Conceptio › Archive › Stack Exchange
Stack Exchange open access CC BY-SA

Is Alzheimer’s disease evidence for the non-existence of the soul?

Mathematician prime · 2024
Stack Exchange · Datasets · License: CC BY-SA · 2024
Open Source ↗
consciousnessidentityphilosophy
As Alzheimer's disease kills off neurons, a person's personality and cognitive abilities gradually fade away. Doesn't this suggest that the self or "soul" is simply an emergent property of the brain's physical structure and function, rather than some immaterial essence or spirit that exists independently of the body? The classical notion of the soul as an immaterial, eternal essence that exists independently of the physical body is challenged by the way Alzheimer's systematically dismantles a person's mental faculties and sense of identity over time. As the disease destroys neurons and neural connections, the patient's personality, memories, and very "self" seem to disintegrate, suggesting that these aspects of the human experience are products of the brain's physical structure and function, rather than some non-physical soul.
Conceptio Open Archive

Analyze & explore related research in Conceptio

Connect this record directly into your research workflow or AI agent. Explore citations across open repositories, query full text, and export structured proof bundles.

This document is indexed with metadata only: full text is not available in the archive for this record. Open the official source ↗

Related documents

Record · ID 787653
Retrieved via Conceptio: every document is proof-bundled with source, license, and retrieval metadata.
Bring this data into your agent: Connect via MCP or API · 20 free credits to start · no card required
Read the Docs → · View CLI source on GitHub · Conceptio Open Knowledge Archive