by Conrad » October 20th, 2005, 5:16 am
This is a topic that's always fascinated me as well. Something so fundemental, and yet not completely understood. I can't help but wonder though, if exactly what we do need is "more evidence, more experimental and clinical data" to discover the answer. The main problem I think, is that I'm not so sure that many people are even looking for it (perhaps they are though, and I just don't know about it).
If there is something inside your brain that is conscious, then surely it can be discovered and studied. If you break it down, something, on some level is using chemicals or electomagnetic impulses or something that is "really" there that provides the consciousness. Perhaps it is "something" not exactly INSIDE, but acting upon from without (your soul too, if you make the distinction at all). Perhaps this something is neither matter nor energy, but some other type of thing, well, as we only have matter and energy to work with this would surely be something difficult to detect at all, much less study, but perhaps not.
If it can affect your brain, then it must be connected somehow, there must be some way that this thing can interact with matter. Somehow, consciousness and/or souls interact with the physical world. The brain is perhaps the one place where such a thing can be studied at all. To begin with for sure and perhaps only (who knows where such knowledge could lead) it could be studied as an astronomer studies planets or stars or black holes or what-have-you that he can't detect any exact emisions from. But he can see what effect they have on the things that he can observe, the effect of gravity on some other star or planet shows that there's something there, even if he can't see it. There must be some part of the brain that can send and receive some sort of communication to the part that is not part of the physical world as we understand it (if it is not just the brain in the first place).
Surely, that can't tell us much about the nature of consciousness right away, but it is a starting point; if you want to study about the unperceivable the best way to go about it is to see how it reacts with something that you can understand. From there you at least have a chance to discover the true nature of what is your consciousness. I may think, and therefore I am, but what exactly am I? To me anyway, I'm sure not everyone is as interested, the science behind the exact nature of consciousness and even more so of the soul is one of the most intriguing questions that I believe "more evidence, more experimental and clinical data" may one day provide us with.
Whenever anyone says "I can't," it makes me wish he'd get stung to death by about ten thousand bees. When he says "I'll try," five thousand bees. ("I can," one bee.)
