Unit 16 Critical Thinking

 

What Is the Soul?

Before you read

a. Which one do you think is primary: body or soul? Why?

b. “A circle has no beginning”? Do you agree or disagree with the statement?

Explain.

Now read the following essay about the existence of the soul in the materialist

world.

One of the most painful circumstances of recent advances in science is that each one

makes us know less than we thought we did. When I was young we all knew, or

thought we knew, that a man consists of a soul and a body; that the body is in time and

space, but the soul is in time only. Whether the soul survives death was a matter as to

which opinions might differ, but that there is a soul was thought to be indubitable. As

for the body, the plain man of course considered its existence self-evident, and so did

the man of science, but the philosopher was apt to analyse it away after one fashion

or another, reducing it usually to ideas in the mind of the man who had the body and

anybody else who happened to notice him. The philosopher, however, was not taken

seriously, and science remained comfortably materialistic, even in the hands of quite

orthodox scientists.

Nowadays these fine old simplicities are lost: physicists assure us that there is no such

thing as matter, and psychologists assure us that there is no such thing as mind. This

is an unprecedented occurrence. Who ever heard of a cobbler saying that there was

no such thing as boots, or a tailor maintaining that all men are really naked? Yet that

would have been no odder than what physicists and certain psychologists have been

doing. To begin with the latter, some of them attempt to reduce everything that seems

to be mental activity to an activity of the body. There are, however, various difficulties

in the way of reducing mental activity to physical activity. I do not think we can yet

say with any assurance whether these difficulties are or are not insuperable. What we

can say, on the basis of physics itself, is that what we have hitherto called our body is

really an elaborate scientific construction not corresponding to any physical reality.

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The modern would-be materialist thus finds himself in a curious position, for, while

he may with a certain degree of success reduce the activities of the mind to those of

the body, he cannot explain away the fact that the body itself is merely a convenient

concept invented by the mind. We find ourselves thus going round and round in a

circle: mind is an emanation of body, and body is an invention of mind. Evidently this

cannot be quite right, and we have to look for something that is neither mind nor body,

out which both can spring.

Let us begin with the body. The plain man thinks that material objects must certainly

exist, since they are evident to the senses. Whatever else may be doubted, it is certain

that anything you can bump into must be real; this is the plain man's metaphysic. This

is all very well, but the physicist comes along and shows that you never bump into

anything: even when you run your hand along a stone wall, you do not really touch

it. When you think you touch a thing, there are certain electrons and protons, forming

part of your body, which are attracted and repelled by certain electrons and protons in

the thing you think you are touching, but there is no actual contact. The electrons and

protons in your body, becoming agitated by nearness to the other electrons and protons

are disturbed, and transmit a disturbance along your nerves to the brain; the effect in

the brain is what is necessary to your sensation of contact, and by suitable experiments

this sensation can be made quite deceptive. The electrons and protons themselves,

however, are only crude first approximations, a way of collecting into a bundle either

trains of waves or the statistical probabilities of various different kinds of events. Thus

matter has become altogether too ghostly to be used as an adequate stick with which

to beat the mind. Matter in motion, which used to seem so unquestionable, turns out to

be a concept quite inadequate for the needs of physics.

Nevertheless modern science gives no indication whatever of the existence of the soul

or mind as an entity; indeed the reasons for disbelieving in it are very much of the

same kind as the reasons for disbelieving in matter. Mind and matter were something

like the lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown; the end of the battle is not the

victory of one or the other, but the discovery that both are only heraldic inventions. The

world consists of events, not of things that endure for a long time and have changing

properties. Events can be collected into groups by their causal relations. If the causal

relations are of one sort, the resulting group of events may be called a physical object,

and if the causal relations are of another sort, the resulting group may be called a

mind. Any event that occurs inside a man's head will belong to groups of both kinds;

considered as belonging to a group of one kind, it is a constituent of his brain, and

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considered as belonging to a group of the other kind, it is a constituent of his mind.

Thus, both mind and matter are merely convenient ways of organizing events. There can

be no reason for supposing that either a piece of mind or a piece of matter is immortal.

The sun is supposed to be losing matter at the rate of millions of tons a minute. The

most essential characteristic of mind is memory, and there is no reason whatever to

suppose that the memory associated with a given person survives that person's death.

Indeed there is every reason to think the opposite, for memory is clearly connected with

a certain kind of brain structure, and since this structure decays at death, there is every

reason to suppose that memory also must cease. Although metaphysical materialism

cannot be considered true, yet emotionally the world is pretty much the same as I

would be if the materialists were in the right. I think the opponents of materialism have

always been actuated by two main desires: the first to prove that the mind is immortal,

and the second to prove that the ultimate power in the universe is mental rather than

physical. In both these respects, I think the materialists were in the right. Our desires,

it is true, have considerable power on the earth's surface; the greater part of the land

on this planet has a quite different aspect from that which it would have if men had not

utilized it to extract food and wealth. But our power is very strictly limited. We cannot

at present do anything whatever to the sun or moon or even to the interior of the earth,

and there is not the faintest reason to suppose that what happens in regions to which

our power does not extend has any mental causes. That is to say, to put the matter in a

nutshell, there is no reason to think that except on the earth's surface anything happens

because somebody wishes it to happen. And since our power on the earth's surface is

entirely dependent upon the sun, we could hardly realize any of our wishes if the sun

grew could. It is of course rash to dogmatize as to what science may achieve in the

future. We may learn to prolong human existence longer than now seems possible,

but if there is any truth in modern physics, more particularly in the second law of

thermodynamics, we cannot hope that the human race will continue forever. Some

people may find this conclusion gloomy, but if we are honest with ourselves, we shall

have to admit that what is going to happen many millions of years hence has no very

great emotional interest for us here and now. And science, while it diminishes our

cosmic pretensions, enormously increases our terrestrial comfort. That is why, in spite

of the horror of the theologians, science has on the whole been tolerated.

Bertrand Russell

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Ways with words

A. The words in the crossword puzzle are from the text. Find them from

the text to solve the puzzle based on the meaning clues given below.

Across Down

3. emergence or origination 1. unquestionable, impossible to doubt

5. impossible to achieve or overcom 2. never done or known before

7. appropriate or suitable 4. obviously or clearly

8. force back 6. moved with a violent, irregular action

10. up to now 9. conservative

Answer

1. unquestionable, impossible to doubt- indubitable

2. never done or known before- unprecedented

3. emergence or origination - emanation

4. obviously or clearly- evidently

5. impossible to achieve or overcome- insuperable

6. moved with a violent, irregular action- agitated

7. appropriate or suitable- apt

8. force back- repel

9. conservative- orthodox

10. up to now – hitherto

B. Find the words from the text that mean the following. The first letter

is given.

a. misleading or illusionary (deceptive)

b. in a natural state; not yet processed or refined (crude)

c. a mystical horse like animal with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead (unicorn)

d.never dying or decaying (immortal)

e. come to an end; stop (cease)

df. to activate or put into motion (actuate)

Comprehension

Answer these questions.

a. What’s the difference between the body and the soul?

The body is in time and space, but the soul is in time only.

b. What do you understand by the psychologists’ saying that there is no such

thing as mind?

Psychologists believe that there is no existence of the mind. The mind doesn't subsist in the body. It is one of the fine old simplicities. It attempts to reduce everything that seems the mental activity to an activity of the body. 

c. How can a mental activity be reduced to a physical activity?

A modern materialist with a certain degree of his success a mental activity can be reduced to a physical activity.

d. How are mind and body related?

Mind and body are related as they are merely convenient ways of organizing events. (group of events may be called a physical object).  There can be no reason for supposing that either a piece of mind or a piece of matter is immortal.

e. What is the relation between mind and memory? Does memory survive a

person's death?

The most essential characteristic of the mind is memory. No, memory doesn't survive a person's death. Memory is clearly connected with a certain kind of brain structure, and since this structure decays at death memory also must cease

f. How is our power on the earth's surface entirely dependent upon the sun?

Our power on the earth's surface is entirely dependent upon the sun as it keeps the earth warm. Both the food and wealth are extracted from the earth with the help of the sun. It gives energy to the growing green plants that provide the food and oxygen for life on Earth.

A. Rewrite the following sentences using ‘used to’. You can make an affirmative/ negative statement or a question.

a. I/live in a flat when I was a child.

I used to live in a flat when I was a child

b. She/love eating chocolate but now she hates it.

She used to love eating chocolate but now she hates it.

c. He/go to fishing in the summer?

Did he use to go fishing in the summer?

d. My sister/play tennis when she was at school.

My sister used to play tennis when she was at school.

e. He/play football every weekend?

Did he use to play football every weekend?

f. My grandfather/speak five languages.

My grandfather used to speak five languages.

g. I/not hate school from the beginning.

I did not use to hate school from the beginning.

h. You/live in Kathmandu?

Did you use to live in Kathmandu?

i. He/play Dandibiyo when he was a small child.

He used to play Dandibiyo when he was a small child.

j. She/wear a frock when she was small but nowadays she wears jeans.

She used to wear a frock when she was small but nowadays she wears jeans.