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Biology and the Soul

By Sally Mayasich, July 16, 2006

Readings:

Aristotle--On the Soul (384 BC-322 BC)

"Holding as we do that, while knowledge of any kind is a thing to be honoured and prized, one kind of it may, either by reason of its greater exactness or of a higher dignity and greater wonderfulness in its objects, be more honourable and precious than another, on both accounts we should naturally be led to place in the front rank the study of the soul. The knowledge of the soul admittedly contributes greatly to the advance of truth in general, and, above all, to our understanding of Nature, for the soul is in some sense the principle of animal life. Our aim is to grasp and understand, first its essential nature, and secondly its properties; of these some are taught to be affections proper to the soul itself, while others are considered to attach to the animal owing to the presence within it of soul. To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world. As the form of question which here presents itself, namely the question 'What is it?'
         "…it is obvious that the affections of soul are enmattered formulable essences. That is precisely why the study of the soul must fall within the science of Nature..."

Rene Descartes--The Passions of the Soul (1596-1650 AD)

"We need to recognize also that although the soul is joined to the whole body, nevertheless there is a certain part of the body where it exercises its functions more particularly than in all the others. It is commonly held that this part is the brain, or perhaps the heart - the brain because the sense organs are related to it, and the heart because we feel the passions as if they were in it. But on carefully examining the matter I think I have clearly established that the part of the body in which the soul directly exercises its functions is not the heart at all, or the whole of the brain. It is rather the innermost part of the brain, which is a certain very small gland1 situated in the middle of the brain's substance and suspended above the passage through which the spirits in the brain's anterior cavities communicate with those in its posterior cavities.
"Apart from this gland, there cannot be any other place in the whole body where the soul directly exercises its function. I am convinced of this, by the observation that all the other parts of our brain double, as also are all the organs of our external senses — eyes, hands, ears and so on. But in so far as we have only one simple thought about a given object at any one time, there must necessarily be some place where the two images coming through the two eyes, or the two impressions coming from a single object through the double organs of any other sense, can come together in a single image or impression before reaching the soul, so that they do not present to it two objects instead of one."
1Monsieur Descartes refers to the pineal gland.

Francis Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul (1994)

"The Astonishing Hypothesis is that "You," your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased it: 'You're nothing but a pack of neurons.'
"A modern neurobiologist sees no need for the religious concept of a soul to explain the behavior of humans and other animals."

Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998)

"Perhaps, as I believe, it can all eventually be explained as brain circuitry and deep, genetic history. But this is not a subject that even the most hardened empiricist should presume to trivialize. The idea of the mystical union is an authentic part of the human spirit. It has occupied humanity for millennia, and it raises questions of utmost seriousness for transcendentalists and scientists alike.

"Still, if history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth. The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology. Acceptance of the supernatural conveyed a great advantage throughout prehistory, when the brain was evolving. Thus it is in sharp contrast to biology, which was developed as a product of the modern age and is not underwritten by genetic algorithms. The uncomfortable truth is that the two beliefs are not factually compatible. As a result those who hunger for both intellectual and religious truth will never acquire both in full measure."

Although there have been countless attempts, even so recent and reductionistic as Dr. Crick's at explaining and defining the soul, we can still wax poetic about it because no one can completely dash any possible theories, wild as they may seem.  We looked at the moon this way for centuries, but then we went there and suddenly one of the most romantic objects in our local cosmos was just a dusty rock.  But ah, to a scientist it now became a measurable reality more exciting than its reflection in the eyes of the most sumptuous lover.

And this is what scientists love--to measure things and reduce them to something that can be explained within the known physical laws of our universe.  The first analysts of the soul were philosophers and theologians who did not take such materialistic, reductionist views of the soul, and who continue in the modern day to maintain that measurements of the spirit or soul are impossible. They have taken the view that the soul is non-physical.  However, because the "stuff" of the soul is still a mystery, many scientists continue to reject the impossibility of its measurement.

The soul has been defined in many different ways, such as the Aristotelian view that involves the organization of the body, its nutritive capability and organs of sensory perception, and the view that it is the intellectual and romantic spirit of human beings. The definition of soul that drives the "big question" is the one formulated by Descartes; it has been drawn upon by religions (notably the Jewish and Christian religions in the Western cultures), and can be stated simply: the soul is some part of us that lives on after our bodies die.  This is the immortal soul. 

Psychologists, as scientists, have also had a go at it, with varying methods and varying resulting opinions.  Generally, psychologists and parapsychologists have used scientific methods to measure the soul defined as the human consciousness.  They have largely come to the conclusion that the consciousness is driven by brain functions and/or brain functions are driven by consciousness.  The brain is an organ which no longer functions when the body dies, and therefore the consciousness--the collective experiences and thoughts of an individual--is lost upon death.

To define the soul as consciousness is to make the assumption that the soul is materially based; it can only be supported by the highly-organized matter of the brain.  So if the soul is matter, then we should be able to measure it.  The most obvious but fairly crude approach has apparently been taken by Dr. Duncan MacDougall, in the early 1900s, and more recently by two East German (at that time) scientists named Becker Mertens and Elke Fisher in the 1980's. They tried to measure the weight of the soul.  Although MacDougall's results varied considerably from 21 grams, this figure has become synonymous with the measure of a soul's weight. Mertens and Fisher were reported to have weighed over 200 terminally ill patients before and just after the moment of death, and the bodies surprisingly lost a consistent amount of weight--1/3,000th of an ounce.  Although it was put forth that this weight might be air leaving the lungs, Mertens and Fisher said they had accounted for this, and therefore there could only be one conclusion: the weight difference could only be attributable to the soul leaving the body!
This work has never gained acceptance in the scientific community, but let's just say the weight was the soul.  Matter is not invisible, but since the weight was so small, it might be difficult to see, or maybe it just moves really fast.  Maybe it is a volatile compound that seeps out as a vapor.  This would mean the molecules would be separate.  It is hard to reckon that the consciousness of a whole human being could be held in these separated molecular receptacles and still retain its essential individuality.  But maybe it is reconstituted later into a more cohesive form--an ectoplasmic blob, or maybe another body.  Beam me up, God.  I don't mean to belittle or reject that possibility.  Scientifically, we can't reject it.  There is no way to disprove it or prove it at the present time, but we can discuss what we know so far.

Perhaps we in my profession as environmental biologists and ecologists just think it is out of our field, but considering that we deal with the connections between all living things and the interactions with their physical surroundings, and that these connections and interactions are almost impossible to measure, define and quantify, but we try to do it anyway, I think we are in a perfect position to apply our experiences to soul research. So here's my crack at it.

In my work I assess the risk of hazardous chemicals and physical alterations of habitat (these are called stressors) to the plants and animals in areas such as hazardous waste sites or land development projects. We observe a difference between ecological and human communities exposed to stressors, and communities that are not. We formulate hypotheses, then ask questions, like:  Will the populations of endangered species such as the Indiana bat or snail darter be reduced? To answer these questions we often use empirical measurements (experimentation and hypothesis testing).

However, since we can't capture endangered species, homogenize them in a blender and send them to the chemistry lab, we may have to use a surrogate species, one that is similar to the endangered one but more abundant, and assume the effects on the one mirror the effects on the other.  And of course, we can't experiment on people so we give rats cancer in the laboratory and make inferences about humans, adjusting for body weight and other factors. We try to make measurements on individual organisms to infer to the population of that species, or individuals of several species to infer to the community.
We can look at what methods there are already available to answer these questions, or we can devise novel new methods.  Any method we use has to overcome all the variables in the environment and zero in on the one thing we want to measure.  Add to that measurement error, instrument noise (due to moisture, low batteries, etc.), and difficult conditions in which the field personnel often work, and you can never be sure what you've measured, let alone whether the measurements are accurate.

This, of course, must be smoothed over with the use of statistics.  We can't make any reliable statement based on a single measurement, or even a sample size of two or three. Also, we must have a control, which is to measure the same parameter, say growth, in the test animal kept under the same conditions except not exposed to the stressor.  In the field, we compare the contaminated area to an uncontaminated area that is similar ecologically.  Unfortunately, this is not a perfect control.
So, going back to Mertens and Fisher, let's now come up with a hypothesis: The soul is matter. Mertens and Fisher made weight measurements on over 200 dying people, to achieve good statistical power, comparing before and after death.  But that doesn't really give you a control either; it doesn't prove the weight difference is the soul as opposed to some other bodily loss of matter at death, or some kind of repeatable measurement error.  No one that I know of has ever tried to repeat Mertens and Fisher's experiment, probably for the obvious ethical reasons, and maybe a lack of volunteers.

Now, the first thing I, as an ecologist, would do is use a surrogate species.  Or several.  Small versus large, mammals versus lower species. Also a variation in scale types.  If it is assumed that only humans have souls, and the weight difference measured after human death really was the soul, then there should be no weight loss in the animals.  If there is no weight loss however, we can't conversely assume there is no soul because it still could be that our scales aren't sensitive enough, or that the soul is not matter and has no weight.  But if there is a weight loss in all species, consistent with all scales, (especially if it's exactly 1/3000th of an ounce) either (a) it is the soul and Aristotle was right in assuming that all living things have souls, or (b) the weight loss may be just a bodily loss of matter at death having nothing to do with the soul.  Using different scales, we can probably rule out repetitive measurement error.

So then, we might look at whether the weight loss is the same for all species, or if it is relative to body weight of the animal, or its evolutionary level.  Maybe souls are correlated to the relative amount of self-awareness and thought capability of the species, or maybe souls are universal in amount of matter--one size fits all.  Either you got one or you ain't.  But the weight measurement approach as I said, is crude and requires the death of the subjects.

Another approach would involve theory similar to that used by DNA-codiscoverer and humanist Francis Crick.  It involves the conflicting ideals of behavioral and personality traits being inborn or being developed through learning and experience.  Nature versus nurture.  The nature theory would be consistent with the idea of the self and soul being based in DNA, whereas the nurture theory would be more compatible with the idea of starting with a blank slate (except for original sin), that one develops a soul as they live, and would not require that it be based in matter.  Although Dr. Crick doesn't think so, assuming the soul being based in DNA would still beg the question of whether the soul matter dies with the body, or leaves the body and continues to exist as an individual entity after death. DNA is the means of conservation of inherited characteristics, so maybe our souls are really passed along in our reproductive cells and only live on fully integrated in the cells of further biological generations.  I can't think of any empirical measures to prove this one way or the other, because if there is no soul continuing to exist after the body dies, there is nothing separate to measure.

Another of our important bodily functions is to transform matter to energy.  So our second hypothesis can be:  The soul is energy. Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama, President and founder of the California Institute of Human Science has conducted research that does not cause pain or require the death of the study participants.  He states that: " In regards to the body, it [the Institute] conducts research in Eastern medicine as represented by India, China and Japan, which takes the body as a system of bio-energy. At the same time, it conducts research in Western medicine that regards the body as an organic system in terms of cell structure and molecules (e.g., DNA).

"…in regards to the soul, the soul differs from those beings, like the body and consciousness, which follow the law of physical time and space. Instead, it is a being which follows the law of the superconscious (e.g., the law of karma) or of the super-physical spirit, which does not follow the law of physical time and space."

They conducted an experiment "in which light was emitted through the exercise of the thought-power of a soul in a pitch-dark shielded room, cutting off the interference of electro-magnetic waves from the outside. This experiment demonstrated that the psi-energy [the Greek letter psi] of the soul is capable of creating light. The result calls into question the law of the constancy of energy, taken to be the major, foundational premise of today's physics. That light was created by means of psi-energy, transcending the law of physical time and space, suggests that physical phenomena are created by the soul with its psi-energy."

This is an interesting avenue combining concepts of science and religion, as sociobiologist e.o. wilson has discussed, to cast the soul as creator of matter and energy, superceding both.  My personal difficulty with Dr. Motoyama's research is the use of terminology of religious/psychic power--psi energy and ki, based in Hindu lore--that have not been recognized by modern physics, and assumes measurement of them by traditional physics measurement instruments.  Again though, as an ecologist, I would suggest as a sort of control, trying these experiments with animals.

Another scientist who researches the soul, who has similar thoughts with regard to the matter/energy creative force of the soul is quantum physicist Dr. Fred Wolf.  He has written a book called The Spiritual Universe, and believes that our society's two choices, the soul is material or the soul is imaginal, are based on having asked the wrong question.  He says, "Based on my research, the spirit appears to be virtual vibrations of vacuum energy, the soul turns out to be reflections of those virtual vibrations in time, and the self is an illusion arising from reflections of the soul in matter, appearing as the bodily senses as suggested by the Buddha. In other words, the soul is a virtual process and not an entity." He thinks that the "eternal soul" exists as one collective consciousness, and that our individual selves are lost when our body dies, like the reflection of the moon in a lake would be lost if the lake dried up.

Dr. Wolf's approach is again, theoretical and not empirical.  My major problem with his theories is that I am at a complete loss in understanding quantum physics, so I'm not sure of his basis and "proof."

Anyway, if the realities of the universe are closer to the theories of Motoyama and Wolf and the wisdom of ancient Eastern philosophies and religions, then biology is just a myth of human invention.  Which leads me to point out that all science and religion are theories we humans have invented.  But science uses all five senses to define physical reality, and religion, or spirituality, uses only one--the sense of touch, or feel, if we define that internally, as Aristotle did.  That is, the skin is not the true organ of touch, but our nervous system is, and we can assume that we can "feel" the effects of right and wrong if not the concepts of right and wrong themselves, like we feel hot and cold.  But, how would we "see" objects if we didn't have eyes?
Perception without sense organs is at the core of one last study, into which I delve with some trepidation.  Near death experiences, or NDE's.  Anecdotally, these stories have never given me cause to question my perceptions of physical reality, but I was impressed with a study published in a prestigious medical journal (The Lancet) in December 2001.

The study leader, Dr. Pim van Lommel of the Netherlands, based the study on thorough interviews as well as neurophysiological and cardiac conditions during the period of unconsciousness, which included clinical death defined by cessation of brain function as measured by electroencephalogram.  The results mirror the thoughts of Descartes, but with modern sophistication. Van Lommel asked: "What might distinguish the small percentage of patients who report an NDE from those who do not? We found that neither the duration of cardiac arrest nor the duration of unconsciousness, nor the need for intubation in complicated CPR, nor induced cardiac arrest in electrophysiological stimulation had any influence on the frequency of NDE. Neither could we find any relationship between the frequency of NDE and administered drugs, fear of death before the arrest, foreknowledge of NDE, religion or education.

"Nearly all people who have experienced an NDE lose their fear of death.  …they strongly believed in an afterlife, and their insight in what is important in life had changed: love and compassion for oneself, for others, and for nature."
During an NDE, the study found that most people describe leaving their bodies and perceiving their environment in the same way that we do with our physical body's sense organs.  They often described re-entering their bodies through the tops of their heads.  One man entered a hospital unconscious, in cardiac arrest.  A nurse removed his dentures during resuscitation.  When he recovered days later, he recognized the nurse and described where she had put his dentures.  Can we explain that materially?  Hmm, with nanotechnology, maybe, someday?  In the meantime, we should just do what we always knew was right whether we believe in the immortal soul or not: practice love and compassion for ourselves, for others, and for nature.

References

 

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