Is my "soul" me in any meaningful way, and why should I be concerned?

[looking_for_answers_]

Hello everyone,

I've been thinking a lot about the philosophy of identity, mostly in sci-fi ish thought expiriments. But the more I think about it, the thornier it makes spiritual issues as well.

Let's imagine this. Suppose I'm a criminal in the star trek universe and when I'm getting beamed to the courthouse there's an error that results in an exact duplicate of me. Should both be put in jail for my crimes?

Now suppose there were some errors with one of the copies. He now has the same personality, but no memory of the crime committed. Should only the one with memory be punished?

Suppose other things get changed as well. In the teleporting process, the copy not only loses memory of the crime, but other things as well. He no longer remembers growing up on the colonies on Titan, but remembers being adopted and raised by vulcan diplomats working for the federation. Instead of having my brash personality, he is much more stoic and thoughtful.

At what point is the copy considered different enough from the original to no longer be considered culpable?

Thing is, this isn't so unrealistic. Given a few years, many all of the cells in your body are swapped out. People's personalities can change drastically, under the right circumstances, and we can absolutely lose memories.

So why should the promise of heaven or the threat of hell even be meaningful? Suppose the soul is some carbon copy of my brain state that gets "frozen" at death. If I get shot in the head such that the part of my brain with memories that make up me are destroyed and I live in a hospital for a few days before dying, then will my soul be tortured for my sins, while not even being able to remember that it did them?

What if I accept Christ, but then am in a severe accident that makes me forget doing so. Over the next few years, both my body and mind change significantly enough that I can no longer even be considered the same person. The "new me" does not even believe in God. Did my old soul go to heaven and get replaced by a new, damned soul at some point? Was my unlucky soul saved at one point and then, due to forces outside of it's control (the accident) had salvation yanked out from underneath it? Will the body, which ridicules the idea of belief in God (much less the Christian one) be attached to a saved soul?

I could go on with lines of questioning imagining the spirituality of, fifty+ years down the line, what if one were to upload their consciousness to a non-biological body, and their biological body were to then die. Would they now have a soul that were in heaven or hell, while also being physically alive and hypothetically immortal? But that may have to be a different thread for later.

Ultimately it's got me wondering why I should even think that anything in the supernatural realm, like the soul, could even be me in any meaningful way. I still "feel" like it is, but the more I think about it the less coherent it gets. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks and God bless!

 

[SkyWriting]

Hello everyone,

I've been thinking a lot about the philosophy of identity, mostly in sci-fi ish thought expiriments. But the more I think about it, the thornier it makes spiritual issues as well.

Let's imagine this. Suppose I'm a criminal in the star trek universe and when I'm getting beamed to the courthouse there's an error that results in an exact duplicate of me. Should both be put in jail for my crimes?

Now suppose there were some errors with one of the copies. He now has the same personality, but no memory of the crime committed. Should only the one with memory be punished?

Suppose other things get changed as well. In the teleporting process, the copy not only loses memory of the crime, but other things as well. He no longer remembers growing up on the colonies on Titan, but remembers being adopted and raised by vulcan diplomats working for the federation. Instead of having my brash personality, he is much more stoic and thoughtful.

At what point is the copy considered different enough from the original to no longer be considered culpable?

Thing is, this isn't so unrealistic. Given a few years, many all of the cells in your body are swapped out. People's personalities can change drastically, under the right circumstances, and we can absolutely lose memories.

So why should the promise of heaven or the threat of hell even be meaningful? Suppose the soul is some carbon copy of my brain state that gets "frozen" at death. If I get shot in the head such that the part of my brain with memories that make up me are destroyed and I live in a hospital for a few days before dying, then will my soul be tortured for my sins, while not even being able to remember that it did them?

What if I accept Christ, but then am in a severe accident that makes me forget doing so. Over the next few years, both my body and mind change significantly enough that I can no longer even be considered the same person. The "new me" does not even believe in God. Did my old soul go to heaven and get replaced by a new, damned soul at some point? Was my unlucky soul saved at one point and then, due to forces outside of it's control (the accident) had salvation yanked out from underneath it? Will the body, which ridicules the idea of belief in God (much less the Christian one) be attached to a saved soul?

I could go on with lines of questioning imagining the spirituality of, fifty+ years down the line, what if one were to upload their consciousness to a non-biological body, and their biological body were to then die. Would they now have a soul that were in heaven or hell, while also being physically alive and hypothetically immortal? But that may have to be a different thread for later.

Ultimately it's got me wondering why I should even think that anything in the supernatural realm, like the soul, could even be me in any meaningful way. I still "feel" like it is, but the more I think about it the less coherent it gets. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks and God bless!

The criminal justice system is the "Fairest" system we have come up with
but it is no comparison to God who knows everything and had planned it all.

 

[Sam91]

More information on the word 'soul'. Does this help?

 

[Devin P]

Hello everyone,

I've been thinking a lot about the philosophy of identity, mostly in sci-fi ish thought expiriments. But the more I think about it, the thornier it makes spiritual issues as well.

Let's imagine this. Suppose I'm a criminal in the star trek universe and when I'm getting beamed to the courthouse there's an error that results in an exact duplicate of me. Should both be put in jail for my crimes?

Now suppose there were some errors with one of the copies. He now has the same personality, but no memory of the crime committed. Should only the one with memory be punished?

Suppose other things get changed as well. In the teleporting process, the copy not only loses memory of the crime, but other things as well. He no longer remembers growing up on the colonies on Titan, but remembers being adopted and raised by vulcan diplomats working for the federation. Instead of having my brash personality, he is much more stoic and thoughtful.

At what point is the copy considered different enough from the original to no longer be considered culpable?

Thing is, this isn't so unrealistic. Given a few years, many all of the cells in your body are swapped out. People's personalities can change drastically, under the right circumstances, and we can absolutely lose memories.

So why should the promise of heaven or the threat of hell even be meaningful? Suppose the soul is some carbon copy of my brain state that gets "frozen" at death. If I get shot in the head such that the part of my brain with memories that make up me are destroyed and I live in a hospital for a few days before dying, then will my soul be tortured for my sins, while not even being able to remember that it did them?

What if I accept Christ, but then am in a severe accident that makes me forget doing so. Over the next few years, both my body and mind change significantly enough that I can no longer even be considered the same person. The "new me" does not even believe in God. Did my old soul go to heaven and get replaced by a new, damned soul at some point? Was my unlucky soul saved at one point and then, due to forces outside of it's control (the accident) had salvation yanked out from underneath it? Will the body, which ridicules the idea of belief in God (much less the Christian one) be attached to a saved soul?

I could go on with lines of questioning imagining the spirituality of, fifty+ years down the line, what if one were to upload their consciousness to a non-biological body, and their biological body were to then die. Would they now have a soul that were in heaven or hell, while also being physically alive and hypothetically immortal? But that may have to be a different thread for later.

Ultimately it's got me wondering why I should even think that anything in the supernatural realm, like the soul, could even be me in any meaningful way. I still "feel" like it is, but the more I think about it the less coherent it gets. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks and God bless!

Well, the bible never really talks even once about an eternal soul. It talks about us essentially resting until (if we've been obedient to God, and have had faith in Him) the first resurrection, which is to life, in newly given fleshly bodies, and those given these bodies will reign with Jesus here on earth.

Those that aren't to be a part of the first resurrection, will continue resting until judgement comes, and that, will be it for them. They'll stand before God, and His Presence (seeing that He's an all consuming fire) will burn them up. This in a way happens to those raised in the first resurrection, because we have to be tried by His Fire (His Presence). Our flesh will be destroyed, but we'll be given a new eternal, and incorruptible body.

The whole idea of an eternal soul that's apart from our bodies that either goes into eternal punishment, or eternal bliss isn't really biblical. It's just a series of myths that come from catholicism that people just mostly have accepted since it's been repeated so often in our culture. Heaven, will be here on earth though, reigning with Jesus, in flesh and blood bodies. The difference is, we'll have bodies just like the one He had after He raised from the dead. This is why He's called the "First-Fruit of the Resurrection". Because He is how we're to be when we're risen.

Hopefully this helps with you not being able to identify with the eternal soul concept, because you don't really have to - if you want to stay true to the bible that is. Hell isn't a place, it's an action, that takes place by God, and the Fire that breaks forth from His presence. It's His judgement, and those that oppose God, will be destroyed by it. No longer existing, just *poof* gone.

 

[~Anastasia~]

I won't begin to address the sci-if questions. They are necessarily imperfect analogies and create rabbit trails - useful only for entertainment of folks who enjoy following rabbit trails.

A human person is a soul and a body. What the body and soul do, think, believe, say, and so on - shape the person. This is the basis for our ultimate judgement.

Forget cells changing out and being "new". That's akin to thinking when your hair grows out complete, you yourself are all new. You are yourself - who are you? Are you a person who loves the good, who has light and life in them, who inclines toward God, who loves others? Or are you a person concerned only with self, at the expense of any others, consumed only by your own desires? Most are somewhere in between. We are all on a journey in this life.

If someone who trusts Christ, believes, etc. decides over time they would prefer to focus on their own appetites, God will allow it. Such a person could be being saved, and discard it. Likewise one who has always loved darkness and is devoted to selfish pursuits can change. In the end ... who are you?


I believe that if a person who is following God were to suffer an illness or injury that somehow affected his mind and made him change ... I think there is the great possibility that God would show mercy on such a person. He is able to restore them in the end. Like a blindfold, He could remove the effects on that person's brain, and then ... who knows? What are they left with? But God will always do what is right. Silly legal traps and games cannot constrain Him.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Soul sleep and annihilationism were not what the Apostles taught.

 

[looking_for_answers_]

Well, the bible never really talks even once about an eternal soul. It talks about us essentially resting until (if we've been obedient to God, and have had faith in Him) the first resurrection, which is to life, in newly given fleshly bodies, and those given these bodies will reign with Jesus here on earth.

Those that aren't to be a part of the first resurrection, will continue resting until judgement comes, and that, will be it for them. They'll stand before God, and His Presence (seeing that He's an all consuming fire) will burn them up. This in a way happens to those raised in the first resurrection, because we have to be tried by His Fire (His Presence). Our flesh will be destroyed, but we'll be given a new eternal, and incorruptible body.

The whole idea of an eternal soul that's apart from our bodies that either goes into eternal punishment, or eternal bliss isn't really biblical. It's just a series of myths that come from catholicism that people just mostly have accepted since it's been repeated so often in our culture. Heaven, will be here on earth though, reigning with Jesus, in flesh and blood bodies. The difference is, we'll have bodies just like the one He had after He raised from the dead. This is why He's called the "First-Fruit of the Resurrection". Because He is how we're to be when we're risen.

Hopefully this helps with you not being able to identify with the eternal soul concept, because you don't really have to - if you want to stay true to the bible that is. Hell isn't a place, it's an action, that takes place by God, and the Fire that breaks forth from His presence. It's His judgement, and those that oppose God, will be destroyed by it. No longer existing, just *poof* gone.

Huh. Very interesting to think about.

So in this moment, if I am saved and Christ returns, I would reign with Him - but, if He returns next week, and in the meantime I get a smack in the head that realigns my neurons such that I no longer believe in Him, would I then be destroyed by His judgment upon His return?

 

[~Anastasia~]

Huh. Very interesting to think about.

So in this moment, if I am saved and Christ returns, I would reign with Him - but, if He returns next week, and in the meantime I get a smack in the head that realigns my neurons such that I no longer believe in Him, would I then be destroyed by His judgment upon His return?

Does that sound like a loving and wise Father?

 

[looking_for_answers_]

I won't begin to address the sci-if questions. They are necessarily imperfect analogies and create rabbit trails - useful only for entertainment of folks who enjoy following rabbit trails.

A human person is a soul and a body. What the body and soul do, think, believe, say, and so on - shape the person. This is the basis for our ultimate judgement.

Forget cells changing out and being "new". That's akin to thinking when your hair grows out complete, you yourself are all new.

I'm not talking about my hair though. I'm talking about the phyiscal parts that make up my consciousness and self-identity.

You are yourself - who are you? Are you a person who loves the good, who has light and life in them, who inclines toward God, who loves others? Or are you a person concerned only with self, at the expense of any others, consumed only by your own desires?

Yet those preferences are likewise "stored" or "set" physically. If enough of those cells change, my preferences change, and my identity changes. So my identity must logically be seated in those cells and the configurations thereof.

Silly legal traps and games cannot constrain Him.

I don't mean it to be either of those things, and it frustrates me that so many believers write off questions like this.

 

[Devin P]

Huh. Very interesting to think about.

So in this moment, if I am saved and Christ returns, I would reign with Him - but, if He returns next week, and in the meantime I get a smack in the head that realigns my neurons such that I no longer believe in Him, would I then be destroyed by His judgment upon His return?

Very good question. All throughout the bible it only shows condemnation for the unrepentant, so assuming this caused you to continue a life of unrepentance, even though your being longed for repentance prior, I'm not sure. I'd hope, that based on the Creator I've read about that He'd forgive and understand, but according to His own word, that wouldn't be the case. So, possibly yeah.

It's not His return that would destroy you, necessarily. Judgement after the 1000 year reign would destroy you. There will still be people on earth that aren't the children of God after Jesus returns. They're who Jesus and God's children will rule over. So you could be among those that are ruled if your mind is altered. Although, since Jesus would be living literally on earth as king of all the earth, it'd be hard to not believe in Him.

 

[Devin P]

Honestly since Jesus wants all to come to Him, He'd know that prior to your accident you longed for His will and for obedience, so since He'd be on earth, He'd probably either heal you or have one of His priests (the people that will reign with Him for the 1000 years) heal you, because it's His will all are saved, and if something outside of your control is why you're taken from Him, He'll probably be gracious about it, that is how His Character appears throughout the bible.

 

[Everybodyknows]

Hello everyone,

I've been thinking a lot about the philosophy of identity, mostly in sci-fi ish thought expiriments. But the more I think about it, the thornier it makes spiritual issues as well.

Let's imagine this. Suppose I'm a criminal in the star trek universe and when I'm getting beamed to the courthouse there's an error that results in an exact duplicate of me. Should both be put in jail for my crimes?

Now suppose there were some errors with one of the copies. He now has the same personality, but no memory of the crime committed. Should only the one with memory be punished?

Suppose other things get changed as well. In the teleporting process, the copy not only loses memory of the crime, but other things as well. He no longer remembers growing up on the colonies on Titan, but remembers being adopted and raised by vulcan diplomats working for the federation. Instead of having my brash personality, he is much more stoic and thoughtful.

At what point is the copy considered different enough from the original to no longer be considered culpable?

Thing is, this isn't so unrealistic. Given a few years, many all of the cells in your body are swapped out. People's personalities can change drastically, under the right circumstances, and we can absolutely lose memories.

So why should the promise of heaven or the threat of hell even be meaningful? Suppose the soul is some carbon copy of my brain state that gets "frozen" at death. If I get shot in the head such that the part of my brain with memories that make up me are destroyed and I live in a hospital for a few days before dying, then will my soul be tortured for my sins, while not even being able to remember that it did them?

What if I accept Christ, but then am in a severe accident that makes me forget doing so. Over the next few years, both my body and mind change significantly enough that I can no longer even be considered the same person. The "new me" does not even believe in God. Did my old soul go to heaven and get replaced by a new, damned soul at some point? Was my unlucky soul saved at one point and then, due to forces outside of it's control (the accident) had salvation yanked out from underneath it? Will the body, which ridicules the idea of belief in God (much less the Christian one) be attached to a saved soul?

I could go on with lines of questioning imagining the spirituality of, fifty+ years down the line, what if one were to upload their consciousness to a non-biological body, and their biological body were to then die. Would they now have a soul that were in heaven or hell, while also being physically alive and hypothetically immortal? But that may have to be a different thread for later.

Ultimately it's got me wondering why I should even think that anything in the supernatural realm, like the soul, could even be me in any meaningful way. I still "feel" like it is, but the more I think about it the less coherent it gets. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks and God bless!

The no cloning theorem and no teleportation theorem rule out copying or transfer of unknown quantum states. To clone a brain we would not only need to replicate every cell, but we would need to copy the exact quantum state of every particle.

 

[~Anastasia~]

I'm not talking about my hair though. I'm talking about the phyiscal parts that make up my consciousness and self-identity.



Yet those preferences are likewise "stored" or "set" physically. If enough of those cells change, my preferences change, and my identity changes. So my identity must logically be seated in those cells and the configurations thereof.



I don't mean it to be either of those things, and it frustrates me that so many believers write off questions like this.

I suppose it depends on what you consider to the the locus of your soul.

But if it is purely dependent upon biological structures, then how could it exist when the body dies, at any rate?

Yet we have a number of mentions in Scripture that confirm what we know. Paul said to be absent from the body was to be present with the Lord, the souls of the martyrs under the throne in Revelation are conversing with God, Jesus tells of (either actual or simply possible) an account of the deceased Abraham talking to others who have died ... and so on.

Their identities, their souls, are intact - apart from the body. So we would say the soul is not dependent on biological structures. They merely exist alongside and physically support it. The body is part of who we are, but not the sum total of our identity.

Remember that God created Adam's body - then breathed into it his soul. Whether you take that account as literal, metaphorical, or what - in any case, we understand souls to come from God while physical bodies are composed of matter, nourished by food, reproduced biologically, etc.

Forgive me if my lack of inclination to answer the sci-fi questions, or my reply otherwise, seemed like brushing off your question. It's not that I'm refusing to consider it. It is that the Christian teaching on the soul does not have it existing only as a kind of by-product of biology.

 

[looking_for_answers_]

The no cloning theorem and no teleportation theorem rule out copying or transfer of unknown quantum states. To clone a brain we would not only need to replicate every cell, but we would need to copy the exact quantum state of every particle.

It's just a thought experiment though. I'm not concerned with technical feasability any more than ethics philosophers are actually concerned with whether or not they're ever going to have to re-route a trolley to keep it from hitting a baby.

 

[looking_for_answers_]

I suppose it depends on what you consider to the the locus of your soul.

But if it is purely dependent upon biological structures, then how could it exist when the body dies, at any rate?

Yet we have a number of mentions in Scripture that confirm what we know. Paul said to be absent from the body was to be present with the Lord, the souls of the martyrs under the throne in Revelation are conversing with God, Jesus tells of (either actual or simply possible) an account of the deceased Abraham talking to others who have died ... and so on.

Their identities, their souls, are intact - apart from the body. So we would say the soul is not dependent on biological structures. They merely exist alongside and physically support it. The body is part of who we are, but not the sum total of our identity.

Remember that God created Adam's body - then breathed into it his soul. Whether you take that account as literal, metaphorical, or what - in any case, we understand souls to come from God while physical bodies are composed of matter, nourished by food, reproduced biologically, etc.

Forgive me if my lack of inclination to answer the sci-if questions, or my reply otherwise, seemed like brushing off your question. It's not that I'm refusing to consider it. It is that the Christian teaching on the soul does not have it existing only as a kind of by-product of biology.

Understood. I apologize if that came across as confrontational. Part of my frustration is reading about transhumanism over the last few years, watching as new milestones seem to be getting hit on a monthly basis, observing the... strange places that many secular thinkers in the field get to, and finding that there are practically no Christian writers or philosophers who have touched on the subject. Certainly not to the depths that people like Kurzweil or Bostrom do.

"I suppose it depends on what you consider to the the locus of your soul."

Indeed. If I consider that at some point, it will be possible to create a non-biological human that can act, think, and feel emotions just like I can, then I have to consider that my own actions, memories, thoughts, and emotions are not seated in the soul, but in something physical. So if my conscious identity is seated in the brain, then why should I care what happens to the "soul"?

 

[looking_for_answers_]

Honestly since Jesus wants all to come to Him, He'd know that prior to your accident you longed for His will and for obedience, so since He'd be on earth, He'd probably either heal you or have one of His priests (the people that will reign with Him for the 1000 years) heal you, because it's His will all are saved, and if something outside of your control is why you're taken from Him, He'll probably be gracious about it, that is how His Character appears throughout the bible.

This is the core of my question thought - at some point, if you change enough things about me, I would no longer recognize the copy as "me". So if my identity and consciousness are based on physical things like memory, thinking capacity, emotion, personality, sensation, etc., and not my soul, then why would threatening or rewarding the soul be meaningful?

 

[Everybodyknows]

It's just a thought experiment though. I'm not concerned with technical feasability any more than ethics philosophers are actually concerned with whether or not they're ever going to have to re-route a trolley to keep it from hitting a baby.

It's an interesting thought experiment. I was addressing your implied suggestion that this kind of technology is a few years off. In a sense this kind of thought experiment is not that different to time travel paradoxes in that if we allow for violations of the laws of physics we end up with illogical or contradictory conclusions.

 

[looking_for_answers_]

It's an interesting thought experiment. I was addressing your implied suggestion that this kind of technology is a few years off. In a sense this kind of thought experiment is not that different to time travel paradoxes in that if we allow for violations of the laws of physics we end up with illogical or contradictory conclusions.

Gotcha. But this only matters if I decide that meaningful identity only happens if something is identical to me down to a quantum level, which would kind of make it even more likely that I don't need to be concerned about my soul (boy do I feel weird saying that lol).

Let's say that I find that, even at a "lower resolution", a scanned copy of myself still is self aware, conscious (presupposing we can test for that at some point... again, hypothetical), and has all my memories... without needing to get down to the quantum level.

As far "a few years off", yeah definitely not "a few years", but let's check in once per decade over the next half-century or so, and see if the law of accelerating returns has applied. Though really, my personal hope that I don't have to live through society dealing with the implications of this don't really have anything to do with the thought experiment.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Understood. I apologize if that came across as confrontational. Part of my frustration is reading about transhumanism over the last few years, watching as new milestones seem to be getting hit on a monthly basis, observing the... strange places that many secular thinkers in the field get to, and finding that there are practically no Christian writers or philosophers who have touched on the subject. Certainly not to the depths that people like Kurzweil or Bostrom do.

"I suppose it depends on what you consider to the the locus of your soul."

Indeed. If I consider that at some point, it will be possible to create a non-biological human that can act, think, and feel emotions just like I can, then I have to consider that my own actions, memories, thoughts, and emotions are not seated in the soul, but in something physical. So if my conscious identity is seated in the brain, then why should I care what happens to the "soul"?

Animals can act, think, and feel emotions. That doesn't mean they have a soul as man does.

Every human being is created in the image and likeness of God. Christianity teaches that God gives the soul.


I've thought a bit about cloning, artificial intelligence, etc. Do such beings have a soul?

If God so desires, He could give a clone a soul, since it is a human being, just one produced by artificial means. Whether or not He would do so - I don't think anyone can say.

I think it very unlikely that He would give a soul to a machine created by man. We can right now program machines to approximate human beings to a degree - but that doesn't make those things human.

Frankly, I think we are dabbling into things we were not given to do. And in the process creating questions with answers we do not know.

Man has ever desired to possess knowledge and be like God, tempted by the one who first had that desire. That we would seek to be able to do such things is no surprise.

 

[Everybodyknows]

Let's say that I find that, even at a "lower resolution", a scanned copy of myself still is self aware, conscious (presupposing we can test for that at some point... again, hypothetical)

In a way this is already possible via genetic cloning. The result of the copying is essentially an identical twin just as aware and conscious as yourself.

and has all my memories... without needing to get down to the quantum level

It gets tricky when we get down to the level of recreating thoughts and memories. I don't know enough about this to be certain, but going down to the quantum level seems unavoidable.