Different brain areas are activated when we have different emotions – doesn’t that show consciousness comes from the brain?

Answer Podcast

See, the hypothalamus and other parts of the brain, they are what are activated when we have different emotions. Yeah, they are the tools.
They are not the source. Just like when I am speaking, I am speaking at that time, my voice box is active, my tongue is active. But they are tools of speech.
They are not the source of speech. There is a difference between a tool and a source. So, the brain is a vital tool for thinking, for processing.
So, naturally, whenever any emotions happen, whenever any speech comes, the voice box will be involved. Whenever any sight happens, the eyes will be involved. That’s an important tool that we have.
Similarly, whenever any emotion, processing of emotions or information happens, the brain will be involved. But the question here is that the brain cells are, as far as ontology, as far as the nature of existence are concerned, they are non-different from the cells in any other part of the world. And they are just more complex in terms of correlation, organization.
But brain cells are essentially material elements. And material elements in and of themselves actually don’t have consciousness. Electricity going through a wire does not produce any emotions.
Electricity going through the brain does not produce any emotions. So, these are tools. And most strikingly, there is Dr. John Lorber, who wrote an article in Nature magazine, and the title of the article was, Is Your Brain Really Necessary? While he was writing the article, he found that there are dozens and dozens of people who had cerebrospinal fluid not around their brain, but instead of their brain.
They had no brain substance at all. And still they function normally. This was John Lorber from the University of Sheffield in UK, and there itself he had a mathematics postgraduate who had a very high IQ.
And once they did a brain scan, and they found there was nothing inside of it. And it lived a full life normally, and it went on to live a full life. So, this was published, as I said, not in any ordinary place, it was published in Science and Nature, both these places.
Now some scientists have explained by saying that actually there is redundancy in the brain. If one part of the brain gets damaged, it can function with the other part of the brain. But there are cases where people had less than 1% of the normal brain.
And for them to be able to function normally, that means 99% of the brain is redundant. Which would be absurd to say. So, evolution, scientists accept the theory of evolution.
Evolution means that whatever is essential for us, that’s what we’ll take. We’ll take it from the reductionist perspective over here. So, from their own theory’s perspective, if the brain which is 99% excessive baggage, then reduction, natural selection would have cut down the brain.
But the fact is that we have a brain, and the brain is a tool for consciousness. So, the brain is not the source of consciousness. The two are very different things.
That the source is what experiences. This is called the hard problem of consciousness. The soft problem is, which part of the brain is correlated with emotion? Which part of the brain is correlated with which information processing function? But, the hard problem is why is there a conscious experience at all? Who is it that is having conscious experience? All that is happening in the brain is certain states of certain chemicals are changing in certain cells.
But does the change of chemical states in the brain cell, why should that lead to the experience of emotions? So, if you just change the chemicals in a bottle from here to there, that won’t lead to any emotions. So, why are there emotions present at all? Why is there consciousness present at all? That is what is the irreducible aspect of consciousness. The correlation is something which my more and more research will find more and more details about, which part of the brain correlates with which information.
But the question is that all this could happen entirely without any consciousness at all. But why is there consciousness? Where is the consciousness present? The brain is simply chemicals, cells processing some of the electrochemical signals. That does not lead to conscious experience anywhere else.
In a chemical laboratory, in an electric wire, in a machine, in a gadget. So, where does the conscious experience come? That comes from a source of consciousness that is explicit.