lpetrich

I'm not sure where to discuss this: EoG or SaS?

As others have also noted, Alzheimer's Disease and diseases with similar effects pose an interesting quandary for the hypothesis of mind-body dualism. This is the hypothesis that the mind/consciousness/soul/spirit is composed of a different stuff than the body, which hosts it as long as the body is alive. When the body dies, the mind will depart from the body, either to live in some other realm or else to look for another body to inhabit.

But Alzheimer's disease and diseases with similar effects present a conundrum; Alzheimer's disease has aptly been described as "the death of the mind before the death of the body", and it is a very slow death, taking several years. Here is <a href="http://www.alpinecourtmemorycare.com/faq.shtml#stages" target="_blank">a nice site on Alzheimer's</a>. The disease has sometimes been called the "second childhood", because the disappearance of mental faculties closely parallels in reverse a child's acquisition of them as he/she grows. In the final stage of the disease, an Alzheimer's patient cannot recognize either others or self in the mirror, cannot use language, may touch or put into mouth anything, and becomes incontinent -- much like a baby.

According to mind/body dualism, what must that mind be up to? Trying to wiggle free and taking several years to do so? Gradually leaving less and less of itself behind? And finally leaving behind a zombie of a still-living body?

However, if mind is a function of brain, or whatever would be an appropriate relationship in a physicalist theory of mind, then a slowly-degenerating brain will produce a slowly-degenerating mind.

Bible Humper

I'm guessing that since a soul is magic, and is thus unrestrained by any rules, they can whip up an "explanation" with a little time and creativity.

There are many similar problems with their soul theory, such as loss of consciousness during judo matches when strangulation techniques stop the flow of blood to the brain. If the mind is seperate from the brain why do you lose consciousness?

Maybe when Adam ate the magic apple it made man's soul a slave to his brain, they are actually seperate phenomena after all, which you would realize if you would just open your heart to Jesus.

RogerLeeCooke

Good example. I've been using Alzheimer's disease in my attempts to get dualists to face the problem rationally for some time, but any kind of hypoxia or brain damage would do as well, strokes for example. I had a relative who almost literally wasn't the same person after a stroke.

Of course, Hume said essentially this 250 years ago.

The Dionysian

It depends on who you ask. There's dualistic parallelism and dualistic interactionism. Most people trying to explain this and hold to their mind/body paradigm would go with dualistic interactionism and say that brain damage simply affects the mind in this negative way. Please don't start arguing with me about this as I don't really agree with it. I'm just trying to tell you what somebody who believes in this stuff would say.

[ August 18, 2002: Message edited by: TPaine ]</p>

RogerLeeCooke

OK, I won't argue with you. But just to get it in writing..., the answer to that argument is that saying the mind reflects brain damage in this way is tantamount to saying the mind is an effect of brain activity. It still gives no grounds for supposing the mind can exist without the brain.

The Dionysian

Dualistic interactionism holds that the mind and brain are two distinct things that interact and causally affect each other. A dualistic interactionist would have no problem accepting that brain damage affects the mind. What you are thinking of is Epiphenomenalism.

[ August 20, 2002: Message edited by: TPaine ]</p>

hinduwoman

Actually all you have to do is to insist that soul and mind are not the same; therefore though the mind might break down, the essential soul would be unaffected. viola!

After all old people used to become senile and no one thought it affected their souls.

The Dionysian

"Actually all you have to do is to insist that soul and mind are not the same; therefore though the mind might break down, the essential soul would be unaffected. viola!"

Yes, just like the people who say the mind, soul, and spirit are three different things. You wouldn't happen to know what these people see as the difference between these things, would you?

lpetrich

This "senility" was often Alzheimer's disease. Late-onset Alzheimer's disease was long confused with normal aging; the two were disentangled only in the 1960's. Before that, the label of "Alzheimer's disease" was only applied to patients who got the disease before 65 or so -- a relatively early onset.

I think what helped in recognizing late-onset Alzheimer's was large numbers of people living to be very old -- making patterns of aging clearer.

WinAce

The existence of such things as Alzheimer's makes the standard concept of a 'soul' that remembers everything and keeps your personality in the afterlife an unenviable position to defend.

They can dismiss the problem by saying the mind can be damaged while the soul continues to exist, but that's basically admitting defeat. What's left of the 'soul' if the memories and personality, everything that makes us distinct, dies with the brain?

Brain damage being capable of utterly destroying the mind is thus an iron-clad argument against dualism and theism in general, at least in my opinion. It was one of three things which made it utterly impossible to reconcile theistic belief with common sense for me (the other two being psychological factors leading to irrational beliefs and the fact we've found natural answers for much of what was unexplained before).

[ August 20, 2002: Message edited by: WinAce ]</p>