This has probably been asked before ...but

I don't think that the one follows from the other, Steve. In my view, consciousness is not the brain, and nor is it "generated" by the brain, but it has some sort of relationship with the brain. This is compatible with consciousness being "switched off by drugs" i.e. it is because the relationship is two-way that the physical - drugs in the brain - can affect the non-physical - the conscious mind, even to the point of apparently "turning it off" (but only whilst it remains in relationship with the physical brain).

But I would question this apparent "turning off" anyway. I have been under general anaesthetic several times, and I would not be confident in saying that I had no experiences whilst I was under - certainly, it seems that way, but who knows what I'm failing to remember? In other words: are you 100% sure that you were utterly unconscious, or is there a possibility that you had experiences under anaesthetic but simply failed to recall them? (Not that it matters, given what I wrote above).

In any case, how is this any different from arguing that having a certain number of drinks makes one drunk, and that therefore, given that alcohol is a physical drug, consciousness must be generated by a physical brain... or any of a number of other similar scenarios?

'Turning off' is certainly the best way that I can describe that sensation, it may well only be apparent, but do you think it is similar to any other experience you have had? Anything else that clips time the way that this does.

I'm just asking questions, nothing more. 

I wonder if anyone's been hypnotised and asked about this? 

Actually, I'm sure there must be examples, but whether they can be found on the internet by way of google is doubtful. 

I'll have a go. 

[Laird]

'Turning off' is certainly the best way that I can describe that sensation, it may well only be apparent, but do you think it is similar to any other experience you have had? Anything else that clips time the way that this does.

The uniqueness I think lies in the suddenness of the effect. I can remember feeling the (ugly) anaesthetic working its way up my arm as the anaesthetist counted down from ten, and I also remember that at some point (maybe at number four or five), the drug simply overpowers me in a very immediate and sharp way. It's literally like being conscious in one moment and unconscious in the very next moment - like jumping off a cliff; when you reach the bottom, that's it, all of a sudden. And yes, it seems that I was "turned off" until I woke up some time later. I can't be sure, though, that I haven't experienced the same state of being totally "turned off" during certain states of deep sleep - to be sure, though, those states weren't arrived at in the same sudden, immediate way as anaesthesia.

Perhaps then you should read the philosophical arguments, e.g., see Titus Rivas's Analytical argument against physicalism and What's wrong with panpsychism? threads in the Philosophy forum. Or perhaps you have not understood the empirical arguments - that it appears from multiple reports, some including veridical information, that consciousness can continue vividly, and/or travel to distant places, when the physical brain is for all intents and purposes dead and/or insensible to the information gathered at the distant place/s.

Yes... and the rest 
What I find hard to understand is how someone who has been on this type of forum for so long hasn’t picked up at least enough to see the arguments for consciousness not being produced by the brain. Then again, sometimes I’m not surprised.

The uniqueness I think lies in the suddenness of the effect. I can remember feeling the (ugly) anaesthetic working its way up my arm as the anaesthetist counted down from ten, and I also remember that at some point (maybe at number four or five), the drug simply overpowers me in a very immediate and sharp way. 

The first few operations were when I was very young, under five I'd guess. The most recent one was in the late nineties when a surgeon friend operated on my sinuses. This one and the other adult ones seemed to be very much improved from the earlier ones, where I can still remember being gassed! It was scary. The ever more powerful pulses eventually overcoming me. 

[Laird]

I imagine that part of the fear was of the operation that was to come and not just the anaesthesia. Anyhow, you're here today, Steve, so there's nothing to fear any longer - and much to celebrate.

[Ninshub]

I don't think that the one follows from the other, Steve. In my view, consciousness is not the brain, and nor is it "generated" by the brain, but it has some sort of relationship with the brain. This is compatible with consciousness being "switched off by drugs" i.e. it is because the relationship is two-way that the physical - drugs in the brain - can affect the non-physical - the conscious mind, even to the point of apparently "turning it off" (but only whilst it remains in relationship with the physical brain).

Right. The filter theory has no problem with the anesthesia case, or with any case where consciousness gets "filtered out".

Bernardo:

The non-materialist hypotheses are consistent with the empirical observation that, ordinarily, subjective states of consciousness correlate fairly well with objective, measurable brain activity. That is why, for instance, your mental state changes when the brain is intoxicated with alcohol; why you get knocked out from physical trauma to the brain; or why you go to sleep under anaesthesia. Indeed, the 'transmission' and 'filter' hypotheses postulate that conscious experience is modulated by physical brain states in much the same way that planetary explorers' perceptions and actions in Mars are modulated by the robotic rovers' sensors and actuators. A similar rationale applies for the 'brain as a knot of consciousness' hypothesis.
http://www.bernardokastrup.com/2012/03/m...brain.html

Right. The filter theory has no problem with the anesthesia case, or with any case where consciousness gets "filtered out".

Bernardo:

I 'know' all these things. 

I'm just using my own personal experience of being anaesthetised as a very different experience from all others. After all, our personal experience is really all that we can bank on. It's surely worth questioning.

[Ninshub]

I've never been anesthetised - is it that different from going unconscious because of too much alcohol? Because that I've experienced.

It worries me somewhat, that what I consider to be 'my consciousness' can be switched off. Still, I'm obviously not dead in that state, as, as far as I know, we can't revive the dead! 

Consciousness does not include the unconscious and subconscious states, both exist at a higher vibratory level than pure consciousness. Something like this...



I would suspect that anesthetic acts only a the consciousness level. The rest of You is all OK.