ARTICLE: Evidence for the Soul

[STR Ambassador]

If some scientists are right about the soul, this is the end for Christianity.
Here's what you need to know to answer them.


Evidence for the Soul

By Greg Koukl

A few years ago Time magazine made a stunning announcement. In an extensive article on the mind they wrote, "Despite our every instinct to the contrary, there is one thing that consciousness is not: some entity deep inside the brain that corresponds to the 'self,' some kernel of awareness that runs the show."

According to Time, everything about human consciousness--thoughts, desires, pains, pleasures, motives, emotions--can be explained in purely physical terms. A mother's love for her children is only certain c-fibers firing in her brain. The virtue of kindness is nothing more than genetic structure. Your hopes for the future are simply so much chemistry. Brain and body work together as a sophisticated, biological machine with no help from a ghostly, immaterial thing called a soul.

How do they know this? "After more than a century of looking for it, brain researchers have long since concluded that there is no conceivable place for such a self to be located in the physical brain, and that it simply doesn't exist."

In other words, scientists are convinced an immaterial soul can't exist because they can't find it with their instruments and there's no room for it in the brain. That's like saying you don't believe in the invisible man because you've never seen him. You can't measure an immaterial soul with instruments. You have to look for it in a different way.

How to Prove an Invisible Soul Exists

Suppose I came to you seeking advice in settling a dispute with my neighbor. I think he stole something from me, but he denies it, so I ask you for your opinion.

Here's the situation. We both have decks in our backyards built according to the exact same plan. The only difference between his deck and mine is that I used a beautiful new wood-polymer product which doesn't splinter, rot, warp or split. My neighbor's deck is made of old, weather-beaten cedar. Mine looks great and his looks pretty beat up. At least, that's the way it used to be.

One day I noticed that some of my beautiful planks had been removed and replaced with worn out cedar boards. When I looked over my fence, I saw that my neighbor had shiny new planks in the exact same spots that my deck had the old cedar. I started getting suspicious.

A few days passed and more planks had been transferred. When I returned from a week out of town my entire deck looked different. It was old and weather-beaten, just like my neighbor's deck used to look. His deck, however, was brand new, with the same wood-polymer material I used to have that doesn't splinter, rot, warp or split.

When I confronted him he admitted he'd exchanged the boards, but argued that the deck in my backyard is still the same deck I had built. "It still has the same shape," he said. "It's located in the same place. Sure, it looks different, but its looks changed little by little, piece by piece. Therefore, it's still the same deck you had before--your deck--even if it now looks a lot older."

"Listen," I said. "If I have a lawn chair made of the exact same parts that yesterday were in your lawn chair, even though I disassembled it on your property and reassembled it piece by piece on my property, it's still your chair, right?

"Just because this deck was reassembled in the same place--my backyard," I continued, "it can't be the same deck. It's made out of completely different stuff--your junky wood. You want me to believe that just because the beautiful thing you now call your deck is in the same place as your old one, that it's still the same deck. You want me to believe that because it was transformed over time piece by piece, it's still the very same deck, even though it looks different, and therefore you own it?"

"You're nuts," I said. "Anyone can see that if you change all of the parts on my deck, it's no longer the same deck. It's a different deck. Period. I'm studying philosophy. I know how these things work. You can't pull the wool over my eyes."

Did My Neighbor Steal My Deck?

Here's my question to you. Do I have a case? Whose deck is in my backyard, mine or his? If you were a judge presiding over this dispute, would you rule that my neighbor stole my deck? I think you would.

This illustration teaches an important lesson about the existence of the soul. It demonstrates that if you change any of the physical parts of a thing, it's not really the same thing it was before. If you change all of its physical parts, there can be no question that you now have something completely different. That's why it was no longer my deck in my backyard. I had my neighbor's deck and he had mine.

A few years back, the famous Dunes Hotel, for decades a Las Vegas landmark, was slated for destruction. A crew of specialists planted explosive charges at key structural locations, cleared the building, and pushed a button. There was a thunderous blast followed by a crash and a huge cloud of dust. When the air cleared, the Las Vegas Dunes was no more. The once popular hotel had been replaced by a pile of rubble.

Notice that the hotel was gone even though all of the physical pieces of the building still remained. When the explosion disassembled the structure, the hotel simply went out of existence. All the parts were there, but the Dunes was gone.

The hotel's identity, like all physical things, was determined by its precise physical makeup. Replace the parts (as with my deck) or alter the parts (as with the Dunes Hotel) and the thing becomes something else.

What Your Birthday Teaches You About Your Soul

If you're clear on this, then I want you to consider the question I asked an angry student when I gave a lecture at a local college. He completely rejected the idea that any religious claims could ever be justified--including the existence of the soul--because they weren't scientific, so I asked him when he was born.

"1975."

"What day?"

"May 1."

"So you were born on May 1, 1975?"

"That's right."

Then I asked my follow-up question. "Is the body you possess today the same body you had on May 1, 1975?"

He balked at first, but it's clear that his physical body was quite a bit larger now, had a different appearance, and many other different qualities. More to the point, it was made up of different physical stuff. The molecules in our bodies are almost completely exchanged every seven years or so. At age 21, this young man had had at least three entirely different physical bodies. Just like my deck, his body was not the same body anymore, even though its parts had been replaced piece by piece.

I then pointed out the conclusion that was beginning to dawn on everyone in the gallery, including him. "If you were born on May 1, 1975, and the physical body in front of me right now did not even exist as a physical body in 1975, then you are not your physical body, are you?"

Here's the Important Question

What is it about human beings that allows us to maintain our identity over time--such that we can say we're still ourselves--even when we go through such radical physical changes that we can have entirely different bodies over a period of years?

It can't be anything physical. Why? Our bodies are changing constantly. All our physical parts are replaced piece by piece over the years. If this student can possess completely different bodies (physically speaking) over time and still be himself, then his real self cannot be physical.

It isn't my memory, either. I don't remember being conceived or being born. My first recollection is of my second birthday when I got bumped by a pick-up truck and broke my leg. But my existence didn't begin on my second birthday when my memories began. Further, if I lost my memory tomorrow, would I cease to exist? If I had a Vulcan mind-meld and got your memories, would I be you? If so, then who would you be?

Our souls are the non-physical things that sustain our identities over time, even though our physical bodies grow up and grow old.

Here's the important point: If there is no soul, then you aren't the same one who was born on your birthday. There is a different you at every moment, with every change of your physical body. But you know you've been the same self for your entire lifetime. Therefore, you must be a soul and not a body.

Why Is the Soul Important?

First, if Time magazine is right, then Christianity is finished. If you are just your physical body, then when your body dies, you die. That's it. End of story. No heaven or hell. No final judgment. No sweet rewards. Nothing.

This is why it's so important to be able to show--with reflections about decks and birthdays, for example--that there's more going on here than meets the scientific eye. What science is not capable of finding with chemical analysis we can discover with sensible reflection.

Second, a lot of time and effort goes into the development of our bodies, but how much attention do we give to our souls? When you die, your body is left behind, but you continue on. What kind of spiritual body will you take with you? Some people never miss a workout at the spa, but when it comes to the fitness of their souls, they are virtually couch potatoes.

Paul wrote Timothy, "Bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come" (1 Timothy 4:8). Paul's point was that soulish growth endures for eternity, and this growth has something to do with what happens in this life, not the next.

The writer to the Hebrews hints at this idea, I think, when he says, "Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, in order that they might obtain a better resurrection" (Hebrews 11:35).

Do humans have souls, or are we simply sophisticated computers made up of a brain and central nervous system? Your ability to answer that question will make a difference in how well you answer for your faith, and also how well you live your own life.

Not only does your soul exist, but developing your soul now has eternal consequences.


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[Solly]

Koukl makes it out to be an either/or situation. Either extreme materialist epiphenomenalism, or some sort of platonic dualism. There are other views out there, compatible with Christian belief, especially a more holistic view of personhood.
I am surprised at this article, it seems to show no understanidng even of evangelical views on the soul/body issue, and the exegetical evidence that the writers are looking at human personality from a functional not an ontological point of view.

Most of the article seems to be based on hear-say evidence, rather than clear exposition. If...then... and not much else. There isn't even a definition of what 'soul' means or is.

[NeilUnreal]

There are other views out there, compatible with Christian belief, especially a more holistic view of personhood.

There’s nothing wrong with the examples themselves -- though they are kind of Philosophy 101 in the sense of being a starting point rather than an ending point. However, I agree with Solly, it’s presented as a false dichotomy, when in fact the philosophical and theological history of this discussion goes much, much deeper.

For instance, in some forms of Buddhism and mystical Christianity, the same types of examples are used to argue that the soul cannot be a discrete entity, but is instead only a convenient label we apply to patterns in the cosmos. (There is some documentation that Buddha refused to even address issues like this.)

Also, thinking in terms of Christ’s words: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” We are used to thinking of this as the soul being an homunculus-like entity that can somehow move from a state of being “lost” to being “found.” But what if it was meant more literally? What if the existence of a soul itself is something that is dependent on our choices – make selfish, accretive choices and the soul disappears, make selfless choices, the soul appears. More so still, what if the soul itself is those choices?

-Neil

[FreeBrightMind]

Greg Koukl left out one important fact. Not all parts of the body renew themselves. Brain and nerve cells don't. If brain cells are "replace" like boards on his deck then you'd have no memories older than 7 years. Again a fundy with no grasp on real science. Noone would end up like Chris Reeves. The nerves would grow back and we wouldn't have stem cell research. :lol: But again thats not the way it works. I wish teeth replaced themselves. We'd all save a forture in dentist bills.

Time magazine is right, then Christianity is finished. If you are just your physical body, then when your body dies, you die. That's it. End of story. No heaven or hell. No final judgment. No sweet rewards. Nothing. :thumb: The whole article is built on a false premise.

[Solly]

:thumb: The whole article is built on a false premise.

so is the Time article. As if materialist reductionist epiphenominalism was the only view even for nonChristians. Walden2 is not the only game in town.

[Benster]

The materialist position is sometimes wrongly simplified as meaning: "The whole is ONLY the sum of its parts." But this can't be true. As we saw, the hotel was gone, even though it's parts still existed. Materialism means that "The whole is some COMPLEX FUNCTION of its parts." And I beleive this is true. Although the rubble that made up the hotel is there, the complex construction that put it all into place, and made it the Dunes, is gone.

What makes us the same person that we were years ago is our DNA, which contains the complex directions on how to organize the materials we take in. But, still, the whole is some complex function of the parts that it is made of.

(BTW, even though I agree that the neighbor has stolen the deck, I would point out that the old deck he replaced it with, piece by piece, is certainly YOUR deck, since it's on your property. Otherwise, he can have it demolished and taken away while you're arguing about the new one on his land!)

[NeilUnreal]

I love serendipity. I was just reading over this thread and thinking about the patio example and I acquired new insight into the "flag in the wind" koan.

Is it the boards that moved, or the patio? Neither, is the __ that moved.

All you have to do is understand what goes in the __. At this point, Neil-san was enlighted. :lol:

-Neil

[C. D. Ward]

I am surprised at this article, it seems to show no understanidng even of evangelical views on the soul/body issue, and the exegetical evidence that the writers are looking at human personality from a functional not an ontological point of view.I'm not surprised at all. Many of Koukl's articles seem to me to betray a general lack of philosophical knowledge/sophistication. They often seem to contain false dichotomies and other otherwise trivial fallacies.

That said, Solly, I appreciated your response. The current most sophisticated non-reductive theories of mind are generally "friendly" to both naturalistic and non-naturalistic interpretations, not to mention that even the reductive physicalist approach can certainly be reconciled with Scripture in a non-heretical sense (witness the Rev. Sir John Polkinghorne and our own Kenny who both seem to fit that mold).

For those interested in further reading, Koukl's "deck" scenario is analyzed in far greater detail (and with different findings) in Derek Parfit's excellent Reasons and Persons (although of course Parfit uses a different analogy).

[Solly]

My most useful sources on this issue are John Cooper's Body Soul and Life Everlasting, which is an exegetical and theological analysis of the Bible on this issue, and A Theory of Determinism, by Ted Honderich, atheist. He rejects reductionism in all varieties, even in most Identity theories, but also dualism, being critical of the likes of Popper and Eccles in The Self and its Brian. He posits Correlative dualism, in which there most definitely is a mental life, tied to physical neural activity, but not reducable to it, nor merely 'what it looks like from the inside'. He wouldn't call it a soul of course.

[Jezz]

The materialist position is sometimes wrongly simplified as meaning: "The whole is ONLY the sum of its parts." But this can't be true. As we saw, the hotel was gone, even though it's parts still existed. Materialism means that "The whole is some COMPLEX FUNCTION of its parts." And I beleive this is true. Although the rubble that made up the hotel is there, the complex construction that put it all into place, and made it the Dunes, is gone.
I would like to point out that there is an "arrow" that is implicit in the kind of thought displayed above - an arrow that goes from microscopic to macroscopic. The whole is some complex function of its parts. This is "reductionism". From the parts, the whole emerges.

My question is: what scientific justification can you give for conceiving of the arrow in this way? I submit that, from the point of view of a mathematical model, it would be completely equivalent to conceive of the arrow going in the other way. Ie, instead of "the whole is come complex function of its parts", we'd have "the parts are some complex function of the whole". Rather than conceiving of the whole as an emergent property of its parts, we'd conceive of the parts as an invergent property of the whole.

And thus, by recognising that the two above views (invergence vs emergence) are equivalent, we realise that, as a matter of fact, they are two sides of the same coin. They are both correct ways of looking at it.

And this is essentially the Judeo-Christian view of cosmology and athropology - "totalism". We do not pit the whole against the parts, but the two go together as one total "thing". A person does not "have" a body, and "have" a soul. Frequently in the Bible you see either of these being used as a substitute for the whole person - ie, a person s a body, or a person is a soul. The two belong together.

C D Ward mentioned Kenny - well, I have dialogued with him on this issue before, and I think this is a view that I share with him pretty closely. I believe that Judeo-Christian cosmology is the only consistent way of understanding the universe, body, and soul. Views that see the body as a possession (or prison) of an immortal soul (ie, Platonism), or views that see the soul as "merely" an emergent property of the body (extreme reductionism) are both inadequate to explain the full range of phenomena that we encounter in humanity.

Even modern science acknowledges the existence of the soul - though implicitly. The very word "psychology" comes from Greek, and literally means "the logic of the soul". It would be strange for an entire scientific discipline to exist studying something which science did not admit to existing... :smile:


What makes us the same person that we were years ago is our DNA, which contains the complex directions on how to organize the materials we take in.
It's actually a little more complicated than that. If identical DNA is what makes us the same person, then identical twins would be the same person!

The main way that we tell that a person is the same person is not through their DNA, but their historical-temporal continuity. I know that I am the same person as I was years ago because there exists a continuous locus of points in space-time that connects the "me" of today with the "me" of years ago.


But, still, the whole is some complex function of the parts that it is made of.
Or, the parts are some complex function of the whole to which they belong... :smile:

[Benster]

"I submit that, from the point of view of a mathematical model, it would be completely equivalent to conceive of the arrow going in the other way."

No, the equals sign goes both ways. But the arrow goes one way.

"Ie, instead of "the whole is come complex function of its parts", we'd have "the parts are some complex function of the whole". Rather than conceiving of the whole as an emergent property of its parts, we'd conceive of the parts as an invergent property of the whole."

Don't you agree that, in a complex structure, the operation of the whole is dependent on its parts, not the other way around? I think you are reading a little too much into that "=" sign in mathematics! It is not correct to look at the relationship between parts and whole as being reciprocal at all.

"Or, the parts are some complex function of the whole to which they belong..."

I'm sorry, this is just nuts. Example, using the formula of the whole being a function of its parts:

2.3.4 = 24

The whole is the multiple of its parts.

Also, using your idea, its true that we get:

2 = 24/(3x4)

Here, the part is equal to the whole divided by a multiple of the other two parts.

Here, I've shown that any particular part CAN NOT be expressed as a similarly simple function of the whole. This will happen no matter how complex the function of the parts is, although I can't prove it right now.

So, we can express the whole as a complex function of its parts. But to express any particular part as a function of the whole and the other parts requires a more complex function. You may be able to describe any object in the universe as a function of all the objects around it that it influences. But it is usually much simpler to define it as a function of its parts in turn, and this method will yield a successful result:

2 = 1+1

To do otherwise is counter-productive.

[Superbug]

This article is so silly. I can build a robot and store in its hard disk drive the following piece of information: "Built in 2002." Then I replace all the parts one by one and tranfer the stored data to the new hdd. The robot will still have stored the information that it was built in 2002.

[Kenny]

First, if Time magazine is right, then Christianity is finished. If you are just your physical body, then when your body dies, you die. That's it. End of story. No heaven or hell. No final judgment. No sweet rewards. Nothing.

Koukl is aware that the Christian hope for an afterlife is ultimately bound up in the resurrection of the body isn't he?


Second, a lot of time and effort goes into the development of our bodies, but how much attention do we give to our souls? When you die, your body is left behind, but you continue on. What kind of spiritual body will you take with you? Some people never miss a workout at the spa, but when it comes to the fitness of their souls, they are virtually couch potatoes.

Yuck. This is theologically awful. In fact, Paul makes the exact opposite point in I Corinthians 6:12-17

12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. 13 “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food,” and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall be one flesh.” 17 But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.

Most scholars agree with the choice that the translators of the NRSV made to put the opening lines of this section in quotes – these are likely catch phrases that were going around the Corinthian church. We know from I Corinthians 15 that some in the Corinthian church were denying the resurrection of the body. Here in I Corinthians 6 we see some of the consequences of this played out. It appears here that some of the Corinthians were thinking that since the body is going to be destroyed anyway, it doesn’t matter what is done with it – so why not just indulge it. Paul points out that this attitude is wrong precisely because the body will be raised. Thus, what is done in the body is of enduring consequence. In fact, the body, as the very locus of the self and the means by which we experience community with others, is thereby the means by which we participate in the community of the Church and thus is the means by which we are united with the body of Christ. Paul goes on in verses 19-20 to make an intimate association between one's body and one's self: "your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit … you are not your own… for you were bought with a price… therefore glorify God in your body.

In Paul's Jewish mind the self and the body are inseparable. The self's continuing on is precisely the body's continuing on. Thus Koukl is making a grievous theological error when he makes a dichotomy between the continuity of the self and the continuity of the body – the same sort of error that was being made by the Corinthians.


Paul wrote Timothy, "Bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come" (1 Timothy 4:8). Paul's point was that soulish growth endures for eternity, and this growth has something to do with what happens in this life, not the next.

This is simply reading Platonic/Cartesian dualism back into the Scriptures. Paul certainly would not have had in mind such.

Godliness is profitable because it involves the whole self in all of its inseparable aspects – including the body (along with the will, the affections, the mind, etc.)


The writer to the Hebrews hints at this idea, I think, when he says, "Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, in order that they might obtain a better resurrection" (Hebrews 11:35).

Yes, a resurrection not the mere continuation of an immaterial soul.

I think this article contains a number of philosophical errors as well, but what disturbs me more about this article is how horrible the theology is. I think Koukl should know better.

In Christ,
Kenny

[Jezz]

Hey Kenny, just a couple of quick comments:


In Paul's Jewish mind the self and the body are inseparable.
I would clarify this slightly. In Paul's Jewish mind, the image of body and self is not quite one of inseparability. Rather, the image he uses of a self without its body is one of nakedness:

2Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

Paul uses similar "clothing" language in 1 Corinthians 15:50-54 to describe the resurrection.


The self's continuing on is precisely the body's continuing on. Thus Koukl is making a grievous theological error when he makes a dichotomy between the continuity of the self and the continuity of the body – the same sort of error that was being made by the Corinthians.

This is simply reading Platonic/Cartesian dualism back into the Scriptures. Paul certainly would not have had in mind such.

Godliness is profitable because it involves the whole self in all of its inseparable aspects – including the body (along with the will, the affections, the mind, etc.)
Yes, I completely agree. It is interesting to note that the end of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul uses the resurrection of the body as a premise for arguing that the Corinthians need to behave morally. Precisely because our future resurrection body will have continuity with our present body, we need to take care of the one that we've got here and now, which means not sinning.


Yes, a resurrection not the mere continuation of an immaterial soul.

I think this article contains a number of philosophical errors as well, but what disturbs me more about this article is how horrible the theology is. I think Koukl should know better.
I agree with this all 100%; I didn't read the original article carefully enough to notice this error. Thanks for pointing it out.

[Jezz]

"I submit that, from the point of view of a mathematical model, it would be completely equivalent to conceive of the arrow going in the other way."

No, the equals sign goes both ways. But the arrow goes one way.
No, the arrow goes both ways.

Arrows are equivalent to "if...then..." statements. "If A, then B" means A -> B.

If there is a living body, there is a living soul.
If there is a living soul, there is a living body.

Both of these statements are experimentally validated. The first gives the arrow in one direction, the second gives the arrow in the other.

Hence, the arrow goes in both directions. There is no reason to prefer one of these arrows over the other - both go together.


Don't you agree that, in a complex structure, the operation of the whole is dependent on its parts, not the other way around?
No, I don't agree. My point is that you can't have one without the other. Because you can't have one without the other, it doesn't make any sense to talk about one of them "depending" on the other.


I think you are reading a little too much into that "=" sign in mathematics! It is not correct to look at the relationship between parts and whole as being reciprocal at all.
Fallacy of argument by assertion. This is simply you restating your metaphysical assumption - an assumption which is not founded (indeed, possibly even inconsistent with) the reality of the world in which we live.


I'm sorry, this is just nuts.
Fallacy of argument from incredulity. :smile:


Example, using the formula of the whole being a function of its parts:

2.3.4 = 24

The whole is the multiple of its parts.

Also, using your idea, its true that we get:

2 = 24/(3x4)

Here, the part is equal to the whole divided by a multiple of the other two parts.

Here, I've shown that any particular part CAN NOT be expressed as a similarly simple function of the whole. This will happen no matter how complex the function of the parts is, although I can't prove it right now.

So, we can express the whole as a complex function of its parts. But to express any particular part as a function of the whole and the other parts requires a more complex function.
Indeed, you have shown that any particular part cannot be expressed as a similarly simple function of the whole. Yes, this will be true not matter how complex the function of the parts is. Yes, there is a smell of burning straw in the air surrounding this point. :smile: Why does it matter if the function is more complex? It does not. What matters is that the function exists.

But at any rate, you're over-complicating what is really a simple issue. Answer this question, and you'll understand what I mean:

Does 2.3.4 cause 24?
Or does 24 cause 2.3.4?
Or is the very question non-sensical, because it does not make sense to speak of one without speaking of the other?


You may be able to describe any object in the universe as a function of all the objects around it that it influences. But it is usually much simpler to define it as a function of its parts in turn, and this method will yield a successful result:

2 = 1+1

To do otherwise is counter-productive.
Actually, this is not true, and most science (not to mention everyday life) does not work this way - especially if the science is for practical application. It is usually much simpler to define the behaviour of the parts in terms of the behaviour of the whole - that is, if we even bother to describe the behaviour of the parts at all. Indeed, to give but one example: it was precisely for this reason of simplification that the concept of a "rigid body" was introduced into classical mechanics. This is a perfect example of defining the behaviour of the parts relative to the whole.

I mean, consider the problem of describing the motion of a tennis ball as it travels through the air. Now, it is theoretically possible to describe this system by solving Newton's Laws for each and every particle in the tennis ball. This means keeping track of the (x,y,z) coordinates of every particle in the ball. Supposing there are about 1010 atoms in the tennis ball, and assuming that each atom may be considered a particle (even though we know that atoms themselves consist of smaller particles), then this means we need 3x1010 variables to describe the state of the system as a function of its constituent parts! This is not the simple way to describe this system - indeed, the solution of such a system of equations would be mathematically intractable.

No, what any smart physicist would do in such a situation is eschew the idea of describing the behaviour of the tennis ball as a function of its consituent parts altogether. Instead, they would employ the concept of a rigid body (interesting that the term "body" is used here also, no?). They would describe the motion of the tennis ball as the motion of a single point (the centre of mass) and by the orientation of the body in 3-space (eg, by using 3 Euler angles, or 3 direction cosines). Thus, instead of needing 3x1010 variables to describe the position and orientation of the tennis ball, we only need 6. And that gives us a system that we can actually handle mathematically. We would then (if it were necessary) describe the motion of the individual particles of the tennis ball as a function of the motion of the ball as a whole.

Let me stress that both ways of mathematically describing the tennis ball are mathematically equivalent ("isomorphic", to use the technical term). Neither of them gives a "more correct" view of the reality of the ball's motion than the other, but the two views are formally equivalent. Thus, it does not make much sense to speak of one "causing" the other. I can say that the motion of a particular particle in the tennis ball is caused by the motion of the ball of which it is a part, and this will make just as much sense as if I said that the motion of the ball is caused by the motion of its consituent particles. You cannot have one view without the other being simultaneously true.

In the same way, it makes just as much sense to claim that the operation of a living (human) body is caused by its soul, as it does to claim that the operation of the living soul is caused by the operation of its body. The two descriptions of reality are equivalent, and there is no good reason to prefer one over the other. Indeed, the two descriptions always belong together - they are part of the one totality. And this "totality" view is the Judeo-Christian view of anthropology (and cosmology in general).

[lee_merrill]

Hi everyone,


Then I replace all the parts one by one and tranfer the stored data to the new hdd. The robot will still have stored the information that it was built in 2002.
Yes, that's true, I think he just proved with his deck analogy that animals have souls! Plants have souls! Ooops. Machines have souls? You could even make the same sort of argument there, if Greg replaced the boards in his deck one by one, as they wore out, he would still call it "his deck."

Oh well, you can't hit a home run every time.

But his basic point is still valid, I think, just because the Russian astronauts didn't see God in outer space, doesn't mean he is not there, invisible entities would be ... not visible.

So reductionism is concluding too much, as Solly mentioned, and we can maybe look elsewhere, for evidence of a soul, such as in the validity of reason! Discussed here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39641)...

Blessings,
Lee

[Kenny]

You could even make the same sort of argument there, if Greg replaced the boards in his deck one by one, as they wore out, he would still call it "his deck."

Yes, our naïve intuitions concerning identity and persistence often yield conflicting results – a reason to be wary about drawing strong conclusions from such examples. My own intuitions concerning Koukl's deck scenario point to the conclusions that – yes, the neighbor did steal Koukl's boards but not Koukl's deck (it's still the same deck even though its materials have been replaced). Likewise, it seems quite plausible to me to maintain that I have the same body now as I did yesterday, even if a few of my skin cells since then have been replaced.

My primary criteria for asserting "sameness" with respect to an object's persisting overtime is spatial/temporal continuity, not the maintenance of identical material composition.

[Kenny]

Hi Jezz,


I would clarify this slightly. In Paul's Jewish mind, the image of body and self is not quite one of inseparability. Rather, the image he uses of a self without its body is one of nakedness:

2Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

Actually, I think New Testament Scholar Joel B. Green presents a more compelling interpretation of this verse (which he takes from Victor Furnish):

In this case, what is on center stage is the frailty of human existence and the concomitant possibility of denying that one has been clothed in Christ if one suffers as Paul has suffered. Paul, then, would be speaking of his having been clothed with Christ at his baptism, a well-known metaphor, and longing for the completion of his salvation (i.e. his being "clothed over" and therefore not found naked in the final judgement). As is typical of Pauline thought, the duality here would be eschatological, focused on the tension between the now and the not-yet, not anthropological

"'Bodies – That is, Human Lives': A Re-Examination of Human nature in the Bible" by Joel B. Green from Whatever Happened to the Soul edited by Warren S. Brown, Nancey Murphy and H. Newton Malony, p. 171-172

Oddly perhaps, given my materialist views of human composition, I do believe that there will a continuation of one's consciousness after death but before the resurrection, not for philosophical reasons, but since I believe that Scripture does teach such in other passages (although I don't think the evidence is that strong), but I'm not sure that this Paul has in view in this passage.

(Roughly) my way of maintaining both a materialist view of human composition and a conscious intermediate state is via something like a hardware/software analogy. The "software" (one's consciousness/personality) is fully instantiated by the hardware (one's "brain/body") in this life but it is temporally transferred (by God's power) to another format after the death of one's body until the time of the resurrection. Strictly speaking, however, the conscious aspect of the person that is made to continue on after death is not identical to the person herself, and full personal identity is not restored until the resurrection.

[Jezz]

Greg Koukl left out one important fact. Not all parts of the body renew themselves. Brain and nerve cells don't. If brain cells are "replace" like boards on his deck then you'd have no memories older than 7 years.
While it is true to say that we don't grow new brain cells once we've reached adulthood, it is false to say that brain cells are static. Brain and nerve cells exchange particles with their environment - thus, they are not comprised of the same atoms today as they were 7 years ago. Thus, Koukl's argument is still valid.


Again a fundy with no grasp on real science.
Again a freethinker with no grasp on what it means to really "think", nor to be really "free"... :smile:


Noone would end up like Chris Reeves. The nerves would grow back and we wouldn't have stem cell research. :lol: But again thats not the way it works.
As a matter of fact, nerve cells can regenerate. I had lost feeling in a small part of my hand once due to some nerve damage - the feeling came back after 6-12 months. And there are of course documented cases of quadraplegics/paraplegics who regain some or all of their motor control over time. Such cases are of course rare, but they are sufficient to disprove your foolish statement that nerve cells can't grow back. They do grow back - it's just that the regrowth is slow and not always perfect.


I wish teeth replaced themselves. We'd all save a forture in dentist bills.
:thumb:
You missed the point of the article. The point was not that every part of the body can regenerate. The point is that every part of the body exchanges its parts for new ones continuously throughout its life. Thus if a person is only the sum of their parts, this means that they become a completely different person every 7 years or so.

[Benster]

"Arrows are equivalent to "if...then..." statements. "If A, then B" means A -> B."

But not the reverse. Any part of the human body serves the whole. There is no part of the body that is the sole purpose of the workings of the rest.

A-> B but not B-> A

"Both of these statements are experimentally validated."

There is no soul. I've seen no definition of it, even, let alone an experimental proof!

"My point is that you can't have one [the part] without the other [the whole]. Because you can't have one without the other, it doesn't make any sense to talk about one of them "depending" on the other."

You can certainly have a heap of parts, and yet not have the whole!
And you CAN have a machine that operates, though perhaps not quite as well, missing one of its parts. Whereas, if you try to take away all but one part of a complex structure, it won't work at all. This happens again and again. It's just good sense. The principal is illustrated in practical design...evolution.. model airplane making...baseball, etc. it's a fact.


"Indeed, you have shown that any particular part cannot be expressed as a similarly simple function of the whole. Yes, this will be true not matter how complex the function of the parts is. Yes, there is a smell of burning straw in the air surrounding this point. :smile: Why does it matter if the function is more complex? It does not. What matters is that the function exists."

But this backwards function (the part expressed as the whole) is not a natural one. It is a construct of our reverse engineering and dissection. And the complexity of it all but proves that what is really happening is that a functioning whole has been built from partially functioning parts. Excuse me, but I AM incredulous. Every Vulcan would know this!

"But at any rate, you're over-complicating what is really a simple issue. Answer this question, and you'll understand what I mean:

Does 2.3.4 cause 24?
Or does 24 cause 2.3.4?"

No. But we are using mathematical equations (at your suggestion) as an analogy for material construction. I am not even saying that the parts of a machine cause the machine to exist. But they do enable its operation, and not the other way around. And the operation of a machine is the thing that makes it interesting. You sound like a skeptic. Do you believe that humans actually know how to make machines, or is engineering just an illusion?

"It is usually much simpler to define the behaviour of the parts in terms of the behaviour of the whole..."

Well, only if you are making up things to explain them to a child! I can tell my small son that the sun rises everday so that we can be sunny and happy, but that's a white lie. Unless you believe that the universe was created just for you...Oh, waitaminnit...you are a christian, aren't you!? You really DO believe this!

"Now, it is theoretically possible to describe this system by solving Newton's Laws for each and every particle in the tennis ball. This means keeping track of the (x,y,z) coordinates of every particle in the ball."

But you don't have to do this, because the motion of a tennis ball through the air is NOT dependent on its parts. But, as soon as the ball hits the ground and bounces, then you DO have to take into account the working of the parts. You only go down a level when you want or have to. You don't have to reduce everything to its lowest complexity.

"No, what any smart physicist would do in such a situation is eschew the idea of describing the behaviour of the tennis ball as a function of its consituent parts altogether."

The tennis ball is acting as a particle. It is being used as an analogy for an atom. Everyone knows that's what physicists mean when they talk about tennis balls...atoms!

As for the soul...well...There simply isn't one. Nothing to reduce there!

[C. D. Ward]

You missed the point of the article. The point was not that every part of the body can regenerate. The point is that every part of the body exchanges its parts for new ones continuously throughout its life. Thus if a person is only the sum of their parts, this means that they become a completely different person every 7 years or so.True, but this fact doesn't necessarily impugn a reductionist approach to identity. That's (IMO) what Solly and I (and possibly Kenny) are on about. Koukl's article represents a philosophically naive and ill-informed attack on materialist/reductionist views of identity/consciousness.

[TrinityKicker]

It seems to me that if you admit that none of the physical parts of a person persist that materialism would intrinsically contradict a materialistic view of personal identity. Depending on how reductionist a view you take, it may also demolish a reductionist view.

If the who is no more than the sum of its parts, then when the parts change, the whole is destroyed and a new whole is born. Of course, this goes against the human experience of a persistant self.

[Hoosier]

This article is so silly. I can build a robot and store in its hard disk drive the following piece of information: "Built in 2002." Then I replace all the parts one by one and tranfer the stored data to the new hdd. The robot will still have stored the information that it was built in 2002.


Who stored that data in our hdd?

[Jezz]

"Arrows are equivalent to "if...then..." statements. "If A, then B" means A -> B."

But not the reverse.
Simply restating your assertion does not make it any more true.


Any part of the human body serves the whole.
Correct.


There is no part of the body that is the sole purpose of the workings of the rest.
Correct. But I'm not talking about a single part. I'm talking about a totality of parts. What you say is true if you consider the parts individually. But collectively, all the parts do serve each other, as a totality. That's what distinguishes a whole from a random collection of parts.


A-> B but not B-> A
Again, reasserting your assumption does not make an argument.


"Both of these statements are experimentally validated."

There is no soul. I've seen no definition of it, even, let alone an experimental proof!
"There is no forest. I've seen no definition of it, even, let alone an experimental proof! I've only ever seen trees!"

The problem with reductionism is, that you end up failing to see the forest for the trees...

Answer the following two questions (1 pearl for each answer, + 1 pearl for each correct answer, + 1 bonus pearl for participating at all):

Q1: What is the difference between a corpse and a living body?

Q2: What do "psychologists" and "psychaiatrists" study?


"My point is that you can't have one [the part] without the other [the whole]. Because you can't have one without the other, it doesn't make any sense to talk about one of them "depending" on the other."
You've paraphrased me incorrectly. What I actually meant was:

"My point is that you can't have one [the totality of parts] without the other [the whole]."

I'm not talking about a single part being equivalent to the whole. I'm talking about the totality of parts being equivalent to the whole.


You can certainly have a heap of parts, and yet not have the whole!
Well, then you've proved my point! if you can have all the parts and yet not have the whole, then the whole is something other than just the parts. :smile: In actual fact, it is the parts in a particular arrangement, as I pointed out above.


And you CAN have a machine that operates, though perhaps not quite as well, missing one of its parts. Whereas, if you try to take away all but one part of a complex structure, it won't work at all. This happens again and again. It's just good sense. The principal is illustrated in practical design...evolution.. model airplane making...baseball, etc. it's a fact.
True, but this is a strawman. I'm not saying that a complex machine is equivalent to one of its parts. It is equivalent to the totality of its parts.


"Indeed, you have shown that any particular part cannot be expressed as a similarly simple function of the whole. Yes, this will be true not matter how complex the function of the parts is. Yes, there is a smell of burning straw in the air surrounding this point. :smile: Why does it matter if the function is more complex? It does not. What matters is that the function exists."

But this backwards function (the part expressed as the whole)...
"Backwards" function? What makes you call it "backwards"? This is just you presupposing the direction again.


...is not a natural one. It is a construct of our reverse engineering and dissection.
It is no more or less natural than the "forward" function, and it is no more or less a "construct" than its inverse function is a construct of our forward engineering and aggregation.


And the complexity of it all but proves that what is really happening is that a functioning whole has been built from partially functioning parts.
It proves no such thing. Are you trying to tell me that if your function describing reality is not simple, then it's not "real"?


Excuse me, but I AM incredulous. Every Vulcan would know this!
Every Vulcan knows that argument from incredulity is not an argument. Vulcans can also recognise when their debate opponents simply restate their presuppositions.


"But at any rate, you're over-complicating what is really a simple issue. Answer this question, and you'll understand what I mean:

Does 2.3.4 cause 24?
Or does 24 cause 2.3.4?"

No.
Well, this is the correct answer, but I think more by accident than by any sort of clear thinking on your part.

It is true - it does not ultimately make sense to speak of "2.3.4" causing "24", or to claim the opposite. Both are simultaneously true - you cannot have one without the other.

Equally, there is no good reason to speak of a machine's operation to be "caused by" the operation of its parts, as opposed to claiming the opposite. Both are always simultaneously true.


But we are using mathematical equations (at your suggestion) as an analogy for material construction. I am not even saying that the parts of a machine cause the machine to exist. But they do enable its operation, and not the other way around. And the operation of a machine is the thing that makes it interesting.
The parts enable the operation of the machine? Or does the machine enable the operation of its parts? That is the question. And it is a non-sensical question, because the "parts" and the "machine" are one in the same thing. You cannot have one without the other.


You sound like a skeptic. Do you believe that humans actually know how to make machines, or is engineering just an illusion?
Do you really like to ask stupid red herring questions, or is that just an illusion?

Of course I believe that humans can make machines. I'm an engineer. As a matter of course, btw, I write software, and as a matter of course it is customary to speak of software enabling the machine (ie, the computer) to do its job. This is a perfect example of "top-down causality" picture of the sort I am describing.


"It is usually much simpler to define the behaviour of the parts in terms of the behaviour of the whole..."

Well, only if you are making up things to explain them to a child!
:lol: Rubbish. No real scientist would say this. Real scientists explain the behaviour of the parts in terms of the behaviour of the whole all the time. The example of rigid body mechanics is a perfect example of science being made much easier and more practical by defining the behaviour of the parts in terms of the whole. But that is only one example. Physicists typically work with Boyle's Law rather than statistical mechanics. Did the temperature of a body increase? Or did the mean kinetic energy per degree of freedom of its constituent particles increase? The reality: both increased, because they are one in the same thing.


I can tell my small son that the sun rises everday so that we can be sunny and happy, but that's a white lie. Unless you believe that the universe was created just for you...Oh, waitaminnit...you are a christian, aren't you!? You really DO believe this!
Speaking of behaving like a child...

"Oh waitaminnit, you are an atheist, aren't you? You really DO believe that the universe is an accident! Oh my!" :ahem:

This is not a very productive way to engage in a useful discussion. It is simply arrogant and condescending. If you actually want to have a discussion, I suggest you avoid childish little jabs like this one.


"Now, it is theoretically possible to describe this system by solving Newton's Laws for each and every particle in the tennis ball. This means keeping track of the (x,y,z) coordinates of every particle in the ball."

But you don't have to do this, because the motion of a tennis ball through the air is NOT dependent on its parts.
:rofl: You're claiming that the motion of the tennis ball is not dependent on its parts? In other words, the motion of the tennis ball through the air is independent of its parts?

Q3: Have you ever seen a tennis ball fly through the air while its parts stayed behind on the ground?

:lmbo:


But, as soon as the ball hits the ground and bounces, then you DO have to take into account the working of the parts.
No you don't have to take into account the working of the parts. You can note that a tennis ball deforms when it bounces, describe the deformation of the ball mathematically, and then describe the motion of the parts of the ball as a function of the motion and deformation of the ball itself.


You only go down a level when you want or have to. You don't have to reduce everything to its lowest complexity.
Precisely. The level of complexity at which you treat something is completely arbitrary. And not only can you go down a level when you want or have to - you can also go up a level if you want or have to, and still be describing the same system in an equivalent fashion.

A tennis ball is a tennis ball regardless of whether you call it a tennis ball, or a particular arrangment of rubber and stuff, or a particular arrangement of certain types of molecules, or a particular arrangment of atoms, or a particular arrangement of electrons, protons and neutrons, etc... No matter which level of abstraction you use to describe it, it's still a tennis ball. All of these descriptions of the tennis ball are equivalent.


"No, what any smart physicist would do in such a situation is eschew the idea of describing the behaviour of the tennis ball as a function of its consituent parts altogether."

The tennis ball is acting as a particle. It is being used as an analogy for an atom. Everyone knows that's what physicists mean when they talk about tennis balls...atoms!
Either that was a cute joke, or you really do have no idea... I'm going to assume the former - if the latter, then please let me know and I'll attempt to explain.


As for the soul...well...There simply isn't one. Nothing to reduce there!
Argument by assertion again. Please see my questions above.

[Sacrificial Ram]

Argument by assertion again. Please see my questions above.
Well then

Define a soul. Give it's charateristics. Show how a soul can be demonstrated to exist.

Otherwise, it is just arguement by assertion AGAIN. Where is the evidence for a soul?

[Jezz]

True, but this fact doesn't necessarily impugn a reductionist approach to identity.
True, but I never claimed to be impugning a reductionist approach to identity in that post.

As a matter of fact, I am not impugning a reductionist approach per se even in my discussion with Benster. What I am impugning is the claim that some reductionists (eg Benster) make - that it is not merely a correct view of reality, but the correct view of reality, in exclusion to all others. This is simply false. If you always look at reality through reductionist goggles, then you will tend (quite literally) to fail to see the forest for the trees. Science (not to mention everyday life) simply doesn't work this way. In science, they work with aggregate systems as often as they work with reduced systems.

In short: reductionism is not "wrong", but it is only one side of the coin. The other side of that coin is "aggregationism". And the coin taken as a whole (a totality? :smile:) is totalism. Totalism is the only way to look at people, the universe, etc in a holistic, balanced fashion.


That's (IMO) what Solly and I (and possibly Kenny) are on about. Koukl's article represents a philosophically naive and ill-informed attack on materialist/reductionist views of identity/consciousness.
I tend to agree that it was a pretty superficial treatment of the issue - and it had theological problems from a Christian point of view, in addition to philosophical ones. Kenny and I are pretty much in full agreement on this particular issue of anthropology and reductionism, btw - we've discussed it before.

[Benster]

"Q1: What is the difference between a corpse and a living body?"

There are lots. Basically, a corpse is a living body that has ceased to live, because its parts are no longer working together. It is no longer able to fight the trend of entropy and maintain its intricate organization, so it degrades and the parts degenerate.
It is the function of the whole that is missing from a corpse.

"Q2: What do "psychologists" and "psychaiatrists" study?"

Psychologists help people with their behavior and mind. Psychiatrists do the same and can prescibe medicines.

"...if you can have all the parts and yet not have the whole, then the whole is something other than just the parts. :smile: In actual fact, it is the parts in a particular arrangement, as I pointed out above."

I agree. In my words, it is a complex function of the parts...not a simple sum.

""Backwards" function? What makes you call it "backwards"? This is just you presupposing the direction again."

Your resistance to seeing the train of complexity of function as a directional arrow, at least conecptually, is irrational. Things proceed from the simple to the complex.

"It is true - it does not ultimately make sense to speak of "2.3.4" causing "24", or to claim the opposite. Both are simultaneously true - you cannot have one without the other."

The maths analogy is not perfect. If you were to build 24, which is what biological organisms do...they build body parts to serve a largely pre-determined function...then you have to get a 2 and then a 3 and then a 4 and multiply them. If you want to build a 2, you don't start with a 24 and work backwards...you start with two 1's.

[C. D. Ward]

True, but I never claimed to be impugning a reductionist approach to identity in that post.Oh, I know that, but Koukl was in his article, and the statement I quoted was your paraphrase of his point. My point was that his point fails.

In short: reductionism is not "wrong", but it is only one side of the coin. The other side of that coin is "aggregationism". And the coin taken as a whole (a totality? :smile:) is totalism. Totalism is the only way to look at people, the universe, etc in a holistic, balanced fashion.While I agree that reductionism has a tendency toward superficiality (missing the forest for the trees), you're suggesting a top-down vs. a bottom-up approach? It seems to me that such an approach necessarily begins by presuming that an ordering principle exists, rather than by remaining neutral and attempting to discover if one does. IOW, "Does the part serve a purpose of the whole?" would seem to assume that "the whole" has a purpose whereas "Is the whole a function of the parts?" does not. Or I could just be misunderstanding you... :huh:

[Hoosier]

Well then

Define a soul. Give it's charateristics. Show how a soul can be demonstrated to exist.

A soul is the nonphysical component of a person, which might also loosely be termed mind or self.

Characteristics would include the property of memory, sometimes of wisdom, of decision or will, of belief, of reason, of fear, of joy, hope, despair, etc..

Koukl's first argument for identity about the parts of a deck was weak, as it invloves the abstraction of "my" deck. His second argument for the continuity of memory and self was better.

Was it actually you who blew out the candles at your third birthday party? Physically, of course, it was not the same you that wrote the above post. If you do feel however that it was you, then there must be something that transcends the purely physical properties of your personhood. The question this raises is whether this something is simply a property of your physical being that somehow mantains continuity though the physical properties do not, or if it is instead an actual substance, or soul.




Otherwise, it is just arguement by assertion AGAIN. Where is the evidence for a soul?

The fact that the physical properties above have almost totally changed, yet the continuity of memory and self remain, is evidence for the soul. It may not be conclusive evidence, but is certainly evidence. The question you need to ask is if this evidence can be more parsimoniously explained in another way, or if your a priori commitment that a soul cannot exist has constructed a definition of evidence that would preclude any pointing to it.

If so, I suspect it would also preclude the existence of universals, numbers abstractions, beliefs, and a host of other nonphysical entities that you do recognize at least implictly all the time.

[C. D. Ward]

The fact that the physical properties above have almost totally changed, yet the continuity of memory and self remain, is evidence for the soul. It may not be conclusive evidence, but is certainly evidence. The question you need to ask is if this evidence can be more parsimoniously explained in another way, or if your a priori commitment that a soul cannot exist has constructed a definition of evidence that would preclude any pointing to it.While I tend to agree that SR seems to have given unduly short shrift to the argument at hand, continuity of memory and self may be some evidence for a soul, but they're not really very good evidence (IMHO). The chief component of "soul" which seems to be an issue with most skeptics isn't really its alleged immaterial nature (as you allude in your concluding paragraph), but its ability to survive the death of the physical body. Continuity of memory and self are not in any way evidence for this element of the soul and therefore can really only support the idea of an immaterial element to human existence. You'll need some additional support for the idea of post-death survivability to really count as evidence for a soul (as such).

[Superbug]

Who stored that data in our hdd?

The robot's soul? :lol:

[Jezz]

"Q1: What is the difference between a corpse and a living body?"

There are lots. Basically, a corpse is a living body that has ceased to live, because its parts are no longer working together. It is no longer able to fight the trend of entropy and maintain its intricate organization, so it degrades and the parts degenerate.
It is the function of the whole that is missing from a corpse.
Ok, your answer is pretty good. Two pearls.

Now, let us define "soul" as "the function of the whole body" (or equivalently, "the function of the parts of the body"). Substituting this definition for what you wrote above:

"Basically, a corpse is a living body that has ceased to live, because it no longer has a soul. It is no longer able to fight the trend of entropy and maintain its intricate organisation, so it degrades and the parts degenerate. It is the soul that is missing from a corpse."

Thus, we have a workable and sensible definition of "soul", which is experimentally verifiable. There is a difference between a live and a dead body. That difference is the soul.


"Q2: What do "psychologists" and "psychaiatrists" study?"

Psychologists help people with their behavior and mind. Psychiatrists do the same and can prescibe medicines.
Close enough. Two more pearls, plus one for participating. Total of five.

Literally speaking, a "psychologist" is from the Greek for a person who studies the psyche - in the same way that a biologist is a person who studies the "bios". A psychotherapist is literally someone who offers therapy to the sold. Similarly for psychiatrists - medicine for the psyche.

Now here's the kicker: "psyche" is actually the Greek word for "soul". It is exactly the same word that is used to denote "soul" in the NT, and in the Greek OT (LXX). The existence of a field of study for and therapy the "psyche" implies that the psyche does in fact exist. Either that, or psychology is the study of something non-existent.

Again, let us define "their soul" as "their behaviour and their mind". Your above answer reads: "Psychologists help people with their soul. Psychiatrists do the same and can prescribe medicines." A perfectly understandable defni.


"...if you can have all the parts and yet not have the whole, then the whole is something other than just the parts. :smile: In actual fact, it is the parts in a particular arrangement, as I pointed out above."

I agree. In my words, it is a complex function of the parts...not a simple sum.
Then you agree that a soul exists. The soul is the complex function of the parts of the body.


""Backwards" function? What makes you call it "backwards"? This is just you presupposing the direction again."

Your resistance to seeing the train of complexity of function as a directional arrow, at least conecptually, is irrational. Things proceed from the simple to the complex.
Your repeated arguments by assertion do not constitute a valid logical argument. You have yet to provide justification for your assertion that "things proceed from the simple to the complex" other than "because I said so". Why must things proceed from the simple to the complex? Why not from the complex to the simple?

I noticed that you forgot to answer question three. In case you forgot what it was, he
Q3: Have you ever seen a tennis ball fly through the air while its parts stayed behind on the ground?

Pearls on offer for getting it right.


"It is true - it does not ultimately make sense to speak of "2.3.4" causing "24", or to claim the opposite. Both are simultaneously true - you cannot have one without the other."

The maths analogy is not perfect.
It is good enough.


If you were to build 24, which is what biological organisms do...they build body parts to serve a largely pre-determined function...then you have to get a 2 and then a 3 and then a 4 and multiply them. If you want to build a 2, you don't start with a 24 and work backwards...you start with two 1's.
This is the same argument by assertion repeated. There is no reason why you can't start with 24 and extract a 2 from it.

[Jezz]

Well then

Define a soul. Give it's charateristics. Show how a soul can be demonstrated to exist.

Otherwise, it is just arguement by assertion AGAIN. Where is the evidence for a soul?
Please see my post to Benster for an in-depth response to this. But in summary: the soul is defined as that which distinguishes a living body from a dead body.

Thus, unless you wish to claim that a dead body is indistinguishable from a live one (in which case I hope you don't work in a morgue), the fact that souls exists flows directly from the existence of dead and live bodies.

[Jezz]

Hey CD,


Oh, I know that, but Koukl was in his article, and the statement I quoted was your paraphrase of his point. My point was that his point fails.
Fair enough.


While I agree that reductionism has a tendency toward superficiality (missing the forest for the trees), you're suggesting a top-down vs. a bottom-up approach? It seems to me that such an approach necessarily begins by presuming that an ordering principle exists, rather than by remaining neutral and attempting to discover if one does.
"Remaining neutral" is essentially what I am advocating. But rather than advocating it based on ignorance, I am advocating it based on the fact that either a top-down or bottom-up approach to nature seem to ultimately produce the same results. In other words, we discover that no "vertical" ordering principle exists.


IOW, "Does the part serve a purpose of the whole?" would seem to assume that "the whole" has a purpose whereas "Is the whole a function of the parts?" does not. Or I could just be misunderstanding you... :huh:
Hopefully I've explained it better now. My ultimate point is that reality should not be viewed as "whole function of parts" or "parts function of whole". Rather, it should be viewed as "whole is parts" - reality should be viewed in a "totalistic" fashion. The two go together, and to speak of one "causing" or "enabling" the other is redundant.

When we model reality mathematically, we are modelling the same reality whether we model it at a high level of abstraction or at a low level of abstraction. Neither level of abstraction causes the either - they are two sides of the one coin.


While I tend to agree that SR seems to have given unduly short shrift to the argument at hand,
:thumb:


...continuity of memory and self may be some evidence for a soul, but they're not really very good evidence (IMHO). The chief component of "soul" which seems to be an issue with most skeptics isn't really its alleged immaterial nature (as you allude in your concluding paragraph), but its ability to survive the death of the physical body.
Well, I that's not been my experience with most skeptics. Most skeptics I've debated this on deny the immateriality part altogether. But then, you're smarter than most skeptics. :wink:

It is interesting that you should bring this up about "ability to survive death". The idea of an immortal soul that can survive death is actually not a Judeo-Christian idea, but a Platonic idea. In Judeo-Christianity, the soul is not immortal by nature, but it dies along with the body (and the person). At the resurrection, it is reconsistuted along with the body.

Kenny has mentioned also that Christianity teaches some sort of "intermediate state". The exact nature of this state is not really expounded in the Christian tradition, however it is not a state that the soul has by virtue of its own immortal nature (ie, Platonism), but due to God sustaining the soul in existence.


Continuity of memory and self are not in any way evidence for this element of the soul and therefore can really only support the idea of an immaterial element to human existence. You'll need some additional support for the idea of post-death survivability to really count as evidence for a soul (as such).
Ok, consider the following thought experiments.

1. Consider a "teleporter" such as like what we (Kirk and myself :wink:) have on Star Trek. Basically, such a teleporter would work something like this: Kirk goes in at the "sending" end, which takes apart his body - recording the information about how it was put together as it does so. This information is represented in some sort of abstract format - perhaps digitally encoded. This information is then sent to the receiving end, where it is used to reconsistute the original person.

Question: is the "Kirk" at the receiving end the same person as the "Kirk" and the sending end? I think so.

2: Variant #1. Suppose we don't send the digitised information about Kirk's makeup straight away. Suppose we hang on to it for an hour, perhaps a day, and then send it. Still the same Kirk reconstituted at the receiving end? Again, I think so.

3: Variant #2: the previous exercise could be repeated with varying lengths of intervening times. So let's suppose we wait a bit longer between digitisation and sending. In fact, let's wait between now and the end of time, and then reconstitute Kirk. Would it still be the same Kirk? Again, I think so.

All three of the thought experiments I have described are theoretically possible (that's what differentiates science fiction from fantasy). The last of these describes essentially what happens in the Judeo-Christian view of the afterlife.

Now, obviously this doesn't prove that the resurrection will happen. But it does discredit the notion amongst some skeptics who claim that it's not physically possible. It is perfectly possible, given our current understanding of physics, for a future resurrection to occur at some point in the future.

CD, you'd probably be interested in "The Physics of Immortality" by Frank Tipler, if you haven't already read it. I found it a fascinating read, and basically Tipler argues for a mechanism of human existence and resurrection.

[C. D. Ward]

"Remaining neutral" is essentially what I am advocating. But rather than advocating it based on ignorance, I am advocating it based on the fact that either a top-down or bottom-up approach to nature seem to ultimately produce the same results. In other words, we discover that no "vertical" ordering principle exists.Well and good, but it seems to me unavoidable that a "top-down" approach necessarily assumes the existence of an ordering principle, or at the least some type of order to begin with. Otherwise, how we would decide where the "top" was?

Consider a lump of iron. In order to investigate "top-down", we'd have to assume the atomic and molecular structures. But to assume these is already to assume some level of order in existence.

Hopefully I've explained it better now. My ultimate point is that reality should not be viewed as "whole function of parts" or "parts function of whole". Rather, it should be viewed as "whole is parts" - reality should be viewed in a "totalistic" fashion. The two go together, and to speak of one "causing" or "enabling" the other is redundant.On a metaphysical level (Aristotle's "causes") that may be true, but I'm not sure it is on a scientific level. I mean, does "Rose" cause the redness of its petals, or is it caused by refration of light due to the material structure of the petals? On a metaphysical level, we might say "both", but scientifically speaking, we're looking generally at material causes, not formal, efficient, or final causes (to draw from the Aristotleian model).

Well, I that's not been my experience with most skeptics. Most skeptics I've debated this on deny the immateriality part altogether. But then, you're smarter than most skeptics. :wink:Thanks, I guess. I'm a property dualist, myself, and I hold to a psychological theory of consciousness (relevant to my answer to your thought experiment).

It is interesting that you should bring this up about "ability to survive death". The idea of an immortal soul that can survive death is actually not a Judeo-Christian idea, but a Platonic idea. In Judeo-Christianity, the soul is not immortal by nature, but it dies along with the body (and the person). At the resurrection, it is reconsistuted along with the body.I'm actually aware of that, but this appears to be a subtlety not fully comprehended by the average "man in the pew".

Kenny has mentioned also that Christianity teaches some sort of "intermediate state". The exact nature of this state is not really expounded in the Christian tradition, however it is not a state that the soul has by virtue of its own immortal nature (ie, Platonism), but due to God sustaining the soul in existence.And of course, you and Kenny are smarter than most non-skeptics. :wink:

Ok, consider the following thought experiments.

1. Consider a "teleporter" such as like what we (Kirk and myself :wink:) have on Star Trek. Basically, such a teleporter would work something like this: Kirk goes in at the "sending" end, which takes apart his body - recording the information about how it was put together as it does so. This information is represented in some sort of abstract format - perhaps digitally encoded. This information is then sent to the receiving end, where it is used to reconsistute the original person.

Question: is the "Kirk" at the receiving end the same person as the "Kirk" and the sending end? I think so.I've seen variations of this experiment before, but my particular view of consciousness provokes a different answer than yours. And it's the same for all three of your variants. The Kirk at the "receiving" end would not be the same Kirk who went in at the "sending" end. My view of consciousness requires some level of psychological continuity in order to survive. In this teleporters function, Kirk was killed at the "sending" end and a complete replica created at the "receiving" end. The replica will have all of Kirk's memories and will actually consider himself to be Kirk, however, Kirk died at the "sending" end.

Consider this (also well-known) counterexample to your example. A malfunction in the teleporter produces four Kirks at the "receiving" end. Are all of them Kirk? Using your criteria, it would seem that we would have to answer "yes", but how can four individuals be the same person?

One answer I've seen to this is that from the moment of their "re-creation", their personalities would begin to diverge, so they wouldn't in fact be the same person. That's true, but it doesn't really answer the question: which one is Kirk?

Now, obviously this doesn't prove that the resurrection will happen. But it does discredit the notion amongst some skeptics who claim that it's not physically possible. It is perfectly possible, given our current understanding of physics, for a future resurrection to occur at some point in the future.Well, I don't know if I'd go that far. I'd say it certainly provides some support for the possibility, and it definitely demonstrates the supernatural possibility, but it only discredits the counterarguments to the extent one accepts that the teleportation example is physically possible or that the supernatural exists.

CD, you'd probably be interested in "The Physics of Immortality" by Frank Tipler, if you haven't already read it. I found it a fascinating read, and basically Tipler argues for a mechanism of human existence and resurrection.I've heard about Tipler's "Omega Point" theory, but I've not read that book. I may have to add it to my list. I'll recommend one to you in return: Derek Parfit's "Reasons and Persons". Parfit critiques moral theory and also offers some striking counterexamples to intuitive notions of personality and personhood. Definitely recommended...

[Jezz]

Well and good, but it seems to me unavoidable that a "top-down" approach necessarily assumes the existence of an ordering principle, or at the least some type of order to begin with. Otherwise, how we would decide where the "top" was?

Consider a lump of iron. In order to investigate "top-down", we'd have to assume the atomic and molecular structures. But to assume these is already to assume some level of order in existence.
I guess ultimately my point is that in the "totality" view, the question of where the "top" is is relative, not absolute. You can start at any level of abstraction, and you can go up or down as far as you want/need (at least, one can go up until one gets up to the level of the entire cosmos, and we're not all that sure if there's a limit to how far "down" we can go).


On a metaphysical level (Aristotle's "causes") that may be true, but I'm not sure it is on a scientific level. I mean, does "Rose" cause the redness of its petals, or is it caused by refration of light due to the material structure of the petals? On a metaphysical level, we might say "both", but scientifically speaking, we're looking generally at material causes, not formal, efficient, or final causes (to draw from the Aristotleian model).
Ok, let me pick up on the distinction you have made between different types of causes, because I think it will allow me to neatly express my view.

Aristotle's "causes" are really just a collection of if-then logical statements, which you have also called "metaphysical" causes. You have distinguished these from "scientific" causes, which are spatio-temporal causes - something happens, which causes something else to happen, etc.

I would argue that for "metaphysical causes", it doesn't really make sense to call them causes at all. They are logical connectives. There is no spatio-temporal ordering of the cause with respect to its effect. It is a logical ordering. It doesn't make sense to talk a When I think of "cause", I think of a spatio-temporal flow of events - with the events earlier in the chain being the "causes" of the events later in the chain.

My argument is that mind-body duality falls into the class of "metaphysical causes". The soul is not a spatio-temporal result of the body, and similarly the body is not a spatio-temporal result of the soul. Thus, to speak of one causing the other really doesn't make sense. The two are logically intertwined, and cannot be separated.

The example you gave of redness being caused by "rose" or by light shining on the petals is perhaps a slight category confusion - the "rose -> red" is an example of a logical connective, while "light shining -> red" is a spatio-temporal causation. For a better analogy, let's go back to the "forest/trees" example again, because it's simple and we all seem to understand it: Do the trees cause the forest? Or does the forest cause the trees? This is a false dichotomy. The two are not merely spatio-temporally related, but logically related, and you couldn't have one without the other. The "forest" and the "trees" are not two different things, but the same thing described at two different levels of abstraction. Thus to speak of one "causing" the other is nonsensical.

I view the body/soul duality in the same way. The body does not "cause" the soul, nor vice-versa - rather, the two are actually the same thing described at two different levels of abstraction.


Thanks, I guess. I'm a property dualist, myself, and I hold to a psychological theory of consciousness (relevant to my answer to your thought experiment).
Well, I hold to a psychological theory of consciousness as well... Christianity is, at it's heart, all about psychotherapy - healing for the soul...


I'm actually aware of that, but this appears to be a subtlety not fully comprehended by the average "man in the pew".
I agree that it doesn't appear to be fully comprehended by the average "man in the pew" - at least, not in Western Christianity. It is lamentable.

However, the emphasis on psychosomatic unity is quite strong in Eastern Christianity. It is for this reason that sin (especially sexual sin) is considered serious - because what you do to the body affects the soul. Contrarily, disciplining the body (through fasting and prayer) thus also disciplines and purifies the soul and conditions it to avoid the temptation to sin. To be fair, this teaching is also there (officially at least) in Western Christianity, but doesn't seem to have quite the same emphasis.


And of course, you and Kenny are smarter than most non-skeptics. :wink:
:lol: Touche.


I've seen variations of this experiment before, but my particular view of consciousness provokes a different answer than yours. And it's the same for all three of your variants. The Kirk at the "receiving" end would not be the same Kirk who went in at the "sending" end. My view of consciousness requires some level of psychological continuity in order to survive. In this teleporters function, Kirk was killed at the "sending" end and a complete replica created at the "receiving" end. The replica will have all of Kirk's memories and will actually consider himself to be Kirk, however, Kirk died at the "sending" end.
Hmm, I'm not sure if that view is tenable. Consider the possibility of AI as a counterexample. When you turn the computer off, does the AI person die? If you restore their brain from backup, are they the same person?

Or here is perhaps a better objection: it is not how we actually determine identity in real life. Consider this thought experiment (similar to the "tree falling in the woods" scenario): Compare the following scenario:

Fred comes to visit you on Monday. He drives home, and comes back to visit you on Tuesday. Now, the set of observations you have to work with are: 1. Monday Fred, and 2. Tuesday Fred. Question: is Monday Fred the same person as Tuesday Fred?

If we follow your model of personal identity (ie, psychological continuity), we cannot be certain that Monday Fred is the same person as Tuesday Fred because we haven't observed the psychological continuity. Rather, first we conclude that Monday Fred and Tuesday Fred are the same person (based on their similarity). We do not observe that Tuesday Fred is in psychological continuity with Monday Fred and on this basis conclude that they are the same person. Rather, we first conclude that they are the same person, and on the basis of this conclusion we assume that Tuesday Fred is in psychological continuity with Monday Fred.

I can emphasise this by considering a second thought experiment: suppose that in between going home on Monday and coming back on Tuesday, Fred actually goes through a teleporter. According to your model of consciousness, Tuesday Fred is a different person to Monday Fred. Yet this thought experiment will produce exactly the same set of observations as the first one! From your perspective, there is no discernable difference, and your conclusion will be the same: Tuesday Fred is the same person as Monday Fred.

And to really drive this home, consider another thought experiment whereby Fred, while you are actually talking to him, is completely destroyed and then after an immeasurably short period of time reconstituted exactly the same as he was before he was destroyed. According to your model, he is a different person - yet observationally it is exactly the same as if he were a different person. There is no way to be sure that this doesn't happen with each and every one of us every second of the day.

I think that these thought experiments really drive home that identity is not tied to psychological continuity. In real life, we do not identify persons based on their known psychological continuity with prior known persons. Rather, we identify them first.


Consider this (also well-known) counterexample to your example. A malfunction in the teleporter produces four Kirks at the "receiving" end. Are all of them Kirk? Using your criteria, it would seem that we would have to answer "yes", but how can four individuals be the same person?

One answer I've seen to this is that from the moment of their "re-creation", their personalities would begin to diverge, so they wouldn't in fact be the same person. That's true, but it doesn't really answer the question: which one is Kirk?
Hmm, I've not seen that thought experiment before, but I think you answered it as I would have. At the receiving end, from the moment that they are reconsituted, they all start to diverge, and become different people.

As for the answer to the question: which one is Kirk? Well, I'd have to agree with the first answer: they all are - at least, up until the point they start diverging.

I think perhaps that this confusion might be cleared up if we adopt another concept (again, one that I think is very central to Eastern Christianity) - and that is that we don't think so much of personality as a state of being, but as a process of becoming. Seen in this way, the problem of the four Kirks disappears. We start with one person, who is becoming Kirk. In the muddled transportation process, he becomes four Kirks. "Which one is Kirk?" is the wrong question to ask. The correct question would be "which one is becoming Kirk?", and the answer is that they all are - but each in his own way is becoming a unique Kirk. Having written this paragraph, I now notice that I actually used this very language in my first paragraph in this section ("...and become different people") - though this was not intentional.


Well, I don't know if I'd go that far. I'd say it certainly provides some support for the possibility, and it definitely demonstrates the supernatural possibility, but it only discredits the counterarguments to the extent one accepts that the teleportation example is physically possible or that the supernatural exists.
I don't like the word "supernatural". To call something "supernatural" presumes that we fully understand all the workings of nature. I am comfortable believing that the future resurrection will be a completely natural event, according to some "natural law" (or combination of existing known laws) with which we are as yet unfamiliar. (This is one area where I presently disagree with Kenny. I've been meaning to talk him around on that, but haven't had the time... :wink:)

But aside from that: I said that "resurrection is perfectly possible according to our current understanding of physics", and you weren't comfortable in going that far. How about if I said something slightly different instead: "there is nothing in our current understanding of physics that demonstrates that resurrection is impossible". Would you be comfortable agreeing with that statement?


I've heard about Tipler's "Omega Point" theory, but I've not read that book. I may have to add it to my list. I'll recommend one to you in return: Derek Parfit's "Reasons and Persons". Parfit critiques moral theory and also offers some striking counterexamples to intuitive notions of personality and personhood. Definitely recommended...
Cool, thanks - I'll add that one to my list. :smile:

[C. D. Ward]

I guess ultimately my point is that in the "totality" view, the question of where the "top" is is relative, not absolute. You can start at any level of abstraction, and you can go up or down as far as you want/need (at least, one can go up until one gets up to the level of the entire cosmos, and we're not all that sure if there's a limit to how far "down" we can go).Metaphysically, I agree, but it seems to me that there is a distinction to be made wrt an empirical approach (more on this below).

Aristotle's "causes" are really just a collection of if-then logical statements, which you have also called "metaphysical" causes. You have distinguished these from "scientific" causes, which are spatio-temporal causes - something happens, which causes something else to happen, etc.Ok.

I would argue that for "metaphysical causes", it doesn't really make sense to call them causes at all. They are logical connectives. There is no spatio-temporal ordering of the cause with respect to its effect. It is a logical ordering. It doesn't make sense to talk a When I think of "cause", I think of a spatio-temporal flow of events - with the events earlier in the chain being the "causes" of the events later in the chain.Hmmm...to this I both agree and disagree. I'm not sure it's entirely coherent to speak of "causes" without temporality, so in that sense I understand why we might want to abandon the term "cause" when speaking of metaphysical connectives. However, to some extent, even logical priority seems to depend upon some "prior-anterior" type of relationship which to some degree seems to assume some type of existence in time. But the distinction might not really be material to the discussion, so I'll accept your point for now.

Even so, when we're looking at something empirically (i.e., a scientific investigation), aren't we by definition confined to the causal arrow? It seems to me that without causality, induction would fail and thus the scientific method would cease to be reliable. But with that understood, metaphysical claims of the type you are making become untestable. So, if we're talking about proving the existence of a "soul", we're no longer talking about an empirical endeavor. And thus to talk about "evidence" for the soul would be largely irrelevant unless, of course, there are testable effects of the soul qua the soul that are not related to the body. But that's probably a digression, here.

My argument is that mind-body duality falls into the class of "metaphysical causes". The soul is not a spatio-temporal result of the body, and similarly the body is not a spatio-temporal result of the soul. Thus, to speak of one causing the other really doesn't make sense. The two are logically intertwined, and cannot be separated.No problem with this, in a strict metaphysical sense, and it clarifies much of what you have been saying.

The example you gave of redness being caused by "rose" or by light shining on the petals is perhaps a slight category confusion - the "rose -> red" is an example of a logical connective, while "light shining -> red" is a spatio-temporal causation.Well, I was speaking of the perceptual perspective, if you will. Do we perceive "Rose" first and then "red", or do we perceive "red" first and then "Rose"? IOW, does "red" emanate from our concept of "Rose" or vice versa?

Perhaps it was a poor example, precisely because concept formation (as I see it) is a product of abstraction from particulars...

For a better analogy, let's go back to the "forest/trees" example again, because it's simple and we all seem to understand it: Do the trees cause the forest? Or does the forest cause the trees? This is a false dichotomy. The two are not merely spatio-temporally related, but logically related, and you couldn't have one without the other. The "forest" and the "trees" are not two different things, but the same thing described at two different levels of abstraction. Thus to speak of one "causing" the other is nonsensical.But in this case, don't trees actually cause the forest? Specifically, a group of trees. IOW, one tree is just a tree; the concept of forest is instantiated by multiple trees. You can have one tree without a forest, but you cannot have 100 trees (in one location) without one.

I view the body/soul duality in the same way. The body does not "cause" the soul, nor vice-versa - rather, the two are actually the same thing described at two different levels of abstraction.Actually, it sounds to me like you're saying that they are the same thing described from two differing perspectives or, perhaps more to the point, in two different ways. Such an holistic approach makes a great deal more sense than the "ghost in the machine" viewpoint seemingly so common to (what seems to me) the majority of believers...

Hmm, I'm not sure if that view is tenable. Consider the possibility of AI as a counterexample. When you turn the computer off, does the AI person die? If you restore their brain from backup, are they the same person?I must admit, I'd not considered that before...it does depend upon whether or not one believes that AI is technically feasible (and I do). But it seems clear to me now that on a psychological continuity view, one would have to reject the possibility of AI. I'm going to have to think about this some more...

Or here is perhaps a better objection: it is not how we actually determine identity in real life. Consider this thought experiment (similar to the "tree falling in the woods" scenario): Compare the following scenario:

Fred comes to visit you on Monday. He drives home, and comes back to visit you on Tuesday. Now, the set of observations you have to work with are: 1. Monday Fred, and 2. Tuesday Fred. Question: is Monday Fred the same person as Tuesday Fred?

If we follow your model of personal identity (ie, psychological continuity), we cannot be certain that Monday Fred is the same person as Tuesday Fred because we haven't observed the psychological continuity. Rather, first we conclude that Monday Fred and Tuesday Fred are the same person (based on their similarity). We do not observe that Tuesday Fred is in psychological continuity with Monday Fred and on this basis conclude that they are the same person. Rather, we first conclude that they are the same person, and on the basis of this conclusion we assume that Tuesday Fred is in psychological continuity with Monday Fred.Aren't you conflating ontological and epistemic considerations? Whether or not we can know that psychological continuity was present (and hence whether or not we as third-person observers can determine identity) seems to me irrelevant as to whether or not it actually was.

And further, Tuesday Fred is not the same person, from a qualitative perspective, as Monday Fred. Tuesday Fred has new thoughts, new experiences that Monday Fred did not (and can not) have. It is only by convention that we (third-party observers) equate the two. IOW, we appear to be using a criterion of numerical identity in arriving at our conclusion. But in a sense, we have little choice; we are unable to evaluate what is essentially a first-person experience.

So, discerning identity (from a third-person perspective) appears to me to be irrelevant to the question of defining identity itself. By contrast, it is only by psychological continuity that Monday Fred can really be the same person as Tuesday Fred. Because he experiences himself through time and the qualitative change is thus an additive creation of a new Fred that shares identity with the old.

I can emphasise this by considering a second thought experiment: suppose that in between going home on Monday and coming back on Tuesday, Fred actually goes through a teleporter. According to your model of consciousness, Tuesday Fred is a different person to Monday Fred. Yet this thought experiment will produce exactly the same set of observations as the first one! From your perspective, there is no discernable difference, and your conclusion will be the same: Tuesday Fred is the same person as Monday Fred.But only from a third-person perspective, which IMO isn't relevant here.

And to really drive this home, consider another thought experiment whereby Fred, while you are actually talking to him, is completely destroyed and then after an immeasurably short period of time reconstituted exactly the same as he was before he was destroyed. According to your model, he is a different person - yet observationally it is exactly the same as if he were a different person. There is no way to be sure that this doesn't happen with each and every one of us every second of the day.True, but again that's only from a third-person perspective. And, in the sense of a first-person qualitative criterion, this is what happens to each and every one of us every second of the day. I woudl argue that our identities are continually being destroyed and remade; it is only the continuous operation of our consciousness that allows successful integration of new data and therefore the persistence of identity.

Hmm, I've not seen that thought experiment before, but I think you answered it as I would have. At the receiving end, from the moment that they are reconsituted, they all start to diverge, and become different people.But from the psychological standpoint, this answer is unsatisfactory. If I go in to the machine, which one of the replicants will be me?

As for the answer to the question: which one is Kirk? Well, I'd have to agree with the first answer: they all are - at least, up until the point they start diverging.But they can't all be Kirk, not even for a millisecond. That would violate the LoNC. This could be evaded if we assume that time does not pass between the destruction of the original Kirk and the emergence of the four replicants. However, we are still left with the original question: which of the four is the continuation of the original (in the first-person sense).

I think perhaps that this confusion might be cleared up if we adopt another concept (again, one that I think is very central to Eastern Christianity) - and that is that we don't think so much of personality as a state of being, but as a process of becoming. Seen in this way, the problem of the four Kirks disappears. We start with one person, who is becoming Kirk. In the muddled transportation process, he becomes four Kirks. "Which one is Kirk?" is the wrong question to ask. The correct question would be "which one is becoming Kirk?", and the answer is that they all are - but each in his own way is becoming a unique Kirk. Having written this paragraph, I now notice that I actually used this very language in my first paragraph in this section ("...and become different people") - though this was not intentional.That's an interesting approach, and seems to fit in some way with what I was saying earlier as well, that our identities were constantly being destroyed and re-created as new experiences were integrated into an existing framework. But even so, we don't experience our identities in that fashion. We are bound to a one-way arrow of time, so I'm still left with the question, "which one of the replicants would be me?"

I don't like the word "supernatural". To call something "supernatural" presumes that we fully understand all the workings of nature. I am comfortable believing that the future resurrection will be a completely natural event, according to some "natural law" (or combination of existing known laws) with which we are as yet unfamiliar. (This is one area where I presently disagree with Kenny. I've been meaning to talk him around on that, but haven't had the time... :wink:)I actually agree with this. It seems to me that "supernatural" means nothing more than "currently not understood". I think it's a false dichotomy. I wonder, however, what consequences this POV might carry for the concept of "necessary existence" and it's relation to God's being. If God has a nature, and if His nature is immutable and not subject to His will, isn't it God's nature (or more accurately, some essential subset of God's nature), and not God Himself, that actually exists necessarily? I don't know... Alvin Plantinga has done some good work on the nature of necessity and also on God's nature...I need to do some additional reading...

But aside from that: I said that "resurrection is perfectly possible according to our current understanding of physics", and you weren't comfortable in going that far. How about if I said something slightly different instead: "there is nothing in our current understanding of physics that demonstrates that resurrection is impossible". Would you be comfortable agreeing with that statement?In that reply, I was thinking mainly of some of the arguments I've heard against our ability to construct teleporters, particularly arguments on information storage limitations. I would agree with you that resurrection is a theoretical possibility, given our current understanding of physics. Whether or not the re-animated corpse (or reconstituted body) would be the same person as before is a different question... :wink:

Cool, thanks - I'll add that one to my list. :smile:In the interest of full disclosure, I'll note that Parfit advocates the psychological theory of identity... Whether or not you agree, it's definitely interesting reading...

[Kenny]

It should be noted that there is a duplication problem with the psychological criterion as well. There is no reason to think that what appears to be one person could not instantaneously split into what then appear to be two persons, each having equal claim to being in psychological continuity with the individual who split. Some epileptic patients have been known to survive with close 50% of their brain tissue having been removed, and split brain patient studies show that the two hemispheres of our brain are capable of acting independently to a large degree. It may be possible in principle to split persons by dividing their brain into two functioning halves and then transport each half into two different bodies. We could imagine that there is no temporal disruption in interior psychological activity (at least no more than is usual for a person who is put under anesthetic or resides in a temporary coma) during this whole process, and that each transplantee bears a significant degree of psychological continuity with the original patient. If you don’t think this is possible for human beings, then I see no reason why it is logically impossible that it could be feasible for some personal beings – say a sentient amoeba-like race that reproduces by splitting into two identical halves with each half bearing full psychological continuity with the original being who split.

I think David Lewis hit on a good solution to the duplication problem in his essay "Survival and Identity" (reprinted in Metaphysics: Contemporary Readings edited by Michael j. Loux). Say Jim does go into the teleporter and is duplicated in such a way that each copy has an equal claim to being continuous with the original. Lewis' solution (one that Jezz hinted at) is that, in that case, there never was just one person to begin with, but there are and always have been two persons.

Lewis can say this because he holds to a perdurantist view of temporal persistence. According to this view, objects are not merely spatially extended but temporally extended as well (as fits with the standard interpretation of Relativity) in a four dimensional space-time geometry. Objects persist through time by virtue of having temporal parts which occupy successive time intervals, and the three dimensional manifestations of those objects which we perceive are just temporal cross sections of a four dimensional whole. On this view, the 'sameness' relationship we assert when we say that some object at a latter time is the same object that was present at an earlier time is not one of numerical identity, but a 'different parts of a single identical whole relationship,' the object itself being identical to the four-dimensional whole and not with any one of its parts.

So in the case of "Jim," there are actually two four-dimensional persons involved – Jim1 and Jim2 – but these two individuals have four-dimensional bodies which temporally overlap during the time interval prior to teleportation, similar to the way in which two distinct rooms may nevertheless share the same wall. Jim1 and Jim2 were both present prior to teleportation and they are both present afterwards.

I see no difficulty in maintaining this sort of perdurantist view of identity even for objects which temporally cease to exist and then are reconstituted. In that case, what you would have is a temporally scattered object, but we are already quite comfortable with the idea of three-dimensional spatially scattered objects. Modern physics informs us that our bodies are not spatially continuous wholes. So why insist, from a perdurantist standpoint, that they could not be scattered in the fourth dimension also. The idea that an object can survive a dismantling and reassembling process also seems to fit with our intuitive picture of things – I can dismantle a bookshelf and then reassemble it without it becoming a different bookshelf.

One area where I may disagree with Jezz is that I think that in order to count a latter object as being the "same" as an earlier object, there must be a sufficient degree of space-time connectedness between the two stages of the object via connections between the space-time paths (or world lines in Relativity terminology) traced out by earlier stages of the object. And this means, from my perspective, that in the teloporter case, a sufficient amount of the original matter must be used in the reconstitution phase – otherwise, all that is produced is a replica of the original person and not the person himself. If a sufficient amount of the original matter is sent along, however, then the post-teleported stage is spatially and temporally connected with the pre-teleported stage via the space-time paths traced out by the intervening matter that was sent along, and so it is proper to assert a sameness relationship between them by virtue of their being part of a single well connected four dimensional object. The matter being sent along is not important because it is essential to the person himself (it may be gradually replaced with there still being a large degree of space-time connectedness between any two successive temporal stages), but only for the sake of insuring a real space-time connectedness between the two successive stages.

God Bless,
Kenny

[C. D. Ward]

It should be noted that there is a duplication problem with the psychological criterion as well. There is no reason to think that what appears to be one person could not instantaneously split into what then appear to be two persons, each having equal claim to being in psychological continuity with the individual who split. Some epileptic patients have been known to survive with close 50% of their brain tissue having been removed, and split brain patient studies show that the two hemispheres of our brain are capable of acting independently to a large degree. It may be possible in principle to split persons by dividing their brain into two functioning halves and then transport each half into two different bodies. We could imagine that there is no temporal disruption in interior psychological activity (at least no more than is usual for a person who is put under anesthetic or resides in a temporary coma) during this whole process, and that each transplantee bears a significant degree of psychological continuity with the original patient. If you don’t think this is possible for human beings, then I see no reason why it is logically impossible that it could be feasible for some personal beings – say a sentient amoeba-like race that reproduces by splitting into two identical halves with each half bearing full psychological continuity with the original being who split.I remembered reading this example somewhere when I saw your reponse. I really don't have a response to it. I suppose where I'm stuck is in the first-person experience of consciousness. To return to the "teleporter problem", what will I experience as I pass through? It doesn't seem possible that I can be split into two people; to have two sets of perceptual experiences from the moment of bifurcation. I imagine that the difficulty I perceive is likely to be illusory; an artifact of our limitation to the first-person experience...

I'm thinking about Lewis's response (and the perdurantist view in general), but I think I'll wait a bit before posting more...

[Kenny]

I remembered reading this example somewhere when I saw your reponse. I really don't have a response to it. I suppose where I'm stuck is in the first-person experience of consciousness. To return to the "teleporter problem", what will I experience as I pass through? It doesn't seem possible that I can be split into two people; to have two sets of perceptual experiences from the moment of bifurcation. I imagine that the difficulty I perceive is likely to be illusory; an artifact of our limitation to the first-person experience...

Well, if you are going to be split at some point in the future, then according to Lewis' solution, there is not merely one "I" involved in your case. You (or ya'll?) are actually two persons – Ward1 and Ward2 – who temporally overlap. You both mistakenly believe that your subjective states of consciousness are only experienced by one person, when in fact there are actually two of you experiencing the same things. When you two go to the teleporter for duplication, there is a certain point up to which your subjective experiences will continue to be the same, but then they will diverge. The question "What will I experience?" in your case is malformed; the question you should ask is "What will we experience up to the point our experiences diverge and then what will each one of us experience afterwards."

I'm not saying that there isn't anything counterintuitive about this, but that's only because normally persons do not split.

[C. D. Ward]

Well, if you are going to be split at some point in the future, then according to Lewis' solution, there is not merely one "I" involved in your case. You (or ya'll?) are actually two persons – Ward1 and Ward2 – who temporally overlap.You're correct....it is y'all. :teeth:

The only problem I have with this is that it seems ad hoc. Identity is a creature of consciousness. Consciousness doesn't experience time in this fashion. Why does it make sense to posit therefore that identity should function in a manner differently than consciousness wrt time?

I'm not saying that there isn't anything counterintuitive about this, but that's only because normally persons do not split.Apparently you've not met some of my relatives...

[Kenny]

You're correct....it is y'all. :teeth:

:yes:


The only problem I have with this is that it seems ad hoc.

I disagree because the solution flows naturally out of broader theory of temporal persistence which was not constructed to address this problem in particular and which has broader applications to a range of other identity paradoxes. The solution would only be ad-hoc if it were only constructed to address this particular problem and had no broader applications.


Identity is a creature of consciousness.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. An object's having identity certainly does not appear to depend on an object's being conscious. A rock can be the same rock whether or not it is capable of viewing itself as such. Perhaps you mean that personal identity is a creature of consciousness, in which case I am inclined to agree. I'm don't make a choice between bodily continuity and psychological continuity theories of personal identity – I accept them both as being necessary (but note that I distinguish continuity from a continuous temporal series, since I think things can survive being destroyed and then later reconstituted). But, I don't see how that counts against the perdurantist solution.


Consciousness doesn't experience time in this fashion. Why does it make sense to posit therefore that identity should function in a manner differently than consciousness wrt time?

What I do experience is that my conscious states, including my temperament and personality, undergo change over time, such that radical differences have accumulated between myself in these respects now and myself in these respects at earlier times. I exhibit quite a different domain of conscious states than, say, my five year old self. What makes me the "same" person as that five-year old. I would say it is the fact that there is a series of causal links between his consciousness then and my consciousness now that runs through the intervening time (as well as causal links between the existence of his body then and my body now) that allows me to rightfully assert that "we" are, in fact, the same person. But, then, that perspective fits in quite nicely with a perdurantist view.


Apparently you've not met some of my relatives...

My doctor told me once that I had a split personality. I told him, "No I don't! And neither do I!"

[Hoosier]

While I tend to agree that SR seems to have given unduly short shrift to the argument at hand, continuity of memory and self may be some evidence for a soul, but they're not really very good evidence (IMHO). The chief component of "soul" which seems to be an issue with most skeptics isn't really its alleged immaterial nature (as you allude in your concluding paragraph), but its ability to survive the death of the physical body.

I agree, C.D., that the existance of a human soul as simply an immaterial component does not lead to the necessary conclusion of survivability beyond physical death. I think that establishing the probability of some sort of substance dualism is an important first step however to defending the idea of life after death.

A true skeptic, in the benign sense, might need a lot of groundwork established. Others however, who might claim the name of skeptic, are actually a priori materialists, who deny any 'spiritual' component to existence. They will resist the idea that any non-material component exists, except as phenomena of physical cause and effect. The argument from memory, due to the transitory nature of physical continuity, becomes very problematic for them. How does something non-physical continue when the physical self is almost entirely replaced?


Continuity of memory and self are not in any way evidence for this element of the soul and therefore can really only support the idea of an immaterial element to human existence. You'll need some additional support for the idea of post-death survivability to really count as evidence for a soul (as such).

I disagree, unless you define the soul as that which survives physical death. Defining it as others here have, as that which is missing from a dead body, does not imply that it has continued to exist separate from the body. If however, it is shown to be most plausibly a separate substance from the physical, because it maintains continutity when the physical does not, then the idea of survivability is supported in plausibility. It is not proven, but the body of evidence gives the theory greater credence.