The Re-discovery Of The Soul

A few days ago I began to read a brand new medical science study about death called Erasing Death: The Science That Is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death by Dr. Sam Parnia and Josh Young (February, 2013). They tell us some very interesting things about changing views of physical death . . . and human life. For instance, up to this point many scientists have concluded that human consciousness, the mind, subjective experience, the person or simply the soul, arises from the activity of the brain. However, all the brain-based theories "do not answer the fundamental question of how thoughts and consciousness or human experience may arise from the activity of neurons."

The authors go on to make a most important point about how thoughts, feelings, emotions and what makes us into who we are arises.

This limitation of all the theories has led to the suggestion that human consciousness or the soul may in fact be an irreducible scientific entity in its own right, similar to many of the concepts in physics such as mass and gravity, which are also irreducible entities. —Kindle location 2785 

They go on to speak about the views of Nobel Prize winner Sir John Eccles, considered by many to be one of the greatest neuroscientists in the world.  The whole of Eccles' philosophical thought has been brought together in a book entitled Facing Reality published by Springer in the Heidelberg Science Library (1970).

Eccles' "view was that the mind, consciousness, or soul itself played an active role in selecting and integrating brain cell activity and molded it into a unified whole. . . He thought of the brain as an "instrument that provides the conscious self or person with the lines of communication from and to the external world" and that "does this by receiving information through the immense sensory system of the millions of nerve fibre that fire impulses to the brain, where it is processed into coded patterns of information that we read out from moment to moment in deriving all our experiences—or perceptions, thoughts, ideas and memories. . . 

Therefore, in (Eccles') view, the brain is an instrument that relays information to and from both the internal and external worlds, but consciousness  or the soul is a separate and subtle scientific entity that interacts directly with it. Furthermore, as the human soul or consciousness is a separate yet entirely real entity that determines the true reality of a person, it continues to exist after death. Therefore, when one dies, one is left with the same level of knowledge, understanding and perception as on earth. This is why people with actual-death or near-death experiences may interpret what they see based on their own level of education and thought. Thus, the level of perception of reality that exists after death is directly proportional to that acquired on earth. —Kindle location 2811-12

The authors describe how modern medical  technology is able to restore human life many hours after brain and heart activity has ceased. These new discoveries suggest that medical doctors must be very cautious about declaring a person dead ! This information also has some far reaching implications for the so-called harvesting of organs from people who have died.

If this question interests you as much as it does me, I can only urge you to read the book. In my next posts I will explore further what the Bible says about the soul and suggest that theologians and medical scientists must carry on with an even more extensive dialog about human existence as both body and soul.