<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">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</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Dec 28, 2019 at 10:27 AM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">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:<div><br></div><div>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</div><div><br></div><div>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:</div><div><br></div><div> a) They have not been ruled out</div><div> b) They are directly required for conscious experience</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Dec 28, 2019 at 10:24 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Restarting hearts - common. No neural activity? How do you restart a brain? bill w</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Dec 27, 2019 at 9:50 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">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. <div><br></div><div>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?<br><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>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.)<br></div></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Dec 27, 2019 at 6:56 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><a href="https://dailygalaxy.com/2019/12/the-ultimate-mystery-consciousness-may-exist-in-the-absence-of-matter-2019-most-popular/" target="_blank">https://dailygalaxy.com/2019/12/the-ultimate-mystery-consciousness-may-exist-in-the-absence-of-matter-2019-most-popular/</a><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">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.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">bill w</div></div>
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