Quote:
Originally Posted by Jinn
I see no way that a consciousness manifested by neurons would be able to persist beyond the cell death of those same neurons. * * * We have no 'hard drive', in the sense that we have non-volatile memory that can save a power-off. We "soft reboot" all the time, even sleep and hibernate.
But if the power is completely cut, as in a computer, all non-persistent information is lost. For us, that's everything. * * * Would you expect the running programs of a computer to stay around after a complete loss of power? Why would you think the brain was any different?
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On one level I agree with Jinn that consciousness is the activity of the brain but I still want to believe in a larger "consciousness."
"Another startling conclusion from the science of consciousness is that the intuitive feeling we have that there’s an executive “I” that sits in a control room of our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and pushing the buttons of the muscles, is all an illusion. Consciousness turns out to consist of maelstrom of events distributed across the brain. These events compete for attention, and as one process outshouts the others, the brain rationalizes the outcome after the fact and concocts the impression that a single self was in charge all along.” Steven Pinker, “The Riddle of Knowing You’re Here”
Time - Your Brain: A User’s Guide (2009, pps. 12-16).
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