Introduction
This is my opinion on the data that I have seen after spending a lot of time reading, and more importantly actually talking with some of the world's leading researchers in some of the phenomena outlined below. You can find these conversations for free at The Seeking I Website. Please note I am NOT formally trained in Science or Philosophy, and the opinions below are my opinion solely, and not that of the general scientific or philosophic community. From the point of view of a lay person with a lot of interest in these subjects, I believe my statements to be accurate, but acknowledge that they may be inconsistent with any research done which I have not as of yet been introduced to. In short, I may be totally wrong, but I stand by my beliefs as I hope everyone who reads this will.
I believe that all evidence (at least all I have so far seen) to suggest emergence (brain creates the mind) can equally be used to suggest filtration (the brain receives and filters some as yet unknown non-local consciousness). Indeed, I would argue that given currently inexplicable anomalous experience through the means and methods of material science, the latter is the more parsimonious hypothesis. Let's take a look at some examples of said evidence:
Evidences for the hypothesis that the brain produces consciousness
1) Hit yourself in the head and you can remove or greatly alter consciousness and the mind = the brain creates the mind.
This is reasonable certainly, but the conclusion is not the only one. What happens when you throw a working radio against a wall, or hit the hell out of it with a hammer (perhaps you have a personal vendetta against said radio)? You would expect that A) the broadcast stops entirely, or B) the quality of the sound is greatly diminished or distorted. That being said, the translation or interpretation of the core data being received by the receiver on the motherboard is effected. The core data however remains unaffected, ie the information within the radio wave transmission. Taking this process as an analogy, I see no reason why this factor cannot equally occur should the brain act as a wet, squishy radio receiver. This would be an a-priori assumption which is ultimately unfalsifiable, however given the aforementioned phenomena that cannot be accounted for currently via materialistic means, but is parsimonious with a receiver/filter theory, I think we can posit it here.
2) Alzheimer's and other brain degenerative diseases lead to lack of lucidity and impairments/changes of the mind = the brain creates the mind.
Again, looking at a radio. If you sever the motherboard connections, you will ultimately expect that the sound of the broadcast will inevitably be impaired. If you cut the right wires, or at least damage the connection (say grind down a particular wire so that the electrical transmission is limited, why the hell you would do this is beyond me but there you are), you can make the voice of the speaker low pitched, crackly, robotic etc. Like the brain, cutting certain connections will not effect the sound (mind), but will cause other issues. Maybe the LED that lights up to show the radio is on will no longer work, and maybe if you cut a certain neuronal connection your legs will no longer work properly but the mind remains unaffected. Only particular connections on the motherboard will cause changes in the receiving and processing capabilities of the radio waves. Combatting this, we have phenomena such as terminal/paradoxical lucidity which in physical terms would suggest a sudden regeneration of severed connections which is able to return full lucidity despite the days, months, weeks or years of degenerative disease. This often occurs days or hours (sometimes minutes) prior to death, so to me seems a stretch to say that sudden regeneration could occur. Especially given that we have no mechanism as to how this could possibly happen. A disconnection of pure consciousness (radio waves) from the physical brain, removing the impairments and allowing for total experience of the core data seems reasonable, again when taken in accordance with other phenomena such as NDEs, OBEs, apparent PSI phenomena etc. Of course, it's not a perfect analogy because the brain is perhaps the most advanced machine in the natural universe of which we have only scratched the surface of understanding.
3) General Anesthesia takes consciousness away. If consciousness is separate, we would not ever be unconscious.
I'm not sure about this one, it's a very good point, and one I have pondered over before. However, there is now evidence according to the discussion I had with Dr Bernardo Kastrup that suggest that we are in fact still consciousness whilst under general anesthesia and also while in deep sleep. This is the link he sent me pointing to the evidence: https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/disp/9/44/article-p13.xml?fbclid=IwAR0aaeZ5aNm80yL8ljbZ7awIy7OQAVAcnH5HOD5ooG8v5Cv6PFg9T1DNK6k
My thoughts are this: if we suppose that the brain IS indeed a filter/receiver of consciousness, we can expect that experience is limited to the brain's ability to process and translate physical sensory information into our core experience of consciousness. We know that the brain is responsible for generating effectively an illusion of reality based on the sensory information it receives, and can reasonably assume in the creation of memories (which I would then argue are stored in the core consciousness ... "field" if you like). So when we interfere with it's ability to receive and translate these sensory stimuli, and it's ability to create and 'send' memories into awareness, of course we can expect to be seen as unconscious. There is no way of knowing if we were conscious, but due to the effects of the anesthetics, were unable to store the experience in consciousness. There is no way to tell one way or the other. Similar to those who have been near death and have NOT reported an NDE (according to Pim Van Lommel, this accounts for approximately 80% of his sample), we cannot know if they did not have an experience, or DID have an experience which was not saved in memory. Why this is the case with some and not others, we don't know, but it is certainly not evidence against the phenomenon. I'm not certain on my opinions in this instance in the case of general anesthesia, these are just my uneducated thoughts on the matter.
4) We can see consistent activity in the parts of the brain and the chemicals it produces that creates certain emotions and sensations = brain creates these emotions and sensations.
Not really much to say about this, anyone who brings this point up are showing correlation, not causation. When I play my piano, a light shows telling me which key I pressed and which note the sound suggests (eg, I press the C key, I hear a note, and the light shows up as 'C') This happens every time, but does not suggest that the light that tells me what note I pressed produces the 'C' sound itself. An example of correlation.
5) Anyone who believes that the brain does not create consciousness are peddling woo and pseudoscience.
Good one, now go back to your "atheist-skeptic-rationalthinker.com" forum. This is not a useful nor productive statement to make.
6) We know that the brain produces consciousness.
The majority of the population take this without question. After all, given all the evidence above does it not make sense? Well yes it does, but so does my hypothesis... and mine can account for the anomalous experiences that the 'brain creates consciousness' hypothesis can not at this moment in time. Could it be that there are material processes that could account for them that we haven't discovered yet? Absolutely! However given the ongoing hard problem of consciousness, and the presence of anomalous experience. Should we not consider the possibility that maybe the assumed scientific method that has worked so well thus far is perhaps beginning to find limitations, and may in fact not be the be all and end all to the pursuit of knowledge? Now that we have identified phenomena that cannot be explained, instead of stating a promissory note that material science WILL explain it eventually, we should at least try branching out and developing new means and methods outside of 'shut up and calculate'. We should begin taking 'anecdotes' of millions (estimated up to 1 billion) people, many of which have been third party verified to include veridical perception, seriously and not dismiss them as impossible off the bat. Science is NOT 'shut up and calculate', science is NOT one method that must be adhered to. Science is the very process of discovery which must be plastic; able to be developed and changed when new evidence and new phenomena challenge the dominant methodologies. The current scientific method, like all before it, is assumed. It has worked tremendously during the past several hundred years, however there are now phenomena which are suggesting it's time to adjust and advance.
Brief Conclusion
To say 'We know that the brain produces consciousness" is false. We do not. We have no mechanism as to how unconscious matter can give rise to 'qualia' or experience. The whole foundation of the hard problem is based on this fact. True, we also have no mechanism as to how physical matter could act as a receiver to an unknown 'field' or 'essence' of consciousness, and indeed no mechanism as to how that field would even operate. However, we now have observed and verified phenomena that suggest that the latter process may be worth considering, as it is certainly (in my opinion) much more parsimonious a theory for all the data we observe than that of physical matter alone giving rise to experience.
