I disagree that the discussion of the interaction/interface of the brain and
mind is not neuroscience and not an important topic of this newsgroup. This
was the focus of the writings of John Eccles, Alan Hodgkin. Read Karl
Pribram, David Bohm, Georg von Bekesy. Astrophysicists were laughed at by
many collegues when they abandoned Newtonian physics. They did not abandon
science, they just approached the study of light using different paradigms,
those of relativity and quantum mechanics.
Those of us who deal with the brain and thought are at the same impass. We
cannot explain how its working using 16th century physics. The paradigm must
change but science need not be abandon.
As per the discussion: Paul Werbos recently presented a model showing that it
takes 20 neurons to process one bit of information. (I don't know who
developed it or if its been submitted for critical review). One bit, for
instance, being one color. If we look at one landscape imagine the bits of
information that must be processes instantaneously, numerous colors, shades,
hues, shapes, distances, the movement of things, smells...on and on. When we
still need neural circuits to maintain motor and visceral function, where is
all this being processed? Where thought is taking place is an excellent
question. But where is any of this taking place.
Let me present another perspective to confuse things a bit more. Elementary
school children are aware of the fact that mass is composed of atoms. Atoms
are composed of a nucleus surrounded by rapidly orbiting massless electrons.
The nucleus is, by volume, about one millionth the size of the atom.
Therefore, if the movement of the massless electrons stopped, what is left?
Nothing. Quantum physics even shows that the protons and neutrons can be
broken up into energy packets. It all moves into what Einstein caled the
void. His frustration about relativity was that E=MC2 was intrepreted as
energy comes from matter. His focus was the opposite. Energy it the primal
source of everything. Energy makes up our mass. We only perceive mass. The
only way we know what is around us is through perception and the brain does
not have the ability to process all this.
So, in conclusion, if the brain does not have the capacity to process
everything and this matter that makes up our world, bodies and brain is only
an electromagnetic illusion, what the heck are we. Where it this thought?
What is this thought? We are at a point where these questions cannot be
ignored. If we do we will never understand brain function.
