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Consciousness question

Seeing as you cannot define what the actually soul is, you cannot really use what you think it's supposed behaviour is to disprove it. It's sort of a strawman argument.

The whole idea of the soul is that it is supernatural, god given etc. So it might run to a totally different set of rules. You will have as much luck disproving the soul as you will the existence of god. You can't do it.
 
Splossy said:
Seeing as you cannot define what the actually soul is, you cannot really use what you think it's supposed behaviour is to disprove it. It's sort of a strawman argument.

The whole idea of the soul is that it is supernatural, god given etc. So it might run to a totally different set of rules. You will have as much luck disproving the soul as you will the existence of god. You can't do it.
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I'm tending towards what Splossy and Tricky is saying.

Seeing as psychics and believers in many of the theistic religions believe in a separation of mind and body, (dualism), how do they account for this when we are under the influence of some kind of anaesthetic during surgery.

I'd say that the chemical effects of anaestheic just shut down brain processing - therefore the notion of mind being separate is rather odd; rather like your statement about:



I am assuming that the drugs that put us into a state of unconsciousness could not work if the mind and body were separate. Surely, if we had a separate soul, we would discover this very quickly during drug induced unconsciousness?

Increasingly I'm questioning the notion of mind being separate from body and these forums (I admit!) tend to make me move that way - although perhaps it is semantics that I'm getting tangled up in at times.
 
As everyone including the OP has said or implied, the phenomenon of sleep, and the effects of anaesthetics (or indeed booze) on consciousness, strongly suggest that what we call 'consciousness' or 'the mind' is directly affected by what goes on in our physical brains. I have nothing to add except that, if those examples are not clear enough, I recommend eating three or four grams of dried magic mushrooms. Now *that's* a link between brain chemistry and consciousness! :jaw-dropp
 
Yes and then Ian will say that you are only "disrrupting" the connection between brain and consciousness. When you want to believe, you will be able. Human wonder.
 
GaryLifo said:
Hi, this is my first ever post on these boards.

I cannot seem to post in the 'introduce yourself' thread for some reason, so very briefly about me and then onto my question.

I am 30 years old male 2nd year psychology undergraduate living in the south of England in the UK. I was formerly an electronics engineer for nearly ten years before deciding to change my career, and now I am planning to go into forensic psychology when I graduate.

Right, on to my question.

Seeing as psychics and believers in many of the theistic religions believe in a separation of mind and body, (dualism), how do they account for this when we are under the influence of some kind of anaesthetic during surgery.

I am assuming that the drugs that put us into a state of unconsciousness could not work if the mind and body were separate. Surely, if we had a separate soul, we would discover this very quickly during drug induced unconsciousness?

From personal experience, I have had several surgeries and not once was I conscious in any way during any of them.
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discover what?
i dont understand what you are not discovering...
do you expect your soul to FEEL? what your body feels?

when you answer above questions. rethink it.
a train of thought can have many paths...
 
Tricky said:
I strongly disagree with Jung. It seems obvious to me that consciousness is generated by the brain, and even then only when the brain is in certain states that we might call "full capacity". When the brain is not working, consciousness disappears, even though it can be regained once the brain starts working at full capacity again. These are generaliztions of course, because consciousness is not an "on/off" switch. It is a continuum ranging from hyperalert to brain-dead.
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Also, our consciousness is not "constant" in its nature. It changes all the time as new data is added. How can you add data to a spirit ?
 
Tricky said:
I strongly disagree with Jung. It seems obvious to me that consciousness is generated by the brain, and even then only when the brain is in certain states that we might call "full capacity". When the brain is not working, consciousness disappears, even though it can be regained once the brain starts working at full capacity again. These are generaliztions of course, because consciousness is not an "on/off" switch. It is a continuum ranging from hyperalert to brain-dead.

As for myself, I am only pretending to be conscious.
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Yes, yes, yes---this is the $64,000 question isn't it? According to the "brain is consciousness only" model, then the bolded would be true.

However, according to the Jungian model of consciousness (post 36), we are all "attached" to a collective consciousness which is largely unconscious to ego consciousness (see signature). The cessation of brain consciousness, by this model, in no way shape or form effects a "disapearance" of consciousness et al because the collective unconscious is not dependent on individual consciousness for its existence.

So, does ego consciousness "disapear" into the collective consciousness and/or superconscious as an individual entity when the brain stops functioning?

Or does the cessation of brain consciousness mean the end of the line for ego consciousness no matter what ideas depth psychologists and theists propose?

There's that $64,000 question again...
 
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ruach1 said:
Superconscious: The "transcendental" monad imminent in human consciousness
http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/jung.html

Though we are asleep, drugged, comatose, or even dead, doesn't necessarily mean that, according to the Jungian model, we are ever separate from consciousness being that consciousness, in its totality and to which we are all attached, exists independent of ego/brain consciousness of the individual.
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So, did Jung in fact believe in the soul and a greater spiritual reality?

As per the link above ...

Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact science, put away his scholar's gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart throught the world. There in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with a real knowledge of the human soul. -- Carl Jung
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ruach1 said:
Yes, yes, yes---this is the $64,000 question isn't it? According to the "brain is consciousness only" model, then the bolded would be true.

However, according to the Jungian model of consciousness (post 36), we are all "attached" to a collective consciousness which is largely unconscious to ego consciousness (see signature). The cessation of brain consciousness, by this model, in no way shape or form effects a "disapearance" of consciousness et al because the collective unconscious is not dependent on individual consciousness for its existence.
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Sounds as if Jung is saying, "when the brain dies, I switch the meaning of the word 'consciousness' to something else." If this collective consciouness/unconsciousness exists, it is nothing like ego consciousness, so unless he's proposing a method for converting one to the other, then he's just talking out of his hat.

What you seem to be talking about are "memes", or essentially "ideas". These are shared among members of the population by communication. Obviously, if a person contributes a great idea the population (like, say, Einstein), then that idea survives the person. It may become part of the individual consciousness of any number of members of that population. But unless you are drastically altering the meaning of consciousness, it is not Einstein's consciousness that is surviving, it is his idea. To call it "consciousness" simply leads to misunderstanding by everyone except philosophy majors.

ruach1 said:
So, does ego consciousness "disapear" into the collective consciousness and/or superconscious as an individual entity when the brain stops functioning?
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Why would it have to wait until the brain stopped functioning to do so? These things you are calling collective and/or superconsciousness do not seem to require that the person be alive. I can't see how they would require that he be dead (or unconscious) either. This seems no more that a poorly rationalized attempt at inferring life-after-death.

Many, perhaps most of us wish to be remembered after we die. I wouldn't mind it myself. But I am not kidding myself into thinking that any part of my consciousness is going to.

ruach1 said:
Or does the cessation of brain consciousness mean the end of the line for ego consciousness no matter what ideas depth psychologists and theists propose?

There's that $64,000 question again...
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I'd say yes, it's the end of the line, based on the fact that I have never been able to have two-way communication with any entity for which ego consciousness has ceased.
 
Iacchus
So, did Jung in fact believe in the soul and a greater spiritual reality?
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From Jung and Christianity: The Challenge of Reconciliation by Wallace B. Clift, page 3, Crossroaod Publishing, NY:

Did he or didn't he--believe in God--is the first question asked about Jung by people who feel they know you well enough (and think you might know)... In an excellent filmed interview, Face to Face (in which the interviewer asks all the questions you want to ask), done by the BBC about two years before Jung's death, John Freeman asked Jung the question--did he believe in God? Jung asked, "Now?" (having recounted earlier his Christian upbring as the son of a Swiss Reform pastor). When Freeman indicated his question referred to present beliefs, Jung replied, "Difficult to answer (pause): I don't need to believe, I know."
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Does this answer your question?
 
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10001 said:
discover what?
i dont understand what you are not discovering...
do you expect your soul to FEEL? what your body feels?

when you answer above questions. rethink it.
a train of thought can have many paths...
Click to expand...


I am of the opinion that when the human mind shuts down, so does consciousness. Therefore I am rejecting the idea of dualism. My personal evidence for this is that during several general anaesthetics I was never once conscious.

I would have thought that were it possible to be conscious when the brain is 'knocked out' I would have DISCOVERED this during my experiences under anaesthesia. That I did not discover this offers some opposition to dualism.

However, this being the philosophy forum I was interested in the philosophical arguments that might account for dualism still being possible despite the example of anaethesia.

I am also aware that I can only have knowledge of my own 'unconscious' experiences and that this cannot be generalised to anyone else.
 
GaryLifo said:
I am of the opinion that when the human mind shuts down, so does consciousness. Therefore I am rejecting the idea of dualism. My personal evidence for this is that during several general anaesthetics I was never once conscious.

I would have thought that were it possible to be conscious when the brain is 'knocked out' I would have DISCOVERED this during my experiences under anaesthesia. That I did not discover this offers some opposition to dualism.

However, this being the philosophy forum I was interested in the philosophical arguments that might account for dualism still being possible despite the example of anaethesia.

I am also aware that I can only have knowledge of my own 'unconscious' experiences and that this cannot be generalised to anyone else.
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Agreed. Plus there is so much recent study in the area. People can have a certain part of their brain damaged and suddenly their mother seems like an imposter; there's this guy, Clive Wearing, who had encephalitis, so he can't for any new memories--he's in a constant twilight zone...always feeling like he just woke up after a long coma (he's been ill over 20 years now--he always greets his wife as though he hasn't see her in eons...and as soon as she leaves his hospital, he calls her on the phone and tells her he just finally woke up and she must come to see him right away...) Brain damage changes personalities...beliefs. You can cause religious visions my stimulating the temporal lobe of the brain and religious "visionaries" are often shown to have seizures in the same area. In probing a brain prior to brain surgery, they can invoke all sorts of memories and sensations...and it's the brain that feels pain in a limb that has been amputated. There is no consciousness outside the brain...when John Edwards "channels" the dead, he never says anything concrete--like what the person's social security number is. There is nothing measurably alive about a person after they die. You can see a brain "lying" and you can see "grief" and "pain"...more and more you can see which areas of the brain light up for different experiences--and we see that brain dead people like Terry Schiavo have no activity in their brain--no response to their environment--not even the most primitive instincts like swallowing. If you've ever seen anyone suffering from dementia, you see them fading before your eyes....theres no magic invisible part of themselves that's going to go off to happyland or hell (which don't exist in on any measureable realm)....you are your brain. As self aggrandizing as it is to think that you are so much more--there just is not a scintilla of evidence to say this is so. It's just a feeling. And feelings are not good ways to find facts.
 
Iacchus said:
This argument can of course be falsified ... if we were to look at the brain as a means of channeling consciousness.
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Careful how you use words, Iacchus. Yes, that statement can be (potentially) falsified. Not by looking at the brain as a means of channeling consciousness, though. That, in and of itself, does not falsify anything.

How would you set up an experiment to potentially falsify the statement you claim can be falsified? How would you set up an experiment to test your own assertion that the brain "channels consciousness"?

These are not rhetorical questions: I really would like to see how you, yourself, would go about trying to falsify these claims.
 
Mercutio said:
Careful how you use words, Iacchus. Yes, that statement can be (potentially) falsified. Not by looking at the brain as a means of channeling consciousness, though. That, in and of itself, does not falsify anything.

How would you set up an experiment to potentially falsify the statement you claim can be falsified? How would you set up an experiment to test your own assertion that the brain "channels consciousness"?

These are not rhetorical questions: I really would like to see how you, yourself, would go about trying to falsify these claims.
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All it requires is a device capable of picking an external signal, to show that the signal is capable of being degraded after it has been received.
 
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