"James Teo" <james.teo at chch.ox.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:399bcfab.4409497 at news.freeserve.net...
> On Wed, 16 Aug 2000 10:51:17 -0400, "Ray Scanlon" <rscanlon at wsg.net>
> wrote:
> >Of course they did, and do. I was simply referring to the notion that you
> >may deny "soul" by calling it "mind". I say that is the reason you called
> >the soul, a thingey. I think, if you look loosely at yourself, you will
find
> >that you are denying soul as a part of your metaphysics. It is far
better,
> >in my book, to call it "soul (mind)" whenever we wish to refer to
ourselves
> >as distinguished from the universe.
>> Hardly, since neuroscientists and cogntive scientists declare that
> they are studying the brain and mind, and not the soul. They may or
> may not be the same thing, but they have established that if it is
> soul, it isn't very interesting.
This paragraph leaves me confused. Neuroscientists and cognitive scientists
should not appear in the same sentence anymore than paleontologists and
creation scientists should. The neuroscientist studies the nervous system,
the cognitive scientist studies the soul (mind). The only neuroscientists
who consider the soul (mind) are a quirky few who look for the NCC (the
neural correlate of consciousness. If anyone has established the\at the soul
(mind) is not interesting, it is news to me.
> Er, I didn't deny soul as part of my metaphysics, in fact, it's the
> opposite. To paraphrase myself, I just said "as someone studying the
> directly physical, I am not studying the soul". So by definition, mind
> isn't a metaphysical concept to me while soul probably is.
More confusion. Everyone has a metaphysics that determines their thinking.
Some do not know this. Some think out their metaphysics, others merely
absorb it from their friends by osmosis. Matter is a metaphysical concept,
anyone who studies the physical world, studies a metaphysical concept.
> >I say cognitive scientists study the soul (mind) and it is very clear to
me
> >what they do. Cognitive science is exactly the same as creation science.
It
> >consists of religionists (going by the name of philosophers or whatever)
who
> >look for an empirical basis for soul (mind). The soul (mind) belongs to
> >religion not to science. The neuroscientists will work out brain action
> >while the cognitive "scientists" will do nothing but refine the old
> >arguments over body and soul.
>> Then you don't know many cognitive scientists, if you think most of
> them are religionists.
> I don't deny that there are some cognitive scientists who are
> religionists and there are some who do study the soul, but the
> collective majority of cognitive scientists aren't.
We think of things differently. I place philosophy with religion. I place
cognitive science with religion.
>> If you want to use the two terms as synonymous, I'm not stopping you,
> but merely to tell you that most scientists who study mind, don't
> agree. Vive la difference (spelling?).
Scientists do not study the soul (mind), cognitive "scientists" do.
--
ray
Those interested in the brain might look at
www.wsg.net/~rscanlon/brain.htm
