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Is most fMRI a false positive? Or the brain far more amazing?

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Statistician William M. Briggs reports an amazing medical case where the

“skull was filled largely by fluid, leaving just a thin perimeter of actual brain tissue.”
Here’s the kicker: And yet the man was a married father of two and a civil servant with an IQ of 75, below-average in his intelligence but not mentally disabled…

He notes the “challenge” that:

“Any theory of consciousness has to be able to explain why a person like that, who’s missing 90% of his neurons, still exhibits normal behavior,” says Cleeremans. A theory of consciousness that depends on “specific neuroanatomical features” (the physical make-up of the brain) would have trouble explaining such cases.

What then is fMRI measuring? False positives? Or is the brain far more amazing than we have imagined so far? See:
On The Severe (And Unrecognized) Limitations Of fMRI

Comments
InVivoVeritas, re your post #2, All the more comical, when you recall that so many working scientists but, in reality, educated, 'nuts' seemed to think the physical size of the brain was the primary determinant of intelligence ! Materialism/ scientism in all its glory !Axel
August 31, 2016
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Listen closely: chirp, chirp, chirp . . . Darwinians where art thou? Follow-up #3,
Yet, so far as its resources allow, it mobilizes those resources, sets them in motion, and does what it has never done before, all in the interest of restoring a dynamic form and a functioning that the individual molecules and cells certainly cannot be said to “understand” or “have in view”. We can frame the problem of identity and context with this question: Where do we find the context and activity that, in whatever sense we choose to use the phrase, does “have in view” this restorative aim? Not an easy question. Yet the achievement is repeatedly carried through; an ever-adaptive intelligence comes into play somehow, and all those molecules and cells are quite capable of participating in and being caught up in the play. Talbott
Origenes
August 31, 2016
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We witness an amazing ability to improvise. Instead of being restricted to rigid "evolved" structures, "life" can devise a completely different, coherent, functional setup. Question: what is doing the improvising? Clue: fermions and bosons lack the will, information and overview.Origenes
August 31, 2016
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The hard problem of consciousness is becoming even harder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness It seems that you can have a mind without (too much) brain.InVivoVeritas
August 30, 2016
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Amen. I don't agree there is intelligence and so tests are false. Although a curve in IQ will be real in humans ability. The bible says there is WISDOM, understanding, knowledge. God said this is how he is made. SO its just knowing things in those divisions. Once again the SOUL concept is not defeated by removing brain goo. I say its just a soul and a memory machine. This mans memory was not affected and so no reason not to be the smartest in the world. Jesus intelligence was unrelated to his brain. memory was a issue but not the BRAIN.Robert Byers
August 30, 2016
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