GreenDestiny

Hi everyone! On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H._Pribram I read that "Drastic lesions can be made in animal brains which reduce, but do not extinguish memories (training), as demonstrated by Karl Lashley in the 1920s." Does anyone know about these experiments? How is this seen today in neuroscience? Can memories be extinguished by brain lesions? Another question I have refers to a different Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory#Physiology It it you can read: "Other scientists who have investigated the nature of memory, namely neurologists John Carew Eccles and Wilder Penfield and biologist Rupert Sheldrake, have suggested that memories are a field phenomenon and are not stored in the brain at all, but rather accessed through neurological structures." Does anyone know anything about these theories? If memories and the mind are not part of the brain, what is the brain good for in the context of memorizing things then? Is the brain actually needed for the functionality of memory according to these theories or could the mind theoretically access them without having or using a brain?

Yes, of course I also know that all these stories are only anecdotes. But when I read stories like that I always find myself asking "how can that be?"... and then I don't find rest until I come up with a good explanation for it.

Now about the book "The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy", also by Jack Deere. (Amazon.com link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0830733892/) Apparently there are persons who call themselves 'prophets' and who are supposedly able to know things about other people the haven't met before and are allegedly even able to foretell their future. The author of the book, Jack Deere, tells that he didn't believe in this himself at first. He then went to see such a person and try him out. As a result he became convinced of modern prophecy. He met that person at a church called Kansas City Fellowship and his name was Mike Bickle. I will only quote some parts relating to what the prophet said. The story is told with a lot more detail in the book. While telling this story, Deere even mentions cold reading, by the way. He says that because he knew about these tricks he hardened his face like stone and didn't give him any clue about him whatsoever. "The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy", pp. 15-25 This is all only from the first chapter of the book. I haven't read anything from the rest so far. But what do you think about this story? Actually it sounds a bit cracy... modern prophets? It even sounds strange from a theological point of view. Didn't the old prophets reveal general things about the future? Or are prophets that tell people personal things about their lives and show them new ways for the future also mentioned anywhere in the Bible? But admittedly, I'm not Christian. According to Deere God spoke to him through the prophet. How could one explain all the things that this guy told Deere about his life?

I just found something new concerning this issue. On Amazon.com I read some excerpts from books by Jack Deere. He talks about so-called "Gifts of the Holy Spirit" and how he, theologically denying them before, came to believe in them. First I read a part of "Surprised by the Power of the Spirit" (Amazon.com link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310211271). He talks about how one day he had a telephone conversation with a renowned psychiatrist and Christian author (Dr. White) of whom he wanted to hold 4 lectures at his church. That person wanted to talk about healing though and convinced him that it still exists today. He then told him about two spectacular stories he had experienced: "Surprised by the Power of the Spirit", p. 20 Well, the first story could probably be explained by psychological and medical means. I'm not so sure about the second story, but unfortunately he doesn't give any more details. He then goes on about the lecture about healing Dr. White had held at his church and how some people were prayed on afterwards. One woman was there who had a specific problem: her desire for people's approval was actually controlling her life. To make it short, she was healed in a very dramatic scene where her head began to go up and down and she began wailing. In the end she was healed, with the author, Jack Derre, mentioning that she would normally never have done such an embarrassing thing in public. According to him all her problems existed because she had been possessed by a demon, that was taken away from her that day when she was later prayed on again in private. Well, actually that story does not sound very convincing to me. The whole incident can probably be explained by psychological means. However there are some more stories later in that book. He talks about John Wimber, who seems to be some kind of faith healer. He describes the first of Wimber's session that he witnessed. He began with healing people with back pain. "Surprised by the Power of the Spirit", pp. 35-37 He then goes on to talk about Paul Cain. He seems to be some kind of healer as well, apparently with some prophetic abilities. "Surprised by the Power of the Spirit", pp. 39-41 What do you think about these stories? What explanations could there be for them? Actually so far I have been rather skeptical about those faith healers. For me they look like charlatans. Those stories presented in the parts of the book sound quite astonishing though... You can find an excerpt from the book on the Amazon.com link mentioned above. With the "search inside the book" option you can also find all the other parts I mentioned in this posting. I have only quoted the most relevant parts here. I read some parts from another book by Jack Deere - "The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy" - but I will talk about that in another posting.

Thanks, I just wrote a reply to your post. According to the National Geographic article I mentioned there, "more than a hundred billion neurons make up the human brain, and the nerve cells are bunched in neocortical columns. These columns mark a jump in the brain's evolution that occurred 200 million years ago as mammals emerged from reptiles." (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0720_050720_bluebrain.html) BTW, how are the brains of other animals organized, e.g. dolphins? Those are said to be highly intelligent as well (of course not comparable to humans, but still impressive). However, I don't think it makes that much of a difference whether one calls the neural units "dendrons" or "neocortical columns". I'd be interested if anyone else except of Eccles has done some serious study about those supposed "psychons" and if there is any scientific research that has been done about them.

Interesting. The possibility of a DNI sounds rather scary to me though. I agree that it could (and probably would) be heavily abused. I found a news article about the project at this site: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0720_050720_bluebrain.html I'm not so sure if it's really possible to put all these ideas into practice that easily (or even at all). It will be quite interesting to follow how much AI will be able to improve in the future. padren, there has been some talk about the split-brain syndrome in one of my earlier threads. You can find it here. Here's a quote from a site I mentioned in my last posting from that thread: From: http://www.macalester.edu/~psych/whathap/ubnrp/split_brain/Consiousness.html (Unfortunately the link is no longer working - however, you can still see it at the Internet Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20040820125746/http://www.macalester.edu/~psych/whathap/ubnrp/split_brain/Consiousness.html The text needed to be highlighted with the mouse cursor in order to be seen on my computer though)

I just found something about John Eccles at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carew_Eccles So his Nobel Prize has nothing to do with free synapses or dualism, but he wrote about this philosophy: "How the Self Controls Its Brain" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Self_Controls_Its_Brain A quote from that link: Are there other persons that have dealt with these "psychons" or is there any research that has been done about them?

AL, I understand what you are saying, but thinking this way everything is natural. Everything that exists, no matter what it is, must be natural then. And of course that makes sense, but still I think it might sometimes make sense as well to talk about unnatural or supernatural things, even if they would be natural as well in the strict sense. ---- Hm, I also had thoughts along similar lines about possible explanations, bascule & Edtharan. According to the second article she was at least able to walk with the aid of braces and a walker at the age of five. Maybe the bad condition she was in after those spasms had also psychological reasons. Maybe she could have stood up and walked at the point of time when the miracle occurred even without the 'miracle', but just didn't think it was possible. Of course we don't know... it's a strange case anyway.

Well, maybe cancer might be a bad example. Especially of cancer it is known that rare cases of spontaneous remission exist. Not all of them are connected to some religious miracle story, sometimes it just goes back on its own. The reason for this is not known yet, I think.

Yes, that's true, but I wanted to say that at least it wasn't only shown on the 700 Club, but that she also told her story elsewhere. Oh, interesting, I didn't know that. But from what I've read, that Pat Robertson guy sometimes makes very wild claims, like being able to steer hurricanes away from his company by prayer. *g* That might be true... on the other hand, if she stayed in a hospital, there must be records, so at least I don't think that her whole illness story is made up. The name of the hospital is even mentioned in the article. What do you think how those events could be explained in a natural way? Like her precognition of the church... Yes, of course I know that. I just wanted to write down a short definition, but it's not that easy to keep it short and accurate at the same time. How would you define the term 'miracle' then? Maybe the involvement of something 'supernatural' could be required. But then one could ask, how do you define supernatural?

Yes, I also had thoughts along those lines. What do you think how her knowledge of that church she gained from her vision could be explained? According to the article she described it in great detail to the pastor...

I see... I think I now understand the concept of property dualism, thanks. From what I've read the appendix (as well as the cecum) is still used for the digestion of cellulose in some other mammals. In addition to this it's supposed to have a function as part of the human immune system.

@AL: That woman from the article, Marlene Klepees, did not only appear on the 700 Club. If you search for her name on Google you come up with other pages, e.g. this one: http://www.heavensscentflowers.com/marlene.htm There's also a french website talking about her, IIRC even with a small video.

Anything that goes against the known laws of nature in an extreme way. Like the story I talked about above. Usually it's in a religious context, e.g. miracle healings, visions of the future, etc. Also like the story I talked about above.

Hi everyone! I'm a rather agnostic person myself and although I wouldn't completely rule out the existence of something beyond our universe, I'm usually quite skeptical about miracle claims. But then there are some stories out there that really are quite astounding. What do you think about this issue? What do you make of miracles? For instance take this story: http://www.cbn.com/700club/features/amazing/healing_marlene_klepees110501.asp The woman in that article, Marlene Klepees, had been handicapped since her childhood. She suffered from cerebral palsy, a disease for which there exists no cure so far. Throughout the years her condition worsened until she was at a point where she didn't even have any real control of her head or her neck. But then she received a vision from God of her being healed in a church and of a date three weeks ahead. She waited, but on the day before that date nothing had happened. She then had someone open the Yellow Pages and pick out some church. They called the pastor and after she had asked him a lot of questions about what the church believed, they arranged a meeting. They finally brought her to the church where she was prayed upon and healed - there she could start walking again. Her vision improved as well, so she could take of her glasses. A few weeks later she was completely healed - all signs of previous abnormality were gone. She's living a normal life since then. Another astounding thing is that in her vision she could get a clear picture of everything, so she described the church to the pastor in great detail on the phone, never having been in the church before. How could she know these details? For the complete story click on the link above. What do you think about this?

So according to property dualism it's not like atoms having both physical and mental properties, but rather like the atoms forming the brain, in the way they work together giving rise to the mental properties? Well, actually I'm not a Cartesian dualist. I don't hold the view of any specific philosophy (one could call me rather agnostic), but still I myself am rather skeptical of the claim made in the original posting. I'd like to know if the given description of those free synapses is correct though, or if maybe it is exaggerated. If those free synapses exist, what could they be good for? Well, I haven't heard of this. More possible 'antennas'? Do you have a source for that?

Property dualism... didn't know that, but I found something on Wikipedia: "It asserts that when matter is organized in the appropriate way (i.e., organized in the way that living human bodies are organized), mental properties emerge." There's also a short definition at http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/propertydualism.html. Do I understand it correctly that it means that matter has or can have different properties, like on different levels? Like some atom having physical properties, but also having mental properties on a different level at the same time? But to come back to the question of the free synapses: Yes, I think that's what it's saying. But it doesn't sound as if those were only a couple of stray synapses here and there, but rather as if the whole surface was covered with them - not randomly, but with a real structure. Yes, I've just read something like that quite recently. So there seems to be some hierarchy, but as you said, just no single place to which we could point for consciousness. I expect because the actual relevance of these free synapses has been severely overstated. That might be true. Actually, I don't know enough about brain structure to comment on that - that's why I started this thread.

Hi everybody! I've not been on the SFN forums during the last months, but today I read about an issue that fits quite well into the neuroscience forum I think. It's from a German website, so the text is in German, but I will translate the part I am talking about. Let's begin: From: http://www.karl-leisner-jugend.de/Hinweise%20auf%20Gott.htm What do you think about this? Is the description of the brain structure and of those free synpases correct? Well, at least a Nobel prize winner talks about it... but what about the interpretation that they are receivers for a soul? Are there really no other explanations for them? Why isn't this topic more talked about in the media or in science generally? At least I hadn't heard about it so far... Regards, GreenDestiny

Indeed! "This kind of topsy-turvey picture can only be resolved by taking a more holistic view of the brain as the organ of consciousness. The whole shapes the parts as much as the parts shape the whole. No component of the system is itself stable but the entire production locks together to have stable existence. This is how you can manage to persist even though much of you is being recycled by day if not the hour." It'll be interesting when someone find out more about it... 'No component itself is stable, but the system as a whole is' is not really a very detailed explanation.

Well, at the moment it seems that these split-brain patients still remain one person rather than become two new ones. I found an interesting link about this operation: http://www.indiana.edu/~pietsch/split-brain.html Also, from another site: From: http://www.macalester.edu/~psych/whathap/ubnrp/split_brain/Consiousness.html Very interesting, really. So there still seems to be one unified consciousness, but some part of it works on its own, like some kind of subconsciousness. Also, the brain isn't really split into two completely seperate parts, but as the text says still connected through other parts below. Thinking of the original question of this thread, what would happen if you took out half of the brain of a person and transplanted it into another body (where the brain had been completely removed before): Maybe this wouldn't work the way I thought it would, because you can't really take out one complete half - thinking of that 'Y', the bottom is important for the forming of a personality as well, I guess. I was wondering which of the two new persons the original person would be, if one half of the brain were transplanted, but I think that the person would remain in the original body then (with several disabilities of course). If you find out something more, just post it here. Also, something else I asked myself: If the two brain halves don't work together very well after they have been split, why don't these patients have difficulties with three-dimensional vision? After all you need the information from two images to create a three-dimensional picture - why aren't there any problems when each half of the brain gets an image from one eye only?

Wow, that's interesting and indeed rather strange. This is really like two distinct persons living in the same body. How do these persons react to the situation? Do they know that there is somhow someone else in their head? Seen from the perspective of one of those persons... Well, thinking of those boys who had half of their brain removed - wouldn't it be a bit like killing them? I mean, in a way they would not be the same person they had been before... their old "I" would no longer exist.

I somewhere read the argument that the cells of the human body are continuously being replaced by new ones, so that after some period of maybe 7 years you have a completely new body. Because of this, the argument goes on, the world can't be completely material and there has to be something like a soul, because your body has been exchanged but you are still the same person. What do think of think of this argument? I also read somewhere that brain cells are indeed the only cells that are not being replaced (and that explains why brain damage is permanent). Can someone clarify this? Do you have the same cells in your brain from birth to death? Another thought I had was that maybe cells could be replaced, but the information that is carried in the brain could stay the same - so that the "I" is something like the ongoing state of the information in your brain. But if the cells themselves stayed the same, this argument wouldn't work anyway...

Is this really true? Do you have a source for it? At least that sounds very strange... so that person's two brain halves aren't connected anymore? Does one half always control one arm then or how does the experiment work? Still I'm wondering, if this would happen to me... right now I have the conscious experience of being me - what it feels like to be me. This seems to be a unique experience, at least I can't have the experience of being my neighbor or anybody else. So if they removed the connecting neurons between my brain halves - which of the two persons would I be then? I mean, you can't be two persons at the same time.. you can't be yourself and your neighbor as well and have both conscious experiences. Or would it be more like two new persons with new unique personal conscious experiences?

Yeah, I'll definitely see it, I'm already very curious how it's gonna be. But I have good feelings about it. I already liked Episode II, while Episode I was very mediocre and this one should be the darkest of them all... and that sounds like a good thing. Also this one should really tie the story together, so I'm positive about it. But I think I won't see it on the first day, maybe one or two weeks later...