At 9/2/08 09:50 AM, explosiveoxygen wrote:
Do you believe it is completely physical
Nope.
In about a year, 98% of the atoms in your body will be replaced. The body takes about seven years to replace every single cell in it. Consciousness (whatever aspect of it) cannot be physically mapped to the brain on a one-to-one basis. When we use EEGs and the like, we are looking at electromagnetic and biochemical patterns -- and the patterns are more meaningful than just the medium they travel through.
Sure, it could be said that electrons moving across nerves is still "physical", but there isn't much to suggest that they are in fact a CAUSE rather than a CONSEQUENCE of consciousness. If you focus your mind in certain ways (e.g. meditation and such) you can actually manipulate your brainwave state. By your own volition you can change the patterns. So... I see them merely as an effect of consciousness, not the actual cause of it.
or that it can exist out of the body and even without a body?
I tend to think so.
People have been able to remember, lucidly, near-death,out-of-body experiences during times in which they were technically, clinically, dead. No heartbeat, no breathing, and even more importantly -- absolutely NO electrical activity being registered in the brain WHATSOEVER. There have been many attempts to explain such phenomena, some more compelling than others, but none are very convincing in explaining how or why someone could remember ANYTHING, let alone something coherent and meaningful and with deep implications towards the life they lead... all while undeniably, certifiably brain-dead.
