OOTS #1088 - The Discussion Thread

[GreatWyrmGold]

I would argue that this means that the brain is responding to the inquiry; a de-souled brain would act differently than a brain with a soul. Which, if that is taken to separate brain cognition from soul cognition, means that it goes both ways.

Alright, first off, you're taking D&D rules, asserting a specific metaphysical interpretation of them, and then asserting that OotS follows that interpretation, despite the fact that it completely ignores the rules whenever it would get in the way of what the story/humor/etc needs/wants/etc. I hope I don't have to go into more detail about why this is fallacious.
Second, even if we accept your logic both as internally consistent and germane to the discussion, it's irrelevant to the discussion. You assume that a desouled brain working differently than an ensouled brain proves that a debrained soul works differently than a brained soul, when it completely fails to touch on the workings of the soul at all. If it was the only evidence I had and I was forced to guess, I'd guess that the debrained soul probably worked differently, but that's not the same as actually proving anything.
Third, I'd argue that the corpse being unable to learn new information is less due to it not having a soul and more to it being, you know, a corpse. Dead brains with dead sensory organs don't exactly modify themselves to account for new information the way that live brains with live sensory organs do.

But that wasn't what you were arguing earlier? You were suggesting that Durkula might be getting the memories from Durkon's brain rather than his soul, and I suggested his brain might not actually be functioning right now--e.g. it's just the two souls in there that are doing the thinking, with no brain involved.

....Erm, no? I was pointing out how people IRL have memories, which involves the brain, and then other people pointed out that Durkon's brain isn't involved, therefore they can assume it has to work in whatever way they like. Which, incidentally, reminds me of a quote from the Giant:

But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?