\_Experience.9260.shtml](http://www.lycaeum.org/leda/Documents/Using_Ketamine_to_Induce_the_Near-Death_Experience.9260.shtml) > > As well as the CO2 factor I linked to earlier. If this mystic experience can be replicated and monitored entirely within the brain using chemicals, it rather speaks against the ineffable conciousness, whose presence can be replicated using horse tranquillisers. I’d furthermore reiterate what I said about the beauty of the scientific method earlier - if this phenomenon did have repeatable, empirical evidence to support your conclusion of an afterlife and conciousness outside of the brain not only would it be in every neuroscience journal but on the front page of every paper, it would be the biggest scientific discovery since…ever. If it is part of reality it is by definition scientific, we don’t pick and choose because we don’t like the theory. For example, I don’t particularly like the findings of scientists who say that our current understanding predicts that in ~5 billion years Earth will end up as a blob of molten iron on the surface of an expanding sun. This falls into the realm of ‘TS’. Likewise, I’m sure you don’t like the idea that once we’re dead that’s it, but so far that’s what all scientific understanding points to. Personally I’m rather glad about it, it gives infinite value to my existence now. > Research suggests that this is a logical non sequitur. Because people experience NDEs, therefore there is life after death. That’s one mighty big jump. I’d be more inclined to say that because people experience NDEs, therefore some chemicals are interacting unusually with the brain. Or I’d even be willing to meet you halfway and say because people experience NDEs, we can’t draw any concrete conclusions due to lack of understanding. > There are all sorts of bizarre phenomenon involving the brain which we can’t yet fully explain. Take [this](http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23378059-the-woman-who-woke-up-thinking-she-was-french.do) amusing case of a woman who woke up thinking she was French. What does that tell us? That our separated concious sometimes likes to play practical jokes on us? I rather think it tells us that the brain is an extraordinarily complex organ and any changes in it necessarily change us. It is us. This does not mean we should commit intellectual suicide and accept a ‘magic did it’ explanation and be satisfied. > > I’d like to return to the character of your ‘director’ and what we carry on with us after death. I’ll stick with just one aspect of ‘us’ this time, memory, since we’ve been discussing it. Let’s not even talk about the entire physical brain in regards to it, but just one component, the [hippocampus](http://research.physics.lsa.umich.edu/zochowski/Images/Gray739-emphasizing-hippocampus.png). > > I think we can both agree that this component is of vital importance in making us, well, us, and furthermore has been shown to do this in a physical, repeatedly demonstrable way. For example, research reported in the New Scientist came up with this conclusion; > > [Concepts are born in the hippocampus | New Scientist](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17862-concepts-are-born-in-the-hippocampus.html) > > As well as disorders like amnesia we know diseases like Alzheimers attack the hippocampus, leading to the awful symptoms of that disease. > > [Researchers Track Spread Of Alzheimer's Disease Through The Brain's Hippocampus | ScienceDaily](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061025185625.htm) > > So, there are two after death possibilities for your director, both of which present problems for your hypothesis. We shall take as read that after death the brain, and consequently the hippocampus are non-functioning - they are destroyed, by rot, fire, however you want to send off. It doesn’t exist as a functioning component any more. > > So, possibility one - the possibility I’m assuming you’re envisioning. > After death we still retain the function of the hippocampus and all the processes associated with it, with no ‘break’ in function due to its destruction. Our memory works just fine for the director without it. > The problem: > This isn’t some disembodied ‘conciousness’ or ‘director’ floating around linked to the body, it is a disembodied brain. This renders the brain itself redundant and leads to all sorts of questions. Why, in cases of Alzheimers, can’t this invisible hippocampus take up the slack if physical matter is of no importance for the formation of memory? How could we possible form or store memory with no physical medium? It also raises unfortunately implications, in this view someone with a neural disorder would be advised to terminate their flawed physical hardware in favour of an undamaged invisible process that somehow gives us all the same functions back. > > Possibility two, the one I discussed earlier. This is even conceding, for the sake of argument, your central premise that the conciousness is not a result of the brain. > After death, the hardware is destroyed and so is its function. As the hippocampus ceases to function we lose what it does for us, its roles in long-term memory and spacial navigation cease. > The problem: Your ‘director’ is not you, but some clueless, vague ‘awareness’ that lacks the hardware necessary to form or keep memory. You require your hippocampus to function as the individual you know yourself to be currently. Lose it, and you’re no longer that person, you’ve lose an essential component of your person. And this is just \*one \*component in the brain. Imagine losing the whole thing. It would be a nightmarish existence, truly more of a hell. I don’t know why anyone would want this vague existence for all eternity (do you believe it is eternal?) which would render of ~75 years, if that, on this planet a meaningless drop in the ocean compared to trillions of years as a disembodied floating ‘conciousness’ that lacks anything that makes us, us. > > So your work is all ahead of you, you need to not only prove some link with an afterlife or director but also demonstrate that the functions of the brain can work perfectly fine with no hardware whatsoever, which I think is an impossibility. Posters above me talk of the human mind as like a computer, which is simplistic but works an analogy - if you smash up your HDD you ain’t getting those files on it back. The hardware that supports the neural signals no longer exists, the neurons can no longer fire. Once the brain is costa del blowfly, how do memories exist? My position is clear; they don’t, you’re dead. Your position I think is decidedly opaque, barring a non-explanation of ‘it’s spiritual’, which for all intents and purposes amounts to ‘magic did it’. I reject this dead-end for reasons I’ve gone into, it stultifies progress. Spirituality is not magic, it is who we are. All humans are spiritual. Now I can tell you have been reading about near death experiences, but not the research on near death experiences. The research shows evidence of consciousness continuing after the death of the brain and all parts of the brain. Tests have shown that when the heart stops the brain will quit functioning about 11 seconds afterwards. Near death experiences happen after the brain has stopped functioning and we already have solid evidence of this as shown in the link I provided. So unless you can prove the research to be wrong, or prove that the brain creates consciousness your claims are unfounded. As for the director, didn’t it ever occur to you that severe brain damage never changed the fact that self knowledge remains. No matter what the damage. How can this be if the brain produced consciousness. I will leave the link again so you won’t lose it. > **[Q & A - 28 Is there Proof that NDEs are Real? - Lekatt Thoughtful Living](https://aleroy.com/blog/archives/72/q-a-28)** > > There are a number of well documented cases of people having near death experiences / out of body experiences, even during a flat EEG where brain and heart activity had ceased, ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/269 "2010-04-13T14:39:32Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I advise all to read the link that **lekatt** has provided here. As with most of the links he provides, it doesn’t say at all what he thinks it says-in fact, most of the article flies in the face of all that he claims. The fact that one woman thought to be in a vegetative reacted (via brain activity) to questions asked has nothing to do with the topic at hand and, until this phenomenon is repeated with other people, is best explained by a simple misdiagnosis. I think this is funny, you complain when I link to my site. Now you are complaining when I link to a skeptic site. There is just no pleasing you. “Me thinks thou doth protest to much.” I think people can figure it out for themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/270 "2010-04-13T14:58:53Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > I think this is funny, you complain when I link to my site. Now you are complaining when I link to a skeptic site. There is just no pleasing you. > > “Me thinks thou doth protest to much.” > > I think people can figure it out for themselves. Where in my post did I even come _close_ to complaining about your link?!? I _want_ people to read that link! BTW, the correct quote is “Methinks thou doth protest too much.”-Hamlet, act III, scene II. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/271 "2010-04-13T15:00:43Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > Spirituality is not magic, it is who we are. All humans are spiritual. Now I can tell you have been reading about near death experiences, but not the research on near death experiences. The research shows evidence of consciousness continuing after the death of the brain and all parts of the brain. Tests have shown that when the heart stops the brain will quit functioning about 11 seconds afterwards. Near death experiences happen after the brain has stopped functioning and we already have solid evidence of this as shown in the link I provided. So unless you can prove the research to be wrong, or prove that the brain creates consciousness your claims are unfounded. As for the director, didn’t it ever occur to you that severe brain damage never changed the fact that self knowledge remains. No matter what the damage. How can this be if the brain produced consciousness. > > I will leave the link again so you won’t lose it. > > [Q & A - 28 Is there Proof that NDEs are Real? - Lekatt Thoughtful Living](http://www.aleroy.com/blog/2007/10/q-a-28/) Your blog is not research. Please link directly to the research. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/272 "2010-04-13T15:06:50Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > I think this is funny, you complain when I link to my site. Now you are complaining when I link to a skeptic site. There is just no pleasing you. > > “Me thinks thou doth protest to much.” > > I think people can figure it out for themselves. Czarcasm has not “complained” about that link, so why would you make that accusation?. He actually urged other posters to read your skeptic link–specifically because it says something different than what you attributed to it. In other words, he agrees that people can figure it out for themselves and reading that link will help, since it notes that there has been no evidence, yet, of consciousness separate from the brain. The article notes that some people have claimed to find such a separation, but the article then points out the errors in each of those claims. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/273 "2010-04-13T15:10:41Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > Spirituality is not magic, it is who we are. All humans are spiritual. Now I can tell you have been reading about near death experiences, but not the research on near death experiences. The research shows evidence of consciousness continuing after the death of the brain and all parts of the brain. You’re missing the point entirely. I said I was willing to grant your conceit about a conciousness surviving death, I’ll grant it all for sake of argument. What I want to know is how, putting conciousness aside, other functions of the brain - I used the hippocampus, a well understood component - can continue when the hardware required has been destroyed. > [@](#): > > Tests have shown that when the heart stops the brain will quit functioning about 11 seconds afterwards. Near death experiences happen after the brain has stopped functioning and we already have solid evidence of this as shown in the link I provided. So unless you can prove the research to be wrong, or prove that the brain creates consciousness your claims are unfounded. “Prove me wrong?” I already said I’ll grant your conceit, and I’m not a neuroscientist - far from it. Folks far cleverer than I struggle with the issue of even [defining](http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/181/2/91) what conciousness is before looking for it in the brain. But, since you asked. It’s been a difficult issue, probably because of this reason - there doesn’t appear to be one area of the brain we can pin down and say “this is the area responsible for conciousness”, like we can with other functions. This is suggested by recent research: > [@](#): > > Signals from the electrodes seem to show that consciousness arises from the coordinated activity of the entire brain. The signals also take us closer to finding an objective “consciousness signature” that could be used to probe the process in animals and people with brain damage without inserting electrodes. > > Previously it wasn’t clear whether a dedicated brain area, or “seat of consciousness”, was responsible for guiding our subjective view of the world, or whether consciousness was the result of concerted activity across the whole brain. > > Probing the process has been a challenge, as non-invasive techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging and EEG give either spatial or temporal information but not both. The best way to get both simultaneously is to implant electrodes deep inside the skull, but it is difficult to justify this in healthy people for ethical reasons. > > … > Because this activity only occurred in volunteers when they were aware of the words, Gaillard’s team argue that it constitutes a consciousness signature. As much of this activity was spread across the brain, they say that consciousness has no single “seat”. “Consciousness is more a question of dynamics, than of a local activity,” says Gaillard. > > Bernard Baars of the Neuroscience Institute in San Diego, California, who proposed a “global access” theory of consciousness in 1983 agrees: “I’m thrilled by these results.” > > He says they provide the “first really solid, direct evidence” for his own theory. He also says that having such a signature will make it easier to look for signs of consciousness in people with brain damage, infants and animals with the help of non-invasive techniques such as EEG. > **['Consciousness signature' discovered spanning the brain](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16775-consciousness-signature-discovered-spanning-the-brain/)** > > Brain scans have long been used to try to find the "seat of consciousness" in the brain Electrodes implanted in the brains of people with epilepsy might have resolved an ancient question about consciousness. Signals from the electrodes seem to show... There’s also the theory that conciousness is rooted at the quantum level: > [@](#): > > QBD proposes that the cortical field not only interacts with, but also to a good extent controls the neuronal network. It suggests that biomolecular waves propagate along the actin filaments in the area of the cell membranes and dendritic spines. The waves are suggested to derive energy from ATP molecules stored in the cell membrane and control the ion channels, which in turn regulate the flow of signals to the synapses. Vitiello claims that QBD does not require quantum oscillations to last as long as the actual time to decoherence. > > The proponents of QBD differ somewhat as the exact way in which it produces consciousness. Jibu and Yasue think that the interaction between the energy quanta of the cortical field and the biomolecular waves of the neuronal network, particularly the dendritic part of the network, is what produces consciousness. On the other hand, Vitiello thinks that the quantum states involved in QBD produce two poles, a subjective representation of the external world and a self. This self opens itself to the representation of the external world. Consciousness is, in this theory, not in either the self or the external representation, but between the two in the opening of one to the other. > **[Quantum mind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind)** > > The quantum mind or quantum consciousness is a group of hypotheses proposing that local physical laws and interactions from classical mechanics or connections between neurons alone cannot explain consciousness. These hypotheses posit instead that quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as entanglement and superposition that cause nonlocalized quantum effects, interacting in smaller features of the brain than cells, may play an important part in the brain's function and could explain critical aspec Eu... New neural understanding could also come into play: > [@](#): > > The understanding of states of consciousness has been transformed by the delineation of their electrical correlates, of structures in brainstem and diencephalon which regulate the sleep–wake cycle, and of these structures’ cellular physiology and regional pharmacology. Clinical studies have defined pathologies of wakefulness: coma, the persistent vegetative state, the `locked-in’ syndrome, akinetic mutism and brain death. Interest in the neural basis of perceptual awareness has focused on vision. Increasingly detailed neuronal correlates of real and illusory visual experience are being defined. Experiments exploiting circumstances in which visual experience changes while external stimulation is held constant are tightening the experimental link between consciousness and its neural correlates. > … > Whether scientific observation and theory will yield a complete account of consciousness remains a live issue. Physicalism, functionalism, property dualism and dual aspect theories attempt to do justice to three central, but controversial, intuitions about experience: that it is a robust phenomenon which calls for explanation, that it is intimately related to the activity of the brain and that it has an important influence on behaviour. [http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/124/7/1263](http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/124/7/1263) This is all very complex stuff, and I don’t for a second pretend to understand it all. What is clear is that we’re still working on it, but there’s no reason that conciousness should not be a product of the brain. > [@](#): > > As for the director, didn’t it ever occur to you that severe brain damage never changed the fact that self knowledge remains. No matter what the damage. How can this be if the brain produced consciousness. > > I will leave the link again so you won’t lose it. > > [Q & A - 28 Is there Proof that NDEs are Real? - Lekatt Thoughtful Living](http://www.aleroy.com/blog/2007/10/q-a-28/) I see nothing on your blog that explains how memory could function without the hippocampus. Severe brain damage does change the fact that self knowledge remains; it can change who people are. There are many recorded instances of this from aphasia, amnesia, Alzheimers (and other form of dementia), Korsakoff’s Sydrome, Stokes, TBIs, all can have changes on personality. So, how can memory exist without the hippocampus? ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/274 "2010-04-13T16:07:49Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > Yes, including pencils. > > The basic particle of existence is a consciousness unit, called CU, it is thousands of times smaller than any particle discovered by man. It has the characteristics of self-awareness and intense curiosity. That is how it was explained to me. How is consciousness manifested in pencils? Do they have thoughts and feelings? Do they suffer ennui from being kept in desk drawers for 99% of their existence? [A note to the mods: I realize the questions may sound sarcastic, but I am actually interested in lekatt’s notion of consciousness in seemingly inanimate objects and what his explanations will be.] ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/275 "2010-04-13T16:08:49Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > BTW, the correct quote is “Methinks thou doth protest too much.”-Hamlet, act III, scene II. Woody Boyd: “Shouldn’t that be ‘I thinks,’ Miss Chambers?” ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/276 "2010-04-13T17:19:49Z")
> [@42fish](#): > > How is consciousness manifested in pencils? Do they have thoughts and feelings? Do they suffer ennui from being kept in desk drawers for 99% of their existence? > > [A note to the mods: I realize the questions may sound sarcastic, but I am actually interested in lekatt’s notion of consciousness in seemingly inanimate objects and what his explanations will be.] When I read that and then ask about it, I was thinking similar thoughts. What I read was “a nail is aware that it is a nail.” Read that in the Seth books and asked my spiritual friends about it. The awareness level would be so low we humans could not detect it is one answer. But I think the real answer lies in the translation from spiritual knowledge to physical knowledge. It loses a lot in the process. Otherwise I don’t know. The thrust of the knowledge is to understand that self-awareness came first before anything else. Then the creation of the universe ensued. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/277 "2010-04-13T17:27:24Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > When I read that and then ask about it, I was thinking similar thoughts. What I read was “a nail is aware that it is a nail.” Read that in the Seth books and asked my spiritual friends about it. The awareness level would be so low we humans could not detect it is one answer. But I think the real answer lies in the translation from spiritual knowledge to physical knowledge. It loses a lot in the process. Otherwise I don’t know. The thrust of the knowledge is to understand that self-awareness came first before anything else. Then the creation of the universe ensued. This makes no sense. If self-awareness came first, then it had no need for physical objects to house it. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/278 "2010-04-13T17:37:49Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > You’re missing the point entirely. I said I was willing to grant your conceit about a conciousness surviving death, I’ll grant it all for sake of argument. > > What I want to know is how, putting conciousness aside, other functions of the brain - I used the hippocampus, a well understood component - can continue when the hardware required has been destroyed. > “Prove me wrong?” > I already said I’ll grant your conceit, and I’m not a neuroscientist - far from it. Folks far cleverer than I struggle with the issue of even [defining](http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/181/2/91) what conciousness is before looking for it in the brain. But, since you asked. It’s been a difficult issue, probably because of this reason - there doesn’t appear to be one area of the brain we can pin down and say “this is the area responsible for conciousness”, like we can with other functions. This is suggested by recent research: > > [http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16775-consciousness-signature-discovered-spanning-the-brain.html](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16775-consciousness-signature-discovered-spanning-the-brain.html) > > There’s also the theory that conciousness is rooted at the quantum level: > > [Quantum mind - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind) > > New neural understanding could also come into play: > > [http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/124/7/1263](http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/124/7/1263) > > This is all very complex stuff, and I don’t for a second pretend to understand it all. What is clear is that we’re still working on it, but there’s no reason that conciousness should not be a product of the brain. > > I see nothing on your blog that explains how memory could function without the hippocampus. Severe brain damage does change the fact that self knowledge remains; it can change who people are. There are many recorded instances of this from aphasia, amnesia, Alzheimers (and other form of dementia), Korsakoff’s Sydrome, Stokes, TBIs, all can have changes on personality. > > So, how can memory exist without the hippocampus? I read your link to consciousness and found it interesting. Consciousness is described as chemicals, but the author does it in a “suggesting” format. There is no evidence, just the opinion of the author. This is true about the functions of the brain also. Most authors do not state they have found consciousness, but merely writing about their model or opinion of how they think it would work. All things are energy, you, the “I am” contains all memory, knowledge, emotions, and other components of consciousness or self-awareness within. When the body and brain dies, you, the “I am” exists in energy form and continues to live without a physical body or brain. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/279 "2010-04-13T17:43:03Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > Sorry it took me so long to respond. Busy. No prob. > [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > Ok. I’m a materialist too. But I think I am a different sort of materialist. For instance, sometimes I wonder if the phenomenon of mind or identity can be explained through a material theory that includes [panpsychism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism): > > > [@](#): > > > > Panpsychism, in philosophy, is either the view that all parts of matter involve mind, or the more holistic view that the whole Universe is an organism that possesses a mind (see pandeism and panentheism). It is thus a stronger and more ambitious view than animism or hylozoism, which holds only that all things are alive. This is not to say that panpsychism believes that all matter is alive or even conscious but rather that the constituent parts of matter are composed of some form of mind and are sentient. > > > > Panpsychism claims that everything is sentient and that there are either many separate minds, or one single mind that unites everything that is. The concept of the unconscious, made popular by the psychoanalysts, made possible a variant of panpsychism that denies consciousness from some entities while still asserting the ubiquity of mind. > > > > Panexperientialism, as espoused by Alfred North Whitehead, is a less bold variation, which credits all entities with phenomenal consciousness but not with cognition, and therefore not necessarily with fully-fledged minds. > > > > Panprotoexperientialism is a more cautious variation still, which credits all entities with non-physical properties that are precursors to phenomenal consciousness (or phenomenal consciousness in a latent, undeveloped form) but not with cognition itself, or with conscious awareness. Okay. Panpsychism. Huh. I see two different (unrelated) aspects of this theory: 1. the entire universe is one entity that possesses a mind, and all us little planets and mortals and pencils and whatnot are just cogs in that machine. I find this a hard sell for a materialist because of the information transmission problem; the only real methods of communication between the disparate parts of the universe are gravity and light - and gravity attenuates rapidly and both have the speed of light limit. So the left hand won’t know what the right hand is doing. 2. all parts of matter “involve mind”. _All_ parts of matter? Atoms? Electrons? These things are conscious? With thoughts? Memories? Where do they _store_ these thoughts and memories? And how do these minds interact with the universe? Do these entities percieve things? How? As best I can tell, atoms don’t have eyeballs or ears. Are they all trapped forever in a sensory deprivation nightmare of madness and misery? And of course even if these little minds _wanted_ to get together in committee meetings and via pure democratic voting form a larger aggregate mind in that pencil, they have no way of communicating with each other to do so, so objects as people think of them can’t have minds in any meaningful way, unless they build them entirely separately out of macro-level interactions among chemicals and brain cells. Seriously, I don’t see how a materialist can even begin to entertain this theory. Even _theorizing_ this is cruelty to atoms, and doesn’t get you anywhere you want to be. > [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > Well… I am inclined to think that the state of ‘being’ is inextricably bound with the state of living. I doubt a computer can ever be conscious because it will never be alive. Think you can build a living computer? Go ahead, and post your results 😉 Define “living”. Seriously! We’re materialists, so no souls. No metaphysical to fall back on. So what’s the difference between living-person-before-bludgeoning, and dead-person-after-bludgeoning? Here’s your answer: it’s the processes that are running, or not. And processes can be simulated - or if we take into account that there’s lots of different kinds of processes that we consider to be living (compare your processes to a tree’s processes), why couldn’t a computer have entirely different processes and still be “alive”? Theoretically speaking? > [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > I don’t believe in magic per se. Super specialness? Well, you almost sound like you’re taking it for granted. I am. Minds are all over the place - from really complicated to really simple to ones that make Deep Blue look halfway clever, given that it’s basically blind and deaf. > [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > I described machines as contrived channels. Cameras cast light on film through lenses. Electronics pass electrons through wires. While these inventions truly are pretty neato in their own right, compared to a complex organism they seem really chintzy. > > Think again about electronics. Nerds come up with a theory of electricity and apply it with unholy fervor to 2-dimensional circuit boards. Yes, it can do a lot of math, but binary math is all that it does. Even if it is simulating a peer-reviewed schematic of the mechanism of human self-awareness, it would yet be a simulation, no more alive than a reflection in a mirror. > > But organisms have their channels too. For a pre-microscope analysis of this, (and keep in mind I am only broadcasting what was said, not vouching for its veracity) consider the concept of [Nadis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadi_(yoga)): > > I’ll leave it to you to read the rest if you want. Compare a pre-modern examination of the human body to a modern circuit board. The circuit board really is advanced it its way, but it is also obviously massively redundant and an ‘exploitation’ of just a few principles. A somewhat ignorant examination of a complex organism displays much more subtlety and original detail. I have **no idea** what your point is. Nadis? What the hey? Ancient mysticism and alchemy tell us what now? Certanly technology is currently less complicated than the human mind. (Well, the software, anyway. Neurons aren’t _that_ much awesomer than transistors in the abstract.) But I’ve been saying all along that they’re just similar in type, not that they’re on a par in complexity at the moment. When (if) they _do_ approach our complexity level you’ll know, because they’ll be demanding the right to vote. Or’ll have killed us all. Whichever. > [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > Obviously I disagree. The computer reflects mind like a face in a (rilly rilly complex!) mirror, while a being IS a mind. What’s a “being”? How does the computer “reflect” consiousness, other than being the same kind of thing only less complex (at the moment)? > [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > I don’t think I can produce a truly comprehensive theory for you, but I would like you to 1. compare the quaternary nature of DNA to the binary nature of computing. 2. Compare the physical reality of a living being to the confines of a circuit. 3. Compare in-time subjective experience to any series of calculations, of any length. 1. DNA doesn’t participate in consciousness. it’s just a storage mechanism. And one can store exactly the same data with binary - you know, by storing larger numbers in _binary_. Here’s your quaternary: 00, 01, 10, 11. (Serously, much :dubious:😕 here.) 2. The confines of a circuit _suck_. You basically have no senses! A plug from the keyboard that _occasionally_ shoots a few electrons your way. Another from the mouse. A somewhat noiser one from the ethernet card. You think you’re special as a squishy organic meat-puppet? You are, but not because you have a mind. It’s because you have all these really _really_ information-dense and constantly-updated inputs that are hardwired into your grey matter. If humans hadn’t evolved to have those, you wouldn’t have a mind either. 1. In-time subjective experience _are_ a series of calculations. It’s your brain doing stuff to itself inside itself. That’s calculations. You’re a materialist, remember? ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273/280 "2010-04-13T17:45:45Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > This makes no sense. If self-awareness came first, then it had no need for physical objects to house it. On this point you are correct. The physical world was created in order to learn about ourselves, who we are, and to learn to make good choices when we are presented with both good and evil. This is an accelerated path to spiritual growth, or emotional growth, whichever appeals to you. Our bodies shield us from the Oneness in which we were created so that this is possible. We come here by choice and then forget who we are so the physical is real to us. Near death experiences are wake-up calls. I know this physical world is an illusion. I know I will go home when my body dies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lekatts-thread-the-only-place-to-find-out-about-lekatts-beliefs/535273.md?page=15)