/edu/ - Education

Why do people continue believing in ghosts or souls after Phineas Gage?

I see a handful of religious leftists on here who believe in souls, ghosts, and even silly things like an immutable "National Character" inherent to geographic regions. They usually use these things as an excuse for reactionary idealism or outright sadism.

The "self" is a function of biology, rather than an eternal and immutable immaterial thing.

>Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860) was an American railroad construction foreman remembered for his improbable  survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior over the remaining 12 years of his life‍—‌effects sufficiently profound that friends saw him (for a time at least) as "no longer Gage". 

>Phineas Gage influenced 19th-century discussion about the mind and brain, par­tic­u­larly debate on cerebral local­i­za­tion,​​ and was perhaps the first case to suggest the brain's role in deter­min­ing per­son­al­ity, and that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific mental changes.

Absolutely spooked reactionaries to this day continue to believe we have little ghosty ghosts created by God that determine our personality, our disposition, the kinds of choices we make in our life, and that in turn determines which fictional realm our ghosty ghosts get sent to after we die. When, in reality, something out of your control like an illness or traumatic brain injury can fundamentally change who you are and how you act and the kinds of decisions you make.

Spooked reactionaries are sadists who want to continue to punish people for how the machinery of their brains work, rather than closely study people to determine a path to changing behavior without torture, imprisonment, capital punishment and other reactionary spookery. They say "actions have consequences" not realizing that the "consequences" of actions are socially constructed or that crime and other taboo behaviors are rarely deterred by the severity of punishments.