Believers in souls or mind/body duality, are you aware of the current state of neuroscience?

Question

While already a few years old, this freely available online book serves as a good introduction:

http://www.dericbownds.net/bom99/TOC.html

also available as dead tree edition:

http://www.amazon.com/Biology-Mind-Origins-Structures-Consciousness/dp/1891786075

I've recently contacted the author and will make the text available as free ebook for various devices here shortly:

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/ebooks.php?order=asc

If you have any questions about the evolution of mind and thinking in general, about the state of current neuroscience, about the functions and limitations of the brain and why it is the way it is, I highly recommend you read this non-technical introductory text.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think. To make it a 'real' R&S question, if you are aware of all these things, can you still make a good case for the existence of/need for a soul and/or mind/body duality? How?

Answer 1

Thanks for postin!

Answer 2

Yes I can make a good case for the existence of the soul because we have God's word on the subject, He should know and I trust in Him alone.

Answer 3

If the soul does indeed exist, at least we can narrow down its location to somewhere inside the brain. It's the only part of us that truly defines our sense of self. Even if you received a heart transplant, you're still "you." The same cannot be said of the brain.

Still, the idea of a soul seems pretty far-fetched to me.

Answer 4

Actually, Zebra, this is a pretty cool question, because even being a non-religious person, I've always been something of a philosophy buff, and I always thought that there might be something to Cartesian Dualism until I started reading up about the case of Phineas Gage(you know. The guy with the spike in his head), and what his dramatic personality shift after the trauma helped neuroscience discover about the nature of human behavior, and how personality and the physical brain are pretty much inseparably intertwined. I've more or less rejected the idea of a disembodied "self" outside of the physical body after learning about this. To put it more simply, I can no longer entertain even non-religious notions of a soul.

An unexpectedly and unnaturally serious answer from me, I know :P

Answer 5

Although I don't believe in 'souls', I have to put something in here (AZ questions shall not go ignored).

What is it about you that attracts the likes of Jelly Jam?  

Answer 6

Hehe.

We are just chemical reactions. I like that very much.

Answer 7

You are a certifiable smarty-pants.

I've always tried to discover the soul in quantum physics myself

Answer 8

A neat part on morality:

Morality

While taking refuge or finding personal meaning in a conventional religion offers the prospect of some repose and a set of instructions for moral and right action, the issue always rises of how that system explains or justifies the evil in the world, especially the violence done by humans to each other and their environment. Evolutionary explanations of why humans have developed aggressive, xenophobic, and genocidal tendencies offer a 'why' for these behaviors, but don't offer an obvious set of instructions for moral and right action. We humans generate an array of aggressive, affiliative, curious behaviors seen also in higher mammals, but we posses also the remarkable ability to have some insight into, and choice about, their operations. Thus we are able to become moral agents, rather than moral patients, and chose those behaviors that are most life affirming - to become our own gods. Such a course, a training of the introspective intelligence required for insight and choice, is a much more arduous option than adopting the simple precepts of an established culture or religion. But, it is more likely to create humans who can extend their compassion and caring beyond the tribal and cultural boundaries that are the origins of intolerance.