Reciprocating Bill
Posts: 4265
Joined: Oct. 2006
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| Quote (skeptic @ Sep. 07 2007,19:34) | | I've always pictured the soul as a passive object similar to a vessel. It contains the essence of the person almost as if an impression was left upon by the actions and behaviors of the person. The idea of the soul in that quote reminds me more of what I would call the Mind. But I agree there's no objective way we can talk about it. In the same way, I think this leaves science out of it because that is the language that science speaks in. The problem also with the potential conflicts with science is we have no real was to assess these conflicts. As I see it, even if we were to assume that the souls directs behaviors and we isolate the chemical processes associated with said behaviors does this rule out the existence of the soul. No, maybe it eliminates the necessity of the soul but that's not entirely the same thing. Since we can not completely describe the universe there's limitations to science even in those areas we can objectively pursue. Who knows how much more is objective and beyond our understanding and subjective and applicable to different methods of understanding, i.e. irrational methods? |
You make valuable points with which I don't have a quarrel.
I personally find the assertion of a "soul" that lives beyond the body a form a denial (death isn't "really" death), one that takes us further from authentic human experience rather than closer, but that itself is certainly a personal, not scientific, assertion.
That said, while it is certainly true (as you say) that there are many things human beings don't and maybe can't represent and grasp by means of scientific understanding, it doesn't follow that the human animal will itself remain one of them. What has been scientifically clear ever since Darwin is that human beings emerged from the natural world, and no special explanation is required relative to other organisms with regard to our origins. Moreover, it is equally plain that all of the astonishing (and appalling) deeds of which we are collectively capable, which sometimes seem so qualitatively different from those of other animals, are clearly hosted within brains that differ only quantitatively, rather than qualitatively, relative to our, well, relatives. As the organization of this brain is disclosed by neuroscience and incorporated into cognitive science, it is clear that many of the powers long assigned to "souls" or "immaterial selves" will be in fact seen to emerge from this quantitatively enhanced brain, adapted as it is to be immersed in language and culture.
Persons who deny the facts of organic evolution and human history on religious bases certainly do make assertions that intrude into and compete with this scientific picture - even, as you say, the abstract notions of god and soul remain scientifically untestable. ID is obviously the worst offender with respect to biology, as it claims to offer a causal account of the facts of biology that is religious at heart (their tiresome denials notwithstanding). Hence ID intrudes into a scientific domain while making no contributions to it, all the while making assertions are inherently untestable. The fact that their claims are beyond objective adjudication is a weakness of their position, not a strength. And they do damage, as the public is often unable to evaluate their claims.
I haven't read Uncommonly Denyse's latest book, but I'll be astonished if she doesn't, on behalf of the same community, make analogous claims vis human neurobiology and cognitive functioning and seek to deny humanity's place in nature and in history. Perhaps you will cringe too as you read it, if the anticipated prosaic portrait of a "soul" that is pulling and organizing neural strings is indeed there.
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Myth: Something that never was true, and always will be.
"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."
- David Foster Wallace
"Here’s a clue. Snarky banalities are not a substitute for saying something intelligent. Write that down."
- Barry Arrington
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