Expectedly, my last post on the soul has conjured up some controversy and so here is my counterargument to those objections.

“Does something need to have a physical application to the world to be “practical” or hold any meaning? The notion of the soul operates within a system of belief, and within that system, it is full of meaning and has an important purpose.”

I believe the concepts of “practicality” and “meanings” are two completely different concepts. The point I was trying to make wasn’t that the soul is “meaningless,” but rather, “pointless.” In the scope of my argument, I defined “practical” as a word that “aids” human beings by achieving something productive (refer to my doctor example) or describing something we use everyday (telephone). Thus, with that definition clarified, physical application to the world, I’d argue, is necessary for a concept to be “practical,” as far as my definition is concerned.

You also pointed out that a soul operates within a system of belief, which is very true, and it does have meaning, but the question is does it serve a “practical” purpose? You could argue that it “aids” humans by allowing them to communicate about the soul, and thus, it does serve a practical purpose, however that’s missing the point. The word telephone can “aid” us in communicating about telephones as well, but unlike the soul, a telephone is something that has a physical application to the world, which is why it’s “practical,” while a soul is not. Again, not to sound redundant, but I can’t stress enough that I’m not arguing that the soul is meaningless, because it evidently means something within a system of belief.

“I can agree with animals having souls. If you are operating in the system of belief that acknowledges the existence of souls it is paradoxical to state that man has the power to create them.”

It seems paradoxical because 1) the statement that was quoted was put out of context, and 2) because I do not operate in the system of belief that acknowledges the existence of souls. I was only speaking hypothetically. However, I made a rather large assumption, didn’t I? I assumed that the soul (if there is such a thing, remember, I’m being hypothetical) arises from creation in general. If God created humans, and in the process gave them minds to think up of elaborate belief systems that include concepts like soul, then isn’t it possible that we can emulate that? In other words, by playing the role of God, we are not necessarily creating entities that have souls, but are creating intelligent beings that might think of complex belief systems that lead them to believe that they have souls. Are we not so different, or are we? No one can say for sure outside of mere speculation.

“Souls are supernatural and created in the image of God, by God. Were we ever to acquire the ability to create intelligent, sentient, productive entities, then your statement concerning machine-souls would hold some relevance. As we do not have that power, we are incapable of “playing the role of God” and subsequently incapable of creating eternal souls in the image of the divine.”

There is one very significant assumption in the quotation above that needs to be addressed. You seem like you’d agree with me that if we were, in fact, able to create “intelligent, sentient, productive entities” then perhaps there is a possibility for a presence of a soul in one of our creations (artificial intelligence). You contend that cannot be possibly, however, because we do not have the power to create. I hold that we don’t have the power to create…yet. I am optimistic in my belief that humans can and will create truly intelligent machines. Just food for thought, here’s a quote by Hans Moravec, a pioneer in mobile robot researcher and founder of Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute:

“I see a strong parallel between the evolution of robot intelligence and the biological intelligence that preceded it. The largest nervous systems doubled in size about every fifteen million years since the Cambrian explosion 550 million years ago. Robot controllers double in complexity (processing power) every year or two. They are now barely at the lower range of vertebrate complexity, but should catch up with us within a half century.”

Who would have thought that a weapon like the bow and arrow would evolve into a nuclear weapon in the course of two hundred years (give or take). A more striking leap is the sixty or so years it’s taken to go from main frame computers that takes up the space of a whole room to a Macbook Air that fits inside a Manila folder. With the accelerated rate that technology is progressing, I’d say we’re well on our way to creating intelligent beings regardless of whether they have a soul, or think they have a soul, or don’t have a soul at all. It’s just a matter of when.

Our best hope is that we don’t kill ourselves with the aforementioned weapons that are also technologically improving at an accelerated rate. If weapons don’t end our species, then let’s hope that the machines we create won’t.