Thread: All mental states are really just physical states (neurochemistry brahs get in here!)

Everything you feel: happiness, sadness, joy, excitement, depression, boredom, its all the result of certain chemicals in certain amounts hitting receptors in your brain

If we wanted to replicate an emotion or a state of mind all you would need to do, in theory, is return your brain back to its previous state when it was feeling the way you wanted it to feel. want to feel that excitement again of taking a walk with the love of your life? from just touching her hand? if you had that physical state stored on a computer you could do that.

ive been thinking about this a lot lately, and im wondering if theres a way to press a reset button on my braiin so that it goes back to the way it was when i was 15 or 16 but i retain the memories, so i dont make the same mistakes.

there have been stories of people getting over certain addictions from being placed in a medically induced coma for a couple of weeks

no fap talks about "rebooting" your brain. restoring it back to its original "factory settings"

i love to think about this, i know the brain is ridiculously complex organ but it gave us the power to ponder its own existence.

does anyone else get idea like this?

yeah, people do think about this general idea in neuroscience.

how bout this: if we can find a neuron in your brain that fires perfectly randomly, that's proof of free will. otherwise, all neural activity can be predicted from input outside the system and we are slaves to our inputs.

Originally Posted by 4free

yeah, people do think about this general idea in neuroscience.

how bout this: if we can find a neuron in your brain that fires perfectly randomly, that's proof of free will. otherwise, all neural activity can be predicted from input outside the system and we are slaves to our inputs.

Randomness is no more free will than neural activity that can be decided by the laws of causality.

Did you ever wonder how a random number generator works? its impossible for anything to be truly random if it works based off a program designed by a human.

There may be a very complicated sequence of steps but in the end, that is really all it is, a sequence of steps to decide a number, based on what, i dont know...to me that is not free will.

It is random, which means is some sense that it is fair, no bias, but the laws of physics show no bias either. They do not care for humans, it is simple an enormous billiard table with tiny balls hitting each other in an endless series of collisions which may or may not be partially random.

If you believe in the Heisenberg uncertainty princial you know that the universe is not mechanistic and predetermined. There is an element of randomness which means that while there may be a 99% probablility of one thing happening there is still a1% chance of something else happening

seems to me like there is a little bit of both. we are governed by laws but there may be exceptions and some element of chanc, especially on the quantum level

i believe in theory, this

neu·ro·plas·tic·i·ty
/ˌn(y)o͝orōˌplaˈstisədē/
noun
the ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections, especially in response to learning or experience or following injury.
"neuroplasticity offers real hope to everyone from stroke victims to dyslexics"

supports what you're saying; it would just be a matter of formulating what you want

saying that this achievable does not lay out the specific steps to achieve it

To do what you’re proposing is basically “refreshing” all of your neurotransmitter levels to baseline or “15 year old levels”. Which is impossible. It’s like a heroin user who wants to feel heroin like it was his first time all over again. Never on any planet will that happen. We are no where near the capability to freshen up/reset all the up-regulation and down-regulation that our receptors have been through over the years.

All your mental states are just different ratios of neurotransmitters swishing around. And certain ratios can never be experienced once you have already gone thru it. That’s “tolerance”. Your body adjusts to experience. It’s a safety feature actually(at least for drugs it is: it allows people to take massive drug doses without dying)

Originally Posted by 4free

read a bit more on randomness brah

i personally dont believe there can be any true randomness (i will read on it more but that is my belief) i think we simply have an incomplete understanding

something has to cause a thing to be the way it is or that thing would not be that way. its really that simple. what may appear random to us, something like the trow of a dice or the flip of a coin, we simply have not examined all the factors that go into the act of throwing the dice or the coin.

since it is such a seemingly complex scenario (the coin or dice hitting off various surfaces, spinning and bouncing, how could a human, or even a very smart machine predict the end result?)

everythime i start thinking about this stuff i am reminded of the Merovingian from the Matrix. "We are slaves to causality". the best we can do is understand it. that is what i intend to do

Originally Posted by propreffered7

i believe in theory, this

neu·ro·plas·tic·i·ty
/ˌn(y)o͝orōˌplaˈstisədē/
noun
the ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections, especially in response to learning or experience or following injury.
"neuroplasticity offers real hope to everyone from stroke victims to dyslexics"

supports what you're saying; it would just be a matter of formulating what you want

saying that this achievable does not lay out the specific steps to achieve it

Originally Posted by Squidbrah

To do what you’re proposing is basically “refreshing” all of your neurotransmitter levels to baseline or “15 year old levels”. Which is impossible. It’s like a heroin user who wants to feel heroin like it was his first time all over again. Never on any planet will that happen. We are no where near the capability to freshen up/reset all the up-regulation and down-regulation that our receptors have been through over the years.

All your mental states are just different ratios of neurotransmitters swishing around. And certain ratios can never be experienced once you have already gone thru it. That’s “tolerance”. Your body adjusts to experience. It’s a safety feature actually(at least for drugs it is: it allows people to take massive drug doses without dying)

so i got one guy saying its possible and another saying its not possible.

The thing is. We all have our own opinions.

Even saying it is possible does in no way show a clear path to the way in which it could be done.

and to those who say it cant be done. i give you the example of the addict who hasnt had his fix in a while. his receptors were upregulated from the high amounts of feel good chemicals but after undergoing a period of sobriety your neurotransmitters begin to downregulate to allow a smaller amount of the neurotransmitter to do the same job.