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Underground > Laboratory >

Weird brain question

  
 
Olulabelle
10:59 / 05.11.03
Could you keep a brain alive 'artificially,' by giving it a blood supply? If, hypothetically, this was possible and the brain had previously inhabited a body, what sense of self would the brain have?

Would the person who's brain it is/was still think thoughts and consider things, or would the weirdness of just being a brain be so overwhelming, and the sense of self be so distorted that insanity would set in?

N.B. I don't know where this goes. It's sort of half laboratory concerning the science, and half headshop concerning the self awareness. Sorry if it's in the wrong place.
 
 
cusm
14:17 / 05.11.03
If it was just a brain, it would have no sensory organs, and so would probably go mad in short order.
 
 
captain piss
15:08 / 05.11.03
The grisly possibilities of head transplants .

The issue of who someone who had received a head transplant would "be" is extremely complicated, said Professor Rose.

"Your person is largely embodied but not entirely in your brain".
 
 
Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey
19:17 / 05.11.03
This is an interesting question, oulabelle.

The brain would have no actual sensory input - just about the most extreme 'flotation tank' scenario conceivable. Having said this, though, would the brain perceive a 'phantom body', analogous to the phantom limbs that amputees feel? Would there be visual hallucinations; surely the visual processing centre would still be intact and operational - would it 'fill in the blanks' with imaginary stimuli?

Doubtless, however, the brain would rapidly go totally insane with or without any of these effects.
 
 
Mister Snee
18:33 / 06.11.03
"Doubtless, however, the brain would rapidly go totally insane with or without any of these effects."

I dunno about "insane". Maybe "annoyed".
 
 
eye landed
20:48 / 11.11.03
Perhaps not insane, but free.

I imagine it would be easier to discard bodily awareness and travel astrally. One could hardly help having an "out-of-body experience"!
 
 
unheimlich manoeuvre
21:32 / 11.11.03
Certain recreational anesthetics stop the brain receiving sensory information. The effect of this is to create dreams, as nature abhors a vacuum.
 
 
Olulabelle
13:21 / 13.11.03
So in a dreaming state we are most like our 'self' without the bodily awareness?

I don't think a permanent dream would send the brain insane, because the brain would not realise it was consistently dreaming, so perhaps being a brain on it's own would be like existing permanently in the dream world, and would not cause any ill effects mentally, at all.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
13:26 / 13.11.03
It's questionable whether it's possible, it would also need electrical impulses, some sort of rudimentary circulatory system to keep the blood pumping in and out of that brain. The effects of not having a body would probably be felt first in the parts of the brain to do with action, (the lizard brain?). Frankly, we'd have to hope that whoever was involved in this went into a deep coma.
 
 
Mister Snee
18:01 / 13.11.03
I just read the topic.

"implications for the sanity of the brain's 'owner'."

Owner! Well, what does -that- mean? Are we assuming the independent existence of a "user" -- of a soul? Well, we have to, right? I mean, the fact that you (whoever you are) are sitting there reading this right now, experiencing your life personally, is proof that you -do- have some kind of independent, contained existence, somewhere. It's independent of your body because it's -not- your body. I can explain how your body got there but I can't explain the nature of the entity looking out of your eyes at this instant. Right? Sure.

So would the owner "go insane"? Well... what does going insane entail? If it means that your thought patterns cease to follow logical paths, that your ability to conceive and comprehend breaks down and your software goes to a non-human mode which, regardless of the independent existence of a soul, redefines your existence in such a way as to preclude the possibility of ever functioning in the "real world" again, well, I'm not sure I buy that. I think it would be like sensory deprivation. I think you'd think, "it's dark," then, "where am I?" You'd try to move, you'd wonder why you can't feel your body, you'd be in darkness and silence. You'd think about it for a while. I mean, you know, if you'd been human before and were only recently, at the age of twenty-something, turned into a disembodied brain-blood-machine. I think your mind in the sense of you the thinker would stay together. I think you'd be cogniscent of your situation and capable of figuring it out rationally.

Now, on the other hand, if "going insane" means being occupied more with the magical, the psychic, the invisible, the non-existent, or the ridiculous, than with the Real World -- well, that defines your existence at that point. You can no longer be concerned with the real world at all, being literally one hundred percent incapable of perceiving it or interacting with it in a conventional, physical sense. So after you'd spent a few hours lamenting your state you'd have no choice but to turn your attention to contemplation and meditation, to try to learn to astrally project, to explore the depths and dusty corners of your psyche and spiritual existence. That would be all you do. So does that make you insane? According to this definition, sure. In the sense that you'd be preoccupied with a field of knowledge and a practice that science says is crazy. "Magical thinking". From an everyday, "rational" standpoint you'd be nuts.

But I don't think you'd "go insane", wig out, shut down, spiral into fantasy or oblivion. Maybe you could learn to induce lucid visions or dreams after a few years of only-brainness but I don't think they'd be all you'd be aware of.

But it all seems a little bit academic anyway, doesn't it, since there doesn't seem to be any way for us to ask the brain ourselves.

Which of course isn't to dismiss the value of discussing it anyway. ^-^
 
 
Aertho
18:05 / 13.11.03
I've always thought that anaesthetics supress all sensation, even dreaming... So besides being a rather interesting discussion, I vote no on the floating brain idea. INSANE!
 
 
Lurid Archive
20:08 / 13.11.03
It's independent of your body because it's -not- your body.

Debatable, I think. Your self, consciousness or whatever is certainly not independent of your body - or at least your brain.

Also, I thought that sensory deprivation was a good way to reach altered states, but also acts as an effective brainwashing tool leading over the longer term to certain insanity. Insanity in the scary and real rather than cool and trendy sense. But my knowledge about sensory deprivation is half remembered stuff. Anyone have any solid info?
 
 
Warewullf
17:29 / 30.11.03

I don't think a permanent dream would send the brain insane, because the brain would not realise it was consistently dreaming, so perhaps being a brain on it's own would be like existing permanently in the dream world, and would not cause any ill effects mentally, at all.

Ok, but what if it started Lucid Dreaming?
In a normal lucid dream, it's difficult to walk the fine line between being asleep but aware and being awake. Assuming the brain couldn't fully "wake up" since it had no outside awareness (ie, no sensory input) the lucid dreaming "person" would be like a god in hir own world.

Neat!
 
 
Perfect Tommy
23:45 / 30.11.03
I'd be curious as to how the brain operates differently without the, uh, endocrine system, I think... whatever you call all the hormones running around.

(Not interested enough to volunteer, mind.)
 
 
mikeh
23:58 / 21.12.03
there are documented cases of brains receiving no sensory stimuli. people who are "locked in" are those who have suffered intense comas or strokes and have come out with no ability to sense physically the outside world at all, like the character in Johnny got his Gun...these people are essentially brains hooked up to blooding pumping machines (the victims own heart). Jean Bauby, a frenchman who became locked in wrote a memoir while under (i can't remember the method used to transcribe the book out of his head onto paper) called The DIving Bell and the Butterfly...he didn't go insane but his life seemed extremely tedious to say the least
mikeh
 
 
Spaniel
12:52 / 15.01.04
It's independent of your body because it's -not- your body.

Er, Snee re-states the case for dualism.

C'mon, read a bit of bloody philosophy.

Doesn't this kind of badly informed rant drive anyone else up the wall?
 
 
Mister Snee
01:01 / 16.01.04
Sorry about that.

Of course there were meant to be scare quotes around my entire "rant", and it should have begun with "if you want to know what I think, based entirely on the fairly ill-informed cosmology I subscribe to at the moment as well as my preconceptions and current leanings regarding many hotly-debated issues:"

My bad.
 
 
Krall
01:09 / 16.01.04
Clanty, you should change your name to "This is my place, and I only want things that interest me in here" or something similar to that.

I love it when people try to put a stop to other peoples rants and raves, acting like either admins or real self indulged geeks.

P.S. I meant to start this with "Clanty, you should change your name to..." but wait, I did! Get a life, or figure out how to deal with skipping over a message you care not to read.
 
 
Mister Snee
04:27 / 16.01.04
Just for the record, though, I'm not really a dualist.

Honest, guys! I'm all about the tao! I've got tao written all over me!

Here, I'll show you.
 
  
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