John Searle - Can a Person Be a Soul?

Is a soul required to make a person? If there is no soul, is there no person? Almost all scientists and most philosophers find no need for a soul.

[davidr]

Regardless of what you believe about the soul, can we all just agree that Robert Lawrence Kuhn is one damn great host, especially considering how wide ranging and extraordinarily complex the subject matters are that he covers?

[millenialmusings]

Always a joy to listen to John Searle, an intelligent and honest pragmatic. Hats off to Robert too, he's amazing in asking these questions. This whole channel is one of the best on YT.

[bensommer]

“Imagine the day when we know how the brain produces consciousness”

Uh, that’s an IF not WHEN. Aka begging your question

[divertissementmonas]

As Noam Chomsky rightly points out, there was a big change in science from Newton - it lowered its goals. It went from that the world is in principle, intellectually available to us to the idea that theories are intelligable to us. What an enormous shift!

[kitstamat]

He says that the existence of consciousness does not imply the existence of a soul - as though these words are refering to different things! The soul is our psyche, that life which we experience from within. The soul is the subject of all our living actions, of all our different modes of thinking and feeling. The soul is that which in its constant search for happiness is constantly shaping itself by its actions, thinking and felling. So, it's something undeniable. We can be more sure of our souls then of our bodies. You can also call it consciousness, it's just a new way of expressing the old concept, nothing substantially changes with it.

[thetruthoutside]

What's important about John is that he was very precise and concise in the way in which he was making the argument and most importantly is the way he was trying to clarify the terms definition.

[vinayseth]

The really hard problem is-How is something immaterial like sensory perception produced by material processes?

[katherinekelly]

It is a mistake to assume that our consciousness only takes place within ourselves. Our individual consciousness is a shared experience but this shared experience is beyond our conscious awareness. We can sense it but do not comprehend it fully. A good hunter knows not to look  intently at the prey because the prey will sense the conscious awareness of them by the other. We can feel when someone's eyes are upon us. The soul is not inside the individual but resides within the collective consciousness. It exists independent of us but our existence creates it. There is no separation. All things are interconnected. Separation is an illusion. We are a part of a much larger whole. Boxes within boxes. The soul is not about the I. This confusion concerning the soul was created by religion.

[LionKimbro]

If we knew as much about the brain as he says we know, then there would be no mysteries in psychology left, we would have perfect understanding of psychology, we'd just go to the university and the right way of understanding psychology would be completely clear to us. Furthermore, music would be a solved problem, novel writing would be a solved problem, culture would be a solved problem. Everything would be understood, including the total teleology of human life and human efforts, we would know exactly how human civilization is going to work out, we would also know what is truly ethical and what is not truly ethical, and on, and on, and on, forever. Every question would be completely understood.

And clearly, we're not there, we're not even close.

[alikarimi-langroodi]

Can a person be a soul?


A person is a soul. He/she also is in charge of their own decisions.

Soul is encoded on birth, as an angel. When he/she grows to adulthood, then responsibilities take shape.

It really depends on how a person is educated for a role and a personality in the society.

Behind every person's mind, there is a direct soul, which is called consciousness.

[nsecchi]

Searle's problem is that in learning all there is no know about the brain we start from about 3 feet on a thousand mile journey. Who knows what will be revealed after further understanding? Our ideas about what constitutes an understanding might be revolutionized from what we think we know now.

[psychologyis]

You can’t dismiss the qualitative dimension in the way he is attempting to do.

[bayreuth]

What John Searle does here is simply to _assume_ that the brain causes consciousness, whereas what he considers to be causality might in fact be correlation. He needs to demonstrate that there is more than a correlation going on here between neurophysiologial processes and conscious states.

[cubefox]

If consciousness is not ontologically reducible to brain states, as Searle maintains, it is not identical to brain states. But if there is mental causation, as Searle also maintains, then he seems to get the same problem as the people talking about a spiritual substance: If there is causal interaction between consciousness and brain states, and physics only describes brain states, then we seem to also have a problem with conservation of energy. At least in the case when conscious states cause physical states, namely when intentions cause actions.

[andreac]

Weak arguments from Searle.
Denying dualism only because of the supposed violation of the conservation law is not only trivial, but just plain wrong.
If you postulate some kind of other "stuff" you just have to think at something that doesn't affect the world quantitatively but only mirrors it qualitatively or informatively, and the game is done. I'm not saying that this is the case, anyway, and Searle actually made some very good point.

[bernardcohen]

After months of listening to Lawrence and he’s incredible I have come to the conclusion unfortunately that the soul and body are just one. Neither can exist without the other. When the Body dies so does the “ you” there can never be another you at least not that you’re aware of because there can never be an exact replica of you That’s it we get a one time round in this crazy life Sad, and that’s all there is to it. Or is it ?

[davidfabe]

In another video, Searle said consciousness is to the brain as digestion is to the intestine, merely a biological function. But in this video he admits that a comprehensive account of every neuronal process would not yield a satisfactory explanation of the experience of consciousness. But clearly science does show in a very direct way how the processes of the intestine produces digestion. This resistance of consciousness to reduction is the reason that we have the vocabulary for distinct physical and mental domains. Searle cannot explain the insideness of consciousness. Digestion is observable in the intestine. It can be directly observed as part of the outer world of things. Consciousness is only directly observable in the inner life.

[anthonyarmitage]

Searle etc. are avoiding a few things that are ah..kind of important. If all that is is physical, what is logic? Can anyone measure logic? How much does it weigh? Is it pliable? What caused it? Does that mean it doesn't exist? Using logic, he makes an error saying that if physical processes are sufficient to explain decisions then it rules out free will. Nope. Mere sufficiency doesn't rule out free will. Yes my car is sufficient to get me to work, no that doesn't mean there aren't bicycles. And regarding conservation of mass, exactly where did all this mass come from? If everything is determined, cause and effect, what caused mass? You can't say it has always been and still subscribe to determinism.

[ioanstefanhaplea]

At 2:20, J.Searle says "the operations of the computer are defined purely formally or syntactically [...] in the form of symbol manipulation, and we know that's not enough [i.e. for explaining the mind]". Could someone please indicate a reference where this is detailed? Especially for the "that's not enough" part.

[SocksWithSandals]

The hard problem of consciousness certainly is a mass debate.