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Do you have a Soul? Are you a Soul? What is the Soul? Why do so many people in so many cultures believe in an Immortal Soul, while so many scientists do not? Belief in the existence of an immortal soul infuses human thought and history. This "spiritual essence" — this "soul" -- somehow associated with each human being, is said to transcend death. But given the remarkable advances in neuroscience -- the physics, chemistry and biology of how we sense, think, feel and behave -- most scientists are Materialists, who believe that only the physical world is real. Materialists reject "dualism", which requires some nonphysical component -- call it a "soul" -- to transform the human brain into the human mind. We get the best of both sides.

Participants: Brown, Radin, Searle, Tart, Wolf

 

	Warren Brown is professor of psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he is director of the Psychophysical Laboratory. His book, Whatever Happened to the Soul, which denies an independent, dualistic nature to the soul, is considered a significant contribution to contemporary Christian thought.
	Dean Radin is considered one of the world’s leading parapsychology researchers, having done cutting-edge research at various institutions including the Conscious Research Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Princeton, SRI International, the University of Edinburgh, and for the U.S. government. He gives a comprehensive account of contemporary psi research in his best-selling book, The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena.
	John Searle, professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, is considered to be the leading living philosopher of mind. He is the author of numerous works, including The Mystery of Consciousness, The Rediscovery of the Mind, The Construction of Social Reality, and Minds, Brains and Science.
	Charles Tart is one of the leading figures in the fields of parapsychology and transpersonal psychology. He is professor at The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and is the author of numerous articles and books on psychology and parapsychology, including Altered States of Consciousness, which has been called one of the 100 most important books in 20th Century psychology. He has studied various Eastern spiritual disciplines and holds a black belt in Aikido.
	Fred Alan Wolf is a theoretical physicist and international lecturer on consciousness and the new physics. He is an award-winning author of eight books, including The Spiritual Universe, The Dreaming Universe, Parallel Universes, and Taking the Quantum Leap.
	Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator and host of the Closer To Truth television series and author of the Closer To Truth book. Trained in brain research (Ph.D. UCLA), he has published more than twenty books, including the Handbook for Creative and Innovative Managers and the seven-volume Library of Investment Banking. He is the president of The Geneva Companies, a leading merger and acquisition firm for private, middle market businesses.
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