|
BentNotTwisted - Your partially right about why you feel like your consciousness resides in your head, but your also partially wrong. The brain itself doesn't have it's own sensory unit so the illusion that thinking and consciousness goes on in your head is due not to the location of the brain but notably the location of the eyes, ears nose, mouth, etc. Things are preceived from this point on the body (head) and in all reality the input nerves could be traveling to, as the Ancient Greeks thought, your thorax (near the stomach).
As to my views on consciousness, I would say that it is an action, a process if you will. So asking "Where does consciousness live?" is like asking "Where does sound or (more general) movement exist?" It exists in whatever medium the action can occur, and because consciousness is in my opinion a very elaborate system or electrochemical impulses, it requires a medium that does this, i.e. brain.
Now I've meditated many times before, but I still don't prescribe to the belief that consciousness exists in another dimension. Rather, I would say that the process of meditation shut's certain parts of the brain off, allowing others to become much more active. I strongly reccimmend "Zen and the Brain" by Austin as a great read on the subject of neuroscience and zen buddhism. The neuroscientist that wrote it is also a Zen Buddhist, so he resolves a lot of conflict of interest.
|