PROLEGOMENON - The Evolution of the Soul by Richard Swinburne - neuroscienzeinutili ilpipistrellodinagel continuitàeidentità miracolistrutturanascostaoillusionismo? emergenzialismoautonomista
PROLEGOMENONRead more at location 36
Note: PREGOLOMENI@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Cos' è il dualismo sostanziale?: corpo e anima sono due sostanze separate. Sostanza: ciò che esiste in modo indipendente... Oggi l'ipotesi monista attinge dagli studi della neurofisiogia ma possono davvero dirci qualcosa? Difficile visto che la questine dell'origine del pensiero resta inevasa. La scienza nn risponde se nn prende una posizione filosofica... @@@ quanti e anima quanti e libera scelta interazione mind/body: nn abbiamo l intelligenza sufficiente x comprenderla è improbabile che ci sia una struttura nascosta (indaghiamo da millenni) + probabile che dio sostenga qs relazione attraverso cui si esplicita la ns libertà mind/body problem è indizio dell esistenza divina obiezione al dualismo: nn spiega tutto. risposta: ma spiega + e meglio delle alternative obiezione: il dualismo parla di anima ma nn ci dice cosa sia risposta: nn è del tutto vero ne viene dato un resoconto differenziale godel/lucs: un argomento x l anima Edit
The central theme of the book was the theme of substance dualism=that humans consist of two separate substances, body and soul. Plato thought this, and so did Descartes, and so did so many other thinkers of the last three millennia. But in 1997, as in 1986, few philosophical positions are as unfashionable as is substance dualism.Read more at location 41
recent philosophical debate has generated more heat than lightRead more at location 48
There has also been a lot of interesting work in neurophysiology and psychology, but I do not think that any results in this field affect in any way the main arguments of this book.Read more at location 49
To my mind by far the most interesting scientific work relevant to our topic has been the work, not of neurophysicists, but of physicists considering how Quantum Theory might be held to provide an explanation of mind-brain interaction-and give rise to free choice. I discuss Roger Penrose's two fascinating books in Appendix E.Read more at location 51
we have no idea and no possible way of discovering to any significant degree of probability exactly which mental events are caused by certain brain events. However much we know about a bat's brain, we can get from it very little understanding of how (if at all) the bat perceivesRead more at location 58
continuing to have a conscious life after a brain operationRead more at location 60
A full description of the world should tell us not merely what happened to my body and its constituent atr ,s but also what happened to my soul.Read more at location 62
One writer of recent years who has emphasized this point very clearly is Colin McGinn. In a number of works, but especially in The Problem of Consciousness,' he has argued that humans very probably do not have the kind of intelligence which would enable them to understand the mechanism of mind-body interaction. He is however convinced not merely that there is such interaction,Read more at location 79
His conviction seems to arise from the fact that `it is either eliminativism [i.e. there are no conscious events] or miracles [i.e. the action of God to connect body and soul] or hidden structure.Read more at location 83
I gave arguments in Chapter 10 as to why there is most unlikely to be a `hidden structure' of McGinn's kind, and I share his wish not to deny the undeniable. If that leaves us with GodRead more at location 85
mind-body interaction forms part of a strong cumulative case for the existence of God.Read more at location 87
There is however one firm defence of the substantial and immaterial nature of the human person in John Foster's, The Immaterial Self.5Read more at location 92
In The View from Nowhere, Thomas Nagel has claimed that `the main objection to dualism is that it postulates an additional nonphysical substance without explaining how it can support subjective mental states whereas the brain can't'.' But again it is no objection to a theory that it cannot answer all questions.Read more at location 93
I argue in Part II, the mere continued existence of the person's body is neither necessary nor sufficient for the continued existence of the person.Read more at location 95
Most of the enormous amount of writing by philosophers, psychologists, and physicists over the past twelve years on the mind-body problem, has been very materialist in its general stance. Some of it has been of an 'eliminativist' nature, arguing that really there are no such things as beliefs or pains; there are simply brain states.? I reject this highly implausible viewRead more at location 99
The majority of philosophers perhaps accept that there are mental eventsRead more at location 102
I argue in New Appendix A that such views have to come clean-either they claim that for each mental event, there is some brain event the occurrence of which entails the occurrence of the former-of logical necessity; or they allow that the connection between brain events and mental events is merely contingent. I claim that the former view is open to all the old objections against identity theory; the latter view is that which I espouse in Part I. Read more at location 104
One criticism of substance dualism is that the dualist cannot say what souls are;Read more at location 107
but claim that it is no good objection that I cannot say what makes the difference between one soul and another.Read more at location 109
In the first edition of The Evolution of the Soul I had no treatment of one argument in favour of human free will-the argument from Godel's Theorem, given currency by J. R. Lucas.Read more at location 110
Note: LUCAS GODEL E IL LIBERO ARBITRIO
