Neuroscience & The Soul: Does Neuroscience Disprove The Soul? (Part 2)

            If neuroscience could disprove the existence of a disembodied soul, then its ramification includes disbelieving the existence of God because God is a disembodied mind. The assault against the soul, and thus God, from the vantage point of neuroscience, is increasing.

            In his blog entitled A Brief Reflection on Neuroscience and the Soul, J.P Moreland emphasizes the conflict between science and the soul or between physicalism¹ and dualism, and further adds that science cannot arbitrate this conflict:²

The great Presbyterian scholar J. Gresham Machen once observed: “I think we ought to hold not only that man has a soul, but that it is important that he should know that he has a soul”…

From a Christian perspective, Machen offers a trustworthy saying.  Christianity is a dualist, interactionist religion in this sense:  God, angels/demons, and the souls of men and beasts are immaterial substances that can causally interact with the world.  Specifically, human persons are (or have) souls that are spiritual substances that ground personal identity in a disembodied intermediate state between death and final resurrection…Clearly, this was the Pharisees’ view in Intertestamental Judaism, and Jesus (Matthew 22:23-33; cf. Matthew 10:28) and Paul (Acts 23 6-10; cf. II Corinthians 12:1-4) side with the Pharisees on this issue over against the Sadducees …

In my view, Christian physicalism involves a politically correct revision of the biblical text that fails to be convincing …

Nevertheless, today, many hold that, while broadly logically possible, dualism is no longer plausible in light of advances in modern science.  This attitude is becoming increasingly prominent in Christian circles.  Thus, Christian philosopher Nancey Murphy claims that physicalism is not primarily a philosophical thesis, but the hard core of a scientific research program for which there is ample evidence.  This evidence consists in the fact that “biology, neuroscience, and cognitive science have provided accounts of the dependence on physical processes of specific faculties once attributed to the soul”…

Dualism cannot be proven false—a dualist can always appeal to correlations or functional relations between soul and brain/body--but advances in science make it a view with little justification.  According to Murphy, "science has provided a massive amount of evidence suggesting that we need not postulate the existence of an entity such as a soul or mind in order to explain life and consciousness"…

I cannot undertake here a critique of physicalism and a defense of dualism.  Suffice it to say that dualism is a widely accepted, vibrant intellectual position…I suspect that the majority of Christian philosophers are dualists.  Still, it is important to mention that, upon reflection, it becomes evident that neuroscience really has nothing to do with which view is most plausible.  Without getting into details, this becomes evident when we observe that leading neuroscientists—Nobel Prize winner John Eccles, U. C. L. A. neuroscientist Jeffrey Schwartz, and Mario Beaureguard, are all dualists and they know the neuroscience.  Their dualism--and the central intellectual issues involved in the debate- are quite independent of neuroscientific data.

The irrelevance of neuroscience also becomes evident when we consider the…best seller Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander.  Regardless of one’s view of the credibility of Near Death Experiences (NDEs) in general, or of Alexander’s in particular, one thing is clear.  Before whatever it was that happened to him (and I believe his NDE was real but no not agree with his interpretation of some of what happened to him), Alexander believed the (allegedly) standard neuroscientific view that specific regions of the brain generate and possess specific states of conscious.  But after his NDE, Alexander came to believe that it is the soul that possesses consciousness, not the brain, and the various mental states of the soul are in two-way causal interaction with specific regions of the brain.  Here’s the point:  His change in viewpoint was a change in metaphysics that did not require him to reject or alter a single neuroscientific fact.  Dualism and physicalism are empirically equivalent views consistent with all and only the same scientific data.  Thus, the authority of science cannot be appropriated to provide any grounds whatsoever for favoring one view over another.

            Dr. Michael Egnor is a neurosurgeon and a human brain expert. He contends that the soul exists and that neuroscience points to the existence of the soul. Here’s an excerpt from an article in Evolution News entitled Egnor: Why Neuroscience Points to a Soul:³

…Is the mind simply another word for the brain, an organ in the head that fools us into thinking that the self, the “inescapable I,” is a genuine entity? Dr. Egnor explains the materialist view in its several successive historical manifestations, and why, despite its pervasive influence, it hardly qualifies as a serious perspective. Egnor details the findings of his own field, neuroscience. These indicate that something extra, something immaterial, is joined with the material body to form the complete human being. That something extra is traditionally designated as the soul.

You are more than a physical creature alone. Egnor cites, among other pieces of evidence, a 2006 study in the journal Science reporting that patients in a persistent vegetative state, contrary to how their condition appears clinically, are not all absent as personalities. Even with a severely damaged, shrunken brain, the non-material person is somehow still there, and aware. For example, as functional magnetic resonance imaging shows, many such patients, just like healthy people, can distinguish the sound of meaningful sentences from syntactical gibberish. That should be impossible under materialist assumptions.

            This article also features a YouTube video entitled No, You're Not a Robot Made Out of Meat (Science Uprising 02). This video highlights four pieces of evidence from recent research that supports an immaterial mind.

Recent research supports the existence of an immaterial mind: That thought actually changes our brain.

First, Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, a world’s leading expert in neuroplasticity, treats people from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). His treatment provides evidence that thoughts change the physical brain. The choices we make changes how our brain works. This research clearly supports mind over matter.

The second evidence for an immaterial mind comes from an operation called Corpus Callosotomy. In this operation, if we cut the brain in half, the brain still seemed to be a unitary person. This implies that the human mind is not purely generated by the matter of the brain. Otherwise cutting the brain in half could result in two people. But it doesn’t.

The third evidence for an immaterial mind comes from brain stimulation experiments that seemed to show our intellect and identity are not found in our brain tissue. Neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield conducted numerous experiments wherein he found that there were aspects of the patient’s mind, which were not affected in spite of what he did to the brain. He could not change their consciousness, he could not change their intellect, and he could not change their sense of self, no matter what he did to the brain.

The fourth piece of evidence for an immaterial mind comes from experiments about freewill. Materialists try to convince us that freewill does not exist. Dr. Benjamin Libet’s experiments show that humans do have freewill; at least the freewill to say no.

            Here’s more information about Dr. Libet’s experiment. This excerpt is from Psychology Today, from an article entitled Free Won't: It May Be All That We Have (or Need):⁴

"Free won't"

In this case, Libet had participants in the same basic paradigm, but he instructed the participants that once you become aware of your urge to flex, then stop it. Don't flex your fingers or wrist. Libet believed that there was a window of about 150 ms in which the participant could do this (note that the whole 200 ms between conscious awareness and muscle movement is not available, because once the spinal nerves are activated, somewhere around 50 ms before the muscle movement, this can not be stopped). The results indicated that the cortical readiness potential did develop (even earlier than in the past experiments), but this brain activity flattened out just before the muscle action, which indicated the vetoing effects of conscious choice. Libet concluded that participants were using conscious choice to veto the muscle flex at the last moment.

We have free will to abort an action. So, we may better think of volitional action in this case not as free will, but as "free won't." We can stop an action initiated by our brain nonconsciously.

This capacity of "free won't" is generated by free choice. This is our conscious will at work.

            To conclude, this information should be adequate to understand that neuroscience cannot disprove the existence of a soul. On the one hand, Christians can reasonably argue that science does not possess any authority to make a decision on the existence of the soul. On the other hand, we can cite evidence from neuroscience that points to the existence of the soul.

Endnotes:

¹Physicalism is the position that everything that exists does so within the limits of its physical properties and that there are no other kinds of things other than physical. (https://carm.org/what-physicalism)

²http://www.jpmoreland.com/2012/12/08/a-brief-reflection-on-neuroscience-and-the-soul/

³https://evolutionnews.org/2019/06/egnor-why-neuroscience-points-to-a-soul/

⁴https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dont-delay/201106/free-wont-it-may-be-all-we-have-or-need

Websites last accessed on 26^th July 2019.

Neuroscience & The Soul: Why Should Christians Be Concerned About The Existence Of The Soul? (Part 1)

            We are souls with a body; not the other way around, says Christian apologist J.P Moreland in his YouTube interview about Neuroscience and the Soul.¹

            If you are a thinking Christian, it is essential to understand the conflict between science and religion with respect to the existence of the soul and the findings of modern science.

            Why?

            If neuroscience proves that soul does not exist, then it’s quite possible that Historic Christianity would be on shaky ground. The assault on the existence of the soul is both from outside Christianity and from within.

            In the year 2009, cognitive neuroscientist Martha J. Farah and Nancey Murphy, a Professor of Christian Philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary published their letter entitled Neuroscience and the Soul in the journal Science (Vol. 323. no. 5918, p. 1168). The crux of their letter is to emphasize that neuroscience is slowly yet surely advancing in disputing the existence of the soul. Here’s their letter:²

Neuroscience and the Soul

Science and religion have had a long relationship, by turns collegial and adversarial. In the 17th century Galileo ran afoul of the Church's geocentrism, and in the 19th century Darwin challenged the biblical account of creation. The breaches that open at such times often close again, as religions determine that the doctrine in question is not an essential part of faith. This is precisely what happened with geocentrism and, outside of certain American fundamentalist Christian sects, evolution.

A new challenge to the science-religion relationship is currently at hand. We hope that, with careful consideration by scientists and theologians, it will not become the latest front in what some have called the "culture war" between science and religion. The challenge comes from neuroscience and concerns our understanding of human nature.

Most religions endorse the idea of a soul (or spirit) that is distinct from the physical body. Yet as neuroscience advances, it increasingly seems that all aspects of a person can be explained by the functioning of a material system. This first became clear in the realms of motor control and perception (1, 2). Yet, models of perceptual and motor capacities such as color vision and gait do not directly threaten the idea of the soul. You can still believe in what Gilbert Ryle called "the ghost in the machine" (3) and simply conclude that color vision and gait are features of the machine rather than the ghost.

However, as neuroscience begins to reveal the mechanisms underlying personality, love, morality, and spirituality, the idea of a ghost in the machine becomes strained. Brain imaging indicates that all of these traits have physical correlates in brain function. Furthermore, pharmacologic influences on these traits, as well as the effects of localized stimulation or damage, demonstrate that the brain processes in question are not mere correlates but are the physical bases of these central aspects of our personhood. If these aspects of the person are all features of the machine, why have a ghost at all?

By raising questions like this, it seems likely that neuroscience will pose a far more fundamental challenge than evolutionary biology to many religions. Predictably, then, some theologians and even neuroscientists are resisting the implications of modern cognitive and affective neuroscience. "Nonmaterialist neuroscience" has joined "intelligent design" as an alternative interpretation of scientific data (4). This work is counterproductive, however, in that it ignores what most scholars of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures now understand about biblical views of human nature. These views were physicalist, and body-soul dualism entered Christian thought around a century after Jesus' day (5, 6).

To be sure, dualism is intuitively compelling. Yet science often requires us to reject otherwise plausible beliefs in the face of evidence to the contrary. A full understanding of why Earth orbits the Sun (as a consequence of the way the solar system was formed) took another century after Galileo's time to develop. It may take even longer to understand why certain material systems give rise to consciousness. In the meantime, just as Galileo's view of Earth in the heavens did not render our world any less precious or beautiful, neither does the physicalism of neuroscience detract from the value or meaning of human life.

            What is the classic Christian understanding of the soul?

            J.P Moreland offers a fundamental explanation: The Bible teaches that our soul leaves the body when we die and enters an intermediate state between death and final resurrection. During the final resurrection, we will receive a glorified body to be reembodied again.³ 

            In the same video, he explains why Christians should be concerned about this topic:

            (1) Over the last two decades or so, some neuroscientists are striving to do away with the concept of the soul.

            (2) They argue that we are not anything more than our brain. They contend that our consciousness is generated by the brain and that consciousness resides in the brain.

            (3) But a classic Christian understanding would be that the consciousness resides in the soul and with a deep integration and causal connection with the brain.

            (4) Hence, Christians should be concerned about the soul’s existence so to be able to interpret the modern findings of neuroscience and integrate it with classic Christian doctrine and theology.

            The existence of the soul is significant to the credibility of the classic Christian understanding of the gospel and our belief in life after death. Moreover, if the soul exists, it would largely undermine the Darwinian concept of evolution because an atheist should explain how the human mind came into existence from matter, says Moreland:⁴

Neuroscience and the soul is very, very important to the Christian Church for two reasons. First of all, Gallup polls have indicated that there has been a steady loss of belief in life after death as there has been an increase in the belief that we’re our brains. The idea that many people have, and sensibly enough, is that if you’re a brain and your brain dies, that’s the end of you. If there is a soul, this means that there is more to us than our brains and it tends to lend support to the idea that there’s life after death.

The neuro-scientific findings, if they do, in fact, undermine belief in the soul, it has, for many people, undermined the belief in life after death and made the gospel sort of pointless. What is the point of the gospel if this life is all there is? The second reason that this is important is because it appears that the Bible teaches that there’s a soul and if we are to revise the Bible’s teachings in this area, under the pressure of neuroscience, what’s next? It’s important to ask the question has science undermined traditional Biblical teaching?

There is actually another reason why this matters to the average person. Darwin admitted, when he came up with his Theory of Evolution, that it could not explain the origin of mind. That what his theory could do was to explain the origin of animal bodies and brains, but it couldn’t explain the origin of mind. And so Darwin was a materialist and argued that his theory should be understood as promoting a materialist view of living things, that living things are strictly brains and central nervous systems.

If, on the other hand, there’s reason to think that consciousness and the soul aren’t physical, that provides reasons for thinking that there are limits to Darwinian explanation in that there is need for a god to create the soul and to create consciousness, so this lends support to a theistic view of the world. The soul has been historically been understood as an immaterial substance that contains consciousness and animates the body or makes the body enlivened. The problem for the atheist is to explain how you could get mind from matter.

If you start with the Big Bang and the history of the universe is a history where matter simply rearranges to form increasingly larger or more complicated chunks of matter, for many thinkers, what you’re gonna end up with are rearranged chunks of matter. There will be no account for how you could get mind coming into existence. The Christian theist doesn’t have that problem because for the Christian believer in God, the fundamental reality is not particles or matter, it’s a conscious soul, God himself.

If the universe begins with a soul or a spirit that’s conscious, there is no difficulty in explaining where this comes from because it’s part of your fundamental reality. But if you say instead of in the beginning was the logos, in the beginning were the particles, then you have a difficulty accounting for where consciousness and soul or self come from.

            This is Part 1 of a two-part series on Neuroscience & Soul, which has dealt with the question, “Why should Christians be concerned about the existence of the soul?”

            Part 2 will answer the question, “Can science disprove the existence of the soul?”

Endnotes:

¹https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxlYKqmE7o0

²https://science.sciencemag.org/content/323/5918/1168.1

³https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxlYKqmE7o0

⁴https://cct.biola.edu/neuroscience-and-the-soul-j-p-moreland/

Websites last accessed on 22^nd July 2019.