I endorse this refinement. What brain damage demonstrates is not dependency of talking on the brain, but that the complex computations of thought can be damaged in internal detail by damaging a specific brain part, whereupon its outputs to other parts of thought are damaged. This is strong evidence that the brain is doing the internal computations of thought; it is part of the inner process producing thoughts. The radio hypothesis, in which the output is produced elsewhere and received, decisively fails at that point.
We could suppose that you had a hundred soul-parts, all of which can only communicate with each other through brain-area radio transceivers which receive a call from one soul-part, and then retransmit it to another. But leaving out the epicycleness of this idea, the degree to which it contradicts the intuitive notion of a soul, and its, if you’ll pardon the phrase, sheer stupidity, the end result would still be that destroying the brain leaves the soul incapable of thought. You’re not likely to find a remotely reasonable hypothesis, even in the Methodsverse where magic abounds, by which the internal parts of a thinking computation can be damaged by damaging the brain, and yet removing the whole brain leaves the soul capable of internal thinking.
I kind of liked one of the HPMOR recursive fanfics which played with this since in the Methodsverse wizards continued to be able to think even when their brain was replaced with that of a cat.
If I remember right in that fic the blood-purists maintained that only wizards had souls and that the thing they used to prove it was by feeding polyjuice to a non-wizard who would lose their own personality in favor of the body they were copying for the duration of the potions effects. (not having a magical soul with which to maintain their thought patterns when their physical brain was changed)
You’re not likely to find a remotely reasonable hypothesis, even in the Methodsverse where magic abounds, by which the internal parts of a thinking computation can be damaged by damaging the brain, and yet removing the whole brain leaves the soul capable of internal thinking.
Has your hypothesis that thought remains possible after the whole brain has been removed, in fact, been tested?
EDIT: I read your post as meaning that the “fact” that thought remains possible after a brain has been removed [to be cryo-frozen, for instance] was evidence against a soul.
You’re not likely to find a remotely reasonable hypothesis, even in the Methodsverse where magic abounds, by which the internal parts of a thinking computation can be damaged by damaging the brain, and yet removing the whole brain leaves the soul capable of internal thinking.
Why not? Letting a brain decompose kills the “thinking computation”, while cryonizing it supposedly does not.
Similarly, damaging a living brain may damage the attached soul, while death of a reasonably intact brain could be interpreted as a detachment of a reasonably intact soul.
Are you supposing that oxygenating a human’s blood without the use of lungs would result in the loss of their soul?
I think you will find that the only way to exclude such hypothetical possibilities is to define death as sufficient brain damage (although I suppose you could define it as cessation of neural activity if you don’t mind the possibility of dead people coming back to life; that would still result in a very large proportion of souls being damaged)
I endorse this refinement. What brain damage demonstrates is not dependency of talking on the brain, but that the complex computations of thought can be damaged in internal detail by damaging a specific brain part, whereupon its outputs to other parts of thought are damaged. This is strong evidence that the brain is doing the internal computations of thought; it is part of the inner process producing thoughts. The radio hypothesis, in which the output is produced elsewhere and received, decisively fails at that point.
We could suppose that you had a hundred soul-parts, all of which can only communicate with each other through brain-area radio transceivers which receive a call from one soul-part, and then retransmit it to another. But leaving out the epicycleness of this idea, the degree to which it contradicts the intuitive notion of a soul, and its, if you’ll pardon the phrase, sheer stupidity, the end result would still be that destroying the brain leaves the soul incapable of thought. You’re not likely to find a remotely reasonable hypothesis, even in the Methodsverse where magic abounds, by which the internal parts of a thinking computation can be damaged by damaging the brain, and yet removing the whole brain leaves the soul capable of internal thinking.
I kind of liked one of the HPMOR recursive fanfics which played with this since in the Methodsverse wizards continued to be able to think even when their brain was replaced with that of a cat.
If I remember right in that fic the blood-purists maintained that only wizards had souls and that the thing they used to prove it was by feeding polyjuice to a non-wizard who would lose their own personality in favor of the body they were copying for the duration of the potions effects. (not having a magical soul with which to maintain their thought patterns when their physical brain was changed)
SRI’s Shakey would be justified in its dualism.
Has your hypothesis that thought remains possible after the whole brain has been removed, in fact, been tested?
EDIT: I read your post as meaning that the “fact” that thought remains possible after a brain has been removed [to be cryo-frozen, for instance] was evidence against a soul.
Why not? Letting a brain decompose kills the “thinking computation”, while cryonizing it supposedly does not.
Similarly, damaging a living brain may damage the attached soul, while death of a reasonably intact brain could be interpreted as a detachment of a reasonably intact soul.
Taboo death
A perfect taboo. In the literal non lesswrong sense.
Sure. “Last breath”.
Are you supposing that oxygenating a human’s blood without the use of lungs would result in the loss of their soul?
I think you will find that the only way to exclude such hypothetical possibilities is to define death as sufficient brain damage (although I suppose you could define it as cessation of neural activity if you don’t mind the possibility of dead people coming back to life; that would still result in a very large proportion of souls being damaged)
Sure, but they’ll get it back (and lose 30 IQ points and a whole bunch of cool) if cursed by gypsies.
We are not talking about anything real-world, remember. The original setting: