Posted 16 November 2004 - 09:30 PM
This is an article I found some years ago that I was able to look back up again that should demonstrate my position.
"
ON THE NATURE OF THE SOUL
(THOUGHTS CONCERNING THE "SOUL": THAT PART OF A "LIVING" INDIVIDUAL THAT DISTINGUISHES IT FROM IDENTICAL INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE OTHERWISE INDISTINGUISHABLE.)
by OSCAR FALCONI
INTRODUCTION
In mid-1983 I was taken with the problem of the nature of the soul. As thoughts evolved, they were recorded and numbered with the intention of organizing them at a later date. However, every thought was left as is, in the order in which it came to mind, because it would be more instructive to follow the mental processes by which one soul (the author) examined the nature of all souls and struggled toward meaningful conclusions.
Therefore, paragraph numbers enumerate thoughts as they evolved and don't necessarily relate to adjacent numbers nor have a sequence that would be deemed to be logical in hindsight. There is a certain amount of repetition - sometimes to complete a thought, sometimes because different thoughts lead to similar conclusions, and sometimes because I forgot the same point had previously been made! Pardon the use of my own name for the various individuals, Oscar-I, -II, -III, and -IV, in some of the thought experiments. By applying the different concepts to myself, I felt I'd have a better chance of success in resolving the problems. In fact, as you read, substituting your own name may help bring some of the points home. I feel progress has been achieved in determining what the soul is and what it isn't. But have I made some logical errors? Have I failed to address a problem? Your comments, criticisms, and suggestions are invited.
#1. All fundamental particles (i.e., electrons, photons, etc.) are indistinguishable. Mix two of them up and it's impossible to locate a particular one. Does this mean that particles don't have souls and aren't alive? If particles turn out to have souls, will it be necessary to give up this basic law of physics? Most probably not, since particles likely don't have souls. (Basic particles don't change and so can't be alive and so can't have souls. See #44 & #66.)
#2. When I step back one meter, I'm still that person named "Oscar", almost 100% correlated with the "same" person before that step was taken, also named Oscar. The only difference between "Oscar-II", after the step was taken, and "Oscar-I", before that step was taken, is that Oscar-II is one meter away and about one second older. His brain, memory, experiences, etc., are almost exactly equal to Oscar-I and, so far as we all believe at this time, Oscar-I and Oscar-II are one and the same individual, the same person, the same soul.
#3. Now, let's visualize a most amazing machine: "The one- meter translating, reconstructing machine" which can examine, say, a human being, and reconstruct him one meter away exactly as he is (or was) at a particular instant, particle for particle, each particle having exactly the same relative position and velocity as in the original being. Since this is a thought experiment, I don't believe at this time that considerations involving the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle are important. In any event, this principle concerns one's ability to MEASURE positions and velocities of particles and doesn't address our right to postulate the same particle, or a similar indistinguishable one, one meter away with an exact position AND velocity. This might have to be reexamined. (See #109.)
#4. Suppose this translating reconstructing machine tears me down, particle for particle, atom for atom, and reconstructs me exactly, instantly, one meter away. Am I the same person? Let's just call this person "Oscar-III". The only difference between Oscar-III and Oscar-II is that Oscar-III is not one second older and has no recollection of having moved one meter. So far as anyone is concerned, Oscar-III IS Oscar-II. Oscar-III recognizes everyone, remembers past experiences, and is completely indistinguishable from Oscar-II by any scientific, medical, or psychological test (except for not remembering his one second translation). Oscar-II and Oscar-III appear to be the same person with the same soul.
#5. At this point, one may feel that Oscar-III's soul and Oscar-II's soul are one and the same. This is because I said in thought #4 that the machine tore down Oscar-I in the process of reconstructing him into Oscar- III. If the machine had merely examined Oscar-I and constructed Oscar- III without destroying Oscar-I (which is allowable in this thought experiment), then we clearly have Oscars-I and -III coexisting, with 2 completely separate souls. Since Oscar-III could have been created whether or not Oscar-I were destroyed, and since Oscar-III and Oscar-I are now seen to have different souls, and since we believe Oscar-I and Oscar-II to have the same soul, it's clear that Oscar-II and Oscar-III are completely different people "with different souls", in complete contradiction to the last statement of #4 and the first statement of this thought, #5. We have a paradox! (see #86)
#6. That Oscar-II and Oscar-III are different souls at least helps us with the following: Suppose, instead of making Oscar-III from Oscar-I, we just program a tape with the exact position AND (sorry, Dr. Heisenberg) velocity of every particle of Oscar-I and keep it for, say, a million years, and create Oscar-III at that time. At least it's gratifying to "know" that we don't have to explain how we have Oscar-I's soul when he in fact died some million years before. This thought helps confirm that the machine in fact creates new people, new souls, who are just like clones or identical twins.
#7. Suppose, now, with the above knowledge, you're given the opportunity of reconstructing your child, who has a mole on her chin, a meter away. The machine is programmed, however, so that the mole would be removed. Say the cost of surgically removing the mole is $5000, but that the reconstruction charge is only $10. Which method would you use? Suppose she had cancer? You'd be tearing down (destroying) Child-I and reconstructing a cured Child-III with a new soul! You wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Child-I and Child-III. She'll still recognize you and love you, and laugh and cry as she always did. The only difference would be she wouldn't have the mole (or the cancer) and she wouldn't remember moving that meter.
#8. So, maybe the choice in #7 is obvious to some, at least if the child has cancer. The child is going to die, so reconstruct a cured child. Right? Right! BUT -suppose the person with the cancer were you! Would you agree to be reconstructed without the cancer?? Not bloody likely!! Maybe your wife, or your insurance company, or your boss, would like you reconstructed, but, from what we've learned so far, you'd essentially be committing suicide and be replaced by a more desirable person, insofar as he's cancer- free, but who has a different soul and is a different person. "You", my friend, would be no more!
#9. We've made a certain amount of progress, but we still haven't explained the contradiction in thoughts #4 & #5. I think we've proved that Oscar-II and Oscar-III are indeed different souls, different people, but how can this be? Is it possible that Oscars-I & -II are different merely by stepping back a meter? I can hardly believe that at this time. We could talk correlation coefficients and relate Oscar-I at t = 0 to Oscar during every microsecond of the time it took to go that one meter, but I think we'd find that the correlation after one second, one meter away, would be very high. Since Oscars-I & -II must be the same person, despite the lack of a 100% correlation, and since Oscars-I & -III were proved to be different persons despite a 100% correlation, then Oscar-III is in fact a completely different person from Oscar-II even though the physical correlation is high. Correlations don't seem to enter the thinking here.
#10. Suppose we try to program the reconstructing machine so that Oscar-III can remember (even though it didn't happen) that he stepped back a meter and that his body experienced a one second aging. Even though this would involve programming the machine with information not yet available (being one second in the future), this is a permissible experiment since the mere "futurity" of the programming has no effect. Oscars-I & -III are still quite different souls by virtue of the still-valid reasoning of thought #5. So it seems very doubtful that a new soul is created only because of this otherwise insignificant space-time (one meter, one second) difference.
#11. If the machine can create one person one second later, it certainly can create TWO persons at the same time, one meter apart, exactly equal. So at least the time variable is eliminated from thought #10. Oscar-III, and now Oscar-IV, are certainly different people, with different souls, and gives us an additional proof that Oscar-III is a new soul and not Oscar-I, since Oscar-I, even if destroyed, can't occupy both Oscar-III and Oscar-IV at the same time.
#12. Oscar-III and Oscar-IV are different souls in the same way that clones and identical twins are different souls.
#13. Is it possible that, had the machine reconstructed Oscar-I and re- reconstructed him a million times in getting him over that one meter, that his soul would have been preserved? Doubtful, but suppose the machine reconstructed Oscar-I instantly in the same place, would that have preserved Oscar-I's soul? I suppose, by definition, you'd have to say "yes" since nothing has changed - unless you invoke the possibility that an infinite change had taken place in zero time resulting in a changed soul (and is consistent with the fact that the machine must create NEW souls). (See #35 and #86)
#14. So far we've been assuming that souls are integers, that they either exist or not. It might be illuminating to consider the possibility that you can have half a soul, or that some souls are better than others, or that elephant souls, ant souls, monkey souls, amoeba souls, paramecium souls, pebble souls, and human souls such as baby souls, senile souls, retarded souls, brain-damaged souls, genius souls, etc., are all different, some "worth more" than others. Note that the soul is quite naturally associated with the brain. Fair enough. We can lose an arm or replace a kidney and Oscar-X remains Oscar-X. When you start tampering with the brain, the personality (and thus the soul) can change.
#15. The brain has two hemispheres that are said to be quite different and have different functions. Experiments with cutting the connecting part of the 2 halves result in astounding changes and surprising information leading to the conclusion that we are possibly 2 (or more?) separate persons (souls) internally connected and related!
#16. As one goes through life, from conception to death, the mental and physical characteristics of an "individual" change radically. Could the soul of the senile old gentleman possibly be the same soul as that of the bouncing baby boy 90 years before, or of that fine example of mental and/or physical prowess 70 years before? Very doubtful. The person, his brain and body, and therefore his "soul", appear to range from near zero (no soul) at conception, to "one" in his broad span of middle years, and back to zero at death. (See #26, & #95 to #100.)
#17. It seems that the "worth" of a soul increases with the complexity of the life form and the extent of its mental capability. Cats and ants certainly are aware of being alive and in fact have certain mental abilities superior to humans (speed of response, for instance), and so probably can be said to have a soul of sorts. As to whether an amoeba has a soul, whether it's aware of being alive, may, I think, be academic questions. It's alive, yet it lacks a brain, so the answer is zero soul, or very nearly so. (See #91)
#18. So, with all these thoughts, how are we doing with the paradox of #5? Not so good I think. That Oscars-II and -III are quite different people is still valid. Possibly the answer lies in that Oscar-II is really different from Oscar-I, maybe even more so than Oscar-III is from Oscar-I. After all, Oscars-I and -III are identical, by definition, but Oscar-II is different from Oscar-I in that he had to move himself one meter and is a second older. But we discussed this in #9 and dismissed it - and I still agree.
#19. It may be that this paradox is in itself a proof that such a reconstructing machine cannot exist, even as a thought experiment, because it is somehow limited by some physical law, such as the uncertainty principle. This answer is presently unacceptable to me.
#20. Let's allow this reconstructing machine to transfer chunks of Oscar- I, a piece at a time, all as they were at some particular instant. Let's say we transfer the legs, then the arms, then the kidney, heart, etc., and lastly, the head. It's clear, I think, that this Oscar-III-C ("C" for Chunk transfer) is the very same soul as Oscar-I. Does this mean as we break down Oscar-I's brain into smaller and smaller pieces to transfer, that we will reach some point where Oscar-III-C becomes another soul which we have labeled Oscar-III? Certainly when we get down to transferring individual atoms we'll be creating a new soul, even if we transfer the actual particles of Oscar-I themselves (See #1). Where is the point where I'd be committing suicide if the chunks got smaller? All this is mind boggling and confusing, and all part of the same paradox of #5.
#21. We need more thought experiments to shed some light. Let's try some brain transplants. I believe that this "soul" resides in the brain - but where? Take a set of identical twins. One has a body, A, with a brain with 2 hemispheres, the left, A', and the right, A", and the other twin has a body, B, with a brain with 2 hemispheres, the left, B', and the right, B". Now let's switch the complete brains of the twins, so that body A has the complete other brain, B' & B", and vice versa. (It wasn't necessary to use identical twins - only to eliminate rejection problems which really shouldn't concern us.) I feel certain that the soul goes with the brain, so that brain A' & A" would look down at himself and see (through B's eyes) the body of B. And vice versa. I think we'll all agree to this. Now suppose we start over and just switch one hemisphere, so that body A contains its own left hemisphere, A', but also the other's right hemisphere, B". And vice versa. We certainly still have 2 separate, thinking, thriving, active bodies - but what about the souls? If the center of thought and individuality (the soul) resides in just one hemisphere, it's then possible to get both centers into the same body, and neither into the other body. (We could also have put both left hemispheres in one body and both right hemispheres in the other body and have assured this in at least one case.) If both souls were in one body, then the other body would be dead or in some state similar to it. I don't think this would happen and so, because both bodies would be quite active, etc., we've shown that the soul resides in both halves of the brain, and in fact, is most probably distributed according to where "mental capacity" is distributed. See #36 (sub 21) for a discussion of soul "position".
#22. The experiment of #21 most probably results in 2 individuals each with many of the characteristics of the other. Traits that were the same in both, such as language, color vision, etc., would still be the same. However, if one were a conservative and the other not, or an atheist and the other not, a certain amount of rethinking would be necessary on the part of both in order to resolve these conflicts. It's possible that philosophical beliefs emanate from one hemisphere only, in which case there wouldn't be any conflicts to resolve. However, if one body had both left hemispheres, and the other body both rights, if this were possible, then there'd be at least one highly confused twin. The other twin would be the kind of person I'd care not to know. In my opinion, a person lacking any philosophical inclination lacks a soul. Maybe the soul does reside in just one hemisphere. However, I don't believe so, at all.
#23. Another thought experiment: Let's take the brain, both halves, B' & B" from body B, and destroy it. Now take one hemisphere, say A", and put it into body B (and leave hemisphere A' in body A). Now we've clearly thrown away one soul, that from the brain of body B. From animal experiment s it has been shown that each body, each with just one hemisphere, will be able to thrive and think and learn and carry on most functions. Our thought experiment, then, seems to indicate we've created (given birth to?) another being. If both bodies are able to carry on, each going its own way, thinking its own things, does this prove we've managed to create another soul? At least it would prove the soul resides in both hemispheres. The fact that both new souls may be somewhat disadvantaged I don't think concerns us, except possibly to indicate that souls may be divisible resulting into 2 "half souls", at least temporarily. If the two half brains can eventually function as full brains and full souls, then we've truly created a new soul.
#24. Let's take a person and, with some sort of mental eraser, eliminate from his brain all his learned knowledge and experiences from the time of conception. This person, say age 20, will have no language, no recollection of anything, will not be able to recognize his mother, or in fact anything. He'll be just as a newborn babe. If he's now brought up, from birth, in another country, with another language, different parents and friends and way of life, different culture, etc., would he be a different person with a different soul? If this happened to you, right now, this new person, in your body, just wouldn't have any recollection of your friends and your life, or anything. Even though he has your original brain (sans memory) and your body, it is not you. Your soul has apparently disappeared with your memory. (Not necessarily so, see #25.)
#25. Now suppose this mental eraser of #24 were connected to a tape recorder and recorded everything that it was erasing from your brain and put it into a person whose brain had been likewise emptied. Would this person be you? Clearly not, for the following 3 reasons: 1st, if we had destroyed your body and its emptied brain, it means that your soul was temporarily stored on tape. I think this is ridiculous. 2nd, if we had taken this tape and programmed it into 2 persons whose brains had been emptied, then would we have 2 souls? Which one would you be? Clearly ridiculous! 3rd, had we not emptied your brain, but merely recorded all the information, and not destroyed you, you'd certainly be the same person with the same soul, no matter whether we programmed zero, one, two, or any number of other people with your sum total of knowledge and experience. Even though your brain had been emptied, you'd learn again in your characteristic way as determined by your genes. (See #77 and #115.)
#26. Maybe the soul consists of more than one entity. Part of your soul is certainly your sum total of your knowledge and experience, but another part of your soul seems to be intimately related to your body and/or brain. Maybe the soul can be broken down into such parts as genetic, biochemical, and learned information. (See #42.)
#27. Unless we can somehow tie in some of the above loose threads, I think we're pretty much back to square one regarding the solution to the paradox of #5 and #20.
#28. I feel that, if and when we get a handle on the paradox, we may be part or all the way toward solving the problem of free will. Our ability to make decisions and determine the future, if possible, may be related to souls and their distinguishability and existence. One consistent answer would be that neither souls nor free wills exist and that we're merely a natural result (even though possibly unique in the universe) of chemical reactions interacting with the physical environment. (Free will is also discussed in the "Twelve Minute Religious Dialog", in the Appendix.)
#29. If you forget, say, 0.01% per day of all that's in your memory, and learn 0.01% per day of all you know, then are you becoming another person? With another soul? What if the figures were 50% per day - then what would you say? (See #24 - #26.)
#30. What about the flatworm experiment - where flatworm #1 was trained to perform a particular task, then ground up and fed to flatworm #2 who then proceeded to learn that task in very short order. Did some of flatworm #1's soul get into #2? What is the optimum size piece for #1 to be chopped up into for maximum transferral of "soul"? Would have injecting a portion of #1's brain directly into #2's brain been more efficient? Does the soul travel with the information? I think we decided not when we concluded that storing information on tape was possible, but storing the soul on tape was not. (See #25.) However in this case we're not just transferring information, but actual parts of flatworm #1. If we were using information from the tape, it could have been used to program an infinite number of flatworms - but the quantity of material from #1's brain is finite, and every physical bit taken from #1's brain must also be taking part of its soul. But because of the many interconnections within the brain, it would seem that the fraction of soul a "chunk" of brain contains would be proportional to, say, the square of the fractional size of the chunk. For instance, if we cut the brain into 8 chunks, each chunk would have 1/64th of the total soul. The total amount of soul transferred, then, would be an eighth (8/64ths), with 7/8ths lost. The fact that the flatworm salvages some "smarts" from a brain that had been ground up into infinitesimal pieces seems to indicate that chemical or genetic material was responsible for #2's quick learning and that the many interconnections within the brain of either flatworm #1 or #2 were not involved.
#31. Can a computer be sufficiently programed so as to have a soul? Present day computers are primitive compared to those of 10, 100, or 1000 years hence. For the most part, all we do today is to enter simple data, access them, process them, and present answers to an operator. I'm sure the methods by which the brain asks, discovers, invents, philosophizes, weighs arguments, makes decisions, etc., will all be understood in a few decades or a few centuries, and these methods programed into a computer brain. Computers will be able to think - that is, to converse, to joke, and maybe even laugh. Can we ever create a computer with a soul that'll pass, and even far exceed, all the tests of a HUMAN soul? It's just a matter of time. The programming may take a million man-years, using facts that took a Billion man-LIVES to learn, but it WILL be done.
#32. If a soul can be created from scratch by combining chemicals and making life, then mechanical and electrical equivalents ought to be possible.
#33. When man finally creates reproducing life from its chemical, mechanical, and/or electrical constituents, or what have you, will we have bestowed a soul on this life? Suppose we create human life that can mate with and converse with and contribute to and be indistinguishable from normally-created humans, what can we say about these created souls? I believe they'll be every bit as good or better than the naturally evolved souls.
#34. It seems I should have enough from all of the above to make a statement about the paradox of #5, but as of 3/23/1983, I cannot.
#35. In thought #4, Oscar-I was torn down and reconstructed, atom for atom, one meter away in one second, in order to create Oscar-III. Here, in #35, let's just instantly freeze Oscar-I and replace each atom one at a time and look at the changes in Oscar-I. In #5 we proved, when all atoms are replaced (Oscar-III), that we have a new soul. After we've replaced 1/2 the atoms we most probably have a complete, intelligent, viable soul, but someone just 1/2 way between Oscars-I & -III. But there are almost an infinite number of Oscars between -I & -III. Not just in the number (or percentage) of atoms replaced, but in the manner in which they were replaced. For instance, if we replaced them in the brain from left to right, we'd be getting different Oscars than if we replaced them randomly. We of course always have exactly one soul, it's just a slightly different one every time we replace an atom. Isn't all this very nearly the same as #13? Undoubtedly we have in Oscar-III a different soul. (See also #83 and #86.)
#36. It's becoming increasingly clear that souls are EASILY created and that all souls are continually in a state of change. Too many of the thoughts so far are making this obvious. Let's list them: -#5: A new soul is created whether or not we destroy Oscar-I. -#6: Information "stored on tape" becomes a new soul upon each reconstruction. -#8: A convincing argument proves you'd rather die of cancer than be reconstructed as a cured, but new, soul. -#11: By being able to create 2 souls from one gives final proof that machines create completely new souls. -#15: Tampering with the brain results in personality differences thus indicating new or changing souls. -#16: Age, experience, maturity, education, call it what you will, completely changes the physical and mental characteristics of a person, resulting in a near-complete soul change. -#17: Cats, goats, ants, whales, bees, etc., all have intelligence, are curious, can learn, and surely have souls. -#20: Transferring chunks, leading to a similar paradox as in #5, is also explained by assuming a new soul is created - the similarity to the original soul depending on the size of the chunks, as in #35. -#21 to #23: All experiments with brains, half brains, two lefts, or a right and a left, are all explained by assuming the creation of new souls. Yes, apparently it's possible to commit a semi-suicide by trading 1/2 a brain with someone. Exactly where YOU'd end up we have yet to determine. We'd clearly have 2 new souls, each with characteristics of both the original persons, but I haven't decided, for instance, when "I" look down, will I see myself or the other person. (See #40 and #41.) -#24 & #25: Erasing the brain and reprogramming it seems to create a completely different person, but, because of #25, the soul remains with the body - albeit so highly changed that it can almost be considered another soul. -#31: It may be that part of the definition of a soul is that it MUST change, similar to the idea that life is not life if it doesn't undergo change. A computer, for instance, must be able to learn and reprogram itself if it's to have any chance for a semblance of a soul. (See #44, #45, & #66.) -#35: Here we find that a soul changes into any of many possible souls according to how the constituent portions are transferred.
#37. Despite all the progress so far, all we've done is to come up with another problem, #2 below. As it stands now, we have 2 problems to solve: #1: As per #5, the paradox as to why Oscar-II and Oscar-III are so different. We've shown that Oscar-III is a completely different person, and, in our most recent thoughts, have shown that Oscar-II is somewhat different than Oscar-I. The problem now is a matter of degree: Oscars-I and -III are completely different, but Oscars-I and -II are much closer. (See #83.) #2: As per #23, if 2 persons trade right hemispheres, what relationship do the 2 original souls have with the 2 final souls, and where do the new souls reside? (Where am "I" and where is "he"?) See #41.
#38. Are some souls "worth more" than others? From the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Vol 2, page 111: Citing A.R.Wallace from "Natural Selection": "Man is to be placed apart, as not only the head and culminating point of the grand series of organic nature, but as in some degree a new and distinct order of being." Also, quoting another author: "...knowledge, morality, truth, right, virtue, religion are traceable in the lower animals, but which can there show at most only faint and rudimentary signs of their wondrous development in mankind." What both these authors are saying is that animal souls are, at best, primitive.
#39. From the same EB page: "According to the materialistic school, man is a machine, no doubt the most complex and wonderfully adapted of all known machines, but still neither more than nor less than an instrument whose energy is provided by force from without, and which, when set in action, performs the various operations for which its structure fits it, namely, to live, move, feel, and think." The soul, then, at least the "immortal" soul of the church, would seem not to exist, but, what we conceive of as our soul, is merely the resulting "personality" of an extremely complex, highly organized, organic machine - nothing more. When this organic machine dies, deteriorates, simplifies itself into dust - then its personality is non-existent, and so, therefore, is its soul. This is my interpretation of the above, and also my belief at this time, although, as I write these lines, it's hard to believe that I'm just a machine. But my thinking has to change somewhere, somehow, in order to sort out those paradoxes. So, the conclusion, as of this moment, is that souls don't exist, but are merely manifestations of highly organized, highly complex, organic machines. (See #59 to #63.)
#40. Let's take identical twins, Bob-I and Ray-I, and trade their right hemispheres. We'll call the new combination brain in Bob-I's body, "Bob- II", and similarly, "Ray-II". If we can predict some responses, we might get a handle on the 2nd paradox of #37. Suppose you ask Bob-II his name. Assuming both halves of the brain are equally involved in this recall, I predict Bob-II will be confused. He'll say "Bob", then "Ray", hesitate, and give up. Likewise Ray-II. Bob-II will recognize persons only Ray-I knew, and know facts only Ray-I knew. Bob-II will look at himself and say, "Gosh, I never had any stitches on my knee - Oh yeah, I got them skiing". If the twins are opposite handed, as they often are, and if brain functions are divided into different hemispheres according to handedness, then there'd be much more confusion and much more to sort out. All this is very interesting, but are we solving the 2nd paradox?
#41. It seems that cutting the connecting cord (the "corpus callosum") between the 2 halves of the brain creates 2 completely different persons in the same body. If the crossover portion (the optic chiasma) of the optic nerve is also severed, then information entering one eye goes only to that half of the brain. Likewise the ears. Each half of the brain, from the moment of cutting, considers the other half as an entirely different person! Complete touch is lost with the other half. Referring to #40, when we cut the connection of Bob-I's two halves, we now have (Bob-I)rt and (Bob-I)lt. When we trade the right hemispheres, we end up with Bob-II = (Bob-I)lt + (Ray-I)rt. (Similarly, Ray-II = etc., etc.) After we've traded the two right hemispheres, but before we've connected them to their new left hemispheres, we'll still have the same situation of 2 different persons in the same body, only this time, they'll be from different original bodies. We'll still get different answers according to which ear we ask, etc. Now if we make the connection, we'll now have one person, only, but with many conflicts to be resolved. The questions "where am 'I'?", and "in which body do 'I' reside?" are academic since "you" were 2 different persons as soon as the two halves of the brain were severed. Before the transfer, both halves will look in a mirror and recognize scars, etc. But after the transfer, before the connection, only one half will recognize scars, etc., the other half won't. After the transfer, after the connection is made, will come the period of temporary confusion of #40. So, I think we've satisfactorily resolved the 2nd problem of #37. And when you think about it, this explanation is sensible and necessary and sufficient, and is the only explanation possible (at least as of now). As an exercise, we should explain chunk transfer details, but that can come later.
#42. It would be of interest, probably very instructive, to try to attach a numerical value to a soul - some sort of figure of merit that would incorporate: Ability to learn, mental capacity, complexity, ability to communicate, common sense, compassion, sense of humor, interest in life, speed of reflexes, and whatever other characteristics that might be considered somewhat measurable ingredients of a soul. An IQ test would probably be part of the final figure of merit. (See #26, #39, $ #45.)
#43. From ideas in #6 & #11, suppose the machine created Oscar-III after just 1000 years instead of a million years. Would the Oscar-III created in a 1000 years be the same person that would have been created in a million years? Answer: Probably not, since the machine could still create an Oscar-III in a million years. Presumably this Oscar-III would be the same person whether or not the machine created the previous Oscar-III 999,000 years before. BUT, this requires that the next soul waiting to be created by the machine changes continually depending on the moment of creation! Suppose 10 at a time are created? (See #10 and #11.)
#44. Change is necessary for life. If no change, then no life. But all changes affect the brain and slightly change the soul. Each change kills part of a person and creates a new part (such as a slight change in programmed memory). After a long life, the original soul is unrecognizable and can be considered dead. After all, how much of what you remembered at age 9 will you remember at age 90? Any 90 year old will be quick to relate to you what a different man he used to be - but it would never occur to him, or to anyone, that he may have had quite a different soul, too. Not only was he a different man, he was a different person! By undergoing the constant change necessary to call ourselves alive, we are in fact continually in the process of dying. So: Life is Death! Living must result in dying!
#45. But the converse isn't necessarily true: Life may require change, but change is not necessarily a sign of life. Hurricanes and erupting volcanos aren't alive and certainly have no soul. In whatever way the figure of merit of #42 is determined, it should come up with near zero for hurricanes and volcanos. Probably the high degree of disorganization of the constituent parts is a factor. Incidentally, how can we attach a figure of merit to that which, in #39, we have said doesn't exist? See #63 for the answer.
#46. How can 2 completely identical simultaneous reconstructions, such as Oscars-III & -IV, be such completely different souls? Possible answers: (a) They're made of different particles. But this may be invalid because of #1. And if we switch particle for particle, one at a time, see #13, #35 & #83. (b) They're reconstructed at different places at different times. © There's no other possible explanation, they MUST be separate, different souls, otherwise you'd have to postulate some sort of mental connection, or some way that one reconstruction (such as Oscar-III) can see, hear, think, and know, what is going on in the brain of the other reconstruction (Oscar-IV) in the same way that the corpus callosum (of #41) makes one soul out of the 2 halves of the brain. (d) We have to drum into our brains that a soul is only a "manifestation of a highly organized, highly complex, machine" and comes about automatically when the mechanism, be it human being, or a highly advanced smart computer, is able to learn, think, communicate, decide, etc. Souls are completely different because the bodies and brains are completely different. There just isn't any other possible answer.
#47. Neurons aren't replaced, but remain a constant number (minus losses) as we go through life, from several months of age to death (unlike our skin, for instance). It just may be that this MUST be the case, or else our very own perception of ourselves, our souls, might undergo vast metamorphoses in just a few months (that otherwise might have taken a lifetime). This I believe would be undesirable.
#48. Now we've seen that we indeed most probably become a completely different person or soul as we age from several months to age 90. However, what little continuity we do maintain may be explained by the fact that the same neurons we have at 90, we also had at the age of several months.
#49. This state of affairs just might be REQUIRED, or else either the individual or the species could not have survived. If our neurons and memory died every few months, along with their hard-earned contents, a species would be at a definite disadvantage in the struggle for existence.
#50. If #47 to #49 are correct, and we must keep our original neurons, then our eventual death may be unavoidable as a result of the continual loss of neurons due to many reasons (such as radiation, alcohol, free radicals, cholesterol buildup). Ordinary cells, not neurons, are continually replaced, but with occasional errors, and after a few score divisions almost lose their identity and appear to us to have aged. So, it appears that mental and physical agings may come about due to different mechanisms. It's interesting that, despite this difference, they both seem to aim for about 80 years or so of life, plus or minus 20, and that some persons with aged bodies have alert brains, while others become senile well before their bodies show advanced age. The point is that mental and physical aging appear to parallel each other, falsely leading us to believe mental and physical aging are one and the same. Mental and physical aging may be indirectly tied together if it turned out that a species' maximum chance for survival resulted when the body and the brain faltered together. However, knowing that mental aging may be different could help us further understand the nature of the soul as developed in #47 through #49.
#51. The Reconstruction Machine: We've used "The Machine" for complete instantaneous reconstructions, particle-for- particle reconstructions (both random, and left-for-right), chunk transfer, recording for later reconstructions, and maybe others. But now let's assume that within this machine are 1000's of Nobel Laureates, brilliant men, researching, experimenting, for 1000's of years, each of them standing on the shoulders of other mental giants. Let's say they've managed to completely understand the workings of the brain - the manner of information storage and retrieval, and its processing. In addition, they've determined just how the eyes, ears, and all our other senses, connect up. And now for the ultimate accomplishment: They've also perfected wonderful mechanical substitutes for every detail and operation of the brain and assembled the whole thing to make a complete copy of a human being!! Now a rather amazing and controversial statement: I believe this mechanical being to have a "soul" every bit the equivalent to the soul of a human being! It just cannot be otherwise. Its "organized complexity" is exactly equivalent to the human being in every way.
#52. In addition to the Figure-of-Merit work to be done, a Question-and- Answer Section should be made up which plainly and simply answers the key questions in a self-consistent manner, or at least points out the sections in which they're answered.
#53. One word I've overlooked is "consciousness". Its connotation somewhat parallels the meaning of "soul" with less emphasis, however, on indistinguishability. For instance, in building the mechanical being of #51, we might say it can be considered to have a soul at that time when it achieves consciousness. However, when discussing the difference between two completely different, but identical, mechanical beings, one would talk about their souls and not their consciousnesses.
#54. If we put two of the above identical mechanical beings side by side and started them off with the same inputs and programming, and continued with identical external influences (inputs to eyes, ears, etc.), then they should continue along in completely identical ways. If one were 10 minutes ahead of the other, it would completely predict in every detail what the other would do. I believe, then, that this is true for real human beings, too. Any Heisenberg considerations that would cause one identical being to deviate from its twin, would apply to both mechanical AND human beings. Just because we can't accurately determine the value of several parameters at once (The Uncertainty Principle), doesn't mean that the quantities themselves haven't accurate values. The Uncertainty Principle only concerns itself with our ability to observe and to know, and not with the actual values of the quantities themselves. The principle denies us information that would allow us to make accurate predictions of the future (or, for that matter, to reconstruct the past). Nowhere, however, does the principle state that different events will transpire if the starting points are equal. Even in subatomic situations, where ramifications of the uncertainty principle become important, there is no rationale in physics or philosophy that we can invoke to require different end points to result from identical starting points. Indeed, there should be a fundamental philosophical tenet that states: "Identical initial conditions result in identical future events." I doubt, though, if anyone would dare publish such a tenet and risk running the gauntlet of "Sunday Morning Quarterbacks". Religious ideas rely on free will and detest predestination - and the above tenet takes quite the opposite stand.
#55. From #54 we see that the being, be it human or mechanical, must react in a specified manner. If it had a free will, it could make different decisions than its completely identical twin. Since I feel this cannot be, I must, to be consistent, believe that free will cannot exist! I feel the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle doesn't apply, either in #54 or here. Again, I sit here saying I can't make free will decisions, which I find hard to hammer into my brain - but it's the only rational, consistent solution. Any other conclusion would paint myself into an illogical corner. (See the 12 Minute Religious Dialog.)
#56. If free will doesn't exist, then all decisions are made, and we must conclude that every detail of the future of the universe has already been predetermined! What a great disappointment. At least we can be thankful we can't predict the future and that we can enjoy watching the passing events.
#57. We've just "proved" predestination and the non-existence of free will. Is it all that simple? Well, the answers may be simple, but it's tough to accustom our thinking to these concepts. Maybe that's why the various religions can continue to exist, since a person would quite naturally believe his will is free and that the future is not predestined.
#58. The fact that religious people believe their God knows the future in every detail is completely in keeping with our predestination conclusion in #55. Their belief in free will, however, is certainly not consistent with predestination.
#59. Some definitions of the soul: (In Hebrew: Nephesh. In Greek: Psyche. In Latin: Anima. All are about equivalent to our "soul".) • c.1500 B.C.: The word "soul", as written by Moses (in Genesis), was the "breath of life" that God breathed into the nostrils of man after creating him from the "dust of the ground". No mention is made of its immortality. Not until the New Testament can a soul have any potential to live forever. • c.440 B.C.: Socrates is purported (he left no writings) to have created the concept of the soul. It wasn't a particular faculty or special substance in his mind, but was man's capacity for intelligence and character, his conscious personality, and "that within us by which we are pronounced wise or foolish, good or bad". He identified the soul with our normal powers of intelligence and character, and not as some ghostly substance. • c.390 B.C.: Plato, however, separated the soul and the body, spoke of the pre-existence of the soul and recollections from a previous state, and immortality of the individual soul. • c.350 B.C.: Aristotle placed the soul as the origin of all of the body's vital and mental "Performances". A person is a composite of matter "informed" by the soul, which is immortal. Animals have a "sensitive" soul, and plants have a "vegetative" soul. These two souls are perishable. • c.400 A.D.: St. Augustine wrote: "With regard to the four following opinions concerning the soul - viz. (1) whether souls are handed on from parent to child by propagation; or (2) are suddenly created in individuals at birth; or (3) existing already elsewhere are divinely sent into the bodies of the newborn; or (4) slip into them of their own motion - it is undesirable for anyone to make a rash pronouncement, since up to the present time the question has never been discussed and decided by writers of holy books on account of its obscurity and perplexity - or if it has been dealt with, no such treatises have hitherto come into my hands." • 1807: Barclay's English Dictionary, Liverpool: "The immaterial substance which animates our bodies. Various have been the opinions of men concerning the substance of the human soul. The Epicureans thought it a subtle air, composed of atoms or primitive corpuscles. The Stoics maintained it was a flame, or portion of heavenly light. The Cartesians made thinking the essence of the soul. Others hold that man is endowed with 3 kinds of soul, viz., the rational, which is purely spiritual, and infused by the immediate inspiration of God, the irrational, or sensitive, which being common to man and brutes, is supposed to be formed of the elements, and the vegetative soul, or principle of growth and nutrition, as the first is of understanding, and the second of animal life." • 1822: Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary, London: "The immaterial and immortal spirit of man." • 1937: Oxford Universal English Dictionary, Oxford: Many definitions, of all sorts, embodying both religious and non-religious explanations of the soul. For instance: "The principle of thought and action in man, commonly regarded as an entity distinct from the body, the spiritual part of man in contrast to the purely physical. Frequently in connexion with or in contrast to BODY. The spiritual part of man regarded as surviving after death and as susceptible of happiness or misery in a future state. The disembodied spirit of a (deceased) person, regarded as a separate entity, and as invested with some amount of form and personality." • 1975: The Doubleday Dictionary, New York: "That essence or entity of the human person which is regarded as being immortal, invisible, and the source or origin of spirituality, emotion, volition, etc. The moral or spiritual part of man."
#60. The definition of the soul I feel must be twofold: The first being the conventional, the second being a new definition in the light of what we've learned up to now.
#61. The conventional definition, a combination of the definitions from #59: THE SOUL is that intangible part of a being that is the seat of consciousness, awareness, intellect, reason, originality, curiosity, morality, the emotions, common sense, and the individual personality, and which continues forever, even after the death of the physical body.
#62. Our new definition: THE SOUL is a being's APPARENT consciousness, awareness, intellect, reason, originality, curiosity, morality, the emotions, common sense, and the individual personality. These traits are a result of the brain's inherited complexity enabling it to acquire and exploit outside information. The soul disappears as the brain dies.
#63. One might ask how we can define a soul once we previously have proved it not to exist. The answer is that we've only proved the soul, as per the conventional definition of #61, not to exist. Our new definition in #62 is quite OK since the APPARENT aspect of the soul there defined is completely consistent with its non-existence.
(#64 thru #67 were taken from old thoughts dated c. 1970.) #64. The problem of 2 exactly identical persons. Can you interpret the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in some way so it's impossible to have 2 exactly similar situations continue one to one? This would be tantamount to saying that if everything is known in complete detail, a prediction cannot be made. (See #54 & #55.)
#65. A possible definition of thinking Life: That which has the ability to initiate its own actions (as opposed to, say, a virus or blood cell). The quality of thinking life might be determined by the fineness of the degree to which different actions can be initiated. (See #72.)
#66. Life, aging, death, the soul & eternal life: Any living thing is constantly changing its environment and changing its constitution. The body has no way of referring back to the RNA-DNA chromosome-gene information storage bank, and thus has no way of repairing itself back to a more "youthful" state. So, while continually ingesting, storing, and expending energy, and while accumulating radiation, fat, etc., and while imperfectly repairing itself of the wounds of time and motion (muscle breakdown, skin and blood cell replenishment, etc.), the body is undergoing constant changes in its composition. The brain, likewise, is experiencing vast changes due to: (1) accumulation of radiation, fat, etc., (2) inability to repair itself, (3) learning, and (4) forgetting. So, it's quite clear the mind and body are continually drifting away from their constitution at conception, that time at which the human is most like the gene-code handed down through the generations, and which can be considered eternal. From this concept we might say that aging is merely a drifting, with time, of the individual, away from that make-up he once had that was identical with an eternal make-up. We must remember that a genetic code can't be considered alive. It can't change, and since living requires a change of make-up, a change of input, storage, constitution, environment, we can state: THAT WHICH DOESN'T CHANGE DOESN'T LIVE. The period around conception demarcates the beginning of life where the egg begins to change and grow and develop into the moving, absorbing, thinking object we call a living thing.
Now that we understand that a living thing changes constantly (and if there's no change there's no life), let's look at the question of eternal life (for the individual). Since the body (or any living thing) is constantly changing, the body is not now the same body of 5 minutes ago. Agreed, the correlation, by any definition, is 0.9999. (A correlation of 1.000000 means that the body hasn't changed at all and therefore has undergone no living.) Now, after several decades, this correlation must drop to some lower figure, possibly approaching zero (or no correlation). It appears that a man, in growing old, will in fact become another person. Identical twins, who live together in the same physical and mental environment, will correlate closely (though decreasingly) throughout life. In fact, at age 90, one twin could correlate more with the other twin, also 90, than with himself, as he was, at age 9. So, assuming we can somehow keep the body alive forever, we find that the individual is continually changing identity. Thus, in answer to the question of eternal life, we find:
(1) That which doesn't change, exists forever. That which doesn't change, doesn't live. Therefore, that which DOESN'T live, can exist forever.
(2) That which lives continually changes. That which lives FOREVER completely changes identity an infinite number of times. But that which changes identity cannot live forever (as its original identity or any one identity). Therefore, THAT WHICH LIVES CANNOT LIVE FOREVER!
Also, we can see that, with frequent changes, life is shorter - which may explain why the smaller, fast-living, species don't live as long, since only so much living can take place in a smaller organism before a gradual identity change must take place, and nature sees to it that a body doesn't live much longer than one or two identity changes.
#67. Change is life, but if changed, you're not the same. Therefore, eternal life is impossible since the same object (or being) can't live and still be the same. (Because as you live, you change, and as you change you become something different, someone else, and thus, what you were no longer exists - what you were has essentially died.) As an illustration, take an amoeba (or any fissionable life) - a question: In which half does the soul enter during fission? Answer: Neither. The process is similar, so far as the results are concerned, to a parent "mothering" 2 clones and then completely disappearing (see #11 & #12). Well, then, if that's true, and if the parent has learned anything in its lifetime, does that mean the memory is lost upon fission? or is it transmitted to both offspring? or is the parent incapable of learning (& so no problem as to where the facts have gone)? Answer: I feel the amoeba has no capacity to learn and all they know is 100% transmitted to the fission products. This could be the basis of a simple experiment - namely, try to teach some amoebas some simple reflex. If they learn, then see if it's transmitted to neither, one, or both halves after fission. The "fact" that everything learned must be transmitted (in fissionable "life") is a necessary result of the fission process, namely that both halves are identical (which in itself is a result of the replication process). It's interesting that, with amoebas, everything learned must be transmitted, and with humans, nothing learned is transmitted! (See #70 & #112.) Is there any inconsistency here? I don't think so, since the learning mechanisms are different.
#68. The conclusions reached over the last 67 thoughts seem, once and for all, to put the coup de grace on all ideas of reincarnation, life after death, previous lives, contacting the dead, ghosts, resurrections, Satan, Heaven, Hell, Allah, and maybe even God.
#69. If there IS a God, how do our thoughts apply to Him? Certainly the same rules must apply. If He lives, He must change, etc...., and so we must conclude either: He lives, changes, and dies (or becomes so changed with time as to become unrecognizable), OR, He exists forever and never changes, and therefore doesn't live. Any attempt to rationalize a God in the light of our thoughts and conclusions concerning the soul will paint ourselves into that corner. The only reasonable conclusion is that there is no God and never was. (See Appendix.)
#70. Referring to #67, it might be that the fission process, or something similar to it, will be the mechanism whereby acquired characteristics (including knowledge) can be transmitted. The ability of animals to walk at birth, chicks to peck for food at birth, whales and birds to migrate to specific spots, etc., indicates that at one time or another something learned was incorporated into the genes and from that time permanently transmitted. (But see #91, #92 & #94.) Though it's certainly possible the brain and/or body contains a mechanism for incorporating acquired characteristics into the genes, it's also possible that mutation, natural selection, survival of the fittest, and long periods of time, will adequately explain such mysteries as, for instance, bird migration. Flocks heading for the poles for the winter perished. Those heading for the equator survived. Those heading out into the Pacific perished, while those following a coastline or a river survived. If every 100 years a new "fine tuning" was mutated into the "genetic migration program" of the species, then it might be easy to see how, after 1,000,000 years a species would be able to migrate every year to and from the exact sites of the previous years, and even extend them, over the millennia.
#71. Learning is clearly a permanent change and is certainly a part of what life and the soul are all about. But what about the process of forgetting? Is it equivalent to a time reversal? Are you reverting back to the person you were before you learned the fact? If you have truly forgotten all traces of the fact, I suppose it's possible you may have become a bit more like "your old self". Presently, though, I feel that all changes are unidirectional, necessarily invoking the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and the notion of entropy, and that, at least on a large scale, we learn at random and forget at random, each event making us a different person like a point random- walking through N-dimensional space. "N" can be very large (billions!) and so the chance of crossing the previous path is nil, especially when the path strays little from the shortest line to its destination: old age and death. (In the case of a tiny, primitive form of life, however, the chance may not be negligible.) So, "forgetting", then, I feel, in the case of any form of life complicated enough to be able to remember anything, is just one of the processes involved in changing the person, and therefore just part of life, the soul, aging, etc. I would suggest that "forgetting" be included in any rigorous definition of life or the soul. However, any lifeform that can remember, but NEVER forgets, should still be considered alive and capable of having a soul. This would allow a highly sophisticated, non-forgetting, super-computer of the future to join our club of organic/mechanical living beings having souls.
#72. One definition of "life" might be: "That which dies". Can we somehow similarly define a soul? That future super- computer (with the soul), of #71, dies only insofar as it changes identity as it learns and erases.
#73. The soul is a manifestation of: organized change; organized complexity; logical rational progress; premeditated reason; sophistication; personality.
#74. To do: -Look into freezing of lifeforms. -Cloning. -Look at necessary refinements of a soul, how it must work, what duties it must perform, what relationship it must have with the body, where it is or what form it takes when the body is in a coma, asleep, in the womb, preconception, at death, after death, etc. -The body's actions are only the external manifestation of all the contents of the brain and/or soul. - Are there are any inconsistencies? (See #76.)
#75. The brain's capacity is surely not infinite, so, were we able to live forever, the brain would eventually be saturated with information. Then, as we forget various facts, other facts would take their place, resulting, in time, in a very different person with very different habits and opinions - a different personality and a different soul. The fact we use very little of our brain's capacity (or so it is said) wouldn't affect the argument. (But see #77.)
#76. Inconsistencies. Upon discovering an inconsistency in his logic, a soul (a reasonable one, that is) would be proud to have discovered it and would look forward to the challenge of sorting out the conflicting "facts" or observations. Surely one's all-encompassing picture of the universe lacks perfection if inconsistencies exist in the details of the picture. Conflicting facts certainly can exist in one's thinking, even though unresolved, as long as they're acknowledged and further thinking put off until more facts or theories are introduced into the thought process. By discovering the presence of an inconsistency, the present state of the mind is found to be unacceptable and the need for a future change is recognized which would knowingly result in a slightly different person and soul.
#77. Referring to #25, suppose we emptied your brain, storing all the information on tape. Then suppose, after some interval, we program back all this information, in the exact same locations, into the actual brain from which it was taken, that is, your brain. Now, the same question: would this person be you? Clearly, everyone else would believe you were you. You, yourself, when asked, would truthfully believe you were you. If this were truly so, then the first reason in #25 (stating it's ridiculous to think your soul can be stored on tape) wouldn't be so ridiculous. However, the 2nd and 3rd reasons still appear valid. For instance, from (3), had we not emptied your brain when storing all your information on tape, then you are still clearly you, since whether we emptied your brain or not in the process of programming the tape, will certainly not have anything to do with whether your soul transferred to the tape or not. Therefore, your soul did NOT transfer to the tape. And, from (2), if we had emptied your brain, and the brains of a couple of your clones, and then reprogrammed all three of the brains from the same tape derived from your brain, we clearly have 3 different souls, completely indistinguishable from outside and each of the 3 truly believing he was the original. Now back to the question, "Are you still you?". Clearly you're not either of the clones, however I presently believe you may in fact be the original and not have "committed suicide" by having your brain emptied and reprogrammed. Your "apparent soul", since it never got to the tape, must therefore reside in the brain, even if emptied. (In emptying the brain, though, the soul could have perished. Reprogramming, even with the original information, could create a brand new soul.) The clones, however, had their brains emptied of completely different information (having lived different lives than the original before all 3 had their brains emptied). The clones may suspect a change since they won't recognize certain scars (or lack of scars) on their bodies, and certain muscles of their bodies may not be able to handle particular skills they developed in their previous years. If not different souls from what they were, they are at least very changed. Their new personality came over the tape, and to the extent you define a soul by learned information, then that portion of the soul WAS stored on tape. Unfortunately, the thoughts here in #77 seem to be inconsistent with those in #75 where a new soul resulted merely by replacing the information in the brain. Here, however, I say that emptying the brain and reprogramming it won't result in a new soul, but just a changed soul (The reason being that the soul must have remained with the original body since it couldn't get onto the tape.) The resolution could come about by postulating two levels of the soul: (1) The permanent wiring of the brain, and (2) the information added from time to time. (1) and (2) could be compared to the hardware and software of a computer. Presumably (1), the permanent wiring, would constitute the "true soul". (But see #115.)
