If you lose all your body parts can you still be alive?

[puzzleannie]

Your “mind” is not a visible part of your body; it is a process that lives within the head of your body. So no one can ever see your mind laying around, unlike your knees and eyes.

Your head is a part of your body, as as the brain it houses. But as neither brain nor head can be alive without the neck and body, if your brain were laying around, you would long since have reached your end.

ICXC NIKA

please look up humor, irony and satire in your Funk & Wagnalls dictionary. since Shaw has been mentioned look up paradox as well, since the term is relevant to the current discussion

 

[James_S_Saint]

Let’s say I lose an arm and replace it with a robotic arm. Then I lose a leg and replace it with a robotic leg. Then I get a robotic heart after mine fails. Then a portion of my brain fails and I get a robotic part to replace it. Let’s say this goes on and on till my entire body is robotic. At what point is my soul not on earth anymore? How much of me can be a robot before I die?

Every strand of your DNA carries an image of your “soul”. Remove all of them and what is left is mere legacy.

The effort generated by the DNA/RNA is a spirit aimed toward a specific goal. The machine that you used to replace yourself isn’t likely to even comprehend that goal just as you current do not.

To replace the entire body would be much like removing the founder of a corporation. The corporation continues perhaps in the same spirit for a while, but eventually hasn’t the same emphasis and demeanor of the founder.

The soul is the very foundational definition of the effort being manifest. It is not the actual manifestation (that is the spirit). Thus it is properly stated that the “spirit continues” in the legacy, but whether the soul does is another matter.

Once the actual method and goal of the soul are lost due to presumptive replacement, “you” are no longer there, but rather merely a spirit that you left behind, still carrying your label.

Is the nation still America if all of its inhabitants are only machines?

Is it still humanity when all within are manufactured replicas?

Take care what you replace. One day that will be you.

 

[James_S_Saint]

Now if you want to build a device that is an operating replica of your DNA/RNA, then yes, you are still there.

 

[Geremia]

This thread reminds me of this ignorant organization in Arizona. They mention Catholic theology a lot on their website, but sadly it is grossly misunderstood.

 

[Havard]

It is not just that we have a body, we are a body. No body, no human. Know body. Know Human. We do not merely inhabit a body. Rather, our body is related to our existence.

Ooooorrrrrrr… we are a soul, and we have a body! Our body is merely related to our state of existence. Remember, there’s also heaven, hell and purgatory.

 

[GEddie]

Ooooorrrrrrr… we are a soul, and we have a body! Our body is merely related to our state of existence. Remember, there’s also heaven, hell and purgatory.

No, you are not a soul, nor a spirit; you are a HUMAN BEING = SOUL + BODY.

Without both elements, there is no “you,” just remnants. “Your soul” on its own is no more “you” than your dead body would be “you”. “Your soul” by itself can no more experience life than your dead body could walk around and breathe.

In Heaven and Hell, human embodiedness is ultimately restored.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Memaw]

now if you want to build a device that is an operating replica of your dna/rna, then yes, you are still there. :d

prove it!!!

 

[Memaw]

No, you are not a soul, nor a spirit; you are a HUMAN BEING = SOUL + BODY.

Without both elements, there is no “you,” just remnants. “Your soul” on its own is no more “you” than your dead body would be “you”. “Your soul” by itself can no more experience life than your dead body could walk around and breathe.

In Heaven and Hell, human embodiedness is ultimately restored.

ICXC NIKA

OH YA, then what about the Communion of Saints? Their bodies are still here on earth but their souls are in Heaven, and they still exist. Many miracles have been attributed to the prayers of Saints who are in Heaven, soul ONLY. I think its time we stop telling GOD whats what and let HIM tell us. God Bless, Memaw

 

[James_S_Saint]

prove it!!!

To whom?

 

[Havard]

No, you are not a soul, nor a spirit; you are a HUMAN BEING = SOUL + BODY.

Without both elements, there is no “you,” just remnants. “Your soul” on its own is no more “you” than your dead body would be “you”. “Your soul” by itself can no more experience life than your dead body could walk around and breathe.

In Heaven and Hell, human embodiedness is ultimately restored.

ICXC NIKA

Okay, I think we’re crossing wires here. What I should have said was “we are not our flesh and blood and bones.”

Paul explicitly states in 1 Corinthians 15 that “It is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body” and that “flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God: neither shall corruption possess incorruption.”

This is why I said that our body relates to our state of existence. We can lose the flesh and blood and bones and still exist… we cannot exist with no soul.

 

[lobster]

I have always suspected that the brain is the seat of the soul, and that free will is hidden beneath the randomness component of quantum behavior, as that affects chemical reactions in the brain comprisi9ng thought.

Supposedly, during the French Revolution, the reason why the executioner held up the severed head of the guillotined nobles after their beheading was the assumption at that time that the head remained ensouled, as life drained out of it, and so the head was held up to force it to watch audience appreciation of their death.

I just read that in the 1970s monkey’s heads were in fact successfully transplanted. If this were done to a person, presumably the soul and free will would follow the head.

My thoughts are that theoretically if someones brain were removed totally from their body and hooked up to an artificial means of nourishment to keep it alive, it would still be a human with a soul. It could possibly even still think, and as someone else mentioned, talk to itself on a pedestal.
On the other hand, if someones brain were transplanted into a cow, the human would continue to live, only in the body of a cow.

 

[Geremia]

Now if you want to build a device that is an operating replica of your DNA/RNA, then yes, you are still there.

“[M]an hath nothing more than beast” only in respect to the life of the body since God says of the animals “Let the earth bring forth the living creature” (Genesis 1:24) but of man He “breathed into his face the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7). Therefore, an animal’s soul depends on the world for its existence whereas a human’s soul depends on God for its existence and it subsists in itself, not in the body.

 

[teia76]

If you became like Darth Vader or Robocop you would still be alive and considered human because your ability to act as a human has in no way diminished. If the brain was taken away or there was an attempt to use your soul to animate a robot which your soul or personality would be transferred to, it would be technology, not God, that is attempting to keep you alive. Because God will not allow your soul to be defiled in this way by undoing your humanity and making it into something else, I believe he takes your soul away when the capacity to be a human creature is gone. Note that this is not the same as someone who is in a coma or is a vegetable. If God wills it, these people can be cured, and it’s not the same as not being human anymore, because God can restore the mental, physical, etc, attributes, because the organs are still there that they need to think and feel through.

A person who is now a robot is no longer human. Anyone who claims the personality or soul of the person was transferred to the robot is probably wrong. At best, they may try and create an A.I personality that can function on similar brainwave patterns, and this and that and the other, and it can mimic the human it used to be, but it’s not John or Jane Doe anymore, it’s a lifeless robot. It will never be the genuine article because the all-encompassing factor that made John or Jane Doe a human is no longer there- their soul.

Science fiction entertains us with concepts that bridge the gap, like artificial intelligence, or implanting a brain into a robot, and having the robot access the memory banks of the human and somehow mimic it, which gives the outward appearance that the person continues to live on, through the robot, etc. While these concepts make for entertaining movies that are thought-provoking, and rightfully so, they usually don’t have any spirituality to them, which if it were present, would explain how this just isn’t possible. If there is a spiritual element, it’s there as a plot device, and usually nothing more.

I agree with you, nothing else to add; no brain, no soul= you death

 

[Areopagite]

The definition of “death” (according to Catholic theology and philosophy) is the “separation of body and soul.” If one does not have any body parts, one would obviously not have a body. So, if you lose all your body parts, you would, by definition, undergo death … i.e. you would no longer be alive.

My thoughts are that theoretically if someones brain were removed totally from their body and hooked up to an artificial means of nourishment to keep it alive, it would still be a human with a soul. It could possibly even still think, and as someone else mentioned, talk to itself on a pedestal.
On the other hand, if someones brain were transplanted into a cow, the human would continue to live, only in the body of a cow.

It’s an interesting question. I think the answer ultimately relies in scientific experimentation. Thomas did say, I believe, that some body parts are more important than others for the soul to remain in the body (and I think he may even have said that the brain was the most important organ for this). So, perhaps you’re right.

 

[Sonic]

Let’s say I lose an arm and replace it with a robotic arm. Then I lose a leg and replace it with a robotic leg. Then I get a robotic heart after mine fails. Then a portion of my brain fails and I get a robotic part to replace it. Let’s say this goes on and on till my entire body is robotic. At what point is my soul not on earth anymore? How much of me can be a robot before I die?

Silly question…

What happens the first time your system reboots or fails?

 

[Geremia]

Now if you want to build a device that is an operating replica of your DNA/RNA, then yes, you are still there.

If you are still alive while the replica is operating

 

[StAnastasia]

I have always suspected that the brain is the seat of the soul, and that free will is hidden beneath the randomness component of quantum behavior, as that affects chemical reactions in the brain comprisi9ng thought.

Do anancephalic children have no souls?

 

[GEddie]

Do anancephalic children have no souls?

They are born with a soul, because they are breathing. And they die because the body is too defective/damaged to hold the soul; that is what happens to all of us, albeit at much older ages.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[StAnastasia]

They are born with a soul, because they are breathing. And they die because the body is too defective/damaged to hold the soul; that is what happens to all of us, albeit at much older ages.

Are you saying that the soul has to do with breathing? I was merely responding to post #37. who was arguing for a soul-brain connection. Your position seems to be that there is not a soul-brain connection.

 

[GEddie]

Are you saying that the soul has to do with breathing?

Only consequently. The soul, AIUI, is the “life” of the body, and living bodies breathe.

I was merely responding to post #37. who was arguing for a soul-brain connection. Your position seems to be that there is not a soul-brain connection.

There is. But even in anencephaly there is enough of the brain left to keep body barely alive (the breathing, again). Without that remnant of the brain, body would not hold the soul (i.e. die). There is not enough of the brain for mental operations or for sustained life, so the “soul” departs relatively quickly.

ICXC NIKA