The Filter Hypothesis of the Mind-Brain Relationship

In the Myth of an Afterlife there's a chapter called The Dualist’s Dilemma.  The authors of this particular chapter (different chapters are penned by different authors) are Keith Augustine and Yonatan I. Fishman.  At one point they criticise the filter hypothesis of the consciousness-brain relationship.  The filter hypothesis rejects the idea that the brain produces the self and consciousness and, at least in its most simplistic interpretation, holds that the brain serves to constrain, limit and focus our consciousness.  They say:

If the mind is “not generated by the brain but instead focused, limited, and constrained by it” (Kelly et al., 2007, p. xxx), the filter theory entails that a brainless mind will be expanded, less limited, and unrestricted by brain function. 

So, in an unembodied state as in an afterlife realm, we ought to be more conscious.  This seems to be supported by accounts from those who have undergone NDE's who often report that during their NDE they felt more conscious than they have ever felt in their lives.

They continue:

[No] brainless minds are available to clinicians for study, this is not a falsifiable prediction in itself. But it does have falsifiable consequences, most obviously that the greater the disruption in brain function, the “freer” the mind will be from its neural confines, and hence the clearer one’s cognitive function will be. For example, we would expect the progressive destruction of more and more of the brain’s “filter” by Alzheimer’s disease to progressively “free” more and more of consciousness, and thus increase Alzheimer’s patients’ mental proficiency as the disease progresses. Just as removing sections of a dam would increase the flow of water going through it, the degenerating “filter” would become increasingly ineffective in limiting consciousness as more and more neural pathways were destroyed.

But nothing could be further from the truth. As the dependence thesis straightforwardly predicts, the more that brain functioning is compromised, the more that the mind itself is compromised.

Well, in the context of Alzheimer's there is the phenomenon of terminal or paradoxical lucidity, but anyway... 

Often the metaphor of a TV set is employed to illustrate this filter hypothesis. Just as a TV set doesn't produce the programmes that are shown, but merely alters the TV signal in certain characteristic ways, so too brains don't produce consciousness but rather alters consciousness in a certain characteristic way.  Now, clearly, a damaged TV doesn't result in enhanced picture quality, so why would a damaged brain result in one becoming more conscious?

Their mistake is to ignore the fact that while the self is attached to the brain, then it will be subject to the condition of the brain.  Compare to my vision when I wear eyeglasses with the lenses progressively fogging up.  My vision won't be enhanced, rather it will be compromised.  But not so when I take the eyeglasses off.

They go on to say:

[O]n the filter theory we would expect more robust brains to be better filters of an otherwise unrestricted mind, and thus for the minds of those who possess the most complex brains to be the most mentally handicapped. But then wouldn’t the organisms with the simplest brains be the most mentally proficient, rather than those with the most complex ones? And wouldn’t children with the least developed brains be the most mentally proficient, while those transitioning into adulthood became increasingly impaired by the greater filtering imposed by their progressively developing brains?

Not at all.  Again, if we refer to the TV set metaphor, we would scarcely expect an old-fashioned B&W TV set to produce the best picture quality, and a more technologically sophisticated  smart UHD TV set, to produce the worst.

Incidentally, they're taking the notion of a brain being a "filter" too literally.  The brain doesn't merely filter, it will have a somewhat more involved role than that.

PS I have a ~13,000 word review of The Myth of an Afterlife.  Go here.  

Does the evidence entail the brain creates the mind?

Does the fact that mental capacities vary according to the intricacy and condition of one’s brain show that consciousness, or the mind, could not exist without the brain? Most of the scholarly community appear to think so. But it seems to me that this is not correct. Indeed, I submit it is quite a glaring error. To try and illustrate this I'll expand upon an analogy I've used before (the analogy was originally employed by J. M. E. McTaggart in "Some Dogmas of Religion" p105):

If a man is in a house, he can see the sky by looking out of a window. But he can't see the sky if the curtains are drawn, or if no windows exist in the house. Would that mean the ability to see can't be intrinsic to the man? That's clearly nonsense since he could go out of the house and have an unrestricted view of the sky!

Nevertheless, we get the -- let's call them "housists" -- who insist that it simply must be the case that the windows somehow create our visual experiences. For, after all, slightly closing the curtains restricts one's ability to see the sky outside, and indeed, drawing the curtains completely totally destroys one's ability to see the sky outside. And what if the house had no windows at all? So it simply must be the case that the windows somehow creates one's visual experiences.

But how? This is the visual-house problem, and it's a problem that's fiercely been debated for millennia with no solution in sight. All the housists, all the great "intellects", the "experts", believe that somehow windows create vision, but they all propose different solutions as to how this is achieved. They vehemently attack each others "solutions" to this problem. And, indeed, their attacks on each other are all valid. And this is because it's not possible for windows to create vision! And it's an obvious impossibility because there is nothing about windows that could magically conjure up a visual experience from nothing. It would be miraculous. But try telling that to the "experts"!

It's obvious to us that the windows themselves do not create the man's visual experience of the sky. They merely enable him to see the sky. But the actual ability to see the sky resides within him.

But it seems to me the exact same argument applies to the self and brain. Whilst my self is "housed" by the brain, then the brain can affect many abilities of the self (perceiving, thinking etc). But it's just as implausible that the brain creates such abilities as windows create visual experiences.  See my essay where I explain this http://ian-wardell.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/neither-modern-materialism-nor-science.html

It should be noted that this doesn't mean there's a life after death. Unlike the materialists, I think there must be something non-physical, a non-physical self even. And it is this self that has the innate ability to see, think, etc.

Nevertheless, maybe this self cannot exist outside the brain. But I think there are many reasons to suppose it does.

Keith Augustine in "The Myth of an Afterlife"

Does the thesis that the brain produces the mind cohere well with our overall background knowledge?

 

In the book The Myth of an Afterlife two of the authors Keith Augustine and Yonatan I. Fishman pen the following:

Of course, compared with a hypothesis that coheres well with our overall background knowledge, an “extraordinary” hypothesis at odds with our knowledge about how the world operates would generally be assigned a low prior probability. Accordingly, insofar as the independence thesis entails that a separable soul can perceive, think, feel, and deliberate apart from any biological basis at all (sometimes suggesting a stark break in our evolutionary connection to all other forms of life on earth), and apparently requires either that a nonphysical soul violates well-established physical laws by interacting with the brain, or else that the soul is itself a physical thing completely unknown to science, it is a highly extraordinary hypothesis that should be assigned a low prior probability. For the independence thesis to be more plausible than its antithesis on Bayesian grounds, we would need a considerable amount of compelling evidence in its favor—and at the expense of the dependence thesis—to outweigh its initially low prior probability. (page 260).

The independence thesis here refers to the notion that we survive our deaths in some form. Contrariwise, the dependence thesis refers to the notion that the mind and consciousness depend on the brain, hence they cannot exist without the brain. Here and elsewhere in the book (this is a huge book of 700+ pages with a total of 29 contributors all sporting impressive academic credentials), it is repeatedly hammered home ad nauseam -- and especially by Keith Augustine -- that the dependence thesis is consistent with the rest of our scientific knowledge of the world. And, conversely, the independence thesis is emphatically not.

Now, in order to claim this, consciousness must at least be potentially scientifically explicable. It is not sufficient to hold that consciousness simply appears as a brute fact once there is a certain level of physical complexity. We require a scientific explanation for how the brain produces consciousness, or we at least need to be confident that one will be eventually forthcoming. 

But I have previously argued that it is not possible to provide such a scientific explanation for consciousness, at least not based on our current conception of science. I go into some detail as to why this is so in both my Science, the Afterlife, and theIntelligentsia (especially parts 4 and 5), and my Neither Modern Materialism nor Scienceas currently conceived can explain Consciousness (especially part 5). But, in a nutshell, I argue that because science limits itself to the quantifiable or that which can be measured, then it necessarily follows that it cannot in principle explain consciousness since the latter is essentially characterised by qualia (construed in its broadest sense) and intentionality (in its philosophical sense).



It is important to realise it is not only me that thinks there’s a problem here. The precise nature of the relationship of consciousness, or mind, to one's body, and more specifically how the brain can give rise to the mind, has been labelled the mind-body problem. There have been a variety of proposed solutions to this problem, but for each and every proposed solution there are dissenting voices questioning its intelligibility. And, to correct a possible misconception, although the overwhelming majority of scientists and philosophers adopt what they label as a materialist position, it’s not as if they’re all in agreement with each other – indeed far from it! There are many varieties of materialism and there is much disagreement as to which of the available varieties, if any, might be the correct one. Indeed, there are a small but increasing number of vocal philosophers and scientists who hold that no proposed materialist position can be argued to be adequate. If this is so, then how the mind relates to the brain is up in the air. Indeed, in recognition of the apparent irreconcilable nature of this relationship, and the problem of why the mind or consciousness exists at all, the philosopher David Chalmers has coined the phrase the hard problem.

 

Astonishingly The Myth of an Afterlife has very little to say about the mind/body problem. Where it is mentioned it is to attack dualism ( i.e the notion that the brain and mind are distinct, even if the former somehow gives rise to the latter). One will search this massive volume in vain for any mention of the well known difficulties for both materialism and for providing a scientific explanation of how the brain produces consciousness. Difficulties, as I make clear in my two essays, I regard as insurmountable; at least with our present conception of what comprises the material or physical. It is of little avail to stress the fact that mental capacities inevitably vary according to the intricacy and condition of one’s brain, if the intended conclusion -- that the latter produce the former -- cannot, in principle, be rendered scientifically explicable. Of course, undoubtedly the authors would not agree with arguments suggesting that the difficulties for providing a scientific explanation are insurmountable, or indeed that there are any difficulties in principle at all here. But such arguments should at least be addressed! They had over 700 pages to do so. Instead, much of this volume, and by differing authors, keeps repeating the same tired points over and over again -- namely the fact that mental states are altered by physical states of the brain. All well and good, but if the process whereby brain activity produces consciousness is wholly mysterious, if not effectively magical, then clearly one ought to be more open to alternative hypotheses.

 

2. Is it possible we could perceive, think, feel, and deliberate without a brain?

But are there any alternative hypotheses? Even if materialism should be false, doesn't the fact that mental capacities vary according to the intricacy and condition of one’s brain show that consciousness, or the mind, could not exist without the brain? Specifically, what about Augustine's and Fishman's claim that a disembodied soul or self would not be able to 'perceive, think, feel, and deliberate'? Their reasoning here is that the brain is always implicated when these abilities are present, moreover our mental capacities are often compromised with dysfunctional brains, hence the brain must play some essential pivotal role. This being so then it follows a disembodied soul or consciousness could not possibly perceive, think, feel, and deliberate.



In responding to this, we should first of all remind ourselves that we have no idea, even in principle, how the brain all by itself could explain consciousness, and hence we have no idea of how the brain could 'perceive, think, feel, and deliberate' either. To that extent the possibility of there existing some sort of substantial self interacting with its brain, might provide that essential ingredient in some expanded physics. (See part 6 -- "The Mind-Brain Correlations" of my Neither Modern Materialism nor Science as currently conceived can explain Consciousness.) But perhaps even here such a self would require a brain? Does the fact that the brain is always implicated in our conscious experiences -- at least while we’re embodied -- entail that it plays a crucial role in the production of such experiences? Or does it at least make it extraordinary likely that it plays a crucial role in the production of such experiences? 

Here we need to ask ourselves what the alternative is. Certainly, given the reality of the mind-brain correlations, then we should surely at a minimum acknowledge that the brain at least influences the abilities to perceive, think, feel, and deliberate, even if it does not produce them. A possibility that presents itself here is that such abilities might be innate to the self or soul, but that the brain serves to either facilitate or inhibit them. The brain, that is, might function in a roughly analogical manner to a type of reducing valve. So here our perceptions, thoughts, feelings and so on, could still be attributes of the soul, but while the soul operates through the brain, a dysfunctional brain could impair their manifestation where as a normal functioning brain allows their manifestation. To use an analogy employed by J. M. E. McTaggart:

If a man is shut up in a house, the transparency of the windows is an essential condition of his seeing the sky. But it would not be prudent to infer that, if he walked out of the house, he could not see the sky because there was no longer any glass through which he might see it. (Some Dogmas of Religion p105).

This view of the relationship of the self to its brain is sometimes referred to as the filter hypothesis. The authors do recognise this hypothesis but do not find it compelling. They say:

If the mind is “not generated by the brain but instead focused, limited, and constrained by it” (Kelly et al., 2007, p. xxx), the filter theory entails that a brainless mind will be expanded, less limited, and unrestricted by brain function. [This implies] that the greater the disruption in brain function, the “freer” the mind will be from its neural confines, and hence the clearer one’s cognitive function will be. For example,we would expect the progressive destruction of more and more of the brain’s “filter” by Alzheimer’s disease to progressively “free” more and more of consciousness, and thus increase Alzheimer’s patients’ mental proficiency as the disease progresses. (p230)

But it's not clear to me why a dysfunctional brain would necessarily make the mind "freer". In McTaggart's analogy, one could make the windows larger, or more transparent, but they could be also made smaller, or the view less clear by putting net curtains up. Or consider a radio. The internal components do not produce the voices and music from the radio, and in this sense might be comparable to the filter model of the soul/brain relationship. Would damaging the internal components of the radio improve the quality of the sound? Presumably not, so why would a damaged or dysfunctional brain necessarily result in an expanded mind?


It's also worth mentioning that in rare instances one's mind does appear to improve alongside a dysfunctional brain; or at least the mind improves in some respects. The authors mention Alzheimer's disease. Pertinent here is a phenomenon called terminal lucidity that has been described by German biologist Michael Nahm as:

The (re-)emergence of normal or unusually enhanced mental abilities in dull, unconscious, or mentally ill patients shortly before death, including considerable elevation of mood and spiritual affectation, or the ability to speak in a previously unusual spiritualized and elated manner. (From here p89)

There's also hyperthymesia, the ability to remember practically everything that's ever happened to you. Hence a person afflicted by this condition has the ability to precisely recall what they were doing on a specific day that happened many years ago. And then there's acquired savant syndrome. In the link the author Darold A. Treffer describes this condition as 'instances [where] dormant savant skills emerge, sometimes at a prodigious level, after a brain injury or disease in previously non-disabled (neurotypical) persons where few such skills were evident before such CNS injury or disease'.


We currently lack an understanding of how such a self interacts with its brain, but, in stark contrast to any materialist position, I see no reason why the filter hypothesis might not be true. It does, after all, seem to be consistent with the fact that our mental capacities are normally impaired with brain damage, but on rare occasions are enhanced. On the other hand, reconciling any type of materialist position with these rare instances where mental capacity is enhanced, could be a challenge. Note that this is a challenge over and above the philosophical reasons for rejecting any type of materialist position I have articulated in my two essays.

It is to be conceded that this filter hypothesis does generate a whole host of questions. For one, why on earth does the self or soul operate through a brain in the first place? I do not profess to be able to give any answers as to why there should exist a physical reality at all, but given that one does, then it seems the self or soul operates through a brain to enable us to interact with this physical reality. In addition, I would speculate that it might be the case that part of the brain’s purpose is to filter out the perception of other realities, and conscious states, which might prove distracting in our ability to function proficiently within this physical reality. Hence, when our brains are in their normal functioning state, they might serve to normally prohibit such experiences like mystical experiences, near-death experiences, savant syndrome, hyperthymesia, experiences induced by psychedelic drugs, and so on and so forth. If this is correct, then such experiences are not a product of a disorganised, dysfunctional brain. Rather they are realities which exist out there that we are allowed a partial glimpse of due to our impaired ability of the brain to act as an effective “filter”.

3. Does the soul or self violate physical laws?

Finally, the charge that a soul or self would 'violate well-established physical laws by interacting with the brain', is to make precisely the same mistake as Sean Carroll does in this article. I explain why he is wrong here. It is also to put the horse before the cart. Physical laws are supposed to describe reality, not dictate to reality what can or cannot exist.  

If we have a phenomenon that has been universally reported, we cannot assert it doesn't exist because it doesn't fit in with some pre-defined laws. Rather, a more encompassing theory needs to be advanced. A new theory, which while still explaining existing phenomena, is able to also accommodate this "anomalous" phenomenon.


In this context, I submit that we can be completely certain of the existence of at least one "anomalous" phenomenon, and that is our own consciousness. Moreover, I maintain that consciousness is necessarily causally efficacious as I argue here, and cannot be reduced to any physical processes as I argue in part 4 of my Science, the Afterlife, and the Intelligentsia. So a new more encompassing theory needs to be proposed. No flavour of reductive materialism accommodates these facts, although possibly some other mind-body position, but one that still holds the brains elicits/causes the mind, might. But what is certain is that current physical laws wholly leave out even our normal everyday embodied consciousness in their description of reality. It follows they cannot, therefore, be invoked to rule out consciousness surviving the demise of our bodies.

Is a "life after death" conceivable?

1. Proof that the brain produces consciousness?



It is presumed amongst many highly educated people in the West, and in particular scientists, that it has essentially been proven that the brain produces consciousness. They hold that there is overwhelming evidence to support this thesis and that it is no longer a live issue. This evidence comes in the form of the apparent complete dependency of our states of our minds on our brains. Just to mention a few examples; our capacity to understand written and spoken words, or the capacity to speak, are impaired or even eliminated with injuries to certain regions of the brain. Damage to the hippocampal and thalamic areas of the brain can destroy one's ability to store new long-term memories. In addition radical personality change may be brought about by injury to the brain. The most famous example here is undoubtedly Phineas Gage. We can also point to the effects of drugs that have a propensity to affect our emotions, attitudes and dispositions. Indeed even alcohol and caffeine do this.



On the face of it these facts of modern neuroscience strongly indicate that there can be little realistic prospect of our consciousness surviving the deaths of our bodies [1]. However, my intention in this paper is to argue that the issue is not as clear-cut as the above would seem to suggest. Indeed I will argue that not only are we not compelled to conclude that consciousness is wholly a product of the brain, but that in many ways, assuming otherwise, has the benefit of being compatible with a great deal of alternative evidence. In addition I will argue that it also has the not inconsiderable bonus of being consistent with our commonsensical notion of ourselves.





2. A useful Simile?



Consider the following scenario. Imagine if you will 2 very intelligent people from the early 18th century – let’s call them Daniel and Ian – who, by some means or other, are miraculously transported to our present day. Imagine further they encounter a television set showing a film. After being suitably astounded, and after tinkering around with its internal components and finding that tinkering with particular components affects the picture quality in particular characteristic ways, Daniel declares that not just the picture but the storyline of the film must be wholly generated by these internal components. He argues that this must be the inevitable conclusion since tinkering with them affects the picture. Ian, however, will rightly point out that although he grants that the picture itself is generated by these internal components, there is difficulty in supposing that the contents of the film being shown is also wholly a product of these internal components. Ian argues that should the film be wholly a product of the internal components, then tinkering with them in a certain appropriate way should alter the sequence of pictures being shown so that a different film were being shown; or perhaps more plausibly a completely random sequence of pictures were shown.



On hearing this argument Daniel becomes quite angry. He starts to go into greater detail regarding the specific ways the quality of the picture displayed is effected, including ghosting, the picture changing from a colour to a black and white one, and a whole host of various other effects. Finally he mentions his killer argument. Namely that taking a hammer to the television set will permanently destroy its ability to display a picture. All this, he will assert, makes it pretty much of a forgone conclusion that both the picture and the storyline is entirely a product of the television set itself.



Whilst acknowledging the compelling nature of this last argument made by Daniel, Ian nevertheless doesn’t feel happy because he has not addressed the issue of why the storyline being shown remains resistant to tinkering with the internal components. Nevertheless, because neither Daniel or Ian know anything about electromagnetic waves, and indeed would find the concept of invisible waves travelling through the air to be completely alien and inimical to how they viewed reality and what is possible, then Ian has no ready reply to Daniel. Yet he remains uneasy and puzzled.



Later on in this paper I will suggest that the above might serve as a useful simile to the relationship of the self to ones brain. But before directly addressing this question it will be necessary to say a few words about the self and what we should consider is meant by it. I will then suggest that should consciousness continue after death, it will be this self that survives.





3. What is the self?



How do we define the self? An obvious answer would be to simply equate it with ones various personality characteristics such as ones interests, intelligence, memories, general demeanour and so on. However there is an obvious problem here. Compared to ourselves now, as children we had very different personality characteristics. If we are to embrace the position that we are merely the sum of our entire psychological state, and that there is very little in common between our entire psychological state as a child and now, then the inescapable conclusion is that the child has now quite literally ceased to exist. But it’s much worse than this. Simply having a few alcoholic drinks can change our personality characteristics quite radically. Indeed, even in the normal course of events, we can be in radically different moods from one day to the next, or even from one moment to the next. Are we to suppose we can be literally differing selves from one moment to the next?



It seems to me that we have this concept of the self which in one sense changes, but yet without changing what we essentially are. To elucidate; although our apparent personality and intelligence and interests may change radically throughout our lives, nevertheless we feel very strongly that there is a real sense in which we are still one and the very same person. Thus despite, for example, our 5 year old self, our sober adult self, or our drunk adult self exhibiting quite radically different personality traits, and having differing intelligence and differing interests, we are still generally very firmly convinced that we are literally the same self throughout our lives and therefore throughout these various differing mind states. Thus *I* (that is the self) might, for example, be in a good mood or a bad mood. But my self is not to be equated by such given mind states. Rather *I* experience being in a good mood, or a bad mood, or indeed any other mental state. The I, or the self, is that which endures, but which can experience various mental states such as differing moods.



So what we’re doing here is drawing a distinction between particular psychological or mind states on the one hand, and the self on the other. On this understanding the self is not the sum of our various psychological states. Rather the self is that which has particular conscious experiences, or undergoes particular psychological states. Another way of putting this is to say that our various psychological states, or mind states, are properties of the self rather than constituting the self. That is to say that neither ones typically longer term enduring psychological states such as ones interests, intelligence, memories, general demeanour, nor ones more transient psychological states such as the mood one happens to be in, is actually constitutive of the self. Therefore they can vary without changing the self. This is not to say though that ones self might not heavily influence some of our psychological states. However it does not rigidly determine them.



I would again stress that this seems to be consistent with our intuitive and commonsense notion of the self. Most of us are entirely happy to suppose we are literally the very same self as when we were children, despite having different intelligence, preoccupations and so on as compared to then. In other words we feel there is an enduring essence to us which remains unchanged and which I feel is appropriate to label the self.



However we encounter irreconcilable difficulties with this notion of the self if we assume that the brain produces both the self and its conscious experiences. To put the problem briefly; the physical is in a constant state of change, therefore brains and all the parts composing a brain, are also in a constant state of change. Hence if the brain, or a part of it, produces such a self, then it seems that this self must also be in a constant state of change. Such is the case under philosophical materialism which holds that only the material or physical exists, and thus consciousness and any "self" must be physical too. Thus under materialism, since the physical is in a constant state of change, then so too must the self.



But this commonsense notion of a self we have articulated does not change. What we might call the properties of the self change – namely ones moods, interests and so on. But the self itself does not change. Otherwise we would in effect be saying that from one second to the next the self is ceasing to exist only to be replaced by a different albeit virtually identical self. We would be constantly effectively dying, only to be constantly created anew, so to speak. The feeling that we are a continuing self would be merely an illusion. If the reader is perplexed by this I highly recommend they read my essay “Teleportation and the implications for an enduring self” where I spell out in some detail why this is entailed.



The physical is in a constant state of change. But this commonsensical of the self that I have articulated does not change. Thus in order to rescue our commonsensical notion of the self, it seems as if we will have to propose the self is non-physical. Such a supposition is arguably not unreasonable. After all, it seems that neither the self nor its conscious experiences are visible. It seems that we infer the presence of someone’s consciousness through their voluntary bodily movements. But consciousness is not identical to our voluntary bodily movements -- rather it causes such movements. In a similar way it seems that consciousness is also not identical to any particular physical processes within the brain – rather it causes those physical processes [2]. Thus it appears there are two radically different types of things in the world. On the one hand there are non-physical selves and their various conscious experiences. On the other hand there are physical objects and physical processes. It certainly appears to me that these are not one and the same thing. Such a position is known as dualism [3]. This is in contrast to the aforementioned materialism which is obliged to hold that this commonsensical notion of the self is illusionary.





4. Is the simile appropriate?



I started off this essay listing examples of the way the mind is clearly affected by the brain. To most people this essentially shows that our minds, and hence everything that we are, is simply a product of the brain. I then mentioned the example of a television set where although the internal components of the set clearly affect the picture quality, nevertheless what those pictures actually depict through each consecutive frame constituting the storyline of the programme, is not likewise affected by tinkering with the set’s internal components.



I want to suggest a simile here between the television set and television signals on the one hand, and the brain and the self on the other. Briefly, the picture quality on the television set that can alter without affecting the storyline being shown, can be compared to our various psychological states. Contrariwise the storyline of the programme being shown can be compared to ones essential self. So, in a comparable manner to the way that the quality of the picture displayed on a television set can change, but without changing the storyline of the programme being shown, our psychological states are free to change without in any way altering or changing the self.



But what about Daniel's "killer argument"? To remind ourselves, this was Daniel's observation that taking a hammer to the television set permanently destroys its ability to display a picture. Of course, unlike Ian and Daniel, we know that we are continually bathed in electromagnetic radiation which carries the information constituting the film. The destruction of the television set emphatically did not demonstrate that the film had its origin in the television set. Unlike Daniel, and indeed even Ian, we have no problem understanding that. Destroying the television set only affects our ability to view the film. A similar response can be given to those who assert that the fact there is no sign of consciousness once a person's brain stops functioning, proves that consciousness has been extinguished. If we are to subscribe to the notion of the self that I have articulated, then, as pointed out, both the self and its conscious states are in themselves invisible. We only are able to infer the existence of other selves through peoples' bodily behaviour. Hence when our brains are no longer functioning, we no longer have the ability to make our presence known in the physical world. Thus it is scarcely surprising that there is no sign of any consciousness with the death of the brain. It certainly need not entail that a person's consciousness has ceased to exist anymore than it is entailed the film has ceased to exist once the television set is destroyed.



The comparison to a television set is a variant of what is known as the transmission theory or filter theory of the mind-body relationship. So we are here thinking of the brain as an organ which alters our conscious states, but yet does not create them. One might say the brain acts as a kind of “filter” which somehow limits or restricts and regulates consciousness in certain characteristic ways. In a similar manner to which tinkering with the internal components of a television set can alter the picture quality, but not the programmes being broadcast, so the brain can influence our psychological states or mind states, but without altering the self. In this manner, the concept of a persisting non-physical self that I have articulated, can be made consistent with much, if not all, the neurophysiological evidence.





5. Is such a self consistent with the evidence?





Let’s consider the appropriateness of this notion of an enduring unchanging self. I suggest that after consuming alcohol, despite our mood and behaviour being changed quite radically compared to our sober self, we are completely certain that we are still one and the very same self. This does not of course mean our feeling here is not a illusion. But it certainly seems that the comparison to a Television set and TV signals is appropriate in this instance.



So far so good. But what about permanent radical personality change such as suffered by the aforementioned Phineas Gage?

Once a polite and caring person, Gage became prone to selfish behavior and bursts of profanity. Dr. Harlow said it was if Gage lost the balance between "his intellectual faculty and animal propensities." He had no respect for social graces and often lied about his accomplishments. Previously energetic and focused, he was now erratic and unreliable. He had trouble forming and executing plans. There was no evidence of forethought in his actions, and he often made choices against his best interests.

Indeed Gage changed to such an extent that his friends declared that Gage was no longer Gage. Now I believe the crucial question here is whether Gage himself agreed with his friends. In other words did he concede that his former self prior to the accident had literally ceased to exist, and that his present self had sprung into being after the accident? Although I don’t know the answer to this question, I very strongly suspect that he had not agreed with them and that he definitely felt like the same person despite the fact that his moods and ability to concentrate were now radically different. Indeed it is not clear to me why his case is qualitatively different from a person getting drunk, remaining drunk for the rest of his or her life, and thereby experiencing a permanent personality change. If such a thing were to happen to myself, then other people might declare that “Ian is no longer Ian”. However I myself would be completely convinced that I am still me 100%. It would just be that I might feel more gregarious, might find it more difficult to concentrate on various mental tasks, might be more prone to getting bad-tempered and so on and so forth.





6. Looking at all the evidence in the round



I have argued that even if there is a systematic correlation between brain events and mental events, this does not in itself actually prove that mental events are brought into being by their correlated brain events. One could of course still argue that the evidence makes it overwhelming probable. Indeed, considering this evidence in isolation, I find it extremely compelling myself. However there are considerations which weigh in against this conclusion.



First of all, and as I have already pointed out, it is profoundly counter-intuitive. If we are to embrace the brain produces consciousness thesis, then, as I have argued both in this essay and the “teleportation and the implications for an enduring self” essay, the commonsense notion of the self that we all tend to implicitly hold must be dispensed with. Instead we are obliged to hold that the notion of a continuing enduring self through time is an illusion. To repeat what I said earlier; in this scenario, from one second to the next, the self is effectively ceasing to exist only to be replaced by a different albeit virtually identical self. We are constantly dying, only to be constantly created anew, so to speak. I would suggest that this is extraordinarily difficult to actually psychologically believe.



However, against this point, it could be argued that the fact we find it extraordinarily difficult to psychologically believe something does not provide any evidence that it is false. Some people might argue that the fact of the matter is that conscious states are altered by physical processes within the brain. The most simple and parsimonious explanation for this is that brain processes produce consciousness [4]. If this entails that there is no substantial enduring self, then we should just bite the bullet and accept that our feeling otherwise in this regard is just simply that – namely a feeling. However, I’m not so convinced that our deepest, most intuitive feelings, regarding what we feel we essentially are should be dismissed in so cavalier a manner. But I don’t wish to pursue this here as there is a more important point which should be raised, and this leads us to my second point.



Secondly the brain produces consciousness thesis is directly incompatible with all the evidence [5] suggesting that our consciousness survives death. Such evidence includes near-death experiences (NDEs) and the closely related phenomenon deathbed visions, evidence for reincarnation in the form of children’s recollections of previous lives (although not alleged memories retrieved through hypnosis which is much poorer quality evidence), apparitions of a certain type [6], and mediumship. Interested readers might like to visit this page for a list of appropriate references, many of which are available to read online (update July 2014.  The link I had is now dead).



There is also much indirect evidence which tends to suggest the continuation of consciousness after death. The most notable indirect evidence is psi phenomena. Without wishing to argue for it here, it seems to me that the totality of all the evidence suggests that it exists even if the more remarkable demonstrations of such phenomena turn out to have involved trickery. Contradicting our current western understanding of the mind-brain relationship, the existence of such phenomena suggests there is far more to the mind than is implied by regarding consciousness as merely being either a function of the brain or a causally inefficacious by-product of the brain.



Then there is physical phenomena such as, for example, clocks stopping and photographs falling off walls occurring near the time of death. More interestingly these phenomena do not normally occur in the vicinity of the dying person, but rather in the vicinity of someone, located at some distant place, who is emotionally close to the dying person [7].



Much more interestingly there have been reports of a restoration of mental functioning in people immediately prior to death. Indeed there have been scattered reports of people apparently recovering from dementia shortly before death [8].



The point here is that if we consider the totality of the evidence as a whole, rather than merely noting that mind states change as a result of physical changes in the brain, then it is far from obvious that the brain produces consciousness. However this begs an important question. If in fact the brain doesn't produce consciousness, but merely alters consciousness, then why are selves associated with brains at all?



I would suggest that it could be the case, as hinted at by mystical experiences, that disembodied consciousness is vastly greater in scope than our everyday consciousness. But in the embodied state the brain acts as a reducing valve or “filter” which severely curtails the range of consciousness. Arguably this would serve the useful purpose of filtering out the perception of other realities and other conscious states which are not necessary, or which hinder our ability to function in this physical reality. This hypothesis would broadly be consistent with phenomena such as the occasional reports of people recovering their mental faculties near death, near-death experiences and other mystical experiences, and also accounts such as those found in the "Tibetan Book of the Dead.



For those readers who wish to read more about transmission or filter theory I recommend Chris Carter’s article:



Does Consciousness depend on the Brain?



There is a critique of the above article by Keith Augustine.



There is a response by Chris Carter to this critique.



The transmission theory is also mentioned in the following paper by William Braud:



Brains, Science, and Nonordinary and Transcendent Experiences: Can Conventional Concepts and Theories Adequately Address Mystical and Paranormal Experiences?





Update:  This blog entry by myself is also relevant:

Science, the Afterlife, and the Intelligentsia

Science, the Afterlife, and the Intelligentsia





Ian Wardell





[1] Perhaps I should point out that even if brains produce consciousness this need not rule out the prospect of the continuation of our consciousness at some future date after our deaths. I'm primarily thinking here of resurrection, or uploading our consciousness into a robot or some other artificial body. However, if brains produce consciousness, this rules out any prospect of a "life after death" as most of us tend to envisage it.



[2] Of course philosophical materialists will deny this, but I’m interested here in articulating a commonsensical notion of the self and to assess whether such a notion is consistent with reason and evidence.



[3] From the Latin word duo meaning two. The other main position, materialism, holds that there is no such distinction – there is only one type of thing in the world. Hence materialism is sometimes referred to as a monist position (from the Latin word mono meaning one).



[4] This is a particular instance of employing Ockham’s razor. According to the Britannica online encyclopaedia this principle gives precedence to simplicity; of two competing theories, the simplest explanation of an entity is to be preferred.



[5] When I use the word “evidence” I most emphatically do not mean proof, or anything like it. Nor am I necessarily referring to scientific evidence. I simply mean that we have phenomena that on the whole adds support for the “life after death” hypothesis. It is nevertheless arguably possible that all the evidence can be given orthodox explanations.



[6] I am thinking of something like “crisis apparitions” here which seem to me to give some suggestion of continued consciousness after death. In contrast the ghosts associated with hauntings do not seem to me to provide much -- if indeed any -- evidential value. They seem more akin to some type of “recording” of a past event, somehow imprinted onto the local surroundings, which is “played back” at certain times.



[7] Such phenomena has been recorded for example by Rhine, L.E. Hidden Channels of the Mind. New York: Sloane, 1961.



[8] See for example Osis, K., (1961). Deathbed observations by Physicians and Nurses. New York: Parapsychology Foundation (p24); Osis, K., & Haraldsson, E. (1997). At the Hour of Death (3rd ed.). Norwalk, CT: Hastings House (p133). (Original work published 1977); Grosso, M. (2004). Experiencing the Next World Now. New York: Paraview (p42-43).