A little while back I had a very interesting, yet very speculative, discussion with a friend about the interaction between body and soul. He suggested that despite the fact that the soul would by definition be immaterial, if it is responsible for our personality, thoughts and emotions, we ought to be able through scientific examination(at least in theory) to observe the point or points at which the soul would interact with the brain, cells, etc. Descartes suggested, I believe, a penial gland, though I’m not familiar with his argument, and I think it is generally not accepted as plausible. As I thought through this a little more I think that the problem with getting a scientific observation here is that scientific examination could not confirm that any given point in the body or brain is the point at which the soul interacts because it would probably manifest itself as a change or adjustment whose cause cannot be immediately identified. Science, however, would not assume or even speculate that this is caused by an immortal soul, instead it would assume that it is a cause which we simply do not understand yet, and would formulate some material theory, even if no material theory could actually fit the facts. Because of this, I don’t think that scientists could ever really consider the possibility of an immaterial soul interacting with the body on some level.
One possible solution to this problem could be in the uncertainty principle, though I don’t know the theory behind this very well so it may not be applicable. Chris, any thoughts? Or anyone else?
