How many of our actions are controlled consciously?

If the conscious part of our body were to just suddenly vanish, what would the rest of our body do? Will it instinctively go looking for food, find a place to rest, or react to outside stimulus or do we need to actively pursue said tasks?

Well, there would be internal bleeding.

Well, if the conscious part of the brain vanished, it would take quite a bit of other stuff with it.

That aside, I think we'd be vegetables. We'd still breathe, and if you put food in our digestive tract it would still digest.

Do you count emotions as conscious?

edited 4th Mar '11 10:15:46 PM by LoniJay

It's called a persistent vegetative state. We would breath, heart would beat. Guts would churn and we would starve. What you are looking for is a lobotomy. A lobotomized human being would act more along the lines that you designate.

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I haven't read this, but the abstract makes it sound interesting. Neil Levey argues that consciousness does not initiate action.

edited 4th Mar '11 10:08:07 PM by LoveHappiness

"Conscious"≠"brain related". There's a lot of stuff going on in the brain that we aren't consciously aware of.

You'd essentially just lie around and do nothing forever.

Your heart would beat and your lungs would pump, but without consciousness you couldn't do anything the brain doesn't regulate unconsciously anyway.

So even if our bodies are instinctually telling us to do something, it won't actually do it on it's own?

: Does there exist anything our brain directly forces the "conscious" part of it do?
We got IE: Fear, it forces the adrenalin up and the heartbeat rate, it forces you onto a full defansive, but it does not make you run away.
I agree on that we would just collapse, because our instincts drive to do anything is too "weak" to override the conscious part(on the other hand, it can cohesion it on long periods of time).

The conscious mind contains all our instincts. The only thing that is contained in the limbic structures are reflexes, and not all of them at that.

Generally the best way to think about the mind is that it can roughly be sectioned into three categories. First you have the so called reptillian brain. This consists of the upper reaches of the spinal column, the medulla and the cerebellum. These structures represent the most basic of functions of life. They also serve as a sort of switchboard that allows for the rest of the brain to communicate it's desires to the body. It also mediates some of the reflex arcs. Then above that you have the limbic or transitional structures like the Amygdala and the hippocampus. Alot of these structures can be related to processing emotion and memory. Some more advanced reflex arcs end in this level. Finally you have the coritcal structures. This is where actual thouggh occurs. You cannot have a self motivated human organism, capable of doing an activity more complex than twitching and shitting itself without this area.

Finally there is the so called fourth area. The prefrontal cortex. The area for which if there was any seat of the soul in the human body it would reside. This is the part of your brain that allows you to contemplate the past and think on the future, it is severely underdeveloped in children and less active in adolescents (explains alot huh).

Now the question is what happens as you destroy each of these structures.

First. Lobotomy of the prefrontal cortex. The human being that loses this area can still talk. Can walk, can eat when they get hungry and at many points is impossible to distinguish from a normal man. They cannot become depressed in the same manner as a normal human and they are incapable of planning more than a few hours into the future. This is the so called instinctual human.

Next. Detruction of the cortical strucutures results in a vegtable. Veggies on this level cannot move save through reflexive response to pain. They cannot eat or swallow. They can still vomit and shit and have enough bladder tone that they are not constantly wetting themselves. The structures of he limic system canno self motivate. They are like tools without an owner.

Next. Destruction of the limbic structures results in a more thorough vegtable. There isn't really much practical difference between this vegtable and the vegtable described above. There are a few reflex arcs that change at this point. Some of the infantile reflexes are stored in the limbic reaches.

Next. Detruction of the upper cord and its associated structures results in the cessession of breathing. There are a few remaining spinally mediated reflexes that can still be provoked but generally you are going to get a corpse with a heartbeat.

Apathy Syndrome!

It depends: does thought cause action, or does action cause thought? Or both?

Though generates action. Reflex arcs can go lower than the cerebellum, but any coordinated motion of the body requires the imput of the CNS and thus thought. The only action that generates though is neuronal action potential.