Re: mind/brain, the soul and immortality

Terry Gray wrote:
[I snipped out most of it, and just not your central point]
> Those advocating monism on the basis of scientific
>evidence commit the same categorical error as materialists in general
>(e.g. concerning God's action in the world). Please note that I'm not
>suggesting that monists are materialists with respect to God's action
>in the world.

What you say in general is important to remember. I'm
not sure I'm a complete monist yet. I'm still entertained
by the possibility that quantum mechanics plays a role
because that would indicate the everything of the universe
as far as the quasars is in a remote way "interconnected".
That would suggest that at least the part of our minds that
is not meat could be the salt that makes up a soul. For a
very complex system like the brain, although wet chemistry
in every way, a little salt may pop up once and a while.

The main thing that really challenged my dualist position
was that the person I knew began to do things that struck
me as inconsistent with their personality and character.
If the mind was separated from the body, then I would think
that those inconsistencies would not occur, but maybe I
am wrong.

But back to your point, to some extent it is important
to remember that "lacking a mechanism to explain God's
interaction with the world" is not the same as "no
mechanism thereof exists". We may have it all wrong on
the mechanistic perspective, yet the soul exist all the
same.

There is something to just accepting the assertion, even
without a scientific explanation. Another way to put it
is, "we don't know everything". I can agree to a large
extent; we _shouldn't_ think we are so clever. Nevertheless,
we also need to reckon with science on some of these
issues, and I wouldn't see it as wrong to explore what
we do know to see how far it can take us. Failure only
means we have to search for some other way.

By Grace alone we proceed,
Wayne
Received on Sun Mar 20 20:31:02 2005