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It's been shown that memory/personality/self is stable with no brain activity [0]. Perhaps consciousness is a transient process, but memory is not and conscious

by nynx 5y ago

It's been shown that memory/personality/self is stable with no brain activity [0]. Perhaps consciousness is a transient process, but memory is not and consciousness can be restarted from stable memory. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_hypothermic_circulatory_arrest https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_hypothermic_circulatory...

beaconstudios 5y ago
I didn't claim that memory specifically is immaterial, but that the material is not the "fundamental thing" of monistic metaphysics. Consciousness certainly isn't a transient process, as it is stable over time (until it isn't). It seems most reasonable to say that it's a self-sustaining process (autopoietic or self-referential) emerging from the body.
- nynx 5y ago
  Given that we know of nothing that isn't material, I'm unsure of why it's reasonable to think material is not the fundamental thing of consciousness.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    I'm not suggesting anything supernatural, but that energy is prime and that matter is a construction of energy.
    - danparsonson 5y ago
      That's not a surprising or controversial statement though - physics for the last hundred years (since Einstein) has increasingly moved towards accepting that matter and energy are for all intents and purposes the same thing. I don't think that changes the tenets of materialism, just refines them.
      - beaconstudios 5y ago
        The term you're looking for is physicalism, of which materialism is one belief, the other being emergentism, which its replacement. There are a number of beliefs that rest upon the bedrock of materialism that persist today despite materialism being outdated. The prime example is reductionism, the idea that anything can be understood by looking at its parts - this is not true, and while this idea is as outdated as the materialist view, it unfortunately persists. Many other ideals like quantification rest on reductionism and are also becoming outmoded in academia but not in the public perception of what are considered rational ideas.
  - namero999 5y ago
    What is that knows that which is material?
goldenkey 5y ago
> A key principle of DHCA is total inactivation of the brain by cooling, as verified by "flatline" isoelectric EEG, also called electrocerebral silence (ECS). Instead of a continuous decrease in activity as the brain is cooled, electrical activity decreases in discontinuous steps. In the human brain, a type of reduced activity called burst suppression occurs at a mean temperature of 24 °C, and electrocerebral silence occurs at a mean temperature of 18 °C.[32] The achievement of measured electrocerebral silence has been called "a safe and reliable guide" for determining cooling required for individual patients,[33] and verification of electrocerebral silence is required prior to stopping blood circulation to begin a DHCA procedure.[34] Thank you for the link. Is "measured electrocerebral silence" a measure of zero electrical current in the brain? Or just close to it?
- nynx 5y ago
  > Electrocerebral inactivity (ECI), or electrocerebral silence (ECS), is defined as no cerebral activity over 2 µV using a montage that uses electrode pairs at least 10 cm apart with interelectrode impedances < 10,000 ohms and >100 ohms. https://www.medscape.com/answers/1140075-177597/how-is-electrocerebral-inactivity-defined-on-eeg https://www.medscape.com/answers/1140075-177597/how-is-elect...
  - goldenkey 5y ago
    Very interesting, this changes my understanding quite a bit. Do you know if these patients had any short term memory effects? If not, this would imply that the brain is JITing structure almost immediately from events... that's mindblowing.

by nynx 5y ago

beaconstudios 5y ago

I didn't claim that memory specifically is immaterial, but that the material is not the "fundamental thing" of monistic metaphysics. Consciousness certainly isn't a transient process, as it is stable over time (until it isn't). It seems most reasonable to say that it's a self-sustaining process (autopoietic or self-referential) emerging from the body.

nynx 5y ago
Given that we know of nothing that isn't material, I'm unsure of why it's reasonable to think material is not the fundamental thing of consciousness.
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  I'm not suggesting anything supernatural, but that energy is prime and that matter is a construction of energy.
  - danparsonson 5y ago
    That's not a surprising or controversial statement though - physics for the last hundred years (since Einstein) has increasingly moved towards accepting that matter and energy are for all intents and purposes the same thing. I don't think that changes the tenets of materialism, just refines them.
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      The term you're looking for is physicalism, of which materialism is one belief, the other being emergentism, which its replacement. There are a number of beliefs that rest upon the bedrock of materialism that persist today despite materialism being outdated. The prime example is reductionism, the idea that anything can be understood by looking at its parts - this is not true, and while this idea is as outdated as the materialist view, it unfortunately persists. Many other ideals like quantification rest on reductionism and are also becoming outmoded in academia but not in the public perception of what are considered rational ideas.
- namero999 5y ago
  What is that knows that which is material?

goldenkey 5y ago

> A key principle of DHCA is total inactivation of the brain by cooling, as verified by "flatline" isoelectric EEG, also called electrocerebral silence (ECS). Instead of a continuous decrease in activity as the brain is cooled, electrical activity decreases in discontinuous steps. In the human brain, a type of reduced activity called burst suppression occurs at a mean temperature of 24 °C, and electrocerebral silence occurs at a mean temperature of 18 °C.[32] The achievement of measured electrocerebral silence has been called "a safe and reliable guide" for determining cooling required for individual patients,[33] and verification of electrocerebral silence is required prior to stopping blood circulation to begin a DHCA procedure.[34] Thank you for the link. Is "measured electrocerebral silence" a measure of zero electrical current in the brain? Or just close to it?

nynx 5y ago
> Electrocerebral inactivity (ECI), or electrocerebral silence (ECS), is defined as no cerebral activity over 2 µV using a montage that uses electrode pairs at least 10 cm apart with interelectrode impedances < 10,000 ohms and >100 ohms. https://www.medscape.com/answers/1140075-177597/how-is-electrocerebral-inactivity-defined-on-eeg https://www.medscape.com/answers/1140075-177597/how-is-elect...
- goldenkey 5y ago
  Very interesting, this changes my understanding quite a bit. Do you know if these patients had any short term memory effects? If not, this would imply that the brain is JITing structure almost immediately from events... that's mindblowing.