Interesting article in The Guardian

An interesting piece about the brain/body (not brain/body) relationship was posted in The Guardian this week. I think it contains several interesting points arguing against consciousness being a seperate entity from the full physical body. It’s not quite the same arguments as the ones typically discussed on this forum as the author clearly outright accepts ontological materialism. 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022...sciousness

The new understanding of bodily self-consciousness leads us to some surprising conclusions. If bodily awareness is the basis of self-consciousness, then it follows that bumblebees, and even robots, may possess basic consciousness.

Why would this be the case?

Very unimpressive article IMO, rationalization by someone -as you say - is deep into the materialist faith that something (consciousness) can come from nothing (that which lacks all mental characteristics).

I found this article mildly amusing initally, so I've listed a small sample of some of the funnies. But it gets better and delivers some interesting information which is not so funny.  

to preserve his brain after he dies and, when the technology to do so becomes available, to upload his memories and consciousness to the cloud. 

Right. Pure science fiction 

it is rooted in the flawed idea that the brain is separate from the body, and can function without it.

Mo (author) means mind not brain 

Most neuroscientists agree that what we call “the mind” is made of matter. 

They actually don't have a clue what the mind is made of or how it comes to arise from the interaction of nerve cells  

“Being conscious means that one is having an experience … to see an image, hear a sound, think a thought or feel an emotion.”

 You don't say...no, you do

It is, however, becoming increasingly clear that the mind/brain and body are intimately linked, and that the body influences our thoughts and emotions.

As in when you stub your toe on the bed leg and cry out in pain.

Phantom limbs are a striking demonstration of the importance of the body for self-consciousness. They were described in the mid-16th century by the barber-surgeon Ambroise Paré, who reportedly amputated several hundred limbs a day during the Italian war of 1542-46.

“Verily it is a thing wondrous, strange and prodigious,” he wrote. “The patients who have many months after the cutting away of the leg grievously complained that they yet felt exceeding great pain of that leg cut off.” At that time, however, few survived the operation, so the phenomenon was seen only rarely, and dismissed as a delusion.

Not laughing now 

Advances in medicine and military technology changed this. The invention of a bullet called the Minié ball with its greater accuracy, range, and muzzle velocity, increased the number of amputations, while the introduction of anaesthetics and antiseptics improved the survival rates of soldiers who went under the knife.

And so it was that the neurologist Silas Weir Mitchell, who amputated countless arms and legs on the battlefields of the American civil war, came to see that phantom limbs are the rule rather than an exception, experienced by the vast majority of amputees.

I suspected that phantom limbs might be the actual 'ghost' of the original but I guess as the author also highlights the fact that phantom haemorrhoids are reported, this would tend to indicate they aren't.  Who knows.

I found this article mildly amusing initally, so I've listed a small sample of some of the funnies. But it gets better and delivers some interesting information which is not so funny. 

I suspected that phantom limbs might be the actual 'ghost' of the original but I guess as the author also highlights the fact that phantom haemorrhoids are reported, this would tend to indicate they aren't.  Who knows.

Good take down - it's quite embarrassing that this article was published IMO, given that it posits awareness of the body is the source of self-consciousness...but how do you have awareness without that first person POV? I suppose awareness of the body means something different than the kind of awareness that requires a mind...the usual games physicalists use to preserve their faith...

That said I think phantom limbs do have more to do with the brain's habit formation than anything else.

Moheb Costandi:.  Most neuroscientists agree that what we call “the mind” is made of matterr.  

Tim:  They actually don't have a clue what the mind is made of or how it comes to arise from the interaction of nerve celllls ll

I think this is a significant exchange.  The Physicalist point of view is presented in the pretend statistic by the article's author.  It is poorly presented - and not so important.  That it is succinct and to the point claim of physicalism -- makes it an excellent target to refute with a better model of how mind works.

Tim's response is straightforward.  However, from their position the brain-only folks, it has already won if it is the prior cause.  Mind doesn't arise from physical electro-chemistry.  Nervous system electro-chemical processes are in response to and regulated by states of mind.

All of sudden the biological functions of mind are prior to, and receiving feedback from, the "interaction of nerve cells".

The missing substance of mental states are information objects where meaning is like potential force and bio-semiosis is like material structure.  Note: both objective meaning and biological communication are measurable.

information object   Definition(s):
  A well-defined piece of information, definition, or specification that requires a name to identify its use in an instance of communication.