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| It is possible to prove that a human soul is a meaningless concept; that an immortal and immaterial soul could not carry our memories, our personality, our character, it could not be aware of its surroundings, it could not think. If one assumes that we have a soul and examine what properties that soul could have one reaches the absurd conclusion that it could have no properties; it would be a non-entity. Therefore one proves the imposibility of an immortal soul by reductio ad absurdum: reduction to absurdity. |
Suppose we have a soulFor the sake of examining the consequences of the idea, suppose for the present that we do have an immortal soul. Once it leaves the body, what would it be capable of?
The sensesScience has explained in great detail how our ears work in concert with our brains to allow us to perceive and interpret sounds. But our disembodied soul would have neither ears nor brain; it could not hear.In the case of our eyes, science has demonstrated how light is focussed by the cornea and lens to form an image on the retina, and how the cone and rod cells of the retina detect the light, convert it into nerve impulses and transmit them to the brain. The brain then interprets the innumerable nerve impulses, uses our experiences to decipher the areas of differing light intensity in the images, examines the differences between the images coming from each eye, and produces 'a picture in our heads' that is meaningful in terms of objects, movement, textures; things with which we are familiar. A soul of course, having no eyes, could not see. Very similar arguments can be made regarding the other senses: smell, taste, feel. Obviously the soul would have no mouth, tongue, vocal cords or lungs; so it would be incapable of speech. It would have no hands, so would be incapable of sign language.
Therefore the soul could have no senses and would be incapable of
receiving any information about its surroundings; it would also be
incapable of communicating.
MemoryScientists, partly from studying victims of stroke and brain injuries, and by other studies, have thoroughly demonstrated that memory is a function of our brain. Memories can be lost due to brain damage, they can be invoked by electrical stimulation of selected areas of the brain.
A disembodied soul, having no brain, could remember nothing.
Personality, characterSimilarly, studies of victims of brain injuries have shown that damage to particular regions can have profound effects on personality and character. A person can become unrecognizable from his or her behaviour, following serious brain damage, even when capable of otherwise living a normal life. Personality and character are therefore functions of our brains.
A disembodied soul would not have character or personality.
EmotionsFear is a function of the part of our brains called the amygdala, and greed is handled by an area called the nucleus accumbens. Even the irrational share-trading behaviour that was closely tied to the economic collapse of 2008/09 has been traced to a part of the brain called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Both the nucleus accumbens and the hypothalamus are involved in sex drive.
A disembodied soul would have no emotions.
ThoughtThought is a more tenuous and ill-defined concept. I don't think that it is yet possible to point to one part of the brain and say that here is where thinking happens, this would at least be partly because there are various activities that are all loosely called thinking. However, it is possible to demonstrate that components of thought are associated with areas of the brain; for example I believe that there is a small area named for Einstein, where higher mathematical thought processes take place.Brain damage from stroke, disease, or trauma can leave people incapable of problem solving, of considering the rational implications of arguments, of understanding what their senses are telling them; in short, of thought.
Without a brain, a disembodied soul would be incapable of thought.
In summaryIf there was an immortal soul it could have no sensory input, no memories, and could not think; it could have no personality or character, no emotions; it could not do anything that we would recognize as definitively human and could not carry anything recognizable from the human in which it originally resided. How then, given what science has shown us, could my soul carry the essential me?In science and philosophy one way of proving that a proposition is false is by following its logical consequences and showing that they lead to an absurd outcome. For example, if an arithmetical hypothesis leads to the conclusion that one equals two, it can be said to be proven on the principle of 'reductio ad absurdum' (reduction to absurdity), that the hypothesis is false. The above arguments prove, I believe, reductio ad absurdum, that the concept of a soul is meaningless and achieves nothing; it leads to the absurd outcome of a thing that has no properties and that could do nothing. Also, the long-used scientific principle of Ockham's Razor tells us that when we are faced with several explanations for something the simpler is almost always preferable. Either we have immortal souls or we do not. If I have a soul it would not be capable of carrying any meaningful 'me' into an afterlife or a new incarnation unless we ascribe some sort of quite unprovable 'magical' properties to it; it is an unnecessary and unproductive theory that goes nowhere. Surely the alternative of there being no immortal soul is the preferable theory? It is simple and fits observed reality. If the soul concept goes, there too goes most or all of the world's religions. |
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Other questionsExtracted from Wrested Scriptures, absurdities relating to the 'immortality of the soul'."If all men have immortal souls, then it begs the question, when exactly did these immortal souls come into existence? Does an unborn baby have an immortal soul? Does a foetus have an immortal soul? Does a fertilized egg at conception have an immortal soul? If so, what do these immortal souls look like if the unborn baby dies in the womb? Does the soul of a stillborn baby instantly gain full adulthood in appearance when they reach heaven (or hell)? Do the souls of these dead babies have fully developed brains when they reach heaven (or hell)? Where will they have gained the knowledge to speak and the powers of memory and reason?"You would also have to ask when the soul evolved, unless you suppose that God decided at some point to add a soul to our ancestors' makeup. Science shows that we have evolved from simpler organisms, do we need to add another layer of complexity to the science of evolution to account for the development of a soul that is quite undemonstrable and serves no possible purpose? The more rational thought one gives the concept of the soul the more unlikely it seems. |
AfterwordWhen my body dies, my memories die, my thought processes die, all of me dies. All that remains, apart from my dead physical body, are my works and the memories that other people have of me.Death is a very natural thing, the end of life. An atheist has no reason to fear death. |
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