The Scientific Case for Extinction of the Personality at Death

Keith Augustine

The findings of neuroscience demonstrate that the personality must cease to exist at death. It is an established fact that mental states are dependent upon brain states. Evidence from physiological psychology demonstrates the validity of the extinction hypothesis.

In the mid-18th century philosopher David Hume stated the fundamental basis of the empirical argument for annihilation:

The weakness of the body and that of the mind in infancy are exactly proportioned; their vigour in manhood, their sympathetic disorder in sickness, their common gradual decay in old age. The step further seems unavoidable; their common dissolution in death (Hume 138).

Barry Beyerstein points out that the view "that consciousness is inseparable from the functioning of individual brains remains the cornerstone of physiological psychology" (Beyerstein 44). This is due, he says, to "the theory's parsimony and research productivity, the range of phenomena accounted for, and the lack of credible counter-evidence" (45).

Beyerstein lists five main types of empirical evidence which support the dependence of consciousness on the brain. First, phylogenetic evidence refers to the evolutionary relationship between the complexity of the brain and a species' cognitive traits (Beyerstein 45). Corliss Lamont sums up this evidence: "We find that the greater the size of the brain and its cerebral cortex in relation to the animal body and the greater their complexity, the higher and more versatile the form of life" (Lamont 63). Second, the developmental evidence for mind-brain dependence is that mental abilities emerge with the development of the brain; failure in brain development prevents mental development (Beyerstein 45). Third, clinical evidence consists of cases of brain damage that result from accidents, toxins, diseases, and malnutrition that often result in irreversible losses of mental functioning (45). If the mind could exist independently of the brain, why couldn't the mind compensate for lost faculties when brain cells die after brain damage? (46). Fourth, the strongest empirical evidence for mind-brain dependence is derived from the experiments of neuroscience. Mental states are correlated with brain states; electrical or chemical stimulation of the human brain invokes perceptions, memories, desires, and other mental states (45). Finally, the experiential evidence for mind-brain dependence consists of the effects of several different types of drugs which predictably affect mental states (45).

Memory is essential to self-identity. Lamont argues that because

The proper functioning of memory... depends... on the associational patterns laid down as enduring structural imprints through means of interneuronic connections... it is difficult beyond measure to understand how they could survive after the destruction of the living brain in which they had their original locus (Lamont 76).

Further experimental evidence for mind-brain dependence is derived from "split-brain" patients who have undergone an operation that severs the corpus callosum to reduce epileptic seizures (Beyerstein 45). The corpus callosum is a broad band of fibers that directly connects the left and right hemispheres of the neocortex. If information is presented to only one hemisphere of a "split-brain" patient, the other hemisphere is unaware of it and is not capable of understanding the reactions of the informed hemisphere (45). The result of "split-brain" surgery is the formation of two mental systems, each with independent mental attributes (45). Beyerstein asks: "If a 'free-floating' mind exists, why can't it maintain unity of consciousness by providing an information conduit between the disconnected hemispheres?" (46). One of the strongest arguments for mind-brain dependence comes from implants of "brain pacemakers" which electrically stimulate the cerebellum in the brains of psychotics (Hooper 154). The following true story illustrates the point:

Another patient, a severely depressed former physicist, was troubled by voices that commanded him to choke his wife. When he got one of Dr. Heath's pacemakers in 1977, the infernal voices vanished, along with his perennial gloom... But his wires eventually broke, and once again his wife was threatened with strangulation. When the gadgetry was mended, so was the man's psyche (Hooper 155).

Several survival proponents have argued that the facts of neuroscience are consistent with survival of bodily death because the body is an instrument of the soul. The illustrations of the "instrument theory" reveal a fatal flaw:

If the human body corresponds to a colored glass... then the living personality corresponds to the colored light that is the result of the glass... Now while light in general will continue to exist without the colored glass... the specific red or blue or yellow rays that the glass produces... will certainly not persist if the glass [is] destroyed (Lamont 104).

Paul Edwards shows that the instrument theory is inconsistent with Alzheimer's disease:

At about the time when she could no longer recognize her daughter, she beat up [a] paralyzed lady on two or three occasions... [The instrument theory] implies that throughout her affliction with Alzheimer's Mrs. D.'s mind was intact. She recognized her daughter but had lost her ability to express this recognition. She had no wish to beat up an inoffensive paralyzed old woman. On the contrary, 'inside' she was the same considerate person as before the onset of the illness. It is simply that her brain disease prevented her from acting in accordance with her true emotions... these are the implications of the theory that the mind survives the death of the brain and that the brain is only an instrument for communication. Surely these consequences are absurd (Edwards 299-300).

The findings of hard experimental science have demonstrated the incontrovertible fact of the dependence of consciousness on the brain. One implication of this fact is that the mind must cease to exist when the brain is destroyed. To deny the extinction of the personality at death in light of twentieth century knowledge is as obstinate as the refusal of seventeenth century theologians to look through Galileo's telescope to see that the Earth is not the center of the universe.

Bibliography

Beyerstein, Barry L. "The Brain and Consciousness: Implications for Psi Phenomena." In The Hundredth Monkey. Edited Kendrick Frazier. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991: 43-53.

Edwards, Paul. "The Dependence of Consciousness on the Brain." In Immortality. Edited Paul Edwards. New York: Macmillan, 1992: 292-307.

Hooper, Judith, and Dick Teresi. The Three-Pound Universe . New York: Tarcher/Perigee Books, 1992.

Hume, David. "Of the Immortality of the Soul." In Immortality . Edited Paul Edwards. New York: Macmillan, 1992: 134-140.

Lamont, Corliss. The Illusion of Immortality. 5th ed. New York: Unger/Continuum, 1990.

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