"You" Are Not What The Religious Say You Are

Click on the link below for a 15-minute video that shatters the concept of a supernatural soul as the base of our consciousness:

Another Failed Refutation of Atheism

The experiments and treatments splitting the brain's corpus callosum
falsify the supernatural human soul.

AI, Consciousness, And Intelligence

"Artificial Intelligence continues to be the talk of the town, but how intelligent are they really? Come to think of it, what do we mean by "intelligence" anyway? In this video, we'll look at IQ tests for humans and for computers and see how current AIs have scored."

Click on the link below for an interesting video analyzing the concepts of intelligence and consciousness:

It's not AI consciousness that worries me, but their intelligence

The Latest On The Brain

"Is what you see real? Join neuroscientist Heather Berlin on a quest to understand how your brain shapes your reality, and why you can’t always trust what you perceive. In the first hour of this two-part series, learn what the latest research shows about how your brain processes and shapes the world around you, and discover the surprising tricks and shortcuts your brain takes to help you survive."

The brain clearly isn't the tool humans should use to understand reality. Why? - - -

• It's a tool for survival and comfort
• It distorts reality to achieve such

Consciousness is clearly only the product of brain activity, thus essentially falsifying the concept of a separate supernatural Soul.

Click on the link below for an hour-long documentary supporting the claim that science is the route to understanding reality:

Your Brain: Perception Deception

Can Thoughts Affect Quantum Reality?

The brain is mysterious as is quantum mechanics. Thus, the temptation to accept claims by some "experts" that just thinking about influencing quantum reality can affect it. If you want the answer, click on the link below for an enlightening 18-min video on the subject:

Does Consciousness Influence Quantum Effects?

Can Machines Be Conscious?

One of the great unknowns in our reality is what is consciousness and how is it achieved. Click on the link below for an interesting and different look at it. Oh, BTW, the author does not think that it is separate from the brain in humans (how refreshing):

Can Consciousness be Non-Biological?

Another Example Of The Difficulty Of Explaining Consciousness

"In this video I talk about a few approaches to mathematically describe consciousness and its shortcomings. I also briefly talk about what such studies could one day be good for."

Sabine Hossenfelder is a physicist who addresses the controversial topics within physics not only with knowledge but with discernment regarding the line between evidence and hypothesis. This video is a good example of her qualifications:

The Mathematics of Consciousness

More On Consciousness, The Soul, And Free Will

A few months ago I posted on brain oddities, specifically focusing on patients who had split-brain syndrome. This involves the severing of the corpus callosum, the connection between the right and left sides of the brain, The link below delves into the anatomy and physiology of the brain and the importance of the corpus callosum in consciousness and decision-making. It is more evidence that the concepts of a soul and free will are probably illusions.

"Is consciousness a scientific problem to be solved? Or a philosophical problem that will remain a mystery? What do scientists who study the brain think? And why do they think the way they do? These leading brain scientists share their intimate ideas about how the brain generates consciousness."

Click on the link below:

How The Brain Scientists Think About Consciousness

Consciousness And The Double-Slit Experiments

There is no greater example of the "God of the Gaps" ("Leap of Faith") argument than what one can find in the area of consciousness, where the "woo" promoters are very active. Why? Many scientists believe that the hardest problem/mystery in science is consciousness and, thus, these pseudoscientists fill the "gap" with claims unsupported by evidence. The most frequent example of this is found in their interpretation of so-called "Double-Slit" experiments where they say it "proves" that the mind can control matter through its effects on quantum mechanics. While there are some scientists who think there may be a relationship between consciousness and quantum physics, others are skeptical (link).  This video challenges the woo.

The link below is one of the best retorts to the misinterpretation of the Double-Slit experiments:

"What I hope to do is demonstrate that the double-slit experiment doesn’t suggest that consciousness collapses the wave function of a particle. I’ll also attempt to go further in this article. I believe that the double-slit experiment provides considerable evidence that a ‘Quantum-consciousness’ (QC) hypothesis, the idea that consciousness can exist away from the brain and can affect particles in the double-slit experiment, must be false."

The Double Slit Experiment Demystified. Disproving the Quantum Consciousness connection

Does Consciousness Defeat Materialism?

One of my frequent YouTube video channels is "Closer to Truth" with Robert Lawrence Kuhn. It is from PBS television broadcasts. It "features leading philosophers and scientists exploring humanity’s deepest questions." While it is beautifully and professionally done, the problem I have is that Kuhn, a PhD brain scientist, is searching for the truth in the wrong places: philosophy and religion. The latest episode is entitled, "Does consciousness defeat materialism?" and is emblematic of his wanting to believe in a God. It is worth 26 minutes of your time.

This is my comment on it. There usually are some interesting comments to my comments if I comment:

• "Science addresses testable claims and has a structured verification/justification process to minimize errors. Up to this point, science points to the high probability of mind/consciousness being a product of the material brain. Unfortunately, all the claims from philosophers, noetic scientists, intelligent design proponents, and others interested in finding non-material causes for consciousness have failed to present evidence for such. If they claim that science is not the correct tool for addressing the claim, what is, and how would you justify it? Until humanity comes up with a way to evaluate, accept, and verify the non-material claim, we are left with the probability found by science mentioned above. Anything else is an argument from ignorance."

Below is a link to the video:

"Does anything exist beyond the physical world? If yes, could consciousness undermine materialism? If no, could consciousness confirm materialism? It’s the big test."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWv-YtElLxk

Taking The Woo Out of Quantum Mechanics

Many pseudoscience-oriented folks attempt to use quantum mechanics to explain such unsupported claims such as human free will and consciousness. This 13-min video does a pretty good job both in explaining quantum mechanics, as well as falsifying the claims that humans have free will and that consciousness is independent of the brain:

• "The fundamental underpinnings of nature are probabilistic, or nondeterministic. - - - we have to be careful not to extrapolate what happens at the quantum level, to the deterministic world of our everyday experience. Just because free will implies that your decisions are not deterministic, and quantum mechanics also implies that the properties of small particles are not deterministic, the two are not related. There is no science linking free will with quantum uncertainty."

The woo explained! Consciousness, Free will, Observation in Quantum physics

The Brain Is Not A Receiver Of The Mind

The latest attempt by the religious to support the concept of an immaterial "soul" is to produce papers and articles hypothesizing that the brain does not produce the mind but that the brain is the "Receiver" of the mind (soul). Since I have not been able to find reputable neuroscientists supporting this hypothesis, I provisionally conclude that it is just another "God of the Gaps" argument. Can you think "Intelligent Design 2.0?"

Below are some links countering this "Receiver" hypothesis:

https://repozytorium.umk.pl/bitstream/handle/item/5064/SetF.2017.014%2CDuch.pdf

https://www.reddit.com/r/Psychonaut/comments/2x0vwd/the_problem_with_the_brain_is_just_a_receiver/

https://www.reddit.com/r/RationalPsychonaut/comments/2x7c7k/what_do_you_think_of_the_notion_that_the_brain_is/

https://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=29169

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1n9zC2T12M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3f4pQOHKPA

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-brain-is-not-a-receiver/

Taking The Mystery Out Of Consciousness

"Sensations are the building blocks of consciousness. They must first be combined into perceptions and converted into objects in the environment. Then neural systems must evolve mechanisms by which they can be remembered or recalled (neurobiologists identify the first appearances of memory in habituation, sensitization, and conditioning); and finally plasticity must develop—the capacity to shape, edit, and organize this neural content, present or remembered, into a picture, experience, or awareness of the 'world.' This, in the modern metaphysics of Democritus, is the way consciousness emerges in neural systems."

Consciousness Is Made of Atoms, Too

How The Brain Created Experience

On the most recent Brain Science Podcast, Dr. Ginger Campbell, MD interviewed Jon Mallatt, who co-authored the book,  The Ancient Origins of Consciousness.  The main focus of the interview and the book is on primary consciousness, the most base form of consciousness.

Understanding Consciousness Continues But In Small, Controversial Steps

"Michael Graziano, a neuroscientist at Princeton University, suggested to the audience that consciousness is a kind of con game the brain plays with itself. The brain is a computer that evolved to simulate the outside world. Among its internal models is a simulation of itself — a crude approximation of its own neurological processes."

Consciousness: The Mind Messing With the Mind

"The interaction of intense social interaction with evolving language was like rocket fuel to human consciousness. Out of this mix evolved culture."

Why are we conscious?

"The Attention Schema Theory (AST), developed over the past five years, may be able to answer those questions. The theory suggests that consciousness arises as a solution to one of the most fundamental problems facing any nervous system: Too much information constantly flows in to be fully processed. The brain evolved increasingly sophisticated mechanisms for deeply processing a few select signals at the expense of others, and in the AST, consciousness is the ultimate result of that evolutionary sequence. If the theory is right—and that has yet to be determined—then consciousness evolved gradually over the past half billion years and is present in a range of vertebrate species."

How Did Consciousness Evolve?

"His mistake is to go further, and conclude that physical goings-on can’t possibly be conscious goings-on. Many make the same mistake today — the Very Large Mistake (as Winnie-the-Pooh might put it) of thinking that we know enough about the nature of physical stuff to know that conscious experience can’t be physical. We don’t. We don’t know the intrinsic nature of physical stuff, except — Russell again — insofar as we know it simply through having a conscious experience."

Consciousness Isn't A Mystery. It's Matter.

"Tegmark’s approach is to think of consciousness as a state of matter, like a solid, a liquid or a gas. “I conjecture that consciousness can be understood as yet another state of matter. Just as there are many types of liquids, there are many types of consciousness,” he says."

Why Physicists Are Saying Consciousness Is Another State Of Matter

Consciousness Can Be Quantified

Remember When Humans Thought Only We Used Tools?

Do Insects Have Consciousness?

The Religious Apologist Says, "But You Can't Explain Consciousness."

Hold on.  In the last few years, some scientists studying consciousness have been working on a promising hypothesis called Attention Schema Theory (AST).  (Note: I wish scientists would stop using "theory" inappropriately:  how can we expect the public-at-large to understand science doing such?)

The AST covers a lot of ground, from simple nervous systems to simulations of self and others.

Understanding Of Consciousness Continues

"If consciousness is indeed an emergent feature of a highly integrated network, as IIT suggests, then probably all complex systems – certainly all creatures with brains – have some minimal form of consciousness.

"By extension, if consciousness is defined by the amount of integrated information in a system, then we may also need to move away from any form of human exceptionalism that says consciousness is exclusive to us."

What Make Us Conscious?

Consciousness And Emergence

Most scientists agree that consciousness (awareness of self and the world; ability to reflect) within humans (? also higher animals) is one of the greatest challenges in science to explain.  Following are links in support of consciousness being a natural emergent property not only in advanced animals, including humans, but in swarms of animals.

Another Pseudoscience Explanation Of Consciousness Debunked

Orch OR is not a promising route to the nature of consciousness.

The Hard Problem Of Consciousness Continues to Get Softer

Consciousness may be the product of carefully balanced chaos