What exactly is the soul?

[ynotzap]

Sense impressions are stored in the brain. We understand by associating words,(sound which is a sense impression) with other mental concepts which are also associated with words (sound). The soul can abstract meaning from these sounds, and can be impeded from these abstraction from sound (words) if the brain looses it’s physical capabilities because of the union of body and soul (two separate substances united) the soul in this present mode of existence is extrinsically dependent upon the brain. When the soul departs the body at death, there is no need for memory, or dependence on the brain or any physical substance. As I understand it, the intellect will be infused with knowledge, and see immediately, no longer restricted by matter. (We will know, as we are known) When we have a lapse of memory, something impedes the brains’ function, if we had pure spiritual memory, why is it that we can not employ it when we have physical lapses of memory? If both memories co-exist.? Memory is only needed because of the physical limitation of seeing all at once, and restricted by the limitations of matter and change, time. Animals have sense memory, and are biologically programed, but do not rationalize with abstract concepts. Humans by learning these programs, instincts that were not taught to the animal but are natural to them can control their behavior. We humans can make individual choices as to our behavior, even contrary to our natural behavior which is to act rationally.

We have memory of spiritual things, but not spiritual memory (no need for spirits to have memory) A human’s past lies in the sense memory, which can be abstracted, memory that is stored in the brain. the future lies in the imagination made up of sense memories which can be abstracted, the creative imagination is fiction based on non-fiction. All that really exists for us is the present which is always changing, (potency and act)

 

[Vico]

Why are you quoting me?
And what exactly are you rebutting - I do not deny human nature has a soul, though I do suggest memory need not be posited as requiring a substantial power of it and so different essentially from the soul of animals in this respect.

It was a comment on your post “Christians hold it to be true”:

Creatures capable of free-will and reason are said to have a soul that does not corrupt at death. Death is the separation of body and soul.
Personally I have never been convinced, philosophically, that the latter must be true.
Christians hold it to be true, I believe, more by faith than by a fact of reasoning.

 

[Vico]

You are seriously trying to find philosophic truths in trivial detail of a parable?
Do you also believe there is physical water in Hades also?
And if so wouldn’t that mean physical bodies and brains too?
Which still gives a material explanation for memory in Hades doesn’t it…
But really, this is just a misuse of Scripture methinks.

Yes, but it is not trivia as you call it; the parable in scripture is an expression of the principle. My only belief regarding Hades is that souls awaited there. The Catechism has something on this however:
[633](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/633.htm’) Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” - *Sheol *in Hebrew or *Hades *in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God.480 Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”:481 "It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell."482 Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.483

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Yes, but it is not trivia as you call it; the parable in scripture is an expression of the principle. My only belief regarding Hades is that souls awaited there. The Catechism has something on this however:
[633](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/633.htm’) Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” - *Sheol *in Hebrew or *Hades *in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God.480 Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”:481 "It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell."482 Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.483

As I suggest, the CCC does not seem to see in this parable a teaching about the philosophic seat of memory .

 

[GEddie]

It was a comment on your post “Christians hold it to be true”:

Creatures capable of free-will and reason are said to have a soul that does not corrupt at death. Death is the separation of body and soul.
Personally I have never been convinced, philosophically, that the latter must be true.
Christians hold it to be true, I believe, more by faith than by a fact of reasoning.

I don’t understand you.

You’re not convinced that the soul does not corrupt?

Or that death involves its separation from body? (The “latter”)

It seems to me that if one accepts the first, the second would follow, as the incorruptible soul would not accompany its body into corruption.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Aloysium]

The international airport sees a typical picture of an elderly man pacing, eyes darting back and forth to tired, crumpled passengers themselves seeking within the mass of colours, hair and skin, a face familiar. A figure, balancing threatening baggage on an uncooperative trolley, comes through sliding doors - that shape and gait, familiar in their most recent form, transformed over preceding decades. The rush of emotions and strides towards one another. Big smiles and tears - it is all mind.

Waves of photons, light of varying intensities crisscross the hall; the air and metal furniture reverberates with the sounds of voices, shoes and luggage on marble floors. Muscles in the back, neck, legs, arms and orbits, primed in their tone by an excited midbrain, elevated levels of adrenaline, related to limbic and hypothalamic structures. The frontal cortex undergoes heightened levels of activity. Thalamic modulation a of sensory (name removed by moderator)ut passing to the occiput, where the vision occurs. . . I think the message is coming clear - it is all brain.

And, this myriad of biochemical activity, all this colour, these sounds, the smells, embraces, memories, the fidelity, the failures, heroism and cowardice, is ultimately about relationship - love.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

You think that Aquinas’s “sensible species” is not stored in brain matter and able to be “played back” later?

I don’t think anything is " stored " in the brain. I view the brain as the interface between the external world and the inner world of the soul.

Would you hold this on the basis of your aposteriori knowledge of lack of empirical research results to date?

Probably a little of both. I haven’t stopped to analyse. I have done no " empirical " research other than what is found on the net.

Or is it an apriori principle…which means you do not even need to investigate the scientific research in this area to know it is mistaken?

I have seen nothing yet which would make me change my mind.

The available information speaks of nurons, synapses and other things, which they suggest lay down chemical, material tracks which are retained in " appropriate " sense centers. These " tracks " do not, in my estimatiion, constitute memories, they are simply " tracks. " Memory, in my opinion, is a conscious event, I must consciously refer to some event or idea, I must be aware of it. Consciousness or self awarness is an intellectual act, as far as I am concerned, even though all that I am aware of passes through the brain. That means that it is an act of the soul.

If, on the other hand, I were unconscious, there would be nothing to remember, " tracks " might or might not be left in the sensory centers of the brain. But, whether or not they were, I would never be aware of them. So they could not possibly constitute memory, and they will never become a part of any conscious memory I might have in the furture. Therefore I say that memory is nothing but intellectual recall of something the mind has stored in its own spiritual substance, while in a state of consciousness. .

Linus2nd…

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Noooooo. You didn’t really take a 60-word introduction on a museum website as the sum total of scientific knowledge? No, no, you couldn’t possibly, I must be misunderstanding you.

If it was worthless, why did you give it to me. I just took it as a summary of available reseach. And I didn’t find it compelling.

I linked a short video on the form of memory called long-term potentiation a few posts back. Here’s the Google Scholar search on “long-term potentiation”: scholar.google.es/scholar?hl=en&q=long-term+potentiation&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=

Something for later, I would rather listen to the Royals game and watch Charlie Chan later .

Your view that “in some mysterious way we will never know” would not be accepted in philosophy circles, let alone in science.

I think you might be surprised. Life itself is a mystery, intelligence is a mystery and most of the philosophers I know accept that and may scientists as well.

That got a bit complicated. My case was more simple. By saying that “in some mysterious way we will never know” you have ruled an entire area off-limits to research, since you’ve already decided it would be a waste of time.

I don’t see how. If they want to try to catch lightening in a bottle, who am I to stop them?

When, last year, a friend told me about Sheila Nirenberg’s research, I found her MacArthur genius award video and couldn’t stop grinning for the rest of the day. Thoughts of which philosophical speculations might be proved wrong never entered my head. It was her faith that she could find an answer, her professionalism, her audacity to do something which I had thought was science fiction.

That’s fine, then why did you insist on " goading the bear? "

There is a joyfulness in allowing knowledge to come at you when you can accept it for what it is without feeling the need to continually defend ye olde philosophical dogmas.

If people were’nt constantly casting " nasty " aspersions there would be no reason to defend A/T. By the way there are no " dogmas " in philosophy, except in an equivical sense.

Linus2nd

 

[JuanFlorencio]

By all means provide me some quotes from the ancients if you think I have missed something in their writings clearly apposite to the simple observation I made below.

Certainly!

Here it is the last paragraph from “On memory and reminiscence”, by Aristotle:

“That the affection is corporeal, i.e. that recollection is a searching for an ‘image’ in a corporeal substrate, is proved by the fact that in some persons, when, despite the most strenuous application of thought, they have been unable to recollect, it (viz. the anamnesis = the effort at recollection) excites a feeling of discomfort, which, even though they abandon the effort at recollection, persists in them none the less; and especially in persons of melancholic temperament. For these are most powerfully moved by presentations. The reason why the effort of recollection is not under the control of their will is that, as those who throw a stone cannot stop it at their will when thrown, so he who tries to recollect and ‘hunts’ (after an idea) sets up a process in a material part, (that) in which resides the affection. Those who have moisture around that part which is the centre of sense-perception suffer most discomfort of this kind. For when once the moisture has been set in motion it is not easily brought to rest, until the idea which was sought for has again presented itself, and thus the movement has found a straight course. For a similar reason bursts of anger or fits of terror, when once they have excited such motions, are not at once allayed, even though the angry or terrified persons (by efforts of will) set up counter motions, but the passions continue to move them on, in the same direction as at first, in opposition to such counter motions. The affection resembles also that in the case of words, tunes, or sayings, whenever one of them has become inveterate on the lips. People give them up and resolve to avoid them; yet again they find themselves humming the forbidden air, or using the prohibited word. Those whose upper parts are abnormally large, as. is the case with dwarfs, have abnormally weak memory, as compared with their opposites, because of the great weight which they have resting upon the organ of perception, and because their mnemonic movements are, from the very first, not able to keep true to a course, but are dispersed, and because, in the effort at recollection, these movements do not easily find a direct onward path. Infants and very old persons have bad memories, owing to the amount of movement going on within them; for the latter are in process of rapid decay, the former in process of vigorous growth; and we may add that children, until considerably advanced in years, are dwarf-like in their bodily structure. Such then is our theory as regards memory and remembering their nature, and the particular organ of the soul by which animals remember; also as regards recollection, its formal definition, and the manner and causes-of its performance.”

This other is from the Phaedo (96 a/b):

*“I should very much like, said Cebes, to hear what you have to say.”

“Then I will tell you, said Socrates. When I was young, Cebes, I had a prodigious desire to know that department of philosophy which is called Natural Science; this appeared to me to have lofty aims, as being the science which has to do with the causes of things, and which teaches why a thing is, and is created and destroyed; and I was always agitating myself with the consideration of such questions as these: Is the growth of animals the result of some decay which the hot and cold principle contracts, as some have said? Is the blood the element with which we think, or the air, or the fire? or perhaps nothing of this sort-but the brain may be the originating power of the perceptions of hearing and sight and smell, and memory and opinion may come from them, and science may be based on memory and opinion when no longer in motion, but at rest. And then I went on to examine the decay of them, and then to the things of heaven and earth, and at last I concluded that I was wholly incapable of these inquiries, as I will satisfactorily prove to you. For I was fascinated by them to such a degree that my eyes grew blind to things that I had seemed to myself, and also to others, to know quite well; and I forgot what I had before thought to be self evident, that the growth of man is the result of eating and drinking; for when by the digestion of food flesh is added to flesh and bone to bone, and whenever there is an aggregation of congenial elements, the lesser bulk becomes larger and the small man greater. Was not that a reasonable notion?”*

Continues…

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Here you have a fragment from the Timaeus (73 b-d):

“The bones and flesh, and other similar parts of us, were made as follows. The first principle of all of them was the generation of the marrow. For the bonds of life which unite the soul with the body are made fast there, and they are the root and foundation of the human race. The marrow itself is created out of other materials : God took such of the primary triangles as were straight and smooth, and were adapted by their perfection to produce fire and water, and air and earth — these, I say, he separated from their kinds, and mingling them in due proportions with one another, made the marrow out of them to be a universal seed of the whole race of mankind ; and in this seed he then planted and enclosed the souls, and in the original distribution gave to the marrow as many and various forms as the different kinds of souls were hereafter to receive. That which, like a field, was to receive the divine seed, he made round every way, and called that portion of the marrow, brain, intending that, when an animal was perfected, the vessel containing this substance should be the head ; but that which was intended to contain the remaining and mortal part of the soul he distributed into figures at once around and elongated, and he called them all by the name marrow; and to these, as to anchors, fastening the bonds of the whole soul, he proceeded to fashion around them the entire framework of our body, constructing for the marrow, first of all a complete covering of bone.”

I hope this helps you.

So, now you answer: Which conclusions do you produce to explain mind without being speculative?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Even if all memory was about “immaterial operations” (whatever that means),
why would this necessarily require an equally immaterial substance to retain the abiding capability?

" Immaterial " as opposed to material, so, it means spiritual. Memory requires consciousness of various things, and consciousness is a spiritual act. And material substances cannot be contained in a spiritual act. What we may have is ideas of material substances. It is these which are retained in the memory of the soul.

Even the natural world shows evidence of immaterial causality that is merely a property of material substance.

Can you give an example, I cannot think of one.

We (well those of us who do not believe in the power of crystals) no longer so quickly posit the need for an ether, extraneous powers of the soul, inanimate souls (the celestial bodies) or angel as the ancients were want to do for lack of understanding of valid immaterial properties of matter.

Aren’t you making an invalid generalization here? If the ancients erred in a few things does not mean they erred in everything. I assume you accept the teaching of the Church that the soul is a spiritual substance and is the form of man. What does that mean to you?

Linus2nd

 

[JuanFlorencio]

I think belief in the immaterial mind will gradually die out over the next few generations, as more and more neuroscience enters the classroom, is shown on Discovery Channel, and so on. People will see explanations, and people like explanations. Whereas belief in an inexplicable immaterial mind will only get air-time on those late-night minority channels. Imho.

I am the kind of people who is very fond of explanations. But it seems to me that many of those who pretend they have the explanations, suddenly appear not to have them. Can you respond to my last observations?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Sense impressions are stored in the brain.

This has not been demonstrated. " Stored " is a conclusion that is not justified.

We understand by associating words,(sound which is a sense impression) with other mental concepts which are also associated with words (sound).

Granted, but this is not memory.

The soul can abstract meaning from these sounds, and can be impeded from these abstraction from sound (words) if the brain looses it’s physical capabilities because of the union of body and soul (two separate substances united) the soul in this present mode of existence is extrinsically dependent upon the brain.

Granted, but this does not mean that memory is a function of the brain.

When the soul departs the body at death, there is no need for memory,

And how do you know this?

or dependence on the brain or any physical substance.

Granted, but the body is still the proper " home " for the soul and it is what Aquinas calls an incomplete substance without being united to its own proper body. Separation at death is an unnatural state for the soul.

As I understand it, the intellect will be infused with knowledge, and see immediately, no longer restricted by matter. (We will know, as we are known)

How do you know this?

When we have a lapse of memory, something impedes the brains’ function, if we had pure spiritual memory, why is it that we can not employ it when we have physical lapses of memory?

Certainly the soul depends on the brain, that does not mean it is the seat of memories.

If both memories co-exist.? Memory is only needed because of the physical limitation of seeing all at once, and restricted by the limitations of matter and change, time.

O.K. but that doesn’t mean that memory resides in the brain.

Animals have sense memory, and are biologically programed, but do not rationalize with abstract concepts. Humans by learning these programs, instincts that were not taught to the animal but are natural to them can control their behavior. We humans can make individual choices as to our behavior, even contrary to our natural behavior which is to act rationally.

What has this got to do with the brain being the seat of memory?

Linus2nd

 

[GEddie]

I don’t think anything is " stored " in the brain. I view the brain as the interface between the external world and the inner world of the soul.

Probably a little of both. I haven’t stopped to analyse. I have done no " empirical " research other than what is found on the net.

I have seen nothing yet which would make me change my mind.

The available information speaks of nurons, synapses and other things, which they suggest lay down chemical, material tracks which are retained in " appropriate " sense centers. These " tracks " do not, in my estimatiion, constitute memories, they are simply " tracks. " Memory, in my opinion, is a conscious event, I must consciously refer to some event or idea, I must be aware of it. Consciousness or self awarness is an intellectual act, as far as I am concerned, even though all that I am aware of passes through the brain. That means that it is an act of the soul.

If, on the other hand, I were unconscious, there would be nothing to remember, " tracks " might or might not be left in the sensory centers of the brain. But, whether or not they were, I would never be aware of them. So they could not possibly constitute memory, and they will never become a part of any conscious memory I might have in the furture. Therefore I say that memory is nothing but intellectual recall of something the mind has stored in its own spiritual substance, while in a state of consciousness. .

Linus2nd…

Except that consciousness is itself a brain function, and is physically governed; anesthesia, neck-holds and head-knocks are all physical suppressors of consciousness.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[Vico]

As I suggest, the CCC does not seem to see in this parable a teaching about the philosophic seat of memory .

You asked me about Hades and that is what I posted on, not on memory.

 

[Vico]

I don’t understand you.

You’re not convinced that the soul does not corrupt?

Or that death involves its separation from body? (The “latter”)

It seems to me that if one accepts the first, the second would follow, as the incorruptible soul would not accompany its body into corruption.

ICXC NIKA

You assume a rebut, but it is not. I am posting on Christian belief.

 

[GEddie]

We understand by associating words,(sound which is a sense impression) with other mental concepts which are also associated with words (sound).

Granted, but this is not memory.

It may not be memory as such, but it is fully dependent upon the memory, as without learning and remembering the meanings of words, there can be no gaining of knowledge by the mind!

ICXC NIKA.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

It was a comment on your post “Christians hold it to be true”:

Creatures capable of free-will and reason are said to have a soul that does not corrupt at death. Death is the separation of body and soul.
Personally I have never been convinced, philosophically, that the latter must be true.
Christians hold it to be true, I believe, more by faith than by a fact of reasoning.

Thanks. What do you want me to comment on, you seem to be agreeing with me .

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Memory, in my opinion, is a conscious event, I must consciously refer to some event or idea, I must be aware of it.
Linus2nd…

Never heard that view before.
Even Aquinas was careful not to confuse operations (events) with powers (ie faculties that abide even when they are not in operation).

Also, “consciousness” is a rather modern concept that nobody has yet defined in such a manner to be agreed by many - let alone to be used to define the “storehouse” we call “memory.”

 

[GEddie]

Never heard that view before.
Even Aquinas was careful not to confuse operations (events) with powers (ie faculties that abide even when they are not in operation).

Also, “consciousness” is a rather modern concept that nobody has yet defined in such a manner to be agreed by many - let alone to be used to define the “storehouse” we call “memory.”

Is consciousness really that modern a concept? It would seem to be fundamental to understanding the mind, and requires no high powered head-imaging toys to perceive: even in Aquinian times, the difference in mental processing between wakeful, sleeping or comatose heads would have been obvious, ISTM.

ICXC NIKA