[carlo]

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only that having a heart transplant wouldn't change your memories, your emotions/feelings, your knowledge/intelligence, or your personality/temperment; but having a brain transplant would change all of those things.

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It's my point. The insertion of thought,feeling and will impulses in the brain is a recent episode in the history of man. That thinking is associated with the nervous system is self evident but certainly not feelings nor will. A perspective of at least 19th century philosophers saw the SOUL qualities of man as thinking, feeling and willing. To lay all of these qualities and insert them into the brain is a result of scientific materialism which cannot do other than weigh the soul.

If there is truly only the physical then one shouldn't say "I Think" but that "My Brain Thinks".

Thinking, feeling and willing are all non weighable and live in a supersensible world where the soul-spiritual being of man resides. While on earth there is no doubt that man uses the physical body and thereupon a damaged brain will certainly diminish the world of thought either partially or in entirety.

Another picture of one's soul spiritual being which is the real "YOU" is that these supersensible/spiritual enteties of man use the nervous system as a "reflector" of thoughts. It is difficult for present day man to conceive that his highest being is using the physical body and his earth-bound experiences (including the experiencing of the body) are gathered by the soul which is non physical.

I don't know of any religion which does not relate to a soul/spiritual aspect of man. A Catholic philosopher at Notre Dame can certainly have questions posed by one at Georgetown as to the nature of the soul but clear thinking will certainly not end up calling the soul physical and they would realize this. Of course some do fall into the materialistic trap.

A little history may clarify the difficulty. During the time of Christ and prior it was common understanding in the ancient world that man consisted of Body,Soul and Spirit. At a Catholic Church Synod of 869(?) AD it was decided that man now consisted of Body and Soul(which contained some attributes of Spirit). This progressed into the understanding of the present day. Our scientific time has progressed to the idea that there is NO Soul, No Spirit but ONLY BODY. That it reaches into our present thinking is evident in this post as people have difficulty conceiving of anything other than our physical nature.

LOng winded, I know, and the obvious question is why one does not experience this supersensible world directly as is the physical. The answer is that mankind will, but of course this takes time and in this lies the evolution of man. A reading of the Revelation of John gives a picture of the end of mankind's education in which he progresses to an individual free spirit among other spirits.

None of this can be easily approached until one sees oneself as a soul/spiritual being entering this earthly body and in this the study of the reembodiment of the spirit(reincarnation) is the necessary first step.

carlo