h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One point I read recently about the existance of the soul rather than our minds simple being made up of chemical processes in the brain is:

If we have no soul, our decisions cannot be any more than the result of chemical processes in our brain.... my question is Why is this not a normal valid argument in court? "Your honour, my client is fully aware that he murdered 3 people in the last 5 years but he cannot be convicted of these as he was not responsible for these crimes as they were just the result of the chemical processes in his brain."

What do people think?

Dpen2000

Hello, Dpen. I've got a few points on this:

The purpose of punishment is to protect society, serve as a deterrant and, hopefully, reform the individual punished. The electro-chemical processes in the brain can be -- and frequently are -- affected by external events. The interraction of these events in the brain is, I concede, in no way as yet understood by science, but I will not accept a 'God of the gaps' argument to try to explain it away.

I would also point out that defendents actually are regularly aquitted on grounds of chemical instability -- we call this insanity. Sane individuals are assumed to have control over the processes in their brains through the electrical nerve impulses that cause these chemical reactions. Materialism is not a denial of free will. (I can't stand astrology precisely because it *is* a denial of free will. Well, that and many other reasons too numerous to go into now.)

Also, your title -- this question is in no way evidence that the soul exists, merely that criminal justice apparently assumes that it does. That's not really the same thing.

Finally, I'd like to ask you some counter questions: Why punish the body if the soul is responsible? And how does the soul cause the body to act?

Let me add this, though -- I'm not anti-religious, and some of my best friends are Christians. If people followed the morality of Jesus, the world would be a far better place. I am anti-fundamentalist, though, and I despise fundamentalist atheists who want to abolish religion. That way lies tyranny. I just don't believe in spirit, that's all.

Thanks for your reply. Your question about why we would punish the body if the soul is responsible is an interesting one. I think my answer to this would be that the soul is the central part of my being and therefore it is my soul responsibility to look after my body by making right and legal decisions.
Doesn't your question apply to your belief too? If a decision is simple a chemical process, granted with input from the enviroment, why punish the body for the sins of the chemical processes? I think this is a harder question to answer but I am by no means sure that the above answer for your question is full and correct.

Another problem I find with not believing in the soul is: How can free-will come to be out of chemical processes?

I'm sorry for my provocative title. I hope this can remain a well-meant bounce-ideas-around type of conversatio, if that is ok with you? My own beliefs state that a man cannot come to God before god seeks out a man first. This does not mean that a man who does not feel called, cannot come to God as if a man wants to come to God it is assumed that, even if no supernatural calling has occured, that this man has been called. What this belief does mean is that moral and philosopical arguments only cannot convert a person and therefore, it would be stupid to try and convert you or others reading this but making each other think including myself is a useful exercise that will either strengthen or crumble our own personal beliefs.

I see that a full on argument would be futile also because both sides of the argument would be flawed: I cannot fully explain my position and neither can you prove yours. There are gaps in both; I assume that we are both happy with these gaps too.

Anyway,
Thanks for reading and replying, and for keeping this on the friendly level I would much like it to be,
dpen2000

I have no issues at all with the concept of a soul, but I do not see that there is any causal or other logical relationship between the existance of a soul and the existance of a personal or purely creative god.

The chemical processes are just a way of mapping and enabling the soul's behaviour - like the relationship between a musical instrument and a melody.

For me, at anyrate.

Ben

Viewing the mind or brain of a human being as *just* an assembly of chemical reactions is reductionism taken too far. It is clear that the human brain is greater than the sum of its part and at the same time a function of those parts. How? We don't know, consciousness has been notoriously devious in avoiding a definition or decent description. But it does NOT logically follow that because we cannot for sure say why that one can quietly slip supernatural concepts like the "soul" or "God" in there.

"God of Gaps", I like that phrase AI

Ste

We (usually) control these chemical reactions that make us do whatever, so that is why you can't use that argument in court.

Except, in some cases ie. madness,drunkeness, where the person was not in control, which results in these people sometimes not being convicted of murder.

<>

This is problematic I think. If you do not believe it the soul, you accept that chemical reactions in the brain control everything we think or do. Therefore we cannot control the chemical reactions, unless we have a soul - i.e. a part of us not controled by chemical reactions. Without a soul, you can only say that chemical reactions control other chemical reactions.

dpen2000

Remember the electrical reactions -- they are what cause the chemical reactions. These are (I think) self controlling. As I say, we do not fully understand the workings of the brain, but that is no reason to posit spirituality to answer questions we don't understand.

I fully believe that once we understand the brain and the central nervous system, we will fully understand how the material brain controls itself. Spirit, or god, was once asserted to explain the apaptation of certain animals to their envorinments and the movement of the spheres. The brain will be explained in time. I wonder what the spiritualists will go on to after that?