Teleportation and Consciousness

[Demagog]

In my opinion, properties of the soul are:

-Tied to the consciousness, but seperate from the consciousness
-Affected by the choices the consciousness makes, nothing else (every religion I know of has this idea when it comes to souls)
-Has no physical presence in the world, unless it has been seperated from the consciousness by death (angels, ghosts, spirits, etc.)


I'm very tired so I'm probably leaving stuff out... I'll add more criteria if needed.

[Demagog]

So let's get back on "topic." We seem to be arguing over what happens to the soul in the afterlife, and I don't think that's important.

[Evil Hamster]

IF it was possible to create a perfect copy- down to the quantum states of matter of a body- I don't believe that copy would function. The new body would be a soulless shell. It might have physical behaviors- seeking out food when it's hungry, operating on instinct, etc. But the higher functions are driven by our souls and attached to our bodies.

There are cases of where transplant recipients get memories/feelings/likes & dislikes of the donor- not ever having met that person. I think that's because a part of the soul transfers with the organ. Would that transfer to a manufactured copy of an organ? i doubt it.

[Evil Hamster]

OK. What part of the human personality isn't physical? I am sure you know of all the drugs that influence mood or help control disorders like schizophrenia. Those drugs are based on a biological understanding of our subjective experiences, reasoning, decision making, etc. The drugs may be blunt instruments at the moment, but they strongly suggest that no part of who we are, the human personality, is beyond the physical functions of the nervous system.

Neuroscience and related fields have a detailed understanding of which part of the brain performs which function. The fight/flight response comes out the Locus coeruleus. The frontal lobe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontal_lobe) is responsible for many higher-order functions: considering future consequences of an action, planning, inhibiting impulses, etc. The hippocampus plays a major role in memory formation. I could go on and on. What is left for the soul to do?

I doubt that drugs affect the soul. They affect the physical body and the body is the "machine" that our souls use to interact with the world. You can define which parts of the brain do what- because it IS just a machine. Our life is a learning experience for the soul and when it's over- my belief is the soul moves on to whatever afterlife we believe in. Christian souls probably move on to heaven, Hindu souls probably come back as cows, atheists probably cease to exist. I don't see why it couldn't work that way.

[sillyking14]

i also agree with that. but, like a lot of people said "how do we know the soul controls higher function?" hence we need a concrete definition of soul to go off of.

[sillyking14]

right. i agree. there is an unfortunate amount of variation in christian beliefs. so i would like the OP to post exactly what (s)he means when (s)he says soul. including what it does. i mean something more substantial than "the spiritual part of the body." so like can the body operate without the soul, or what? that type of stuff.

[kelly7898]

i'd say that since if we assume we have a soul, your body need the soul in order to function normally, i mean it might survive the teleportation (oh my, that word doesn't appear to be in the firefox spell check dictionary) process, but it would be a vegetable. my assumption would be that when your body is broken down, your soul would detach itself from the body and go and do whatever it is souls do after people die. but then i also don't know everything about the connection between soul and physical body so.....this is an interesting thread, i was thinking about creating a thread for these kinds of theoretical possibilities.

I also think so.
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[acelink]

I teleport one step at a time...