The beating heart corpses: is there a soul or spirit?

[Compassionist]

Please see: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2016110 ... rt-corpses

Do these brain dead but otherwise alive bodies have a soul or spirit? How can we know for sure?

[Divine Insight]

Please see: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2016110 ... rt-corpses

Do these brain dead but otherwise alive bodies have a soul or spirit? How can we know for sure?

Before you can even begin to ask this as a meaningful question you need to first define precisely what you mean by "soul" or "spirit".

Only then can the question even make any sense.

In fact, once you define the concepts of "soul" and "spirit" in sufficient detail, the answer to your question may become apparent within those definitions.

[Divine Insight]

Please see: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2016110 ... rt-corpses

By the way, I haven't read the article you linked to above. But I did go to that page. Then I did a search on that page for the word "soul" and the word "spirit". The search came up empty. Apparently they don't use either of these terms in that article.

Is there anything in the article that addresses this question specifically? Perhaps you could quote that particular excerpt of the article?

[Compassionist]

Please see: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2016110 ... rt-corpses

Do these brain dead but otherwise alive bodies have a soul or spirit? How can we know for sure?

Before you can even begin to ask this as a meaningful question you need to first define precisely what you mean by "soul" or "spirit".

Only then can the question even make any sense.

In fact, once you define the concepts of "soul" and "spirit" in sufficient detail, the answer to your question may become apparent within those definitions.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I am using the words soul and spirit to mean the immortal essence of a human being that many religions claim exists. I am currently agnostic regarding the existence of such an immortal soul or spirit. However, If such as soul or spirit were to exist, I do not think they would be present in the beating heart corpses. I could be wrong. That is why I asked "Do these brain dead but otherwise alive bodies have a soul or spirit? How can we know for sure?" I would like to add two more questions. Do human beings have immortal souls or spirits? How can we know for sure? Thank you.

[Compassionist]

Please see: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2016110 ... rt-corpses

By the way, I haven't read the article you linked to above. But I did go to that page. Then I did a search on that page for the word "soul" and the word "spirit". The search came up empty. Apparently they don't use either of these terms in that article.

Is there anything in the article that addresses this question specifically? Perhaps you could quote that particular excerpt of the article?

There is nothing in that article which addresses my initial two questions. If it did, I would not have posted my questions here. I recommend that you read the article as it is a fascinating article. Thank you.

[Divine Insight]

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I am using the words soul and spirit to mean the immortal essence of a human being that many religions claim exists. I am currently agnostic regarding the existence of such an immortal soul or spirit. However, If such as soul or spirit were to exist, I do not think they would be present in the beating heart corpses. I could be wrong. That is why I asked "Do these brain dead but otherwise alive bodies have a soul or spirit? How can we know for sure?" I would like to add two more questions. Do human beings have immortal souls or spirits? How can we know for sure? Thank you.

Here are my answers to your questions. These are just my personal opinions.

Let me address your latter questions first:

I would like to add two more questions. Do human beings have immortal souls or spirits? How can we know for sure? Thank you.

We can't know for sure. The question of the true nature of reality has not been answered in any definitive way.

Many Secular Naturalists feel that there is no such thing as an immoral "Human Soul" because the natural state of being "Human" requires that the physical condition of being in that state.

That seems like a pretty straight-forward answer that offers a "physical definition" for a living "human soul" (i.e. being in the physical state of being a living human)

In the case of a "brain-dead" human body it would appear that the "human soul" has already died since the brain would be the physical essence of the human soul, and a living body with a dead brain still equals a dead human. (This assumes the brain is truly dead and cannot be revived). In a sense this secular definition of a "human soul" answers the question of what happens to a human soul when the brain dies (i.e. the human soul simply ceases to exist).

So that's the secular answer to the question.

Is a Secular Naturalism worldview wrong? Possibly so. This then requires that we turn to mystical or spiritual philosophies or religions to see what they have to say about a supposed "eternal human soul".

In that case we have a wide variety of mystical and spiritual philosophies and religions to turn to for potential explanations. One thing to note is that there are many different ways that an 'eternal soul' can be thought of in these philosophies and religions.

Some religions imagine the soul to basically be the human ego (i.e. the personality, memory, and record of behaviors of the human that has been constructed throughout the life experiences of the human in question). This individual record of the human ego can be thought of as "information" that could potentially be recorded, and stored in some other realm of existence eternal to our physical universe. This information which is the sum total of what describes a particular "human soul" could then be "reconstructed" or "resurrected" in another realm after the physical death of a human body. It's impossible to say that this can't be the truth of reality. None knows. That much is for certain.

Secular Naturalists will argue that there simply is no reason to speculate on such a wild fantasy because there is no credible evidence to suggest that it's nothing more than just wild speculation. This may be true, but at the same time that argument can't rule it out. It can only say that it doesn't sound very "credible" considering there is no evidence to suggest that it's anything more than wishful thinking.

Other mystical and religious views suggest that the ego itself is totally irrelevant. For them the "Human Soul" is not a record of what a human ego has done or what kind of personality it has become in this world, but rather the "soul" is the entity that is having the experience. And the claim in mysticism that is it this underlying "soul" that is eternal.

When you die, you lose all memory of anything you ever were or thought. That information is no retained. The only thing that continues on is the entity that is having an experience. This may sound undesirable, but actually this would be very much the same as a case of total amnesia. When a human has total amnesia they lose all knowledge of who they were and what they have done. Yet they are still having an experience. So it wouldn't be proper to say that they died, or that one "soul" died in the body and now a "new soul" was taking over the same body with no memory of the "old soul".

This idea of a human "soul" is hard for many people to understand and accept. But in this case a human soul can survive without a brain, because there is no need for any information to be carried forward. All that needs to be carried forward is the entity that can actually have experiences.

Again, the Secular Naturalists say, "Other than wild speculation where's the evidence?"

The end result is that we can't know for sure. But the Secular Naturalists will argue that we have no reasons to be making these wild speculations about humans existing as anything more than a functioning biological brain. I think there is a point to their arguments.

When you ask, "How can we know for sure?", the secular naturalists will argue that there's simply no reason to think that a human is anything more than a biological brain. There's just no reason to even think otherwise. So for them it's a pretty "sure bet" that what you see is what you get.

But yeah, in the deepest most philosophical sense we can't really know for sure.

"Do these brain dead but otherwise alive bodies have a soul or spirit? How can we know for sure?"

This question seems pretty straight forward. I think in all cases, if the brain is truly "dead" then these bodies no longer have a "soul or spirit" no matter whether we take the secular naturalism worldview or one of the religious worldviews. Even if "souls" can somehow survive the death of a "brain" it's unlikely they would hang around in a "brain-dead" body anyway.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to post 6 by Divine Insight]

Thank you ever so much for your detailed response. What you said makes sense. While I wish to know for sure, it is unlikely that I will ever know for sure.