{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 64/1915-04-16/p004","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"What spiritual science always has to assert is not based on philosophical speculation, but on what has been called the inner experience, the inner experience of spiritual facts; it has to assert the independence, the self-contained nature of the human soul — to put it more popularly: that the human being has a spiritual-soul existence that goes beyond the physical-bodily. I said that this is entirely consistent with a healthy philosophy based on scientific principles, because many people, from the way of thinking of our time, perceive such an assertion as the extreme of all unscientificness. It is easy to say from a scientific point of view: How can one speak of the human soul as something independent when physiologists show that everything is dependent on what develops physically in the human being. We see how, when a part of the brain is injured, disturbances occur immediately due to the loss of a part of the brain functions. Must we not be led to the thought that the soul activities lie in the normally behaving nervous system or brain? One can point out how mental abilities grow with the adolescent human being, how in old age, when the external system withers, hardens, mental abilities decrease and so on. On the basis of such observations, many a train of thought could be formed that would have to suggest the idea that spiritual experience basically consists in nothing other than the activity of the nervous system and the rest of the organism. Let us hear what an astute philosopher, Otto Liebmann, whom I have mentioned in my book “Riddles of Philosophy,” has to say about this. He is not one of those who make assertions based on superficial thinking, but rather he states what the facts of the analysis of human thought are capable of providing. He deals with the belief that the human soul exists only in the physical, and says remarkable words, corresponding to a sharp-witted philosophy that coincides with the current state of natural science. In summary, he says: It is by no means certain what Munk and others have established regarding the dependence of mental activity on the brain, because, for example, an injured part of the brain can be replaced by other functions. But if we had reached our goal, then in principle nothing would have changed. That is to say, modern philosophy says that no matter how far one advances in the study of the connection between the soul and the physical, one can only know that one must use certain internal organs in order to think, feel and will. We can draw the parallel that we need certain parts of the brain for the soul, just as we use the hand to grasp. But when we use this hand to grasp, the mechanical action of the hand is added to the soul. We cannot speak of the soul actions of the brain in this way. However, this is only because the investigations of natural science are not complete. As it moves forward to prove the connection between the physical and the soul, it will find that there is a different connection between thinking, feeling, willing and the nervous system than between the hand and grasping. It will find that they are connected in the same way as the imprints that feet make in soft soil are connected to the soil.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"13. Sleep and Death from the Point of View of Spiritual Science","site_heading":null,"date":"1915-04-16","location":null,"word_count":565,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/64/1915-04-16/p004","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"From a Fateful Time","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA064/English/SOL2024/19150416p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/64/1915-04-16/p004"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/64/1915-04-16/p004","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 64/1915-04-16/p004","passage_number":4,"text":"Das, was Geisteswissenschaft immer geltend zu machen hat, beruht nicht auf philosophischer Spekulation, sondern auf dem, was die innere Erfahrung, das innere Erleben der geistigen Tatsachen genannt worden ist; die Selbständigkeit, die Insichgegründetheit des menschlichen Seelenwesens hat sie geltend zu machen, — populärer gesprochen: daß das Menschenwesen ein geistig-seelisches Dasein hat über das physisch-leibliche hinaus. Ich sagte, daß dies mit einer gesunden, auf wissenschaftlichem Boden stehenden Philosophie durchaus in Einklang steht, weil viele Menschen aus der Denkweise unserer Gegenwart heraus eine solche Behauptung als das Extrem aller Unwissenschaftlichkeit empfinden. Leicht hat man es vom naturwissenschaftlichen Standpunkt aus zu sagen: Wie kann man vom menschlichen Seelenwesen als von etwas Selbständigem sprechen, wenn doch die Physiologen zeigen, daß alles in Abhängigkeit steht von dem, was sich am Menschen körperlich entwickelt. Man sehe, wie, wenn ein Teil des Gehirns verletzt wird, durch den Ausfall eines Teils der Gehirnverrichtungen sofort Störungen auftreten. Muß man da nicht zu dem Gedanken geführt werden, daß in dem normal sich verhaltenden Nervensystem oder Gehirn die Seelentätigkeiten liegen? Man kann darauf hinweisen, wie mit dem jugendlichen Menschen die geistigen Fähigkeiten wachsen, wie im Alter, wo das äußere System verdorrt, verhärtet, die geistigen Fähigkeiten abnehmen und so weiter. Auf Grund solcher Beobachtungen ließe sich so mancher Gedankengang formen, der auf die Idee bringen müßte, daß das geistige Erleben im Grunde in nichts anderem als in der Tätigkeit des Nervensystems und des übrigen Organismus bestehe. Hören wir, wie ein scharfsinniger Philosoph, Otto Liebmann, den ich in meinen «Rätseln der Philosophie» erwähnt habe, darüber denkt. Er gehört nicht zu denen, die . etwas auf leichtgeschürztes Denken hin behaupten, sondern er gibt, was die Tatsachen der Analyse des menschlichen Denkens zu geben vermögen. Er setzt sich mit dem Glauben auseinander, daß die menschliche Seele nur im Physischen bestehe, und sagt bemerkenswerte Worte, einer scharfsinnigen Philosophie entsprechend, die mit dem gegenwärtigen Stand der Naturwissenschaft übereinstimmt. Kurz zusammengefaßt sagt er: Es sei zwar keineswegs ganz sicher, was Munk und andere hinsichtlich der Abhängigkeit der Seelentätigkeit vom Gehirn festgestellt haben, weil beispielsweise ein verletzter Teil des Gehirns durch andere Funktionen ersetzt werden kann. Aber wären wir ans Ziel gelangt, so würde man grundsätzlich doch nichts anderes ersehen. Das heißt, die moderne Philosophie sagt, man könne noch so weit kommen im Studium der Verbindung des Seelischen mit dem Leiblichen, man käme doch nicht weiter als zu wissen, daß man sich bestimmter innerer Organe bedienen muß, wenn man denken, fühlen und wollen will. Man kann die Parallele ziehen, daß man gewisse Partien des Gehirns für die Seele brauchen müsse, wie man sich der Hand bedient, um zu greifen. Aber wenn wir uns dieser Hand bedienen, um zu greifen, so kommt die mechanische Verrichtung der Hand zum Seelischen dazu. Nicht so können wir von den seelischen Verrichtungen des Gehirns sprechen. Das rührt indessen nur davon her, daß die Untersuchungen der Naturwissenschaft nicht abgeschlossen sind. Indem sie sich weiterbewegt, um die Verbindung zwischen dem Physischen und dem Seelischen nachzuweisen, wird sie finden, daß zwischen Denken, Fühlen, Wollen und dem Nervensystem ein anderer Zusammenhang ist als zwischen der Hand und dem Greifen. Sie wird finden, daß sie etwa so zusammenhängen: wie die Abdrücke, welche die Füße im aufgeweichten Erdboden machen, mit der Erde.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":532,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/64/1915-04-16/p004"}],"english":["GA 64/1915-04-16/p004"],"method":"identity","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":532,"en_words":565,"ratio":1.06,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","meaning","anchors","audit"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.06,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":3844,"original_word_count":3616,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"From a Fateful Time","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA064/English/SOL2024/19150416p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. 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