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+--- Thread: Thesis of Radical Plasticity & mystery of a man living with 90% of his brain missing (/thread-2666.html)
Thesis of Radical Plasticity & mystery of a man living with 90% of his brain missing - C C - Jul 27, 2016
http://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/the-medical-mystery-of-a-man-living-with-90-of-his-brain-missing
EXCERPT: The French man’s story really challenges the idea that consciousness arises in one part of the brain only. Current theories hold that the part of the brain called the thalamus is responsible for our self-awareness. A man living with most of his brain missing does not fit neatly into such hypotheses. Axel Cleeremans believes that the brain learns to be conscious. In his Thesis of Radical Plasticity, he claims that the brain constantly adapts and learns how to describe what it does to itself, not only knowing information, but knowing that it knows that information. If that conundrum wasn’t enough for you, Cleeremens calls consciousness “the brain’s theory about itself....”
RE: Thesis of Radical Plasticity & mystery of a man living with 90% of his brain missing - Magical Realist - Jul 28, 2016
Even allowing that much of his brain was just compressed into a sort of outer shell, the structure of the brain is entirely gone. This challenges basic science which reduces brain functions to brain structure. Does the structure not matter at all? Can you lay out the synaptic meat of the brain in a huge sheet and still have a functioning brain? That's crazy!