A Question for Christians

[carlo]

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Would you agree that the soul must be confined to the physical body (at least until one dies)? If so, what exactly is confining it?

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Consider that the soul/spirit is the prime agent in this matter-it lives in the physical body and works out its destiny in a life and returns to its home, the world of the spirit.

Sleep may help as for good reason it has been called the "little death". To our everyday thinking it is a great mystery for how much is known about sleep? Modern scientists use electrodes and offer REM,etc. but this goes no furthur than offering a material understanding via another materiality.

In sleep our soul/spiritual being leaves the body and what you see sleeping on a bed are the physical body and what could be called the formative force body which contains our memories and is expressed in pictures. Upon sleep consciousness changes and the individual finds himself in the "Bosom of the Godhead" for want of a better term. You are now outside your physical/formative force body which is a change of consciousness. In this "bosom" one finds the angelic beings who have since the beginning of time offered sacrifice in order to bring the human divine spirits to their destiny. Christianity and other religions have a rich history of names for these beings and they are real and aid in sleep and in death. You really are a "Child of God".

Went a little over the edge on this one but let it be known that you are cared for in sleep and in death.

carlo

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The insertion of thought,feeling and will impulses in the brain is a recent episode in the history of man.

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Are you talking about how scientists have caused people to think, feel, or "will", by stimulating certain parts of the brain? I don't think you are, because that would support my position. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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That thinking is associated with the nervous system is self evident but certainly not feelings nor will.

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Thinking is associated with the brain (which is part of the nervous system). You say that is self-evident (I'm not sure it is, but science supports it, so it is definitely evident). However, you don't think feelings are too? Really? That's... interesting. There has been a lot of study done to show that feelings are associated with brain activity. That's how we have medicine for depression. And, that's how drugs affect our feelings -- by inhibiting or stimulating certain parts of the brain.

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

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If you say "My Brain", that infers an "I". "I" is just a word. We can use it however we want. It's "self-evident" that "I exist". What "I" is, is not so self-evident, but whatever it is (a soul, or an emergent property of higher-brain activity), we can still call it "I".

[carlo]

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Are you talking about how scientists have caused people to think, feel, or "will", by stimulating certain parts of the brain? I don't think you are, because that would support my position.

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No, scientific thinking which offers an objectivity unparalled was and is necessary for the progression of mankind. You could say that mankind,via materialistic science, has left the cognition of spiriatuality and in the process each individual gains a sense of self which is on the road to "freedom". No conspiracy here, the scientists are not bad guys, but an objectification of the spiritual is necessary for our time and through this training in thinking mankind will progress.

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Thinking is associated with the brain (which is part of the nervous system). You say that is self-evident (I'm not sure it is, but science supports it, so it is definitely evident). However, you don't think feelings are too? Really? That's... interesting. There has been a lot of study done to show that feelings are associated with brain activity. That's how we have medicine for depression. And, that's how drugs affect our feelings -- by inhibiting or stimulating certain parts of the brain.


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A medicine can affect your feelings but it does not mean that the feelings are localized in the brain. The correct understanding is to consider the world of feelings as the rhythmic manifestation of the human being. Consider a Shakespherean actor who holds his heart when expressing his love for the lady.It would be best to look at yourself and gain an understanding as to where your feelings lay.

To clarify, a thought indeed has a feeling and willing aspect to it and these 3 soul expressions are intermixed and not separate throughout the body. In order to have a thought it must be willed and there is a corresponding feeling to it. LIkewise a feeling contains a thought and will aspoect but it is not so clear and vague which is the nature of our feelings. The will is the most mysterious of the human being as the movement of your leg contains a big gap between the thought which initiates the activity and the completed activity.

Experience a Beethoven symphony or the works of Wagner and ask whether your head is getting the major feeling.This is not to say that you can't experience feelings in your head(try reading Aquinas and get the "big head" [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] but there is a rhythm associated with the nervous system as with the heart and circulatory system as well as our digestive system. These rhythms are not products of the physical expressions but vice versa(I know this can be expressed a little better).




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"I" is just a word.

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"I AM the I AM"-our "I" is the spiritual aspect of our being which can be likened to a drop of divinity in the ocean of the spirit. Not "just a word" but a reality of which we human beings are.

carlo

[bobman0330]

It seems quite obvious to me that no one knows. I can imagine a number of different sensible possibilities, but there's no evidence for one over another. It seems likely that to whatever extent George is still George, he will have George's soul. If you splice together parts of George's and Harry's brains, maybe there'll be two souls vying for control. Maybe one or both souls will become detached from the bodies and move on to the afterlife. Who knows?

[11t]

Well assuming brain transplants are possible here is what I would say.

1. If you judge purely based on physical basis than obviously whoever looks like "George" is "George" and whoever looks like "Harry" is "Harry". Of course, if you think about it many psychologists believe in multiple personality disorder so by a purely psychological basis whoever's conciousness resides in a body dictates who it is.

2. Difficult to say, again I would think a soul would resign along conciousness. I mean, you seem to be implying that "the soul" would reside in an organ like the liver or something. Of course if you are talking about brain transplants than I suppose we would be assuming that the soul would resign in the brain. Of course, I would just say they resign along with the original conciousness.

3. By question 2, whoever's conciousness committs the mortal sin would go to hell. I would think that physical appearances mean very little to God. Of course who is to say that getting a brain transplant isn't a mortal sin.

[AlwaysWrong]

I'd say you are making a huge assumption in identifying the mind with the brain. If you're a materialist, the mind is a function of the entire body, not just the brain. Although the majority of cognition is done in the brain, my consciousness must also be determined by the rest of my body: my hormones, my gurgling stomach, my blood-sugar level, etc.

So my inital response would be that the answer to your question isn't the answer to the question you want to ask.

Moving on...

If you're a dualist then the answer to your question depends on how you think the mind interacts with the body and the brain. It could be that cognition is entirely determined by the mind/soul, and the brain is simply a lump of flesh that relays instructions from the soul to the body and relays sensations from the body to the soul. In that case the question becomes how is the soul anchored to the body? Probably the only way to answer that question would be to perform the transplant and see if switching brains switches behaviour.

Obviously whatever body that is controlled by the soul would be the one whose actions the soul is responsible for when determining if the soul should go to heaven.

[UATrewqaz]

The easiest answer is this:

If such procedure ever proves to be possible you kind of disprove the idea of a soul and therefor the question is moot.

I think cloning is going down this path to.

[AlwaysWrong]

It's hard to "kind of" disprove something. Either it is disproved or it isn't.

How would this experiment have any bearing on whether we have souls? The faliure to transfer consciousness between bodies would disprove the idea that consciousness lies in the brain, and this would lend a lot of credence to belief in souls, but neither success or failure could prove or disprove the existence of souls.