Having been religious I often searched for evidence agreeing with my point of view. I have since left my religion, because of the vast amount of evidence against it, but there are still two concepts that boggle my mind: The beginning of time, and the soul.
My understanding of what the soul is, is not a ghost that floats around, scaring people at night. It is you, the thing that makes you alive, that allows you to experience pain and happiness, and differentiates you from a robot.
Perhaps you're believe that pain and happiness are merely electrical signals travelling around in your brain, which I think is partly correct, but I will share some examples as to why I think it isn't that simple.
I don't think of humans as being their bodies. I think of us as being our souls, using our bodies and brains to understand and interact with the world.
Example 1 - An empty universe
If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? Imagine a universe without people or animals. Nothing that happens within the universe would matter at all. All the billions of stars and planets would serve absolutely no purpose. Nothing matters until a single soul exists, having the ability to experience pain and happiness, and a body to receive information about its surroundings.
Example 2 - A robot
Imagine a scientist creates a robot. He uses a variable, called happiness, which can have a value from zero to a hundred, in order to simulate happiness. This robot acts and looks exactly like a human. If you roll it down a cliff, sensors will case the happiness variable to reduce its value, and cause the robot to emit pain noises. Anyone watching this will feel sorry for the robot, because they don't know that it doesn't have a consciousness, it doesn't have a soul, and cannot really experience pain. Only the scientist will not feel sorry for it.
Example 3.1 - Evil's clone
Imagine someone who doesn't love. The only person they care about is themself. This person is pure evil. He likes to kill people, but he loves himself, and hates experiencing any kind of pain.
He is going to be frozen, and an exact clone is going to be made of him: every single atom is going to be the same.
Before the procedure, he is asked, "When you wake up, we're going to beat one of the two of you. Does it matter which one we beat?"
His answer is obviously that he would prefer the clone to be beaten, and not the original. As far as the science I am aware of is concerned, it shouldn't matter, because both humans are exactly the same. It does, however, make sense if you say that his soul exists in the original body, and is not made up of atoms.
Example 3.2 - Evil's future
Imagine a slightly different scenario: Mr Evil, above, is asked whether he would prefer to be beaten tomorrow, or thirty years in the future (and somehow they guarantee he will still be alive then). I think most people would say that it doesn't matter to Mr Evil, because the tomorrow Mr Evil, and thirty years from now Mr Evil will still be the same person. But, will he? Most of the atoms in our bodies are replaced within our lifetime. Google "what percentage of atoms are replaced in our bodies"... you will see sites saying 98% of your body is replaced every year!
In fact, how do we even know, that when we wake up tomorrow, we still have the same body that we had yesterday? If we have a new body, we will have a new brain, and new memories, so we probably wouldn't know.
Example 3.3 - Evil's 50 / 50
Mr Evil is told before he is cloned that they're going to do an additional operation while he is frozen:
They're going to swap half of the atoms in the original body with half of the atoms in the clone.
"Which one can we beat, Mr Evil?"
Any idea what his answer would be, and why?
Example 3.4 - Evil's replacement
Same as 3.3, but all the atoms are replaced, one by one, until eventually the clone is the original, and the original is the clone.
"Which one can we beat, Mr Evil?"
Any idea what his answer would be, and why?
Someone said something that bugged me. They said that they were worried that if we create artificial intelligence, and it comes out slightly stupid, we wouldn't be able to switch it off, for ethical reasons. Hopefully no-one here thinks that, because AI will not have a consciousness, and it won't have a soul.
There are also people who believe that if you were able to upload your thoughts into an artificially intelligent computer, you could come alive again... I strongly disagree with that.
There was also a movie, about a magician, who made a clone of himself, and drowned his original body in secret in order to give the illusion that he was transporting himself. This is a bit like how a Star Trek transporter could work: make a copy, and delete the original. The magician was worried, because he never knew whether he would be remain the original, or become the clone.
I think it's quite obvious that he remained the original, which he drowned. My understanding, is that it's because the original body is connected to his soul.
I'm really keen to hear if anyone has any insight into this.
Does what I've written make sense?
Do you have an explanation as to what the soul is?
Do you think animals have souls?
Do plants have souls?
Are souls made of atoms?
