I would have to go with “filter” following on my biggest influence, Ian McGilchrist who in his book The Matter With Things outlined three potential relationships between consciousness and the brain: emission, transmission or permission. These correspond to the brain produces consciousness; it transmits it from another source; or that it permits it like a reducing valve or filter that permits, shapes and brings into being the specific, limited form of consciousness that humans experience. I agree with him that the last one best fits our experience.
Soul I believe is the portion of God that has been given to each one of us to experience the world in this way and to reflect back to God that experience in a relationship which is necessarily lopsided but greatly rewarding to both parties.
Most likely all of life. Every animal must navigate its environment decide what to move toward and what to avoid. Every plant needs to develop to harvest sunlight and to cook up chemical defenses enough to prevent complete destruction by grazers. But of course being self aware of consciousness is not necessary to all life. Maybe that is the essence of image bearing.
I suspect every living thing also has a soul in as much as God is the ground of being for all. Got to focus out from a purely anthropocentric POV using our special power of imagination.
It depends whether one is talking about consciousness or self-consciousness. Here’s an interesting article on it from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
In short, a certain amount of memory is required for consciousness. Reptiles, birds and species like the octopus have an entirely different brain organization than mammals, so it’s hard for us to gauge their level of consciousness. (See Nagel, What Is It Like to Be a Bat.) Self-consciousness takes it a step further – the self reflecting upon itself. The last bit requires language and becomes conscience – looking upon one’s own actions from the perspective of an outside observer. Did I measure up to my community’s (God’s) standards?
The form of consciousness that we experience is the only form we know. No offense, but I see no reasons to offer options #2 or #3 besides wishful thinking.
Yes difficult to gauge the qualities, advantages and disadvantages of animals with different brains than ours, but it is not justification for believing just any old naive theory of consciousness one likes. Not sure what you mean by option #2 or #3? But I think you might believe the brain actually produces consciousness. Is that right? (You wouldn’t be the first but I reject that possibility.)
Just reread your post. Just what evidence do you believe exists for thinking the brain emits consciousness. I think that is a naively physicalist assumption. Consciousness is probably prior to brains.
One might protest how can I believe in consciousness beyond brains when we don’t know of it in any other context. But the most we know about it is that we have it. We can’t show where it comes either beyond brains or within them. Brains help give us the form of consciousness we have but it is no more adventurous to think it is an ontological primitive which becomes enhanced by the action of the brain than to think the electro/chemical meat of our brains somehow pop out consciousness from cold dead matter or even nothing at all.
Remember science is conducted under the assumption of naturalism which is as it should be. But having assumed it for strategic reasons we should not make of it an operational premise to justify what seems most certain given what science tells us. Science finds what it was looking for, natural causes. It cannot find evidence that there are no ontological primitives beyond what we can observe and measure.
How else would all the building blocks for life gather if not through the action of some greater consciousness, be it pre existing consciousness or even the mind of God - perhaps these are the same?
That’s correct—the discovery confirmed his model, but it’s true that he wasn’t the one who discovered the CMB.
However, the main point was that his model was met with suspicion because it appeared compatible with the idea of a divine act of creation.
And when modern physics confronts mysteries that challenge reductionist explanations—such as the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics, the role of the observer, and the universe’s fine-tuning through the precise calibration of physical constants necessary for life—it has led many to speculate about the existence of a multiverse, a convenient theory positing that ours is just one of countless universes, each with different physical constants. In such a scenario, it’s not surprising that some universe would randomly have the right conditions for life—and we just happen to be in one of those. The problem, however, is that the theory lacks any supporting evidence.
I suggest that a conversation on science and faith may be productive if it were carried out as philosophy of science and theology. I cannot see how trying to prove God in some way can be useful – on this matter, we are either convinced that God is the Creator, or we are not. Instead, considering philosophy of science sharpens our critical thinking, our sense of evidence, our awareness of method.
Theology, on the other hand, deepens our moral imagination, our sense of purpose, our openness to transcendence. These outlooks, when they interact well:
• PoS brings added clarity of the world’s structure, while theology can clarify the world’s significance.
• we see ourselves more clearly — not as isolated minds or random accidents, but as beings capable of wonder, responsibility, and meaning.
Consider; scientific theories are provisional, revisable, and historically situated. Our models are always incomplete. Theology shows that human understanding is finite, yet oriented toward something infinite; our concepts of the divine are always analogical.
With humility, these are powerful ways to understand ourselves as creatures who seek truth but never fully possess it.
The Truth is known but We don’t change and History of Man’s Behavior repeats.
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T_aquaticus
(The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)
234
I think that is what Romanes was describing when he talked about the difference between science and religious belief.
I’ve always viewed science like a logic puzzle, something akin to a Sudoku or crossword puzzle. There are rules you have to follow, and you are limited in what type of evidence you can use. Theology and philosophy in general are much more about our subjective emotional selves instead of our logic puzzle solving objective mind, IMHO.
I was in the seminar with theologians and students, and read also some literature about the topic: eschatology, including also what happens to us after the death.
I learned from the seminar one take-home message: now I can tell with more confidence that there is much we do not know.
What happens between death and resurrection is not a ‘canonical truth’, meaning that we should be cautious in judging differing opinions. There is a diversity of opinions and interpretations, and we should learn to live with this diversity.
Another ‘take-home message’ (or my interpretation about such) was that the biblical scriptures often leave a tension between apparently differing views, rather than presenting one clear answer. Learning to live with the tension(s) gives a more balanced mind & life than having narrow and unyielding black-or-white opinions.
[a continuation to my message, starting from the tensions in the biblical messages]:
The saying ‘already but not yet’ about the Kingdom of God is among the easiest tensions to accept. In some other matters, the opinions may be more divided - and not only between individuals and denominations. A somewhat funny note was that theologians specialized in biblical exegesis vs. systematic theology had often somewhat differing opinions about these matters. The banter between the ‘camps’ was friendly and often entertaining but helped to understand why theologians such as N.T. Wright and the more systematically oriented ones often disagree.
The basic defference between the ‘camps’ seemed to be that the exegetes had the attitude that we need to look ‘what the scriptures tell about the matter’. Those specialized on systematic theology told that of course we have to first do an exegetical analysis but ‘you cannot build theology just on exegesis’.
Maybe that is a more general difference between those who try to build on what the scriptures tell vs. those who rely at least as much on the other sources of knowledge. There were quite much talk about the interface between science and faith, for example what modern physics tells about the universe, matter and time, and how that possibly relates to what the theological interpretations assume and claim.