{"id":124103,"date":"2022-04-08T14:56:31","date_gmt":"2022-04-08T21:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=124103"},"modified":"2022-04-08T14:56:31","modified_gmt":"2022-04-08T21:56:31","slug":"controversial-new-theory-says-human-consciousness-is-electromagnetic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/04\/08\/controversial-new-theory-says-human-consciousness-is-electromagnetic\/","title":{"rendered":"Controversial New Theory Says Human Consciousness Is &#8230; Electromagnetic?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"byline-with-image\">\n<h2 class=\"byline \"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><span class=\"\">BY\u00a0<a class=\"byline-name\" style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.popularmechanics.com\/author\/224127\/caroline-delbert\/\" data-vars-ga-ux-element=\"Byline\" data-vars-ga-call-to-action=\"Caroline Delbert\"><span class=\"byline-name\">CAROLINE DELBERT<\/span><\/a> Courtesy Popular Mechanics<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>It may sound crazy, but it&#8217;s based on science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"graphic painting telepathy understanding empathy\" src=\"https:\/\/hips.hearstapps.com\/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com\/images\/graphic-painting-telepathy-understanding-royalty-free-illustration-1603821822.jpg?resize=640:*\">KATERYNA KOVARZHGETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>A molecular geneticist at the University of Surrey&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/electromagnetic-consciousness-17191\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">says the human &#8220;mind&#8221; is electromagnetic<\/a>.<\/li><li>Mind-body dualism is&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.popularmechanics.com\/science\/a32745466\/elon-musk-spacex-starship-light-consciousness\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">one of philosophy&#8217;s oldest questions<\/a>, boosted this time by science.<\/li><li>Is the answer as simple as our brains forming an electromagnetic &#8220;cloud&#8221; during our lives?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Could the thorny question of human consciousness be answered by simple electromagnetic waves? One improbably dualist scientist believes so, and he suggests the human mind is a combination of physical matter and electromagnetic field. This is a big question, and the proposed answer here is controversial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The University of Surrey\u2019s Johnjoe McFadden posits that consciousness is in fact the brain\u2019s energy field,\u201d the university&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/electromagnetic-consciousness-17191\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">says in a statement<\/a>, making McFadden\u2019s dualism a question of matter and energy, the institution says\u2014not the classic body and mind\u201d distinction. Throughout history, philosophers around the world have tried to account for the special-seeming nature of human beings within the world or even, some fear, the entire universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From where does our robust self-awareness and sentience arise? People who believe everything is physically present and caused are called materialists, meaning there\u2019s nothing extra that can\u2019t be measured\u2014what you see and touch is what humans are. Dualists instead believe there\u2019s something extra.This content is imported from {embed-name}. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The mind, dualists say, is separate in some way. That could mean a separate, immeasurable, living soul that lives after death, or it could be as simple\u201d as the\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/qualia\/\" target=\"_blank\"><u>hotly contested idea of qualia<\/u><\/a>: the hint at an extra color humans can\u2019t see, for example, as that relates back to consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The idea of a scientific lampshade on mind-body dualism certainly isn\u2019t new, but McFadden\u2019s research, published in the journal&nbsp;<em>Neuroscience of Consciousness<\/em>, is the latest to try to marry the fields.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/nc\/article\/2020\/1\/niaa016\/5909853\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><u>Deep breath<\/u><\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>I argue here that nearly all examples of so-called \u2018integrated information\u2019, including neuronal information processing and conventional computing, are only temporally integrated in the sense that outputs are correlated with multiple inputs: the information integration is implemented in time, rather than space, and thereby cannot correspond to physically integrated information. I point out that only energy fields are capable of integrating information in space.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Basically, McFadden is saying he doesn\u2019t believe the physical structures inside the brain account for how information extends through our minds\u201d and form integrated ideas. That, he says,&nbsp;<em>must<\/em>&nbsp;be happening within the added medium of the brain\u2019s electromagnetic field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And all of this, McFadden claims, is supported by experiments on the nature of brain activity. This sounds wild\u2014it genuinely&nbsp;<em>is<\/em>&nbsp;wild\u2014but McFadden is a molecular geneticist and is following a centuries-old tradition of introducing the absolute latest knowledge into a new theory of what makes us human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hips.hearstapps.com\/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com\/images\/niaa016f1-1603824053.png?resize=320:*\" alt=\"consciousness diagram\" title=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>From the study:<\/strong>\u00a0(a) Illustration of how the single bit output of an AND logic gate integrates the two bits of information encoded in its two inputs to output a single bit that represents an integration of the gate\u2019s inputs. In reality, the integration is causal in the sense that the state of the output bit at time t2 is dependent on both input bits at time t1. (b) Illustration of how dynamic EM field information can integrate information and function as a logic gate. An AND gate is shown with two inputs and a single output, each encoded either a zero or one all at time\u00a0<em>t<\/em>1. The inputs are dipoles that act as electromagnetic field (EMF) transmitters that oscillate between two states either firing (oscillating corresponding to input = 1) or non-firing (not oscillating, input = 0) states. The output is then an EMF receiver that implements the AND rule to output a signal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/view-large\/figure\/207644720\/niaa016f1.tif\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/DownloadFile\/DownloadImage.aspx?image=https:\/\/oup.silverchair-cdn.com\/oup\/backfile\/Content_public\/Journal\/nc\/2020\/1\/10.1093_nc_niaa016\/1\/niaa016f1.png?Expires=1606530409&amp;Signature=z9NFsupVciWUtj2cy8ZJnd2IiQSnhO5nMQgfxUViAX6ZvkkmAm4iNwe2-Zgzj5DUKb~N8pSXD~K6D9GLz4PPyvsQHtbMc8agchcy9pOgoOQLvz1CWyOrCsH9rpccXSJHWTz-26w--cRKrlPpCFT6hsb6qQ8aXpOSGqR-LRLiHA0qfsIpGmR4K0XIApiFjTGoymWCuHAxfwwpRjrSguDhnJkgTCftdjILtW02FmxJGNdvO6bHafFhhWKggqn9OtWylEGSoirnF~yjTnPdw4Yjn7FGG50HaUt53RHDXg2cA0Ud2SuS2rJCiq~FYIVgQC2kChsMnZyD1FUa0YARDaIyfw__&amp;Key-Pair-Id=APKAIE5G5CRDK6RD3PGA&amp;sec=207644720&amp;ar=5909853&amp;xsltPath=~\/UI\/app\/XSLT&amp;imagename=&amp;siteId=5412\"><\/a>JOHNJOE MCFADDEN\/NEUROSCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESSYOU&#8217;LL LOVE THIS<a href=\"https:\/\/www.popularmechanics.com\/science\/environment\/a34166354\/black-hole-center-of-earth-fake-study\/\">Uh, About That Black Hole at the Center of Earth<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That means as long as the human brain is alive, McFadden says, it generates an electrical glow in which the real nitty-gritty human stuff is happening. And the best part is that his theory is testable in the laboratory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are of course many unanswered questions, such as degree and extent of synchrony required to encode conscious thoughts, the influence of drugs or anaesthetics on the cemi field or whether cemi fields are causally active in animal brains,\u201d he&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/nc\/article\/2020\/1\/niaa016\/5909853\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">explains in the paper<\/a>. Yet the cemi theory provides a new paradigm in which consciousness is rooted in an entirely physical, measurable and artificially malleable physical structure and is amenable to experimental testing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY\u00a0CAROLINE DELBERT Courtesy Popular Mechanics It may sound crazy, but it&#8217;s based on science. KATERYNA KOVARZHGETTY IMAGES A molecular geneticist at the University of Surrey&nbsp;says the human &#8220;mind&#8221; is electromagnetic. Mind-body dualism is&nbsp;one of philosophy&#8217;s oldest questions, boosted this time by science. Is the answer as simple as our brains forming an electromagnetic &#8220;cloud&#8221; during [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhism","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}