Is it Still Possible to Speak of the Soul?

Ward asks, does science allow for the possibility of life after death? He defines in this chapter the meaning of a human person. We are composed of two bodies: the material body (the flesh, blood, bones, etc.) and the spiritual body. The spiritual body, or the soul, can only be defined with negatives. It is not the material body. It is not seen and cannot be defined in a certain realm. What, then, is a soul? In a relgious sense, it is what transcends our body after death. Those that believe in reincarnation believe that the soul is moved from body to body and, when they reach moksha, their souls are united with the gods.

The main question posed here is, we always speak of the soul as if it is part of our makeup, but can we really define that as part of human person? Science originally pointed toward the negative. We cannot find our soul anywhere in our body, therefore it does not exist. "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," Ward writes (143). According to prior thought, believing that such parts of our nature are spiritual and transcendent is bizarre because there is really no existing basis to prove so. Lately, though, scientists have been warming up to the idea of a soul through proof of the existence of a conscience in brain wave activity.

Ward then addresses artificial intelligence in both a religious and secular point of view. We are very close in mimicking the human person with a computer. The only thing that computer lacks is a conscience. Some may argue for technological superiority: A computer can do everything we can do, but does not have a conscience, therefore, we are not conscious beings. Ward seems to argue a different perspective: We are conscious beings and we are making the computers to be just like us, so we must give them a conscience. To me, the whole idea of artificial intelligence is odd. Why should we try to make something just like us when God put humans on the earth to rule over it and live in his name. Is it possible for robots to have feelings, beliefs, or spirituality? If they have a conscience, I guess they could, but how can we know if the conscience is transcendent? The spiritual being is something of HUMAN nature, and I think human nature is where it will stay. Trying to create something as great or greater than us will only bring us failure as human beings.