Many
think that the idea of a human soul is some old relic of an idea that
has been made obsolete by modern neuroscience. But rather
surprisingly the facts of neuroscience may provide a powerful
rationale for believing in a human soul. The neurological case for a
human soul may be concisely summarized as follows:
- Human minds have astonishing capabilities that we cannot account for by postulating neural mechanisms, including self-awareness, abstract reasoning, the ability to remember 50-year old memories, the ability to recall very long linear sequences, and the ability to instantly recall obscure pieces of information.
- Since we cannot explain such feats by neural mechanisms, we need to postulate some source of human mental functionality that goes beyond the brain, something along the lines of a soul.
The
first premise above would be disputed by many a neuroscientist, but
none of the things the premise mentions can actually be adequately
accounted for by neuroscience. No neuroscientist can give any
coherent explanation of how neurons are able to give a person
self-awareness and the sense of self that humans have. When asked to
explain very long-term memories such as memories that old people have
of their childhood, a neuroscientist will typically mention the idea
that memories are stored in synapses. But as discussed here, synapses
are subject to very rapid molecular turnover and structural turnover
which should make them incapable of storing memories for longer than
a year. The molecular turnover in synapses is so rapid that they
should be incapable of storing memories for longer than a few months.
As discussed here, the architecture of brains seems to not be the
type of architecture that might allow storing very long linear
sequences such as humans can remember.
As
for the instantaneous recall of distant memories, this is something
that everyone takes for granted, but trying to explain it in detail
neurologically is such a nightmare that neuroscientists rarely
attempt such a thing. The main problem comes when we consider this
issue: if memories are stored in the brain, how is it that someone
could know exactly where in the brain a memory is stored? For
example, if I say, “Tom Cruise,” your mind may recall various
images of Tom Cruise. But if such images are stored in your brain, how
could your brain know exactly where such images are stored? Brains
are not structured in any way that allows for the location
coordinates of anything to be recorded when a memory is stored. So
it won't do for you to claim that you looked up storage spot number
AZ4392 when you recalled what Tom Cruise's face look liked. Brains
have no such coordinates. And how could you be using a coordinate,
when you wouldn't know what the coordinate of a particular memory
was? We never remember any brain location coordinates when we
memorize things. It also will not do to claim that you scan through
all your memories to get the answer, like someone leafing the pages
of a book to find an answer. Such a thing would take hours, but you
recall memories instantly. No neuroscientist has given a detailed
plausible account of how humans could instantly recall distant memories
stored in a brain. See here for more on the seeming impossibility of explaining instant memory recall through brains.
An
additional problem comes when we consider encoding and decoding. If
your brain is storing memories, your brain would have to be using all
kinds of super-complicated encoding and decoding schemes that would
allow conceptual and visual information to be stored on a molecular
level, and then translated back into concepts and images when you
recall things. But it is hard to imagine how such encoding schemes
could ever exist – for example, we can't imagine any encoding
scheme by which you might translate the conceptually rich idea of
America or the conceptually rich idea of your mother into a series of
molecules. And if such super-complicated encoding schemes did exist,
they would seem to be miracles of design 1000 times harder to explain
than explaining the genetic code (already a nightmare for biologists
to explain, even though it is pretty simple). See here for more about this difficulty.
All
of these very great difficulties can be avoided through a radical
idea: the idea that human mental capabilities are largely the product
of a human soul rather than the brain. We can believe that our
memories are mainly stored in something like a soul, rather than a
brain. We can believe that our sense of self-identity and our ability
for abstract reasoning (so hard to account for by the action of neurons)
is also the product mainly of a human soul. There is a great deal of
paranormal evidence supporting such an idea – things such as
near-death experiences, suggesting human memories and consciousness
can continue when the brain is totally shut down.
The
main problem with such an idea is that it differs from what we have
been told so often by neuroscientists. But such an idea is easier to
accept if you simply remember: Nature never told us that our memories
are stored in brains, and Nature never told us that our
abstract concepts are generated by brains. It is merely our
neuroscientists who have told us such things, and they have been
jumping the gun before getting proof for such claims, being guilty of
the overly presumptive dogmatism that is so common among modern
scientists.
Scientists
have long advanced the dogma that memories can only be stored in
brains. But there is a line of experiments that challenge such a
dogma. The experiments involve worms. The worms in question have an
astonishing ability. You can cut off the head of one of these worms,
and it will grow a new head.
In
the 1950's the scientist James McConnell did astonishing experiments
with flatworms. He trained flatworms (planaria) to respond to
lighting cues. He then cut off the heads of the flatworms, leaving
only half a worm. He was not surprised to see the tail of the worm
regrow into a full worm that included a new brain. Such a thing had
been observed long ago. But what was surprising was that the worms
seemed to remember the learning that had previously been provided.
Under the prevailing dogma of neuroscience – that all memories are
stored in the brain – such a thing should have been impossible.
The learning should have been lost when a worm's first brain was
cut off. McConnell's research was published in a peer-reviewed
scientific journal. The paper stated, “ It
was concluded that in planaria the rudimentary brain is necessary for
learning to take place but not for retention of the learned
response."
More
recently, scientist Michael Levin of Tufts University has replicated
McConnell's findings. Spending lots of money, Levin developed a fancy
machine called the Automatic Training Apparatus, designed to test
flatworms in a way that would be computer-assisted and involve less
subjective interpretation by humans.
Levin's results were similar to McConnell's. The sequence he documented over and over again was:
Levin's machine
Levin's results were similar to McConnell's. The sequence he documented over and over again was:
- A worm was trained in some way.
- The worm had its head severed.
- The worm regrew its body, growing a new brain.
- The worm was then retested to see whether it remembered its previous learning.
- It was found repeatedly that the worm seemed to remember what it had previously learned before decapitation.
Levin
published his research in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The
paper was entitled, “An automated
training paradigm reveals long-term memory in planarians and its
persistence through head regeneration.”
It
is impossible to explain these results under prevailing dogmas that
memories are stored in brains. An article on Levin's research
includes some weird speculation involving RNA molecules going from
the head of the flatworm into the tail, and then migrating back into
the head after the head had regenerated after decapitation. But the article
concedes that this scenario is “imaginary,” and scientists
haven't even maintained that memories are stored in RNA molecules.
But
there is a scenario that can explain experimental results such as
McConnell's and Levin's. Consider the following hypothetical
scenario.
- All animals with brains (include flatworms and humans) have something like a soul. In the case of a flatworm, we might call this a mini-soul.
- Such animals store memories not mainly in brains, but mainly in souls.
- When a flatworm is decapitated, its brain is lost, but its soul or mini-soul is preserved, and still holds the animal's previous memories.
- When the decapitated flatworm grows a new brain, it is able to remember its previous learning, because it is retrieving memories not from its newly regenerated brain but from its soul or mini-soul that was never damaged.
The
experimental results of McConnell and Levin are inconsistent with the
idea that memories are stored only in brains, but are quite
consistent with the scenario above.
Are
there any other experiments hinting at the existence of a soul? Yes,
but they involve not animals but human beings. The experiments I
refer to are experiments involving ESP and remote-viewing.
Innumerable scientific papers have been published documenting
positive results in such experiments. In the case of the Joseph Rhine
experiments at Duke University, we have experiments showing
spectacular results that we would not expect to see merely by chance
even if everyone on the planet was tested for ESP.
What
do such experiments have to do with the soul? Abilities such as ESP
and remote viewing are utterly inexplicable under a neurological
framework. Evidence for such abilities suggests very strongly that
the human mind involves some paranormal or spiritual or transcendent
component that goes beyond anything that can be explained by using the
nervous system and the brain. The term “soul” can be used as a
vague term for such a component.
Of
course, you can deny all of this if you wish to cling to materialist
dogmas about the brain, and maintain that the mind and memories are
100% brain effects. But life is going to be hard for you. You must
explain away or deny the worm experiments done by multiple
researchers. You must explain away or deny tons of experiments
showing paranormal human abilities, experiments done for more than
100 years, including experiments done at leading universities and
experiments long funded by the US government. You must deny all the
evidence involving near-death experiences, suggesting that human
consciousness can continue when the brain is inoperative, including
many cases of people verifying details of their medical procedures
when they should have been completely unconscious. You must claim
that memories are all stored in brains, even though there is no
plausible mechanism by which human brains could store memories for
longer than a year or two, given all the structural and protein
turnover occurring in synapses (discussed here). You must somehow claim that memory
recall is purely neurological, even though no one has the slightest
idea of how a brain or mind could ever know how to find the exact
location in the brain where a memory was stored. You must also
maintain that somehow all our abstract thoughts are made by neurons,
although no one can explain how one neuron or a trillion neurons
could combine to make an abstract concept such as “life,”
“universe,” or “nation.” You must also maintain that somehow
the brain is constantly using a vast wealth of encoding schemes and
decoding schemes that allow it to translate concepts, episodic
memories and visual memories into molecular storage, even though no
one has ever found such an encoding scheme, no one has ever spelled
out in detail how such encoding schemes could work, and if such
encoding schemes existed they would require some insanely intricate
design scheme almost infinitely more complicated than the design
scheme behind DNA (creating a gigantic “intelligent design” issue
materialists would prefer to avoid). You must also explain away cases
such as John Lorber's and these cases, which suggest that minds can
function very well even when a large fraction of the brain is damaged or a great majority of the brain is gone.
Good luck doing all that without tying your prose into knots.
No comments:
Post a Comment