By Samuel Gugliotta
For Variety

ABOUT a year ago, I began a series of articles relating to what I called, “the search for soul.” Following the wisdom of the ancients, I discovered much of what was claimed to be the soul’s adventure. For example, its divine origins in the godly realm of One, its descent into the body and the struggle for its subsequent return to its divine origins.
However, following the current of orthodox intellectual evolution into the modern, and postmodern world, the idea of the soul gradually receded into the background. The questions pertaining to the soul, such as knowledge, perception, and the self, found a new matrix in the concept of “mind” and, today, in the concept of “consciousness.” In particular, the concept of consciousness considered as a biological feature or property of our amazing brains.
This is not to say that the concept of “soul” has disappeared. It still flourishes in the domains of many psychologists, new age self-help books, and certainly among theologians, and the “ordinary” religious person in society. Owen Flanagan’s fine new book, “The Problem of the Soul,” has the following to say, in a footnote:
“In the summer of 1999, Pope John Paul II stated that heaven and hell were not actual places but rather that they were states (of this life) involving being in relation with God or without him.”
Flanagan goes on to note that many American and European Catholics were very upset with this remark. They wondered if, “the aged pope was loosing his mind.”
I mention this only to show that traditional beliefs are still firmly attached to the bedrock of superstition and absurdity which characterizes the motley conceptual hodgepodge of beliefs of most of us as we attempt to cope with the demands and contradictions of contemporary society.
Accordingly, we hold on to “soul” and no amount of science seems capable of dislodging the putative grip. At least not yet. I see a possible future when the disclosures the today’s science become the common beliefs of humankind. That’s another story, a science fiction odyssey. As Flanagan states, “According to a host of polls in the last decade, somewhere between 70 and 96 percent of Americans believe humans possess nonphysical souls, and they believe that this soul continues to exist forever after the body dies. These numbers are roughly the same as they were a century ago”
However, Flanagan also believes that the transition to a scientific world view is happening now. That means that if we want to know about the deep structure of the “mind” or “soul” we will look at the brain and depend on neuroscience. Flanagan notes that the Society for Neuroscience has increased from a membership of 500 in 1970 to over 25,000 in 2000. He goes on to talk about “neuro speak” meaning that many today are using scientific language when talking about mental disorders. In his words:
“Explaining human behavior and mental states in terms of bodily states is widespread. Runners talk of dopamine highs. Horny male college students speak of testosterone surges, while their female classmates attribute much male behavior to testosterone poisoning….”
Flanagan quips, “Madonna, the singer and metaphysician, had it right: “You know we are living in a material world and that I am a material girl.”” This is because the sense of “self” is something which emerges from the brain. Any malfunction in the sense of self, or in consciousness is associated with impairment of correlated brain structures, such as some aspect of the cingulate cortex, the thalamus, the prefrontal cortex, or the superior coliculi, and so on. Our brains, with over 100 trillion synaptic connections may provide the ultimate explanation of...everything.
Already certain advances in neurobiology have altered the way we view things. For example, schizophrenia, autism, and many learning problems have their correlation to brain areas, moving their etiology from “nurture” to “nature.” Neuroscientists have mapped out the complete causal chain leading to Alzheimer’s, as well as other types of auditory or visual dysfunction. In addition, if more people were aware of the sad consequences of too much booze, they might be willing to change their habits. Oliver Sacks, in his book, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat,” talks about a certain patient who lost his long-term memory to alcoholism. This impairment is known as Korsakoff’s disease, which is correlated directly with the destruction of the mammillary bodies in the brain, and which is caused solely by excessive drinking. Such a person is conscious, since he has the brain matter associated with a “core” consciousness. But at the same time such a person will lack an “autobiographical self” and is stuck forever in a “constantly changing, meaningless moment.”
Puzzles
1. Find two digits, A and B, such that the product A(BB) = B(AA).
2. Find five consecutive natural numbers such that the sum of the squares of the first three is equal to the sum of the squares of the last two.
3. What is the smallest natural number that has a decimal reciprocal with a period of three?
Answers to last week’s puzzles
1. 139,854,276 = 11,826^2