Incidentally and I don’t think Anil Seth is doing his reputation much good appearing on the same stage as Hoffman. But then, guess when one has achieved celebrity speaker status, one must deal with the agenda that agents and organizers set forth.
Ah, the price of glory.
I disagree with a lot of what Write4U says, and I’ve done that here, so, you know. But doesn’t this answer your two questions? The data is processed and converted. Yes, all that connected stuff too. No brain in a vat analogy needed. I don’t like the graphic with the electronic things either, it’s a bad analogy. But we don’t have direct access to all the data. We can’t be sure about reality.
I would reword that, we can’t be sure about our perception of reality.
We can be sure of our fundamental physical reality.
Because, although the future is full of potential, the fact of it (and us) being here on Earth, in this bewilderingly magnificent cornucopia, is proof positive that it had to have proceeded down one specific trajectory.
Future is full of potentialities, but the now has been dictated by only one progression within the cone of possibilities
Which again brings us to what I suggest is about the most fundamental observation we can make about our human condition.
The Human Mind ~ Physical Reality divide.
Which drives a better appreciation for the fact of us being biological animals, yet with this magnificent lovely and terrifying mind scape that we possess, that our bodies produce.
Same as it is with all other living creatures, each to their body plan and environmental circumstances.
It is ourselves that we can’t be sure of.
These differences are more than semantic, but also, not far apart. Far from Hoffman and Descartes, but that’s another story.
Agreed.
That’s why I try to be specific with my wording, though I sometime fail miserably, but I also rewrite and strive to eliminate those lapses into melodrama.
Indeed, but I can’t relate them to each other.
For all my complaining about the old, Descartes was intellectually honest, and I believe Hoffman knows better, but he found a winning horse so will ride it to the end, regardless of science.
I would love to read a book by someone who really knows Descartes. A what-if story about Descartes being transported through time - Evolution revolution, the physics revolution, biological revolution, plate tectonics revolution - and him digesting that information through his own logical framework.
That would be fun.
That is the raw data! The brain does not receive photons or pressure waves. The brain is only connected to the body via neurons and does not experience any direct data other than what is transported via neurons.
You realize neurons run through the whole body right?
The processing in the cranial area is only part of the whole feeling and sensing activity.
[quote=“lausten, post:47, topic:10593”]
You realize neurons run through the whole body right?
Yes, but neurons themselves do not feel, they receive and transmit electrochemical signals to and from the brain. All emotions other than kinetic trauma are produced in the brain.
The processing in the cranial area is only part of the whole feeling and sensing activity
No, it is the only conscious part of the neural network.
The Transmission Cable of Neurons
Axons are thin fibers that enable communications between neurons (nerve cells). The function of axons is to transmit information in the form of electrical impulses between neurons.1
Sasaki T. The axon as a unique computational unit in neurons. Neurosci Res 2013 Feb;75(2):83-8. doi:10.1016/j.neures.2012.12.004
From the broadest perspective, axons act like transmission cables. They enable the passage of electrical impulses within the brain and between the brain and the rest of the body.
The article looks at the structure, function, and types of axons in the body’s nervous system. It also describes conditions that can damage axons and lead to nerve dysfunction.
An axon is a thin fiber that connects neurons (nerve cells) to that they can communicate. Neurons communicate via electrical impulses that trigger the release of “chemical messengers” called neurotransmitters. Axons also transmit electrical impulses from muscle and gland cells to the brain.
Neurons are the highways of the body. But in the brain they coordinate the thought process
You don’t know that. Nobody knows that.
[quote=“lausten, post:49, topic:10593, full:true”]
[quote=“write4u, post:48, topic:10593”]
All emotions other than kinetic trauma are produced in the brain.You don’t know that. Nobody knows that.
Yes we do. We can show it . The cytoplasm in the cells responds to Kinetic force, even in single celled organisms (see “cilia”).
But that does not translate into pain. The brain needs to be conscious to experience pain or anything at all,
The proof lies in anesthesia. When the conscious part of the brain is disabled, ALL sensory functions stop. That is why surgeons can do their job to begin with.
Subconscious homeostatic control is autonomous and does not require conscious control as long as the brain itself is healthy and functional (autopilot).
OTOH, we can observe someone hurt themselves and experience the same action potentials as the injured person (empathy), without any actual physical neural stimulation.
To me that adds up to the brain as an indispensible organ for conscious experience.
As Anil Seth say: "Without a conscious brain there is nothing, other than a vegetative state.
Physical pain is not emotion. Where’s the experiment where someone is conscious and sad, and they turn off the sad or turn up the happy?
And what would that prove?
What Is the Relationship between Pain and Emotion? Bridging Constructs and Communities - PMC
The burden of proof is on you. You said;
All emotions other than kinetic trauma are produced in the brain
Then you offered evidence about pain receptors…
Tell that to your gonads.
ditto
And you believe it’s the totally complete story you are telling.
You make it sound as though scientists have nailed anesthesia and fully understand how it functions, but when you read what experts write, it’s a very different story. Much is still not understood.
We don’t feel the same pain! We can relate to the pain and that is painful to us, but we don’t experience the pain others are experiencing. Again a bit like the difference between looking at a postcard and getting a feeling, is never ever anywhere close to actually feeling that being within the real scene triggers.
Anil Seth is not God - he says a lot of things, some of it spot on, other utterances are far more questionable and he plays his audience, like all good story tellers do, but that is not as scientifically honest as you believe.
And what do you think this article proves?
Although pain is defined as a sensory and emotional experience, it is traditionally researched and clinically treated separately from emotion. Conceptual and mechanistic relationships between these constructs highlight the need for better understanding of their bi-directional influences and the value of bridging the pain and emotion research and clinical communities.
Nothing.
However, how can we fully understand what pain is, if the age-old question “what is an emotion?” is still vigorously debated (Shackman and Wager, 2019)? Critically, how does this impact our understanding of the relationship between pain and emotion?
We begin by reiterating the difference between pain and nociception (Baliki and Apkarian, 2015), which is helpful when considering the complex conceptual, functional, and neurophysiological relationship between pain and emotion. We suggest several perspectives on the nature of this relationship and call for further scrutiny of their bi-directional influence.
Nothing I read in that paper supports your your conclusion and especially not your certitude. It’s complex and we’re still at the data collection phase, of course then comes the interpretation, still very far away from being able to formulate sober conclusions.
Clearly, the constructs pain and emotion are substantially overlapping, conceptually and functionally.
Taken together, the inherent and complex relationship between pain and emotion clearly requires further theoretical, empirical, and clinical scrutiny. Both constructs are based on primitive pathways that promote protective survival behaviors against imminent dangers. Through evolution, these pathways seemed to have crisscrossed each other, generating mechanisms that allow us to predict and respond to both real and imagined physical and psycho-social threats. Yet, if the activation thresholds of these mechanisms are too low due to sensitization, overgeneralization, or other reasons, they might negatively impact our physical, psychological, and social well-being, and potentially deteriorate to chronic maladaptive conditions. … and so on.
And when under anesthesia there is still pain? No, when the conscious part of the brain is incapacitated, there is no pain. There is no mystery about that.
When the brain is incapacitated, there is NO pain! There is NO YOU!
Come on define “you”
But you make it sound like a binary thing - you are totally under anesthesia vs. you are totally lucid.
Anesthesia doesn’t work like an on off switch.
This anesthesiologist dude tells me that memory blockers are also used, as an insurance policy so to speak.
I don’t have the time to trawl for information for links to share, but I know there’s plenty out there for the curious. I also know next to nothing about anesthesiologists or the operating theater, beyond sterile fields and some basic rules, thanks to a private tour of an operating room by my then young Nurse Practitioner twin sister, and a handful of EMT shifts, both many decades ago .
I’ve found I like this anesthesiologist’s videos, I pretty much trust him at his words, no red flags. Also because his information easily fits in with things I’ve already learned. You know trust but verify.
Dr. Kaveh
You have incredible healing strength revealed when you’re unconscious under anesthesia. Learn 3 incredible hidden strengths humans have when in altered states of consciousness having surgery.
You may not know what you’re doing under anesthesia, but your body is telling us a lot about you. What does anesthesia expose about your body?
Write you’ve said that everything goes through the neurons, but is that accurate? We ingest external substances that impact feeling and thinking, does all that really simply unfold within the neurons?
Or what about the feedback loops that our own thinking creates . . .
There are so many layers of complexity that we only have a hint at, I’m always surprised by scientists who are so deeply aware of all they didn’t know, yet often speak in absolutes. Though, here we need to distinguish between public facing dialogue, and that which happens within the scientific arena.
[quote=“citizenschallengev4, post:56, topic:10593”]
Come on define “you”
Your aware self. Your homeostatic function remains active, because it is autonomous from your conscious self.
This explains the experience.
They put on the mask with anesthetics and ask you to count down from 100.
Usually, when you reach 95 you will wake up and the entire procedure may have taken 2 hrs, or a day, a week, a month, or 50 years. You just will not be there. You are NOT.
But you make it sound like a binary thing - you are totally under anesthesia vs. you are totally lucid.
Anesthesia doesn’t work like an on off switch.This anesthesiologist dude tells me that memory blockers are also used, as an insurance policy so to speak.
Well, let’s have a look.
(https://hms.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/Departments/Giving/On%20the%20Brain_72dpi_Square_200x200.jpg)He’s watching electroencephalography (EEG) from one of his patients starting to receive anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). “You’re going to see when the drug starts to work. Boom. See those small, regular oscillations? The patient is becoming sedated. And now these big oscillations come on, and the patient becomes unconscious.”
Brown, an anesthesiologist, statistician, and neuroscientist with endowed professorships at Harvard Medical School and MIT, studies how anesthetics work in the brain. His pioneering research holds promise for improving the delivery and safety of general anesthesia and for developing new ways to create, monitor, and control the state of general anesthesia.
Discover the latest news on the brain from Harvard Medical School
According to Brown, anesthetic drugs cause brain circuits to change their oscillation patterns in particular ways, thereby preventing neurons in different brain regions from communicating with each other. The result is a loss of consciousness—an unnatural state that he compares to a “reversible coma”—that differs from sleep. The oscillations vary, he explains, based on the type and amount of anesthetic used and the age of the patient’s brain (since brains age at different rates). These powerful drugs can cause mental side effects that often linger for days, months or longer.
Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine have shown why anesthetics can cause long-term memory loss, a discovery that can have serious implications for post-operative patients.
Until now, scientists haven’t understood why about a third of patients who undergo anesthesia and surgery experience some kind of cognitive impairment – such as memory loss – at hospital discharge. One-tenth of patients still suffer cognitive impairments three months later.
Anesthetics activate memory-loss receptors in the brain, ensuring that patients don’t remember traumatic events during surgery. Professor Beverley Orser and her team found that the activity of memory loss receptors remains high long after the drugs have left the patient’s system, sometimes for days on end.
And you look at consciousness. You avoided the question of “you”. Putting it in caps doesn’t count as evidence. You’re talking about the “conscious you”, but that’s only part of you.
You’re not listening.
Two splendid studies, accepted, but handwaving in this comment, since they sidestep what the above discussion is about.
No, the “conscious you” is all there is. Without consciousness you do not exist as a person. Without consciousness you become a vegetable, a vegetative state, and without external assistance your body will die in a few days
