Free Republic

The first time I reached past the sheer horror of the concept of death and wondered what the experience of dying may be like, I was about 15. I had just discovered gruesome aspects of the French revolution and how heads were neatly cut off the body by a Guillotine. Words I remember to this day were the last of Georges Danton on April 5, 1794, who allegedly said to his executioner: “Show my head to the people, it is worth seeing.” Years later, having become a cognitive neuroscientist, I started wondering to what extent a brain suddenly separated from...

Since Galileo’s time the physical sciences have leaped forward, explaining the workings of the tiniest quarks to the largest galaxy clusters. But explaining things that reside “only in consciousness”—the red of a sunset, say, or the bitter taste of a lemon—has proven far more difficult. Neuroscientists have identified a number of neural correlates of consciousness—brain states associated with specific mental states—but have not explained how matter forms minds in the first place. As philosopher Colin McGinn put it in a 1989 paper, “Somehow, we feel, the water of the physical brain is turned into the wine of consciousness.” Philosopher David...

One of the obvious reasons that human beings’ destiny after they shuffle off this mortal coil is such an enduring mystery is that nobody ever comes back to tell us what really happens. Or do they? This is a question that has been the subject of intense speculation, particularly among people who focus on paranormal phenomena. Referred to frequently as “near-death experiences,” (NDEs) people do sometimes undergo what most doctors would refer to as “death,” including a complete cessation of brainwave activity, but are then “brought back to life.” And some of them claim to have memories of that period...

A letter, signed by 124 scholars and posted online last week1, has caused an uproar in the consciousness research community. It claims that a prominent theory describing what makes someone or something conscious — called the integrated information theory (IIT) — should be labelled “pseudoscience”. Since its publication on 15 September in the preprint repository PsyArXiv, the letter has some researchers arguing over the label and others worried it will increase polarization in a field that has grappled with issues of credibility in the past. “I think it’s inflammatory to describe IIT as pseudoscience,” says neuroscientist Anil Seth, director of...

For many people, the mind and brain are interchangeable. They use one word or the other to talk about the same thing: the organ in our skull that we use to think. However, the mind and brain are actually two very different, but interconnected, entities. As a neuroscientist, this reality is the foundation of my life's research and work: The mind works through the brain but is separate from the brain. What is the difference between the mind and the brain? So what exactly is the difference between the mind and the brain? Well, the mind is separate, yet inseparable...

A Washington Post article about banning laptops in the classroom claims that professors have found themselves losing to the “cone of distraction” generated by these devices. It’s ironic because the universities themselves exerted strenuous efforts to ensure that every student had a laptop only to find them a nuisance. They mandated them only to ban them. > Julian Jaynes in his “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” claimed that men once heard different parts of their brain as distinct voices. “According to Jaynes, ancient people in the bicameral state would experience the world in a...

Years ago, while with Mangyan tribesmen I concluded that these hill people could read an alphabet unknown to me. The foliage, sounds, the shift in airs, scents -- all of these -- spoke to them as directly as words in a book, though I scarcely imagined how. Later I discovered that psychologist Julian Jaynes had advanced the theory of the bicameral mind, which helped explain what I'd seen. His book, the Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind suggests that our ancestors were instructed by voices and visions. They understood through a process of unconscious thinking...

Researchers at the University of Leicester have unravelled a 2,700 year old mystery concerning The Oracle of Delphi -- by consulting an ancient farmer's manual. The researchers from the School of Archaeology and Ancient History sought to explain how people from across Greece came to consult with the Oracle... on a particular day of the year even though there was no common calendar... celestial signs observed by farmers could also have determined the rituals associated with Apollo Delphinios. Postgraduate student Alun Salt said: ..."I was playing around with a planisphere while suffering from insomnia. This is when I noticed that...

I think when we express a desire to be in, or go back to, simpler days, we're really wanting less thought.

To my knowledge, no one has argued that women evolved recursion before men. This seems like low-hanging fruit, given it’s the oldest story in the book. Indigenous cultures worldwide have myths of a primordial matriarchy where women reigned; which is about the political divide one would expect if recursion were initially gendered. Closer to home, Eve first tasted the fruit and became as the gods, knowing good and evil. Presumably, she spent time as a reflective agent while Adam lived in Edenic ignorance. In this post, I’ll put forth a more detailed model about why I think women evolved recursion...

Ancient Greek religion, what we call mythology, tells the same story as the Book of Genesis, except that the serpent is the enlightener of mankind rather than our deceiver. Athena represents Eve—the reborn serpent’s Eve in the new Greek age. She and the Parthenon and the entire ancient Greek religious system celebrate the rejuvenation and re-establishment of the way of Kain (Cain) after the Flood. Though on one hand Greek idolatry violates the teaching of the Word of God, on the other, if properly understood, it reinforces the truth of the Scriptures. The First Couple There is no Creator-God in...

For years, artificial intelligence has proven it can best humans at analytical tasks, but is less capable at skills like intuition and inference. Scientists from Stanford University investigated if neural networks like GPT-3.5 can master Theory of Mind (ToM) tests designed to analyze cognitive ability to predict the actions of others. Results show that GPT’s ToM ability arrived spontaneously in the last couple of years and the latest iteration delivered results comparable to a 9-year-old human.

Answer: Yes, beheading hurts. How much depends on the executioner's skill, or lack of it. When Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed at Fotheringay Castle in 1587, a clumsy headsman gave her three strokes without quite managing to sever her head. The headsman then had to saw though the skin and gristle with his sheath knife before the job could be regarded as complete. The profound, protracted groan Mary gave when the axe first hit left the horrified witnesses in no doubt that her pain was excruciating. How long is the interval of consciousness after the head is severed? In...

Many believe that conscious awareness originates in the brain alone. Recent scientific research suggests that consciousness actually emerges from the brain and body acting together. A growing body of evidence suggests that the heart plays a particularly significant role in this process. Far more than a simple pump, as was once believed, the heart is now recognized by scientists as a highly complex system with its own functional “brain.” Research in the new discipline of neurocardiology shows that the heart is a sensory organ and a sophisticated center for receiving and processing information. The nervous system within the heart (or...

Are our thoughts made of the distributed kind of electromagnetic field that permeates space and carries the broadcast signal to the TV or radio. Professor Johnjoe McFadden from the School of Biomedical and Life Sciences at the University of Surrey in the UK believes our conscious mind could be an electromagnetic field. “The theory solves many previously intractable problems of consciousness and could have profound implications for our concepts of mind, free will, spirituality, the design of artificial intelligence, and even life and death,” he said. Most people consider "mind" to be all the conscious things that we are aware...

Some of the greatest unanswered questions about the nature of the universe are related to light, the vacuum (i.e. space where neither matter nor radiation exists), and their relationship with time. In the past, physicists and philosophers have addressed a variety of complex questions, for instance, what is the nature of the vacuum, and how is the propagation of light connected to the passing of time? Researchers at the University of Konstanz have recently carried out a study exploring the quantum states of light and vacuum fluctuations, as well as their interplay with time. Their paper, published in Nature Physics,...

As humans, we know we are conscious because we experience and feel things. Yet scientists and great thinkers are unable to explain what consciousness is and they are equally baffled about where it comes from."Consciousness — or better, conscious experience — is obviously a part of reality," said Johannes Kleiner, a mathematician and theoretical physicist at the Munich Center For Mathematical Philosophy, Germany. "We're all having it but without understanding how it relates to the known physics, our understanding of the universe is incomplete."With that in mind, Kleiner is hoping math will enable him to precisely define consciousness. Working with...

In his own time, Paul warned against becoming slaves of the elemental spirits. And with good reason since they can pass right through the earth, enter into animals and speak and act through them as easily as through water, trees, statues, and humans.

Turning to the future, Brown said technological change and the development of artificial intelligence would transform the concept of the divine. "We will start to find our spiritual experiences through our interconnections with each other," he said, forecasting the emergence of "some form of global consciousness that we perceive and that becomes our divine". "Our need for that exterior god, that sits up there and judges us ... will diminish and eventually disappear."

A book titled “Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the Nature of the Universe“ has stirred up the Internet, because it contained a notion that life does not end when the body dies, and it can last forever. The author of this publication, scientist Dr. Robert Lanza who was voted the 3rd most important scientist alive by the NY Times, has no doubts that this is possible.[...]The theory implies that death of consciousness simply does not exist. It only exists as a thought because people identify themselves with their body. They believe that the body is...