Why are people so certain there's no soul or an afterlife?

Are we essentially souls and will our souls continue on after we die? Both from a philosophical perspective and by virtue of all the evidence, I gravitate strongly towards a "yes" answer.

This is not to say I am certain. For one thing, it all seems very fanciful that at the threshold of death I'll ascend into some other reality, and to perhaps be greeted by dead relatives. We live in a cold, harsh, dreary, material world and it feels implausible, far-fetched, whimsical, and a product of wishful thinking to suppose there's anything beyond this life.

And there's also another reason. The preponderance of educated people, and especially those with a scientific background, emphatically reject the existence of a soul or an afterlife. Indeed, both professional scientists and philosophers appear to be virtually unanimous in this judgement. If so many seemingly intelligent people disagree with me on this issue, and indeed seem so certain in their dismissal of an afterlife, could it be that I am missing something?  That I'm not understanding something?

To be absolutely honest, having extensively read skeptical literature in addition to having thought deeply about this topic for decades, I don't think I am missing anything. I think many educated people are extremely impressed with the phenomenal success of modern science and this has played a pivotal role in encouraging a certain metaphysical view of the world -- namely that the world is wholly material, and that science, at least in principle, can provide a complete account of it. Our fundamental natures, that is what we essentially are, will not be excluded in such an account. Hence, the conclusion is that we are wholly material beings whose behaviour is simply the inevitable consequence of physical laws playing out. In other words, we are no different to any other material object. The existence of consciousness is played down, being reinterpreted as being one and the very same thing as a material process, or even being viewed as simply being an illusion.

Groupthink amongst the intelligentsia reinforces this materialist conception of reality. Even when academics harbour doubts, they are likely to keep such views close to their chests since dissenting views are often ferociously attacked. One notable example here is the philosopher Thomas Nagel who was ferociously attacked for having the temerity to attack materialism in his book Mind and Cosmos . This despite the fact he rejects both an afterlife and a God.

I think that in something like 500 years time, an afterlife might well be universally accepted and many people will look back to this time with some bemusement and even bewilderment at peoples trenchant certainty in materialism. They'll be especially bemused and bewildered at those who believe consciousness is an illusion. Indeed, to a certain extent, the behaviourism of the early 20th century is already viewed with incredulity by many. Human beings, including academics, are very prone to believing in the most fatuous things, and it is often only in retrospect that a sufficient number of people recognise this fatuity for what it is.

So intellectually I believe in an afterlife and for the reasons I have expressed in a number of essays in this blog. Nevertheless, the fact that an afterlife feels fanciful together with so many peoples unwavering certainty that this is the only life there is, does give me pause for thought.     

The self or soul as a mental substance

Mental Substance

What is a mental substance? I think it can best be understood by contrasting mental substances with material substances. Think of material objects. They have properties such as their weight, whether they are dented, their colour and so on. These properties cannot exist by themselves, they are not freestanding, they belong to a material substance. Material substances, on the other hand, exist in and of themselves and are the bearer of such properties. Crucially, the properties can change but without changing the identity of the object or substance. So, for example, a table might acquire certain types of scratches, its colour might fade and so on as it grows older, but, despite these changes, it is still the very same table or the very same substance as it ages.

The concept of a substance and its properties also apply to the realm of the mental. There are experiences, for example, the experience of pain. But one can argue a pain doesn't exist all by itself, there has to be a self that undergoes the pain. Experiences, in other words, are seemingly always had by an experiencer, or self.

This self is called the mental substance. This self remains the same identical self throughout our lives. It is the I. It is that which makes me feel I am the very same person from one hour to the next, one day to the next, and one year to the next. My moods might change from one hour to the next, my interests and even intelligence might change from one year to the next, nevertheless, it is still me that undergoes all these changes. The I or me is the mental substance; contrariwise the moods, cognitive abilities, memories, interests and so on are the properties of the self/mental substance. These properties can change without me ceasing to exist and turning into another person. 

To try and illustrate my meaning here imagine someone throughout their lives wearing a pair of spectacles.  The lenses will age, acquire scratches and so on.  In addition, the lenses might be changed periodically.  As a result, even if that person's unaided vision remains the same, their bespectacled vision will change throughout their life.  And such changes need not be confined to the acuity of their vision.  They could have lenses that cast everything in a shade of colour or distort their vision in a particular manner.  They could even have lenses that render them unable to see at all.

Our unaided vision can analogically be compared to the mental substance/self. The bespectacled vision can analogically be compared to one's particular mental state at any time, or our minds.   Just as changes in the lenses influence our bespectacled vision but not our unaided vision, so too might changes in the brain influence our mental states (the properties of the self) but not our essence (the mental substance).

Notwithstanding the fact that throughout our lives our moods, cognitive abilities and so on continually change, we all still feel that we are nevertheless the very same self throughout our lives.  This is so even for those who reject an afterlife.  So the mental substance/self that I have described seems to align up to most peoples intuitions as to what they truly are.

Note that this self I have outlined is not the same as the sense of self just as a sense of a tree is not the same as the tree itself. Few of us would deny that we have at least a sense of self.  But most professional philosophers reject this notion of an actual self, they believe it is an illusion.

Should there be an afterlife it is my view that it is this self or mental substance that will survive.  In which case the self or mental substance can be referred to as one's soul.

Alleged problems with such a mental substance or soul

In The Soul Fallacy, the author Julien Musolino refers to the analogy of a radio. He says that this involves:

the idea that the brain does not cause the mind, but that it merely serves as a gateway for it, just like a radio set functions as a receiver and decoder of electromagnetic waves.

He goes on to say:

A radio set (or a TV, if you prefer) and the signal it receives are separate things, and so they can exist independently of each other ...  Destroy the receptor, and you still have the signal. Obliterate the brain and you still have the soul.

This then seems to be essentially the same type of analogy as my own analogy of spectacles.  So just as destroying a radio will have no effect on the signal, so too destroying one's spectacles clearly will have no effect on our unaided vision.

However, Julien Musolino is not impressed with such analogies.  He goes on to say:

a few moment's reflection reveal so many dead-ends, contradictions, and nonsensical implications that it will make your head spin.

For starters, the receptor view of the brain doesn't even begin to respond to the challenge posed for dualism by what we called the fragility of the mind. If damaging only parts of the brain can annihilate just about every aspect of our mind, then by what miracle would the complete destruction of our brain following death leave us with all our mental faculties intact so that we can recognize Uncle Fred in heaven? If the soul needs a functioning brain to be able to think, see, and feel, then how could it perform these functions without a brain at all?

But, of course, the whole purpose of the analogy is to convey the idea that the soul doesn't need a functioning brain to think, see, and feel.  If the lenses in my spectacles get dirtier and dirtier as time goes by, this can have no implications for my unaided vision when I take my spectacles off.   He needs to argue that this analogy is false or inappropriate.  Instead, he seems to have completely missed its point.

He also says:

Does the all-or-nothing radio-brain view entail that the soul signal gives rise to my entire mental life? Are the languages I speak, the memories I have, the skills I possess all the product of something beamed into my brain from above? My suspicion is that the reason I speak French and English is because I grew up in France and then moved to the United States. I am also convinced that my memories have to do with the people I've met and the places I've visited in this world. If certain aspects of my mind are the obvious consequence of my dealings with the denizens of the physical world, then what exactly is the soul signal supposed to do? Does it just make me conscious?

One's memories and acquired skills are clearly not part of the mental substance, they are, rather, acquired properties.  Also, it should be noted that the self or soul doesn't make one conscious any more than a table makes its colour or shape etc.  That is to say, a substance doesn't make its properties, a substance is the prerequisite requirement for the very existence of any properties. 

It seems to me that Julien Musolino doesn't appear to have any understanding of what he's attacking.  And he essentially says nothing else regarding the analogy.  So much for the aforementioned "dead-ends, contradictions, and nonsensical implications that it will make your head spin".

Two other people I've read that attack this analogy, but equally and independently misunderstand it, and in precisely the same manner, are Keith Augustine and Steven Novella. Keith Augustine is one of the editors and is by far the most prolific contributor to The Myth of an Afterlife (I wrote a ~13,000 word assessment of the arguments contained in that volume here).  In that book Keith Augustine says:

It doesn’t take much reflection to see that a television receiver is a terrible analogy for making sense of known mind-brain correlations. For the analogues would have to be:

Broadcast station → Electromagnetic signal → TV receiver → TV program images 

External soul ↔ Interactive forces ↔ Brain ↔ Behavior

On this analogy, mental activity itself occurs in the external soul, just as the images of a television program originate from the broadcast station. But no damage to the local circuitry of your TV set can have any effect on the television program recording playing at the remote broadcast station, or on the signal that the station puts out.

Steven Novella  raises the same objection, except he invokes the plot of TV programmes rather than the TV signal.  He says:

A more accurate analogy would be this – can you alter the wiring of a TV in order to change the plot of a TV program? Can you change a sitcom into a drama? Can you change the dialogue of the characters? Can you stimulate one of the wires in the TV in order to make one of the on-screen characters twitch?

Well, that is what would be necessary in order for the analogy to hold.

But the fact that the TV set can have no effect on the TV signal/plot of a programme is the very point. Or, to use the simpler analogy, the fact that the eyeglasses have no effect on our unaided vision is the very point.  For it is the TV signal/unaided vision that represents the mental substance/self.  They are conflating the mind, which is what results when the self operates through the brain, with the mental substance/self/soul.  In my many communications with Keith Augustine (e.g. in the comments under my amazon review of his book and elsewhere.  Update 11/2/22 Amazon have, without warning, deleted all comments under customer reviews!). I have pointed out his misunderstanding on this issue, but in his responses he has always ignored this particular point.  I'm also pretty sure I've pointed out this misunderstanding to Steven Novella too.

What would destroy the analogy and the whole concept of mental substance would be if damage to the brain could alter the actual mental substance rather than merely affecting its properties.  However, this is a difficult task since there is not much we can say about this substance apart from it being responsible for the feeling that we are the very same self throughout the duration of our lives and serving as the bearer of properties. Moreover, that feeling need not be constantly present.

 

Conclusion

So long as we feel we are the same self as time passes the default assumption should surely be that this is correct unless compelling reasons are advanced to doubt this.  And they would need to be compelling indeed since I'm sure the vast majority of us are convinced of our persisting nature, at least from our births until our deaths.  

Finally, is such an enduring self/mental substance consistent with the notion that the brain somehow produces this self? Consider that my brain changes all the time. Could a constantly changing brain produce a self that is unchanging?  Arguably this is problematic.  Hence this notion that we are mental substances implies both an afterlife and indeed "beforelife". And this is before we consider any evidence for an afterlife.

The Tabletop Illusion

I'm currently reading the soul fallacy by Julien Musolino. In it he tries to stress that we are constantly being fooled by our subjective first person perspective and in our judgements. That we need the objective third person perspective as provided by science to tell us how reality really is.

He tries to illustrate his point by the following perceptual illusion of two tables (the Roger Shepard tabletop illusion).

I think we would all agree that the two tables are different shapes. But, when we rotate the left table 90 degrees clockwise and move it over the other table, we find they are both exactly the same shape! Moreover, even when we are made aware of this fact we cannot help but see that the tables are very different shapes. Julien Musolino finds this very significant. In the the soul fallacy he says:

[This illusion] pits our first-person perspective—what our senses subjectively reveal to us—against the third-person perspective—what the result of objective measurement demonstrates. The story of the demise of the soul, to a large extent, reflects the triumph of the third-person perspective over its subjective, first-person counterpart. But there is more to Shepard's illusion than meets the eye. The analogy contains two additional virtues. After this brief demonstration, I do not know anyone who would continue to insist that one tabletop really is longer than the other because of the way they look ... The analogy's second virtue is that it reveals to us how stubborn first-person impressions can be in the face of objective evidence.

I think this is flawed reasoning. Indeed, it seems to me to be inappropriate to call this an illusion at all.

First of all, we need to draw a distinction between the image of the tables, and the actual tables themselves that they represent. The above picture is an image of two tables.

Having put that aside, let's suppose there are two tables in front of us that are in our visual field. When looking at the tables, let's also suppose that the image of the tables on our retinas closely approximates to the image of the tables we see above on our computer screens. Just as the shapes of the images of the two tables is the same on our computer screens above, so too will the shapes of the two images of the tables on our retinas be the same.

Are we fooled in the latter case? I would say not since if we approached the two tables, look at them from different angles, run our fingers over them and so on, we would definitively establish the two tables are of differing shapes. Likewise, if we are to take the drawing of the two tables above as actually depicting tables rather than arbitrary lines representing nothing, it is not fair to say we are being fooled here either. In other words, there is no illusion, as such.


We need to understand how are senses work. We don't simply passively perceive what's out there. The data we receive through our senses is hopelessly inadequate for us to see the world as it truly is in and of itself. The actual ability to see is supplied by our implicit expectations gained from our previous acquaintance with the world. That is to say, what we actually see is shaped and moulded by all of our previous visual experiences. In effect, we have an implicit unconscious theory about how the world is and this is instrumental in shaping what we actually perceive.

Without such an implicit theory, we wouldn't be able to perceive at all, at least not a 3D world of objects at various distances. We'd just see a splodge of colours in a 2-dimensional plane. In other words, we'd see the world as a computer or robot would; namely as depicted from a third person perspective shorn of any "illusions" that any minds can add.

In short, this "illusion" is not an example of us being fooled. If we didn't experience such "illusions", then we wouldn't be able to see at all! This is why autonomous cars -- which do not have the benefit of illusions to apprehend the environment correctly -- shouldn't rely upon cameras alone. They need other instruments to effectively detect the environment, such as LIDAR. Even then, they are not as proficient as human drivers in urban environments. My personal expectations are that fully (level 5) autonomous vehicles will not be widespread for a few decades yet (back in 2014 the date I gave was 2060).


So, is the subjective first person perspective inferior to the objective third person perspective as Julien Musolino claims? Certainly not when it comes to visually apprehending the environment. So much for, as he puts it, "the triumph of the third-person perspective over its subjective, first-person counterpart". This is not to deny that we are often fooled and that the third person perspective, as provided by science, is the more accurate. But I don't think this has any relevance for deciding whether, on the one hand, our essence is a soul or, on the other hand, a sophisticated biological machine. But I'll address that issue when I come to reviewing his book.

Two other relevant similar blog posts by me are:

Are Perceptual illusions always necessarily illusions?  (essentially the same argument I make in this blog post, but I wrote it over 9 years ago).

Perceptual illusions show our minds construct reality

Keith Augustine in "The Myth of an Afterlife"

Does the thesis that the brain produces the mind cohere well with our overall background knowledge?

 

In the book The Myth of an Afterlife two of the authors Keith Augustine and Yonatan I. Fishman pen the following:

Of course, compared with a hypothesis that coheres well with our overall background knowledge, an “extraordinary” hypothesis at odds with our knowledge about how the world operates would generally be assigned a low prior probability. Accordingly, insofar as the independence thesis entails that a separable soul can perceive, think, feel, and deliberate apart from any biological basis at all (sometimes suggesting a stark break in our evolutionary connection to all other forms of life on earth), and apparently requires either that a nonphysical soul violates well-established physical laws by interacting with the brain, or else that the soul is itself a physical thing completely unknown to science, it is a highly extraordinary hypothesis that should be assigned a low prior probability. For the independence thesis to be more plausible than its antithesis on Bayesian grounds, we would need a considerable amount of compelling evidence in its favor—and at the expense of the dependence thesis—to outweigh its initially low prior probability. (page 260).

The independence thesis here refers to the notion that we survive our deaths in some form. Contrariwise, the dependence thesis refers to the notion that the mind and consciousness depend on the brain, hence they cannot exist without the brain. Here and elsewhere in the book (this is a huge book of 700+ pages with a total of 29 contributors all sporting impressive academic credentials), it is repeatedly hammered home ad nauseam -- and especially by Keith Augustine -- that the dependence thesis is consistent with the rest of our scientific knowledge of the world. And, conversely, the independence thesis is emphatically not.

Now, in order to claim this, consciousness must at least be potentially scientifically explicable. It is not sufficient to hold that consciousness simply appears as a brute fact once there is a certain level of physical complexity. We require a scientific explanation for how the brain produces consciousness, or we at least need to be confident that one will be eventually forthcoming. 

But I have previously argued that it is not possible to provide such a scientific explanation for consciousness, at least not based on our current conception of science. I go into some detail as to why this is so in both my Science, the Afterlife, and theIntelligentsia (especially parts 4 and 5), and my Neither Modern Materialism nor Scienceas currently conceived can explain Consciousness (especially part 5). But, in a nutshell, I argue that because science limits itself to the quantifiable or that which can be measured, then it necessarily follows that it cannot in principle explain consciousness since the latter is essentially characterised by qualia (construed in its broadest sense) and intentionality (in its philosophical sense).

It is important to realise it is not only me that thinks there’s a problem here. The precise nature of the relationship of consciousness, or mind, to one's body, and more specifically how the brain can give rise to the mind, has been labelled the mind-body problem. There have been a variety of proposed solutions to this problem, but for each and every proposed solution there are dissenting voices questioning its intelligibility. And, to correct a possible misconception, although the overwhelming majority of scientists and philosophers adopt what they label as a materialist position, it’s not as if they’re all in agreement with each other – indeed far from it! There are many varieties of materialism and there is much disagreement as to which of the available varieties, if any, might be the correct one. Indeed, there are a small but increasing number of vocal philosophers and scientists who hold that no proposed materialist position can be argued to be adequate. If this is so, then how the mind relates to the brain is up in the air. Indeed, in recognition of the apparent irreconcilable nature of this relationship, and the problem of why the mind or consciousness exists at all, the philosopher David Chalmers has coined the phrase the hard problem.
 
Astonishingly The Myth of an Afterlife has very little to say about the mind/body problem. Where it is mentioned it is to attack dualism ( i.e the notion that the brain and mind are distinct, even if the former somehow gives rise to the latter). One will search this massive volume in vain for any mention of the well known difficulties for both materialism and for providing a scientific explanation of how the brain produces consciousness. Difficulties, as I make clear in my two essays, I regard as insurmountable; at least with our present conception of what comprises the material or physical. It is of little avail to stress the fact that mental capacities inevitably vary according to the intricacy and condition of one’s brain, if the intended conclusion -- that the latter produce the former -- cannot, in principle, be rendered scientifically explicable. Of course, undoubtedly the authors would not agree with arguments suggesting that the difficulties for providing a scientific explanation are insurmountable, or indeed that there are any difficulties in principle at all here. But such arguments should at least be addressed! They had over 700 pages to do so. Instead, much of this volume, and by differing authors, keeps repeating the same tired points over and over again -- namely the fact that mental states are altered by physical states of the brain. All well and good, but if the process whereby brain activity produces consciousness is wholly mysterious, if not effectively magical, then clearly one ought to be more open to alternative hypotheses.

 

2. Is it possible we could perceive, think, feel, and deliberate without a brain?

But are there any alternative hypotheses? Even if materialism should be false, doesn't the fact that mental capacities vary according to the intricacy and condition of one’s brain show that consciousness, or the mind, could not exist without the brain? Specifically, what about Augustine's and Fishman's claim that a disembodied soul or self would not be able to 'perceive, think, feel, and deliberate'? Their reasoning here is that the brain is always implicated when these abilities are present, moreover our mental capacities are often compromised with dysfunctional brains, hence the brain must play some essential pivotal role. This being so then it follows a disembodied soul or consciousness could not possibly perceive, think, feel, and deliberate.

In responding to this, we should first of all remind ourselves that we have no idea, even in principle, how the brain all by itself could explain consciousness, and hence we have no idea of how the brain could 'perceive, think, feel, and deliberate' either. To that extent the possibility of there existing some sort of substantial self interacting with its brain, might provide that essential ingredient in some expanded physics. (See part 6 -- "The Mind-Brain Correlations" of my Neither Modern Materialism nor Science as currently conceived can explain Consciousness.) But perhaps even here such a self would require a brain? Does the fact that the brain is always implicated in our conscious experiences -- at least while we’re embodied -- entail that it plays a crucial role in the production of such experiences? Or does it at least make it extraordinary likely that it plays a crucial role in the production of such experiences? 

Here we need to ask ourselves what the alternative is. Certainly, given the reality of the mind-brain correlations, then we should surely at a minimum acknowledge that the brain at least influences the abilities to perceive, think, feel, and deliberate, even if it does not produce them. A possibility that presents itself here is that such abilities might be innate to the self or soul, but that the brain serves to either facilitate or inhibit them. The brain, that is, might function in a roughly analogical manner to a type of reducing valve. So here our perceptions, thoughts, feelings and so on, could still be attributes of the soul, but while the soul operates through the brain, a dysfunctional brain could impair their manifestation where as a normal functioning brain allows their manifestation. To use an analogy employed by J. M. E. McTaggart:

If a man is shut up in a house, the transparency of the windows is an essential condition of his seeing the sky. But it would not be prudent to infer that, if he walked out of the house, he could not see the sky because there was no longer any glass through which he might see it. (Some Dogmas of Religion p105).

This view of the relationship of the self to its brain is sometimes referred to as the filter hypothesis. The authors do recognise this hypothesis but do not find it compelling. They say:

If the mind is “not generated by the brain but instead focused, limited, and constrained by it” (Kelly et al., 2007, p. xxx), the filter theory entails that a brainless mind will be expanded, less limited, and unrestricted by brain function. [This implies] that the greater the disruption in brain function, the “freer” the mind will be from its neural confines, and hence the clearer one’s cognitive function will be. For example,we would expect the progressive destruction of more and more of the brain’s “filter” by Alzheimer’s disease to progressively “free” more and more of consciousness, and thus increase Alzheimer’s patients’ mental proficiency as the disease progresses. (p230)

But it's not clear to me why a dysfunctional brain would necessarily make the mind "freer". In McTaggart's analogy, one could make the windows larger, or more transparent, but they could be also made smaller, or the view less clear by putting net curtains up. Or consider a radio. The internal components do not produce the voices and music from the radio, and in this sense might be comparable to the filter model of the soul/brain relationship. Would damaging the internal components of the radio improve the quality of the sound? Presumably not, so why would a damaged or dysfunctional brain necessarily result in an expanded mind?


It's also worth mentioning that in rare instances one's mind does appear to improve alongside a dysfunctional brain; or at least the mind improves in some respects. The authors mention Alzheimer's disease. Pertinent here is a phenomenon called terminal lucidity that has been described by German biologist Michael Nahm as:

The (re-)emergence of normal or unusually enhanced mental abilities in dull, unconscious, or mentally ill patients shortly before death, including considerable elevation of mood and spiritual affectation, or the ability to speak in a previously unusual spiritualized and elated manner. (From here p89)

There's also hyperthymesia, the ability to remember practically everything that's ever happened to you. Hence a person afflicted by this condition has the ability to precisely recall what they were doing on a specific day that happened many years ago. And then there's acquired savant syndrome. In the link the author Darold A. Treffer describes this condition as 'instances [where] dormant savant skills emerge, sometimes at a prodigious level, after a brain injury or disease in previously non-disabled (neurotypical) persons where few such skills were evident before such CNS injury or disease'.


We currently lack an understanding of how such a self interacts with its brain, but, in stark contrast to any materialist position, I see no reason why the filter hypothesis might not be true. It does, after all, seem to be consistent with the fact that our mental capacities are normally impaired with brain damage, but on rare occasions are enhanced. On the other hand, reconciling any type of materialist position with these rare instances where mental capacity is enhanced, could be a challenge. Note that this is a challenge over and above the philosophical reasons for rejecting any type of materialist position I have articulated in my two essays.

It is to be conceded that this filter hypothesis does generate a whole host of questions. For one, why on earth does the self or soul operate through a brain in the first place? I do not profess to be able to give any answers as to why there should exist a physical reality at all, but given that one does, then it seems the self or soul operates through a brain to enable us to interact with this physical reality. In addition, I would speculate that it might be the case that part of the brain’s purpose is to filter out the perception of other realities, and conscious states, which might prove distracting in our ability to function proficiently within this physical reality. Hence, when our brains are in their normal functioning state, they might serve to normally prohibit such experiences like mystical experiences, near-death experiences, savant syndrome, hyperthymesia, experiences induced by psychedelic drugs, and so on and so forth. If this is correct, then such experiences are not a product of a disorganised, dysfunctional brain. Rather they are realities which exist out there that we are allowed a partial glimpse of due to our impaired ability of the brain to act as an effective “filter”.

3. Does the soul or self violate physical laws?

Finally, the charge that a soul or self would 'violate well-established physical laws by interacting with the brain', is to make precisely the same mistake as Sean Carroll does in this article. I explain why he is wrong here. It is also to put the horse before the cart. Physical laws are supposed to describe reality, not dictate to reality what can or cannot exist.  

If we have a phenomenon that has been universally reported, we cannot assert it doesn't exist because it doesn't fit in with some pre-defined laws. Rather, a more encompassing theory needs to be advanced. A new theory, which while still explaining existing phenomena, is able to also accommodate this "anomalous" phenomenon.


In this context, I submit that we can be completely certain of the existence of at least one "anomalous" phenomenon, and that is our own consciousness. Moreover, I maintain that consciousness is necessarily causally efficacious as I argue here, and cannot be reduced to any physical processes as I argue in part 4 of my Science, the Afterlife, and the Intelligentsia. So a new more encompassing theory needs to be proposed. No flavour of reductive materialism accommodates these facts, although possibly some other mind-body position, but one that still holds the brains elicits/causes the mind, might. But what is certain is that current physical laws wholly leave out even our normal everyday embodied consciousness in their description of reality. It follows they cannot, therefore, be invoked to rule out consciousness surviving the demise of our bodies.

Why Scientists and Philosophers reject the Soul

Eric T. Olson is an American philosopher who specializes in metaphysics and philosophy of mind and is most renowned for his research in the field of personal identity. He’s written one of the chapters in The Myth of an Afterlife which can be read here. I’ve read approximately a third of this book so far, but had not as of yet got to this chapter.

Similarly to the other authors of the myth of an afterlife, Eric T. Olson suggests it’s very unlikely that we have a soul which survives the death of our bodies and the reasons he gives parallels very closely the arguments given by these other authors. He says:

“ . . there is wide agreement that, possible or not, it is very unlikely to be the case (that a soul survives). All the evidence supports the opposite conclusion.

For instance, if you could remain conscious despite the total destruction of your body, you could certainly remain conscious after comparatively minor and temporary damage to your brain (van Inwagen,2002, pp. 196-198). We would expect a sharp blow to the head to affect the interaction between you (the soul) and your body, temporarily preventing your body from obeying your will and giving you sensory information, much as damage to a remote-control aircraft might prevent its owner from operating it. You would be unable to move. Everything would go black and silent and numb. The soul itself, though, would be undamaged, and ought to remain fully conscious. You would find yourself effectively disembodied, wondering what had caused the condition and how long it might last. Yet that is not what happens: a sharp blow to the head makes you completely unconscious. General anesthesia does the same thing in a gentler way. But if such a minor alteration to your brain invariably causes unconsciousness, how could you remain conscious when your brain is totally destroyed?

We also know that medium differences in the brain are correlated with dramatic differences in intelligence, alertness, mood, memory, recognitional abilities, sense of humor, and many other mental properties. As far as we know, every mental phenomenon varies according to the state of one’s brain. Though there is much we don’t know about the connections between mental phenomena and the state of the brain, there is little doubt that the connections exist. Facts like these suggest that mental goings-on are physical processes in the brain, not non-physical processes in the soul. There does not appear to be any soul—or if there is, it has nothing to do with our mental life, and its continuation after death is of no more relevance to the afterlife than the continuation of our carbon atoms.

For these and other reasons, the overwhelming majority of philosophers and scientists regard the Platonic model as a lost cause. If this were the only way of escaping the devastation of the grave, we could only hope that the experts are badly mistaken. Naturally we cannot rule this out: theories that were once supported by all known evidence have turned out to be thoroughly wrong, and theories once undermined by all available evidence are occasionally vindicated.

But it is unwise to bet against the settled scientific consensus.

First things first, and as I have mentioned before, the evidence cited here is indeed extremely compelling -- at least from a psychological perspective.  It feels to me ridiculous to suppose our consciousness survives wholly intact with the destruction of our body, yet the brain can affect consciousness so as to seemingly completely extinguish it under general anaesthesia.  But yet I nevertheless gravitate towards a belief in a “life after death”.   Why is this?  Well certainly not because I don’t recognise the compelling nature of the argument that Eric T. Olson has articulated!

In my view, in order to come to any type of provisional conclusions regarding what we should believe on any topic, we need to look at the arguments and evidence on both sides.   Thus on the one hand there’s the evidence that Eric T. Olson cites.  On the other hand, there are reasons which very powerfully suggest that it is very implausible to suppose brains create consciousness.  I explain this in my Science, the Afterlife, and the Intelligentsia. 

To repeat what I said there, it’s not just the case that science cannot at present explain the existence of consciousness, but rather that science, at least as currently conceived, cannot in principle explain the existence of consciousness!  Brains might cause consciousness, but if so then this causal relationship is different from any other causal relationship we see.  Moreover, we have mindless matter interacting with itself which somehow produces not just conscious experiences, but also what philosophers label as intentionality -- the power of minds to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs.  Indeed, it seems to me that the hypothesis that brains create minds is more surprising than if someone, without any knowledge of television or television sets whatsoever, were to hypothesize that the internal components of a TV set wholly create the programmes screened. 

Furthermore if brains create consciousness it is difficult to assign a causal role for consciousness.  It seems to me incoherent to suppose consciousness is wholly causally inefficacious as I explain in my blog entry can consciousness be causally inefficacious?  Eric T. Olson takes the option of asserting that “mental goings-on are physical processes” but physical processes and “mental goings-on” are wholly characteristically different with nothing in common whatsoever.  Hence by definition they are not one and the same although one of course may cause or elicit the other.

In addition there is all the evidence, both direct and indirect, which suggests an afterlife.  Such evidence includes near-death experiences (NDEs) and the closely related phenomenon deathbed visions, evidence for reincarnation in the form of children’s recollections of previous lives (although not alleged memories retrieved through hypnosis which is much poorer quality evidence), apparitions of a certain type, and mediumship. There is also much indirect evidence which tends to suggest the continuation of consciousness after death. The most notable indirect evidence is psi phenomena. It seems to me that the totality of all the evidence suggests that it exists even if the more remarkable demonstrations of such phenomena turn out to have involved trickery. Contradicting our current western understanding of the mind-brain relationship, the existence of such phenomena suggests there is far more to the mind than is implied by regarding consciousness as merely being either a function of the brain or a causally inefficacious by-product of the brain.

And it seems we can render the concept of a soul coherent providing we conceive of a self/soul in a certain way.  The fact that mental states are affected by brain states can be squared with such a conception of the self or soul by considering the brain to be a type of "filter" (see my is a "life after death" conceivable?).

Is a "life after death" conceivable?

So why is the concept of a soul a lost cause?  We can easily see why one would conclude this if only the evidence cited by Eric T. Olson is taken into account.  Is this what all the scientists and philosophers who decisively reject an afterlife are doing? Are they just considering the evidence against an afterlife and blithely ignoring all the reasons and evidence which might suggest an afterlife? 

In all honesty it seems to me this is precisely what they are doing.  I’m approximately one third of the way through reading the myth of an afterlife, a book consisting of a collection of chapters written by different authors. With the exception of one of the authors – Keith Augustine – they have all thus far concentrated on all the various ways that the brain affects our mentality, albeit in far greater detail than EricT. Olson.  No mention whatsoever has been given by any of the authors of the conceptual difficulties facing any type of materialism -- difficulties which I regard as decisive (although I stress that just because materialism is wrong, doesn’t entail there is a “life after death”.  But it does make the prospect vastly more likely).  Furthermore, with the exception of Keith Augustine, no mention is given of the evidence suggestive of a “life after death”.

Now of course someone might point out that it is likely that they’d find the reasons and evidence for an afterlife completely lacking any merit.  Perhaps so, but they need to argue for their conclusions here.  If I am to be quite frank I don’t get the impression that they even aware of the profound difficulties that face the hypothesis that the brain creates consciousness. 

Or perhaps they consider the evidence that the brain produces consciousness to be so overwhelming that no other reasons or evidence need be addressed?  But the evidence cited by EricT. Olson doesn’t entail that the brain produces consciousness.  If changes in X inevitably initiate particular characteristic changes in Y, this does not entail that X produces Y.  They might agree with this, but insist that any change in Y (the self) means that you have not survived.   In other words the self, or soul, is held to have a certain psychological properties. If these change then you have not literally survived. But I submit this is not the commonsensical notion of the self.  If our dispositions, interests, intelligence and memories constitute the self or soul (rather than being mere properties, as I hold) then we will not have survived from our childhood to adulthood either. 

But anyway, this is all besides the point because all these points need to be thrashed out.  Ignoring them, as all the authors of the myth of an afterlife do (thus far at least), might be profitable in persuading people of the foolishness of an afterlife, but it does little in terms of trying to establish the truth.  If we are serious in trying to establish the truth or falsity of a hypothesis (whether a scientific hypothesis or not) then all pertinent information, arguments and evidence need to be considered.

Finally I would take issue with Eric T. Olson’s words in the final paragraph I quote of him.  As I’ve mentioned before consciousness cannot, even in principle, be scientifically explained -- at least as science is currently conceived.  All we have are correlations between brain and mental events.  Making any causal connections cannot in principle be provided given that we subscribe to the mechanistic concept of reality.  So what’s with his reference to the settled scientific consensus?  Presumably this refers to scientists’ opinions, but their opinions are pretty much irrelevant since, first of all, it is not a scientific issue but rather a philosophical one, and secondly, if they only consider the evidence from one perspective and completely ignore all the evidence and arguments against this position, we cannot have any confidence in their conclusions.

In addition our modern western culture is pretty much unique in emphatically rejecting an afterlife.  What do the intelligentsia know that the most intelligent people in other cultures didn’t understand?  Are modern scientists more knowledgeable on this specific issue?  Certainly there is now a far greater degree of knowledge of the correlations between brain states and specific regions of the brain, and mental states. But presumably people have always been aware that sharp blows to the head can render one unconscious, have always been aware of deep sleep, have always been aware of the effects of alcohol and other drugs.  Why didn’t this evidence convince the greatest minds in the past that we all cease to exist when we die?   My suspicion is that it is less to do with knowledge of mind/brain correlations, which has convinced the “experts” (modern day scientists and philosophers) and more to do with the birth of the mechanistic philosophy and the profound shift in the way of conceiving reality that this initiated.  Once again see my Science, the Afterlife, and the Intelligentsia.

Eric T. Olson claims modern day scientists and philosophers are experts.  Well why doesn’t he, his fellow authors of the myth of an afterlife, and other prominent figures of the intelligentsia, provide some arguments and consider the whole matter dispassionately and justify this label?