Astonishing Indeed!

Very, very interesting... And very depressing yet, surprisingly reasonable. The Astonishing Hypothesis: man has no soul, no spiritual self outside of his physical frame. I have never heard anyone propose this theory before and while it is, as I said, a depressing, even crushing notion, it is unfortunately probably the closest to the truth of any of the papers regarding consciousness that we have read. I guess, like Crick, I am a materialist, interested in things that can be grounded in the observable world. I also know, however that if I try to share these ideas with my acquaintances, I will probably not have very many friends left. It is definitely a hard concept to accept, regardless of the logic behind it, and I think most people would rather hold on to the dream (and ego) of the image of some transcendent soul that exists without our body and houses our deepest thoughts and our 'true self' than accept the fact . As Crick says, part of the brain [wants to] jump to the simplest conclusion- but not simplest by means of common sense, simplest as the easiest to handle. The idea that there is nothing outside of our physical body is almost as insulting to some people as the idea that there is no God outside of ourselves. God and the soul were defense mechanisms created within our own minds in order to give us meaning, purpose and a way to explain things that are outside of our immediate understanding. Now that neuroscience is beginning to break down the brain and understand what makes it tick, it is getting harder to deny the fact that we are what we are and anything else is nice to dream up but in no way based on rational science.