Existence of the soul

[notquitedead]

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to listen to a lecture by a professor of neuroscience. The topic of the lecture was consciousness. During the lecture, he mentioned how consciousness comes solely from the brain (ie a hit to the head can knock you out, if your brain doesn't get enough air you pass out, etc.).

This got me thinking; if consciousness relies on the brain, then once the brain is dead, how can you still have consciousness? If we really have 'souls', then why does what happens to the brain matter? If we can still be 'conscious' without our brain (if we 'pass on'), then passing out from suffocation, getting knocked out, etc. shouldn't matter.

[AZeitung]

The idea is that there is more to a human eing than his physical body.

Also, at least in Christianity, the physical and spiritual body of a person are both, in many ways, the same. When Jesus was resurrected, his physical body rose from the dead, but he was something more than a mere physical being. The same is promised of everyone, that our physical bodies will be resurrected at the end of days. So both the physical and spiritual sides are important.

[Fish Of Doom]

maybe since the soul is inside the body when the body passes out the soul just waits for it to start up, like when your car ain't working fine, and it dies down for a while, but not completely, and you know it, so you just wait.

same could be true for death, if your car absolutely doesn't work, like your engine got wrecked or something like that you're not gonna sit and stay for it to revive itself, you get out, so when the body dies the soul gets out :P

[AZeitung]

Well, I suppose you could say that the brain is what allows the soul to interact with the body, but personally, I think that's pretty stupid. Just my opinion, though.

[Fish Of Doom]

Well, I suppose you could say that the brain is what allows the soul to interact with the body, but personally, I think that's pretty stupid. Just my opinion, though.

why is it stupid?:confused:

[AZeitung]

I think it's stupid because
1. The brain is a physical object and the soul is not.
2. Why would the brain be any more accessable to the soul than anything else?
3. Why would damaging one part of the brain prevent the soul from acting rationally?
4. We can see what various parts of the brain do, and it seems to be able to do them just fine as a physical object, with no outside help.
5. No physical object should be able to violate the laws of physics.
6. I think the answer from the second paragraph of my first post is a much better explanation, and also in line with the church's teachings.

[LilBunnyRabbit]

Ah, the joys of not having been infected by such lovely memes as the idea of the soul. No need to develop absurd, self-contradictory rationalisations to explain something which can even more easily be explained by the soul just not existing.

[notquitedead]

How do you go from
1. The brain is a physical object and the soul is not.
2. Why would the brain be any more accessable to the soul than anything else?
3. Why would damaging one part of the brain prevent the soul from acting rationally?
4. We can see what various parts of the brain do, and it seems to be able to do them just fine as a physical object, with no outside help.
5. No physical object should be able to violate the laws of physics.

to
The same is promised of everyone, that our physical bodies will be resurrected at the end of days. So both the physical and spiritual sides are important.
? The first quote sounds like you're arguing against the existence of souls, but in the second you say you think we have them.

[Fish Of Doom]

I think it's stupid because
1. The brain is a physical object and the soul is not.
2. Why would the brain be any more accessable to the soul than anything else?
3. Why would damaging one part of the brain prevent the soul from acting rationally?
4. We can see what various parts of the brain do, and it seems to be able to do them just fine as a physical object, with no outside help.
5. No physical object should be able to violate the laws of physics.
6. I think the answer from the second paragraph of my first post is a much better explanation, and also in line with the church's teachings.

1- did i say otherwise?(posts where i honestly didn't understand shall as of now be marked with a :confused: :P)

2- maybe it was designed to be, like everything else in our bodies, you can't speak through your liver can you? :D

3-again to the car comparison, you can't control your car well if a tire or two are bad and the windshield is all cracked

4-cars do their purpose just fine, but not without a driver, though they can be left switched on

5- when did i suggest so?:confused:

6-but some people aren't in line with the church's teachings :P, i'm catholic but i don't go to church and i don't like religion in general, but if i MUST go to church for some reason i will, and if i have to respect other religions i do so gladly, unless i'm telling a religious joke

[AZeitung]

Hm. . . if you don't go to church technically, I think you're automatically excommunicated.

Whether or not people are in line with the church's teachings has no bearing on whether or not they're true.

I still don't see why one physical part of your body would be better at interacting with spirits than another part of your body. Why should physical things interact with spiritual things. If they did, that would be kind of like violating the laws of physics. Besides, when you're unconscious (in many circumstances, excluding for example, dreaming at night), your spirit doesn't continue to experience anything, even the passage of time. And yet, when you're dead, it should.

I don't believe that our bodies are just some shell to be shucked off and forgotten when we die. They are an important part of who we are.

[AZeitung]

How do you go from


to

? The first quote sounds like you're arguing against the existence of souls, but in the second you say you think we have them.

Only when you don't read carefully. I'm not arguing against the existence of a soul. If you look again, you'll see there's nothing contradictory in the two posts. See my last post for further clarification.

[Fish Of Doom]

I still don't see why one physical part of your body would be better at interacting with spirits than another part of your body.

i don't see why not though

Why should physical things interact with spiritual things.

who knows?

your spirit doesn't continue to experience anything, even the passage of time. And yet, when you're dead, it should.

maybe the soul experiences things throughout the body, seeing as it's not a physical entity, so when the body's not working, the soul doesn't experience anything.

I don't believe that our bodies are just some shell to be shucked off and forgotten when we die. They are an important part of who we are.

one theory for that could be the theory of reincarnation, when one body dies, a soul may get thrown into another one, and since momeories and stuff are stored in the brain, and the previous brain is dead, then the soul has to start from scratch :P

just my opinion

[ATF]

Very Interesting topic. Here is what Catholicism says:

Faculties of the Soul
I. MEANING

Whatever doctrine one may hold concerning the nature of the human soul and its relations to the organism, the four following points are beyond the possibility of doubt.

1. Consciousness is the scene of incessant change; its processes appear, now in one sequence now in another; and, normally, the duration of each is brief.
2. All do not present the same general features, nor affect consciousness in the same manner. They differ on account both of their characters as manifested in consciousness, and of the organ, either external or internal, on which their appearance depends. Yet the features they have in common under this twofold aspect, together with their differences, make it possible and necessary to group mental states in certain more or less comprehensive classes.
3. There is more in the mind than is actually manifested in consciousness; there are latent images, ideas, and feelings, which under given conditions emerge and are recognized even after a considerable interval of time. By reason of their innate or acquired aptitudes, minds differ in capacity or power. Hence, even if it were possible for two minds to experience processes perfectly similar, they would nevertheless differ greatly because one is capable of experiences impossible to the other.
4. Notwithstanding their variety and their intermittent character, these processes belong to one and the same conscious subject; they are all referred naturally and spontaneously to the self or me.

[AZeitung]

maybe the soul experiences things throughout the body, seeing as it's not a physical entity, so when the body's not working, the soul doesn't experience anything.


That's why I mentioned being dead.

[Kwajman]

The same is promised of everyone, that our physical bodies will be resurrected at the end of days.

Yuck, why would I want my physical body to resurrect? Its a mess, bad knees, no hair, ewwww.

[AZeitung]

Physical body with good knees. And you could probably walk through walls, too :D

[Sub zero]

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to listen to a lecture by a professor of neuroscience. The topic of the lecture was consciousness. During the lecture, he mentioned how consciousness comes solely from the brain (ie a hit to the head can knock you out, if your brain doesn't get enough air you pass out, etc.).

This got me thinking; if consciousness relies on the brain, then once the brain is dead, how can you still have consciousness? If we really have 'souls', then why does what happens to the brain matter? If we can still be 'conscious' without our brain (if we 'pass on'), then passing out from suffocation, getting knocked out, etc. shouldn't matter.

Why does a soul have to be concious? In fact come to think of it if your soul were to go to heaven for example, it would have to be free from choice ( so you wouldn't be a bad ass in heaven) there for free from knowledge so there wouldn't really be much need for conciousness.

On the other hand how would one experience the "punishment" of hell? :S

and on alotof earlier points we would have to define what kind of soul we were tlaking about......an immortal soul like in christianity (well they nicked it form the romans who nicked it from the greeks :P )...or a "soul" (i use the term loosely) in the budhist terms which is going through constant change from second to second....

hmmm *strokes beard and ponders* :)

[Sub zero]

Nobody else got any ideas? i'm really interested in this one.