Neurons to Intelligence

[sajuukar]

Yet another interesting thought...
What do you think a conciousness really is? Some people may argue, it is merely a massive network of neurons that exchange information to make sense of things, but what is this sense? Where does it come from? Other, more religious people may belive that there is actually a soul, maybe an undying soul that continues to exist after ones physical death. But what is this "soul" made of? What is it? This thing we call consiousness... is self awareness itself simply a jumble of random electrical pulses? What does any of that have to do with the structure of our brain? Why not just have that... a lump of interconnected neruons?

Think... then post...

:angel:

[Walker]

We had this one out before.

Everyone here thinks we're bundles of energy that dissipate when you die. Very simple, very scientific.

If anyone proposes otherwise, I'm going to feel let down, because I know what happened when I said that the last times.

[sajuukar]

This has been done before?!?! Oops... should I delete it to reduce clutter?

[Walker]

Nooo no no, I'd like to see what people say this time.

[ceejayoz]

Originally posted by Walker
Everyone here thinks we're bundles of energy that dissipate when you die. Very simple, very scientific.

If anyone proposes otherwise, I'm going to feel let down, because I know what happened when I said that the last times.
Actually, we've got a number of full-blown fundamentalists in these forums, lol...

[IgnusDei]

Its possible that consciousness be just that: energy, but there are NDE-ers who "remember" stuff from during their "death" and some had zero brain activity.

[SajuukCor]

What is Life? (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2224)

:angel:

[Alpha_Monkey]

Walker, if you saw me in person, you'd know that I'm anything BUT a bundle of energy...think of Homer Simpson without the blubber. Or wit.

PS:

Divine creation and purpose my ass. We're an accident that keeps on happening.
lmao

[raphael]

One area of my (budding) research is cognitive science, and I do study linguistics that is very dependent on how you define consciousness.

And it certainly isn't a generally accepted scientific idea that our consciousness is simply a collection of bioelectrical energy. They who claim that are foremost neurolinguists, neurobiologists and biochemists. They are a small, but very loud crowd. In many other sciences they are viewed as rather fundamentalistic.

Today, one of the absolutely largest theories about consciousness used is the one of mind-acts. Semantisists use it (especially in the theory of Coherent Truth and another, called Correspondance Theory), most psychologists use it (but notably very few psychiatrists).

It's sort of in-between the two "extremes"; Nominalists (pure science, as they would themselves call it) and Realists. Semantists that are inbetween are called Conceptualists.

The nomenclature I use is from semantics, but these groupings exist in all sciences and what it all comes down to is the very question of that about consciousness. In mathematics they are called Constructivists and Classisists, in psychology they are hermenuetisists and biologists, in biology they are positivists and ... well you get the point.

The heart of the matter is this: Does the world exist independently of what is inside it? (Which is just a very careful and general way of asking whether a tree makes a sound if it falls and nobody is around to hear it). Oh, and if you wonder how these two problems (consciousness and trees) can be the same somewhere along the line, well ... that's another post of about 1 million characters. Unfortunately, I haven't found a good net-source that coherently describes modern groupings in science. So I can't link you there ....

In short: if the universe exists independently there is an absolute reality, in a certain state, and our consciousness is then separate from this state - if the universe on the other hand is dependent on our existance in it (that is, it's existance is our existance (and by our I mean anything able to observe)) then our consciousness is part of the state of the universe.

By some pretty advanced logic you can show that this slight difference in view lead to DRASTIC differences in how to approach science.

my 0.2€ (yes, I am european ;) )

[Mac_Bug]

Somewhere along the line we cross from science to philosophy to religion.

Technically that is ALL the brain is - neurons firing.

So in theory one day we will be able to duplicate the human mind, or even duplicate it completely such as that we create a clone of a person.

But until that happens, we can continue to speculate whether a soul exists. It'd had better :angel:

Forgot one thing.

We will all find the truth, that much is assured.

So, meanwhile, something in life are better left unexplained.

[Kesoth]

All answers will be there when we die..with a whisper to the soul or the silence of futility.

[AcolyteOfDeath]

The human mind is defined and shaped by the firing of bioelectrical signals through defined pathways in your brain, and the subtle release of neurochemical triggers according to your environment. It is also an almalgam of the signals recieved from your body. What makes us different from each other is the way the connections are arranged and connected. It's all chemicals and electricity, nothing more. When you die, your brain ceases to function, chemicals cease being released and electricity stops. The reason why you retain your mind is because they way your brain is connected. Nothing more.

[IgnusDei]

And to THAT, i won't bother repeating my last post. And even if it were that simple, why is there such a thing as the subconscious?

[raphael]

Originally posted by AcolyteOfDeath
The human mind is defined and shaped by the firing of bioelectrical signals through defined pathways in your brain, and the subtle release of neurochemical triggers according to your environment. It is also an almalgam of the signals recieved from your body. What makes us different from each other is the way the connections are arranged and connected. It's all chemicals and electricity, nothing more. When you die, your brain ceases to function, chemicals cease being released and electricity stops. The reason why you retain your mind is because they way your brain is connected. Nothing more.

So neurobiologists say. There is no proof of this, however. That last little bit "nothing more" is in fact impossible to prove.

Today we have absolutely no idea how a thought works, little less an idea, or what algorithm the brain uses to do a third-order derivative (for an example).

Saying that this is definately how the brain works is like saying that the Higgs particle is a spin 1/5, up-up-strange quark single particle/antiparticle. That is: Mere speculation.

So therefor we build models that we can use for certain purposes, like in all sciences. The above given model works ... sort of well (although by FAR from sufficiently) ... for medical and pharmaceutical sciences. But it falls completely short for psychology, linguistics, sociology, computer science, and a great number of other sciences.

I'll give an example where this mentioned model doesn't even suffice for pharmaceutical purposes.. A common analgesic and antipyretic is paracetamol. We have only a vague idea how that medicine works. It does something to some chemicals in the brain, and something else here and there. Why it works or even how remains a mystery. None of the models of human biochemistry has succesfully described the drug.

The above quote is an expression of faith, that is: "firm belief in something for which there is no proof" (from the Meriam-Webster dictionary).

[Tygre]

Deadguy put it best...


Life is a fatal and incurable sexually transmitted disease. If your parents never had it, chances are, you won't either.

"Intelligence" is just an advanced symptom. It often leads to death sooner, see the following effects of the deadly in itself symptom intelligence:

Cars, other fast moving capsules
Sharp objects
Guns, weapons
Artificial poisons

etc etc etc. Everything us "smart" humans have ever invented can kill us in some way. Hmph.

[sajuukar]

Indeed... that would make sence because computers create quicker ways of death as well as humans, so I guess they qualify as life to a degree... :D

But really, I think that if you had a computer program that was designed to watch and learn much like a baby, that with experece, it would develop a consiousness, much like a baby... unless babies are secretly super ultra intelligent beings and willingly chose to lose it, for ignorance is bliss after all :D

[IgnusDei]

Amd or Intel? ;)

[sajuukar]

Heh, proly AMD... cheaper :D

So all we need to do now is keep a computer on for long enough... and give it the ability to randomly select files, much like we randomly select memories, and save every website we ever go to on it, but then again, is there some user that controls which memories we open...??? :argh: