A Theory of Soul Consistent with Scripture and Neuroscience - Part 6: Soul 101, Class #2

 [See here for introductory comments.]

               I theorized that the soul is composed of at least three major components that I referred to generally as Afferent System, Efferent System, and Processing & Memory [see here].  This entry is about the Efferent System of the soul. 

 

The Efferent System of the Soul:  “The Will”

              The efferent, or "motor system", of the soul is basically what we might generally refer to as "the will".  This is where free will is generated and implemented.   The efferent system is where the interaction between the spiritual "soul-world" and the physical "flesh-world" happens.  The efferent system is, at least in my view, the most mysterious component of the soul and probably the most mysterious thing in the entire universe.  To me, the entire “mystery of the soul” really comes down to this aspect.  In fact, I think it is at this point that many people decide the soul is too mysterious for rational belief and they jettison their belief in the soul, and with it, anything supernatural.  They become physicalists, and probably determinists, as they stand at the edge of this great mystery.  Belief in the soul becomes childish in their eyes.  Instead of gazing on this mystery in amazement, they walk away.  I get it.  Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia understood this very problem almost 400 years ago.  It’s not new.  My goal in this series of blog posts on the soul is to get some of you to take a second look at this mystery.  What if the immaterial world actually does influence the physical world?  All I’m asking is for a chance to put forward a concept for consideration.

              As think there are at least two major parts to the Efferent System of the Soul.  One part is the aspect that performs the mechanics of the "spiritual-physical link."  Somehow the decisions made by the soul have to produce an influence on our physical actions.  How in the world is it possible that some non-physical entity could impact what we do?  In fact, as I've discussed elsewhere [here], we can narrow it down much further:  at some point, this action has to affect one or more neurons in the brain.  How?  To be honest, I had some theories on this that I was embarrassed to put into writing, and I thought “surely others have thought about these ideas and have written about them.”  Eventually, after a few years of searching, I found some others who have written about these concepts in the past 40 years or so, and so I feel like I can now describe these ideas and at least I will have company when I am ridiculed.  But I’m not going to dive into those details here – you’ll have to wait a bit for that! <it will be linked here>

              The second part of the efferent system is the actual decision-making component.  This component is the entity that generates an uncaused cause [see here].  This is the entity that generates a decision that is unpredictable, but not random.  And, just like the unity feature of consciousness [here], there is nothing else in the universe (that we know of) that is like this.  There is no other force or condition or outcome that is not either "caused" or "random".  As a result, it is impossible to come up with an analogy without introducing human will into the analogy, thus creating some circular logic.  Some would say that the uniqueness and downright craziness of thinking there could be something that appears random (i.e. unpredictable), and yet is not random, should drive us all to doubt the idea of free will.  But, as I have discussed elsewhere, for me, free will is a given - it is the starting point - because I experience it moment by moment.  I do not throw it out just because it is conceptually difficult, if not impossible, to fully describe.  I can't explain why bumblebees fly either, but I see them flying so I don't entertain the possibility that "since I can't make sense of it, they must not be flying."  I know that there are whole libraries full of books denying the existence of free will.  I’m not going to argue the point here.  My point in this entry is to just say “Here’s where I think free will exists.”

              I actually don't know if it is right to call the efferent component, "the will."  There are a lot of terms used for this concept, often poorly defined (probably because of the circular argument problem).  I think this component might also be analogous to what some refer to as human "agency".  Or, from a spiritual standpoint, it might be proper to call it the "spirit" of a person.  Or even "heart."  Whatever you call it, it is the seat of moral responsibility.  The existence of "the will" is why we can hold human beings responsible for their own actions in a manner different than a dog or a worm or a computer.  Whatever you call it, the general content of our moral decision-making (what kind of a person we are), and the implementation of those moral decisions, is established in this component.    

              How is "the will" or "agency" established in each human?  Are we born with it?  Is it set by God?  Is it just random chance?  This line of thinking, which ends with the idea that you'd have to create your own self in order to have free will, is, in my opinion, a very tough argument for libertarians like me to counter.  It's a body blow that I have to absorb because I can't answer that question.  I take some solace in the fact that the concept of God has the same issue.  Did God create Himself?  If not, then how did He come into being and who decided what God's character was going to be like?  When it comes to God, of course, we simply say that God had no beginning - He always was.  There is no question that God has free will <well…actually, see here>.  So did God freely choose His character?  There's no answer to that.  I have an idea about the infinitesimal "beginning" of human free will, but that will have to wait for some future entry.  But I don't reject the idea of God just because I can’t answer these questions because, in many ways, this whole mystery (how did God create Himself?)  is exactly what makes God, God.  In the same way, the conundrum of "creating yourself" is exactly what makes free will, free.  Like Blaise Pascal, I like this mystery.  To me it is exciting.  More mysterious and exciting and even "spooky" than quantum entanglement!

              I will just say one thing with respect to the question "are we born with it?" in relation to our free will.  I think there are a lot of reasons to believe that this part of the soul grows and matures, roughly analogous to physical development.  I think that the maturing of the soul could provide an explanation for why we persist in thinking there is some kind of "age of accountability" for humans.  This is a common difficulty in raising kids.  At what point are they responsible for their own actions and should be punished or praised accordingly?  There is certainly nothing that happens outwardly that indicates a sudden transition from "not accountable" to "fully accountable."  At some age, kids are "tried as adults."  We pick ages (5...12...18...etc.) for this "transition" because we have no other means of making this determination.  But some kids seem to mature quicker than others.  And what about kids with mental disabilities?  One size doesn’t fit all, but we don’t have good options.  These are all good questions, and a soul - specifically a "will" - that grows and matures over time provides part of a framework for understanding how to address these questions.

              Remember that in my theory of the soul, the efferent system is generally exercised in a manner that is sparse, infrequent, and weak.  This is partly what I was trying to point out in my entry on "It's a Dog's Life."  The brain can run on its own without requiring input from the Efferent System of the Soul, and, I think most of our life operates "physically."  Thus, when we start digging into how the soul actually influences the brain, the mechanics of this influence have to take the "weak and infrequent" nature into account.  However, when we focus on character qualities that are uniquely human - say something like forgiveness or even altruism - we expect the soul is involved.  That's where we should expect to see the action of the immaterial soul on the physical brain.

              I'm going to stop here with this initial description because this takes me back to my purpose:  to present a theory of the soul that is consistent with neuroscience and scripture.  The key thing is that the Efferent System of the soul is the one concept where science could have real explanatory power.  Specifically, I claim the soul exists in each person and is influencing neurons (albeit infrequently).  That concept can theoretically be subjected to experimentation.  If my hypothesis is correct, then this soul-neuron interaction is happening in every human being who is alive at this very moment.  Thus, there are lots of potential study subjects!  At the very least, neuroscience can establish significant guidelines as to where, when, how, etc. this interaction could happen.  That’s why, for me, it is important to have a theory that fits both the Christian concept of a soul but also fits within the guidelines established by neuroscience.

              And now on to the third major component of the soul:  processing and memory.

 

I’ll see your Phineas Gage…

            If you’ve done any reading or listened to any talks about the “mind-brain” issue, and especially about the scientific rejection of the concept of a “soul”, there’s one name that you’ve probably heard mentioned in literally every book or talk about the topic.  It’s not the name of a scientist or philosopher or even a theologian.  I bet this never gave much thought to the mind-brain problem.  He certainly didn’t know any neuroscience.  Yet there he is, a central character in the whole discussion.

             His name?  Phineas Gage.  Mr. Gage was a railroad construction foreman who lived in the early- to mid-1800’s.  What makes him famous is a work accident that he experienced.  Specifically, he was tamping down some explosives with a rod and there was an explosion that drove the rod through his eye/cheek and exited the top of his skull, destroying a significant portion of his left frontal lobe.  Miraculously, he survived the accident and lived for more than 10 years after that accident and was able, after some time, to return to employment as a stagecoach driver.  Importantly, some of the physicians who treated him recorded the events in detail and he became rather well-known even during his lifetime.  Key to the “existence of the soul” issue, it was reported that his personality changed significantly after the accident.  This seems to be the first clear evidence that damage to the brain could cause changes to personality, thus localizing personality to the physical brain rather than in some external “soul.”[1]  There is a lot more to the story and a lot known about the whole situation, but I’ll let you read that elsewhere on the internet. 

              This one single event is often given as the definitive “nail in the coffin” for the concept of an immaterial soul or mind or any such thing.  Here’s an example of the finality with which Mr. Gage’s case is presented:

 

“Phineas Gage’s case shattered the myth of an immaterial soul, showing that personality, identity, and decision-making come from the brain. Neuroscience confirms this—damage the brain, and you change. Dualism fails to explain how a soul could control neurons...Unsettling or not, the evidence is clear: we are our brains—nothing more.”  [From an internet post by someone identified as Theitant]

 

              This is just one example and you’ll find this same sentiment expressed in many ways repeatedly throughout the literature.  I mean, it’s obvious isn’t it?  Phineas Gage experienced severe damage to the frontal lobe of his brain and his whole personality changed.  Presumably, if he had an immaterial soul, it would not have been damaged by the very physical spike that passed through his brain.  If personality was determined by the soul, then his personality should have been unaffected by damage to the brain.  Thus, the obvious conclusion is that our personality arises in our physical brain and has nothing to do with a soul.  And, further, if the soul doesn’t have anything to do with our personality, then why even hypothesize the existence of a soul?  Any intelligent person should realize that the brain is all there is – there is no soul and never was.  

              Not so fast.  I have two points I’d like to bring up about this “open and shut” case against the soul.

              First, there seems to be a very simple analogy that calls into question the jump to the conclusion that is made from the Gage case.  I will use the analogy of a radio, which, granted, was not invented for another 50 years after Gage’s accident.  A battery-powered radio is a very cool device, especially if you didn’t know how it works.  Let’s say you lived in Gage’s time and someone travelled back in time and gave you one of these magical devices.  It is a completely enclosed system.  You can hold it in your hands and you can easily see that nothing goes into, or out of, the radio.  But it produces sounds!  You can hear people talking through it and so on.  Where do those sounds come from?  Maybe you hypothesize that the radio has some kind of immaterial thing you call a “soul” that produces the sounds that you hear.  It’s nice to listen to music while you work so you decide to take it with you to your job on the railroad construction site.  While on the job, an unfortunate accident occurs in which an explosion causes a metal rod to be shot right through your radio.  Parts of the radio are missing, but somehow the radio is not totally destroyed.  It still makes sounds, but now the sounds are all staticky and you really can’t make out what people are saying.  The “personality” of your radio is totally different.

              Well, now your idea of a “soul” inside the radio is destroyed.  You know that the physical rod couldn’t have destroyed the radio’s immaterial soul, so the sounds coming from the radio must come from the physical components inside the box.  Obviously, the sounds must have been coming from little people and little bands playing inside the radio, and they got damaged by the spike.  It’s an open and shut case – there is no such thing as a “radio soul.”  Right?

              Of course that’s ridiculous.  The sound that a radio produces are generated at the radio station, which could be miles away, and they are transmitted through the air to the little radio you have next to you.  When the metal rod damages your radio, it doesn’t damage anyone or anything at the radio station.  The transmission is still occurring just fine.  But now the receipt of those signals is disrupted so that the sounds that your little radio produces are no longer decipherable.

              Isn’t that exactly analogous to the situation with Phineas Gage?  Obviously his soul was not damaged, but the instrument through which his soul acts – his brain – was damaged.  I fail to see how this is an open and shut case against the soul at all.  Yes, it does give us insight into how the soul might interact with the brain, in the same way that damage to the radio helps us to have some insight into what kind of transmissions the radio receives.  But there is no way that what happened to Phineas Gage “shatters the myth of an immaterial soul.”  I guess, to me, this analogy seems so obvious that I just don’t understand why the whole case is so famous.

              I’d like to dive into the radio analogy more deeply sometime in the future <here>, but for now I want to go to the second major issue I have with the conclusions drawn from Mr. Gage’s accident and change in personality.

              To explain my second major issue, I’m going to use another analogy.  Ultimately, in the end, I think that the Phineas Gage event actually helps to illustrate a very strong argument for the soul!  Let’s see if you agree.

              I’m going to use the analogy/example of human motor learning, which certainly does happen in the physical brain (and, in my opinion, not in the soul).  Think about learning to throw a baseball.  Just about anyone can learn to throw a baseball.  But how many people can throw 90 mph fastballs for strikes?  Well, there are a few, obviously, and most are highly paid pitchers in the Major Leagues.  But how did they learn to pitch so well?  Certainly, there are various paths that each pitcher has taken to get to where they are, but there is one universal that is never violated:  they all had to practice.  For years they had to practice.  By the time they get to the big leagues, they’ve probably thrown literally millions of pitches throughout their life.  Millions.  There is just no way around the slow process of motor learning via practice.

              What would you say if someone one day picked up a baseball for the first time and started throwing 90 mph pitches for strikes?  I’ll even grant you someone who has been very athletic throughout their life and runs marathons and lifts weights and so on.  That still doesn’t allow for someone to just pick up a baseball and instantly become a big league starter.  That could never happen.  And it doesn’t happen for a simple reason:  such learning requires neurons to learn the proper sequence of firing and for those patterns to get ingrained in the neural networks of the brain and spinal cord.  That is a slow process.  There’s no way to substantially speed that process up.  It takes the time it takes.

              Tragically, though, you could go the other way in an instant.  A major league pitcher could have a stroke or some other kind of trauma and the motor area of their brain could be damaged and they could instantly and permanently lose the ability to throw pitches.  In fact, they could end up with a paralyzed arm that couldn’t even hold a baseball, let alone throw it.  Although this would be tragic, we would not consider it anything out of the ordinary.  That’s how brain damage works.  It’s instant.  But there’s no reversing of brain damage instantly. 

              My point in this analogy/example is that instant changes in the brain occur in only one direction:  they always involve a destructive outcome.  Learned traits are lost.  Personality is changed for the worse.  Memories are lost.  Knowledge is lost.  In order to get constructive outcomes, the process of training the brain is painfully slow.  No one gets hit in the head and suddenly becomes a major league pitcher or a concert pianist or an Albert Einstein.  Negative physical changes in the brain can be instant.  Positive physical changes in the brain are not instant – they take days to weeks to years to happen.  That’s just the way the brain works. 

              With that backdrop in mind, let’s consider for a moment a few people who ought to be much more famous with respect to the mind/brain problem than Phineas Gage.  I’m talking about people who have transformed themselves instantly without brain damage.  If Phineas Gage is evidence that the brain controls our whole personality, and that blowing out a tenth of it causes an obvious change in the personality of an individual…well, then I present to you…

 

Saul of Tarsus,

              or

Augustine of Hippo,

              or

Clive Staples Lewis,

              or…

any of the many many other people who have had a radical, essentially instantaneous personality transformation without having a tenth of their brain damaged!

 

              In fact, their transformations – at least some of them – are more profound, more pronounced, and much better documented – than good old Mr. Gage. 

              Let’s just stick with the story of Saul of Tarsus for the moment – a story I have addressed previously <here>.  Saul was a learned, well-trained Jewish religious leader in the first century AD.  He had made it his goal in life to hunt down Christians and, if possible, get them sentenced to death.  But one day, on his way to hunt down more Christians in Damascus, he had a transforming episode that changed his entire view of life, faith, and life purpose.  The episode lasted less than a few minutes and yet the transformation was drastic and permanent.  He went on to become the leading proponent of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire and wrote major sections of the Christian Bible.

              You may not agree with Saul/Paul’s life purpose, but you have to admit that this transformation was constructive (not destructive), instantaneous (relative to physiological brain changes), and permanent.  Compare that to what happened to Phineas Gage.  The personality changes to Mr. Gage required the total destruction of approximately a tenth of Mr. Gage’s brain.  Where was the explosion in Saul’s brain?  There was none.  After his transformation, he wrote literary works that stand with the best of all time.  If personality is totally determined by the physical brain, then what possible sudden rearrangement of neuronal connections could possibly have happened to cause such change in an individual’s personality?  A conservative estimate is that Mr. Gage completely lost at least 10 million neurons.  How many neurons had to suddenly change their firing patterns in Saul’s brain in order to achieve what was an even greater transformation in personality?

              I suspect that the only argument is to try to downplay the degree of transformation for these individuals.  Spare me.  The documentation regarding Mr. Gage is pretty good, but there is considerable disagreement about the extent of his change in personality.  On the other hand, I have books and books and books describing the transformation of the individuals I mentioned above.  And I could pull out an endless series of other people whose lives have been transformed in an instant.  Many of them are living right now – they could be your neighbors.  The evidence of their transformed lives is often etched in their bodies…tattoos on their skin, scars on their arms, etc. – all clear evidence that they once lived a very different life than they do now!  How does such instantaneous transformation happen in a physical brain?

              My hypothesis would be that the instantaneous transformation happened in the soul, which then became apparent as it worked through the brain.  If you could measure someone’s brain activity during one of these transformations, I don’t think you would find 10 million neurons suddenly changing their firing patterns.  That seems physically impossible, based on what we know of how brains work, how neurons learn.  Yes, the transformation becomes apparent through the actions that happen via the physical brain, but the initial instantaneous transformation occurs in the soul, not the brain.  If you have already rejected the idea of a soul long ago, you won’t agree with me; but at least you have to recognize that the rejection of the soul is premature until there is at least some reasonable hypothesis as to how a positive transformation, on the scale we observe in these cases, can happen in the physical brain alone.

              Maybe you will argue that personality can be transformed significantly by small, progressive changes in just a few neurons of the brain.  You might hypothesize that the neural networks in these individuals were at a tipping point, where a change in one neuron has a broad effect over a whole network of neurons.  Kind of like when the mechanical odometer in old cars would go from 99,999.9 back to all zeroes.  I don’t think I can disprove the “tipping point-waterfall cascade-odometer” hypothesis, but that seems extremely far-fetched and doesn’t fit the evidence we find in these transformed lives.  But, I guess you’ll have to stand confidently on that idea, as weak as it seems, because you surely wouldn’t want to admit that Mr. Gage isn’t the open and shut case against the soul that it is claimed it to be.

              So…I’ll see your Phineas Gage…and raise you Saul of Tarsus!

 

 

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[1] I find it hard to believe that this was the first evidence of the importance of the physical brain in shaping a person’s personality, but it is such a spectacular and shocking story that I think we can at least say that it was the first famous and broadly recognized evidence that the physical brain shapes personality.

Emergence 5 – Strong Emergence and Downward Causation

               I have been exploring the scientific and philosophical concept of “emergence” (starting <here>).  Summarizing my previous entries in a single sentence:  my contention is that when you really analyze what emergence means when it is used as an explanation for consciousness, it is actually just another word for consciousness, and thus explains nothing.  

              Previously we discussed the concepts of “weak emergence” and “strong emergence”.  “Weak emergence” refers to emergent properties that are, at least in principle, explainable by the underlying physical properties.  In my opinion, weak emergence is ubiquitous, but has nothing to do with human consciousness.  In “strong emergence”, the connection between the higher-level events and the underlying physics becomes strained and broken in some manner.  I previously made the claim that it is very misleading to use the terms “weak emergence” and “strong emergence” because it makes it sound like the two terms are related, whereas, in reality, the two terms have almost nothing in common.  I suggested that a better term for “strong emergence” was “beyond physics” (i.e. “metaphysics”) or, even more simply, “consciousness.” 

              I said there were two features that tend to get combined under the heading of “strong emergence”, and that these two features are also so different from one another that they should each be given a separate descriptive term – i.e. they shouldn’t be combined under a single term.  The first feature of strong emergence was that the emergent property cannot, even in principle, be explained by the underlying physics of the situation.  You can read that entry here.  In today's entry, it is now time to address the second feature of strong emergence.

              The second major feature often lumped under the term “strong emergence” is the idea that, in some manner (often undefined) the emergent property can exert a top-down effect on the underlying physics or the underlying fundamental particles.  This is often referred to as “downward causation.”[1] 

              It’s hard to come up with an example of downward causation, so I’ll start with something hypothetical.  Let’s say that the flow of water molecules could be described as an emergent property called “river”, and then “river”, by virtue of where it decides to flow, exerted an influence on the water molecules to make the water molecules move where the river “wanted” them go.  That would be an example of “downward causation”.  The emergent property of “river” would be obeying its own laws that are outside, or in addition to, the fundamental laws that govern the interactions of the water molecules.  In this case, if you applied the fundamental laws to all of your water molecules, you would find that they are not moving exactly as you predict because the river is exerting an outside influence on one or more of the water molecules (that influence is, in this hypothetical example, not itself included in the fundamental physics of the situation).  Now, that is not how it works with water molecules and rivers.  Rivers are defined by the collection and interaction of the water molecules that make it up, as well as the environment surrounding the water molecules (i.e. the molecules that make up the river bank and river bed).  There is no separate, distinct “intentional river flow” that exists apart from the fundamental principles of physics for the entire system.  Thus, in reality, river flow is actually an example of weak emergence, not strong emergence.

              You may wonder “well, what example could there possibly be of strong emergence?”  That is a valid question!  Frequently, people devolve to using consciousness as the primary (or only?) example of strong emergence, something I find pretty circular. 

              Sometimes people come up with examples of “emergence”, where, if you listen closely, you will realize that there is a human involved in their example somewhere along the way.  A conscious human.  Let me give you a very common example of this:  traffic flow as an emergent property of multiple cars driving on a road.  Traffic patterns arise (emerge) from these cars as they drive, patterns such as the stop-and-go waves that we get stuck in on our way to work.  You can’t just examine a single car driving along and predict the various kinds of traffic patterns that will emerge from a whole group of cars on the road.  Thus, traffic patterns are considered an emergent property.  Philosophers will then say “just like complex traffic patterns emerge from a group of single cars driving on the road, so analogously, consciousness could arise from a group of neurons acting in a complex network.”  There are two important problems with this.  First, traffic patterns are weak emergence and, in fact, can typically be simulated with software.  The comparison between traffic and consciousness is based on an implied link between the weak emergence of traffic patterns and the strong emergence of consciousness.  What is that link?  They both have the word “emergent” in them – but otherwise they are unrelated concepts!  That is why I think it is wrong to use the term “strong emergence”, as I pointed out in my previous entry on this topic <here>.

              However, there is another funny thing about calling traffic an emergent property and then using it as an analogy to explain how consciousness arises from the brain.  Cars don’t do anything unless they are driven – driven by a human being – a conscious human being.  Cars don’t make decisions; the human drivers do.  Presumably, those humans utilize their conscious brain to make those decisions and initiate the actions they make as drivers.  This is like defining a word by using the same word in the definition.  In some real way, traffic flow is just the action of a lot of conscious human drivers making their conscious decisions.  To then describe traffic flow as an emergent property and therefore analogous to consciousness seems very circular to me.

              Sometimes examples of strong emergence are open systems rather than closed systems.  Open systems are those where there are “outside influences” on how the system behaves.  These outside influences then can become the top-down influence of strong emergence.  For example, life itself is sometimes put forward as an example of strong emergence, because it emerges from the underlying biochemical activity, but life also seems to exert a top-down influence on what the living thing does.  Living things do purposeful activities but the underlying chemicals and reactions do not have anything like “purpose” as part of their properties.  But living things are not closed systems.  They must constantly ingest some kind of energy to keep going and stay living.  They are also living within an external environment.  To me, this seems analogous to the “water and river” example I gave earlier.  The banks of the river are the environment that the water finds itself in, and the banks exert an influence on where the water molecules go.  But, if we include the river bed and river banks into our fundamental system, then there is no emergent “top-down” influence.  I feel that claiming something has an emergent, top-down influence when the system is open is suspect.  It seems that those outside influences need to be brought within the explanation of the system in order to determine if there is strong emergence.  I’m sure there is plenty of debate on that particular point.

              In the last entry, I argued that the first aspect of strong emergence, the aspect of a disconnect between the “emergent” property and the underlying physics, was typically just another word for consciousness.  Or, I suggested the word “metaphysics” be used in this case.  So, what word should be used to describe this second aspect of strong emergence – the aspect of downward causation?  In my opinion, we already have a word for that:  “will”.  Maybe more commonly in philosophy, the term “agency” is used.  But, it seems to me that downward causation is just describing the higher-level system exerting its “will” on the lower-level system. 

              For the purposes of this discussion, I am not claiming any particular freedom in the term “will” in this case – i.e. I’m not claiming that this is necessarily “free will”.  If you are a determinist, then maybe you would call it “determined will”, I don’t know.  In fact, even though I am a strong proponent of free will itself, I don’t think that downward causation always fits under the category of “free” will.  Just “will” – or “agency” – or maybe even “purpose”.  I think that life is actually an example of this concept.  Living things exhibit a purpose.  Thus, I would consider life to be a strongly emergent property, except that I would never use the confusing term “strong emergence.”

              So, to summarize, I think that the terms “weak emergence” and “strong emergence” are very misleading.  I propose three terms to describe these ideas.  First, the term “emergence” would be retained to describe those things that would be typically categorized under “weak emergence.”  Then I would use the term “consciousness” for those things that have the first aspect of strong emergence – that they somehow depart from (or modify) the laws of physics.  And finally, I would use the term “will” or “agency” for those things that exert downward causation that is independent of the underlying physics.  I have previously introduced my thinking about how I see consciousness and agency as being connected in human behavior in my discussion on the soul <here>.  I think consciousness and will are related, but are not the same thing. 

              Now, given this background, we will go back to the discussion on water molecules and liquidity.  Next time.

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[1] Is there some bigotry on our part when we place particle physics always at the “bottom” and things like life and consciousness at the “top”?  Why should increasing complexity be seen as “higher than” or “above” things that are less complex?  And are quarks and gluons actually less complex than humans?  If so, then why is quantum mechanics so difficult for humans to understand?

A Theory of Soul Consistent with Scripture and Neuroscience - Part 13: Heads or Tails

             I'd like to present an illustration that is going to be very foundational for future discussions of my theory of the soul.  I think it is a simple point - at least I hope it is.  The point has to do with the close relationship between a truly random event and a "willed" event.  I've discussed this elsewhere, and it's going to come up again, but I want to put forward an illustration that should offer some insight into why free will is difficult to discern experimentally.

             Imagine that I have given you a long list of my recorded coin flips.  It's just a list:  Heads. Tails. Tails. Heads. Heads. Heads. Tails. Heads. Tails. Etc.  The list contains 1000 entries.

             A couple of givens:  assume that the flip of a coin is truly random and assume that my coin is a fair coin, such that you expect a 50% distribution of heads and 50% distribution of tails. 

             As you look at the table, there is nothing unusual about it.  I ask you to convince yourself that this is a random table of flipping a fair coin.  So, you dutifully collect some statistical measurements on the data.  You find that 50.2% of the entries are heads.  Seems fine.  You even break things down a bit more and look at the distribution of each set of successive groups of 100 values.  Their distributions also seem fine.  As far as you can tell, this is a typical table of random coin flips.

 

             Then I provide you with the following information:  occasionally, at time points known only to me, instead of flipping the coin, I willfully placed the coin down with either a heads or a tails.  You don't know how often I did that, but for the sake of illustration I will let you know that it was less than a dozen times during the 1000 entries you have in front of you.  I tell you that the series of intentional heads or tails spell out a word using an ASCII table.  My contention is this:  you could not tell which of the 1000 flips is intentional (and therefore has some meaning) and which is random.  In fact, looking across the entire distribution, you could not tell whether my claim that some of the coin flips are intentional is true or not.  Since I am telling you that sometimes my intentional coin placements are heads and some are tails, you wouldn't necessarily see a change in the distribution.  And, really, with so few intentional coin placements in the midst of so many random events, how could you really know that the distribution was not totally random even if all of my intentional placements are heads?  Any variations from a 50:50 split would be well-within any expected variation. 

             Could you ever distinguish my proposed "willed" series of events from a truly "random" series of events?  I contend that you will never be able to distinguish these because of the nature of random and willed events in this illustration.  Even in the extreme case - the case where every coin flip was actually not a flip but was, instead, me placing it down according to my own will; and further the case where I was obsessed with heads so I placed the coin heads up 1000 times in a row - even in that case, you can't prove that it wasn't random since there is some finite chance that a truly random series would result in the same distribution.  In such an extreme case, though, I couldn't blame you if you concluded that this was just a determined series of coin placements, and neither random nor willed.  Sometimes I think that when scientists think of free will, they imagine it must happen in the brain in a manner that fits this latter example.  Specifically, that to exercise free will means that every neuron fires under the control of the will.  If there is any "mixing" of events, it is a mix of determined and willed events.  But in my theory, this is not so.  Willed events are rare and are mixed in with a lot of random events.  In this latter case, not only can you not prove that there are no willed events, you might never suspect that there are any willed events.  If I hadn't told you that I sometimes placed the coin down intentionally, you would never have suspected that I was doing that.

              Finally, the whole situation is further complicated by the fact that you can't repeat the experiment and get the same results.  One common experimental method to extract rare events from the midst of random (or assumed to be random) noise is to perform what is called "spike-triggered averaging."  This allows you to find a very weak signal (like I'm proposing free will is) in the midst of a lot of random noise.  But this approach only works if the signal is repeatable and deterministic based on some known trigger.  In the situation I've described, we have none of the necessary conditions.

             Why do I bring this up?  Because the random coin flip is directly analogous to the randomness in the synaptic junction of neurons.  Neurons either fire (heads) or they don't (tails) as a result of sufficient conditions of neurotransmitter release at the synaptic junction.  That process is fundamentally random (I'll have to dive into the evidence in a future entry).  Therefore, we have exactly the same situation as the table of coin flips, but instead we have a table of neuronal firing states.  It's obviously a very complicated table because there are lots of neurons (not just a single coin) and they are all experiencing their random changes again and again as time progresses.  Also, a coin flip has a uniform distribution, whereas the distribution of any neuron's firing states is related to its inputs, is more complicated, and can change over time.  So it is a very complex table!  My point is that if you can't identify willed events in a simple table of random-plus-willed coin flips, then you surely can't identify willed events in the midst of random neuronal firing.  Willed neuronal firing events could occur constantly in the midst of random neuronal firing, and you would never know.  I contend that that is exactly what happens in the brain and you could never prove me wrong.  It doesn't mean I'm right, of course, but you can't dismiss the idea out of hand.

             Can the idea that willed events are hidden in random neuronal firing ever be considered scientific?  If you consider true science as only encompassing concepts that are disprovable and can be subject to repeated observation, then no.  Of course, by that definition, any theory of the past, such as evolution, is also not science.  But with respect to my theory, you could disprove it by showing that every neuronal firing event is predictable with 100% accuracy.  Specifically, if you can show that there are no such things as random events anywhere in the universe, then, I think, there would be no room for free will.  But, ignoring how difficult that would be, it seems pretty clear that the direction physics (and biology) are going is to confidently assert that there are random events in the universe.  Thus, rather than disproving the idea of free will, science seems to be progressing towards demonstrating that the necessary substrate for free will does indeed exist. 

             Of course, demonstrating that true randomness exists does not prove that free will exists.  I think that's where "disprovable science" ends.  The point of this entry was to show that if randomness does exist, it can be the source for free will and, further, that it would be impossible to rule out the possibility of free will if randomness exists.  Thus, given randomness, it is impossible to disprove the existence of free will and therefore, the concept no longer fits into the disprovable science realm.  That may bother some, but it certainly doesn't bother me because I've already accepted that there is truth to be found outside of science (something I've discussed elsewhere).

             In summary, free will requires an apparent fundamental randomness to exist.  Free will can be buried undetectably in that randomness.  Since it seems that fundamental randomness really does exist in the physical world, then neuroscience, if it confines itself to scientific statements, cannot claim to have proven that free will does not exist.  This makes the debate about free will and determinism a philosophical debate rather than a scientific one.  Yet it seems that scientists are the ones fully confident about their deterministic views.  To such scientists I say: l let go of your biological determinism and come live in the free world.  It's an exciting place to be!

A Theory of Soul Consistent with Scripture and Neuroscience - Part 12: Addressing Sloppy Christian "Beliefs" about the Soul

[Note:  This entry is written specifically for Christians.]

 

I found the following paragraph on the site "Bibles for America":

 

"Our soul is our personality, who we are. With our soul we think, reason, consider, remember, and wonder. We experience emotions like happiness, love, sorrow, anger, relief, and compassion. And we’re able to resolve, choose, and make decisions."

 

             I think this paragraph would describe a pretty typical evangelical Christian view of the body, soul, and spirit.  Although the context from which the paragraph above is taken is based on a Biblical perspective, this paragraph on the soul is not tied to any Biblical references.  But...it seems pretty Biblical on first pass.  It seems logical.  It would sound good to most Christians.  They would agree with it, I bet.

 

             And that's the problem.

 

             Neuroscience has proven this opening paragraph on the soul to be wrong.  The paragraph does not describe how things really are.  Even though I'm not a neuroscientist, I know enough to know that this paragraph has key fallacies.  I would say almost all scientists would know this paragraph is just plain false.  In fact, most people in the academic world would have enough knowledge of the workings of the brain to know that the assertions in this paragraph are wrong.

 

             If I was not a believer in God - specifically, not a Christian - I would just laugh at this paragraph and once again conclude that Christian believe in fairy tales.  This is clearly a statement of falsehood.  And it seems to present the Christian view.  Therefore:  Christians believe in falsehood.  But...I am a Christian and so paragraphs such as these are embarrassing.  They misrepresent Christian beliefs.

 

             This is the problem I am trying to address in these entries on the soul.  My contention is this:  first, the paragraph I've quoted above does not express Biblical teaching; second, what Christians should believe about the soul does not violate any known discoveries of neuroscience.  You can believe what the Bible teaches about the soul, and you can accept all of the discoveries of neuroscience, and you don't have to throw logic out the window to do so. 

 

             Unfortunately, the apparent impasse mostly lies with the Christian view as commonly presented in the opening paragraph.  Yes, it is certainly true that neuroscience oversteps its bounds with statements denying the existence of the soul, denying free will, sometimes even denying consciousness.  In fact, I would say that neuroscience doesn't just overstep its bounds with respect to religious belief - it oversteps its bounds into philosophy and ethics and even the social sciences and even art.  I've discussed this elsewhere.  But what I'm really concerned about is an incorrect view of the soul being presented as if it is a foundational Christian view.

 

             Now, I must stress that I don't think every word in that opening paragraph is wrong.  In fact, there are plenty of aspects that are, at the very least, partially true.  The problem is that mixed in with truth is significant error and thus you have to conclude that the whole paragraph is wrong.  Let me give quick example.  The statement that with our soul we "...experience...love...anger..." presents many problems and is too simplified.  If the statement was changed to "our soul is involved in our moral expressions of love and anger", then that would be acceptable.  I hope to show, in this series of blog entries, how to specifically think about the soul's involvement in expressions of love and anger, but, for now, the phrase "is involved in" is vague enough to cover the concept.

 

             It's important for Christians to recognize that there is no Biblical support for the statement that our soul is the seat of emotion, or that it is where we experience love or anger or other characteristics of our personality.  Frankly, the Bible is pretty vague on those details.  It is not vague about the existence of the soul, but it is vague about where the soul ends and the physical body begins, and vice versa.  In my theory of the soul, I draw sharper lines between the soul and body - not to claim any new insight from scripture - but only to show that a reasonable description of the soul and body can be made and still be consistent with the findings of neuroscience.  I think it is helpful for Christians to know that there is a logical description of the soul that can fit with neuroscience.  I also think that a clearer understanding of the soul can sometimes help Christians to live the Christian life.  But I wouldn't go so far as to say that all Christians need to understand and accept my (or anyone else's) theory of the soul.  What I would say, though, is that Christians need to think clearly about what is Biblical and what is not, in relation to the soul, and I think they need to stop assenting to paragraphs like the one above.  Why?  Because it makes us all look irrational and illogical and even foolish.  Certainly some Christian beliefs are "crazy" in the sense that they involve belief in miracles.  I've talked about this elsewhere [here].  But belief in miracles, though it may be crazy, is not irrational.  Rejecting the plain discoveries of neuroscience is irrational.

 

             Here's where I think the dog comparison helps [see here].  Christians should be clear on this.  Dogs don't have souls but, for example, dogs get angry.  Dogs remember things.  So to say that the soul is the seat of anger or "With our soul we...remember" is almost certainly false just by observing dogs.  Everyone should be able to come to that conclusion.  You don't need to know the latest neuroscientific discoveries to come to that conclusion.  But this knowledge is taken a lot further in neuroscience.  We know that damage to certain areas of the brain can wipe out memories.  We know that damage to certain areas of the brain can change the frequency and character of an individual's anger.  So...if our memories were all located in the soul, then why would brain damage affect our memories?  It's not just that we can't express our memories after brain damage - it is possible to damage very specific areas of the brain where essentially the only obvious deficit is a loss of memory (or sometimes just some memories).  To me, and to most people in the neuroscience world, this is unassailable proof that the statement "with our soul we remember" is false.  Our brain - our physical brain - is clearly involved in memories to a great extent. 

 

             You could say, as some do, that the soul is essentially physical and almost synonymous with the brain.  I don't agree with that, but it's a valid consideration given the evidence.  My point is that when most Christians agree with the opening paragraph, they do so with the idea that the soul is a non-physical substance.  They would not expect that the soul would be damaged by a blow to the head or affected by a stroke.

 

             If you've read any of my other entries, you know that I believe humans have a soul and that our soul is not physical.  In fact, I think the concept of a non-physical soul is a very fundamental belief of Christianity.  I even think that the soul does possess a memory of some description.  But a correct description of the soul does not ascribe all of our memories to it.  A correct description of the soul would not ascribe all of our emotions to it.  There is clearly decision-making in the brain that does not require the soul.  Even concepts such as thinking and reasoning are difficult to place fully in the soul.  Our personalities, as expressed to the outside world, are clearly strongly influenced by our physical brain.  So we have to conclude that the opening paragraph is wrong.

 

             In summary, I say this to Christians:  it is important to think clearly on this issue.  When it comes to detailed descriptions of the soul presented as Christian teaching, it is important to only go as far as scripture does.  In general, about all you can say is that human beings are unique in having a soul and our soul is involved in our moral decision-making.  To make confident statements about the soul that go beyond scripture and clearly violate known scientific discoveries is to present Christian beliefs as irrational.  That is bad.  We are crazy.  But we are not irrational.

 

 

A Theory of Soul Consistent with Scripture and Neuroscience - Part 11: Addressing the oxymoron of "Christian Monism"

[See here for introductory comments.]

             If you've read much of this blog, you know that I consider myself a dualist.  I assume that my Theory of the Soul would be classified as a dualist theory.  However, the label "dualist" can mean different things to different people.  I want to clarify what I mean when I use that label.  Also, at the same time, I keep finding a lot of Christians who are monists or, at the very least, "anti-dualists", and that surprises me.  I think some of the apparent disagreement might just be a difference in "definition of words", and so a clarification is in order.

             When I call myself a dualist, I mean that I am convinced that there is a non-physical (i.e. supernatural or spiritual) aspect to human beings.  The term "soul" is generally used to describe this non-physical component, although the word "soul" has a lot of meanings.  From a scriptural standpoint, I personally prefer to use the term "soul-spirit" or psuche-pneuma (Greek), because I think it more appropriately captures the sense of scripture on that topic.  I have discussed that in more detail elsewhere.

             I also believe that human beings are the only physical entities with a spiritual nature.  Or, to phrase it more simply:  only humans have souls.  I would distinguish my views from the idea of "panpsychism" - the idea that there is a bit of soul in everything.  I do, however, think that there is a whole "spiritual world" that pervades the universe and beyond.  But that is not the same as thinking that whatever makes up the soul in a human also makes up the components of everything else. 

             I have read articles by Christians who seem to believe that human beings have no non-physical component at all.  That concept makes no sense to me and it concerns me.  I don't see how it is possible to read the New Testament and not be convinced of the existence of a spiritual world.  My suspicion is that the only reason a Christian would see human beings as completely physical is because they are convinced that neuroscience has settled that score and so they are trying to fit their beliefs into that mold.  Specifically, they would be operating under the impression that neuroscience has proven that humans are only physical and therefore ideas like the "mind" and "soul" and even "consciousness" are simply manifestations of physical properties and are thus properly categorized as physical properties themselves.  For Christians in that situation, I do hope that my Theory of the Soul can provide an alternative way of looking at the issue.  As I have said previously, I hope to show that you can be a Christian (and a dualist), and not throw out any past, current, or even future discoveries in neuroscience...and still be a rational human being.

             On the other hand, I see that some Christians, and many others, are afraid of dualism because they consider it responsible for a lot of wrongs in the world.  They blame dualism for the behavior that stems from the idea that the physical body and the physical world is not that important.  When Christians focus their whole world around spiritual teachings and ignore the poor, or abuse women, or spew forth anger...many people blame a dualistic worldview as at the base of the problem.  I would agree that such behavior is wrong, but I disagree that it is grounds for throwing out dualism.  It does mean that the concept of dualism needs to be carefully defined and, I think, refined, so that it is not misused.  I am hopeful that Christians will develop a more refined view of their dualism that will provide guardrails that keep people from going to extremes and falling into those bad behaviors.  My Theory of the Soul is one attempt at refining this view.

             Let me just throw out one important point that might help establish some useful guardrails around dualism:  in my Theory of the Soul, nearly all of human behavior is due to the physical processes that go on within the human body, primarily the brain.  And when I say "nearly all", I mean like 99.99% of all human behavior is physical.  Yes, I am a dualist.  Yes, I am an unapologetic libertarian when it comes to free will.  But the soul, the mind, free will...they all need to be put in proper context.  I think free will is always available to humans, but rarely used.  I think moral decisions arise from deep within the soul, but are rarely expressed.  Thus, if we are to impact human behavior, we have to address the physical, physiological, psychological, brain health foundation of human behavior.  Christians definitely should not ignore the physical component of their lives and brains.  Building good habits is important.  Addressing the psychological problems in the brain is important.  This is frequently addressed through counseling and medication, because those can affect, and hopefully assist, the healing of the physical brain.  None of those activities should be ignored.  If your goal is to "exemplify Christ" in your life and behavior, you'll never be able to do that if you ignore 99.99% of your decisions and actions!

             So, you can't throw out or ignore your physical actions.  But a contrasting point (for Christians) is that the spiritual realm is always more important than the physical realm.  That does not mean to ignore the physical at all, but the right priority should be established.  This comes directly from the teachings of Jesus as he tried to change the worldview of his disciples.  For example: "... store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" [Matt 6:20-21].  The physical will not last forever, but the spiritual will.  Jesus was constantly trying to get the disciples to think of the spiritual world first.  He said things like "beware of the leaven of the Pharisees" and the disciples immediately started talking about whether they had enough bread.  In what I imagine is exasperation, Jesus chastises their "physical-first" view by reminding them that they had already experienced him multiplying bread to thousands, not once, but twice, and that he was not, in any way, referring to physical bread, but to the teaching of the Pharisees.  Jesus is not asking us to be blind to the physical world, but open up our eyes to see the broader and more impactful spiritual world. 

             Finally, it seems to me that our physical brain affects our spiritual soul.  This possibility should not be overlooked.  In that manner, our "physical selves" can leave an eternal impression, if you will, on our souls.  That is a very important point that I'll have to pick up in more detail in the future.

             In the end, you can be greatly improved through physical means - through retraining and healing of your brain.  But the one thing you cannot not do (in my view) is be transformed.  Transformation occurs in the spiritual realm and requires the Holy Spirit.  This is the "noodle reins" problem.  But to ignore a damaged brain, which is directly involved in 99.99% of your behaviors, is a really bad approach to trying to live a Christ-like life.  The brain needs to be healed (physical).  The soul needs to be transformed (spiritual).  To me, that is the essence of dualism as it applies to the Christian faith.