Q&A: Regarding the Soul
Regarding the Soul
Question
The question of whether there is a Jewish soul came up here in a head-to-head debate, and in my view the representation of the believing side was pretty weak.
Beyond the fact that I would like there to be a proper public response to his questions, the atheist raised questions about the soul that have been gnawing at me for quite a while.
The main question, which really gets to the essence of the matter, concerns the case studies he presented—for example, a pedophile who had a brain tumor, and once the tumor was removed he stopped with the pedophilia; or the case of Phineas Gage, whose entire personality changed בעקבות a brain injury. These cases really do raise the question: what is the soul, how does it find expression, and how does it make sense that it can supposedly be silenced by a physical force or material influence? For me the question came up (more precisely, my girlfriend raised it) regarding a girl with an intellectual disability. Yesterday the question felt clear to me, and today it has become a bit blurry, but what exactly is the soul and what is the extent of its influence? Where exactly is the gap between the neurons that we are and our soul? And at the root of all this—and this is really the main thing in my view—is the belief in a person’s deep free will. Because the case descriptions he presents really do support the idea that we are deterministic products of the matter from which we were formed.
Another question that came up concerns the “feeling” of faith. According to my view—and I’m mixing things semantically a bit here—but our deep intuition (and it takes a whole lifetime to refine it, but that is another subject) is an expression of the soul, and the soul is connected to the Creator of the world. That is more or less my basic assumption. On the other hand, people would argue that this feeling is an evolutionary product. Yuval Noah Harari, for example, talked about how we are the successful species because we knew how to connect in large groups around complex ideas. In other words, that is what makes us the dominant species. In any case, from this one could argue that intuition also comes from a biological source, and does not testify to any truth about the world. That is, my faith exists because it is useful for my species to expand and grow and dominate, but it does not indicate anything about what actually exists in the world. I would be happy to hear your rational position on the matter, and also a position from another layer, if there is such a thing.
Answer
It seems to me that I already answered this question. In my book The Science of Freedom I explain that all of these are not proofs at all, but just conceptual confusion. It’s hard for me to elaborate here, so I’ll relate to it briefly.
My claim is that the brain is the instrument through which we think, but the brain itself does not think. Just as we walk by means of our legs, we think by means of the brain. I explained there that in the case of a split brain, where they found that the right hemisphere was Republican (pro-Nixon) and the left was Democratic, this does not mean that we are a product of our brain; rather, the opposite. Clearly there are good arguments in both directions, and each hemisphere is responsible for processing one type of argument. When they are connected by the corpus callosum, there is a weighing of the considerations from both sides, and the person forms an overall position in the bottom line. When you ask the left or right hemisphere on its own, you get a filtered answer, not the answer of the person himself.
The same applies to the pedophile. Obviously the body affects us. But that does not mean we are only a body. This analysis is no different from healing a wound and thereby removing pain. There too, a bodily change creates a mental effect. You do not need sophisticated experiments and modern science to claim this. The body affects and the psyche is affected, but in the end the decision belongs to the psyche—otherwise it is an irresistible impulse, and in such a case I bear no responsibility for my actions. In many cases the tendency (to pedophilia, or homosexuality, or kleptomania) comes from the body, but the decision that takes it into account and decides what to do is that of the intellect and the will, the soul or the mental part of us.
The same is true regarding faith. I arrived at the conclusion that I believe. The skeptic wonders: maybe this is only the fruit of evolution. But skepticism says the same thing about every claim we make. You could say the same even about a scientific law—that it too is only the fruit of evolution. But if so, then there is no reason at all to believe it is true. It is the product of a blind process. Evolution itself too would then be only a picture imposed on us, and therefore it too is not necessarily true. This is just a skeptical claim, nothing more. A skeptic is a skeptic, and someone who isn’t, isn’t. There is no point discussing skeptical doubts, because that discussion itself will be exposed to the very same attacks (who says it itself is correct?).
As a side note, Yuval Noah Harari is a successful writer, but a rather weak philosopher and scientist. He has countless conceptual and philosophical errors, and there is no need to be impressed by the certainty with which he asserts his claims.
Discussion on Answer
The psyche may know, but what you hear from it passes through the brain’s filter.
Isn’t this adding entities beyond necessity? How does this fit with Occam’s razor? Especially since all the phenomena can also be explained without resorting to the existence of a soul.
You could also argue that winds are created by giant aliens moving around, and then claim that they interact with the atmosphere and cause pressure differences in the atmosphere. And in practice you can arrange any strange claim, no matter how bizarre it may be.
Don’t you need evidence that a soul exists in order to claim this? Because all the phenomena can also be explained without resorting to the existence of a soul.
When you see a glass with raspberry juice, you can assume there is only water there, except that when it is placed in the glass the water is red. And you can assume there is also concentrate there. Is that adding entities beyond necessity? Many people misunderstand Occam’s razor and think it is an absolute measure of truth. But no—it is only a tool for choosing between explanatory options that are otherwise on a par. When the options are not on a par, the razor principle has no significance at all.
If I directly experience that I have a spirit, then no razor principle will tell me that I do not have a spirit. If I see a wall in front of me, the razor principle does not say it is better to assume this is imagination so as not to add one more unnecessary entity (the wall).
And of course you cannot explain anything without assuming the existence of a soul. Just as the explanation that the red color of the raspberry juice comes from water in the glass is not an explanation, the explanation that mental phenomena come from physiology is not an explanation. It is simply a mistake in applying the razor principle.
I wanted to join the questioner.
It is clear to all of us that the physical affects the mental, whether in experiences and emotions, or in tendencies, as in the slippery-slope example.
But the split-brain example feels very different to me.
Here we see how the psyche—which even you agree can use each half of the brain separately—
knows that it is in an experiment.
So even though the experimental question takes place only through one half of the brain, even if the other half is not exactly aware of what is being asked, you would still expect the psyche to know that the answer is incomplete and that it is being manipulated. After all, it “sits” on the whole brain.