From Particles to Angels

This is the eleventh article in the series From Particles to Angels . If you are interested in this article you should read the previous articles in the series in order, beginning with the first ( On Happiness ). Causal Closure:  The idea that body and mind are two different things is often referred to as "Cartesian dualism". The ancient philosophers did not seem to have a very clear idea of consciousness. Their interest in the soul mainly revolved around accounting for the ability to move spontaneously, and to react to stimuli. The first really clear description of the subjective experience of conscious being was in the works of Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650), so that dualists mainly credit, and physicalists mainly blame Descartes for the mind/body split in philosophy. In movies like "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" the soul/spirit is portrayed as a glowing translucent copy of the physical body. In out of body experiences, astral travel and near death experi...

This is the tenth article in the series From Particles to Angels . If you are interested in this article you should read the previous articles in the series in order, beginning with the first ( On Happiness ). In the article The Origin of Religion we considered how the human being could be considered to be a biological machine driven by deterministic causes, so that there seems to be no place for the soul. In this article and its sequel then, we consider that assertion; that is, we consider the place of the human soul in nature. We consider the subject by means of the following three loosely formulated assertions, and using a series of short, illustrative vignettes. In the absence of consciousness there is no such thing as a unity anywhere in nature. Consciousness is not a shape. Everything else is a shape. Wholes A tired man in a suit stands on the railway platform in the noisy subway, waiting to go home. He stares blankly at a large poster on the wall, opposite the tra...