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Can a “soul” ever acquire a satisfactory definition from neuroscience, information theory, or comput
- Paul King
- 26. Sept. 2016
- 2 Min. Lesezeit
S.o. asks Paul King an interesting question on Quora: Can a “soul” ever acquire a satisfactory definition from neuroscience, information theory, or computer science?
Isn’t a soul, after all, just an extremely large collection of information or data about a person [his experiences, thoughts, memories, behavior, etc.]?
You may reread and answer the question with “mind” in place of “soul” if it suits you.
The answer:
"Maybe, depending on what is meant by “soul”; there is one meaning of “soul” which Neuroscience and Computer Science have a difficult time with, and that is the idea of an identity floating out in the universe that attaches itself to a physical manifestation to provide it with agency and self-awareness.
Maybe the universe works this way [and how fantastic if it does!] but the sciences just don’t know what to do with this. Science currently lacks a conceptual framework that could verify that this type of souls exists or link it with anything physical like the body, so this definition of “soul” defies physics.
But “soul” could mean something different. “Soul” could refer to who you are, your sense of yourself, your perceptual awareness, and your understanding of the world and your place in it. Aren’t these the things that come to mind when we say someone has an “old soul” or is “soulful” or when we say we can “see someone’s soul”?
If “soul” is about understanding what it means to be alive, to care, and to feel “real,” then surely these experiences can one can day be explained by neuroscience, just as feeling “hungry,” “alert,” or “dizzy” is increasingly explained by neuroscience.And if the brain really does turn out to be a complex web of mechanisms, as Neuroscience currently believes, then why can’t similar processes and mechanisms be implemented in a digital machine?
To explain the phenomenon of “soul” or to produce it in an AI experiment, we will need a definition. This definition will not be “acquired” but will rather given, either by scientists or by designers.
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