[ExI] you asked for it -here it is

[Will Steinberg]

Electrical activity commonly fades from the brain if blood supply is lost,
but restoring blood supply restores activity.  Sometimes experiences are
reported during this time.  There are only 2 possibilities for why:

1) The experiences occurred during the time when the brain was shutting
down or booting back up, and time dilation made them seem longer then they
were

2) The experiences occurred during the time when there was no electrical
activity in the brain, and that's because consciousness is not directly
ascribable to electrical activity but rather many different neural
processes.  Even if there is no electrical activity, there is still motion
of proteins across membranes, vesicular movement, and general cellular
processes releasing chemicals and whatnot.  I think it makes sense that
these processes might participate in consciousness, because:

     a) They have not been ruled out
     b) They are directly required for conscious experience

On Sat, Dec 28, 2019 at 10:24 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> 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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