Is our knowledge stored in our brain, or somewhere else?

When we have OBEs we seem to still 'be ourselves', i.e. have the same thoughts, interests and memories. This could be because of the 'cord' that connects our physical and second bodies together. It could be just like an ethernet cable, that transfers data between the two objects, and that's how we keep our memories when we're in the astral.

What about when we die? People say they have NDEs and sometimes communicate with passed on relatives who greet them. If this isn't hallucination, then the relatives must 'know and remember' who we are, and who they are. Their physical bodies are gone, but they keep these memories somehow.

It might be like when you buy a new cellphone and you're adding in your contacts. It gives you the option to:

a. save contact to handset (brain)
b. save contact to sim card (some eternal knowledge base)
c. save contact to handset and sim card (brain and some eternal knowledge base)

Are our memories and is our personal information stored in our physical brains, or somewhere else, like an eternal knowledge base that is maybe in the same location we go to when we die?

Sometimes people have head injuries and they loose memories. This could be because of damage to the brain or possibly damage to something in the brain which links our knowledge to the eternal knowledge base. Possibly the pineal gland?

What do you think?

I think the way we currently believe knowledge and memories to be stored is mind-bending enough. The fact that every piece of knowledge and memory you have is merely electrical currents is pretty weird.

reply to post by dmorgan

This makes me sad

Originally posted by Nventual
I think the way we currently believe knowledge and memories to be stored is mind-bending enough. The fact that every piece of knowledge and memory you have is merely electrical currents is pretty weird.

Memories are NOT electrical currents. As well as we can make out, knowledge is stored in the STRUCTURE of the brain. When you learn, your brain changes shape (at a neuronal level).

Think of it this way:
On a piece of paper, the mere presence of ink does NOT convey any information. It is the particular shape of the ink that provides meaning.

We use photons (light) to probe the shape of the ink on the paper with our eyes in much the same way the brain uses electrical impulses to probe the structure of itself and recall memories.

Jon

Originally posted by suomichris
reply to post by dmorgan

 

This makes me sad

Sorry, what did I do to upset you?

Originally posted by Voxel
Memories are NOT electrical currents. As well as we can make out, knowledge is stored in the STRUCTURE of the brain. When you learn, your brain changes shape (at a neuronal level).

Ah, never knew that. My bad.
That sounds even more unbelievable than my fantasy idea though.

Well i believe that knowledge is based on memory. And memory is based on personal experiences. If you cant remember you have no knowledge. But then again knowledge and thoughts are not the same but again related.

I dont know to much about this stuff. But when i was a combat diver we where though some very odd methods of preprogramming our brain to do certain things without doing them physically at first.
One example is that we where taught how to shoot a hand gun from just sitting at our desk. By visualization of techniques.
By visualization the techniques we went through the movements in our brain step by step. The instructor just told us step by step on what to visualize. He never shoved us at first.
The odd thing is that our bodies did exactly how we had visualized it.

Visualization is a method of programing your brain. So that your body will know how to execute specific functions. Just as accurate as you have visualized them.

But there is a different factor that comes into the picture when it comes to executing what you have been thought into real life. And that is: Do you have the Hart to pool the trigger at something that's more then a cardboard target. You might have the knowledge to pool the trigger correctly. But there is a different force that makes you pool the trigger.

S&F Great concept

IMO our knowledge or memory is stored in our brain in form of specific chemical patterns. Our thinking sets off chemical reactions that fire electric impulses and that leads us to having remembered something. But I doubt our knowledge is stored outside of our brain.

At the quantum level, do our memories shape the quantum arrangement of our brain? This is an upcoming field of neurosceince called Quantum consciousness.

This can happen artifically though, the US govt has mind control technology and they can read a person's brain from the satellite. They have brain data banks where all the memories and other characteristics of a person are stored digitally and can be refreshed real time.

The technology of mind control is not yet in the mainstream but maybe 1000 years from now we will be able to store all that we have in our brain to some external data bank (remotely via satellite) and can access it just like we store images on photobucket

The OBE or near death experiences we have have been scientifically proven to be the workings of our brain. And think of this, if we had all the knowledge stored elsewhere then why do we need a body, a brain, why do we need to survive or exist at all? Why not just be that knowledge or energy and why have a physical exisitence at all?



[edit on 14-7-2009 by sunny_2008ny]

Originally posted by spy66I dont know to much about this stuff. But when i was a combat diver we where though some very odd methods of preprogramming our brain to do certain things without doing them physically at first.
One example is that we where taught how to shoot a hand gun from just sitting at our desk. By visualization of techniques.
By visualization the techniques we went through the movements in our brain step by step. The instructor just told us step by step on what to visualize. He never shoved us at first.
The odd thing is that our bodies did exactly how we had visualized it.

Interesting you say that.

I use the same technique to 'practice' my piano when I'm lying in bed

Originally posted by sunny_2008ny
Our thinking sets off chemical reactions that fire electric impulses and that leads us to having remembered something. But I doubt our knowledge is stored outside of our brain.]

That's what I thought.. but the other guy said that's not the case and that shape of inside the brain controls the memories. I'm confused now. I googled it and people said it was electrical impulses too.

reply to post by Nventual

That's what I thought.. but the other guy said that's not the case and that shape of inside the brain controls the memories. I'm confused now. I googled it and people said it was electrical impulses too.

We do not know precisely yet how memories are stored in the brain. There are certain structural and functional changes in the neurons of our brain when a memory has to be stored. This is done by chemical reactions and electric impulses. There is a difference in the way short term and long term memories are stored. The synapses (nerve junctions) also change differently for long and short term.

reply to post by Voxel


Thats good for visual memory, but what about things like creative thought? Picture something you know you've never seen before, and you will picture it in your mind yet this mental image won't (usually) manifest on your physical vision nor could you have drawn from a previous memory of it. That could just be the brain extending the pattern of what it knows to things it doesn't but I think the OP might be onto something.

Head injuries disrupt the flow of electricity but not the context with which they were normally sent. Science is making progress towards finding out that the current in the brain actually holds some sort of context about the signal it is sending. Bridging the gap between the brain and its target with a conductive material resulted in a correct delivery of the initial signal. That material, which is foreign to the body, could not possibly be designed to carry anything else but the electric current.

I tend to believe that EM is everywhere and there's a few properties of it that we don't know about. If everything is governed by forces of electromagnetism, the same electromagnetism we use to think and function, an "eternal knowledge base" just might be possible. While the brain is quite complex and we are learning more about it everyday, the same could be said about the very nature of consciousness.

I'd say that option C is most likely as having the information localized would help the manifestation of consciousness that is trying to process it yet it should also be in a form that allows it to be "registered" with a bigger aspect of information storage.

Think about it like two people watching the same event. They observe the same thing, but they each see and remember it differently. Their local storage maintains one incomplete perspective of the event that is specific to who saw it while the larger base would have access to many different perspectives thus giving it the whole picture and the "knowledge" of what exactly happened.

(continuing your simile) Does this base have AI or does it just simply store data? Is it sentient or does it just house information that requires a certain electric frequency to interpret?

reply to post by Nventual


Our knowledge is stored within our brain. But you also have something called senses that stimulate our brain to think, act or do specific things. Things you might not have pre-planed or thought about. Its called a unknown reaction or a reflex. When this happens you first act then you start to think or assess. What does this have to do with memory?

Is a reflex a pre-programed reaction?
If so how ?



[edit on 27.06.08 by spy66]

Actually memory is stored more or less holographic-ally throughout the entire body, there is also a large amount of neurons found in the stomach (hence gut instincts etc) ..

They have done studies and experiments that have shown memory is not stored exclusively in the brain by cutting out "section-by-section" different parts of a rats brain until all that was left was the brain-stem and they were still able to remember mazes and carry out complex tasks.

They have also found human beings with literally NO BRAIN and they function perfectly normal.

To coincide with your original post, I would have to say that although memory requires a body, it is stored in multiple places within and without the body, all of the 'observed' stimuli in the vicinity also holds a record or memory of your "outputs" .. your emotional state and your magnetic field (aura) your voice also vibrates and so does everything else within you. Which in turn imprints not only yourself but everything around you (including inanimate objects)

[edit on 7/14/2009 by PuRe EnErGy]

reply to post by dmorgan

I will tell you the theory I have studied, which has proven workable within the context that it is applied to. I should say, though, that "knowledge" is a curious commodity. The extensive and complex patterns of genetics contain a "program" for building a body. Is that "knowledge?" An athlete decides that he can win a certain competition, and he goes ahead and does so. Was his decision "knowledge?" Are beliefs "knowledge" or just "memories" of being taught something?

So you have some semantic problems with this, but here's the rest:

Any structure is capable of storing usable data. A rock crystal, a piece of photographic film, a cell, a brain, a body. But the workable theory is that a being, who is ultimately the only source of its own knowledge, interacts with its environment, and in particular its body, via a mind. And this mind is an energy system. The amount of experience a mind is capable of storing is vast. It is no match for a brain, in terms of storage capacity, and more useful to a being than a brain, because the brain is lost when the body is lost, but the mind is not. In theory, the mind could also be left behind and the being would still retain full knowledge of its own identity and experience. However, this rarely happens. It is true, however, that large portions of the mind are useless, little more that excess baggage, and could be jettisoned, with great relief to the being, if it only knew how to do this.

A being tends to have the attitude that all parts of its mind are valuable and it dare not get rid of any of it. However, this is not considered a very spiritually-advanced attitude.

reply to post by PuRe EnErGy


I think our body is a tool for our brain to play with. Our body wont do anything specific or accurate without it. And our brain cant do much more then create thoughts or receive knowledge without the body.

Originally posted by spy66
reply to post by PuRe EnErGy

 

I think our body is a tool for our brain to play with. Our body wont do anything specific or accurate without it. And our brain cant do much more then create thoughts or receive knowledge without the body.

I hate to be the one that points this out though, but the brain IS part of the body... The brain even without the body will find some sort of input and some way of growing. Like the brain cells they have plastered on microchips and have gotten to fly aircraft.

Originally posted by sunny_2008ny
The OBE or near death experiences we have have been scientifically proven to be the workings of our brain. And think of this, if we had all the knowledge stored elsewhere then why do we need a body, a brain, why do we need to survive or exist at all? Why not just be that knowledge or energy and why have a physical exisitence at all?

Hmm I'm not convinced about that. I wasn't aware it was scientifically proven. What about the OBEs where the experiencer has verified happenings with detail that are no where near his/her physical body?

My thoughts on why knowledge could be stored apart from our physical brain...

I think we could be spiritual beings that are in a physical reality to learn, or develop the soul. We get dropped into a physical body to experience this life as part of development, and when it's done, we pop out, return to the place we came from (astral plane?) and continue on doing what we do, maybe going onto bigger and better things.

That's my loose idea on life and why it's possible knowledge is stored eternally apart from out brains.

reply to post by dmorgan

What about the OBEs where the experiencer has verified happenings with detail that are no where near his/her physical body?

I agree, there are certain OBE cases that have not been explained scientifically. Remote viewing is also said to be a form of OBE, if I am right.

What you have said in the rest of your post, it is very similar to the concepts of life, death, after life and goodwill in Hinduism and Buddhism. These two religions say that a person is born with his karma or fate, but he can change his karma by good deeds in this life, after which he dies and his soul leaves his body and moves to a higher dimension. I am sure when the soul leaves, so does the mind or knowledge in the spiritual sense

reply to post by sunny_2008ny


Yeah I found out that some of my ideas on life actually tie into those two religions, which is strange because I don't follow a particular religion.

One day I'd love to visit Nepal or Tibet and find out more about it on a personal level