[ExI] you asked for it -here it is

[William Flynn Wallace]

Restarting hearts - common.  No neural activity?  How do you restart a
brain?    bill w

On Fri, Dec 27, 2019 at 9:50 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> What is the absence of matter?  There are absences of matter all around
> us, including ones in the brain, that consciousness seems to have no
> problem 'traveling' across.  Does consciousness exists as it goes between
> points, or can it be frozen in time?  Is it located in points or between
> them, or both?  Is it fundamentally relational and not the same kind of
> physical property that can exist in a single state, like charge for
> example?  Qualia seem very acute but it seems like the traditional view is
> that brain consciousness is related to the movement of electricity,
> chemicals, and proteins.  But it does seem like 'redness' being one evident
> thing should mean it can be represented by one clear state.
>
> This thought experiment (can consciousness be 'frozen'?) gives me a lot of
> confusion.  Qualia are acute, but *comprehending* a quale requires time!
> What the fuck is up with that?
>
> Which leads me to ask, is there consciousness in the brain even when there
> is no motion?  There are numerous reports of conscious experience even when
> what we know as "neural activity" has stopped (i.e. near death
> experience.)  An easy solution to this is to simply accept that it is not
> only the electricity of the brain, but the entire molecular/atomic
> composition which is integrated and experiencing consciousness somehow.  I
> think this is much more parsimonious.  Why should only electrochemical
> signaling cause consciousness?  You would certainly not be conscious if I
> removed your glia, or astrocytes, or CSF.  Just because we understand them
> less shouldn't mean they are any less consciousness-associated.
>
> What about chemicals that participate in qualia in the brain and then go
> to a different part of the body?  Or the blood that is in the brain during
> the experience of a certain quale?  I don't understand how these can be
> fundamentally separated from the experience.  They are absolutely necessary
> for the experience.  Maybe they don't 'live' in the brain, but is that the
> criterion?  The brain is fluid anyway.
>
> And all space was originally one, and all matter/energy was originally
> connected, so in the end I have a hard time separating my consciousness
> from the rest of everything (Sagan's apple pie thing which I think a lot of
> people don't understand or just take as some trite "wow the universe is
> big" science deal.)
>
> On Fri, Dec 27, 2019 at 6:56 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> https://dailygalaxy.com/2019/12/the-ultimate-mystery-consciousness-may-exist-in-the-absence-of-matter-2019-most-popular/
>>
>> The cosmos itself is conscious and more, including a theory by Deepak
>> Chopra, who can be counted on to have some strange, unproveable idea about
>> anything.
>>
>> bill w
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