Evolution and the soul

[ThinkingSapien]

Sorry but no. You’re subconsciously noticing something is a bit out of the ordinary and reacting. Your conscious mind is far too slow to make these kinds of decision. It gets alerted though, and thinks something magic is going on.

What’s kind of interesting is if you manipulate some one subconsciously and then ask him or her to explain why they performed some action it’s not uncommon for some one to (unintentionally) construct a rational explanation for the behaviour after the fact.

 

[pig]

Sorry but no. You’re subconsciously noticing something is a bit out of the ordinary and reacting. Your conscious mind is far too slow to make these kinds of decision. It gets alerted though, and thinks something magic is going on.

Taking decisions out of consciousness is important where fast reaction is needed, and lots of practice helps achieve that, which is one reason why practice makes perfect.

I’ve been thinking about this since you mentioned it, don’t get a big head inocente.
You do not know the roads I travel, they are not normal US roads. Some days on a 32 mile journey to work you might meet a dozen cars or more. More often than not at that early hour the road is empty.
If you imagine a blind bend and some thing tells you to slow and you do - then appears from nowhere an obstacle, car a bit over the line, truck hogging, necessarily, the whole width of the road and you think, if I had continued as normal my fairly fast pace drive I might have been under the rear wheals of that truck, a 30 ton or 40 ton truck.
There are no indications on a blind bend with no traffic that anything particular is amiss or different.
I am not the only person to have noticed this, my sister, who also drives a lot mentioned a feeling she gets very rarely on a bend that some thing is not right and she is encouraged to slow down. And with good reason.
What I’m saying is that our roads, inocent, may not be like your roads. Bends come very suddenly and the vegetation is very thick and the roads are very fast but also very empty.
On a hundred trips I will drive at 60 miles an hour around most bends blind without a care in the world but on extremely rare occasions, maybe once or twice in 2 years I slow deliberately for no good reason. There is nothing to see except the same old trees, bushes, grass, tar-mac, blue sky. Something prompts me to slow.

I’ve also, you will be glad to know, been thinking about your last post to me about the sub-conscious. Its a nice idea, but I have to say that while I am driving at any one particular moment I know I am aware of my surroundings, I have to be i.e. I am not sub-conscious or even un-conscious. The most I could say about that particular is that I am fully conscious and aware while driving through any particular point but that I have, later, very little memory of every bend, twist, or even, village I have passed through.
I can only conclude that I am fully aware while driving, as I have to react consciously to everything around me, but, but, it is possible that my mind does not choose to commit every detail of the drive to my memory, being that this is such a routine task, why take up valuable space in the memory, or short-term memory.

I could not drive sub-consciously any more than I could drive un-consciously, as I know I need to be aware and I am aware of every tiny little thing that occurs on the road at every moment, even every tiny stone on the road does not go unnoticed, otherwise I could not drive at all.
The most I can say, I think, is that my mind does not commit every routine task to short-term memory. But this is a long way from proving a sub-conscious, let alone disproving prompts from some source which may be termed inspiration.
Nice talking to you anyway, in case you get discouraged with my argumentative posts.

God bless you on the roads of course,
pig

 

[pig]

What’s kind of interesting is if you manipulate some one subconsciously and then ask him or her to explain why they performed some action it’s not uncommon for some one to (unintentionally) construct a rational explanation for the behaviour after the fact.

This would be in a lab setting, where you manipulate people consciously. But out in the real world where other peoples lives may be at stake it is more difficult to be sure that a prompting is anything other than a prompting.

 

[Peter_Plato]

genstein

I am not sure what Christians mean when they refer to the “soul”. Is that the same thing as “the self”, namely the subjective sense of being which one has in a cognitively functioning state? If so, then it is more accurately described as “consciousness” and certainly could not possess all of the attributes Aquinas associates with “soul” (will, intellect, memory, eg.)

Similarly, if the soul is “the self” or consciousness, then what meaning does the statement " I have a soul" have? If a person “has” a soull, that seems to imply that “the self” possesses a soul. It is almost the same as the Cartesian notion of “a ghost in the machine”.

In fact, I get the impression that “the soul” is an abstraction without any real meaning. Wittgenstein might ask what makes the statement “humans have a soul” true or false. I think the only answer Christians have for that is faith because I can’t see how it can be verified as a true statement by any objective criteria.

My own understanding is that the soul is the life giving form of the human being. It essentially answers the question “What?” The soul is the collection of characteristics that make a human being, a living human being and not something else. It is what “informs” or gives the particular form to the material substance that comprises each human being to make them a living human being and not a chair or raccoon. According to Aristotle and, I believe, Aquinas, all living things are comprised of a soul of some sort and material substance. Non-living things take some form or other, but non-living forms are not souls.

The self answers answers the question, “Who?” It is the collection of characteristics that identifies each of us as a particular, individual human being. It is the subjectivity of the person that identifies who not what they are.

So Wittgenstein’s hypothetical question should not be asked as, “Do humans have a soul?” because a soul is not something that humans have, but a soul is what defines what a human is.

 

[grannymh]

What would be wrong if it was only a ‘huge parallel’ firing of neurons?
We don’t know the answer but at the current state of our knowledge it seems as the most probable scenario.

I may be wrong, but I do not believe that the Catholic Church teaches that Jesus Christ gave up His life for “only a ‘huge parallel’ firing of neurons” or however one mistakenly describes the conscious, rational soul.

 

[Jaaanosik]

You need to ponder this question a little deeper. The type of neurological parallel firings that occur in my body also occur, we presume, in other similar human bodies. Why am I, the consciousness that makes me who I am, in this particular body an not some other one? Parallel firings do not explain that.

If you claim that the reason is because you just happen to be in whatever particular body you exist in, that answer is begging the question. Why am I in this body and not some other? There is no reason or explanation in parallel firings that explain why these firings result in me and not someone else. The only reason I know these particular firings result in me is because I am in this body and not some other. I could have been “housed” in any body and then been convinced that those firings would have naturally resulted in me, but they did not. Other bodies have similar firings and could have resulted in me, but they just happened to not result in me. Why not?

Because every soul is unique.
Because every brain is unique.
It seems whatever we can think off and say about soul then the same can be said about the brain.
If the spiritual soul represents consciousness/personality then is there a need to have the soul incorporeal?
Do we have a irreformable Church’s teaching that the soul is immaterial? If yes, could it be another case like ‘Geo-centrism’?

 

[grannymh]

Do we have a irreformable Church’s teaching that the soul is immaterial?

Yes.

One can find these doctrines in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, beginning with paragraph 355. Also, a bit of common sense – if one believes in Jesus Christ, True God and True Man – will also lead to the conclusion that human nature consists of both material body and immaterial soul.

If yes, could it be another case like ‘Geo-centrism’?

Personally, I would say no because our spiritual soul is not the planet earth.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Because every soul is unique.
Because every brain is unique.
It seems whatever we can think off and say about soul then the same can be said about the brain.

Not quite. The brain is locatable and measurable in space and time. Subjective consciousness/identity has no specifiable dimension or location.

Do we have a irreformable Church’s teaching that the soul is immaterial? If yes, could it be another case like ‘Geo-centrism’?

There is no locatable centre of the universe. Geo-centrism is untenable precisely because space-time has no objectively identifiable centre. However, subjective consciousness is necessarily tied to a centre of identity, but that need not entail it is the only centre of identity. Geo-centrism, because the universe is one entity, would entail a uniquely existing centre.

 

[inocente]

I’ve been thinking about this since you mentioned it, don’t get a big head inocente.
You do not know the roads I travel, they are not normal US roads. Some days on a 32 mile journey to work you might meet a dozen cars or more. More often than not at that early hour the road is empty.
If you imagine a blind bend and some thing tells you to slow and you do - then appears from nowhere an obstacle, car a bit over the line, truck hogging, necessarily, the whole width of the road and you think, if I had continued as normal my fairly fast pace drive I might have been under the rear wheals of that truck, a 30 ton or 40 ton truck.
There are no indications on a blind bend with no traffic that anything particular is amiss or different.
I am not the only person to have noticed this, my sister, who also drives a lot mentioned a feeling she gets very rarely on a bend that some thing is not right and she is encouraged to slow down. And with good reason.
What I’m saying is that our roads, inocent, may not be like your roads. Bends come very suddenly and the vegetation is very thick and the roads are very fast but also very empty.
On a hundred trips I will drive at 60 miles an hour around most bends blind without a care in the world but on extremely rare occasions, maybe once or twice in 2 years I slow deliberately for no good reason. There is nothing to see except the same old trees, bushes, grass, tar-mac, blue sky. Something prompts me to slow.

Your subconscious notices reams of things that don’t get passed on to conscious attention.

I’ve also, you will be glad to know, been thinking about your last post to me about the sub-conscious. Its a nice idea, but I have to say that while I am driving at any one particular moment I know I am aware of my surroundings, I have to be i.e. I am not sub-conscious or even un-conscious. The most I could say about that particular is that I am fully conscious and aware while driving through any particular point but that I have, later, very little memory of every bend, twist, or even, village I have passed through.

A problem that has befuddled philosophers of mind is the only thing they have to study the mind is their mind. Here’s just one of the things that fooled them: you’re driving along and your conscious attention switches off for ten seconds and then comes back. Because you had no conscious attention for those ten seconds you have no way of knowing it switched off, so you believe your attention was continuous. (Think about it.)

You might think you’d work it out if something unusual happened while your conscious attention was off, but in that situation people will instead say things like “the truck came out of nowhere” - their conscious attention didn’t kick in until the truck was on top of them, so to their conscious mind the truck really did materialize out of nowhere.

This kind of illusion has led to all manner of beliefs and superstitions.

Nice talking to you anyway, in case you get discouraged with my argumentative posts.

No problem, we’re only shooting the breeze, but I’m very surprised you’ve never heard of the subconscious, also known as the unconscious mind, also known as intuition. It’s not a controversial idea, it’s well attested, you’ll find it in textbooks.

God bless you on the roads of course

Thanks, and you.

 

[inocente]

What’s kind of interesting is if you manipulate some one subconsciously and then ask him or her to explain why they performed some action it’s not uncommon for some one to (unintentionally) construct a rational explanation for the behaviour after the fact.

Yes. Another example is if you’re sitting with three or four others and they have their legs crossed, you probable crossed yours too, because your subconscious wants to fit in. Or, if you’ve ever tried to negotiate with someone on a low res Skype link, you’ll know how hard it is to read what they’re thinking - we don’t realize how important all those little subconscious visual cues are until they’re gone.

 

[inocente]

I may be wrong, but I do not believe that the Catholic Church teaches that Jesus Christ gave up His life for “only a ‘huge parallel’ firing of neurons” or however one mistakenly describes the conscious, rational soul.

Now play fair granny.

Beethoven’s Ninth isn’t diminished by knowing it’s composed of notes, and it certainly can’t be reduced to only a pile of notes. In the same way we’re not diminished by knowing how we’re made, and we certainly can’t be reduced to a pile of neurons.

Treatments for a number of illnesses and disorders are only made possible by first putting aside belief in an inexplicable supernatural mind, and I find it hard to believe the Church would stop that research and say people must forgo being healed by new cures.

 

[pig]

… you’re driving along and your conscious attention switches off for ten seconds and then comes back. Because you had no conscious attention for those ten seconds you have no way of knowing it switched off, so you believe your attention was continuous. (Think about it.)

ok, I’ve thought about it. But I know I am conscious at any particular moment; I must avoid that pothole, decide whether to drive inside it or outside it; constantly switch things on and off, lights, wipers, heater, radio, etc. Watch for traffic, pedestrians, animals, etc. and respond consciously.
If I am unconscious for a whopping 10 seconds driving at 60 miles per hour I will wake up at the far end of some field - do you know how far a car can travel in ten seconds at 60 mph?
No, I’m afraid I know that I am fully conscious and aware while driving but can only conclude that I do not commit every moment to memory.

You might think you’d work it out if something unusual happened while your conscious attention was off, but in that situation people will instead say things like “the truck came out of nowhere” - their conscious attention didn’t kick in until the truck was on top of them, so to their conscious mind the truck really did materialize out of nowhere.

This kind of illusion has led to all manner of beliefs and superstitions.

Not so. Because I slowed down before I saw the truck.

 

[inocente]

ok, I’ve thought about it. But I know I am conscious at any particular moment; I must avoid that pothole, decide whether to drive inside it or outside it; constantly switch things on and off, lights, wipers, heater, radio, etc. Watch for traffic, pedestrians, animals, etc. and respond consciously.
If I am unconscious for a whopping 10 seconds driving at 60 miles per hour I will wake up at the far end of some field - do you know how far a car can travel in ten seconds at 60 mph?
No, I’m afraid I know that I am fully conscious and aware while driving but can only conclude that I do not commit every moment to memory.

But you’re forgetting that your subconscious can drive. Think about Captain Sullenberger - there’s no way he could have consciously made all the decisions needed to get his plane down on the Hudson in the few minutes available. It was all his training which allowed his subconscious to do most of the work in flying the plane, freeing up his conscious to only deal with the most important decisions.

As I said, this stuff is in textbooks. It’s used by airlines, security forces, sports people, etc. to design training courses. It’s used by poker players to spot the “tell” in others. It’s used all over the place. Read up on it, it’s very interesting.

 

[grannymh]

Now play fair granny.

Beethoven’s Ninth isn’t diminished by knowing it’s composed of notes, and it certainly can’t be reduced to only a pile of notes. In the same way we’re not diminished by knowing how we’re made, and we certainly can’t be reduced to a pile of neurons.

Treatments for a number of illnesses and disorders are only made possible by first putting aside belief in an inexplicable supernatural mind, and I find it hard to believe the Church would stop that research and say people must forgo being healed by new cures.

FYI

Off the Forums, I am explaining how Catholicism actually views the physical brain when disorders are present. Obviously, since the human body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (phrase from my childhood), Catholicism seeks knowledge about the anatomy, including the brain, and definitely promotes care of it, including the brain.

Obviously, when one studies how the visible Catholic Church operates on earth, one automatically knows that an “inexplicable supernatural mind” is not a teaching of Catholicism.

By the way, Beethoven never claimed that the Ninth had a spiritual, rational soul.

Before I really get cranky (feminine of snarky) I will pick up my marbles and leave which is another saying from my childhood.

 

[pig]

But you’re forgetting that your subconscious can drive. Think about Captain Sullenberger - there’s no way he could have consciously made all the decisions needed to get his plane down on the Hudson in the few minutes available. It was all his training which allowed his subconscious to do most of the work in flying the plane, freeing up his conscious to only deal with the most important decisions.

As I said, this stuff is in textbooks. It’s used by airlines, security forces, sports people, etc. to design training courses. It’s used by poker players to spot the “tell” in others. It’s used all over the place. Read up on it, it’s very interesting.

There are books about leprechauns as well. What you are talking about are memorized movements. As children we learned by rote, or off by heart. This is the equivalent, only you are learning procedures and actions off by heart rather than words.

 

[inocente]

There are books about leprechauns as well. What you are talking about are memorized movements. As children we learned by rote, or off by heart. This is the equivalent, only you are learning procedures and actions off by heart rather than words.

So you have textbooks on leprechauns and kids learn by rote in your part of the world. I see.

 

[pig]

So you have textbooks on leprechauns … I see.

Yes, whats so funny about that. Here is the leprechaun watch camera.

irelandseye.com/leprechaun/images/left1.gif