Immateriality of Consciousness (Humans)

by dhw, Tuesday, December 07, 2010, 11:11 (5099 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: I am not arguing that fact our body produces energy. But the question does in fact have to take the womb into consideration. If the energy powering our brain while in the womb is coming from an outside source, does that hold any implications for the initial source of consciousness for an individual? Does, and if so how does, that energy help shape the newly emerging consciousness prior to it being subjected to any form of experience?-You're right, and this is a tricky aspect of consciousness and identity in general. I don't think there's any doubt that babies are born with given mental characteristics, just as they're born with given physical characteristics, and there's no reason to suppose that the foetus won't already have these before birth. Just how conscious it is, we don't know, any more than we can measure the consciousness of the newborn baby that provides its own physical energy, but all sorts of questions spring to mind. Not the least is the implication of your own question: if we're going to argue that the "soul" (can't avoid the word) is a form of energy that is independent of the brain, the energy doesn't "shape" the consciousness, it IS the consciousness, and it IS the inborn identity ... which reacts to but is also shaped by experience as we go through life, and which some people believe survives the death of the body. So if a baby dies in the womb, does its soul survive after death as a helpless being incapable of communication, of comprehension, of articulate thought? And if consciousness, identity, thought survive in humans, why not in other animals, since they go through the same processes as we do? We know that other animals think and feel and have degrees of consciousness, too. Where do the boundaries of outside energy lie? If a foetus has a soul, why shouldn't a fertilized chicken's egg have one too? We can hardly argue that the human brain is driven by outside energy, but the chicken brain is driven only by energy from within. I see this as a real problem for those who believe in an individual soul that lives on after death ... just as NDEs, OBEs and paranormal experiences should be a real problem for those who want to confine consciousness and identity to the brain cells. What, I wonder, would be the purpose of a foetus's soul? Or of the soul of an unborn chick?