I disagree. I didn’t mean that to say there was no brain activity, only there was no brain activity through which it could be determined the patient was conscious/aware. If consciousness/awareness could be determined by observing brain activity then this method would not have been necessary.
The idea here is that the ‘self’, in my view being the soul, uses the brain as a tool to interact with the physical world, and is not created/generated by the physical activity of the brain.
I don’t know why that bit was in bold. I didn’t do that purposefully, and couldn’t figure out how to ‘un-bold’ it, if that’s a word.
You’ll have to read the article to find on what observations he reached this conclusion. Didn’t want to post big chunks of it here.
So you are using MRIs showing brain activity, interpreted as evidence of consciousness, to show that consciousness doesn’t result from brain activity. That’s an interesting argument.
You’re right, this needs further explanation and clarification.
The physical brain is obviously involved in taking in, storing, and recalling sensory information. So the idea here is that the conscious self uses the brain as a tool to interact with the physical world. Brain activity would be involved in working the physical body and would be used by the conscious mind to recall and observe sensory information, like in the example given using the brain to imagine walking around your house or imagine playing tennis.
So, the physical evidence would indicate no brain activity to account for the generation of the conscious mind, but there would be brain activity seen in the mind’s activation of brain functions to recall memories and sensory information, to imagine, etc.
No brain activity to account for creation of the conscious mind, but brain activity to account for the mind’s use of the functions of the brain.
I’m not a neuroscientist. I write code for a living. But it would seem to me that if the conscious mind were created by the brain then there’d be an indication of that through recognizable observed activity. Like the parts of the brain that “lit up” when imagining different scenarios, there’d be a part of the brain that was “lit” when generating the conscious/aware mind.
True. Personally, what I find most significant about that is that the biblical texts made the distinction between spirit and material long before anyone knew how relevant that would be.
Undetectability is consistent if you’re talking about the creator of the universe. We can only ‘detect’ what’s a product of it. If it was detectable, it would definitively not be the creator.
Very briefly (rather than attempt a chapter length treatment on the philosophical problems of converting a series of “its” into an “I”, arrangements of neurones into ideas, or efficient causes into final causes)…
If the proposition is that my apparently free choices are in fact determined by my brain state, and may therefore not be free at all; then it is equally true that any argument I could make in support of my propositions (or you for yours) is also in fact determined by my brain state and its antecedent causes, and may therefore not be an argument at all, but merely appear to be so after the fact. Brain states have no obvious correlation to truth.
“There is no such thing as free will” is therefore on much the same level as “there is no such thing as rational argument.” If it’s true, it’s also destructive of meaningful existence.
I don’t get this idea that God’s image includes free will. The humans in Gen1 are said to have been created in God’s image. If they had free will could they have been expected to follow God’s command to “fill the Earth and subdue it”?
Also, God calls them “good”. Free will is “good” and “evil”.
Have you spent much time with YECs? They are the core target market… and you seem to spend more time differentiating from YECs than comprehending them.
I have had Bible Thumpers SPECIFICALLY assert that God’s Image is the image of FREE WILL.
If the YEC position were rational to begin with… we wouldn’t be here now.
Why are we concerned about YEC’s? I put YEC’s in the same class as flat earthers. I certainly don’t attempt to market to them or appeal to them specifically. They’ve got bigger logic problems than I can do anything about.
I get your meaning, but “God’s image” is the opposite of free will. Free will is the capability to behave out of sync with God. So how is the capability of falling out of sync consist with God’s image?
You say that free will is both “good” and “evil”, I disagree. Free will can be used for good and evil. You can choose to be evil, certainly, but just think about how much more pleasing it must be for God when we choose to be good rather than are forced into it. That’s why I believe free will is, indeed, good and pleasing to God.
That, however should not come as a surprise, traditional churches are pretty big on free will.
Tell me if this makes sense thinking about this whole “God’s image” thing.
In us there is conflict. Two opposing wills at times. There’s the “I”, the ego, that wants one thing, and the body that does another. There’s the biological body programmed through generations of evolution to behave in specific ways. Then there’s the psychological “I” that wants its own things and that sees the body as this alien thing you grow to know over the years.
What if “God’s image” is one and the same as natural/evolved bodily/biological characteristics, and the other side of us, the ego, is what wants and causes behavior not consistent with that of nature/God?
The rhetoric up to this point in these discussions about “God’s image” has left me in the dark. I feel like the supernatural aspects of the discussions tend to sometimes come un-tethered to any sort of grounded place and go floating off into infinite “what ifs” that ultimately go nowhere. So trying to discuss what is and isn’t consistent with “God’s image” I find difficult to follow.
Yes, I totally agree. That, to me, is what makes free will so significant. It’s no longer a determined certainty that you’re going to choose correctly. Now it’s actually a choice. Like the difference between your wife choosing you as a life partner because she legitimately wants to verses having to. Free will gives our behavior meaning and purpose.