[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Too much side irrelevant talk and silly denials that say absolutely nothing : an obvious insult to the obvious undeniable  facts on the subject:

I did say , on many occasions  here ,that atheist Nagel's proposed alternative to reductionism is also a false conception of nature , that's obviously doomed to fail as well ,didn't i ?.

Besides , it is an obvious and an undeniable fact that reductionism in science is a false conception of nature that has been superseded even by the physical sciences, modern physics  themselves  ...
See what Sheldrake said here above on the subject .
An obvious and undeniable fact that has been proven to be true by many scientists , thinkers , philosophers , by the physical sciences themselves , by Nagel, by Sheldrake ....
That's not just a statement ,honey : to try to prove to you this fact as being true , is like trying to prove to you that the sun rises from the East ...come on, be serious .
Once again, has science proper even proved the "fact " to be true that reality is exclusively biological physical ? come on, don't be an idiot, sorry = absolutely not= never = ever ,simply because nature or reality cannot be a matter of exclusively biological physical processes or physics and chemistry , otherwise they absolutely cannot account for such processes such as life , consciousness, human cognition .....let alone their origins evolution and emergence = exclusive reductionist or even non-reductionist naturalism can certainly not explain consciousness, life , human cognition ...no way .
Science proper itself will therefore reject materialism as untrue and untenable ...no doubt about that .
Quantum physics , for example, have already been challenging materialism as being untrue and untenable since the 1920's ...
I can elaborate some more on this , and can even provide you with some relevant quotes from prominent scientists '. thinkers' work on the subject  ...concerning the obvious undeniable evidence that proves materialism to be false , beyond  any shadow of a doubt :
But , that's so an obvious and an undeniable fact that it would be an utter waste of time to try to discuss it any further , simply because it's so obvious that materialism is false , and is therefore challenged by the mental side of nature , by consciousness, life ...their emergence origins and evolution ..............
If you cannot see all that , if you cannot see obvious things and facts as such , there is no point in going any further with this discussion,for obvious reasons,  i am afraid .
Just try to read that Nagel's book, that Sheldrake's book at least then :
I am not gonna waste my time to try to make you get rid of your denials , that's neither my job to do , nor a relevant to this discussion thing to do  either  , that's your job and responsibility you gotta deal with , not mine .

Don't worry your pretty little head about it, Don. I'll be fine if the Complete Works of Rupert Sheldrake are missing from my science library. But I'm glad you realize the atheist, Nagel, is not really your boy. He might be cranky when it comes to science, but he's almost rational. I would suggest Deepak Chopra but, dang it, he's the wrong religion.

How sweet of you , honey :
You know : by the way :
 I have "The believing brain " book of atheist Michael Schermer  you would most certainly love  , and the audio of that book of his read by his own voice , by himself in person thus :
That's a typical major example of materialism in science at work :
But , i do agree with some of his ideas , insights ...in that book of his   though , while rejecting most , if not all,  of his materialist allegations or materialist belief system he confuses with science proper ,inevitably :
He said, in that book of his, for example, that we are all attracted by some ideas , beliefs in the broader sense , insights , facts ...while rejecting others , via our likes and dilsikes , via our psychological tendencies and pre-dispositions in that regard ...
He's right about that obvious fact , that explains , partly, why you, Cheryl, are attracted by materialism , and i am  certainly and absolutely  not ...
That explains , partly, why you disregard obvious undeniable facts regarding the fact that the materialist conception of nature is false ...
Anyway :
 That said :
Do not worry : i am not the type of person who might idolize certain types of  scientists , thinkers ...no matter how brilliant they might ever be : i am only interested in their innovative creative relatively convincing ideas,i am not obssessed with them as some sort of fetish idols, no way :
I know that certain scientists , thinkers ...might be wrong on  this ,and might   be right on that as well , nobody is perfect indeed :
I am just interested in some of their ideas , lines of evidence , insights ...i do get inspired by , that's all : ideas , lines of evidence , insights ...that just help me ,or rather inspire me on my own search path .
 I am just a restless dynamic truth seeker, i hope i am in fact anyway  : i can hunt down the truth ,no matter  where  it might try to hide or reveal itself , and no matter by whom it would try to do  so   : i would chase the truth even in the very dark terrifying  ugly heart of the devil in person as well haha .
We should all recognize facts as such ,we should all be driven by the noble search of the truth , no matter how painful ,difficult ,destabilizing ,self-destabilizing or shocking they  might turn out to be in the process or as a result  ,  but that's not how things usually go : see what Sheldrake said about the varying characters of scientists here above on the subject  .
Almost nobody is interested in the truth in fact , whatever the latter might be indeed .

I can't help but  notice a pattern with you. People actually think about what you say and try to respond in some logical way. I recall several interesting responses, for example, to your frequent comments regarding what physics has proved regarding consciousness. And you never address comments like that directly. There's never any counter argument that specifically addresses assertions point by point, or even one you feel worth pursuing. You either totally ignore it, or just restate your original argument that materialism is a false misconception of nature which has hijacked science proper and so on. Or you respond by saying they are "confused"  "don't get it" "irrelevant" "stupid"  or "childish" (and the best!) "twisting your words." I suspect you do this when you are backed into a corner, or are just too lazy to come up with a response - "I cannot be bothered by people who do not accept my brilliance without question!"

No , honey :
It just would take too much time to do what you are asking me to do : it would cost me too much time i cannot afford :
That's 1 of the reasons why i prefer to provide   well informed and relevant sources that  support my allegations , to the people , so, they can conduct their own investigation or research , so to speak, on the matter themselves , that's all .

P.S.: I can give you a safe direct free download link to Sheldrake's very interesting "Science set free ..." ebook , if you want to.
It's an extremely enjoyable charming and interesting book indeed, even though i do not agree with some of Sheldrake's ideas, insights ....
I am very critical in relation to any book i read for that matter , to any ideas , insights ....i am very critical in relation to science and scientists as well ;
I am even very critical in relation to the alleged word of God ...the Qur'an ,so.
I do not idealise or idolize ideas , insights ....let alone people , no matter how bright they might ever be ...simply because scientists , thinkers ... are just human , all too human , as Nietzsche used to say , humans with their own human limitations, flaws , deceptions , self-deceptions , beliefs or world views ...via their limited human capacities or faculties .
The search for the truth , the latter as a  restless endless  dynamic process , can have only 2 absolute certainties in this life at least :
Death is absolutely certain , and the absolute Truth with a big T does exist only after death, i guess  .
So, nobody possesses the truth or has the monoply of the truth , as materialism and other world views, people ....delude self-deceive themselves into believing they do and have .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Please try to be consistent. On the one hand you say there is no such thing as science, and on the other you tell a professional scientist that he doesn't know what it is, or what it can be used for.

Only a priest, philosopher or a politician would consider such selfcontradiction to be normal or acceptable, but since you claim not to be a philosopher I must conclude that you are either a member of one of the other two despicable professions, or insane.  I will not insult you by suggesting that you are a priest or a politician.

Absurd specualtions of yours : do not allow yourself to be carried away by emotions, hurt pain , ...ego ...
I am , in fact , very skeptical about your allegation that you are a pro scientist : how can that be ? : you might be one , but a very ignorant one regarding the nature of science , its alleged objectivity, its limitations, its role and function ...not to mention that you do confuse science proper with materialism as a false conception of nature , to say just that .
I was just stating what i thought to be facts extracted from your own replies on the subject .
Science is simply  the scientific method used by scientists humans , science is not an entity, let alone an independent entity out there , scientific method used and practiced by scientists humans via their human shortcomings, flaws , via their human limitations ...despite the advances of technology that relatively extend the scope and reach of those human limitations ...despite the fact that the scientific method used by scientists , is highly disciplined methodic , and despite the fact that scientific results are verifiable reproducible, falsifiable ...

I said : science does not exist as such , not in the sense that it is an alleged "totally objective entity " out there : there is no science in that sense at least , just the scientific method as an effective and unparalleled tool to try to explain and understand the universe , a scientific method used by scientists humans ...once again .
Quantum mechanics , for example, had shown that scientific experiments or scientific observations ...are changed by the scientist observer , by just looking at them :
I will give you a relevant quote on the subject , from Sheldrake 's above mentioned book , if you wish so .
I was just responding to your uninformed and wrong allegations , especially to those concerning the "fact " that science "is wholly devoid of assumptions ", as you put it earlier at least ,  ( I referred you to that materialist dogmatic belief system dominating in science , to that materialist dominating meta-paradigm in science , to relevant quotes of Sheldrake's book on the subject ...concerning the illusion of objectivity in science , concerning the obvious human character of scientists ...) , to the fact that you stated that intelligibility of the universe is irrelevant to science (How can that be , since the core assumption of science rests on the fact , or rather on the scientific core true assumption that the universe is intelligible ) , ....
Instead of reacting this absurd emotional rhetorical  way , just try to prove me wrong then ...scientifically then, since you do claim to be a pro scientist : just try to disprove the above...scientifically , not via emotions or via silly absurd rhetorics or   via wild speculations  .
Good luck indeed .

Your views concerning the nature of science , its alleged objectivity that's presumably totally devoid of assumptions  ......concerning the limitations , function and role of science are simply staggering , once again, the more when an alleged  self-declared pro scientist such as yourself would utter them = you are making your "case" only worse thus .
Neither of your  "despicable ",as you put it least ,  above mentioned professions are mine .

[cheryl j]

Any one of these articles has information about a finding or experiment that is vastly more useful, and just plain interesting, than anything Sheldrake has come up with, or in Nagel's curmudgeon-ish book.  Even the article on crickets.

Did You Have a Good Time? We Know Where You'll Store the Memory of It
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131002092301.htm

Thinking Crickets: 'Cognitive' Processes Underlie Memory Recall In Crickets
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090803193645.htm

Not What You Consciously Thought: How We Can Do Math Problems and Read Phrases Nonconsciously http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121114083930.htm

How Brain Activity Changes When Anesthesia Induces Unconsciousness
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121105151338.htm

Aiming To Avoid Damage To Neurocognitive Areas Of The Brain During Cranial Radiation
(Unless your consciousness is immaterial, then it's no problem)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091103112403.htm

How Old Memories Fade Away
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130918180925.htm

Social Reasoning And Brain Development Are Linked In Preschoolers
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090715074928.htm

Well-Connected Hemispheres of Einstein's Brain May Have Sparked His Brilliance
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131004104754.htm

Neuroscientists Find a Key to Reducing Forgetting: It's About the Network
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130829123444.htm

Early Scents Really Do Get 'Etched' In The Brain http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091105132448.htm

People Control Thoughts Better When They See Their Brain Activity
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110408101740.htm

Covert Operations: Your Brain Digitally Remastered for Clarity of Thought
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130921092234.htm

Can't Place That Face?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100728151429.htm


Flatworms Remember Their Surroundings, Even After Being Decapitated and Growing a New Head.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=flatworms-recall-familiar-environs-even-after-losing-their-heads

Long Memories in Brain Activity Explain Streaks in Individual Behavior
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130212075220.htm

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Any one of these articles has information about a finding or experiment that is vastly more useful, and just plain interesting, than anything Sheldrake has come up with, or in Nagel's curmudgeon-ish book.  Even the article on crickets.

Did You Have a Good Time? We Know Where You'll Store the Memory of It
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131002092301.htm

Thinking Crickets: 'Cognitive' Processes Underlie Memory Recall In Crickets
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090803193645.htm

Not What You Consciously Thought: How We Can Do Math Problems and Read Phrases Nonconsciously http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121114083930.htm

How Brain Activity Changes When Anesthesia Induces Unconsciousness
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121105151338.htm

Aiming To Avoid Damage To Neurocognitive Areas Of The Brain During Cranial Radiation
(Unless your consciousness is immaterial, then it's no problem)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091103112403.htm

How Old Memories Fade Away
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130918180925.htm

Social Reasoning And Brain Development Are Linked In Preschoolers
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090715074928.htm

Well-Connected Hemispheres of Einstein's Brain May Have Sparked His Brilliance
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131004104754.htm

Neuroscientists Find a Key to Reducing Forgetting: It's About the Network
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130829123444.htm

Early Scents Really Do Get 'Etched' In The Brain http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091105132448.htm

People Control Thoughts Better When They See Their Brain Activity
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110408101740.htm

Covert Operations: Your Brain Digitally Remastered for Clarity of Thought
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130921092234.htm

Can't Place That Face?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100728151429.htm


Flatworms Remember Their Surroundings, Even After Being Decapitated and Growing a New Head.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=flatworms-recall-familiar-environs-even-after-losing-their-heads

Long Memories in Brain Activity Explain Streaks in Individual Behavior
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130212075220.htm

Deja-vu :
Damn : how come i can't  find Obama or his memories inside of my tv ? ,silly me : i did look for them  so hard though   there : i did even cause the malfunction of my tv as a result ,by trying to totally reverse -engineer my tv  , in vain :  the whole world would be at my mercy if i can get access to Obama's memory or secrets , to the US' state secrets ,or to the CIA's stored  memories inside of CNN news channel ,inside of my tv haha

Cheryl : you do owe me a tv : i destroyed mine during that search ,thanks to you.
I sincerly hope (kidding again ) that that simple minded Skyli is not watching right now haha : he would believe in the "obvious truths revealed by these links of yours" so easily without ever using his critical mind , if he happens to have one at least , no offense , just kidding , "revealed truths by these links of yours " as real breakthroughs humanity has been waiting for all along   , i am afraid : Skyli : don't haha = that would mean that everything is just chemistry and physics = God does not exist thus haha ,or maybe is God just physics and chemistry though .

Deja-vu thus :
 We get bombarded  by such materialist misinterpretations of scientific experiments , scientific results , all day and night  long , honey  :
Well, dear pretty charming sis ,or materialist nice magical wich : kidding :
The above is just a logical extension of the materialist misconception of nature , of the materialist dogmatic belief system dominating in science , and of the materialist meta-paradigm in science, we have been talking about all along : reducing everything to just physics and chemistry : memory , consciousness, life, human cognition, conscience , feelings , emotions   ...cannot be reduced to just physics and chemistry : love neither.


I can make the whole internet full of similar "findigns " ,sweetie : that's the mainstream dominant view or orthodox materialist belief in science  by the way  ,that materialist approach that has absolutely nothing to do with science proper , ,under that materialist dominance in science , that's what i have been talking about all along : i see that by just taking a quick look at the first parts of your first link here above = materialism in science at work : pleasant-unpleasant memories stored in some  area of the brain haha = hilarious materialist misinterpretation of scientific experiments that gets sold to the people as scientific findigns or scientific results : that's the core issue of this thread , if you haven't noticed yet ,love .
I will take a look at the rest of your links, but i am afraid , they will just be playing the same  boring false noisy music ,via those tasteless materialist false music notes .
Show me where memory is stored then in those specific areas of the brain : how does that memory looks like = just like physics and chemistry, or neuro-physiological-electrochemical processes "emerging " from those  ritual sexy synchronisations oscillations vibrations strip-tease harmonious dances of neurons or of enesemble of neurons haha  ?
Come on, be serious : how can memory that's not a physical thing or process emerge from just chemistry physics ,or that memory can be equated with physical biological processes ?
Hilarious ...
Thanks though .
Good night , sweet Alice : sweet dreams .
Oh, your dreams might be stored as well in your head somewhere : they are just physics and chemistry : you might as well store them in a tube somewhere ...
What kindda  sane intelligent person can see memory at least , as just physics and chemistry ? Right , only materialists can , ironically incredibly amusignly unbelievably enough .
Bye, love .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

When is science proper gonna be delivered from that materialist bullshit : amazing .
Reminds me of that great song of Paul Mc Cartney, i guess :
"...Deliverance from the darkness that surrounds us ..." : let's hope for a swift and quick deliverance from the materialist darkness in science and elsewhere that surrounds us indeed .
Materialism as a primitive false  fanatic backward orhodox secular religion  in science and elsewhere ...

Just try to imagine with me , just try to imagine (Reminds me of that other great song , that of John Lennon : Imagine ), just try to imagine the exact sciences , human sciences : political science , economics , sociology, anthropology , psychology ...the science of history ...+ art and literature ...just try to imagine them all breaking free from that dark backward primitive materialist suffocating secular religion prison without a soul , without any windows , in order to be able to smell the fresh air , under the bright light of the sun :
Just imagine :
That 's 1 of my biggest dreams indeed , much bigger and much wider than that of Martin Luther King indeed ....
Just imagine , imagine that big dream ...coming true : the sky would not even be the ...limit .

[dlorde]

When is science proper gonna be delivered from that materialist bullshit : amazing .
...
Just imagine , imagine that big dream ...coming true : the sky would not even be the ...limit .

Dreams and imaginings are all very well, but perhaps you could explain how science will be done when it is free of 'materialist bullshit'?

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

When is science proper gonna be delivered from that materialist bullshit : amazing .
...
Just imagine , imagine that big dream ...coming true : the sky would not even be the ...limit .

Dreams and imaginings are all very well, but perhaps you could explain how science will be done when it is free of 'materialist bullshit'?

Well, materialism will be history : inevitable = just a matter of time  indeed , materialism that has been superseded even by the physical sciences, especially by quantum physics ...
How come you still do not get it yet , after all these lengthy kilometers of pages on this thread ?
Science will continue using its effective and unparalleled method that's like no other , but will be free from that materialist prison ,science has been confined to .
Science will have thus a non-reductionist meta-paradigm  at least  ...........
Science will then be able to approach the universe or reality as not exclusively physical biological processes ...
Consciousness  in all living organisms and in inanimate matter , the human mind, human cognition, feelings , emotions , love , ......in short : the mental side of nature will not be reduced to just physics and chemistry ....
What part of these statements can't you understand ?

[cheryl j]

Deja-vu :
Damn : how come i can't  find Obama or his memories inside of my tv ? ,silly me : i did look for them  so hard though   there : i did even cause the malfunction of my tv as a result ,by trying to totally reverse -engineer my tv  , in vain :  the whole world would be at my mercy if i can get access to Obama's memory or secrets , to the US' state secrets ,or to the CIA's stored  memories inside of CNN news channel ,inside of my tv haha

Cheryl : you do owe me a tv : i destroyed mine during that search ,thanks to you.
I sincerly hope (kidding again ) that that simple minded Skyli is not watching right now haha : he would believe in the "obvious truths revealed by these links of yours" so easily without ever using his critical mind , if he happens to have one at least , no offense , just kidding , "revealed truths by these links of yours " as real breakthroughs humanity has been waiting for all along   , i am afraid : Skyli : don't haha = that would mean that everything is just chemistry and physics = God does not exist thus haha ,or maybe is God just physics and chemistry though .

Deja-vu thus :
 We get bombarded  by such materialist misinterpretations of scientific experiments , scientific results , all day and night  long , honey  :
Well, dear pretty charming sis ,or materialist nice magical wich : kidding :
The above is just a logical extension of the materialist misconception of nature , of the materialist dogmatic belief system dominating in science , and of the materialist meta-paradigm in science, we have been talking about all along : reducing everything to just physics and chemistry : memory , consciousness, life, human cognition, conscience , feelings , emotions   ...cannot be reduced to just physics and chemistry : love neither.


I can make the whole internet full of similar "findigns " ,sweetie : that's the mainstream dominant view or orthodox materialist belief in science  by the way  ,that materialist approach that has absolutely nothing to do with science proper , ,under that materialist dominance in science , that's what i have been talking about all along : i see that by just taking a quick look at the first parts of your first link here above = materialism in science at work : pleasant-unpleasant memories stored in some  area of the brain haha = hilarious materialist misinterpretation of scientific experiments that gets sold to the people as scientific findigns or scientific results : that's the core issue of this thread , if you haven't noticed yet ,love .
I will take a look at the rest of your links, but i am afraid , they will just be playing the same  boring false noisy music ,via those tasteless materialist false music notes .
Show me where memory is stored then in those specific areas of the brain : how does that memory looks like = just like physics and chemistry, or neuro-physiological-electrochemical processes "emerging " from those  ritual sexy synchronisations oscillations vibrations strip-tease harmonious dances of neurons or of enesemble of neurons haha  ?
Come on, be serious : how can memory that's not a physical thing or process emerge from just chemistry physics ,or that memory can be equated with physical biological processes ?
Hilarious ...
Thanks though .
Good night , sweet Alice : sweet dreams .
Oh, your dreams might be stored as well in your head somewhere : they are just physics and chemistry : you might as well store them in a tube somewhere ...
What kindda  sane intelligent person can see memory at least , as just physics and chemistry ? Right , only materialists can , ironically incredibly amusignly unbelievably enough .
Bye, love .

Well, since you bring it up again and again, I am curious about the details of your theory of the brain simply being a receiver of "real" consciousness which is generated non locally from a as yet unidentified transmitter, and I have a few questions which you will mostly ignore because they seem so silly to you.

Are there any tasks that you would delegate to just the brain? Like say, the control of motor functions, moving the arms and legs? Regulation of blood pressure perhaps or releasing hormones? I recall you saying that your brain informs your consciousness of sensory information it is receiving from sense organs but it is your immaterial consciousness that interprets, makes inferences, or decisions about it. Is that correct?

Here is a situation  you might want to mull over:

There are two kinds of impairment that result in patients not being able to see objects in half of their visual field. One is caused by a lesion in the optic nerve. The other is caused by a lesion in a part of the brain called the visual associative cortex, that materialists say processes visual information and produces the visual experience. Although both patients cannot see objects in part of their optical field, the patient with optic nerve damage is conscious of it - he will complain "Hey, doc, I can't see anything on my left side! What's up with that?" The patient with a lesion in the visual associative cortex does not. He doesn't know he cannot see an object in that part of the visual field, and he doesn't experience a blind spot there. The patient's brain no longer has an area responsible for processing what is going on in that area of the visual field, and for that patient, it ceases to exist consciously. The patient does not complain, because the part of the brain that might notice or complain is incapacitated, and no other part takes over.

So what? you say. In your interpretation, in either case, it's just a broken TV set. The real "you" or consciousness is out there in outer space some where. I'm wondering if that real you is aware of the lesion in the associative visual cortex, if it is disrupting his life in any way, if he's frustrated or annoyed by the lack of information in his visual field? It's odd that he can't communicate any of this back to your receiver; it's almost as if from the point of view of your brain or body, he didn't exist!

I also recall you saying that just because certain brain activities are associated with certain thoughts, correlation does not prove causality. So what is the alternative explanation for this? Do you not think it odd, that the brain has so many specific areas that correlate, so many complicated connections between billions of neurons just to reflect or react to work that is really being done by the immaterial, mysterious consciousness?

Although you may see higher level cognitive or creative processes as somehow ephemeral, different from say, vision or hearing,  a lesion in the lateral frontal lobes produces deficits in sequencing. The patient is unable to plan or multitask. Orbital frontal lesions result in a loss of the ability to judge right and wrong. A lesion in the left temporal lobe or Wernickes area destroys a person's ability to comprehend written or spoken language, although he can still, himself, speak normally. So what I'm wondering is, when these types of brain damage occur, can the non-local form of your consciousness still perform these tasks somewhere out in space? Again, it must be quite frustrating for him when his robot like receiver on Earth can't! He's up there multitasking and sequencing properly, making moral judgements, but that silly body on Earth isn't doing what he wants!

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Deja-vu :
Damn : how come i can't  find Obama or his memories inside of my tv ? ,silly me : i did look for them  so hard though   there : i did even cause the malfunction of my tv as a result ,by trying to totally reverse -engineer my tv  , in vain :  the whole world would be at my mercy if i can get access to Obama's memory or secrets , to the US' state secrets ,or to the CIA's stored  memories inside of CNN news channel ,inside of my tv haha

Cheryl : you do owe me a tv : i destroyed mine during that search ,thanks to you.
I sincerly hope (kidding again ) that that simple minded Skyli is not watching right now haha : he would believe in the "obvious truths revealed by these links of yours" so easily without ever using his critical mind , if he happens to have one at least , no offense , just kidding , "revealed truths by these links of yours " as real breakthroughs humanity has been waiting for all along   , i am afraid : Skyli : don't haha = that would mean that everything is just chemistry and physics = God does not exist thus haha ,or maybe is God just physics and chemistry though .

Deja-vu thus :
 We get bombarded  by such materialist misinterpretations of scientific experiments , scientific results , all day and night  long , honey  :
Well, dear pretty charming sis ,or materialist nice magical wich : kidding :
The above is just a logical extension of the materialist misconception of nature , of the materialist dogmatic belief system dominating in science , and of the materialist meta-paradigm in science, we have been talking about all along : reducing everything to just physics and chemistry : memory , consciousness, life, human cognition, conscience , feelings , emotions   ...cannot be reduced to just physics and chemistry : love neither.


I can make the whole internet full of similar "findigns " ,sweetie : that's the mainstream dominant view or orthodox materialist belief in science  by the way  ,that materialist approach that has absolutely nothing to do with science proper , ,under that materialist dominance in science , that's what i have been talking about all along : i see that by just taking a quick look at the first parts of your first link here above = materialism in science at work : pleasant-unpleasant memories stored in some  area of the brain haha = hilarious materialist misinterpretation of scientific experiments that gets sold to the people as scientific findigns or scientific results : that's the core issue of this thread , if you haven't noticed yet ,love .
I will take a look at the rest of your links, but i am afraid , they will just be playing the same  boring false noisy music ,via those tasteless materialist false music notes .
Show me where memory is stored then in those specific areas of the brain : how does that memory looks like = just like physics and chemistry, or neuro-physiological-electrochemical processes "emerging " from those  ritual sexy synchronisations oscillations vibrations strip-tease harmonious dances of neurons or of enesemble of neurons haha  ?
Come on, be serious : how can memory that's not a physical thing or process emerge from just chemistry physics ,or that memory can be equated with physical biological processes ?
Hilarious ...
Thanks though .
Good night , sweet Alice : sweet dreams .
Oh, your dreams might be stored as well in your head somewhere : they are just physics and chemistry : you might as well store them in a tube somewhere ...
What kindda  sane intelligent person can see memory at least , as just physics and chemistry ? Right , only materialists can , ironically incredibly amusignly unbelievably enough .
Bye, love .

Well, since you bring it up again and again, I am curious about the details of your theory of the brain simply being a receiver of "real" consciousness which is generated non locally from a as yet unidentified transmitter, and I have a few questions which you will mostly ignore because they seem so silly to you.

Are there any tasks that you would delegate to just the brain? Like say, the control of motor functions, moving the arms and legs? Regulation of blood pressure perhaps or releasing hormones? I recall you saying that your brain informs your consciousness of sensory information it is receiving from sense organs but it is your immaterial consciousness that interprets, makes inferences, or decisions about it. Is that correct?

Here is a situation  you might want to mull over:

There are two kinds of impairment that result in patients not being able to see objects in half of their visual field. One is caused by a lesion in the optic nerve. The other is caused by a lesion in a part of the brain called the visual associative cortex, that materialists say processes visual information and produces the visual experience. Although both patients cannot see objects in part of their optical field, the patient with optic nerve damage is conscious of it - he will complain "Hey, doc, I can't see anything on my left side! What's up with that?" The patient with a lesion in the visual associative cortex does not. He doesn't know he cannot see an object in that part of the visual field, and he doesn't experience a blind spot there. The patient's brain no longer has an area responsible for processing what is going on in that area of the visual field, and for that patient, it ceases to exist consciously. The patient does not complain, because the part of the brain that might notice or complain is incapacitated, and no other part takes over.

So what? you say. In your interpretation, in either case, it's just a broken TV set. The real "you" or consciousness is out there in outer space some where. I'm wondering if that real you is aware of the lesion in the associative visual cortex, if it is disrupting his life in any way, if he's frustrated or annoyed by the lack of information in his visual field? It's odd that he can't communicate any of this back to your receiver; it's almost as if from the point of view of your brain or body, he didn't exist!



I also recall you saying that just because certain brain activities are associated with certain thoughts, correlation does not prove causality. So what is the alternative explanation for this? Do you not think it odd, that the brain has so many specific areas that correlate, so many complicated connections between billions of neurons just to reflect or react to work that is really being done by the immaterial, mysterious consciousness?

Although you see higher level cognitive or creative processes as somehow ephemeral, different from say, vision or hearing,  a lesion in the lateral frontal lobes produces deficits in sequencing. The patients is unable to plan or multitask. Orbital frontal lesions result in a loss of the ability to judge right and wrong. A lesion in the left temporal lobe or Wernickes area destroys a person's ability to comprehend written or spoken language, although he can still, himself, speak normally. So what I'm wondering is, when these types of brain damage occur, can the non-local form of your consciousness still perform these tasks somewhere out in space? Again, it must be quite frustrating for him when his robot like receiver on Earth can't! He's up there multitasking and sequencing properly, making moral judgements, but that silly body on Earth isn't doing what he wants!

No enough time now , sugar ,sorry :

 I will try to respond to the above another time then .
Thanks for bringing up these legetimate relevant issues  that should be addressed properly indeed , and that do puzzle me also ,obviously  .
I will just say the following though ,very quickly then,  for the time being at least :
The universe is certainly not a matter of just physical biological processes : it would make no sense if it was / is , simply because then it can certainly not account for such processes such as life , consciousness , feelings , emotions , memory ,love ....human cognition ...that cannot rise from physics and chemistry ,or cannot be equated with physics and chemistry , or cannot be physics and chemistry .
It makes no sense to say that memory is stored in the brain, or that the mind , consciousness ...just "emerged " from the evolved physical brain : that's just materialist magic that makes no sense .

That's 1 of the reasons  why   materialism is false .
As of the damaged areas of the human brain that seem to cause the loss of their corresponding parts of consciousness ....I just see that as being the case of the damaged receiver or brain that stops to receive those corresponding "signals " from  those corresponding parts of consciousness ...
Besides, the hard problem of consciousness can be only approached by a potentially non-reductionist approach,obviously  , in the sense that we can study the physical brain , while trying to figure out how it interacts with consciousness as such .....
Later then .

P.S.: No one yet , if ever , including Nagel, Sheldrake and the rest , were /are able to come up with a cristal-clear vision concerning how the potentially non-reductionist approach of consciousness , memory ,cognition, feelings , emotions ...can be done on the reality ground , or what that non-reductionist approach exactly is , how it might work ...
I already said though , on many occasions here , that that potentially non-reductionist naturalism as a possible alternative to reductionist naturalism ,is also a false conception of nature ....
I will try to elaborate on all that , later on thus .
Thanks , love .
Have fun .
Nice weekend .

[dlorde]

...perhaps you could explain how science will be done when it is free of 'materialist bullshit'?

Well, materialism will be history : inevitable = just a matter of time  indeed , materialism that has been superseded even by the physical sciences, especially by quantum physics ...
How come you still do not get it yet , after all these lengthy kilometers of pages on this thread ?
Science will continue using its effective and unparalleled method that's like no other , but will be free from that materialist prison...
Science will then be able to approach the universe or reality as not exclusively physical biological processes ...
...the mental side of nature will not be reduced to just physics and chemistry ....
What part of these statements can't you understand ?

I understand what you just said, but it didn't answer the question. Perhaps it was too general for you...

Let's be more specific; science involves observation, making hypotheses, and testing hypotheses; how do you propose that science observes the non-material, or tests a hypothesis about the non-material?

For someone who knows what they're talking about, it should be easy enough to give a realistic example; as that someone said recently, "when one pretends to know this or that  about something , one gotta prove that to be true".

[dlorde]

... As of the damaged areas of the human brain that seem to cause the loss of their corresponding parts of consciousness ....I just see that as being the case of the damaged receiver or brain that stops to receive those corresponding "signals " from  those corresponding parts of consciousness ..

Oh dear. Did you miss the parts where Chery described brain injuries that affect the subject's knowledge and judgement without affecting movement or communication?

If your external consciousness hypothesis was correct, the external consciousness's knowledge & judgement would not be affected, and it would be able to communicate that, as it would still have control of the brain's communication facilities.

How do you account for this?

[cheryl j]

That's 1 of the reasons  why   materialism is false .
As of the damaged areas of the human brain that seem to cause the loss of their corresponding parts of consciousness ....I just see that as being the case of the damaged receiver or brain that stops to receive those corresponding "signals " from  those corresponding parts of consciousness ...
Besides, the hard problem of consciousness can be only approached by a potentially non-reductionist approach,obviously  , in the sense that we can study the physical brain , while trying to figure out how it interacts with consciousness as such .....
Later then .

P.S.: No one yet , if ever , including Nagel, Sheldrake and the rest , were /are able to come up with a cristal-clear vision concerning how the potentially non-reductionist approach of consciousness , memory ,cognition, feelings , emotions ...can be done on the reality ground , or what that non-reductionist approach exactly is , how it might work ...

Yes, that would seem to be a bit of a problem, wouldn't it?

It's also ironic, that by relocating consciousness, and removing consciousness from the physical being whenever its receiver is malfunctioning, you have managed to reduce human beings to biological robots in a way no materialist has ever dared to do. You've out done Dawkins, my boy!

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Excerpts from "Science Set Free ..." By Sheldrake : Questions for materialists :


Experimenters’ expectations are known to affect the results of research in psychology, parapsychology
and medicine, which is why researchers often use blind methodologies. Do you think that
experimenter effects could play a role in other fields of science too?
Do you think that scientists and science students should write in the passive voice in their reports, or
use the active voice?
Most scientists publish only a small proportion of their results. Do you think that this is likely to
introduce serious biases into the scientific literature?
How should scientists deal with ideologically, politically or commercially motivated skepticism?
SUMMARY
Scientists are often imagined to achieve a superhuman level of objectivity. This belief is sustained by
the ideal of disembodied knowledge, unaffected by ambitions, hopes, fears and other emotions. In the
allegory of the cave, scientists venture forth into the light of objective truth and bring back their
discoveries for the benefit of ordinary people, trapped in a world of opinion, self-interest and illusion.
By writing in the passive voice (“a test tube was taken”) rather than the active voice (“I took a test
tube”) scientists tried to emphasize their objectivity, but many have now abandoned this pretense.
Scientists are, of course, people, and subject to the limitations of personality, politics, peer-group
pressures, fashion and the need for funding. Within medicine, psychology and parapsychology, most
researchers recognize that their expectations can bias their results, which is why they often use blind
or double-blind methodologies. In the so-called hard sciences, most researchers assume that blind
methods are unnecessary. This is no more than an assumption, and needs to be tested experimentally.
In most fields of science, researchers publish only a small proportion of their data, giving plenty of
scope for the selective presentation of results, and scientific journals introduce a further source of bias
through their unwillingness to publish negative findings. Fraud and deceit in science are rarely
detected by the peer-review system and usually come to light as a result of whistle-blowing.
Skepticism is a healthy part of normal science but is often used as a weapon in defense of politically
or ideologically motivated points of view, or to stave off the regulation of toxic chemicals. Productdefense
companies emphasize uncertainty on behalf of big business, influencing policy decisions in
favor of their clients. The separation of facts and values is usually impossible in practice, and many
scientists have to exaggerate the value of their research in order to get it funded. Although the
objectivity of science is a noble ideal, there is more hope of achieving it by recognizing the humanity
of scientists and their limitations than by pretending that science has a unique access to truth.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Excerpts from "Science Set Free ..." By Sheldrake : Chapter 12 : Scientific Futures :


The sciences are entering a new phase. The materialist ideology that has ruled them since the
nineteenth century is out of date. All ten of its essential doctrines have been superseded. The
authoritarian structure of the sciences, the illusions of objectivity and the fantasies of omniscience
have all outlived their usefulness.
The sciences will have to change for another reason too: they are now global. Mechanistic science
and the materialist ideology grew up in Europe, and were strongly influenced by the religious disputes
that obsessed Europeans from the seventeenth century onward. But these preoccupations are alien to
cultures and traditions in many other parts of the world.
In 2011, the worldwide expenditure on scientific and technological research and development was
more than $1,000 billion, of which China spent $100 billion.1 Asian countries, especially China and
India, now produce enormous numbers of science and engineering graduates. In 2007, at BSc level
there were 2.5 million science and engineering graduates in India and 1.5 million in China,2 compared
with 515,000 in the United States3 and 100,000 in the UK.4 In addition, many of those studying in the
United States and Europe are from other countries: in 2007, nearly a third of the graduate students in
science and engineering in the United States were foreign, with the majority from India, China and
Korea.5
Yet the sciences as taught in Asia, Africa, the Islamic countries and elsewhere are still packaged in
an ideology shaped by their European past. Materialism gains its persuasive power from the
technological applications of science. But the successes of these applications do not prove that this
ideology is true. Penicillin will go on killing bacteria, jet planes will keep on flying and mobile
telephones will still work if scientists move on to wider views of nature.
No one can foresee how the sciences will evolve, but I believe recognizing that “science” is not one
thing will facilitate their development. “Science” has given way to “the sciences.” By moving beyond
physicalism, the status of physics has changed. By freeing the sciences from the ideology of
materialism, new opportunities for debate and dialogue open up, and so do new possibilities for
research.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Excerpts from "Science Set Free ..." By Sheldrake : Are Memories Stored As Material Traces :

Are Memories Stored as Material Traces?
We take memory for granted, like the air we breathe. Everything we do, see and think is shaped by
habits and memories. My ability to write this book, and yours to read it, presupposes the memory of
words and their meanings. My ability to ride a bicycle depends on unconscious habit memory. I can
recall facts I have learned, like the year of the Battle of Hastings—1066; I can recognize people I first
met years ago; I can remember specific incidents that happened when I was on holiday in Canada last
summer. These are different kinds of memory, but all involve influences from the past that affect me
in the present. Our memories underlie all our experience. And obviously animals have memories too.
How does memory work? Most people take it for granted that memories must somehow be stored in
brains as material traces. In ancient Greece these traces were usually compared to impressions in wax.
In the early twentieth century they were compared to connections between wires in a telephone
exchange, and now they are thought of by analogy with memory-storage systems in computers.
Although the metaphors change, the trace theory is taken for granted by most scientists, and almost
everyone else.
From a materialist point of view, memories must be stored as material traces in brains. Where else
could they be? The neuroscientist Steven Rose expressed the standard assumptions as follows:
Memories are in some way “in” the mind, and therefore, for a biologist, also “in” the brain. But
how? The term memory must include at least two separate processes. It must involve, on the one
hand, that of learning something new about the world around us; and on the other, at some later
date, recalling, or remembering that thing. We infer that what lies between the learning and the
remembering must be some permanent record, a memory trace, within the brain.1
This seems obvious and straightforward. It might seem pointless to question it. Yet the trace theory
of memory is very questionable indeed. It raises appalling logical problems. Attempts to locate
memory traces have been unsuccessful despite more than a century of research, costing many billions
of dollars. For promissory materialists, this failure does not imply that the trace theory of memory
might be wrong; it merely means that we need to spend more time and money searching for the
elusive memory traces.
But memory traces are not the only option. Several philosophers in the ancient world, notably
Plotinus, were skeptical that memories were material impressions, and argued that they were
immaterial rather than material, aspects of the soul rather than the body.2 Likewise, more recent
philosophers, like Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, Bertrand Russell and Ludwig
Wittgenstein,3 saw memories as direct connections across time, not material structures in brains (see
Chapter 4).
My own suggestion is that memories depend on morphic resonance. All individuals are influenced
by morphic resonance from their own past. Morphic resonance depends on similarity; since organisms
are more similar to themselves in the past than to other members of their species, self-resonance is
highly specific. Individual memory and collective memory both depend on morphic resonance; they
differ from each other in degree, not in kind.
I start with the trace theory of memory, then discuss the resonance hypothesis, and finally ways in
which this hypothesis can be tested.

[alancalverd]

I am , in fact , very skeptical about your allegation that you are a pro scientist : how can that be ?

Fortunately you are not my client, patient, bank manager or professional registrar, all of whom seem convinced that I do know what I am talking about (though my students are encouraged to disagree).
 
 

: you might be one , but a very ignorant one regarding the nature of science , its alleged objectivity,

alleged by whom? Only a fantasist. It's a process, so it can't have human characteristics like objectivity.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Logical and Chemical problems :

Logical and chemical problems
Several modern philosophers have pointed out that the trace theory of memory runs into an insoluble
logical problem, quite apart from repeated failures to find memory traces.
In order for a memory trace to be consulted or reactivated, there has to be a retrieval system, and
this system needs to identify the stored memory it is looking for. To do so it must recognize it, which
means the retrieval system must itself have a memory. There is therefore a vicious regress: if the
retrieval system is endowed with a memory store, this in turn requires a retrieval system with
memory, and so on ad infinitum.4
There is a structural problem too. Memories can persist for decades, yet the nervous system is
dynamic, continually changing, and so are the molecules within it. As Francis Crick put it, “Almost all
the molecules in our bodies, with the exception of DNA, the genetic material, turn over in a matter of
days, weeks, or at the most a few months. How then is memory stored in the brain so that its trace is
relatively immune to molecular turnover?” He suggested a complex mechanism whereby molecules
were replaced one at a time so as to preserve the overall state of the memory-storage structures.5 No
such mechanism has been detected.
For decades, the most popular theory has been that memory must depend on changes in connections
between nerve cells, the synapses. Yet attempts to locate memory stores have proved unsuccessful
over and over again.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

The Fruitless Search For Memory Traces :


The fruitless search for memory traces
In the 1890s, Ivan Pavlov studied the way that animals such as dogs could learn to associate a
stimulus, such as hearing a bell, with being fed. After repeated training, merely hearing the bell could
cause the dogs to salivate. Pavlov called this a conditioned reflex. For many scientists at the time, this
research suggested that the animals’ memory depended on reflex arcs, in which the nerve fibers were
like wires and the brain like a telephone exchange. But Pavlov himself was reluctant to claim there
were specific localized traces. He discovered that conditioning could survive massive surgical damage
to the brain.6 Those who knew less about it were less cautious, and in the first few decades of the
twentieth century many biologists assumed that all psychological activity, including the phenomena
of the human mind, could ultimately be reduced to chains of reflexes wired together in the brain.
In a heroic series of experiments lasting more than thirty years, Karl Lashley (1890–1958) tried to
locate specific memory traces, or “engrams,” in the brains of rats, monkeys and chimpanzees. He
trained the animals in a variety of tasks ranging from simple conditioned reflexes to the solution of
difficult problems. After the training, he surgically cut nerve tracts or removed portions of the brain
and measured the effects on the animals’ memory. To his astonishment, he found that the animals
could still remember what they had learned even after large amounts of brain tissue had been
removed.
Lashley first became skeptical of the supposed path of conditioned reflex arcs through the motor
cortex when he found that rats trained to respond in specific ways to light could perform almost as
well as control rats after almost all their motor cortex was cut out. In similar experiments with
monkeys, he removed most of the motor cortex after they had been trained to open boxes with latches.
This operation resulted in a temporary paralysis. After two or three months, when they recovered their
ability to move in a coordinated way, they were exposed to the puzzle boxes again. They opened them
promptly without random exploratory movements.
Lashley then showed that learned habits were retained after the associative areas of the brain were
destroyed. Habits also survived a series of deep incisions into the cerebral cortex that destroyed crossconnections
within it. Moreover, if the cerebral cortex was intact, removal of subcortical structures
such as the cerebellum did not destroy the memory either.
Lashley started as an enthusiastic supporter of the reflex theory of learning, but was forced to
abandon it:
The original programme of research looked toward the tracing of conditioned-reflex arcs
throughout the cortex … The experimental findings have never fitted into such a scheme. Rather,
they have emphasised the unitary character of every habit, the impossibility of stating any
learning as concatenations of reflexes, and the participation of large masses of nervous tissue in
the functions rather than the development of restricted conduction paths.7
Lashley suggested that
the characteristics of the nervous network are such that when it is subject to any pattern of
excitation, it may develop a pattern of activity, reduplicated through an entire functional area by
spread of excitations, such as the surface of a liquid develops an interference pattern of spreading
waves when it is disturbed at several points.
He suggested that recall involved “some sort of resonance among a very large number of neurons.”8
These ideas were carried further by his former student Karl Pribram in his proposal that memories are
stored in a distributed manner throughout the brain analogous to the interference patterns in a
hologram.9
Even in invertebrates specific memory traces have proved elusive. In a series of experiments with
trained octopuses, learned habits survived when various parts of the brain were removed, leading to
the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that “memory is both everywhere and nowhere in particular.”10
Despite these results, new generations of researchers have tried again and again to find localized
memories. In the 1980s, Steven Rose and his colleagues thought they had at last succeeded in finding
traces in the brains of day-old chicks. They trained the chicks to avoid pecking at little colored lights
by making them sick, and the chicks duly avoided these stimuli when they encountered them again.
Rose and his colleagues then studied the changes in the brains of these chicks, and found that nerve
cells in a particular region of the left forebrain underwent more active growth and development when
learning took place than when it did not.11
These findings agreed with results from studies of the growing brains of young rats, kittens and
monkeys, which found that active nerve cells in the brain developed more than inactive nerve cells.
But the greater development of active cells did not prove that they contained specific memory traces.
When the region of active cells was surgically removed from the chicks’ left forebrains a day after
training, the chicks could still remember what they had learned. Therefore the region of the brain
involved in the learning process was not necessary for the retention of memory. Once again, the
hypothetical memory traces proved elusive, and once more those who searched for them were forced
to postulate unidentified “storage systems” somewhere else in the brain.12
In a more recent series of studies, mice were studied as they learned to negotiate a maze. The
formation of memories involved activity in the median temporal lobes of the brain, particularly in the
hippocampus. The ability to form long-term memories depended on a process called long-term
potentiation, which involved protein synthesis in hippocampal nerve cells. But yet again, the
memories proved elusive. Once the memories had been established, the destruction of the
hippocampus on both sides of the brain failed to wipe them out. Thus, the researchers concluded, the
hypothetical memory traces must somehow have moved from one part of the brain to another.
Erik Kandel, who won the Nobel Prize in 2000 for his work on memory in the sea slug, Aplysia,
drew attention to some of these problems in his acceptance speech:
How do different regions of the hippocampus and the median temporal lobe … interact in the
storage of explicit memory? We do not, for example, understand why the initial storage of
memory requires the hippocampus, whereas the hippocampus is not required once a memory has
been stored for weeks or months. What critical information does the hippocampus convey to the
neo-cortex? We also know very little about the recall of explicit (declarative) memory … These
systems properties of the brain will require more than the bottom-up approach of molecular
biology.13
Currently, in the Connectome Project researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
elsewhere are trying to map some of the trillions of connections between nerve cells in mammalian
brains, using thin slices of brain tissue and sophisticated computer analyses of the images. There are
about 100 billion neurons in the human brain. As Sebastian Seung, the leader of the MIT team, pointed
out, “In the cerebral cortex, it’s believed that one neuron is connected to 10,000 others.” This is a
vastly ambitious project, but it seems unlikely to shed light on memory storage. First of all, a person
has to be dead before his brain can be cut up, so changes before and after learning cannot be studied in
this way. Second, there are great differences between the brains of different people; we do not have
identical “wiring.”
The same is true of small animals like mice. A pilot project in the Max Planck Institute in Germany
looked at the wiring diagrams for just fifteen neurons that control two small muscles in mouse ears.
Even though this work was a technical tour de force, it revealed no unique wiring diagram. Even for
the right and left ears of the same animal the patterns of connection were different.14
The most striking deviations from normal brain structure occur in people who suffered from
hydrocephalus when they were babies. In this condition, also called “water on the brain,” much of the
skull is filled with cerebrospinal fluid. The British neurologist John Lorber found that some people
with extreme hydrocephalus were surprisingly normal, which led him to ask the provocative question:
“Is the brain really necessary?” He scanned the brains of more than six hundred people with
hydrocephalus, and found that about sixty had more than 95 percent of the cranial cavity filled with
cerebrospinal fluid. Some were seriously retarded, but others were more or less normal, and some had
IQs of well over 100. One young man who had an IQ of 126 and a first-class degree in mathematics, a
student from Sheffield University, had “virtually no brain.” His skull was lined with a thin layer of
brain cells about a millimeter thick, and the rest of the space was filled with fluid.15 Any attempt to
explain his brain in terms of a standard “connectome” would be doomed to failure. His mental activity
and his memory were still able to function more or less normally even though he had a brain only 5
percent of the normal size.
The available evidence shows that memories cannot be explained in terms of localized changes in
synapses. Brain activity involves rhythmic patterns of electrical activity extended over thousands or
millions of nerve cells, rather than simple reflex arcs like wires in a telephone exchange or wiring
diagrams of computers. These patterns of nervous activity set up—and respond to—changes in the
electromagnetic fields in the brain.16 The oscillating fields of entire brains are routinely measured in
hospitals with electroencephalographs (EEG), and within these overall rhythms there are many
subsidiary patterns of electrical activity in different regions of the brain. If these patterns, or systems
properties, are to be remembered, resonance across time seems more likely than chemical storage in
nerve endings.
More than a century of intensive, well-funded research has failed to pin down memory traces in
brains. There may be a very simple reason for this: the hypothetical traces do not exist. However long
or hard researchers look for them, they may never find them. Instead, memories may depend on
morphic resonance from an organism’s own past. The brain may be more like a television set than a
hard-drive recorder. What you see on TV depends on the resonant tuning of the set to invisible fields.
No one can find out today what programs you watched yesterday by analyzing the wires and
transistors in your TV set for traces of yesterday’s programs.
For the same reason, the fact that injury and brain degeneration, as in Alzheimer’s disease, lead to
loss of memory does not prove that memories are stored in the damaged tissue. If I snipped a wire or
removed some components from the sound circuits of your TV set, I could render it speechless, or
aphasic. But this would not mean that all the sounds were stored in the damaged components.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Can a Moth Remember What It Learned as a Caterpillar?


Can a moth remember what it learned as a caterpillar?
Insects that undergo complete metamorphosis experience enormous changes in anatomy and lifestyle.
It is hard to believe that a caterpillar chewing a leaf is the same organism as the moth that later
emerges from the pupa. In the pupa, almost all the caterpillar tissues are dissolved before the new
structures of the adult develop. Most of the nervous system is dissolved as well.
In a recent study, Martha Weiss and her colleagues at Georgetown University, Washington, found
that moths could remember what they had learned as caterpillars in spite of all the changes they went
through during metamorphosis. They trained caterpillars of the Carolina Sphinx moth, Manduca sexta,
to avoid the odor of ethyl acetate by associating exposure to this odor with a mild electric shock. After
two larval molts and metamorphosis within the pupae, the adult moths were averse to ethyl acetate,
despite that radical transformation of their nervous system. Weiss and her colleagues carried out
careful controls that showed this was a real transfer of learning, not just a carryover of odors absorbed
by the tested caterpillars.17
This ability of adult moths to remember their experience as caterpillars may well be of evolutionary
significance. If the plants that moths have experienced as caterpillars influence the behavior of adults,
the female moths will tend to avoid laying eggs on harmful plants and favor nutritious ones, even if
members of the species have never encountered these plants before. New patterns of preference for
particular host plants could be established in a single generation, and would persist in their offspring;
a species could evolve new feeding habits very rapidly.
The carryover of learning from caterpillar to moth after the dissolution of most of the nervous
system would be very puzzling indeed if all memories were stored as material traces, but there is
already evidence from higher animals and humans that memories may not be stored in traces and can
survive substantial damage to brains.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Brain Damage and Loss of Memory



Brain damage and loss of memory
Brain damage can result in two kinds of memory loss: retrograde (backward) amnesia, forgetting what
happened before the damage, and anterograde (forward) amnesia, losing the ability to remember what
happens after the damage.
The best-known examples of retrograde amnesia occur after concussion. As a result of a sudden
blow on the head a person loses consciousness and becomes paralyzed for a few seconds or for many
days, depending on the severity of the impact. As she recovers and regains the ability to speak, she
may seem normal in most respects, but is unable to recall what happened before the accident.
Typically, as recovery proceeds, the first of the forgotten events to be recalled are those longest ago;
the memory of more recent events returns progressively.
In such cases, amnesia cannot be due to the destruction of memory traces, for the lost memories
return. Karl Lashley reached a similar conclusion years ago:
I believe that the evidence strongly favours the view that amnesia from brain injury rarely, if
ever, is due to the destruction of specific memory traces. Rather, the amnesias represent a
lowered level of vigilance, a greater difficulty in activating the organized pattern of traces, or a
disturbance of some broader system of organized functions.18
Although many memories return, the events immediately preceding a blow on the head may never be
recovered: there may be a permanent blank period. For example, a motorist may remember
approaching the crossroads where an accident occurred, but nothing more. A similar “momentary
retrograde amnesia” also occurs as a result of electroconvulsive therapy, administered to some
psychiatric patients by passing a burst of electric current through their heads. They usually cannot
remember what happened immediately before the administration of the shock.19
Events and information in short-term memory are forgotten because a loss of consciousness
prevents them being connected up into patterns of relationship that can be remembered. The failure to
make such connections, and hence to turn short-term memories into long-term memories, often
persists for some time after a concussed patient has regained consciousness, and is sometimes
described as “memorizing defect.” People in this condition rapidly forget events almost as soon as
they occur.
Everyone agrees that the formation of memories is an active process. Either the inability to
construct them prevents new memory traces being formed; or this inability prevents the formation of
new morphic fields, resonant patterns of activity, and if these patterns are not formed in the first
place, they cannot be recalled by morphic resonance.
Some kinds of brain damage have very specific effects on people’s abilities to recognize and
recall,20 and others cause specific disorders, such as aphasias (disorders of language use) resulting
from lesions in various parts of the cortex in the left hemisphere. These kinds of damage disturb the
organized patterns of activity in the brain,21 and affect the brain’s ability to tune in to skills and
memories by morphic resonance.