From a religious point of view, where do you think the soul fits in?
Say that I am a car. The body is like a vehicle. There are automatic functions and there are functions that are under manual control. There are symptoms that can be traced to problems, and the problems fixed if the garage has the skills and the tools.
The mind would be the driver. We can measure brain activity and connect it to bodily functions, we can see the driver operate certain controls and get physical results.
Where's the soul?
Is it like the voice on the radio? Something I may or may not hear, depending on my location. Something that may be loud or soft, or just static.
Is it like my GPS? Trying to guide me down the highway, but not actually in control. So sometimes it will try to tell me 'turn right to avoid committing a felony in the downtown area,' then a few minutes later, "Recalculating" as it tries to guide me into doing the right thing to resolve the consequences.
Is it like the stuffed dinosaur crouching fearfully on the dashboard? A witness to my actions, but without input to those actions, and thrown clear during any event that demolishes the car or the driver.
I’m not going to address your question head-on: what may or may not be the answer to the question, “where is the soul?” Instead, I’m going to explore the question itself.
There is an underlying view that “if something exists, it exists somewhere.” In other words, underlying such a question about whether or not something is purportedly apart of our objective reality exists is the presumption that there is a location for it to reside. That denies the existence of the immaterial. It’s actually a prevalent view, but it’s a view that I think is founded on a common linguistic misunderstanding. It’s the trickery of language that misguides us so.
Consider, for instance, “abstract objects.” Not abstract objects but the very term itself. Even the way it’s written has set the stage for a confusion that has escaped the best of us for a time. It’s not on par with “yellow objects” or “seven objects.” In those instances, where they are not technical terms, it’s simply two single-worded terms, an adjective followed by a noun.
Consider “imaginary object.” That’s a full blown denial that something is real. But here’s the important distinction: “there are seven objects on the table” asserts that there is a table and that there are objects (you can count them even) on the table. She is talking to her imaginary friend is not the claim there is an actual real friend that is nevertheless imaginary.
The term “abstract object” is not the assertion one might think it is. If one thinks there’s something spooky about it and has a resistance to believing such things, they’ll likely (and understandably) deny the very existence of abstract objects. But, if you understand it in a different light, one might not be so quick to deny the existence of abstract objects.
Now, none of this is to say I think the soul is an abstract object. I’m not even (in this thread) going to even try to espouse such a view. So far, I’ve just introduced the notion that language can be misunderstood. In fact, the squirliness of language is so pervasive that it has caused endless discussions over things that have more to do with language than it does the realities of physical substance.
I say the brain gives rise to the mind, and although the brain has physical processes that allow for the mind to exist, the mind (I claim) is not physical: it’s immaterial. An easy way to quickly tell (not always but at least sometimes) would be to treat an example like a piece of cake.
I can cut out a physical piece of a physical object (like a brain, stomach, or lung) and set it on a table for all to see. Why can we see them? Because we can see (or otherwise detect it’s physical form). We can’t shoot the mind, digestion, or breathing. There is no cutting up, slicing, or dicing those things—those immaterial things that have a material basis.
Of course there is a physical basis, and we can manipulate the immaterial by messing with the material. It’s my contention that it’s apart of language to speak of such things as immaterial. You can hand me matter, but try handing me energy!
Denying the immaterial has a strange way of causing people to unnecessarily find fault with certain claims. With the underlying drive to maintain the stance that something must have a location, it causes (especially the educated) to imbue certain physical things that we would otherwise call immaterial. Take ideas, for example. Some say they are in the mind. That’s okay because that’s how we navigate in discussion, but notice that it’s semantic-speak. Both ideas and the purported home for them is nowhere, not even inside the head and certainly not as firing synapses and neurotransmitters in the brain—as those are simply the physical basis for the linguistic created mental objects that are 1) not physical yet 2) has a physical basis.
Ideas are abstractions while numbers are abstract objects. The idea of a number would be an abstraction of an abstract object: two things terribly conflated and mixed up.
Now, the soul. If it doesn’t exist, then I would gladly accept that it is not an abstract object, but then again, if unicorns don’t exist, I would also gladly accept they are not abstract objects. So, it’s important, very important, that we don’t deny something off-hand without first realizing what it would be like for something to exist. For starters, unicorns are physical (or material, if ya will). Well, they would be if they did exist. There’s no evidence that what would be a material object if it existed, but we must use a different approach with abstract objects. The lack of material evidence that there are immaterial objects is no good reason to deny they exist.
Now, if something like a mind was brought into question where we know (or at least should know) that the immaterial object mind has a brain as a physical process, then we have good reason to deny the mind of the physical basis for it has been (oh say) destroyed. But, something like a number which is also immaterial (but not an abstraction) and thus no physical basis has to approached semantically. For instance, to say of something that it exists is to say of something that it has properties. The number three has the property of being odd and after two, etc, so the number two exists. Yes, it might very well have a human basis convention, but that’s not spooky—it’s a linguistic peculiarity.
My thoughts are this: don’t get wrapped up too tight on the notion that something must have a location to exist.
Don’t hold too tight to the notion that there are not immaterial objects (the ones with a physical basis) (or the linguistic non spooky version). Keep expectations commensurate with what’s being dealt with (concrete or abstract).
