Taz writes:
GDR, you're quibbling the analogy.
Not really as it was original thoughts and emotions I was talking about.
Taz writes:
But hang on. If the metaphysical soul is real, how come physical injury would cause the mind to be different?
The human mind, including all the emotions, are an abberation of the neural patterns of the brain, nothing more. Again, we can prove this by looking at brain damaged individuals. Their personalities have been altered through physical trauma. If the soul really exists, physical damage shouldn't affect the personality.
I guess I see it this way. It don't think that personality is the best term. I think that our humaness is defined by where it is that we find joy. Either we find our joy in the love of justice, mercy, truth and the joy of others, or we find our joy in the love of self and our pride and ego. Of course we all go through a life of a tug-of-war between the two, but in the end one or the other will predominate.
We live in a physical world and as a result we require a physical brain to allow our fundamental humaness to interact with the world. If that physical brain suffers physical trauma or is drugged, then that fundamental humaness becomes distorted as it plays itself out in our lives.
I am not suggesting that this is provable, and I agree that it is only conjecture, but it represents what I'm inclined to believe to be roughly correct.
Everybody is entitled to my opinion.