Joe Kilner wrote in message <784vkd$pmt$1 at pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>...
>>Ray Scanlon wrote in message <36a5d8ea.0 at ns2.wsg.net>...
>>>><snippety snip ...... loads of stuff>
>>Very interesting but I feel your essay is a little restricted in scope
being
>driven by an extreme dualist viewpoint and also by a seeming dislike of
>philosophers?
Please, some of my best friends are philosophers, I admire philosophy. My
complaint is against those who would speak of the brain but have no
neuroscience.
>Firstly you say that there is a soul that has no ability to interact with
>the brain but that it exists only as an observer -_but_ if you are
>approaching this from a scientific viewpoint , which you most certainly
seem
>to be doing, then you will know that you *can not* observe without
>interacting. It is only through interaction that any information exchange
>can occur and hence observation be carried out. If you then accept that
>there is some interaction then why can't the mind be involved in any
>decision making?
It is not the soul that observes the world, it is the brain. The soul is
only aware of the activity of the brain. The sensory neurons DO transduce
energy, the soul does not. The relationship between the brain and the soul
is transcendent. I agree with McGinn that the brain lacks the capability of
understanding this transcendent relationship.
I do NOT accept interaction between entities that stand in a transcendent
relationship..
The brain has all the neurons need to think and decide, we apply Occam's
Razor to exclude any need for soul (mind) or for the need of interaction
between soul and brain.
> Why can't the mind be the sole centre for decision making?
>If the you feel necessary to include a soul in your description of mind to
>account for the feeling of self awareness that we experience then you must
>also account for the feeling we get that when we deicde to do something it
>is _ourselves_ that make that decision - we do not feel that that we have
>left it to our brains!
All feelings result from neural activity. When certain neurons are active, I
am hungry. When certain other neurons are active, I experience pleasure.
When neurons in the reticular nucleus of the thalamus are inhibited, I
experience decision. There is no need for soul to decide, only to experience
decision.
>The existance of an immaterial soul is not the only explanation for self
>awareness, nor does proving we can be self aware without a soul preclude
the
>existance of a soul, but there are certainly many descriptions of mind that
>are purely materialistic - try reading Daniel C Dennet for a fuller
>explanation of the stream of conciouness or even try imagining self
>awareness, and even the mind, as simply properties of the complexity of a
>system such as a neural network.
Dan Dennett is one of those who would be better off if he had a little
neuroscience. The first chapter of "Consciousness Explained" contains a
word castle explaining why an interactive hallucination is impossible for
reasons of computational complexity. It was erected by a man who has never
experienced an hallucination, nevertheless he feels compelled to fill up
pages.
The brain has all the needed machinery to produce an hallucination and if
the neural activity proceed into the basal ganglia there will be
interaction.
Soul is not a property of a neural network, the realtionship is
transcendent.
>As for your comments about philosophers I find that at one level they show
a
>basic missunderstanding of how philosophers work and at another I simply
>find some of the comments insulting.
Please, no insults, no aspersions.
>I know many philosophers who are a lot
>more technically competent than many scientists, philosophers do tend to
>tread carefully when venturing out of their own field of expertise, unlike
>scientists who generally feel that because they can measure the things they
>study that they can make proclamations about just about any subject they
>claim to turn their great intelects to. You criticise philosophers for
>building "word castles in the air" and yet the hardest of hard science -
>"Theoretical Physics" is built almost entirely out of intellectual
>constructs!! Just because scientists make up their own words to build
>castles out of doesn't make them any more solid!
The science involved here in neuroscience, not physics.
Neuroscience is based on molecular biology and some would say that molecules
are reducible to quantum mechanics. I believe they are, but I also believe
that quantum mechanics is only a description of reality. Some would say that
physics is only applied mathematics, akin to statistics and surveying.
>Philosophy is generally
>about focussing on one aspect of a big question, whereas science tends to
>dwell on the details (if it didn't then most of my friends wouldn't have
>anything to do for their Phds!). As such they sometimes have to use
>situations they feel highlight the salient points of an argument even if it
>is not "realistic". They are no more castles in the air than many of the
>conceptualisations used by physicists are! ( and before you ask I have
>studied both Physics and the Philosophy of Science during my University
>career).
It is not my intent to break any man's rice bowl. I overstate my case
because I think that explaining the activity of a nervous system is a very
difficult process and is not helped by the intercession of philosophers who
have no neuroscience.
>All said, the one point from your posting that I did think was very correct
>was that science and religion occupy different spheres. Scientists have
>battled since the seventeenth century for the right to do science without
>religious leaders telling them what they can and can't conclude. Now it is
>time for scientists to stop dictating what religious thinkers are allowed
to
>think. Science complements religion it does not replace it, and neither of
>them are as well founded as they think they are!
This impinges on a favorite theme of mine. It is my thesis that in the next
century the brain, as a material object, will be explained. It will then be
evident that there is no place for soul in a material universe. Men will
rebel against a soulless world. There will be a resurgence of religion in
the last half of the century.
So it goes.
Ray
Those interested in how the brain works might look at
www.wsg.net/~rscanlon/brain.html