Intellect is faculty of brain

[STT]

There are extensive studies about human intelligence. One of frontier theory in this area is Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory (PFIT). You can read more about it in here. The question which is interesting is what is duty of soul if intellect is a faculty of brain?

 

[davidv]

There are extensive studies about human intelligence. One of frontier theory in this area is Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory (PFIT). You can read more about it in here. The question which is interesting is what is duty of soul if intellect is a faculty of brain?

A very large “if” in that question. What if the intellect is not a faculty of the brain?

The soul does not have duty. It is an integral member of the human person.

 

[Richca]

There are extensive studies about human intelligence. One of frontier theory in this area is Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory (PFIT). You can read more about it in here. The question which is interesting is what is duty of soul if intellect is a faculty of brain?

The intellect is a spiritual/immaterial power of the spiritual/immaterial human soul. The brain is a material part of the material body. The interior sensory powers of the soul such as the common sense, imagination, and sensible memory function through some corporeal organ of the body which is probably the brain. Sense knowledge is the limit of the brain which kind of knowledge is also found in brute animals. The brain in tandem with the interior sense powers of the soul is probably also involved in the production of the sensory phantasms which the human intellect abstracts the universals or the essences of things from. In this life, the human intellect knows nothing without the phantasms. Intellectual knowledge is gained through the senses for human beings with a soul in a body here on earth.

 

[Gorgias]

There are extensive studies about human intelligence. One of frontier theory in this area is Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory (PFIT). You can read more about it in here. The question which is interesting is what is duty of soul if intellect is a faculty of brain?

The study you cite begins by presuming that intelligence is a function of the brain. You can’t exactly start with that assumption and then attempt to use the study to assert anything about the soul.

Moreover, “intellect” and “intelligence” are distinct notions; you seem to be conflating them here…

 

[STT]

A very large “if” in that question. What if the intellect is not a faculty of the brain?

They are using scientific methods which mean they are dealing with nature–not super-nature.

The soul does not have duty. It is an integral member of the human person.

No, soul wills.

 

[STT]

The intellect is a spiritual/immaterial power of the spiritual/immaterial human soul. The brain is a material part of the material body. The interior sensory powers of the soul such as the common sense, imagination, and sensible memory function through some corporeal organ of the body which is probably the brain. Sense knowledge is the limit of the brain which kind of knowledge is also found in brute animals. The brain in tandem with the interior sense powers of the soul is probably also involved in the production of the sensory phantasms which the human intellect abstracts the universals or the essences of things from. In this life, the human intellect knows nothing without the phantasms. Intellectual knowledge is gained through the senses for human beings with a soul in a body here on earth.

They are dealing with brain which matter. They even assign a set of brain areas which are important in intelligence.

 

[STT]

The study you cite begins by presuming that intelligence is a function of the brain. You can’t exactly start with that assumption and then attempt to use the study to assert anything about the soul.

I didn’t say so.

Moreover, “intellect” and “intelligence” are distinct notions; you seem to be conflating them here…

Intellect and intelligence are related. Intellect is the faculty of reasoning and understanding objectively and intelligence is the ability the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. Intellect wouldn’t be possible without intelligence and vice versa.

 

[davidv]

They are using scientific methods which mean they are dealing with nature–not super-nature.

They are excluding part of nature, the spiritual. Their conclusions cannot extend beyond their inference space.

No, soul wills.

Really?

Persons will, not souls.

 

[Fiasco]

Intellect and intelligence are related. Intellect is the faculty of reasoning and understanding objectively and intelligence is the ability the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. Intellect wouldn’t be possible without intelligence and vice versa.

The intellect and the will are both in the soul, but in this life the brain is a bottleneck, and we’re stuck with its limitations until we croak. That includes the sensory temptations, constantly assailing the will. Haywire emotions. Etc.
It also includes a brain which may be a few cents short of a dollar to start with, or brain degeneration, even down to a vegie state. The intellect remains intact, but less accessible.

If we die in the state of Grace and make it to Heaven, immediately, or after purging, the soul will be free of the brain’s limitations; so the intellect will know at its greatest capacity, and the will will love at its greatest capacity.

 

[STT]

They are excluding part of nature, the spiritual. Their conclusions cannot extend beyond their inference space.

They are not excluding anything. They mere use scientific method to investigate brain functioning.

 

[STT]

The intellect and the will are both in the soul, but in this life the brain is a bottleneck, and we’re stuck with its limitations until we croak. That includes the sensory temptations, constantly assailing the will. Haywire emotions. Etc.

This is just an unsupported claim. They clearly show that intellect is a property of brain.

It also includes a brain which may be a few cents short of a dollar to start with, or brain degeneration, even down to a vegie state. The intellect remains intact, but less accessible.

These are again unsupported claims.

If we die in the state of Grace and make it to Heaven, immediately, or after purging, the soul will be free of the brain’s limitations; so the intellect will know at its greatest capacity, and the will will love at its greatest capacity.

Apparently we need a body to be functional.

 

[Fiasco]

This is just an unsupported claim. They clearly show that intellect is a property of brain.

Sorry, but i can’t help what your group’s findings “clearly show”. i’m following the spiritual side of it, and what i said above stands. The brain is a limiting factor.
To those who deny the supernatural, their “findings” may be OK. But, some of us here are theists.

These are again unsupported claims.

As above.

Apparently we need a body to be functional.

It’s the soul which animates the body. If you want to deny the existence of the soul, that’s your concern.

Intellect from the Catholic perspective:

www.newadvent.org/cathen/08066a.htm

With this second one, read the whole paragraph starting with:
“Thus St John and St Paul both emphasise seeing…”:

www.katapi.org.uk/TandS/Ch24.html#IV

The soul is the seat of the intellect and the will.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

It’s the soul which animates the body. If you want to deny the existence of the soul, that’s your concern.

It always boggles my mind that people still use this language. To me, it seems like a clear and straightforward pre-modern statement of vitalism (i.e. that non-living matter lacks some “vital spark” that living matter has.)

 

[Wesrock]

The immaterial component of Intellect in Thomism is the ability to understand the universals in a realist approach to reality (as contrasted with nominalism and conceptualism). Thomism doesn’t deny the material component of our consciousness or mental processes, emotions, intelligence, etc…

Of course it’s more than just immaterial versus material, but the denial by materialists of any type of Aristotlean final causality inherent in things, which negates any type of intentionality or actual meaning behind neural activity or anything else, which inevitably results in not just saying that “mind is matter,” but having to say that there is no mind at all.

 

[EnosJadon]

The intellect and the will are both in the soul, but in this life the brain is a bottleneck, and we’re stuck with its limitations until we croak. That includes the sensory temptations, constantly assailing the will. Haywire emotions. Etc.
It also includes a brain which may be a few cents short of a dollar to start with, or brain degeneration, even down to a vegie state. The intellect remains intact, but less accessible.

Herein lies the problem with defining the soul as the seat of the intellect…it’s dependent upon the brain for its data, and the brain is notoriously unreliable. The brain filters, processes, interprets, and introduces all manner of biases to the data that it takes in. Such that the data that ultimately reaches the conscious mind has already been altered to fit the subconscious mind’s preconceptions.

The brain is amazingly proficient at processing, interpreting, and augmenting data. For example, did you know that the the only part of your eye that actually sees clearly is the fovea centralis. Fully half of the information traveling along the optic nerve comes from this region. What’s amazing, is how small this region actually is. If you extend your arm straight out in front of you, and point your thumb upwards, the area perceived by the fovea centralis is the size of your thumbnail. That’s the only part of your vision that’s actually clear. Everything else is out of focus. But the brain has evolved some pretty clever strategies for filling in the missing information. And normally it does such a good job of it that we don’t even notice. But every once in a while this process will produce an optical illusion, when what the subconscious brain expects to see conflicts with what’s actually occurring.

Now this process of filtering and augmenting data extends beyond our visual senses, and plays a big role in our biases. We see what we subconsciously expect to see, without our conscious minds even being aware that what it believes to be factual information, is actually the result of our subconscious minds interpreting incomplete, or ambiguous information. The conscious mind is in large part a reflection of the biases introduced by the subconscious mind. Thus in the process of data processing, the conscious mind lies secondary to the subconscious mind.

Now if the soul lies at the endpoint of this data gathering process…if the brain is indeed the “bottleneck” that you say it is, then the soul is subject to the same biases, preconceptions, and misinformation that the conscious mind is subject to. If the soul is relying upon the information that’s coming to it from the brain, then the soul is just as apt to be deceived as the conscious mind is. In essence, the soul is the result of the process, not the regulator of the process.

The only way to avoid this subconscious trap, is to first admit that it’s there. You’re psychologically predisposed to believe in things that aren’t true. That’s what the subconscious mind does…it creates a self-consistent interpretation of incomplete or ambiguous information, and it presents it to you as the supposedly unbiased truth.

You have to have the guts to question what your very soul is telling you is true.

 

[Wesrock]

Herein lies the problem with defining the soul as the seat of the intellect…it’s dependent upon the brain for its data, and the brain is notoriously unreliable. The brain filters, processes, interprets, and introduces all manner of biases to the data that it takes in. Such that the data that ultimately reaches the conscious mind has already been altered to fit the subconscious mind’s preconceptions.

The brain is amazingly proficient at processing, interpreting, and augmenting data. For example, did you know that the the only part of your eye that actually sees clearly is the fovea centralis. Fully half of the information traveling along the optic nerve comes from this region. What’s amazing, is how small this region actually is. If you extend your arm straight out in front of you, and point your thumb upwards, the area perceived by the fovea centralis is the size of your thumbnail. That’s the only part of your vision that’s actually clear. Everything else is out of focus. But the brain has evolved some pretty clever strategies for filling in the missing information. And normally it does such a good job of it that we don’t even notice. But every once in a while this process will produce an optical illusion, when what the subconscious brain expects to see conflicts with what’s actually occurring.

Now this process of filtering and augmenting data extends beyond our visual senses, and plays a big role in our biases. We see what we subconsciously expect to see, without our conscious minds even being aware that what it believes to be factual information, is actually the result of our subconscious minds interpreting incomplete, or ambiguous information. The conscious mind is in large part a reflection of the biases introduced by the subconscious mind. Thus in the process of data processing, the conscious mind lies secondary to the subconscious mind.

Now if the soul lies at the endpoint of this data gathering process…if the brain is indeed the “bottleneck” that you say it is, then the soul is subject to the same biases, preconceptions, and misinformation that the conscious mind is subject to. If the soul is relying upon the information that’s coming to it from the brain, then the soul is just as apt to be deceived as the conscious mind is. In essence, the soul is the result of the process, not the regulator of the process.

The only way to avoid this subconscious trap, is to first admit that it’s there. You’re psychologically predisposed to believe in things that aren’t true. That’s what the subconscious mind does…it creates a self-consistent interpretation of incomplete or ambiguous information, and it presents it to you as the supposedly unbiased truth.

You have to have the guts to question what your very soul is telling you is true.

No one denies that our perceptions can be mislead or inaccurate at times. But do you deny that no real facts about the external world are perceived? That our perceptions tell us nothing about anything? And we don’t limit ourselves here to just “natural” perceptions such as seeing and touching, but to all the tests and data we collect, too, in order to augment our physical perceptive limitations?

Unless you’re arguing for solipsism and never knowing that we aren’t just a brain in a vat being given false perceptions by a demon, I fail to see your point.

 

[EnosJadon]

No one denies that our perceptions can be mislead or inaccurate at times. But do you deny that no real facts about the external world are perceived? That our perceptions tell us nothing about anything? And we don’t limit ourselves here to just “natural” perceptions such as seeing and touching, but to all the tests and data we collect, too, in order to augment our physical perceptive limitations?

Of course one would have to assume that we receive “real” information about the world around us, through various means…but amazingly, recent studies seem to show that we actually put greater merit in subconsciously fabricated information than we do in directly perceived information. We trust our biases to a greater degree than we do own senses. We’re all aware that even seemingly unambiguous scientific data is open to subconscious biases in their interpretation.

The mind sees what it’s predisposed to see. You see God in things, because you’re predisposed to see God in things. The real trick is to recognize these subconscious biases, and overcome them.

Much easier said than done. People become very attached to their biases. In fact, in some sense it’s difficult to imagine how we would function without them.

 

[Wesrock]

The mind sees what it’s predisposed to see. You see God in things, because you’re predisposed to see God in things. The real trick is to recognize these subconscious biases, and overcome them.

And from the way you write, I presume you think you’re without biases still to overcome, then? At least with regards to the question of God?

 

[davidv]

They are not excluding anything. They mere use scientific method to investigate brain functioning.

How does the scientific method investigate the spiritual world? It cannot, therefore they are excluding the spiritual.

 

[setarcos]

The study you cite begins by presuming that intelligence is a function of the brain. You can’t exactly start with that assumption and then attempt to use the study to assert anything about the soul.

Moreover, “intellect” and “intelligence” are distinct notions; you seem to be conflating them here…

If the expression of intelligence can be drastically altered through the injury, aging, or disease of the brain isn’t that a pretty good indicator of a strong correlation between the function of the brain and intelligence?
I disagree, “intellect” and “intelligence” are intimately related not distinct notions.