“Beam me up, Scotty,” says Captain Kirk of the starship U.S.S. Enterprise as he gets ready to be transported through space back to his own ship. The transporter dematerializes the captain in one point in space, and rematerializes him in another. The science, or rather what is still science fiction, can easily explain the process of this transport, where physical matter can be dematerialized at one point and then rematerialized in the same exact way at a different point.
But a person is more than just physical matter. A person has feelings and emotions. Where do those feelings and emotions go? Are feelings and emotions stored in the physical matter that makes up our bodies, or are they part of our soul? Does the transporter also transmit our soul? The transporter is designed to transmit physical matter only, and a soul is something immaterial, so the answer would be no. The example of Star Trek is one of fiction, something that cannot be yet done and therefore cannot be really proven as something that can actually work. It does, however, bring up the issue of where our feelings and emotions come from: whether they are stored in our physical bodies or whether they come from our soul. If feelings are more that just physical stimuli and cannot be stored in our brains, then something extraphysical must exist which can house those feelings.
It is first important to establish that feelings and emotions are different than memories, even though they are often thought of in the same category. Memories are just that: they are images, impulses that are stored in they physical matter of our bodies. Our brains, though still not fully understood, are just storage locations for these memories, and in fact they can be reproduced at that level as computers. Electrical impulses that are stored in the biological matter known as the brain can be reproduced or simulated through artificial means. Memories allow us to function, with our brain evaluating and calculating things based on our previous memories and making decisions accordingly, and those functions again can be reproduced artificially to simulate a human being. But feelings are more than just impulses and data. They allow us to appreciate such things as beauty. They are what makes us laugh and cry. When a baby is born, it is born with feelings and emotions, not just physical responses. Looking at a mother’s face, it knows to smile or to cry. This baby has not yet had time to acquire the memories or the knowledge to allow the brain to make a calculation as to the feeling it should have; the feeling, the emotion was present there already. This would suggest that such feelings and emotions would come from another source, such as the soul. The soul, being there from the very beginning, or even being reintroduced into a new body, would be able to hold such a phenomenon as feelings and emotions.
The best way to illustrate the difference of feeling versus memory is with the specific example of how one reacts when one looks at a color. When a person observes the color blue, the eyes perform a physical function for which they were designed. These eyes send a physical, electrical impulse to the brain. This impulse can, in fact, be measured. The color blue itself can be measured and described in scientific, physical terms. It has a wavelength; it can be recreated exactly the same way time after time. When the eye perceives the color blue, it interprets that color as a wavelength, and through a series of biological processes, transmits “blue” to the brain. The brain can then distinguish blue from other colors like red and yellow. Being able to distinguish colors is important to the way a person functions and lives his life. Even people who are colorblind still distinguish shades that let them see and experience what we know as vision. But on that level, a computer can reproduce the experience of seeing the color blue. A camera or a device, which can capture the light wave with the specific wavelength of blue, can transmit that signal to a computer. The computer can store that information and then process it accordingly, allowing it to simulate the functions of a person. It can see the color blue, tell you that it is blue, respond to a blue light on a police car, and so on. It does so, however, on a preprogrammed experience and on its own previous experiences, calculating responses based on stored memories of the color blue. What is the difference then between the reaction of a human and a computer to the color blue? A human being experiences a feeling when it sees the color blue. It is more than just a stimulus to the brain which causes us to function. This is why people decorate their homes. They choose color combinations that are pleasing to them personally, colors that make them feel a certain way. Certain colors, like yellow, may be irritating. Others, like blue, may be soothing. Hospitals are white not without reason; they are deprived of color to suppress any additional emotional responses from the patients. The feelings that are associated with the color blue are different for different people as well. Some people love the color blue; others hate it; and some just do not feel either way about it. The feeling is there from the start, from when the baby is born and is able to see. Even if a person were blind from birth and then his vision were restored through the miracle of science, he would be able to see and experience colors beyond the simple stimulus of the cornea of the eye. He would feel a certain way when looking at the color blue for the first time. This feeling cannot be reproduced artificially, as of yet. A computer can merely observe the color blue and simulate all the actions of a human associated with it, but it cannot experience the feeling of seeing blue. It can be programmed to laugh and cry at certain colors, to be sad or happy, but those are simply preprogrammed reactions to a stimulus. It calculates the responses based on memories, not feelings. Human feelings are not preprogrammed and yet they exist. Science can tell us that a series of chemical reactions can affect our feelings. But feelings have to exist there initially for them to be affected. All these stimuli and chemical reactions can be reproduced artificially, but feelings cannot.
It would seem therefore that there is something that is physically irreproducible that separates human beings from machines. There is something that can store our feelings and emotions that science is unable to duplicate. This would point to the theory that there exists a soul, a soul that can hold our feelings and affect us when we see the color blue. It can make us cringe when we see yellow or perhaps make us happy. It is what makes us individuals. While computer programmers are working overtime to simulate human thought through artificial means, they are still unable to create this individuality in their creations. In fact, computers cannot even think yet, they can simply analyze. With technology improving at a very fast rate, there is no doubt that eventually we will be able to create a computer that can think. But a computer that can feel is a long way away, if ever. Biologists have been studying the human brain extensively for a very long time now, and while there has been much progress, the issue of feelings and emotions is still just a puzzle, left behind for the psychologists to figure out. With a lack of empirical evidence from biologists and lack of success from computer programmers, it would seem that the theory for existence of a soul stands. There is something undetectable within us that acts as a part of us, and it is the soul.
While it is impossible to prove the existence of something that is undetectable, it would seem that the lack of empirical counterevidence for the feeling we get when we see the color blue suggests that a soul must exist. This can only be true, however, until either biologists can prove that feelings are stored in a particular part of the brain and can directly affect our experience of seeing the color blue or the computer programmers can create an artificial being that can experience the color blue on the same level as humans but differently from another artificial being, creating an individual. Until then, Captain Kirk should resort to more traditional modes of transportation, otherwise he will not be the same person when he rematerializes on his ship, and his crew will be left singing the blues.