Doesnt brain damage prove the brain exists in neurons?

[Mongu9719]

If I take a hammer and damage your occipital lobe , then aspects of your conciousness Like sight will be affected. Why does this not prove that neurons are responsible for what we consider the “metaphysical brain”, since there is a direct link between my occipital lobe being damaged and my eyesight? For simplicities sake let’s say that our brain can be held in 1 neuron. If I smash that neuron, I will be brain dead. Doesn’t this prove that the neuron generates the brain?

[RendHeaven]

What is this question in response to?

[Mongu9719]

@RendHeavenits a response to the video “Why Brains do not exist”

[SOUL]

Neurons exist in the brain...put down the hammer already and stop doing that to yourself before it's too late.

Edited March 17, 2020 by SOUL

[Rilles]

That which is aware never goes away, is a blind person less conscious because he has no sight? Your neurons change everyday yet the I remains the same. 

 

But you have to actually do self-inquiry to see this, you cant just think it. 

Edited March 17, 2020 by Rilles

[Hello from Russia]

50 minutes ago, Rilles said:

That which is aware never goes away, is a blind person less conscious because he has no sight? Your neurons change everyday yet the I remains the same. 

 

But you have to actually do self-inquiry to see this, you cant just think it. 

I think if we can take 2 persons with roughly the same amount of consciousness and blind one of them we could say that then blind person will be less conscious as he'll be perceiving less visual phenomena.

However, interesting thing is, he can compensate the lack of visual phenomena by listening more closely to his thoughts and ears (mental and sound phenomena), so he can become much more conscious about these than the first person as he'll also won't get distracted by visuals, but he'll still able to command his consciousness so to speak and use it.

I think it's all very interesting. How do we measure consciousness, though?

[Javfly33]

56 minutes ago, Hello from Russia said:

I think if we can take 2 persons with roughly the same amount of consciousness and blind one of them we could say that then blind person will be less conscious as he'll be perceiving less visual phenomena.

However, interesting thing is, he can compensate the lack of visual phenomena by listening more closely to his thoughts and ears (mental and sound phenomena), so he can become much more conscious about these than the first person as he'll also won't get distracted by visuals, but he'll still able to command his consciousness so to speak and use it.

I think it's all very interesting. How do we measure consciousness, though?

@Hello from Russia That is wrong thought

You are confusing focusing your awareness on phenomena, with the fact of you being consciouss. You can be consciouss of this or that, but you always are consciouss. Withouth consciousness you wouldn´t be able to know anything. But being more consciouss with seeing more colours or hearing more sounds is totally wrong.

You can actually be more "consciouss" if you want . Meditation raises your consciousness and it actually achieve this by denying you from being distracted with visible or auditory phenomena, at this point if you have done meditation it would be obvious to you that you don´t depend at all on visual phenomena to be more consciouss/have more consciousness.

Is easy to measure a certain level of consciousness, too. If you are identified with any kind of phenomena (you identify with your thoughts that say "I am a human" therefore you think you are a human) you are a very low consciousness level. You are so low consciouss that you think you are what you see/perceive, and not what you actually are. You don´t even know who you are (conscioussness). 

Edited March 17, 2020 by Javfly33

[Spaceofawareness]

The thing is, it’s actually possible for us to be awareness, and still be generated by the brain, and, as far as we know that is the case. I presume when I die, my awareness goes with it. If it remains in some form, I will have no memory to know about the continuation, so essentially it won’t matter.@Mongu9719  I agree that brain damage is an example of brain anatomy functionally affecting consciousness. You can sever the corpus callosum, the connecting tissue between the two hemispheres of the brain (done to stop epileptic seizures), and essentially have 2 separate consciousness’, one verbal, the other non verbal. The non verbal side in specific scenarios, can act independently to the verbal side, and when it does, the verbal side will make up or confabulator reasons for actions when it doesn’t actually know why it does them. 

Let me ask, if I have a machine that acts exactly like a human does, would it be conscious in the same way we are? Do you think our machinery could somehow tap into this “universal consciousness” and use a localised piece of it? Or do you think it would be devoid of any experience and be what philosophers like to call a philosophical zombie? I think, it would be conscious, if it’s artificial brain did the sameness functions as our human brain. 

Fact is, you don’t know till you die, and when you do, it’s too late to change anything anyway. Best just to live this life the way you want, because there is no coming back (unless you believe in reincarnation), but then, what would reincarnate anyway, other than awareness. No memory, no personality, just the same universal consciousness.

[RendHeaven]

17 hours ago, Mongu9719 said:

@RendHeavenits a response to the video “Why Brains do not exist”

Like others have already indicated, the answer you are looking for utterly depends on your frame of reference.

At the highest level - when we inquire into the raw IS-ness of experience, we realize that the thing which we call "the brain" is an appearance among appearances.

If you are committed to appearances, then yes. "The brain" "exists," since your notion of "existence" is grounded in appearances.

But what if you are not committed to appearances? Well, "existence" becomes a much broader notion.

In this broader sense of "existence," any perceived substance behind appearances begin to melt away.

So really, when Leo says that "the brain does not exist," he encourages us to expand our notion of what "existence" is.

He is not denying that there appears "a brain."

[Emerald]

Doesn't damage to your computer hardware prove that the internet exists inside your home computer?

 

[Osaid]

@Mongu9719 He answers this exact question in the video at 1:00:04.

When Mario gets hit in the head in a video game, he dies. But that doesn't mean Mario's brain is running the simulation.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Osaid

[Mu_]

If I remove your heart, I'm pretty sure your consciousness will fade to.  Just because there are correlations, this doesn't mean the heart or the brain are the true sources of consciousness.  If you ate only sugar, your state of consciousness and perception would change to, this doesn't mean sugar is the source of consciousness either.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Mu_

[RendHeaven]

@Mu_ Great analogy!

[Mongu9719]

@Mu_ but aren’t there physical correlates to conciousness like the default mode network?

[RendHeaven]

4 hours ago, Mongu9719 said:

but aren’t there physical correlates to conciousness like the default mode network?

Correlation is not causation.

[Rilles]

4 hours ago, Mongu9719 said:

@Mu_ but aren’t there physical correlates to conciousness like the default mode network?

Sit down and look at consciousness!!!!

[seeking_brilliance]

The way I would describe it : brain damage does not affect consciousness. It affects the individual experience, to gain experience in consciousness. (in this case it's gaining the experience of a life spent with brain damage) 

[Nahm]

12 hours ago, Mongu9719 said:

 but aren’t there physical correlates to conciousness like the default mode network?

“Physical” is a belief. Find the separation between physical and non physical, that would be your “proof”. You’re “counting crows”. They are vibrational. Not black & white. 

“you know gray is my favorite color,
I felt so symbolic yesterday.
If I knew Picasso -
I would buy myself a gray guitar and play.”

”Picasso”, the ‘grey’, nonconformist artist, the Creator, the Source, you.

You can create love with friends too. ?

[Forestluv]

On 3/18/2020 at 0:12 AM, Mongu9719 said:

but aren’t there physical correlates to conciousness like the default mode network?

If we want, we can create a "physical vs. non-physical" duality relative to consciousness. Let's go for it. . . (Along the way, be mindful of how you define "consciousness" - your definition may need to expand).

You have already listed out some "physical" attributes of consciousness. You clearly have that part down and don't need anymore work in that area. It seems like work needs to be done for "non-physical". Could you come up with a few "non-physical" attributes of consciousness? And also come up with some consciousness attributes that are "sorta physical / sorta non-physical". . . I'm not saying that physical attributes are "wrong". It's just that you obviously have that part down very well and don't need any more work in that area. 

[Spaceofawareness]

Even if you do accept that Awareness or consciousness can somehow float free of the brain, which seems unlikely, it is the brain which ties you to this universe; no brain, no experiences, no memory, no imaginary self. 

There has been no recorded evidence of awareness affecting the world without going through the brain. If you believe there is something outside of this universe that we observe through our senses, then maybe that might be a possibility for you, but, it could also be that that world you perceive when you take psychedelics is another construct of your brain, just as the waking world you perceive is, but with the exception that, we have a shared collective agreement that this world is the way it seems, whereas, the same can’t be said for any extrasensory worlds perceived.

But, if you are so averse to the limitations of this brain, this body, and this world, then maybe you are willing to risk everything for a chance at something beyond. I take the good with the bad in this world, I am learning to not cling to the good so much, and not push away the “bad” so much. In that, it is the concepts and interpretations which accompany these perceptions which are being modified. The world still remains as it is, with the exception that, what I thought I was has changed, as well as the way the world has to be taken.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Spaceofawareness