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Function

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Everything posted by Function

  1. Noticed the site was offline for quite a while, but it seems like it was totally worth it. Good job, everyone.

    1. Dave

      Dave

      No problem, and hope you enjoy the updates :) Sorry for the extended downtime -- we had a few technical issues on the database that were slowing things down.

    2. Function

      Function

      My god, notifications when someone replies to status updates and such? This is even better than expected!

    3. Dave

      Dave

      Indeed, I also just received a funky noise!

  2. The problem is, you almost certainly know that the US will tend to follow laws of war, whereas Vietnam might not - cf. ISIS, Syria, ... So it's not easy to tell. NBC/CBRN agents can do lot of damage.
  3. Are all of us experienced forum-members really giving medical information, advice and possible (differential) diagnoses? kpetrov, I suggest you consult a doctor with your problem, since we do not know the exact nature of your problem, you'd better consult your primary care physician (family doctor).
  4. Strictly seen, he said he had a question, not that he would share it with us
  5. Of course, your stomach will keep on working and will continue pumping food into the duodenum and, by extension, the jejunum. However, not all at once: this might result in gastric dumping syndrome, in which persons have "shock-lik" symptoms. Look it up.
  6. I'm not going to mingle in another pages-long discussion on this matter again, but could you explain to us what you mean with "natural"?
  7. Never thought communication skills learned in med school would ever prevent a dramatic developments in a feverish home-situation ... I would figuratively thank my teachers in communication on my bare knees

    1. koti

      koti

      Sounds like a success, good for you.

  8. I read that these elementary particles did not actually physically spin around their axis? That it's merely an oversimplification to make things comprehensible?
  9. Question asked too quickly. Please remove.
  10. I must emphasize the necessity of reading my whole post, if you please; I clearly deny any reincarnation theory but describe certain cognitive dissonance coping with the finality of our consciousness and its inherence to our brain.
  11. On second thought. Perhaps not whatever it'd take.
  12. I'm genuinely wondering at what point in evolution (self)consciousness and other higher forms of consciousness started to exist. What may have driven evolution to make brains evolve in something capable of doubting itself? The things we think and write down are basically actually just the results of some neural interactions, so perhaps the product that we call selfconsciousness and higher consciousness is just a mistake of evolution, and our brain was never meant to be able to do so.
  13. I'd do whatever it'd take to see and interview her if that would be even possible.
  14. Exactly! Thank you. Indeed, evolution's latest invention was a poisoned chalice and has dug its own grave.
  15. "Though that was the case" was about not being conscious. Naturally, we weren't conscious before we were born and we won't after our death. Other persons will start to exist and other lives will come to an end. Lives other than ours. I am fully convinced that the consciousness that forms our life is fully inherent to our brain and its objectively measurable neurobiological structures and functions, including its finity. Our consciousness will cease to exist together with our brain. But it is so incomprehensible what had been before our lives, and what will come after our lives. What made that the consciousness that is directing me typing this text was lucky enough to live in the time and space it currently lives in, and not in a developing country, and not in a country at war, and not in North Korea, ... That would be because our consciousness is the consequence of our brain. And was not assigned to it predeterminedly. However, I still find it remarkable and a bit unfair and over-the-top that evolution found it necessary for our brains to allow themselves to develop so far that they would allow consciousness to be created inherently, allowing us to doubt our very own existence, our very own consciousness, and our very own brain.
  16. Don't I? I believe posts #25 and #27 were serious attempts to do so. Festinger describes the cognitive dissonance as to be tempted by changing your mind and thoughts on the situation, which was up until that moment discongruent with your mind and thoughts. I've had serious attempts last night to get rid of the cognitive dissonance between what I know (that there is no afterlife and that our consciousness is finite in time and space) and what I try to figure out. However, there is no satisfying alternative capable of ridding the dissonance. Yet.
  17. Aren't we all - to a certain degree - victims of the honourable Festinger
  18. Oh believe me, I have no problems at all with death. I'm actually quite curious about it. But there truly is no one who can genuinely share their experiences about being dead. No one. It's something everyone has to discover unconsciously for themselves. We've been conscious all our life and we have no notion of having been unconscious before it, though that was the case. Truth be told, I'm eager to 'remember' (so much wrong with this word in this context) what it's like to be fully unconscious and to 'live' (lol) without consciousness. For the easily deterred people: don't worry. I'm not that eager to find out.
  19. It's truly fascinating thinking about it. Before we experienced the life we are living, we weren't bored because we didn't have anything to do for billions of years. So death should be equally insignificant to us. We always yammer about what comes after life, not what came before it. It drives me crazy thinking about how our consciousness is indeed the product of our brains, and that every human has consciousness produced by their brains, and that, theoretically, there will be an infinite amount of humans (really just theoretically). I've always - incorrectly, and I am aware of this incorrectness, but I cannot manage to throw away this thought pattern - thought about how it is that we experience the very life we are experiencing, and not that of our neighbour, of our friend, of the starving African kid - what made that we were supposed to live the life we're living? What makes that I am the conscious entity in Belgium typing this message as we are speaking, and that I can be spared from the African starvation misery? Whereas another entity was meant to undergo that misery? We are oriented in time and space, and what makes that the very person I am lives in the very time and space I am living in right now? I could've "had" the consciousness of a total different person, yet I am experiencing the life of this Belgian medical student. Why? What makes that the conscious entity that is experiencing this life was awarded this most advanced life form, instead of that of a dog, or a mouse? Would it simply not be compatible with those life forms? It is so incredibly fascinating to think about this: when we die, for us, it stops. And we will not be aware of it having stopped, we will be aware of totally nothing. It is truly fascinating indeed to speculate on how that would feel to us - because no one alive could ever tell. I'm not believing in any afterlife. I am aware of the finity of our existance but I cannot help but think that we will get to experience another life next. This incorrect thought pattern of mine would be like there's a finite amount of consciousnesses, and when someone dies, the consciousness stock gets refilled and a newborn baby gets consciousness from that stock and you get to live another life without having any clue you've already lived one. It's crazy to think that way, isn't it? Which must be why it's most probably false. The consciousness in my brain is inherent to my brain and everyone's consciousness is inherent to theirs. Which means that every consciousness is unique and there is an infinite amount of consciousnesses. Yet, something inside of me refuses to believe that I (for what it's worth here, "I" is meaningless), my consciousness, will not be assigned to another brain when I die, forgetting about the live I'm living now. Is it actually somewhat clear what I mean? Forgive me but we can only speculate and think of this from a rather philosophical point of view as we are speaking. Biology and medicine are not ready for answering the questions I gave. It is up until this day not possible to answer my questions from a pure scientifical point of view, imo. Per conclusion, what makes it that our brain is able and allowed to experience, think of, and above all, question its inherent consciousness? I am a strong believer that indeed, everything we are is the product of our brain. But why would it allow itself to create a product which could endanger its own existance and credibility, why would it allof such a product leading to doubt itself? Why would it even allow us to consider its highest form of development? Why was its cortex ever developed so far that it could fall victim to its own thoughts? It is thinking of these things that reminds me of Emerson Pugh, who said that "If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't." Bull's eye, Pugh. Unless ... Every brain has the same identical basal consciousness from the moment you could speak of consciousness (perhaps even before birth, considering that the self-consciousness thought to arise at approx. 1.5 years of age is a different form of consciousness) and the way that consciousness can think and express itself is totally dependent on neurogenesis and the way neurons interact with each other. What if there indeed is a certain basal consciousness present in me, you, and the starving African kid, an identical form of basal consciousness, molded to what it is today because of experiences throughout life and environmental factors? And what if I can think this way the African kid probably wouldn't because I know more on the subject, I refuse to allocate the source of our consciousness with a deity, and I allow certain brain regions to think on this matter in higher spheres, on a higher level of consciousness? Surely enough if the African kid got lucky and it's mother won some rare lottery and got to move to Europe and live a better life, it could now probably think the same way I think and could also question why his "consciousness" was 'put in' the body of the lucky African kid and not in one of the millions of unlucky ones? (Note that "the African kid" is of course a stereotypical metaphore and in no way implies racism; it's just an easy example) Geez. Time to go to bed.
  20. I've reached this strange point in my life - and I'm not quite certain whether it's a point more people reach, or a psychiatric problem - where I tempt to memorise as much as possible from any damn text I'm reading. And it's driving me crazy.

    1. imatfaal

      imatfaal

      Nurse! Nurse! We have another one here. Take notes, compress, summarise, and condense; learn the final "essence". Although in Medicine (from my memory of my couple of years of it) just memorizing stuff is pretty much par for the course - just make sure you avoid looking for clinical diagnostic points when reading the newspaper

    2. Raider5678

      Raider5678

      Perhaps, while you're at it, learn the trachtenberg method. Use this stage to your advantage!

  21. Hardest theoretical exam of the whole 6-year medical curriculum tomorrow (which is what every grad student says). Wish me luck.

    1. Show previous comments  4 more
    2. Function

      Function

      I'm quite flattered. For now, my heart (and brains) lies in neurology.

    3. imatfaal

      imatfaal

      clinical, research, or both?

    4. Function

      Function

      Both; I'd love to work as a neurologist but also be involved in fundamental neuroscientifical research (epilepsy, conscience, ...)

  22. In Dutch, potassium iodide tablets are called "jodiumtabletten", which means as much as iodine tablets. I curse the person having invented the word "jodiumtabletten". Which is a total paradoxal name for what it is. It doesn't have iodine. Sigh.

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