STUFF

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Stuff I've written in the past year
FREE THE BIRDS written by: Neelia Miller Free the Birds Around camp there are these birds, pigeons I guess, (being a biology major I should know, huh?!) Anyways, many of them have string or material tied around its legs. Some only have one leg tied up, some have both legs tied up, even though you can tell they are having trouble walking they look like they don’t even notice that they are tied up, in bondage. I was thinking how I could somehow help and get the string off one of there legs. There are a few problems though. 1. First you gotta catch the bird. 2. You almost need 2 people, one to hold the bird, and one to untie the string. 3. Try to do all this without getting pecked to death. Do you see what I’m getting at? This totally related to witnessing. How are we supposed to catch the bird? (i.e. the non-saved) There are several different methods that may work. We can run around and chase the bird all over. The problem is you may chase the bird around all day, and you still may not even catch it! Or you could rig up some sort of cage and wait till the bird wander into it. Or you could offer it food, seeds or bread. The idea is to make it enticing. So how do we go about trying to witness to people? Do we run around chasing people down, only to be disappointed when we don’t “catch” them? Or do we trick them, making a “cage,” in reality enclosing them in bondage a second time. Or do we offer appetizing food, “the word,” and wait till they are eating and calm, and are more willing to accept our offer. (God’s offer of salvation, to deliver us from bondage.) The truth is even if you “feed” the bird, and he lets you “catch” him, and he is willing to accept your “offer of help,” you still might get pecked. Okay It’s not going to kill you but it’s probably going to hurt. And the fact is we’re going to get pecked. (doesn’t it say, I give thanks every time I am persecuted…..?) The problem is, the bird doesn’t know he has a problem. He doesn’t know anything is wrapped around its feet. The shape and figure of the bird makes it very difficult to see it’s feet, so it may not even realize it is in bondage. So even though we are only trying to help the bird, he doesn’t realize this, maybe thinks we are trying to do it harm. That’s why he starts pecking, he’s trying to protect himself. I’ve decided most of the birds are probably going to die with the strings tied to their feet. It’s sad, but its reality. So we just sit back and do nothing? NO! We feed as many birds as we can. We free as many birds as we can. And we pray we survive the pecking.
Free the Birds was written In Italy while visiting with the Missionary group, "Christ is the Answer for Italy"
Consciousness Paper Written By: Neelia Miller
The Feeling of Being Try to imagine you are holding a small black box. Inside is something known only to you. As you go about your day you notice that every single person you see or meet also carry the exact same little black box. Now remember only you know what’s inside your little black box, and only they know what’s inside theirs. It is very precious to you and you don’t ever want to lose it. It doesn’t change and is always there. You wonder if everyone else has the same thing in their little black box, and they wonder if yours is the same as theirs. We may never know because you can’t explain what’s in yours and they can’t tell you what’s in theirs. This is the unsolved mystery, the feeling of being, this is the thing we call consciousness. This mystery revolves around many unanswered questions. Where did what’s in the little black box come from? What is “it” exactly? How can it be defined? Is mine the same as yours? Where does it begin and where does it end? Is there anyone who doesn’t have anything in their black box (in essence, someone who does not exhibit consciousness) Can it be created or destroyed? The biggest problem making all the questions so difficult to answer is surrounded by the fact that nobody really knows what’s in the little black box. Once this is found out (what exactly is consciousness) if it can be found out, then many other questions will answer themselves. Let’s start with the basics, what do we know so far. There are a few standard definitions of consciousness to be considered. The feeling of being, or the feeling of what happens, or with-knowledge; the awareness of ones self, the simple realization of knowing that you are. Webster’s dictionary states: the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself : the state or fact of being conscious of an external object, state, or fact. To keep things simple we will only be considering the consciousness of humans. Let’s consider some things that are required for consciousness to occur. The first and most fundamental condition of consciousness is life. There are some states of being where a person is considered to be alive but may be considered less then sentient. This will be discussed later on. Second, it is assumed, a brain or brain stem must be present. The aspects of this will also later be discussed, such as just how much of a brain does one need. Does anything else need to be present for consciousness to occur? Here things start to get difficult and theories start to collide. Things such as, speech, awareness, vision, perception, the ability to think, awakeness, must be considered. Many people have preconceived ideas of what consciousness must derive from, these will also be considered somewhat. Before we make any conclusions lets look at some examples and examine the evidence. First, a good way to examine consciousness is by studying patients who exhibit impaired or disrupted, or lack of consciousness in some for or manner. We might pause to ponder how the absence of it can be studied to determine a definition of consciousness. Just keep an open mind as we examine further. Two groups of patients exhibit signs of lack of consciousness: those with, epileptic automatism and akinetic mutism. In both of these neurological phenomenons, core consciousness and extended consciousness have been disrupted in some way. (the definitions of core consciousness and extended consciousness will be dealt with later on.) Epileptic automatisms are characterized by absence seizures (absence is short for “absence of consciousness”) Let’s consider a patient who has absence seizures. For simplicity sake let’s call this person Andy. If you weren’t too close to this person you may not notice anything out of the ordinary. It might take place something like this. During an innocent conversation with Andy. He might stop mid-sentence and freezes. Andy still appears to be awake: he does not fall or have convulsions. Andy would just stare at nothing and his face would be void of expression or emotion. He might then stand up and walk out the door and down the street. You, being curious, would follow in pursuit and observe his actions. This episode would probably only last a few seconds, or sometimes a few minutes. After the episode, consciousness would suddenly appear as quickly as it had disappeared. You would have to explain to Andy what just happened. Andy would be able to tell you what was going on before the absence seizure occurred and what happened after it stopped, but would have no memory of the seizure itself. This is what scientist’s term lack of consciousness, because there would have been no plan, no forethought, and no sense of individual person, wishing, wanting, considering, or believing. There would have been no sense of self, no identifiable person with a past and an anticipated future, specifically no core self and no autobiographical self(1). The patient cannot remember anything of the time of seizure. This is because although the patient went through physical actions, displayed wakefulness, and signs of attention; the events that occurred during the seizure did not register in the brain, and if they were committed to memory they cannot be retrieved. This is because the brain does not think they actually happened. The one thing that was obviously missing during the seizure was emotion. The sign of missing emotion is directly related to a defective core conscience. Emotions and core consciousness go together, in the literal sense, by being present together or absent together(2). One way to describe core consciousness and extended consciousness is to look at sleep. We take sleep for granted, but we can also regard it as a natural experiment on consciousness we call sleep. There are different levels of sleep. During dream sleep, emotions are detectable, but during deep sleep emotions are not visible. Damasio³ takes this to be a sign that we are conscious while dreaming and lacking consciousness during deep sleep. This seems to be a sign that our consciousness shuts down to the lowest level possible, but I don’t take this as evidence that we are unconscious or that our brain shuts off. If this were the case, what tells the brain to turn on and off, or to return to a normal state of consciousness, or to wake up? I take this as evidence that there must always be some form of consciousness present and working, even if only in small quantities. Damasio contends that consciousness consists of constructing knowledge about two facts: that the organism is involved in relating to some object, and that the object in the relation causes a change in the organism(4). He also says consciousness can be separated into parts, he bases his theory on neurological evidence that makes the separation obvious. He divides consciousness into two parts, simple-core consciousness, and complex-extended consciousness. Core consciousness can be defined by a simple biological phenomenon. It provides the subject with a sense of self for the here and now, and it is not dependent on memory, reasoning, or language. Extended consciousness is considered to be a complex biological phenomenon with many levels. It provides the subject with a greater sense of self, an identity and person; it is aware of the past and anticipates the future. It evolves over the lifetime of the subject; it depends on memory and is enhanced by language. The fact that consciousness tends to evolve makes sense, because we grow, we might consider that our consciousness can grow . One might also consider if consciousness can grow, where does it start and when does it stop growing or evolving. Take the example of a newborn infant, we would all consider it to be conscience and aware. It could be considered that an infant is more abstractly conscience, or that a baby tends to get a generalized internal view of its surroundings. For an infant this would suffice, it doesn’t have a need for much detail. But as it grows older we might conclude that as consciousness becomes more defined or detailed, the toddler can recognize a specific adult or color where as a newborn this was more generalized. I believe these theories could be considered in further studies of consciousness. Let us examine a few more examples before we conclude. Take another look at the question, “how much brain does one need to be conscience?” We will reflect on a patient, Kathy. Kathy born with most of the left side of her brain missing. One theory is that the left side of the brain deals with language, speech, reading, writing, and understanding language. So one might assume, of course, that Kathy would not be able to speak or understand language, and probably assume consciousness would be impaired to some degree. It turns out this is not the case at all, Kathy appears almost perfectly normal except for the obvious physical challenges of the right side of her body. Kathy can speak and understand language, and does not show any signs of impaired consciousness. What can we conclude about this? Perhaps that consciousness is not dependent on both hemispheres of the brain, or that one hemisphere can make up for the deficit of the other. I don’t believe though that conclusive evidence of any of these ideas can be determined by the simple fact that we cannot at this time look into her little black box. The topic of comatose and locked-in syndrome can also shed light on the nature of consciousness. Many people think of comatose patients as sleeping deeply, or in a suspended state of consciousness, but this is not the case. Comatose patients cannot be awakened by any means. In the rare instances where comatose patients regain consciousness, there is no memory of consciousness during the state of coma. This leads to the belief that comatose patients do not have consciousness, but it doesn’t prove it. Many people have lost consciousness and as a result also lost some memory. This may have happened in an accident, where patients cannot remember anything before the accident. As many of their family and friends can attest, the patient was indeed a conscious person before the accident, even if they have no memory left of that time. It is always a risk to make assumptions based on lack of evidence. Another sleep-like state similar to comatose is called lock-in syndrome. The patients display all of the signs of a comatose patient except for the fact that they are conscience. This is observed in meaningful and purposeful eye movement in which the patient can communicate with the rest of the world. Both comatose and lock-in syndrome occur because of damage to a minuscule part of the brain stem, often times resulting from a stroke. The difference is the damage occurs in the brain stem, within only a few millimeters apart, which results in one patient lacking any signs of consciousness and another with obvious signs of consciousness. The above examples suggest that consciousness depends on a brain or brain stem and a living person. It is debatable as to whether consciousness is dependent or related to speech, awareness, vision, perception, and awake-ness. We might also conclude that consciousness begins at birth (or conception) and ends with death. Consciousness can be separated into simple or complex parts of core-consciousness and extended consciousness. I personally believe almost everyone has or exhibits consciousness, despite their physical or mental state. Consciousness may be impaired or disrupted, or even at times suspended. We must not forget the question, “Can consciousness be defined?” Can we come up with a theory based on facts and reputable evidence? Will we find a way to look “inside” the brain and mind? I think this question can be answered; it just all depends on what’s in your little black box. Bibliography Damasio The feeling of what happens (1) pg98 (2) pg100 (3) Antonio Damasio author of “The feeling of what happens” and “Descartes Error” Head of the department of Neurobiology at the University of Iowa College of Medicine in Iowa City. Recognized for his research in Neurobiology of emotion, memory, and language. (4) Pg28