Expert: Marco - 5/2/2006

Question
Hi Marco,

First off want to say that I was raised Catholic and do try to practice, though I have been steadily loosing faith for the past few years. I guess I am a "doubting Thomas" or agnostic or whatever you want to call it. Anyway, I read your essay with a lot of interest hoping it would clear stuff up for me and I am here to challenge you. Hopefully your answer will help me gain my faith back.

In your essay, you do a very good job of convincing that a soul exists by the fact that atoms cannot think or feel on their own. Thus consciousness is your soul and is linked very closely to the physical body. I like this idea but I think there is a large flaw in your reasoning that makes your whole theory collapse. As Catholics, from what I can remember, we believe that animals do not have souls. I think you've tried to prove this by saying that we can duplicate them with machines and there is no way to measure that they have a conscience. Am I correct? You are saying they are biological robots.

That case being, how can you possibly say that we as humans are not biological robots? Like you said, we cannot measure consciousness. How are we not in the same category of animals? I'm sure if enough man hours were spent they could accurately program a robot to be human. You can't measure consciousness, so if you had a mechanical robot act exactly human then does it have a soul?

And what about mentally challenged humans who can't reason well? Do they have defective souls? Or is their consciousness just subdued by their physical body? If that is the case then we can simulate with machines - does that mean those machines have subdued souls?

And what about animals like Koko the ape that was taught sign language and expressed the need to own a cat as a pet and even adopted and cared for a cat? I don't think biological robots who lack emotion and feelings can express something like that. And what about the feeling that drives all animals - hunger. Do you not think they are consciously feeling that? What about beaten animals who are frightened of anything?

I am not some animal lover or anything but this is a loophole that I think you need to address. Animals can think and feel like humans only on a lower level. Humans can be born as "unconscious" as animals. You can't prove that they have consciousness but you can't prove they don't - same as humans.

If consciousness is a soul then animals, at least some of the higher order animals, have souls. If animals have souls then what determines if they go to heaven or not? Does this disprove the existence of God and heaven? Are we all biological robots?

PS - What is your scientific take on heaven?  

Answer
Dear David,

you write:

"That case being, how can you possibly say that we as humans are not biological robots? Like you said, we cannot measure consciousness. How are we not in the same category of animals? I'm sure if enough man hours were spent they could accurately program a robot to be human. You can't measure consciousness, so if you had a mechanical robot act exactly human then does it have a soul? "

The point is that I directly FEEL the existence of my consciosness. This is the more direct and absolute proof that may exist; my direct experience. I know I am conscious.
As a famous phylosopher Cartesium wrote "Cogito ergo sum" (I think therefore I am).
The existence of my own consciousness is directly proved by my direct experience, so I know that I am not a biological robot.
So every person can use my arguments to prove to himself the existence of his own soul. My argument is purely subjective.

"And what about mentally challenged humans who can't reason well? Do they have defective souls? Or is their consciousness just subdued by their physical body? If that is the case then we can simulate with machines - does that mean those machines have subdued souls?"

I see no sense in your last question. Machines has been designed on the basis of the laws of physics, and consequently they cannot have any soul.

"And what about animals like Koko the ape that was taught sign language and expressed the need to own a cat as a pet and even adopted and cared for a cat? I don't think biological robots who lack emotion and feelings can express something like that."

A robot can be programmed to simulate emotions. The behavior of animals like Koko can be easily explained with the fact that such animals lived together with humans and tend to imitate humans. A robot may be programmed to imitate the behaviors of others.


"And what about the feeling that drives all animals - hunger. Do you not think they are consciously feeling that? What about beaten animals who are frightened of anything? "

I think that animals are only biological robot and therefore they feel no sensations and no emotions at all.
However I am not trying to prove that animals feel nothing.
I am simply saying that you cannot prove that animals really feel emotions, etc.
Your interpretation of animals' behaviour is arbitrary from a logical point of view.
The hypotesis that animals are only biological robot unable to feel anything is perfectly consistent from a logical and scientific point of view.

However, the Catholic Church has never said that animals have no kind of soul. The Church only teaches that animals have no IMMORTAL and RATIONAL soul. Many catholic theologians believe that animals have some kind of soul, but their soul has a different nature from ours, because their soul is irrational and mortal.

I hope this may help you.
I suggest you to read also my second argument proving the existence of God, the one about the conceptual nature of the laws of physics.

Your brother in Christ,

Marco