Neurons or Spirit?

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Of the whole list of heresies and false phisophies that have sprung up or resurged from the time of the Enlightment, it seems to me, a college student, that Empiricism is really in vogue. Actually, let me say I don’t really know what is most popular, Empiricism, Positivism, Scientism, Rationalism, etc. But the question is don’t they all come down to Materialism?

Put it another way, if Darwinism or Empiricism or Materialism are true then we are the sum total of our neurons are we not? I’m not trying to “teach” but ask an important question.

If, as most people I meet contend, the brain is the source of the ‘Mind’, and that one day, when we completely map and diagnose the brain, then won’t we be able to prove that our conscience is nothing but neurological activity.

How do you prove to a non-believer that we are not the sum total of material action, namely, the activity and interaction of matter or neurons in the brain. They will argue every concept we have comes from the senses, including Justice, Truth, Wisdom, sense we ‘know’ these from hearing about them.

What is the Catholic counter-argument.
 
Newmansprose said:
Of the whole list of heresies and false phisophies that have sprung up or resurged from the time of the Enlightment, it seems to me, a college student, that Empiricism is really in vogue. Actually, let me say I don’t really know what is most popular, Empiricism, Positivism, Scientism, Rationalism, etc. But the question is don’t they all come down to Materialism?

Put it another way, if Darwinism or Empiricism or Materialism are true then we are the sum total of our neurons are we not? I’m not trying to “teach” but ask an important question.

If, as most people I meet contend, the brain is the source of the ‘Mind’, and that one day, when we completely map and diagnose the brain, then won’t we be able to prove that our conscience is nothing but neurological activity.

How do you prove to a non-believer that we are not the sum total of material action, namely, the activity and interaction of matter or neurons in the brain. They will argue every concept we have comes from the senses, including Justice, Truth, Wisdom, sense we ‘know’ these from hearing about them.

What is the Catholic counter-argument.
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Whether or not the conscience is a consequence of material processes has no bearing on the existence of a spiritual soul. As for proof of the existence of the soul, that is not possible.
 
If you mean by scientific proof, I understand. But obviously there are clear and convincing arguments for the existence of the soul. I’m just trying to figure out how one can demonstrate the illogicality of saying that we are nothing but the sum total of material activity, namely, neurological activity of the brain.
 
Newmansprose said:
Of the whole list of heresies and false phisophies that have sprung up or resurged from the time of the Enlightment, it seems to me, a college student, that Empiricism is really in vogue. Actually, let me say I don’t really know what is most popular, Empiricism, Positivism, Scientism, Rationalism, etc. But the question is don’t they all come down to Materialism?

Put it another way, if Darwinism or Empiricism or Materialism are true then we are the sum total of our neurons are we not? I’m not trying to “teach” but ask an important question.

If, as most people I meet contend, the brain is the source of the ‘Mind’, and that one day, when we completely map and diagnose the brain, then won’t we be able to prove that our conscience is nothing but neurological activity.

How do you prove to a non-believer that we are not the sum total of material action, namely, the activity and interaction of matter or neurons in the brain. They will argue every concept we have comes from the senses, including Justice, Truth, Wisdom, sense we ‘know’ these from hearing about them.

What is the Catholic counter-argument.
Click to expand...
Read G.K. Chesterton, especially Orthodoxy. There may be other ways to argue against modern heresies, but his is, for me, the best.

You see, the most entertaining yet revealing way to determine whether a world view (for that is what you are questioning: a materialistic way of looking at the world) is worthy of belief or not is, “What are the implications of that idea?” And the thing is, most atheists just want to take any idea that looks good to attack Christianity (and why so often against Christianity? shrug I dunno…maybe because we Christians are special ;)), when in fact, by accepting those those ideas they are actually committing suicide of reason.

Let us take your question on Materialism, for example. OK, let us assume that the mind is REALLY nothing but just the result of chemical reactions by neurons. So…what does that imply on, let’s say, the dignity of the human person? Is a sack of chemical reactions worthy of dignity? Hmm…if that is so what happens to morality?

Or, let us see the implications of Materialism to social structure. If a human is just a sack of chemical reactions, then we have an objective way of judging the worth of each human: get a criteria of the best patterns of chemical reactions in a human, then compare each human to those criteria. So what are the implications of this to those who have the least desirable patterns of chemical reactions? I mean, aren’t they just poorly functioning sacks of chemical reactions? Can’t we just remove them so the best of us can have the resources they were hogging?

Just explore each idea to their logical implications, and you will get a sense of their worth 👍

*In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite sceptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. * G.K. Chesterton

For every tree is known by his own fruit. Luke 6:44

Test everything. Hold on to the good. I Thess 5.21
 
Honestly I think the whole idea relies on a very often assumed, but ill-conceived concept of classical determinism. There is/was an idea that if there was a computer smart enough and you gave it all the information present at creation it could simulate everything that happened to this point since everything is just a giant chain reaction. However there are to objections to this.

There exist a degree of true randomness when it comes to certain functions in quantum mechanics, and thus a computer could not predict anything that happened at these very small scales and over time even these small events would build up enough to effect their surroundings. However once this was shown many determinists argued that their philosophy of determinism still stood since the functions weren’t likely to effect day to day life, however there are two problems with that idea as well.

First we have discovered recently that plant proteins involved in processing of sunlight have a functional level of quantum decoherence involved in that process. Since simple biological life forms have been shown to have quantum involvement it is not at all unlikely that more complex ones, such as humans do. However there are scientists on both sides of that issue right now with two separate models of our brain, one that involves functional quantum decoherence and one that doesn’t. Sadly in every argument I have read by either side they have failed to truly understand the other sides stance and little proof exists at this time either way (though I would say we might see the answer within the next 10-20 years), so on its own this would constitute as a mere possible showing that we could never reduce a human mind to the simplicity of a computer due to it having truly random functions.

The second problem with the idea of determinism, at least at its most basic level, is that it doesn’t even exist in the world of classical mechanics. Many physicists and mathematicians have developed simple models that demonstrate this. (In fact if you even have an understanding basic calculus then you could probably grasp this one, it is very simple: philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00002943/01/Norton.pdf) The brain is far more complex in its operation than these devices so even if there truly were no spirit and just neurons it is extremely unlikely that there would ever be a way to demonstrate such a thing due to the existence of truly random functions in the operations of everyday physics.

I would also like to note the existence of randomness certainly doesn’t prove that their is a spirit, it just makes it essentially impossible to disprove.
 
I appreciate you imput. Your information on determinism and mechanics is quite interesting, although honestly, I don’t understand the paper I just read.

Here’s my argument. If the brain is simply the sum total of nerve or neurological activity then, like a computer, or any other purely material entity, it must be reactionary. That is, the imput you put into it–stimuli from the five senses–would have a deterministic cause and effect relationship. Just as the electrical stimuli you imput into a computer cause a set of predetermined actions, so, if we are purely material creatures, would our actions be nothing more than reactions to stimuli. We would not be freely acting agents.

My question is, is that more or less what you were trying to say, with your supporting information coming from the science of mechanics? Or am I wrong?
 
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