文档介绍：Does Consciousness depend on the Brain?
- Chris Carter -
"In this materialistic age, dualists are often accused of smuggling
outmoded religious beliefs back into science, of introducing superfluous
spiritual forces into biology, and of venerating an invisible "ghost in the
machine." However, our utter ignorance concerning the real origins of
human consciousness marks such criticism more a matter of taste than
of logical thinking. At this stage of mind science, dualism is not irrational,
merely somewhat unfashionable."
Nick Herbert, Elemental Mind.
The strongest arguments against the existence of an afterlife are those that deny the
possibility of consciousness existing apart from the biological brain. These arguments
derive their strongest force mon and undeniable facts of experience, and from
their supposed association with the findings of modern science. But in fact, these
arguments have an ancient history.
The Greek atomists were the first to define the soul in terms of material atoms. Epicurus
(342-270 BC) defined the soul as ‘a body of fine particles …most resembling breath with
an admixture of heat.’ He stressed plete dependence of soul on body, so that
when the body loses breath and heat, the soul is dispersed and extinguished. The
Roman poet Lucretius (99-55 BC) took up the arguments of Epicurus, and continued the
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