Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: Alan McDougall on 11/08/2008 15:58:30
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Greetings,
I am aware this is a scientific based forum and like it because of that.
Neverthe less I would like to ask if it is possible from a pure scientific point of view , that our self awareness, ego, personality could continue in some form after we die.
We are just a bundle of energy and energy can not be created only used changed and dissipated by entropy..
There is much speculation by respected scientists that the mind might not reside in the brain but outside in a quantum energy field.
This is a serious post, to me anyway
What do you think, any comments.
Paul if you read this I hope it is correctly posted
Regards
Alan
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Hi Alan,
I haven't heard any of the speculation about the mind existing as a quantum 'other' - I'd be very interested to read about it - do you have any links?
Cheers,
Ben
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There is much speculation by respected scientists that the mind might not reside in the brain but outside in a quantum energy field.
The psychological changes in brain-damaged persons suggest otherwise.
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Ditto the changes induced by drugs. Anyone who has had a few beers knows about this. I doubt there are many serious scientists unaware of the effects of alcohol, (in some cases, it might be second hand knowledge). I wonder how they might speculate thst the mind is separate from the brain when the evidence shows the two are so closely related.
Then we could start talking about "functional MRI scans" which tell you what part of the brain is responsible for various aspects of thought.
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The accident happened on September 13, 1848 at a construction site of the Rutland & Burlington Railroad. Gage, a construction foreman, was unwisely tamping dynamite into a hole with the big iron rod -- it weighed over 13 pounds -- when the explosives ignited, blowing the rod out of the hole and through his head. He was taken to the Cavendish doctor, John Harlow, who plugged the holes in his skull and kept him under observation. Amazingly, Gage was alive, fully conscious, and experienced no lasting physical handicaps. The plaque notes, however, that he was " mentally greatly changed," and that "once an efficient and capable foreman, he was now increasingly erratic, irritable, and profane." Gage lived for a dozen cuss-filled years afterward.
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/10858
In 1848, a man named Phineas Gage suffered a brain wound which has rendered him as the index case of personality change after frontal lobe injury. During work on the construction of the Rutland & Burlington Railroad, an unplanned explosion propelled a rod, about a meter long and three cm in diameter, through his head. The entrance wound was in the right cheek; the exit was in the midline near the intersection of the sagittal and coronal sutures. Against expectation, Gage survived.
http://www.neurosurgery.org/cybermuseum/pre20th/crowbar/crowbar.html
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It is all in your head I'm afraid. We are basically an organic machine that is turned off when you die. I have never heard of personality being described as energy.
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"Scientifically" "Believe"
No reason why scientists shouldn't believe this if it makes them happy, but:
There is much speculation by respected scientists that the mind might not reside in the brain but outside in a quantum energy field.
The above is meaningless. Quoting "eminent scientists" is a popular way of backing up an argument but scientists in general know little outside their own field, so if the eminent scientists in question are (for example geneticists, or chemists, or biochemists, or nuclear physicists, or zoologists) then I'd put no more emphasis on their views on this subject that if it were my mum talking. If you mean "eminent neuroscientists" or members of any other field that might be expected to know anything about it then maybe they've got something interesting to say. But in that case I for one would like to know who they are and what they work on, as if it's something they're really interested in (rather than something they pontificated about once when drunk) they'll have written something intelligent whose arguments can be considered on their merits.