Here’s a thought (LOL! see what I did there?) Anyway… okay, you said something here in the thread and I heard it, sort of, and now I’m saying something and to you are hearing it.
Computers are brains, electronic ones. But when you go off line, you don’y need a computer to think feel or decide.
Brains are the organs we act through to connect with others in Time. We become present and relative to the rest of the people here through our brain, and by extension our bodies. But we aren’t our brains, our memories are actually not some bunch of physical anything stored in tissue.
When you body stops functioning, it’s because you get up and leave it behind. You’ll still be you and your self and knowledge will be intact.
Unfortunately that is a difficult claim, precisely because of things like amnesia, where damaging a part of our brain causes memory loss. According to others in this thread, the human soul contains our most human faculties and our attributes that carry over, such as free will, intellect, conscience, knowledge/memory, etc., and our brain is the physical medium that allows these attributes to express themselves. A damaged brain does not damage our innate faculties, only the extent to which they can be expressed in life. For example, amnesia does not damage memory, it only damages the part of the brain that expresses memory. This is both highly interesting and highly difficult to grasp or verify.
In attempting to define and describe the soul and its distinctions from the brain, I think it could be useful to borrow some philosophical terminology. It seems to me that the soul part of the human person, the “spiritual principle”, as the Catechism calls it, is our capacity for objectivity. The ability to view the world, others and ourselves objectivity, using reason, conscience and love (agape) is uniquely human. From this derives our capacity for free will, consciousness and religious belief, and animals’ lack of a soul makes them completely subjective, viewing the world entirely based on their own preferences, emotions and perspective and incapable of seeing beyond that. Humans can, and it is this objectivity that is uniquely human. I think this objectivity mirrors God’s deepest nature as Lord, above Creation and all biases therein. He can look on all things distinctly - He is not a judge of persons, nor is He limited by time, place or focus. He loves each individual for themselves, based on their own qualities, not simply because of His own feelings or preferences. This is why He can love us with enough charity to overlook our sins. Otherwise, even with good intentions, He would see us as inevitable failures.
It also seems to me that humans, being fallen, have a certain animalistic quality. This is not a bad thing necessarily - the driving force of animal bodies is survival, and this is a good thing. But because of the Fall, our bodies can become confused; they can prefer survival and assurance of survival, such as pleasure or power, over goodness and truth. I think humans are constantly pulled towards the animal, while also drawn towards God. This is our great “either/or” - which do you prefer: yourself, or God? Asceticism works to discipline the animal and make God the dominant focus of our lives.
As for the connection of the above-mentioned definition of the soul, and its relation to the brain, I have never seen an explanation of human objectivity within the brain. But the game of religious people calling certain faculties spiritual, scientists connecting them to the body, and the ensuing argument is tiresome and cannot end well for religious people, nor is it a noble focus of science. Somehow, I think Catholics need to more accurately define our view of the soul, and make it immune to any disproofs scientists might try to use.
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