Re: mind/brain, the soul and immortality

I can remember my neurology residency days. During the neuro ICU rotation
the beds were often filled with patients who had suffered sub arachnoid
hemorrhage. And these people were awake, but they were not exhibiting any
real interaction with the environment in some cases. And I remember
thinking where did they go? Was there a soul present in that body or not?
Sometimes they would improve and their personality returned. But where had
they gone?

I still have a lot of trouble seperating any sense of personhood from brain
function. It just seems that personality, personhood is completely
dependent on the state of the brain.
----- Original Message -----
From: <Dawsonzhu@aol.com>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2005 8:55 AM
Subject: mind/brain, the soul and immortality

> Dave Siemens wrote:
>>Brown, Murphy and Maloney is probably the best treatment of the notion
>>that the soul or spirit is a function of brain, no more. It has been
>>adopted by neurologists generally, as evidenced by the presentations at
>>last year's ASA meeting at Trinity Western University. I am of the
>>opinion that this conclusion springs from the inability of science to
>>deal with anything immaterial, whether God, angel, soul, spirit, Satan or
>>demon. A number of individuals have said that the trio, and especially
>>Murphy, avoid any scripture that conflicts with their view. However, I
>>have been told that a professor at Asbury has remedied this lack. I
>>published a paper challenging this view in /Philosophia Christi/
>>(Evangelical Philosophical Society), vol. 4, no. 2 (2002), and read a
>>paper at Trinity which I think will be published (with improvements
>>suggested by George) in the June /Perspectives/. I cannot see that being
>>remembered by God, which Polkinghorne suggests, is equivalent to the
>>immortality of the soul.
>
> I would tend to have some objections to the notion of the
> soul and spirit being a finction of the brain only. But
> seeing the effects of progressive illness like Alzheimer's
> has shook most of the dualist out of me. What we see as
> mind definitely appears to need a sufficient number of
> functioning brain cells, at least. However, there does
> seem to be a reasonable case that the mind is not just
> memory chips, cpu and a few algorithms. A soul based
> at this mechanistic view would be inadequate to express
> the mind, much less the soul.
>
> Nevertheless viewing the limitations set on a strongly
> dualist position, I don't see how we can get around the
> problem of what part of a soul would actually be preserved
> if it is not somehow in God's memory to reconstruct it.
> Paul talks about the dead rising, but I cannot think that
> should be taken too literally. What is claimed in the
> Bible is a new heaven and a new earth. So some kind of
> transformation seems to be implied even in scripture.
>
> Would you please suggest what would fit as an alternative
> to a "God's memory" as the primary means for ressurecting
> the soul?
>
> by Grace alone we proceed,
> Wayne
Received on Sun Mar 20 09:41:33 2005