169. Notes - preparatory summary

169. 21 July 2019

The Material Below is Re-Copied on Note 172 

Where Ms Havisham's Commentary Actually Begins

       Bedtime. You finished editing the material for the Modern Theory of Soul. You found more than you suspected. Below are some examples. - Amorella

[I have divided sentences and/or paragraphs below so that I more easily read them for understanding. - rho]

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Soul

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The soul, in many religious, philosophical, and mythological traditions, is the incorporeal essence of a living being Soul or psyche comprises the mental abilities of a living being: reason, character, feeling, consciousness, memory, perception, thinking, etc. 

Depending on the philosophical system, a soul can either be mortal or immortal. 

In Judeo-Christianity, only human beings have immortal souls (although immortality is disputed within Judaism and the concept of immortality may have been influenced by Plato). 

For example, the Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas attributed "soul" (anima) to all organisms but argued that only human souls are immortal. 

Immanuel Kant

In his discussions of rational psychology, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) identified the soul as the "I" in the strictest sense, and argued that the existence of inner experience can neither be proved nor disproved.

We cannot prove a priori the immateriality of the soul, but rather only so much: that all properties and actions of the soul cannot be recognized from materiality.

It is from the "I", or soul, that Kant proposes transcendental rationalization, but cautions that such rationalization can only determine the limits of knowledge if it is to remain practical.

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Philosophy of mind

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gilbert Ryle's ghost in the machine argument, which is a rejection of Descartes' mind–body dualism, can provide a contemporary understanding of the soul/mind, and the problem concerning its connection to the brain/body. 

James Hillman

Psychologist James Hillman's archetypal psychology is an attempt to restore the concept of the soul, which Hillman viewed as the "self-sustaining and imagining substrate" upon which consciousness rests. 

Hillman described the soul as that "which makes meaning possible, [deepens] events into experiences, is communicated in love, and has a religious concern", as well as "a special relation with death". 

Departing from the Cartesian dualism "between outer tangible reality and inner states of mind", 

Hillman takes the Neoplatonic stance that there is a "third, middle position" in which soul resides. 

Archetypal psychology acknowledges this third position by attuning to, and often accepting, the archetypes, dreams, myths, and even psychopathologies through which, 

in Hillman's view, soul expresses itself.

Science

The current scientific consensus across all fields is that there is no evidence for the existence of any kind of soul in the traditional sense. 

Many modern scientists, such as Julien Musolino, hold that the mind is merely a complex machine that operates on the same physical laws as all other objects in the universe. 

According to Musolino, there is currently no scientific evidence whatsoever to support the existence of the soul;he claims there is also considerable evidence that seems to indicate that souls do not exist. 

 

Neuroscience

Neuroscience as an interdisciplinary field, and its branch of cognitive neuroscience particularly, operates under the ontologicalassumption of physicalism. In other words, it assumes—in order to perform its science—that only the fundamental phenomena studied by physics exist. 

Thus, neuroscience seeks to understand mental phenomena within the framework according to which human thought and behavior are caused solely by physical processes taking place inside the brain, and it operates by the way of reductionism by seeking an explanation for the mind in terms of brain activity. (See more below)

To study the mind in terms of the brain several methods of functional neuroimaging are used to study the neuroanatomical correlates of various cognitive processes that constitute the mind. 

The evidence from brain imaging indicates that all processes of the mind have physical correlates in brain function. However, such correlational studies cannot determine whether neural activity plays a causal role in the occurrence of these cognitive processes (correlation does not imply causation) and they cannot determine if the neural activity is either necessary or sufficient for such processes to occur. 

Identification of causation, and of necessary and sufficient conditions requires explicit experimental manipulation of that activity. If manipulation of brain activity changes consciousness, then a causal role for that brain activity can be inferred. 

Two of the most common types of manipulation experiments are loss-of-function and gain-of-function experiments. In a loss-of-function (also called "necessity") experiment, a part of the nervous system is diminished or removed in an attempt to determine if it is necessary for a certain process to occur, and in a gain-of-function (also called "sufficiency") experiment, an aspect of the nervous system is increased relative to normal. 

Manipulations of brain activity can be performed with direct electrical brain stimulation, magnetic brain stimulation using transcranial magnetic stimulation, psychopharmacological manipulation, optogenetic manipulation and by studying the symptoms of brain damage (case studies) and lesions. In addition, neuroscientists are also investigating how the mind develops with the development of the brain. 

Physics

Physicist Sean M. Carroll has written that the idea of a soul is incompatible with quantum field theory (QFT). He writes that for a soul to exist: "Not only is new physics required, but dramatically new physics. 

Within QFT, there can't be a new collection of 'spirit particles' and 'spirit forces' that interact with our regular atoms, because we would have detected them in existing experiments." 

Some theorists have invoked quantum indeterminism as an explanatory mechanism for possible soul/brain interaction, but neuroscientist Peter Clarke found errors with this viewpoint, noting there is no evidence that such processes play a role in brain function; 

Clarke concluded that a Cartesian soul has no basis from quantum physics.

Selected and edited from Wikipedia

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The Mind-Body Problem

The mind-body problem is an ongoing problem in the philosophy of mind and in metaphysics, concerning the nature of the relationship between the mind, or consciousness, and the physical world.

The mind-body problems asks a number of questions: Are the mind and body are separate substances or elements of the same substance? What is their relationship to each other? What is consciousness? And how can consciousness arise out of ordinary matter?

There are a number of responses to the mind-body problem, though none have universal acceptance. A number of these positions are outlined below:

• Dualism, the position that the mind is essentially not physical, and exists separately from the body. Dualism comes in various forms:
• Interactionism, which states that the mind and body have causal interaction.
• Occasionalism, which states the apparently causal links between mind and body are actually divine intervention.
• Parallelism, which states that the apparent causal link between mind and body is an illusion, and that mind and body run parallel to one another.
• Property dualism, which holds that the mind emerges from the body, and obtains status as something separate.
• Monism, the position that the mind and body are not fundamentally separate. There are several types of mind-body monism:
• Physicalism, including most commonly-held positions today, which asserts that the mind may be reduced to the physical processes of the brain.
• Behaviourism, which holds that talk about mental states can be reduced to talk about behaviours.
• Functionalism, which states that mental states are caused by behaviours, senses and other mental states.
• Type physicalism, which argues that mental states are equivalent to brain states.
• Idealism, which claims that the mind is all that exists.
• Phenomenalism, which reduces the physical world to perceptions which exist within the mind alone.

The mind-body problem was brought up in antiquity, and can be seen in the works of Plato, though its modern formulation can be credited to René Descartes, who also presents a dualist response.

Selected and edited from -- http://www dot philosophy-index dot com/philosophy/mind/mind-body.php

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       2335 hours. I feel one more aspect needs to be included in reference to the contemporary use of the word, soul. 

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Consciousness

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about cognition.

Consciousness is the state or quality of awareness or of being aware of an external object or something within oneself.

It has been defined variously in terms of sentience, awareness, qualia, subjectivity, the ability to experience or to  feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood or soul,

the fact that there is something "that it is like" to "have" or "be" it, and the executive control system of the mind.

Despite the difficulty in definition, many philosophers believe that there is a broadly shared underlying intuition about what consciousness is.

As Max Velmans and Susan Schneider wrote in The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness: 

"Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives." 

You become aware that your actions have an effect on other people. 

Western philosophers, since the time of Descartes and Locke, have struggled to comprehend the nature of consciousness and identify its essential properties. Issues of concern in the philosophy of consciousness include whether the concept is fundamentally coherent; 

whether consciousness can ever be explained mechanistically;

whether non-human consciousness exists and if so how it can be recognized; how consciousness relates to language; 

whether consciousness can be understood in a way that does not require a dualistic distinction between mental and physical states or properties; 

and whether it may ever be possible for computing machines like computersor robots to be conscious, a topic studied in the field of artificial intelligence.

Thanks to developments in technology over the past few decades, consciousness has become a significant topic of interdisciplinary research in cognitive science, 

with significant contributions from fields such as psychology, anthropology, neuropsychology and neuroscience. The primary focus is on understanding what it means biologically and psychologically for information to be present in consciousness—that is, on determining the neural and psychological correlates of consciousness.

The majority of experimental studies assess consciousness in humans by asking subjects for a verbal report of their experiences (e.g., "tell me if you notice anything when I do this").

Issues of interest include phenomena such as subliminal perception, blindsight, denial of impairment, and altered states of consciousness produced by alcohol and other drugs, or spiritual or meditative techniques.

In medicine, consciousness is assessed by observing a patient's arousal and responsiveness, and can be seen as a continuum of states ranging from full alertness and comprehension, through disorientation, 

delirium, loss of meaningful communication, and finally loss of movement in response to painful stimuli Issues of practical concern include how the presence of consciousness can be assessed in severely ill,

comatose, or anesthetized people, and how to treat conditions in which consciousness is impaired or disrupted. 

The degree of consciousness is measured by standardized behavior observation scales such as the Glasgow Coma Scale.

Selected and edited from Wikipedia 

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       The above is a summary of what you have placed in your Modern Theory of Soul. I will piece selections so that Miss Havisham may comment if she wishes. Again, this broadens the 'perception' of what a soul is from one who perceives herself as a personification of orndorff's soul, Miss Havisham. Post. - Amorella

       I have some things to say from my perspective as a soul alone and as a soul protecting and comforting Mr. Orndorff's spiritual heartanmind. - mh

       2357 hours. I find all this somewhat detaching.