I could say that it's due to people incompletely leaving their religion (that they may not have understood), and consequently not realizing all the underlying assumptions. Or that religion touches (or builds itself off of) ideas common and dear to humanity.
I could say that it's due to people incompletely leaving their religion (that they may not have understood), and consequently not realizing all the underlying assumptions. Or that religion touches (or builds itself off of) ideas common and dear to humanity.
I think there's a grain of truth to some of these ideas, in that the part of us we consider the core of our identity is information, rather than matter. For example, imagine scientists were to someday invent a machine that could transfer information between brains as easily as it is currently transferred between USB drives. If, in this world, the information in Alice's brain was transferred into Bob's brain, the resulting person would refer to herself as Alice, remember being Alice, and probably still think of herself as a woman, even though she was now in Bob's body. The error lies in taking this grain of truth and making the unjustified assumption that the information can exist completely independently of the medium that stores it. This leads to the idea that the information is somehow still there even if the storage medium has been destroyed (in the case of brain damage and Alzheimers) or never existed (in the case of severe cognitive impairment from birth).
I think everyone believes in some concept of a soul, even if it's largely metaphorical. We don't inhabit our bodies as much as we are entangled with them. As much as transcending the flesh sounds nice, it's not in the near future.
I could say that it's due to people incompletely leaving their religion (that they may not have understood), and consequently not realizing all the underlying assumptions. Or that religion touches (or builds itself off of) ideas common and dear to humanity.
I think there's a grain of truth to some of these ideas, in that the part of us we consider the core of our identity is information, rather than matter. For example, imagine scientists were to someday invent a machine that could transfer information between brains as easily as it is currently transferred between USB drives. If, in this world, the information in Alice's brain was transferred into Bob's brain, the resulting person would refer to herself as Alice, remember being Alice, and probably still think of herself as a woman, even though she was now in Bob's body. The error lies in taking this grain of truth and making the unjustified assumption that the information can exist completely independently of the medium that stores it. This leads to the idea that the information is somehow still there even if the storage medium has been destroyed (in the case of brain damage and Alzheimers) or never existed (in the case of severe cognitive impairment from birth).
I think everyone believes in some concept of a soul, even if it's largely metaphorical. We don't inhabit our bodies as much as we are entangled with them. As much as transcending the flesh sounds nice, it's not in the near future.