The soul exists for two reasons: 1. To explain why the human experience is that of a single entity (which we call consciousness). 2. To explain how people can carry on after death despite not having a working physical body. Besides these two things, the soul tells us precisely nothing. We cannot predict what should be true given a soul or given no soul, which makes it completely unfalsifiable. If I said that an alien is controlling your body from a fourth spatial dimension, it’s functionally equivalent. Plus, naturalism can explain point 1. It’s called emergence. If we assume that the universe is Turing-Complete, it can give rise to any other computable system given enough memory. But in the physical world, memory is proportional to how much physical space we are viewing. Therefore, we expect that if we zoom out, we should observe novel behaviours. This is why molecules can have different behaviours on large scales. In particular, just because brains are neurons and chemicals does not exempt them from doing spectacular things. Our experience of life may appear singular, but that’s just for convenience. We know that people can develop split personalities, and we can affect behaviour in other, purely physical ways. If this is true, it means that point 2 is irrelevant. Either God reconstructs our physical bodies in the afterlife or (since it’s unfalsifiable) the afterlife is also just made up. A reminder that Jesus was supposed to establish a physical kingdom of Israel and that Sheol was not the same as Hell.
I didn't think this was a very good interview. Here's why: • Very little of the interview was dedicated to discussing JP's book • Too much reminiscing; reminisce off air or keep it brief because we only had an hour here • Off-topic too many times, like when Greg spoke about spiritual formation and virtue formation. Talk about the book! • More should have been discussed about what new ground (if any) was broken in this book. • What is the state of substance dualism? • What has been the reaction to the book from Christians and non-Christians? It's Talbot School of Theology, not Talbot University (and Greg attended Talbot)
40:18 "They have 10% of a brain." - OK, so remove 100% of the brain. J.P. gave the definition of the soul at 26:18 as, "An immaterial thing that contains consciousness and animates the body." So you should be able to remove 100% of the brain and the person will continue being conscious and animated. 45:40 "Imagine your mother, what colour blouse is she wearing, where was that? If I opened your brain your mom wouldn't be there." - It was encoded in your neurons. It's like if you had a video of your mom on your computer and you opened up the computer and opened up the RAM chips and the SSD and said, "Your mom isn't in these computer chips." Yeah, right, the information is encoded in the computer and in the neurons of the brain.
1 - It's important not to misrepresent or strawman. He doesn't say the brain is not involved or needed for the functioning of the body. Your objection only works if he believes it isn't. 2 - Perhaps you missed what he was saying. He wasn't talking about where the information is stored. He's talking about phenomenological experience. You experienced blue in the picturing of your mom's dress. There was a subjective experiencing of something that was not physically there. I'd recommend reading Thomas Nagel's "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" if you haven't already. It might help in appreciating what those sorts of discussions and arguments are wrestling with.
