What It Means To Be Alive
I had an interesting conversation with a few of my coworkers the other day. We were talking about the prospect that, given the right advances in technology, we might be able to sustain human life indefinitely. A couple of interesting ideas came up in the course of this conversation, which I'll toss out for y'all to consider.
First, one of the guys suggested that people can only find meaning in our lives if we understand that life is finite. Meaning comes from reaching certain benchmarks or accomplishments, which makes sense if we only have a certain amount of time in which to acheive those goals. But if we are no longer bounded by time - that is, if we can live perpetually - those acheivements are infinitely diminished in importance because there is no urgency associated with reaching them. For example: He suggested that home run records in baseball would quickly lose all meaning if there was never an end to the season. What do y'all think of that idea?
Second, the same guy argued that people were basically little more than supremely sophisticated machines and that if we could devise machines of similar sophistication and figure out a way to transfer the contents of our minds from our organic machines to machines of our own creation, this would be essentially the same thing as creating eternal life. From there we got into a discussion about whether we, as individuals, are more than simply the aggregation of our thoughts and memories. Beyond that, we discussed whether a machine could be said to have a soul if it had, for all intents and purposes, become us through the perfect replication of every thought, memory, emotion, and personality quirk that makes us who we are.
I assume that most of you reading this will say that there's no way such a machine could be said to have a soul. My challenge to you is to explain why not. And I'll start you off with a question: Do you really believe that when Genesis said that humans were made "in the image of God," it was talking about our physical bodies?
I can't wait to see responses on these questions. As always, I'll share my thoughts after a few people have weighted in.
posted by Pelagius @ 9:31 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Interesting questions, to be sure. I agree with your colleague that the finiteness of life adds meaning to our existence.
I believe that the soul does not inhabit physical structures, including our bodies. Our bodies are the vessels which tether our souls to this plane of existence. The soul goes on to wherever it is going when the body ceases to function. However, if our consciousness could be preserved in spite of the destruction of our bodies through "brain transplants" or whatever you wish to call them, then it would seem that the soul would follow.
All of this metaphysics is giving me a headache...
I think you have to think a little about the nature vs. nurture discussion as well. It might not be so far off to consider that a machine could have a soul. My first instinct is to say no, it can't. But if you give a machine all the inherent "nature" and memories of a human, that machine can then "learn" further in its environment - truly developing a unique soul of sorts that's a reflection not only of what it was given, but what it has learned. But frankly, that creeps me out. I'm not sure if it could happen - Mary Shelley certainly believed it could though. Frankenstein is such a great book!
My question is why would you want to live forever?
Is human consciousness reducible to chemical balances/imbalances and the synapses of the human brain? Personality, moral values, and self-awareness can all be altered by disease, injury, or malfunction of the brain. All of those are things that we consider to be unique to human existence. If some of the uniqueness of humanity lies within the mass taking up space in your cranial cavity, what happens if you switch brains? If you were to put my brain into your body, would you be you, me, or a blend of both? I think that the scientific community would say me, and the religious community would say you. But perhaps we discount science to quickly. Perhaps the dualist dichotomy of the noumenal and phenomenal is a false one. I think that scientific method holds a lot of validity. I personally believe that we cannot discount the findings of science, and perhaps there is more to the naturalist approach than the religious community has previously been willing to admit. We will admit that we don’t necessarily understand the soul, so who is to say that the metaphysic of the soul is not directly linked the physical brain. If consciousness/soul/uniqueness of humanity are tied to the function of the human brain, then anyone (or thing) that possesses my brain would be me and therefore have a soul. I am not so sure that the simple transference of data and personality traits would warrant the possession of a soul, there would be some questions there regarding the capability of that thing to have my first person experience instead of a modified third person experience. Also, I could never have it’s first person experience so there would be no way of actually knowing if it were me except through outside observations.
These are really good questions for both the religious community and the scientific one. Thanks for the intellectual stimulation.
My two cents . . .
A machine can not have a soul because God gave us our souls. I agree with you, Dave, that when God created us in His image, He did not make us directly into men and women. If He did, Jesus would never have had to take on human form as stated in Chapter 1 of John. We are the image of the trinity. God= soul, Jesus = Body, spirit represents God in us. I think that's how it shakes out anyway.
So we are not just what's in our minds. If we "downloaded" our minds into a machine, the machine would lack a soul and a conscious. It would lack a soul because only God can create that.
Our souls encompass more that just our brains. A person's body can still be functioning, while their brain is 'dead.' And a person's brain can be fully alert and aware, but their body may be failing. I don't think a machine with my brain would have my soul. It would be like me in many ways perhaps, but my soul would have returned to the spiritual realm once my body released it. The soul is a spiritual entity, breathed into these physical forms for a finite time. I don't think a soul would hover in the brain long enough to transfer to a machine. Why should it? It's finally been released by the body in which it had been entrapped...now it can return home. Why would it want to become re-entombed in a machine?
Great thoughts everybody! I love these kind of discussions.
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