What's the location of the immaterial soul/mind?

A kneejerk reflex only involves spinal reaction.

This makes the contrast even stronger, because it eliminates all possibility of reason, belief, passion, or will. Decisions are still made within the confines of the nervous system, but the brain is only signaled after the fact. This is analogous to reactions by earthworms or slugs, which still needs explanation. So, apparently, consciousness is not really essential for a test of physicalism.

 

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That is true. It is essentially the definition of "reflex." An external stimulus comes to the dorsal horn and connects to the ventral horn at that junction of vertebrae.

That has nothing to do with brain initiated actions, such as deciding when to raise hand or push a switch button. It is these brain initiated actions that can be detected up to 8 seconds before the subject thinks he "decided consciously" Hence the title of the thread linked to in my last post: "You will be the last to know" (of "your" decisions.)

From your post on reflexes, I think you have not read the evidence, some 35 years old, in that link which clearly shows your consciousness is only informed of the decision made seconds earlier and you erroneously think you consciously made the decision.

 

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You're right. But the human brain is too complex. Before humans, it would be nice, though, if we could first understand a bit what goes on in the less than a dozen nerve cells of a sea slug (aplysia). Apparently something does go on. Here's some more old research:
Kandel (1979): Behavioural Biology of Aplysia
Kandel (1976): Cellular Basis of Behaviour. An introduction to behavioural neurobiology.

But none of this sheds much light on this topic.

For the mind/soul to have a location, it must be physical first. And I don't see that. Do you?

 

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if something were wholly immaterial it couldn't have a location.

 

Look, this is a great topic. I would really like to build on this and find out more, the only way to do that is to ask questions and throw out what does not fit and find those things that do. i want to use your statement as a jumping off point to show that a lot can be said without actually saying a thing. Just vague ideas.

A transmission from where?

You say in the first quote that MY mind is a transmitter. In the next quote you say MY brain is a reciver of these trasmissions. If MY mind is transmitting something, then dont you think that I would know what is being transmitted? Why would I then need something to tell me what is being transmitted?

It is one big circle. What you are describing is situation where YOU have a radio transmitter, and YOU are transmitting data out into space, and then YOU have a radio reciever to pick up what you sent. Do you see how silly this is?

If YOU sent the transmission then YOU already know what was sent.

The question to ask is who is this you or your that is doing this sending and recieving.

 

Good question, I think the first thing we need to do is decide on what the mind is before we can discuss how it communicates. Is the mind a physical universe object or energy that has a location, mass, a wavelength, is mobile.

Or is the mind simular to the concept of the soul or spirit, and not made from those things that we identify in this physical universe?

I am going to say that it is not made from physical things such as atoms and electrons. I would even go so far as to hint that the mind is life. that the mind, the soul, and life are all the same thing. What that is exactly is open for discussion. But we may be trying to describe this mind thing in physical terms, when it is not a physical thing. As an example of this, everyone here has thoughts and ideas, and mental image pictures that they can recall. What are they made of? We can experience them but what are we experiencing? We can imagine things and create ideas, we are the source of creating ideas, yet what is an idea? Do you see how slippery this can get.

I say if we can get a good agreement on what an idea, thought, or mental image picture is, then we might be on our way to answering what the mind is.

I have some ideas, but I would like to see what others have to say about this.

 

When I originally posted on this thread, what I wrote was more a stream of consciousness rather than a well thought out theory. However, this idea of mine harks back 10 years from a novel I wrote and in a way it's a similar idea to what I was attempting to convey back then through a fictional and indeed fantastical story.

Now, to answer your questions, in fact, just some of your questions. If the mind/soul/spirit is a transmission that the brain is able to tune into then clearly it's not the brain creating the transmission, the mind/soul/spirit is merely the name we give to this phenomenon. As I said, Your mind/soul/spirit is like a satellite transmission, it's everywhere, it's universal, infinite that means your mind/soul/spirit is not in you it is a transmission of information outside of you. The brain is the tuner, the dreambox if you like, between the transmission and the TV (your consciousness).

Another metaphor would be to say that the brain is like a computer that is connected to the internet, the internet being the medium of information or mind/soul/spirit. The internet is not inside your computer it is merely connected to it and the information one receives through it is entirely subjective. I think, you get the picture.

Now the big question, where does the information come from? My friend, if I could answer that in a proven scientific way it would mean I'm more clever than Einstein ever was, which I'm not. Albeit any answer I give would need to be fantastical and extremely pseudo-scientific hence the reason I needed to write a novel in the first place. Suffice to say that the answer would include elements of invisible (to the naked eye) dimensions, quantum theory and subatomic particles, things that are maybe similar to neutrinos. Things that permeate the atmosphere in uncountable numbers and bombard living organisms, collecting bytes of information from each and every one and exploding out of each living organism only to bombard into more, transferring the information into others ad infinitum.

This is the transmission or, mind/soul/spirit and each unique instance of it is shared by living organisms according to their frequency. Each organism is receptive to the myriad transmissions but can only process a fraction of the information according to its physical and mental disposition.

Each living organism has its own needs, its own genetic codes, its own unique software (metaphors again), and its own frequency. Therefore a human brain will be unable to process information picked up from an ant for example, but another ant could.

This idea can go some way to explaining how living organisms can evolve en masse and indeed evolve at a rapid pace when the need is dire. Think: dinosaurs to canaries, mice to men. I know that the 'evolution gene' is hard wired into every living organism but surely, there must be some outside influence to trigger this gene, affecting entire species at a time. Evolution would be a dead end if it relied solely on individuals 'evolving' one at a time, it would simply take too long and produce uncountable mutations rather than a cohesive new species.

The idea can also shed light on the phenomenon of genius and prodigy, I mean, just how can a 4 year old write a symphony or play like a virtuoso, how can an office clerk come up with theory of relativity? It doesn't happen often but it does happen.

* chemical processes in the brain. Ok I should have left that bit out, it does sound vague but it is also obvious. We all know that the brain works by chemical and electrical processes.

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Its not actually, because from my own calculations and with some help from external sources (ie other people), the probability of the coincidences happening from random chance in sequence would have become too large (although you could possibly argue that there is an influencing external factor or my perception of the coincidences were altered in some way but I don't know if I could really see it that way). Regardless, it seemed to make a lot more sense had the coincidences occurred for a possible reason, out of my comprehension or in the grand scheme of things that are pre-determined to occur but simultaneously appear to be variable in the frame of progressing time/4th dimension. If anything, I believe that human consciousness lies within the 5th-6th dimension, because otherwise we would not be able to perceive the alternate possibilities of our choices.

Because of this, like the poster after me was mentioning, I'd have to lean towards Jung's idea of a collective consciousness, or what Buddhist principles also refer to as the "One" or perhaps what some would consider "God." The idea that God exists within every one of us because we're all a part of that progressive collective consciousness that encompasses the purpose of this Universe and our existence. As to what that purpose is? I'm not exactly sure, but it just seems to me that we must be existing for a reason/purpose.

Our identities and our sense of self worth is only isolated to our mortal and bounded minds... however I think that consciousness and understanding is not merely the attainment of knowledge itself but rather the experience of knowing, that is to say if you were to remove everything you've ever learned or remembered from when you were young, there would still be traces/hints left engraved into your "soul/spirit." This experience, while only yours, does not remain yours, but returns to the collective acquisition from the "whole." In a sense, a universal understanding and experience that is shared within a more meaningful existence that we probably won't be able to see within our lives. I can imagine this understanding and assimilation of shared experiences would be referenced to a type of "heaven." Just as we came into consciousness by drawing from that universal energy, so will we return but not without attaining the plethora of emotion and feelings that are saturated within a lifespan regardless how long or short.

I apologize if I seem to have gone off topic.

 

please do correct me if im wrong but as far as i can tell with a quick web search DMT is found in plants, some fungi, humans and some toads.
would this mean that humans fungi plants and some toads have a soul while things such as your pet cat doesnt?
and does this also mean that plants have a larger soul as they have more DMT.
Also do your see any moral issues with people getting high off plant souls?