Is consciousness an emergent property of the brain?

  • Thread starter Thread starter thephilosopher6
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

thephilosopher6

Guest
Within the last few decades, neuroscience has taken great leaps forward into uncovering the mystery of the nature of consciousness, how it arises, and what contributes to it. Although there is still a long way to go, and much is still unknown waiting to be uncovered, neuroscience seems to be heading in the direction that consciousness is merely an emergent property of the brain, not separable from the physical. The evidence just seems much more in favor of this line of thinking than it does in dualistic ideas of the mind and body. How are we to respond to this? How is it possible to reconcile faith with science here? What arguments are there that the mind is separate from the physical?
 
Last edited:
thephilosopher6 said:
Within the last few decades, neuroscience has taken great leaps forward into uncovering the mystery of the nature of consciousness, how it arises, and what contributes to it.
Click to expand...
It has?
thephilosopher6 said:
How is it possible to reconcile faith with science here?
Click to expand...
What science? Cite something.
thephilosopher6 said:
What arguments are there that the mind is separate from the physical?
Click to expand...
Near death experiences.

The Parnia-Southampton University Study, 2014
The Pim van Lommel Study, published in 2007
The Dr. Raymond Moody study in 1975
 
Last edited:
Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. Animals don’t have rational thought or true language, yet they’re conscious beings. What science has failed to explain is the intentionality of our thoughts and brain activity, nor can it.
 
There is no scientific explanation how a person who is blind from birth could see during a NDE. Or how a person having a NDE can verify something that happened with their family in the hospital waiting room while they were dead.
 
Last edited:
They cannot know if it is an emergent property without defining precisely what consciousness is and how exactly it comes about.
 
thephilosopher6 said:
… What arguments are there that the mind is separate from the physical?
Click to expand...
It sounds like you have already come to the conclusion that mind and body are separate, as if a human being is two beings, a spiritual mind trapped in a material body. “Emergent property” is another way of saying that body and soul are inseparable aspects of a single integrated being.

How wonderful is our God, who can create man from dirt, water, and air. That is what science tells us, and that is what Scripture tells us. From Genesis 2:6-7, “a stream was welling up out of the earth and watering all the surface of the ground— then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Also recall that Jesus said, in Luke 3:8, “God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.” Faith and science are reconciled because the truths of faith and the truths of science both come from the same source, God who created all things visible and invisible.

Now death occurs because of our fallen nature. When we die, our body decays. It is destroyed. Then what becomes of our soul? This is a great mystery. Our soul needs a body. We need our body. Maybe that is why God has promised to resurrect our bodies. How this is going to happen, by what physical processes, science cannot tell us. Or could it, some day? Until then, we must rely on faith.
 
Last edited:
RandomAlias said:
It sounds like you have already come to the conclusion that mind and body are separate, as if a human being is two beings, a spiritual mind trapped in a material body.
Click to expand...
I’m quite aware of Aquinas and understand this not to be the case.
 
I believe that the evidence points to consciousness being an emergent property. However, while many scientists may believe that it’s an emergent physical property, I believe consciousness is a non-physical emergent property. My position is called ‘emergent dualism’, a view held by philosopher William Hasker and David Chalmers.

Supporting points for emergent dualism:
  • The irreducibility of consciousness to physical parts/properties
  • The brain is primary based on all the evidence that shows that affecting the brain affects the mind, and without a brain (or nervous system), there is no mind.
Emergence involves the higher levels of organization/function of a system having some properties not found at the lower level of organization/function. This is precisely what consciousness is to me. It is a higher-order property, but one that’s not present at the lower level properties of the brain. I’m still doing research on the mechanism for this emergence to occur but despite some loopholes, I think emergent dualism is a step in the right direction.
 
Interesting, so theoretically, could consciousness, that is qualia, survive death in your view?
 
Last edited:
Charmers also speaks of the " non-locality" of consciousness. How does that fit in your view?
 
The mind is a part of the soul and is spiritual. If the mind was simply a product of the brain, memories should be stored there, however, scientists have never shown this to be the case. Indeed, when scientists find exactly which neurons are being activated by a specific memory and destroy these neurons, the memory is still present, but simply moved to another set of healthy neurons! Destroy these neurons also, and again the memory remains with yet another set of healthy neurons getting activated. This finding, to me, strongly suggests that spirit is involved, although scientists are not allowed to speculate that religious causes are involved.
 
Sorry, but I’m a retired research psychologist and I’m not the least bit motivated to dig the study up. However, this is what I was taught by a physiological psychologist at UCLA. If you do a Google search using the keywords “Lashly” and “engram.” it may lead you to the study. Beware that subsequent theories will have probably been formulated to twist this finding to fit into a much more complex theory of how memory is stored in the brain… again, never will they give credence to anything spiritual!
 
Last edited:
Even in the Catholic teaching on the human soul, we are NOT “souls who have bodies,” we ARE bodies as well as souls.

The seemingly recent discovery that even our “soulish” functioning requires the services of a human body, should in no way be a surprise.

ICXC NIKA
 
thephilosopher6 said:
Interesting, so theoretically, could consciousness, that is qualia, survive death in your view?
Click to expand...
Well I try to stay more within the bounds of empirical science so I do not endorse any life after death view. Like Chalmers, I believe that the mind is nonphysical property of the brain and not a separate substance. That to me mean that there is no mind without the brain. The only compatibility between my view and the Christian view is that there’s a nonphysical aspect to the mind. William Hasker believes that the mind or soul is a separate substance that emerged. After death God can preserve the mind until it receives a new body. He’s also a Christian. I’ve not found anything compelling from either philosopher regarding life after death
Shakuhachi said:
Charmers also speaks of the " non-locality" of consciousness. How does that fit in your view?
Click to expand...
I’ve read one of Chalmer’s old books that’s called The Conscious Mind. He didn’t use non-locality to explain consciousness. You might be referring to Deepak Chopra?

.
 
Last edited:
From my reading of the CCC, just our soul will go to Heaven! Only at the Second Coming will the soul be reunited to a glorified body where the body and soul will become one again!
 
1Lord1Faith said:
Near death experiences.

The Parnia-Southampton University Study, 2014

The Pim van Lommel Study, published in 2007

The Dr. Raymond Moody study in 1975
Click to expand...
I am somewhat skeptical of near death experiences. Could the person be in some sort of dream state and then wake up remembering her dream? IOW, perhaps she is not really dead after all.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top