The Soul and the Brain

[MindOverMatter]

That statement is, well, absurd.

What about space? Space has no location. So i don’t see why it would be absurd to say that the soul has no location?

Why not try to find this experimentally and prove the existence of the soul, instead of acting like a mental boat anchor to theological/physical understanding?

I have no problem with you trying to prove the existence of the soul. But i just don’t see how you can gain empirical evidence of it. Its one thing to say that it follows logically that the soul exists. But its quite another to say that you have empirical evidence of an non-physical self. How does one even begin to find empirical evidence of a non-physical entity if it cannot be measured?

 

[MindOverMatter]

Re: Gazzaniga’s studies… note that they indicate that consciousness is localized to a single brain hemisphere.

The activity of the immaterial self can be localized to a single brain hemisphere. This does not mean that the mind is located in the brain.

So, why the insistence on your part that God and soul are supernatural?

To call God “super-nature”, is simply to emphasize the fact that God is the **root **of all reality. It means that all things flow necessarily from the **highest nature **which is God. For the Christian; God is ultimate reality, God is “Existence” its very self. I would worship nothing less. This distinction is important, as it is true; if we are talking about the God of Christianity and not just another existing thing. The term supernatural can be used in a different sense in so far as it means to talk about things which are higher in their existential nature or of a different category of existing to that which we call “physical”. In other words, the supernatural is not an intrinsic part of the reality we call the Universe. It is greater then the Universe and is incorruptible in so far as it has no parts.

 

[MindOverMatter]

Until you’ve picked up a tad more understanding, you might want to lay off making statements on subjects you’re still in the process of learning. I do that kind of thing a lot and it is always embarrassing. If you would allow me to offer a suggestion, it would be to stop whining about your lack of credentials and instead use your good mind to get some. The depression will then go away. If you won’t do that, change your handle to “MatterOverMind.” Good luck!

Incidentally, we’re off topic here. Let’s get back to work. Our job is to contribute to the CAF.

“Give the devil a stick and he will beat you with it.”

Its a shame that you followed suit.

You have no idea what you are talking about. And i am not whinning, but rather i was stating a fact. And your talk about depression tells me you know nothing. Everybody is different and everybody deals with it in there own way. Some people take years, and some people need medication. Some people have deep emotional burdens that do not just go away in a minute, no matter how much you tackle the problem. Some problems take a lifetime to deal with. So don’t you dare tell me about whinning after somebody has respected you enough to open up their heart.
It was you in the first place that challenged my credentials.So it was you that took this thread off topic. Attacking somebody’s personal history is weak.

As for learning I’m doing fine. I might not have as much academic credentials as you, but i do know what I’m talking about. And i don’t talk about what i don’t know. And if you think you know better then me, then kindly refute my position and move on, rather then attempt to use the information i give you against me. It doesn’t say much that is positive about your character.

 

[Benadam]

Evidence of the soul is akin to evidence of the wind. We see the leaves of trees moved by the wind we can’t see otherwise.

We see it in the animal who is alone among animals. Alone in that no other earthly creature can fully know him because no other is like him. In him though they are known.

This individuation exclusive and unique is evidence that man transcends earthly life and if it is admitted that man transcends himself it must also be admitted that man is God or is himself lifted in the union of knowing and likeness of a state of life outside of matter. The reasonable conclusion is that if lower states of life are to rise to higher states , higher states of life must reach down and lift them. We see in the fruit of knowledge, which is a union of likeness, that all living matter is lifted up into the higher state of human existence.

No other animal responds to eternal realities or the conceptions thereof. Even this, the human brain’s role in making a state of becoming a conscious reality points to it’s role in the conception of eternity . Eternity is tangible to human experience through the changeless reality of death. Eternity enters time through the corporeal operation of the brain. Albeit in an imperfect dissociated way.

 

[JustHuman]

MindOverMatter,

Judging by your posts I find it very difficult to tell if you’re actually a Catholic trying to present the flaws of naturalism, or if you’re really an atheist, embittered by the implications of your worldview.

Either way, as an naturalist/atheist myself, I have to agree that my current worldview doesn’t provide me with the same level of comfort that Catholicism once did. I find it hard to follow your main argument, but it almost seems like you’re suggesting that we should all believe in what is comforting, regardless of its truth. The fact is, we are all in the same boat together, and no matter what we believe, in the end, reality is still what it is.

I love life, but I comprehend fully that everything eventually ends. Even my own precious consciousness will cease to exist. Yet, still, happiness, love and knowledge are still real, even if they don’t exist forever. I don’t believe this because it provides me with comfort, but because it appears to be the best representation of the reality of the mind. If one day neuroscience suggests that somehow a mind survives its own death, I will accept it. But for now, I feel this view is just wishful thinking. What we will experience upon our deaths is the same thing we experience while under general anesthesia. If we experience absolutely nothing when we are fully unconscious (where did the soul go?) why should we expect anything else once we’re dead?

 

[HelenaMT]

MindOverMatter,

What we will experience upon our deaths is the same thing we experience while under general anesthesia. If we experience absolutely nothing when we are fully unconscious (where did the soul go?) why should we expect anything else once we’re dead?

This is one of the most fundamental problems with trying to reconcile modern neuroscience with a theistic worldview, or at least any worldview that includes immortal souls.

If we believe our souls exist but are entirely separate from brain function, we should have something to explain the nothingness experienced under general anaesthesia. Is the soul unconscious too? Or does the soul have it’s own memory bank that we just can’t access while we are alive, and so we only think we have experienced nothing?

If we believe brain and soul are intertwined, we can say perhaps while we are attached to our bodies our brains don’t have access to what the soul is experiencing, or that the soul when attached to the body, can only experience the physical, but that, too, seems pretty implausible without a *huge *leap of faith.

I have been looking for a theistic, or even just non-materialist, scientist to try and reconcile this (obviously not with verifiable info, but just perhaps with an interesting hypothesis)and have had no luck, but am still looking.

 

[ready]

I don’t think it is safe to say that what we experience upon our deaths is the necessarily the same thing we experience while under general anesthesia, just as it isn’t altogether safe to say that what near death experience patients experience upon their deaths is necessarily the same thing that happens upon our final deaths. Nobody knows what we experience upon our deaths. Once we are permanently dead, we don’t come back to tell about it. Ghosts, however, who linger on the earth should indicate that the soul goes on to live…and I am an orthodox Roman Catholic, who is not into the paranormal, but aware that it exists.

 

[JustHuman]

I looked very hard for something that would scincerely support a non-naturalistic view of the mind… Honestly, the more I looked into it, the more I read about modern neuroscience, the more I realized I would have to reject an entire field of science to continue believing… Truly, I don’t see how it’s possible to believe the mind will survive the death of the body unless you’re willing to just… ignore the evidence. I’d love to be wrong about this!

 

[MindOverMatter]

I looked very hard for something that would scincerely support a non-naturalistic view of the mind… Honestly, the more I looked into it, the more I read about modern neuroscience, the more I realized I would have to reject an entire field of science to continue believing… Truly, I don’t see how it’s possible to believe the mind will survive the death of the body unless you’re willing to just… ignore the evidence. I’d love to be wrong about this!

What evidence are you talking about exactly?

Have you read a book called spiritual brain?

 

[ready]

What evidence are you talking about exactly?

Have you read a book called spiritual brain?

That’s right. Good argument.

 

[JustHuman]

First of all, it needs to be demonstrated that there is an aspect of the mind that cannot correspond to a function of the brain. Otherwise, the naturalistic explanation of the mind should be the default position. I think this is reasonable, since we already have good evidence the brain exists… We should only go on to suggest new entities to explain consciousness when the only tangible source of our minds is exhausted of credibility (that would be the brain). So what portions of the mind does the soul do? Emotions? If so, why can they be induced by electrical stimulation of the temporal lobe? Personalities? These too are fundamentally linked to the brain. When the brain is damaged, we can (to an extent) predict how the personality will be effected, based on what part is damaged. Memories? It seems pretty obvious these are suseptible to deterioation of the brain, and damage. What about the consciousness itself? It’s pretty telling when our self awareness can be turned on or off by administering chemicals to body (or a blow to the skull).

So, after death, what parts of the mind are still functioning? Why don’t we see those aspects immune to damages to the brain, or unconsciousness? Shouldn’t a state of total unconsciousness reveal those aspects of the mind that aren’t dependant on the brain?

 

[ready]

First of all, it needs to be demonstrated that there is an aspect of the mind that cannot correspond to a function of the brain. Otherwise, the naturalistic explanation of the mind should be the default position.

I disagree whole-heartedly with you. We should take all sorts of knowledge, both based on the natural and the metaphysical, in order to understand and arrive at truth involving the spiritual nature of man’s soul and its relationship to the brain. That’s the reasonable thing to do. It only makes sense. You can’t understand the concept of a soul in solely natural terms. For the very reason that it is something spiritual.

 

[JustHuman]

It looks like you’ve already assumed the soul’s existence… A thing which is somewhat ill-defined, and not at all self evident.

Please describe some of the characteristics of the soul (without overlapping into mental functions we already know arise from the brain).

 

[MindOverMatter]

MindOverMatter,

Either way, as an naturalist/atheist myself, I have to agree that my current worldview doesn’t provide me with the same level of comfort that Catholicism once did. I find it hard to follow your main argument, but it almost seems like you’re suggesting that we should all believe in what is comforting, regardless of its truth.

No. I believe in a reasonable faith; a faith that can be communicated and supported logically. I would never say that one should put their hopes in God regardless of any truth to the contrary. Thats called lying to ones self. That is not what faith is.

And this is the sad thing about Naturalism as a belief. It hasn’t been proven true and cannot be proven truth. Anybody who is prepared to think logically about Naturalism, should know that it is absolutely impossible to prove that physics is the only type of reality that truly and actually exists.

Naturalism is a belief. For instance; my immediate experiences such as thinking and my ability to imagine complex structures which have no physical actuality, points to the transcendencey of my mind over the mere electro chemical structure of my brain. This is my experience. I experience freewill; that tells me that mind, although it is evident that it functions through brain processes, is of a different nature to the deterministic or random motions of atoms. The self is obviously more then a physical object, although it is in some respects dependent on brain function. God created man spiritual and physical; that is evident in scripture and experience. The idea that the mind needs the brain in order to “think”, presents no contradiction or problem in anyway shape or form to the metaphysical concept of the transcendent self or soul. Any attempt to make it appear so, is mere illusion; and poor thinking.

This is my experience. The Nero-Scientists says no. But what people don’t realize is that the Nero-Scientist is no longer speaking as a scientist when ones says that the mind is purely physical. This is a “belief”; which supports his or her desire. And many have been hoodwinked into thinking that this is real science. What is most repugnant is that they want it to be true. They want God to be false and they gain great joy from the false sense of glory they acquire as a result of their unflinching efforts. Thats why i cannot take seriously the concept of naturalism. It is popular to disbelieve. Thats what i call insane.

As for the so called Mind-Body-Problem, Certainly it is evident that there is an intimate relationship between mind and body, but this is not reason to play blind man to the aspects of are selves that are clearly not the deterministic products of blind causes and effects. You really have to ignore reality in order to not see what is lying right in front of you.

To sum up. The world does not tell me that the soul does not exist. So why believe Naturalism? One cannot possibly say that they believe it because its true! It has not been proven. So why believe it? I say people have been fooled in to believing it. Naturalism gains ground through psychological taunts, frets and straw-man conjecture. Many of the weak are deceived because they are made to feel ashamed of there faith, insane. The insanity of belief is a popular creed among atheists. And because people value community, many would-be-believers are blackmail into disbelief under pain of being an out-cast to society. Some people simply do not care to think beyond that which feeds there material wants.

Naturalism Is the most negative thing a human being could conceive of. But most people are happy to make the sacrifice for some personal reason that suits them. The concept of God is the most positive thing that a human being could ever conceive of. I’m confident enough and positive enough to put my hope in God. I’ve got nothing to lose. There is nothing reasonable about going through life believing that ones life is without objective purpose, meaning, value, and moral truth; especially when there is no a-prior or a-posterior evidence to support such a view. Only the concept of God fulfills my personal need, and if there is any chance of God being real, then naturally i will put my hope in that which most reasonably reflects and fulfills my desire.

And if one day science proves that God doesn’t exist (which is impossible), then i will commit suicide. I do not care much for the insanity of merely existing.

 

[HelenaMT]

I looked very hard for something that would scincerely support a non-naturalistic view of the mind… Honestly, the more I looked into it, the more I read about modern neuroscience, the more I realized I would have to reject an entire field of science to continue believing… Truly, I don’t see how it’s possible to believe the mind will survive the death of the body unless you’re willing to just… ignore the evidence. I’d love to be wrong about this!

There are doubts or questions even among neuroscientists about what the “mind” is, or even if a “mind” exists or is just an illusion we perceive (as in we don’t have free will, we just think we do). The jury still seems to be out on whether the mind is just a by product of other processes in the brain or is something more than that.

This is the mind/body problem that MindOverMatter is referring to.

I have found several non-materialist neuroscientists ideas about these things online. Mario Beauregard is one of them, but there are several others out there with published work you can easily find. You won’t find proof of after death survival, but there do seem to be valid questions about the nature of the mind and whether it really is reducible to the brain’s chemical processes.

If you are after hard evidence, your pretty well set on the atheist track anyway, but if you are looking for some interesting alternative perspectives on mind/soul etc. and have an open mind about it, try reading some works by non-materialist neuroscientists for an alternative interpretation of the evidence.

If you only read the materialist side, you close the door on some interesting other ideas.

 

[Benadam]

An example of someone who is able to stop brain activity through meditation.
youtube.com/watch?v=LFFMtq5g8N4

Interesting article about some of the finer points concerning death and mental activity as it relates to understanding when death actually occurs.
garlikov.com/philosophy/deathdef.htm

 

[ready]

It looks like you’ve already assumed the soul’s existence… A thing which is somewhat ill-defined, and not at all self evident.

Please describe some of the characteristics of the soul (without overlapping into mental functions we already know arise from the brain).

The *soul *is comprised of 1)memory 2) intelligence and 3) will -as the highest science, theology, points out. You can study human memory, human intelligence, and the human will through various experimental methods but can not put your finger on the essence of the soul solely through mere naturalistic observation without some branch of philosophy being involved. The will, for example, involves the metaphysical - our will is informed by our knowledge of what we know and love to be the best good above the rest, the most moral or “right” choice above other choices. Maybe the natural sciences can get a good grasp of human memory and intelligence, but the will is something unique.

 

[Lisdogan]

I have not (yet) read the entire thread, but look forward to doing so. There are many subthreads that demand really sensitive attention - and one finds more all the time.

I wonder if anyone has Googled neurotheology which gives some helpful insights into this discussion?

I have just made a start on what our brain can and cannot comprehend wrt the soul. But there are two tracks I think worth pursuing.

1. Is it possible, given the consistency and persistence of ‘faith’, belief systems, worship of a godhead of some kind among communities worldwide and since the beginning of known time, that belief and some idea of the soul is perhaps lodged in the oldest part of the brain? (This is the part we share with reptilians and birds: The R-complex: the Reptilian Brain (Basal Ganglia and Thalamus). Fear of snakes is lodged there, although not fear of spiders.
2. We do not have the capacity to acknowledge the existence of what is outside our known paradigm (material and mental), although I assume that with intuition and intelligence thrown in, we could do better than this spider:

Curious I took a pencil from my pocket and touched a strand of the [spider] web. Immediately there was a response. The web, plucked by its menacing occupant, began to vibrate until it was a blur. Anything that had brushed claw or wing against that amazing snare would be thoroughly entrapped. As the vibrations slowed, I could see the owner fingering her guidelines for signs of struggle. A pencil point was an intrusion into this universe for which no precedent existed. Spider was circumscribed by spider ideas; its universe was spider universe. All outside was irrational, extraneous, at best raw material for spider.

*As I proceeded on my way along the gully, like a vast impossible shadow, I realized that in the world of the spider I did not exist. *(Spider Universe, Wm H Calvin, How Brains Think, 1996, p 21 from Loren Eiseley, The Star Thrower, 1978).

Just wondering!

In Christ,

 

[JustHuman]

The soul is comprised of 1)memory 2) intelligence and 3) will

I dunno ready, you can call those mental characteristics the soul if you want, but what have you really explained in doing so? To suggest that something like memory is not fundamentally linked to the brain seems to cause many more problems than it solves (actually, I don’t see how a claim like that answers anything). We already know how the brain stores and processes short and long term memories. We know what happens when certain parts of the brain are damaged; in some cases, a victim can lose the ability to remember how to spell words. In other cases, a victim may forget what words sound like. If the hippocampus is irrevocably damaged, the victim will no longer be able to create new factual memories. We also are well aware that brain trauma can result in temporary amnesia. Given this, it seems a lot more consistent to say that the memory is fundamentally linked to the brain.

I just don’t see what use it is to suddenly attribute a pretty well understood mental process to an effectively super-dimensional cause…

 

[Benadam]

I have not (yet) read the entire thread, but look forward to doing so. There are many subthreads that demand really sensitive attention - and one finds more all the time.

I wonder if anyone has Googled neurotheology which gives some helpful insights into this discussion?

I have just made a start on what our brain can and cannot comprehend wrt the soul. But there are two tracks I think worth pursuing.

1. Is it possible, given the consistency and persistence of ‘faith’, belief systems, worship of a godhead of some kind among communities worldwide and since the beginning of known time, that belief and some idea of the soul is perhaps lodged in the oldest part of the brain? (This is the part we share with reptilians and birds: The R-complex: the Reptilian Brain (Basal Ganglia and Thalamus). Fear of snakes is lodged there, although not fear of spiders.
2. We do not have the capacity to acknowledge the existence of what is outside our known paradigm (material and mental), although I assume that with intuition and intelligence thrown in, we could do better than this spider:

Curious I took a pencil from my pocket and touched a strand of the [spider] web. Immediately there was a response. The web, plucked by its menacing occupant, began to vibrate until it was a blur. Anything that had brushed claw or wing against that amazing snare would be thoroughly entrapped. As the vibrations slowed, I could see the owner fingering her guidelines for signs of struggle. A pencil point was an intrusion into this universe for which no precedent existed. Spider was circumscribed by spider ideas; its universe was spider universe. All outside was irrational, extraneous, at best raw material for spider.

*As I proceeded on my way along the gully, like a vast impossible shadow, I realized that in the world of the spider I did not exist. *(Spider Universe, Wm H Calvin, How Brains Think, 1996, p 21 from Loren Eiseley, The Star Thrower, 1978).

Just wondering!

In Christ,

Ideas as proof of the soul. They don’t exist and then they do.