The human brain seems to be useless. Animals have different kinds of organs. Most of them it is easy to find the function of it. An octopus has large tentacles for grabbing crabs, and swimming. A sperm whale has a gigantic fatty head, that focuses soundwaves into a sonic ray gun to stun squids and eat them! (its true) Many organs are simple like this. Legs are for walking. Hands are for grabbing. Teeth are for grinding. Penises are for hanky-panky.
Furthermore, nature usually does not give an organ for no reason. If she did, a similar animal without the organ would do the same job, with less waste. That creature would have an evolutionary advantage. A significant portion of a human beings bloodflow goes to the brains. Shit, what is going on in there? Must be something important. Maybe the brain helps us process our waste products? Or maybe it stores excess fatty tissue that would otherwise go straight to our thighs.
Even more dubious is the claim that brains are for âconsciousnessâ and âintelligenceâ. I simply donât see that happening. Donât we have souls? And what about all those cute critters, donât they have souls too? And what about the universal consciousness? What about that Omnisoul thing? Arenât we a part of that? My mother tells me that god gives these things. Not only that, but that the soul is in the heart, and not in the head.
Is this a serious post? The brain in humans, and every other creature that has one, controls and co-ordinates the body to act in a coherent manner. It certainly isnât the âsoulâ that does that. As a by-point, the soul is one of the few remaining bogey-men of modern science that people believe in, thereâs absolutely no evidence for it and it should have gone the way of pholigsten (the magical stuff which creates fire) and ether (the invisible media which light used to flow through according to pre-Einstein physics). However itâs interwoven into religious mythology and so still persists in modern thought.
The reason why ours is so big is that our evolutionary advantage came from being able to think and this was such an advantage the brain got bigger and bigger until we achieved full self-consciousness (which no other animal really has). Some of our major advantages over other animals is our ability to mimic and also to decieve, which wouldnât be possible without our large brain.
well, it seems likely that we have a small brain stem to make our heart pump and our legs to move like an animal. But humans have such large brains! Its freakinâ weird.
My theory is that as humans became docile and successful creatures, their brains expanded, along with their fatty asses and thighs. I really think Iâm on to something here.
poıesıs you fail to understand alot about how a human body, or indeed a lıve organism functions. the kıdneys are not there to filter piss. they do a million other things too. your liver does so many things weâre not even exactly sure of all of them yet.
live organisms arent like a car or a computer made of standardised ınterchangeable parts that serve one purpose. they are alot more like an very old watch or such mechanısm, with endless layers of fixtures and adjustments one on top of the other.
do we have large, sharp teeth? no
do we have massive stomachs to digest leaves and wood? no
do we have long, muscular legs for chasing down fast game? no
do we have keen senses of smell, sight, and sound? relatively, no
do we bear shildren that can walk and function within months of being born? no
do we have any of the thousands of amazing adaptations animals have developed to preserve/create their niche? no
What do we have? a brain that can make shelters, spears, fire, strategy, etc.
Our brainâs ability to compensate for our (relatively) pathetic bodies is what made humans the dominant animal of the earth.
where is this soul ? how do you communicate(interact) with it ? why is it not growing fat ? whats so bad about growing fat consıdering thats what a nubile womanâs hips do and are supposed to do ?why does the soul thinl for you ? can it go away ? can it dislike you ? does it eat ? if it doesnât, can it change ? if it doesnt, can it learn ?
i hope you get the point by now. adding a soul in the dıscussion only complicates your stand but holds no value for it.
Sorry for my reductionist approach, but in my humble opinion such an approach is mostly very useful.
Facts
(1) Humans have the most complex brain of all animals discovered on the Earth so far.
(2) Humans are the only sentient, intelligent animals known on Earth.(Although it might be nitpicking, one might argue that this argument loses strength because we proclaim this about ourselvesâŠ)
Theory
Now letâs pose the theory that, when combined, the above two points prove that sentience and intelligence necessitate a very complex brain. Based on the evidence available to us, this theory seems extremely plausible. Yet is is a theory (and not a fact), because we might still encounter a sentient, intelligent species someday with a much smaller brain than we do.
Souls
There are no scientific facts that support the existence of a âsoulâ, but the non-existence of souls cannot be proven either.
if you exist as your phisical body (henceforth body) and you also exist as your soul (henceforth soul) a number of problems suddenly arise :
how does a soul communicate with a body ?
1.1 why would a soul communicate with a body and why would a body communicate with a soul ?
1.2 how would the process be accomplished ?
1.3 how would it be possible for the process to be seamless ? (because we have not yet found anything in the body that would serve as a communication receptor have we ?)
why is the soul not growing fat, just like the brain is ? what allows you to distinguish saying that the brain is useless and just grows fat, while not saying the same about the soul ?
why is growing fat a bad thing ?
why would the soul think for a body ? why not just pick another body at some point ? why not simply leave ? what if two souls want the same body ? etc (think this from a computer networking perspective, just think of all the things that can go wrong with a network and apply that to your relation with the soul)
can the soul eat ? if it does not eat, can it change ? how could something that doesnt eat change ? if it does not change, how could it learn anything ?
mind you that remembering is also change.
now i have no doubt that you can just read this post one word at a time the way a duck can go trough water, but please, try and THINK about what it means, maybe even read it a few times etc.
As well, we have tons of evidence that the brain is what takes care of all cognitive functions.
So, why, if the soul is what thinks, does the brain become highly electrically active when one is thinking?
And, what evidence have you for the existence of a soul, assuming itâs a noncorporeal (not physical/not material/massless/etc) substance of some sort?
Finally what can you point to that makes materialism a less valid theory than the dualism you propose?
zenofeller, youâre writing like poesis knew everything about souls. they might be answered by the soul master.
most of your questions can be asked about the brain. for which only the brain master has the answers, we certainly donât, and certainly not complete ones.
you need to think your posts through, you know what i mean, not ask people to lisen to them. and your questions too. can the soul eat would definately not be fifth on my list.
