Apparently scientists now think that it is possible to repair
destroyed brain tissue. (As in cases of Alzheimers, mad cow,
ect.) Of course, we are looking at several decades at least
before this could be done. This will be accomplished via stem
cells and cloning to regenerate the destroyed tissue.
Now as we all know, there are two theories about brain function.
One is, that brain is primary - that it is the tissue itself that
generates all thoughts, stores all memories, and creates consciousness.
(Most reputable scientists strongly suspect this to be the case.)
The alternative is that the brain operates something like a "radio
receiver" for something else (the "soul" presumably - and this
model is the only way, of course, that the mind could survive
the death of the body in any case.)
If it indeed becomes possible to repair massive brain trauma at
some point in the future - for example, injuries such as my cousin
sustained when he shot himself last year (the bullet ricocheted
around inside his skull and basically turned his brain into so
much disorganized pulp) then we can assume that the body could
be placed on life support, and perhaps even a whole new brain
could be "grown" using the persons own DNA if necessary.
And when the person wakes up, I think it will close the book on
the afterlife question. How?
First of all, we need a patient with SEVERE brain trauma (i.e. penetrating
gunshot wound to the head, mad cow, advanced Alzheimers, ect.)
If the brain is the GENERATOR of consciousness, and thoughts
are nothing more than interactions of chlorine and sodium ions
between neurons... what we will have, is a whole new person,
minus any memories of his life before his new brain was "installed."
If total amnesia is observed in the person, minus any other deficit
or disability (remember, his new brain will be complete and healthy
and if it were a "radio receiver", it would once again be able to serve
the activities of his "soul") we can assume that mechanistic materialism
is the truth, and that consequently there is no afterlife.
If on the other hand, he retains his memories, skills, and basic personality following brain replacement, we can assume that the brain is merely a "receiving
station" for the "soul" (if this view is true, then the only reason that
brain-damaged people have permanent cognitive deficits, ect. is that
the "soul" no longer has a reliable "receiver" and so is cut off from expression/perception in the physical world.)
Only then, will science be able to make a judgement about the question
of post-mortem survival - is the brain a THOUGHT GENERATOR/STOREHOUSE OF MEMORIES (no afterlife) or is it a THOUGHT/MEMORY RECEIVER-TRANSMITTER (possibility of afterlife.)
The point of all this? Support stem cell research, folks. Coming elections
are a good place to start..!

B-man

a better test might be that you just kill yourself and come back and give us a sign?
would be a damn site more entertaining  ;D

Hi Chumley i read somewhere,cant remember now but it was about this woman,who lived in England and she had suffered a fairly severe stroke.i think she was only in her early thirtys,they injected her brain ,with cells from the brain of a pig and she made a full recovery,but did not change her personality at all,as she had suffered brain damage with this stroke.

I also was at the church and this medium,was comunicating with the spirit of this little boy,who had died of brain death,he was on a life support machine until his parents told them to switch it off,and he still had his personality,also his spirit came away from his body two days before they switched the life support off.

Love and God bless you Chumley Juditha

Hi B-Man
I like your experimental proposal. I'm getting adequately senile that I could use a new brain or two. When you get the details ironed out, send me one and I'll plug it in.

Of course you are asuming that we have a material world. Not to be too negative, but what if the brain and the entire "material world" turns out to be no more than a figment of the spiritual imagination? The Hindus express it as "dreams flitting through the mind of God".  One of the century's leading physicists, John  Archibald Wheeler, seemes to have been led more and more into the opinion that everything can be reduced to emptiness in which there is nothing but information. It would sort of support all the psychic mumbo jumbo, but we'd have a hard time demonstrating how we turn into a material world in which there are individuals etc. Looks to me to be the same problem.

Anyhow, send me a bucket of brain cells if you'd like and I'll give the idea a try.
dave

Quote:

a better test might be that you just kill yourself and come back and give us a sign? would be a darn site more entertaining

A totally uncalled for post. I hope Bruce removes this.

so, Dave, just what IS information?

Hi Lucy-
At risk of another inconsequential post, information is the glue that connects states of existence as they undergo process. In the basic paradigm where a process P operates on an object Q1 to map it into a new form Q2, information is the linkage <R> by which the prior and post states are defind by one another.

P(Q1)-> Q2 : Q1 <R> Q2

The measure of information is entropy, symbolized h, and defined as a negative logarithm of probability of a state. so that

h(x) = -log(prob(x))

A coin has two sides (ignore thickness). Probability of one side is 50%. In logarithms to the base 2 that is -1. Therefor, the entropy of one side is +1 bits.

When we take the entire universe and observe the states of all the parts within it, as well as the impending changes (potential energy) and ongoing changes (kinetic nergy) then the description is an expression of information, hence entropy.  

The interesting thing is that the only way we recognize the presence of matter is by the changes in its states and their relationships to other states of matter. If we overlook the benefits of history, we only need process and information to define reality at any instant. Adding history means that we add in states that have been defined, hence substantives, of which some are matter, some are information. (Chicago <is east of> Los Angeles - <is east of> is the informational link of the substantive cities.)

If that's too abstract, try Googling Wikipedia for their answer.

dave

I have to agree with Dave on this one.  Brendan's assumption is that we can factor consciousness existing separately from the physical world out of the equation by rebuilding brain tissue in the physical world.  However, there are many variables.  For one, we don't know, if the brain were a "receiver" for spirit, how the spiritual connects to the physical.  If you take stem cells, or pluripotent cells that have been frozen from the patient, and grow them, the brain will be a brain, but will be different than one that developed normally in childhood.  Neural connections are made as we grow as children, sometimes as a result of exposure to music, learning pain, disease, etc.  So, by definition the neural connections of the "new brain" would be different than the old one.  

Next, we don't know if the spirit would have released itself from the body, if a bullet ricocheted around in a skull.  If the spirit passed on, already, then one would never expect the same person to come back.  Could another entity then form or enter a newly grown brain?  Who knows?  

More and more, I am, in my gut convinced that there is no perfect test to prove the spiritual in the physical plane.  Perhaps certain machines may, eventually detect changes when people die (the passing of the soul or cutting of the silver cord), or even detect energies we have yet to define.  EVP and other electronic communications are promising, but even if verified on a large scale, scientists will argue who we are communicating with, or whether it comes from our own brains (ESP), or aliens, etc. instead of the afterlife.  

Matthew

I'm thinking along the same lines as Matthew. What's to say that the same soul would come back to the newly repaired brain? Also, although the brain may very well be the receiver of the soul, the soul can only express itself under the conditions of the neural connections that have developed within that brain during it's physical evolvement. Consequently, even if the same soul returned to that "new" brain, the neural connections through which it is expressing it's character would not be the same as they use to be. Hence, the soul would lack the ability to express itself the same as before. It would only be it's true identity again once it has departed from the confines of the human vessel... then all recollections would flood back again.

From what I can surmise, all records of human identity are stored within the higher self; from there they are accessible. Once the soul dives into a physical vessel it is then suseptible to the potential flaws of that vessel which include all of the chemical/electrical reactions/synapses of the brain. If those aren't the same, as would be the case under the conditions of a new brain, or a car wreck, etc... then the soul couldn't express itself as was priorly known. Although in it's natural state it is by all means the same soul as was priorly known.

So, I'm not sure how well this would work to completely settle the afterlife question. But, it is a really good question nonetheless.

PUL,
Cosmic_Ambitions

a better test might be that you just kill yourself and come back and give us a sign?
would be a damn site more entertaining  ;D
*****************
Don't think that'd work, chief.
Although it might be more entertaining
I suppose. Depends on what sort of guy
you are. (Would you prefer to be a
spectator, or the main event..?)

B-man

Hi B-Man
I like your experimental proposal. I'm getting adequately senile that I could use a new brain or two. When you get the details ironed out, send me one and I'll plug it in.

Of course you are asuming that we have a material world. Not to be too negative, but what if the brain and the entire "material world" turns out to be no more than a figment of the spiritual imagination? The Hindus express it as "dreams flitting through the mind of God".  One of the century's leading physicists, John  Archibald Wheeler, seemes to have been led more and more into the opinion that everything can be reduced to emptiness in which there is nothing but information. It would sort of support all the psychic mumbo jumbo, but we'd have a hard time demonstrating how we turn into a material world in which there are individuals etc. Looks to me to be the same problem.

Anyhow, send me a bucket of brain cells if you'd like and I'll give the idea a try.
dave
*****************
Well, if I kick that big rock in my backyard with no shoes on, it's gonna
hurt like hell, Dave. (And that ain't no "figment"..!)
Matter? Energy? Information/"spirit"? Who knows. But from a practical
standpoint, I'll tell you that this old world will make you PAY if you
mess up. Consequences here in C1 ain't no joke! That's "real" enough for me, I'd say...

B-man

Hello all,
I think an even better experiment than that was already performed, unintentionally.
Remember the case of Pam Reynolds?.
Her brain was very much dead for a short period of time, though her consciousness was still there, watching on as they operated on her....

Peace.

S.C.

B-dawg wrote on Oct 11^th, 2006 at 3:11am:

a better test might be that you just kill yourself and come back and give us a sign? would be a damn site more entertaining  ;D ***************** Don't think that'd work, chief. Although it might be more entertaining I suppose. Depends on what sort of guy you are. (Would you prefer to be a spectator, or the main event..?) B-man

lol, i'll pass on that!  But after all, think of all the times people have tried to validate this by saying that when they died they'd come back and give a sign to someone, how many actually succeeded?

[quote author=electro_sonic link=1160487073/0#12 date=1160557148][quote author=Chumley link=1160487073/0#9 date=1160550674]a better test might be that you just kill yourself and come back and give us a sign?
would be a damn site more entertaining  ;D
*****************
Don't think that'd work, chief.
Although it might be more entertaining
I suppose. Depends on what sort of guy
you are. (Would you prefer to be a
spectator, or the main event..?)

B-man

lol, i'll pass on that!  But after all, think of all the times people have tried to validate this by saying that when they died they'd come back and give a sign to someone, how many actually succeeded?
*****************
-Ah, but were there actually signs delivered in these cases...
OR were the people who thought they were receiving signs,
simply hallucinating? (Or at least fooling themselves.)
Consider how easily people - especially BEREAVED people -
are fooled by hucksters looking for some fast $$$ (Think John
Edwards.)
A falling leaf, an untied shoelace, an unusually shaped pile of
dog sh!t? These seem to be the typical "signs"  that people
think they are getting from their passed-on loved ones.
Anyone who'd commit suicide to be able to deliver such
"signs" is a pretty sad case, wouldn't you say?

B-man

Interesting question - where does thought occur?  Is the sensation of joy merely an axon with an exceptionally excited end-plate, or is the message in the complex web of signals?

If it's all in the axon, then we have the roblem of people who die in India and are reborn here recalling (verifiably in some cases) their prior lives. Similarly for people anesthetized with Ketamine who wander around the hospital, or criticize the surgeons' attitude.

If it's all in the mesh of interacting flows within the physical system, then the physical system is only a vehicle, and (in principle) a computer could be equally aware and sentient.

If it's all a matter of the interactions of  information flows here and there, we actually don't require a body, except that it represents our "ticket for entry into this world". In that sense, it could equally well be nbothing but a bunch of information that must remain in its initial cluster and form, so that we can refer to it as a basic reference, and through that reference refer to the underlying mass of information that we call the world. It's far more difficult to figure out what "matter" might be than to simply accept reality as an interacting probability field. So, personally, I vote for information.

I like electro-sonic's suggestion, but in order to do it properly, perhaps e-s can demo the idea?

dave

Hi Chumley If there is an unusual pile of dog crap,it must be from a dog that loved you before it died,if you see it again,just shout Rover,Shep,Rex or whatever name you called it,and it will come round you,but tread careful,as you might step on the sign your dear dog left you. ;)

Love and God bless you Chumley   Juditha

Hello all,
I think an even better experiment than that was already performed, unintentionally.
Remember the case of Pam Reynolds?.
Her brain was very much dead for a short period of time, though her consciousness was still there, watching on as they operated on her....

Peace.

S.C.
******************
But the cells were still intact in Pam Reynold's brain, right?
And the structures were intact also.
How can anbody say what happened here? Perhaps her brain
WAS still functioning at some point (it wasn't REALLY dead yet,
the cells were still viable!) and she had a hallucination.
Maybe the story has been embellished? (There ARE a huge
number of charlatans and hucksters out there when it comes
to the subject of NDEs, ya know. Maybe Pam Reynolds knew
a big "fleece the sheep" opportunity when she saw one, and
made the whole thing up? I'll bet she's good friends with John
Edwards, heartless scam-artist extraordinaire...)
You gotta wonder.

B-man

I've seen a documentation on tv where someone was in surgery and they had wired the patient's head; it was for a relatively long period inactive, a flat line, and they mentioned it was not only some peripheric measurement, the whole brain was inactive; they continued surgery as the rest of the body functions were stable, and they brought him/her (can't remember the gender) back, and this patient told them after it what they did when he/she was "out". That would be a proof that the brain is not the only thing which produces memories/perception, if it was only witnessed by some hundreds judges and policemen and professional magic tricksters...

Technically B-man it doesn't work, as Matthew said, you need to rebuild the exact cell network for this. Impossible.

Philosphically, I'm with Dave, I like to add that there is a categorial difference in "experience" and it's codification/mirroring in brain structures. It's just not the same; we have a correlation in brain damage and functionality of mind in the physical, no brain no human, that's clear, but that doesn't mean there is causality. If you see the flash of a lightning and you're hearing always thunder, then scientists don't claim that this light and this sound is the same identical thing, why do they do it with brain and experience/thoughts ?

Spooky

B-dawg wrote on Oct 12^th, 2006 at 4:04am:

I'll bet she's good friends with John Edwards, heartless scam-artist extraordinaire...) You gotta wonder. B-man

Oh really and I bet you've met John Edward and found out for yourself that he is a 'heartless scam-artist extraordinaire...)
You gotta wonder.  ::)