According to simple dualism, our immaterial souls are the bearers of our mental states and we are these souls. We have bodies, but the bodies are not parts of us. We are wholly immaterial.
I think the relationship between body and soul is analogous to the nature/nurture dynamic. Our nature, both in terms of our generic human nature as well as our individual character traits, constitute our core identity. And that's like the soul. We can survive without the body but we can't survive without the soul. The soul is a synonym for our minds, stocked with memories.
But although the soul is the bearer or repository of memory, it's not the source of memory. The source of memory is typically embodied experience.
Nurture modifies nature. Although nature isn't a blank slate, there are different ways we might turn out, depending on differing experiences. Although experiences are fed into the soul, they don't originate in the soul.
Moreover, we are, by design, engineered to function as embodied agents. That's the native medium of the soul.
To take another comparison: memories are a key feature of personal identity, yet that's a matter of degree. Up to a point we can add or lose memories without ceasing to be the same individual. But a memory wipe would reset the kind of person you are.
By the same token, we can lose our bodies but still exist. Yet the content of the soul is in part the end-result of embodied experience. Of memories and formative influences.
To take one more illustration: suppose you're a brain in a vat with minimal external stimulus. Say you can perceive the outside world, but you can't interact with the outside world. It goes one way. You're only on the receiving end. That's frustrating–even maddening. More realistically, it's like a severely disabled person whose mind and senses are intact, but they are imprisoned in a dysfunctional body. They can't communicate with others or act on their environment.
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ReplyDelete“Thus, strictly speaking, biologists don’t primarily study dogs and octopuses but rather their bodies, and we have never seen any higher animal.”