[Hank Kerchief]

Kudos to the author for getting it right. Changes in the structure or chemical balance of the brain may affect the human mind -- but they do not create or generate the human mind. Far from being the "organic computer" that the materialists imagine, the brain is a sort of mind/body interface organ -- tying together the body here in the physical universe with the the mind (spirit) Somewhere Else to make a complete person.

This is an unusual view, albeit, a correct one. I would be interested in how you came to hold it.

I would express it somewhat differently (as you probably would under other circumstances). Consciousness is not an emergent quality, as is popularly believed, because, as you correctly pointed out, it is distinct from that material (physical) existense it is conscious of. However, I would not say it is "somewhere" else, because, not being material in nature, would not have spatial or temporal qualities.

I have a very rigorous ontology that accounts thoroughly for the relationship between the natural (material/physical) world, and the supernatural existense of which the natural world is a subset. The rational/volitional mind (of man) as well as all consciousness (sentient life) and life itself actually belong to the supernatural realm, (but differentiated from it, just as matter is, but at a higher level of differentiation). Organisms, conscious life, and human brains are operative interfaces between the two realms.

I would be very interested in your views on this subject.

Hank

[Colinsky]

I've been savoring this quote from Colin Tudge that I found a few weeks ago:
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Is the brain simply a computer, and is consciousness merely the feeling we get when we think? Or is consciousness a primary component of the universe, which the brain can latch on to, like a radio receiver?
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I like to think that consciousness is a primary component of the universe.