Believing consciousness is inside the brain is like believing light is inside the eye

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Originally Posted by Sudarshan

Here is one: - A person gets hit on the head, sustains an injury to the brain and looses consciousness entirely. What other entity apart from the brain itself is needed to explain this. What happened to the "other consciousness"? Was it also impaired due to the brain injury?

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Metaphorically if a person is an individual cloud, the substance of the cloud being the body and brain, and thoughts, including "I", the true consciousness is the light ray from the sun that is illuminating the cloud.

If the cloud disperses, did consciousness actually cease? Or is it the thinker that ceases?

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Originally Posted by Pietro Impagliazzo

Does that line of thought hold its ground against a materialistic worldview and philosophical stance?

I'd like arguments from members who also entertain a materialistic worldview and take the materialistic argument seriously.

Thank you! :)

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The analogy is not a good one. It is easy to determine that the source of light is not within the eye ( a couple of simple experiments will do).

However, when it comes to consciousness, as of today, it is impossible to prove that it is not inextricably tied to the physical entity. In the absence of evidence, the most clear path to accept such a position (consciousness independent of brain) is by faith in religious sources.

Of course, there is a lot more going on here. Named the "mind-body problem", it has been a hot topic of discussion since the time of Plato to modern thinkers like Popper and Searle. A wide range of schools (property dualism, eleminativism, etc, etc.) explore this topic to this day and there is no sign of it ending anytime soon.

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Originally Posted by shiv.somashekhar

The analogy is not a good one. It is easy to determine that the source of light is not within the eye ( a couple of simple experiments will do).

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How can we determine that the source of light is not within the eye without using an eye to judge it?