Patricia Hofer

Our “living soul” of consciousness?

CS Lewis wrote: “We can admit, and even insist, that Rational Thinking can be shown to be conditioned in its exercise by a natural object (the brain). … The rational and moral element in each human mind is a point of force from the Supernatural working its way into Nature…A man’s rational thinking is just so much of his share in eternal Reason as the state of his brain allows to become operative: it represents, so to speak, the bargain struck or the frontier fixed between Reason and Nature at that particular point…Of course it varies with the state of the receiving set and deteriorates as the set wears out and vanishes altogether if I throw a brick at it. It is conditioned by the apparatus but not originated by it.” (CS Lewis, Miracles, “Answers to Misgivings”)
[Some 21st century research on consciousness, Lewis’ “Reason,” is starting to conclude that consciousness isn’t brain-created or brain-maintained. Doesn’t that fit our “living soul”?]

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