This isn't a post about teaching, but it sure is educational! Buckle up for a discussion of a difficult philosophical puzzle: how do we know we have souls?
The Mystery of my Haunted Fingers
Every now and again, I am struck by an extraordinary thought. It’s an awe-inspiring idea, sort of like the realization that stars are not really right overhead, but unimaginable distances away. It’s also a strangely obvious idea, about as difficult to notice as one’s own nose. The thought is simply this: I am myself, and not someone else.
It’s difficult to describe the wonder this thought fills me with whenever it comes around. Sometimes I’ll look down at my hand in astonishment, moving my fingers to double check that they are really under my command. Then I’ll look at another person and will their fingers to move, wondering why it is that some fingers obey me, and others don’t. Somehow I can command my body, and only my body- yet not all of my body. I can move my fingers, but my heart beats of its own accord. I can hold my breath, but sooner or later my lungs will override my will and inhale anyway. And unless I’m very much mistaken, there are other people who can also will parts of their bodies to move, and be obeyed. How is it that we all have these private dominions? What is the difference between matter that is under our respective controls, and matter that isn’t? However often I think about these questions, only one answer seems plausible to me: at least some matter is under the influence of something immaterial. People do not just consist of physical stuff, but also of something which commands the physical stuff. That something is usually called a soul.
The Scientific Answer: Materialism
Now the idea of the soul has fallen out of popularity among scientists over the last century or so. They don’t seem to share my wonderment over the ability to move their –and only their- fingers. They purport to explain this phenomenon by means of a philosophy called materialism (also known as physicalism, naturalism, and many other names), which states that all existing reality is composed of physical substances. Cosmologist Carl Sagan summed up this attitude nicely in the opening line of his 1980’s documentary, Cosmos : “The Cosmos is all that is, all that ever was, and all that will be.” And of course, if the physical universe (the cosmos) is all that exists, and then there can be no spirits, gods, or souls moving fingers- just physical forces; just matter and energy doing what they always do. An electrical signal originates in the brain, travels down a nerve, reaches a muscle in the arm, and causes the muscle to contract, moving one’s finger. The reason that a person can move one set of fingers and not another is that only one set of fingers is physically connected to their brain. So there you have it- no need to bring any immaterial entities into the picture. But does this neat and tidy explanation hold up under closer scrutiny? On the contrary, a host of problems emerge when one stops to think about the implications of materialism. Let’s start with one particularly intractable difficulty: materialism’s inability to tell me who I am.
Problem #1 with Materialism: Personal Identity
On materialism, I am my body. That is to say, I am a particular set of particles in a particular arrangement, and nothing more. Now this is a problem for several reasons. First of all, how do I know which physical body is mine? Suppose some scientist were to chemically analyze ever atom in my body, and physically construct 100 identical bodies. If I am a particular arrangement of particles, and clone number 93 is that particular arrangement of particles, it follows logically that I am clone number 93! Indeed, on materialism, when the scientist finishes, I am 101 people simultaneously, which is absurd. If I were in a room with my 100 counterparts, I would know which one I was. I would only be in command of one set of fingers. And yet, on materialism, I am identical to those clones. How is it then, that I possess a unique ability- the ability to tell which of the 101 is me, and to control that particular body? But the problem gets worse. If my identity just is my body, how is it that I remain the same person even as my body changes? My body is constantly losing old cells and building new ones out of different materials. Yet on materialism, if I get a haircut or clip my toenails, I must literally become a different person, because the thing that defines me (a particular arrangement of particles) has changed. Thus materialism cannot explain my present ability to identify myself, or the fact that my identity endures through time even as my body changes.
Problem #2 with Materialism: Free Will
But these identity issues are really the least of materialism’s problems. A bigger one arises when we consider the topic of free will. We want to know not just why my finger moves, but why it moves when I will it to move. Now the physicalist says that every event is explicable by prior physical causes; and this would include the event of my willing my finger to move. But if my decision to move my finger can be explained in this way, then I really didn’t will it to move, any more than a raindrop wills to fall. A raindrop falls because it has a certain weight, is under certain pressure, etc. On materialism my decision to move my finger is exactly the same type of event, being entirely determined by prior physical causes and conditions. Therefore on the physicalist view, free will is only an illusion, because everything is physically determined beforehand. While many highly respected scientists (the late Stephen Hawking comes to mind) have no problem with this conclusion, I regard it as absurd, because I exercise free will all the time. And if any physicalist tries to tell me otherwise, I will choose (note that word!) to stop wasting my time conversing with him. But there’s also something faintly contradictory about this claim. If there’s no such thing as free will, that means the physicalist is only offering his argument because he is determined to do so by previous physical factors. In that case, why should I take anything he has to say seriously? His speech is no more intentional than the noise of a tree branch falling. Therefore even if free will doesn’t exist (and it obviously does), the physicalist position cannot be rationally affirmed, for rationality only exists in the context of free will.
Problem #3 with Materialism: Mental Awareness
But materialism has yet more problems. Suppose we grant that my finger was moved solely by physical processes. Suppose we also grant that free will is an “illusion” (whatever that means). How is it, we may still ask, that I am aware of my finger moving? I may have no say about whether or not my finger moves, but only a lunatic (or a respected scientist) would deny that I can be aware of its motion. Yet on materialism, the thought “my finger has moved” must be a physical entity that exists in my brain. But what are the properties of this entity? What does my awareness of my finger weigh? What is its mass? Does it have an electric charge, or a certain density? The physicalist maintains that all mental events are really physical events that occur within the brain- neurons firing electrical signals and things of that sort. But my mental events simply do not have the kinds of physical properties just mentioned- the kinds of properties that neurons and electrons have. However, they do have a host of non-physical properties: they could be painful or pleasurable; true or false; moral or immoral. Now if two things have different properties, it follows that they are not identical. There may be a consistent correlation between my awareness of my finger and physical activity in my brain, but as long as these two are not the same thing, the mystery of how I can move and be aware of my and only my fingers remains unsolved by materialism.
There's no Getting Around the Soul
Materialism has many more problems that could be discussed, but I think the ones already mentioned are enough to show its explanatory bankruptcy. It cannot account for personal identity which endures through bodily change; it denies the obvious fact of free will; and it makes an untenable equation between mental events and physical events. I may go on wondering at how I can move my fingers, but I think it’s safe to say that I, an immaterial soul, am the one moving them.
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