Consciousness Continued: A fresh start

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Are you more or less saying that the soul exists in a parallel (supernatural?) universe? How do the soul and brain remain in synch w/o communication?

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I am not saying that the soul exists "in" anything. I am saying that the soul simply exists.The soul and brain remain synchronized because it just does. For example, you could have a particle far away that keeps in synch with another particle. There is no connection in space between the two, or at least not one that we know of.

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How does the soul manipulate the brain w/o being physical or communicating with the brain?

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The soul is not physical in the sense that is has no physical properties such as shape, color, density, size, position, etc. It is indeed physical in the sense that it can interact with the brain. For the most part I say that the soul is non-physical.

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Not yet having a sufficient entirely physical explanation does not rule out the possibility of there being one.

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Like wise in the same manner I argue in favor of the existance of the soul.

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(1) OR is the *immortal soul* completely metaphysical (beyond psychology)? It seems Biblically inferred that the eternal soul has 5 *space-time* senses (Luke 16: "the Rich man in Hell" *seeing* Lazarus and *crying for a drop of water on his tongue*, etc.),

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The Biblical soul, it seems to me, operates also in a *space-time* continuum, analogous or parallel to *ours*. If a soul is *astral planing*, *dreaming*, apperceiving, rapturing, and/or leaving the body

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...Peradventure, it may yearn for a physical space-time continuum, a bodily house. This seems suggested of demons, biblically, as well.

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Putting off the *wretched body of death* for a glorious new body is also exhorted biblically.

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... As if to infer that this cheap and worthless physical body itself is illusive enough to be essentially metaphysical, with a few scientific guidelines at best.

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I mean, what is your physics and chemistry? ...A bunch of illusive QUARKS and quantum mysteries (at best).

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Seems to me that the soul interacts directly with light, quarks, and quantum mechanics in the brain. What do you think?

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Yes. I do believe the soul has the capability for the five senses built in. But I wonder, are there some people with extra senses? If such a person was discovered, would we have to revise the concept?I think that the soul does interact with those things in the brain.What are your opinions on the soul?

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May I ask is a persons 'personality' part of their soul/conciousness?

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What you mean is, is a person's CHARACTER part of their soul OR consciousness (which is a component of the soul)?Personality is what you present to other people.Now, people have two characters: Their core character (built into their soul.) and their developed character which is made up of the person's genetics, temprament, enviorment and their core character.

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Ok I will partly wear you re-wording of my question, but only because Character and Personality are pretty much synonymous.
But I did not mean to ask “soul OR consciousness”. I said soul/consciousness. To ask “soul OR consciousness” is meaningless as even in your reply you make clear that they are the same thing, or at least components of the same thing.

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So ”Character’. Let’s take your concept of ”core’ character and look at that. What of you does that core character actually encompass? Does it hold your memories? Whether you are a nice/nasty person? prone to truth or lies?

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I have made it clear the the consciousness is a component of the soul. I did not intend to imply that they are one and the same.Anyways, the core character contains indeed what you ultimatley are concerning the choice between good and evil. Now I am talking about deliberance here, not some case in which an insain person goes nuts and goes on a killing spree. That would be a problem with the brain.Your core character DOES NOT hold your memories. The hippicampus of the brain stores your memories in the brain.Now, when you get to heaven or hell, either God gives you back certain memories that you had on earth or your soul carries that once you die.
I can't argue that the soul can retain memories because in order to do so I would contradict my original post. If I wanted to argue this I would have to ammend it but I don't see any reason for assuming this as of yet.

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After all it is the soul that does the thinking right? Does the feeling, deciding, loving, hurting: surely you don’t need all that extra brain baggage?

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If you think this is my perspective you haven't been reading my posts correctly. I said that the soul consists of purely the consciousness and the free will. The brain aids in thinking. The soul is merely the person themselves. The core character is in the free will. So of course if you remove the higher level functioning their will be problems with the mind. The mind is the result of interactions between the brain and the soul.

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The one on the other hand I tell you is vastly more valuable but it is invisible you can’t see any trace of it, you can’t feel it hefty mass, your hand passes through it then you try and examine it. You say I’m lying that there isn’t a diamond there. I assure you there is because I KNOW there is.

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I don't think you understand the concept of non-physical. If it is not physically there you can't pass your hand through it. It doesn't have position or size.

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Now which diamond do you want?

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So a dimond is capable of consciousness? If we were talking of conscious dimonds I would pick the non-physical one. Otherwise, reason will tell me to pick the real dimond. Of course, no one could own the non-physical one just as no one but yourself and God can own the non-physical soul.

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Interesting. When an insane person deliberates and chooses to go on a killing spree it’s an aberration of the brain but when a mentally ”healthy’ person deliberates and chooses to go on a killing spree its because of his/her soul?

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Well, if it is deliberate its not insanity. People just call it that to give them an excuse.

What I meant before was that insain people are not given the full awareness to be able to make coherent decisions. Therefore they are not reaching the full potential of the soul's abiltity to decide. So, a decision made by an insain person is not deliberate in the sense that it is not aided by coherent thought. It is deliberate in the sense that they intentionally chose that course of action.Edited by Guido Arbia, : No reason given.

You don't seem to understand. Consciousness is not a physical behavior. You can't even observe consciousness. So there is no way to prove that consciousness is real. The only one who knows for sure if a person has consciousness is themselves.So belief in consciousness is based on faith. It cannot be observed by Science, thus it is supernatural. You cannot observe a behavior in the brain and say that your observing consciousness because your not. Are you observing the person's consciousness itself? No you are not.Other emergences such as matter being solid is observable. You not only observe the structure, but you observe the solid mass itself. With consciousness, you can only observe the brain's structure in relation to what you think is consciosuness. But there is no proof that the person your talking to is really conscious. He could be a robot for all you know.

All the things you talking about are directly observable as physical things. Consciousness is the exception. I addressed this issue already. Just because there is a relationship between chemical and electrical activity in the brain and consciousness does not mean the consciousness is a direct cause of the chemical and electrical activity in the brain.Your kind of thinking will cause scientist to assume many fallacies.For example, if we took your light switch anology. It would be pretty dum to say that the light switch is the direct cause of the light and then just close the case. There is much more going on and much more is involved. When the switch is in one state, electrical energy is restricted from getting to the light bulb. When it is in the other states, the electrical energy flows to the light bulb. So it is the electric that is the direct cause of the light, not the switch. And even that is not the absolute direct cause. There is even more involved. There is simply a relationship between the light switch and the light. So this does not proof that the switch causes the light. And guess what, switches don't cause light bulbs to light up. Switches only indirectly cause them to light up.Now, consciousness is the result of interactions between the soul and the brain. The potential for the same consistent consciousness is in the soul. But the active consciousness is the result between the brain and the soul. So of course if you damage the brain you will damage the consciousness because the brain is involved. But it is the soul, not the brain, that performs the act of being conscious.Edited by Guido Arbia, : No reason given.

There should be alterations in the activity in the brain that are not direct results of the previous states of the brain. These alterations would be very suttle and nearly undetectable.Edited by Guido Arbia, : No reason given.

Your asking me this as if I know all the answers. I know nothing but logic and speculation. I can argue my point usng logic but the point itself is speculation.Now, all I know is that the soul corresponds to and affects the electrical and chemical activity in the brain.The result is consciousness and free will. The core character (which include the choosing tendencies) and the potential for a consistent consciousness lie with the soul. The interactions between the soul and the brain result in actual consciousness and coherent decision making. Not all people have coherent decision making of course. If the brain is damanged, then they will not reach the full potential of their free will because their thoughts that aid them in making choices are not fully coherent.Edited by Guido Arbia, : No reason given.

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You have explained already that the consciousness is due to the electrical activity of the brain. This establishes a physical origin to the consciousness. The difficulty here is in explaining why the addition postulate of a soul, whose defining characteristics you have not established, becomes necessary to explain any aspect of our conscious existence.

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Are you retarded? No where in any of my posts have I explained that consciousness is the result of activity in the brain. I have all this time been saying that the interactions between the soul and the electrical and chemical activity in the brain is the cause of active consciousness and coherent free will.

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What with your conversation about electrical activity in the brain, my conversation about synapses (part of the same system causing the electrical activity) the fact that the brain is a massive interconnected neural-network, the fact that in large systems unplanned complex behaviours can and do emerge, the fact that damage and drugs affect consciousness, it all adds up to what should be a convincing argument that the consciousness is a property of the brain.

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What is left to explain? Why feel the need to add an un-provable mystery layer invoking the soul? How is you concept of soul damaged by moving consciousness fully over to the physical? Having a purely physical consciousness shouldn’t invalidate the concept of ”soul’.

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(and sorry for chipping in, please address your reply to Sidelined.)

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We are not dealing with a physical thing. When we deal with physical properties such a states of matter or vibration or such like that it is ok to say ascribe it to appearant causes. But when dealing with a non-physical pehonema such as consciousness it is rediculous to do so.

I have no problem ascribing physical activites and behaviors to appearent physical causes. It simply doesn't make sense to me to take something non-physical and attribute it to a physical cause. I don't see how physical movement can account for consciousness.