Re: mind/brain, the soul and immortality

Why is it evident that the soul must remain alive elsewhere?

If the souls are just unable to connect to us because the machinery is down,
why are they not able to tell us that they were there, that they knew what
was going on? Why dont they remember it? For the most part, the time that
they are in a vegetative state, is a blank.. I am talking about people
that are awake, but unaware.

Remember, people can be in a vegetative state, and recover. But, somone
like Terri Schiavo that has been in a vegetative state for 15 years, is not
going to. But that is another issue. ;)

Now getting back to the memory thing. I guess it is possible that the soul
is there and aware, but because the brain is not functioning, they are not
able to store experiences in memory so are not able to discuss it when the
brain function returns. This kind of reminds me of the aim of "twilight
anesthesia". When one undergoes a minor procedure that requires sedation,
but not general anesthesia, often twilight anesthesia is used. This
involves pain killers, but predominately involves high doses of
benzodiazepines. The result of this is that you are awake, but drowsy, with
suppressed pain response, but aware of what is going on. But afterwards you
have no recollection of the events because of the benzodiazepines, so as far
as you are concerned the events never happened, even though you were aware
of them at the time.

Still, it seems reasonable to suppose that personhood, is merely a function
of neuronal connections, and when they neurons are not working correctly the
person is not apparent, and when the brain recovers and neuronal function
returns, all of the same old connections are there so the personality
returns intact.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Perrett" <donperrett@genesisproclaimed.org>
To: "'jack syme'" <drsyme@cablespeed.com>; "Dawsonzhu@aol. Com (E-mail)"
<Dawsonzhu@aol.com>
Cc: "ASA Discussions (E-mail)" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2005 5:47 PM
Subject: RE: mind/brain, the soul and immortality

> Jack wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> 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.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
>
> Don P:
> If I were to call someone on the phone and either nothing could be heard
> by
> the other end or my voice were coming through garbled, muffled, broken, or
> with too much static, would this mean that there was no one calling? Of
> course not. Or minds are a conduit for the human spirit. It also
> provides
> necessary physical functions as with any living species on the planet. If
> one loses there ability to use their mind, due to Alz or whatever, this
> does
> not mean that our souls/spirits are lost. It simply means that the
> connection between our spirit/soul and the physical world has been
> interrupted. Be it static(chemical imbalance), broken(Alz/etc),
> garbled(strokes), etc. Unless someone has no signs of brain activity,
> there
> is always some evidence of the human spirit remaining. Where do those in
> comas go when no brain activity is present, yet the person
> returns/recovers?
> This one only God knows. But it is evident that the soul must have
> remained
> alive somewhere. In the end, our bodies are but a vessel for our souls.
> Nothing more and nothing less. We do depend on the brain to enable us to
> interact with the physical world, but as for what makes up our spirit, I
> take the position that our spirit can influence our mind/body, and our
> spirit is influenced by our mind/body, they are separate, yet connected.
>
> Question: Does anyone know if other animals have multiple personalities?
>
> Don Perrett
>
Received on Sun Mar 20 20:17:38 2005