Fact and a little science fiction - related to the concept of the "soul"

[Hitetlen]

Here in an interesting experiment. In the case of some mental disorders, the only treatment available is the separation of the two halves of the brain. This separation can be done very slowly, over the period of several months. As the separation progresses, the two halves of the brain keep communicating, sharing information and memories. The brain has an amazing capability to deal with physical damage, to compensate for possible loss of brain tissue.

When this operation is concluded, in the skull of the patient there will be two, almost identical copies of the original brain. The two halves alternately control the body, even though one half assumes control more frequently - it is the dominant half. So far, no fiction, pure facts. This experiment has been performed many times, both of humans and on primates.

Now let’s sprinkle in a little science fiction. Assume that at the end of the operation, there is a body of a recently diseased person, whose brain was destroyed in an accident. The surgeon can transplant one half of this brain into the other body. Today, this is a technically very hard operation, but there is nothing impossible about it.

So, at this moment we have two “copies” of the original person, both occupying a separate body. Two brains, which were (almost) identical at the time of the transplant, but which will be exposed to different environments after the surgery, therefore there will be two different persons, two different personalities. What about his “soul”? Did the surgeon’s scalpel somehow “trigger” the creation of a new soul? Or do these tow persons share the same soul?

What are your thoughts about it?

 

[BillP]

Hitetlen:

Today, this is a technically very hard operation, but there is nothing impossible about it.

Actually right now it IS technically impossible. Transplatation of the brain would necessarily require severing the nerve connections to the medulla and the spinal cord. Science has yet figure out how to regenerate these connections (hence the inability to succeessfully repair quadrapelegic’sa).

Additionally I believe you’re referring to treatement of “split brain syndrome”. The corpus callosum connects the two hemispheres of the brain responsible for, I guess you would call it sentience, but it is uninvolved with the lower order functions such as heartbeat, respiration and regulation of the various systems required to keep our bodies alive. So you couldn’t actually “share” a brain between two bodies.

Finally, whoever said the soul was resident in the brain in the first place? There’s no reason to believe a soul has any specific physical seat withinh our body.

 

[BillP]

Hitetlen:

Today, this is a technically very hard operation, but there is nothing impossible about it.

Actually right now it IS technically impossible. Transplatation of the brain would necessarily require severing the nerve connections to the medulla and the spinal cord. Science has yet figure out how to regenerate these connections (hence the inability to succeessfully repair quadrapelegic’sa).

Additionally I believe you’re referring to treatement of “split brain syndrome”. The corpus callosum connects the two hemispheres of the brain responsible for, I guess you would call it sentience, but it is uninvolved with the lower order functions such as heartbeat, respiration and regulation of the various systems required to keep our bodies alive. So you couldn’t actually “share” a brain between two bodies.

Finally, whoever said the soul was resident in the brain in the first place? There’s no reason to believe a soul has any specific physical seat withinh our body.

 

[Achatius]

What would be the point in transferring the brain to the person who has suffered the brain damage anyway? It would really be discarding his whole person and creating a clone of person number one in another body wouldn’t it? So effectively the damged person wouldn’t be saved, just his body would be recycled.

Though I don’t believe that the 2nd reproduction of the brain, then transplanted into another skull, would be able to carry with it the soul, and I can’t imagine the soul residing in a different person than who it was given to in the first place.

 

[Hitetlen]

BillP:

Actually right now it IS technically impossible.

Mea culpa, I left out the word: “theoretically”. There is no principle we know of that would make such an operation impossible. Even without the actual transplant, there are two “persons” now, where either one can control the body, and does from time to time.

BillP:

Finally, whoever said the soul was resident in the brain in the first place? There’s no reason to believe a soul has any specific physical seat withinh our body.

That was the question. Are there two persons after this hypothetical operation? Undoubtedly. Their acts may diverge. One may be a believer, the other an atheist. What will happen to their soul, if there is one?

 

[Hitetlen]

Achatius:

What would be the point in transferring the brain to the person who has suffered the brain damage anyway? It would really be discarding his whole person and creating a clone of person number one in another body wouldn’t it? So effectively the damged person wouldn’t be saved, just his body would be recycled.

You may have misuderstood. The body of the deceased brain-dead person is just a convenient receiver for the brain. (When the brain function stops, the person is declared dead, regardless of the fact that some tissue is still functional.) Actually, the brain could be kept alive by supplying blood. Moreover, giving it proper appendiges one may even communicate with “it”. Still it would display all the necessary attributes of a person, think, argue, conduct conversation, in other words pass the Turing test.

Of course, I do not believe in the idea of a “soul”, but I am curious how do others reconcile the apperent personhood and the possible lack of a “soul”.

 

[Achatius]

Oh I thought you meant you were trying to save the brain-damagee. Well I think the soul would live on the original person, unless they are both conscious of the other half thinking kind of thing, If they are selves aware if you get what i am saying. Because if they are conscious that they both share one consciousness then the soul will be shared, but if not, then i think person 2 will be rendered soulless, or have a new soul.

 

[Hitetlen]

Achatius:

Oh I thought you meant you were trying to save the brain-damagee. Well I think the soul would live on the original person, unless they are both conscious of the other half thinking kind of thing, If they are selves aware if you get what i am saying. Because if they are conscious that they both share one consciousness then the soul will be shared, but if not, then i think person 2 will be rendered soulless, or have a new soul.

I sure understand what you mean by the word “selves”. Both are self-aware, both are personalities. Immediately after the operation they are almost identical, but since we are all the products of our ancestry and our environment, they will diverge as time goes on. They certainly cannot share consciousness.

Now, which one is the “second one”? If a person loses a limb, that does not diminsh their personhood, even if he loses all his body, except the brain. It is possible that both halves will have to be transplanted, if the original body is seriously damaged. In such a case it is impossible to assign the labels “first one” or “second one”.

Would that mean that both are “soulless”? How did they lose it? Or can one say that one of them retained the “soul”? Which one? And why? And if both have a soul, where did the other one come from? Can the surgeon’s scalpel “create” a soul?

 

[BillP]

Hitetlen:

Mea culpa, I left out the word: “theoretically”. There is no principle we know of that would make such an operation impossible. Even without the actual transplant, there are two “persons” now, where either one can control the body, and does from time to time.

That was the question. Are there two persons after this hypothetical operation? Undoubtedly. Their acts may diverge. One may be a believer, the other an atheist. What will happen to their soul, if there is one?

Even assuming that we can overcome the nerve regeneration problem, there can’t be two persons cause only one of them will get the medula, etc, to run the machinery of the body. The “receiver” would be unable to function as the “transplanted” part of the brain wouldn’t be able to make the heartbeat, or breathe while asleep, or regulate body temp etc.

 

[Hitetlen]

BillP:

Even assuming that we can overcome the nerve regeneration problem, there can’t be two persons cause only one of them will get the medula, etc, to run the machinery of the body. The “receiver” would be unable to function as the “transplanted” part of the brain wouldn’t be able to make the heartbeat, or breathe while asleep, or regulate body temp etc.

Maybe so, though considering the awesome advancement in medical science, these difficulties may very well be possible to overcome. But let’s keep it simple.

Even if a person loses a limb, he does not lose his personality. One can easily perform a series of operations, removing all the unnecessary parts, and replacing the essential ones with artificial implants: heart and lung, kidneys, etc. The brain itself could be kept alive artifically. Since the personality is the product of the brain, the separation of the two halves will produce two persons.

As I said in the post above, we can choose to keep both halves alive artifically, and discard the rest of the body. Thus we would have two persons, with one soul, no soul or two souls. Which one would you think is true?

 

[DaveBj]

Brain transplantation (the whole thing, not one hemisphere) was covered in a Robert Heinlein novel whose title absolutely escapes me at the moment. The brain of a rich old tycoon was transplanted into the body of his beautiful young secretary after the latter died violently. Heinlein had some sexual peculiarities, and he ran with some of them in this book.

goes away to google-land

The novel was I Will Fear No Evil.

DaveBj

 

[Aaron_I]

I think the crux of the argument lies with where the soul lies. Is the brain the source of memory and thought, or does it act as a processor of them? I imagine the brain to be like a tv set that receives data and manipulates it. So in that case, they would have two distinct souls because although the receptor would be the same, there is no reason to think that the source would be the same.

 

[Hitetlen]

Aaron I.:

I think the crux of the argument lies with where the soul lies. Is the brain the source of memory and thought, or does it act as a processor of them? I imagine the brain to be like a tv set that receives data and manipulates it. So in that case, they would have two distinct souls because although the receptor would be the same, there is no reason to think that the source would be the same.

Indeed the brain is the organ where the thoughts get generated. The thoughts are simply the electromagnetic/chemical impulses of the brain cells. It can be proven, by stimulating certain parts of the brain via very weak electic shocks.

Now comes the 1000 dollar question: did the surgeon’s scalpel create the new soul? Or was it a trigger? And, since the two halves were connected (during the surgery) by an ever weakening channel, one may even surmise that there is a minimum conductivity on this channel, where a very few signals can pass, but the two halves are already functioning as separate entities. If that were true, when exactly did the second (and which is the second?) soul come into existence?

(Aren’t these thought experiments fun?)

 

[I_A]

So are we going with: Two persons therefore two souls?

If that is the case I do not see how it is much different than when identical twins develop, thus answering the question yes there are two souls if there are two people.

Does the surgeons scapel make the soul? Does the parent’s procreation make the soul? No, God does.

 

[Hitetlen]

I_A_:

So are we going with: Two persons therefore two souls?

That is one way to look at it. Also would that mean that the brain (which creates the person) is somehow linked to the soul?
I_A_:

If that is the case I do not see how it is much different than when identical twins develop, thus answering the question yes there are two souls if there are two people.

That would certainly follow.
I_A_:

Does the surgeons scapel make the soul? Does the parent’s procreation make the soul? No, God does.

Hmmm, when? At the time when the zygote splits into two? At the time when the scalpel finally separates the two halves? Does the surgeon with the scalpel force God to make a fresh, brand new soul? After all, the surgeon originates the process, God merely reacts to it. The surgeon is perfectly free to stop the process before the total separation. And which one of the two halves is the “original”, with the “old” soul? Randomly selected?

And if all this can be agreed upon, then comes a brand new question: If the personhood is related to the mind, which is the product of the brain, and the soul is related to the personhood, does that mean that the gradual removal of brain tissue will somehow destroy the soul? After all the removal of the frontal lobe will have disastruous effect on the personality.

And another question. It is assumed that animals have no soul. However, the functioning of the brain in the primates is not that much different from the human brain. They also exhibit personalities. Indeed they seem to have limited capability of conceptualizing, but so does a young child. Even dogs have very well definable personalities.

 

[BillP]

Hitetlen:

The brain itself could be kept alive artifically. Since the personality is the product of the brain, the separation of the two halves will produce two persons.

Ah! I think I see the source of our misunderstanding. You contend that because severing the corpus collosum between the separate hemispheres results in two personalities then, theoretically, it could result in separate persons!

I don’t believe it could. Personhood, for lack of a better term, doesn’t exclusively reside in any particular part of the brain. One piece of evidence for that is all the other, singular, parts of the brain necessary for the “higher” parts to function. The instant you sever one of the two hemispheres from the medula you irretrievably extinguish its life and the consciousness that resides within it.

As far as the soul. I don’t know. But it’s pretty obvious to me that souls don’t have physical manifestations. I think they, like God, exist outside the physical limitations of time and space. I can’t imagine, even as a thought experiment, a person without a soul. Nor can I imagine man “creating” a soul by means of a process susch as you describe.

In short, I think your “experiment” has something of the “Can God create a rock so big that he can’t lift it?” paradox of omnipotence about it.

 

[Hitetlen]

BillP:

I don’t believe it could. Personhood, for lack of a better term, doesn’t exclusively reside in any particular part of the brain. One piece of evidence for that is all the other, singular, parts of the brain necessary for the “higher” parts to function.

The compensatory powers of the brain in case of damage have been demonstrated. If the two halves still reside in the skull, but are unable to communicate because of the operation, the different behavior is also observed when one of them is in the dominant position. There are really two personalities there, with different behavioral patterns.

BillP:

The instant you sever one of the two hemispheres from the medula you irretrievably extinguish its life and the consciousness that resides within it.

Nothing is truly instantaneous in the body. Theoretically it is conceivable to transplant one half, or simply keep it alive. Such experiments have been performed on primates - if I remember correctly. But the technical details are not truly relevant here. The concept itself is intriguing.

BillP:

In short, I think your “experiment” has something of the “Can God create a rock so big that he can’t lift it?” paradox of omnipotence about it.

Hehe, the famous paradox… All it shows that concept of omnipotence is nonsensical.

 

[BillP]

Hitetlen:

The compensatory powers of the brain in case of damage have been demonstrated.

Not in the case of brain stem injuries they haven’t.

Hitetlen:

Nothing is truly instantaneous in the body. Theoretically it is conceivable to transplant one half, or simply keep it alive. Such experiments have been performed on primates - if I remember correctly. But the technical details are not truly relevant here. The concept itself is intriguing.

I would very interested in seeing published accounts of experiements involving successful brain (or even hemisphere) trransplants in primates.

Hitetlen:

Hehe, the famous paradox… All it shows that concept of omnipotence is nonsensical.

Perhaps, but isn’t all of religion trying to make sense form the nonsensical?

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

I notice it was said that animals are not thought to have souls. Within the Catholic tradition this is false. It is a misunderstanding that arises from the distinction that human beings have spiritual, and thus eternal, souls while other living things (plants as well) have material, and thus mortal, souls. It’s grounded AFAIK in Aristotelian metaphysics. Augustine and Aquinas would be prime examples of this teaching.

 

[Hitetlen]

Andreas Hofer:

I notice it was said that animals are not thought to have souls. Within the Catholic tradition this is false. It is a misunderstanding that arises from the distinction that human beings have spiritual, and thus eternal, souls while other living things (plants as well) have material, and thus mortal, souls. It’s grounded AFAIK in Aristotelian metaphysics. Augustine and Aquinas would be prime examples of this teaching.

Thank you for the clarification. Of course I would love to see a definition of “spiritual soul”, and why is it assumed that humans have one.