ps418

There are plenty of types of brain damage that apparently affect the ability to be 'embarassed' by typically embarassing situations. I've personally worked with Alzheimer's and stroke patients who, for instance, cease to be embarassed by incontinence, or by their own sometimes bizarre behavior. 'Social cognition' deficits like this are common with frontal lobe lesions. I've also seen single individuals apparently lose and regain their capacity to experience embarassment, for instance, before and after the manic phase in bipolar disorder, or before and after a psychotic 'episode.' I knew one woman who would, like clockwork, strip naked and run up and down the hall screaming obscenities. When she 'recovered,' thanks to antipsychotic drugs, she would suddenly be overwhelmed with embarassment by the things she had done.

The patients I've described were fully capable of interpreting their sensory input, i.e. they knew that they'd been incontinent or behaving in a manner that is a gross violation of social norms, but simply are not 'bothered' by it, so in these cases its not simply a sensory deficit.

Bechara, 2002. The neurology of social cognition. Brain 125, 1673-1675.

Berthoz et al, 2002. An fMRI study of intentional and unintentional (embarrassing) violations of social norms. Brain 125, 1696-1708.

Patrick

Abacus

How do you know that humans have a soul but no other animals do?

Wyz_sub10

Do you do this "soul searching" professionally or is it just a hobby of yours?

What, by the the way, are you expecting to see? Have you tried looking in their ears?

My cat has tons of character - more than most humans I know. I doubt he has a soul (I doubt you or I do either), but whatever makes "personally" or "character", he's got it.

Wounded King

I don't think that is the issue. Someone asked you for an example of a property of the soul with those qualities and you gave embarrassment as an example. If you don't know of one then why not just say so?

You do seem to be concentrating on your own ignorance as the basis for a lot of your reasoning. Did you ever look to see if embarrassment was affected by damage to the brain?

Hawkingfan

No, I'll stick to the atheist website. If I take your advice, I'd probably say something really stupid like:

"soul: a form of energy"

yet consider myself a freaking genius because no one can disprove it.
You most certainly were. There is absolutely no burden to disprove the existence of a soul. The burden of proof is entirely on the one making the claim that there is a soul. To say "Souls exist" and to say "Souls do not exist" are not equal. One is higher up on the reasonabilty scale when it comes to Occam's razor, the other is lower. Proof is on the positive claim that goes against everyday reality.

yguy

My apologies - I didn't read your question carefully.

If you point out an extant flaw in a person's charachter - such as hypocrisy - that they were previously unaware of, the person will be embarassed, if they are conscious enough to comprehend you; assuming, that is, that you are not self-righteously judgmental about it, in which case they will see YOUR flaw instead of theirs. Again, the embarassment may be immediately overwhelmed by anger, but it will be there nonetheless. As for measuring it, can't help you there.

yguy

Try disrobing in front of an animal. Then do it in front of a stranger. They'll both look at you, but somehow the stare from the human is embarassing.

Abacus

You don't really know, do you? You're just [edited insult] spouting his superstitious shit.

Abacus

And how is this evidence of a soul?

yguy

Likewise, the inebriated man thinks himself unerringly witty and amusing, though if he remembers what he said the next day, he likely realizes he made an idiot of himself. However, it is possible to be inebriated and yet not "let yourself go" in that fashion, so the question is whether the chemical effect on the brain is really the cause of this temporary stupidity, or whether it just makes it easier for the ego to get high.

IOW, how do we know these symptoms are ultimately caused by biochemistry rather than the biochemical anomalies being symptoms of the soul relating badly to its environment?