What exactly is the soul?

  • Thread starter Thread starter wiggbuggie
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
inocente said:
The difference isn’t about science. A priori means independent of experience - “no bachelor is married” is always true everywhere, by definition. Whereas a posteriori depends on experience - “I see the Sun set every day” would not be true if you lived above the Arctic Circle. All laws of nature must be a posteriori, since they rely on reasoning based on objective evidence of what is always experienced in our world, and may not be true in other possible worlds.
Click to expand...
I am using the kind of reasoning that Aristotle used when writing On the Soul, Sense and the Sensible, and Memory and Reminiscience. So take your pick :D.
Whereas you’re trying to invent a new category of laws of nature which is not based on objective evidence, which is illogical. And that wouldn’t be allowed in departments of philosophy.
Click to expand...
Aristotle regarded it as a part of the natural order, so did Aquinas. I know it is hard on modern ears. Every thing God created is a part of the natural order - even angels.
Hang on. Not only have you invented a new kind of law of nature, and a new type of reasoning you call philosophical reasoning, but now a new type of truth you call philosophical truth, as if philosophical truth can contradict the usual kind of truth, and to top it off you say that memory sticks block this philosophical truth from the modern mind.
Click to expand...
Just taking after Aristotle, who regraded philosophical truth as the summit of man’s search for truth. But since his time, that has been superceded by Revelation.
Again, that’s your personal belief. The communication taking place on these forums proves there is communication going on. It doesn’t even prove that the communication is taking place between humans, you could be the Cheshire Cat or a HAL 9000 for all I know.
Click to expand...
Not only mine but Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ as well. The Cheshire Cat is a figure of fantasy, so is Hal. Hal had to be programed, his designer supplied him with ideas and concepts and language. But ideas, thoughts, etc are immaterial and an immaterial effects reqire an immaterial cause, the human soul.
In modern terminology, we have a central nervous system.
Click to expand...
It carries out the directions of the spiritual, rational soul. Man is a unified composit ot body and soul. Until the Refermation this was acknowledged by all believers. Even the early Reformers believed that.
I’d ask for the schematics showing how this immaterial spiritual substance interfaces with the material brain, but somehow doubt there’s any funding for such research. Well, there you go, the modren mind, blocked as you say from philosophical truth, only gets funding to research the brain, the mere interface to the soul, and nada, zilch, zippo for researching immaterial spiritual substances. This modernity is madness I tells you, madness!
Click to expand...
You could raise the same objection for all living bings, even the non-intellectual. Some things are necessarily hidden. Aristotle and Aquinas would say that they do what they do naturally, by the dictates of their natures.

Linus2nd
 
Methinks the problem here is a false dichotomy held by different parties: either,
  1. The human soul/mind is a pure spirit and uses Body only for transportation; or
  2. The human mind is identical with the brain; the soul, if present, is mindless.
These two positions are in fact two lobes in a Venn diagram, and the truth, AFAICS, lies between them.

ICXC NIKA
 
Aloysium said:
I don’t know why you are asking Linus; he’s pretty smart but this area isn’t his forte.
I know a lot about the brain and have forgotten more.
Click to expand...
Ok, what do you and GEddie think the brain does?
 
Faith1960 said:
Ok, what do you and GEddie think the brain does?
Click to expand...
  1. Operates the body (limbs, voice, neck, eyes, etc).
  2. Regulates the body (breathing, muscle tone, body temperature, etc).
  3. Gathers information from eyes, nose, skin etc to form a unified sensorium.
  4. Acts as a nexus between body (and the world via the sensorium) and the human soul/rational mind.
As Khalil Gibran said, “Without the body the soul is but an empty wind; without the soul the body is but a senseless frame.”

ICXC NIKA
 
Aloysium said:
Now, there’s a 360 some page book sitting on one of these shelves that was a best seller 30 years ago entitled The Brain.
For some reason I don’t think you’d be interested in reading it. If you are I will look for a link.
Click to expand...
Thanks, but no thanks. 🙂
 
GEddie said:
  1. Operates the body (limbs, voice, neck, eyes, etc).
  2. Regulates the body (breathing, muscle tone, body temperature, etc).
  3. Gathers information from eyes, nose, skin etc to form a unified sensorium.
  4. Acts as a nexus between body (and the world via the sensorium) and the human soul/rational mind.
ICXC NIKA
Click to expand...
Ok, we’re in agreement. I think. Does the brain think?

Can you translate #4 to something much simpler?
 
4a).

The human soul or mind, being spiritual, requires a junction with the solid body. That junction is formed by the processing in the brain.
 
Faith1960 said:
So the brain does think, its just being driven by the mind?
Click to expand...
Well yeah.

Just as the piano wires make the music, but are powered and directed by the hands on the keys.

Really, it’s the live human being who thinks, but the thoughts arise in the soul or psyche, and are expressed using the head. The whole human being does it.

ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
Well yeah.

Just as the piano wires make the music, but are powered and directed by the hands on the keys.

Really, it’s the live human being who thinks, but the thoughts arise in the soul or psyche, and are expressed using the head. The whole human being does it.

ICXC NIKA
Click to expand...
But you do acknowledge that the thoughts are expressed in the brain, right?
 
GEddie said:
  1. Operates the body (limbs, voice, neck, eyes, etc).
  2. Regulates the body (breathing, muscle tone, body temperature, etc).
  3. Gathers information from eyes, nose, skin etc to form a unified sensorium.
  4. Acts as a nexus between body (and the world via the sensorium) and the human soul/rational mind.
As Khalil Gibran said, “Without the body the soul is but an empty wind; without the soul the body is but a senseless frame.”

ICXC NIKA
Click to expand...
Please, not KG. The very thing the body is… Is sense-full :eek:.
 
GEddie said:
  1. Operates the body (limbs, voice, neck, eyes, etc).
  2. Regulates the body (breathing, muscle tone, body temperature, etc).
  3. Gathers information from eyes, nose, skin etc to form a unified sensorium.
  4. Acts as a nexus between body (and the world via the sensorium) and the human soul/rational mind.
As Khalil Gibran said, “Without the body the soul is but an empty wind; without the soul the body is but a senseless frame.”

ICXC NIKA
Click to expand...
Excellent explanation.

Linus2nd
 
Faith1960 said:
But you do acknowledge that the thoughts are expressed in the brain, right?
Click to expand...
You can keep a slice of brain tissue alive in a lab. If you introduce a current causing the neurons to fire, no thought will be produced.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top