The relationship between your soul and your brain.

[Grannyalf]

I would like to head different theories on what the soul is, and how it relates to the brain.

Does it integrate with the brain?
Is it the soul that creates the chemical reactions in your brain?
Is it the chemical reactions in your brain which creates the soul?
Is it something else than your consciousness?

Give me your belief please.

 

[michel]

I would like to head different theories on what the soul is, and how it relates to the brain.

Does it integrate with the brain?
Is it the soul that creates the chemical reactions in your brain?
Is it the chemical reactions in your brain which creates the soul?
Is it something else than your consciousness?

Give me your belief please.

The brain is the computer of the body. The soul is something that lives forever; there is interaction from the brain to the soul, but not the other way around.

Our souls are the real "us"

 

[Grannyalf]

Exactly how does the brain relate to the soul, and what happens when your brain is dead?
Will the soul have the same consciousness as you had when you were alive?

 

[Papersock]

I use to think the soul was something completely separate from the brain. As if the soul is somehow a second (non-physical) you that resides in your body.

But now I don't really believe in souls, so I probably won't get very far into this conversation.

 

[Ozzie]

I would like to head different theories on what the soul is, and how it relates to the brain.

Does it integrate with the brain?

If you believe soul is something separate to the physical brain, you could say either it does integrate at the level of consciousness, or doesn't, resting in the background as a latent construct, or alternatively as a metaconsciousness.

On the other hand you could argue (and believe) the soul is part and parcel of consciousness or consciousness itself, making the question of integration redundant, and the question of separation more interesting.

Is it the soul that creates the chemical reactions in your brain?
Is it the chemical reactions in your brain which creates the soul?

Both ask the same question. If you assume identity between brain as a physical construction and soul, then the answer is yes. If you assume soul has a separate identity but is integrated with brain the answer could again be yes.

Hence the answers to these questions are uniformative in discriminating between dualism and materialism. They simply identify assumptions.

Is it something else than your consciousness?

This is a better question. I don't believe consciousness can be reduced to biochemical processes in a sensible/coherent way ( at least it is beyond the limits of present descriptive language employable with respect to philosophy of mind to describe such a relation coherently).

It is quite possibe that science will identify reliable mapping between conscious states and biochemical processes. It will also coin terms for such mapping making discourse coherent in relation to reducing consciousness to brain processes. Eliminative materialism predicts this will occur as our understanding of the brain develops in future.

The idea of soul will be unaffected by such developments in brain science or language ulilised to describe it however. It will remain a case of either you believe in it or you do not.

 

[michel]

Exactly how does the brain relate to the soul, and what happens when your brain is dead?
Will the soul have the same consciousness as you had when you were alive?

Imagine that the sould is the hard drive on your computer(and that the files are all hidden); the brain is a USB hard drive that is plugged in during your life; whatever passes through that hard drive will be added to the main one.

 

[BucephalusBB]

To keep talking about computers..
For me the brain is the computer and the so called soul is the Operating System.
So for me there really isn't a soul, just sort of commands from the world and your brain responding to it through the code(Operating system/soul).

 

[michel]

To keep talking about computers..
For me the brain is the computer and the so called soul is the Operating System.
So for me there really isn't a soul, just sort of commands from the world and your brain responding to it through the code(Operating system/soul).

That is the divide between atheist and theist; bound to be be so.

 

[BucephalusBB]

That is the divide between atheist and theist; bound to be be so.

Not really, there are many atheists that believe in a soul, and as far as I am correct there are also religions that don't need a soul either..

 

[Willamena]

Imagine that the sould is the hard drive on your computer(and that the files are all hidden); the brain is a USB hard drive that is plugged in during your life; whatever passes through that hard drive will be added to the main one.

My (initial) concept of 'soul' is quite different, and different from 'Operating System' too.

If the brain is a computer, and a life-time is a USB plug-in, then the soul is the God-operator who, from the computer's perspective, is imagined to plug the USB device into the brain's port over and over again with each waking instant of existence.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Not really, there are many atheists that believe in a soul, ...

Which is precisely why the term 'atheist' is becoming increasingly worthless.

 

[BucephalusBB]

Which is precisely why the term 'atheist' is becoming increasingly worthless.

Because? You need a god to create souls? Can't souls have evolved as well?

 

[Random]

Which is precisely why the term 'atheist' is becoming increasingly worthless.

Who said it ever had any worth to being with?

 

[eudaimonia]

I would like to head different theories on what the soul is, and how it relates to the brain.

What's a soul?

The only reasonable definition I've seen comes from Aristotle:

The soul is the first actuality of a natural body that is potentially alive.

First actuality means something like "capacity". So the human soul would be that about what we are that allows us to engage in human actitivies, such as to think, feel, act, etc.

And how does this relate to our brain? Our soul includes our brain's capacities as one of its most important parts or aspects. Our brain's capacity to think, feel, etc is a crucial part of our human soul.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Not really, there are many atheists that believe in a soul, ...

Which is precisely why the term 'atheist' is becoming increasingly worthless.

Because? You need a god to create souls? Can't souls have evolved as well?

Because the fundamental issue is that of appeal to supernatural agency. To believe in souls while holding no belief in gods is equivalent to believing in the Fairy Kingdom while holding no belief in the Goddess Danu.

 

[eudaimonia]

Because the fundamental issue is that of appeal to supernatural agency. To believe in souls while holding no belief in gods is equivalent to believing in the Fairy Kingdom while holding no belief in the Goddess Danu.

I can't think of a single reason why that should be. Why does the supernatural require the existence of gods or goddesses?

And why does a soul have to be supernatural?


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Inky]

Because the fundamental issue is that of appeal to supernatural agency.

Actually, "atheist" refers only to a person's lack of belief in a god or gods, not in supernatural forces in general.

 

[methylatedghosts]

For me the soul is an eternal portion of God.
The brain dies with the body.
I think that there may be some interaction.
The soul could also be watching over my shoulder.
Anyway, I believe that actions of the you in this life are remembered by the soul - which lives on after death - and that in the very very very end after many lives it becomes part of God.

 

[Ever learning]

IMO my soul is my pure inner essence(heart or intuition), the part of me that might live on after I die. My brain is the part that keeps interfering with it at times.

 

[yossarian22]

Because? You need a god to create souls? Can't souls have evolved as well?

A soul is just a way for people to sugar coat consciousness. Who you are is not determined by a soul or any ridiculous thing like that. It is caused by chemical and electrical signals in our brain.
There are some theories which state that it is an electromagnetic field, but there appears to be little basis for it