How Can Molecules Think?

[partinobodycular]

Think of our consciousness as a ladder of Involution and Evolution, the route through which the formless Spirit became Matter and also the path that the soul rises or deepens in spirit.

How is this not solipsism?

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

How is this not solipsism?

How do you see it as solipsism?

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Why would a person chooses to think that?

I don't understand your question.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Did molecules think all this up?

Yes. My neurons are so clever.

Did a ghost push the molecules in your brain around so they directed your fingers to type this? Cool. What happens if somebody else's ghost starts pushing the molecules in your brain?

 

[doubtingmerle]

Why would a person chooses to think that?

Because of cognitive dissonance, perhaps?

 

[AV1611VET]

What happens if somebody else's ghost starts pushing the molecules in your brain?

We call that "demon possession."

 

[durangodawood]

I think with my brain. My brain is made of molecules. Therefore, molecules, when arranged in a certain way, can think.

But how can that be? After all, you are alive, and you feel what it is to be alive. You are experiencing conscious awareness. How can this awareness be nothing more than the result of molecules and elementary physical particles?

Your conscious awareness might seem to you to be something immaterial that is telling the molecules of your body what to do. And yet, as I wrote at Is There Life after Death, there is abundant evidence that the physical brain is indeed the thing that thinks. There is no soul inside running the show. The brain is in control.

Your brain does the thinking. And it creates the appearance that there is a person in charge controlling everything. Rather, what you have is a mass of neurons acting in parallel. But within that mass of neurons, some ideas rise to attention and drive the body. They create the story that the attention is in charge, but it is only there for the ride. The many neurons acting in parallel are in charge. I discuss this at How Can Molecules Think?

Lets say we take your brain and blend it into a smoothie.

No one would be surprised that this "brain" cant think anymore*. Why is that? Whats the fundamental difference?

 

[durangodawood]

Without the soul, any thinking would be like an AI robot or computer. ...

How do you know this?

 

[Estrid]

I don't understand your question.

Sorry to hear that.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

What does, "The word became flesh and dwelt among us" mean in the context of this thread about molecules and consciousness?

 

[Halbhh]

At my website I use the diagram below to illustrate how this could happen.

This illustrates what we all observe. We have a stream of thoughts that somehow come to our attention, and we really don't know where they come from or which thought will be next. They just present themselves to our attention. And I think we all observe that this is happening, regardless of whether the ultimate cause is neurons acting in parallel, or from within a soul. Either way, the root cause of our next thought somehow causes our next thought, and our consciousness really does not have control of what that will be.

I think this is likely to be generally like what is actually happening (that is, generally mostly correct).

Something really interesting happens when the unusual situation arrives (for almost anyone from time to time, even if rarely), that a person is truly undecided, and feels attracted to both of 2 options, and is torn between wanting both. Not only the common situation of wanting to do choice A, but holding back, undecided, because of a bad outcome that A is also likely to include -- torn between wanting an outcome but not wanting the secondary effect -- but instead of that, other situations of being undecided that are not like this one at all. Such as wanting 2 mutually exclusive choices both of which one would like to have, but is merely time constrained or such to choose only 1. etc.
And then, instead of mulling it over a while and choosing....sometimes people don't feel which choice they want more, even when (as often happens) the 2 choices/paths are very unalike.

What's most interesting among these situations isn't for a person that is often undecided, but for those that are rarely undecided....

When such indecision is much less common event for a person, which might happen even only once in 10 or 20 years, and they feel something perhaps which is hard for them to put into words even when normally they have no trouble at all vocalizing why they chose their many other significant choices they did quickly and without indecision.

Those moments are quite interesting, just like a transit of a planet in front of a star is interesting.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Lets say we take your brain and blend it into a smoothie.

Let's not.

 

[durangodawood]

Let's not.

OK. We can use my brain for the thought experiment. Lets stipulate that it currently "thinks".

 

[Bradskii]

Lets say we take your brain and blend it into a smoothie.

No one would be surprised that this "brain" cant think anymore*. Why is that? Whats the fundamental difference?

I guess the same reason that nothing will work as it did originally if you put it into a blender.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Molecules don't "think". They do compose neurons which transmit electrical signals from synapse to synapse. The cumulative of these signals might be called thought.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Molecules don't "think". They do compose neurons which transmit electrical signals from synapse to synapse. The cumulative of these signals might be called thought.

Why is it that, when molecules in a brain turn into a slushy, thinking stops?

 

[AV1611VET]

Why is it that, when molecules in a brain turn into a slushy, thinking stops?

It's basic physics.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Why is it that, when molecules in a brain turn into a slushy, thinking stops?

Slushies lack the sophisticated architecture of neurons. All organization is lost.

 

[doubtingmerle]

It's basic physics.

Only brains got squished in this episode, not souls. But somehow, when the brain is squished, thoughts are hindered.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Slushies lack the sophisticated architecture of neurons. All organization is lost.

View attachment 320324

Right answer!

That's why a brain turned into a slushy cannot think, but a structured brain can.