How Can Molecules Think?

[doubtingmerle]

I think with my brain. My brain is made of molecules. Therefore, molecules, when arranged in a certain way, can think.

But how can that be? After all, you are alive, and you feel what it is to be alive. You are experiencing conscious awareness. How can this awareness be nothing more than the result of molecules and elementary physical particles?

Your conscious awareness might seem to you to be something immaterial that is telling the molecules of your body what to do. And yet, as I wrote at Is There Life after Death, there is abundant evidence that the physical brain is indeed the thing that thinks. There is no soul inside running the show. The brain is in control.

Your brain does the thinking. And it creates the appearance that there is a person in charge controlling everything. Rather, what you have is a mass of neurons acting in parallel. But within that mass of neurons, some ideas rise to attention and drive the body. They create the story that the attention is in charge, but it is only there for the ride. The many neurons acting in parallel are in charge. I discuss this at How Can Molecules Think?

 

[AV1611VET]

Your conscious awareness might seem to you to be something immaterial that is telling the molecules of your body what to do. And yet, as I wrote at Is There Life after Death, there is abundant evidence that the physical brain is indeed the thing that thinks. There is no soul inside running the show. The brain is in control.

This is more correct than you may know.

In tripartite thinking, the brain is part of the body, not part of the soul.

Your brain does the thinking.

So does the heart though, and the heart houses the soul.

It goes something like this:

1. body = soma = receives input from empirical data
2. soul = psyche = receives input from the emotions
3. spirit = pneuma = receives input from the supernatural

When we read the Bible, it strengthens our spirit, which then feeds the soul.

 

[Skye1300]

Without the soul, any thinking would be like an AI robot or computer. The soul is what gives us a personality and emotions.

 

[Bradskii]

This is more correct than you may know.

In tripartite thinking, the brain is part of the body, not part of the soul.So does the heart though, and the heart houses the soul.

And no doubt the soul tucks away into the lungs or maybe the liver during a transplant and waits for its new home.

 

[Larniavc]

I think with my brain. My brain is made of molecules. Therefore, molecules, when arranged in a certain way, can think.

But how can that be? After all, you are alive, and you feel what it is to be alive. You are experiencing conscious awareness. How can this awareness be nothing more than the result of molecules and elementary physical particles?

Your conscious awareness might seem to you to be something immaterial that is telling the molecules of your body what to do. And yet, as I wrote at Is There Life after Death, there is abundant evidence that the physical brain is indeed the thing that thinks. There is no soul inside running the show. The brain is in control.

Your brain does the thinking. And it creates the appearance that there is a person in charge controlling everything. Rather, what you have is a mass of neurons acting in parallel. But within that mass of neurons, some ideas rise to attention and drive the body. They create the story that the attention is in charge, but it is only there for the ride. The many neurons acting in parallel are in charge. I discuss this at How Can Molecules Think?

I vaguely remember from my psychology degree (nearly 25 years ago) that there were
rumblings of quantum effects in microtubules in neurones.

 

[Larniavc]

Without the soul, any thinking would be like an AI robot or computer. The soul is what gives us a personality and emotions.

And yet curiously there has never been any evidence of a soul existing.

 

[essentialsaltes]

I think with my brain. My brain is made of molecules. Therefore, molecules, when arranged in a certain way, can think.

Certainly semiconductors arranged in a certain way can compute. [This is not to assert that thinking is the same as computing, but complexly organized matter can clearly support activity that has interpretations that go beyond brute physical facts.]

 

[essentialsaltes]

I vaguely remember from my psychology degree (nearly 25 years ago) that there were
rumblings of quantum effects in microtubules in neurones.

This was something Roger Penrose was pushing back in the day. I don't think there's much in it. From a physical standpoint, the quantum effects would seem not to have any significant effect on the action of the cells.

And from the philosophical angle, I don't see any improvement in saying, "My mind is not a deterministic physical object; instead, it's subject to intrinsically random quantum effects!"

 

[Brother-Mike]

Doubtingmerle,

Regarding the quote in your signature line: "If God did not intend I should think, why did he give me a thinker? -- Robert G. Ingersoll".

I wonder why anyone would think this? Certainly this is an unbiblical sentiment and our being made in the "image of God" is a nod to our thinking, creative consciousness unlike many other aspects of Creation.

In fact, the ancient Hebrew prayer of the Shema made this quite clear:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You must love the Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole being, and all your strength.

(Dt 6:4–5 NET)

Who's saying you have to leave your brain at the door?

 

[doubtingmerle]

It goes something like this:

1. body = soma = receives input from empirical data
2. soul = psyche = receives input from the emotions
3. spirit = pneuma = receives input from the supernatural

When we read the Bible, it strengthens our spirit, which then feeds the soul.

I think you are changing the subject. I was talking about what thinks. You are talking about what receives input.

What thinks? What decided to write your post? the brain, the soul, or the spirit? What decided to include the phrase "something like this" in your post? Was that your brain, your soul or your spirit? If you were to speak those words, what decides what tone of voice to use and what muscles to move in what ways to make those sounds?

You say the soul receives input from the emotions. Many other animals also read their emotions. Do they all have souls?

Why can it not be that your brain simply reads your emotions? After all, we have even identified the system of the brain that read emotions. See Identifying the Seat of Emotion in the Human Brain | Actforlibraries.org .

When you say "soul" is that just another name for the limbic system of the brain?

And if you think your spirit reads input from the supernatural, all I can say is that spirits are not very good at that. Look at debates in this forum among Christians. There are widely different views as to what the supernatural is telling them. If the supernatural is speaking to you through your spirit, why is there so much dispute about what the supernatural is saying? See Does God Speak to us?

 

[doubtingmerle]

Who's saying you have to leave your brain at the door?

My signature line has come in handy many times-- Human Evolution , for instance.

 

[Brother-Mike]

My signature line has come in handy many times-- Human Evolution , for instance.

To each his own I guess... if my signature line was "2+2=5 and don't touch the stove" I would hardly herald its overall success. I could say that it teaches me something valuable about not touching stoves, but I couldn't say that it possesses mathematical wisdom.

If I was an atheist I'd make it a point to at least be factually correct about my arguments. There are certainly thousands of years of well-thought out atheistic argumentation that didn't need to rely on straw-men arguments. Be one of those guys at least

 

[Halbhh]

There is no soul inside running the show.

heh heh, not so fast.

A 'soul' isn't something we can explain/characterize hardly at all. It's like....dark matter -- not yet characterized, not yet observed.

A soul is either

A) non-physical (meaning it's not in this physics of this natural world/universe, or alternatively, (A2) perhaps is in physics of this universe but in as-yet-undiscovered physics)

OR

B) possibly even something operating on already known physics, but simply a phenomena we haven't yet observed, thus cannot characterize, etc.

Either way one couldn't make assertions about it yet.

If nature teaches anything to us, it should teach that we know only a portion of even of what is all around us -- many things waiting to be discovered.

Even here on Earth, new things are being discovered constantly.

And no doubt the soul tucks away into the lungs or maybe the liver during a transplant and waits for its new home.

 

[jacks]

Maybe a better question is "How can molecules be self-aware"? What is it about molecules that separates them from computer programs?

 

[Estrid]

heh heh, not so fast.

A 'soul' isn't something we can explain/characterize hardly at all. It's like....dark matter -- not yet characterized, not yet observed.

A soul is either

A) non-physical (meaning it's not in this physics of this natural world/universe, or alternatively, (A2) perhaps is in physics of this universe but in as-yet-undiscovered physics)

OR

B) possibly even something operating on already known physics, but simply a phenomena we haven't yet observed, thus cannot characterize, etc.

Either way one couldn't make assertions about it yet.

If nature teaches anything to us, it should teach that we know only a portion of even of what is all around us -- many things waiting to be discovered.

Even here on Earth, new things are being discovered constantly.

So binary.

There's at least one more possibility.

 

[Estrid]

Maybe a better question is "How can molecules be self-aware"? What is it about molecules that separates them from computer programs?

How can molecules be a radio?

 

[NxNW]

Without the soul, any thinking would be like an AI robot or computer. The soul is what gives us a personality and emotions.

What does the soul do that the brain does not?

 

[Hans Blaster]

If I was an atheist I'd make it a point to at least be factually correct about my arguments. There are certainly thousands of years of well-thought out atheistic argumentation that didn't need to rely on straw-men arguments. Be one of those guys at least

This is about the quote:

"If God did not intend I should think, why did he give me a thinker? -- Robert G. Ingersoll".

While I don't know who Ingersoll is, and I'm not sure I've heard this exact quote before, the general idea behind it is one I heard as a Christian about being a Christian. To a well-known apologist has stated you shouldn't have a "brain-dead faith", or thinking is not antithetical to Christianity or being a Christian.

It is a useful quote (or idea) to challenge anti-intellectualism and anti-knowledge trends in Christianity for Christians and non-Christians alike.

 

[jacks]

How can molecules be a radio?

? Radios are made up of molecules, as is all physical matter. My question is how do molecules make up the non-tangible.

 

[doubtingmerle]

To each his own I guess... if my signature line was "2+2=5 and don't touch the stove" I would hardly herald its overall success.

Wait what? Now we are going to discuss if 2 + 2 = 5 ?

In the last thread I was on, we had a huge discussion about whether it was possible for 2+ 2 to equal 10 or for 2 + 2 to equal 53,567. I contended that 2 + 2 has to equal 4 in all possible worlds. It simply could not be otherwise. My opponent contended that the laws of mathematics were not fixed, that God instead invented the laws of mathematics. If God truly invented the laws of mathematics, then when doing so, presumably God could have invented that 2 + 2 = 10 or any other number he chose. My opponent went through amazing gymnastics to justify what he said.

Another person argued that mathematics were simply manmade constructions that were not always true.

One day I decided to include this poem in a post on that thread:

2+2<>10
Two plus two, it is not ten.
It is not ten, no matter when.
It is not ten, not here or there.
It is not ten, not anywhere.

"It might be ten. Yes, it could be.
If God, this world, didn't oversee.
Maybe on an alien tree."

It would not, could not, in a tree.
"On Krypton?" No, you let me be.

It is not ten, not in a box.
It is not ten, not with a fox.
It is not ten, not in a house.
It is not ten, not with a mouse.
It is not ten, not here or there.
It is not ten, not anywhere.
I do not need to state again.
It is not ten. It is not ten.
--doubtingmerle

(see Human Evolution)