Thoughts

No refrigerator today. At least two of the delivery trucks coming from Denver didn't make it. Things have been rescheduled for Friday. I did get syllabi for tomorrow printed out, and student-names entered into spreadsheets.

I've been reading a book on yogic breathing, and it got me thinking. Every so often, I'll come across a "proof" that there is no soul based on the results of brain injuries, but this only proves that functioning hardware is necessary, not that it is sufficient. It's like saying that since a damaged hard-disc no longer stores files properly, there's no such thing as electricity. A functioning hard-disc is necessary to store files, but it is not sufficient: without electricity, it's useless.

I can imagine a way to test sufficiency, but it is currently beyond our technology. You would either need to construct or re-animate a system of the brain, supply it with the same physical energy it would get from the heart and the rest of the brain, and see if it functioned properly. This would require an input/output interface of some kind. I have no idea if this will ever be feasible, but it's an interesting idea.

Honestly, though, people with strong feelings on either side would have convenient outs. If it didn't function, the argument would be that they hadn't managed to build/animate it properly. If it did, the argument would be that it was only one system; it didn't prove anything about the entire brain, and the conscious mind in particular. Ah well.