I find Corliss Lamont’s humanistic arguments to be the most compelling regarding this topic. Here are a few points he considered:
Our conscious experiences are conditioned through our internal and external experiences which is solely interpreted through our brain.
Serious damage to the brain has demonstrated significant intellectual impairment.
Weariness of the body also impacts weariness of the brain (e.g. observe sleep and fatigue processes).
Our intellectual experience (soul) is not always powerful enough to handle fatigue or even brain damage, so a complete shutdown of our processing center makes the dissolution of our experience seem most likely.
My little brother told me this morning that a cockroach can survive for 9 days without its head before it starves and that this man managed to keep a chicken alive for several months after cutting off its head. Pretty amazing huh?
I think the brain is just for co-ordination (and thinking through actions with logical thought and emotions etc for the more aware animals) which isn’t always so necessary. Or at least no more necessary as any other organ.
But it is natural to think that the brain is so necessary for life because it is what makes u aware that you are alive.
I believe you missed my point entirely. I never said the brain was essential for “life,” but merely our interpretations of consciousness or intellect. Now for us to have a soul in which our intellect is strong enough to embed after complete brain shut-down, then how come the soul isn’t strong enough to maintain our intellect when we encounter serious brain damage?
Just an added note, a cockroach brain is spread throughout their body. Their heads just hold a little of the nervous system while most of the brain is spread along the belly.
Mike the chicken from the 40’s is an amazing story. I believe that scientist noticed that the head was not completely cut off and the brain stem remained intact which contains most of a chicken’s reflex actions. Not to take away from Mike’s miraculous feat, but do you think he was the same chicken intellectually after he got most of his head whacked off?
I believe my apparent missing your point entirely was due to the fact that there is a significant difference in our respective beliefs.
I don’t believe in the soul. In any definition of the word, in western or eastern ideologies. I think our interpretations of consciousness or intellect are soley functions of the brain. So to me, if those functions are necessary for life, the brain is necessary for life. However, I just think its the most essential organ for life because it tells the body to be alive and how to do it. And thats why I believe life stops when the brain stops. I see life as completely physical.
You seem to believe that life depends on the soul and that the soul, or intellectual experience, works with the brain in some way? And it can act as some sort of back up for maintaining our intellect but it is not strong enough to do it once the brain has been slowed or damaged? And so once the brain ceases to function in death, experience after death seems not possible?
I can see your point, but I just don’t believe in that line of thought.
While I respect differences in beliefs, I’m not sure exactly what you are trying to counter.
I never said anything remotely resembling any personal beliefs in which life depends on the soul. If you re-read everything I have posted within this thread, I am using examples which refute dualistic psychology or beliefs that our conscious intellect can function beyond it’s source which is the brain. This is sometimes referred to as a “soul.” I’m arguing and have been the entire time that there is no such thing as a supernatural “soul” because of how dependant our intellect, personality, and consciousness is on our brain … which you seem to be in agreement with.
I think we agree a lot more than you think we do, so I apologize for any confusion I may have caused.
I saw your arguement, but I just assumed that you were applying the question of the thread to your beliefs that were similar to a theory, rather than using the theory and showing that within that framework, existence doesn’t go on after death by disproving the soul. I’m sorry for my misinterpretation. So yes I do agree with u!
