If we are discussing the soul and the brain, it is important to discuss which performs which functions. Tonyrey claims that thinking is a function of the soul, while the evidence indicates that it is a function of the brain. It is relevant to the topic.
Don’t leave Grannymh
. Instead; let you mind become one with my bio-chip, so that i too can experience this curious wonder that you call the human soul…I’ll have to look up the reference for you. I had a friend who was in a deep coma as a result of lung cancer invading her brain. Shortly before she died she groaned when she heard someone start to play music on a piano. How would you explain that?
Where is the evidence that personality, consciousness, creativity, abstract thought, emotions, imagination, insight, inspiration, intuition, conscience, self-control and decision-making originate in the brain?
As a former Hospice volunteer and a hospital pastoral care volunteer, I can tell you that hearing is the sense which remains. Learning to read body language, I can also tell you that often dying patients try to express themselves, but the voice mechanism no longer works. With my dying Dad, I saw that he recognized my voice by a slight movement of his head toward me. I was singing Christmas songs to him in my unmistakably off key voice. In other words, communication comes in different forms.
Exactly. It’s been said that around 93% of communication is non-verbal (UCLA study):
Interesting! It of course needs more studies on the topic, but very interesting! I’m curious how they interpreted the brain scans to mean that the patient might be concious… unfortunately I don’t have access to the full study text.
Well, you’re asking for a huge amount of evidence there, but I’ll find what I can
“Each [15 students] was hooked up to the functional magnetic resonance imager.”
Thank you for your moving testimony - which is at the other extreme from the “persons are biological machines” explanation.
No, it doesn’t, but it does strongly suggest that personality has a material basis.“Each [15 students] was hooked up to the functional magnetic resonance imager.”
“It is, as Gabrieli puts it, the old “chicken and egg thing.” The study doesn’t tell us where personality comes from.”
Frankly, personality is a gray area as far as I am concerned.
Your post reminds me of a favourite southpark episode.
Please don’t fall into the trap of the “mutually exclusive or”, Also, please try to read “third person” expository writing as it is intended.Your post reminds me of a favourite southpark episode.
Society’s need to see things as materialistic is not because they want things to be materialistic, it’s because things explained in such a fashion are useful. You can make predictions with such explanation, which allows things like the computer you’re typing on to be designed.
Why are we here. I fail to see how you think your belief on the topic pertains to others. You say Catholicism is the one ism that truly understands the answer, but you’re essentially just saying “I’m right, na na na!” and ignoring the thousands of other similar explanations that have come and gone over the millennia, not to mention the still surviving ideologies that are different but still not materialistic.
Personality is one of those buzz-words that doesn’t mean much. Usually it is used to describe how someone relates to others (i.e., outgoing, smiley-facey, quiet, etc.) rather than about the mind per-se. I would say personality is the “social surface” of our minds, rather than any part of the “soul” (which has itself become a buzzword).
Any items considered non-material still need to be expressed in the material body such as it is. The problem with dualism is that the spiritual and material are considered separate from each other. Actually, they are intimately united in human nature.
The fact that “the amygdala is crucial to emotional processing by the brain” is not evidence that emotions originate in the brain. We can induce emotions by choosing to meditate on a particular subject.
That does not mean consciousness originates in the brain.
Please consult any dictionary.
Self-control is the power to control our thoughts, feelings and behaviour.
The article explains that “the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), orbitofrontal cortex (and the overlapping ventromedial prefrontal cortex) are brain regions involved in decision making processes.”
The fact that drugs affect the brain does not prove that emotions **originate **in the brain. It merely shows that drugs interfere with the way the brain communicates emotions to the body.