The superfluousness of souls

[gaara4158]

No matter how much they spin it, Christians believe that they will be reincarnated (1 Corinthians 15:35-38) on another planet (Revelation 21:1). This requires that their essence of self is immortal and immaterial. So we're talking about a soul in the colloquial sense. What did you read that made you rethink that?

These guys started taking about a concept of the soul that’s less religious/spiritual and more philosophical/abstract, and I’m really not equipped to deal with some of the justifications they’ve offered, even if at the end of the day I don’t accept them.

 

[Silmarien]

Some religions accepting a form of dualism say that man is two parts: body and soul. But is that really true? Virtually everything (and I say virtually because I just don’t know how complete the research currently is) we do and experience has been shown to be made possible by specific functions of the nervous system. Pleasure, pain, joy, anguish, language, motor skills, memory... all can be disabled by damaging or destroying certain parts of the nervous system. There are also people born with certain mental disabilities which are associated with anomalies in the brain.

Why, then, wouldn’t it follow that if the entire brain is destroyed, all experience and mental ability ceases? What is left for a soul to do without a body? Even if you take the radio/signal analogy in which a soul is like a radio signal and the body is like a radio, you must concede that a soul can’t do or experience anything on its own. And what’s the difference between an immaterial soul that can’t do or experience anything, and nothing at all?

Now, if we don’t have souls, that doesn’t necessarily have atheistic implications, but it does narrow the range of religions that might be possible. I was taught as an SDA that body and soul were one, and were either preserved eternally in Heaven after the Second Coming or destroyed permanently in the lake of fire. There are other denominations with similar ideas.

So, if you believe in an immaterial soul, why?

A thread like this when I'm out of the country.

Something that hasn't been brought up yet: the philosophy of time and whether it is a fundamental aspect of reality or in some sense illusory. This might not immediately seem related, but if from a subjective perspective you come into being and then cease to exist, but from an objective one you exist eternally within a specific span of time, I think that has some pretty big ramifications for the immortality of the soul. Our passage through time becomes a bit paradoxical, since we exist eternally at every moment within our timeline. I'm not sure what that entails (eternal recurrence of the soul as you relive your life over and over again? Some aspect of the self which exists outside of time to be able to experience it just once?), but extinction looks like the least likely possibility.

I'm not exactly a dualist, but materialism often seems to be a matter of describing a three dimensional reality while insisting upon a two dimensional space. I think you need at least property dualism to explain how physical events give rise to sensory experience, and once you get there, conceptual problems just multiply. None of that says anything about the immortality of the soul, though at the end of the day I'd say that I see the self is a special creation in a way physical matter is not. One particular subjective experience of reality is being brought into being out of infinite possibilities, and that's the sort of magical act that strikes me as so impossible that all bets are off when it comes to what it might really entail.

On the other hand, I have a hard time imagining an afterlife that involves a strong continuity of identity, since so much of what we are is physical. This is one of the reasons I find Christianity more attractive than some other options, since it posits some sort of continued physical existence rather than a purely disembodied one. Of course, the alternative is to go the hard idealistic angle and start denying individuality -- there's a really interesting neuroscientist over on Quora named Paul Bush who discusses the issue of brain and mind from that type of perspective, if you want to check that out.

 

[gaara4158]

A thread like this when I'm out of the country.

Something that hasn't been brought up yet: the philosophy of time and whether it is a fundamental aspect of reality or in some sense illusory. This might not immediately seem related, but if from a subjective perspective you come into being and then cease to exist, but from an objective one you exist eternally within a specific span of time, I think that has some pretty big ramifications for the immortality of the soul. Our passage through time becomes a bit paradoxical, since we exist eternally at every moment within our timeline. I'm not sure what that entails (eternal recurrence of the soul as you relive your life over and over again? Some aspect of the self which exists outside of time to be able to experience it just once?), but extinction looks like the least likely possibility.

I'm not exactly a dualist, but materialism often seems to be a matter of describing a three dimensional reality while insisting upon a two dimensional space. I think you need at least property dualism to explain how physical events give rise to sensory experience, and once you get there, conceptual problems just multiply. None of that says anything about the immortality of the soul, though at the end of the day I'd say that I see the self is a special creation in a way physical matter is not. One particular subjective experience of reality is being brought into being out of infinite possibilities, and that's the sort of magical act that strikes me as so impossible that all bets are off when it comes to what it might really entail.

On the other hand, I have a hard time imagining an afterlife that involves a strong continuity of identity, since so much of what we are is physical. This is one of the reasons I find Christianity more attractive than some other options, since it posits some sort of continued physical existence rather than a purely disembodied one. Of course, the alternative is to go the hard idealistic angle and start denying individuality -- there's a really interesting neuroscientist over on Quora named Paul Bush who discusses the issue of brain and mind from that type of perspective, if you want to check that out.

Interesting! I’ll check that out for sure. I’m spread pretty thin mentally for the time being so I can’t engage very deeply in this thread, but it’s good to see you back!

 

[Silmarien]

Interesting! I’ll check that out for sure. I’m spread pretty thin mentally for the time being so I can’t engage very deeply in this thread, but it’s good to see you back!

Thanks! Not back just yet -- not for another week, actually, but I am mentally worn out and ready to go home, haha.