Theli

One thing I can't really grasp is why most people find the notion of souls much more appealing than the conciousness being a product of the brain.
I've noticed that most people tend to get frightened and even reluctant when confronted with the latter.
Does it have something to do with:
1. Selfimportance - we are simply programed by society to view the inexplainable soul as something better.
2. Fear of death - the soul is viewed as something that survives death, while the brainconsciousness is not.
3. Inability to see things in layers - the notion that a person cannot be a conscious being, an organism functioning through electrical signals and an object based on molecules at the same time.

All three has shown their ugly faces on this board. David Mathiews (if anyone remembers him) as an example got hung up on the third one for a looong time.
Is this something wich can be explained?

I would like to apologize for my bad language skills in the text above, it's been awhile since I was debating anything on this board.

Shadowy Man

- Carl Sagan

Vesica

Very intresting topic....Let me dive right in.

I lean towards #1 as the primary explanation. Whatever our consciousness stems from it is intertwined with our concept of self. This self hinges on a belief that we exist as entities independant of external stimulation or factors. Basically that we are. There is an essential self there.

Secondly the concept of self brings with it an idea that we are unique from others. Me is different from You. Each person is a new and different self.

Thirdly the concept of self colors all our perception. We can only experience life 'through our own eyes' as it were. There is no way to step outside our own perceptions and have a pure sensory experience.

All of these factors make us intimately involved with 'self' and 'self identity'. How then can one explain this phenomena with electric impluses in the brain or cell layouts?? Awareness of self adds another dimension to this experience....I am not sure I am getting at what I mean precisely here....In essence, feeling the chair beneath your tush is a purely sensory experience, it is there and we are comfortable conceptualizing that as a brain-based experience. Affection for a friend is not so easy to isolate as a physical or brain-based experience...there is a lot going on there and it 'feels' like something more than just chemical reaction....The meaning and nuance is so important to us that it is hard to wrap our heads around the fact that this could be just the firing of a few neurons.

sweep

and

no it isn't, and cannot

for example:

'stop burning women, they are not wiches. The convulsions and hallucinations you witness are caused by ergot in your bread.'

'caused by what? I don't understand'

'I can't explain, you'd have to be me'

'alright then; lets find some more wiches and BUUrn them!'

'how about a leap of faith. trust your friendly scientists'

Theli

Some food for thought...

What if we discovered that souls existed, whould examining them (assuming there is a way to do so) make them less appealing to the masses as a theory/belief than they were before?
It seems like supernaturalism in it's whole is just a way to block certain inconvenient questions, and I fear that some knowledge may indeed be harmfull for us if we are not ready for it.

Vesica...
First off, thanks for your reply. I enjoyed reading it. Although...
It seems that you have done a number 3 yourself here, if I didn't completely missunderstand your intentions.
The usuall error we make is that when our knowledge/perception of a thing (consciousness) gets an added layer (electric impulses) we tend to discard the older layer. As if we didn't have emotions anymore, just because we learned something about what they are based upon.

It would be like if we learned that what made subatomic particles work was very very very tiny people living inside them. Should we then discard all our current knowledge of the atom?
Something I've heard alot of times from the opposer of naturalism is the claim "If naturalism is true, we are nothing but a collection of molecules and chemicals working as natural phenomenan".
And the strangest part is that the speaker for naturalism usually agrees.

Vesica

It seems that you have done a number 3 yourself here......

So I did...Grr. What I meant was not to imply an inability to see multiple layers at once but a loss of meaning. If my perceptions/feelings are only electrochemical reactions does that mean that they could be artificially induced? Is so, does that make them less important? Some around here talk a good game about using logic above all else but logic is not what holds us together in the bonds of family and friend. Yes, you can argue that there are evolutionary reasons for this but that doesn't get rid of the warm-fuzzy foundation of human societies. We inherently trust (well those of us without mood disorders) that our feelings are true, that they are ours and that they can be trusted. There must be a reason we feel immediately close to so-and-so or why X rubs us the wrong way.

Maybe I am still doing number three but being able to map what sadness versus happiness looks like worries me. None of our mood drugs really makes up for the interactions and feedback we need to be truly happy. I guess it does seem a but like discarding other layers, like so many psychological phenomena that dissappear once you understand them. *sigh*

Vesica

One further thought....Our awareness/con. is woefully imcomplete. There are so many brain-regulate functions that we are not aware of and can not bring under con. control that I think it is easier to conceptualize con. as something separate than grasp why our brains only tell us 1/4 of what is going on.

Theli

Vesica...

This seems to be a very common notion, I agree.

Many do fear though that they will somehow loose all that as soon as they learn the evolutionary side of the story. And it's this that I just can't figure out. That every question has only one answer/truth.

It seems like a very hollow and unjustified fear. I've felt it myself awhile ago, and I can still not figure it out.

Vesica

That every question has only one answer/truth.

You've lost me...Do you mean that Every Q can have only one answer? or you don't understand the reasoning that only one answer is possible to every Q??

Theli

No, I meant the other way around.