What is the Soul?

1. What is the Soul? Feraco Search for Human Potential 8 December 2010

2. Basic Questions • When asking about the soul’s nature, it helps to start with basic questions…something like “Where is it?” • Is it in your head? Heart? Pinky? • Clearly, the soul isn’t something you can grab Mortal Kombat-style • But how can we be sure it exists if we can’t find it? • To solve this puzzle for ourselves, we need to look at what constitutes a human being

3. Monism • Our first school of thought today is monism, which holds that everything is made out of the same thing – no blending between anything • This “thing” could be matter, could be energy, could be thought – but whatever we’re made of is uniform • In other words, there would be no separation between the “spiritual” and the “physical” – monists believe that everything is built from the same blocks • As beings in existence, we’re subject to the same principle: humans are either going to be all spiritual or all physical

4. Materialists • There are two subset of thought that, when combined, form the monist school (think of coins and their faces) • We’ll assign “heads” to the Materialists, who believed that everything is physical – the energy/matter continuum, essentially • In this case, “thought” would not be something that’s “intangible” – it’s a real, tangible electrical signal, carried from physical neuron to physical neuron • Since nothing is intangible – and the soul would seem to be – the Materialists argue we don’t have them

5. Materialist Fistfights • There’s some disagreement among materialists, however, on what constitutes a human being • We’ll only concentrate on two sub-subsets (?) in the interest of time • Eliminative materialists take a hard line • “Thought” doesn’t exist, nor does sensation. Everything is just an electric event in your brain, and all events are made of the same “stuff.” • Nothing that happens brain-wise is distinct • Reductive materialists are gentler – they admit thought exists – but they also reduce it to an electric event • Basically, materialists argue that we’re just “stuff,” and there’s no mysterious or mystical “soul” in us because we’re uniform and thus indivisible

6. Uniform Blocks of Stuff • If materialist monists (say that five times fast!) have the right idea – that we’re uniform blocks of “stuff” – we can’t be divided into bodies and souls • Since we can’t be divided, we can’t release anything separate when we die • Also, if a soul’s not put in at birth, a soul’s not leaving when we die • “There was a time when we were not: this gives us no concern — why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be?” William Hazlitt

7. Idealists • We’ll assign “tails” to the Idealists, who believed that the only things that exist are minds and ideas; anything that seems physical instead is simply a mental projection • Whereas we were nothing but physical forms earlier, we’re nothing but souls now • This body is not a body; my eyes aren’t being used; it’s all in my head

8. Dualists • We talked about the materialists and idealists as representing two sides of a coin • Dualists, as you might guess, just grab the whole coin; they hold that both bodies (physical “stuff”) and minds (mental/spiritual “stuff”) can exist • Dualists can account for our inability to sense the soul by proposing what amounts to a parallel reality • Our bodies exist in this reality/plane of existence, while our souls exist in another one – one that’s perfectly laid over our own and runs at exactly the same speed • We’re linked together in time, if not in physical space • When we talk about “minds,” we’re not talking about the physical brain – we’re talking about that which animates it

9. Double Reality!!! (Cries) • If you like the concept of human beings as combinations – a fusion of body and soul – you’re also accepting the idea of a “double reality” (the seen and unseen) • For that matter, you might buy into “double reality” without being a dualist at heart • First, you propose that a human being is one thing – not a body component and soul component, but one whole object • Second, you propose that some “omni force” – a god or gods – operates beyond your range of sensory perception • It affects your life, it can help you, it can sense you – but you can’t see it • In other words, we are “stuff,” and the “omni force” is something else

10. Interactionists • While the dualist school has subsets as well, we’ll only concentrate on a single subset today, as the others have fallen by the wayside a bit • Interactionism (and Interactionists) believe “minds” and “bodies” exist somewhat separately, but can influence – and interact with – each other • Sometimes, a bodily action can influence a mental one; at other times, the relationship is reversed • Physical  Mental / Spiritual (at times) and Mental / Spiritual  Physical (at other times)

11. A Helpful/Painful Example • I’m walking along, thinking to myself about the lecture I’m going to write when I go home • Suddenly, I stumble on a tree root! • I’m not paying attention, so I’m not prepared for this change in circumstance • I stumble • I throw my arms out to the side • Eventually, I hit the deck; my head doesn’t get knocked around, but I bounce my knee against the ground sharply enough to cry out in pain • I look around to make sure no one noticed my tumble • I push myself up, shake my knee a little, and limp away

12. What Just Happened? • My body can influence my mind; if I stumble over a tree root, I’m not going to keep pursuing my train of thought • When my foot first made contact with the root, I lost my balance (Physical  Physical) • However, when I started stumbling, my brain essentially “emptied” – I seized up with panic and thought only of how to keep myself from being injured (Physical  Mental / Spiritual) • My brain registered discomfort even though I didn’t hit it (Physical  Mental / Spiritual) • I cried out in pain (Physical  Mental/Spiritual  Physical) • I looked around, embarrassed, then pushed myself up and left (Mental/Spiritual  Physical) • Can my soul be “bruised”? Can it suffer injuries through interactions with the physical world?

13. Secret Components • Are you more than what can be sensed? • If you aren’t, how did you even conceive of a “soul”? • It’s not like anyone believes they have “secret physical” components • If you are, which part is more important – which part lives your life? • When I feel emotional pain, what exactly is hurting? How am I generating pain? (Chemicals?) • Is what goes on in my head – my consciousness and thoughts – different from my soul? • Descartes said no – he felt that the mind and spirit combined to form the “theatre of consciousness and conscious experience”

14. Infinite Possibilities • These questions go to the heart of our earlier explorations of choice and morality • If we’re just programmed by cells and chemistry, are our “infinite possibilities” actually limited – at a sub-molecular level? • As you can imagine, monists and dualists can’t reach common ground here, and they don’t take too kindly to one another • The monists believe that we are complex – but uniform – beings • The dualists believed the opposite – that we’re divided at a metaphysical level, and that there’s something to us that we aren’t seeing

15. 21 Grams • If we’re living in a dualist existence, the Hazlitt quote is still worth pondering • None of us can remember a time before our births • What was our soul doing before then? • Where does the river begin? • Where do we go after – if there’s anywhere to go? • Where does the river end? • Duncan MacDougall and “21 Grams” • Does the river ever freeze?

16. Which Matters More? • If the soul can’t be changed, character and personality certainly can • This would indicate that soul and character are separate • If the soul can’t be changed, is it more important than our character – our self-constructed personas, the ones that we shift in accordance with the experiences and knowledge we gain throughout our lives? • Which one governs our behavior? Are my mind, soul, and character somehow separate? • (That’s a lot of overlapping realities if you’re a dualist…)

17. The First Questions I Asked • For that matter, if souls can’t be changed, why bother being good? Your soul’s going to be the same anyway • Is it a matter of fearing the karmic consequences? Are we afraid something bad will happen to our souls after we die regardless of whether the soul was “responsible”? • In What is Morality?, I made the same point about a dozen times: our morals provide a scaffold in order to stop us from behaving (naturally) badly • What would have motivated that awful “natural” behavior, however? Our souls? • If not, why would our soul’s eventual fate depend on what we do here? • Are we defined by who we are or what we do?