You are your brain.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

If there is a thing than can be called "soul", it's THERE.

You are not your heart (it's just a hydraulic pump).
You are not your lungs or liver or intestines* or arms or legs or eyes or even your spine.

You are your BRAIN. If you learned even the most shallow basics of Anatomy, you should know that.

Now meet the religious whackos who are causing unneccesary suffering here in Brazil, just like they do in the US of A and everywhere else.

Although abortion is still outlawed, the government tried to inject a little sanity in the law by allowing abortion of ANENCEPHALIC fetuses. Our very own Religious Right (mostly the Catholic Church although the "born-agains" are starting to get significant numbers here too) raised a stink and the law is still blocked.

Hello? Anencephalic. There's NOBODY there, and there never was. It's a lump of meat that looks eerily like a person (I've seen photos. Not a pretty sight) but it's NOT. The "looks eerily like a person" is used by the evil motherfuckers to wage this little battle in their War Against Reason.

And yet they force the women to go through a hopeless pregnancy that may very well end in their deaths. For nothing. Evil. Evil. EVIL.

End of rant.


*Yeah, I know, lots of counterexamples for THAT one.

[Teaser]

1. This neuroscientist has some caveats to that.

There is no a priori reason that the collection of atoms we call a brain should be conscious. Consciousness is an empirical fact, but it is not a fact that is knowable given only knowledge of the physical facts describing the system as the brain. You are not your brain. You are an experience that seems empirically associated with your brain.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. What evidence is there that consciousness resides anywhere else?

My point is, it's 100% certain the other organs do not house the "real you." If THAT is anywhere, it's in the brain. And a body with no brain is nothing but a corpse.

[Teaser]

5. The point isn't evidence, though.

Although I am pretty certain that my pancreas doesn't house the real me, I can no way ascertain that the pancreas doesn't house a "real itself."

Perhaps all matter has associated with it rudimentary self awareness. If that's the case, then everything might be just a little bit aware.

[Goldmund]

3. induction vs. deduction.

What has a brain is not by definition conscious; what is conscious by definition has a brain.

[StopTheMorans]

4. exactly, this is anoher strawman raised by the right to chip away at a

woman's right to choose.

[Teaser]

7. No...

then the question would be one of moral standing. Do we award moral standing based on *knowledge* that an entity is conscious, or suspicious that it is conscious? I'd argue we base it on suspicioun. Given our own experience, we don't have a reason to suspect an early term fetus of consciousness, therefore we need not award it moral standing.

[Teaser]

6. Not necessarily.

It is not a provable assertion that what is conscious has a brain. My liver might be conscious for all we know. But it doesn't have a brain.

[Spider Jerusalem]

8. No.

What we experience as consciousness is the result of sensory perception coupled with intelligence, memory and emotion...it is impossible for something without a brain to be "conscious" in any meaningful sense of the word.

[Goldmund]

11. So can lettuce, then.

And by that logic, pro-choicers (which is the topic that started this thread) are about as evil as vegetarians. By the way, I'm aware that you're not arguing against choice.

I think that saying that your liver may have consciousness is a step to far into metaphysics; too far for practical application. As far as anything practical goes, "that which exists must manifest itself". Your liver does not manifest consciousness in any domain that human reason -- or what we all call "human reason" -- can reach, by any definition of "consciousness" that we have ever defined. It's a bit like saying "I don't know that the sun will rise tomorrow", or "I don't know that the pencil will fall if I drop it" -- which is technically true, since nobody can know if laws of physics will survive another night unaltered. But our laws are built around the assumption that they will. And more than our laws: our very minds are.

[tigereye]

13. interesting

My husband and I were having this debate last night. There should be some territory between... there is nothing without your brain and your brain is not your mind.


I like your statement, Teaser," You are an experience that seems empirically associated with your brain." It leaves some room for maneuvering between biology and what we think "consciousness" or whatever term is used, is.

[moof]

9. It seems some enlightenment about the Brain is order.

There is not a lot that is stunning anymore on this planet,
but a person actually trying to debate that the mind is not in need of the brain as a prerequisite to function is getting pretty close.

Bet ol Doc. Ramachandran would shake his head in disbelief as well.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mind

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

10. Hell yeah. I think I'll next start a thread stating pi is irrational.

:eyes:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

12. Wow. Wow wow wow. My mind is officially blown.

Specifically, the "blind spot" ones:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mind/games.html :wow:

[moof]

14. Careful, pretty soon you might to start wondering if you are in your brain

or is your brain allowing you to hang out in it.