If this supposed immortal soul spoken of by Christendom's theologians and philosophers truly exists, obviously no change (positive or negative) to the body ought to affect consciousness one way or the other. If this soul can retain memories,full (even improved) awareness of its surroundings after the death of the body. Then logically nothing less than death should be able to impair consciousness to any degree. Yet some are using the fact that mere injury or trauma to the body never produces a complete cessation of brain activity or awareness to argue that the soul is totally distinct from the body (if true this renders the body superfluous).
Do subhuman mammals have minds?
If so, does this not indicate that they are souls?
Are these souls separate from their bodies?
Can't the same argument from partial consciousness be used to argue that subhuman mammals possess immortal souls?
If brain and mind are independent of each other how can the brain's neural activity prove or disprove the existence of an immortal soul?
Some make much of that tiny minority of (so called)near death experiences where certain memories of the survivor have been apparently verified. If my only acquaintance with a certain city is having been on an airliner that flew over said city (let's call it a near city experience) I would hardly qualify as a reliable informant re:this city, would I?
What I do find interesting about these accounts is their physicality. Ask yourself would an amorphous spirit possess stereoscopic vision complete with blindside,would its vision depend on light at all, would such concepts as up,above down,below,right,left be useful to such a being. These accounts bear the stamp of our cognitive limits as physical beings.
The extrapolation that full cessation of consciousness would proceed from the destruction of the body seems the more natural one.
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