The soul of a niftar lacks a physical implementation. It ends just above olam ha’asiyah. The brain has a physical form, but there is no spiritual tzurah, no love, no moral calling, no spiritual pull, that was the tzurah of the physical tzurah. The soul of someone with brain damage or a mental incapacity is only partially implemented. Less of the form reaches olam haasiyah. For that matter, every soul is only partially implemented, as no brain fully expresses the potential of the soul; compared to their souls, even R’ Chaim Brisker’s or Einstein’s brains are too limited.

You ask a third time about mazalos creating tzuros… And a third time I must reply that the mazal IS the tzurah, not its cause. It’s like asking whether the bit being saved in your computer’s memory caused the transistor to shut off. The bit is a higher level abstraction, and when it reaches that transistor, it is part of the form of the transistor.

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In the Gra’s writings, there is no dichotomy of nefesh beheimis and nefesh Elokis. (And for that matter, his conception of nefesh vs. neshamah within naran is closer to the Tanya’s NB vs NE than to the Tanya’s naran.) The entire language you are assuming in order to discuss the Tanya’s position doesn’t exist.

The laws of physics are the same in the dead brain as in alive one. Chomer is also the same. Tzura is different… so, would you say that what creates this tzura is a different mazal than the neshama?

Also, what about brain slices from animals, or, for instance, pieces of brain tissue that are taken from epileptic patients. Those pieces of tissue are still alive; one can record from them and arguably even study building blocks of “thought”. (Although, one could argue that it takes large populations of cells synchronized together to make a unit of thought.) Is neshama somehow present in them, or, once they are taken from the main brain, they are given over to a mazal?

(Interestingly, as my wife points out, there is an opinion that a person is halachically alive as long as even a single cell of his brain is alive.)

Why doesn’t Tanya’s contrast between different souls not exist in your model? (Btw, I found a ma’amor Chassidus that discusses soul–body relationship. I’ll post it, iyH, on my blog.)

As I wrote before, “I would say that the mazal doesn’t create the local instance of the laws of physics, but is that instance.”

The soul is a beam of Or Ein Sof. Unlike physical objects, which is the “bottom” slice of that beam as it exists in the olam ha’asiyah, or mal’akhim which are the kochos (RCV) as they exist in higher olamos. RCV makes a strong point about how the soul alone is the unity of forces from all the olamos, which is how people have the power to effect spiritual change.

The neshamah doesn’t create the moach, the tzurah of the moach is the bottom “surface” of the neshamah. As the Leshem puts it, the chomer of one world are the tzuros of the world below. It’s not a causal connection but an identity. I discussed this in more length at the previous post.

The “laws of cognition” result from local anatomy of brain circuits and cells, as well as from the laws of physics that govern interactions between molecules.

Yes, in a human soul, the nefesh is the embodiment of the laws of thought that are implemented in this brain. But the soul is the entire “column” of Or Ein Sof from “10 tefachim below the kisei hakavod” (the height the gemara tells us Moshe’s consciousness reached) down to the brain. Once one goes above the nefesh, the influence runs both ways. One can enmire one’s consciousness (a function of ruach) in gashmius or elevate it in ruchnius. That is bechirah — that feedback loop between more abstract and less abstract laws.

(In this hashkafah, the Tanya’s stark contrast between kinds of human souls doesn’t exist — I mean all human souls. I also put that parenthetic remark about consciousness being within ruach because I figure the terms may be used in a way that is alien to someone who had more exposure to Chassidus than to the Gra’s Qabbalah.)

Another distinction, inherent in a single “s” in your comment. A mazal is /a/ law. A soul is a dynamic of multiple laws.

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* Difference from mazal being that soul extends all the way to keilim of Atzilus (or, perhaps, to Atzmus E”S), while the mazal extends only to Yetzira.

You’re referring to Bereishis Rabba 10:6-7:

אמר רבי סימון: אין לך כל עשב ועשב, שאין לו מזל ברקיע, שמכה אותו ואומר לו גדל, הדא הוא דכתיב (שם לח): הידעת חקות שמים אם תשים משטרו בארץ וגו’. לשון שוטר (שם י).
התקשר מעדנות כימה, או מושכות כסיל תפתח.

I would say that the mazal doesn’t create the local instance of the laws of physics, but is that instance. Caused by, or as the Rambam would put it “contingent upon” the more general mal’ach who is the law in general.

1) send a signal to the blade that interacts with its matter/physiology
2) creates the matter of the blade
3) creates the properties of the blade
4) creates the particular local instance of laws of physics that allow the physiology of the blade to work and grow

(not sure that 2, 3, and 4 are different)

BTW, R. Bloch has some connection with the Leshem, and is one of the finest examples of Litvishe Kabbalah.