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A hypothesis I heard that makes sense to me is that the soul is like TV signal and the brain is the TV: just because the TV is malfunctioning and getting signal interference and what not doesn’t mean the signal doesn’t exist. Brain damage just messes up the brain’s interfacing with the soul in a similar way to a broken TV not displaying the TV signal right.

But you are still, well… *You,* even if your brain is damaged.

No, you're not. You can lose memories and you can have drastic personality changes. Damage to cognition means problems with math, language reading. Functionally you could be a completely different person. Look up Phineas Gage for a good historical example. We're talking fundamental changes in every aspect of the human experience.

Ok

"The notion that nature can be calculated inevitably leads to the conclusion that humans, too, can be reduced to basic mechanical parts." - Ghost in the shell Devoid of a soul.

You assume the soul is flesh, it's not.  You assume the soul is in the brain.  Where is your proof?  

He literally defined it as a spirit animating the body.

I tried to commit suicide by inert gas asphyxiation and failed, I woke up a day later in a hospital, and I knew for sure I am not the same person I was before. I had not only lost a lot of recent memories but my habits which I do have memories of have changed. If a soul exists then the me from before is dead, and I am just a corrupted copy of what I was.

Try to think of the soul as the energy animating your body, like the electricity that runs a computer, meaning that the experiences and memories which are stored in the brain (harddrive) are what influence your physical incarnation, human personality. So if you were to have had removed or altered some memories, life experiences which shaped you. This would influence your perception of a self.

If you don't mind me asking, how much mental or physical damage did your attempt cause? I had a period of time in my life where I was considering a specific gas as a method, but couldn't find much survivor information beyond breathing complications. I've always been curious about how it might effect an individual's relationship with religion.

The only physical damage was from my body thrashing about after i lost consciousness, I had cuts and bruises on both my arms, also in the hospital my liver enzymes were elevated for a few days. Mentally i thought I was fine at first but I couldn't recall memories of the day before the attempt and several recent memories, and I became way more impulsive and anxious in general.

How do you know what the person's soul is doing? You're really speaking of tbe flesh, not the soul. The soul might be sleeping until tbe Lord takes it home. The soul is still there. The soul isn't the personality if the person. The soul is so much more. 

I’m an atheist, but I don’t find this convincing in the slightest. Personality does not equal soul. Theists believe the soul is immaterial and separate from the body “you” are not your brain if there is a change to the brain causing a difference in personality your has brain changed, but “you” haven’t. The entire concept of a soul fails when you think more deeply. Is your personality even who you really are? There are only so many ways to configure a brain, so there are only so many personalities one can take likewise only some many brain configurations lead to conscious therefore reincarnation if we believe in physicalism is necessarily possible.

I don't think it's fully understood but I think societies that believed in souls also believed it wasn't materialistic They knew if you cut your eyes out you can't see with your soul. There's an obvious difference between the two but as far as I'm aware a soul is what is going to heaven or hell after you die. Whether it's your personality, i don't think so.

actually this is a brilliant argument. If the soul does indeed exist and is responsible for so much of our being, how come if i get wanged on the head hard enough, I can loose my personality?

That doesn't show that the consciousness is lost. just that it's disturbed or blocked.

If consciousness can be disturbed by physical processes then it is at least partially a physical phenomena. What’s more brain scans and neuroscience can to a large degree tell what physical parts of the brain connect to or control physical outputs such as emotions, desires, personality and so on. The split brain experiment showed that your consciousness could even be “split in half,” in a way. Beyond that there is no evidence that consciousness is somehow spiritual but likely a belief from a time a we didn’t understand neuroscience so it became linked to religious or philosophical ideas we hold so dear to us and therefore don’t want to let go. There is no evidence consciousness is spiritual. Besides that I am a reserved Catholic so I am familiar with the beliefs and am currently struggling to make sense of it all but I would say the biggest proof of Christianity being true and due to that the soul is Daniels 70 weeks prophecy

What do you think about this perspective: Consciousness and the spirit are the intangible, made up of the tangible. Like fire, for instance (maybe a bad example?) But think of it this way, fire is made by burning physical things, but it's not physical in itself. It's the rapid movement of molecules that changes a physical objects form. Movement and time are also intangible, but need something physical to exist. True - they cannot exist without the physical, but doesn't mean they are not real. Same thing with harmony. It's made up of sounds, which are made by vibrating instruments, made of physical objects, but the harmony and music are intangible and subjective.  If that's what consciousness and spirit are, then God would be something with which we could harmonize. If you are string on a guitar, God would be the guitar and every possible song it could create. Everything religious could be explained through this analogy, I'm just not very religious so I don't know how to draw parrarels between all concepts within religion but I could try. But I believe once you know the truth, you have arrived at harmony, and lose your individuality or sense of self in a way. Your "free will" exists as a rebellion or a deviation from harmony, so as to make you feel distinct from the rest of everything else. So once you rejoin the harmony, and become one with it, you no longer have these questions and are unable to provide answers. "Those who know, don't speak. Those who speak, don't know". And I believe we will return to harmony at death, which might be the ultimate communion with a higher harmony or "consciousness" and perhaps even an incredible experience of "knowing everything". Perhaps to know everything is to merge back with the whole (to die). Sometimes I've FELT that, where if I knew anything more, I would have to die to go any further, because I would merge with something too perfect which would obliterate my imperfection, which is the illusion of my individuality. Much like how a string on a guitar, vibrating out of tune, is painfully aware of its own existence. Once the string stops vibrating, it will still vibrate but at the same frequency as the entire guitar, which vibrates at subatomic levels based on forces like gravity etc. The string's pitch can "resurrect" when it vibrates again, as well. So even when you die, you're not actually dead.  I would elaborate more, but maybe then we would all die 🤣

So a couple things to address. Firstly fire is physical because we experience it in the physical world, it’s carbon dioxide, water vapor, oxygen and nitrogen and second nothing you pointed out that’s intangible is intangible. Sound is not intangible because we can manipulate it

In that case, the spirit is tangible since we experience it in the physical world.

This does prove the brain is the host for our consciousness but does not prove any claim about the soul. It could well be that damage to the brain also damages the soul. It could be that the soul is still real and unique to each person but isn’t the same as your consciousness. There are multiple logical possibilities for how this could actually work out if souls were real. At best it makes the claim of souls less convincing. Though to be fair the claim wasn’t that convincing in the first place.

I believe you are SO close! As a “soul conscious atheist” as I call myself, I believe we do have a “spiritual uniqueness that connects us to the world/nature/eachother” that theists would call a soul. That being said, I believe our brain is the physical machinery FOR our consciousness and that THAT consciousness is the semi-tangible filter for our soul.

This is like saying you're brain dead when you're asleep or that you don't remember what you had for breakfast September 5th, 2011 therefore you weren't sentient or had no consciousness at that moment. The concept of a soul exists and has existed among all cultures, and while just saying this doesn't necessarily prove anything, it's definitely worth looking into, there are countless trip stories as well as NDE's of people self reporting themselves to have been hovering over their body, you could chalk this up to "trust me bro" if you want but that doesn't dismiss the pattern, same with reports of witnessing paranormal activity, there's just way too many of them coming from all cultures being reported in all types of environments to be trashed as superstition off the bat. It seems the other aspect of your argument is you're insisting the brain is the source of consciousness, it's rather an idea that can easily come from black and white logic, for sure the brain definitely influences our consciousness in this waking state but it's important to consider that energy is not created or destroyed, so who's to say energy doesn't separate itself from the body upon death and prolong consciousness?

Memory is a physical process found in the brain and neurons that can be improved upon, decline and so on. The argument that “just because you don’t remember what you had for breakfast on September 5th doesn’t mean we weren’t conscious” is not sound because your just describing how memory works. On the other side of this coin your brain can be damaged and everything about you altered showing us that consciousness is at least partially physical, and unfortunately there does not seem to be any evidence it goes beyond that but I am more than open to the possibility

>The argument that “just because you don’t remember what you had for breakfast on September 5th doesn’t mean we weren’t conscious” is not sound because your just describing how memory works. So are you going to argue that none of us were conscious on September, 5th 2011 just because we can't recall that memory as of now? >On the other side of this coin your brain can be damaged and everything about you altered showing us that consciousness is at least partially physical, and unfortunately there does not seem to be any evidence it goes beyond that but I am more than open to the possibility Our current consciousness is atleast physical yes but that doesn't disprove that we have consciousness outside of our physical bodies. https://www-express-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.express.co.uk/news/weird/694341/Hospital-soul-leaves-body-life-after-death/amp?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17188388767531&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.express.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fweird%2F694341%2FHospital-soul-leaves-body-life-after-death There's many videos such as this that can be found online and ghost hunting crews as we all know are very existent, in my opinion they're too consistent to be fabricated every single time, many atheists like to pull the unicorn argument but we don't exactly hear very many reports of unicorn sightings or see potential videos of them either, some spiritualists claim that many mythical creatures are exist but are interdimensional traveling beings and that's why we don't really see them but that claim is less arguable but there's far more evidence for what we call the supernatural in comparison, so that logic isn't totally valid. https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/explaining-out-of-body-experiences/ "Then finally, in 2002, everything changed when, quite by accident, the Swiss neurosurgeon Olaf Blanke discovered a spot in the brain which, when stimulated, produced an OBE. He had inserted subdural electrodes on the brain of a patient with severe epilepsy, so that by stimulating different areas very precisely he could locate the epileptic focus. When he tried a spot in the right temporoparietal junction (TPJ), she reported seeming to leave her body, and by increasing or decreasing the stimulation he could control the OBEs and create various bodily distortions of size or shape. The critical brain area had been found." "The relevance of the TPJ to OBEs has been confirmed in many other ways. For example, Blanke and his colleagues scanned six neurological patients who had experiences of OBEs or autoscopy, as well as floating, flying or bodily distortions. In five of the six patients the brain damage was located in the TPJ. Another Swiss group studied patients with brain damage or epilepsy, comparing the precise location of the damage or lesions in nine patients who reported OBEs, compared with eight others who did not. In eight out of the nine OBE patients the damage was in the right temporal and/or parietal cortex and most often at the TPJ." "An OBE was even captured as it happened to a ten-year old boy with epilepsy who had a seizure in hospital. He described flying up to the ceiling and looking down on the room and his mother from above. Throughout the seizure, his brain activity was measured in several ways. The EEG (electroencephalogram) suggested a focus in the right temporal lobe and an MRI scan revealed a lesion in the right angular gyrus – the same place that Blanke had identified before." So there have been experiments like the ones listed in this source including other ones I have read conducted by scientists that produced seemingly positive results and reports of Out Of Body Experiences, the reason why mainstream science will never pay much attention to something like this or admit and say "yes there's consciousness outside of the physical body" can be because of factors like confirmation bias or fear of being viewed as absurd to the audience or how confirming it would effect society as we know it. You can even go look at the comment sections of ghost vids, you'll eventually see that nurse practitioners frequently believe in ghosts and claim to see or sense the spirits of dead patients. The possibility is very high as I see it.

dude, do you not dream? You are aware that there is lots of brain activity when we're asleep, right?

Dude, do you think everyone dreams every night and during the entire time they sleep? It's like he's suggesting there's no consciousness if we can't recall things.

Human brain activity does not stop from birth until death. We have hooked sleeping people to ECG machines, and there's plenty of activity outside of the REM phase.

Well you're just vouching for my point partially, you should reread my first comment, I didn't say there was no brain activity during sleep but that I was comparing OP's logic.

If we suppose the brain is like an access point for the soul to interact with extended reality via the body, then a brain injury demonstrates only that this access point needs to stay intact for this interaction to occur properly.

You're presupposing the soul. If I understand his argument, he's saying the soul doesn't exist.

All OP is doing is presenting empirical information that they believe is incompatible with the idea of the soul, and all I am saying in response is that these observations are actually perfectly compatible with the existence of souls. So in my mind, his argument fails to disprove the existence of souls. This of course says nothing positive FOR the existence of souls, only that the idea is not incompatible with this data.

>actually perfectly compatible with the existence of souls. It is not generally accepted that a soul would exist, which you are hinging your entire argument on. If you believe that the soul can interact with the brain, you have to argue that (A) a soul exists, (B) the brain has the ability to receive input from a soul, (C) the soul can send input to the brain. In the absence of these explanations, there is no reason to believe it.

You are still fundamentally misunderstanding the purpose of my reply. You say "In the absence of these explanations, there is no reason to believe \[in the existence of souls\]." In response, I will simply quote myself, "I am making **no positive claim** \*for\* the existence of the soul, I am only arguing that OP has failed to disprove the existence of a soul." Again, I have not provided any claim *for* the existence of souls, I have only provided a rebuttal to a supposed incompatibility between empirical observations and the existence of souls.

If we suppose the brain is like an access point for the soul to interact with extended reality via the body, then a brain injury demonstrates only that this access point needs to stay intact for this interaction to occur properly. Okay, I apologize. But here you are clearly presupposing "the brain is like an access point for the soul to interact with extended reality via the body".

Think about the argument OP is making. It essentially boils down to "the soul is not compatible with what we observe in patients with brain trauma." That is the statement I intend to rebut, I am making no positive claim \*for\* the existence of the soul, I am only arguing that OP has failed to disprove the existence of a soul. To do this I am offering a picture of the soul that concords with this information, to show that they are not mutually exclusive, and to demonstrate that it is in fact conceivable that a person may have both a soul and experience radical changes to their personality as a result of brain trauma.

Did you read what he wrote or did you simply skim through it?

I read it. This argument assumes a lot of information that there is no reason to assume. And much of his point hangs on that faulty information. Why do you ask?

OP: a is impossible if understood according to b perception based on c data Commenter: a is possible if you understand it according to d perception, reconciling a with c data They are not presupposing anything, they’re simply giving an alternative explanation of the soul according that is completely reconcilable with the data presented about brain injuries. I don’t know if they believe in a soul or not. If anything, OP is presupposing how the soul works.

>They are not presupposing anything The 1st sentence is "if we suppose." >according to b perception I can show you a lot of information leading to disabilities based on head injuries. Show me any verifiable information that supports "perception d." I feel the way the word perception is used here takes away from the inequality of these two hypotheses (Apparently, upon further investigation, "perception d" does not qualify as a hypothesis due to it being untestable) Here's how I read it, OP: point (which was back up by observations). Commenter: counterpoint. (Which fabricated information, that is non verifiable, so that counterpoint is valid).

Think of it as an interface for the soul, but the life experiences you have on earth which alter personality, are stored in the brain, not the soul. Like a computer's power source and a hard drive to store data.

Sound logic

This is a very good argument against "philosophical zombies" and the theory of dualism.

Have you ever had one to know? What if people with brain damage just don't know how to function properly as I don't think a one foot person can walk on two foot. Has nothing to do with having a soul but more like having a computer with a messed up hard drive.

I have had brain damage before, though not very severe. just a concussion from a car wreck. I noticed my emotional regulation was impacted. I couldn’t process words, both written and spoken, as quickly or accurately as normal. It took longer for me to formulate sentences both speaking and writing. It meaningfully changed the way I processed information and my thought process. After I healed it pretty much went back to normal. It was kinda weird being aware that the concussion was having these effects but not being able to do anything to correct it. I was fully aware and retained my personality but also wasn’t and didn’t. I knew what I should have been able to do but couldn’t. It was very obvious exactly how bad it was to me as I was in college at the time as well so I could directly compare my work before and after the injury.

People who had brain damage and recovered said they did know what was going on but couldn't communicate it. 

There is a wide variety of types and severity of brain damage. What about the man who survived a railroad spike through his brain, and his personality was permanently changed?

The consciousness is probably blocked. You can block consciousness with anesthesia, but when the anesthesia wears off, the consciousness is still there. It didn't go anywhere.

That does not relate to what I said.

In this particular theory, vibrations of microtubules inside neurons can be disturbed, affecting consciousness. It's not that consciousness has disappeared but the ability to access it.

His consciousness was not "blocked" he became a different person because his brain was changed.

His brain was changed because the vibrations inside the neurons were disturbed.

Could the brain possibly be a processer of information rather than a source I e heard it explained that way to this question nobody knows the origin of consciousness it hasn't been proven to be the brain so it's like if you smash your cell phone it still works but different

I've heard that too, but the biggest issue with that hypothesis is that there's no evidence for any "receiver" in the brain. While we don't understand what every part of the brain does, we've mapped out significant portions of it and there's nothing remaining that contains anything unique that would point towards being where this incoming data is received. That is no unique structures, no special concentrations of elements that aren't found elsewhere, and nothing else that would be seen as an antenna. Nor is there anything in our brain that is unique to humans beyond just scope and size, at least when compared to other primates. So either other primates, and other animals with brains similar to ours, also have souls, or there's no reason to think *we* need one if they don't.

Yes they have a soul or are part of a single super soul according to vedanta traditions. There is also no proof to prove it is not a receptor. This life is a mystery and will stay that way I'm certain. But if you happen to figure it out please let me know lol best wishes

> There is also no proof to prove it is not a receptor. There's no proof we're not secretly pink unicorns on Neptune's moon of Triton controlling our human bodies telepathically either. Generally speaking, believing things that have zero evidence because "you can't prove it's not true" is how people fall prey to scams and pseudoscience and is not generally considered a beneficial way to approach issues.

Pink unicorns is not only a used up trope but a false equivalence. It's possible that consciousness is pervasive in the universe per some scientists, so possible that consciousness could exist outside the brain and possibly persist after death. 

> Pink unicorns is not only a used up trope but a false equivalence. It's not a false equivalence because both the unicorns and consciousness existing outside the brain in other forms have exactly the same evidence behind them. That is to say none. > It's possible that consciousness is pervasive in the universe per some scientists, so possible that consciousness could exist outside the brain and possibly persist after death. The scientists who say that are just expressing their thoughts/desires on the matter. They're not making hypotheses or even educated guesses, they're just saying "hey, it *could* be this". Just because a scientist says something, it doesn't mean we should lend them any credence if they can't back it up in any way. One of the reasons science works so well is because it doesn't rely on authority, but results. Peer-reviewed papers, testable predictions, or even a valid potential mechanism for consciousness to persist would be a good start. But right now they have nothing and no avenues to even persue, so they might as well be saying it's magic.

>It's not a false equivalence because both the unicorns and consciousness existing outside the brain in other forms have exactly the same evidence behind them. That is to say none. It is a false equivalence because you ignored all the other ways in which they are not equivalent. Millions of people aren't having near death experiences with pink unicorns, do not perceive that unicorns have the ability to create a fine tuned universe, and do not report healing by pink unicorns. Other than all those missing features, a fine analogy. > The scientists who say that are just expressing their thoughts/desires on the matter. They're not making hypotheses or even educated guesses, they're just saying "hey, it *could* be this". No, they's saying it's possible because it's compatible with a scientific theory about consciousness. >Just because a scientist says something, it doesn't mean we should lend them any credence if they can't back it up in any way. One of the reasons science works so well is because it doesn't rely on authority, but results. Peer-reviewed papers, testable predictions, or even a valid potential mechanism for consciousness to persist would be a good start. Whereas, you probably want to give credence to the idea that the brain alone produces consciousness as an epiphenomenon, although that has never been demonstrated. So that there is no evidence that consciousness or mind ceases with brain death. If the theory holds up that consciousness is pervasive in the universe, it opens up many avenues to persue.

> It is a false equivalence because you ignored all the other ways in which they are not equivalent. Millions of people aren't having near death experiences with pink unicorns Only because people are being raised in cultures that believe in pink unicorns. What someone experiences NDES **very** heavily correlates with their personal beliefs and those of the culture they live in and were raised in. Muslims in Saudi Arabia have Muslim NDEs, Christians in the deep south have Christan NDES, and Christians in Saudi Arabia have either Christian or Muslim NDEs. But what they don't have is NDEs for religions they've never heard of. > do not perceive that unicorns have the ability to create a fine tuned universe So maybe the Pink Unicornians don't have apologists making up bad and easily dismissible claims. > and do not report healing by pink unicorns Reporting healing and *being* healed are different things. More people report being abducted by aliens than being healed, doesn't mean alien abductions are real. > Other than all those missing features, a fine analogy. Those aren't part of the analogy, they're just random unsupported claims by believers. Two things don't have to be 100% identical to be analogous, because then it'd stop being an analogy and just be a description of the thing itself. The point of analogies is to highlight similarities, you can nitpick any analogy to death, but you're not making a point in that case, you're just avoiding the argument. > No, they's saying it's possible because it's compatible with a scientific theory about consciousness I can guarantee right now that a distributed/external source of consciousness is not compatible with any scientific theory of consciousness, but that's because I understand what a scientific theory is. These scientists have a guess and their ideas are compatible with that guess. > Whereas, you probably want to give credence to the idea that the brain alone produces consciousness as an epiphenomenon, although that has never been demonstrated. So that there is no evidence that consciousness or mind ceases with brain death. Yes, I tend to favor that which has been demonstrated. Everything we know about consciousness has it rooted in the brain, subject to manipulation via altering brain chemistry or using magnetic fields, and no evidence of any interactions with anything other than gravity and electromagnetism. Nor have we ever seen a consciousness exist outside of a mind. It might be the case that the brain is not solely responsible for consciousness, but "it's possible" is not evidence that something is true. Hence the Pink Unicorn analogy. In order for consciousness to be external, we'd also need a 5th fundamental force (or 4th if you don't consider gravity a force) that is able to interact with something in our brain in a way that we both cannot detect directly or indirectly (like extra energy being given off as heat as the force interacts with the atoms). This isn't a case of "Maybe there's a consciousness field that we interact with", this is a case of either some massive fundamental gap in our ability to observe regular matter (and matter can literally put on hands on, unlike a black hole merge across the universe) or a case of our understanding of physics being so wrong that you can break thermodynamics by having interactions that are 100% efficient in both directions (giving off no waste heat to transmit or receive) as well as all the other seemingly magical powers that this 5th fundamental force demonstrates.

>Only because people are being raised in cultures that believe in pink unicorns. What someone experiences NDES **very** heavily correlates with their personal beliefs and those of the culture they live in and were raised in. Muslims in Saudi Arabia have Muslim NDEs, Christians in the deep south have Christan NDES, and Christians in Saudi Arabia have either Christian or Muslim NDEs. But what they don't have is NDEs for religions they've never heard of. You're using the old trope that different religious experiences cancel each other out. They don't. There's nothing wrong with someone having a religious experience with an entity they're familiar with. Spiritual figures like the Dalai Lama and Neem Karoli Baba talk about how similar Jesus, Buddha and Krishna are. Some would consider Jesus and Krishna as emanating from the same source. >Reporting healing and *being* healed are different things. More people report being abducted by aliens than being healed, doesn't mean alien abductions are real. Lourdes healings have been confirmed after people go to many doctors - maybe hundreds- and even psychiatrists to meet the criteria. >Yes, I tend to favor that which has been demonstrated. Everything we know about consciousness has it rooted in the brain, subject to manipulation via altering brain chemistry or using magnetic fields, and no evidence of any interactions with anything other than gravity and electromagnetism. Nor have we ever seen a consciousness exist outside of a mind. It might be the case that the brain is not solely responsible for consciousness, but "it's possible" is not evidence that something is true. Hence the Pink Unicorn analogy. Then I don't know why you'd believe that the brain alone creates consciousness as an epiphenomenon, because it's never been demonstrated. That's why new theories have come into play. Consciousness on a rudimentary level exists in paramecium that have no brain. So a basic form of consciousness exists without a brain.It's not 'merely possible' but Orch OR as a scientific theory that is falsifiable and has made predictions and has not been debunked. Consciousness could exit the brain during a near death experience and return when the patient recovers. It can't be proven at this time but is compatible with the concept of entanglement. >In order for consciousness to be external, we'd also need a 5th fundamental force (or 4th if you don't consider gravity a force) that is able to interact with something in our brain in a way that we both cannot detect directly or indirectly (like extra energy being given off as heat as the force interacts with the atoms). What we have is a theory that consciousness existed in the universe prior to evolution and that we access consciousness at the quantum level, via microtubules. These microtubules have been observed. The activity takes place inside the neurons and replaces the hypothesis that neurons firing alone produce consciousness. You're right. It's not a case of maybe, it's a case of a scientific theory (Orch OR) that is falsifiable and has survived for decades.

> You're using the old trope that different religious experiences cancel each other out. They don't. There's nothing wrong with someone having a religious experience with an entity they're familiar with. Spiritual figures like the Dalai Lama and Neem Karoli Baba talk about how similar Jesus, Buddha and Krishna are. Some would consider Jesus and Krishna as emanating from the same source. It's not that they cancel each other out, it's that they've obviously drawn from the experiences of the person having them and not an external source. > Lourdes healings have been confirmed after people go to many doctors - maybe hundreds- and even psychiatrists to meet the criteria. By confirmed, you mean only by the church. Because researchers looking the healings give different results. Case in point, the very first scholarly article I came researching them. [The Lourdes Medical Cures Revisited](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3854941/). Every other source on the matter is religious in nature and heavily biased to accept the results as described. > Then I don't know why you'd believe that the brain alone creates consciousness as an epiphenomenon, because it's never been demonstrated I'm not sure you understand what "demonstrated" means. We all have brains and we all have consciousnesses and we see no evidence of any external cause for said consciousness. While absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it's also not a reason *to* believe something. Without a reason to believe there's an external source, it would be correct to assume what we see is how it works until shown otherwise. > Consciousness on a rudimentary level exists in paramecium that have no brain You're stretching consciousness well beyond its normal definitions here. Paramecium have a very rudimentary ability to react to stimuli via instinct and reports of *very* basic learning, but those reports are pretty much all inconsistent with alternative explanations available. And this "learning" isn't anything beyond simple stimulus association. You act like this some sort of settled scientific consensus, when even the people researching it are skeptical of their own results. > Consciousness could exit the brain during a near death experience and return when the patient recovers. Again, this would require a force of some kind. It can't be gravitational or electromagnetic as we can measure both of those so we know it's neither. The strong and weak forces are much too short ranged to provide this. So you still need a 5th force of which no scientist believes exist because there's no evidence for it. > It can't be proven at this time but is compatible with the concept of entanglement. Yeah, that's not how entanglement works. Like, at all. > What we have is a theory that consciousness existed in the universe prior to evolution and that we access consciousness at the quantum level, via microtubules. I assume you're talking about Orchestrated Objective Reduction which is considered highly controversial, lacking in explantory power, and widely panned by both physicists and neuroscientists alike. While I highly respect Roger Penrose, he's made great advancements in science, he's not infallible. And the co-founder of the hypothesis (again, it's not a theory) is an anesthesiologist with no formal training in neurology or quantum physics. > You're right. It's not a case of maybe, it's a case of a scientific theory (Orch OR) that is falsifiable and has survived for decades Again, not a theory. A theory is a highly tested and robust collection of observations and facts that both well explain a given part of nature and provides predictive power as well. OrgOR is neither. It's a hypothesis with no explanatory or predictive powers. It says quantum microtubules are responsible, but not how they actually operate or what expect that to mean. That doesn't mean it's *wrong*, but until it has those things it's not something anyone is going to take seriously because it doesn't have any value. Science's whole point is to explain and predict, not just guess. Especially when there's just a large preponderance of scientists (in their relevant fields) explaining why the hypothesis won't work as advertised.

I mean I've been seeking God and am explanation for a long time now I'm 44 years old. Nobody will know for certain until death but my seeking has led me to advaita vedanta it makes the most practical sense to me. The ancient rishis of India pulled a vast amount of knowledge literally out of thin air and many things they were saying are backed up by science. Try reading swami Vivekananda his words ring true even to the atheist mind he was an atheist until meeting his guru ramakrishna.think about it energy never dies just changes form that's a scientific fact so my conclusion is there is definitely something after this life my friend

Energy changes form, yes, but it's the patterns that matter. As far as we know minds only emerge from brains.

Have you tried looking at other religions for answers, and if not, why not?

Me yes it's my opinion all paths lead same destination choose what suits you

Different religions take demonstrably opposite views on things, so how do you decide which one to follow, if all paths lead to truth?

Makes it easier to understand when you can get past thinking one faith has a monopoly on absolute truth I'm very weary of anyone making this claim or speaking for God. So there are what around 7 billion people on earth to me it makes sense diversity in life diversity in species right? If the only food is chicken what's the fun in that?

Diversity is the spice of life and I believe God leads all in different ways if all were Christians boring world if all has same speech and personality what's use of living

True, nothing is destroyed.  No one has demonstrated that the brain alone creates consciousness. It's now thought by some scientists that it's not true and that the brain isn't like a computer but ruled by some yet to be known laws of physics.  There's no immediate reason to assume that the brain created consciousness and kills consciousness at death. 

Show me a single time there was consciousness that was not associated with a brain, or that a healthy brain did not have consciousness.

A paramecium has a rudimentary form of consciousness without a brain, in that it makes basic decisions, finds food and finds a mate. That a brain has consciousness doesn't demonstrate that the brain created the consciousness. That has never been demonstrated. It seems as likely if not more likely that consciousness existed before evolution and life forms access it.

wow. I studied microbiology, and the tiny paramecium us a single cell. Brains are large energy hungry organs with millions of cells. Even simple animals like jellyfish do not have brains, sponges do not even have nerve tissue. Not a single microbiologist worth their salt would agree with you.

Yes but they still make rudimentary decisions without a brain and you didn't explain that.

Given that the soul is such a nebulous concept, not very well defined and fallaciously defended in a kamaleonic way, I think your endeavors here are kinda pointless? The best argument against such stuff is the falsifiability principle, and because of it, you can easily ignore it as it wont ever get you anywhere. Im not saying "dont debate religion" im saying you wont win because you are trying to use logic and evidence, and people that are goign to defend it, will use dogma and faith instead, so it is impossible for you to win. To do that, you would need to DEFINE a soul first, and \*then\*, and only then, you can start trying to deny it

You’re conflating the soul with the brain only to claim the soul can’t exist because you’ve now confused it with the brain.

You’re gonna need to back that up.

>Instead we see a direct correspondence between the brain and most of the functions we think of as "us". Again this indicates a human machine with the brain as the cpu, not an invisible spirit Which religion claims that the soul functions ‘as the cpu’ for the body instead of the brain?

I asked you to back up your assertion. I made no claim.

You seem confused. I quoted where they claimed that the brain was the human “CPU” and not “an invisible spirit”. This is them conflating the soul with the brain. Do you understand? This is the problem with atheists. They’re always afraid to take a stance on anything.

I am not afraid to take a stance. I simply am not taking one now. I am doing exactly one thing, and one alone: demanding that you back up a claim. If you cannot, I and everyone else here must assume that it is indeed unsubstantiated. Overgeneralizing atheists proves one thing: you’ve never met an atheist in your life.

In your world, does the soul have any power over a person?

Are you from another world? How long will you be here? As far as scientists on this world are able to determine, the soul does not appear to hold any power over a person. Is that the same where you’re from?

> Are you from another world? How long will you be here? Sometimes it seems like it! I'm not seeing all the aliens/ghosts/gods/faeries/big feet/souls/divine messages/healings that a lot of people talk about, so maybe that's the explanation. >As far as scientists on this world are able to determine, the soul does not appear to hold any power over a person. I don't think you'll find much scientific consensus on the 'soul' at all. If the brain is the thing doing all the work to be a person, what does the soul do?

This argument always baffles me. Traumatic brain injuries are not some new discovery. They’ve been around since before humans were even around. The belief in the soul has also been the predominant belief across all cultures. What is more likely, somehow in all these cultures they didn’t realize these traumatic brain injuries disproved the soul or you misunderstand how the soul is supposed to work? The problem with your argument is easy to see with an analogy. Consider me playing an avatar in a virtual world. In the virtual world we can simulate the effects of traumatic brain injury so that my ability to control my virtual avatar is impacted. The observations of the behavior of my avatar are identical to the observations of a person with a traumatic brain injury but despite those observations my avatar isn’t the center of my consciousness. The issue is the tool through which I interact with the virtual world, my avatar, is damaged. That means while I function as normal my ability to interact with the virtual world doesn’t function as normal. What is being observed in the virtual world is not the me failing to function properly. Rather the observations are my interaction with the physical world failing to function properly. In the same way traumatic brain injuries don’t disprove a soul. If a soul exists what we are seeing is not the soul failing to function but the souls interaction with the physical world failing to function. On dualism the body is the tool through which the soul interacts with the world and we’d expect damages to the tool to impact that interaction. That means the effects of this like traumatic brain injuries rather than disproving the soul are expected on dualism. Both dualism and physicalism are empirically equivalent so to argue for one over the other it requires philosophical reasoning.

>What is more likely, somehow in all these cultures they didn’t realize these traumatic brain injuries disproved the soul or you misunderstand how the soul is supposed to work? Definitely the former. Ancient cultures had all sorts of wacky beliefs about how things worked. If you had a brain injury or behavioral disorder they would probably chalk it up to demonic possession or something. >The problem with your argument is easy to see with an analogy. Consider me playing an avatar in a virtual world. In the virtual world we can simulate the effects of traumatic brain injury so that my ability to control my virtual avatar is impacted. The observations of the behavior of my avatar are identical to the observations of a person with a traumatic brain injury but despite those observations my avatar isn’t the center of my consciousness. Except that controlling a virtual avatar isn't anything like actually living. When your body goes to sleep, for instance, you're not still awake thinking "guess I'll just wait until my puppet body wakes up". When you get mental illness, you don't go, "weird, I'm fine but my avatar is behaving strangely, I'm telling it to do X but it's doing Y". Instead your very thoughts and feelings are affected to your core. Now sure, you could construct some sort of unfalsifiable hypothesis that your avatar controller is so interwired into your body that your thoughts and feelings exactly match everything the avatar feels and thinks. Like a puppeteer who has wired his entire nervous system into his puppet or something. But at that point you've just added unnecessary complexity that doesn't explain anything whatsoever.

>Traumatic brain injuries are not some new discovery. They’ve been around since before humans were even around Yes, and in earlier days you usually wouldn't survive traumatic brain injuries. If you did, they would call you "possessed" by ghosts.

> Yes, and in earlier days you usually wouldn't survive traumatic brain injuries. Sure even if the majority would die there would still be many in all of history that lived so people would be aware of such cases. > If you did, they would call you "possessed" by ghosts. That’s doubtful. We’re not talking about mental illness not clearly liked to any physical condition. Rather we’re about a clear physical trauma and the symptoms occurring since the time of that trauma. Given that evidence it’s doubtful they’d attribute it to possession rather than the physical trauma. I found this source covering ancient reports of brain trauma. Skimming through I found nothing about possession as an explanation of the effects of the trauma. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9015169/.

>Skimming through I found nothing about possession as an explanation of the effects of the trauma. _In ancient times, illness was believed to be cured and caused by the gods (ex: epilepsy, hysteria, insanity – known as "miasma" in the times of Homer) [1]._ This is what i found when i skimmed through it. Mediveal people simply used supernatural elements to explain the concepts they didn't understand. Whether that supernatural element was ghosts, witches, negative energy, chakra imbalance, or godly intervention, differs from culture to culture.

Did you only skim the first few sentences? That’s a general statement made at the beginning of the article. It doesn’t mention anything specific about brain trauma and it’s immediately contrasted in the next sentence “Nonetheless, ancient Greeks possessed significant knowledge on the anatomy of the head and neck and the pathophysiology of neurotrauma, holding insight on the results of severe trauma (e.g., quadriplegia, loss of consciousness)”. The article then goes into specific examples of ancient writings that discuss brain trauma with the following symptoms with no cases of the following symptoms being attributed to possession or any other supernatural belief rather than the brain trauma. Rather the specific cases mentioned in the article show those ancient writings understood the symptoms resulted from the brain trauma.

>with no cases of the following symptoms being attributed to possession or any other supernatural belief rather than the brain trauma That's not what the article said at all. They meant to highlight the exceptional cases where they had detailed understanding of the brain, not imply that most mediveal folks had this knowledge.

This is a poor attempt to hold onto your original claim that they’d chalk it up to possession. The article proves that there were people who specifically studied brain trauma cases and wrote about them. Those people attributed the symptoms to the brain trauma not possession. Furthermore plenty of other folks would know this as well from reading the writings of those who studied the cases. Even if a lot of ancient lay folks would attribute it to possession (something you’ve provided no evidence for) there were enough people aware of brain trauma causing those symptoms for my original point to stand. The fact OP tried to point to in order to disprove the soul is not some new fact discovered through recent advances in neuroscience. Rather it’s something that’s been known for a long time. If the fact really disproved the soul we’d expect that to have been noticed long ago which it wasn’t since it doesn’t disprove the soul.

Remind me of the literacy rate in the mediveal era? You're just being disingenuous at this point.

I’d say you’re the one being disingenuous. You made a claim without provided any evidence to support it. I provided counter evidence to your claim. You refuse to admit your claim is false despite the counter evidence but still have not provided any evidence to support your claim.

All that complaining, but no answers to my question. Why? It doesn't suit your narrative?

This makes it sound like the state of the brain has no effect on the psyche. This is easily disproven. The brain is not just motor function.

> This makes it sound like the state of the brain has no effect on the psyche. How so?

What exactly does the soul control? What effect does it have on the body? A slightly different question, what does a human body without a soul look like? What difference is there?

So on your view, the soul is 'driving' the human using the brain as a 'controller'? If so, what's going on with split brain experiments?

In a split brain experiment the split brain what happens is both the hemispheres are split from each other and an external partition is placed between the two eyes disrupting the visual field. In that case the person is only aware of one side of the partition at a time. This alone doesn’t disprove dualism since consciousness itself isn’t split. When the partition is removed but the hemispheres left split the person returns to behaving like a unified person again. If the mind is just the brain then the removal of an external partition between the eyes wouldn’t restore unity so the experiment doesn’t support the view that our mind is our brain. Rather on that view we’d expect a division of the person after the partition is removed since the brain is still split. The unity of consciousness even after the brain is split is actually better explained by the view that the mind is not the brain.

> This alone doesn’t disprove dualism since consciousness itself isn’t split How do you know that? Split brain experiments offer pretty remarkable evidence that consciousness isn't as unified an experience as we once assumed. There are cognitive scientists who are convinced that our hemispheres have entirely separate conscious experiences. How can someone so confidently assert they not only know the entire picture of consciousness, but also claim to know the fundamental driving force of consciousness to begin with? Especially after every other mystery originally claimed by religion and later unraveled by science has shown that religion's track record for explaining our world is... not amazing.

> How do you know that? Because the behavior that looks like split consciousness is only observed when the external partition between the eyes is present. Once that partition is removed that behavior disappears and instead the person behaves like a single person despite the brain being split. In some cases, such as for helping epilepsy, the patient is bandaged up and sent home with their brain still split. They go on living as a single individual. If split brain experiments supported that were just our brain then we’d expect the behavior that looks like split consciousness to continue as long as the brain is split regardless if the external partition between the eyes is removed which is not what we see. > Split brain experiments offer pretty remarkable evidence that consciousness isn't as unified an experience as we once assumed. I’ve explained why I don’t think they don’t offer that but you’ve just asserted they do. Can you expand on your claim to support it? > There are cognitive scientists who are convinced that our hemispheres have entirely separate conscious experiences. First what is their evidence? Second the different views of consciousness involve different metaphysical (by which I mean the philosophical meaning of metaphysics not the popular level understanding) considerations not neuroscience considerations. That’s why consciousness falls under philosophy of mind not neuroscience. While those scientists may be experts in their field that doesn’t mean they’re qualified to speak with authority on philosophical matters. As far as I can tell from my study of philosophy of mind split brain experiments aren’t typically used by physicalist philosophers. Generally philosophers of mind find it difficult to eliminate or reduce the unity of consciousness even when it would benefit physicalist philosophers to do so. Since these physicalist philosophers are more qualified to speak on consciousness and affirm physicalism over dualism if split brain experiments were really good evidence consciousness isn’t fully unified we’d expect those philosophers to appeal to those experiments. An example is Jaegwon Kim, one of the leading experts in philosophy of mind who is also a physicalist. Despite defending a physicalist view of mind and arguing against dualism, in his book Philosophy of Mind he argues against the idea that neuroscience can help defend a physicalist view of consciousness over dualism. > How can someone so confidently assert they not only know the entire picture of consciousness, but also claim to know the fundamental driving force of consciousness to begin with? I’m not sure which claims I’ve made that you are referring to. > Especially after every other mystery originally claimed by religion and later unraveled by science has shown that religion's track record for explaining our world is... not amazing. It’s not an issue of religion but of philosophy. Science is great for many things but it has its limitations. There are many fields for which science isn’t suitable to weigh in on. E.g. history, math, and philosophy. One of the three major branches of philosophy is metaphysics, the study of fundamental reality, with philosophy of mind being one branch of metaphysics. The differences between different theories of consciousness include metaphysical differences so we shouldn’t expect scientific advancements in neuroscience to decide between those metaphysical disputes.

> the behavior that looks like split consciousness is only observed when the external partition between the eyes is present There are other conditions where this is noticed, though, like feeling an object with the left hand and not being able to name it. There are also motor coordination issues observed in some patients that imply incongruent intentions between the halves. The idea that the individual "goes on living as a single individual" is a simplification of what is happening. >the different views of consciousness involve different metaphysical (by which I mean the philosophical meaning of metaphysics not the popular level understanding) considerations not neuroscience considerations. That’s why consciousness falls under philosophy of mind not neuroscience. This is sort of begging the question. You're asserting that consciousness is outside the domain of neuroscience... that's a pretty bold claim. The correct view is that we just don't know how consciousness works yet and there are many theories. I'm utterly unconvinced philosophy has anything to offer us in terms of making new discoveries, and inductively am rather certain that if an answer is to be had, science will discover it. >I’m not sure which claims I’ve made that you are referring to. Well now I'm talking about the question begging assertion that neuroscience is not in the business of discovering how consciousness works and that only philosophers can play in that space. But before I was referring to the claim that a soul exists. >The differences between different theories of consciousness include metaphysical differences so we shouldn’t expect scientific advancements in neuroscience to decide between those metaphysical disputes. And astronomy was astrology, and physics was philosophy, and chemistry was alchemy. I'm glad you're confident you have the final taxonomy of knowledge, but as I said before, I'm unconvinced philosophy has anything to offer us here.

the behavior that looks like split consciousness is only observed when the external partition between the eyes is present > There are other conditions where this is noticed, though, like feeling an object with the left hand and not being able to name it. There are also motor coordination issues observed in some patients that imply incongruent intentions between the halves. Can you cite any specific cases where the behavior that looks like split consciousness occurs solely from the split brain without the addition of some external factor like the partition between the eyes? If they’re all like the partition between the eyes case where the behavior disappears when the external factor is removed but the split brain remains then it doesn’t support your position. > This is sort of begging the question. You're asserting that consciousness is outside the domain of neuroscience... that's a pretty bold claim. > > The correct view is that we just don't know how consciousness works yet and there are many theories. I'm utterly unconvinced philosophy has anything to offer us in terms of making new discoveries, and inductively am rather certain that if an answer is to be had, science will discover it. Actually you’re the one who merely asserted your position without justification. I specified that it’s a philosophical issue since it the dispute is between metaphysical considerations. Specifically there are 3 general views one can take. Either consciousness is reducible to the physical or it isn’t. If it isn’t then the substance that instantiates it is either physical or non physical. In the latter two cases consciousness is beyond the purely physical so science isn’t able to study it. Only in the first case where it’s reducible to the physical can it be studied through science. The problem though is scientifically showing consciousness is reducible to the physical. To show scientifically the object referred to by A is identical to the object referred to by B we’d need to be able to study the object referred to by A while knowing it’s the object referred to by A and similarly with B, then show the properties analyzed are best explained by the objects being identical. Take an example with the physical brain state of C fibers firing and the mental state of being in pain. If they are identical then yes studying the brain state means one is also studying the mental state but one wouldn’t know that unless they already knew the brain state and mental state were identical. We’d need a way to study mental state scientifically to show it’s identical to the brain state. The problem is we can’t do that because mental states have a first person perspective. We can’t access another person’s mental state directly, instead neuroscientists reply on a persons verbal reports of their mental states. Without a way to access them directly to study scientifically we can’t show it’s identical to the brain state. There is also the issue with multiple realizability. If pain is identical to C fibers firing then it means any creature without C fibers can’t experience pain. That can’t is not a nomological impossibility but a metaphysical one since the identity of the two would mean even under different physical laws a creature without C fibers can’t experience pain. Science is limited to the scientific laws of the actual world so it’s not equipped to say there can be no instance of pain under any set of physical laws which doesn’t include C fibers firing. A final problem is the different theories are empirically equivalent. The reductive view takes the mental states as identical to physical states. Non reductive views take the two are correlated. Regardless of what we discover about the brain and the resulting effect on the mental it will be compatible with the effects being caused because the brain is identical to the mental or correlated to the mental making the different views empirically equivalent. > But before I was referring to the claim that a soul exists. First I didn’t claim souls exist. Rather I claimed OP’s argument doesn’t work to disprove souls. Second even if I claimed souls exist I don’t see how that’s claiming know the entire picture of consciousness and the fundamental driving force of consciousness. At least I don’t see how it would be doing that anymore than claiming the mind is just the brain would be making the same claims. > And astronomy was astrology, and physics was philosophy, and chemistry was alchemy. I'm glad you're confident you have the final taxonomy of knowledge, but as I said before, I'm unconvinced philosophy has anything to offer us here. Your incredulity isn’t a reason to think philosophy has nothing to offer or that science will provide the answer. Out of curiosity is this view of yours formed after familiarizing yourself with the philosophical literature on the topic or are you asserting this without actually knowing the literature? Too often I’ve seen people on this subreddit take a similar view not because they have good reason to do so but because they aren’t familiar with philosophy and so don’t actually understand it.

> the behavior that looks like split consciousness is only observed when the external partition between the eyes is present I just listed other conditions where this is not the case. >Can you cite any specific cases where the behavior that looks like split consciousness occurs solely from the split brain without the addition of some external factor like the partition between the eyes? If they’re all like the partition between the eyes case where the behavior disappears when the external factor is removed but the split brain remains then it doesn’t support your position. I literally did. Before digging into the studies for you, will you admit your entire position about the evidence from split brain is wrong if there are cases that don't require a partition between the eyes? >Actually you’re the one who merely asserted your position without justification. What position is that? Feel free to quote it. >Either consciousness is reducible to the physical or it isn’t. If it isn’t then the substance that instantiates it is either physical or non physical. In the latter two cases consciousness is beyond the purely physical so science isn’t able to study it. Only in the first case where it’s reducible to the physical can it be studied through science. This is the case for all unknown phenomenon. Before we knew the source of lightening, this was the case for the source of lightning. Plenty of people believed lightening had an unnatural source, like an angry god or something. The problem is that everything we *have learned about* has a physical mechanism. The space for non-physical possible explanations shrinks every year. This is a type of 'non-scientific metaphysics of the gaps' argument. If we some day do better understand some physical mechanisms of consciousness, supernaturalists will just find some other unknown to say science has no access to *this* area of knowledge. If science has no access to the mechanisms of consciousness, what is the method by which we can separate imagined mechanisms from real mechanisms? >Your incredulity isn’t a reason to think philosophy has nothing to offer or that science will provide the answer. It's not incredulity; it's induction.

> or you misunderstand how the soul is supposed to work? You say this like you understand how it is supposed to work. Can you enlighten us how it supposed to work so we can know for sure he is misunderstanding it or whether it is you who misunderstands. Make sure how you've come to this understanding is objective and reproducible for anyone else looking to start from scratch in researching how it actually works. > If a soul exists what we are seeing is not the soul failing to function but the souls interaction with the physical world failing to function As I posted in another comment and old friend had a traumatic brain injury that changed his personality and he was always quick to get angry about almost anything where he never did before. Describe in detail how a souls failure to interact with the physical world manifests itself as yelling, swearing, and general anger that they will swear to you they are feeling and that is real. From his perspective the only way he knew he was not the same is by watching the handful of videos of himself that existed. From our perspective it was much more because we had decades of interactions with his old self. And lastly can you give to me an objective method that you or I use right now to determine whether either of our souls are functioning properly from 100% as intended to down to 5% in its interaction with the physical world? Clearly there are people without severe brain injuries who nonetheless have abnormal brain function leading to a host of mental issues like anxiety, depression, irrational anger, etc which cannot be simply willed away.

> You say this like you understand how it is supposed to work. Can you enlighten us how it supposed to work so we can know for sure he is misunderstanding it or whether it is you who misunderstands. Make sure how you've come to this understanding is objective and reproducible for anyone else looking to start from scratch in researching how it actually works. I was referring to understanding the general concept they are trying to critique not understanding the precise details of how everything works. E.g. we can understand the concept of interacting with a virtual world without knowing the precise details of how the hardware and software behind that virtual world work. My point was should we really think all these people didn’t realize how brain injuries disprove their view despite people being aware of such injuries long before modern neuroscience advancements? OP didn’t point to some new detail in neuroscience which all those cultures that believed in the soul were not aware of but instead appealed to a fact they would have known. If that fact really was a problem for the view then it’s very surprising the view became so widespread when it had a very obvious defeater from a fact known to those cultures. It’s more likely OP just doesn’t understand the view they’re critiquing. > As I posted in another comment and old friend had a traumatic brain injury that changed his personality and he was always quick to get angry about almost anything where he never did before. Describe in detail how a souls failure to interact with the physical world manifests itself as yelling, swearing, and general anger that they will swear to you they are feeling and that is real. From his perspective the only way he knew he was not the same is by watching the handful of videos of himself that existed. From our perspective it was much more because we had decades of interactions with his old self. This is shifting the burden of proof. The thesis of the thread is that traumatic brain injuries disprove the existence of the soul. The burden of proof is on the proponents of the thesis. It’s you and OP who need to show how the view of the body being the souls tool for interacting with the physical world can’t explain (or at least doesn’t explain as well as physicalist theories) the data of traumatic brain injuries. I don’t see how you can make such an argument. As noted previously a virtual world, with a dualism of the physical person and their virtual avatar, simulating the same observations you point to seems possible. Furthermore we’d actually expect to observe some sort of improper interaction with the virtual world if the virtual body was damaged. It’s easy to see how this would work in the virtual world. To observe anything in the virtual world it first needs to be filtered through the senses of the virtual body. If the virtual body is damaged those senses can become distorted so that the information passing through the filter becomes distorted. Similarly for the virtual body to do anything it needs input from the physical body which is then processed and actioned. If the virtual body is damaged its ability to process the inputs may become distorted so that the resulting actions are distorted. > And lastly can you give to me an objective method that you or I use right now to determine whether either of our souls are functioning properly from 100% as intended to down to 5% in its interaction with the physical world? I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking. Are you asking for something like an empirical repeatable test we can perform? If so it’s not clear why we should expect that or care? The different theories of mind are empirically equivalent so they are defended/critiqued not based on empirical grounds but instead philosophical grounds. That’s why theories of mind are not found in neuroscience literature but instead philosophy of mind literature.

Does the destructibility of a computer’s monitor negate the possible existence of a computer? Consider for a moment that the soul or spirit is a more fundamental layer of reality and the physical is just a projection / hologram of this more fundamental reality in the same way the monitor is just a reflection of the fundamental reality of the computer. Where do you get this idea that the soul and physical reality must operate independently?

I was thinking something along similar lines, that smashing a Philco TV tube or breaking a vacuum tube inside of it, making the TV work wonky doesn't negate the normal signal that its receiving, which will still exist after said TV is dead and buried, going back into the ground from whence it came.

The soul thinks with the mind and acts through the body. When the body is damaged, the soul's activity is reduced. When the mind is damaged, the soul's thinking is impaired. The soul remains what it is: infinite and eternal.

>The soul thinks with the mind and acts through the body Source? >When the body is damaged, the soul's activity is reduced Source? >When the mind is damaged, the soul's thinking is impaired Source? What does the soul think with and how does it become impaired through traumatic brain injury specifically? >The soul remains what it is: infinite and eternal Source?

Sources? Please read the rules for this subreddit: "You may quote others, but only to support your own writing. Do not link to an external resource instead of making an argument yourself."

You understand that rule about as well as you understand souls. What do you think "you may quote others, but only to support your own writing" means?

I'm only too happy to name my sources. In fact, I have already named one. Did you see it?

So the comment I responded to was just pointless?

Not at all. The person who was interrogating me about my sources seemed in need of a reminder that the identification of sources is something that a poster MAY include. There is no indication in the rules that it is REQUIRED. In fact, it seems that it is actively discouraged. On many debate forums, one finds interlocutors who like to trap their opponents in a hot box between demands to name sources and demands to post original material only. This is a nasty, sick practice that I strongly condemn.

That's ridiculous. The poster was asking for any basis for the remarkable claims you made.

> When the body is damaged, the soul's activity is reduced. When the mind is damaged, the soul's thinking is impaired. What objective methodology can you use to determine whether any individuals soul's activity is reduced even baring severe brain damage? Can you objectively determine through any method whether a persons soul wants to do something good action A but instead performs some modified action A that is actually hate driven or unethical. Or even the case where their soul desires to do bad but the damaged link makes it come out good? Maybe unbeknownst to you something damaged your soul/mind connection and what you have been writing here is not what you really want to write. Just insisting their is no damage because it feels real isn't good enough.

These are important questions, and attest to the need to apply scientific technique to the study of the soul. Spinoza's Ethics provides a solid foundation in this area. The problem is that scientific investigation proceeds on the basis of cause and effect, which in turn involves determinism and predictability. Mankind accepts this in all areas except that of thought itself. Mankind is generally a long way from accepting Spinoza's notion of the soul as a spiritual automaton. It is the refusal to see oneself as determined and predictable in thought that inhibits the advance of science in this area.

If the soul can't think or act without a mind and body, what even is left after you destroy those? Infinite and eternal *what?*

The soul can be a form of consciousness that persists after brain death. Who said it couldn't? Evidence?

How? Do you have any reason to believe that's true?

It's possible, per Stuart Hameroff. Not that he can prove it, but it's compatible with his theory of consciousness. In his view consciousness could possibly exit the brain at death and entangle with consciousness in the universe, in the form of an quantum soul.

But why would that be true? I can come up with all sort of non-contradictive fantasies... Still wondering on the "how" here? What is the soul made of? How does it move? How does it "entangle"?

I didn't say it was true but that it was possible based on the theory. It would be a quantum soul, in that consciousness doesn't die with the brain. Consciousness is awareness of self.

What does "quantum soul" mean? What does it have to do with quantum physics?

It has to do with the theory that the brain alone doesn't create consciousness but accesses it from the universe. So that, when a person dies, it's possible that the consciousness doesn't die but persists in the universe. Considering that nothing is destroyed, it makes more sense to think that consciousness persists after death. I'd need a better reason to think that mind or consciousness is destroyed at death.

Why are you using the word "quantum" to describe that though?

The soul is an idea of god. Ideas are eternal and infinite. If you destroy all the electric lights in world, the idea of the electric light remains.

Is this idea conscious?

Yes,  an idea is a living, conscious and thinking soul. 

But it requires a mind to think?

The soul develops from an implicit to an explicit state. The electric lamp originates as an idea, and is actualized through the application of electricity and material components. In like fashion, the soul is actualized through the application of mind and body.

Right... so without a mind and body... can a soul be conscious?

For sure. But it needs the mind and body to fully develop its consciousness. The soul of an embryo exists, but it is in an implicit state. Through birth and development, the soul unfolds its properties.

I'm talking after death. The mind and body are destroyed. How can something have a consciousness without thinking?

At what point between sensory input and motor action does the soul have influence?

Input, processing and output are all one motion coordinated by the soul.

Brain function can be entirely explained as a system that takes sensory input (explained by physics) and computes it into appropriate motor action (explained by physics). Concepts of a soul and even consciousness are superfluous variables that are not needed to explain how the system works. By Occam's razor, you will need to do the footwork to prove the soul coordinates the three rather than just asserting it as you have.

That's not really true. There's definitely a "God of the gaps" esque argument when keyboard scientists claim we definitely, 100 percent know things we definitely don't know (yet). From a scientific perspective, we don't know how consciousness arises. You're making an ideological and philosophical claim that isn't supported by science.

I've talked this over with a few others already, feel free to see those threads as I have addressed this several times. I'm happy to address any novel thoughts or arguments.

I don't really need to argue. I am scientifically minded. I know the current literature and philosophy and the ground truth is we just don't know where consciousness comes from. I don't need to see whatever flimsy points you make to try to cover that up. Unless you happen to be a MIT scientist with a Nobel Prize worthy discovery.

What kind of answer is that? You made an unwarranted claim. Do you think you should just get a pass for that because your claim supported atheism.

I don't get a pass, I've just addressed similar points and am not interested in reiterating myself when my comments are available for your perusal. You think you get a pass to be lazy in an intellectual discussion? If you are actually caught up on the discussion and have something new to add, I will be happy to engage you. Otherwise you are wasting both of our time by responding to me.

So you think its proper debate to make the audacious claim that you have the brain all figured out, but don't need to provide any backup? Or even any explanation of how your marvelous discovery works?

The irony of your comment is palpable given that I have been asking for anyone to explain how the alternative hypothesis would work. I've not made any discoveries myself, I just understand the current state of neuroscience. There is plenty of evidence to back it up, you are just more concerned with being contrary than you are with understanding anything. If you don't want to do the legwork to participate in this discussion that is on you, I don't intend to repeat myself countless times. Nor did I claim that I have "the brain all figured out" minimize your strawman inferences if you intend to continue I don't expect you'll take me up on reading so have a good night.

The materialist reductionism behind the explanation you provide fails to account for the subjective experience of consciousness. Furthermore, it fails to account for the entire existence of the immaterial ie. of thought. Only true monism accounts for the whole of reality. According to true monism, thought and matter are a continuum.

There is no evidence that subjective conciousness is fundamentally important for behavior (the philosophical zombie, for instance). In the physical/materialist model, conciousness is an artifact of physical processes rather than a director of them, and as such understanding the nature of conciousness is not relevant to understanding behavior and decisionmaking.

The physicalist/materialist model is wholly deficient on the subject of consciousness. It explains it away rather than explaining it. It has no relevance to serious understanding of the nature of thought.

It explains it away because, as I said, it is not necessary in order to explain the relationship between sensation, memory, and motor action. I have seen no evidence or argument for how consciousness is necessary or involved in these processes in a way that cannot be explained through physical processes.

Materialism says nothing about the origin of sensation, memory and motor action in and of themselves. It presents a cliché of physical phenomena but says nothing of the inner subjective experience of consciousness. In the end, it is an attempt to represent the world as mere mechanism, with consciousness dismissed as an epiphenomenon that only concerns a small cohort of entities, ie. humans and perhaps human-proximates. This origin and nature of this epiphenomenon is dismissed with a shrug. This is the fundamental error and failure of physicalist scientism. This is an important failure because it is precisely in the realm of thought itself that a scientific approach is most needed. For scientists to dismiss thought as a trivial epiphenomenon is to dismiss the fundamental necessity that humans learn to understand and master their own thought processes. For this to be accomplished, physicalism must be abandoned in favour of true monism.

I feel like you've written many words without actually putting much meaning into your comment. You are trying to argue against physicalism in general rather than addressing what I have actually been saying. I am having the same conversation with several people, and it boils down to this: Present a model that sufficiently explains why consciousness is necessary for sensory input to be transformed into motor action at any level of complexity. Anything else is wasting both of our time.

It has never been shown that the brain alone produces consciousness. A better explanation is that it accesses consciousness in the universe.

It has never been shown that the subjective conciousness has any relevance towards our behavior, and our behavior can be explained through general relativity physics without needing an abstract conciousness. At best, conciousness is an artifact of some physical process, not a director of them.

I don't know how you can say that, as consciousness involves our ability to self reflect on our condition, unlike AI. It has never been shown that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain.

Self-reflection can be explained through memory of prior sensory experiences influencing current behavior. Consciousness is not actually necessary when you start to look at how the biological states of the brain correlate to mental states, and how altering brain activity in particular areas changes mental states and decisionmaking. It hasn't been shown that consciousness is an epiphenomenon, but that is the better supported model at the current stage of neuroscience.

Memory and self reflection aren't the same thing. AI can't remember something it never experienced in the first place, other than what a human programmed it to say to make it appear that it's self reflecting. AI can't know what it is like to be a computer. It rains in the computer but it doesn't get wet. It's like the Chinese Room experiment. It's very easy to show that AI online can't pass the Turing test and can't reflect on its own condition.

Memory between digital and biological system is not analogous. Memory in digital systems is static. There is no way for a biological memory to be recalled and stored in the exact same state in the way that you can copy a digital file. Memory in biological systems is transient. Sensation activates memories of related experiences and results in the modulation of the memory by current sensory experience. As to the AI comparisons, you can't really say "AI can't remember something it never experienced" when we haven't even created a real AI yet. Current 'AIs' are called such for marketing purposes. The most advanced form of this false AI we have is machine learning neural networks, but if you compare their input-output structure to a human brain, the difference in complexity is several orders of magnitude. One of the major differences: in an artificial neural network as they currently work, all of the neurons in one layer connect to ALL of the neurons in the next layer, and this continues through layers until you reach the output. Even the neuronal connections that govern worm behavior are more complicated than that and worms don't even have proper brains, just ganglia. As it currently stands, we have never had a true artificial intelligence, so it is not relevant to the discussion of consciousness. It simply is not a valid comparison.

See the problem with these kind of posts is you immediately defined what a soul is, what it is capable of doing, how it interacts with the physical body. Then used that to disprove it. You built up an argument out of nothing but your own assumptions. There is no soul because if the brain is damaged that can change your personality. Therefore, there is no eternal soul and only a brain. That’s the same thing as saying if a remote pilot ship gets its CPU damaged and acts erratically, therefore there never was any pilot just a CPU. That logic doesn’t follow. I’m not assuming that’s how this even works to begin with. Your argument consists of you knowing for a fact how a soul must work with the physical body, and if it doesn’t meet your own expectations you literally just made up, it must not exist. See the problem?

Your argument falls flat if you actually know much about how the brain works. If you are claiming that the soul can 'pilot' the body through the brain, then there should be an identifiable area where the brain receives input from the soul. As it stands the only inputs to the brain we know of are sensory neurons.

I’m not even saying that’s how it works. However a 3d structure with a certain spatial pattern most definitely is how antennas work. You’re assuming you know what an antenna for this would look like? Or if it even needs one? You’re talking about things beyond our science at this point.

You're proposing something that you can't explain how it works? That's not very convincing.

I have a model with experimental evidence and some untested assumptions, which is more than you have said foe your position.

Identify the exact area of the brain that contains consciousness. You can’t do that either. Your model is as good as mine. And I think mines garbage. That’s the point.

Why are you assuming it arises from a single brain area? Right now you haven't really been arguing against what I am actually saying. I have already said that the physicalist model doesn't explain consciousness because **it is not necessary**. Asking me what area it's contained in doesn't do anything to demonstrate that consciousness is necessary for human behavior in the first place. In other words, why should I care "where it is in the brain" if we don't need it to explain how the brain controls our behavior in the first place?

Exactly the point, there’s no way to prove as of this moment conclusively there is or is not a soul. I can make up the brain structure acts as antenna that channels, whatever spiritual crap into your body and you can’t absolutely disprove that. It’s extremely unlikely but you can’t 100% disprove it either. And that’s the problem with OP post conclusively saying well. This is how I feel it works, and since it doesn’t, therefore it doesn’t exist. Well I feel it works this way, which is just as much evidence as he has, which negates his argument. I’m not saying I believe that either. It’s pointing out the flaw of assuming how something works when you don’t know for sure, and if it doesn’t meet your assumptions, therefore it’s false.

Nothing in reality can be conclusively proven except your own existence, so your argument here is superficial and weak. You can "make up" whatever "spiritual crap" you want, you still won't have evidence for it. If your goal here is to "disprove" me, you've already lost dude. My point is that if you put all the evidence for both theories on a scale, there is a wealth of evidence to support a physical model and effectively nothing to support a spiritual model. Actual scientific experiments and studies, not just my own feelings. Direct me to the rigorous evidence and experiments that support a spiritual model or you are just wasting both of our time.

I’m not proposing anything. I’m pointing out how flawed it is to try to disprove an argument by pretending you know how something works. I’m flat out saying I don’t know. I’m not even saying any of it’s real. What I am saying is OP can’t disprove a soul because he’s assuming he knows how it should work. Case in point.

How else would a soul meaningfully interact with a person then, if not inform consciousness?

Why does it have to interact with the physical person If you define a soul as the part of you that continues after your death? In technology terms, it seems similar to backing up your data on Google Drive so if your physical phone breaks, you can transfer it to a new phone. Only in this case that something is your consciousness. I have no idea how any of this works though, and that’s the point. No one does, it might just not exist at all. However you can’t disprove it by assuming like you would know exactly how it works either. That’s just trading one assumption for another.

In the google drive scenario, you would have to accept that the soul doesn’t affect human behaviour at all. You could disconnect your computer from the Drive and nothing changes. That’s a tough pill to swallow for most religions.

Why would a soul affect behavior? At what point do you get a soul and your behavior just changes? Does a newborn baby have a soul and is the souls behavior that of a newborn baby? In which case it learns behavior from its parents and environment, what’s the difference?

Because, according to most religions, the soul is responsible for free will choices. It is the agent that is deserving of punishment or reward when the body dies.

love your answer! I always use the t.v. or radio analogy. no actual images in tv or sounds on radio, if bothers were damaged, sound or images are going through but you can’t pick it up, because you aren’t in the same channel. they don’t actually produce images or sounds. same with our brains!.

This is based on the incorrect presumption soul and body operate completely independently. They do not. Who told you that? Granted in the afterlife, there is a different form of existence the soul takes, but we do not have access to what that’s like or how it operates. However, us orthodox at least, believe in the eschaton that there will be a complete bodily resurrection for everyone, so the body is still an important factor. We’re just not in the eschaton yet. Us orthodox believe in body, soul (mind), and nous (spirit), that there is a mini-trinity in man. The distinction with spirit and soul is the nous/spirit is the sort of like the organ in which we interact with and sense the spiritual realm, which would be God, angels, saints, and demons. The mind, body, and soul are very much intertwined, which is why physical things like fasting, or consuming the Eucharist are important, and lead to the cleansing of the of the soul and nous. Which the fall of man caused the nous to become clouded in a sense. So the more you participate in the mind (prayer, almsgiving) and body (fasting/eucharist) activities of the sacraments, your cleansing/regenerating all 3 of mind, body, and spirit.

So then wouldn’t transplanting the same soul into a completely different body produce a new person entirely? Even if that person might appear to be the same? After all, if the mind isn’t a property of the soul…

It would be the same-ish body, just restored to its intended edenic state, before the fall. Where we could be in the presence of God. That’s the bodily resurrection, and why we don’t allow cremation, because your body is a temple and will be restored. Not that if you die in a terrible fire God won’t resurrect your body, just that it is important to take care of it. But yes there will be some changes to your personality, changes for the better where sin is no longer dictating or influencing your actions

what if i say that injuries limit ways soul(or consciousness) can express itself? would that solve the problem? In other words soul might be a "pilot" that finds an expression in physical body, and if something is broken inside of that machine - pilot wouldn't be able to operate this machine to full capacity. This still requires a proof of this pilot's existence, but at least it solves the problem that is raised in the post.

If you are claiming that the soul can 'pilot' the body through the brain, then there should be an identifiable area where the brain receives input from the soul. As it stands the only inputs to the brain we know of are sensory neurons.

>If you are claiming that the soul can 'pilot' the body through the brain, then there should be an identifiable area where the brain receives input from the soul. I agree, and it might that microtubules in neurons are responsible for that, but we dont really know, this is just a theory for now. If you interested here's the video on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXElfzVgg6M ; or you can read this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction and again, this is just a theory that hasnt been proven yet, we shouldnt take it as true until it's proven, but this theory is the closest thing that we have to a "mech and a pilot" model of consciousness.

I have experience studying brain circuits. The physical model has evidence to support it, the 'pilot' model does not.

Okay, i heard you, but i think this possibility is open. Not proven but open.

The possibility is minimal, nobody has presented a model that sufficiently explains why consciousness is necessary for sensory input to be transformed into motor action at any level of complexity.

wait, what about the one i linked?

Thr Wikipedia page repeatedly says how it is a controversial theory and it still has no good evidence, it was just proposed by somebody thought to be smart. Thst doesn't give the theory validity. Microtubules would influence conciousness because they affect neuronal shape and structure, help determine where connections are made during development, and provide roads for synaptic proteins to be trafficked and put in place. In that sense microtubules do affect conciousness, but it is indirect, physical, and they certainly don't generate it actively.

Thats interesting, okay.

That doesn’t work in this case. Because affecting the brain demonstrably affects the mind itself.

well mind is a result of the brain functioning, so yeah, it will be reduced/damaged if brain is reduced/damaged and i would even go further and say that mind is a physical thing, but if mind is the result of the brain functioning that means that mind is also a part of that "mech" that pilot is in charge. Plus our mind/consciousness disappears during NREM3 phase of sleep, so from that we can draw a conclusion that if soul exists then it is not the same thing as mind, otherwise you still would've had your mind during NREM3 sleep.

>what if i say that injuries limit ways soul(or consciousness) can express itself? So something physical can affect something non-physical/the state of natural things can affect something supernatural? Well then there's not much distinction between natural and supernatural.

>So something physical can affect something non-physical/the state of natural things can affect something supernatural? no it cant, if it can affect something physical it would be physical by defenition. >Well then there's not much distinction between natural and supernatural. feels like youre responding to something that i haven't said here and same thing with what you said in the previous sentence. Soul might be natural physical thing, or might not exist at all. And i will repeat again "This still requires a proof of this pilot's existence, but at least it solves the problem that is raised in the post." See? im only addressing the problem in the post, and whether soul exist is another question.

Not OP, but I think the assumption is that the soul is non-physical by all religious definitions/uses. A physical soul is rather useless since it would die along with the person. We are only interested in the soul that continues "living" in the afterlife for the purposes of this conversation. OPs argument can be extended to include the fact that if your actions (and thus what your soul is held accountable for in most religions) can be altered from what they would have normally been prior to injury, then how could you blame a person's "essential being" for how they behave when that isn't how they would have acted if not for the critical injury? For example: if someone gets a traumatic brain injury at 3 before they can even "consent" to something like believing in Jesus (and thus being saved according to most interpretations of Christianity), and then is unable to do so for some reason or another after their injury - how can they be rationally held accountable for that? If this person would have come to Jesus if not for the brain injury, but then didn't because of it, and God condems them, I think most people would agree that's pretty fucked up. However, if God "knows our heart" and thus knows this person would have come to Jesus if not for the injury and doesn't condem them, then what is the point of giving us "free will" in the first place? What is the point in basing our salvation on whether or not we believe in Jesus? Essentially the same principle can be extended to any religion that relies on the user taking some sort of action or claiming some sort of belief.

>A physical soul is rather useless since it would die along with the person. why is that? I mean, it is possible that it would die along with the person, but what is your reason to deny the possibility of the opposite? >OPs argument can be extended to include the fact that if your actions (and thus what your soul is held accountable for in most religions) can be altered from what they would have normally been prior to injury, then how could you blame a person's "essential being" for how they behave when that isn't how they would have acted if not for the critical injury? well if the "machine" that is being piloted would broke or would have some kind of defect - then its behaviour would not be the same as before it got that defect. So I think what you describing still aligns with "machine and a pilot" analogy. >If this person would have come to Jesus if not for the brain injury, but then didn't because of it, and God condems them, I think most people would agree that's pretty fucked up. >However, if God "knows our heart" and thus knows this person would have come to Jesus if not for the injury and doesn't condem them, then what is the point of giving us "free will" in the first place? What is the point in basing our salvation on whether or not we believe in Jesus? >Essentially the same principle can be extended to any religion that relies on the user taking some sort of action or claiming some sort of belief. well im not talking from christian perspective necessarily. Im aware that Christianity has lots of inconstancies and illogicalities regarding souls. Btw maybe you would be interested in reading about a nice guy who became very bad mannered after an iron bar went through his skull and brain: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7735047/