There's nothing in this article or the one you linked to that suggests consciousness is anything but the product of biochemical activity in the brain.
I'm sincerely curious how you think that's the case.
edit: i use 'neuronal' and 'biochemical' interchangeably in this context, because I don't see a sharp distinction. I read the whole article, but I missed the quote you excerpted. I am boggled by it. Systemic death means nothing if neurons don't die (apoptosis) and the brain remains structurally intact - it's structural and chemical properties of neurons that determine self, and if those are preserved then it's fairly shallow notion of death. I mean, what does he say about people that suffer strokes or TBI and are completely changed by it, even though they never were clinically dead? Sorry if I misinterpreted you, but you utilized the passive voice in a way that made it seem like you were strongly implying it.
edit: you may be unaware of the enormous structural complexity of the brain (see purkinje cells) and the fact that sensitivity to input can result in structural changes (synaptic plasticity). It's the graph structure of the billions of neurons and hundreds of trillions of connections combined with the structural changes at those connections that effect their sensitivity to neurotrasmitters - not the series of impulses at any point in time - that encodes self.
>There's nothing in this article or the one you linked to that suggests consciousness is anything but the product of biochemical activity in the brain.
First, both the article and I mentioned "neuronal activity" not "biochemical activity". Second, did you even read the article? Money quote from Dr. Parnia:
"All I can say is what I have observed from my work. It seems that when consciousness shuts down in death, psyche, or soul – by which I don't mean ghosts, I mean your individual self – persists for a least those hours before you are resuscitated. From which we might justifiably begin to conclude that the brain is acting as an intermediary to manifest your idea of soul or self but it may not be the source or originator of it… I think that the evidence is beginning to suggest that we should keep open our minds to the possibility that memory, while obviously a scientific entity of some kind – I'm not saying it is magic or anything like that – is not neuronal.""
>I'm sincerely curious how you think that's the case.
Did I even say I did? I said "if..." and "would strongly suggest". First a conditional and then a qualifier. I personally have no strong opinion on the matter. Clearly you do.
What do you mean by "neuronal activity"? If you're saying it's not just the electrical activity of the brain that constitutes the self, that seems to be true; electrical activity can come to a complete halt and be restarted without apparent loss of selfhood. If you're saying the self is something more than whatever the entire brain does--including neurons, glial cells, and all the rest--that's off in woo-woo-ville.
I'm sincerely curious how you think that's the case.
edit: i use 'neuronal' and 'biochemical' interchangeably in this context, because I don't see a sharp distinction. I read the whole article, but I missed the quote you excerpted. I am boggled by it. Systemic death means nothing if neurons don't die (apoptosis) and the brain remains structurally intact - it's structural and chemical properties of neurons that determine self, and if those are preserved then it's fairly shallow notion of death. I mean, what does he say about people that suffer strokes or TBI and are completely changed by it, even though they never were clinically dead? Sorry if I misinterpreted you, but you utilized the passive voice in a way that made it seem like you were strongly implying it.
edit: you may be unaware of the enormous structural complexity of the brain (see purkinje cells) and the fact that sensitivity to input can result in structural changes (synaptic plasticity). It's the graph structure of the billions of neurons and hundreds of trillions of connections combined with the structural changes at those connections that effect their sensitivity to neurotrasmitters - not the series of impulses at any point in time - that encodes self.