Page 150 - Darwin's Dilemma: The Soul

Darwin’s Dilemma: The Soul

First, the world certainly is not presented to the brain like a piece of
computer tape containing an unambiguous series of signals.
Nonetheless, the brain . . . mediates learning and memory and simul-
taneously regulates a host of bodily functions. The ability of the
nervous system to carry out perceptual categorization of different
signals for sight, sound, and so forth, dividing them into coherent
classes without arranged code, is certainly special and is still un-
matched by computers. We do not presently understand fully how
this categorization is done . . . 95
The system in the brain is literally perfect; what we are refer-
ring to here is the interactions of neurons, with axons and den-
drites receiving and transmitting data within a complex system.
But what is the source of the “outside world” in the brain and the
features that make human beings human? Could neurons and the
brain they comprise—the products of the combining of blind and
unconscious atoms, be the source of such advanced consciousness?
Professor Vilayanur Ramachandran has this to say:
Even though it is common knowledge, it never ceases to amaze me
that all the richness of our mental life—all our feelings, our emo-
tions, our thoughts, our ambitions, our love lives, our religious sen-
timents and even what each of us regards as his or her own intimate
private self—is simply the activity of these little specks of jelly in our
heads, in our brains. 96

Within the brain, where do the external world and the features that
make human beings human reside? Can neurons consisting of ac-
cumulations of blind, unconscious atoms be the source of such a
sublime consciousness?

Of course not! Its origin lies solely in the human soul.

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