@Pathfinder,
Let me please firstly urge, yet once again, that we spend at least a little more effort to stay more focused here. I guess I do have my work cut out (as kind of jokingly touched on before [
#30; last paragraph]) but it will take time that I do hope all will be willing to bear out. I would like to thank richrf here, for making attempts to little by little fill out a working definition for his definition/discription of the term '
soul.' (perhaps that will be added to by others?)
I will definitely go over, and respond to richrf's
#367, and salima's #378, immediately following that. Of course I will continue in my response to jeeprs
#98, and some other things too. Before that, I'd like to point out a few facts here, for those who have evidenced less background in the base field of neurology.
It is a fact that each person (among all presently living humans, of course) participating in this discussion has, to a fuller [to whatever] degree of functioning brain within the confines of their skulls. It is a fact the brain has several functional and/or anatomical divisions which are very much the same in each of us discussing here. It is a fact that cells that make up this organ, the brain, are of a few types with the several neuron classes being the major players--for the most part. While it is a fact that other excitable membrane cells (such as muscle cells), like neurons, have action potentials, they do not project like neurons; and that makes one very big difference--
the synaptic difference.
It is a fact that thought process is synaptic function. It is a fact that memory is a synaptic build/function. It is also a fact that there are further underlying elements at work with synaptic formation and memory formation, but the result can be seen in the synaptic formation. It is a fact that without some certain areas of the thalamic regions working, long term memory cannot be formed synaptically, thus over time, everything in certain memory classes (such as episodic) will be lost [and that time period seems vary a bit, from around one hour or so, to up to forty minutes]. It is also a fact that certain damage can cause a person to lose most all past memory up to the point of damage as well.
It is a fact that a brain with a fully functioning occipital lobe can be coaxed to 'see' (to some fair degree) though other sensory input even with retinal nerves totally damaged and not projecting at all, but that even with fully signalling eyes, there can be no visual output at all if the entire occipital lobe is destroyed. It is a fact that while the normal, healthy brain can be fully active while watching a scene, that all sensory information picked up by the rods and cones is going in through the visual system; and that some of that information, depending on espcially prefrontal cortical activites directed towards a specific purpose, may be screened out so as to not make memory traces (synaptical connections). It is a fact that areas of the brain (brain) can override other area projections (brain)--
as Aedes has previously pointed out.
And, lastly, this one for xris: it is a fact that a brain without any recordable activity (unless one is trying to use, for example a regular microphone taped to the skull) is a dead brain, and which (at the moment, at least) cannot be kick started into the state of activity which we call a living brain.
And allow me to point out here, that that which could be defined as 'life force,' or 'spark of life,' if you will [and an interesting note on this can be found
here], is that which will have to be working on all living things--
as opposed to non-living things. It is a fact that that aspect is not consciousness (as per general definition/description being used for the purpose of this thead), because even the neuron cells in the petri dish which inner connect and form a synapsed structure having been put in there, in no way give us consciousness--
yet they are most evidently full of the force of life (or life force, or spark of life) (
and of course, a spleen or even a heart, do not give us consciousness, nor memory).
I will next pose some questions for those who tend to believe in mind being a non-material, non-brain (thus non-biological) matter (or problem) but would firstly ask those of that camp to inform me of any errors in the following posts, and to support with details just how they are errors:
#48 genetic build of brain as an organ;
#39 amygdala and emotional display;
#50 Williams-Beuren Syndrome;
#274 motor system--basal ganglia;
#299 motor system--cerebellum;
#305 PD;
#357 PD
Also, as a side thing for just this once (since it somehow had come up), I am coming up on having made 53 twirls around our life giver--our almighty (for now) sun. [
but we all know, that that just doesn't mean that much--and anyhow, I'm 25 at heart !]
... the idea of implicate orders (systems?) that give rise to explicate orders (the sensible properties of systems?) is intriguing as well - but from reading the negative reviews (something I always do before I invest in a book), Bohm's thinking in this area (that each small piece of the system is/contains a hologram of the entire system) appears to amount to mathematical metaphysics (with no attempt to check that the abstract mathematics bear any resemblance to reality) ...
