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Dear marron, do you mean to suggest that the brain is here making a false report about the factual state of the system it governs? I.e., that the brain registers the severed limb as still attached, based on neuronal inputs?

Yes. The brain is receiving a false signal, and its default is to interpret as it always has.

If this is the case, and mind or consciousness is merely the epiphenomenon of the brain, would mind be able to do anything other than confirm the brain’s false report?

Now you are moving into another realm, as I believe you fully realize. I would have to respond in two ways.

We are a physical being, a physical mechanism, with all that this entails. Of course, we are also more than that.

I was just referring to the phenomenon of nervous circuitry delivering a false signal to a particular point on the brain, and the brain receiving that signal, interpreting it in the normal fashion. The mind, having access to more data than just that one point, is able to recognize that this particular signal is false.

In my world, this happens all the time. You have circuits that fail, and either deliver no signal, or deliver a false one. If the programming is clever enough, the machine itself can work around it; if not, you have a human supervising it who should be able to recognize a false signal and either fix it or at least be smart enough to ignore it.

He is smart enough to recognize that the signal is aberrant because he has access to other data, and he has memory to compare it against. He knows what a true signal looks like.

In our case, with experience in our bodies and on this earth we come to recognize when our senses are failing us. At least, some of the time.

Our brain and nervous system are a fascinating piece of machinery, remarkably well programmed as you point out, and it will be a long time before we are able to come close to what it can do. But we will approach its capabilities, having it to use as a model, or example, we will over time reverse engineer it and use many of its lessons in our own creations.

But there is something else to the human machine which can't be accounted for by the machinery itself, and that is will. Machinery I deal with will always have a human operator, ultimately, who uses it for his ends. Our body also has a human operator, who directs it, and that human is somehow separate from his machinery, although he clearly can't live on earth, in this dimension, unless his machinery operates properly. The machinery fails, and he must depart this dimension or die. We cannot separate ourselves from our flesh and remain here, but we are not our flesh. We inhabit it, we direct it, we use it for our ends.

We are the ghost in the machine, made in the image of God. Separate from God, separate from the machine, we can't live on this earth. Separate from God, our lifespan can't exceed the lifespan of the machinery that we inhabit.

I think we are on the same wavelength here. The brain is a remarkable piece of hardware, a remarkable piece of programming. Physical control of the body, memory, reasoning, seem to take place there. These are physical attributes. Will, though, is something else. Will is an attribute of spirit. Will is the operator, the driver, the pilot. Will is you. At death, "will" disengages from the machinery by some means, and at that point your brain and body become cleverly designed meat. You can hook electrodes up to it and get muscle movement, but sovereign will, which is to say "you", has departed.

Machinery I deal with will always have a human operator, ultimately, who uses it for his ends. Our body also has a human operator, who directs it, and that human is somehow separate from his machinery, although he clearly can't live on earth, in this dimension, unless his machinery operates properly. The machinery fails, and he must depart this dimension or die. We cannot separate ourselves from our flesh and remain here, but we are not our flesh.

Well said, marron!

I agree, machines require "outside" operators -- be they programs or human operators -- in order to work. A Boeing 747 sitting on the runway, or a Porsche parked in your driveway, are not going to do anything at all to manifest what they are designed to do until a human being gets in them and makes them do something. Machines aren't self-actualizing systems. As you say, they do not possess will.

But human beings do possess will, and thus are self-actualizing systems. Ever since I was very young, I've been able to distinguish that "I" am not the same thing as my "robot," though "I" do inhabit it. I guess that makes "me" "the ghost in the machine."

Will, though, is something else. Will is an attribute of spirit. Will is the operator, the driver, the pilot. Will is you. At death, "will" disengages from the machinery by some means, and at that point your brain and body become cleverly designed meat.

Yes, I'd say we're on the same wavelength, marron. Thank you so much for the excellent post!