Back of the Envelope

I've been meaning to respond to Skeptic's argument for a while now. The problem is that I don't have much interest in debating the soul. Unlike Skeptic, who finds the soul debate more interesting, I find the debate on miracles to be the more interesting one. Skeptic challenges me to prove the existence of the soul. I challenge him to disprove it. Neither of us seems up to the task. I've attempted to explain what I think the soul is, but Skeptic finds it ridiculous, the stuff of science fiction. I shouldn't need to point out that most people whose cultures we know about not only did not find the concept of the soul ridiculous, they accepted the coexistence of the spiritual and the physical as the natural way of looking at the world. It precedes the existence of science as we know it by thousands of years, so I don't think "science fiction" is the appropriate term. Even today, in our culture, most people believe in the soul. Thus, I'm not sure how to respond to his argument that it sounds like science fiction. He may find the idea ridiculous, but that's more of an opinion than an argument. I can't argue against opinion.

I am going to take exception to his characterization that my conception of the soul requires that brain damage turns both brain and soul to mush, and here I'm afraid I'll have to come back to my computer analogy, where the brain is the hardware and the soul is the software. Software can run differently on different hardware. On faster computers with more memory, it can purr along at blazing speeds, while with computers without enough processing power or memory it trudges along and even crashes, unable to perform the tasks set before it. When the hardware is actually damaged, misinterpreting input and mangling output, corrupting data and miscalculating operations, the result can be a real mess, but none of this means that there's a problem with the software at all. That's the view I take of brain damage. There are problems with the brain, but there's no reason I see for there to be a problem with the soul as well.

In the broader argument, there are three arguments for the soul that I am familiar with. One is from consciousness, the argument that we must be more than the physical. Many and sundry philosophers have made this argument, and I would guess that Skeptic has heard it but has not found it very compelling. Admittedly, neither have I. In any case, neither of us seems to take a purely materialistic view of the mind, as Skeptic's view is emergent while mine is what's called dualistic. (I don't like the term, but I won't get into that here.) He seems to be under the misconception that the dualistic view is that the soul is the consciousness, rather than a necessary component to consciousness, but I've already argued that point. The second argument for the soul is observed evidence, in the form of ghosts, spirits, and near death experiences. As the evidences for these are anything but convincingly established, Skeptic is free to reject them. I don't reject them out of hand, but I haven't been convinced of their reality either. The third argument is from authority. Religious beliefs about the soul depend on the authority of the religion, and I readily admit that this is what convinces me. Arguments from authority don't mean much unless you've established the authority of the one you're drawing on. As I've spent a great deal of time examining the historicity and authority of the Bible, this I am prepared to argue, if Skeptic wishes it. Here, the argument boils down to the fact that I believe in the soul because Jesus's words confirm its existence, and I have reason to trust his words.

So, I admit, my main reason for believing in the soul is an argument from authority, one which I believe is well established and which I'm prepared to argue for. I will, of course, answer any logical objections to the soul without relying on appeals to authority, but there's not much I can do about opinion.