Brain & Consciousness

[Guest guest]

I doubt if Self Awareness or Consciousness can be transferred that way, that is by injecting human brain cells into monkey foetuses. Mind or consciousness is NOT brain. Mind is a learnt phenomenon of the brain over a span of years and continues to change through life span. Some examples of what mind can do are: Seeing patterns in scattered dots (the formation of "Gestalt") and things as simple as seeing depth or stroboscopic vision. Consider this: Although the physical image of an object on our retina is upside down, how then is it that we "see" the objects as upside up and downside down? Answer is that the brain has LEARNT to do this trick when we were growing up as a child or rather as an infant. This learning occurred implicitly by psychomotor feedback loop from our muscles proprioceptive and kinaesthetic feedback that we experienced when we touched the head of our mother and integrated---remember INTEGRATED---this sensory input with our defective retinal image of mother. This integration is the function of growing brain.

So, back to the monkeys and humans, unless you give human-like growing experience to monkeys, merely their having the human brain cells will not do. But the flip side of course is that monkeys do have their own mind and consciousness and self awareness. Yes, self awareness too. I think it was chimp who was the subject of experiment. A colored mark was made on the face of the chimp. When mirror was shown to the chimp, he tried to wipe out that mark from his face.

I know consciousness is more wide spread than self awareness. Its a matter of set and sub-set. If you are self-aware, ipso facto you have consciousness; but if you are conscious, you are not necessarily self aware (as are many lower animals). Yet I will like to play with consciousness and brain a bit more. Consider this: Cerebelum has similar neurones as does the main brain and nearly the same in numbers too. Yet why is it that consciousness is not in the cerebelum? This question has been raised by Sir Roger Penrose (the only living student of Einstein who sat in Einstein's class).

Ratan.

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How totally interesting. The assumption here, is that "self-awarness" resides in "human brain cells." Perhaps. But I wouldn't bet on it; especially when these "cell" are isolated from the integrated human, and injected into a differernt species of organism. It's bizzare, but when I thought about it, I was struck with the tantalizing feeling that I wanted to know if such a thing as giving rise to self-awareness in a different species, could be achieved in modern science. But then it occurred to me, that we have no reason to suppose that monkeys are not already self-aware. How would we go about determining that an animal, other than humans, was self-aware (or wasn't, for that matter), without the benefit of language of the sort we've developed over the millenia. In any case, the notion that any of these strange developments can be stopped, is absurd. JP 30 July, 2005 "John Polifronio" <counterpnt

 

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Misty , misty3

Health and Healing ; Armageddon or New Age

Monday, July 25, 2005 5:05 AM

Warning On 'Human-Brained' Monkeys

Warning On'Human-Brained' MonkeysBy Nick Buchanwww.news.com.au7-12-5http://www.rense.com/general66/hum.htmScientists have been warned that their latest experiments may accidently produce monkeys with brains more human than animal. In cutting-edge experiments, scientists have injected human brain cells into monkey fetuses to study the effects. Critics argue that if these fetuses are allowed to develop into self-aware subjects, science will be thrown into an ethical nightmare. An eminent committee of American scientists will call for restrictions into the research, saying the outcome of such studies cannot be predicted and may in fact produce subjects with a 'super-animal' intelligence. The high-powered committee of animal behaviourists, lawyers, philosophers, bio-ethicists and neuro-scientists was established four years ago to examine the growing numbers of human/monkey experiments. These procedures, known as 'human-primate chimeras', involve the combination of human and monkey cells, tissue and DNA to observe any effect and examine the possibility that such combination could actually exist. Chimeras are mythical monsters from Greek literature, which combined various bodyparts from lions, goats nd snakes. This team will soon publish its conclusions in leading journal Science. In the report the committee will address such unsettling questions as whether introducing human cells into non-human primate brains could cause "significant physical or biochemical changes that make the brain more human-like" and how those changes could be detected. The committee will also examine how detectable differences in the monkey's brains, for example emotional or behavioural changes, or if the monkeys developed 'self awareness', could be measured - and dealt with. "What we were trying to do was anticipate - recognising that if science were to take that path there might be some different kinds of moral challenges." said committee co-chairman Dr Ruth Faden, a professor in biomedical ethics. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15891104-13762,00.html

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Ratan SinghM.A. (Psychol), Postgraduate Diploma in Medical & Social Psychology, Ph.D.Certified Behavior Therapist (from late Prof. J. Wolpe's Unit)Hypnotist, Biofeedback and Meditation Therapist.Family and Marital and Sex Therapist.Consultant in Jaipur Hospital, India.psych_58, www.jaipurmart.com/trade/meditationandhealth,meditationandcancer-