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Science shows that the brain and the rest of the nervous system stops at death. How that relates to the notion of consciousness is still pretty much unknown, a

Science shows that the brain and the rest of the nervous system stops at death. How that relates to the notion of consciousness is still pretty much unknown, and many neuroscientists will tell you that. We haven't yet found an organ or process in the brain responsible for the conscious mind that we can say stops at death. Our level of understanding of neuroscience basically stops at understanding what regions and receptors in the brain are tickled by what sensations, and we still have very few actual ideas as to things like how your brain computes 2 + 2, let alone how your brain computes things like right and wrong.

Retric 3y ago
First science knows lack of blood flow to the brain results in loss of consciousness and it also knows blood flow stops at death. That’s enough to reach a well supported conclusion. Our level of understanding of neuroscience is irrelevant, but also far more detailed than you just described. The brains chemistry for example is a huge area of study with a lot of useful information. We also know many functional details such as how vision works down to enough detail for people to have come up with new classes of optical illusions. etc etc But again neuroscience is overkill, science made the blood flow consciousness connection hundreds of years ago.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  We are using "consciousness" with two different definitions. There is a definition of "the thing that observes the universe," which you are using, and a definition of "the thing that contains your self," much less scientific, which I am using. The former definition is very clearly understood, but also doesn't really matter in this discussion, since your observations of the world are very clearly known to be moderated through meatspace, but the "consciousness" in the latter sense persists across so-called "losses of consciousness" (when using the former definition). It is very legitimate to say that the latter definition doesn't exist, but that is as much a belief as the idea that it does. I personally don't believe that it exists, but I think it's hubris or folly to say that science shows that it definitely doesn't.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Neuroscience does comment on the second definition, which is impacted by physical trauma to the brain. You will for example lose memories under specific conditions. Exclude everything that is disrupted by such trauma and what’s left is the empty set.
    - pclmulqdq 3y ago
      That's an interesting contention, and I'm looking forward to your precise explanation of the precise neural pathways involved in the production of a painting, if whatever is left over is the empty set, and every single activity is determined only by chemical and physical interactions in the brain. In particular, I would like you to show the precise neural firings and chemical pathways that lead to the exact composition of each brush stroke. By this contention, there should be essentially nothing interposing between your past memories and the exact contents of the painting. I think you're taking an extreme view for the sake of argument, but there is still quite a bit unknown about how we actually process information. There is a clear biological component to all of it, but the biological processes fall well short of a complete explanation of things like creative processes and the sense of self (let alone logical thought), and you seem well-versed enough in the literature to know that.
      - Retric 3y ago
        > precise neural firings and chemical pathways That’s not how science operates, it accepts best fits for existing data even in the absence of absolute knowledge. We didn’t need the DNA of every creature to have ever lived to construct the tree of life. It’s a model initially created from examining the structure of organisms both living and dead, which has been refined over time as we slightly alter things based on new evidence such as DNA. As a consequence things aren’t static, astronomers etc constantly refine existing models to fit new data. Thus the conclusion about what happens after death is subject to change in response to new data, but what we have today is still the current explanation based on existing evidence. What makes science useful isn’t exact answers it’s being generally close enough to correct as to be useful. Is Quantum mechanics a full explanation for every physical phenomenon? No, but it’s really difficult to notice the edge cases in your daily life.
insanitybit 3y ago
You don't need to know which part of the brain corresponds to a conscious mind when they entire brain is dead.

Retric 3y ago

First science knows lack of blood flow to the brain results in loss of consciousness and it also knows blood flow stops at death. That’s enough to reach a well supported conclusion. Our level of understanding of neuroscience is irrelevant, but also far more detailed than you just described. The brains chemistry for example is a huge area of study with a lot of useful information. We also know many functional details such as how vision works down to enough detail for people to have come up with new classes of optical illusions. etc etc But again neuroscience is overkill, science made the blood flow consciousness connection hundreds of years ago.

pclmulqdq 3y ago
We are using "consciousness" with two different definitions. There is a definition of "the thing that observes the universe," which you are using, and a definition of "the thing that contains your self," much less scientific, which I am using. The former definition is very clearly understood, but also doesn't really matter in this discussion, since your observations of the world are very clearly known to be moderated through meatspace, but the "consciousness" in the latter sense persists across so-called "losses of consciousness" (when using the former definition). It is very legitimate to say that the latter definition doesn't exist, but that is as much a belief as the idea that it does. I personally don't believe that it exists, but I think it's hubris or folly to say that science shows that it definitely doesn't.
- Retric 3y ago
  Neuroscience does comment on the second definition, which is impacted by physical trauma to the brain. You will for example lose memories under specific conditions. Exclude everything that is disrupted by such trauma and what’s left is the empty set.
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    That's an interesting contention, and I'm looking forward to your precise explanation of the precise neural pathways involved in the production of a painting, if whatever is left over is the empty set, and every single activity is determined only by chemical and physical interactions in the brain. In particular, I would like you to show the precise neural firings and chemical pathways that lead to the exact composition of each brush stroke. By this contention, there should be essentially nothing interposing between your past memories and the exact contents of the painting. I think you're taking an extreme view for the sake of argument, but there is still quite a bit unknown about how we actually process information. There is a clear biological component to all of it, but the biological processes fall well short of a complete explanation of things like creative processes and the sense of self (let alone logical thought), and you seem well-versed enough in the literature to know that.
    - Retric 3y ago
      > precise neural firings and chemical pathways That’s not how science operates, it accepts best fits for existing data even in the absence of absolute knowledge. We didn’t need the DNA of every creature to have ever lived to construct the tree of life. It’s a model initially created from examining the structure of organisms both living and dead, which has been refined over time as we slightly alter things based on new evidence such as DNA. As a consequence things aren’t static, astronomers etc constantly refine existing models to fit new data. Thus the conclusion about what happens after death is subject to change in response to new data, but what we have today is still the current explanation based on existing evidence. What makes science useful isn’t exact answers it’s being generally close enough to correct as to be useful. Is Quantum mechanics a full explanation for every physical phenomenon? No, but it’s really difficult to notice the edge cases in your daily life.

insanitybit 3y ago

You don't need to know which part of the brain corresponds to a conscious mind when they entire brain is dead.