Rita Carter: There can be no soul in science

From a speech by the science writer, given at the European Dana Alliance for the Brain conference in London

Brain research frightens people because they recognise that when you tamper with the brain you tamper directly with the "self". The word "self", as it is generally used in cognitive science, means the behaviour, experience, and public identity of a particular individual. The human "self" is phenomenally complex and will probably always elude complete description. But it is not, by this definition, essentially mysterious.

Most non-religious people would probably go along with this idea of "self". Yet many of them - and I include myself - have an intuitive sense that it leaves something out, some non-material "essence" of a person. In other words, the "soul". What's more, there is a suspicion that, although it is non-material, the soul can be mucked about with via the brain. It's a sort of Cartesian dualism in reverse: Descartes thought "mind stuff" affected the body by interacting with the brain. This is interactive dualism the other way - changes in the brain change the soul.

Does it matter if people hold this weird superstition? Most of the time I think not. But in a debate directed at forming public policy with regard to the applications of brain science, I think it could be disastrous. "Selves", in the sense that science regards them, clearly belong to the people identified with them. Souls belong to God. So if the self is believed to be partly comprised of soul, to interfere with it is to do what should rightfully be done only by the Deity. "Playing God" in this context has a literal meaning.

This insidious notion muddies thinking and may hold back scientific techniques that could hugely enhance our lives. The illusion of soul is a lovely one to experience from time to time. But it has no place in rational debate.