What exactly is the soul?

[Faith1960]

Yes, I agree with the body of the article, not with everything in the " summary. " I would make one correction to the article. The brain is not the location of the mind. Let me explain. Thomas Aquinas and Augustine taught that the soul is wholely present in every part of the body. And the intellect ( mind ) is a power of he soul: thus it cannot be located anywhere, but it operates through the brain, which is the interface between the soul and the outer world and man’s bodily functions. You see ,the soul, being a spiritual being, does not have parts, it only has powers.

You have noticed that we have debated here where memory is located. That question really is one that cannot be answered with certainty. I say it is located in the soul, others say it is located in the brain. In my view anything that can properly be called the subject of memory must be very like a phantasm, it is basically immaterial, so it cannot be retained in the brain. Sense perceptions are physical, so they can be retained in the brain for a short period of time because the brain is physical. But I would not call these memories. I would call them just what they are, physical impressions.

Linus2nd

I think I tend to agree with #1 of the summary, though I’m open to learning more.

 

[Faith1960]

It is the interface between the soul ( and its powers of intellect and will ) and all of man’s bodily functions and his connection to the outside world. You are coming late to the discussion, I suggest you read all the prior posts, not only mine either.

Linus2nd

Sorry but most of this conversation is over my head. Maybe you all could dumb it down for me and anyone else who doesnt understand.

 

[Faith1960]

It would be helpful if you could provide links. I couldn’t find a report on what you mentioned.

Linus2nd

Yes, I agree with the body of the article, not with everything in the " summary. " I would make one correction to the article. The brain is not the location of the mind.

Linus2nd

I think od the brain and mind as the same thing. Point me to something that states its Catholic dogma to believe otherwise.

 

[Abba]

are soul and spirit the same?

I have pondered upon this question. I am not so sure that the soul and the spirit are the same. There are saints that have written as though they are different, e.g. Saint Theresa of Avila.

One of the things I consider is when John was taken in spirit. John was able to see and hear - in spirit. He was separated from the body, yet, the body did not die. Was it because the soul remained?

Furthermore, I have read of saints that have traveled (e.g. Padre Pio and Saint Martin de Porres) in the spirit or even with a body - yet were back home as well. I guess these two examples do not apply, Here is one, the German saint who traveled in the spirit, yet, her body was in her bed. I forget her name, but it is said that we now know the location of the Blessed Mother Mary’s house in Turkey because of her spiritual travels. While she was gallivanting in Turkey - how was her body kept alive if the spirit and soul are one and the same?

I was taken once and I could see even though my body was left behind. What kept my body alive? How can the spirit see? Could it be that although time seemed to pass as it normally would it actually passed faster so that if it was the soul that was taken it would have been for a fraction of a second and would have no effect on the body?

Based on the writings of Saint John the Apostle it would seem as though he was away from his body a long time. Maybe a whole night?

In some of my reading, I have come upon the expression 'in the spirit of Peter"… when speaking of a Pope and in the spirit of someone or the other or 'the spirit of Peter was upon him" etc… Well, I am trying to figure this out myself. Perhaps, theologians have not wanted to touch this as one could walk a thin line in discerning this matter.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Can you rephrase that in English please?

If you are sincere…what point are you finding unclear?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

No, I haven’t seen anything that would convince me.

Linus2nd

You appear to be diluting your original stance have you not?
Originally you held that memory was a purely spiritual power, now you have weakened to… sense memory involves the soul which is pretty insipid a proposition that few could disagree with..

 

[Blue_Horizon]

In my view anything that can properly be called the subject of memory must be very like a phantasm, it is basically immaterial, so it cannot be retained in the brain. Sense perceptions are physical, so they can be retained in the brain for a short period of time because the brain is physical.

Linus2nd

Linus this is not really a good exposition of what Aquinas meant by material and immaterial in both his Phil of Man and Phil of soul.

You seem to confuse “image” with “spiritual” [ie immaterial].
This is not the case. There can be “material images” which, being essentially a representation in matter, are eminently suitable candidates for being stored permanently in brain tissue [as does colloidal silver a pattern of light in a sepia photo].
Indeed, this is exactly what Aquinas means by the phantasm, it is a material image. It is his abstracted concept that is immaterial.

That is why he holds imagination belongs to the body, not the mind.
He also seems to indicate that sensible memory belongs to the body also.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I have pondered upon this question. I am not so sure that the soul and the spirit are the same. There are saints that have written as though they are different, e.g. Saint Theresa of Avila.

One of the things I consider is when John was taken in spirit. John was able to see and hear - in spirit. He was separated from the body, yet, the body did not die. Was it because the soul remained?

Furthermore, I have read of saints that have traveled (e.g. Padre Pio and Saint Martin de Porres) in the spirit or even with a body - yet were back home as well. I guess these two examples do not apply, Here is one, the German saint who traveled in the spirit, yet, her body was in her bed. I forget her name, but it is said that we now know the location of the Blessed Mother Mary’s house in Turkey because of her spiritual travels. While she was gallivanting in Turkey - how was her body kept alive if the spirit and soul are one and the same?

I was taken once and I could see even though my body was left behind. What kept my body alive? How can the spirit see? Could it be that although time seemed to pass as it normally would it actually passed faster so that if it was the soul that was taken it would have been for a fraction of a second and would have no effect on the body?

Based on the writings of Saint John the Apostle it would seem as though he was away from his body a long time. Maybe a whole night?

In some of my reading, I have come upon the expression 'in the spirit of Peter"… when speaking of a Pope and in the spirit of someone or the other or 'the spirit of Peter was upon him" etc… Well, I am trying to figure this out myself. Perhaps, theologians have not wanted to touch this as one could walk a thin line in discerning this matter.

Soul and spirit are different concepts and derive from different traditions and cultures and times.
Translations into English make lucidity even more difficult. So do not expect to find consistency in the Bible, let alone in any two of its 72 books.

 

[GEddie]

Correct

Correct. It is the man who thinks, acts, wills, remembers. The soul is everywhere in the body, governing all its conscious, unconscious activities, physical, and intellectual. So it would be no big deal if some types of memory resided in the brain, it is still the soul that governs all.

Linus2nd

There are definitely some memories that pertain to the brain, or rather the body.

“Muscular memory” or procedural skill memory would fall into this category, as such memories are unusable without the services of a body. You won’t need piano-playing abilities when your hands are dead. But once you have your new hands in Heaven, it would come back to you (assuming you had it in the first place)

Episodic or life memories, however, would fall into the soul.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I think I tend to agree with #1 of the summary, though I’m open to learning more.

You have a body and a soul. The body is material, the soul is spiritual. The two cannot be one, they cannot be the same. And since it is the soul which has the power of reason, the intellect is not a part of the brain, eventhough it uses the brain.

Linus2nd

 

[GEddie]

I have pondered upon this question. I am not so sure that the soul and the spirit are the same. There are saints that have written as though they are different, e.g. Saint Theresa of Avila.

One of the things I consider is when John was taken in spirit. John was able to see and hear - in spirit. He was separated from the body, yet, the body did not die. Was it because the soul remained?

Furthermore, I have read of saints that have traveled (e.g. Padre Pio and Saint Martin de Porres) in the spirit or even with a body - yet were back home as well. I guess these two examples do not apply, Here is one, the German saint who traveled in the spirit, yet, her body was in her bed. I forget her name, but it is said that we now know the location of the Blessed Mother Mary’s house in Turkey because of her spiritual travels. While she was gallivanting in Turkey - how was her body kept alive if the spirit and soul are one and the same?

I was taken once and I could see even though my body was left behind. What kept my body alive? How can the spirit see? Could it be that although time seemed to pass as it normally would it actually passed faster so that if it was the soul that was taken it would have been for a fraction of a second and would have no effect on the body?

Based on the writings of Saint John the Apostle it would seem as though he was away from his body a long time. Maybe a whole night?

In some of my reading, I have come upon the expression 'in the spirit of Peter"… when speaking of a Pope and in the spirit of someone or the other or 'the spirit of Peter was upon him" etc… Well, I am trying to figure this out myself. Perhaps, theologians have not wanted to touch this as one could walk a thin line in discerning this matter.

Remember that our human psyche and nous (the Greek terms are less nuanced and therefore confusing than “soul” and “mind”) are spiritual, and therefore not time or space bound. They are, of course, anchored to the live human body, particularly its head, in the nous’ case.

Because the nous is not timebound, nous can, when given this faculty by God, go “travelling” in his/her bilocational body “while” the psyche continues to keep the human body alive.

I have also been told that we will all have this capacity in Heaven. This would enable us to enjoy full-bodied life in Heaven “while” dead in relation to earthly life, as psyche and nous are time-free.

If so, this would bypass the concern about the physicality of the mind.

ICXC NIKA!

 

[GEddie]

How do you think Alzheimer’s disease manifests itself? Its a brain disease, not a soul disease.

Of course it is.

The mind uses the brain for knowing and willing, just as it uses the eyes to see.

ICXC NIKA

 

[GEddie]

I think od the brain and mind as the same thing. Point me to something that states its Catholic dogma to believe otherwise.

While I don’t have the relevant Church documents in my mind, I do recall that the human “**rational soul” ** ie, a soul that reasons; is an article of Church teaching. What we think of as the mind would then be an output of the soul.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I think od the brain and mind as the same thing. Point me to something that states its Catholic dogma to believe otherwise.

The Church doesn’t use the terms brain and mind in its teaching. The Church teaches dogmatically that the human being has an intellectual soul ( Fifth Lateran Council ). It also teaches that the soul is the essential form of man ( Council of Vienne ). The Fifth Lateran Council also taught that each human being possesses an individual soul. The Church also teachs that the individual human soul was created immediately, out of nothing ( Fifthe Lateran Council, the scriptures, the teaching of the Fathers, etc. ).

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

You appear to be diluting your original stance have you not?
Originally you held that memory was a purely spiritual power, now you have weakened to… sense memory involves the soul which is pretty insipid a proposition that few could disagree with..

I haven’t changed my mind and I can’t help what other people think .

Linus2nd

 

[GEddie]

Faith1960,

As I told my little nephew years ago: “Your brain is part of your head; your mind is part of your soul.”

One consists of cells and blood vessels and synapses, the other, of thoughts, ideas and memories.

One cannot find the mind by examining the brain, nor do our thoughts tell us much about the operation of the head-gear that makes them possible.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[inocente]

If one reads just this post of yours, without knowing the previous ones, one could derive at least two interpretations:

1. 
   *]That you consider the mind as a reality of one class (for example, the class of realities that cannot be seen), and the brain as a reality belonging to a different class (the class of realities that can be seen).
   *]That you consider the brain as a reality, and the mind as an idea.
   
   Let me bring again your statement which says “therefore the ‘movie’ of the world which we see in our mind must be created by the brain from the bit stream alone, since that is the only information it ever has”; and it seems from it that you regard the “we” (or the “I”), the “mind”, and the “brain” as distinguishable realities (not ideas). Then you say “On brain and mind, I’d say the brain is the stuff between our ears while the mind is the faculty of awareness and consciousness”, which seems to confirm that you really make those distinctions. Therefore, I think we can ignore the second possible interpretation; and with the first one we can go back to your previous posts and read them taking good care of interpreting them consistently.
   
   But it seems also that you wonder what should legitimately be attributed to the mind. This is the way in which I take your words “On ‘spiritual’ or immaterial, I think people uses such words in many different ways, but we can perhaps cut through any confusion by asking: Can the mind, or any aspect of the mind, function only by breaking the laws of nature?”, and what follows.
   
   We also need to ask ourselves what can legitimately be attributed to the brain (or to the entire body ), and I think that we cannot say legitimately that the “movie” of the world is created by the brain. Recursion destroys this interpretation of research results, as you have noticed.
   
   In summary, what I think you are doing is repeating yourself when you said: “It would be more meaningful to debate the implications of research results, but that would depend on acknowledging facts”, which I like a lot. What are other research results that you would like to debate and what are the facts that we should acknowledge?

1. 
   Well, let’s step away from leading-edge research and just skim the following two pages in a neurobiology textbook at UT Houston:
   
   Visual Processing: Eye and Retina - neuroscience.uth.tmc.edu/s2/chapter14.html
   Visual Processing: Cortical Pathways - neuroscience.uth.tmc.edu/s2/chapter15.html
   
   All of that relies on what was once leading-edge research, and in the last section (15.7) of the second page, some of that knowledge is used in an example diagnosis of a stroke patient who can no longer recognize faces.
   
   The brain, the stuff between the ears of the patient, has suffered damage due to the stroke, and so the mind, the faculty of awareness and consciousness, can no longer recognize faces.
   
   Now that doesn’t rely on any philosophical debate about the mind, it’s simply a brute fact which is part of reality for many doctors and patients worldwide. We could, I guess, claim that’s not really the mind, the mind is elsewhere, but if we look at all the other aspects of mind that are known to stop working following damage to various areas of the brain, there’s nowhere else for the mind to hide.
   
   Perhaps wondering where the mind might be was a interesting question in 350 BC, but I think we moved on long ago.
   
   btw did you know we have the same number of neurons in our gut as a cat’s brain? And, there, it turns out, is another aspect of mind: ‘For instance when we experience “butterflies in the stomach”, this really is the brain in the stomach talking to the brain in your head. As we get nervous or fearful, blood gets diverted from our gut to our muscles and this is the stomach’s way of protesting.’ - bbc.com/news/health-18779997

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Linus this is not really a good exposition of what Aquinas meant by material and immaterial in both his Phil of Man and Phil of soul.

It is the best I can do at the time.

You seem to confuse “image” with “spiritual” [ie immaterial].

I don’t see how an image, by any definition, could be material. If it is not material, it must be spiritual ( immaterial ). There are no " photo graphic plates " in the brain. And " image, " in this context would have to cover not only sight, but sound, touch, taste, snell as well. And see below…

This is not the case. There can be “material images” which, being essentially a representation in matter, are eminently suitable candidates for being stored permanently in brain tissue [as does colloidal silver a pattern of light in a sepia photo].
Indeed, this is exactly what Aquinas means by the phantasm, it is a material image. It is his abstracted concept that is immaterial.{/QUOTE]

It is difficult to understand how the brain could sort out and oollate the different nuances of sense impressions to form anything that could be described as an image or phantasm. This seems to me to require an intellectual operation of the mind.

That is why he holds imagination belongs to the body, not the mind.
He also seems to indicate that sensible memory belongs to the body also.

I don’t think he does. If you can find refer to something he said that you think says this, I would certainly look at it.

But memory is an interesting diversion.

Linus2nd

 

[Micosil]

Faith1960,

As I told my little nephew years ago: “Your brain is part of your head; your mind is part of your soul.”

One consists of cells and blood vessels and synapses, the other, of thoughts, ideas and memories.

One cannot find the mind by examining the brain, nor do our thoughts tell us much about the operation of the head-gear that makes them possible.

ICXC NIKA.

Good explanation.

Well, let’s step away from leading-edge research and just skim the following two pages in a neurobiology textbook at UT Houston:

Visual Processing: Eye and Retina - neuroscience.uth.tmc.edu/s2/chapter14.html
Visual Processing: Cortical Pathways - neuroscience.uth.tmc.edu/s2/chapter15.html

All of that relies on what was once leading-edge research, and in the last section (15.7) of the second page, some of that knowledge is used in an example diagnosis of a stroke patient who can no longer recognize faces.

The brain, the stuff between the ears of the patient, has suffered damage due to the stroke, and so the mind, the faculty of awareness and consciousness, can no longer recognize faces.

Now that doesn’t rely on any philosophical debate about the mind, it’s simply a brute fact which is part of reality for many doctors and patients worldwide. We could, I guess, claim that’s not really the mind, the mind is elsewhere, but if we look at all the other aspects of mind that are known to stop working following damage to various areas of the brain, there’s nowhere else for the mind to hide.

Perhaps wondering where the mind might be was a interesting question in 350 BC, but I think we moved on long ago.

That is an interesting observation, and I think it’s useful if we look at Fr. John Hardon’s definition of soul from his Modern Catholic Dictionary:

The spiritual immortal part in human beings that animates their body. Though a substance in itself, the soul is naturally ordained toward a body; separated, it is an “incomplete” substance. The soul has no parts, it is therefore simple, but it is not without accidents. The faculties are its proper accidents. Every experience adds to its accidental form. It is individually created for each person by God and infused into the body at the time of human insemination. It is moreover created in respect to the body it will inform, so that the substance of bodily features and of mental characteristics insofar as they depend on organic functions is safeguarded. As a simple and spiritual substance, the soul cannot die. Yet it is not the total human nature, since a human person is composed of body animated by the soul. In philosophy, animals and plants are also said to have souls, which operate as sensitive and vegetative principles of life. Unlike the human spirit, these souls are perishable. The rational soul contains all the powers of the two other souls and is the origin of the sensitive and vegetative functions in the human being.

I’ve bolded out the part that I think is relevant; note that it says that mental characteristics do depend on organic functions, which is precisely what you’ve observed in your post. Though it doesn’t leave out the possibility of the existence of an immortal part of human beings that happens to be the animating principle of their life: that is to say, the soul.

 

[inocente]

Excellent - and funny .

shaw:

*Very curious comment. Since at least high school I understood that man’s soul was a spirit, similar to the nature of an angel. We are made in God’s image, right? Shouldn’t that mean that we have a spiritual or immaterial side to our nature, which makes us a " little less " than the angels, " and very, very remotely similar to God, who we know is a Spirit?

And if we have a spiritual or immaterial side to our nature, wouldn’t it most likely be the seat of our reason or intellect? And how would this entail the breaking of the laws of nature? That is a very curious comment.

Would you mind explaing how the mind does " tricks " and violates laws of nature. Very curious about that.*

First, angels must break at least one law of nature. Simply by the act of speaking, as in Luke 1:13, the angel has to make air vibrate, which breaks the law of conservation of energy, since there’s no physical causation to the air moving.

Second, if our mind doesn’t break any law of nature then there’s no reason why anything more than the brain is needed. Only if it must break a law of nature, as do angels, would it need anything else.

And, of course, that would be a huge claim requiring lots of evidence, since it would mean that some aspect of the human mind is the only composite phenomenon in the entire universe which is so disordered that it follows no pattern, even in principle, and is therefore forever inexplicable.

*I know you are just repeating what you have read or heard. It is a very curious comment to make, it needs to be explained. And why are you bringing it up?

Nope, I’m not repeating any dogma. The reason I brought it up is that earlier (post #57) you said “the conscious mind ( in some mysterious way we will never know ) …”. Now the only reason why we could never know is that there is something occult, hidden, something which can never be analyzed even in principle, and so could never be described by a law of nature. So, what’s you evidence for your huge claim?

I never have and you are the first person I have heard express the need to do so. I am me, the whole shebang, body and soul. From the top of my head to the bottoms of my feet - I am a self aware, conscious, thinking person.

We are children of God, like him spiritually and intellectually, unlike him physically.

As Richa said above, " We think with our intellect and love with our will. We share in God’s image and likeness according to these two spiritual powers of our soul. The angels also have intelligence and will but they are wholly spiritual and immaterial and thus they by nature are more like God than we are. Yes, this is catholic dogma. The human souls of the blessed in heaven who see God face to face though they are without their material brains are not there as though they are vegetables. They see and know God with their intellects and love him with their wills and are supremely happy. "

Linus2nd