[ExI] you asked for it -here it is

[William Flynn Wallace]

I have not actively researched it, but I have been trying to follow glial
cells and what roles they play in the brain.  Are you suggesting that they
are involved?  bill w

On Sat, Dec 28, 2019 at 10:27 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> 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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