Consciousness, Nervous system, Psychedelics

[orbsycli]

Hello and welcome to the spilled thoughts of Jason Lowe.

Ok, so . .
Consciousness-
We don't know where it resides,
but my educated guess is that it occurs
due to the ever-evolving neural complexity
of a DENSE brain.

Now, can somebody please explain to me how the brain, and the nervous system are related?
I know that the nervous system "sends signals"
to the brain,
but what the fuck does that mean?

Just a couple of days ago,
I ate some LSD,
by a river, while I was camping.
One thing I know about that psychedelic
is that it REALLY OVEREXCITES your nervous system!
Imagine this:
I had no control over my body for 10 minutes
it looked like I had muscular dystrophy!
My hands were tensed up like I was retarded,
and All I could do was LAUGH.
It looked so silly.

After that wore off and I could control my body,
I thought about what had just happened,
And i was thinking
SO FAST,
about EVERYTHING.
Every drop of a moment
I had a full understanding of everything.
Not to mention creativity-
I could tap into regions of our mind
that was absurd,
so absurd
so beautiful . .


There has to be some kind of link between consciousness, and the nervous system.
I really do not have a lot of knowledge on those subjects,
so I'm trying desperately to figure it out,

'cause when my nervous system's running wild
and my whole body is vibrating,
So are my thoughts.

[orbsycli]

I know this thread's far out,
but what do you observers think?

[ronthepon]

To be able to explain all this, we'll have to get down to basics.

--------------------------BASICS-----------------------------------------
1- Our body is controlled by a nervous system (yeah... big surprise...)

2- The nervous system consists of a sub-part called the central nervous system

3- The CNS (check point#2 for full form of this) is the 'boss' of the body. It regulates absolutely every thing.

4- The CNS consists of The brain and the Spinal Cord
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now how does the nervous system send signals to the brain?
Firstly I hope you have realised the the brain is a part of the nervous system

So you can understand that the brain is connected to the spinal cord and some other nerves called cranial nerves.

Consider it like a big supercomputer connected to a lot of other computers via many wires. (no wireless communication in the nervous system)

The other computers observe the conditions in the rest of the body and if they observe anything at all, they send info on the wires. (Or nerves)

Now about the LSD you had.
It is a chemical that stimulates the smaller computers like hell.(mind that some of these smaller comps are very near indeed to the big supercomputer)
They are no longer able to work normally.

They fire and fire signals a lot because the chemical you took makes them do that.

These signals accumulate in your big supercomputer (aka brain) and give you the effect you have.

PS: And uh yeah- Feel free to say that you think of this as crap.

[orbsycli]

Originally Posted by ronthepon

Consider it like a big supercomputer connected to a lot of other computers via many wires. (no wireless communication in the nervous system)

O I Beg to differ!
I do believe we, as humans
have Auras,
an energy field,
though I do not know how that
and the nervous system are related.

thank you for the basics

[orbsycli]

Balance,
more now
rather than
stillness forever.

[ronthepon]

Originally Posted by orbsycli

O I Beg to differ!
(Auratic interaction//Mind//) Energy field, if you will.

thank you for the basics

We can consider this effect a result of the intense electric activity in the brain.

Or it ma be something more deep and currently inexplicable.

Anyway, congrats on hitting 5000 posts...

[orbsycli]

Why congratulate on post count?
I've learned a lot,
this is evident
and I celebrate every day

[Michaelangelica]

How come this thread is in "earth" sciences not "social?
Musroom grow in dirt?
O, O.K.

I listened on a science show to a brilliant American psycologist talk about Consciousness just the other day.( at an International Conference on Consciousness )
It is apparently a hot issue in Psychology today.

I am not sure why.
It seems to me you are, (like computers?) either "on" i.e.,-conscious
or "off" i.e.,-unconscious or dead

I will try and find the radio show link and post it.

I can't find the talk, sorry.
But I found these links. They might keep you going for a while:-

1. Book Talk - 10/01/1998: The Evolution of Consciousness...

Summary: ... Saturday 10/01/1998 The Evolution of Consciousness. Summary: On this week's Book ... And why are dogs so human? All questions raised in his book Kinds Of Minds: Towards An Understanding Of Consciousness. ... Summary: On this week's Book Talk, another chance to hear the American philosopher Daniel Dennett discussing the evolution of consciousness, and along the way tackling the age-old mind-body question' ... http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/bookta...es/s971003.htm - 16k - [ html ] - Cached - 10 Jan 1998

2. All In The Mind - 10/3/2002: Feature Interview: Susan Greenfield Contemplates Consciousness (transcript now available)

Summary: ... Many scientists when they write their books on consciousness and there have been a huge rash of them most notably in the 1990s, conflated mind and consciousness, I think consciousness was such ... foetus being conscious but not as conscious as a child. Natasha Mitchell: Levels of consciousness whether we have a deeper consciousness or a more shallow consciousness. ... Susan Greenfield: Now we talk in our adult lives about raising ... http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/mind/s498618.htm - 46k - [ html ] - Cached - 10 Mar 2002

3. All In The Mind - 10/08/2003: David Chalmers on the Big Conundrum: Consciousness

Summary: ... So some people think OK therefore science can t study consciousness, consciousness has to be left to one side. ... on jokes and how you analyse the structure of a joke. A workshop on another weekend on consciousness and we d talk about how to computationally model the mind So any question ... which people engage with questions of consciousness in say a state of meditation, and they talk about dissolving the boundaries of the Self And it ... http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/mind/s919229.htm - 47k - [ html ] - Cached - 10 Aug 2003

4. All In The Mind - 21/4/2002: Zombies and Human Consciousness (transcript now available)

Summary: ... That s consciousness. What defines a zombie is a zombie lacks consciousness entirely. ... Why is there consciousness in our world, and in particular, some people have used this as an argument to the effect that consciousness is something over and above a physical process. ... David Chalmers: OK, when people talk about consciousness they re talking about lots of different things. ... http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/mind/s534412.htm - 46k - [ html ] - Cached - 21 Apr 2002

5. All in the Mind: 4 September 2004 - Part 2 of 2 - The Nature of Consciousness debate

Summary: ... I mean some of us have this dream that you know the science of consciousness will be so much easier if we just had the mythical consciousness metre. ... I can wave the consciousness metre over Sue s head searching for consciousness and beep, beep, beep, I ve got a little bit of it. ... on. Self-consciousness, consciousness of one s self is this highly complex thing that you know we humans seem to have at least some of the time, maybe ... http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/min...s/s1184056.htm - 55k - [ html ] - Cached - 4 Sep 2004


8. The Brain of the Future

Summary: ... So what we are going to look at now is how will the new technologies impact on our consciousness and vice versa. ... We need to see how it is organised. Well we start off with consciousness and that is perhaps the biggest and most exciting question, not just for the scientists to ask, but ... Consciousness in itself is subject to another talk and indeed my latest book, Private Life of the Brain, published by Penguin, available at Amazon can go wrong. ... http://www.abc.net.au/rn/deakin/docs/greenfield.doc - 75k - [ doc ] - Cached - 15 May 2006




6. Cafe Scientific Menu

Summary: ... 10 pm Alun Anderson a brief history of consciousness 7. 20 pm Susan Blackmore Are you conscious now? ... And what the heck is consciousness anyway? Dr Susan Blackmore include Beyond the Body, Dying to Live on near-death experiences Test Your Psychic Powers The Meme Machine and a new textbook ... Does the stream of consciousness really exist? What can we do to develop our own unique consciousness? ... http://www.abc.net.au/science/events...s/20040820.doc - 114k - [ doc ] - Cached - 15 May 2006


1. News in Science - Self-awareness is in the right brain - 19/01/2001

Summary: ... To know that our own face is ours inevitably requires a knowledge of the self. ... Keenan, who began researching self-awareness as a graduate student. It has been thought that this ability is a hallmark of consciousness. ... Studies of self-awareness may provide unique insights into consciousness and doctors hope eventually to use such information to help people with disorders that include a lack of awareness of self and ... http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s235077.htm - 23k - [ html ] - Cached - 19 Jan 2001

[orbsycli]

hrmmmmmmmmmm . .

[InfiniteNow]

The central nervous system is simply our current and best approximation at how it all works. A large and interconnected network of chemo electric signals.

The brain is not seperate from the CNS, but is part of it. There are little roads of signal... like the "drives" and "trails" in our neighborhoods. There are major roads and highways into which they feed, cranial nerves, vagus nerve, spinal column... like the Interstates and so forth. There is a central hub... like grand central station... that's the brain.

It's all part of one system, fully interconnected, but it's simply our best current guess at what is happening in there.

What's IN there? What's OUT there? That's the philosophy side of the equation.