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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: freedom and reason (attn russ, rich, & laura)
Message-ID: <135@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Mar-85 16:41:13 EST
Article-I.D.: ubvax.135
Posted: Mon Mar 18 16:41:13 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 25-Mar-85 02:16:35 EST
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> 1. It doesn't do any good to say ``a soul gives me free will''. Where
>    did the soul get it? At some point you will have to say ``just because
>    it did''. WHy is the soul level to be preferred over the body level?
> 	
>    (if you have evidence for the existence of souls, this could be a very good
>     reason, of course.)
> ...
> laura creighton

This soul business seems a little dogmatic on both sides.  On the one hand,
the ability of a thoughtful mind to think powerfully has lacked a decent
scientific explanation for centuries.  To postulate that a non-observed
entity like a soul carrys the ability to think and reason is one way to
explain thought, especially via arguments from design which imply that
since a soul is attuned to and reacts to a larger world design, it should be
able to think complexly, as the world is complex.  That is, the things we
associate with a soul imply that a soul must be able to think and reason.
Hence souls should exist.  (Complexity involves imagination -- [a little
joke from mathematics] :-))

On the other hand, the soul hasn't been observed, though dogmatists might
say that it can't be observed (why, I don't know).  But this isn't an
argument against the existence of the soul in the absence of another
observed mechanism that can think and reason complexly as we do.  I don't
think we've seen that yet.

My own belief is that some observable mechanism which thinks and reasons
will eventually be isolated or explained within the human brain.  I also
expect that that mechanism will do what a soul would do, given a decent
correspondance and interaction between that mechanism and the world (this
is assumed for a soul).

Between the soul level and the body level is no difference of serious
consequence, I submit, at least as far as reason and freedom are concerned.
Perhaps the language we use to talk about the soul level is hard to reduce
to the language we use to talk about the body level, or vice versa.  I
believe (whether religiously or scientifically, I leave to the gentle
reader) that the two once-warring camps will find better and better ways
to communicate as biological science becomes more mature.

Tony Wuersch
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