Dualism and materialism

I understand.
And if the entire emotional area of the brain is damaged, then in such a case I no longer love at all?! And then we are back to the question of why not say that the soul and its emotions are a product of the body?

Just as I walk with my legs, I love, think, and want with my brain mechanisms. But it is not the brain that thinks and loves. My legs do not make me walk, but I decide to walk and do so with them. The same is true of mental processes.

I understand. So if I ask a question that is perhaps forbidden and illegitimate…
Why did God create things in such a way that even the emotions of the soul depend on the brain?

Maybe it is to allow free choice, that the emotions of the soul will be influenced by the body, its genetics, the structure of the brain, etc.’ ? After all, if every time you give charity the soul is filled with immense joy, then the choice will be canceled?

PS
Another question –
Until recently, I thought that emotions depend on desire, for example, I really want to win a car and am disappointed when I didn't win. That is, emotions are a natural and inevitable reaction of the soul to reality, but now I understand that they are in a certain area of the brain? Are they all or only those that are responsible for our survival mechanisms such as fear or courage, for example?

There are no questions that are forbidden or illegitimate to ask. There are questions to which we cannot find an answer. Like this one, for example. I do not know why God does things the way He does.
Emotions depend on both our will and our mental structure. And this is brought about by (through) the brain. The will has a power of influence on the brain, and together with its given structure, this is what creates our feelings.

Thank you Rabbi.

Continuing on the above topic (it's just that the field of neuroscience, etc., has been very preoccupying and confusing me lately):

Every morning we hear about areas in the brain that are responsible for various emotions and impulses, for which various hormones are required for their appearance (for example, this is what appears in this link: https://www.haaretz.co.il/magazine/MAGAZINE-1.8191615 ) such as dopamine for the urge to search and curiosity, the urge to "care" is activated by estrogen, prolactin, progesterone and oxytocin as appears there in the article.

For myself, I have always observed with wonder the endless thirst of the soul, the search for meaning and the desire for goodness. I always asked myself where all these deep feelings that give me no rest come from, if not from the soul... And here come studies like the one above and show me that these are all hormones found in the body and perhaps even in that of animals in one form or another. Can things be reconciled?!

Shalom Rabbi.
I would really appreciate a response to the above.
Thanks in advance!

Shai

Hello.
I answered this, but for some reason I now see that it doesn't appear here. I'll come back again.
Many talk about how our traits and behaviors are determined by genetics and the brain. They point to a part of our genome that determines whether we will be believers or atheists (for some reason this is used as an argument against faith, but not against atheism), misers or spendthrifts, love so-and-so or hate so-and-so, and so on. Not to mention the search for goodness, the desire to do good, and in fact the very definition of what is good.
But as I have explained more than once (and at length in my book ‘Science of Freedom’) there is a logical leap here. So far, there has been no case where a gene has been found that is exclusively responsible for a behavior or trait. Although it is usually said that it is not a single gene but a distributed system (in the brain and genome), in my opinion this is not true. There is no determination in the brain or genome at all of what we will become, not even in a complex and distributed way. The brain and the genome create an infrastructure (I called it a topographical outline) on which we walk. This infrastructure tries to pull us in certain directions or push us away from others. But in the end, the decision is ours.
If you want a full explanation, read my book ‘Science of Freedom’, which is essentially all about this matter. You can see the summary in two articles here on the site:
1.
https://mikyab.net/%d7%9b%d7%aa%d7%91%d7%99%d7%9d/%d7%9e%d7%90%d7%9e%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%9d/%d7%9e%d7%91%d7%98-%d7%a9%d7%99%d7%98%d7%aa%d7%99-%d7%a2%d7%9c-%d7% 97%d7%95%d7%a4%d7%a9-%d7%94%d7%a8%d7%a6%d7%95%d7%9f
2.
https://mikyab.net/%d7%9b%d7%aa%d7%91%d7%99%d7%9d/%d7%9e%d7%90%d7%9e%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%9d/%d7%90%d7%95%d7%98%d7% 95%d7%a0%d7%95%d7%9e%d7%99%d7%94-%d7%95%d7%a1%d7%9e%d7%9b%d7%95%d7%aa-%d7%91%d7%a4 %d7%a1%d7%99%d7%a7%d7%aa-%d7%94%d7%9c%d7%9b%d7%94/%d7%9e%d7%93%d7%a2%d7%99-%d7%94%d 7%9e%d7%95%d7%97-%d7%95%d7%94%d7%9e%d7%a9%d7%a4%d7%98-%d7%9e%d7%91%d7%98-%d7%a4%d7% 99%d7%9c%d7%95%d7%a1%d7%95%d7%a4%d7%99-%d7%9e%d7%93%d7%a2%d7%99-%d7%a2%d7%9c-%d7%94

Shalom Rabbi.
I read and enjoyed both the sciences of freedom and Man as hay…
So I understand that I have a soul independent of the body from the evidence that it can choose differently, but in the end it is the emotions that are supposedly created by hormones that bring me to different feelings and traits such as curiosity, the desire for perfection and the lack of satisfaction with the material, etc. (maybe even to the desire for connection and caring as appears in the above article) and not because of “and the soul will not be filled” and the very distance from the source?!
With greetings, Shai

Is there a question here? I didn't understand it.

My question is, do emotions and experiences (especially existential ones) such as endless searching, curiosity, striving for perfection, justice, etc. originate from the spiritual side of me or are they entirely the result of hormones and genetics, as appears in the above article?

I explained it. These tendencies can stem from genetics. But the decision to go with them or not and to what extent is a result of your decision.

This is exactly my question, is only the choice a revelation of my soul and not also apparent mental tendencies?
The Rabbi quotes at length in ’Man as Hay’ Zeitlin's words in his book ‘On the Border of the Two Worlds’. But on page 40 Zeitlin says that the source of all this is not from the body and matter:

“Where does the longing that tears the heart, the longing that will not give a person a breath of air day or night? Where does the thirst that every person with a soul feels, a worldly thirst, a thirst that drinks the human breast, a thirst that all the treasures in the world, all the pleasure, goodness and beauty in the world, will not satisfy even a little bit? What does the human heart ache for? What does it aspire to so much? What does it yearn for? What does it ask for? And what is it that drives such a great, ‘black-bitter’ sorrow into the heart of man, which no joy in the world can drive away, or, more accurately, which breaks out and goes beyond its framework precisely at the time of the greatest joy?

And in general: Why should man not rejoice in his labor? Why should he not know satiety? Why are all the ‘empty things of the world’ few to him? Why does “no man die and half die in his hand”?

We have all become so accustomed to this vision that it has become ‘natural’ in our eyes. But let man ask: Finally, why will the soul not be satisfied? Why will it not be fulfilled? Why will man never know rest? After all, everything that surrounds us and passes and passes before us has an end and a limit—and where does the boundless aspiration come from?

And if man says: The world itself—has no end and no purpose, I will ask him: And where did you get this idea that the world has no end and no purpose? Everything that surrounds us, everything that is known to us by our senses and understood by our intellect, has an end and purpose. There is no clear example of the infinity of the world. Therefore, even this very thing, that man tends to see the world as infinite, does not come from the tangible or the intellectual, but from the very longing of man for infinity, from the very desire to see the world as infinite.

And further: He who pays attention to the nature of longing, he who has looked carefully into himself, into what is hidden and hidden in the depths of his soul, will know that it is not for what is here that we long, but for what is not here, for what we cannot call by name, for what words and sayings do not apply to…”

Does the Rabbi believe differently from Zeitlin or did I not understand?

I don't know, just as Zeitlin couldn't know. What I'm saying is that tendencies can come from genetics and the body (and they can't. There's probably a certain, fairly high dose of influence from genetics), but the choice of what to do and how to behave doesn't come from there.

That is, the belief in the goodness and integrity of the human soul itself (a principle that appears frequently in Rabbi Kook) is just a belief or acceptance in tradition but cannot be explained?

A bit annoying…

How did we suddenly come to this question?
The tendency to believe in the goodness and honesty of man may be innate, but the decision whether to adopt it is our choice.
Whether this is a tradition or whether there is an explanation for it, or perhaps it is an axiom that has no explanation, is a completely different question that is not related to our discussion. To this question, Pok Hezi says that most people in the world have a basic trust in humans without any connection to tradition. On the contrary, trust in tradition is based on trust in humans.

I understand, I'm just saying that if the desire for goodness and morality, etc., are part of the body's tendencies (hormones, genetics, etc.) and not part of the essence of the soul itself, it somewhat diminishes and weakens the person's self-perception as a spiritual and idealistic entity in its very nature - part of God from above.

Absolutely not. Man is the choices, not the tendencies.

Hello, Your Honor, I need to talk to someone about free choice. You don't know me, but I'm a fan of yours. Please don't think I'm lying or suggesting what I write because I'm not. For many years, I didn't understand how if you see the future, there is free choice or choice in general. I'm a human being with a certain talent. I understand people very easily. I really see what's going through their minds and what they're thinking. I see that everyone thinks that their inner world is so special and that no one sees it, but the majority is pretty much the same and incredibly simple. I don't understand how people have a choice in general. And I'm not talking about the scientific side of it. Can you please help me?

If you know with absolute certainty what everyone will do in the future then we probably really don't have a choice. I don't believe you really do. [If you did then you probably could also know what I would answer you and you wouldn't have to ask.]
If you don't know for sure it means they have a choice. Everyone can make estimates of what people will do in the future with varying degrees of success. This does not contradict freedom of choice.