I.In this paper, I will be arguing for the following claim…….. As stated by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist, “Once upon a time, people identified the god Neptune as the source of storms at sea. Today we call these storms hurricanes… The only people who still call hurricanes acts of God are the people who write insurance forms.” This quote by Neil DeGrasse Tyson not only applies to storms, but also applies to many things we previously did not understand. It basically displays the idea that just because we do not understand a concept, does not mean we will not be able to explain it in the future. Our society must get to the point of being comfortable with not knowing, instead of using myth to explain concepts we do not understand. In this paper, I will be arguing that the traditional idea of a soul is something that does not exist in reality. I will demonstrate why the soul does not exist because of the lack of scientific evidence. However, opponents suggest that consciousness displays characteristics that are not found in the physical world and will consider a non-material world that cannot be observed by modern science.
II.I think that some of the best specific arguments for my position are…….. My 1st argument is the fact that there is no scientific evidence in modern science that supports the concept of the soul actually existing. According to Julien Musolino, a cognitive scientist, the current scientific consensus denies any view of a soul or spirit as being separate from the brain. For the naturalist, which are individuals that subscribe to the philosophy that all of our credible science and understanding of the world is based on physical reality, there really is no reason to bring in fanciful notions like the soul into play. This concept of the soul can just be referred to as the mind and just because we do not fully understand it, it does not mean individuals should just use superstition to fill the void for lack of information on the subject. However, there are more arguments that support my position.
My 2nd argument that supports my position is the theory that the concept of the soul seems to act as a coping mechanism to aid individuals feel more comfortable with the notion of death. As reported by David Briggs, an author, most people in the United States hold on to the hope of life after death. Despite a current rise in secularism (a conviction that religion should be separate for social order or government), this belief has been generally unchanged. This tidbit of information is interesting, because despite more and more scientific information being introduced into society, people continue to cling to hope of religious notions, such as God, an afterlife, and the soul. This supports the idea that people most likely continue to cling to these ideas because it helps them psychologically cope with the death of family members, close friends and even their own demise. Nevertheless, there is an additional fundamental argument against the presence of a soul.
My 3rd argument that I will present against the presence of the soul is that the individual or individuals that claim that the soul exists hold the burden of proof. Imagine someone making the claim that they witnessed an extraterrestrial being walk through their living room. It would be perfectly reasonable for anyone to be skeptical of this claim. In this case, the individual that claims they saw an extraterrestrial has the burden of proof, otherwise any individual can make any fantastical claim without providing any evidence that supports said claim. If we did not put this burden of proof on the claimer, the integrity of scientific knowledge would be at stake. However, this is not the last of my main challenges.
My 4th argument is that evidence supports the idea that the brain is actually responsible for many of the traits attributed to the soul, like personality and emotion. It is possible that people created the concept of the soul because we did not have modern science to understand how the brain functions. Additionally, there is a physicalist theory in philosophy known as functionalism. This theory trusts on the idea of realization to explain the connection between consciousness and the physical body. From my understanding, the body creates various mental states at the benefit of the body. An example of these mental states would be anger, faith, sadness, etc. In essence, these mental states form to serve a function for the physical being, whereas a computer does not experience these states and just processes information, thus not having a mind.
III.However, there are those who disagree with my position and challenge it. A summary of the opposing position is as follows…….. The general argument that supports the existence of the soul is the idea that there is immaterial beyond the physical. This immaterial world holds concepts like objective right and wrong, the soul, perfect ideals, and humanness. These challenges in support of the immaterial domain is supported by religious doctrine, Plato’s theories, and analysis of realities where physical reductionist theories struggle. In this essay, I will attempt to present the most credible challenges from my opponents.
IV.Some of their best reasoned challenges to my position are…….. The 1st challenge I will address is one of the most respectable arguments. This argument is the idea that consciousness exhibits traits that the material world does not. Some of these traits examined in this argument are first person perspective, intentionality, and “aboutness.” From what we know, these traits cannot be explained by physical science. Additionally, there is a general consensus that science does a great job explaining the physical world. However, it is not convincing that consciousness and the soul can be reduced to a physical science. Nevertheless, there are more credible arguments against my claim.
The 2nd challenge against my claim that the soul does not exist would be Plato’s argument that the reason we have perfect ideals of how things should be is that we must have acquired them in a previous life, thus proving the existence of the soul. To elaborate, Plato believed that there were perfect ideals in some transcendent realm because humans have an instinct of knowing idealistic forms of objects, animals, or humans. An example of this would be when an individual imagines the way an elephant should look like. Most people would expect an elephant to have a long trunk, tusks, and to be much larger than themselves.
The 3rd challenge against my claim is based some of the most popular religions of the world. These religions are the Abrahamic religions, which all commonly hold Abraham as having a vital role, such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Followers of these religions base their beliefs on scriptures handed down from previous generations because they believe these texts are of divine origin, thus they can be trusted. These religious texts state that God created everything above and below. These creations include the human soul, whose moral character will be judged based on actions performed while in human form.
The 4th challenge that will be mentioned in this paper is the presence of moral law. The fact that we inherently know “right” and “wrong” without the involvement of religious texts or lawmakers to tell us what is “right” and “wrong.” These moral realities can be explained as immaterial objects, which additionally supports the idea that consciousness is part of the immaterial soul. This knowing can be attributed to a God or intelligent creator whom created these moral laws and allows souls to be automatically aware of these objective truths.
V.I believe that each of the above mentioned challenges can be successfully answered…….. •My response or rebuttal to the 1st challenge that I named about in section III is as follows… The idea that the first argument presents is the traits that the soul has that the material does not. These traits can possibly be explained by the theory of epigenetics. Epigenetics is basically extra genetic information that is layered on top of the DNA sequences of organisms. The theory is that any outside stimulus can alter an organism’s epigenetics and it then can be passed on to its offspring. While this is still theoretical, it could be the reason why identical twins are not completely identical, or why some individuals have alcoholism run in their family.
•My response or rebuttal to the 2nd challenge that I named about in section III is as follows… The idea that the second argument presents is that worldly or perfect ideals are attributed to the soul is flawed because these ideals are most likely a product of evolution. Of course, Plato was long gone by the time Darwinism came about. However, these ideals could be explained by evolution because they become “perfect” ideals to strive for to pass on the best genetics possible onto future offspring. Therefore, this genetic behavior would aid a species in survival through the help of previous ancestral generations.
•My response or rebuttal to the 3rd challenge that I named about in section III is as follows… The third argument mentions the three Abrahamic religions and how the scriptures make the claim of a creator of all things, including the universe, objective right and wrong, and the soul. However, this argument has never been a convincing one to me for a couple reasons. First, how do we know the people that created these scriptures communicated with god? Second, often over time with wear and tear, many writings are lost in textual criticism, which is the process of transcribing text as accurately as possible. Lastly, these concepts are probably coming from people with a lack of understanding of the physical world. Why would we blindly follow the words of men from thousands of years ago?
•My response or rebuttal to the 4th challenge that I named about in section III is as follows… The last challenge mentions moral truths and the fact that society inherently knows right and wrong without being explicitly told. However, the concept of moral law is imperfect because society has most likely developed these laws ages ago because it was beneficial for society and then they are passed down by inheritance through evolution. An example would be the moral law that we must not murder. Humans have a natural intuition to not murder because it would cause an endless cycle of revenge, thus declining society, which would not survive very well as a result.
VI.In conclusion, I still maintain that, on balance, my position presents a stronger case…….. In consummation, the concept of the soul has inhabited literature in the past and the present and while I believe some individuals in society benefit from the idea of a soul, I do not believe the literal soul exists. However inconvenient this truth may be, the lack of empirical evidence in general negates everything modern society currently knows about our world and I firmly believe that these are concepts humans passed on to help individuals cope with the loss of loved ones and the death of themselves. Nevertheless, it is my belief that the quicker we rid ourselves of these fantastical notions, the quicker we can get to explaining these same concepts in physical terms. In the words of the late Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
