Is consciousness anything special?
One of the most heated debates going on in the present, and one that is widespread among many different disciplines, is consciousness and whether it is simply physical (controlled by our brain processes) or whether it is something that can not be physical and is much more complex than we can ever imagine.
A recent experiment and one that is likely to generate much controversy showed that neuroscientists performing brain surgery on a epileptic woman caused her to "lose" consciousness of a part of her brain known as the claustrum by stimulation of deep brain electrodes.
Article here: http://io9.com/scientists-accidentally-discover-the-brains-consciousne-1600230950
Is this proof that consciousness is simply part of the brain and nothing more?
Ever since the dawn of humanity, we have been fascinated with "other-worldly" phenomena. We created gods to account for all these things that we did not understand. We developed rituals and sacrifices to please these gods so that they would not harm us and fabricated stories of afterlife and rebirth.
And so, just like these fabrications, we seem to be fooled into thinking that consciousness must be something extraordinary.
Why is it so hard for us to accept that everything simply is? There is no omnipotent force at work.
As Einstein put it, "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
All in all, I am a huge supporter of the reductionist views. I believe that over time we will see more and more experiments that support the fact that consciousness simply is a product of our brain's functions. But that doesn't make life any less meaningful or beautiful.
We are bags of meat and water that started from knowing absolutely nothing about anything. Over time, evolution allowed us to progress to a point where we are the manipulators of our world and not vice versa. And so, with that, I leave you with this.
We are simply atoms studying other atoms. Crazy.
