What is a soul? What is life? The Bible says that humans are
created in the image of God. I don’t think the writers of the Bible were
speaking of the flesh and blood physical image, but rather the consciousness
and/or soul of humans. I believe that when we speak of a human life we are
mainly speaking of human consciousness rather than the physiologic functioning
of the various tissues and organs that make up a human being. In the art and
science of Medicine, we have a term “brain dead.” Brain dead means the brain
has stopped functioning and the person has permanently lost all consciousness,
but the heart continues to pump blood, the lungs continue to breath, and some
form of food and water can be brought to the body intravenously. In other
words, the machinery of the body continues to function unconsciously (usually aided
by artificial support). In my opinion this is no longer a human being in the
image of God but rather a left over support machine on loan from God. So for us
humans, consciousness is the life which we care about. The rest is just needed
to support consciousness.
Then what is a soul? I think of a soul as a human
consciousness plus all the accomplishments of that consciousness. Those
accomplishments might include all the words spoken or written or in any way
communicated to others, all the physical creations of that person (directed by
the consciousness), the children and future generations descended from that
person. I am sure there are also other types of accomplishments. When the
consciousness dies, the accomplishments part of the soul live on at least for a
while. But you can also say that the consciousness and its accomplishments have
made an imprint on the history of existence, and that history has occurred even
when all consciousness and the physical universe have expired.
Now in the age of computers and artificial intelligence
it has become apparent that computers can appear to think the way flesh and
blood humans can. This brings up the idea that perhaps one day scientists will
figure out what it is that makes consciousness occur and how to artificially
create and reproduce consciousness. Perhaps one day artificial consciousness
will make flesh and blood consciousness irrelevant. Perhaps humans will figure
out how to create consciousness that will last forever and how to control time
and space in which those conscious humans can live. Perhaps scientists will
even figure out how to look into the past and recreate the consciousness of
those of us who have already departed. It all sounds impossible, but think of
what a person centuries ago would think of the science of the world of today.
To a believer in fundamentalist religion, this might all
sound like heresy. But I think rather it is perfectly consistent with religion
and belief in God. It is what religion strives for. It fits with the ideas of
the Bible because the authors of the Bible were intelligent humans who looked
at existence with what was available to them in their time, just as scientists and
other rational people of today view existence with the tools available to them,
and future people will do the same with their as yet unimagined tools. In that
way, humans might some day create the time of the Messiah.
