excellent philosopher, Dominican father, Professor Joseph Maria Bochenski in his famous "One hundred and superstitions," he writes about two superstitious mniemaniach the soul:
"... Superstition is materialistic przeczeniu obvious fact that man - and with it, unless the higher animals have some experiences, ideas, thoughts and feelings that knows something and wants something. All these phenomena are called together learned the word "psyche" - a popular language in talking about the soul. Deny the existence of a soul in this sense can only be an extremely superstitious man, which is completely blind to the most obvious things. It may be worthwhile to emphasize that more serious materialists are not as superstitious in this way: do not deny the existence of the soul, they say only that it is "something tangible." But this is a superstition - you might as well be argued that the tree is actually a cake, iron and water, because mental phenomena are nevertheless quite different from physical property.
There is another superstition for the soul. We call it here 'superstition reistycznym', from the Latin res, which means the same as ... This second opinion is based on superstition , that the human soul, it is similar to such things as tables, typewriters, mountains, and crocodiles. An extreme expression of this zabobonowi gave the French philosopher Rene Descartes. According to him, man consists of two things, of two pieces (he calls it the "substances"), namely the corporeal things, it is the body, and things spiritual, that is the soul. Descartes's view is in fact only a pseudo-phrase of the widespread superstition of the human spirit strolling outside the body. For example, ancient Egyptians believed already in the XXV century before Christ, that is, 4,500 years ago, that the soul wanders after the death of the body in the form of a bird with a human head around the grave of the deceased ... "
Next Bochenski develops his thought and shows that the soul must be understood as a function of the body (guess that would be willing to dopowiedział here that it is a function of his particular authority, namely, brain). It also shows that in a similar manner of understanding the soul of the greatest of the medieval theologians - St. Thomas Aquinas.
Some may seem shocking that a Catholic priest (and besides him probably the most famous medieval Catholic theologian and philosopher) reject the functioning of the universal concept of dualistic perceptions and approach to the view of most contemporary scientists' non-religious backgrounds or materialists. It is true that the latter prefer to avoid the term "soul" and replace it with the name "psyche", but you can see from the quote, so to them and Bocheńskiemu it exactly the same thing. To me it just is not so much shocked, because he's out from the thirteenth year of life for long, though interrupted by periods of doubt and disbelief, with larger or smaller troubles combined belief that the soul is a function of brain, with the profession and practice of faith in which I was brought up.
In this post, let me a little more personal topics, which I think will prove to be justified.
At the end of primary school rozczytywałem in Lem's books and I think that under the influence of a lot of time was spent figuring out the phenomenon of consciousness. Easily reconciled with the fact that mental phenomena are responsible for processes in the brain. Frapował me, but then the following problem: if
A) the set of a few atoms has no consciousness, and
B) if a collection of atoms has no consciousness, then adding another atom, it can not make it will become a conscious entity, then how can be true that
C) a finite set of atoms, which is the brain, it has consciousness?
Of course I knew that sometimes "the amount can create a new quality" (for example, the set of elementary particles, none of which has a color creates a substance having color), but in all such cases can easily find the point at which inductive reasoning is collapses. In the case of the problem of awareness of brain material nohow that point could not be found. Twenty years later I learned that the problem that is then wrack my brains is called hard problem of consciousness and that basically none of the scientists and philosophers have no idea how to solve it we might go about it. Many of them (see the Vienna Circle ) thought to deal with him for taking a completely sterile. I myself, I decided then that probably is false the first of the assumptions that the above mentioned and that the ability to feel something, to "being inside" to have a "subjective experience" is a fundamental feature of matter, or at least very simple physical systems. Of course, it was not me then about some naive antropomorfizowanie plants or stones, but rather that in addition to features such as mass, charge, relative position, and the speed of physical objects have a characteristic that is associated with the experience. And too many years later I learned that I was not an original, and that similar concepts developed were by many philosophers (Alfred Whitehead and Samuel Alexander) and scholars (even the creator of quantum mechanics - for example, Wolfgang Pauli, Erwin Schroedinger, Carl von Weizsäcker and David Bohm). A third of the things related to the mystery of consciousness, which in late childhood and adolescence I experienced was a powerful feeling that there is something elusive, that this irreducible to mechanical phenomena of consciousness, in principle, I can not even well defined, although it is yet the most basic of human - and and so my - experience. Even though it is an experience against which all others are just derivative. For a teenage boy, what if I were a very frustrating experience, so gave up discussion on these issues for nearly twenty years.
returned to them, however, but only a few years ago. I began to read, especially on the Internet by searching the text of famous philosophers and scientists. And though a variety of my beliefs are constantly evolving, the notion that the soul is a function of the brain have not changed at all. I was also faithful to the belief that the problems of consciousness are extremely difficult, perhaps even intractable and that the most promising path that leads to perhaps the solution is so or otherwise, or emergentyzm panpsychizm understood. I've never convinced me stories about various experiences from the border of life and death, which I heard in high school - if anyone remember these experiences, it is apparently his brain still functioned. The similarity of these experiences to the states described by some mystics also proves nothing. But honestly admit that not once felt tempted to make these stories become. Not completely convinced me trendy probably last Rupert Sheldrake with his concept of morphic fields and construction of comparing the brain to a device which combines TV and video cameras, remotely communicates with the non-material (as far as I understand it) the soul. Even during the reading (three years ago), I saw that against the concept Sheldrakea niefalsyfikowalności be objected, and in addition, it is easy to amputowalna by Ockhamowskiej razor. Sheldrake does not explain anything to us, but solely by means of artificial structure replaces one mystery by another, but this time such as the knowledge that we choose never to her research tools. However, it does not explain anything Daniel Dennett, who is trying to confuse the reader by way of one of his famous books "Consciousness explained" , where - in my humble opinion - he just pretends that it does not understand the essence of the mystery of consciousness. Dennettowi also be objected niefalsyfikowalności and I fear that this is a curse that weighs heavily on any attempt to explain these phenomena. Experiment in definitively proving anything or falsyfikujący, must then refer to this as the phenomenon "is seen" from inside ", and" there "by definition can not be found. Reading the discussion of Dennett's ideas, however, recently landed on the web site his fine polemicist - David Chalmers. Professor Chalmers is the author of hundreds of publications on topics related to the phenomenon of consciousness, the editor of the online magazine "Psyche" , the editor of a website with dozens and perhaps hundreds of links to excellent publications on topics related to the mystery of consciousness. It scjentystą, but not a materialist, who Recognizing the complexity and understanding the spirit of mystery entangled in the matter believe that the solution to the scientific method can ever be real (the optimist). It is also aware that the "solution" may mean the emergence of clear evidence of inability to explain these phenomena. It believes that to reach a possible explanation would probably require the creation of a new field of science. This is what Chalmers is the author of determining the existence of mysteries such thing as consciousness (as the "inner experience") difficult problem Consciousness. Chalmers is a supporter of the concept of consciousness is called dualism of properties - that the reality does not consist of separate substance - spiritual and material, but that matter has physical and spiritual properties (which are not reducible to physical - as in physics, for example, the load is not reducible to weight). Regardless of my slight skepticism about the possibility of finding a solution to puzzles of consciousness, going into published on the website own texts or texts Chalmers other authors, This is one of the most inspiring intellectual adventures befell me in recent years. Besides
phenomenon of consciousness with the soul combine two other mysterious phenomena - the self and the intellect (or intelligence). Topics are huge, but I will write about them here a few observations. Many philosophers - for example, Daniel Dennett, Susan Blackmore and John Gray argues that the self does not exist. Proof of this is to be non-existence of continuity of consciousness - which has shown recent advances in neuroscience. In one meaning of this thesis is false. But the lack of continuity was known, and without today's neuroscience. Each of us have experienced the many thousands of times the presence of these "holes", every morning after a more or less sleepless night (no matter what he did the day before). Nor is that the fragmentation of consciousness is very high (reportedly glimpses of consciousness lasts for a split second), or lack of a permanent place in which she would not resided within the brain strengthens the thesis of the non-self, as a meaningful category. The same principle could be put into question after the existence of Daniel Dennett - because his body is not constant - it consists of tiny atoms, each of which is in another place, and between them yawns a huge emptiness in relation to their size. The fact remains that the self is experienced, objective, not subjective, individual. So we can not talk about my self, if you (dear reader), the self, but only of the self as a universal phenomenon, associated with consciousness. It is in this sense, Dennett, Blackmore, and Grey are right in saying that the self does not exist. Indeed, there is no individual self. You can get to this, however, without reference to neurology. I'll write more about this on the occasion one of the following entries, which I intend to devote, as I understand the immortality of the soul.
finally move on to the last of the phenomena, about which I wanted to write today. In many popular programs appear again and again about the alleged achievements of professionals in the creation of so-called Artificial Intelligence. Do not give them the faith. Since the time of Turing, who first zapostulował build thinking machines as a man I have not gone in the direction designated by him or a step. From today's perspective it seems more realistic that we do not solve puzzles intelligence than ever that in the next few centuries, man will be able to talk with your computer, just like talking to a good friend. There are thinkers who do doubt the possibility of creating artificial intelligence and, moreover, there are a variety of interesting arguments. But you do not need to be so radical as they were, to notice a huge naivety Turing, who believed that the problem of artificial intelligence will be resolved even in the twentieth century.
subject of the soul, whether the relationship between mind and body, is huge and fascinating at the same time, so I will not once come back to him. It also has this nice feature that, given the powerlessness in the field of science, all of this is to "make the expert", of which I with pleasure I do.
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