Souls and Neuroscience

[greylorn]

…Dr. Novella again:

The materialist hypothesis - that the brain causes consciousness - has made a number of predictions, and every single prediction has been validated. Every single question that can be answered scientifically - with observation and evidence - that takes the form: “If the brain causes the mind the…” has been resolved in favor of that hypothesis… [w]hat Egnor has not done is counter my claim that all predictions made by the materialist hypothesis have been validated. If he wishes to persist in his claims, then I openly challenge Egnor to name one prediction of strict materialism that has been falsified. To be clear, that means one positive prediction for materialism where the evidence falsifies strict materialism. This does not mean evidence we do not currently have, but evidence against materialism or for dualism. I maintain that such evidence does not exist – not one bit…
…Prove me wrong, Egnor…
Done.""

YES! And effectively. But don’t be surprised if Novella ignores the implications of Owen’s work as well as your arguments.

I really appreciate the thought and work you put into your 3-part argument. Refreshing departure from references to religious dogma. I was unaware of Owen’s work and will be putting it to good use.

I mentioned an old novel in a previous post. It’s plot fits right into Owen’s research, involving a child who suffers surgical brain damage. Rather than massive brain trauma, the damage in her brain was only to the circuitry which provides the soul-brain interface, leaving her, as soul, fully conscious but unable to control her own brain and therefore unable to express her consciousness.

Classical Cartesian dualism fails essentially because of a bad definition. The soul is regarded by most religions as a spirit, something separate from or beyond physics. The science of physics regards anything which interacts with something physical, as physical. By definition, a brain cannot have a relationship with a non-physical soul.

If the soul is in any way real, it must be integrated with the brain, and must also be physical. Adopting this simple and obvious conclusion has the useful effect of declaring that the soul can be detected, either by current methods of physics and neuroscience, or by methods yet to be discovered.

In this context, I’m inclined to interpret Owen’s evidence as showing that the brain damaged subject suffers from the Anna Klane syndrome. She, as soul, is still connected to her brain but unable to use it to communicate with the world.

Owen may have done some belief-shaking research. Thanks for spreading it around.

 

[greylorn]

Consider the following experiment: Scan a person’s brain, and map out every single neuron, and then get a giant supercomputer to simulate the network of neurons. I can envision the following possible outcomes:

1. The supercomputer acts differently than the actual person.
2. The supercomputer acts the same as the actual person, even claiming to be conscious and self-aware of its interior consciousness.

For (2), there are sub-categories:

2a) The supercomputer isn’t conscious.
2b) The supercomputer is conscious.

My understanding is that John Searle predicts that the outcome will be (2a). I’m not even sure how to distinguish between (2a) and (2b) experimentally at this point.

Does the Catholic understanding of the soul predict (1), or can it accommodate any of the above outcomes?

I think not, because the Catholic understanding of the soul is too weakly defined to be related to any model of the physical world.

In any case, the experimental setup you’ve described would not produce an adequate brain model. It neglects the action of glial cells and the waveforms generated by the brain. These would appear to be a function of the physical arrangement of neurons and glial tissue in the brain. If we understood how they were generated, it might be possible to simulate them in a digital computer using Fourier transforms, but doing that in addition to the simulation of neurons themselves would relegate the complete simulation to never-never land.

 

[steveb1]

I am not a Christian but it has always seemed to me that the human soul or spirit is non-material, for these randomly-selected reasons:

1. The brain is someTHING. I am someONE. Category/level difference. The brain is an organ; I am a person.
2. My needs as a person have no material correlates. The brain as a physical organ requires oxygenated blood, correct hormonal/chemical balance, correct neuro-firing, etc. But I as a non-physical being require a sense of self-integrity, truth, beauty, love, Spirit/God, etc. Again: the category/level difference.
3. Not all knowledge and/or intellection is sense-mediated. This is how I know when I have a headache, love my dog, hate terrorism, and how number/numbers behave without reference to physical quantities, and how logical processes such as syllogisms are not always external-object-dependent. Some kinds of knowledge and knowing are acquired without sense mediation and are known in, and by, the nonmaterial self.
4. If I close my eyes and get a mental image/picture of a cat, that image is not sense-mediated - therefore it can truthfully be said of this little experiment: “Spirit is that which was looking at the cat.”
5. My body-brain occupies space, has weight, color, mass, density. But my consciousness does not occupy space and has no material indicators such as weight, color, mass, density, etc.
6. I am the “looker” or the “witness”. Anything I can see, perceive, touch, hear is not me. Things perceived/seen are external to me-as-witnessing-consciousness. My centrality is not things seen, but rather a pure spiritual awareness which itself “sees”.
7. Materialists are fond of saying things like, “Neuroscientists have scanned the brain/neural systems and never found anything like a soul.” I reply, “Mystics have scanned the spirit and its divine connections and never found anything like a brain/neural system.” The two categories/levels are quite separate. Materialists frequently employ the fallacy of trying to explain spiritual categories/levels by material categories/levels.

 

[runningdude]

I am not a Christian but it has always seemed to me that the human soul or spirit is non-material, for these randomly-selected reasons:

1. The brain is someTHING. I am someONE. Category/level difference. The brain is an organ; I am a person.

I think you make a good point here. Though a child in its earliest embryonic form has lacks a brain, yet very much is SOMEONE! I disagree on a simple matter of biology that the conscience is synonymous with the soul, as such a child lacks any memory of his or her time in the womb, having neither a brain to record this, nor eyes and ears to observe. Yet the child is hopefully in a perfect state of contentment (“Safe within my womb… I touch no one and no one touches me!” for any Simon and Garfunkel fans out there).

I think the defining attribute of the human soul, whatever “it” is, is that it is a freely given gift from God that endows us with our dignity as humans!

 

[Pieman333272]

Here’s another thing we learned that gave me questions. (I believe) dolphins don’t have souls according to Catholicism, but they have equally dense or slightly less dense brains than us. How do we know they don’t have a soul, or none of us have a soul?

 

[greylorn]

I am not a Christian but it has always seemed to me that the human soul or spirit is non-material, for these randomly-selected reasons:

1. The brain is someTHING. I am someONE. Category/level difference. The brain is an organ; I am a person.
2. My needs as a person have no material correlates. The brain as a physical organ requires oxygenated blood, correct hormonal/chemical balance, correct neuro-firing, etc. But I as a non-physical being require a sense of self-integrity, truth, beauty, love, Spirit/God, etc. Again: the category/level difference.
3. Not all knowledge and/or intellection is sense-mediated. This is how I know when I have a headache, love my dog, hate terrorism, and how number/numbers behave without reference to physical quantities, and how logical processes such as syllogisms are not always external-object-dependent. Some kinds of knowledge and knowing are acquired without sense mediation and are known in, and by, the nonmaterial self.
4. If I close my eyes and get a mental image/picture of a cat, that image is not sense-mediated - therefore it can truthfully be said of this little experiment: “Spirit is that which was looking at the cat.”
5. My body-brain occupies space, has weight, color, mass, density. But my consciousness does not occupy space and has no material indicators such as weight, color, mass, density, etc.
6. I am the “looker” or the “witness”. Anything I can see, perceive, touch, hear is not me. Things perceived/seen are external to me-as-witnessing-consciousness. My centrality is not things seen, but rather a pure spiritual awareness which itself “sees”.
7. Materialists are fond of saying things like, “Neuroscientists have scanned the brain/neural systems and never found anything like a soul.” I reply, “Mystics have scanned the spirit and its divine connections and never found anything like a brain/neural system.” The two categories/levels are quite separate. Materialists frequently employ the fallacy of trying to explain spiritual categories/levels by material categories/levels.

Your distinctions are poetic, and not relevant to anything except your personal internalizations.

Your complaint about materialists is analogous to the failings of mystics, who seek to justify belief in things which they are unwilling to clearly define, such as the soul.

IMO a mystic is someone who wants to understand the universe, but does not understand how a knowledge of physics might be helpful.

 

[greylorn]

Here’s another thing we learned that gave me questions. (I believe) dolphins don’t have souls according to Catholicism, but they have equally dense or slightly less dense brains than us. How do we know they don’t have a soul, or none of us have a soul?

Until you define precisely what you mean by “soul”, every aspect of this question is irrelevant. By definition, I mean properties. What does it do? Why does it exist? How does it interact with a biological brain?

I’ve read lots of dogma, but never, “Dolphins do not have souls.”

 

[Pieman333272]

Until you define precisely what you mean by “soul”, every aspect of this question is irrelevant. By definition, I mean properties. What does it do? Why does it exist? How does it interact with a biological brain?

I’ve read lots of dogma, but never, “Dolphins do not have souls.”

I understand the soul as the immaterial center of thought, where your mind (may be different from knowledge, memory, etc.) is housed which in turn controls your brain. I remember reading Catholics accept animals do not have immaterial souls. If I’m wrong about either, please correct me, but that’s what I recall (for the animal souls) and believe (for what a souls is).

 

[greylorn]

I understand the soul as the immaterial center of thought, where your mind (may be different from knowledge, memory, etc.) is housed which in turn controls your brain. I remember reading Catholics accept animals do not have immaterial souls. If I’m wrong about either, please correct me, but that’s what I recall (for the animal souls) and believe (for what a souls is).

Your definition reflects the definition provided by the Church, and by most non-Mormon branches of Christianity. So, in that respect, it is correct.

My issue is that the definition which you are parroting is meaningless. It is equivalent to defining an automobile engine as “the thing that makes the car go.” While true, it is a nonfunctional definition. If your car doesn’t “go” anymore, you’ll take it to a mechanic who has a much more detailed understanding of how it actually works. Even the stupidest mechanic knows more about the workings of an engine and its relationship to other vehicular components than your definition of the soul provides, comparatively, to the mind-body system.

Suppose that when you ask the mechanic to whom you had your car towed, "What’s wrong? he replied, “Well, the thing that makes the car go, isn’t making the car go anymore.” Would you feel that you’d left your ride in the hands of a competent mechanic, or an uneducated nitwit?

Why not make your “definition” a bit more interesting? What is the mind? (Psychologists regard it as a property of the brain, entirely, exclusively, and incorrectly, but they are the official suppliers of the common wisdom.)

If the soul is equivalent to mind, what does the brain do?

Soulless animals often behave more intelligently and purposefully than humans. How is that?

And how might a spiritual soul interact with a physical brain, when by definition, spiritual things are beyond the physical?

Little questions like that.

 

[davidv]

I understand the soul as the immaterial center of thought, where your mind (may be different from knowledge, memory, etc.) is housed which in turn controls your brain. I remember reading Catholics accept animals do not have immaterial souls. If I’m wrong about either, please correct me, but that’s what I recall (for the animal souls) and believe (for what a souls is).

This is a very inaccurate portrayal of the Chruch’s teaching on the soul. Animal souls are mortal, in contrast to human souls which are immortal. Please read this for a better understanding “soul”: newadvent.org/cathen/14153a.htm

 

[Pieman333272]

This is a very inaccurate portrayal of the Chruch’s teaching on the soul. Animal souls are mortal, in contrast to human souls which are immortal. Please read this for a better understanding “soul”: newadvent.org/cathen/14153a.htm

I am sorry, I was unaware my interpretation was incorrect. Thank you for correcting me.

 

[grannymh]

I cannot speak for other forms of Christianity nor for those who hold Cartesian (extreme) dualism. Catholicism views human nature as one being. Human nature is an unique, intimate, unification of rational/corporeal, non-material/material, spirit/matter, soul/body.

Blessings,
granny

The search for truth is worthy of the adventures of the journey.

 

[tonyrey]

I am not a Christian but it has always seemed to me that the human soul or spirit is non-material, for these randomly-selected reasons:

1. The brain is someTHING. I am someONE. Category/level difference. The brain is an organ; I am a person.
2. My needs as a person have no material correlates. The brain as a physical organ requires oxygenated blood, correct hormonal/chemical balance, correct neuro-firing, etc. But I as a non-physical being require a sense of self-integrity, truth, beauty, love, Spirit/God, etc. Again: the category/level difference.
3. Not all knowledge and/or intellection is sense-mediated. This is how I know when I have a headache, love my dog, hate terrorism, and how number/numbers behave without reference to physical quantities, and how logical processes such as syllogisms are not always external-object-dependent. Some kinds of knowledge and knowing are acquired without sense mediation and are known in, and by, the nonmaterial self.
4. If I close my eyes and get a mental image/picture of a cat, that image is not sense-mediated - therefore it can truthfully be said of this little experiment: “Spirit is that which was looking at the cat.”
5. My body-brain occupies space, has weight, color, mass, density. But my consciousness does not occupy space and has no material indicators such as weight, color, mass, density, etc.
6. I am the “looker” or the “witness”. Anything I can see, perceive, touch, hear is not me. Things perceived/seen are external to me-as-witnessing-consciousness. My centrality is not things seen, but rather a pure spiritual awareness which itself “sees”.
7. Materialists are fond of saying things like, “Neuroscientists have scanned the brain/neural systems and never found anything like a soul.” I reply, “Mystics have scanned the spirit and its divine connections and never found anything like a brain/neural system.” The two categories/levels are quite separate. Materialists frequently employ the fallacy of trying to explain spiritual categories/levels by material categories/levels.

Excellent points! For each one of us - whether we claim to be materialists or not - nothing is more immediately real than spiritual reality…

 

[humble_catholic]

I think a very good one to study on this field is Gary Habermas, as he has done many many years of extensive research into the field of near death experiences.

youtube.com/results?search_query=gary+habermas+near+death&aq=3 This will give you a search of his videos

and this is the first part

youtube.com/watch?v=RN0yUxv8PRc

He also talks about nde’s of clinically brain dead people that have been documented by doctors and their assistants in hospitals such as the lady that was pronounced dead and her seeing herself floating above her body, but this wasnt the most incredible part of it. I believe that she described in detail a large sneaker on the roof, one of the nurses searched and finally found the sneaker on a part of the roof that was impossible to see from her hospital room. These experiences are clearly show that naturalistic explanations are the odd man out here. No wonder why most doctors believe in God(moreso then even the average population and we can surely say that their IQ is above normal), they have documented these experiences first hand and materialistic experts fall way short in explaining them.

Fascinating stuff

 

[TheAtheist]

This got me thinking. Does modern Neuroscience disprove the existence of a soul? We learned earlier that the thoughts, more likely than not, are just a series of electricity and chemicals. So, can souls be disproven by this science? and has it?

Just want to get some views. I’ll try to post from a skeptic POV, just to get some better ideas on it.

In a word, no.

Part of the issue with this is what exactly do we mean by “soul” - a separate substance? A Catch-all word to describe a complicated manifold of mental processes? Etc. etc.

To maintain the strictest sense of scientific methodology, we don’t have any hard answers to what some working in neuroscience/cognitive science/psychology might call the problem of Consciousness.

Much ink has been spilled over that problem ~ Substance Dualism, Property Dualism, Materialistic Monism, Idealistic Monism, Non-Dualism.

You’ve got arguments about “philosophical zombies” ie: beings who are indistinguishable from normal folks except they lack conscious experience.

You’ve got Daniel Dennett denying the idea of Consciousness (however counter-intuitive that may be), you’ve got to or three Orthodox Christian thinkers pointing to their Hesychast mystical tradition vis-a-vis the Catholic Thomistic understanding of the soul as the “solution,” you have other folks proclaiming a “Mysterium” position essentially saying our minds are ill-equipped to ponder this problem in the first place, and you’ve got the Dalai Lama sitting on his devaraja throne talking about the convergence of Buddhism and Science on this very matter…

And that isn’t even the tip of the “popular” science books out on the matter.

You’ve got a ton of people staking positions left and right without a sense of quality control behind any of their theories, precisely because no one can really produce proof to invalidate any of those theories.

The best they can do is attack the logical presuppositions of their opponents. Who in turn attack their logical presuppositions.

And since no one is bothering to try and demonstrate anything…it all just kind of goes in a circle.

 

[grannymh]

. This got me thinking. Does modern Neuroscience disprove the existence of a soul? We learned earlier that the thoughts, more likely than not, are just a series of electricity and chemicals. So, can souls be disproven by this science? and has it?

Just want to get some views. I’ll try to post from a skeptic POV, just to get some better ideas on it.

Actually it is the banned theory which heads the ban the soul brigade. Some of recent research in Neuroscience forms one of the combat battalions. Before I get put before the firing squad because of my big mouth, I am leaving this thread. :sad_bye:

 

[StAnastasia]

This is a very inaccurate portrayal of the Chruch’s teaching on the soul. Animal souls are mortal, in contrast to human souls which are immortal. Please read this for a better understanding “soul”: newadvent.org/cathen/14153a.htm

Davidv, is this claim based on evidence?

 

[humble_catholic]

In a word, no.

Part of the issue with this is what exactly do we mean by “soul” - a separate substance? A Catch-all word to describe a complicated manifold of mental processes? Etc. etc.

To maintain the strictest sense of scientific methodology, we don’t have any hard answers to what some working in neuroscience/cognitive science/psychology might call the problem of Consciousness.

Much ink has been spilled over that problem ~ Substance Dualism, Property Dualism, Materialistic Monism, Idealistic Monism, Non-Dualism.

You’ve got arguments about “philosophical zombies” ie: beings who are indistinguishable from normal folks except they lack conscious experience.

You’ve got Daniel Dennett denying the idea of Consciousness (however counter-intuitive that may be), you’ve got to or three Orthodox Christian thinkers pointing to their Hesychast mystical tradition vis-a-vis the Catholic Thomistic understanding of the soul as the “solution,” you have other folks proclaiming a “Mysterium” position essentially saying our minds are ill-equipped to ponder this problem in the first place, and you’ve got the Dalai Lama sitting on his devaraja throne talking about the convergence of Buddhism and Science on this very matter…

And that isn’t even the tip of the “popular” science books out on the matter.

You’ve got a ton of people staking positions left and right without a sense of quality control behind any of their theories, precisely because no one can really produce proof to invalidate any of those theories.

The best they can do is attack the logical presuppositions of their opponents. Who in turn attack their logical presuppositions.

And since no one is bothering to try and demonstrate anything…it all just kind of goes in a circle.

Actually theatheist, if you watch the Habermas video you will see that there have been numerous documented near death experiences that clearly point to some kind of dualism. This is one of the best videos on near death experiences because Habermas has spent so much time documenting the near death experinces that can be verified by the things said by the people experiencing the NDE’s. These are not stories passed around and changed over time but things that were documented by the doctors and their assistants themselves as soon as the person came to, just to make sure that they get the original fresh story as it comes out. It really made me say wow and I do not say wow that often.

If your asking whether they can be repeated in a lab, the answer is no, since it is a philosophical assumption that only something that can be repeated over and over in a lab is the only way to get at the truth, but these documented cases clearly point to naturalism-materialism being the odd man out as far as NDE’s showing their is more out there then just the brain. Maybe this is why over 75% of doctors either believe in God or an afterlife, and I would say that they clearly have a higher then average IQ. I would say they are privy to experiences that very few get to see working in a lab.

 

[StAnastasia]

Actually theatheist, if you watch the Habermas video you will see that there have been numerous documented near death experiences that clearly point to some kind of dualism. .

Is dualism philosophically coherent? What are its limits? What evidence supports it?

 

[reggieM]

HYLEMORPHIC DUALISM
by david S. oderberg
From: “PERSONAL IDENTITY”
Edited by Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred D. Miller, Jr., and Jeffrey Paul, cambridge UNIVERSITY PRESS

New Dualism Archive
newdualism.org/

The Plausibility of Substance Dualism as an Approach to the Mind-Body Problem by Richard J. Bernier. M.A. thesis, Department of Theological Studies, Concordia University, Canada, 2003.

In Defence of Interactionism by Ole Andreas Klaeboe Koksvik. M.A. thesis, Department of Philosophy, Monash University, Australia, 2006.