What Can Science Say about the Soul | Richard Swinburne
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ส.ค. 2018
- Lecture Title - Humans Consist of Two Parts: Body and Soul
The cerebral cortex of the human brain, on which all our beliefs, memories, and conscious life depend, consists of two hemispheres-a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere. Recent neuroscience has discovered that humans continue to have much the same conscious life, memories, and beliefs if either their left hemisphere or their right hemisphere is removed. Suppose the cerebral cortex to be removed from the brain of each of three humans; and the cortex of one of these humans, Alexandra, to be divided into its two hemispheres, and one of these hemispheres to be integrated into the brain of one of the other humans, Alex, and the other hemisphere to be integrated into the brain of the other human, Sandra. Then both Alex and Sandra would have some of the brain and almost all of the memories, and type of conscious life of Alexandra and would both claim to have been Alexandra. For each of these persons, for example Alex, it is totally compatible with everything we could ever know about the brain and mental life of the earlier Alexandra and the subsequent Alex, that Alex is Alexandra; and it is also totally compatible with everything we could ever know that Alex is not Alexandra. But there could only be a difference between Alex being and Alex not being Alexandra if there is something extra beyond the brain matter and beyond the mental life which makes that person Alexandra, and that must be an immaterial soul. I go on to develop the consequences of this scientifically possible experiment for the nature of humans, and to reject philosophical objections to my interpretation of it.
Richard Swinburne (Diploma in Theology University of Oxford) is Emeritus Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of Christian Religion at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the British Academy. He is author or editor of over two dozen books, including The Existence of God (Oxford University Press, 2004) and The Coherence of Theism (2nd edition) (Oxford University Press, 2016). His work has been translated into twenty languages.
The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues-for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word-lay persons and scholars alike-for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.
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How did I not know of this man until now!? He's awesome! :D
Good people are hard to find.
@@columbmurray It’s awesome that I’m talking in American and you’re talking in English and we’re using that same words. Isn’t that so awesome!
We are made in God's Image. Does that not mean that we are body, soul, and spirit? 3 parts, not 2, is my understanding.
This misses the research showing that identity is an emergent property of the way the brain constructs a world view (models). Additionally, everything that leads to me having my identity is the sum of my experiences which are obviously different for every single conscious brain - crucially the internal experiences that each homo sapiens sapiens has.
Suppose scientists create a sufficiently complex robot in the future - current aim of AI- that is conscious in a similar way that humans are (which you should expect if you think consciousness is integration of information and is computable algorithmically), and duplicate this robot to create two of them (just copy paste the algorithm).
Then, they put these two robots in exactly the same closed environment (let's say a closed house). But I mean to say that each robot will have its own closed house, and the two houses will be designed in exactly the same way (to the smallest detail). Let's suppose that the two houses are built in the same environment for perfect duplication (same altitude above water- for similar gravity-, same air humidity, same temperature, ...)
After that, the scientists switched the Off button to On, and both robots are thus 'alive'. Now, those two robots are exactly alike, and will have exactly the same experiences at the same time, since not only their algorithms is the same, but even their external environment is the same. All the most minute and detailed mental experiences of one of them will also be experienced by the other robot, at the same time. How can you differentiate one from the other? You say: "...everything that leads to me having my identity is the sum of my experiences which are obviously different for every single conscious brain - crucially the internal experiences that each homo sapiens sapiens has." But I just showed you that someone can recreate exactly the same experiences for another person, and that other person would still not be you. (unless you want to argue that both robots are in fact one subjective identity, which I don't think you want to go to). If, as you said, personal identity is the sum of personal mental experiences (memories, personality, ...), then how can you explain that those two robots have exactly the same sum of personal mental experiences simultaneously but yet be different?
If Alexandra lent you a fiver, would you owe it to Alex or Sandra?
I'd owe them 2.50 each.
If we had souls it'd be impossible for anyone, at any point, go unconscious (via anesthesia or any other way) - but the fact that we can go unconscious disproves this kind of a soul. If death cannot stop it from being aware/conscious, than nothing could stop it from being constantly-conscious. If I had a soul and I was injected with anesthesia I'd have to consciously decide to somehow go unconscious - that sounds incoherent, because it is incoherent. You'd always remember deciding to go unconscious - therefore every time someone fainted or was knocked out by a punch, they'd actually have to decide to go unconscious, and they'd remember making that choice. That is of course based on the idea that the soul cannot be effected by anything biological - and I come to that conclusion because if the soul is not destroyed when the body dies, if we are consistent, it will not be effected by anything biological... Which also makes getting exhausted or tired a contradiction to the idea of an immortal soul. How on Earth would a soul get tired?
You’re confusing memory of consciousness during dream and consciousness itself.
Mark Hasel I think this is a bad analogy because in one case you have two physical things and in the other case you have one physical thing and one non-physical thing.
In the tv scenario the tv is physical and the signal is physical. But in the case of substance dualism you’re claiming that the brain is physical but the soul is non-physical.
You’re comparing a set of 2 physical things to a set of 1 physical and 1 non-physical thing. And then trying to claim that the interaction in both cases would be similar. But in the case of the television we already know how physical things interact with other physical things. We do not however know how a non-physical thing would interact with a physical thing.
Same with the piano analogy or the violin analogy. All of these analogies rely on a case where we have 2 things that are physical interacting. You can’t compare that to a case with 1 physical thing and 1 non-physical thing interacting because we have no way to analyze how these two things would be able to interact with each other if non-physical things aren’t spatiotemporal but physical things are.
He is only arguing for a soul as a synonym for identity. He could have said, "Humans consist of two parts: "Body and identity". That soul/identity, furthermore, must be of a transcendent quality, because it cannot logically be split or merged, as he shows. There is nothing supernatural or immortal in his argument - those questions are beyond the capacity of reason to demonstrate, as he also suggests.
@@edwardp.gannon9320 Not only that but said identity is plastic and experiential, not so fixed. He is almost presupposing a soul. He is also stating that consciousness emanates from the cerebrum which it really doesn't.
In the Christian faith, humans are body and soul together. When you die the soul got separated and keeps existing. When you are sleeping or unconscious your soul is still in your body. Because of that, you can't see your soul's perspective alone when it is still in your body.