Neuroscientists understand, at least in general, how the biological machinery of the brain can compute information. But how does a brain become aware of information? What is sentience itself? When a specific part of the brain is damaged, does the patient lose only a specific category of knowledge, such as vision or language, or can the patient ever lose some of the essence of awareness?
A clinical syndrome called hemispatial neglect may help to answer the question. It is one of the most fascinating, and horrible, syndromes in the medical literature. Neglect was first described early in the 20th century, and over the years much has been learned about it.
Imagine waking up in the hospital after a stroke to find that half your world is gone. The left side of space and everything in it has been erased from your consciousness. You can talk to the people who stand to the right side of your hospital bed, but when they walk to the left side they disappear from your mind. You dress the right side of your body but forget to dress the left. You think you've eaten everything on your plate, but have eaten only the food on the right side. You can't even conceive of a left side of the plate. When someone rotates the plate, food that you didn't acknowledge before suddenly appears. When you draw a clock, you crush all 12 numbers into the right side of the drawing and don't notice that anything is wrong. You have no insight into your own condition because, lacking any awareness of a left side of space, you can't realize what is missing.
This bizarre and crippling syndrome is not simple blindness. After all, blind people and sighted people who close their eyes know about the objects around them. Instead it is a mental blindness. It covers vision, touch, hearing, memory and concept.
Over the years, different varieties of neglect have been described and associated with damage to different brain regions. But the most dense, profound loss of awareness is associated with a region of the cerebral cortex roughly just above the ear on the right side of the brain. Much more rarely, neglect of the right side of space is caused by damage to the same general area on the left side of the brain.
Neglect is a peculiar syndrome. It suggests that awareness is not a unified item, but like many constructs of the brain it can be knocked apart into a right and a left half. It suggests that awareness is constructed at least partially by a specific region of the brain. It suggests a close relationship between awareness and attention.
The findings are controversial. That same general region of the brain has been found to play a role in social thinking -- in understanding the minds of other people. Why would a brain area involved in social intelligence also participate in one's own basic awareness? Which of the rival accounts is correct? I have argued in my scientific writing that the two functions are not rivals, and instead are closely related. Awareness, sentience itself, may be part of the toolkit we use to understand ourselves and each other. It may be a function of our social brain.
In my view, there really is such a thing as a spirit, a soul, but it is not as people have imagined it in the past. The soul is information of a special kind, wrapped up into a complex structure, instantiated in the circuitry of the brain. It is quirky and individual to each of us, and is precious because it is not eternal.
Neuroscience Disproves The “Self”-Containing Soul « Biochemical ...
If not YOU WILL NOT REST.
RIP was an given to the unsaved by The World, but in the AfterLife only the saved RIP until the Return of God. Time and Space do not exist in the Spirit World.
The First Gift Given to Those in Heaven is Eternal Life.
If someone goes to Hades/Hell their soul will be tormented first and then destroyed.
They will not receive Eternal Life.
Those who go to hell send themselves there.
God gave everyone free will to choose.
Know more
Google: Vip Pass to the Spirit World
and search Soul
"Spirit" and "soul" are words that have connotations that can't quite be met by other words; therefore, they are useful as long as we can be clear that no "soul" separate from the body is implied.
Although there are not many people who enthusiastically promote the materialist worldview, it has become the default belief of many scientifically educated people that all phenomena are reducible to the activities of matter.
Materialism leads to a rejection of spirituality, both in terms of declining religious belief, and also in the arts where the cult of ugliness, with its obsessions with the sordid and brutalistic, functions to reduce humans to biological automata.
Of course all religions reject materialism as an article of faith, but none apart from Buddhism attempts to offer any rational philosophical refutation of the materialist worldview... http://seanrobsville.blogspot.com/2009/12/buddhism-versus-materialism.html
Makes as much sense as any other silly myth being chased by modern man.
"Why be afraid? "
"You won't exist."
"So? "
"That doesn't terrify you? "
"I'm alive. When I'm dead, I'm dead. "
"Aren't you frightened? "
"I'll be unconscious."
"But never to exist again? "
"How do you know? "
"It doesn't look promising."
"Who knows what'll be? I'll either be unconscious, or I won't. If not, I'll deal with it then. I won't worry now."
Woody Allen - Hannah and Her Sisters
What happens to the soul when we die, I have no idea.
The light of the divine soul permeates and envelops every aspect of creation. It is at the root of life, death, understanding, ignorance, good, bad, the seen, the unseen, acceptance, rejection, contentment, discontentment, order, chaos, light, darkness, containing every awareness and consciousness.
The human soul is imprinted with this truth, and beams this energy to the self. This relationship is the root of the belief that the human soul knows its lord and the divine qualities; thus, it carries a special responsibility and privilege on earth.
Personal consciousness arises from soul consciousness and these two energy streams constitute the unique human state and the need for higher knowledge.
From "Witnessing Perfection" by Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri
Sincerely,
tolerant
"Lasting fulfillment can only be achieved when the perfection of every moment is seen and realized. The rational mind relates to the world of cause and effect and guides us to physical survival and well-being.
The heart and soul is what distinguishes humanity and enables us to relate to the unseen and the worlds beyond time and space. This earth is god’s nursery where every creation evolves to the highest level of its consciousness within its soul’s capacity."
The mind and senses connect the individual self with the outer world, whereas the heart connects the self with the soul and the inner world.
God’s cosmic soul is the source of all created souls, which energize diverse entities and beings. Every soul carries within it attributes that reflect aspects of the cosmic soul.
The human soul potentially knows numerous qualitative and quantitative aspects of life, power, knowledge, beauty, majesty and other patterns of energy behaviors and attributes.
The soul of the ant only follows a few patterns of behavior such as survival, protection, feeding, procreation and other basic evolutionary programs.
Every soul is designed and packaged to carry out efficiently its role in life as part of the universal interplay of dualities and creational possibilities, all within cosmic unity."
From "Witnessing Perfection" by Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri
Sincerely,
tolerant
But people combine the idea of 'eternal' and 'soul' and 'immortality of identity,' pretty readily. Brains die, it's true. Seems both memory (to an extent) and soul persist, in interesting ways, that's for certain. People leap to think it's about 'identity' and often 'never wanting that to die,' but I do think the reality's something more basic. Brains and identities operate on a lot of levels, and soul, well, I've got reason to be convinced there's something of that. :)