What exactly is the soul?

[Aloysium]

MIT researchers have shown for the first time ever, that memories are stored in specific brain cells, By triggering a small cluster of neurons, the researchers were able to force the subject to recall specific memory. By removing the neurons the subject would loose memory. They say that the same thing would happen to humans, as this experiment was performed on mice, with laser. Still looking.

Consider that in real life, it is the soul in its quest to relive a moment, who recalls and fires the particular sequence of neurons.
So is the memory truly stored in the brain; or is the brain the means by which the memory, known to the soul, is enacted in time and space.
Nothing new here; check out Wilder Penfield: youtube.com/watch?v=mSN86kphL68

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Dear Linus, I knew you would ask me for the source of the empirical data that demonstrates that sense impressions are stored in the brain. You have me at a disadvantage, because it happened some time ago. I am relying on my memory of the event I believe was in a paper. Even if I can not present the data, I will look for it. How do we learn the times tables as children? Constant repetition so our memories are deeply impressed, and how are they deeply impressed, by sound, and recall. Does the soul have to be deeply impressed by sound, the soul possess no senses. But can the soul understand, if no sense impression was presented to it. The mind would remain blank. And if we did not have access to many sense impressions, how would we differentiate one word from another if we did not physically store them in a physical memory bank? Intellectual memory depends on sense memory, and sense memory depends on recall of what is experienced by the senses, and that is in the physical brain.

I agree that all knowledge of external reality must pass through the sense organs of the brain. That does not mean they are stored there. I have three Philosophical Philosophy books in my library from the 40s and none of them mention the brain as a storage bank of remembered sensations and " images " of material objects.

Linus2nd

 

[GEddie]

I agree that all knowledge of external reality must pass through the sense organs of the brain. That does not mean they are stored there. I have three Philosophical Philosophy books in my library from the 40s and none of them mention the brain as a storage bank of remembered sensations and " images " of material objects.

Linus2nd

Well, the physical study of the live head hadn’t fairly started then, either.

Still, the fact that in Alzheimer’s disease the memories are lost does not necessitate that the mind is physical. Chokeholds disrupt the human mind, but no-one argues that the mind resides in the head’s blood vessels, although these are needed for its functioning.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Exiled_Child]

are soul and spirit the same? can anyone explain the relation to soul spirit and body? Doesn’t the brain animate our body? and give us emotions and thought?

In the Greek of the New Testament the word psyche was translated as “soul”, and the word pneuma was translated as “spirit.” In other words, soul meant mind and brain and thinking, whereas pneuma meant what we moderns refer to as the soul, and in other contexts it meant “breath.” This is very interesting, because the definitions have somehow changed over time. Nowadays when we say “soul” we are referring to what the ancient Greeks called “pneuma,” and when we say “spirit” we are most often speaking of a person’s animation or sense of life, and in other contexts we’re speaking of ghosts. So in the ancient world those two words had very definite, concrete definitions, but now they’re kind of vague and nebulous.

Also, I encourage you to research Christ’s use of the word “breath” in His prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, which He spoke in Aramaic.

The beautiful poetry of the phrase “he gave up the ghost” is also interesting to ponder, referring as it does to Christ’s dying breath.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Well, the physical study of the live head hadn’t fairly started then, either.

Correct

Still, the fact that in Alzheimer’s disease the memories are lost does not necessitate that the mind is physical. Chokeholds disrupt the human mind, but no-one argues that the mind resides in the head’s blood vessels, although these are needed for its functioning.

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

 

[GEddie]

In the Greek of the New Testament the word psyche was translated as “soul”, and the word pneuma was translated as “spirit.” In other words, soul meant mind and brain and thinking, whereas pneuma meant what we moderns refer to as the soul, and in other contexts it meant “breath.” This is very interesting, because the definitions have somehow changed over time. Nowadays when we say “soul” we are referring to what the ancient Greeks called “pneuma,” and when we say “spirit” we are most often speaking of a person’s animation or sense of life, and in other contexts we’re speaking of ghosts. So in the ancient world those two words had very definite, concrete definitions, but now they’re kind of vague and nebulous.

Also, I encourage you to research Christ’s use of the word “breath” in His prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, which He spoke in Aramaic.

The beautiful poetry of the phrase “he gave up the ghost” is also interesting to ponder, referring as it does to Christ’s dying breath.

For that matter, most of the Biblical words for soul or spirit, nephesh and neshamah in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek, have roots meaning breath.

Physically this makes sense, as where there is breath in a body, we know that there is soul. And spiritually, the soul is often understood as s breathing from God.

ICXC NIKA

 

[ynotzap]

I agree that all knowledge of external reality must pass through the sense organs of the brain. That does not mean they are stored there. I have three Philosophical Philosophy books in my library from the 40s and none of them mention the brain as a storage bank of remembered sensations and " images " of material objects.

Linus2nd

What remains in the brain are sensed realities, the data of sensory impression, it is the intellect that abstracts the spiritual concepts. Why would the intellect need a separate storage place (power) when it can already take advantage of the stored physical data in the brain, and abstract spiritual realities as concepts, thoughts, and by deeper abstraction deal with mathematical, and metaphysical abstractions from them?. All thought in humans has a physical reality united to it, there is no separation in our present mode of existence. So to have sense memory the mind can get to the underlying reality of objective spiritual reality

 

[Linusthe2nd]

What remains in the brain are sensed realities, the data of sensory impression,

But I do not agree that these impressions remain in the brain.

it is the intellect that abstracts the spiritual concepts. Why would the intellect need a separate storage place (power) when it can already take advantage of the stored physical data in the brain,

You keep referring to the storage place in the brain, that is an unproven assumption. Why can’t the soul be the storage area?.

and abstract spiritual realities as concepts, thoughts, and by deeper abstraction deal with mathematical, and metaphysical abstractions from them?. All thought in humans has a physical reality united to it, there is no separation in our present mode of existence. So to have sense memory the mind can get to the underlying reality of objective spiritual reality

You can keep repeating it, that will not convince me.

Linus2nd

 

[JuanFlorencio]

You’ll have to point me at the post.

But I’ll say now that those who propose supernatural/immaterial components always end up saying they’re forever inexplicable anyway, as we’ve seen on this thread.

The science of the mind is now easily well-enough developed that the weight of evidence, for all who have eyes to see, obviates any need for immaterial components. That’s my only purpose on this thread. Beyond that I see no point in speculative “explanations” just for the sake of it. It would be more meaningful to debate the implications of research results, but that would depend on acknowledging facts, which seems to be an alien country for some .

Yes, I agree with you that it would be better to debate the implications of research results. I like to study cognitive psychology and neuroscience, precisely to know as many facts as possible in my limited time. I have read books of authors like Ramachandran, Antonio Damasio, Gary Lynch, Joseph LeDoux, Daniel Schacter, Mark Solms, John Harrison, Ronald Laing, Karen Kaplan, Michael Gazzaniga, Paul Cazayus, D. W. Hamlyn, Barbara Rolls, Michael Eysenck, Alain Lieury, Robert Tocquet, Alexander Luria, Rainer Guski, Richard Mayer… I am aware that I know just a tiny part of what is available now, and even though the authors of the books that I have read are researchers themselves, I know that I am missing fundamental discussions about their discoveries. Nevertheless, I really would like to discuss with you the implications that the results of scientific research might have concerning our common conceptions of mind, soul and others.

You have said that “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”. One of your basis to say this must be the research of Dr. Sheila Nirenberg; but can you see how your conclusion is speculative? If the brain basically creates “the movie of the world which we see”, what is the brain?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

See S.T., part 2, ques 75 - 88. For example in 76, art 1, " On the other hand, the book on the Church Dogmas reads: …we say that one and the same soul in man gives life to the body by its presence and arranges its lfe by is reasoning power. " Or again, " We assert, then, that the soul in man is one in number, at once sensory, intellectual and nutritive. "

I use " consciousness " in the sense of being aware of one’s own activities and thought, being aware of what one is doing. It was so used throughout the 20th century, at least, in Scholastic philosophial psychology texts. I never said that " consciousness " was a " storehouse we call memory. " I said that memory is an activity we become aware of when we are conscious, indicating that it is located in the soul and not the brain. For example when I exclaim, " Oh, I remember him! " This is a conscious event in which I recall someone to memory.

Linus2nd

I am talking about the faculty of memory that stores memories even when we are not currently aware of them. I see no good argument to prove this capability cannot arise from the “material soul” as in animals.

Sure we can search this faculty at will (or its content may arise by unconsciously controlled associations from consciousness). That is not the topic,

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Philosophy is not the faith; however, the existence of a spiritual human soul, containing most of the human mind, is a part of the faith.

ICXC NIKA.

Sorry, I don’t know any longer what it is you are trying to discuss, agree with or object to here.

This is a philosophy forum and “soul” is a philosophic term understood by the Church in the tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas.
It is here being asserted that it is not clear at all that their alleged qualities of the human soul can be tightly proven from the evidence of nature. Alternative hypotheses also seem arguable, though likewise these arguments are not tight either, yet far more cogent now than in their time.

Faith seems unable to infallibly certify the natural philosophy truths of Aristotle or Aquinas any more or less than it can the heliocentrism of Copernicus. It of course may or may not do so on a well-founded prudential basis.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Firstly, I do not deny that memory can in any way be material. As an example, Scholastics recognize a dual nature and St. Thomas postulated that memory may have traces in the organism but also that there must be some kind of idea residue in the soul.

Secondly, in post #70 I wrote on the belief in memory after death:

Thirdly, you ask questions in your reply, related to Hades: is there water, physical body, and physical brain there? and I answered that “My only belief regarding Hades is that souls awaited there” and gave the CCC for that. Yet, in the parable of the rich man that I quoted from Luke, Dives is in Gehenna whereas Lazarus in “the Bosom of Abraham”, which in Jewish belief, are of Sheol/Hades but different compartments separated by a chasm.

Vico, if your logic in abusing Scripture in this way was correct then most here would accept there is water and physical bodies in Hades just as you accept that there are memories.

In which case your Parable proves nothing, for we are still dealing with material “brain” after death (and not spiritual) anyways (which of course demonstrates this is a parable because having a body after death doesn’t make theological sense).

But of course the use of a Parable to find a doctrine on memory when the teaching essence of the parable has nothing to do with a doctrine on memory is almost too foolish to comment on.

As is proven by the fact that other parts of Scripture are easily found that say the opposite to what you are trying to excavate here re memory.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

You wrote: regarding " Death is the separation of body and soul." that “Christians hold it to be true, I believe, more by faith than by a fact of reasoning.”

I posted on the faith, not about a philosophical belief, so I would not call that agreement. My purpose was to emphasize the Christian belief.

Lets give it away, you have misunderstood. I was talking of the immortality of the soul allegedly due to the allegedly immaterial operations of some of its faculties.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

See S.T., part 2, ques 75 - 88. For example in 76, art 1, " On the other hand, the book on the Church Dogmas reads: …we say that one and the same soul in man gives life to the body by its presence and arranges its lfe by is reasoning power. " Or again, " We assert, then, that the soul in man is one in number, at once sensory, intellectual and nutritive. "

I merely observe this is not convincingly provable by reason.
Which means alternative explanations of memory that give more credit to “brain” are not out of order.

Whether the Church can (or has) pronounced infallibly (as opposed to prudentially) on this teaching of natural philosophy is another interesting matter. The operation of nature is not usually regarded as a matter of faith or morals.

 

[Richca]

But the question of the moment is whether or not the brain is the store house of memory. I say no.

Linus2nd

I think I partly addressed this in the post I made. There is an intellectual memory and a sensible memory. The intelligible species stored in the intellectual memory are in the intellect and the intellect is not the brain so the brain is definitely not the store house of intellectual knowledge nor is the brain even capable of intellectual knowledge. The brain is probably a corporeal organ of the interior sensitive powers of the soul such as the common sense, imagination, estimative, and memorative powers. These four interior sensitive powers Aquinas enumerates in the Summa Theologica. The sensory powers of the soul are all about particulars as opposed to the intellect which abstracts the universal from the particular. The sensory powers of the soul operate or function through a bodily organ and as I said the brain is probably a good candidate for some if not all of the four interior sensitive powers.

As to the question then of sensible memory and whether, for example, the sensible images or forms received through the senses and which are preserved in the imagination are preserved in the power or the organ of the power is a good question. Maybe they are preserved in both the power and the organ working in unison. We would not be able to recall a sensible image in the imagination without the power or the organ of the power. We need both the power and the organ to recall the image. So, whether the stored image is in the power alone or the organ alone or possibly in both the power and the organ, I have not thought about it much. I think what we can say with certainty according to Aristotlelian/Thomistic philosophy, the recall of an image or form in the imagination, for example, is a composite operation of the power and the organ and if we extend this, of the animal which is a composite of soul and body.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Good. An immaterial act would be any act the soul was engaged in: thinking, willing, remembering, or in any of its acts by which it governs and gives life to the body

Well that is a complete non-sequitor aimed at the choir perhaps rather than my point .

Quote: BH
I would not accept that the circular motion of the celestial spheres is an “immaterial act” (as the ancients and even Aquinas seemed to think).

They did not view this motion as immaterial acts as far as I am aware.

Oh boy, this is heavy going…Linus this means you fail to understand Aristotle at a very basic level of his Nat Phil. This is precisely why he believed the Celestial Spheres had some sort of “soul”.
Immaterial acts, according to both Aristotle and Aquinas,require an abiding immaterial substance! Even the “more modern” Aquinas found it hard to escape this conclusion because he is of the same basic frame of mind on such a basic “scientific” assumption of the Ancients.
You opine Aquinas taught it was angels. This is not correct. Aquinas is very confused on this point. He is “scientific” enough to know that Aristotle’s conclusion doesn’t sit well but he really has no tight philosophic basis for denying Aristotle’s conclusion. He offers a few throwaway comments about perhaps angels…but never really solves the difficulty.
He cannot, because it would weaken his philosophy of Man and Intellect which relies on the exact same principle.

The motion was that of material bodies, but caused by immaterial agents.
What is the point you are making?

Neither is it clear that Aquinas regarded Celestial spheres as “material bodies”.
He in fact comes up with an ingenius theory which blurs the line between material and immaterial that is, in my view, ultimately contradictory and which stretches Aristotle’s hylomorphism to breaking point. He posits the existence of a material substance whose form is so perfect in its simplicity it has no unexhausted potentiality and so is eternal and cannot be corrupted (in other words a mineral with a soul and much like an angel in effect!). What ingenious nonsense!

If gravity can be detected or measured it is material, not immaterial.

What bunkem! You contradict both Aristotle and modern science.

Soul, for Aristotle and even Aquinas, is posited precisely to mediate between the material and immaterial worlds. It explains the inexplicable causality observed in matter. Which is why Aristotle (and Aquinas to his own consternation) posited mineral souls in the Celestial Spheres which seemed to cause their own motion.

You contradict modern science by confusing force with energy.
Energy could be fairly said to be interconvertible with matter - but not the fundamental forces. Even science has not yet “explained” action-at-a-distance. Sure, we can predict its behaviour and interactions with matter…but what it “is” nobody has a clue. Its just a given, but it certainly cannot be said to be “matter”.

Its operation is definitely immaterial and therefore, to Aristotle and even Aquinas, just as much belonging to the “spiritual” as the Celestial bodies and souls animal or human.

This was the “science” of the Ancients and it was flawed and Aquinas did not completely escape it.

I don’t think we can judge the ancients on their view of gravity. Their science wasn’t very advanced, so it would be unfair to judge their views.

Why not? It belongs to exactly the same realm of nat phil as does their science of souls.
This is the very point I am making. They mistakenly conflated both disciplines together, treating them in the same “philosophic boat”.

Only with Aquinas (partially) and the Enlightenment have we untangled these conflated disciplines of nat phil into different disciplines (eg Physics and MetaPhysics).

Yet I see in Aquinas (and you his ever loyal scribe) the same ancient entanglement still.
That is why you do not really have a feel for modern science Linus.
You understand modern science enough to see the inadequacies of the Ancients in Physics…but do not see that such a criticism must necessarily be applied to higher areas of their Nat Phil (eg phil of Man) - for to them they were joined much as one discipline unlike today.

Even in Aquinas they are entangled a little still.
Which is basically what our discussion re brain versus mind is really all about.

 

[Vico]

Vico, if your logic in abusing Scripture in this way was correct then most here would accept there is water and physical bodies in Hades just as you accept that there are memories.

In which case your Parable proves nothing, for we are still dealing with material “brain” after death (and not spiritual) anyways (which of course demonstrates this is a parable because having a body after death doesn’t make theological sense).

But of course the use of a Parable to find a doctrine on memory when the teaching essence of the parable has nothing to do with a doctrine on memory is almost too foolish to comment on.

As is proven by the fact that other parts of Scripture are easily found that say the opposite to what you are trying to excavate here re memory.

Blue Horizon;:

Vico;:

*You wrote: regarding " Death is the separation of body and soul." that “Christians hold it to be true, I believe, more by faith than by a fact of reasoning.”

I posted on the faith, not about a philosophical belief, so I would not call that agreement. My purpose was to emphasize the Christian belief.*

Lets give it away, you have misunderstood. I was talking of the immortality of the soul allegedly due to the allegedly immaterial operations of some of its faculties.

The Bible is a testimony, and a parable is an analogy. That there is memory is essential to the parable for otherwise Dives would not recall Lazarus at all.

There are two possible cases and we do not know which the parable refers to, since a parable is an analogy, and also the belief of the Jews at that time is not necessarily the same as the Christian belief today:1. before resurrection when the soul and body are separated
2. after resurrection when the soul and body are reunited
Memory may have traces in the organism and there must be some kind of idea residue in the soul, is what the Scolastics thought. The reasoning is that:Since the ideas are but acts of intelligence, and not intelligent substances — transient activities of the soul itself — and not complete beings on which the mind turns its gaze, they can only live on, as dynamic traces in the passive intellect, awaiting the time when they will exert their influence on some future process of thought — apparently rising from the depths of consciousness, in the act of memory.

The function of memory is further significant as evidence for the substantial nature of the soul. Since ideas are transient processes, there must be a permanent something in the mind to account for their retention and reappearance; and since they are recognized as ideas that were formerly in consciousness there must be something that identifies them and that consequently persists during their absence from consciousness (see SOUL). The attempt to explain retention by means of psychical dispositions distinct from cerebral traces, is obviously futile unless it postulates a substance of mind in which such dispositions are preserved.

Moore, T. (1911). Memory. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
newadvent.org/cathen/10174a.htm

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Linus2nd

CONTINUED…

Well, were they wrong? And if wrong on this point, does that mean they were wrong on everything? That doesn’t seem to follow. Even our modern scientists have been wrong about many things, yet we don’t accuse them of being wrong about everything.

No, they weren’t wrong about everything. I have been at pains to say the opposite.
Yet you speak to me (or is it the choir again) as if I said they are wrong in all .
But they were consistently confused a little on the line between the material and the immaterial in what we now differentiate as Physics and Phil of Man - linked by a common metaphysical set of principles. If they were flawed in the lower they will be flawed in the higher because the metaphysical principles used in both are the same.

I know the difference quite well. I am saying, there is no memory, if I am not conscious of having the memory. If I cannot recall a man’s name, I have no memory of it. Wouldn’t that be correct?

No this is incorrect. The very reason Aquinas and Aristotle posit abiding “faculties” is to explain how “operations” are discontinuous. If we were constantly aware of all our memories (an ongoing operation) we would not need to posit the existence of a “faculty” of memory. But as you say we do not. Therefore we must posit the existence of a faculty that holds all our memories when we are not aware of them or asleep. Now and then we “look them up” as in a filing cabinet. Or sometimes they just jump into awareness.

Where we differ is in hypotheses as to the nature of this faculty. The ancients held it was spiritual (hence a direct faculty of the human soul). Many today are suggesting that the brain is certainly complex enough to be able to assume this function - which suggests it is more material in operation than the ancients could understand. Hence it would be like the animals, more a faculty of the lower “material soul” (which the human soul obviously possesses in some fashion).

In a Philosophy Forum I regard such assertions as irrelevant for “proving” the natural philosophy topic under discussion. However as a Catholic thinker I do see a two-way “guiding” relationship between philosophy and Church Teaching. The likely conclusions of good philosophy can help critique what exactly Church Teaching may or may not be saying (which lay people often exaggerate or hold dogmatically when such may not be the case). Well understood Church Teaching can guide thinkers to investigate less likely philosophical understandings that eventually may turn out to be supported by nature in the long term.

The Church’s teaching on man is in the CCC. It says nothing specifically about memory.

Is that your way of agreeing .

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I agree with you that there is an intellectual, spiritual, immaterial memory. This is the teaching of Aquinas and he follows Aristotle here as well as St Augustine. This is quite reasonable. It is self-evident that we can retain intellectual knowledge, the intelligible species of things, without having to re-learn or rediscover it. Once a person learns a science, for example, he/she does not have to relearn it to recall it. The knowledge is already possessed and it is called having the habit of knowledge. Similarily, once a person knows the nature or essence of a dog (the universal idea), for example, they can recall this knowledge without actually having to open their eyes and physically look at a dog. However, in this life, the intellect does not do this without turning to the phantasm which involves the sensible memory. As human beings are a soul or spirit and body composite, our natural way of knowing is through the senses and the phantasms. The intellectual memory is by its nature the treasury or storehouse of intelligible species and universal ideas. Similarly, an angel whose intellect is full of intelligible species can consider either this or that intelligible species which are already in his intellect. So, Aquinas says that memory can be allowed in the angels but not sensible memory. As far as whether the intellectual memory is a distinct power from the intellect, Aquinas says no for there are only two difference of powers in the intellect, namely, the active and the passive. If I’m understanding him correctly, the intelligible species are retained in the passive intellect.

Why cannot a material system hold universals and identify particular sensible instances of them. Even my camera does that .

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I agree that all knowledge of external reality must pass through the sense organs of the brain. That does not mean they are stored there. I have three Philosophical Philosophy books in my library from the 40s and none of them mention the brain as a storage bank of remembered sensations and " images " of material objects.

Linus2nd

Linus have you been hiding under a rock these last 50 yrs .
Few in the scientific community (let alone the street) denies that the brain stores memories anymore! I am willing to be surprised though as I have never “peer reviewed” the issue.

But like geo-centrism, if people cannot let go of cherished assumptions there will always be “logical” reasons to keep those beliefs I suppose.

It comes back to my questions to you re whether or not you disbelieve on aposteriori or apriori grounds.

I know from experience you really disagree on apriori grounds (as you always do because you trust the Ancients more than Empiricism).

A non-falsifiable philosophy is very consoling, but also very lonely .