Consciousness, identity, OBEs... (Identity)

by dhw, Sunday, January 16, 2011, 12:38 (4821 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I think the closest we can come to an answer is that the 'soul' is simply another word for our consciousness, whatever method it uses to arise from the brain. The evidence of precognition, the psychic abilities my wife exhibits (as I proof for me), etc. demonstrate that the brain can be a receiver. That is not the same as consciousness itself, defined as Matt did as 'being aware that you are aware'. -I'd like to take the argument a little further. In this context I don't think we can separate consciousness from identity. The NDE patients still knew who they were when they observed phenomena they should not have been able to perceive, when they went down the tunnel of light, when they received information that could not have been available to them. (Your wife is presumably also still your wife when she perceives things beyond the reach of the physical brain.) And so if there really is such a thing as a soul that is independent of the brain, it can only be a form of energy that perceives, absorbs, processes, feels, decides, imagines, remembers etc. ... otherwise, the "dead" patients would no longer have been themselves. -DAVID: [...] referring to the hospice experiences again, some of the information the dying receive would have to be 'long-distance', if, as it often does, it regards a friend or relative dying in another city. -Once the soul is freed from its physical bonds, physical restrictions such as distance would presumably play no further part. We would no longer be confined to our three-dimensional world. You are, of course, right when you say "we have few answers". I would go further and say we have no answers ... just as we have no answers when we speculate on the nature of God. But from my agnostic standpoint, it's reasonable enough to consider the possibility of a God and the possibility of a soul, in which case it's reasonable enough to speculate on their possible nature. -Under the epistemological thread Matt says: "I know my inner self well. I know when my brain is trying to get me to do something versus what I intend on doing." Who or what is this "I"? Matt's statement separates it from his brain. But either it IS the brain (materialist view) or there is a separate identity, i.e. a form of energy that performs all the activities listed above. If it IS the brain, we would have to rewrite Matt's statement as follows:-"The brain knows the brain well. The brain knows when the brain is trying to get the brain to do something versus what the brain intends on doing." -Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say.


Complete thread:

 RSS Feed of thread

powered by my little forum