The Discussion today continued on Descartes but included Galileo. The previous quiz question was: Does the earth go around the sun or does the sun go around the earth? I argue for an answer that these are each useful models, that there are other useful models besides these, each of which has truth value for us just as they are useful. But was Galileo thinking this way?
But back to Descartes: we left with a quiz question for today regarding Cartesian Mind-Body Dualism wondering what people thought today regarding the existence of a soul. Do we have a soul?
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The experience of self awareness and all that comes with it, is a product of the physical processes of the brain. When those physical processes stop, we stop. This one brief flame of awareness is all we get, then its gone and all the more important and meaningful for that fact.
ReplyDeleteTravis Matlock
The soul, as many would define it, is something immeasureable and outside of our realm of existence. One question which springs to mind: How can our soul affect our thoughts and actions if it exists in another realm? Regardless of whether a spiritual soul exists or not, it seems that the existence of a soul which is part of our material body either does not exist or has no purpose during our lifetime, and has no affect on our lives. I agree with Travis in that our consciousness, decisions, and movements all stem from our genetic (physical makeup) and our interaction with external stimuli. This becomes complex when we have years or decades of experience in the world, because our decisions are influenced by a seemingly infinite number of stimuli. I believe that this creates an unpredictability that keeps life interesting in the face of this (otherwise boring) input-output theory.
ReplyDeleteFollowing Penrose the issue of interaction seems to be "explained" by entanglement. In a non-local universe all particles interact with all other particles. (How is a good question!) but accepting this we can imagine our soul is the interaction going on between the particles we think of as here and now and all of the other entangled particles.
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