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…
Studied? No I haven’t studied Steiner (or his lamb bladder hypotheses). There are too many first rate and second rate philosophers to read to spend time on Steiner. Life is short. That you stumbled into his lap is sad.You could have done so much more with your time.
But I see he makes you happy. So whatever. I mean, Camus said that truth is better than illusion, but…..is it?
Not sure I understand this comment, but to the extent that I do, my own Tractarian (maybe mystical?) sense is that meaning cannot and will not ever be explained by any science. Any attempts to do so necessarily involve some kind of self-referential paradox. So in my view it’s not just values that aren’t entirely “factual” or “empirical.” Pretty much every heavyweight philosophical issue is never going to be resolved by scientific inquiry (or likely by philosophical inquiry either).
It’s the human condition.
ETA: another way that this used to be put (In Tractarian times) was to say that discussions about meaning cannot be correctly put into an “ideal” (i.e. not self-contradictory) language. Philosophy can do that stuff because it’s not an empirical inquiry (or at least not one of the standard sort) and can be explicit about using incorrect language on occasion.
Neil,
Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle.
Nominalists hold that names exist, but that mathematical objects (including sets) don’t. The word “set” obviously exists, but its referent doesn’t, according to mathematical nominalism.
What is it with guys like you and Erik that prevents you from doing simple five-minute Google searches?
From Wikipedia, for instance:
It looks like watered down Kant to me, but put more vaguely. Hundreds of philosophers of that era were pushing various versions of watered down Kant. My own favorite of that bunch is Friedrich Paulsen (1846–1908) who was a student of Fechner’s and so threw a lot of panpsychism into his own Kantian brew. The thing is, I realize that stuff doesn’t count as defensible philosophy any more. The “arguments” (such as they ever were) have all been shredded, re-parsed, re-shredded, etc., etc. thousands of times, by generations of more acute people who have stood on the shoulders of their predecessors. You prefer to keep your head in the sand because one or another old-timer makes you feel good. And I said before, who am I to steal your fun/contentment?
Anyhow, Kant is not really in my wheelhouse: you should take up your obsessions with Goethe and Steiner with KN. He may be more sympathetic. I remember him putting up with Erik’s scholastic hoo-ha for a long time. And you’re at least nicer than Erik. Plus KN is a professor who no doubt has to deal with attitudes such as yours in lots of intro classes.
I don’t think a nominalist could accept that sets are names. I think she would have to say that numbers are names, but names of what? Surely not “names of sets”, since that would introduce abstract objects into her ontology!
keiths,
There a number of papers on the swapping scenario. Block and Stalnaker come to mind. IIRC, there’s generally thought to be a gradual immersion into the local economy over a period of a couple weeks or something.
Yes, that is a good question. It is part of a deeper question discussed at SEP : what qualifies as physical for the physicalist? One popular answer is
So the answer to your question about dark energy under that definition is that dark energy is part of a physical theory and so is physical.
Now there are many issues with that definition discussed at SEP. One popular one is Hempel’s dilemma: does physical theory refer to current theory or a future, completed theory. The dilemma:
1. If current, we know it will change, so we can be wrong about what is physical.
2. If future, then physicalism is trivial, since we do not know what will be part of future physical theory.
Your are welcome to include that issue in your quiver of anti-physicalist arguments. I suspect most won’t know of the possible replies.
Coincidentally, I was just reminding myself of Hempel (and Goodman) on theories this morning, when reading a poli-sci paper pushing a theory of political stability that is quite well-confirmed, but that I really don’t like. (I have an alternative that has no confirmation at all, but which I naturally like better.) I’m thinking of saying something like “Hey, there are an infinite number of theories consistent with any empirical data one can provide: you’ve gotta have a theory with terms and axioms that make intuitive sense!”
Any additional suggestions?
Quine annoyed a number of orthodox nominalists by accepting sets into his ontology. He claimed you actually couldn’t do math or science without them. Fighting ensued.
If the aliens developed geometry by observing the same universe we both inhabit, then sure, they are likely to develop the same concept.
I would say that the regularities we see, such as bodies that approximate circles or spheres, lead us to the idea of the perfect circle. Once we have math and geometry, we can codify them. I bristle at your use of the word “discover”, but I guess it’s as good a word as any to describe the process.
What bothered me, and apparently other contributors here, was your statement about ideal forms being “more real” than physical ones. That sounded like reification or a category error. Having talked it out further, I am less convinced that you really were doing that.
Right. It’s all explained as far back as Locke!
walto,
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But so what?
People at TSZ — including you — routinely argue that they are right, and that their opponents are wrong. There is nothing wrong with that.
I have done that with respect to Bruce’s argument, and I have explained in detail why I think it fails. That’s entirely appropriate, and your objection to it is as hypocritical as it is goofy.
As I pointed out yesterday, you are making the same dumb argument that Bill Cole has been making. That should give you pause.
And in this particular case, Bruce was so embarrassed by his prior position that he even pretended to have never actually held it!
If even Bruce is distancing himself from his earlier position, why on earth do you think it’s inappropriate for me to argue that it is incorrect?
One criticism of underdetermination by the empirical is it ignores that accepted theories need to be justified by the usual scientific values as well: simplicity, unification, successful and novel predictions, etc.
So you could attack the theory by saying it fails to meet one those critieria and that is a critical shortcoming. Or, since there are often conflicting criteria for a given theory, some of them need to be given higher weight than others in making a choice. So you could attack any examples of the rationale for the weighting used for such choices.
But I am not sure if those will help with a theory that has no empirical justification at all. Maybe you can complain about no funding to do the relevant research which you think would surely provide the justification.
ETA: I think your axioms making intuitive sense could be an example of the unification criterion, as long as the intuition is shared by many working in the field.
Fair Witness, to CharlieM:
Right.
Like you, I don’t object to the use of the word “discover” in a mathematical context. But it definitely doesn’t mean what Charlie would like it to mean. We don’t acquire the concept of an ideal tetrahedron by mentally visiting the Platonic realm in which such solids exist.
Nothing whatever. But adding the stuff you routinely enjoy adding (You’re wrong! You’re embarrassed! My dick is bigger! I have won–you have lost!) serves no purpose whatever. It’s not a further argument, it convinces nobody, and is purely malevolent, pointless behavior serving no useful purpose accept that of some kind of weird self-glorification.
It’s quite sensible of Bruce to want to “be the change” and we should all join him in that. Particularly you.
BruceS,
Thanks. I don’t think it would require a ton of funding to confirm my hypothesis (assuming it’s true in its current form, which it may well not be). It may just be a matter of investigating World Value Surveys and doing some historical research. But that work hasn’t been done and I don’t want to do it myself. Not really my cuppa. I’m not a social scientist.
I can only speak for myself, as a mathematician.
I take set theory to be a theoretical model. I take the definition of natural number as sets to be a way of modeling numbers within set theory.
I take mathematical sets as not being at all like ordinary real world sets.
Oh, and I take “exists” in mathematics to be a special mathematical meaning of “exists” which is not at all the same as our ordinary meaning of “exists”.
What I was starting from is this from you:
For the first commonality between us, I was not trying to claim anything about patterns, only that for life to be possible, reality must have parts that organisms can reliably single out.
I agree that explaining that stuff via real patterns is something more and requires human conventions. I think we agree on that too.
It is privileging the patterns that are part of scientific explanations as real where I we differ.
That’s not at all obvious. We don’t actually observe geometry, though perhaps we are indoctrinated into believing that we do.
Fair Witness:
Neil:
Fair Witness spoke of aliens developing geometry by observing the universe, not of aliens observing geometry.
I’m not sure what that means.
I should mention that my understanding of science is probably very different from yours.
Ha, I wish I had students like Charlie! My job wouldn’t be any easier but it would be a lot more fun!
I do like Kant, and Goethe, and the philosophers influenced by both of them: Hegel, Nietzsche, and Husserl all come to mind. I’m not crazy about the teleological cosmic evolutionism that Steiner seems to share with Schelling and I’m not crazy about the intuition/concept distinction that Steiner seems to share with Schopenhauer, the early Nietzsche (Dionysus vs Apollo in Birth of Tragedy), and Bergson.
But hey, at least Charlie’s guy is Steiner and not someone like Deepak Chopra, Ayn Rand, or (God forbid) Jordan Peterson!
keiths:
walto, today:
walto, yesterday:
If you don’t want the hole to get deeper, stop digging.
I take real patterns as unobservables in scientific theories and scientific realism as saying these unobservables are real, where real amounts to three separate commitments: metaphysical, epistemic, and semantic, as detailed in SEP.
Based on previous exchanges, I have no doubt that we differ on many aspects of the related philosophy of science.
Neil, to Bruce:
I don’t doubt that.
As keiths indicated, perhaps you misread and confused “observed” for “developed” ?
I was having a lively discussion with a friend about Millikan yesterday. He pointed out that there’s nothing about neuroscience in Millikan. That’s not where she anchors content. For her, we anchor semantic content at the system-level: the causal history of the organism (or populations of organisms) in the environment.
I think that the casual use of words like “explain”, “anchor,” “locate,” and “determine” is really causing some problems for me here.
I think it’s one thing to say that we need to look at occurring and dispositional causal powers to see how semantic content is realized in brain-body-environment dynamic loops. And it’s quite another to say that we need to look at past histories in order to figure out how those dynamic loops came into existence. And going to be some further (and prior?) task to figure out what the concept of “semantic content” is.
But I think that philosophers get themselves into all sorts of trouble when they say that they are “explaining” some phenomenon when all they are really doing is explicating the concept of that phenomenon so that the concept is more useful for identifying it.
Those are consistent incidentally. As indicated you’ve never really been able to grok this stuff.
walto,
Um, no. But keep digging if you must.
In his book Truth and Knowledge, Steiner writes:
Far removed from watered down Kantianism.
And more
Today:
Yesterday:
Hypocrisy, thy name is walto.
To me, that’s still watered down Kant.
Look, if that kind of crap turns you on, go for it!
walto,
Bruce lied to cover up a mistake. If that’s “the change he wants to see”, then the last thing TSZ needs is for everyone to “be that change.”
Exactly what I’m talking about. The “Um” is particularly revealing.
As I said, you don’t get it. But I’m not going to be able to undo a lifetime of disposition to that sort of malevolent behavior, obviously. You don’t understand the difference between arguing for a position and calling somebody else names. I can’t help you to understand this. Your parents should have, maybe.
More of the same.
Yes, if by that you mean “truth”.
What do you think causes the acceleration of the expansion of the universe then?
Jesus!
walto:
Here is the sentence that prompted the last two days of histrionics from you:
That’s it.
Get a grip, walto.
CharlieM,
Your three criteria — perfection, unlimited size, and changelessness — all failed as ways of deciding which of two things is “realer” than the other.
Have you since come up with other criteria? (And no, “Steiner said it; I believe it; that settles it” is not a valid criterion.)
It looks very much like watered-down Bergson to me (see here).
I don’t know about “crap,” but I’m happy that Charlie has found a philosopher who speaks to him. Definitely not my cup of tea, but then again (I’ve been told) there are philosophers who don’t understand what I get out of Sellars or Adorno. To each their own; let a thousand flowers bloom, etc.
keiths:
Bruce:
I think so.
It also nicely handles the issue of intentional inexistence. Since meaning is internal, it doesn’t matter whether there is anything “out there” to correspond to a given word. The internal state is enough to grant the word meaning.
It’s better than your position that the only things that are real are physical/material.
Mung,
Can you support that with an actual argument?
Would you deny that Hegel is a Kantian?
I agree with the flowers blooming stuff. If it makes Charlie happy, he’s certainly welcome to it as far as I’m concerned. I don’t get the desire to keep posting that stuff here, but I suppose it’s not much different from people posting Bible extracts.
Did you forget to fuck off?
From the things your write. What you should say, is that when you say “Superman” or when you say “Middle Earth” you don’t really mean those things, you mean something else, something physical and real.
Massimo Pigliucci:
HT: Neil
And an exercise for keiths:
Of course they are physical. That was my point. But you denied it. So now you are contradicting yourself.
Those social contracuts are “Superman” and “Middle Earth.”
And by your own admission, they are physical and real.
It doesn’t change the point. Earlier you wrote:
But we do not develop geometry by observing.