Chet Raymo, “In Search of the Soul”
by Chet Raymo
"The philosopher Rene Descartes insisted that body and soul are separate things. "I think, therefore I am," he famously said. His "am" was not flesh and bone. Science overwhelmingly refutes Descartes. "I am, therefore I think," is closer to the modern view. The soul as a thing separate from the body has been hunted to its lair. The lair is empty.
The nervous systems of higher animals presumably evolved out of the need for central control of the body's many organs - heart, lungs, viscera, liver, adrenal medulla. Clearly, any system capable of coordinating a bodywide response to danger signals, or even to coordinate the need for rest and digestion, has a high survival value and will be favored by natural selection. Eventually, evolving nervous systems gave rise to the human brain and self-awareness.
As the creature with the most complex nervous system, we like to think of ourselves as somehow qualitatively different from other animals; thus our affection for the idea of a uniquely human disembodied soul. We like to imagine that our selfhood can float free of our physical bodies. But everything we have learned about the human self - from genetics, immunology, neurobiology and reproductive science - confirms that our selfhood is only the most elaborate of evolution's many levels of cellular organization. To my way of thinking, this does not lower our stature in the universe, but rather makes us part and parcel of the greatest miracle of all - life's grand thumbing-of-its-nose at nature's law of entropy, which requires the universe to eventually grind every complexity to dust.
I look at the trillions of interacting cells that are my body, the webs of flickering neurons that are my consciousness, and I see a self vastly more majestic than the paltry little soul illustrated in my grade-school catechism as a white circle besmirched with sin. The more I learn about the machinery of life and consciousness, the more profoundly miraculous the self becomes.
We are earth, air, fire and water made conscious. The self comes into existence slowly as cells divide, multiply and specialize, guided by the DNA, organized by experience. When the organization of cells disintegrates, the self is gone. If to have a soul means anything at all, it means to be confident in our specialness, our uniqueness, our individual significance in the unfolding cosmos. It means to believe that every human life is precious and capable of ennobling the universe.
The Judeo-Christian Scriptures tell us that God created the first human being out of the slime of the earth, breathed life into his creation and pronounced it good. The myth is consistent with our current understanding of the nature of the soul. According to the best contemporary science, we are literally animated slime. Now we must re-learn to think ourselves "good."
- http://www.sciencemusings.com/
0 Response to "Chet Raymo, “In Search of the Soul”"
Post a Comment