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…
keiths,
But “physical-1” is not one of my terms. I only introduced it as a short-hand expression for “spatio-temporal concrete particulars”, i.e. nominalism. You’re simply insisting that I use your preferred vocabulary. I’ve already given reasons for why I will not.
KN,
If so, then all you have to do is
1) demonstrate that semantic externalism is true, and
2) show that the truth of semantic externalism implies the falsehood of Cartesian skepticism.
Yet you haven’t done that, and in fact you acknowledge that you can’t refute Cartesian skepticism. You’ve ruled out your own strategy.
You’re left with compelling arguments for Cartesian skepticism and no refutations of it. The rational response would be to accept Cartesian skepticism until someone comes up with a refutation, but for emotional reasons you choose to reject it instead.
That’s ideology, not philosophy.
KN,
Do you think that things that are physical-1 are physical?
Or do you think that physical-1 things are non-physical?
Or do you think that some physical-1 things are physical, while others are non-physical?
In particular, do you think things like meanings, thoughts, and values are physical? Or are they non-physical?
To add to Walt’s response that the issue is not just a physicalist’s issue.
Intentional inexistence is a problem for non-physicalists too. For example, Tim Crane considers it in his Elements of Mind. Tim is not a physicalist. He led a recent Templeton-Funded project New Directions Project looking at how questions of consciousness and intentionality “can be addressed by the philosophy and science of the mind without necessarily adopting a physicalist or reductionist approach.”
In his book, he motivates the problem of intentional inexistence by asking about the difference between a thought of Zeus and a thought of Pegasus: the thoughts are different even though neither Pegasus nor Zeus exist. His answer starts by saying that thoughts are about intentional objects, where an intentional object is nothing but the answer to the question “What is though T about?. […] If the question has an answer, then the thought has an intentional object. To say that an intentional object is real is nothing more than to say that the phrase which gives the object has a reference (p. 26).”
His answer to the problem of intentional inexistence is philosophical. And that may be enough for some. But it won’t suffice for those who want to explain intentionality in the language of the sciences. Most of them will be physicalists, though not necessarily in accord with Keith’s approach to physicalism. The material I posted was an attempt at a summary of how some of those philosophers approach that issue.
In looking for material about Crane, I came across his recent essay A Short History of the Philosophy of Consciousness which considers how, over the 20th century, the philosophical study of consciousness and intentionality turned into the project of explaining how consciousness and intentionality could be explained by physicalists. You may enjoy it.
The material I presented postulated a hierarchy of maps. As one moves up the hierarchy, the represented structures become more abstract. That approach implies a compounding of representation structures.
A start for answering the question of maps of inexistent objects is to claim they originate as compounds of components of maps of existing objects.
I agree that informed speculations are fine. The devil is in the details of informed, I suppose.
But to answer your questions:
1. Information is not something physical, it is a concept we need in our descriptions of the physical See here for Wheeler on “It from Bit”.
2. Nothing is transferred. QI is a part of our description of the entire, entangled system.
3. Yes, I think consciousness can be explained by the physicalist.. Lots of discussion already on TSZ on qualia and consciousness; I am not interested in adding to it unless someone posts something informed and original.
That’s not how it works around here, Bruce. Maybe you’ve forgotten.
The same stuff has to get rehashed every three months or so, ad nauseam. Everyone takes the same position and says the same things as before (Some even link to the stuff they’ve said before.) Also, it doesn’t have to be ‘informed.’ In fact, it’s not required to make any sense at all. It requires voluminous insults, and the ‘measurement problem’
usually involves body parts. So, it’s unsurprising that in most cases the discussions are neither educative nor amusing: the experience is more like re-eating regurgitated shellfish nachos.
But it’s addictive nevertheless, obviously.
So the idea of the perfect circle remains the same regardless of the conscious being that discovers it. It is numerically identical. Do you agree with this?
I can understand your concern about my wording that it is more real. Especially when “realism” and “idealism” are usually thought of in opposition. In general language is limited so it is sometimes hard to express what one means and in particular my use of language is limited and quite often imprecise so I don’t always succeed in conveying what I actually mean. I find keiths to be very helpful with this problem of mine 🙂
I definitely have to own up to ignoring the informed part of “informed and original”, eg in my exchanges on quantum immortality.
Bruce, to J-Mac:
We need information in order to describe the physical, but information itself is always physically instantiated. Can you think of any exceptions?
And we are not required to visit any realm. The ideal tetrahedron is sufficient in itself. If we try to imagine a Platonic realm we just end up thinking of the physical space around us moved to a different place. We do not need to add anything to the tetrahedron that is not already contained in its own nature. Not a speculative realm nor a thinking organism’s brain state. The tetrahedron is complete in itself.
Mung,
Take the troll out of Mung, and you’ve taken the Mung out of Mung. You’re left with a disembodied voice, like a character in Doonesbury.
No.
Does not seem to be letting me edit this post currently.
I probably should be more careful. I’d avoid the word “instantiated”, preferring something like information is a useful part of descriptions of our theories of the world. The entities/real patterns (pick your poison) of those theories supervene on the physical
keiths:
Bruce:
That makes it harder to argue, as you do above, that information is not physical.
And inevitably, the interaction problem rears its head. If information is non-physical, how can it causally influence the physical?
The entities in the theories that information is helpful to describe would be the elements of a causal explanation ETA: Eg, Quantum fields in an explanation from fundamental physics.
I found Sean C’s video helpful on this issue.
Cue the Batman theme for me today.
And if you want your criticism to taken seriously would it not be a good idea to look a bit more thoroughly into that which you are criticising.
Bruce,
Descriptions of theories, or of the world itself? I would go with the latter. The descriptions might be theory-laden, but they still describe reality. Do you agree?
Okay, so if I’m understanding you, you agree that information is real and that it supervenes on the physical. Do you also agree that it therefore has causal power?
CharlieM:
Heh.
Okay, but then we are back to our question concerning which of the following are correct:
a) the ideal tetrahedron is real, and our conception of it derives from that reality; versus
b) there is no ideal tetrahedron; just a concept of what one would be like if it actually existed.
You go with a). Fair Witness and I go with b).
Here’s where a response from you to this comment of mine might be helpful:
I tried to clarify my meaning of the criteria.
Before I go any further Can you answer the same question I asked walto: Do you agree or disagree that the concept triangle is singular, that it is numerically identical no matter how many people hold it? You can substitute tetrahedron for triangle if you wish.
I have started reading this. It seems to be quite interesting and informative. Thank you for providing the link.
What is identical? First you say the idea of remains the same regardless of who is thinking about it. Then you say that what they are thinking about is the same thing. Are the ideas identical or what the ideas are of? Is my idea of a triangle the same as Neil’s or is it just that we’re “thinking of the same thing”?
I’m honored to be part of the problem.
Certainly it’s true that Cartesian skepticism cannot be refuted if (1) Descartes is right about the nature of the mind and (2) Descartes’ proof of the existence of God is invalid, or valid but not sound.
I simply don’t think that (1) is true, for reasons I’ve already given. The fact that my argument hasn’t persuaded you don’t mean that I haven’t given one.
I know what I mean by “physical-1”: I mean spatio-temporal concrete particulars. But I have no idea what you mean by “physical,” which means I have way of knowing whether I would endorse or deny your assertion that all spatio-temporal concrete particulars are physical. Maybe they are, and maybe they aren’t, and how I am supposed to tell?
Ah, sufficient in itself! Why didn’t you say so!
The definition is the same, but that’s no argument for abstract entities. Should we conclude that there is Doghood or Dogginess, some abstract entity or Form of Dog, because different people can each recognize some particular animal as a dog as a result of having learned how to use the word “dog” and roughly agreeing on how to define the term?
Besides which, if you ask people to imagine a triangle — to construct a visual mental image of a triangle — you’re going to get isosceles triangles, equilateral triangles, and scalene triangles. Triangles can also be acute, right, and obtuse. Are all of these equally “the concept of triangle”? How can that be?
(I should add this thought-experiment wouldn’t work in people who have aphantasia — the inability to form visual mental images.)
It doesn’t actually mean anything, so it’s tough to be expected either to agree or disagree with it. If you define “triangle” as (I don’t know) a closed three-sided plane figure with three straight sides then, of course, whoever is thinking of a triangle must be thinking of that–by stipulation. But what the hell else are you talking about?
I don’t know if it counts as “a refutation”–but I think keiths’ version of skepticism requires the closure of knowledge under (known) entailment. And I think that that premise can be shown to be false.
It’s a long story and you’ll have to get my paper to see how, but the abstract is available for a nickel.
I believe I have his book, The Mechanical Mind. I wasn’t aware of his introduction to the philosophy of mind book but have ordered it. Thank you!
That leaves me out. 🙁
Damn, I should have said, “I have no idea what you mean by “physical,” which means I have no way of knowing whether I would endorse or deny your assertion that all spatio-temporal concrete particulars are physical.”
Kantian Naturalist,
What are the sorts of things that could be claimed to count as non-physical, spatio-temporal, concrete particulars?
Monads? Ideas? Minds? Bits? Ghosts? Gods? Pains? Desires? Goals? Puzzlements?
The way I am using “concept” here means that I am not saying we have a concept of the ideal tetrahedron. We have the concept, tetrahedron. The concept is the tetrahedron and it is discovered through thinking. The concept, tetrahedron is objective, a mental picture of a tetrahedron is subjective.
You have it backwards.
If information is non-physical, how can the physical brain create it? The answer is that it does not, instead, it creates physical representations of information. Information is no more real than Superman, or Middle Earth. Information does not exist.
ETA:
No, it is the representation that is always physically instantiated.
I heard that J.R.R. Tolkien suffered from this, which is why he had to create a map of Middle Earth.
I mostly agree with that.
Information does not exist, in the same sense that mathematical objects (such as numbers) do not exist.
But where does that leave those ID arguments based on information?
Without some definition of “physical” that makes it non-tautologous to say “all concrete particulars are physical” I have no idea what would be “non-physical”.
Good question!
KN,
You still have some basic terminological confusion to sort through. As I explained the other day, you are conflating physicalism with reductive physicalism, which leads to the bizarre conclusion that nonreductive physicalism isn’t physicalism.
Until you’re on board with the standard terminology, I think your progress will be very slow.
And when I pressed you for what you meant, you referred me to some anonymous group of “cognoscenti” without so much as a link.
I should point out that I can think of one philosopher who does use the term “non-reductive physicalism” and then abandons it. I know this because I’ve published an article explaining why this philosopher was right to do so.
CharlieM,
At some point in the conversation you went from talking about the ideal tetrahedron to the concept of the ideal tetrahedron, and you are now talking about the concept of triangle.
Why? The issue was whether the ideal tetrahedron is real, and if so, how that can be demonstrated.
KN:
Whether a particular philosopher abandons the term “non-reductive physicalism” is separate from the issue of whether non-reductive physicalism exists as a philosophical position. It definitely does, and “non-reductive physicalism” is the term used to refer to that position.
If you refuse to learn and use the standard terminology, you’re only creating problems for yourself.
By “the standard terminology” you mean the terminology that you happen to prefer. But if you’re so comfortable with it, please, by all means, tell us what you mean. Otherwise it’s just a literature bluff.
walto, to KN:
KN:
You’ve already told us that you reject physicalism, which you equate with what the philosophical community calls “reductive physicalism”.
So you really ought to be in a position to answer walto’s questions about what counts as non-physical, in your view.
And if any of the things you consider to be non-physical are causally efficacious, you run into the interaction problem. How does the non-physical exert a causal influence on the physical?
KN,
No, by “the standard terminology” I mean the terminology that is commonly accepted among practitioners in the field.
Come on, KN. Just Google “non-reductive physicalism”. It’s standard terminology.
Do some more Googling, and you will see that in the standard terminology, “reductive physicalism” and “non-reductive physicalism” are subsets of “physicalism”.
You clearly don’t like it, but that’s the way it is.
walto,
I’ve seen your paper, but I don’t think the argument works. I’m thinking of doing an OP on it.
Mung,
Can you support your claim that information is nonexistent?
“The physical” and “the non-physical” are not terms that I would use, so I can’t answer this challenge as posed here.
keiths:
CharlieM:
Actually, no. You shifted to other criteria when your original criteria failed to handle the counterexamples I offered.
What you need is a stable set of criteria that work across the board. You can’t just shift the goalposts every time you run into a problem.
He also refuses to say what he means by “creationism.” It’s almost as if he doesn’t want clarity.
Sure. It’s the same reasoning that you use. It’s not made of matter. It’s not physical. Therefore, it does not exist.