The human being is a strange and wonderful
creature, to be sure. We are strangers to ourselves, in many ways. We
understand ourselves better than anyone else, but often we do things that seem
to come from some unbidden source. Some call it fate; some call it destiny.
Others talk of God's plan; still others label it coincidence.
Although
at times it looks like our lives are running like a computer program, there
come unsuspected 'bugs' to snafu the smooth progress from idea to reality.
What
is unique to human beings? The line between us and animals is indeed thin,
especially because this line is drawn within our very being. We are animals,
and always will be. And yet, there lives within our hearts a desire to be more.
I also believe we have the ability to transcend our desires and needs.
a.
Big Five
model of personality
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/11/10/the-big-5-model-of-personality/ http://test.personality-project.org/
b.
Kenan
Malik, “Genes, Culture and Human Freedom”
http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/00000000552D.htm
c.
Simone de
Beauvoir, Introduction to The Second Sex http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/2nd-sex/introduction.htm
The distinction
between the soul and the body, proposed by Plato (or Socrates), has been a
constant source of trouble for Western philosophers. In the modern period, this
question has usually been addressed as the problem of the difference between
the mind and the brain. There are several different solutions to this problem,
as well as criticisms of each position.
Descartes proposed that the mind is
completely different than the brain. In other words, mental ideas have an
existence separate from the electrical impulses that happen inside our heads.
This picture of mental events floating around, separate from the brain, is
usually called dualism (because two different types of things are identified:
ideas and brain-states).
Dualism explains the fact that we are
conscious. It would support the existence of the soul after death. However,
there are some problems with this view. First, how do mental ideas affect the
body? How can an idea, which is not physical, cause any changes in our
existence? Don't all physical effects have a physical cause? Even if mental
events can cause physical activities, it does not seem that we can investigate
these causes, because we cannot bring the invisible mental events into public
scrutiny (Warburton 129).
Descartes
http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/desc.htm
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHihkRwisbE
A
second position is called physicalism. According to this theory, only the brain
exists. Mental ideas are only the physiological events that happen inside our
brain. Thinking is simply the act of having electrical impulses through our
brain cells. This theory is obviously much simpler than the previous, and it
can explain many of our actions. However, can it explain our feeling of
self-awareness? Don't ideas have a special quality? For example: the sensation
of pain is a stimulation of nerves, but it is also a feeling. The psychologists
known as behaviourists held this position:
Behaviourism
http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/behaviour.htm
http://www.simplypsychology.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/behaviourism.html
Watson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxKfpKQzow8
Skinner: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b-NaoWUowQ
Negative Reinforcement by Jenn Gresham: http://www.elearntube.ca/video/267/A-Killer-Headache-An-Instructional-Video-on-Negative-Reinforcement
“How to condition your professor” video by Nathan Radke http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khrjRonCkhw
Another solution to
this problem is called functionalism. The mind is seen as a function of the brain
(i.e. mental events are connected to brainwaves), but ideas can be examined
independently of their origin in the brain. In other words, ideas do not have a
separate existence, but they need to be explained on their own terms, not just
as interactions of electrical impulses. This theory avoids defining exactly
what ideas are, and whether they have a different sort of existence. It simply
tries to explain ideas in terms of other ideas, instead of reducing ideas to
biological behaviours.
This kind of theory
has problems explaining the way we understand anything. A computer could do
this kind of symbol manipulation, this comparing of ideas with one another.
Where is the spark of brilliance that constitutes truly intelligent thought?
Where is the creativity of people? Are ideas like freedom just a set of ideas
linked together? It seems that human beings have some sort of impulse in their
heads. Mental ideas can affect how we behave. The question remains, however,
what exactly those mental states are.
I think that ideas are connected to
physiological events in our brains, but that ideas have a special quality.
Because we can reflect on our ideas, and especially because we can put them
into language, they become objects of a sort. Words are not objects that have
physical existence, but are signs of ideas that have a reality independent of
individual minds. For example, ideas can be recorded in books, which can
disappear for centuries. It is true that the ideas in books are useless without
someone to read them. But those ideas can change the people who read them, and
can change the world. Ideas are like energy: they are invisible patterns of
meaning that have their centre in human brains, but extend beyond our skulls.
Background
information:
Freud
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/freud.html
“Wake up with Freud” video by Nathan Radke http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-qsAS7YFkc
Genetics
genes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJzZ7p-47P8
DNA: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/tour/
free will and habit
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2342/is_1_33/ai_58055905/
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/Principles/prin4.htm
It is difficult to
prove that the soul exists. There is a scientific explanation for everything,
and if there isn't now, there probably will be some day. The naturalist
viewpoint assumes that the human being is completely biological, not spiritual.
So it is useless trying to prove that a 'soul-of-the-gaps' exists, something
that science cannot explain about us (such as intuition, perhaps). At any rate,
such a characteristic would still be a mystery.
The
soul, it seems to me, is very ordinary. It is the light in one's eyes, the fire
in the belly, the simple desire to go on living day to day. Call it a force,
call it energy, it makes up the essence of each human being. It may survive
death; it may not. What matters is what we do with our life here today. The
soul is shaped by each decision, each act. My soul is the meaning of my life,
and that meaning is given to me, only to be moulded by my will, if I so desire.
Optional reading:
P.M.H. Atwater, Beyond the Light http://www.iands.org/pmh17.html
Antonio R. Damasio, "Unpleasantness in Vermont" from Descartes’ Error http://fclass.vaniercollege.qc.ca/~winstanf/IntroDocs/Damasio-DescartesError.rtf
Walt Whitman, "O Me! O Life!
http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/O_Me_O_Life.htm
Socrates makes a
crucial distinction between a user and the thing used. He extends this analogy
to the relation between mind and body, suggesting that the mind uses the body.
Is this a fair analogy? Are not the mind and body one thing, a person? How can
one thing inside a person use another thing inside a person? Yet we often think
of using our hands and feet to do something.
It is fair to say that our head is
different than our hands, and that our mind is different than the muscles with
which we accomplish particular tasks. Yet I think that Socrates is wrong to
infer that a man (a person) is therefore different than his body. I am a
combination of thoughts, feelings, desires, and needs, and it is my body that
experiences these sensations and ideas. In my view, a person, by definition, is
everything that goes together to make up that human being, including memories
of experience and hope of future experience.
Socrates anticipates my argument and
rejects it. He asks whether the union of the soul and body can rule over the
whole person, and answers no: "the two united cannot possibly rule"
(Pojman 284). This would be true if the soul were absolutely distinct from the
body, that is, if the soul inhabited the body like a ghost in a machine. But
here I disagree with Socrates' definition of the soul. He suggests that the
soul controls the body like the operator of a machine pulling levers and
pushing buttons. But the mind is more closely linked to the body. Bodily events
influence the mind, such as drunkenness or sleep. Our minds are not in complete
control, but rather, our minds and bodies work together in a complex
interacting relation.
Perhaps Socrates would
say: "you should try to make your mind control your body; that would be
the perfect life." I disagree that the soul needs to be purified and thus
must escape the body. This does not mean that I think our existence stops when
we die. Although our minds stop working when life ends, I find it hard to
believe that this is the end of my personal being. Granted, I cannot know
anything about what happens beyond death. We can only speculate about what
happens to us then.
Does our soul exist
after our death? If this is true, it looks like our self might float around the
universe, and even enter another body (reincarnation). Does this picture of the
soul give an adequate explanation of how our person is shaped by our bodily
experience?
Supplementary viewing:
Vincent Van Gogh, “Starry Night”
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:VanGogh-starry_night_edit.jpg
DNA as Art
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=N1yIyOpNfFo
