The impetus today is still Pin Van Lommel’s book on near-death experiences (see last post). Van Lommel comes from a scientific background; not surprisingly he spends a great deal of time on examining the interaction between the brain and consciousness; he concludes that the brain does not produce consciousness. He doesn’t go beyond that—and that’s fine. Here the saying applies: “Sufficient unto the day the evil thereof” [Matthew 6:34]. His aim is to make a credible case for the survival of consciousness. But I’ve been certain of that for a long time myself, and my interests range beyond that issue.
The three facts I want to examine are these. First, that people in states of coma, with flat EEGs and no sign of brain function, experience themselves alive, alert, able to see, hear, and to move—to think, feel, remember, and, indeed, with sharply intensified powers. Second, that such people, despite these powers, cannot touch anything material. Third, that the brain certainly mediates between physical and mental levels.
That the brain has such a function is one of the data points; another is that the brain—indeed our bodies taken as a whole—behave like machines, like tools. They represent technology—although not technology we have made. Tooling always has the essential quality of “in order to…” Now here is the puzzle. If a spirit sees and hears, has a functioning consciousness, and greater freedom of movement outside than in a body—if it functions well, even better, without tooling than while in possession of it, what parallels does that suggest?
The first that comes to mind is a diving suit—thus something that enables its wearer to function in an environment in which he or she couldn’t function at all or for very long without tooling. But what is this function we can’t engage in without bodies? What the disembodied spirit cannot do is interact with matter. It can’t vibrate the air and thus cannot be heard by the embodied. It cannot touch matter; it passes through it. This suggests…
This suggests that bodies are a tool by means of which we can experience the material dimension. Doing so we give up certain powers. We can’t reliably communicate mind to mind, although sporadic telepathic powers are known; we cannot move at will and instantaneously from one point to another. Our intellectual powers are also seemingly dimmed. This in turn suggests that some kind of linkage or binding takes place to hold us inside bodies; this link, once it is established, seems effectively to blind us to the other or wider dimension but, by means of the body’s tooling, enables us to act on matter—using matter. Indeed it seems to prevent us from acting in any other way.
But why should the spirit want to be bound in this way? What purpose does that serve—seeing that in disembodied form the spirit can indeed communicate very effectively with other disembodied spirits?
Here the technological, machine-like structure of bodies comes into full focus. That bodies are machines of sorts cannot be denied. The very existence of defects in this machinery—even early on at the genetic level—suggests an agency behind the body which is, like us, limited in its powers and doing a terrific engineering job in a hostile environment. Chance cannot have created living bodies; they are far too complex and exhibit purpose. I find it impossible to imagine life without an agency in the background—also impossible to imagine this agency to be God. Only limited agencies are, well, limited—and therefore obliged to reach for tooling.
These are the issues of interest. They rise to that level only if you accept as fact that consciousness is able to survives death and is therefore independent of its vehicle—the brain, the body. Van Lommel does a superb job proving that case. But it would be far more enlightening to understand why, in a sense, we are imprisoned in these tools of ours, why we can escape them, briefly, only under extraordinary circumstances—and at death more certainly. But even after that, can we remain in that other dimension? Or is there in us, or independent of us, something pulling us down here? Or did we come here out of curiosity—by the billions and billions—as some people are drawn to descend into deep dark caves, equipped with diving gear, to spelunk in the depths at the risk of their lives?
This is a very interesting frontier, I submit. None more fascinating. None with greater potential for good or ill.
Showing posts with label Brain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brain. Show all posts
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Thursday, July 9, 2009
The Brain as Mediator
Positive science and internal experience have produced conflicting philosophies. Materialism is based on the first, transcendental metaphysics rests on subjective experience. Both have a plausible rationale. Materialism is supported by the undeniable observation that brain function is necessarily involved in mental activity; hence brain injuries can interfere with any one or all of the modalities I’ve talked about before. A transcendent view is supported by experience and logic. The logic is simple. It’s impossible to imagine mental phenomena arising from mechanical underpinnings, be these chemical or electromagnetic. We lack even a single instance of genuine mentation arising from machines that we have made. To think that chemistry, complexly arranged, gives rise to thought requires a leap of faith. We have to believe that chemical reactions, like oxidation, hydrogenation, etc., can produce self-consciousness, will, intelligence, memory, and all the rest. That is negative evidence for the positive reality of soul. The experiential evidence, beyond ordinary human life, comes from near death experience reports which suggest that mentation is possible and takes place in the absence of brain function too.
Materialists are prohibited by their very starting premises—all is matter/energy—from granting the possibility of an immaterial soul. The traditionalist—if I’m a reasonable representative—is more flexible. I find it easy to accept the positive evidence that brains are involved in mentation. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that brain activity is mentation. My explanation is that spirits are in some way limited in this realm of reality by the very nature of matter. In this range of the cosmos, therefore, we need tooling and instruments. The brain then becomes a mechanism by means of which we can experience this domain—see it, feel it, interact with it. Without the tooling we may be able to touch it at the subatomic level only. Hence my working model of reality is that life itself is a chemical civilization gradually built up by a spiritual community somehow entangled in this realm, voluntarily or otherwise. The why and the wherefore of that is the Big question, and this entire blog is part of an examination of that question. Here, however, my aim is much narrower. It is to suggest that, culturally, we often confuse the means with the end, effect with the cause. Thus brains are the consequence of mentation, not the cause of it. They are tools chemical civilization has built as instruments by means of which to see; they are not structures chance has produced to aid survival—the reason for that survival never explained by positive science. In my rough working model survival is not an issue because our stay here is not permanent. In the positive model it is incoherent because only individuals experience but no individual survives. And matter, to survive, doesn’t need such fancy instruments as kidneys and livers.
It is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis to suggest that if we are spirits and if we are caught up in this realm against our will—or came here to see what it is all about—and if we are relatively weak in an environment of colossal forces, over against our own, we would actively exert ourselves to bring what force we have to bear to make the situation better—much as we do the same thing routinely in ordinary life. If we can only move matter by interacting at the subatomic level, we would build instruments to obey our will. And the brain is such an instrument. We need but to decide something, and action follows—at the personal as at the collective level. I decide to lift my arm. The brain does the rest. Muscles lift my arm. The vast biological machinery necessary to do that would take volumes to describe. The brain also serves me by giving me the information that I need. And when it is injured, I’m deprived of instruments. I’ve elsewhere on this blog reported the frustrating incapacity of souls, deprived of brain function, in trying to communicate with others who are still “encased” in bodies. This suggests that so long as we’re inside of bodies, we cannot act as discarnate souls, and in a bodiless state, we cannot move these vast hulking masses of matter without the instrumental aid of brains and muscles. We need bodies to act in the world. But this doesn't mean that we have no other and, for us, more appropriate environments in which we could get along quite well without our circulation systems, food intake, oxygen, livers, hormones, and the rest. Given my hypothesis, which at least provides a meaning for existence—which living, breeding, aging, dying, by themselves, do not—my interest in cosmologies is almost self-evident. I’m looking for the bigger picture that will accommodate the vast evidence available for a process either of entanglement, exploration, or development—of souls.
Materialists are prohibited by their very starting premises—all is matter/energy—from granting the possibility of an immaterial soul. The traditionalist—if I’m a reasonable representative—is more flexible. I find it easy to accept the positive evidence that brains are involved in mentation. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that brain activity is mentation. My explanation is that spirits are in some way limited in this realm of reality by the very nature of matter. In this range of the cosmos, therefore, we need tooling and instruments. The brain then becomes a mechanism by means of which we can experience this domain—see it, feel it, interact with it. Without the tooling we may be able to touch it at the subatomic level only. Hence my working model of reality is that life itself is a chemical civilization gradually built up by a spiritual community somehow entangled in this realm, voluntarily or otherwise. The why and the wherefore of that is the Big question, and this entire blog is part of an examination of that question. Here, however, my aim is much narrower. It is to suggest that, culturally, we often confuse the means with the end, effect with the cause. Thus brains are the consequence of mentation, not the cause of it. They are tools chemical civilization has built as instruments by means of which to see; they are not structures chance has produced to aid survival—the reason for that survival never explained by positive science. In my rough working model survival is not an issue because our stay here is not permanent. In the positive model it is incoherent because only individuals experience but no individual survives. And matter, to survive, doesn’t need such fancy instruments as kidneys and livers.
It is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis to suggest that if we are spirits and if we are caught up in this realm against our will—or came here to see what it is all about—and if we are relatively weak in an environment of colossal forces, over against our own, we would actively exert ourselves to bring what force we have to bear to make the situation better—much as we do the same thing routinely in ordinary life. If we can only move matter by interacting at the subatomic level, we would build instruments to obey our will. And the brain is such an instrument. We need but to decide something, and action follows—at the personal as at the collective level. I decide to lift my arm. The brain does the rest. Muscles lift my arm. The vast biological machinery necessary to do that would take volumes to describe. The brain also serves me by giving me the information that I need. And when it is injured, I’m deprived of instruments. I’ve elsewhere on this blog reported the frustrating incapacity of souls, deprived of brain function, in trying to communicate with others who are still “encased” in bodies. This suggests that so long as we’re inside of bodies, we cannot act as discarnate souls, and in a bodiless state, we cannot move these vast hulking masses of matter without the instrumental aid of brains and muscles. We need bodies to act in the world. But this doesn't mean that we have no other and, for us, more appropriate environments in which we could get along quite well without our circulation systems, food intake, oxygen, livers, hormones, and the rest. Given my hypothesis, which at least provides a meaning for existence—which living, breeding, aging, dying, by themselves, do not—my interest in cosmologies is almost self-evident. I’m looking for the bigger picture that will accommodate the vast evidence available for a process either of entanglement, exploration, or development—of souls.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Forgetting
Let me use the analogy of a person who descends into a very deep cave on an elaborate spelunking expedition. He carries a radio. His team of supporters is above ground monitoring his progress below; they’re leaning into computer screens. Now the explorer has reached such a depth that the interfering rock formations cause him to lose communications. The radio sputters, here and there he can make out a phrase, but not enough to carry on a meaningful conversation.
Let me apply the analogy. The cave and the rock that forms it represent the material order. The surface represents the order of the soul. The explorer is one soul descending into the density of matter. The radio is his mind communicating rather well with his base camp at first, but then interference all but cuts off his contact. His descent is what Wordsworth means by our birth; the failure of the radio is our “forgetting” of a previous existence. The analogy isn’t perfect. It merely illustrates that “interference” may explain our forgetting. A situation like the one described might be elaborated to explain plausibly the Hindu concept of reincarnation, structurally an emanationist concept. To make this case we need just a few elements.
These are (1) some evidence that souls have really preexisted before; (2) an understanding of memory as a field phenomenon, and (3) a conceptualization of orders based on some kind of density.
Evidence for Preexistence. In eastern culture people accept reincarnation as a traditional belief; it’s been around a long time, not least in the West, if we go far enough back. The first westerner to give it scientific study was the Canadian, Ian Stevenson, a professor at the University of Virginia. The late Stevenson’s studies of people who claimed to remember an earlier life represents an opus of evidence not as extensive but as persuasive as the corpus of NDE reports. It represents empirical proof, as best as we can get it, for preexistence. Others have continued such studies after Stevenson.
Memory. No one questions the role of the brain in memory, but the subject of where memories reside is more controversial. The orthodox answer is that tissue holds memories, but proof of that is speculative. New theories therefore keep springing up. The Austrian, Karl Pribram, has been the latest theorizer, suggesting a holographic storage of memory across tissues. This suggestion has not firm proof either. The British biologist, Rupert Sheldrake, is the chief proponent of a theory that memories reside in what he calls morphic fields, thus fields analogous to the electro-dynamic kind, but not detectable by our instruments. He offers some intriguing empirical support for this suggestion (see The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance & the Habits of Nature (Park Street Press, 1995). This alternative fits a metaphysical perspective better—without in any way denying the role of the brain.
Concerning memory, especially in this context, it’s worthwhile reminding ourselves that in daily awareness we don’t actually remember our entire life in full detail. What we have is a very compressed précis of our past. But if we want to remember something, we have potent powers to evoke those things by effort. The day-to-day functioning of our memory is in response to stimuli. Those things not “evoked” by something lie dormant. We have enormous stores of memory that we never visit—and when we do, we tend to be amazed. I’d completely forgotten that, we say—but evidently we have not. We need to keep this in mind in reflecting on the subject in this context.
Orders of Density. There is ample philosophical as well as experiential evidence for a subtle reality—that which I keep calling the “soul-order.” Its most obvious proof is human consciousness. I include life itself as an element of proof—although that’s more controversial. Tradition supports the concept. People believe in other words, and NDE reports appear to back up those beliefs. If such orders exist, however, science cannot prove them by definition. If those world are more subtle, our physical instruments can no more detect them than they can detect consciousness.
With these elements in mind, let me suggest the following model for explaining why we can’t remember previous lives. I assume, for starters, that when a soul is born (unites with matter), it enters a realm of greater density. The soul-order is subtle, in other words. The “noise” of this environment, to change the metaphor, overwhelms the channel by means of which we gather knowledge (memory is knowledge). What we hear across this channel reaches us almost too faintly to decode: intuitions, intimations. When our souls form new memories, our brain mediates their storage. But when the brain retrieves memories in response to stimuli, it always fetches the most recent deposits to this store, especially as we age. In rare cases only, the brain may actually bring back memories created in times predating our current life, but these would have less context. After we die, presumably, we shall recover our older memories, but only after appropriate stimuli, those arising in the soul-order, actually evoke them. What I’m suggesting as a reasonable assumption is that we never really lose contact with our continuous memories, but our ability to evoke them from within this dark spelunking cave becomes much weaker.
How then can some people remember earlier existences while the great majority do not? While I’m into idle speculation, why not tackle that one too. The remembering of some is no idle claim of this or that small thing remembered. On the contrary. Stevenson’s work indicates that the recovery of memories is quite complete and quite detailed. One explanation might be that, in childhood, many of us do remember previous lives but too fragmentarily. We’re unable to link up enough of them to reproduce a sense of forgotten self-awareness. The shock of entry into this world may have been greater for most than some. Other explanations might be that the tuning powers of the brain are better is some than others, that the environmental stimuli are sharper for some, and finally that some have been gone but a short time. Concerning the last point, the point is that the memories remembered would be more current. In most of the cases Stevenson reports, the life remembered had been lived but a few miles away and ended just a few years earlier. For most other people, possibly, the last stretch of existence may not have been physical but “subtle,” thus in a quite different order, the soul-order. Physical stimuli here may not evoke memories of that one, except perhaps for feelings. The two orders may be very different in character. Remembering lives may therefore be rare because the conditions necessary to evoke earlier memories may also be rare.
What I’ve managed here, perhaps, is to show that some element of plausibility attaches to the reincarnation scheme and, therefore, indirectly, to the proposition that another realm might be invading matter or—what may be a rougher row to hoe—may have been caught here involuntarily.
Let me apply the analogy. The cave and the rock that forms it represent the material order. The surface represents the order of the soul. The explorer is one soul descending into the density of matter. The radio is his mind communicating rather well with his base camp at first, but then interference all but cuts off his contact. His descent is what Wordsworth means by our birth; the failure of the radio is our “forgetting” of a previous existence. The analogy isn’t perfect. It merely illustrates that “interference” may explain our forgetting. A situation like the one described might be elaborated to explain plausibly the Hindu concept of reincarnation, structurally an emanationist concept. To make this case we need just a few elements.
These are (1) some evidence that souls have really preexisted before; (2) an understanding of memory as a field phenomenon, and (3) a conceptualization of orders based on some kind of density.
Evidence for Preexistence. In eastern culture people accept reincarnation as a traditional belief; it’s been around a long time, not least in the West, if we go far enough back. The first westerner to give it scientific study was the Canadian, Ian Stevenson, a professor at the University of Virginia. The late Stevenson’s studies of people who claimed to remember an earlier life represents an opus of evidence not as extensive but as persuasive as the corpus of NDE reports. It represents empirical proof, as best as we can get it, for preexistence. Others have continued such studies after Stevenson.
Memory. No one questions the role of the brain in memory, but the subject of where memories reside is more controversial. The orthodox answer is that tissue holds memories, but proof of that is speculative. New theories therefore keep springing up. The Austrian, Karl Pribram, has been the latest theorizer, suggesting a holographic storage of memory across tissues. This suggestion has not firm proof either. The British biologist, Rupert Sheldrake, is the chief proponent of a theory that memories reside in what he calls morphic fields, thus fields analogous to the electro-dynamic kind, but not detectable by our instruments. He offers some intriguing empirical support for this suggestion (see The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance & the Habits of Nature (Park Street Press, 1995). This alternative fits a metaphysical perspective better—without in any way denying the role of the brain.
Concerning memory, especially in this context, it’s worthwhile reminding ourselves that in daily awareness we don’t actually remember our entire life in full detail. What we have is a very compressed précis of our past. But if we want to remember something, we have potent powers to evoke those things by effort. The day-to-day functioning of our memory is in response to stimuli. Those things not “evoked” by something lie dormant. We have enormous stores of memory that we never visit—and when we do, we tend to be amazed. I’d completely forgotten that, we say—but evidently we have not. We need to keep this in mind in reflecting on the subject in this context.
Orders of Density. There is ample philosophical as well as experiential evidence for a subtle reality—that which I keep calling the “soul-order.” Its most obvious proof is human consciousness. I include life itself as an element of proof—although that’s more controversial. Tradition supports the concept. People believe in other words, and NDE reports appear to back up those beliefs. If such orders exist, however, science cannot prove them by definition. If those world are more subtle, our physical instruments can no more detect them than they can detect consciousness.
With these elements in mind, let me suggest the following model for explaining why we can’t remember previous lives. I assume, for starters, that when a soul is born (unites with matter), it enters a realm of greater density. The soul-order is subtle, in other words. The “noise” of this environment, to change the metaphor, overwhelms the channel by means of which we gather knowledge (memory is knowledge). What we hear across this channel reaches us almost too faintly to decode: intuitions, intimations. When our souls form new memories, our brain mediates their storage. But when the brain retrieves memories in response to stimuli, it always fetches the most recent deposits to this store, especially as we age. In rare cases only, the brain may actually bring back memories created in times predating our current life, but these would have less context. After we die, presumably, we shall recover our older memories, but only after appropriate stimuli, those arising in the soul-order, actually evoke them. What I’m suggesting as a reasonable assumption is that we never really lose contact with our continuous memories, but our ability to evoke them from within this dark spelunking cave becomes much weaker.
How then can some people remember earlier existences while the great majority do not? While I’m into idle speculation, why not tackle that one too. The remembering of some is no idle claim of this or that small thing remembered. On the contrary. Stevenson’s work indicates that the recovery of memories is quite complete and quite detailed. One explanation might be that, in childhood, many of us do remember previous lives but too fragmentarily. We’re unable to link up enough of them to reproduce a sense of forgotten self-awareness. The shock of entry into this world may have been greater for most than some. Other explanations might be that the tuning powers of the brain are better is some than others, that the environmental stimuli are sharper for some, and finally that some have been gone but a short time. Concerning the last point, the point is that the memories remembered would be more current. In most of the cases Stevenson reports, the life remembered had been lived but a few miles away and ended just a few years earlier. For most other people, possibly, the last stretch of existence may not have been physical but “subtle,” thus in a quite different order, the soul-order. Physical stimuli here may not evoke memories of that one, except perhaps for feelings. The two orders may be very different in character. Remembering lives may therefore be rare because the conditions necessary to evoke earlier memories may also be rare.
What I’ve managed here, perhaps, is to show that some element of plausibility attaches to the reincarnation scheme and, therefore, indirectly, to the proposition that another realm might be invading matter or—what may be a rougher row to hoe—may have been caught here involuntarily.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Where Do We Go In Sleep?
Does sleep prove materialism? If our consciousness is the capacity of an immaterial agency, and we are that agency, why do we go away when the brain has to rest?
Let me examine the assumptions hidden in my question above. To make things as clear as possible, let me start by saying that I want to exclude dreaming states for purposes of discussion. Dreams need special attention—and will get it elsewhere. Now to the question. I assume here a duality of body and mind. If I didn’t, the question would be meaningless. To recognize this duality explicitly, I can rephrase the question: “Where does the soul go when the body sleeps?” I assume, further, that body and soul are separable entities; note the distinction: not just separate but separable—else I couldn’t use the word “go” in the question. I also assume that the state of sleep is the sole property of bodies and that souls don’t require sleep—hence they can “go” somewhere. I pose the question in the first place because the last assumption necessarily suggests that consciousness continues even during sleep, but I am unaware of that—and if I am that consciousness, my absence in sleep produces a contradiction. I’m simultaneously asserting that during sleep the soul is both conscious and unconscious.
Let’s next look at these assumptions. Duality rests on my observation of the mind’s behavior, particularly its freedom of action in directing my motions at will. I don’t observe this behavior of self-motion anywhere in inorganic nature. I have a clear understanding of the difference between reflexive, automatic behavior, assigned to mechanical arrangements, and voluntary behavior. The voluntary behavior also requires a cause, and that cause is the soul-mind-agency. In order to move the body, this agent must be in some way independent of it.
That body and soul are separable is not a matter of ordinary observation; experience proves the contrary, otherwise I would never experience pain; I would just go away until it stopped. The notion of separability is a theoretical projection based on my experience of the independent status of my soul, ultimately grounded in free will. But I have no experiential basis for asserting that I can “go” anywhere without old flesh-and-bones tagging along.
My assumption that sleep is solely a property of bodies arises because I cannot find an organic basis for soul. The very concept requires that soul be free of mechanistic determinations. If it isn’t, it would be the body. If soul is independent of the body, it would not seem to require sleep. But that is a relatively weak assumption. By calling soul independent, I have not actually described it very comprehensively. It too may need a constant or intermittent renewal in some way, but, if so, I can’t know anything about that. As Aquinas argues, soul knows itself by its actions, not directly; hence by corollary, soul cannot know anything by its inaction—which is its evident state during sleep.
How then do we deal with the contradiction of a conscious-unconscious soul during sleep? Three possibilities suggest themselves.
· Souls Also Rest. As just suggested above, souls themselves may require restoration and have the functional equivalent of rest. Sleep may, in fact, be viewed as produced by soul-fatigue, produced when a soul, that has exhausted its vital energies, lowers its life-maintaining activity, and the body, in response, slumbers off.
· Souls Are Conscious But Bored. Under this option, souls remain conscious during sleep, indeed continue to have mental freedom to do as they like, but there is no sensory stimulus coming their way. A big black nothingness is what they mostly experience because access to other realms is impossible from this material order. Memories are formed, but they are of the kind almost immediately forgotten. Nothing happens that’s worth remembering.
· Souls Have Experiences, But Memories Aren’t Stored. In this explanation, souls do have experiences, but what with the brain being asleep, it doesn’t store memories of these experiences and, hence, in the waking state, we can’t remember what we saw and felt in our perhaps native dimension.
Notice that in two of these cased (Bored, Experienced), the function of memory is central. In Case Bored, the mind produces memories with or without the brain’s intermediation; memories are of the same kind (let’s say on the same frequency as ordinary memories) and treated in the same way. We don’t usually remember large boring stretches of experience or simply compress them into a very brief token. The other case, Experienced, assumes that for ordinary remembering the brain must be actively involved; the soul may experience events in some other order, may store memories of these events as well, but on another frequency—which is not accessible to the brain but may be accessible to the soul once it is freed of this dimension.
Now some further comments on these cases. The first suggests that the mere assertion of “immateriality” for the soul is inadequate. Hidden within it is the assumption that soul requires some kind of energy for its own maintenance—which it passes on to the body. So the soul becomes more complex, indeed dualistic in turn, consisting of capacities on the one hand and a sustaining energy on the other.
The second depends on the assumption that different orders or regions exist and that the soul, native in another one, is caught in this one, at least while in the body, and unable to experience, at least effectively, any other. Therefore, deprived of sense stimuli, it sees nothing when the brain shuts down. Boring.
I have nothing more to add to the third case. Each of these cases has a certain plausibility and problems. All depend on variant models of reality which are entirely speculative and supported only, and only in part, by highly subjective experiences of the paranormal. Some of that “evidence” I hope to examine in future posts. Here it might be well, once more, to emphasize the problem of knowledge. We have no idea what a soul is, only the experience of its activity; we don’t know how it got here or why it’s tied to bodies. For explanations we must open books of myth. Tough sledding, this business of the mind.
Let me examine the assumptions hidden in my question above. To make things as clear as possible, let me start by saying that I want to exclude dreaming states for purposes of discussion. Dreams need special attention—and will get it elsewhere. Now to the question. I assume here a duality of body and mind. If I didn’t, the question would be meaningless. To recognize this duality explicitly, I can rephrase the question: “Where does the soul go when the body sleeps?” I assume, further, that body and soul are separable entities; note the distinction: not just separate but separable—else I couldn’t use the word “go” in the question. I also assume that the state of sleep is the sole property of bodies and that souls don’t require sleep—hence they can “go” somewhere. I pose the question in the first place because the last assumption necessarily suggests that consciousness continues even during sleep, but I am unaware of that—and if I am that consciousness, my absence in sleep produces a contradiction. I’m simultaneously asserting that during sleep the soul is both conscious and unconscious.
Let’s next look at these assumptions. Duality rests on my observation of the mind’s behavior, particularly its freedom of action in directing my motions at will. I don’t observe this behavior of self-motion anywhere in inorganic nature. I have a clear understanding of the difference between reflexive, automatic behavior, assigned to mechanical arrangements, and voluntary behavior. The voluntary behavior also requires a cause, and that cause is the soul-mind-agency. In order to move the body, this agent must be in some way independent of it.
That body and soul are separable is not a matter of ordinary observation; experience proves the contrary, otherwise I would never experience pain; I would just go away until it stopped. The notion of separability is a theoretical projection based on my experience of the independent status of my soul, ultimately grounded in free will. But I have no experiential basis for asserting that I can “go” anywhere without old flesh-and-bones tagging along.
My assumption that sleep is solely a property of bodies arises because I cannot find an organic basis for soul. The very concept requires that soul be free of mechanistic determinations. If it isn’t, it would be the body. If soul is independent of the body, it would not seem to require sleep. But that is a relatively weak assumption. By calling soul independent, I have not actually described it very comprehensively. It too may need a constant or intermittent renewal in some way, but, if so, I can’t know anything about that. As Aquinas argues, soul knows itself by its actions, not directly; hence by corollary, soul cannot know anything by its inaction—which is its evident state during sleep.
How then do we deal with the contradiction of a conscious-unconscious soul during sleep? Three possibilities suggest themselves.
· Souls Also Rest. As just suggested above, souls themselves may require restoration and have the functional equivalent of rest. Sleep may, in fact, be viewed as produced by soul-fatigue, produced when a soul, that has exhausted its vital energies, lowers its life-maintaining activity, and the body, in response, slumbers off.
· Souls Are Conscious But Bored. Under this option, souls remain conscious during sleep, indeed continue to have mental freedom to do as they like, but there is no sensory stimulus coming their way. A big black nothingness is what they mostly experience because access to other realms is impossible from this material order. Memories are formed, but they are of the kind almost immediately forgotten. Nothing happens that’s worth remembering.
· Souls Have Experiences, But Memories Aren’t Stored. In this explanation, souls do have experiences, but what with the brain being asleep, it doesn’t store memories of these experiences and, hence, in the waking state, we can’t remember what we saw and felt in our perhaps native dimension.
Notice that in two of these cased (Bored, Experienced), the function of memory is central. In Case Bored, the mind produces memories with or without the brain’s intermediation; memories are of the same kind (let’s say on the same frequency as ordinary memories) and treated in the same way. We don’t usually remember large boring stretches of experience or simply compress them into a very brief token. The other case, Experienced, assumes that for ordinary remembering the brain must be actively involved; the soul may experience events in some other order, may store memories of these events as well, but on another frequency—which is not accessible to the brain but may be accessible to the soul once it is freed of this dimension.
Now some further comments on these cases. The first suggests that the mere assertion of “immateriality” for the soul is inadequate. Hidden within it is the assumption that soul requires some kind of energy for its own maintenance—which it passes on to the body. So the soul becomes more complex, indeed dualistic in turn, consisting of capacities on the one hand and a sustaining energy on the other.
The second depends on the assumption that different orders or regions exist and that the soul, native in another one, is caught in this one, at least while in the body, and unable to experience, at least effectively, any other. Therefore, deprived of sense stimuli, it sees nothing when the brain shuts down. Boring.
I have nothing more to add to the third case. Each of these cases has a certain plausibility and problems. All depend on variant models of reality which are entirely speculative and supported only, and only in part, by highly subjective experiences of the paranormal. Some of that “evidence” I hope to examine in future posts. Here it might be well, once more, to emphasize the problem of knowledge. We have no idea what a soul is, only the experience of its activity; we don’t know how it got here or why it’s tied to bodies. For explanations we must open books of myth. Tough sledding, this business of the mind.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Brain-Mind Duality: Implications and Issues
I want to look at mind in another way today, more comprehensively that earlier, thus from a rational as well as an empirical point of vantage. These views seem to be in conflict, hence we have “issues” to discuss. The rational approach produces the conviction that mind can’t be an “emergent” phenomenon; it must, it seems, come from another realm. The empirical approach, by contrast, teaches us that a material faculty—the brain—is “almost” always associated with mental activities. I want to record my reasons for putting quotes around the “almost,” but I’ll do that later. Here I want to focus on the difficulties of the brain-mind linkage generally.
From a logical point of view, mind is immaterial, above nature, “metaphysical,” in fact. But if that is so, and reason says so, what is it doing in a body? Why can lesions in the brain block any evidence of it? Why do people sometimes lose their memory after injuries? Why does schizophrenia render individuals defective?
Heads: If mind is transcendental, why does it need a chemical tool?
Tails: But let’s turn that around and show the other side of the coin. If mind is just an emergent property of matter, then what in the name of heaven does life want? What explains the deep urge in matter to wish to become conscious, to struggle, to experience joy, to undergo the humiliations of aging, to suffer, and finally to go out like a candle and turn back into matter once again?
These are the two faces of the coin. Throughout history, people have favored heads over tails. Times like our own, casually materialistic, have also recurred at intervals (usually when civilizations were decaying), but never have masses of people actually adhered to materialism in large numbers in ancient times. Epicureanism is a prominent earlier example. Only small elites, enjoying ample wealth, have ever done so, and not all members of those. Our age is unique in one way only. Thanks to fossil fuels, large majorities have risen high enough from subsistence so that materialism can be accepted by relatively large masses of people, at least passively. The majority of mankind, even in the twenty-first century, still calls for heads. The polling evidence for this is accessible here for the United States and here for the world.
I expect to discuss in other posts the traditional arguments, doctrines, and speculations that attempt to present explanation for the more plausible argument, namely that material bodies make sense for a transcendental agency. They all demand models of the cosmos. Here I simply note the fact by way of introduction.
I’ve discovered, mulling these matters over for years, that other more down-to-earth issues are of considerable interest once we brush away the materialistic explanation and at least for argument’s sake accept the transcendental nature of mind. Most of these issues are in empirical, experiential category. They either support or complicate the explanation. One example and I’ll close.
The core of this example is consciousness and sleep. Where is consciousness when we turn in for the night? If it is extinguished, it would then seem to require a fully functioning brain to manifest it at all. But that would also imply that brains come first, hence mind is an epiphenomenon. This happens to be a favorite materialistic argument, and any one on the other sides is obliged to address it. Now for a corollary. If consciousness remains intact during sleep, why don’t we remember anything about those periods? That question hides a number of others connected with memory, some of which I’ve already touched upon earlier: how are memories stored, how are they retrieved, how are they lost. And what do we find pro or con in studies and writings related to the paranormal.
From a logical point of view, mind is immaterial, above nature, “metaphysical,” in fact. But if that is so, and reason says so, what is it doing in a body? Why can lesions in the brain block any evidence of it? Why do people sometimes lose their memory after injuries? Why does schizophrenia render individuals defective?
Heads: If mind is transcendental, why does it need a chemical tool?
Tails: But let’s turn that around and show the other side of the coin. If mind is just an emergent property of matter, then what in the name of heaven does life want? What explains the deep urge in matter to wish to become conscious, to struggle, to experience joy, to undergo the humiliations of aging, to suffer, and finally to go out like a candle and turn back into matter once again?
These are the two faces of the coin. Throughout history, people have favored heads over tails. Times like our own, casually materialistic, have also recurred at intervals (usually when civilizations were decaying), but never have masses of people actually adhered to materialism in large numbers in ancient times. Epicureanism is a prominent earlier example. Only small elites, enjoying ample wealth, have ever done so, and not all members of those. Our age is unique in one way only. Thanks to fossil fuels, large majorities have risen high enough from subsistence so that materialism can be accepted by relatively large masses of people, at least passively. The majority of mankind, even in the twenty-first century, still calls for heads. The polling evidence for this is accessible here for the United States and here for the world.
I expect to discuss in other posts the traditional arguments, doctrines, and speculations that attempt to present explanation for the more plausible argument, namely that material bodies make sense for a transcendental agency. They all demand models of the cosmos. Here I simply note the fact by way of introduction.
I’ve discovered, mulling these matters over for years, that other more down-to-earth issues are of considerable interest once we brush away the materialistic explanation and at least for argument’s sake accept the transcendental nature of mind. Most of these issues are in empirical, experiential category. They either support or complicate the explanation. One example and I’ll close.
The core of this example is consciousness and sleep. Where is consciousness when we turn in for the night? If it is extinguished, it would then seem to require a fully functioning brain to manifest it at all. But that would also imply that brains come first, hence mind is an epiphenomenon. This happens to be a favorite materialistic argument, and any one on the other sides is obliged to address it. Now for a corollary. If consciousness remains intact during sleep, why don’t we remember anything about those periods? That question hides a number of others connected with memory, some of which I’ve already touched upon earlier: how are memories stored, how are they retrieved, how are they lost. And what do we find pro or con in studies and writings related to the paranormal.
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