From: Ken Clements (Ken@Innovation-On-Demand.com)
Date: Tue May 21 2002 - 23:04:29 MDT
Spudboy100@aol.com wrote:
> <http://unisci.com/ticker.shtml>
>
> Our Conscious Mind Could Be An Electromagnetic Field
> Are our thoughts made of the distributed kind of electromagnetic field that
> permeates space and carries the broadcast signal to the TV or radio. Professor
>
> Johnjoe McFadden from the School of Biomedical and Life Sciences at the
> University of Surrey in the UK believes our conscious mind could be an
> electromagnetic field. "The theory solves many previously intractable
> problems
> of consciousness and could have profound implications for our concepts of
> mind,
> free will, spirituality, the design of artificial intelligence, and even life
> and death," he said.
>
You can get more of his ideas at
http://www.geneticengineering.org/evolution/mcfadden.html where he has put
excerpts of his book.
This is another explanation of the unknown by a author invoking something he does
not understand, and therefore, cannot see why it is not true. It all strikes me
as Penrose warmed over. I will spare everyone a rehash of my objections to
Penrose, which are sprinkled through the archives of this list.
It is simple to come up with some theory of the conscious mind based on "how it
feels to me," but the real tests are all the boundary conditions. It has to fit
all the extreme environmental conditions in which someone can remain conscious
(your skull does not provide much shielding from EM fields, if it did EEG
machines would not work). EM fields do not impact consciousness unless they
become strong enough to cause actual electric currents in the brain, which do
impact consciousness, big time, by causing spurious neurons to fire (Remember
Galvani and his frog legs?).
Consciousness comes about, and changes a great deal in the early years of human
development. Some characteristics of consciousness vary from person to person,
and some are shown by other species (consciousness has to fit evolution as
well). People with brain damage from strokes, and mental illness etc., may have
major modifications in the way they perceive reality. And then there is all of
psychopharmacology to explain.
-Ken
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