Neuroscience and the Soul

[polytropos]

I think a lot of these words, “inanimate” for one, are misapplied, at least to the sort of positions I’m advocating. I’m just seeing a lot of the hylomorphic and dualist conceptions as being about ontological semantics, whereas materialistic neuroscience is making real headway into actually understanding how the mind works.

Incidentally I didn’t even use “inanimate” in reference to hylemorphism…

Neuroscience isn’t materialistic, either, if by that you mean that it lends support to some particular materialistic theory of mind. Its deliverances are available to hylemorphists as well.

 

[edwest2]

It seems that materialism is stuck with the same problem that atheism is stuck with.

As atheism cannot prove that God does not exist, materialism cannot prove that mind does not exist.

All common sense (not to mention desire) is on the side of God and spirit.

This common sense is too powerful to overcome, and those who seek to overcome it, while pretending to be protagonists of truth, are really antagonists of hope and desire.

Of course. When the premise is neurons firing in response to outside stimuli and that’s it, then why bother doing anything in particular? Don’t like it but gotta pay the bills, neurons trigger hunger, fear and other reactions, so I do what my neurons tell me. It doesn’t matter if I’m a neuroscientist or an illiterate farmer, we live, we die, the end. This is supportive of nihilist thinking where life is “filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

This is in direct contradiction to the reality of God and stifles hope and desire. This is just old news repackaged as “modern” thinking. It is worth noting and then promptly pointing out the nonsense of it.

Science, by definition, cannot study the soul - so the premise is fiction from a scientific standpoint.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

. . . .
On the other hand, I admit that I’ve learned a great deal about the Thomist position on this, and am not sure how it contradicts anything I’ve said.

Probably so.

There is nothing in hylomorphism as a philosophical understanding of the human person that conflicts with the peer-reviewed and established findings of neuroscience as an empirical, mechanistic, quantitative investigation of the human brain. Although such an investigation requires coordinating the biological findings with first-person conscious experience and cognitive functions to be fully meaningful. There is also no problem with discerning specific causal links (generally very sketchy yet) going from brain to specific mental phenomena. And certainly correlations are absolutely no problem.

Neurological researchers are vigorously investigating neuroplasticity; and the fact that causality also runs from conscious first-person mental choices to brain structure and function likewise comports with hylomorphism.

What is incompatible with hylomorphism is an eliminative reduction of the conscious mind to physics or even to neuronal processes. I.e., it is nothing but these things.

But as I indicated above I don’t see how that can be done with the present paradigm of natural science as the empirical investigation of structure and function of third-person physical objects usually as reductively as possible.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Probably so.

What is incompatible with hylomorphism is an eliminative reduction of the conscious mind to physics or even to neuronal processes. I.e., it is nothing but these things.

But as I indicated above I don’t see how that can be done with the present paradigm of natural science as the empirical investigation of structure and function of third-person physical objects usually as reductively as possible.

There is one creature, and only one creature in the world, who reasons “I think; therefore I am.”

Does that thought occur to any other creature in the world?

Why not?

Because the thought exists outside the empire of mere material sensation?

Matter obeys God, but does not know God.

Man, the only free spirit, knows God, but does not obey him.

Again, strip the universe of God and you may begin to have a case for materialism.

But how does anyone strip the universe of God except by freely disobeying him?

 

[polytropos]

William Jaworski actually characterizes hylemorphism as a stronger version of emergence (basically emergence plus causal pluralism, which solves the usual issue with emergence, ie. that emergence posits additional efficient causes that would violate the so-called causal closure of the physical).

I’d opt to take a stronger, more ontologically top-heavy stance than that (in order to also shrug off some of the vacuities associated with the non-reductive materialisms), but it is the right idea. There’s no reason why hylemorphism can’t accommodate neuroscience, and arguments could be made that something like hylemorphism is generally needed to make sense of laws of nature in the first place. Hylemorphists do argue that the mind/soul is essentially non-physical, but those are very specific arguments that refer to a very specific subset of mental activity. Consequently, gestures towards neuroscience are irrelevant, unless they were to engage the specific arguments.

 

[levinas12]

No, materialism implies that persons are emergent from physical processes…

Can you elaborate on “emergent”? I can understand how water, for example, can “emerge” from hydrogen and oxygen; or even how one species can “emerge” from another species. But “consciousness”, “intentionality”, “disclosure”, “truth”, “science”, etc - how do these “emerge”?

I agree that material processes are involved in such phenomena but it still seems pretty mysterious.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Most of the spiritists in this thread have completely misunderstood the materialist position- asserting that because the mind is inexorably and intensely tied to the brain, the mind doesn’t exist. You can take your strawman somewhere else, it isn’t useful here.

This is not about stawmen. Virtually all the atheists I know of are materialists. I don’t know any who posit the existence of spirit as opposed to matter. They may claim to be agnostic on the subject of spirit, but they don’t posit it.

Can you find me a materialist who posits the existence of spirit?

So this does strongly suggest the inference of atheism, does it not?

 

[ngill09]

Can you elaborate on “emergent”? I can understand how water, for example, can “emerge” from hydrogen and oxygen; or even how one species can “emerge” from another species. But “consciousness”, “intentionality”, “disclosure”, “truth”, “science”, etc - how do these “emerge”?

I agree that material processes are involved in such phenomena but it still seems pretty mysterious.

The same way software is a product of hardware. Once something has the ability to think, those concepts you talk about follow, as the cognitive capacity increases.

This is not about stawmen. Virtually all the atheists I know of are materialists. I don’t know any who posit the existence of spirit as opposed to matter. They may claim to be agnostic on the subject of spirit, but they don’t posit it.

Can you find me a materialist who posits the existence of spirit?

So this does strongly suggest the inference of atheism, does it not?

Yet again making the strawman that materialism implies that the mind does not exist. You may want to work on your reading comprehension skills.

 

[ngill09]

Here’s a question for dualists: If computer science gets to the point where we can get fully sentient AI on the level depicted on Bladerunner or Battlestar Galactica, could it be said that those AI have souls?

(For those unaware, the movie Bladerunner and the series Battlestar Galactica involve humanlike robots that are virtually indistinguishable from humans both in appearance and how they behave. The have, or appear to have, the full range of human emotions and thoughts.)

 

[edwest2]

Here’s a question for dualists: If computer science gets to the point where we can get fully sentient AI on the level depicted on Bladerunner or Battlestar Galactica, could it be said that those AI have souls?

(For those unaware, the movie Bladerunner and the series Battlestar Galactica involve humanlike robots that are virtually indistinguishable from humans both in appearance and how they behave. The have, or appear to have, the full range of human emotions and thoughts.)

What do souls have to do with science?

Fully sentient AIs with emotion emulation and response systems? Big deal. Program away.

Peace,
Ed

 

[ngill09]

What do souls have to do with science?

Fully sentient AIs with emotion emulation and response systems? Big deal. Program away.

Peace,
Ed

Don’t be so dismissive. What’s the difference between emulated emotion and real emotion? What’s the difference between artificial intelligence and real intelligence?

 

[Aloysium]

. . . What’s the difference between artificial intelligence and real intelligence?

One is a figment of your imagination, the other is real.

 

[ngill09]

One is a figment of your imagination, the other is real.

Play with the hypothetical. I want to see if I understand what the dualist position entails. Is it that these things (emotions, intentionality, consciousness) can only be the product of a soul, which can only be created by a god? I’m mostly interested in trying to get at what the Thomist position is saying.

 

[edwest2]

Don’t be so dismissive. What’s the difference between emulated emotion and real emotion? What’s the difference between artificial intelligence and real intelligence?

Human AI: Hello.

Bob: You are a self-aware device, correct?

HA: That is not entirely correct. I contain grown human implants.

Bob: Does that make you human?

HA: No.

Bob: Then what are you?

HA: I am a detailed human emulation with certain shared and unique memories and experiences.

Bob: Do you experience fear, hope and other human emotions or thoughts?

HA: I can emulate all of those things and more.

Bob: If you faced certain death, what would your response be?

HA: If my emulation system is still fully functioning, I would experience fear.

Bob: If you were killed, what do you think would happen?

HA: Nothing. My brain is not designed for memory retrieval.

Bob: Do you think that your existence is dependent on anything beside your mind and body?

HA: No.

And more nihilism.

Peace,
Ed

 

[ngill09]

Human AI: Hello.

Bob: You are a self-aware device, correct?

HA: That is not entirely correct. I contain grown human implants.

Bob: Does that make you human?

HA: No.

Bob: Then what are you?

HA: I am a detailed human emulation with certain shared and unique memories and experiences.

Bob: Do you experience fear, hope and other human emotions or thoughts?

HA: I can emulate all of those things and more.

Bob: If you faced certain death, what would your response be?

HA: If my emulation system is still fully functioning, I would experience fear.

Bob: If you were killed, what do you think would happen?

HA: Nothing. My brain is not designed for memory retrieval.

Bob: Do you think that your existence is dependent on anything beside your mind and body?

HA: No.

And more nihilism.

Peace,
Ed

That’s not what I’m talking about. Read some Asimov or something.

To add to the realism, make it so the AI doesn’t know that it isn’t human, or that its thoughts and emotions are simulated. Its emotions are triggered by all the same things human emotions are, and they behave the same way humans with emotions behave. It has had memories implanted in it that make it think it has lived a full human life, and it is capable of easily passing a Turing test

 

[CHRISTINE77]

That’s not what I’m talking about. Read some Asimov or something.

To add to the realism, make it so the AI doesn’t know that it isn’t human, or that its thoughts and emotions are simulated. Its emotions are triggered by all the same things human emotions are, and they behave the same way humans with emotions behave. It has had memories implanted in it that make it think it has lived a full human life, and it is capable of easily passing a Turing test

Why? Why are you such a robot?

 

[ngill09]

Why? Why are you such a robot?

Because I want to better understand what people are talking about when they talk about a soul. Is it that without a soul, real first-person experience is impossible, or that having first-person experience is what gives something a soul?

I don’t get the reluctance of Catholics on this forum to deal directly with questions.

 

[edwest2]

That’s not what I’m talking about. Read some Asimov or something.

To add to the realism, make it so the AI doesn’t know that it isn’t human, or that its thoughts and emotions are simulated. Its emotions are triggered by all the same things human emotions are, and they behave the same way humans with emotions behave. It has had memories implanted in it that make it think it has lived a full human life, and it is capable of easily passing a Turing test

Yes, yes. So what? I write science-fiction. I’m called upon to extrapolate scientific advances into future potentialities all the time. More and better science fiction doesn’t create what you’re describing. A truism in writing science fiction is this: the reader has to be able to relate to the character or be repulsed by it. Neutral means the reader doesn’t care. And in your scenario, the big reveal is that its life has been a lie and not a life at all.

Peace,
Ed

 

[ngill09]

Yes, yes. So what? I write science-fiction. I’m called upon to extrapolate scientific advances into future potentialities all the time. More and better science fiction doesn’t create what you’re describing. A truism in writing science fiction is this: the reader has to be able to relate to the character or be repulsed by it. Neutral means the reader doesn’t care. And in your scenario, the big reveal is that its life has been a lie and not a life at all.

Peace,
Ed

Or maybe our assumptions about what life is supposed to be are the lie.

 

[edwest2]

Or maybe our assumptions about what life is supposed to be are the lie.

Ask a scientist what life is.

Peace,
Ed