Some gut bacteria appear to communicate with the brain
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Re: Some gut bacteria appear to communicate with the brain
#2There's a hundred million neurons in our guts. It makes me think arguments about being brains in a vat, and treating the brain as a biological computer with inputs form the senses misses the fact that the brain is part of the nervous system extending throughout the body, and not some isolated system. An envatted brain isolated from the body is likely not going to function properly. The brain can only properly be understand as being part of a whole organism.
Re: Some gut bacteria appear to communicate with the brain
#3I certainly feel like my brain is in charge when I wake up, long enough to get my clothes on and out of the house on the school run and back, at which point my stomach resumes control for the rest of the day.
Re: Some gut bacteria appear to communicate with the brain
#4Re: Some gut bacteria appear to communicate with the brain
#5There's a hundred million neurons in our guts. It makes me think arguments about being brains in a vat, and treating the brain as a biological computer with inputs form the senses misses the fact that the brain is part of the nervous system extending throughout the body, and not some isolated system. An envatted brain isolated from the body is likely not going to function properly. The brain can only properly be unde…
The "brain in a vat" concept only really makes sense if you are willing to draw a distinction between the conscious part and other parts of the body, i.e. if you are willing to admit that some parts of the world are mechanistic (the external world, the function of our eyes, sense of smell, etc) and some parts (including the brain) are not. If you are willing to admit that, then the brain-in-a-vat scenario says that you can emulate all these mechanical parts and feed the brain fake information, and the brain can't tell the difference. An envatted brain can be isolated from the body because it only knows the information at its own boundaries, i.e. at the boundary of the mechanistic and the non-mechanistic.
If the point of your post is to say that the boundary is larger than that of the brain itself, but extends to the nervous system, gut bacteria, etc. then I think one could counter that all those things are relatively easily replaced by simulations and therefore don't need to be part of the brain in the vat to make the thought experiment work. A person can lose arms and legs and intestines and still be perfectly conscious.
If you say that the brain itself could be replaced by a simulation and not lose any qualities, then the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment doesn't really mean anything for you because there would be nothing special about a brain anyway, and the scenario is vacuous.
Re: Some gut bacteria appear to communicate with the brain
#6http://web.archive.org/web/20230124132159/https://www.bbc.co... https://archive.ph/Z5vh0
Why post an archive link? Nothing from the BBC is behind a paywall.
Re: Some gut bacteria appear to communicate with the brain
#7In the last three years, something related to my gut-brain connection got fucked. I'm not sure if it was some kind of post-viral inflammation causing stress, or stress of isolation causing inflammation. But it's definitely a two way street and mine got completely stuck in a feedback loop. The mainstream medical system failed to help me. Eventually some functional medicine doctors managed to help me improve via diet, supplements, herbal remedies and probiotics. Through (risky) experimentation and happenstance I found even more relief with some traditional medicines (pure Greek mastiha sap, kambo and Ayahuasca) and anti-malarial pills I had taken for unrelated reasons.
Unfortunately the mainstream medical system has been completely unable to investigate or explain what is going on with my body, but anecdotally, the theory that there is a two way street between gut bacteria and the brain completely aligns with my experience.
I'm feeling better now, though my stomach still feels sensitive and I can no longer tolerate gluten.
Re: Some gut bacteria appear to communicate with the brain
#8In the last three years, something related to my gut-brain connection got fucked. I'm not sure if it was some kind of post-viral inflammation causing stress, or stress of isolation causing inflammation. But it's definitely a two way street and mine got completely stuck in a feedback loop. The mainstream medical system failed to help me. Eventually some functional medicine doctors managed to help me improve via diet,…
What's the issues you've been facing, and why do you think it's a gut-brain issue?
Re: Some gut bacteria appear to communicate with the brain
#9This is a little scary, doesn't that mean they can hack you and cause issues from brain fog to mental illness.
Re: Some gut bacteria appear to communicate with the brain
#10This is a little scary, doesn't that mean they can hack you and cause issues from brain fog to mental illness.
If we thought lead in the water was bad, just wait for the news of all the dietary and microbiota damage we've been doing to ourselves.
Obviously this could also become a population-level attack vector.