Re: A Question for Christians
 

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Interesting question.

Here's an analogy that's helped me understandit:

The soul is like a radio broadcast.

The brain is the radio. Just as a broadcast animates a radio, so too the soul animates the brain. Seeing as your brain is an essential component to your consciousness, I venture the soul would change bodies.

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I like the analogy.

I think that the idea of a soul is useful if the brain is understood as a nebulous, foggy processing device that makes decisions that are seemingly unpredictable. However, when you examine the smaller, more comprehensible components of the brain, the idea of a soul seems unnecessary.

I decide that I want to go get a sandwich. Hunger signals connect to neurons in one part of the brain which activate food-related activities, which connect to the frontal cortex which decides where to go (the dominant signal amongst the activities provoked wins, as is the modern understanding), which connects to the memory of getting your shoes, coat and wallet and go to the car, etc.

The individual nuerons are like tiny little wires filled with different chemicals. The transmission of the chemicals operates in a straightforward, predictable fashion. However, we have so many of these messages going off at once, and we completely lack the technology to observe them all and integrate them in a manner useful enough to predict the behavior.

Neurons, as we know them, behave more digitally than analogically (that is, they send out yes/no signals rather than gradient signals...but because many neurons are involved in each action, the number of neurons' signals determines the intensity).


So here's the thing: the soul, if it exists, must assert an influence over the observable nuerotransmission in each neuron. And if its influence is observable, it must behave in a manner that would contradict an otherwise mundane, causal explanation. If nueron n fires just because neuron n-1 fired, just because n-2 fired, just because n-3 fired, etc, there is no reason for a soul to exist; neurons are simply governed by cause and effect.

But if neuron n doesn't fire, despite getting firing input from n-1, then we've got something.

I only have a BA in psych and I can't argue this on a level much deeper than this, but I think those principles are pretty straightforward. And to be fair, science still has an awful lot to learn about the brain and human behavior [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: A Question for Christians
 

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Pretty sneaky to insult someone in another language [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

But as I said in an above post, I think the questions are legit. I'm trying to find out where the soul is.

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Trying to find a physical location for something that doesn't exist in the physical world isn't the best way to spend one's time.

Re: A Question for Christians
 

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So here's the thing: the soul, if it exists, must assert an influence over the observable nuerotransmission in each neuron. And if its influence is observable, it must behave in a manner that would contradict an otherwise mundane, causal explanation.

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Couldn't the soul have shaped the neural network in the first place?

I don't subscribe to any of this though.. note I'm far from Christian

Re: A Question for Christians
 

Of course the souls switch. This is a ridiculous question.

Re: A Question for Christians
 

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Of course the souls switch. This is a ridiculous question.

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I call your bluff here David [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

By the way the question is not so ridiculous if you look at more of the implications.

Is the soul fitted to the brain or vice-versa. The brain lives in symbiotic relationship with rest of the body, the boundary is by convention and not exactly defined. What happen when a piece of the brain is removed. The brain evolves ie there are physiological changes over time, is the soul evolving as well and in concert? Is schizoprenia a disease of the soul, or of the brains? Is Alhzeimer affecting the soul or the soul affecting the brain brain in that case. If there is no relationship between the brain and the soul from those physiological viewpoints, at what point is the connection made, how is it ended, what are the neccesary and sufficient causes, for that connection?

Nah, I call your bluff [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: A Question for Christians
 

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Of course the souls switch. This is a ridiculous question.

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I thought Christians also placed some significance on "flesh and blood". [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

Re: A Question for Christians
 

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Daddy, don't play "who's on first" with scoffers.

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Someone interested in learning about the soul is a scoffer?

Re: A Question for Christians
 

Ridiculous questions don't indicate a sincere desire to learn, but to start a debate about improbable hypothetical situations and "details". Subtle forms of scoffing are still scoffing. And David pointed out that there is an obvious logical answer.

If you are sincere, then google for Aquinas+soul+summa or soul+catechism+catholic for the catholic beliefs, and the appropriate terms for those of various other denominations.

But if these other guys want to let you jack them off, that's up to them.

Re: A Question for Christians
 

I think you're very right. I was raised Catholic and yes... I had to ask myself what I felt were some very tough questions. Perhaps more difficult was accepting the answers I inevitably came up with.

I do admire people like NotReady, BluffThis, BigDaddyO, RJT, etc., who seem quite willing to stay on message and don't run away. I just wish I understood the rationale they use.

Re: A Question for Christians
 

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Couldn't the soul have shaped the neural network in the first place?

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Genetics?