Out of Brain Experience

[Jeff]

Here's a thought experiment for fun and discussion:

Lets say,in the far future super high resolution brain scanners and nano robotic surgery is perfected;but the mind-brain question still remains and debates rage on over it.
http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Mind-body_problem

(Lets also say that ethics are out the window because the world is now run by fascist corporations combined with an authoritarian world Government.)

A brain from a healthy individual is placed into a vat with nutrients and artificial circulation,metabolic waste is removed.It is wired to a super computer that can feed input in the form of electrical impulses directly to isolated single neurons and networks associated with conscious experiences.Other than their origin,they are otherwise identical to conventional neural impulses.The brain's output is through the speech centers and are run to a computer that decodes activity and translates it into 'speech'. The mind-brain can report it's subjective state verbally through this machine interface.

Experiments:
1.A camera is pointed at the brain in a vat and it's video feed is routed to the brain through the computer to the optic nerves.They receive stimulation just as they would conventionally from a retina.

The brain is scanned as the mind of the brain is instructed to report the moment it sees a picture.The timing relative to the speech interface output can be subtracted to pinpoint the precise neurons involved at that moment of visual perception.

The mind of the brain reports an 'out of brain experience' as it sees it's embodiment in the vat from the position of the camera.

2.Now,to test the mechanistic and reductionist hypotheses:From the scanning data,they isolate only the neurons that were stimulated in the cortical areas by the camera-computer-optic nerve input that are now associated with subjectivity.

Then go straight to ONLY those cortical neurons that were activated at the moment of conscious perception and repeat the exact impulses that they had received previously.

All others in the chain can be ignored because their presence shouldn't matter if said activated neurons are identical to conscious visual experience as reductionism maintains.



Possible Questions For Discussion:
1.What do you think would happen and why?

2.If all of the neurons involved were to be nano surgically removed and sustained in a petri dish ,but still hooked to the input computer and output computer in the same way then what?

3.In experiment two,if you think the neurons still 'saw' something,what role did the camera and computer play to begin with ?

4.Are the mind and the brain identical? If yes,where in physical space would the phenomenal colors,shapes,objects occupy a place?

5.What would the self referencing loops reported in the experiments tell us if anything?

6.What caused the output impulse after the cortical stimulation to the speech-language centers?

7.How does the visual content of the OBEs we experience differ?

8.What's the difference between phenomenal space and 'real' physical space?

9.What made the neurons involved different from any other neuron?

10.How are the impulses that originated from the camera different from those straight from the computer? How are impulses between neurons different from those outside of neurons?

11.What if everything above were to be done by wireless transmission ? What needs 'embodiment' and what doesn't?

[Jeff]

Experiment 3

Stimulate the "neural correlates of consciousness" associated with an OBE -Lucid Dream state in the same manor as above.

Question:
What do you think would happen and why?

[Summerlander]

Lets say,in the far future super high resolution brain scanners and nano robotic surgery is perfected;but the mind-brain question still remains and debates rage on over it.

You are starting from a hypothetical scenario which is only likely to yield speculative answers.  Also, we don't yet know enough about the brain to answer the questions you have proposed.  For this reason alone I can't answer them and I honestly don't know.  Is this another attempt to refute reductionism, though, or are you genuinely interested in what people want to say, Jeff?

[Jeff]

Lets say,in the far future super high resolution brain scanners and nano robotic surgery is perfected;but the mind-brain question still remains and debates rage on over it.

You are starting from a hypothetical scenario which is only likely to yield speculative answers.  Also, we don't yet know enough about the brain to answer the questions you have proposed.  For this reason alone I can't answer them and I honestly don't know.  Is this another attempt to refute reductionism, though, or are you genuinely interested in what people want to say, Jeff?

Nobody knows,and that is the honest answer I think too.But I am still interested in anyone's thoughts one way or another because this hypothetical puts both externalism and internalism's assumptions into play;but neither of them seem sufficient to me on their own.I've had enough of debating about this stuff really.....I'm more curious about what people think and why. 

On reductionism,I think it is ,for sure, one effective way of investigating reality that yields lots of important information but it only goes so far IMO.Personally I don't think that we (the human race)should assume that we'll get all of the answers with just one approach.I hope that the phase will be a new frontier..... 

I read this in a New Scientist magazine article today and the "raft built out of beliefs" statement mostly sums it up for me:

"Quite separately, rigorous logicians such as Harvard's Willard Van Orman Quine abandoned the search for a foundation of reality and took "coherentist" positions. Let go of the notion of a pyramid of knowledge, they argued: think instead of a raft built out of our beliefs, a seaweedy web of statements about perceptions and statements about statements, not "grounded" in anything but hanging together and solid enough to set sail upon. Or even, possibly, to be a universe."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... xists.html