Why does the soul need the brain seems like a logical question especially in the context of the belief held by the leading ID proponent of the Discovery Institute Michael Egnor. He has written extensively on the theme of the immaterial soul that, in his view, is an independent entity, separate of the human body. What Dr. Egnor consistently fails to acknowledge is the obvious connection or interdependence between a functioning brain and self-awareness or consciousness. I wrote about it here.
If certain parts of human brain are damaged or disabled, just like in case of general anesthesia, the human brain loses the sense of consciousness or self-awareness either permanently or temporarily. The immaterial soul fails to make up for the damaged or disabled brain…
Dr. Egnor’s personal experiences (and he has many) as a neurosurgeon convinced him that many people, including many of his patients, with the great majority of their brains missing have developed and function normally. Egnor is convinced that an immaterial soul makes up for the loss of brain mass that is responsible for normal brain function in people with normal brain size or no damage to any of the brain parts.
It appears Dr. Egnor believes that unlike a computer software that can’t function without the computer hardware, human brain has an ability to make up for the loss of the hardware with the computer software – the immaterial soul.
Is Dr. Egnor’s view consistent with the readily available facts?
I personally see Dr. Egnor building and supporting a strawman by his selective choice of facts…Hey! That’s my opinion and that’s why we have this blog full of experts to disagree with me or Dr. Egnor…(I kinda like the guy though).
Let’s see…First off, not all cases of patients with missing parts of their brains experience the supposed miraculous saving powers of the immaterial soul. It appears that the amount of the missing part of the brain mass doesn’t seem to matter… What seems to matter more is which part (s) of the brain is missing and not how much of the brain mass is actually missing. Some parts of the brain seem essential for consciousness and self-awareness and others do not.
However, the main point of this OP is:
<strong> Why does the soul need the brain? Or why would human body need a brain at all, if the immaterial soul has an ability to compensate for the brain losses?
If the software (the soul) can operate without the hardware (the brain) why do we even need the brain in the first place?</strong>
It seems like a faulty or at least a wasteful design to me…
Can you say more about why you want to focus on the plural? For example, is it related to species of tiger, or type versus token, or the context for determining malfunction?
Also, how that factor relates to their definition of biological function in a way that calls it into question (if that is what you are arguing).
God does not need logic. In a very real sense God is Logic. Logic is God’s way of thinking…. And God thinks about himself.
It’s not presumptuous if the omniscient, eternal being’s has infallibly revealed it to be so. In that case it’s presumptuous not to believe it
Again, it’s not about what’s useful or necessary it’s about who God is.
Before the creation God’s nature is necessary in so much as he would not be God with out it. After the creation God’s nature is necessary in so much that nothing would exist if he did not exist.
There are no truly illogical occurrences only illogical arguments and illogical persons.
That one is simple. The premise is God
😉
I think we have previously discussed the vital and necessary role of the incarnation for forming any kind of understanding of God.
I suggest this book if you want to go deeper
It addresses exactly your argument about divine emotion from my perspective. Check it out I promise it will be worth your while
peace
You’re certainly right that you don’t have an argument. And you don’t have an impression that’s worth taking seriously, either.
I was thinking of the continuation of the species.
As I see it, P and M want to steer between the scylla of selectionism and the charybdis of perspectivalism. I.e., they don’t want function to be a result of history, but neither do they want it to be a function of what people are interested in at some time or other. I’m not convinced that’s possible. Imagine trying to do that with ‘meaning,’
Perhaps one day we’ll find a topic about which you’re entitled to regard yourself as having an informed opinion.
Today is not that day.
Is a consensus a majority?
How do you define a consensus “physically” if there has never been a poll taken?
I kid, but I hope you know I have a real problem with definition by popular opinion.
If the meanings of core terms are established by popularity all communication becomes impossible.
peace
So you are saying I’m entitled to regard myself as having an informed opinion on this topic today?
Is that right…………………….. and not right?
LOL
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
Every view that’s not your own is hilarious, right fmm? You’re a delightful guy–wrong about pretty much everything, but so happy!
No but the obvious implications of a view that would take the law of non-contradiction to be optional is hilarious.
Such an argument is both compelling and incredibly weak at the very same time and in the same respect.
You have got to admit that is a funny thought.
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
I take it these are examples of your regularly self-admired ‘respectful disagreements’. Well, Christians are just generally nicer folk, I always find.
Anyhow, I don’t have time for this. I have to try out that other debating technique you recommended above. That should be even more hilarious!!
let’s see
KN says there is no known topic where I’m entitled to say I have an informed opinion and You say I’m wrong about pretty much everything but I’m being uncivil when I point out glaringly obvious absurdity with a friendly little LOL.
Does that seem about right?
😉
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
Are you suggesting a tighter process in order to create an ad populum fallacy 🙂
If you don’t know whether it is the consensus, then it probably isn’t.
colewd,
i think it’s (to use his phrase LOL hilarious) that a presuppositionalist objects to the claim that we are stuck in a conceptual scheme.
{Sniff} people just need to be more respectful–like you!
I think that an ideology that is mainly known for the idea that only things that can be measured can be said to actually exist owes us at least that much.
😉
peace
It is a debatable whether swamp-tigers are members of the tiger species, but they do fit most of the definitions at Wiki (not the ones related to history, but they are in the minority).
Regardless, swamp-tigers have all the causal powers to meet the authors’ definition of inclusive fitness, plus they survive, so they seem functionally equivalent to “real” tigers using the authors’ definition.
I agree that the core philosophical challenge is whether and how one can naturalize norms.
It’s heartening to hear you find participating at TSZ to be a learning experience.
Although looking at your list, I wonder if you are being sarcastic. At least, that is my impression.
Oh, for fuck sake. Walto, Bruce, KN, Neil… just ignore fmm & cole. please!
Where’s the fun in that?
Are you some kind of killjoy?
Sure, but picking just those, neither in light of history nor of anybody’s perspective just seems arbitrary to me.
Very tempting–especially when, after writing my paean to the beauty and passion of a Greek Orthodox funeral I attended and closing with this:
I get this insulting and idiotic non-sequitur in response:
There’s Mr. Respectful Disagreement in a nutshell right there.
Some of us appreciated that, even if fmm didn’t.
walto,
Yeah, I saw that. Was he comparing the christian mass with nazi germany anyway?
The guy is an asshole and every single interchange with him goes the same way (same goes for Bill Cole). I’ve been there before, but you guys have much more interesting things to say than I do. Why waste your valuable time with fmm and the likes?
Well, if you have fun with it that would be a reason. By all means, do what you want
If I see him making a blunder that I can’t let go, I’ll comment. Occasionally (as with yesterday) I’ll point out that he doesn’t understand what he’s talking about. But engaging with him is definitely a waste of time. Sometimes I don’t mind wasting my time.
dazz,
You’re right–it’s not really that much fun. And is obviously a waste of time–at least when it doesn’t help clarify my own thoughts on something.
But yeah, it’s usually nothing but irrational, addictive behavior.
I think that this is one of those questions that needs some philosophical dissolution a la Wittgensteinian therapy among other philosophical analyses, together with scientific explanations, if we’re to make any real progress.
One thing to point out is that there are lots of different proposals on the table as to how to naturalize norms. Yet none seem to have gotten much uptake.
As a philosopher I’m more interested in what animates this question, or what conflicting impulses are brought together in this problem, what is troubling for us about this problem and what the trouble with this problem tells us about ourselves, at our present stage of historical self-consciousness.
We might get some traction if we invert the question: what prevents us from seeing that norms are natural? Why can’t we just see them that way?
There are at least two things going on here, right? One is a certain picture of what nature is: whatever nature is, it doesn’t contain norms. (But why not?) The other is a certain picture of what norms are: whatever norms are, they can’t be natural. (But why not?)
In other words, I’m interested in what generates the appearance of a conflict between naturalism and normativity, such that “how can we naturalize norms?” becomes a task for thought.
Well, there is the wry smile to be had from the wrong country for the train reference.
Trains and Nazis have a horrible association, but I don’t think that was intended.
I’ve written some long notes to him, but I spend time on that mainly to see how clear my own thinking is. Any constructive feedback is a bonus. Beyond that, I still try to adhere to the “be the change you want to see” approach in starting discussions. But what I cannot understand is continuing to engage after it is clear others are playing by different rules for discussions, as some of the biologists do with other people in other threads.
I don’t understand why biologists should be any different from the rest of us.
Its one thing to just continue to trade insults, which is how I many of the ongoing exchanges. It’s another to continue to try to provide detailed, science-based explanations to people who IMHO are not playing by the same rules for how to hold a constructive discussion.
ETA: if podcasts interest you, Sean C has a recent one on why people fail to engage in successful discussions, and Arthur Brooks just started one which is to be dedicated to the issue of holding productive discussions with those you have deep disagreements with. (I don’t normally look at his work, but the podcast is being sponsored by Vox, which is an interesting combination).
Very interesting post.
I’m familiar with those who deny norms exist and also with Putnam’s stuff on why some norms cannot be naturalized, at least if that means using only the language of science (assuming I understand him correctly, which is far from a sure thing).
Putnam’s argument (in “Why Reason Can’t Be Naturalized”, 1985) takes aim against a specific conception of what “naturalism” would be: Quine’s conception. And Quine’s naturalism is remarkably austere — it’s a naturalism that attempts to embed a simplistic S-R behaviorism about psychology in a bare-bones physicalism. Not only can’t Quine accommodate norms or intentions — he also can’t accommodate biological functions!
What’s promising (though perhaps problematic) about Millikan’s project is that she thinks she can get norms for free if the naturalism is rich enough to accommodate functions.
Isn’t that because we have two different (and conflicting) meanings for “nature” (and for “natural”).
On one meaning, humans are part of nature and human activity is natural. On another meaning, we exclude human activity from what we consider nature and natural.
Interesting to me that you make those philosophical questions. I mean, I agree they’re all both fascinating and difficult, but….
. . . but?
I think I understand why this seems odd to you. It’s because my background and training in philosophy is eclectic, but with a lot of time spent deep in the jungles of German Idealism, Nietzsche, and the Frankfurt School. (I actually discovered Sellars and Brandom through scholarship on Adorno!) So I come to the table with a really different conception of what philosophy is than would someone whose training is predominantly in the Frege/Russell/Vienna Circle and post-VC tradition of analytic philosophy.
walto:
Bruce:
Walto is making the irrelevant point that if swamp tigers keep getting zapped into existence at a sufficient rate, then their fitness is irrelevant to the continuance of the species. The zapping rate just needs to equal or exceed the death rate.
Why he is making that irrelevant point, I don’t know.
walto,
It needn’t be one or the other. The fitness of swamp tigers is independent of their causal history and of “what people are interested in at some time or other”.
Neil:
keiths:
Neil:
That doesn’t help you. It’s possible for the consensus to be wrong.
How is it irrelevant?
Why settle on fitness as the important consideration for determining function, if we don’t care about their causal history? Why not, e.g., pleasingness to the eye? What’s so hot about fitness other than its ability to have gotten us here?
You see, I think that, to avoid perspectivalism, they try to sneak in selectionism under cover of darkness. (And they rule out selectionism with swamp tigers.)
walto:
The question is about fitness — how well a swamp tiger functions in its environment — not about the continuation of the species by continual zapping. The function (and fitness) are independent of the causal history.
I think it’s singled out only because of its historical power.
ETA: I mean, we could consider their ‘function’ to be to make lovely coats for first ladies.
Kantian Naturalist,
I’d just put it that questions about motivations seem to me psychological.
walto,
Be careful not to conflate fitness and function. Fitness is a technical term in evolutionary biology, having to do with survival and reproductive success. Function is much broader.
I don’t think that tigers, whether swamp or otherwise, have One True Function, any more than I think that bricks have one true function. A brick can fulfill multiple functions: as a construction material, a paperweight, or a weapon, for example. Likewise for tigers.
walto,
Suppose that a hundred years from now we are a designing an organism for a new terraformed environment on Mars. Fitness is important, because we want the new species to thrive.
What does history have to do with it? The species has no history, after all.
Seems wise to test a design before putting into service.
If the consensus is more often correct that would help.
newton,
The designed species has no history before the test. It still has a fitness, however.
newton,
Neil’s statement was far stronger, and obviously wrong: