Sunday, 17 May 2009
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Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
By V. S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee
see relatedBrains and Souls and Judgment (oh my?)
It's late and I think too much and lately I've taken up the habit of keeping the TV on at a low volume at night just to drown out my thoughts so I can sleep.
This is ridiculous but is your brain your soul? Are they one in the same but one has tangible anatomical meaning and the other one has purely symbolic and religious significance? Does one exist in this current dimension and the other is tangible on another plane of existence?
What is a soul, even? My feeling is that it represents a person and his or her personality and general goodness. It's what comes in contact with God (although studies have shown that the temporal lobes play a significant role in religious experience as stated in Dr. Ramachandran's book here).
Yet there are so many parts of the brain that factor into one's emotions and personality and there are structures that, if altered in an accident, forever alter a person's personality (ie. the famous case of Phineas Gage). If someone's personality is so altered and it causes them to become severely emotionally disturbed beyond any conscious control, is his or her soul defective? What about people who are born with disordered amygdalae? Is the worth of their souls judged for circumstances beyond their control or is this sort of judgment only reserved for those with fully intact systems that are fully capable of making rational choices? How many people even have fully intact systems anyway since about one in four of American adults suffers from a recognized mental disorder nowadays?
So, what? Are they the same or not?
Granted, it's 1:30 in the morning and I've had a migraine all day and this book is pretty out of date. And I'm not a cognitive neuroscientist. I suspect none of this really makes sense but...don't you ever wonder?
What do you think?
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Comments (2)
interesting post...
I would say that the brain reflects the soul in the sense that if the soul expresses whatever... it triggers things in the brain...
But regardless between the connection... i would say that if a person has died... the brain might still be there as far it being present but without the soul, the body is lifeless... even if the brain is not fully functioning, without the soul in a person, that person is nothing more than a physical shell with no life... so I would think that there is some connection between soul and brain but without the soul, the brain wouldn't even function... even if the brain is not fully there...
Cognitive Neuroscience is something I'm fascinated by.
I want there to be a connection, but at the same time, I don't think there is.