I agree that intelligence does not equal goodness, nor stupidity evil. In fact, I don’t believe that good or evil exist as individual entities, but only as concepts that help us understand the world around us.
The Spirit lives on… how? In a case of severe brain injury, severe enough to alter personality, memory, emotion, and behavior, is the Spirit detached from this somehow, like Satan’s severed arm?
Essential character. This implies a personality or personhood that is necessarily immutable. I have seen many, many cases of brain disease and injury that result in a “whole new character”, an unrecognizable person. The same occurs, as David mentioned, when a schizophrenic person takes antipsychotic medication. If the essential character remains unchanged, where does it go?
If a person has a head injury at age 20 which drastically alters his personality, emotions, actions, and morality, then he lives another 80 years, which aspect is his real spirit? Are we stuck with the spirit with which we are born? If yes, then that’s good news for those who wind up in major car accidents. It’s bad news for those of us who seek to better ourselves, to improve our character.
In “Breakfast of Champions” Kurt Vonnegut writes that it is tempting for him to attribute human behavior to nothing more than the chemicals in their bodies. I didn’t find this idea especially interesting when I first read the book, but have come to believe that it is pretty close to the truth. A few months after I turned 18 my doctors discovered a large tumor on my pituitary gland. The tumor had been disrupting my natural hormone production for at least a year and a half. Treatment of the tumor damaged my pituitary gland, so since then I have been on medication to regulate my hormone levels. I am thus in a better position than most to see the effect that hormones have on people. For instance, when my adrenaline levels drop down too low I become virtually emotionless. In that state I have found that I sometimes say some pretty nasty things without feeling either anger or remorse. My mother, who studies human development, told me of a recent study of violent male adolescents which showed that many had lower than usual adrenaline levels. Since adrenaline is a stress hormone, these boys did not feel stress as much as most people – including the stress of being punished or having their parents or others angry at them. So when these boys cold-bloodedly commit violent acts is it a case of evil souls, or irregular hormone levels? Either answer is an oversimplification, but I think the latter is closer to the truth. I know of no behavior-influencing property commonly assigned to the “soul” or “heart” which can not be more logically assigned to the brain or glands.
This isn’t about the soul vs. spirit; this is about JC vs. IPU. I have the answer (I posted on the other site but silly me, the post was moved). Okay follow me on this…
Jesus is King. Kings reign. “Reign” sounds like “rein”, therefore Jesus reins and saddles IPU. No contest. Jesus, you da man!
Okay, I’m sorry if this is too off track but I thought it was pretty clever at least.
CelticFire: I have no idea what you’re talking about regarding your post being moved, but I see that you posted in the JC vs. IPU thread before posting to this thread. Since your post was topical there, but not here, I don’t understand why you posted it here as well.
Perhaps the best approach to the mind/body dualism that has been brought up (by questioning the “spiritual” effects of a neurological or other psychotropic injury) is that maybe there is none. I.e., the individual who is currently posting as “Polycarp” is not “an immortal soul currently occupying a 51-year-old male body” or “a human being composed of a body – there ain’t no such thing as a soul” or any of the other potential analytic breakdowns, but a person composed of body, soul, and spirit. The hypothetical soul, undetectable by physical means, is influenced by the body, and vice versa. There was a comment some months ago, relative to sexual sin on one of the innumerable threads about “Is X sinful?” or words to that effect, that suggested that all sin is mental. The general thesis was that being horny was not sinful, it was simply one’s God-given sexuality in operation. To decide to cheat on one’s wife (which I think was the example) was a mental decision; the physical act was simply carrying it out with the body.
The objective, non-religious evidence for survival after death is present but not conclusive to anyone with a degree of skepticism. David will, I am sure, give you a reference to Snopes and/or the Skeptic’s Dictionary that does a fair to middling job of demolishing it.
Um, David. Occam’s razor leads to solipsism – the only thing I really need to assume is that I am hallucinating all this life, including your posts. (And we’ve both seen some posts that look like somebody in a pyschotic state invented them!:D) I will allow that, at our current level of knowledge, assuming a soul or even a mind as something in some way distinct from the brain, though closely connected to it, is an unnecessary assumption for explaining purely physical/biological or even social events. (Get into the realm of religious or occult phenomena, and you may need the assumption, but you may also need to fold your disbelief five times and pack it away in your hip pocket until needed.)
The point I was making as regards it is that it is not disproven by being unnecessary in the universe of discourse you are working with. And, depending on the level of credence you give “religious” data, it may become a necessary assumption. We have long since agreed to disagree on your egregious assumption that a rapidfire generation of contrary-to-sense urban legends is more probable than the historic accuracy of what are alleged to be eyewitness reports, as regards one supposed “intervention of the supernatural into everyday life” about 1970 years ago.
My basic suggestion here is that whatever the truth about “soul” and “spirit” may be, it produces one unitary entity called a human being when taken in company with the wetware of which it is supposedly the software. Analysis of one of them in isolation is probably going to lead nowhere.
And I’d want to make one final very clear distinction between the metaphysics implicit in the question raised in the OP and the apparent ethical question raised in the head-injury and related posts. They are presumably related questions, but they are by no means the same question.
Of course not. We can’t disprove a soul or a spirit (at least one that never interacts with testable reality) any more than we can disprove God or Heaven or Hell or the IPU. But the fact is that it is unnecessary to explain what we know. And to those of us who would rather work with objective, testable evidence than faith-based beliefs, well, you know on which side of the question we’ll come down.
Can you explain that further? By “decision” do you mean the selection of a specific course of acyion, or do you mean a selection of a general set of actions? When you say “before”, just when do you mean? Immediately before? Earlier that day? When he first got married?
From the context, this seems like a rhetorical question, but I can’t see what rhetorical point is being made.
It seems top me that in your analogy, the motor “decision” is a necessary part of the prior decision. Since it is a necessary part, the decision to eat a particular thing includes the decision to fix that food. I don’t see how you can separate that into two separate decisions.
Polycarp:
When you say “I”, what part of yourself do you mean? Has yourt brain perceived a soul? Or has your soul perceived itself? You say that you perceive it as “not nnecessarily… tied to my body”. Do you conclude from your belief that it is not necessarily tied to your body that it definnitely isn’t?
Why? I can detect, with my senses, a changing magnetic field.
No it doesn’t.
No.
Satan:
It is very dichotomy that convinced me of the uselessness of the soul hypothesis. We have two possibilities:
The soul is not connected to the physical state of the body. If the physical body is damaged, the soul will stay the same. SInce our decisions corrspond to our physical state, the soul cannot be the cause to our decisions (or at least, not the sole cause).
The soul follows the state of the physical body. But this means that there is no real difference between the soul and the body, and anything that can be explained by the soul can also be explained by the body.
A couple more observations with respect to your post:
Yet, either belief is equally subjective.
I can respect your point of view. I am thoroughly unconvinced that the Invisible Pink Unicorn exists, but if she had visited me, I would likely think differently.
It is a mistake to constrict existence as applying to that which can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched. We can measure many things we cannot see. We can feel many things we cannot touch. We can comprehend many things we cannot express. When a measure of mercy is given to us, when we are touched by a beautiful sentiment, when we feel the love of our mother, we know these things exist.
Holly
Oh, I agree with you. I see the mind as the essence of the brain, much in the same way that I see the Spirit as the essence of a person.
I once knew a fortune-teller whose daughter suffered from some sort of mental illness. I don’t know what it was, but I recall fits of violence born variously of fear, frustration, anger, and confusion. The stocky little girl would lash out, beating on people, or on herself, or on some other nearby amalgum of atoms.
You might think I’m crazy when I speak about how beautiful her Spirit was in moments when her synaptic discharges were quiet. Thus, her fits were not expressions of her Spirit, but of her brain.
Yikes! Though what is Good is a matter of One Singular opinion, I will hear you out.
Do you happen to recall whether there was damage in the limbic system, and if so where?
Well, he was a different animal. I don’t mean that disparagingly, but merely to draw a dinstinction, namely, that he was, in fact, the same person. His brain just stopped working right.
But I’ve been trying to explain that you cannot determine whether an action is moral from just the action alone, outside a moral context. There is a world of difference between screaming an obscenity because your injured brain has discharged, and screaming an obscenity when your brain is working fine.
I’m not sure how you define “mind”, but in my opinion, a body cannot be whole when the mind is sick, just as a car cannot be in mint condition when the engine knocks and pings.
SuaSponte
I respect your view, and understand how you derive it.
But as I see it, it is motive, and not behavior, that is either moral or immoral. Behavior is amoral, a mere enactment of morality. Behavior is the manipulation of atoms. That’s why the exact same praxis can be moral in one context, but immoral in another.
In most contexts, I use “soul” as a synonym for “heart”. As for the brain, it is made of atoms, and atoms are amoral. I would have challenged “da nuns” to have explained Gage, Holly’s friend, and the fortune-teller’s daughter.
Satan
Ramachandran discovered, in a series of simple experiments, that the brain simply relocates sensation.
Behind the central sulcus, Wilder Penfield discovered the “homunculus” (little man). It’s sort of upside-down, with its feet laid out on the medial surface of the parietal lobe (the very top of your brain), and the face draping down the occipital lobe (the very back of your brain). Its genitals are cradled between its feet.
In at least one experiment he conducted, Ramachandran discovered when he touched an amputated man’s face with a Q-tip at the certain spots, the man could feel it on his “hand”. Connecting the dots according to the man’s sense of touch when he was finished poking on the man’s face, Ramachandran was shocked to find the outline of a hand. His favored hypothesis is that the man’s brain simply relocated its hand sensations to its face. The face and the hands are side by side in the homunculus.
David
Of course, you likely believe your own axioms to be most reasonable.
I regret that, David. But I am handling it the only way I know how, by calling it as I see it. I understand why you do not accept the existence of God as axiomatic. Given your circumstance, neither would I.
Holly
Only as concepts? Does time exist?
The Spirit is the only life there is. There is no life in the atoms.
Go? What do you mean? A man is not evil just because he is sick. You might not recognize the person, but God does.
Personality, emotions, and actions are not aspects of the Spirit, but of the brain.
You cannot better your Spirit by attenuating your brain. Spirit dwells in the heart, not the brain. Just as you know more by opening your mind, so you love more by opening your heart. You cannot teach a man to love using science and reason any more than you can teach a man to think using religion and faith.
The Ryan
You must eat whatever food is available, just as you must act out your morality in whatever manner the atoms will cooperate.
Interesting thread. I’ll confess I didn’t read every word (there’s this little thread called ‘Christianity and Love’ that I spend most of my time trying to keep up with), but I did read some of the posts.
David mentioned that I had talked about this, so I thought I’d throw my 2 cents in. I believe man is a three part being: body, soul, and spirit.
The body is obviously just … the body. Nothing complicated here.
The soul is your personality – your mind, your will, your emotions all rolled into one.
The spirit is the most difficult to define. One very accurate description is sung about by a CCM group called Plumb. The chorus line to the song says: “There’s a God-shaped-hole in all of us . . .”. That’s about as good a description as I’ve ever heard - a ‘God-shaped hole’. It’s the core of who we are … either God occupies that spot or we do. If we do, we are empty and it’s like the lights are out. If God does, the lights come on again.
As for the debate … as David said I’m not sure. God might look at it in the same way He might look at a small child who cannot discern between right and wrong. Or, He may simply look at that person’s choice BEFORE they had the accident as (as Regis might say) the person’s “final answer”. It’s an interesting topic. I’ll keep reading but probably not contribute much more since I’m wrapped up in the other topic.
Okay; I think I’m beginning to understand (finally) your view, Lib. Correct me if I’m wrong. Spirit exists independently of the physical body; it is a core or essence of a person; it is not damaged by disease or injury to the physical body.
Regarding the fortune teller’s daughter, you said:
How could you tell that her Spirit was beautiful? According to your descriptions of Spirit, it seems like an aspect of self that is exquisitely private, known only to one’s self, perhaps, and God. If Spirit is not exhibited in personality, emotions, or actions, how can you sense another person’s spirit?
Do you mean this literally?
Regarding my head-injury patient I described, you asked:
If I remember correctly (and it’s been a while) the main lesion was in either the right or left parietal lobe. Of course, with a major head injury the problem isn’t so much the main lesion as it is the cerebral edema; this guy had diffuse swelling and smaller bleeds all over his brain. Just as mind-altering drugs interfere with brain function, swelling causes problems. Most every person who survives a major head trauma experiences a period of bizarre and inappropriate behavior. In its very mildest form, the patient writhes uncontrollably, arms and legs flailing randomly. Picture the way a young baby constantly kicks, twitches, and thrashes, and that’s exactly what head-injury patients do. It’s exhausting to watch.
This is a result, as you suggest, to disturbance of the limbic system. Some people recover fully and don’t remember the days or weeks they spent in that altered state (and hopefully their families will be kind enough to refrain from telling them about it!) Others remain in that state for the rest of their lives.
If I can steal a tag from Socrates; how can we discuss whether the soul exists if we don’t know what the word “soul” means?
In the discusions of God on this board, there seems to be a general consensus of what people are discussing. (Though sometimes the Christian God seems to be confused with the general theistic notion of God.)However, World thought has postulated many different notions of the soul. Aristotle’s definition differs greatly from the Christian definition. Enlightenment Atheists often kept some notion of the soul as a sort of vitalistic essence (not too clear on this.) Lucretius felt the soul existed, but that it perished with the body.
I suppose asking the board to come up with a general consensus is too much to ask, but maybe people could put out their personal definitions, just to make sure people aren’t talking at cross purposes.
For me the soul is a persons identity. We can (maybe) reduce most, or even all, human behavior to brain functions, but I think we are still left with the puzzle “I am me.” Science can explain our actions, but not our individuality, the simple fact that each of us, though bilogically and psychologically similar to everyone else, exists as an “island consciousness.” Why am I looking through Larry’s eyes and not David’s or Lib’s or someone else? Why of all the people in history, did my consciousness come to inhabit this body, at this time?
I know this is more vague and metaphysical than I usually get on this board but I think about this alot. I apologize if I’m not being clear but I can’t think of a concise, unambigous way to make my point. any comments or questions are welcome.
As for the OP, the way I look at it, there is still a fundamental identity that persists throughout radical personality changes. The extreme examples listed above are not fundamentally different than the changes we all undergo. I’m not the same person I was 10 or even 5 years ago. Yet there is a persisting identity more fundamental than memory.
As for the moral aspect, since I don’t believe in the Christian God, or hell, and hold with Lucretius that “the Gods, if they exist, are very far away,” it doesn’t trouble me.
Right. It is damaged by disease or injury to the heart (sin).
All Spirit is One.
The brain apprehends, but the heart comprehends. Our senses feed information to our brain, which then processes that information in an amoral way. There is no morality in the atoms. The ethic of nature is survival. The ethic of the Spirit is Love. Love “knows” Love.
A person is not truly changed until his heart is changed. Upon that metamorphosis, his brain still processes the same data — it’s the same sun, the same earth, all the atoms are the same — but his understanding is fundamentally new.
Yes, using heart in the sense of “one’s innermost character, feelings, or inclinations <knew it in his heart> <a man after my own heart>” or “the essential or most vital part of something”. (Merriam-Webster)
No doubt. It must be like driving a car, only to discover that now, suddenly, when we steer left, our car goes right, and when we press the brake, our car accelerates.
Our grandson was discovered to have (as last count) five brain tumors, presently being treated by massive chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants, following a series of invasive surgeries. His swollen head definitely affected his motor control. Another child (a bit older), in the same hospital as he, was at one point given an hour to a day to live, and is now apparently fully recovered — her kidneys are working again, and she can eat. Remarkably, she claims to have spoken with Jesus, and received comfort from Him, during her darkest time, though her parents are not particularly “religious”.
I think you’re right that the Spirit can disassociate with the brain, when the brain no longer serves the purpose of the Spirit. (As when the brain dies, for example.) In the old days, they called these disassociated synaptic discharges “demons”.
I know this thread has been dead for a while but I figured Id post to see what you think of a couple theories of mine. First off, let me say that I hope this makes sense because Im running on about 5 hours of sleep over the last 72 hours because of my job (hauling dead bodies).
Some background. I was raised extreemly fundie baptist (not the violent, agressive type, the ‘turn the other cheek’ type) When I ventured out on my own, I ‘converted’ to non-denominational. What I mean by this is that religion is of man and the only way to know God is by seeking ‘him’ yourself. I am a struggling sci-fi/fantasy writer and because of this I have studied many things. I have studied many religions, even the non-conventional ones like wicca, Cabalism, Mystical Judeaism, etc.
I think I understand what Lib means about the body and spirit, and it is very similar to a theory of mine. (which doesnt mean I belive or agree with it) Let me start with an high-tech analogy (careful people, this gets a little ‘way out’ here). This is an a-religious analogy that (hopefully) can be taken either way: there is a God or there is not. Please dont look to deeply into this, and try to ignore the possible religious parrallels
Lets say you are the pilot of some large battle robot, ie Mechwarriors. (I think it would be more appropriet for the mech to be remote controlled b a pilot far away, but lets keep it simple) This Mech has many sensors of different types to observe the outside world. Now lets say that you are on an alien world that is so alien your body’s mind/senses cannot even begin to comprehend it. The Mech has some sort of computer or AI that digests the info from the sensors and displays it in a manner you can deal with. The AI has its own memory that records the sensor inputs at all or most times. The pilot has his own memory too but doesnt remember in as great detail, and still only remembers the stimuli provided to him by the AI.
Furthermore, the cockpit of the Mech has many indicators, warning lights, etc to display different things. For example, it may display a warning light when the Mech is low on fuel, is damaged, over heating etc. Warning lights that have to do with the outside world as well such as enemies nearby, a missle lock, incoming missle etc.
You have alot of control of the Mech but not total control: most of the functions of the Mech are completly automated by the AI. Also, the AI is pretty advanced, if the pilot loses consciousness, dies, etc it can take over. If its threatened it can react in a fight or flight type of response. It can perform basic functions such as repair itself, refuel, or possibly even complete the mission.
A quick explanation of what I mean by this. You, the pilot is the soul/spirit whatever you want to call it. The ‘I think therefore I am’, intangable, part of your consciousness. The Mech of course, is the physical part- the body, brain, etc. More specifically, the AI of the Mech is the primitive, survival-oriented, part of the brain that can be detected by ECGs etc. This is the semi or non-conscious sense/compute/respond part. This part reacts to stimuli based on a set of rules, ‘programming’ so to speek, and is therfore amoral. The cockpit and pilot interface is the as-yet-undetected(maybe) ‘cognitive’ part of the brain (more on this later). The warning lights/indicators are the chemical part of the brain ie the lower emotions, the ‘heart’ if you will. I think this is a pretty good analogy for what Lib is saying.
This analogy can be used for the various mind trauma you have been discussing.
Lets say the interface between the pilot and the mech gets damaged and has minor malfunctions. Warning lights come on when there’s no problems, it lists a friend as an enemy by mistake, etc. The pilot may not know the interface is malfunctioning and may react based on the faulty data. For example he destroys a ‘friendly’ that the interface lists as an enemy. Does this mean the ‘pilot’ is suddenly evil? The mech as a whole could be called evil, but I think the pilot is not. He merely reacted approprietly based on the stimuli he recieved. The pilot is still whole and un-effected. (This relates to the personality change mentioned)
Heres another one. The interface is completly severed so that the pilot has no idea what is going on in the outside world, and has little or no control of the Mech. Now, does anything the Mech does on its own make the Pilot evil? I dont think so.(After a more serious head trauma they still function as a human on a very small level)
And another, the AI and the interface is damaged. The pilot may or may not be aware of the outside world but even if he is, he cant do anything. (the vegetable state from very serious head trauma)
This analogy can be used to display many religious and non-religious ideas as well. The pilot vaguely remembers the other mechs hes been in, but is more concerned with the one hes in now (reincarnation). There is some maker of both the mech and the pilot (God) or the Mech ‘evolved’ (through design and redesign by engineers) as did the Pilot (evolution). All that doesnt really matter for my point, this was just an analogy of how the mind/body/spirit relationship could be.
Im sorry this was so long winded but I wanted to share it with y’all…
-Fox
P.S. an interesting link: ‘the anatomical basis of mind’
warning: very, very, very, heavy reading, aimed more for a premed type person
The more I read the more it seems that almost all the brain is only for anatomical functions, not nearly enough ‘stuff’ for conciousness.
Now that I think of it, here’s a theory of mine. Once again, im striving to keep this as a-religious as possible.
What if there once were two ‘races’, one tangable and physical, the other intangable pure energy (ie spiritual) They evolved or were created seperatly. Sometime by some accident(or divine intervention) they came together to increase the possibility of survival for both ‘races’ in a symbiotic relationship. As time went on both ‘races’ continued to evolve pretty much independantly of the other, but with most changes heading toward what would be best for the new, combined ‘race’. Both races might develop specialised organs/energy patterns to better interface with the other. Both races retained some of their original features, ie the spirit stayed intangable/metaphysical, while the body stayed tangable/physical. My point is humans could be a duel species, in a very powerful symbiotic relationship neccessary to the survival of both (akin to the bacteria in termites that help them digest cellulose). The body would benefit from the consciousness provided, higher reasoning/logic and (perhaps) the subconsciouss memories of several body’s lifetimes, as well as a type of immortality (assuming the spirit does not die with the body). Im a little unsure of how the spirit would benefit. Perhaps it would use the body to experience the sensations of the physical world. Or perhaps to gain ‘life’ sustaining energy or an increase of consciousness with each lifetime’s memories. Or even (this is way, way out there) uses the body to help develop the life spark into a full grown spiritual entity like a larval stage into adult stage.
What proof would this hypothesis have if it were true?
-Well, for one consciousness would be very hard to explain with current tech. (look at current AI, it seems much more similar to our primitive brain than our conscious mind)
-The spiritual half would be very hard to detect with current tech. (except the secondary effects, see next item)
-There would, most likely, be some type of organ(s) or part(s) of the brain (which may be very small) that act as the interface to the spiritual half. This would, most likely, seem to us to have no function but we couldn’t live without it except in a vegatable or ‘not there’ or comatose state. (see my previous post about the Mech interface)
-This part(s) would most likly have many neural connections to many other parts of the brain (or at least the major parts that coordinate movement, senses, emotions, etc)
BTW, Ive read that there IS a part of the brain exactly like that where the neurons fire at all times the brain is conscious, and only stops during certain types of brain death and deep sleep. I wish I could site the source but I dont remember it. I think it was the book ‘The Fabric of Reality’ by ???. (which is a good book for anyone who has ever contemplated Life, The Universe, and Everything.) Also its interesting to note that the neurons in this area have very, very tiny structures that could work on a Quantum Physical level.
-There should be someway to detect when this ‘spark of life’ attaches to/enters the body, as well as when it leaves/detaches. (but probably not with current tech)
-There should be some scientific way or laws that explain how this all works, the interface, the nature of the spirit, etc. (quantum physics or superstring theory?)
-There may be allegorical/mythological references to this.
Some stumbling blocks:
-Where does this spirit/life spark come from? Is there an intangible ‘collective consciousness’ where a small portion detaches and attaches to the body (either because of a natural attraction or conscious effort?) Or is the life spark contained in the sperm/egg and has its own type of reproduction which then grows and develops with the body (perhaps larval stage…)? But at different rates as anyone who has seen a party of college students can say. (BTW, I am one of those college students…)
-Does the spirit die with the body, get another eventually, or go onto another stage of consciousness?
-Akhims Razor(sp?) rips this hypothesis to shreds, but then again it could do that to many widely accepted theories such as Relativity and Quantum Physics. (I hate Akhims Razor…)
-Most of this hypoth. is undetectable with current tech and unexplainable with current physical laws. (except perhaps with quantum physics and/or superstring theory) Of course, it could always be unexplainable because it could be something incomprehensible by a 4D mind such as ours.
Please post some questions/comments/ideas if you wish but please keep them as scientific as possible.
-Fox
“There is no spoon.” -The Matrix
“I can’t explain myself,” said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you see.” -Alice’s Adventure Under Ground
‘Soul’ and ‘spirit’ are labels for mental constructs serving various purposes within some religious faiths. There is no reason or empirical evidence supporting the notion that the soul (or the spirit) actually exists, except as a delusion of the faithful. Until such time as someone discovers such a reason, or such evidence, there is as much point in debating the nature or characteristics of
‘the soul’ as in debating the respiratory system of the Easter Bunny.
One corollary to the above is the consistently weak sophistry employed by those who harbour such delusional fantasies. Take for example: “What is the scientific evidence that the Great Smokey mountains are beautiful?”. This kind of remark, which one often encounters when dealing with the reality-challenged victims of religion, might pass muster in a beginner’s class on argumentative tactics, but can serve no other purpose - except, maybe, telling us more than we need or care to know about the person who puts it forward.
Poly (I think he said this!): I would have to disagree that occam’s razor, as a guiding principle, leads to solipsism. Solipsism is far from simple as far as philosophy goes…that is, one is at great complicated pains to describe effects one doesn’t understand to begin with. I would think some weak existentialism is on the plate for Occam. I always kinda felt that solipsism is where people retreat when they don’t know what else to say.
Everyone:
I’m truly at a loss to even axiomatically accept a soul. Thought experiments are pretty fun, and I will take on any number of a priori or axiomatic postulations to see how things turn out, but the linking between a non-corporeal soul and a corporeal body is quite beyong anything I’ve ever heard.
I can easily accept that we cannot prove the existence of something that, in itself, is not physical. However, this non-physical thing interacts with the physical world…how?
I’ve just come across this thread, and there were some very insightful and intelligent posts back in July. The wisdom and intelligence of the posters are beyond my poor comprehension. I did not agree with some of them, tho.
The soul and spirit are not different entities. They are identical. I’m not Catholic, but I would like to make use of St. Thomas Aquinas’ simple, yet astute, observation. He posits that everything is made of prime matter and substantial form. Prime matter is what give a thing its existence and sf is the essence of the thing; i.e., makes it what it is. Now I know many other philosphers have said as much, using different terms: everything is composed of existence and essence. Aquinas’ philosphy: SF is the soul. Every thing (even inanimae objects) has a soul. In man, however, the soul is eternal and is what we call the spirit. The gist of his reasoning is that man can know the infinite. Since we know the infinite, our soul must possess infinity.
In this context, there are no good spirits or bad spirits. There are just spirits (or souls). It is similar to the argument about how there can be “bad” or “evil” if God is all-good: there is no bad or evil. There is only good. What we perceive as bad or evil is just the lacking of the essence of good.
So these good souls who have had brain damage and do apparently bad things have not changed their good souls. They are just lacking, temporarily or permanently, the good.
There was a post form this unfortunate young man with the pituitary tumor who realized that everything in the human body is chemical. Quite true. It’s just been recently that we have discovered that our own body produces morphine-type chemicals (which we call endorphins, endogenous morphine). That’s why drugs do affect us so. We have the chemical receptors in our brains that they can affect. And the use of drugs changes the chemical make-up of our brains.
Ohhhh I can finally incoporate my Eng 103 final into something constructive. A soul or spirit is also known as the psyche. Well what is the psyche then? A psyche is the controlling factor in the mind. It’s influenced by collective and singular consciousness, and uncsciousness of these two as well. Well then what does that mean exactly? It means that the mind is controlled or influenced by a vast majority of things. In the area of psychology it is thought that you can be influenced by anything you see and you can be influenced by just having someone around you. In other words peoples psyches can influence yours and therefore influence others. The psyche is something that is fragile and always incomplete, with things always being added to it. So then does this mean that everyone is connected to everyone else in some way shape or form? Quite possibly. I mean think about when someone is having a bad day and they don’t say anything to anyone else. Does everyone in the room tend to get upset and annoyed to? Typically yes they do. BUT do people typically connect psyche and soul together? I don’t think so. Why I’m not exactly sure it just seems that peolpe just don’t connect them. I don’t know I’m sure someone is gonna say something about me being wrong oh well I guess that is why this is just my belief. In the end I think we are all connected whether it be soul or psyche.
Oh, mighty Tiki God, no one can say you’re wrong. They may say that they don’t believe you or claim that you are wrong, but a good thing about philosophy, believes, and intangibles is that there is no wrong or right. Philosophers have attempted to prove that their philosophy is the right one, but those proofs are based on axioms or tenets that belong to the philosophy advocated. You can adopt any tenet and lay down syllogistic proof, but the structure falls when the foundation is not sound.
I know I’m coming in at the end here, but in the same course of Phineas Gage and the boy in the car accident, I’d like to ask your opinion of Wesley Willis. Wesley Willis is a semi-famous musician who has produced about thirty CDs. He’s from the Chicago area, and does many, many shows. He has a strong faith in God and goes to church regularly. Wesley is also a chronic schitzophrenic.
The reason Wesley writes music is described in his song, “Chronic Schitzophrenia.” Apparently, he has voices in his head that tell him to say and do things, and he often cannot stop himself from saying or doing what they tell him to. In addition, Wesley says that when he performs his music, the voices will leave him alone.
The majority of the lyrics are incredibly obscene, with titles such as “Suck a Cheetah’s Dick,” “Taste a Panda’s Ass,” and themes such as calling his pastor a “crucifuck”, and assaulting his pastor when he was told not to curse in church.
What do you think about Wesley? Do you (the religious) think that Wesley is immediately or eventually forgiven for his sins, because they stem from a mental condition over which he has no control? Or do you think that while his mental condition may tell him to do things, his strenght in God should help him to ignore their biddings, and succumbing to them is a sign of spiritual weakness?
David, while this line of questioning fits the OP, would it be more appropriate in a seperate thread?
