Textbooks did not tell most students that.
Neuroscience
Wort und Wissen conference May 28-30, 2021
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At Mind Matters News: Clarity about life that some demented people experience just before dying
The phenomenon of terminal lucidity first attracted attention when it appeared among people who were cognitively challenged or demented (because otherwise, it might not have been noticed)
At Mind Matters News: Neuroscientist: We are closing in on the secret of self-awareness…
But then he turns around and admits that we are frustratingly far from understanding how it all works. His frustration is understandable.
Indian jumping ants can shrink and regrow their brains
It’s certainly true that the brain is plastic. but human brains can do more remarkable things than ant brains. People can function with split brains or half a brain or hardly any brain and be intellectually normal. We didn’t know that before brain scanning.
Rob Sheldon reflects on skepticism about the findings from research brain scans (fMRI)
Sheldon: The skeptical neuroscience student talks about the sin of employing too many statistical searches on the data, also known as “p-hacking”. Once again, the sin is not in using statistics, but rather in refusing to tell the world how many searches you made on the data before you settled on this one. Because the significance is not simply the data p-value, but the search space you used in finding it.
Michael Egnor: Why a budding neuroscientist is skeptical of fMRI brain scans
Takehome: If people are judging what the rest of us think based on this, stop letting them. It could get beyond a joke.
J. P. Moreland on mind over matter
Moreland on the difference between the mind and the brain, how it points to the existence of the soul, and how we can communicate this to others.
Is science drifting from simple materialism to panpsychism?
It seems to have come down to a choice between “nothing is conscious” and “everything is conscious.” But materialism becomes incoherent when it requires us to believe that we only imagine we are conscious — that’s a basic error in logic.
Is the mind just a program run by the brain?
Michael Egnor: No. The mind is the opposite of computation. Mental states are always intentional and computation, by its nature, is never intentional.
Michael Egnor’s thought experiment on partial brain transplants
Egnor: We tend to assume that there must be a medium of communication both between our eyes and our whole brain in order to see. But people who have had split brain surgery see quite well even though their hemispheres have been separated (thus there is no direct connection). If the eyes (and hemispheres) are separated by 4000 miles, would the principle be any different?
Can cryogenics (freezing at death) preserve memories or consciousness?
The question cryogenics of the connectome raises is, can we freeze and then recover consciousness itself as opposed to simply saving imprints of a person’s memories? Dr. Frankenstein is now taking your calls.
At Nautilus: A bioelectric theory of consciousness
The hypothesis that consciousness is a function of bioelectric fields includes the notion that our individual cells are conscious. Levin and Dennett are willing to think of parts of the body as agents too. But from what we can tell, whole persons are not agents in Dennett’s view.
Michael Egnor asks, Are human brain transplants even possible?
Egnor: If tiny bits of the brains from all the people in my neighborhood were transplanted into my brain, would there be a neighborhood in my skull?
Michael Egnor: What would happen to your soul if your head were transplanted?
Michael Egnor: As with so many metaphysical questions about the mind-body relationship, we need first to understand the meaning of the words we use.