Sunday, December 31, 2006

The Soul: A Final Note

Near the end of his book Damasio notes that it’s not that we don’t have a soul “it is just that soul and spirit, with all their dignity and human scale, are now complex and unique states of an organism.” It is fine if we continue to refer to the human soul. For example one may still refer to one’s loved one as their “soul mate.” Perhaps what we really need to do is redefine the term soul. Regardless, given what we are learning from scientific study regarding human behavior and the complexities of how an immaterial soul would function, it is probable that man has no immaterial soul and that we are right to believe that man has no immaterial soul. What soul we do have is tied to the wonderful array of feelings and ideas and experiences grounded completely in our biology. There is nothing immaterial about us.

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