Re: A "God" Part of the Brain?

From: Samuel.D.Olsen@rf.no
Date: Sat Aug 16 2003 - 07:13:21 EDT

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    1. Next year's ASA summer meeting will have Neurology as theme. According
    to the circular I received, this meeting will be held at Trinity Western
    University, Langley, British Columbia, from July 23 - 26, 2004. The
    circular reads:
    "The meeting at Trinity Western University has the broad theme of neurology
    which has so many implications for the future. Brain control used to be a
    subject for science fiction but is it still in this category? Is there a
    religious spot in the brain? Can we make more progress in alleciating or
    curing those dreaded diseases that rob us of mental capacity as we age? "

    2. Don wrote:
    To me spiritual interaction kind of implies lack of physical mediation,
    unless by mediation you just mean the human, who is physical, acts
    something like a substrate.
    My reply: If you or I develop Alzheimers disease, some of our brain cells
    such as those in the Hippocampus which are crucial for memory, will die.
    Will you be able to have spiritual experiences and pray when areas in your
    temporal lobe and orientation association areas (implicated in spiritual
    experiences) are do not function normally?

    Sam

                                                                                                                                     
                          "Don
                          Winterstein" To: "Dr. Blake Nelson" <bnelson301@yahoo.com>
                          <dfwinterstein@m cc: "asa" <asa@calvin.edu>
                          sn.com> Subject: Re: A "God" Part of the Brain?
                          Sent by:
                          asa-owner@lists.
                          calvin.edu
                                                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                     
                          16.08.2003 10:13
                                                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                     

    <?xml:namespace prefix="v" /><?xml:namespace prefix="o" />
    Blake Nelson wrote in part:

    "...If you remember those
    experiences, then they are almost certainly mediated
    by a physical medium -- your brain."

    Guess it depends on what one means by mediated. During the experiences the
    body, including the brain, obviously still functions as a physical body.
    It's just enhanced in some sense. So one could say the whole body mediates
    the experience, but I think that would be to miss what is distinctive about
    the interaction.

    Does God as spirit have a memory? We'd all say yes. So his memory
    presumably does not require a physical register. It seems to follow then
    that I as a spiritual person may also have a spiritual memory that gets
    transcribed at some point (perhaps simultaneously) onto my physical memory,
    and that the experience of God itself remains unmediated by anything
    physical.

    This is getting far adrift from science, but I have trouble with that
    "mediated" word in this context. To me spiritual interaction kind of
    implies lack of physical mediation, unless by mediation you just mean the
    human, who is physical, acts something like a substrate.

    Maybe, if you spelled out how non-physical interaction would work in a
    "total dualism," what you mean by mediation would become clear.

    Don



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