Along the lines of my previous post, I'm still trying to get my head around when Terri Schiavo's soul departed her body, and am still trying to understand the thoughts of those who believe in souls.

Hans Moravec has postulated a thought experiment in which his brain is gradually replaced by a mechanical de-vice, one subunit at a time. After each component replacement, he's asked if he still feels like himself. Presumably, if the answer is yes (and an assumption is made that he's being truthful), then the next component is replaced, ad semi-infinitum, until there is no longer any meat left in his head, and he's thinking entirely with hardware. At the end of the process, by definition, he still feels and thinks like Hans Moravec. So is he? Or is he a robot?

Now, this ignores the (perhaps large) degree to which thought processes and feelings are mediated by hormones--it simply assumes that there are some kind of sensors at the interface between the body and the mechanical mind that sense them and get the mind to respond the way the gray matter would have. Of course, one gets the sense that Moravec would prefer to have done with those unmanageable emotions anyway. Which is why he'd probably have replaced his body first, and gotten rid of all those yucky glands, before doing the brain upgrade.

But leaving that aside, the question is, does mechanical Hans still have a soul? Is he still made in God's image? If not, and assuming that he did prior to the initiation of the procedure, at what point did it leave?

These are not just ethereal philosophical questions. They're going to become theologically important to some people as technology continues to advance, and we become more cybernetic in the future. We've heard about gaining kingdoms at the price of one's soul. Will there be some unwilling to undergo life-saving medical procedures, fearing such a stiff bill?

OK, now, let's forget about the gradual replacement scenario. Suppose the functions are simply removed, and not replaced. This is in fact what happened, to some degree that remains in dispute, to Mrs. Schiavo. Getting back to my earlier question, suppose that her cortex was damaged to the point that she no longer had any awareness, of herself or others?

Well, remove it completely, but keep her breathing and her blood circulating. Keep her body healthy.

Now remove other parts of her brain, one by one, but all other organs remain functioning and healthy. Leave in the eyes, and provide nerve impulses to them so that they follow moving objects observed by external cameras, and cause her to emit random sounds with her mouth and lungs of seeming recognition at faces that would have been familiar to her prior to her tragedy. That is, remove the brain entirely, but have her behavior seem exactly the same as it appeared to be in reality.

Is that Terri Schiavo nee Schindler? Does that body still have her soul, or anyone's? If not, during which excision did it depart for new premises? If so, if it's a function of physiological functions of respiration and blood circulation, then what does that really mean in terms of today's technology, that will soon be capable of keeping a brainless body alive, if it isn't already?

To the degree that I understand the concept of the soul, I can't believe that it is associated simply with a body, living or breathing. To the degree that I believe in souls, I think of it as a different word for "mind."

That's why I think that if I were someone who loved Terri, and I believed in souls, I'd comfort myself with the thought that hers perhaps departed long ago, and was observing in anguish from above throughout the whole circus, and that while effort to hold on to something of her was noble, her ultimate end was foreordained fifteen years ago. And at some level, I'd have to feel relief that the long nightmare was over for everybody.

To believe in a soul, one cannot make too much of the brain as actually being the repository of the soul's function. It would be rather the interface mechanics that interface the soul to the body--something like a receiving attenna perhaps. A damaged or destroyed brain means that the body and the soul have lost an important piece of bio-ware by which they communicate.

Such a notion is required for the Christian notion of a future resurrected body into which I will reside. It is also necessary for the Hindu idea of re-incarnation. It is also, interestingly enough, implicitly required for fictional devices such as Star Trek's transporter technology and Start Gate's worm hole -- all of which destroy and reconsititute the body. Only someone who believed in a permanent soul would possibly dare step into such a device.

Don

Try this on for size: The body is the game console that includes an organic version of the central processor to run the game. The mind is the virtual reality in which the game, "Multiplayer Life," takes place.

The soul is the player, the "real" person who existed before the game booted up, and will continue to exist when the game ends.

Can the player continue to play the game if one gradually migrates it from Xbox to PS2? Why not?

Interesting hypothesizes…But before we all embarrass ourselves with too many analogies which I’m sure our national debate will uncover, I just wanted to repeat a line my grandmother used to use when people would postulate such things.
She would smile and say “And God Laughed.” Then walk away.

I think your question is moot. Duality is a miracle. Nailing it down is like nailing down what is God... or if there really is one. You will not get an answer but a dissying array of contradictory self comforting explanations (ok... maybe not all self comforting). Some of witch will come from the same people depending on mood, topic, words used, or drugs injested. I'm not trying to mock people of faith... but I think many of them would agree with me about all the others.

The Moravec thought experiment is circular--in order to buy into the scenario, you have to stipulate that yes, the mind can be divided into 'subunits' that can be replaced, like timing gears of a mechanical clock replaced with electronic components.
The problem is that as medicine has advanced, if anything we've seen just how un-clockwork like the 'wet' human brain actually is.
In fact, the evolutionary process would have selected against a 'designed' component-like development of the human brain, which means conciousness and presumably the soul is intimately tied into the body as well as the brain--which means the soul is one with the body as well as the brain.

I like Rand's argument more for the fact that you can replace "personality" for "soul" and have a similar discussion. [personality being the word i am using for the meta awareness of self, memories and behaviour]
What part of me is bound to the flesh and bone of body and brain function. If I swap a bit out for machinery, or lose a bit, am I still me?

This question is brutally faced by those with dementia or Alzheimer's, and their families.

I assume religious types believe in the soul being an additive only kind of thing, whereas personality is your current state of play as it were, and thus can be reduced and eventually destroyed.

I just wanted to repeat a line my grandmother used to use when people would postulate such things. She would smile and say “And God Laughed.” Then walk away.

Heh. My initial response to Rand's post was along the lines of, "God knows, and that's enough for me."

Trouble is, it's a thought experiment, and I figured I should try again, within the rules. ;-)

Whether you call it a soul, or consciousness, or being, or a "mind" there is a presence there that goes beyond just a machine responding to sensors and programming.

I've thought about this for a long time. What will be interesting to see is when they start creating really intelligent machines - even more intelligent than humans. Will those machines show signs of beying conscious?

My theory is that when it comes to intelligence they will find it will have little to do with it. Some machines will seem to come to life with little intelligence and others will be super intelligent without showing signs of consciousness at all. Just a hunch.

But hey what I do know?

I do believe we have a part of ourselves that does not die with death. I believe in a soul. And I hope that I was and am wrong and Terri died long ago and didn't experience the suffering I believe she did.

Hmm... I'm not sure that the more religious folk would find the matter amenable to rational analysys, as I think most just take the issue as a matter of faith.

As far as I can tell, the most concrete definition of self *I* can think of is not the brain itself, but the information contained within it, with the *proccess* of conciousness (conciousness is a process, not a thing or a quality) is the self-modifying progression of that set of information states. (rather like the 'game of life' )

This by the way, is why one would *not* have to beleive in a supernatural soul to be comfortable in stepping into a star-trek style transporter. As long as the information in the brain is transmitted accurately, and the proccess of self-modification of that information is restarted on the receiving end, there is no problem of identity.

The same goes for Morevec's "thought experiment" (which deserves that appelation in more than one way :> ). The container of the information is changed, but the information is not changed or destroyed, and the process of modification is not altered.

... Oh, and, I don't know about Christians, but I do recall that the Dali Lama once speculated that it was possible that one of his future incarnations could be a sentient machine.

Supposing her soul to have left her body years ago, what would it be in anguish about as it watched the continued function of her body? What's so terrible about a body still functioning?

The thing that has to be answered here is: if Terri was conscious, then we had no right to withold nourishment from her; but if she was not conscious, then she was not suffering, and so there was no purpose to be served in withholding nourishment from her. "Erring on the side of life" was the only reasonable thing to do. That our courts chose to err on the side of death is deeply troubling.

Well then Monsyne Dragon, will he dream of electric sheep? Is sentience all that's required to posess a soul? At this time, there is only one way to find out and I would rather wait a few more years before I do. God willing lol.

Every atom in your body is replaced over the course of a decade or so. But you're still the same person as you were... you just have different memories, different goals, different emotions, and different skills and knowledge. Think about the person you were 15 years ago, and tell me if that person is dead.

Interesting post. Not sure of a response but this sort of thing has worried me from time to time. If, at a future date, I upload myself - am I still me?

The glib answer is no, I'm not - I'll be a copy but how will knowing that you are a copy actually affect you. Greg Egan looks at this in a little more detail in Permutation City.

Teleportation raises similar questions.

Supposing her soul to have left her body years ago, what would it be in anguish about as it watched the continued function of her body? What's so terrible about a body still functioning?

Anguish about all the pain her family was going through, and all of the national commotion about it.

I believe that the soul is the "program" our brain runs. The program is self modifying, so our soul change change over time. Our current reality is a training ground so that we can learn to get along with others. If we learn to get along, we get to fully participate in the parent society (after "game over" here). If we don't, limitations will be placed on us for the safety of others.

If this were true, it would explain a lot - why are there dinosaurs? Because this is a simulation of a place that had dinosaurs, the place we came from. Why can we weigh or measure souls, why can't we see God, etc? Because they exist outside of this "reality," they effect our reality much like the system administrator of a computer system. Why does God let bad things happen? Because it is a test/learning experience, and if you do not allow people to fail a test what is the point of giving one? Also, we accept a certain level of pain while playing games - from a longer-term (such as eternal) life perspective why wouldn't we accept the pain of this life in exchange for full access to our parent society? Similar to college life...

Anyway, the only evidence I have is my personal experiences, but I believe that evidence weighs heavily in favor of something going on that is beyond our knowledge.

YMMV, IANAGod...

Well it could be said that we are already copies of ourselves in another brane universe just living out a different set of circumstances. In each brane these particle are just playing out the random number game to perhaps obtain or create something even higher that we could never understand. For example a physicist could be a particles way of understanding itself. When, we look very closely at the smallest of particles we have just begun to see that they behave very strangely. The same particle is capable of existing in several places at once hinting at the notion that these particles are moving in and out of several different universes. All our bodies and minds are manifestations of this energy that pervades everything in all the universes. Perhaps it was not a God that created the universe for the souls of man but it is the soul of man that is supposed to create a god in this universe.

It's an interesting question. I was exposed to a similar one in a metaphyisics class back in my university days. The experiment goes something like this. You lose your eyes in an accident. Fortunately (for you), you were able to get an organ transplant for both eyes. They came from a mass murderer who was just executed.

The thing about these eyes is that, there was something mechanically different about them than normal eyes. The rods were there, but the cones were damaged (maybe genetically). So you only see in gray.

Question, will you be the same person you were before the transplant. Do our senses affect our thoughts. In this case, could the "gray" perception of the murderer have affected his personality in such a way as to make him what he was. If so, could the same thing happen to you?

Even assuming that you will not become an axe wielding lunatic, are you a different person if sensory organs are different?

Perception is inextricably linked with personality, and perception is inextricably linked to both our brains and our sensory organs.

Now, how does that complicate this discussion!!?

"I believe that the soul is the "program" our brain runs."

...and I believe you can define a word to mean anything you like, but for the sake of discussion an agreed meaning of a word is helpful to move the discussion forward (does that sound harsh? I apologize if so.)

Plato defined soul as something separate from the body... and the world believed him (along with a lot of other nonsense that nobody takes seriously today but can be used to plot a movie... the '5th element', really!)

The bible consistantly describes the soul as you or the life you lead... the former can be hit with a baseball bat, the latter doesn't go anywhere without the former.

The central question seems to be, what is life? Using your definition of soul I would ask... Could software be self-aware in any meaningful sense and could hardware take the place of flesh?

Hardware already functionally replaces flesh in artificial limbs and people seem to agree that the person is still the same person. So then we're left with the software... Which reminds me of 2001 and HAL... daisy...daiseeeee...

Note that HAL was resurrected in 2010... just like Lazarus.

"To the degree that I understand the concept of the soul, I can't believe that it is associated simply with a body, living or breathing. To the degree that I believe in souls, I think of it as a different word for "mind."

Yes, mind is certainly what people associate with self. Which is why death being the perishing of thoughts is so apt.

If you damage the brain, it's a bit like a quantum state, you are both the same person and not the same person... you might lose some sense and your personality might change, but if asked I think you would respond that you are the same person (even though from moment to moment we are not the same person... being a dynamic always changing system.) If you continue to damage the brain, at some point self awareness would diminish to the point of nothing.

Could you at some point become an angelic creature? (whether instantly or not?) I don't see why not, however I expect dust (what is the major component of dust again?) is the usual outcome of life here on Earth.

I see the hope of mankind in the promise of resurrection, not the immortality of some that flies in the face of what we commonly experience.

That's why I think that if I were someone who loved Terri, and I believed in souls, I'd comfort myself with the thought that hers perhaps departed long ago, and was observing in anguish from above throughout the whole circus, and that while effort to hold on to something of her was noble, her ultimate end was foreordained fifteen years ago. And at some level, I'd have to feel relief that the long nightmare was over for everybody.

Rand, very well said. Couldn't agree more.

I have felt, throughout this awful and sordid saga, that if one does believe in the soul -- in a divine spark in humans -- then there is nothing more degrading to human dignity than to keep "alive" a body without consciousness.

Are you the same Cathy Young who wrote "Growing up in Moscow"?

Why not accept that souls do not exist? You'd still have a pretty mysterious organ in your head. (there's a story (probably apocryphal) about some of the first astronauts reporting from space: no god here. science has sliced the brain in smithereens and found no soul. maybe a little naive.) But there's no avoiding 1) that it can become damaged and 2) that it and it alone is responsible for the processing of perceptions, fantasy and consciousness.

A better question would be what parts of the brain are necessary for the so-called higher functions. How much of you is still you when it is damaged (think of all those wonderful syndromes reported by Oliver Sachs, autism and various mbd's) and it nevertheless keeps on going?