The Problem of Unconsciousness
======================================== The Problem of
Unconsciousness Author: Peter M.K. Chan This is one of the
problems raised in my book titled Soul, God, and Morality
against the belief in the persistence of persons as souls in a
spiritual hereafter. All rights reserved
========================================
Does it take a soul to have a mind? In this short article, I
shall refer to those who believe that it is so as soul
theorists. I shall contend that this belief is actually
vulnerable to a couple of commonsensical facts that have largely
been ignored. It is that if human consciousness and memory were
really carried by the soul rather than the body-brain, two
troublesome questions in particular would have to be addressed.
(1) Why should anyone become temporarily unconscious when the
body-brain is made to suffer a severe blow or is put under
general anaesthesia? (2) Why should anyone fail to remember
his/her own past when he/she gets too old or after having
suffered certain injuries to the brain?
Of the first question, it has always been a second nature of
sorts to assume that if it is a fact that a tired body is
usually accompanied by a tired mind, and if there is no problem
in accepting that a sleeping body is also indicative of a
sleeping soul, it should also goes without saying that when the
body blacks out, so should its soul. Reasonable as this way of
reasoning may seem, let me say that the question has not really
been answered. The question is: if it is the soul that carries
one