What exactly is the soul?

[Blue_Horizon]

As per the texts of Aquinas himself, I have not misrepresented his teaching. I cannot account for what your Dominican professors taught you. I do not know whether they were working from Thomas’ texts or merely interpreting those texts or perhaps they were using manuals based on someone elses interpretation.

You are free to go back and reread my posts and any references I gave, so is everyone else. I have indicated how I think Aquinas should be read, it is my interpretation. I used my own judgment in those areas where Thomas was not clear, based on personal arguments I have made.

And that is about all I need to say. There is no point in rehashing everything again. You and I disagree that’s all. No reason to get all worked up or persona about it…

Linus2nd

Linus the phantasm of Aquinas is not immaterial/spiritual and does not reside in the intellect/mind as you have clearly asserted below.

It is formed in the sensible interior senses after sensation, and holds particular and therefore material information about what was impressed upon the senses.

The alleged texts you adduce to demonstrate what you say (the complete opposite) say nothing like this however much one might twist their ambiguity to an immaterial purpose.

Seeing that you reject Maritain and hail Gilson … here is a quote from Gilson.

“Let us suppose that … a sensible body impressed its image in the common sense. And let us designate this image by the term phantasm. We still should not have the total and perfect cause of intellectual knowledge…but we should at least have the matter on which this cause works.
What indeed is a phantasm? it is the image of a particular thing…
Still more accurately, phantasms are images of particular things, impressed or preserved in corporeal organs. In brief we are here in the domain of the sensible both from the point of view of the subject and of the object.”

This is from Gilson’s Christian Philosophy of Aquinas, one of his most well known works which no doubt is on your bookshelf if you possess any of his works.
It is concerning you have not reported back from it after hopefully checking your own mentors given I called you out on this matter .

And here is a directly relevant quote (unlike your own) from Aquinas:
“…hence the phantasms, stored in the sensorium,…” SCG 55,2.

As I say, this stuff is Aquinas 101 and held commonly even by opposing Thomistic traditions, yet not by Linus .

Linus you seem to approach isolated and ambiguous philosophy texts as Protestants would the Bible - sola scriptura.
Catholics take into account the living traditions and respected commentators as well.
That wisdom suggests a sound education by living professors of Aquinas are important - Surely they (esp when unanimous) are not to be flicked off by the brush of a hand just because one overly trusts in one’s own inevitably idiosyncratic interpretation skills.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

I don’t know why they first started talking signals, reading interpretation, first pass that is unnecessary jargon not required to understand how electronic memory chips work or what they do.

This link is a good starting point.
batronix.com/shop/electronic/eprom-programming.html

This paragraph seems helpful.
“A memory chip is an electronic component which can store data.
Data could consist, for instance, of temperature values taken by a temperature measurement system, or any other data.”

It would be good if you could formulate specific questions quoting the phrases you may have difficulty with here - then I will better understand where you are coming from.

Not electronics, information technology. Not sure what you want, basically all memory technologies involve addressing a bit or group of bits, setting the state of a bit/group, and reading the state of a bit/group. Then higher level systems organize that into usable information.

Inocente, Blue:

I feel obligated to use the same jargon which is used in the articles that you have suggested me to read (though I don’t feel comfortable). Let’s suppose I need to store a document in a USB memory. When I do that, thousands of elements in the USB memory will suffer a change in their state. I understand that those elements are “arranged” in groups (bytes), and that those groups “have” an address. My document will be stored in thousands of those groups. As when I store the document in the memory and then I retrieve it using another computer, I understand that the multitude of addresses are also stored in the same USB memory. In the memory I could have many other documents stored, each with their associated addresses. I have the following questions:
H
Are the elements composing a byte physically associated to each other (either those that store part of a document or those that store an address)?
Are the bytes which together store a document physically associated to each other?
Are those bytes which store the addresses of the bytes which store parts of a document arranged successively?
What distinguishes the bytes of the addresses for a document from the bytes of the addresses for another document?

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Not electronics, information technology. Not sure what you want, basically all memory technologies involve addressing a bit or group of bits, setting the state of a bit/group, and reading the state of a bit/group. Then higher level systems organize that into usable information.

I’d agree that they differ quite a lot in terms of mechanism, for example our memories fade or change. But memory is used to mean any kind of recording, for instance a scar is a memory of a wound and geological forms are said to be the memories of the events which produced them.

Before reading your post, while I was doing my daily walk, I was looking at the surroundings and I thought, " in a certain way our surroundings are part of our memory", but then I hesitated, thinking, “however…, they change… They certainly change continuously, but nevertheless we are able to recognize them. They are part of our memory because at their presence other memories in us are triggered… But the surroundings are not only part of my memory; they are part of the memory of my neighbors as well; they are a common memory…”. I think it is only in that sense, or in a similar sense, that a scar is a memory of a wound and geological forms are memories of certain events. But if we are not there, there is no memory; actually, there is no past at all, no recording, only “present”.

No, the idea in emergence is that new properties and behaviors emerge which did not exist in the underlying levels, for if they did exist in the underlying levels there would be nothing new to emerge.

So “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts” means that something new emerges when the parts are put together which did not exist in any of the parts. For instance there is no need to propose a non-physical factor to explain chemistry, it emerges naturally in an explicable way from the underlying phenomena. Etc.

Same as before, Inocente: I think that if we enumerate those phenomena to which we apply the word “emergence” and classify them, we will be able to see their differences, and when doing it, we will need to introduce other terms to be more precise.

Certainly, when you promote a reaction between some chemical reagents we can observe some modes of interaction which we could not observe for the reagents. For example, under normal conditions, reagent A could have a density “RhoA” and reagent B a density “RhoB”. Under the same conditions, the product of the reaction, AnBm, would have a density “RhoAnBm”, which usually will be different from the density of the reagents. It could have a different color as well, a different flavor, etcetera, because the new particle arrangement interacts in a different way. Though the new interaction modes were not possible for the components (under similar conditions), the word “emergence” applied to them is a metaphor.

“The whole is greater than the sum of the parts” could mean that something new appears (not “emerges”) when the parts are put together, which did not exist in any of the parts. I think the word “appears” is better than “emerges” for our purpose, because, the new “something” cannot emerge from where it did not exist.

Let’s suppose that logic is no more than a determined set of brain structures, physically interacting as a system. In a first reflection we could say that, under well defined conditions, a given (name removed by moderator)ut to the system will always produce a determined output. So, you have had certain (name removed by moderator)uts which have produced the output of your belief on the emergence of “mind” from matter. Others have had different (name removed by moderator)uts and, consequently, have produced different outputs. Additional (name removed by moderator)uts have produced in you, as an output, the desire to produce in others your same belief. What should you do? It comes to my mind that you should reproduce your (name removed by moderator)uts (this time as outputs from you) and feed them into the others’ brains. If the conditions of the others are the same as in you, you should succeed (but you haven’t). Or perhaps you should, somehow, adjust the conditions in others’ brains so that they can produce similar outputs (compared to yours) with different (name removed by moderator)uts. If you don’t do any of this, obviously you will never succeed (and if you do, that would probably mean that you are wrong). Persisting in the discussion just insisting on your belief would be the manifestation of some kind of inertia to which your mind is subject due to its physicality.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

*"In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is a process whereby larger entities, patterns, and regularities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities that themselves do not exhibit such properties.

Emergence is central in theories of integrative levels and of complex systems. For instance, the phenomenon life as studied in biology is commonly perceived as an emergent property of interacting molecules as studied in chemistry, whose phenomena reflect interactions among elementary particles, modeled in particle physics, that at such higher mass—via substantial conglomeration—exhibit motion as modeled in gravitational physics. Neurobiological phenomena are often presumed to suffice as the underlying basis of psychological phenomena, whereby economic phenomena are in turn presumed to principally emerge.

In philosophy, emergence typically refers to emergentism. Almost all accounts of emergentism include a form of epistemic or ontological irreducibility to the lower levels." - en.wikipedia.org/?title=Emergence*

So it’s the idea that mind emerges from the lower levels, but cannot be reduced to them, in the same way that an elephant is made of quarks and electrons but cannot be explained by the properties of quarks and electrons. The explanation of the elephant entails a number of levels of complexity, and the mind would also emerge from simpler underlying systems. As such that’s basically the null hypothesis, since it doesn’t involve having to propose any non-physical phenomena which are inaccessible to inquiry.

If some guys, philosophers or scientists, use the term “emergence” as you do, do you feel that it adds authority to your belief?

Let’s suppose that those philosophers and scientists have brain structures which are identical to ours. What does it imply? Should all of us share the same beliefs as a physical consequence? And if our brain structures are different, so that for similar (name removed by moderator)uts we produce different outputs, is it legitimate to say that someone is right while others are wrong? Is there any legitimacy at all?

 

[Vico]

Linus the phantasm of Aquinas is not immaterial/spiritual and does not reside in the intellect/mind as you have clearly asserted below.

It is formed in the sensible interior senses after sensation, and holds particular and therefore material information about what was impressed upon the senses.

The alleged texts you adduce to demonstrate what you say (the complete opposite) say nothing like this however much one might twist their ambiguity to an immaterial purpose.

Seeing that you reject Maritain and hail Gilson … here is a quote from Gilson.

“Let us suppose that … a sensible body impressed its image in the common sense. And let us designate this image by the term phantasm. We still should not have the total and perfect cause of intellectual knowledge…but we should at least have the matter on which this cause works.
What indeed is a phantasm? it is the image of a particular thing…
Still more accurately, phantasms are images of particular things, impressed or preserved in corporeal organs. In brief we are here in the domain of the sensible both from the point of view of the subject and of the object.”

This is from Gilson’s Christian Philosophy of Aquinas, one of his most well known works which no doubt is on your bookshelf if you possess any of his works.
It is concerning you have not reported back from it after hopefully checking your own mentors given I called you out on this matter .

And here is a directly relevant quote (unlike your own) from Aquinas:
“…hence the phantasms, stored in the sensorium,…” SCG 55,2.

As I say, this stuff is Aquinas 101 and held commonly even by opposing Thomistic traditions, yet not by Linus .

Linus you seem to approach isolated and ambiguous philosophy texts as Protestants would the Bible - sola scriptura.
Catholics take into account the living traditions and respected commentators as well.
That wisdom suggests a sound education by living professors of Aquinas are important - Surely they (esp when unanimous) are not to be flicked off by the brush of a hand just because one overly trusts in one’s own inevitably idiosyncratic interpretation skills.

The complete comment.
*Contra Gentiles *I, 55, [4] (trans. Anton C. Pegis, Hanover House, 1955-57) *

Item. Vis cognoscitiva non cognoscit aliquid actu nisi adsit intentio: unde et phantasmata in organo conservata interdum non actu imaginamur, quia intentio non fertur ad ea; appetitus enim alias potentias in actum movet in agentibus per voluntatem. Multa igitur ad quae simul intentio non fertur, non simul intuemur. Quae autem oportet sub una intentione cadere, oportet simul esse intellecta: qui enim comparationem duorum considerat, intentionem ad utrumque dirigit et simul intuetur utrumque. *

Again, a knowing power does not know anything in act unless the intention be present. Thus, the phantasms preserved in the organ are not always actually imagined because the intention is not directed to them. For among voluntary agents the appetite moves the other powers to act. We do not understand together, therefore, many things to which the intention is not directed at the same time. But things that must fall under one intention must be understood together; for he who is considering a comparison between two things directs his intention to both and sees both together.

dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles.htm

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Linus the phantasm of Aquinas is not immaterial/spiritual and does not reside in the intellect/mind as you have clearly asserted below.

I never said it was immaterial/spiritual, but now that you bring it up I do. It certainly is not material, it is a mental image, it is not a drawing on a sheet of paper. And I did not say that it resides in the intellect/mind. I said, along with Thomas, that it is a power of the soul. .

It is formed in the sensible interior senses after sensation, and holds particular and therefore material information about what was impressed upon the senses.

" Information " is not material, therefore it is immaterial, or spiritual, since it is a product of a power of the soul. I agree that the information is a representation of what is particular or material.

The alleged texts you adduce to demonstrate what you say (the complete opposite) say nothing like this however much one might twist their ambiguity to an immaterial purpose.

The texts I quoted prove what I have said.

{QUOTE]Seeing that you reject Maritain and hail Gilson

That is incorrect. I never said I " reject " Maritain, I said I have not read him. Hardly the same thing. Nor did I " hail " Gilson, I said I had a couple of his works. However I do indeed like him, especially on his treatment on the act of being…

… here is a quote from Gilson.

“Let us suppose that … a sensible body impressed its image in the common sense. And let us designate this image by the term phantasm. We still should not have the total and perfect cause of intellectual knowledge…but we should at least have the matter on which this cause works.
What indeed is a phantasm? it is the image of a particular thing…
Still more accurately, phantasms are images of particular things, impressed or preserved in corporeal organs. In brief we are here in the domain of the sensible both from the point of view of the subject and of the object.”

I agree with this except where he says that they are " impressed or preserved in corporeal organs. " I say they cannot be reserved as memory in a sense organ. They can only be reserved as memory in the soul. By the way I have Elements of a Christian Philosophy and I could not find this quotation or anything like it. So if he said that in Christian Philosophhy, I’ll just take your word for it and say Gilson is wrong…

This is from Gilson’s Christian Philosophy of Aquinas, one of his most well known works which no doubt is on your bookshelf if you possess any of his works.
It is concerning you have not reported back from it after hopefully checking your own mentors given I called you out on this matter

See previous comment…

And here is a directly relevant quote (unlike your own) from Aquinas:
“…hence the phantasms, stored in the sensorium,…” SCG 55,2.

This reference seems to be incorrect. SCG is divided into four books in which we find three designated as chapter 55, each of which has a paragraph 2. However none of them contain anything related to phantasms? Please recheck your reference.

As I say, this stuff is Aquinas 101 and held commonly even by opposing Thomistic traditions, yet not by Linus

I’m afraid your assumption here is incorrect. Perhaps they are Aquinas 101 in your mind only, is that a possibility?.

Linus you seem to approach isolated and ambiguous philosophy texts as Protestants would the Bible - sola scriptura.

I admit Thomas is hard to read but to quote the S.T, which is Thomas’ most mature work, hardly puts such quotes in the category of " isolated and ambiguous philosophy texts."

Catholics take into account the living traditions and respected commentators as well.

Certainly. But since I do not agree with Thomas on everything, even your respected authorities don’t go that far, why should we agree with them on everything?

That wisdom suggests a sound education by living professors of Aquinas are important

Mine were living at one time . But the ones you have referenced are no longer " living. " Feser is alive and well though ,

• Surely they (esp when unanimous) are not to be flicked off by the brush of a hand just because one overly trusts in one’s own inevitably idiosyncratic interpretation skills.

I don’t think you will find many of them on unanimous agreement on everything. Since we are not dealing with Catholic dogmas here, we should all reserve the right to disagree, as long as we have good reasons, and I think mine are good enough. " Idiosyncratic? So if we disagree with you or one of your favorite philosophers we are idiosyncratic? Pfui!

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

And here is a directly relevant quote (unlike your own) from Aquinas:
“…hence the phantasms, stored in the sensorium,…” SCG 55,2.

Vico just provided the correct reference, thanks Vico.

" Contra Gentiles I, 55, [4] (trans. Anton C. Pegis, Hanover House, 1955-57)

Again, a knowing power does not know anything in act unless the intention be present. Thus, the phantasms preserved in the organ are not always actually imagined because the intention is not directed to them. For among voluntary agents the appetite moves the other powers to act. We do not understand together, therefore, many things to which the intention is not directed at the same time. But things that must fall under one intention must be understood together; for he who is considering a comparison between two things directs his intention to both and sees both together. "

dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles.htm

Well then, I disagree with Thomas here, I do not see how any kind of image can be preserved in a sense organ.

Linus2nd

 

[GEddie]

I imagine it depends on how we define the “sensorium.”

To my understanding, that is not an organ, but the world-image formed in our mind from the body’s senses.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I imagine it depends on how we define the “sensorium.”

To my understanding, that is not an organ, but the world-image formed in our mind from the body’s senses.

ICXC NIKA

U’n me is out laws that’s what we is. Thomas and Aristotle both wrong. Wh’d ah thunk it.

The material organ, the brain can’t do nut’n but receive electro-magnaetic impulses. If the great brains of this hr world want to think all those cells can manufacture immaterial images let’m go hd. I’m ah thinking only the soul cn do tht.

Linus2nd

 

[inocente]

I didn’t study Aquinas six years full time with three different Dominican professors just to stand idly by while Thomistic basics become obfuscated on a Catholic apologetics/philosophy forum.

As the Dominican mottoe goes “to contemplate and give to others the fruit of contemplation.”

Sincere Catholics who have not had the opportunity, money or discipline to receive a similar education ought to be able to reliably understand the undisputed basics of Aquinas from that living Thomistic tradition. If you are correct then all three of my professors are wrong as are the manuals we worked from.

“Phantasms” are considered “material”.
I was taught this means that they are internalised representations of sensed realities, belonging to the body’s sensitive faculties.

Sensible universals are immaterial (or spiritual) (ie ideas/concepts) in Aquinas and belong to the mind as you say. Modern commentators often loosely call these “intellectual images” which may be confusing but fairly obviously mean “concepts” if one is schooled in the basics of Thomistic theory of apprehension.

However a material phantasm (mental image or material image if you wish) is always associated together with such immaterial concepts in Aquinas because human “consciousness” is not capapble of grasping a purely spiritual concept without a mentally “seen” material representation of it imagined at the same time.

That makes perfect sense to me. It’s good to know that Thomas can be read without a lot of arm waving .

On your last para, that could mean that a spiritual/abstract concept which has no representation cannot actually exist. I’ve heard it said that the underlying function of all religions is to provide the representations, to provide a language and tradition by which we can talk of and share spiritual experiences.

 

[inocente]

Inocente, Blue:

I feel obligated to use the same jargon which is used in the articles that you have suggested me to read (though I don’t feel comfortable). Let’s suppose I need to store a document in a USB memory. When I do that, thousands of elements in the USB memory will suffer a change in their state. I understand that those elements are “arranged” in groups (bytes), and that those groups “have” an address. My document will be stored in thousands of those groups. As when I store the document in the memory and then I retrieve it using another computer, I understand that the multitude of addresses are also stored in the same USB memory. In the memory I could have many other documents stored, each with their associated addresses. I have the following questions:

Are the elements composing a byte physically associated to each other (either those that store part of a document or those that store an address)?

An element is called a bit (BInary digiT) and is a switch with two states, clear and set (alternatively 0 or 1, false or true, or whatever). A byte is eight bits. Usually the bits are held contiguously and accessed sequentially. A more expensive but potentially faster solution is to “stripe” the bits, for instance the first on one physical unit, the second on another, etc., so they can be accessed in parallel.

Are the bytes which together store a document physically associated to each other?

Usually, but again they may be striped, as when the bytes are spread across several hard drives to improve performance (the jargon is RAID 0).

Are those bytes which store the addresses of the bytes which store parts of a document arranged successively?

An address tells the processor where to fetch or store data, and as such the address has to be placed in a register within the processor, and so it is kept in that form for efficiency. On most processors, registers are 32 or 64 bits wide.

What distinguishes the bytes of the addresses for a document from the bytes of the addresses for another document?

Not sure what you mean. A document would probably be held in memory as a sequential array of bytes, with the address pointing to the first of those bytes. So, for instance, the software asks the operating system to tell it the length of the file containing the document. Then it gets the operating system to reserve a sufficiently long block of memory. The operating system replies with the start address of that block, and the software tells the operating system to read the document into the block.

(Remembering that to a computer the world is made of bits. A byte can hold a value between 0 and 255 (binary 00000000 to 11111111). The letter A might be coded as 65 and a blank space as 32, bright yellow as { 255, 255, 0 }, and so on).

 

[inocente]

Before reading your post, while I was doing my daily walk, I was looking at the surroundings and I thought, " in a certain way our surroundings are part of our memory", but then I hesitated, thinking, “however…, they change… They certainly change continuously, but nevertheless we are able to recognize them. They are part of our memory because at their presence other memories in us are triggered… But the surroundings are not only part of my memory; they are part of the memory of my neighbors as well; they are a common memory…”. I think it is only in that sense, or in a similar sense, that a scar is a memory of a wound and geological forms are memories of certain events. But if we are not there, there is no memory; actually, there is no past at all, no recording, only “present”.

I don’t understand your last sentence, it sounds mystical but I can’t grasp your meaning. On your walk, suppose there is a stump where yesterday there was your favorite tree. Also suppose that at another place there are flowers were yesterday there were only buds. I suggest you are more likely to consciously notice the stump than the flowers, because your memory records that flowers come and go at this time of year, whereas that stump signifies something remarkable.

Have you never driven the whole way home thinking of some work-related problem and then on arrival had no recall of any of the journey?

*Same as before, Inocente: I think that if we enumerate those phenomena to which we apply the word “emergence” and classify them, we will be able to see their differences, and when doing it, we will need to introduce other terms to be more precise.

Certainly, when you promote a reaction between some chemical reagents we can observe some modes of interaction which we could not observe for the reagents. For example, under normal conditions, reagent A could have a density “RhoA” and reagent B a density “RhoB”. Under the same conditions, the product of the reaction, AnBm, would have a density “RhoAnBm”, which usually will be different from the density of the reagents. It could have a different color as well, a different flavor, etcetera, because the new particle arrangement interacts in a different way. Though the new interaction modes were not possible for the components (under similar conditions), the word “emergence” applied to them is a metaphor.

“The whole is greater than the sum of the parts” could mean that something new appears (not “emerges”) when the parts are put together, which did not exist in any of the parts. I think the word “appears” is better than “emerges” for our purpose, because, the new “something” cannot emerge from where it did not exist.*

I believe I’m just using standard terminology. We couldn’t predict elephants if we only knew of elementary particles, but we can explain the existence of elephants and their behaviors from those underlying phenomena. So the elephant doesn’t just appear, it emerges out of the underlying phenomena. Whereas supposed immaterial spiritual substances do just appear, inexplicably.

Let’s suppose that logic is no more than a determined set of brain structures, physically interacting as a system. In a first reflection we could say that, under well defined conditions, a given (name removed by moderator)ut to the system will always produce a determined output. So, you have had certain (name removed by moderator)uts which have produced the output of your belief on the emergence of “mind” from matter. Others have had different (name removed by moderator)uts and, consequently, have produced different outputs. Additional (name removed by moderator)uts have produced in you, as an output, the desire to produce in others your same belief. What should you do? It comes to my mind that you should reproduce your (name removed by moderator)uts (this time as outputs from you) and feed them into the others’ brains. If the conditions of the others are the same as in you, you should succeed (but you haven’t). Or perhaps you should, somehow, adjust the conditions in others’ brains so that they can produce similar outputs (compared to yours) with different (name removed by moderator)uts. If you don’t do any of this, obviously you will never succeed (and if you do, that would probably mean that you are wrong). Persisting in the discussion just insisting on your belief would be the manifestation of some kind of inertia to which your mind is subject due to its physicality.

I don’t know that logic works like that in the brain. For instance, in a computer, X OR Y works like this: X and Y are bits (switches) and OR means they are wired in parallel. So if either bit is true (switch is on), a current flows, which represents true, and if both are false (both are off) no current flows, which represents false.

Not sure our brains are wired anything like that. Alternatively, we may learn the truth table for X OR Y by rote. Or some other way.

Being persuaded of something probably involves not just laying down new memories but bypassing or modifying old memories. We each have different histories, and therefore different memories and ways of seeing the world. If for no other reason than that, each of us is unique and I don’t think we can be reduced to an assembly line.

 

[inocente]

If some guys, philosophers or scientists, use the term “emergence” as you do, do you feel that it adds authority to your belief?

Let’s suppose that those philosophers and scientists have brain structures which are identical to ours. What does it imply? Should all of us share the same beliefs as a physical consequence? And if our brain structures are different, so that for similar (name removed by moderator)uts we produce different outputs, is it legitimate to say that someone is right while others are wrong? Is there any legitimacy at all?

I think there’s evidence that our brains are in part wired according to our individually unique histories.

Perhaps, philosophically, there is a logic to believing that the mind is forever inexplicable, and therefore that research is a complete waste of taxpayers’ money. But I suggest that anyone who has a child or partner suffering from major depression or another mental disorder, will abandon such a belief in a heartbeat and be grateful for the research. There’s your legitimacy.

 

[ynotzap]

U’n me is out laws that’s what we is. Thomas and Aristotle both wrong. Wh’d ah thunk it.

The material organ, the brain can’t do nut’n but receive electro-magnaetic impulses. If the great brains of this hr world want to think all those cells can manufacture immaterial images let’m go hd. I’m ah thinking only the soul cn do tht.

Linus2nd

Linus, your rich, can’t stop laughing, I don’t know how objective your are, but it makes no never minds. , I needed that!!! Thank you Jesus!!

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Linus, your rich, can’t stop laughing, I don’t know how objective your are, but it makes no never minds. , I needed that!!! Thank you Jesus!!

:tiphat: Danks.

Linus2nd

 

[ynotzap]

:tiphat: Danks.

Linus2nd

Linus, you take off from a good running start, and do some amazing maneuvers while in the air, but you landed on your feet!! Thanks for making my day! This is better than T.V.

 

[Aloysium]

I think there’s evidence that our brains are in part wired according to our individually unique histories. . .

Histories are not natural forces.
They require a capacity to conceptualize.
A history is a complex mental phenomenon.
What merely emerges from brain function cannot direct the brain.
Where there is trauma, new connections can be made between centres of the brain, but these tend to be gross and somewhat haphazard.
What happens in the brain when we learn something as we are doing now, is far more subtle.
The brain is wired as the person, a unity of body and spirit, mind and brain, participates in the world.
This experience we are now sharing is not explicable solely on the basis of the complexity of the brain.
There are more than material processes involved; it is the spirit that allows for understanding.

 

[inocente]

Histories are not natural forces.
They require a capacity to conceptualize.
A history is a complex mental phenomenon.
What merely emerges from brain function cannot direct the brain.
Where there is trauma, new connections can be made between centres of the brain, but these tend to be gross and somewhat haphazard.
What happens in the brain when we learn something as we are doing now, is far more subtle.
The brain is wired as the person, a unity of body and spirit, mind and brain, participates in the world.
This experience we are now sharing is not explicable solely on the basis of the complexity of the brain.
There are more than material processes involved; it is the spirit that allows for understanding.

I was referring to what’s called neuroplasticity, the changes in pathways which go on constantly throughout our lives due to everything that happens to us. Even if Chesley Sullenberger had learned the manual by heart, he wouldn’t have had nearly enough time to make all the necessary decisions to land on the Hudson without his experience giving him the wiring. Pilots, the military, emergency response teams, etc. all know that constant repetition in training works wonders. We get better at what our brain spends its time on. Knowing how we are put together is useful. And now it’s also entered the spiritual self-improvement industry:

*""If you step back from the details of these studies, one simple truth stands out: Your experiences matter. Not just for how they feel in the moment but for the lasting traces they leave in your brain. Your experiences of happiness, worry, love, and anxiety can make real changes in your neural networks. The structure-building processes of the nervous system are turbocharged by conscious experience, and especially for what’s in the foreground of your awareness. Your attention is like a combination spotlight and vacuum cleaner: It highlights what it lands on and then sucks it into your brain—for better or worse.

There’s a traditional saying that the mind takes its shape from what it rests upon. Based on what we’ve learned about experience-dependent neuroplasticity, a modern version would be that the brain takes its shape from what the mind rests upon. If you keep resting your mind upon self-criticism, worries, grumbling about others, hurts, and stress, then your brain will be shaped into greater reactivity, vulnerability to anxiety and depressed mood, a narrow focus on threats and losses, and inclinations toward anger, sadness, and guilt.

On the other hand, if you keep resting your mind on good events and conditions (someone was nice to you, there’s a roof over your head), pleasant feelings, the things you do get done, physical pleasures, and your good intentions and qualities, then over time your brain will take a different shape, one with strength and resilience hard-wired into it, as well as a realistically optimistic outlook, positive mood, and a sense of worth. Looking back over the past week or so, where has your mind been mainly resting?" - greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_grow_the_good_in_your_brain*

 

[Aloysium]

. . . neuroplasticity . . .

It demonstrates irrefutably to me the existence of the person, who is one body-spirit, one brain-mind, separate but relating to God and the rest of creation.

 

[inocente]

It demonstrates irrefutably to me the existence of the person, who is one body-spirit, one brain-mind, separate but relating to God and the rest of creation.

Agreed. Down with dualism. Better dead than Descartes. Monists of the world, unite. ¡Venceremos!