Enlightenment And The Brain

[str4]

Hi, I've been wondering on what is your take on enlightenment, consciousness and the brain?

I mean, from what I've read is that the main take on enlightenment is that there is only consciousness, and everything else is just an illusion inside consciousness, including ourselves. But is the human brain just a vessel to try and reach enlightenment, or is the human brain just an illusion altogether?

Or is the human brain like a radio receiver which you can use to tap into consciousness?

What if you have brain damage and say you're in vegetable state, and you are not able to think anymore, nor try to reach enlightenment? Doesn't a physical damage then deny you from your spiritual path? If everything is happening inside consciousness, the consciousness should be "stronger" than the physical damage.

I know this sounds like my ego is coming up with all these questions resisting the enlightenment and it probably is just that.

 

[Leo Gura]

The reality is that we need much more scientific studies done on these kinds of questions by enlightened scientists -- which unfortunately are lacking at this point in human history.

The exact relationship between consciousness and the brain is not known. But it's clear that the standard scientific model which says that consciousness is simply a collection of neurons is woefully inadequate.

Science has not been able to reconcile the ultimate question: what is the relationship between mind and matter?

 

[str4]

Yeah, it would be nice to have an enlightened scientist.

Some of my thoughts concerning this topic came from reading Jed Mckenna, he's always referring our universe as dreamstate, and all the other character he's interacting with are just dream characters, and not real. 

From what I know, from my own experience, is that I don't have a brain damage and I am able to think clearly. What if you all are just dream characters in my dreamstate, and no such thing as brain damage actually exists, it is just this concept created by my own mind.

Since I personally don't have or haven't had a direct experience of a brain damage, I can only believe that there is such a thing as brain damage. Sure there are several million papers and videos and whatnot about brain damage, but I haven't experienced it myself. Thus it's just a very very very comprehensive belief that there exists such a thing as brain damage. But it's still just a belief.

Do I even have a brain... I haven't seen my brain...

[WaveInTheOcean]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The reality is that we need much more scientific studies done on these kinds of questions by enlightened scientists -- which unfortunately are lacking at this point in human history.

The exact relationship between consciousness and the brain is not known. c

Science has not been able to reconcile the ultimate question: what is the relationship between mind and matter?

 

"The exact relationship between consciousness and the brain is not known."

True, but what is known, however, is that it's the electric activity in the brain that 'creates' the mind/consciousness.

"But it's clear that the standard scientific model which says that consciousness is simply a collection of neurons is woefully inadequate."

No scientists say this. They say that consciousness arises from the flow of energy in your 100 billion neural cells in your brain. Of course consciousness doesn't arise just from neurons alone, no, the neurons are 'merely' vessels for the energy that flows. Not only vessels, but the 100 billion neurons also create an extremely complex low-entropy structure. 

"Science has not been able to reconcile the ultimate question: what is the relationship between mind and matter?"

It's true that we don't understand in details how the 100 billion neurons - and the energy constantly flowing between them (when you're alive that is) - creates the mind. But we do know - in simple terms - that this is what's going on. To believe anything else, like "the mind is something else than transfer of energy between matter" is being religious.

Because we do for a fact know, that the consciousness is estabilshed from the transfer of electric energy between the 100 billion neurons in your brain.

What is energy? Well, it's hard to describe what energy is, it can be many things. One way is to say that energy is something that is capable of making matter do work. Obviously energy, when controlled in an extremely complex low-entropy way, is also capable of creating consciousness.

Now, 100 billion neruons, that's as many galaxies as there are in the entire Universe. It's hell of a lot. And these neurons are structured inside our brain in such an immensely, highly-ordered complex way, that it'll probably take 100s of years from now before we fully understand how it works.

There are an estimated of 1000 synapses (that is connections between neurons) for each neuron in the brain. That gives an unbeliveable number of 100 trillion connections in the brain.

Anyway, E=MC2, so in the deepest sense energy and matter is two sides of the same coin.

Edited February 8, 2016 by WaveInTheOcean

[Akim]

There are parts of the brain which are active when people have self referential thoughts, thought about you, your position in relation to others, status and so on. I heard about a research somewhere that long time meditators have these regions more quite than normal people.

As for mind body problem, I think it assumes that we have understanding of mind or body, but we don't. We have standard model here, other model there. Basically we don't know shit about reality.

Here is an answer to mind body problem by Chomsky:

 

 

He says that there have been no concept of physical body since Newton, so there is no actual problem, "physical" is just an honorific word, like "real" or "serious".

[lilacwest]

I just listened to this at work today, and I think someone else here on the forum linked me to it but I can't remember who or which discussion. 

I found this very interesting: "3 Enlightenment, Self, and the Brain. How the brain changes with final liberation"