Hey Rondele,

if we would start from the point that we, let's say, as part of our "higher self" were sent here to "learn". The consciousness might not be directly planted in the brain, but if the spirit is fed by consciousness, he would also get the negative impression.

Brain function or personality can surely suffer from accidents (loosing the ability to remember what was before the accident, some suffer from the result that the accident brought with them, not being able to use the whole body, maybe having lost parts of it.

But whem talking about soldiers, that got hostile after coming back from war, never forget that what they experienced can also cause a total change in personality. All the senseless violence and killing happening there, blood, guts, dead comrades, simply ruins the psyche.
So it is not the damage to his brain alone, but also what he experienced.
But not to water down what brain damage can cause to the body, our personality is also part of the brain, you have surely heard about patients having removed parts of the brain damaged by cancer, e.g. losing the ability to speak, because there is a part of the brain, that is responsible for the ability to speak.

I never heard about a part of the brain, where our personality is centered, but as all of our actions are controlled by the brain, the personality must also be a part of it, maybe spread over the whole brain.
If it is like this, then the posibility, that the injury swapped his personality, is given.

When asking what is a life review good for having lived a life with such a tremendous negative change, life review can only be considered, if looking on the beliefs of this soldier.
He was a soldier, that is no contradiction to be caring and loving when it comes to family and friends, but what about the point of view, or with which kind of belief he chose to be soldier, could be that he had a strong hate against any people down there (it is crooked after all, when one goes to war, he is obviously not interested in making friends at first sight), so from the point, that he should have lived in peace and harmony so that might be the lesson learned, thou shall not kill
(it is surely a good value, but how can we live according to such values, reality teaches that people do not give a damn about this, it is easier to do not so...but that is no real excuse, but this does not really belong here, since it is not opened to talk about moral issues).
It makes sense to how spiritual teachings encourage us to live. (I tried only to find some explanations, I  new to this kind of thinking and not a 
very spiritual person .. )

But it does not mean, that he lived a senseless life, I think also this kind of lessons are also a possiblity to grow (no I am not a sadist), morbid and cruel, but if they were meaningless, they would not be here. I do not claim them to be destiny, but war is mostly like a result of historical failures (made on political ground).

Mhh, but after all, stone age has passed, but man only changed from bat to machine-gun.

regards,

pulsar

Hey Rondele,

You brought up a really good question. I agree with basically what everyone else has mentioned, just wanted to throw in that there are different lobes in our brains that control different functions in the body. Our personality and who we are comes from the frontal lobe, in the front of the brain which is directly behind the forehead. Any physical harm done to the frontal lobe can significantly change our personalities, we talked about this in my intro to psych class...and I got some pretty interesting stories of people who completely did a 180 in their personalities, and your story reminded me of that. I'm a psych major and really interested in how the brain works, so you totally grabbed my interest in that question. What I know and am learning is just with knowing how our brain works, I would love to know the connection of our spirits with the brain. Maybe I'll try and hunt down one of my prof to see what they think and I'll try to get back to you on that.

While we tend to identify with solid objects and things that have names, I'm inclined to feel that what we are is essentially a matter of what we do, a process variable, and in that respect, our true nature is in our attitude. Else, when a brain cell died or a spiritual event occurred we would be fundamentally altered. In fact, attitude seems to survive life to life, subject to karma, and the rest is location, the stage on which we act it out

d

The problem becomes of course obvious when a personality change occurs after a brain damage. But it starts already with the fact that we are interweaved with this physical world, having a physical body which is constantly changing and receiving influences.
  What the purpose is of this sometimes odd occurances here, and who we truely are, I think we will not figure out as long as we are a part of the physical realm. If we believe that our personalities on earth are only a little part with narrowed view of something greater, then there is the possiblility, the hope that all these oddities could finally make sense in the great picture.

  Btw, I ask everyone to whom "free will" is a key factor for clarification what it means. Does it imply "not caused" or "for no reason"? If yes, then there are problems without end. If not, what is it then?

Spooky

The essence of the question on this thread can also be answered by figuring out which of these two statements is correct:

1.  Either the brain creates thoughts through electrochemistry/quantum effects on the physical plane as Western science postulates or,

2.  The brain is a receiver/transmitter much like a radio or two way radio, and spirit exists on a different interpenetrating plane.

Now, in order to interact on the physical plane we must communicate here.  We must process physical stimulation, the five senses we share, and assimilate the input into thought.  Then we must process the thoughts and create a response.  The response must then be translated into speech and action.

If the brain truly creates thought, then it is clear that damaging pieces of it could alter thinking and behaviour.  This is the Western scientists' take on things.  There is a center for speech, hearing, etc.  Damaging certain areas causes known aphasias or inabilitiies to do certain tasks.  Damage to Broca's area causes difficulties in expression - the inability to come up with a word or initiate speech.  However, everyone's disability is not predictable, and there is inconsistency to the damage seen on a CAT scan or MRI and the deficit in the patient's thinking.

However, if spirit existed in an overlapping dimension, and the brain was the main "radio receiver/transmitter" for thought/spirit, then damaging the brain could also affect thought and behaviour but in a different way.  If you damage a radio, you may hear static, or the bass or treble may be lost, or you may hear two radio stations instead of one.  Likewise, if the stroke or brain injury affected the brain as a receiver transmitter of spirit, untoward effects could be created.  You still could see the same effect in damaging Broca's area of the brain (trouble expressing words), but for a different reason.  In this case, Broca's area did not create the words/thought, but was the receiver area for expression of thought from spirit on an interpenetrating plane.

A scientist named Lashley performed numerous studies on rats.  In a rather cruel way, he took a hot heated probe and burned away different parts of the brain of rats after teaching them how to get through a maze for food.  To his surprise, even when large areas of the cerebral cortex were burned away, he found that the rats still retained some of their learning ability to do the task.  He could not isolate the memory of the maze to burning out one area of the brain:  From Wikipedia:

"his major work was done on the measurement of behavior before and after specific, carefully quantified, induced brain damage in rats. He trained rats to perform specific tasks, then lesioned varying portions of the rat cortex, either before or after the animals received the training. The amount of cortical tissue removed had specific effects on acquisition and retention of knowledge, but where in the cortex it was removed from had no effect on the rats performance in the maze. This lead Lashley to conclude that memories are not localized but widely distributed across the cortex.

By 1950, Lashley had distilled his research into two theories. The principle of "mass action" stated that the cerebral cortex acts as one—as a whole—in many types of learning. The principle of "equipotentiality" stated that if certain parts of the brain are damaged, other parts of the brain may take on the role of the damaged portion"

Lashley's experiments lend support to the idea that consciousness is not so easily identified as arising from a simple biological model of the brain.  To me, it lends support to the role of the brain as a transmitter/receiver of spirit, because many things can not be localized, and the brain does tend to function as a whole or adapt in many instances.

To get back to the changein personality with brain damage, I take a spiritual approach,and thus find myself in agreement with Don.  I do not believe that the physical damage created the anger/hate/negative personality -however, I do think it would lead to dysfunction of normal reception and transmission of spirit.  As such a person could become extremely frustrated and give in to these negative emotions after the damage.  

A slightly more sinister scenario is the possibility that brain damage might allow "lower energy" beings or spirits to have more sway and foster the negative personality of the affected soul. I certainly could not pretend to be an expert here, although some in spiritual circles speak of all of us as having positive and negative "hangers on," as it were trying to influence us all the time.

We see positive examples of people severely brain damaged or crushed in other ways (Down's syndrome children, Christopher Reeve) who overcame their physical tragedies and did not let that turn them into negative people.  So we know it can be done.

If I pursue thinking of brain damage as a spiritual interaction connecting with a damaged physical receiver/transmitter, we can see different levels of disengagementof the spirit with the physical plane.  Those in a vegetative state have such a damaged receiver/transmitter that little communication on earth is possible.  For some, like talking through a garbled walkie talkie or telephone, it may be so frustrating, that anger and vitriol are all that come out.

Thankfully, in my experience as a physician, I can say that this personality change Roger describes is fairly rare, so that for most of us, we remain to others who we have always been.

Matthew

Thanks for the replies.

I wonder if it's the same case with a Jeffrey Dahmer or Chas. Manson, assuming they had no brain injuries or birth abnormalities?

Newton goes into much detail in explaining the extensive preparations that are made by helpers before we incarnate.  Supposedly these helpers try to ensure that we are born to the right parents, with the right amount of spiritual energy, such that our life goals are maximized.  If, for instance, an entity is weak or easily frightened or intimidated, the helpers ensure that he/she is born into a supportive, loving environment and with lots of spiritual energy.

Problem is, if that's really true, these helpers are apparently falling down on the job.  Consider those countries undergoing genocide either now or in the past.  Cambodia in the past, or some of the African countries now.  Hundreds of thousands of people were brutally slaughtered, including women and infants. 

If what Newton says is really true, someone like Pol Pot or Stalin would not have been allowed to incarnate in the first place.  Supposedly the helpers have intimate knowledge of the soul that is about to incarnate, and can also stop a soul from incarnating if they perceive the incarnation will cause harm. 

After giving this whole thing lots of thought, I agree with Don re. reincarnation.  I doubt it exists.  There are too many reasons why it doesn't, including the obvious.....the explosive population growth of the earth.  From a strictly mathematical standpoint, it just isn't possible.  Unless, of course, most of us had previous lives on other planets.....

Btw re. Einstein, I'm currently reading the excellent biography done by Walter Isaacson.  At some point in Einstein's life, he concluded that mathematics will unravel the secrets of the universe whereas when he was younger, he didn't think that branch of study was all that fruitful.

So, I'm wondering.....does anyone think that mathematics will someday prove the existence of the afterlife?  Or if not, does anyone think that the existence of the afterlife will ever be proven at all??

[Spooky2:] Imagine a person in a situation which requires a decision of this person. This person has many options, but has to chose only one. Now this person can act against all expectations (your die example). But this decision, no matter which one this person choses, is influencend by the situation this person is in, by the person's history, by it's spiritual state, maybe (if you like to consider this) by divine inspiration. If so, the so-called free will is dependant on all these causes / reasons and then the "free" part of will is just an empty term.
____________________________________________________________________

But Spooky2, you are merely providing examples of what might shape one's "contrary inclinations--influence from current situation, personal history, and spiritual state.  If any of these factors determine your decisions, then by definition you are not free.  If I can routinely (if not always) choose contrary to my current spiritual state, the brain-washing of my historical conditioning, and the incentive of my present situation, then by definition my behavior is neither random or coerced.  Since it is nevertheless conscious, then the only alternative is that my choice contrary to what would be predicted must be free.  

I think America's "worst" mass murderer is a case in point.  Tim McVeigh was by all accounts a respectful and decent young man, an altar boy in his church, a good worker for the local Burger King, and loving and courteous towards the gals he dated.  He grew up near my former residence.  So I was able to glean many details about what he was really like from his former friends and even an ex-girlfriend.  Yet clearly, at some unknown point, he freely made some very bad decisions that transformed his character in an evil direction.  

Don2