DrmDoc

I understood your comments regarding the enteric system as an example of the "interplay between brain and body as a whole." My subsequent response regarded how I perceive your example's specific role in that interplay. If I now understand correctly, you perceive mind in a "holistic" form or as a result of a "holistic process." If correct, then I agree with the perspective that mind is indeed a product of a holistic process. In my view, our only disagreement here is how that process operates. What could possibly be more to the foundation of mind than the engine and energy that powers the brain functions generating the mind. Mind, to be clear, doesn't exist without brain function and brain function does not occur without the energy driving that function. The evidence and observations for me have been incredibly clear, which is why I may be perceived as ridgid in expressing my views. However, I do not perceive our exchanges as an issue of who's right and who's wrong, but rather a discussion of point-counterpoint. I enjoy these exchanges as they compel me to re-evaluate and sharpen my perspective when challenged. These discussions have sharpen my perspective and have allowed me to share what little insight I managed to glean over the years. If there's no consensus in neuroscience on the nature of mind, it's not because there isn't sufficient evidence for same--IMO.

I am well versed in the nature of the enteric system and its influence on brain function, but is enteric a mind or a component of the mind? As I explained, mind is the cognitive environment that emerges within the brain itself from brain function. As an influence upon brain function, the enteric system is merely a contributor to that function that unconsciously feul the responses within the brain that generates mind. The enteric system may be a secondary brain that controls subsystems in the body that influence brain function, but it doesn't produce a mind--it doesn't engage in the independent thought processes suggestive of a mind. Having a mind allows an organism's engagement of behaviors independent of its instincts. These are the behaviors that suggest a thought process. That behavior doesn't manifest in the gut. That "gut feeling" some of us boast about is merely our brain's reaction to an extension of its sensory array. Mind is essentially our brain's cognitive reaction to sensory input. Chalmers lost his bet because he didn't full grasp the primary nature of brain function. Most perceive mind and brain function as essentially a collection of synaptic discharges. I perceive mind and brain function through the metabolic processes at the basis of those synaptic activities. From single cell to complex organism, the primary imperative of these lifeforms is homestasis, which is an imperative to maintain metabolic stability. In the brain, homestasis isn't a thought process, it's the metabolic mechanism that powers and drive those processes. When you fully grasp the nature of homestasis in brain function, you will grasp the nature of thought and mind in its most basic form.

I understand and the fault is mine. I have a proclivative for preceiving the most basic form of things and I may not have fully explained this reductionist perspective. There are two basic components of my overall perspective and mind is just one component. Brain function comprises a balance between afferent (input) and efferent (output) components. Affects that channel into our central nervous system from source external to core brain function provide the impetus for that function. Our brain's functional responses to that impetus are its efferent output. The cognitive environment within the brain that emerges as mind is an efferent response to affects external to core brain functions, such as gut biome. Indeed, mind and brain are distinct with the former being an enironment of cognitive activity and the latter being the structure that generates that cognitive activity. However, when we discuss the involvement of components external to the brain, it's a discussion about the intake feuling the generator that creates mind. The key takeaway from all of this is that afferent influences do not comprise the mind, they are merely the stimulus that generate the confluence of brain responses that merge to create the mind. The question of emergence and confluence is answerable by an imperative of brain function, which I briefly explored in previous discussions. The primary imperative of brain function is homeostasis, which our brain's functional effort to maintain its metabolic balance. It's a delicate balance that is influenced by everything we sense, perceive, and experience from in vitro until brain death. Life experience stimulates brain activity, which consumes our brain's energy uptake. The mental and behavior responses our brain generates provides a conterbalance to that stimulation. For example, my comments here have an afferent neural affect on the brain function of those who read them. It's a reverberant neural effect that expends energy and does not wane without a response that has a nullifying effect. For some, that nullifying effect may be to ignore my comments or, for other, to ponder a responses. The effect of all of this in the brain is its effort to effect a neural counterbalance to a specific reverberant stimuli compromising it metabolic balance--which is essentially the metabolic nature of thought.

I believe it was CharonY who initially asked how you define the mind and your comments above appears to at least suggest how you perceive mind relative to the brain. Your comments suggest to me that you perceive mind as something whole and singular that emerges from or residing in a specific place relative to brain function or structure. If true, that perception is wrong. Mind isn't a localized quality. Mind is the environment of cognitive activity within the brain that emerges from a conflunce of brain function rather than from some specific brain structure or source. Mind is a construct of brain function that isn't fully realized when any component of that function is compromised. Through homestatsis, mind emerges as an efferent response to afferent stimuli. Even more, mind is evinced by and is exclusive to behavioral expressions that suggest a thought process. If one were to answer "where is mind in the brain", the answer would be everywhere as it the cognitive environment within the brain created by our brain's responses to life experience.

Electromagnetism is real evidence, it measureable, and can be traced to a tangible source. I understand the idea you're trying to convey here but, like electromagnetism, we have real evidence for the mind, it measureable through functional study, and we can traced our human iteration of mind to a tangible source--the human brain. There may very well be forces out there whose source and nature we may not fully understand (e.g., dark energy), but not the metabolic forces and minutia of brain function that give rise to that environment of cognitive activity within the brain that produces a mind. That enironment of cognitive activity within the brain from which mind emerges is our brain's response to stimuli external to brain function; however, the source of the mind remains brain function. That stimuli external to brain function I described is real, it's measureable, it's tangible--it's life experience.

And there it is...the unproven and unprovable...the lie that discards real evidence for faith, feeling, and supposition. It is the idea that the brain is merely a lense for some noncorporeal source of the mind that isn't rooted in material evidence. So why are some so determined to believe in that idea? Is it fear of the inevitable or an earnest interest in devining some great truth or deep mystery for posterity's sake? It's the other way around, conventional wisdom isn't science and should be discarded without "findings-observations-data". Perhaps, but you seem to have doubts. If I'm not mistaken from our previous discussion, terminal lucidity appears to be a primary source of your doubts in brain function as the absolute source of the quality we call mind. Whether lucid or confused, mind is a product of the ebb and flow of brain function emerging from what are basically its metabolic,homestatic processes. However, it seem, you believes there's something more?

I meant no disrespect, but what you're discussing here isn't much different from our previous exchanges other than perhaps your clearer assertion of mind emerging from some non-physical/material source. If I've misunderstood, my apologies; however, any assertion of mind emerging without a brain or some functionally similar structure is ludicrous without a basis in science. From all you have discussed here, you have not sufficiently nor convincingly provided such a basis. From nearly half-century in private study of the dreaming brain and now amid the twilight of my life, I want to believe that their could be something more to the nature of the mind than I have discovered...but I believe in the science, I believe in the objective truths good science provides. To believe in something more may be comforting, but it's a lie if not proven or provable and I, personally, won't believe in a lie.

Why is any of this still a question? Didn't we have this discussion here (Mind) ad nauseam?

Yes, but it appears only extraordinary findings will satisfy your quest for understanding rather than findings that are clearly ordinary. The ordinary answer to your inquiry resides in the resiliency of our physiology, which itself is truly extraordinary--imho.

A burst of energetic behavioral expressions near death after a pregressively degenerative brain condition isn't miraculous especially if the neural apparatus for such expression remains sufficiently functional--which it must be for such expressions to occur. What's left is for us to investigate what neural apparatus remains in place that has allowed for near normal behavior expression amid a severely degradated brain state. The observation that these burst of enegetic expressions occurs near death suggest a power-up in a system where the power supplied by limited resources have been redirected from less functional pathways to those that remain sufficiently functional to produce those expressions. Again, this isn't particularly miraculous given what we aready understand about the nature of plasticity in brain function.

Citations aside for the moment, consider the objective evidence which is that no expression of lucidity exists without some connection between the cortex and thalamus. Consider the distinction between a mildly impaired and severely impaired thalamus in that mild impairment is likely not sufficient to obstruct periods of lucidity. None of the citations you've provided suggested impairments that would prevent occassional expression of lucid behaviors with sufficient function and connectivity with the brain--succinctly, there's no behavioral expressions without sufficient brain function and connectivity. Although AD progression can severely damage the connectivity between the thalamus and cortex, periods of lucidity can persist with sufficient function and connection between the thalamus and cortex. This sufficient function and connection is proved by your observance of lucidity expression within a severely compromised AD neural environment. The observance that lucidity can persist with a severely damaged brain isn't evidence of anything particularly miraculous, it is merely a testament to the plasticity of our central nervous system amid periods of severe distress.

I may have been a bit wordy in explaining my position. To simplify, lucid behavioral expression is largely dependent on the connection and exchanges between the neocortex and the thalamus. Between these two components the thalamus is more vital to our survival and brain function than the neocortex. The thalamus importance is suggested by how little cortical structure is required for behavioral expression and how nothing happens in the brain without thalamic function. Lucidity can occur with a severely degrade cortex because it is not as essential to that state as the thalamus' ability to rewire and adapt its function to limited cortical function. Behavioral efference (output) is coordinated through thalamic function; therefore, lucid behaviors are an output of thalamic function. To attenuate, refine, and focus its behavioral output, the thalamus relies on a healthy cortex throughout the life of a healthy individual. When there's degradation in the brain, this doesn't necessarily infer degradation of thalamic function. When we see moments of lucidity in AD patients this suggests that their thalamus has adapted new cortical connection to express that lucidity. Those connections may become tenuous as the AD cortex continues to degrade. Sporadic periods of lucidity suggest the tenuous nature of the neural connectivity between the cortex and thalamus in a deteriorating neural environment--like a damaged wire connecting a lamp to its power source.

The crux of your inquiry here appears to question how a brain with severely degraded structure produces behaviors that suggest full functionality and lucidity. The answer to that requires a cohesive and cogent understanding of brain function by way of its functional evolution. My understanding of evolution informed me that the functionality of recent brain components is dependent on the function of earlier components and that the function of those early brain components was enhanced by those that emerged recently in brain development. From my perspective of brain evolution, functionality developed along a clear contiguous path from components that appear to engage primitive functions to those that seem more evolved in their functionality. To answer the question of functional plasticity in a severely degraded brain, let’s begin with the thalamus. Most researchers regard the thalamus as a primitive brain structure relative to the neocortex. This suggests that the functionality of the neocortex likely developed after the functional development of the thalamus and that neocortical function is dependent on thalamic function for that reason—the neocortex can’t do what it does for our cognition without a fully functional thalamus as its base. From my perspective of evolution, recent developments build upon and enhance the efficiency of earlier developments. Evolution doesn’t necessarily discard primitive developments, but rather build upon and enhance those that are successful. If that’s true, then our neocortex somehow builds upon and enhances the functionality of the thalamus—but how? If we agree that the thalamus is our brain’s focal (hub) for sensory input (afference), integration, and output (efference) of our responses to sensory input, we should agree that neocortical function builds upon and enhances what our thalamus does for brain function—that’s if we accept the tenets of evolutional development as I’ve provided. If our thalamus is a focal for processing (integration) afference and engaging efferently focused behaviors, what might the thalamus need to enhance that function? The answer is likely to be memory as it adds precision to our behaviors. Next to comparing the relative nature and impact of our sensory experiences (integration), memory is perhaps most important because it allows us to mediate our behavioral responses according to our recall of past sensory experiences—Essentially, memory allows us to learn from our experiences. This type of mediation would have been essential to the survival of ancestral animals because it would likely have allowed them to conserve their energetic responses to only that stimulus of survival significance. Memory, among other things, allows us to mediate our behavioral responses to stimuli we’ve learned about and know not to be of significant impact on our experiences and that, at a minimum, is how neocortical function enhances thalamic function. More precisely, neocortical function allows us to engage in precise behavioral responses relative to our current sensory experiences based on our prior experiences. Our thalamus has adapted the neocortex as a kind of thinking cap or an extended workspace where the thalamus may attenuate its processing of sensory data. Regarding plasticity with degraded neocortical structures, clearly a fully functional thalamus that has adapted to limited workspace doesn’t need as much neocortical structure to attenuate its processing as a healthy brain might require. A functional thalamus in a healthy brain that has suffered severe degeneration requires time to adapt if it does at all within that compromised neural environment. Resiliency and lucidity is likely dependent on our thalamus’ ability to adapt to its compromised neural environment.

In your hopeful pursuit of support for your perspective, you might be reading a bit too much into the wording of your citation. As you have provided, the article purports that "...the AD brain exhibits metabolic abnormalities..." that ultimately "impaired neuroplasticity." This is not a declarative statement affirming the complete cessation of all metabolic activity in the AD brain nor does it infer a complete breakdown of that brain's neuroplastic capabilities. Contrary to your read of the article, evidence for a potentially lucid AD brain is suggested by those brain functions that continue to operate in the AD brain that sustain life and appear to generate directed behaviroal responses to stimuli such as gross locomotion, verbal responses to verbal cues, and responses to sound. Actually, any response a damage brain generates suggests some continuing functionality. If there is continuing functionality in a terminal brain, there remains a potential for lucidity. As for the effectiveness of compromised neuroplasticity, hydrocephalia, leucotomy, and other significant brain damaging conditions and traumas suggest that not much functionally healthy and active brain tissue is required for the affected brain to produce behaviors suggestive of lucidity. If there remains some sliver of healthy tissue in a severely damaged brain, clearly the potential for lucidity remains possible. Lucidity in a damaged brain is likely about that brain's ability extract the resources it needs for stability from what little it may have remaining.

The article you've cited does not specifically reference the breakdown of a Alzheimer's brain's entire metabolic processes, but focuses on an aspect of that process shown by "...reduced insulin signal transductions in the brain". The article reports that "...intranasal injection of insulin has been found to have an effect on AD [alzheimer's disease] treatment." As evidenced that the a dying brain may not have the capacity to re-energize its connectivity, your citation isn't a very good one because the "intranasal" insulin bypass suggests even a metabolically challenged brain can be re-energized through alternate nutrient enriched pathways. This intranasal treatment suggests that Alzheimer's is not as much about the brain's neuroelectrical activity as it may be about the brain's access to the nutrients generating that activity. A damaged, terminal brain may experience moments of functional lucidity by the very nature of brain plasticity; wherein, the damaged brain may fine or build tenuous, temporary pathways to the resource it needs to maintain some brief peak of functional stability. As a point of clarity, my use of brain in our discussions references the organ itself. My use of consciousness merely references awareness, which for me describes the basic perception of experience. My view of mind is not synonymous with that of consciousness as mind, in my view, necessitates a thought process while consciousness does not--mind and consciousness are not the same property of brain function.

Even a dying ember can reignite as it burns through the last of its fuel. As a dying sun can increase in light emissions (nova) when it burns throught its remaining fuel, our brain can experience an energetic surge of connectivity as its neural components near the end of functionality. For our brain, increased lucidity as it nears death infers increased functionality, which infers increased neural connectivity. We find explanations for terminal lucidity, when we consider what metabolic activities are more acutely engaged as our brain pursues its functional imperative amid its dying moments. In those moments, the functional imperative of our brain is not to produce lucidity, consciousness, or mind. Our brain's functional imperative is to maintain its metabolic stability (homeostasis), which is what it has been our entire life. As our brain dies, increased functionality and lucidity of mind is merely a byproduct of its metabolic imperative, which is to maintain functional stability against the degradation of its dying components.

I consider myself open minded as well; however, I agree with iNow, supernaturalism is a nonstarter. Immaterial sources of consciousness and mind are unprovable as both may only be proven by our investigation of materially testable sources. In every instance of the behavioral expressions of awareness and thought that we are able to indentify among various lifeforms, we are also able to indentify a probable source within their physiology for the production of those behaviors. To believe that properties of basic awareness and mind could exist without a physiology or material nature is essentially religion not science.

I have a habit of re-reading my comments and I often cringe at minor mistakes I make in spelling, punctuation, and grammar. I will leave minor errors in place when they do not significantly distract from my conveyance of meaning; however, caparative is not the word I intended here. In the above paragraph, the word should have been comparative as I meant a process of evaluating similar and dissimilar qualities. My apologies for the confusion.

How our brain creates mind involves its capacity to generate responses to stimuli based on a caparative assessment of that stimuli. For example, we may instinctively react to an unexpected loud pop while our back is turned; however, if we are able see the source of this loud pop before it occurs, we can mediate how we react to that sound. The ability to mediated our responses is what having a mind does. This mediation involves a subtle caparative assessment between the sight and sound of our experiences coupled with memory of prior experiences. This is a simple example of the thought processes our brain engages unconsciously as a reflex to sensory intake. On a metabolic level, the delivery of sensory stimuli into to our central nervous system, and the brain in particular, requires energy. Our brain's responses to that stimuli also requires energy. Our brain will keep generating energetic neural responses to that energy depleting stimuli until the impact of that stimuli is mediated. Essentially, thought processes for our brain is a metabolic process involving the mediation of sensory stimuli. This process explains why at just about 5% of our body mass, our brain consumes about 20% of our total energy uptake. I agree, having a brain is not essential to behaviors that infer consciousness (awareness). Further, I agree that a brain is not essential to the production of behaviors that infer a mind; however, having physical, internal or systemic structures capable of producing behaviors suggestive of either or both is indeed essential. For organisms other than human, a brain may not be necessary to produce behaviors suggestive of awareness or a thought process, but it is necessary that these organisms have a physiology or the structures capable of generating those behaviors that suggest awareness and/or a thought process. Indeed, the pleasure of our discussion was all mine!

From my perspective, the mind is not a property that's separate from the organism that produces it. Different species may have difference neural or sensory structures that operate similar to those that produce a mind in humans; therefore, we cannot always expect to find the structures in other animals like those structures that produces a mind for humans. What we are only able to do is examine other species behaviors then investigate their anatomy for the structures and developments that produce those behaviors. The only evidence that an organism produces a mind is suggested by our subjective assessment of its behaviors. If we agree that for humans a mind is indicative of behaviors that suggest a thought process, we only need to examine the neurological components of our central nervous system that may contribute to those behaviors. Understanding the mental matrix that originates thought processes cannot be simply explained in just a few words here; however, all roads to that understanding begins with a perspective on how the human brain likely evolved. When we examine our central nervous system, we see that it comprises components we consider primitive and those we consider more recent in its development. If we trace these components by their functional contributions from recent to primitive, we get a sense of the stages of brain development leading to the emergence of a mind. Advisedly, this is not a suggestion that our brains structure and development involved a linear path of evolution, but they do identify prominent stages in its development that had to be in place before others could emerge. The functions of each of these developments comprises a matrix of brain activity that eventually evolved to produce a mind. It would require more time than I have here to explore each of the prominent functional stages in brain evolution leading to mind production, so I'll skip ahead just a bit. By the time our central nervous system arrived at the stage of thalamic development, evolution had produced a structure capable of merging diverse sensory experiences and initiating responses to those experiences. However, it is likely that the thalamus was incapable of producing the thought-driven behaviors suggestive of mind production. Mind production, from my perspective of brain evolution, began with the emergence and merging of visual sensory and then components of the brain associated with memory. Visual sensory was key because it gave an organism the ability to assess the necessity of its reactions to tactile stimuli. This was important because up to the stage of visual sensory detection all other forms of sensory detection was tactile. To the brain evolution of humans, no other stage was more important to the emergence of mind production than sight.

Indeed, in sense, I am. I perceived the mind as only a property of brain function but this doesn't suggest that it has no influence. This influence of the mind is conveyed by the thoughtful behaviors its activity produces. From the outset of any cogent perspective, we cannot assess an organism as having a mind without observable behaviors suggesting that indeed it does. From a human perspective, the behaviors most indicative of a mind are those that suggest a thought process as opposed those that are clearly reflexive; i.e., instinctive, preprogrammed responses. For example, it's instinctive to have fear, but with a mind we are able to mediate our responses to fear. A mind is necessarily a property of a complex central nervous system that, for humans, requires a brain. There are organisms that react to their environment, but their actions do not necessarily suggest they posess a mind. A flower, for example, may open its petals to sunlight but this action alone doesn't suggest that flower has a mind. What this action do suggest is the flower's awareness of its sunny environment. We were discussing an aspect of the brainstem and its association with wakeful behavior, but as the origin of the property we call mind, it's contributes to the confluence of neural activity that produces a mind but is not the source of the mind. Mind, as I've frequently opined, is a matrix. From my perspective, the capacity to produce a mental matrix didn't evolve until the emergence of the thalamus. The thalamus is where all our sensory information, except olfactory, arrives in the brain before reaching the cortex. Research has shown no activity occurs in the cortex without a neural connection to the thalamus and damage to the thalamus is deadly; whereas, significat cortical damage isn't necessarily fatal.

My view of consciousness regards the most basic form of awareness as suggested by an organism's observed behavioral reactions. Truly, we cannot determine whether an organism has even the smallest measure of consciousness without observable behavioral responses to its environment. From my perspective, consciousness doesn't necessarily confer intelligence. Intelligence is a subjective measure based on observable behaviors suggesting a thought process and having a thought process is exclusive to having a mind. A mind, from my view, is that mental matrix arising from brain function that give rise to behaviors we perceive as thought and intelligent. Nevertheless, I agree that consciousness in its most basic form is not exclusive to having a brain; however, for human equivalent consciousness, some form of brain or neural function is essential. Thought, in my view, arises from a matrix of biological processes within the brain involving a recipracol metabolic system of checks and balances (homeostasis). I would prefer not to speak too much about this system as it's basic implications are most unsettling. However, if we agree that basic consciousness is the progenitor of the mind and the mind the progenitor of thought, then none of these are observable without responses to stimuli. Indeed, there are responses to stimuli that appear mindless, which we confer as instinct; however, mindful responses confer a thought process, which is a quality that appears contrary to instinctive and reactive behaviors. If the behaviors we observe in other living things are contrary to those we confer as instinctive, then it's most likely that their behaviors doesn't confer thinking. But most living things are complex and function through a combination of instinct and thought. A bird, for example, may be instinctively driven to build a nest while its seemingly thoughtful behaviors in choosing the materials to build that nest suggest otherwise--indeed, there is more than mindless reactiveness occurring. In the early days of my study of the dreaming brain, the RAS was a focal in understanding of the sleep process and its association with atonia amid that process. IMO, there's so little regards given in science to the brainstem and particularly its crown, the thalamus. There is more than considerable research suggesting that thalamic function is sufficient to viably sustain life in the absence of major cortical structures.

Please pardon this late response: I agree with iNow, you appear to be conflating mind with consciousness as a singular concept; therefore, before I proceed further, let me provide some clarity on how I perceive these distinct qualities. You've title this discussion thread with "Mind" and have cited research in neuroscience as a basis for your perspective. If our discussion regards the mind with a basis in neuroscience then this discussion does indeed involve brain function. Specifically, mind and consciousness does not exist without brain function. More specifically, consciousness is the progenitor of that quality or attribute we perceive as the mind. For clarity sake, we should define the relative and basic nature of consciousness in brain function. Consciousness isn't a quality unique to humans. From my view, consciousness is merely the awareness suggested by an organism's responses to stimuli. To respond to stimuli, an organism must have an sensory system for the detection of stimuli. In addition to a sensory detection system, an organism must also have a system that provides recipracol responses to detected stimuli. In the brain, we have afferent neural pathways for the delivery of sensory into our central nervous system and efferent pathways for the recipracol responses that issue from our central nervous system. The effect of this diametrical system is that the action of one of these systems does not engage without the action of the other--essentially, there is no efferent response from the brain without afferent stimulation. Consciousness is the efferently expressed behavior that suggests awareness and awareness is the basic progenitor of those processing in the brain that lead to the quality we perceive as having a mind. To add emphasis, the entirety of this process requires energy and without that energy the system fails. With brain function--and yes, this is about the brain--failure is not a option. Homeostasis is the process that drives brain function.

I've had previous discussions here about the nature of the mind and it's not quite the enigma some researchers have concluded. Sunccintly, mind is the environment of cognitive activity in the brain that arises from brain function. Through that function, a mind is quantified or evinced by a brain's capacity to integrate diverse sensory data with memory functions through a process that produces behaviors independent of instinct. In even simpler terms, a mind is evidenced by behaviors that suggest a though process--behaviors more clearly associated with proactive rather than reactive responses. The primary process or mechanism in brain function that produces a mind is homeostasis, which is simply our brain's efforts to maintain its metabolic balance against the imbalance sensory stimuli causes. No understanding of mind and consciousness it complete without a understanding of how our brain likely evolved to its current state. Understanding that evolution likely explains why our species of human dominates while others have gone exstinct.

Free will is an illusion, we are all slaves to our biology and biological systems...imho.