From: Dan Fabulich (daniel.fabulich@yale.edu)
Date: Sat Apr 17 1999 - 10:24:43 MDT
At 08:07 AM 4/17/99 -0400, John Heritage wrote:
> 1> Does anyone know of a way (ethical or unethical - I'm asking
>purely for knowledge) to "test" and "prove" whether or not
> there is an existance of a soul that "attaches" to the human body
>somehow?
Naturally, there are many different plausible definitions for a soul; you'd
have to nail down pretty specifically what you're referring to before you
could verify its existence.
However, I think we can do quite a bit in the way of testing for a soul.
If you think that the soul is a spiritual thing which can affect the
physical world (even if only through our brains) then we should see some
repeatable physical phenomena in the brain or elsewhere which can't be
explained physically. Any such phenomena would be valid criteria. The
absence of such phenomena, would disprove the claim that the soul acts on
the physical world, and therefore also disprove the claim that the soul
takes any responsibility in shaping our decisions about how to act. (If it
did, it would affect how we act.)
What can't be disproved, however, are statements about the soul which have
no effect on the physical world. For example, suppose the soul were a
perfect analogue to your physical brain, but having no effect whatsoever on
the physical world. While the brain can't do anything after death, a soul
could, for example, go to paradise. Could we test for that? Well,
obviously not. All of our tests must necessarily be physical; physical
tests can't detect purely spiritual phenomena.
That being said, we normally raise this question in the context of
uploading because people are concerned that if they get uploaded, their
souls won't go with them. I know of two basic answers to this; one of them
is to say "soul, schmoul; it doesn't exist," and the other is something
like this: we have no evidence whatsoever telling us how/when the soul
enters or leaves the body over the course of a person's lifetime. Why do
we presume that our soul is with us all the time to begin with? It may
leave the body whenever we're physicall unconscious, or may only come to us
a few times in our lives. All of the atoms in our bodies are replaced
dozens of times over the course of a normal lifetime. With that being
said, do we have any idea whether our soul stays with us after *any* major
physical changes in our bodies? If not, why get so suspicious about uploading?
> 2> We've had transplants of all kinds of organs - but we've never
>had a brain transplant. If I were to detach my brain physically
> from myself, and have it attached to something else that it can
>communicate with (either another body, a machine that reacts
> to it like a body, etc etc) -- would I have the same
>conciousness/be the same person? (this one may not be obvious).
Actually...
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/mckenzie_head980427.html
Head transplants have been performed on monkeys. Presuming that you don't
think your face/skull has anything to do with identity, this would be an
actual test of whether your identity moves with your brain or not.
This may be a question of definitions, however. Suppose you woke up with
memories of having fallen asleep in your old body and waking up in the one
you're currently in. Would you consider yourself to be the same person?
There's no obvious reason why you would have to believe yourself to be the
same person; indeed, people today are skeptical about the continuity of
consciousness even WITHOUT undergoing head transplants. So what would it
prove? Nothing, really. This may be one of those questions where there is
no fact of the matter upon which to agree.
-Dan
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