the "the brain is a radio" analogy

[Myriad]

So this theory basically produces the same physical and mental phenomena as the regular scientific theories about brain function, only it adds an extraneous and unfalsifiable entity.

Yes.

My point was, those phenomena that end up the same include the finality of personal death, unless you add a whole bunch more arbitrary bits and pieces to the "theory."

 

[marplots]

If I need my specific brain to receive the specific signals I call "me," then what happens when my brain is no more?

It's like he's saying there's a unique radio tuned to a station broadcasting "me," but then, somehow, it doesn't matter that the only such radio is going to die and rot away. It doesn't matter much if the radio station is still broadcasting if there's nothing to pick up the signal.

Is he suggesting we start making the "radios" of the dearly departed? Is he a fan of Betamax too?

 

[The Sparrow]

I guess what it gives folks is the classic religious things:
immortality
suffering has purpose
I matter in some larger cosmic sense
etc.

I'd LIKE to believe these things, but can't. Instead I had to grow up, face those difficult truths, find what can and does matter, and make the most of the real life I do have.

It just grinds my gears when the woo meisters latch onto 'quantum' and claim they have scientific backing for their woo.

 

[MuDPhuD]

It doesn't seem like a clever argument to me at all.



That doesn't make any sense.

If the brain were simply acting as a transceiver for an external mind, then nothing done to the brain or body could directly affect the functioning/processes of the mind itself, it could only interfere with the ability of the mind to control/interact with the body.

And because things such as the ability to experience empathy, or do math, or understand language, are all internal processes of the mind, nothing that could be done to the brain could possibly interfere with the mind's capacity to perform these things.

The fact that damage to the brain can interfere with the mind's capacity to perform these things is extremely compelling evidence that the mind is a product of brain activity, and does not exist independently of it.

To use a more common example, let's look at alcohol.

If the brain were only a transceiver, then alcohol consumption could only interfere with the mind/body connection, but not with the mind itself. People might lose co-ordination, have trouble focusing their eyes, ect. But their thought-processes, emotions, ect, would be unaffected, because the alcohol has no mechanism by which it can interfere with thought-processes, emotions, ect, since the mind isn't part of the body, which is where the alcohol is.

But if the mind is a product of brain activity, then alcohol could easily interfere with thought-processes, emotions, ect, because it's directly affecting the brain.

And so the fact that alcohol does interfere with thought-processes, emotions, reaction-times, alertness, ect, then this is demonstrable evidence that the mind actually is the product of brain-activity, and that the brain is not merely a transceiver for an external mind.

(Although nelsondogg seems to have beaten me to making this point.)

This is how I see it as well. The brain as a "receiver" is not a very good analogy at all. If you want to hypothesize it as a "transceiver" that makes a little more sense.
All of the contents of the sensorium are gathered from the material world by the sense organs and nervous system and transmitted to the "consciousness" (which unsurprisingly remains undefined in any of these circular discussions). Interfering with the sensory pathways by lesion, electrical impulses, or neuro-chemicals thus interferes with transmission to the "extra corporal thingy". Likewise for the motor pathways but in reverse. Intention to act would be transmitted to the brain which then operates the body like a puppet. So far so good.

How about emotional states? In which direction does my feeling of happiness flow? Does my sensorium generate a feeling of happiness from my limbic system which is then transmitted to my "thingy" for ultimate appreciation, or is it the reverse, where my sensory state generates happiness in my "thingy" which is then transmitted back to the limbic system to generate the neural correlates of happiness?

How about memories? Same argument applies; which way should memories be flowing through the transceiver if my "consciousness" is a separate entity?

The results of micro-stimulation of the brain in awake patients show that artificially induced activity in brain circuits generates feelings and memory recall, in addition to movements and sensory events. This seems difficult to account for using the transceiver model, unless all the content of consciousness is generated by the brain, and the non-corporal entity is something else entirely; basically it is left devoid of all content.

 

[MuDPhuD]

So this theory basically produces the same physical and mental phenomena as the regular scientific theories about brain function, only it adds an extraneous and unfalsifiable entity.

I wonder what a certain mr. Occam would have to say about that.



Unless the 'brain as receiver' camp can explain or predict things that the scientific model can't, it's basically useless.

Exactly my conclusion as well.

I have a thick book of such predictions and evidences here on my bookshelf called "irreducible mind".
The various documentations of evidence amounts to:
ESP is real
Ghosts exist
NDEs are just that
OBEs and other mystical experiences taken at face value
The existence of genius and savant capabilities.

Needless to say, I remain unconvinced.

 

[tsig]

This is how I see it as well. The brain as a "receiver" is not a very good analogy at all. If you want to hypothesize it as a "transceiver" that makes a little more sense.
All of the contents of the sensorium are gathered from the material world by the sense organs and nervous system and transmitted to the "consciousness" (which unsurprisingly remains undefined in any of these circular discussions). Interfering with the sensory pathways by lesion, electrical impulses, or neuro-chemicals thus interferes with transmission to the "extra corporal thingy". Likewise for the motor pathways but in reverse. Intention to act would be transmitted to the brain which then operates the body like a puppet. So far so good.

How about emotional states? In which direction does my feeling of happiness flow? Does my sensorium generate a feeling of happiness from my limbic system which is then transmitted to my "thingy" for ultimate appreciation, or is it the reverse, where my sensory state generates happiness in my "thingy" which is then transmitted back to the limbic system to generate the neural correlates of happiness?

How about memories? Same argument applies; which way should memories be flowing through the transceiver if my "consciousness" is a separate entity?

The results of micro-stimulation of the brain in awake patients show that artificially induced activity in brain circuits generates feelings and memory recall, in addition to movements and sensory events. This seems difficult to account for using the transceiver model, unless all the content of consciousness is generated by the brain, and the non-corporal entity is something else entirely; basically it is left devoid of all content.

By adding a universal consciousness to the mix you are adding an entity that is not needed to explain the brain.

 

[Pixel42]

If consciousness originates elsewhere and is "received" by the brain, why do the genes and upbringing of the body in which that brain resides play such a big part in determining the nature of that consciousness?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

we've accounted for all the fields and forces that act upon the material world.

I actually agree but just to be a pain how would we know if there was a field or force that we hadn't detected?

 

[jond]

I actually agree but just to be a pain how would we know if there was a field or force that we hadn't detected?

Here's a link to a thread about QFT and how we know there are not field interactions at the human scale. The video in the first post is key.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=279144&highlight=woo+stops

 

[marplots]

I actually agree but just to be a pain how would we know if there was a field or force that we hadn't detected?

Because, in order to be a force, it would have to interact with the world and other forces. That's pretty much required to be a force at all.

From there, it's like accounting. If all the numbers add up the way they are supposed to, there's nothing left to sneak past the auditors.

 

[bruto]

I think my brain is a television. Unfortunately it's analogue and now all I get is snow.

Whenever I see this kind of thing my first inclination is just to say, "well, no, it's not a radio. It's a brain. Analogy is useful to explain something you know. It's nonsense to explain something you don't.

 

[Ladewig]

Pretend Deepak: No No, what is being damaged is the machine that allows our universal consciousness mind from interacting with this particular physical reality.


Pretend Deepak: No, things like empathy and love come from the universal consciousness, and our brains are required to process this "energy" into our physical reality.


No no, you are a biased objective materialist and are projecting that bias onto your interpretation of the evidence.



I debated this for weeks with someone on beliefnet, even the memories they claimed were stored in the universal consciousness. The brain was just used to express it into our physical realility.

I also used schizophrenia and he claimed that the universal consciousness was quite sane and intact, just the brain transmitter was broken. Same for depression.
Most frustrating and futile. Especially having someone tell me what my depression feels like and what it really is. What crap!

Yes, your Pretend Deepak is good at covering the counter-arguments. Furthermore things like alcohol or brain damage might be degrading the signal reception just enough to make some things garbled but not everything. Just as analog radio or TV signals can still be mostly understood when outside influences (weather, distance) weaken the signal. Conversely, one might argue that in addition to good signals (empathy, love, "The Secret") being transmitted, other parts of the universe transmit bad signals (selfishness, hate, skepticism) and things like brain damage change the tuner just enough to pick up the dark transmissions.

I, personally, don't believe a single word in that previous paragraph. I typed it out to illustrate how frustrating, insulting, and infuriating it can be to end up in The Sparrow's shoes and be in a position where one argues with a True Believer about such garbage.

 

[The Sparrow]

.... I typed it out to illustrate how frustrating, insulting, and infuriating it can be to end up in The Sparrow's shoes and be in a position where one argues with a True Believer about such garbage.

Thankyou for that

 

[Brian-M]

Yes, your Pretend Deepak is good at covering the counter-arguments. Furthermore things like alcohol or brain damage might be degrading the signal reception just enough to make some things garbled but not everything. Just as analog radio or TV signals can still be mostly understood when outside influences (weather, distance) weaken the signal.

That still wouldn't explain the observed effects.

Let's imagine that you're operating a robotic body by remote-control. That's a good analogy for this claim.

Now let's say that something happens to the robot body's control or communications circuits. (The equivalent of brain-damage or drug-use in biological bodies.)

How is this going to affect how the body behaves under your control?

It might be clumsier. It might take longer for you to read or respond to questions, because you could have difficulty seeing or hearing, and have to either take more time to try and figure out what you're hearing or seeing, or ask people to repeat themselves. You might act more impatient or frustrated due to these additional difficulties.

But that's about it.

You're never going to have a situation where damage to the robot is going to make it impossible for you understand anything said or written in a language you were previously familiar with, while still leaving you able to understand a different language. This is something which has been observed with certain cases of brain damage to the brain's linguistic centres.

You're never going to have a situation where one side of the robot completely ceases to function, while the other side functions normally, without you being capable of being aware that the body isn't responding properly. You'd notice it pretty quickly whenever you tried to use that side of the body. But this is something which sometimes happens when people have strokes. They not only become paralysed down one side of the body, but in some cases they become incapable of even realizing that they're paralysed, and they remain unaware that this has happened to them even when it has been pointed out to them. They'll try and do things which take two hands, such as lifting a tray by a handle on each side, or tie shoelaces, and be completely befuddled by the fact that the tray falls over to one side, or that they can't get the laces tied, because they're incapable of noticing that one hand isn't working.

You're never going to have a situation where damage to the robot is going to cause you to lose the ability to remember things you experienced through the robot just a few hours or days previously, which is something we see with cases of dementia and brain-damage.

You're never going to have a situation where damage to the robot is going to cause you to experience a state of euphoria, or mania, or sudden mood-swings, ect, which is something we see in cases of drug-use.

Interference with the signal can't even come close to explaining these things.

 

[calebprime]

The "radio" model itself might be unfalsifiable, but the claim that some aspect of the self survives the death of the brain due to the continued existence of the transmitter or transmission (which is the usual reason for the radio model being posited) can be addressed more directly.

One question is, what aspect of the self can thereby survive? Not memories; those can be lost when the brain is damaged. Not personality; that can change radically when the brain is damaged. Not language; that can be lost when the brain is damaged. Not skills or knowledge; those can be lost when the brain is damaged.

Unless, besides a transmitter, there's also a receiver and a database maintaining a backup copy. Yet oddly, that backup information must be embargoed while you're still alive in any condition. If you have advanced Alzheimer's, the database remembers your children's names (or else, how could what survives after your death be anything like yourself?), but won't transmit that knowledge to your brain even though you're awake, talking, and experiencing.

That still wouldn't explain the observed effects.

Let's imagine that you're operating a robotic body by remote-control. That's a good analogy for this claim.

Now let's say that something happens to the robot body's control or communications circuits. (The equivalent of brain-damage or drug-use in biological bodies.)

How is this going to affect how the body behaves under your control?

It might be clumsier. It might take longer for you to read or respond to questions, because you could have difficulty seeing or hearing, and have to either take more time to try and figure out what you're hearing or seeing, or ask people to repeat themselves. You might act more impatient or frustrated due to these additional difficulties.

But that's about it.

You're never going to have a situation where damage to the robot is going to make it impossible for you understand anything said or written in a language you were previously familiar with, while still leaving you able to understand a different language. This is something which has been observed with certain cases of brain damage to the brain's linguistic centres.

You're never going to have a situation where one side of the robot completely ceases to function, while the other side functions normally, without you being capable of being aware that the body isn't responding properly. You'd notice it pretty quickly whenever you tried to use that side of the body. But this is something which sometimes happens when people have strokes. They not only become paralysed down one side of the body, but in some cases they become incapable of even realizing that they're paralysed, and they remain unaware that this has happened to them even when it has been pointed out to them. They'll try and do things which take two hands, such as lifting a tray by a handle on each side, or tie shoelaces, and be completely befuddled by the fact that the tray falls over to one side, or that they can't get the laces tied, because they're incapable of noticing that one hand isn't working.

You're never going to have a situation where damage to the robot is going to cause you to lose the ability to remember things you experienced through the robot just a few hours or days previously, which is something we see with cases of dementia and brain-damage.

You're never going to have a situation where damage to the robot is going to cause you to experience a state of euphoria, or mania, or sudden mood-swings, ect, which is something we see in cases of drug-use.

Interference with the signal can't even come close to explaining these things.

Yes.

Myriad made a related point above.

The weird specificity of neurological impairments -- such as one reads in Sacks, Luria, Damasio -- sure seems to suggest that the brain is creating behavior, not acting like a radio.

 

[I Am The Scum]

In addition to Brian-M's point, why do people who have been knocked unconscious typically have no memory of the event? If my body really was the robot, and the operator located "out there," then a recollection of the event should look something like this:

I was playing football. I got tackled, and suddenly everything went black. I couldn't see or hear anything for a few minutes, and every time I tried to move, nothing happened. Then my eyes opened and I slowly returned to normal.

Instead, what you actually get is something like this:

I couldn't tell you what happened, really. I just woke up, lying on the ground, in a delirious state, and my friends were telling me I took a bad hit in a backyard football game. I don't even remember playing football that day, or much of anything else, for that matter.

If there really is separation between body and consciousness, then why do they always seem to be inextricably linked? There is nothing I can do to an actual radio that will have any effect on the transmitter. This is clearly not true of brains and experiences.

 

[annnnoid]

There's a thread around here somewhere... Basically, we've accounted for all the fields and forces that act upon the material world, and we can detect them all. If anything "paranormal" were acting on the brain from the outside, we would have already detected the effect and investigated the cause.

It would show up in MRIs, for example.

This is simply not the case. I recall a previous thread where this dubious premise was thrashed about endlessly…until I ran it past a friend of mine who has a degree in theoretical physics. At which point it was quite clearly established that the argument had way too many holes in it to qualify as an argument. Sean Carroll trots this one out frequently (and is just as frequently erroneously referenced by skeptics far too eager to demolish their favorite paranormal paroxysms). Until the nature and origins of consciousness are much better understood, it’s as questionable as any of the issues it supposedly explains.

Yes.

Myriad made a related point above.

The weird specificity of neurological impairments -- such as one reads in Sacks, Luria, Damasio -- sure seems to suggest that the brain is creating behavior, not acting like a radio.

…but which ‘behavior’ is consciousness?...and how, specifically, are any of these ‘behaviors’ actually generated by whatever it is that generates them? The problem is not that too little is known about the connection…the problem is that nothing is known. No one has a clue as to the explicit relationship between any variety of electro-bio-chemical activity and whatever cognitive activity that it is related to.

Meaning…why (and how) does explicit bio-chemical activity ‘X’ generate explicit cognitive activity ‘Y’. Someone who used to post here frequently (Piggy) put it quite accurately when he said we are in the neural-cognitive equivalent of the dark ages. Chopra's conclusions may be dubious…but countering them with equally dubious science is just as stupid.

 

[Myriad]

This is simply not the case. I recall a previous thread where this dubious premise was thrashed about endlessly…until I ran it past a friend of mine who has a degree in theoretical physics. At which point it was quite clearly established that the argument had way too many holes in it to qualify as an argument. Sean Carroll trots this one out frequently (and is just as frequently erroneously referenced by skeptics far too eager to demolish their favorite paranormal paroxysms). Until the nature and origins of consciousness are much better understood, it’s as questionable as any of the issues it supposedly explains.


…but which ‘behavior’ is consciousness?...and how, specifically, are any of these ‘behaviors’ actually generated by whatever it is that generates them? The problem is not that too little is known about the connection…the problem is that nothing is known. No one has a clue as to the explicit relationship between any variety of electro-bio-chemical activity and whatever cognitive activity that it is related to.

Meaning…why (and how) does explicit bio-chemical activity ‘X’ generate explicit cognitive activity ‘Y’. Someone who used to post here frequently (Piggy) put it quite accurately when he said we are in the neural-cognitive equivalent of the dark ages. Chopra's conclusions may be dubious…but countering them with equally dubious science is just as stupid.

How would the brain being a "radio" of unknown operation receiving a "signal" of unknown nature from a "transmitter" of unknown origin in an unknown location help to explain the existence or nature of consciousness?

Does the nervous system of a roundworm, which possesses 302 neurons all of which have been mapped and whose functioning as nerve cells adequately accounts for all the observed behaviors of the worm, also need to be a "radio" to function? Presumably not. At what level of nervous system sophistication does the "radio receiver" become both possible and necessary for normal functioning? Is a squid brain a "radio?" A fish brain? A snake brain? A penguin brain? A mouse brain? A chimpanzee brain?

That hypothesis is far more dubious than the alternative hypothesis that tissue discovered to have powerful information processing capabilities, and which is associated in greater amounts in organisms exhibiting larger degrees of understanding, communication, and self-awareness, and which when damaged or altered in function causes conscious experience to change or cease, gives rise to consciousness as an information processing phenomenon. Whether we can draw a flowchart or schematic diagram, or not.

 

[Manopolus]

Could be.

I don't think there's any problem with speculating about such things or seeing what sorts of malarkey your mind can dream up.

...as long as you still realize that you're probably full of it and are aware of the lack of evidence. I would also suggest that it belongs in the realm of fiction when describing such thoughts to the public. Technically, religion is just a subset of the category "fiction" but people tend to get confused about that for some reason.

There's also that matter of where all the other dimensions are... maybe it's just extradimensional rather than requiring radio per se. Again, not worth the pixels it's typed in, except perhaps as fiction.

 

[annnnoid]

How would the brain being a "radio" of unknown operation receiving a "signal" of unknown nature from a "transmitter" of unknown origin in an unknown location help to explain the existence or nature of consciousness?

Does the nervous system of a roundworm, which possesses 302 neurons all of which have been mapped and whose functioning as nerve cells adequately accounts for all the observed behaviors of the worm, also need to be a "radio" to function? Presumably not. At what level of nervous system sophistication does the "radio receiver" become both possible and necessary for normal functioning? Is a squid brain a "radio?" A fish brain? A snake brain? A penguin brain? A mouse brain? A chimpanzee brain?

That hypothesis is far more dubious than the alternative hypothesis that tissue discovered to have powerful information processing capabilities, and which is associated in greater amounts in organisms exhibiting larger degrees of understanding, communication, and self-awareness, and which when damaged or altered in function causes conscious experience to change or cease, gives rise to consciousness as an information processing phenomenon. Whether we can draw a flowchart or schematic diagram, or not.

It don’t matter if it’s crazy, what matters is if it’s right. These days skeptics often seem just as desperate as new-agers to promote their particular happy flavor of brain theory (these threads are ample proof of that). Personally, I like what Beelzebuddy had to say on the matter:

I assure you that anyone who claims to have a general theory of how the brain works is pulling it straight from their backsides

BTW…is the roundworm conscious (or a squid, or a fish, or a snake, or a penguin, or a mouse, or a chimpanzee)? Dumb question isn’t it. Do you know why it’s a dumb question…of course you do. Cause neither you nor anyone else can even begin to answer it.

…but of course you will insist: …”define the word conscious.” Which, of course, is the point. No one can (…I could also ask for empirical definitions of all those other fuzzy terms that you folks so enjoy trotting out as if they’re somehow resolved…like ‘understanding’, ‘communication’, ‘self-awareness’…but I won’t bother cause, once again, neither you nor anyone else can provide them). No one knows what it is (or even if it is a ‘thing’)…and no one has a clue how it’s created. All Chopra does is excessively eyeball all the stuff that skeptics typically sweep under the rug (cause it’s just plain inconvenient to have so much stuff around that there is no definitive explanation for…gotta get rid of some of it somehow...and isn't that's what rugs are for) and ask “what’s all this then…amen”. I’d be willing to bet that the answers that science is throwing around in 100 years will sound a lot more crazy than anything Chopra can come up with today.