From: msavasti@telesciences.com (Michael Savastio)
Subject: Re: Soul, branch 2
Organization: TeleSciences CO Systems, Inc.
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 23:09:28 GMT

In article <1992Sep23.201735.18236@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, lfoard@Turing.ORG (Lawrence C. Foard) writes:
In article <1992Sep17.231828.2997@telesciences.com> msavasti@telesciences.com (Michael Savastio) writes:
MS> [...]                                   Removing the spirit would cause the
MS>body to wind down to the point where it acts no differently than the matter
MS>around it.  You can call it "death."

LF>So then you agree that the electrical/chemical activity in the brain
LF>is the spirit? After all when that stops then you die. If our mind is
LF>somewhere else why bother having a brain? Wy not just have the spinal
LF>cord end on these magical receptors that communicate with the "spirit"?

First, I never claimed that the mind is somewhere else.  Your mind
exists on your shoulders.  So does your memory, your ability to reason,
your ability to process sensory input, and your intelligence.  Your
personality was inherited from your parents and molded by your
environment.  The spirit knows only the most fundamental spiritual
concepts, without having to know exactly how these concepts are
implemented in the physical world.  It is up to the soul, which is
inextricably related to the body, to translate signals from the spirit
into physical implementations, and vice versa.  Yes, I am assuming that
there exist such things as right and wrong outside of the physical world.

Your conclusion about death doesn't follow from my statement about it.
Removing the spirit would bring about death.  Another way to bring
about death would be to disturb your physical system such that it can
no longer support brain activity.  With no response from the brain, the
spirit's communication with the soul would be vain.

The preceding sentence was brought to you by Jesse Jackson.

LF>What are these receptors that communicate with the spirit?

The spirit-physical interface I mentioned is not so much an object (like
a receptor) as a process.  The spirit would somehow have to interfere
with the natural process of electrical activity in the brain.  It would
have to introduce energy into the system somehow.

MS>Suppose we did manage to trace someone's action back to the very, very, very
MS>first physical change in the brain.  [...]

LF>What if its simply the result of the electrical and chemical environment
LF>the cell is in? 

Then it wouldn't be the *very* first change, would it?  That's why I
stressed the word "very".  But a clearer description of what I meant
would be the process I described above.

MS>                [...] I can't *see* the spirit itself or the spiritual-physical
MS>interface.  

LF>But what if you finish searching the body and don't find it?

I know I won't find it.  You can search the body down to the last
molecule, and all you'll find is molecules.  That was my point.

MS>I find it impossible to believe that my every decision, thought, and action
MS>is based on purely physical processes obeying purely physical laws.  

LF>But shoving it off to another reality doesn't change anything. What
LF>about the physical laws of the ther reality where you want to put the
LF>spirit?

There obviously aren't any physical laws in this other reality.  Laws,
yes, but not physical laws.  The laws would be of a different nature and
may not be analogous to physical laws.  I don't have any problem
believing that the spirit is subject to laws because I do not believe 
the will is autonomous or free.  But I do have a problem believing that
the will is a slave to physics, as I will explain later.

By the way, I don't think I'm "shoving off" the spirit into another
realm just to keep skeptics from getting their sticky fingers on it.
I'm actually just refining my hypothesis on the basis of new evidence,
which is a healthy exercise for anybody.  I'm taking the notion that a
human being is a body, soul, and spirit, and I'm trying to reconcile
that notion with the knowledge we now have about the brain.  I don't
like throwing babies out with bath water.

Now, to give this whole issue some relevance to this newsgroup, the
original question was, "Can the existence of the spirit be proven or
disproven with science?"  My answer is, "No, because science is bound
by the physical universe, and the spirit exists outside of the physical
universe.  As such, it is not bound by physical laws, and thus is
unpredictable by a physical model."  More or less.  You don't even have
to believe in a spirit to agree with this answer.  Just place the word
"postulated" before "spirit" and read the sentence again.

A revision to this answer is that I now concede that the spirit can be
detected through physical means.  However, it is entirely unpredictable.
It cannot be modeled.

MS>Why am I responsible for any of my actions?  Am to whom am I responsible?
MS>To a bunch of other clumps of standing-up mud, if that's all we are?

LF>Yes.
LF>Why is being sentient clump of mud any worse than being a sentient "eco
LF>plasm"?

Also,

LF>Why assume there is anything beyond the physical world? What can't be
LF>xplained that needs the supernatural?

Please refer to a future article titled "Mud Ethics", to be posted as
soon as I'm done writing it.

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