IUBio

Consciousness

Matthew Kirkcaldie Matthew.Kirkcaldie at removethis.newcastle.edu.au
Wed Nov 12 22:05:26 EST 2003


In article <3fb25ab4.72496186 at netnews.att.net>,
 lesterDELzick at worldnet.att.net (Lester Zick) wrote:

> I think what you have to recognize is that consciousness in general is
> certainly conceptually separable from the body/brain/mind. 

That may be so Lester - but electricity is conceptually seperable from 
magnetism, and yet the two are manifestations of a single phenomenon in 
reality.  The gedankenexperiment is an inadequate tool here because, 
surprise, it's a product of consciousness!

And to answer another bit of this thread, yes, I do believe that 
cellular properties contribute fundamentally to consciousness.  I don't 
believe my liver is conscious, but I do believe that (for instance) that 
the elements of biochemistry it shares with my brain are of funadmental 
importance to the type of consciousness which arises from my brain.  
It's not just the pattern of clicks, but the paracrine communication 
between cells and their interactions with the rest of the body.

In some ways I believe that the subtlety of interaction which is 
possible in a multidimensional biochemical system like the neurons of 
our brain, is what enables so many elements to interact to produce a 
cohesive experience.  Their biological nature may bind the neurons to a 
commonality which is impossible to achieve in a nonliving system.  Oops, 
there I go with a gedankenexperiment, I think I'll stop rambling here.

         Matthew.



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