Souls

The Merman's Children.

I was taught that intellect and will were the two faculties of immaterial, immortal souls. Thus, animals were merely material organisms, unable either to reason or to make morally relevant decisions. It follows from this that, if merfolk are able both to reason and to act either rightly or wrongly, then each merperson already has a soul and does not need to go through any process or procedure in order to acquire one. But we have to recognize that people have believed many different things about such matters. Greek souls were rational. Indian souls are trans-rational. St Paul wrote not about souls surviving bodies but about spiritual bodies rising from buried physical bodies like plants rising from buried seeds.

CS Lewis and others, including my former self, have argued that movements of atoms in brains cannot constitute knowledge of the world. They cannot. It follows from this that our mental processes are something more and other than movements of atoms in our brains. We can either try to understand such processes or regard them as the last gasp of the God of the gaps. I accept souls as a premise in some fiction but nothing more.

The Wersgorix And Souls

Poul Anderson, The High Crusade, CHAPTER IV.

Brother Parvus' problems:

if the Wersgorix have souls, then it is the Christians' duty to try to convert them;

if they do not have souls, then it is blasphemous to administer sacraments to them although provisional baptism can be given if requested;

an authoritative definition of doctrine is required;

when asked whether he has a soul, Brantithar replies only that scientists lack sufficient data to answer the question whether personality is a pattern that can be transferred to another matrix.

Such a pattern would not be a soul. Parvus acknowledges that the Wersgorix can reason. I was taught, although I no longer believe this, that the soul comprised precisely the combination of intellect/reason and will. If this were true, then it would follow that the Wersgorix have souls. However, in Anderson's The Merman's Children, medieval Catholics believe that merpeople can reason yet lack souls.

Aliens And Souls

In Poul Anderson's The Merman's Children, merfolk are rational beings without souls because this novel is a historical fantasy based on medieval Catholicism.

In Anderson's The High Crusade, space-traveling medieval Christians convert aliens to the Faith and take this as proof that these beings do have souls.

In Anderson's Planet Of No Return (London, 1971), Thornton, a Dissenter, wondering whether to kill the alien "Rorvan," thinks:

"...the Rorvan were not human; the Noachian dominies doubted that any aliens even had souls, and in all events they were surely heathen..." (p. 82)

(To kill mere heathens would be a lesser evil, of course.) This is another example of Poul Anderson considering every possibility or, at least in this case, allowing his characters to consider them. I was indoctrinated in the belief that intellect and will were the two faculties of an immaterial soul. Therefore, by definition, any animal capable of thought and volition has a soul so the dominies must have some other definition of "soul."

Later:

"...some sick corner of [Thornton] laughed and said that maybe the Almighty was tired of man, maybe these were his new chosen people who would scourge a sinful humanity out of creation and down into hell." (p. 85)

Thornton himself recognizes this speculation as "sick" but, nevertheless, it shows how his mind works. We know that he does see God as punishing populations by visiting wars upon them. God "tired of man" at the Flood. It is possible that a bad experience in space would send a deranged Thornton back to the Solar System preaching that God has now chosen the Rorvan and disowned humanity.

Later again, Thornton, grateful that the Rorvan have not killed but rescued him:

"...was now brooding over the theological problem of whether or not they had souls; he felt they did, but how to prove it?" (p. 88)

Convert them to Reformism? He needs to establish communication with the Rorvan in order to find out what they believe, if indeed their inner processes include what we call "belief," then to compare the Rorvan beliefs/ideas/opinions/theories with human worldviews. Instead, he merely speculates within the limits of his own preconceptions. Fortunately, he is the only Dissenter on the expedition.

Again Souls

"The Master Key."

There is already a lot about Souls on this blog.

When Per Stenvik asks whether Cainites lack souls, van Rijn replies:

"'We leave that to the theologians... They get paid to decide.'" (p. 291)

Theologians decide for their co-religionists but not for the rest of us! I consult philosophers, not theologians. But religious traditions change. I was taught that revealed theology was preceded by natural theology which was a branch of philosophy. Natural theologians reasoned to the conclusion that intellect and will are faculties of immaterial souls which exist in human beings but not in animals, still less in any human artefacts. If this were true, then Cainite intellect and will would already entail Cainite souls. 

Nowadays, I think that the main philosophical distinction is between conscious and unconscious states of being. Animals, of course, are conscious - although Cartesian body-soul dualists deny this. Naturally selected organismic sensitivity to environmental alterations quantitatively increased until it was qualitatively transformed into conscious sensation. Cooperative action on the environment led to communication and thought about the environment. Thus, a materialist explanation of mental processes is more sophisticated than an impossible leap from physics to psychology. 

Souls

Poul Anderson's composite Didonians are one intelligent species who are constitutionally incapable of believing that they possess immortal souls. They already know that each individual consciousness is transient and that it has three constituents that can be combined with others to form consciousnesses with overlapping memories. Anderson's Ythrians of the New Faith believe that what matters is how they die, not that anything happens afterwards.

One of Niven's and Pournelle's Moties says that some Moties believe in souls and that others do not:

"'Like humans, Moties do not care to think their lives are purposeless. Or that they can and will be terminated.'"
-Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, The Mote In God's Eye (London, 1979), p. 79.

I think we are told that, in one Motie religion, an individual's soul is divided between her descendants? (Addendum: This is confirmed on p. 493 but it had first been mentioned earlier.)

As I understand it, what happened in human religion was this -

(i) We seem to leave the body and sometimes meet (dream about) the dead temporarily in sleep - therefore permanently in death. However, souls in Hades, Hel or Sheol were merely conscious of not being alive. This lingering on was unpleasant but unavoidable.

(ii) When society divided into classes, social stratification was projected into the hereafter: warriors in Valhalla and drowned sailors in Aegir's hall but everyone else in Hel.

(iii) Rightings of wrongs and social reversals in the hereafter. Thus, a happy hereafter for the righteous was a third and later stage of ideas about survival after death.

Souls

Poul Anderson, Planet Of No Return, Chapter 13.

"The Martian was now brooding over the theological problem of whether the [Rorvan] had souls; he felt they did, but how to prove it?" (p. 88)

How can he prove that human beings have souls? He probably accepts this as revealed. However, Biblical immortality is the resurrection of the body, not the survival of a soul. That is the Platonic concept, later adopted by Christianity. Greek philosophers laughed at St Paul when he preached a bodily resurrection.

When I first read Poul Anderson, I had been taught to believe in mind-body dualism and to identify mind with soul. Thus, I would have said that the Rorvan reason, therefore they have minds which are souls. Now I think that neuronic interactions generate consciousness and thought. There are qualitative differences between subjectively experienced mental states and objectively observed cerebral states just as there are between colors and electromagnetic wavelengths. Hegel argued that quantitative changes become qualitative.

Immortality

(Socrates drinks the hemlock while arguing for the immortality of the soul.)

We have discussed immortality here. In this post, I will try to summarize the subject.

Jainism/Samkhya-Yoga:
reincarnating souls transcending intellect.

Greek philosophy:
reincarnating souls identical with intellect.

The New Testament:
resurrected bodies.

Christian doctrine:
resurrected bodies reunited with nonreincarnating souls identical with intellect.

My education included both Christian doctrine and philosophical arguments for the immortality of souls. I discuss the philosophy of minds and brains here. I would once have said something like:

there is a qualitative difference between, on the one hand, rational processes and, on the other hand, mechanical interactions between particles with only the quantifiable properties of mass and volume;

therefore, reason occurs not in the brain but in an immaterial, therefore immortal, mind or soul interacting with the brain.

Such arguments were attempts to rationalize my education. We do not understand brains but we do know that cerebral processes are more and other than mechanical interactions. Organism-environment interactions generated consciousness. Action on environments involved thinking about them. Somehow the brain does it.

Traditions

Let us consider three religious traditions:

Mahayana Buddhism and Jerusalem Catholicism in Poul Anderson's Technic History;

Wicca in SM Stirling's Change series.

Declares an interest: I was educated in Roman Catholicism, practise Zen within the Mahayana and am friendly with Wiccans. Buddhas and gods coexist. (I do not think that they literally "exist." We need a better verb.)

Adzel converts to the Mahayana because he encounters Terrestrial religions when he comes to Earth as a student;

Axor converts to Catholicism because missionaries of the Galilean Order teach on Woden;

a post-Change community becomes Wiccan because it is led by a Wiccan.

In each case, a tradition plays a central role. A guy in a multi-faith discussion on British radio disagreed with the emphasis that the others placed on their respective "traditions." What mattered about Christianity for him was that he believed it, not just that one of a number of traditions taught it. However, I would reply, he believed as he did either because he had been brought up in a particular tradition or because he had converted to a belief that had been transmitted to him by a tradition. Either way, he would not have been Christian without the tradition. Only a tradition can link his belief now to Christ then. Axor would not have believed that God had been incarnate on Earth if he had not encountered a tradition that taught him that - unless he received it in a vision in which case he would then found a new tradition.

In this respect, the Buddhist tradition, at least theoretically, is less necessary. Adzel, or anyone else, could do now what the Buddha did then:

reflect on life;
analyze experience;
criticize received ideas;
experiment with life styles and spiritual practices;
find value in "just sitting" meditation;
identify a psychological cause of suffering;
end that cause within himself;
teach others a way to the end of suffering;
found a monastic community.

But, in practice, how many people can do all that? Traditions save us from reinventing the wheel. A meditative tradition can come from the Buddha, Patanjali or Lao Tzu.

Wicca claims to be an ancient tradition and instead plagiarizes other traditions. Why accept its version of a "Summerland" where souls rest before reincarnation? The Buddha's analysis of mental processes made him reject the idea of a permanent soul. He taught that actions have consequences - I agree - but added that these consequences include the "rebirth" in some later organism of each present being's karmic processes. This seems to me to be an unnecessary hangover from reincarnation of souls. Platonic immortality of, originally reincarnating, souls and Biblical resurrection of the body were synthesized in Catholic doctrine: both an immediate hereafter and an eventual resurrection.

Meanwhile, let's pray if we are theists and meditate if not.

Reality

See here.

"Ultimate reality" means whatever exists at the most basic level. Thus, particles are more basic than macroscopic objects but are composed of energy which therefore is yet more basic.

One view was that discrete atoms and/or souls, which could have existed independently, happen to coexist and to interact. Thus, atoms combine as material bodies in some of which souls are incarnated. Alternatively, several "elements" accidentally coexist and interact. A subtler understanding was that opposites are not only interactive but also interdependent.

A modern understanding is (something like) that a single field of energy variously and transiently manifests itself as particles, larger structures and consciousness. Thus, an individual subject of consciousness is not an independent, immaterial, immortal soul but a transient, material organism generating consciousness by sensitively interacting with its environment. Buddhists got this idea but retained "rebirth" as a hangover from the strong Indian traditional belief in reincarnating souls.

Thus, as Poul Anderson wrote in the SFWA Bulletin, concepts of ultimately reality change, although maybe not constantly.

Species And Souls

The People Of The Wind, IX.

"...in their separate fashions [Rochefort] and Helu gave thanks; and they added a wish for the soul of Wa Chaou." (pp. 539-540)

Their fashions are Jerusalem Catholic and Muslim, respectively. Both believe in souls. Wa Chaou is their recently deceased Cynthian comrade. Cynthians are another rational species and we are not told what they believe. Of course, if rational beings have souls, then Wa Chaou has a soul whether or not he believes that he has.

Someone might convene a big interstellar, multi-species, theological conference but, in this fictional universe, it would be impossible to include everyone, there would no prospect of formulating a common creed and certainly no need to. There are at least three mutually incompatible monotheisms:

Terran (with subdivisions)

The Merseian Roidhunate

The Ythrian New Faith

Axor, a Wodenite convert to Jerusalem Catholicism, seeks the Universal Incarnation.

Everyone would continue their own practices and would be able to learn from new beings that they met. The senior lay minister in our Zen group thinks that we learn more about inter-faith dialogue just by interacting with neighbours and colleagues rather than by organizing conferences.

Souls Cast Back; Spirits Falling

"Day of Burning."

Morruchan to Falkayn:

"'If we surrendered the right and freehold they won, the God would cast back the souls of our ancestors to shriek at us.'" (p. 214)

Arjuna to Krishna:

"For the spirits of their ancestors fall, deprived of their offerings of rice and water."

-Bhagavad Gita, 1. 42.

Similar concepts. We are told almost nothing about the monotheism of the Merseian Roidhunate. Morruchan expresses the idea that souls that have gone to the God can be cast back.

The Gita is a compendium of Indian ideas. Arjuna expresses the primitive idea that the ancestors will fall if deprived of offerings. The predominant idea, of course, is that everyone is reincarnating.

T'Kelan Psychology

(Please bear with me while I discuss philosophy and religion on a Poul Anderson Appreciation blog. It is relevant.)

Human beings were active social organisms long before they became reflective individual subjects. Motivations precede morality. Immature and insensitive behavior existed long before the ability to feel any guilt about it. I think that this fact is the truth behind the myths of original sin or of karmic consequences from previous lives.

Each of us is born with baggage that is not of our choosing but I think that the baggage comes from biology and society, not from a "soul," whether created bearing original sin or transmigrating with bad karma - although "karma," meaning action and its consequences, certainly operates both in individual lives and in world history. Our origin as a species was a Darwinian ascent from animality, not a Biblical descent from innocence.

I discuss these profound issues here because that famous religious philosopher, Nicholas van Rijn, discusses them profoundly in "Territory," where he points out that our animal ancestors were arboreal herbivores before they became plains carnivores whereas t'Kelan animal ancestry was entirely carnivore. This explains otherwise puzzling t'Kelan behavior. They have more powerful killing instincts and are less gregarious:

"'Carnivores can't be. You get a big concentration of hunters in one spot, and by damn, the game goes away.'" (David Falkayn: Star Trader, New York, 2010, p. 56)

They never built nations. Individuals and small groups fight but larger groups, even when they exist, organize no wars. Prides wage no vendettas because one individual killing another is not regarded as bad. In fact, those who do not fight or own and defend territory for hunting are regarded as odd. Human beings who deny that they come to invade must be either lying or weak so van Rijn must prove his strength and courage before he can even begin to negotiate and trade. (Like PG Wodehouse's Jeeves, although in a completely different context, van Rijn has the knack of doing what looks like precisely the wrong thing, for example insulting a native leader, then turns out to have been precisely the necessary thing to do.)

"'We was animals long before we became thinkers and, uh -' van Rijn's beady eyes rolled piously ceilingward - 'and was given souls. You got to think how a race evolved before you can take them...I mean understand them.'" (p. 55)

But I think the evolution rules out the need to postulate souls. I have come to accept that van Rijn's Catholic faith is sincere - his dickering with St Dismas being merely the humorous expression of his mercantilism - but he thinks about business, leaving theologians to do what, as he says in "The Master Key," they are paid to do, for example to think about whether aliens have souls.

Souls

The Merman's Children, Book Three, XI.

"'...soulless things out of heathendom are not for Christian people to consort with, are they?'" (p. 188)

This is the end of Book Three and of posting for today. (Not before time, says you.)

The introductory Author's Note makes clear that the conceptual framework of the novel is not Thomist theology but medieval popular mythology. Nevertheless, the contradiction is so great that I have to comment. Merfolk exist. That is mythology. They are described as "soulless things." No organism is a "thing," let alone a self-conscious one. If "soul" entails self-consciousness, then the merfolk have, or are, souls.

In any case, they can reason and make decisions. Therefore, they have intellect and will which were meant to be the two faculties of the, supposedly immaterial and immortal, soul. Therefore, by that definition, they already have souls and do not need to be given them.

I now believe that unconsciousness, consciousness and self-consciousness are three qualitatively different properties or states of organisms and that self-consciousness includes intellect and will. Organisms are temporary local negative entropy composed, according to scientific evidence, of mass-energy and of nothing else.

Needless to say, I disagree both with Thomism and with medieval mythology.

In An Emulation

Poul Anderson, Genesis (New York, 2001), Part Two, V, pp. 144-146.

Gaia is an AI system.

Within this system, there is not a simulation but an emulation.

Events within the emulation are as real as those of flesh and blood.

The emulation includes persons with free will.

These persons can be harmed like those with mortal bodies.

The computer model evolves in correspondence with the evolution of the modelled world.

 
The model includes life and consciousness.

The modelled organisms sense and think.

To them, they and their world are the same as the original.

The question which is more real is meaningless.

The system can create lives, awarenesses, histories and timelines or fantasy worlds with gods and magic.

Christian Brannock, downloaded into Gaia, stands in a formal garden on a bright day with mild breezes.

I checked this because of a recent combox discussion. See here. If, which I do not believe, biological human beings have immortal souls, created by God at their conceptions, then do the persons in the emulations, some of whom will believe that they have souls, in fact also have souls?

Talking Animals

The Stars Are Also Fire, 5.

Metamorphs, organisms with altered DNA, include:

"Talking animals." (p. 64)

I was brought up to believe that that was impossible. Reason and speech required a soul, which could not be created simply by altering DNA. This body-soul dualism was presented as a revealed Christian doctrine although in fact it had been imported from Greek philosophy where it was consistent with the idea of reincarnation whereas Biblical immortality was of a resurrected body. Belief in souls was defended by philosophical arguments, not by scriptural quotations.

By cooperatively acting on their environment, our prehuman ancestors developed the abilities to speak and think about that environment. No souls need apply. It follows that altering the DNA of other animals might generate speech and thought in them.

I encountered this philosophical disagreement at primary school. Having read Robert Heinlein's Starman Jones, which features an alien animal with limited vocabulary, I remarked that, if animals were more intelligent, then we would be able to converse with them. A teacher replied that, if animals had souls, then we would be able to converse with them. Two opposed world views opened up before me as when pictures of dinosaurs and cavemen were contrasted with pictures of Adam and Eve.

Souls

Poul Anderson, Operation Chaos (New York, 1995), Chapter XXIX, pp. 223-224.

In the goetic universe:

the nature of souls is unknown;

however, valid observations have proved that they exist;

but the observations are "'...scattered and not repeatable under controlled conditions...'" (p. 224), as with other paranatural phenomena;

paraphysical forcefields, like similarity and ergody (?), are not limited by light speed;

therefore, they can in principle move energy between any points in space;

thus, a small input can give a large output;

therefore, qualitative understanding is more important than quantitative and rapid progress is possible in goetics;

souls may be supernatural or paranatural.

Ginny thinks that a soul:

is an energy structure within the parafields;
is formed by but outlives a body;
can move between universes;
can remain disembodied on Earth as a ghost;
can enter a fertilized ovum to reincarnate;
can be allowed to approach the Highest and thus be saved;
can be attracted to the Lowest and thus be damned.

Using the parafields, scientists devise new spells which work. In James Blish's Midsummer Century, between any two topologically identical events, there is a diagrammatically expressible affinity or repulsion which can be acted out by dances. Thus, protective rituals can work.

Souls

If we read books that address important issues, however inadequately, then we find parallels or resonances with Poul Anderson's works. In Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, a fundamental shift in human consciousness is anticipated when a Noetic scientist proves souls, a hereafter and the efficacy of prayer. This recalls two passages in Poul Anderson's works.

First, one short story by Anderson ends with the devastating revelation that, although members of an alien species have immortal souls, human beings do not. I have some questions here. If primitives thought that an electric torch was indwelt by a spirit and then learned about electrons, would they come to regard the torch as useless? No. If we come to believe that human consciousness is entirely dependent on electrochemical processes in a living brain and that the consciousness ends when those processes cease, do we then regard consciousness as valueless? No.

In fact - second Anderson passage -, Dominic Flandry's perceptive if ruthless opponent, Aycharaych, thinks that it is consciousness of mortality that inspires human creativity.

We Do It

The Broken Sword, XII.

The Dark Lord to the witch:

"'Did you think you ever summoned me and struck a bargain? No, you were led astray; that was another. Mortals never sell me their souls. They give them away.'" (p. 90)

The Sabbat Goat to the black magician:

"WE WILL DO WITHOUT THE ANTICHRIST. HE WAS NEVER NECESSARY. MEN HAVE ALWAYS LED THEMSELVES UNTO ME."

-James Blish, Black Easter IN Blish, After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), pp. 319-425 AT p. 423.

Lucifer Morningstar to Morpheus:

"They talk of me going around and buying souls, like a fishwife come market day, never stopping to ask themselves why.

"I need no souls.

"And how can anyone own a soul?

"No. They belong to themselves...

"...They just hate to have to face up to it."

-Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Season Of Mists (New York, 1992), p. 82, panel3 5-6.

Well, that is clear enough. We do it.

Many Gods

(This post, copied from the Religion and Philosophy blog, starts with religion and philosophy but ends with fantasies by CS Lewis, Neil Gaiman and Poul Anderson.)

It is a premise of Paganism that all gods exist. A newly encountered tribe or nation worships either different gods or our gods under different names - Zeus and Thor are Jupiter - so that, either way, the gods exist. There is no difference in meaning between asking which gods are worshiped in Northern Europe and asking which gods are active there. Human interaction with divinity and divine interaction with humanity are a single process. Divine activity is (regarded as) experienced so the abstract question of divine existence does not arise.

Polytheist pantheons can be incorporated not only into each other but also into monotheist and even "atheist" world views. In Paradise Lost, John Milton identified Pagan gods as demons, thus as fallen angels, thus as rebellious creatures of the One God. CS Lewis, a Miltonic Christian, incorporated Spiritualism into Christianity by acknowledging that dead souls might revisit Earth to haunt buildings or contact mediums although they really should go somewhere else. Hindus can incorporate Christianity by recognising Christ as one of many divine incarnations.

In Hinduism, the many gods can be seen as aspects of one God. However, Hindu philosophical systems include Samkhya which is "atheist" as accepting that one material substance and many reincarnating souls are beginningless and uncreated. This kind of atheism denies the one God of monotheism but not the many gods of polytheism. The latter are among the many reincarnating beings.

Patanjali based his Yoga Sutras on Samkhya philosophy but wanted to include the widespread popular devotion to a personal deity in his list of yogic practices so he described Isvara, the personal God, as a special kind of soul, permanently free from reincarnation, not a Creator but nevertheless a God incorporated into an essentially atheist philosophical system - really clever.

Some works of modern fantasy accept as a premise of fiction, not of belief, that all gods exist and that all mythological realms coexist somewhere somehow. In CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy and Narnia Chronicles, Pagan gods are necessarily subordinate but nevertheless enjoy a surprising degree of autonomy. Narnia is jointly liberated by a Greek god and by the Christian god in animal form. That alliance is unique in imaginative fiction.

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman graphic novels, gods exist because they are imagined, then worshiped. They fade away as their worship declines. In Poul and Karen's The King Of Ys Tetralogy, Mithras, the Olympians and the Three of Ys withdraw before the advent of the new god whose messengers, like their successor Milton, regard those earlier deities not as non-existent but as demonic.

In Poul Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest, a traveller between alternative timelines finds one where the Aztec gods exist. In Anderson's Operation Luna (New York, 2000), the universe containing the World Tree of Norse mythology:

" '...was once closely entwined with ours, and surely with others. Or, rather, the crossing was easy from Northern lands. The belief factors...Christianity changed things. In a way, Beings like you, Fjalar, were left stranded here, like their counterparts in other universes.' " (p. 319) (Fjalar is a dwarf.)

So belief is a factor there too.

"...the old Norse...gods...'d withdrawn before the One God..." (p. 319)

Again, withdrawal, not non-existence.

Mutable Metaphysics?

What is the metaphysics of Poul Anderson's The Merman's Children? The merfolk knew the Norse gods but can now receive immortal souls and gain entry to the Christian Heaven if they accept baptism. Has Christianity become true? If so, might it later cease to be true? But either human and other beings have immortal souls or they do not!

The Merman's Children approaches the end of Faerie which Poul Anderson had anticipated at the end of his Foreword to The Broken Sword. The realm of Faerie is driven from the world both by Christianity and by measurement, an assault from two directions, although Anderson's "Delenda Est" points to some connection between these two directions. However, we find that we have covered this question in some detail already. See The End Of Faerie as well as other posts referring to "soft places."