He took up the ordinary argument against the immortality of
the soul, which, starting from the accepted physiological and
psychological formula, "Thought is a function of the brain," reasons
that therefore when the brain dies and decays, thought and consciousness
die, too.
This, then, is the objection to immortality; and the next thing in
order for me is to try to make plain to you why I believe that it has in
strict logic no deterrent power. I must show you that the fatal
consequence is not coercive, as is commonly imagined; and that, even
though our soul's life (as here below it is revealed to us) may be in
literal strictness the function of a brain that perishes, yet it is not
at all impossible, but on the contrary quite possible, that the life may
still continue when the brain itself is dead.
The supposed impossibility of its continuing comes from too superficial
a look at the admitted fact of functional dependence. The moment we
inquire more closely into the notion of functional dependence, and ask
ourselves, for example, how many kinds of functional dependence there
may be, we immediately perceive that there is one kind at least that
does not exclude a life hereafter at all. The fatal conclusion of the
physiologist flows from his assuming offhand another kind of functional
dependence, and treating it as the only imaginable kind.
Pages:
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186