RubySoho
Winston
Ghost in the Machine - Thoughts on the Human Soul
July 9th 2007 20:06
Having been away from Orble for several days now due to the July 4th holiday (and having attended a close friend's bachelor party on Saturday from which I think I'm still recovering) today may not be the day for me to broach a deep subject. But, what the hell. Today let's talk about the existence of the soul.
I couldn't possibly cover the entire topic in all its historical detail in this post (and if I did, it would be so long and dull that no one would get through it) so this will be a quick summary followed by my own personal musings. If you're the one person reading this who actually wanted a 15-page post on the soul, I apologize.
The concept of the soul is very old, going back to at least ancient Egypt and most likely much further. The Egyptians viewed the soul as having several parts, the Ren, the Ba, the Ka, the Sheut, and the Ib. For our purposes here, the only aspect to be concerned with is the Ba. This aspect is the one most like the western concept of the soul, being that it is the part that survives after death and maintains the personality of the deceased. The Ba had to make a perilous journey through the underworld (Duat) in order to reach the place of judgment. There, Anubis would judge the Ba by weighing its heart against a single father of Ma'at (truth and order). If the soul's heart was pure, it was led to Osiris to dwell in peace in the afterlife. But, if the soul's heart was not pure, it was devoured by the monster Amut.
Almost all cultures have had a similar notion of an afterlife, and that belief necessitates belief in the soul. After all, what good is an afterlife if there's no one there to inhabit it? The Greeks had shadowy Hades, the Vikings had Valhalla, the Zoroastrians of Babylon believed that their souls would be reunited with their Fravashi (guardian spirits) at the end of time....even the Hindus, who don't have a concept of heaven quite familiar to the western view, believe that their soul (atman) will be reunited with Brahman once they achieve spiritual enlightenment and end the cycle of reincarnation. (OK, that's one school of thought within Hinduism. There are other branches that do not believe that the atman unites with Brahman. Like I said, this is a summary). Today, the concept of the soul is one of the core components of modern Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Without the idea of the soul, everything else in those theologies falls flat. It is the soul that will be reunited with the body by God on the Day of Judgment. It is the soul that receives 72 virgins in heaven as a reward for martyrdom. It is the soul that, according to religious believers, will survive for eternity with God, or will writhe in agony forever in Hell. Without the soul, the Abrahamic religions are as nothing.
But what is the soul? We've already established the idea that the soul encompasses all of the traits that make you you. But that begs another question: who are you? If "you" are your eternal soul, and the body is merely a temporary physical husk, then that soul must exist in some unchanging state for all eternity. "You" are set in stone. But, if "you" are simply the product of your environment, upbringing, genetic disposition, education, etc., all brewed together in your brain to form what we think of as consciousness, than you are explicitly changeable. "You" are, at the basest level, the result of neurochemical brain functions constantly interacting with external stimuli. Is that the same thing as a soul? I think not.
There are lots of flaws with the notion of the soul, but none of them are so damning, in my opinion, as the problem of the physical brain. If the seat of our essence lies not in our brains but in some nebulous spirits that inhabit our bodies, then the role our brains play in personality would seem to be superfluous. And yet, this isn't the case. The brain can quite clearly be shown to be the root of our individual personalities. Brain injuries result in major changes to personalities. The differences can be profound. Depending on which portion of the brain is injured, previously docile people can be made violent, warm people can become distant, or religious convictions can be lost. If the soul is a spiritual entity, then why should a physical injury cause such a drastic change? Does a physical injury cause the soul to change as well, or does the soul revert back to the "original" position after death? If not, which soul is judged by God, the one before the accident, or the one after? If you believe in these things, these can't be trivial questions.
I can attest to the significance of brain injury in altering personality. 13 years ago, not too long before I met my now-wife when we were teenagers, her step-father was in a terrible accident. While he was looking for some spare car parts at the local dump, a couple of men in a pickup truck were offloading some old tires. One of the tires was faulty, and upon hitting the ground it exploded. A portion of the tire rim struck her step-father and removed a good chunk of his frontal lobe. 999 people out of 1000 would have died from this horrible injury, but he survived. Through weeks of coma and months and years of therapy, he has survived. The recovery is nothing short of miraculous (note: I'm using that term figuratively), although the cost was profound. Without going into too many details about his physical and mental limitations (for example, he had to relearn to walk using different muscle groups, because the portion of his brain that regulated his walking was destroyed), let me say that the man who emerged from that accident is not the same as the man who was looking for car parts. Yes, there are elements of his old personality that survived, but others did not. New elements surfaced. So I ask again: when he dies, which man is to be judged, the old or the new?
This question pertains to many different situations. For example, are the mentally ill still insane after death? Do developmentally disabled persons die only to find themselves enhanced to "normal" levels? Do infants who have died without the benefit of having had time to form a personality suddenly find themselves possessed of full consciousness? Maybe these questions are irrelevant, or maybe they're foolish. I tend to think that they're neither; rather, they're generally just overlooked.
Many people seem to take the notion of the soul for granted. They have to because, as I've said, the soul is the keystone for many religious beliefs. Remove that piece, and the whole arch will crumble. Neither I, nor anyone else, can disprove the soul, just as the existence of leprechauns cannot be disproved. Still, it's worth thinking about. Billions of people believe that they have a spiritual entity in them that is truly "them", that this entity is literally real and will perpetuate their memories and personalities after death without any physical means to do so, that this entity is literally real but emits no type of measurable energy of any kind, and that this entity will survive for an infinite amount of time after their physical death. I'm not going to say that they're all wrong. But I will say that they should stop to consider the fact they they might not be right. Perhaps we're not ghosts haunting our own bodies, but merely physical beings who are shaped by natural forces, and ultimately cut down by them as well. It's not as gratifying an idea as that of the eternally rewarded soul, perhaps, but it is consistent with what we see. To that end, truth can be its own reward.
I couldn't possibly cover the entire topic in all its historical detail in this post (and if I did, it would be so long and dull that no one would get through it) so this will be a quick summary followed by my own personal musings. If you're the one person reading this who actually wanted a 15-page post on the soul, I apologize.
The concept of the soul is very old, going back to at least ancient Egypt and most likely much further. The Egyptians viewed the soul as having several parts, the Ren, the Ba, the Ka, the Sheut, and the Ib. For our purposes here, the only aspect to be concerned with is the Ba. This aspect is the one most like the western concept of the soul, being that it is the part that survives after death and maintains the personality of the deceased. The Ba had to make a perilous journey through the underworld (Duat) in order to reach the place of judgment. There, Anubis would judge the Ba by weighing its heart against a single father of Ma'at (truth and order). If the soul's heart was pure, it was led to Osiris to dwell in peace in the afterlife. But, if the soul's heart was not pure, it was devoured by the monster Amut.
Almost all cultures have had a similar notion of an afterlife, and that belief necessitates belief in the soul. After all, what good is an afterlife if there's no one there to inhabit it? The Greeks had shadowy Hades, the Vikings had Valhalla, the Zoroastrians of Babylon believed that their souls would be reunited with their Fravashi (guardian spirits) at the end of time....even the Hindus, who don't have a concept of heaven quite familiar to the western view, believe that their soul (atman) will be reunited with Brahman once they achieve spiritual enlightenment and end the cycle of reincarnation. (OK, that's one school of thought within Hinduism. There are other branches that do not believe that the atman unites with Brahman. Like I said, this is a summary). Today, the concept of the soul is one of the core components of modern Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Without the idea of the soul, everything else in those theologies falls flat. It is the soul that will be reunited with the body by God on the Day of Judgment. It is the soul that receives 72 virgins in heaven as a reward for martyrdom. It is the soul that, according to religious believers, will survive for eternity with God, or will writhe in agony forever in Hell. Without the soul, the Abrahamic religions are as nothing.
But what is the soul? We've already established the idea that the soul encompasses all of the traits that make you you. But that begs another question: who are you? If "you" are your eternal soul, and the body is merely a temporary physical husk, then that soul must exist in some unchanging state for all eternity. "You" are set in stone. But, if "you" are simply the product of your environment, upbringing, genetic disposition, education, etc., all brewed together in your brain to form what we think of as consciousness, than you are explicitly changeable. "You" are, at the basest level, the result of neurochemical brain functions constantly interacting with external stimuli. Is that the same thing as a soul? I think not.
There are lots of flaws with the notion of the soul, but none of them are so damning, in my opinion, as the problem of the physical brain. If the seat of our essence lies not in our brains but in some nebulous spirits that inhabit our bodies, then the role our brains play in personality would seem to be superfluous. And yet, this isn't the case. The brain can quite clearly be shown to be the root of our individual personalities. Brain injuries result in major changes to personalities. The differences can be profound. Depending on which portion of the brain is injured, previously docile people can be made violent, warm people can become distant, or religious convictions can be lost. If the soul is a spiritual entity, then why should a physical injury cause such a drastic change? Does a physical injury cause the soul to change as well, or does the soul revert back to the "original" position after death? If not, which soul is judged by God, the one before the accident, or the one after? If you believe in these things, these can't be trivial questions.
I can attest to the significance of brain injury in altering personality. 13 years ago, not too long before I met my now-wife when we were teenagers, her step-father was in a terrible accident. While he was looking for some spare car parts at the local dump, a couple of men in a pickup truck were offloading some old tires. One of the tires was faulty, and upon hitting the ground it exploded. A portion of the tire rim struck her step-father and removed a good chunk of his frontal lobe. 999 people out of 1000 would have died from this horrible injury, but he survived. Through weeks of coma and months and years of therapy, he has survived. The recovery is nothing short of miraculous (note: I'm using that term figuratively), although the cost was profound. Without going into too many details about his physical and mental limitations (for example, he had to relearn to walk using different muscle groups, because the portion of his brain that regulated his walking was destroyed), let me say that the man who emerged from that accident is not the same as the man who was looking for car parts. Yes, there are elements of his old personality that survived, but others did not. New elements surfaced. So I ask again: when he dies, which man is to be judged, the old or the new?
This question pertains to many different situations. For example, are the mentally ill still insane after death? Do developmentally disabled persons die only to find themselves enhanced to "normal" levels? Do infants who have died without the benefit of having had time to form a personality suddenly find themselves possessed of full consciousness? Maybe these questions are irrelevant, or maybe they're foolish. I tend to think that they're neither; rather, they're generally just overlooked.
Many people seem to take the notion of the soul for granted. They have to because, as I've said, the soul is the keystone for many religious beliefs. Remove that piece, and the whole arch will crumble. Neither I, nor anyone else, can disprove the soul, just as the existence of leprechauns cannot be disproved. Still, it's worth thinking about. Billions of people believe that they have a spiritual entity in them that is truly "them", that this entity is literally real and will perpetuate their memories and personalities after death without any physical means to do so, that this entity is literally real but emits no type of measurable energy of any kind, and that this entity will survive for an infinite amount of time after their physical death. I'm not going to say that they're all wrong. But I will say that they should stop to consider the fact they they might not be right. Perhaps we're not ghosts haunting our own bodies, but merely physical beings who are shaped by natural forces, and ultimately cut down by them as well. It's not as gratifying an idea as that of the eternally rewarded soul, perhaps, but it is consistent with what we see. To that end, truth can be its own reward.
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Comment by Onesnap
The idea that the soul is so powerful that it survives even death is odd, but it seems to be a common belief held by folks. And these are well educated people that have not been 'abducted by aliens' or anything like that. After their various strange encounters they now believe that the soul lives on...
Comment by katyzzz
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None of us know, but I am convinced that I shall see my mother again when I die, and of course others, but she is the one who concerns me most.
At the same time I can't perceive of these souls drifting around aimlessly together for all eternity, and just what is eternity?
But the concept of the soul is interesting, it is the essence of self, but, as you say, is mutable.
Sometimes thought leads only to confusion not persuasion.
katyzzz
Comment by Winston
Small Thoughts on Big Questions
Thanks for dropping by
Comment by Winston
Small Thoughts on Big Questions
Glad you liked it!
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Comment by Onesnap
I agree.
I guess I should have explained better. What I meant to say was that the people that I know that have had supernatural/ghostly encounters also happen to be very smart and well educated. Typically when one pictures someone that has had these encounters they may not imagine the average working and well educated person is the one that is having them.
I don't believe in seeing folks from your life after you die (and long after they are dead), but I do believe that there is certain energy or soul within any being. Even my cat Maximus has a soul beyond those eyes and my vet often jokes that he's a reincarnated Labrador retriever. That is amusing to me given that she's a woman of science and thinks that my cat is more than just a cat. Even our kitty sitter thinks he's a 'kindred spirit' so we've heard that before I guess...strange.
Often when we encounter something we don't understand (i.e. why my cat thinks he's a dog or a 'haunted' hotel room) often we come up with creative ways to explain the unexplainable.
Comment by youranter
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Comment by Winston
Small Thoughts on Big Questions
All I know is that the implications of his injury and recovery are astounding, both in what they say about the existence of the soul and of the brain's ability to compensate for significant trauma. The brain used to be regarded as fairly inflexible (no tissue regeneration, no way to compensate for destroyed neural pathways, etc.) We're learning more all the time that what we thought about how the brain works was far short of reality.
Comment by Winston
Small Thoughts on Big Questions
Often when we encounter something we don't understand (i.e. why my cat thinks he's a dog or a 'haunted' hotel room) often we come up with creative ways to explain the unexplainable.
Exactly.