The line between brain and soul

[kryptech]

So, from time to time over the past couple years I've wondered about the nature of human consciousness. Where is the line between the physical brain and the human soul? How much of our mind is controlled by chemicals and how much of it comes from our soul (the part of us that animals don't have).

Watching anime like Ghost in the Shell worked to both inspire me with new ideas and confuse me. Obviously GitS isn't coming at the human nature from a Biblical perspective, but the writers have given thought to the philosophy behind the technology they created. In the world of GitS it seems as though a person's "ghost" can be successfully detached from a body and reattached to an artificial body or even travel across the Net without a body. (Note that I've only seen a few episodes of Stand Alone Complex and Innocence.) GitS also has very advanced artificial intelligence too. Personally, I don't think an artificial intellegence could every really be conscious and self-aware. I think that it could mimic humans, perhaps very well, but never truely be "alive".

Then there is Fullmetal Alchemist, of which I have read the first 7 manga volumes (well, I've not finished vol 6 yet - I'll be working on that tonight). There again, it seems as though the human soul can be attached to other things, such as Al's soul being tied to a suit of armour. It seems they think of this process as science, but obviously this sort of thing is much more than mixing chemicals and drawing complicated diagrams on the floor with chalk.

Anyways... I thought I would see if any of you people have considered these things. Where do you think of the line between brain and soul lies? Can the soul be transferred into a computer or other medium? And feel free to explain the ideas from GitS, FMA, and other such animes in more detail too - I love some of their philosophical ideas (even if they may be flawed).

[Nate]

Well, it's a tough question to answer, I mean, no one really knows what the soul IS. We know it exists, we know what it means as far as the afterlife, but there is no clear definition to what a soul truly is, or if it even is at all, in a physical sense. It may just be an inherent quality of a living thing.

This does seem like it could get theological, I mean, considering the debate over whether animals have souls, or some people saying that a clone wouldn't have a soul, which I think shows just how little we really know about it.

[Syreth]

It seems that our beings (mind, body, soul, whatever you wanna call it) are interconnected. So however it works, there's a connection between them all as long as we're alive. If the body is sick, we can become emotionally weak, which can affect spirituality. If we are struggling spiritually, we can become depressed and eventually get sick because of a weakened immune system. Likewise, if someone is feeling depressed, it can lead to spiritual doubt and bodily sickness. Since the aspects of our being are so intertwined, it's naturally difficult and maybe impossible to draw a line between the brain and the soul. We can certainly exist apart from our bodies, since the Bible tells us that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, but that's a different rabbit trail.

[GhostontheNet]

So, from time to time over the past couple years I've wondered about the nature of human consciousness.

This has been a subject I've thought a good deal about myself, in which I lie somewhere on the dualist spectrum. Likewise, I identify the soul with the mind which we experience in everyday life, which would make a good deal of sense out of the question of how we could in fact survive death. You should really get yourself familiarized with some of the dualist literature out there, though this will set you back a few hundred bucks in total.

Where is the line between the physical brain and the human soul?

If the entire point of it all was a mutual psychosomatic interaction between mind-soul and brain-body, speaking of "drawing the line" is asking the wrong question. To draw from the literature, since the tendency of those who hold to mental reductionism, that is to say the belief that all mental phenomena can be reduced to brain and central nervous system processes have the tendency to deny the existence of any real subjective experience because such things would be impossible under their thesis, it is in these which we may take to be capacities of the basic soul-mind. Among these would be power of will, free will, intentionality, qualia.

How much of our mind is controlled by chemicals and how much of it comes from our soul

Here's where a major philosophical question comes into play of just where exactly chemicals and chemical processes which are non-mentalistic assume the property of becoming mentalistic. For example, the reductionist may say that their is in fact no such thing as "being in pain" (subjective mental state), but simply "My C-Fibers have just fired." However, if you were to take out a C-fiber out and artificially make it fire, you could not in fact say it had the property of being in a state of pain. Indeed, although a kind of "Pop-reductionism" tends to emphasize either chemicals or elecricity, even the more educated reductionists have given up on saying consciousness can be reduced to either of these. From my dualist perspective emphasizing a psychosomatic parallelism, I think such chemicals as C-fibers or hormones provide something of a somatic (i.e. from the body) "token" to be converted to a subjective state by the mind for the sake of unity between mind and body. As an illustration of my concepts, I will note one of the other days when some jerk posted pornography here in the middle of the night. Being one of the few who was up at such an hour, I went ahead and reported it. As you may expect, however, such a thing launched the somatic signals which are the triggering of sexual hormones, resulting in the subjective state known as "temptation" in which I am launched into a struggle between mutually held mental desires (i.e. the desire to experience the pleasurable qualia of sexual feeling vs. the desire to experience the pleasurable subjective mental state of moral satisfaction). Strangely thinking about this very topic, I took it as my challenge to try to put the concept of mental causation to the test by deciding to work my hardest on putting the override upon the desire by instead focusing upon going to sleep instead. It wasn't exactly pleasant, but I managed it to pull it off anyway. It is here that the question arises that if such things owe strictly to chemical interaction, why it is that it is possible to put the override upon such chemicals that have already arisen, even to the degree of living as an ascetic.

(the part of us that animals don't have).

Woah, this is more from Descartes' philosophy than Biblical teaching, though hardly an essential tenent of his perspective now called of Cartesian Dualism. Likewise, said Descartes, animals are in fact mindless automatons in which any appearance of mentalism is simply a construction of our own minds. They would have no life after death because they never would have had that kind of life in the first place.

Watching anime like Ghost in the Shell worked to both inspire me with new ideas and confuse me. Obviously GitS isn't coming at the human nature from a Biblical perspective, but the writers have given thought to the philosophy behind the technology they created. In the world of GitS it seems as though a person's "ghost" can be successfully detached from a body and reattached to an artificial body or even travel across the Net without a body. (Note that I've only seen a few episodes of Stand Alone Complex and Innocence.) GitS also has very advanced artificial intelligence too. Personally, I don't think an artificial intellegence could every really be conscious and self-aware. I think that it could mimic humans, perhaps very well, but never truely be "alive".

Woah, huge question! I've put a lot of thought into it, but I haven't entirely worked out the mental theories of Ghost in the Shell. I do however suspect their mental theory comes close to that of the naturalistic dualist David Chalmers, who took the unusual step of actually propose how under his theory one could construct a conscious machine without compromising his theory (hence the discussions of machines "developing" ghosts in SAC without compromising the strong dualistic undercurrents particularly evident in several episodes, i.e. the allegory of the Tachikomas without processors in season two). What you have implicitly run into in your perspective on the impossibility of artificial intelligence achieving consciousness is the classic "Chinese Room" argument which has achieved widespread usage amongst dualists. In both Ghost in the Shell movies, it strongly appears that although the philosophy is in fact dualism, more hardcore materialists (i.e. Kim) are given a fair bit of screen time and aren't really refuted in the programming in much detail. Unusual among anime however, Ghost in the Shell actually cares about philosophical coherance to a degree I will not apply to other titles like Fullmetal Alchemist, and hence will not respond to that one.

Can the soul can be transferred into a computer or other medium?

I don't know.

[Technomancer]

So, from time to time over the past couple years I've wondered about the nature of human consciousness. Where is the line between the physical brain and the human soul? How much of our mind is controlled by chemicals and how much of it comes from our soul (the part of us that animals don't have).

Given my own scientific interests (i.e. neural networks), this is a subject that has intrigued me for some time. Admittedly, I don't think that I can offer too many insights regarding the soul itself in the absence of any solid definition. However, we do know that that the physical structure of our brains has a profound influence not merely on sensory processing, but also on our very personalities as well. Obviously, certain drugs can change our behaviour, as can the effects of injuries (the case of Phineas Gage being familiar to most undergraduates). However, our personalities our also shaped by our basic animal instincts as well, and all the historical baggage that goes along with it. Like most other animals, we exhibit agression, territoriality and a sex drive.

Personally, I don't think an artificial intellegence could every really be conscious and self-aware. I think that it could mimic humans, perhaps very well, but never truely be "alive".

There are a number of scientists who would agree with you. The mathematician Roger Penrose is probably the most well known of the lot, and has put forward his case in the books "The Emperor's New Mind" and "Shadows of the Mind". They were received quite seriously even if many researchers disagreed with them. Unfortunately for Penrose, his own ideas on the origin of consciousness do not seem to have been borne out. Aside from Penrose there are a few others who have taken similar positions, such as Tony Bell:
http://www.cnl.salk.edu/~tony/ptrsl.pdf

Where do you think of the line between brain and soul lies?

It's a difficult question to answer without a solid definition of 'soul'. My own biases are towards largely material causes for the origins of human consciousness, even if such causes cannot be effectively modelled by standard computers.

You might enjoy some of these books:
"The Computational Brain" by Terry Sejnowski and Patricia Churchland
"Up From Dragons" Dorion Sagan and John Skoyles
"Dragons of Eden" by Carl Sagan
"Soul Made Flesh" by Carl Zimmer
"i of the vortex" by Rodolfo R. Llinas

[Sammy Boy]

I have a friend who wrote his thesis for a PhD in Robotics a couple of months ago, and he told me that as far as he knows (which may or may not reflect the latest findings / theories), attempts to instruct robots to perform certain specific tasks work well, and attempts to give robots AI work well in theory, but when it comes to putting the AI into practice, it does not seem to work.

I was also wondering if any of you think the Chinese Room puzzle would have any bearings on this topic, and if so, what? Thanks.

[GhostontheNet]

I was also wondering if any of you think the Chinese Room puzzle would have any bearings on this topic, and if so, what? Thanks.

John Searle's Chinese Room argument has a direct bearing on this subject in that he provides both an effective allegory for the way a computer works, and a critique of several of the physicalist theories of mind (I.e. Dennet's eliminative materialism and the token-identidy theories come to mind). In the Chinese Room argument, you essentially have a man who has learned how to manipulate Chinese characters back and forth in a darkened room like he knew Chinese without really knowing a word of Chinese. In such a case, such a man would have access to all the objective facts of the Chinese characters, but none of the subjective facts of the Chinese characters. I will note that in consciousness studies, as in many brands of philosophy, thought experiments frequently come in to play for the purposes of logical demonstration of certain properties of consciousness.

[GhostontheNet]

It's a difficult question to answer without a solid definition of 'soul'. My own biases are towards largely material causes for the origins of human consciousness, even if such causes cannot be effectively modelled by standard computers.

You might enjoy some of these books:
"The Computational Brain" by Terry Sejnowski and Patricia Churchland
"Up From Dragons" Dorion Sagan and John Skoyles
"Dragons of Eden" by Carl Sagan
"Soul Made Flesh" by Carl Zimmer
"i of the vortex" by Rodolfo R. Llinas

I can't really say I'm really surprised you lie somewhere within the monist camp. It seems these days there's a definite tendency of those in the neurosciences to end up being monists, while its in other fields like physics where you end up with the dualists (Paul Davies comes to mind, as can others when looking into the article at http://www.christian-thinktank.com/hmosoul.html ). I would be interested in seeing how exactly a "Mathematical theory of consciousness" would work. While we're at it, a kind of dualist reading list would be:

David Chalmers : The Conscious Mind
Charles Taliaferro : Consciousness and the Mind of God
John Foster : The Immaterial Self : A Defense of the Cartesian Dualist Conception of the Mind
J.P. Moreland : Beyond Death : Exploring the Evidence for Immortality
Paul Davies and John Gibbon : The Matter Myth

[mitsuki lover]

I think the question you are actually asking is more likely:"Is there any difference between the brain and the mind?"When substituting mind for soul it makes better sense.I would say that the soul is different from both the mind and the brain in that
it is the basis of our spiritual nature.

[GhostontheNet]

I think the question you are actually asking is more likely:"Is there any difference between the brain and the mind?"When substituting mind for soul it makes better sense.I would say that the soul is different from both the mind and the brain in that
it is the basis of our spiritual nature.

Unlikely (not to mention containing some logical inconsistencies) considering that in the New Testament Greek "soul" is psyche, meaning mind in a way that was spoken of having the property of immortality from at least the days of Socrates. From a more Biblical framework, what you attribute to the soul would be more accurately spoken of as the image of God.

[Nate]

Yeah, I agree with Ghost...I don't think you can say the brain is separate from the soul. If there was a way to transplant a human brain into a robot body, would you say that the person no longer had a soul? I mean, maybe you would...but I wouldn't.

[kryptech]

Hey, thanks for all your replies! Sorry it's taken a while for me to reply. While I have my lunch I'll finished off my thoughts back to y'all. ß-)

I thought perhaps it might be prudent to post some sort of definition for some terms. I got them from the Webster's Dictionary we have (although it is an older copy).

Mind:
The seat of consciousness, thought, feeling and will || the intellect

Spirit:
The intelligent or immaterial part of man as distinguished from the body || the animating or vital principle in living things || the moral nature of a man

Soul:
The immortal part of man, as distinguished from his body || the moral and emotional nature of man, as distinguished from his mind || the vital principle which moves and animates all life

Hmm - dunno if that makes things any clearer or not. As Syreth said, our beings are very interconnected.

We can certainly exist apart from our bodies, since the Bible tells us that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, but that's a different rabbit trail.

Agreed. Humans are more than just body. From what I understand our souls are immortal, while the current bodies we have are mortal. Once the soul's connection to the body is severed, I believe that person "dies". A Christian would then be absent from the body but present with the Lord. So I think in most cases when that disconnection occurs, you can't reattach the body and soul (contrary to what Ghost in the Shell seems to indicate). Of course there are some exceptions, like people who were raised from the dead, but that is definately rare.

From my dualist perspective emphasizing a psychosomatic parallelism, I think such chemicals as C-fibers or hormones provide something of a somatic (i.e. from the body) "token" to be converted to a subjective state by the mind for the sake of unity between mind and body.

I had thought this thread might catch your eye. I like the way you explained perspective above. That makes sense to me.

I think the question you are actually asking is more likely:"Is there any difference between the brain and the mind?"When substituting mind for soul it makes better sense.I would say that the soul is different from both the mind and the brain in that it is the basis of our spiritual nature.

Unlikely (not to mention containing some logical inconsistencies) considering that in the New Testament Greek "soul" is psyche, meaning mind in a way that was spoken of having the property of immortality from at least the days of Socrates. From a more Biblical framework, what you attribute to the soul would be more accurately spoken of as the image of God.

Yes - when I hear "soul" I think the image of God. Perhaps the "mind" arises from the combination of the physical brain and immaterial soul? Hmmm - except that once we die I'm sure we'll still have a mind...

Technomancer and GhostontheNet: thank you for the resources to provided. I opened up the links you sent and quickly realized that I couldn't "quickly absorb a couple short articles". I shall endevour to look them over when I have the time. I read more on the Chinese Room thought experiement - very interesting... I've had discussions with my sister (who is studying linguistics) concerning semantics vs. syntax.

One of the main reasons I started this thread was because I am curious as to whether the functions of the human brain can be transplanted into another medium, such as a computer. (I asked earlier if the soul can be transferred into a computer or other medium, but it would have been better to use the word "mind" or "brain".) As I understand, human death occurs when the soul (the immortal part of man) disconnects from the body, which would usually be due to the body dying, I suppose. So the trick would be to move the functions, memories, and other capacities of the brain into, say, a computer without severing the connection with the soul. I guess this delves into the nature of death, or what defines death. BTW, I don't want to start theological debates here so if things are heading too far in that direct, we can shift back to another angle on this discussion. Beliefs concerning the soul, especially after death, vary and are outside of our experience (though one day the truth will become quite plain).

[GhostontheNet]

Yeah, I agree with Ghost...I don't think you can say the brain is separate from the soul. If there was a way to transplant a human brain into a robot body, would you say that the person no longer had a soul? I mean, maybe you would...but I wouldn't.

Ah, not so fast, I said they were not seperate (as is true of all things in interface), not inseperable as one in the same. In other words, I am talking about two different things on parallel trains of mutual interactionism. On this model, you could no longer count the human-as-flesh as human, and it would be quite dead, but the same consciousness (as interfacing brain and soul) would in most every (i.e. the somatic tokens may be different) sense be the same person-as-cyborg

[RedMage]

I'm sorry, I realize this isn't really contributing anything worthwhile, but I feel I must share that to me, the sentence "The Line between brain and soul" sounds like something from the opening sequence of The Outer Limits.

[Nate]

Ah, not so fast, I said they were not seperate (as is true of all things in interface), not inseperable as one in the same. In other words, I am talking about two different things on parallel trains of mutual interactionism. On this model, you could no longer count the human-as-flesh as human, and it would be quite dead, but the same consciousness (as interfacing brain and soul) would in most every (i.e. the somatic tokens may be different) sense be the same person-as-cyborg

Oh, yeah, I didn't mean brain = soul. Sorry if it kinda sounded like that. XD;; What I meant was, they're kinda together. One really can't exist without the other. And in my example, if it were possible to do that, put a brain in a cyborg body, there really isn't anything I could see that would prohibit the person (who is now a cyborg) from retaining their soul.

But no one can really be sure, and at any rate, it's impossible for us to do that at this level of technology anyway.

[GhostontheNet]

Hey, thanks for all your replies! Sorry it's taken a while for me to reply. While I have my lunch I'll finished off my thoughts back to y'all. ß-)

I thought perhaps it might be prudent to post some sort of definition for some terms. I got them from the Webster's Dictionary we have (although it is an older copy).

Mind:
The seat of consciousness, thought, feeling and will || the intellect

Spirit:
The intelligent or immaterial part of man as distinguished from the body || the animating or vital principle in living things || the moral nature of a man

Soul:
The immortal part of man, as distinguished from his body || the moral and emotional nature of man, as distinguished from his mind || the vital principle which moves and animates all life

Hmm - dunno if that makes things any clearer or not. As Syreth said, our beings are very interconnected.

For the present purposes, the definitions I highlighted above will be the most useful, especially as the other definitions are very often used allegorically, i.e. a man may be called "soulless" because of wanton immorality and cruelty, but in fact by our present discusion have a soul.

Agreed. Humans are more than just body. From what I understand our souls are immortal, while the current bodies we have are mortal. Once the soul's connection to the body is severed, I believe that person "dies". A Christian would then be absent from the body but present with the Lord. So I think in most cases when that disconnection occurs, you can't reattach the body and soul (as Ghost in the Shell seems to indicate). Of course there are some exceptions, like those that were raised from the dead, but that is definately rare.

With such things as clinical revival, real near death experiences and out of body experiences, I would say it is in fact to restore the two into each other so long as the body is put into shape which would sucessfully allow a reconnection by not yet ending up in an unrevivable state from too much damage.

I had thought this thread might catch your eye. I like the way you explained perspective above. That makes sense to me.

Fair enough, I was worried I would have to explain the technical term "psychosomatic".

Yes - when I hear "soul" I think the image of God. Perhaps the "mind" arises from the combination of the physical brain and immaterial soul? Hmmm - except that once we die I'm sure we'll still have a mind...

Here's where I disagree, the mind-soul (psyche) is a necessary prerequisite of the image of God, it is not equivalent. Thus, because many animals have minds, they also have souls, but they do not have the capacities which are unique to man who holds the image of God.

Technomancer and GhostontheNet: thank you for the resources to provided. I opened up the links you sent and quickly realized that I couldn't "quickly absorb a couple short articles". I shall endevour to look them over when I have the time. I read more on the Chinese Room thought experiement - very interesting... I've had discussions with my sister (who is studying linguistics) concerning semantics vs. syntax.

And here's where I think things become really difficult if not impossible for Technomancer's Mathematical consciousness theory in that, besides in physics whether mathematics, particularly in quantum physics at the most basic level are in fact material, meaning the outcome of the debate could in fact make Technomancer an unwitting property or substance dualist, there is the problem of the conversion from mathematics to linguistics, just as the man in the Chinese room has access to all the objective facts of the characters but none of the subjective facts. Because this kind of straight up mathematics is the way computers work, this is why Technomancer has left it at the vague "We would have to build a different kind of computer to create consciousness" to justify the strong evidence that computers don't have what it takes to actually have consciousness arise.

One of the main reasons I started this thread was because I am curious as to whether the functions of the human brain can be transplanted into another medium, such as a computer. (I asked earlier if the soul can be transferred into a computer or other medium, but it would have been better to use the word "mind" or "brain".) As I understand, human death occurs when the soul (the immortal part of man) disconnects from the body, which would usually be due to the body dying, I suppose. So the trick would be to move the functions, memories, and other capacities of the brain into, say, a computer without severing the connection with the soul. I guess this delves into the nature of death, or what defines death. BTW, I don't want to start theological debates here so if things are heading too far in that direct, we can shift back to another angle on this discussion. Beliefs concerning the soul, especially after death, vary and are outside of our experience (though one day the truth will become quite plain).

I really don't know the answer to that question. It is my own personal speculation in light of the gulf between the workings of computers and the workings of brains means that the only option to give a workable medium is to add properties stemming from electronics or nanotechnology to the brain, much like Ghost in the Shell : Stand Alone Complex's cyberbrains. From my perspective, it is in fact possible to have the soul jarred loose at times of extreme somatic problems, like the air force tests that sped up their subjects into brain-anoxia (i.e. oxygen starvation in the brain), causing largely vague and contentless out-of-body experiences unlike the near-death-experiences (as opposed to the much more epic and life-changing nature of near-death-experiences,not to be confused with that thread where the man had a terrifying vision of hell, but was still quite psychosomatic as evidenced by his screaming on the floor). For my present purposes, I will define "full death" as the point in which the soul leaves the body and the body comes to the point when it is not possible to hold the psychosomatic unity anymore, i.e. impossible to resuscitate.

[GhostontheNet]

[quote="kaemmerite"]Oh, yeah, I didn't mean brain = soul. Sorry if it kinda sounded like that. XD]

I must disagree though that "one can't exist without the other", I say the mind-soul does survive the death of the brain but the post-mortem state is a much different ballgame entirely. As the cyborgs go, if it were really impossible, it would be plainly evident because they would be dead, as if the soul is the mind, to be unable to transfer the soul would be to have something which is mindless, which is pretty easy to figure out.

[kryptech]

I'm sorry, I realize this isn't really contributing anything worthwhile, but I feel I must share that to me, the sentence "The Line between brain and soul" sounds like something from the opening sequence of The Outer Limits.

Although not chosen with that specifically in mind, the reference is quite welcome. ]For the present purposes, the definitions I highlighted above will be the most useful...[/quote]
Agreed.

It is my own personal speculation in light of the gulf between the workings of computers and the workings of brains means that the only option to give a workable medium is to add properties stemming from electronics or nanotechnology to the brain, much like Ghost in the Shell : Stand Alone Complex's cyberbrains.

This would be more of an enhancement than a replacement, correct? I do believe that computers today are quite incapable of taking over the elaborate functions of the human brain. I'm sure computers will become more advanced as time goes on, but perhaps even then their fundamental operation will have to be radically different to accomodate brain functions. Technomancer - you mentioned your interests in neural networks. Would their structure more closely mirror the human brain? Just throwing stuff out there.

For my present purposes, I will define "full death" as the point in which the soul leaves the body and the body comes to the point when it is not possible to hold the psychosomatic unity anymore, i.e. impossible to resuscitate.

Sounds reasonable.

Oh, yeah, I didn't mean brain = soul. Sorry if it kinda sounded like that. XD]
My understanding of a cyborg is that it would retain some biology. In the above example, the body would be completely artificial except for the brain. No matter what happened to the biological body, so long as the brain was kept alive (basically, had blood circulating) the connection with the soul would not be lost.

I must disagree though that "one can't exist without the other", I say the mind-soul does survive the death of the brain but the post-mortem state is a much different ballgame entirely.

I think I'm on the same page. If we go with the definition of a "soul" as the immortal part of man, then it will indeed continue on once the brain is stone-dead. Although the idea of having a mind without a physical brain seems strange. Then again, I suppose angels manage well enough without a physical brain and I've always figured they have good minds. But anyway, that is crossing into another subject.

[GhostontheNet]

This would be more of an enhancement than a replacement, correct? I do believe that computers today are quite incapable of taking over the elaborate functions of the human brain. I'm sure computers will become more advanced as time goes on, but perhaps even then their fundamental operation will have to be radically different to accomodate brain functions. Technomancer - you mentioned your interests in neural networks. Would their structure more closely mirror the human brain? Just throwing stuff out there.

Umm, yes and no. Its a lot like the old philosophical question of Thales' ship (which rises a fair bit in the monist vs. dualist debates as well). In this case, we could have microcomponents and things that are not flesh end up standing in for flesh. It would both be a enhancement and a replacement. As to Technomancer and the Neural Networks, that means that he has put a good deal of study into the network of pathways in the brain itself, making his studies akin to looking at an object with a microscope.

My understanding of a cyborg is that it would retain some biology. In the above example, the body would be completely artificial except for the brain. No matter what happened to the biological body, so long as the brain was kept alive (basically, had blood circulating) the connection with the soul would not be lost.

For the present purposes, a biological component of a cyborg is an optional component better left to the writers of science fiction. My definition of a cyborg which I am using here is a being that is basically human, rather than a robot. Likewise, I say that it is impossible for a human to become a robot, even if every structure involved in the swap becomes metals or synthetics.

I think I'm on the same page. If we go with the definition of a "soul" as the immortal part of man, then it will indeed continue on once the brain is stone-dead. Although the idea of having a mind without a physical brain seems strange. Then again, I suppose angels manage well enough without a physical brain and I've always figured they have good minds. But anyway, that is crossing into another subject.

The works in consciousness studies (i.e. Journal of Conscious Studies) have in fact confirmed that from the youngest ages children form a theory of consciousness that is solidly dualistic, and have to be conditioned out of it. So too, cross-culturally internationally, the cultural theory of mind has almost always been solidly dualistic, which is why even in the monist revolt against dualism it has been given the mildly condescending term "folk psychology", because once pinned down it is in fact the common sense mental theory. If anything, I think such a strangeness comes from a cultural conditioning in schools away from dualistic tendencies, and because the front of consciousness studies has been touched nowhere near as much as subjects like cosmology or evolution by Christian intellectuals, the cultural deck is stacked torwards a kind of superficial monism that makes major concessions torwards dualist thought - a kind of closet dualism if you will.

[Ryupower]

Well, the line is simple:
the mind is part of your soul.
The soul inhabits your MIND, will, and emotions.

[Technomancer]

Because this kind of straight up mathematics is the way computers work, this is why Technomancer has left it at the vague "We would have to build a different kind of computer to create consciousness" to justify the strong evidence that computers don't have what it takes to actually have consciousness arise.

That is not what I said. I probably should have more clear about where I stand with respect to Penrose, so as to better elucidate the context of my remarks. Penrose's basic idea is that consciousness is non-computable (there is a strict mathematical definition for this, it is not meant as a philosophical concept), and thus is not something than can be produced on a computer. More genreally, this applies to any sort of universal Turing machine. Personally, I lack the mathematical skill to really tackle Penrose's arguments, but I am aware that there are strong criticisms from those who are familiar with that branch of mathematics. Penrose argues further however, that while consicousness is non-computable, this does not mean that it is non-physical. Instead, he argues that beyond the level of information processing carried out via neural spikes, there is an additional quantum mechanical level. He goes on to make some specific predictions about where this level is and how it could be detected. These predictions have not been borne out.

So far it seems that mathematically Penrose has some interesting arguments, but he is far from proving them. However, the failure to find any QM-based correlates of consciousness is a serious blow to this hypotheses. If Penrose is wrong in his assertions, and consciousness is indeed a computable phenomena, then regardless of the optimal architecture, it can be run on a digital computer. It may be useful to use neural networks to simulate the brain function in which consciousness arises, but since neural nets themselves are Turing-equivalent, the hardware need only be a conventional computer.

For more detailed criticisms of Penrose et al, please see:
http://philosophy.ucsd.edu/EPL/nonneural.html
http://philosophy.ucsd.edu/EPL/Penrose.html

The works in consciousness studies (i.e. Journal of Conscious Studies) have in fact confirmed that from the youngest ages children form a theory of consciousness that is solidly dualistic, and have to be conditioned out of it. So too, cross-culturally internationally, the cultural theory of mind has almost always been solidly dualistic, which is why even in the monist revolt against dualism it has been given the mildly condescending term "folk psychology", because once pinned down it is in fact the common sense mental theory.

I wouldn't really attach much significance to such cross-cultural explorations. Many of the basic ideas involved in "magic" are psychologically derived and also arise naturally in childhood development. By magic, I mean the mechanical categories addressed by J.G. Frazier (e.g. sympathetic magic, etc). I believe Campbell also spends some time addressing the subject in his book "Primitive Mythology"

Technomancer - you mentioned your interests in neural networks. Would their structure more closely mirror the human brain? Just throwing stuff out there

They would indeed, although the field itself encompasses a number of different approaches. In general, neural nets are parallel, distributed, and adaptive. Various forms that were explicity developed to mirror nerobiological processing have been developed though. A lot of interest today is devoted to numerous models of spiking neurons and their interactions, which represent the closest approximations of actual biological information processing.

[kryptech]

Well, the line is simple:
the mind is part of your soul.
The soul inhabits your MIND, will, and emotions.

I would say that the mind (that is, consciousness, self-awareness) is part of the soul, yes, but influenced and affected by the physical brain. I'm not sure I'd say that the soul inhabits the mind, but rather that the mind is part of the soul, or that it overlaps the soul.

For the present purposes, a biological component of a cyborg is an optional component better left to the writers of science fiction. My definition of a cyborg which I am using here is a being that is basically human, rather than a robot. Likewise, I say that it is impossible for a human to become a robot, even if every structure involved in the swap becomes metals or synthetics.

I'm not sure I quite follow this... (You and Technomancer can easily talk over my head - wikipedia is totally getting a workout from me!) So you see a cyborg and a robot as both being synthetic, but the cyborg has consciousness while the robot is a mindless machine that simply follows its programming? I understand a cyborg as starting off as a fully flesh human whose body is then replaced with synthetics, perhaps to the point where no biology remains. (Upon further review of the word "cyborg" I realized that it can include a completely synthetic body.) While science has made some amazing steps forward in replacing people parts (hearts, direct input into the visual cortex, etc), I reckon the brain would be the most complicated organ to duplicate. But if even it could be converted over (perhaps piece by piece or graft by graft) perhaps its "life", all its functions, could continue to operate and thus continue to be a container which the soul can inhabit. Ya, it is pretty far out there with a lot of "what if's"... But my fanciful thought is that if the vessel of flesh, delicately holding the soul, could be converted to plastic and metal gently enough, then the soul might not be jarred hard enough to leave and find that the body is lifeless and uninhabitable.

A lot of interest today is devoted to numerous models of spiking neurons and their interactions, which represent the closest approximations of actual biological information processing.

Cool... When I first heard of neural networks I was facinated and creeped out at the same time. They seemed too simplistic to actually adapt and learn. Almost like emergence... (cue X Files theme)

if you're smarter than us, go ahead and laugh at us

I'm not laughing, but thanks for the publicity, guys. Your mention of this thread so rocked, and you brought up some good points.

[Technomancer]

Cool... When I first heard of neural networks I was facinated and creeped out at the same time. They seemed too simplistic to actually adapt and learn. Almost like emergence... (cue X Files theme)

They're not really that hard, since it's possible to relate the weight adaptation to geometric and statistical concepts. For example, with the classic perceptron-type networks you can imagine a pattern classification problem where the goal is to drawn lines/surfaces between the different classes. The weights correspond directly to the parameters of the needed hypersurface. A similar approach can be used for visualizing regression problems. All you really need to figure out given your model is how to optimize the parameters so as to best suit your problem.

[GhostontheNet]

That is not what I said. I probably should have more clear about where I stand with respect to Penrose, so as to better elucidate the context of my remarks. Penrose's basic idea is that consciousness is non-computable (there is a strict mathematical definition for this, it is not meant as a philosophical concept), and thus is not something than can be produced on a computer. More genreally, this applies to any sort of universal Turing machine. Personally, I lack the mathematical skill to really tackle Penrose's arguments, but I am aware that there are strong criticisms from those who are familiar with that branch of mathematics. Penrose argues further however, that while consicousness is non-computable, this does not mean that it is non-physical. Instead, he argues that beyond the level of information processing carried out via neural spikes, there is an additional quantum mechanical level. He goes on to make some specific predictions about where this level is and how it could be detected. These predictions have not been borne out.

So far it seems that mathematically Penrose has some interesting arguments, but he is far from proving them. However, the failure to find any QM-based correlates of consciousness is a serious blow to this hypotheses. If Penrose is wrong in his assertions, and consciousness is indeed a computable phenomena, then regardless of the optimal architecture, it can be run on a digital computer. It may be useful to use neural networks to simulate the brain function in which consciousness arises, but since neural nets themselves are Turing-equivalent, the hardware need only be a conventional computer.

For more detailed criticisms of Penrose et al, please see:
http://philosophy.ucsd.edu/EPL/nonneural.html
http://philosophy.ucsd.edu/EPL/Penrose.html

And it is here in turn as we teeter on subjects like mathematics and quantum physics that we stand really close to the questions of what exactly matter is in the first place, particularly in the all-too infamous "quantum wierdness" like the observer effect. I know this has definitely been a major point of focus in the idealist vs. materialist debates. Unless I am really screwing up, it seems to me that if consciousness is located at the quantum level and if an idealistic perspective of quantum physics is true, then a dualist conception of consciousness gets vindicated right of the bat (and perhaps even if consciousness does not exist at the quantum level but an idealistic perspective is true). I never claimed that Penrose held to a dualist conception as such, I am aware that in these fields to name oneself as a dualist is largely to ask to be ignored. I also must wonder how exactly you would do experiments upon quantum correlations of consciousness, not least without offending the observer effect in the process.

I wouldn't really attach much significance to such cross-cultural explorations. Many of the basic ideas involved in "magic" are psychologically derived and also arise naturally in childhood development. By magic, I mean the mechanical categories addressed by J.G. Frazier (e.g. sympathetic magic, etc). I believe Campbell also spends some time addressing the subject in his book "Primitive Mythology"

As an aside from my real point, I think its terribly easy to sit back from a university chair and dismiss every single instance of magic alongside all the supernatural (i.e. above nature), and on some things this is the best option (i.e. the anthropologist need not mount heavy investigation into such things as the accuracy of termite oracles or poison chick oracles). There is however other phenomena that have left anthropologists studying them without any natural explanation, time and time again. As my main point, I didn't say that so much because it is some kind of key proof of dualism, but it is a very sound critique of the complaint of its being entirely counter-intuitive.

They would indeed, although the field itself encompasses a number of different approaches. In general, neural nets are parallel, distributed, and adaptive. Various forms that were explicity developed to mirror nerobiological processing have been developed though. A lot of interest today is devoted to numerous models of spiking neurons and their interactions, which represent the closest approximations of actual biological information processing.

Adaptive indeed, to the point of being quite a pain to work with or to predict.

[Technomancer]

Unless I am really screwing up, it seems to me that if consciousness is located at the quantum level and if an idealistic perspective of quantum physics is true, then a dualist conception of consciousness gets vindicated right of the bat (and perhaps even if consciousness does not exist at the quantum level but an idealistic perspective is true).

It really depends on what one considers to be dualism exactly.

I never claimed that Penrose held to a dualist conception as such, I am aware that in these fields to name oneself as a dualist is largely to ask to be ignored.

There are important reasons for this. The sciences only progress by people asking questions and looking for answers. Explanations that begin by invoking non-observable phenomena must in general be shunned.

I also must wonder how exactly you would do experiments upon quantum correlations of consciousness, not least without offending the observer effect in the process.

Penrose had a few particular suggestions in his books. I'll be honest though in saying that I'm not overly keen on digging through them in order to remember their precise nature.

Adaptive indeed, to the point of being quite a pain to work with or to predict.

Not really. If you've done the mathematics right, you should know what is being optimized and what the end results should be. Quite a lot of mathematical analyses has gone into determining exactly what kinds of problems different neural nets can solve.

[GhostontheNet]

It really depends on what one considers to be dualism exactly.

Dualism is a doctrine about the mental and the physical realms and the relationship between them. We can represent it as the conjunction of five claims:

[1]There is a mental realm.
[2]The mental realm is fundamental.
[3]There is a physical realm.
[4]The physical realm is fundamental
[5]The two realms are ontologically seperate

There are important reasons for this. The sciences only progress by people asking questions and looking for answers. Explanations that begin by invoking non-observable phenomena must in general be shunned.

Here's where I've got to ask, so often in so many threads, you hold positions fully equivalent to most hardcore atheists and agnostics I have ever met, I am therefore curious why you bother having any faith at all. After all, God himself is a non-observable phenomena as a spiritual being, that is to say a disembodied mind, who himself behaves in a kind of dualistic interactionism. If explanations that begin by observing non-observable phenomena should be shunned, why not just take the plunge of consistency and simply say that God must not exist because he cannot be found with scientific experimentation? After all, all the best arguments for the existence of God depend upon properties of induction from the foundation of other evidence. If this form of argument is to be de-facto dismissed, while the same form of argument which is used by the dualist philosophers, why bother? Why not just take the naturalist's blind faith that whatever evidence there is that may be used to induce the existence of God, there will be found better naturalistic explanations - you certainly would be in good company.

As David Chalmers observes of the sciences, once they have hit an entity which cannot be reduced to any other phenomena, they will end their efforts at explanation at that point making it a fundamental of reality, leaving any more steps to the philosophers (i.e. debates upon the question of "What exactly is a natural law?" So too, on the logical level, this is a complete and utter flop because it used circular reasoning assuming what it sets out to prove, making it a very very poor reason because it has no sound reasoning to it. The cardinal difficulty here is that because consciousness is more basic than observation, it is in fact impercievable. In the end, no researcher has in fact achieved direct proof there is in fact such a thing as consciousness in the first place, relying upon properies of induction for such a thing's existence.

Not really. If you've done the mathematics right, you should know what is being optimized and what the end results should be. Quite a lot of mathematical analyses has gone into determining exactly what kinds of problems different neural nets can solve.

I must have been thinking of the more direct experimental work with electrodes rather than theoretical mathematical work.

[kryptech]

I appreciate the different perspectives you guys have but let's try to be gentle in addressing one anothers' personal beliefs.

The sciences only progress by people asking questions and looking for answers. Explanations that begin by invoking non-observable phenomena must in general be shunned.

I think I'd agree with this. While a Christian scientist should go about his research from a Christian worldview, he is still limited to working with measurable and observable materials and phenomna.

If explanations that begin by observing non-observable phenomena should be shunned, why not just take the plunge of consistency and simply say that God must not exist because he cannot be found with scientific experimentation?

That is where faith comes in. To believe in something that science can't prove is to rely on faith. I think I'll leave off there to avoid getting too theological.

They're not really that hard, since it's possible to relate the weight adaptation to geometric and statistical concepts. For example, with the classic perceptron-type networks you can imagine a pattern classification problem where the goal is to drawn lines/surfaces between the different classes. The weights correspond directly to the parameters of the needed hypersurface. A similar approach can be used for visualizing regression problems. All you really need to figure out given your model is how to optimize the parameters so as to best suit your problem.

Dude - you so lost me... I looked up "perceptron" on Wikipedia and got too confused so I looked up "neural network" instead. And got confused. I'll have to review that more. I by no means posted this thread as any kind of expert in these matters so it is cool to hear from you people who actually know what they are talking about.

[Technomancer]

If explanations that begin by observing non-observable phenomena should be shunned, why not just take the plunge of consistency and simply say that God must not exist because he cannot be found with scientific experimentation?

Not all things can be meaningfully discussed within the context of science. Art, for example, can be discussed scientifically, but only if we ignore the bigger picture so to speak. Such a discussion might be useful from a purely technical aspect, but it ignores what makes art so intrinsically powerful. Similarily, as humans we believe passionately in things that have no physical existence:

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET— Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME . . . SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.

After all, all the best arguments for the existence of God depend upon properties of induction from the foundation of other evidence.

Personally, I have never found such arguments to be very convincing. They almost invariably demand an appeal to ignorance. Indeed, it has generally been held by theologians that God cannot be deduced from nature or from reason because he it outside both. That is the reason for scripture: God's self-communication of himself to man.

As David Chalmers observes of the sciences, once they have hit an entity which cannot be reduced to any other phenomena, they will end their efforts at explanation at that point making it a fundamental of reality, leaving any more steps to the philosophers (i.e. debates upon the question of "What exactly is a natural law?"

As it happens, David Chalmers is wrong. A great deal of effort has been spent on trying to figure out why for example, the fundamental physical constants of nature have the value they do. To be sure, such speculation is so far entirely theoretical (we currently lack the means to test such ideas), but it is ongoing. See Leornard Susskind's recent book for example.

The cardinal difficulty here is that because consciousness is more basic than observation, it is in fact impercievable.

Consciousness may be difficult to adequetely quantify, but that does not mean that we are without a basic definition, or without a qualitative reason to believe that it exists. Obviously, as individuals we are aware of our own existence and are also aware of that awareness.

[Doubleshadow]

I was just reading a paper where neurobiologists were attempting to understand the intangible soul by measuring the effects it was having on the brains of people of faith. Most of the article focused on how they were not given due respect for their theories, but part of it detailed their findings. This is fascinating to me because the sceintific community allows for indirect evidence in arguements since so much of what is now under investigation is nonobservable or even purely hypothetical.

As to your question, absent of pondering this question from the perspective of any particular school of thought and purely contemplating on my own, I am of the opinion that the soul and brain interact, but are seperate. The body is physical and temporary, the soul is not physical and capable of being destroyed but can potentially last eternity and is meant to according to its initial design as I understand it. Also, a damage brain or body does not mean a damaged soul, and animals have minds in the absence of souls.
Therefore, I generally conclude that the soul is our unique connection to God. Every soul is unique, distinct and intrinsically part of the body it was placed in for the duration of the persons lifetime making up the whole of the individual. Because they are a combined whole, seperating the two is the death of the body. The firing of neurons within the brain can be solely a result of physical processes, such as signal for a heartbeat, or a response to the influence of the spiritual and not a reaction to a material environmental factor.
So, to my reasoning, the brain and soul are seperated by the difference between the temporary and the eternal, the two are able to connect in the moment of the present, where the temporary and eternal exist simultaneously.

[kryptech]

I think, Doubleshadow, that my views on this matter closely match what you've written. Thanks for your comments!

Most of the article focused on how they were not given due respect for their theories, but part of it detailed their findings.

Cool... Is there anything from their findings in particular that would be interesting to share here?

Therefore, I generally conclude that the soul is our unique connection to God. Every soul is unique, distinct and intrinsically part of the body it was placed in for the duration of the persons lifetime making up the whole of the individual.

A bit of an aside, but the word "unique" here made me consider the idea that two genetically identical human clones would still have their respective unique souls. A soul can't be cloned.