The Question That BREAKS Reality | Alex O'Connor: Flagrant Podcast

Buckle up for a wild conversation. Alex O 'Connor recently sat with the flagrant guys and posed some crazy philosophical thought experiments. Check this out.

If I cut your brain in half and I take the two parts of the brain and I put them into new individual bodies and wake them up, like which one is you?

That's a great question, but here's the problem. If you don't believe in the soul, this question will destroy your worldview. Materialism has a big problem, ladies and gentlemen. It can't explain you.

And we're gonna get into it right now. Welcome back to Wise Disciple. My name is Nate and I'm helping you become the effective Christian that you were meant to be, which entails understanding how our experiences point back to God.

Make sure to like, sub and share this one around if it blesses you.

Personal Identity and the Mind-Body Problem

In the philosophy of mind, a really important question is, it's called personal identity. Like what makes you the same person you were five minutes ago? What is the actual connection? Like what's going on there?

And one important question people ask is like, if I cut your brain in half and I take the two parts of the brain and I put them into new individual bodies and wake them up, like which one is you?

I love these questions. I love them. They're fascinating. And I think, I mean like Alex is probably very familiar with this topic. By the way, also a very smart guy, clearly well-read, but I don't think he's gonna spend enough time camping out here.

He's, you know, they're gonna speak about this a little bit and we're gonna go over it. But this whole idea deserves some serious thought. That's why I'm making the video, you know. In my opinion, it's just another one of those things that creates a cumulative case that points to Christianity.

It points to the existence of the soul. Watch this.

And some people say neither of them, in which case you've just died. That seems a little bit weird. Some people say, well, they're both you. But if they're both you now, then five minutes ago, they must have both been you as well, but like in one person.

So it's like for your whole life, you were two people living together. That doesn't seem quite right either.

So did you catch that? You know, this is a thought experiment, right? Imagine that you could divide a person's brain in two, right? Let's call him John, right? We can divide John's brain into two parts and put one half of John's brain in a human body and then put the other half in another human body, right?

The question is which one is truly John? This is a deep philosophical question and it touches on a problem within philosophy. It's called the mind-body problem. Now, whichever way you slice that, right?

You see what I just did there? Whichever way we slice John, right? If you do not account for the soul in this particular scenario, then any answer you give is going to lead to absurdity.

Seen the show Severance?

No, but I've heard about it. I started watching the first.

You're familiar with the premise of the show?

No, I'm actually not really. So no spoilers.

No, no, I'm not gonna give away, but the idea is that you could sever the brain in a way where when you go to work and you enter this space at work.

You like don't remember or something?

Yeah, you are you essentially, but you have limited knowledge of things in the outside world. You speak fluently. I think you have like some words you don't know. You don't understand like what Bermuda is or whatever, but like you are you.

You kind of have the similar personality, but you have no connection to who you are in the outside world. So the idea is you could just go to work and then clock out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it sounds good on paper. You're a lot of people have jobs. You're like, I'd like to, you know, for eight hours, I even think about how horrible my job is. And then you leave.

So I haven't thought about this, but I have actually seen Severance, you know, I suppose Severance is a way more extrapolated and dramatic concept that comes out of something that actually did happen or it used to take place several decades ago called the split brain experiment.

And I won't go into all of that here. I mean, you can look it up, you know, but people in these types of split brain experiments would describe how they felt as essentially parts of their body would not do what they wanted, you know, or they would be moving and parts of their bodies would be fighting against other parts of their bodies.

Right? Why?

Well, because they were experiencing a divide between the two hemispheres of their brain. And so people going through these experiments would say stuff like, well, you know, my other hand is just acting up, you know, but see, that's the thing.

These experiments never split the person into two in terms of self-experience. They would always report their experiences in the singular. Oh, my hand is acting up, right? Even though it's not doing what I want, it's still my hand.

You see what I mean? And so each person had an enduring self that remained even though the brain was split. Now, the question is, what is unifying a person's experiences? Think about that. Clearly people have biological bodies and brains.

Clearly these physical bodies and, you know, these body parts are composed of, within them, separable parts, right? Separable, in other words, we can separate them out. And yet we say, I am alive. I am experiencing, right?

I was five years old and now I'm 46 years old, right? How is it possible that so many different and separable component parts are functioning and yet we experience ourselves as a singular I? And not just in one moment, but like across our entire lives.

We're all the same people who were once, what's the, like when you're born, like 20 inches or something like that? We were once 20 inches and now we're six feet tall, right? That's a lot of change and experience in between.

And the show is this interesting experiment because it's like, well, how much autonomy and agency do those people have at work? And then once they find out that there's a life outside of work that might be better and they don't have control of existing outside of it, do they fall in love?

And what if that person decides to quit their job? They're dead if they quit their job. And I'm curious in like how much rights you think those people would have? It still is you, but now they're a completely autonomous human being.

The important question to me is whether that is the same person. And that's when you have to ask what makes you the same person?

I don't want to give away anything from the show, but let's continue asking.

Like what, literally what makes you the same person that you were when you were a child? Like, again.

It's not collection of memories because your twin might have the exact same experiences.

Yeah, and also you could have.

Ah!

Andrew Schultz rejecting the materialist answer. Right there, did you catch that? Let's play it again.

What, literally what makes you the same person that you were when you were a child? Like, again.

It's not collection of memories because your twin might have the exact same experiences.

Yeah, and also you could have.

Yeah, it's not merely a collection of memories. But wait a second. That is what a lot of folks try to posit as the explanation for the unity of your conscious experience, you know? Or what is otherwise known as your diachronic identity.

Stick with me because, you know, I just, I don't hear anyone talking about this very much and it's fascinating. And actually, this right here is the key to understanding that you have a soul, ladies and gentlemen.

Well, one of the key ways to do this, all right? God made you both immaterial and material. And for those who reject the Bible and they reject Christianity, they're still posed with an unanswerable philosophic question.

So what I'm talking about is your enduring self over time, right? What grounds your experience of an enduring self over time? When I grew up, I had some crazy experiences. So I used to live in New Mexico.

One day I'm walking, I'm like 10 years old and I step on a nail on a construction site and it went halfway through my left foot. It went through my shoe and into my foot and I was all by myself. And so I had to sit down and pull that nail out of my foot and then limp home bleeding the whole way.

You know what I mean? I know that's kind of gross, but I mean, it's like emblazoned in my mind, right? But when I tell that story, guess how I say it, that happened to me, right? I was that person it happened to.

And that's how everyone speaks, you know? Believer, non-believer. But the question is what best explains that sense that we all have, that we have been the same person the whole time. It's gotta be a soul, ladies and gentlemen.

That's what grounds all of the component parts of our body and unifies it into a singular experience. Are you with me? Now, a lot of people who reject the soul, they say, no, it's just that you have this collection of memories inside your brain and that gives you an experience of an enduring self, right?

And that plus your beliefs and your intentions and desires, that's what explains your enduring self over time. Now, here's the problem with that idea. Think about this, this is crazy. For a memory to even be your memory, there already has to be a you there to own it.

Otherwise, whose memory is it? You see the issue? Memory doesn't actually explain why you're the same person over time. It smuggles in the very thing it's supposed to explain. You with me so far? So memory actually can't explain your identity.

It assumes it. And that's why this doesn't work. That's why the explanation is insufficient. And apparently, Andrew Schultz finds it insufficient as well. So good for him.

False memories, I could take your memories and implant them in someone else and they wouldn't become you. It can't even be the physical matter that you're made out of because the atoms in your body are constantly replenishing and changing and after enough time, it's like no physical part of you.

So suppose, for example

That's true, your skin isn't you because your skin replaces itself every three years.

They say that every seven years, every atom in your body replaces itself. I don't know if that's actually entirely true.

But let's assume.

But yeah, I mean, so say somehow I took, after seven years, I took all of the atoms, I managed to find all of the atoms that had been part of you but floated off or changed and I put them all together again.

And made another

And made another version of you. Which one is you in the sense of being continuous with yourself like 10 minutes ago? I mean, it kind of has to be you now because you've got this continuous

Sure.

But then this is the same atoms. This is like the same being. And it's actually kind of an impossible question to answer.

No, it's not. It's an impossible question to answer if you are committed to rejecting the idea that you have a soul. If you are open to the immaterial realm, right? The explanatory scope of a God-given human soul covers this issue.

It covers this issue along with a host of other ones that are all related and interrelated, you know? And again, I mean, you know, Scholz brings up the notion that you cycle through all the cells in your body multiple times within the duration of your life and yet you still were always you the whole time.

How is that possible? But the only way to answer this question is to number one, take seriously that experience you have of the enduring self over time. The enduring you or the enduring I over time. That is not something to be dismissed and that is not something to be redefined.

Some people will do that. They'll try to redefine this experience, right? But we should take it seriously. And then number two, you need to ground that experience in something that provides a logical explanation.

I would say the best explanation, right? And that's what I mean. The best explanation for your, what's called diachronic identity is the soul, in my opinion. Your soul unifies the component parts of your entire body, all the cells, all the organs, all the neurons and the activity.

And you experience these things as a singular you. It's because you have a soul.

The Soul and Diachronic Identity

You know, which one is you? And which one would you rather be? So say, for example, that like in 10 years from now, I'm going to do this. I'm going to take the atoms that make up you right now, the atoms that are in your body right now, I'm going to collect them in a jar.

And in 10 years from now, I'm going to reconstruct them next to wherever you are in 10 years. And then I'm going to torture one of them. Which one do you want me to torture? Which one do you choose?

That's separate.

Yeah. Literally.

I mean, not exactly, but to a certain extent, yeah.

Which one would you want me to torture?

That mother.

Torture him.

The atoms in a jar?

Yeah.

Because that's you right now.

I know.

So you make that decision.

I know.

And then like, click my fingers. And suddenly you're like next to your future self. And you're like, wait, I've messed up here.

No, it wouldn't be my future self because it didn't go through the experiences that I went through, right? Which made me who I am now.

You would just suddenly wake up with all the memories you've got now.

Oh, you're saying in this.

Because look, all the atoms that make up you right now include your brain, include your memories and stuff, right? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to

Oh, you recreate them at the exact same time and then let them live their own life.

I'm just taking whatever atoms you have in your body right now.

Yeah.

I'm just going to put them back together again in 10 years. Like exactly

But then they haven't went through what I went through over the 10 years.

That's right.

But it will

But I have another thing with this.

The experience will feel as if you're talking to me right now and then suddenly

As the exact same person.

Suddenly, click, you're now 10 years into the future.

Yeah.

Because I'm just taking all of the atoms that you've got right now, as you are right now, and I'm just putting them back together again in 10 years.

But they would be devoid of the experiences I had over the last decade.

That's right.

From the experience of that

Do you see how easily you can spin these dilemmas if you simply refuse to acknowledge that you have a soul? Not one time has anyone here even mentioned a soul or the immaterial or even God, not even hinted at it.

I haven't seen the whole interview, you know, but certainly those categories apply here in this moment.

Right?

So if we're not going to go there, you know, then I can ask these unanswerable questions about who's going to be in the jar and who's going to be the other person, right? You know what I mean? It's like, it's interesting, you know?

I've said this before, but the materialist worldview creates gaps. Christians often get hit with the, you know, the God of the gaps challenge by skeptics. But the irony is the materialist worldview is the one creating those gaps in the first place.

Hey, what grounds your unified experience of an enduring self gap, right? That's a gap.

The person that I create, they would remember five seconds ago being sat here talking to me.

This is severance, right? To a certain extent.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's the thing, right?

It just feels like you're just, you're just suddenly there.

The reason why I would feel more agency is because, hey, I've had these last 10 years of memories, right? So I believe I should have more agency than you. I've lived my life. But, but, but, but, but, what if you had a debilitating neurological disorder that stripped you of your ability to create new memories?

Dementia, Alzheimer's. Now you're not creating new memories. Now you don't have these experiences. So I can't say I have more agency than that body because we have the same amount of new memories.

Whoa.

Well, say for example, like

I put more work in, bro.

Suppose that like, suppose that you

Interesting new dilemma, right? Does that do anything to undermine the materialist view? Which by the way, I don't know if you picked up on this. O 'Connor's not given his view or stance on the issue at all.

There are a couple of ways that a materialist could try to provide some kind of an explanation here, you know? But O 'Connor hasn't let anybody know what his cards are. He's kept them close to the vest.

In other words, he's just framing the discussion while conveniently leaving out the immaterial soul. And then he's going, wow, you know, these are hard questions. By the way, there's a better, it's a movie, than Severance, that touches on this dilemma, what they're talking about right now.

The dilemma of determining what makes you you, right? Grounding your diachronic identity. It's called Dark City. It's a sci-fi, kind of a noir piece. Not for everyone. I saw it a long time ago. But I think it captures this particular topic better than Severance.

Memory, Agency, and the Limits of Materialism

I'm gonna like take all of your memories and I'm gonna swap it with the guy over there. It's called Joe. And tomorrow you're gonna wake up and you're gonna have all of Joe's memories. And Joe's gonna wake up and he's gonna have all of your memories.

So you're gonna wake up tomorrow. You're gonna wake up tomorrow and you're literally gonna remember being Joe, going to sleep, waking up and being like, what the flip? I've got this game of stash, I've got this all.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's literally what happens in Dark City.

You keep talking about my mustache. I'm gonna think you're flirting. I am not your brother.

You keep talking.

You do not talk about me like him. Keep going, keep going. So who?

Well, no, but it's more than just who are you. It's, again, because I'm a bit of a sadist here, I'm gonna torture one of these guys tomorrow.

Yeah.

After you wake up.

Yeah.

Which one do you want me to torture?

Which one has the bigger?

Are you subjectively still now working with your own body and perceptions, but with Joe's memories?

That's right.

So you would wake up and like literally like the physical being that you are, you're gonna wake up and you're just gonna remember being Joe. Likewise, Joe is gonna wake up and he's gonna remember sat here having this conversation with me.

So this is the last thing I'll say about this. Do you see how hard it is to get out from under the reality that God has made? Even in these hypotheticals, you know, that are being thrown around here, none of these guys can get away from taking for granted the enduring self over time.

They're still stuck with language that says you are in another body, right? Did you pick up on that, right? I'm going to harm you in the jar over there and then not you here on the couch, right? It's like, you cannot escape the reality that God gave you a soul.

And once you acknowledge that, yes, you do have a soul. Now you have to ask the question, where did it come from? Ecclesiastes chapter 12, verse seven says, and the dust returns to the earth as it was and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

It is God who gave us souls, friends. And that means that we are both bodies and souls, image bearers of the one who created us. And that is what grounds all of the separable components of our bodies and gives us this experience of an enduring self over time.

And this is how it happened. Genesis chapter two, verse seven, and the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life. And the man became a living creature, but wait a second.

If we have souls and God gave them to us and our mortal bodies cease to exist, what happens to our souls, right? So you see how these questions, this topic, these questions, they force us to confront what the Bible has been talking about and communicating for thousands of years.

You see what I mean? If Jesus warns us not to fear those who can harm our physical bodies, but him who can destroy both soul and body in hell, we have to start thinking about where all of this ultimately leads.

Now, you know, I'm talking to Christians in a 20 minute video, right? So obviously I can't spend semesters at a university delineating every single piece here. And I've essentially given this topic the short shrift, right?

Fair enough. But all I want you to recognize in this video is how every aspect of this reality points back to God and the immaterial realm. Even a bunch of guys on a podcast, as far as I understand, none of them are Christian, are still talking about things inside the world that God has made and his fingerprints are all over it.

Amen?

All right, that's enough out of me. Now it's your turn. What do you think about this issue? Do these dilemmas point back to the soul, point back ultimately to Christianity? Let me know in the comments below.

Hey, I encourage those of you who are interested to go deeper and take a look at a couple of books that have really helped me to think through these issues as well, because what I've articulated in this video are not my novel thoughts at all, but the work of others, particularly J .P. Moreland, who has a really great book.

It's, I think it's just simply called The Soul. So you can definitely check that out. Another great book along those lines is Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. It'll really help you to think through all of this.

And I hope it blesses you. As always, if you enjoyed the insights here, why don't you go check out the Patreon community? I'm there every day doing a Bible study. You can also get exclusive access to videos like this before they make it to YouTube.

You can meet up with me one-on-one, bunch of perks, things there. The link for the Patreon is below, and Patreon is really how I make these videos. So I'm very grateful to everybody who supports me there.

Hey, I will return soon with more videos, but in the meantime, I'll say bye for now.