Does the Soul Really Exist? A Philosophical Discussion That Reveals the Truth

"I almost believed you, Rabbi," began a young man, his face excited as he looked at me.

"Too bad," I said, "I’ve always asked you not to believe me. You can check everything; why believe?".

"Yes, in yesterday's lesson you talked about the soul, saying it’s the essence of a person, that having emotions is a spiritual matter – joy, hope, the desire to do good, all these things. Luckily, after I got home, I read some material and listened to an excellent podcast from a well-known researcher, who shows, like you say, that it can be examined, that it’s not like that."

"Interesting, how did he show you this?".

'He showed how every thought, every emotion, everything that passes through our minds, which you call the soul, is actually various types of electrical currents. There’s a device that detects these currents; it’s called FMRI. You connect to the device, and even if you’re silent and don’t say anything, as long as you think something – the device says: he’s happy, he’s sad, he wants chocolate. Moreover, with electricity, we can make ourselves feel whatever we want. You add serotonin, and voila – the person comes out of depression and anxiety; he is happy. If you reduce serotonin, it’s unpleasant. Dopamine gives us energy. Our desires are just hormones; they can also be suppressed with the right substance. It’s all like a computerized system. If you control the chemicals – you control a person’s emotional and desire world. Therefore, the neuroscientist said, the story of the soul – it’s a belief, good for the innocent, but we, who know how everything works, don’t need to talk about a soul, and we can't talk about it. If the activity of the 'emotions' is identified and characterized by physical means, and it can also be turned on or off by physical means, then we are computers. Highly sophisticated ones, but think about artificial intelligence. It's fine to be a sophisticated computer."

"Well, my friend, I understand you’ve started checking, but perhaps you haven’t finished yet."

"I would love to continue the investigation."

"Alright," I said, "you claim that if a computer detects the electrical activity of 'happiness,' for example, or of 'wanting chocolate,' that proves this activity is physical, right?".

"Yes."

"Okay, then let me explain to you now why this activity cannot be physical, and that what you consider proof does not prove anything.

"Why can't this activity be physical? Because an inanimate object cannot feel its existence, desire something, feel pain, joy, and so on. Artificial intelligence is code written by humans, and it’s software capable of framing sentences based on self-study of the rules of sentence construction, but it’s clear that the computer writing it does not feel its existence, even though the software has the technical ability to formulate sentences that deal with emotions. Just as a graphic editing software’s code has no artistic sense."

"But, Rabbi, we are not an inanimate object."

"Exactly. Our lives are something non-physical. Not the part of eating, drinking, walking, etc.; that’s entirely physical. Sophisticated, but operates on physical systems. The emotions we have are not physical; they cannot be a property of physical material, which by its nature is inanimate. Inanimate, no matter how complex it is, the most sophisticated computer in the world, of course, does not feel it exists, cannot feel pain or desire. It’s merely a collection of electrical and magnetic currents, like a human brain without emotions."

"So how can the device detect emotions as electrical current?".

"The device does not detect emotions; it detects their results, how they activate us. Think about every time I’m happy, I clap my hands, and then my two-year-old son says, 'Daddy's happy.' Is he reading minds? Is my happiness just clapping? It’s simply the result. The same thing if when I open the candy cabinet, the child says, 'Daddy wants chocolate.' Here too, he’s not reading minds; he’s seeing the result of them. Last time he saw, when I opened the cupboard, I returned with a shiny piece of chocolate. Clearly, our thoughts are expressed in the body, in the brain, and every emotion is ultimately transmitted to the whole body as an electrical current. That current is the clapping of joy; it is not the joy itself."

"How do I know this is true? And not the neuroscientist's explanation?".

"Very simply. Think about your emotions, let’s say – anxiety. How does it manifest physically? A racing heartbeat, for instance. Is your anxiety just a pump working faster? Is that what you feel? Of course not. That’s the physical symptom of anxiety. Anxiety is an emotion, something that has no place in the physical world, and cannot be physically defined. Let’s assume an electrical current is flowing somewhere in the brain – and is that anxiety? Is fear electricity? It is a feeling that is not physical."

"If so, how do chemicals cause anxiety or its absence?".

"Just like in the example of the clapping. If I stab myself, it causes pain, a feeling in my consciousness. Is the feeling 'a needle poked in flesh'? Take meat from the fridge and poke it with a needle. It’s the same thing, but there’s no feeling. The feeling is pain; it’s something that cannot be physically explained, but it’s caused by a physical action. The same goes for chemical drugs. The balance of the soul depends on the balance of the body. Just as if you cut off limbs, the soul goes crazy with pain, so if you take substances that are essential for the body’s activity, the soul will lose its mind. If you introduce hard drugs into a person, he will behave like a madman. Clean his blood – he will be normal again; can we say that what was before was 'some substance in the blood'? What was before was the madness of the soul because it was inside an unbalanced body. And yes, if you take all the serotonin from a person, he might feel anxiety. But is our anxiety 'the absence of substance'? No, it’s horrendous and terrible thoughts of fear. Anxiety does not come from the absence of substance. You can influence it with an abundance of substance, just like paracetamol is a substance we use to overcome pain, but someone who is in pain is not defined as suffering from 'a lack of paracetamol.'

"You know, even in the example of the computer, artificial intelligence needs an operational computer. If you damage the ventilation of the computer, it will overheat, and it might 'speak nonsense.' If you damage the voltage, it won’t be able to supply electricity correctly, and its function will decrease. But all that is unrelated to the software's code. These are basic aids that, without them, it cannot operate."

"Well, I will try to reach out to the podcast creators and get their response"...

Waiting.