NP? The Problem of the Soul

[s~Z]

>>>To cure these long-standing misconceptions, Flanagan
offers us philosophical therapy, mounting a strong,
uncompromising attack on both secular and religious
beliefs supporting the soul, and articulating what
more cautious academics dare not say. There is little
question that science is on his side, since
neuroscientific explanations of perception, cognition,
and behavior leave less and less of a role for a
separate mental agent riding herd on the body. The
brain and its supporting nervous system seem quite
capable of doing all that the soul traditionally was
supposed to do, with the exception, of course, of
making choices that somehow circumvent causality. <<<

And how will the Energy continue to function? It will continue to function
according to the destiny of this body-mind organism. That is really the only
thing to be understood- there is no individual doer. Everything just happens
through this body-mind organism purely as a mechanical action or reaction.
What you call "your" action-analyze it from personal experience. I repeat,
from your experience in the past or the present, analyze any action, simple
or difficult, that you call "your" action, and you will invariably find that
it is merely a reaction of the brain to an outside event over which you have
no control-the outside event being that a thought comes to you, or you see
something, or hear something. You have no control over what thought will
come in your head. You have no control over what you are going to see or
hear. The brain reacts to that event according to the programming over which
you have had no control, and that reaction of the brain, that mechanical
reaction of the brain, is what you mistakenly call "your" action. And why do
you call it your action? Because as one
writer has put it, there is a mechanism in this body-mind organism which
prevents this organism from seeing its mechanistic nature. You see? There is
a mechanism, which is the ego, in this body-mind organism, or body-mind
mechanism, which prevents this body-mind mechanism from realizing its
mechanistic nature. And this I call Divine hypnosis, so that life as we know
it can go on.

      --Ramesh Balsekar