Simon Evans

What does science say about souls?

  • From Spectator Life

Until the mid 19th Century, most of us believed that we had a soul. It was what separated us from the animals. This belief could be modified to accommodate slavery, Malthusian economics and to allow dogs into Heaven, but the principle was pretty stable.

A hundred years later, thanks largely to Darwin, and innovations such as quantum mechanics and Auschwitz, such a view seemed childlike, romantic, or in the case of the Clergy, downright dogged. The ‘soul’ became just another invention of the under-informed, over-excited primitive imagination, like faeries, Valhalla and insidious whispering serpents. We have Science now.

Yet ask a scientist to explain consciousness, the thing it feels like to be, the is-ness of us – the approved proxy for the soul – and it quickly becomes apparent that the problem has been shelved, rather than solved.

‘Fine!’ we cry, ‘We reject God, superstition, the demon-haunted world. What have you got to go in the hole?’ And Science shrugs, as if the central mystery of existence is no more important than an eccentric taste in socks.

Some speak in terms of an ’emergent phenomenon’ as if that explained anything, beyond denying that it was planted by the Almighty, or a malevolent Demiurge. Some dispute that there is a ‘self’, without explaining the nature of whatever it is that is wearing its mask. There are plenty of debates about the possibility of free will, or whether the conscious rider is dominated by a sub-conscious elephant. But quite how mind emerges from matter, we are no closer to grasping.

The only acknowledgement that the issue is stubborn, is to refer to it as The Hard Problem – and to warn young academics not to get too bogged down in it, if they want to sit at the top table.

Happily, a few still engage, cautiously. Nick Chater’s The Mind is Flat, is a patient and convincing explanation of his thesis that ‘depth’ in our thoughts is a flattering deception.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in