Is the brain necessary for consciousness?

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These people don't have no brains, they have a smaller brain. Humans have existed with much smaller brains before, including the Hobbits of Flores Island in Indonesia. We still need a brain for consciousness.

Wellwisher's idea that the water is doing the thinking is complete lunacy.
 
These people don't have no brains, they have a smaller brain. Humans have existed with much smaller brains before, including the Hobbits of Flores Island in Indonesia. We still need a brain for consciousness.
...or do we just need a brain to be aware of consciousness? (Conscious of consciousness)
 
[TOPIC] Is the brain necessary for consciousness?

There are plenty of brainless devices that can analyze / recognize specific input from their environment and respond purposefully to it. "That's not the ___ I told you to ___ , you stupid car."
 
Is the Brain Necessary for Consciousness?

I'd say 'yes', a brain or some system functionally equivalent to a brain.

Found this interesting blog post. It raises some intriguing albeit all too ignored questions:

"Not many people have heard of an article that appeared in a 1980 issue of Science, one of the most reputable Science Journals in the world, and which article was quite provocatively titled: “Is Your Brain Really Necessary?” (Science, Volume 210, December 12, 1980). Yes, provocative, because, as neurologist John Lorber explains, it is only because of this that he could get the attention he wanted. The final article appeared in 1983 in a German medical journal, and it all boiled down to an extremely strange phenomenon: There are people in this world who have virtually no brain, yet are healthy, have normal to high intelligence and normal social behavior. Lorber investigated 600 people who are affected by hydrocephalus, that is, having water on the brain, or rather only have water where there should be brain. Normally these people are, not surprisingly, complete imbeciles, hence with almost total absence of intelligence. Yet, amongst those 600 there were 30 whose IQ was equel to 100 or even more. Lorber cited the story of a student of mathematics at Cambridge who has a global IQ of 126, and his verbal IQ even reaching 143. Yet, this student’s cranium (skull) was/is for 95% filled with “water”, or more specifically “cerebrospinal fluid”. What is left of the brain is a layer, 1-2 millimeters thick on the inside of the cranium. In other words, the man has virtually no brain...

If true, that's a fascinating anomaly that neuroscientists need to look at much more closely. What I'd be interested in knowing is the neural density of the brain tissue. Does this person possess a reasonably normal neural network in terms of its complexity, except that was forced to develop under pressure and hence occupies a smaller space?

Calculations resulted in brain tissue somewhere between 100 and 150 grams, whereas a normal brain weighs 1500 grams! Of course, this goes against anything that neuroscience tell us.

Smaller brain cells with about 1/10 their normal mass could account for that. Of course, if they just "calculated" the mass of the tissue based on its volume presumably, as opposed to actually weighing it, they don't really know that it isn't more massive than normal brain tissue per unit volume.

And as no one knew and knows how to handle such a grand anomaly, it was and is completely ignored.

I agree that it needs to be further investigated. I'm guessing that they can't really do that with any means besides non-invasive brain-scans, until these individuals die and hopefully leave their bodies to science. What really needs to happen is a detailed histological examination of the brain tissue through a microscope.

At the end of his life (1994) Lorber complained that nobody had ever taken up these findings. Even, in a very recent book, issued in my home country, with as title “We are our brains”, authored by a highly respected neurobiologist, this issue of practically brainless, but nonetheless intelligent people is totally ignored.

We don't really know that these individuals are practically brainless, that still remains to be determined. What we do know through non-invasive imaging is that the brain tissue in these individuals occupies a much smaller volume than the brains of normal individuals. I'm willing to bet that there is a dramatic histological difference between the brain tissue in the small number of reasonably normal-behaving individuals and the majority with severe cognitive defects. I'm predicting that a reasonably complete brain still exists in these individuals, except that it's been dramatically distorted during development.

Now, that is one anomaly which makes us think! But another one is this:

Ever heard of “Terminal Lucidity”?

Yes, but I'm skeptical about whether it really happens. I've witnessed a number of deaths and never observed it. If it does happen, I'd be willing to bet that there's enough brain function left to support the lucidity.
 
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Found this interesting blog post. It raises some intriguing albeit all too ignored questions:

[color="99000"]"Not many people have heard of an article that appeared in a 1980 issue of Science, one of the most reputable Science Journals in the world, and which article was quite provocatively titled: “Is Your Brain Really Necessary?” (Science, Volume 210, December 12, 1980). Yes, provocative, because, as neurologist John Lorber explains, it is only because of this that he could get the attention he wanted. The final article appeared in 1983 in a German medical journal, and it all boiled down to an extremely strange phenomenon: There are people in this world who have virtually no brain, yet are healthy, have normal to high intelligence and normal social behavior. Lorber investigated 600 people who are affected by hydrocephalus, that is, having water on the brain, or rather only have water where there should be brain. Normally these people are, not surprisingly, complete imbeciles, hence with almost total absence of intelligence. Yet, amongst those 600 there were 30 whose IQ was equel to 100 or even more. Lorber cited the story of a student of mathematics at Cambridge who has a global IQ of 126, and his verbal IQ even reaching 143. Yet, this student’s cranium (skull) was/is for 95% filled with “water”, or more specifically “cerebrospinal fluid”. What is left of the brain is a layer, 1-2 millimeters thick on the inside of the cranium. In other words, the man has virtually no brain...

Calculations resulted in brain tissue somewhere between 100 and 150 grams, whereas a normal brain weighs 1500 grams! Of course, this goes against anything that neuroscience tell us. And as no one knew and knows how to handle such a grand anomaly, it was and is completely ignored. At the end of his life (1994) Lorber complained that nobody had ever taken up these findings. Even, in a very recent book, issued in my home country, with as title “We are our brains”, authored by a highly respected neurobiologist, this issue of practically brainless, but nonetheless intelligent people is totally ignored. Just as if it does not exist. [But it does: at the beginning of this year, after I had delivered a lecture on NDE’s, a man came to me and said: “I am a retired neurologist, and one of my patients also appeared to have virtually no brain, yet he is highly intelligent, and happily married with four children”. I asked him whether he had an explanation. He said: “no, I cannot explain this”.]

Now, that is one anomaly which makes us think! But another one is this:

Ever heard of “Terminal Lucidity”? This a very rare phenomenon which happens with people who are either in a highly progressed condition of dementia (such as Alzheimer), or are suffering from mental diseases in a similar condition. It all boils down to an inexplicable lucidity during the last days or even hours before their death, although, in the case of total dementia, their brains are irreparably damaged. Al of a sudden they are completely normal again, have their full memory and cognitive qualities back, they can talk to their relatives and make arrangements with them for their funeral and division of their heritage, and so on. After that they die peacefully. The same applies with people who suffer from irreparable mental diseases. Two examples, as these were published in Journal of Near-Death Studies, Volume 28, No 2, Winter 2008, article “Michael Nahm, Ph.D.: Terminal Lucidity in People with Mental Disease and Other Mental Disability”.

Example 1 (page 92): “A mad and very violent ex-lieutenant of the Royal Navy, who also suffered from severe memory loss to the extent he did not even remember his first name. On the day before his death, he became rational and asked for a clergyman. With him, the patient conversed attentively and expressed his hope that God would have mercy on his soul. An autopsy revealed that his cranium was filled with a straw-coloured water to a degree that it widened parts of the brain, whereas the brain matter itself and the origin of the nerves were uncommonly firm, the olfactory nerves displaying an almost fibrose appearance.”

In other words, his brain was irreparably damaged. Yet, at the end of his life, he was completely lucid.

Case 2 (page 95): “G.W. Surya (1921) recounted an account handed to him by a friend of his. This friend had a brother living in asylum for many years because of serious mental derangement. ‘One day, Surya’s friend received a telegram from the director of the asylum saying that his brother wanted to speak to him. He immediately visited his brother and was astonished to find him in a perfectly normal state. On leaving again, the director of the asylum decently informed the visitor that his brother’s mental clarity is an almost certain sign of his approaching death. Indeed, the patient died within a short time. Subsequently, an autopsy of the brain was performed, to which Surya’s friend was allowed to attend. It revealed that the brain was entirely suppurated [i.e. consisting of pus] and that this condition must have been present for a long time. Suraya asks: With what, then, did this brainsick person think intelligently during the last days of his life?’”

Indeed: no brain, because what was left of that was a heap of pus, nothing else; yet, during his final hours, completely lucid....

That we do no hear much of terminal lucidity may be because it is deliberatey ignored by doctors and/or nursing staff, as it is unexplainable.

Now, echoing William James’s famous quote: “it takes one white raven to show that not all ravens are black”, we can with some confidence say that the above “anecdotes”, and given these factual reports (which cannot be denied ) as well as the fact that some virtually brainless people can be highly intelligent and social, will lead to an almost unavoidable conclusion, namely that consciousness is not a product of the brain. Consciousness will make use of the brain, or even won’t use a brain in case of its virtual absence, but will then express itself through other pathways.

Parnia talks about an illusion. Yes, there is an illusion, i.e. that it is the brain that produces OBE’s and NDE’s. Rather, it seems far more likely that consciousness acts separately from the brain, and that NDE’s and OBE’s are manifestations of that separately acting consciousness.

Oh, I forgot: Michael Nahm, together with the nestor of NDE-research Bruce Greyson, also published an article: Terminal Lucidity in Patients with Chronic Schizophrenia and Dementia: a Survey of the Literature, in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 197, 12, 942-944, 2009.

The above conclusions are not theirs, but mine... - of course, they must be far more prudent in this than I may be - but I think that quite logically there cannot be another conclusion, unless someone discovers that in the absence of a brain within the skull, brain matter is spread out all over the body, which seems unlikely to me..."---[/color]http://forum.mind-energy.net/skeptiko-podcast/1743-lucid-before-death-evidence-seperate-mind.html

digital-consciousnesss.jpg

I hear the train a comin', it's rolling 'round the bend
And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when
I'm stuck in Woo Woo prison, and time keeps draggin' on
But that train keeps a rollin' on down to San Antone

Apologies to Johnny Cash

https://genius-com.cdn.ampproject.o...us.com/Johnny-cash-folsom-prison-blues-lyrics

:)
 
I agree with the following as well as some similar Posts.

Read-Only Post 3
Sorry, but I cannot believe ONE word of this!
Captain Kremmen Post 4
Even though Nature printed it, it is anecdotal and has little validity.
Show me a proper scientific study, and I'll start to believe it.
Balerion Post 6
"Terminal Lucidity" is completely bogus. All the evidence for it--ALL of the evidence--is entirely anecdotal.
. . . . .
And yes, consciousness requires a brain.

BTW: Note the following
Kittamaru
hasn't it been proven that we only really utilize a small portion of our brains capacity in day to day activity?
The above is only true in the sense that we only use a small portion at any given small time interval.

See my Post 18

From Bee w/Straw Post 23
My cat seems conscious.
Yes & your cat has a brain.
 
If not a function of your brain, where do you expect it to be?

Perhaps in your big toe or floating somewhere external to your body?​
 
If not a function of your brain, where do you expect it to be?

Perhaps in your big toe or floating somewhere external to your body?​
 
One of the reasons I (an atheist) do not believe in some here-after existence is due to the the loss of function (death) of my brain.
 
These people don't have no brains, they have a smaller brain. Humans have existed with much smaller brains before, including the Hobbits of Flores Island in Indonesia. We still need a brain for consciousness.

Wellwisher's idea that the water is doing the thinking is complete lunacy.
yes
 
I hear the train a comin', it's rolling 'round the bend
And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when
I'm stuck in Woo Woo prison, and time keeps draggin' on
But that train keeps a rollin' on down to San Antone

Apologies to Johnny Cash

https://genius-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/genius.com/amp/Johnny-cash-folsom-prison-blues-lyrics?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCCAE=#referrer=https://www.google.com&amp_tf=From %1$s&ampshare=https://genius.com/Johnny-cash-folsom-prison-blues-lyrics

:)

It seems that a soul can fill a cavity where the brain should be , but the soul can be use to a physical brain in which to manifest . Therefore when the brain is damaged , this damage distorts the mind .

Interesting
 
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