Correlation does not entail causation.
(3) New technology allows us to see the brain at work, the actual increase in electrical and chemical activity. Researchers ask subjects to perform a task, like working a math problem, then map the brains as they work. How do we know that the brain cell activity is not a side effect of thought rather than the producer of thought? Because cell activity begins before the thoughts do. For example, if you look at your right thumb and decide to move it, your brain has already sent the signal to the thumb before the “you” that processes information decides to move it.
How can you possibly know precisely when a thought or decision occurs? Suppose you make a choice or decision which has no physical result - like choosing a topic to think about. When and where is the choice or decision located?
That inner voice that we think of as “us” is actually a construct of many simultaneous brain activities. It’s sort of like the operating system in a computer. Many programs are running at the same time, but the “user” only sees the important things. When the brain crashes, due to fever, starvation, trauma, intoxication, etc., the “user” program is the first one to malfunction and we experience some of the background programs in a disorganized fashion.
In that case how can “we” be rational, free to choose and responsible for our thoughts and actions?
Many religions encourage their members to experience being conscious but seeing behind the “user” program. They do this by sensory deprivation (extreme meditation), starvation, exhaustion, and other ways to stress the body to the point where brain chemistry is messed up, but the person is still conscious. From this experience, we get the idea of life being an illusion (the “user” program) while the “real” events can only be experienced by muting the “self”
What does that prove?
Physically affecting the brain should not affect consciousness as much as it does. If one’s consciousness is significantly altered or damaged by damage to the brain, this suggests that consciousness is dependent on the brain.
If you damage a guitar and it cannot be played does it show that the guitarist doesn’t exist and that there is no music? The brain is a physical mechanism not
a conscious**, responsible **agent.
It does more than just partially/completely shut a person off from the world - it actually massively disrupts their ability to think and reason.
It can prevent their ability to communicate altogether but that does not mean the person ceases to exist. Does he/she lose the right to life in such a situation?
*Because we are psycho-physical beings! *
That’s possible, but in the absence of evidence to show that emotions can be felt without brain chemistry, wouldn’t that suggest that emotions are entirely chemical?
Not at all. Emotions obviously have an effect on the body but they do not always originate in the body. We can choose to think about a subject and induce an emotion without there being a physical cause.
“The force” was just an example of another unprovable idea regarding the subject. I can just as easily say we’re in the matrix or that every day we wake up a different person with memories intact. Neat ideas, no evidence.