The soul vs. The self

[MrBishop]

Some people believe in the soul. The soul being some being which encompases what it is to be you. Your emotions, loves, hates, fears etc etc. It's what drives you to do good or evil. It has no ties to the physical body other than it resides in pretty much the same place.

This seems to be the thinking of many conservatives who refuse to believe that anything happening to the body should have any effect on the soul...and its choices of good vs. evil actions or inaction. (Thus the main thrust of the Con argument when a scientist , psychologist or psychiatrist states that a physical condition can affect the chances that someone could become alcoholic, a rapist etc...)

Basically...any attempt to explain a human action is deemed as seeking an excuse for such an action. (*The same can be said about topics such as homosexuality and choice over nature*).

Some say that there is no such thing as the soul..that the personality lives as part of the brain as a series of synapses, memories, experiences etc... and as such, is affected as easily by whatever illnesses the body has, whatever birthdefects, whatever chemicals exist or are added to the body etc.

The latter position looks for physical stimuli and how it might affect the personality. The former feels that these stimuli do not affect the soul.

If the soul does not exist, then the person dies when his or her body dies or when the brain is damaged in certain parts. A stroke or heart-attack might kill the part of the brain where the emotions, language, memory reside (thus killing the 'self', but leave the body intact, pumping blood and breathing.

Those who esppose the soul theory would say that since the body lives, the soul remains...thus the person is there.
Those who espouse the 'self' theory would say that since the brain is dead, the self is dead... thus all you have is a breathing body with no trace of the 'person' intact inside it.

To make this more difficult...this touches along religious beliefs that once the body dies, the soul (container for all that the person was) either moves onto to an afterlife, gets reborn, stays as a ghost, comes back in dreams, or any combination thereof. If there is no soul...the person dies when the brain dies..period!

Anyone care to tackle this one?