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Critically assess Dawkin’s claim that since life is no more than DNA reproducing itself, there can be no life after death. [35]

‘There is no spirit-driven life force, no throbbing, heaving, pullulating, protoplasmic, mystic jelly. Life is just bytes and bytes and bytes of digital information,’ this is the view of Richard Dawkins- the ‘soul’ is just a mythological concept invented by primitive people. Dawkins’ belief is that we are survival machines and our purpose is to replicate. This is an evolutionist view and Dawkins models the human genome around the principles of natural selection. The Hellenistic philosopher Aristotle also took a materialist view; the soul to Aristotle was the function and purpose of a person (efficient, formal and final cause). In Dawkins’ view our purpose is to pass on our DNA and ensure the continuation of our DNA. Perhaps this could be thought of as the soul? Of the soul, Aristotle himself said ‘one of the hardest things to gain any conviction about is the soul’.

For such sceptical scientists it is difficult to imagine a soul of which there is no real evidence for. It is tricky to conceive of a life after death when you have no experience of yourself. For Dawkins, an empiricist, the only plausible theory is evolution. However, some may disagree with this view that we cannot know of a life after death. John Hick argues that you can know if there is a life after death, but this is eschatological and so we may only know at the ‘end of the road’. He uses the Celestial City as a parable to portray this point. The only problem here is that it is not possible to come back to life after this stage and tell others of the experience. Christians have the belief in the resurrection of Christ after he was hung at the cross, but the sceptics amongst us, such as Dawkins, would argue that this is myth. Dawkins belief is that we may ‘live on’ after our deaths but in others’ memories and our offspring to whom we have passed on our genes; we cannot live in an imaginary, non-existent realm. There is only the survival of DNA, not of the soul.

Those that would argue Dawkins’ position would be Dualists such as Plato, Descartes and Kant. Plato suggested the body is a part of the physical world and will decay, however there is a soul which is separable and belongs to another world- the World of Ideas. This soul is eternal, immortal, unchanging and immaterial along with truths such as justice, love and goodness. Dualism can seem very logical to most minds. For example, you don’t say ‘I am a body’, but rather ‘I have a body’ which implies that you are something more than your body. Dawkins is quoted as saying that the concept of the soul is nonsense for the weak minded. As a scientist, Dawkins would insist for evidence for the immortality of the soul which will lead to a postulation of life after death and so we can look at Plato’s arguments he uses to reinforce his ideas. The first argument is that every quality comes into being from its opposite and one can only understand the notion of something being what it is because you can compare it. His argument is called ‘The cycle of opposites’. With this comparison principle in mind, Plato says ‘Death must come from life, and life from death’. Plato also argued that learning is a matter of remembering what the soul has previously known in the World of Forms. Plato uses the example of ‘equals’; we are able to recognise objects that are equal (e.g. in size) though we have no ideal in this world to show for this concept. For Plato this meant that the knowledge of forms must be innate, a priori and gained by our souls before we were born (or rather our bodies were born). This is Plato’s evidence for the soul pre-existing the body. Would Dawkins accept these claims of Plato? Almost certainly not. Plato’s whole theory of forms is debateable whilst many of us would see learning as the acquiring of new knowledge and not an act of remembering.

Dawkins does not completely rule out ‘the soul’- his definition of it is just different to the mainstream ideas of the soul, or so some might say. Dawkins recognises that there is an element in humans wherein we have a sentiment and a human subjective consciousness. For now, science is unable to give a direct answer on what and where our consciousness arises from but this does not mean to say that religion can give an answer. The ‘soul’ is not an answer but a cheap trick by religion to give a name to consciousness. To say that life after death follows from the existence of the soul is also fallacious as many people say that you can’t prove the soul. In today’s day and age, it is not enough to have an argument for the existence of something and not have any

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evidence for it. Science is more widely accepted as the route to take in finding explanations for those big questions that we have. Yet this still does not mean to say that science has all the answers. However Dawkins remains confident that science will one day find the answer but we should accept that not every answer in life is knowable however advanced our scientific techniques may be.

Dawkins says that life is just DNA reproducing itself, ‘the selfish gene’ but there arises a problem. What about the ability of the human to reject the notion of having as many children as they possibly can to keep their genes in the gene pool? Dawkins responds ‘Consciousness arises when the brain’s simulation of the world becomes so complete that it must include a model of itself’, this is to say that our genes in evolutionary terms have become so complex that they have become self aware. In his book ‘The Selfish Gene’ he begins to realise that our consciousness has become a master of its own perpetrator (the gene). The human consciousness is so developed that it has become the executive decision taker over the gene. This is why it is now able to rebel against the genetic purpose of DNA replication. Some might say that Dawkins is battling the inclination to suggest any type of soul in accordance with religion because of his image as a determined atheist and it’s not religion that is deluded in belief of the existence of a soul and life after death, but Dawkins for not being able to admit that there must be an essence of us which is a lot more than our genes. Due to the vast evolution of the human consciousness Dawkins says that the gene’s need for replication is not the driving force behind contemporary evolution and there is now a new replicator. Dawkins gives them the name of ‘memes’ and they are the ‘human culture replicator’. Memes are tunes, catchphrases, quotes, teachings and so on which are heard and then lodged in the brain and then the brain imitates them. Whilst our genetic contribution to mankind may only survive at most 3 generations as it is halved with each subsequent generation, Dawkins believes we may live on and have immortality if we were to contribute to the world’s culture like writing a poem, composing a tune or inventing something useful and this can live on long after our genes have disappeared.

Descartes Dualism argues that the mind is a non-corporeal substance which is distinct from material or bodily substance. His famous quote ‘I think therefore I am’ arises from his ‘method of doubt’ where Descartes is able to doubt that he has a body, yet there was one thing he said was impossible to doubt- the fact that he was doubting. This convinced him that mind can exist independent of matter. The body is extendable, divisible, public and dubitable whilst the mind cannot be extended, indivisible and is private and indubitable. Despite these differences the mind and body have a causal interaction; we know that a mental event can cause a physical event and vice versa. If I want to catch a ball I can will my arm to reach out for the ball or if in my mind I have grief then I can express this through my tears. Descartes thoughts seem quite logical as you would be able to contest the existence of your body. This would give grounds to believe that we are more than our genes and if the soul can exist independent of the body then there can be life after death. Some might argue that Descartes draws a false conclusion here about the body and mind having different properties therefore making them not one and the same thing. For example, everyone knows that Superman can fly but we doubt that Clark Kent can fly. Since Superman has indubitable flying power and Clark Kent’s ability of flight is dubitable, this must mean that Superman is not Clark Kent- a conclusion we know to be false. What about paranormal phenomena? Many people would say that experiences such as out of body experiences are good evidence for substance dualism. However, it must be proved that feeling exactly as if you have left your body and viewed it from a distanced is a veridical feeling as opposed to a very persuasive hallucination. Dawkins might say that the notion of a life after death that many religions have implemented in their teachings comes as a source of comfort for those dying or those who watch their loved ones dying. It is reassuring to them to think of an idea of a ‘better place’ where they can still exist and be reunited one day.

If life is just DNA out to reproduce itself then does this mean there can be no life after death? Life after death and dualism are compatible as it is easy to comprehend that two entities which are separate can have different fates. The materialist view point generally does not support a life after death. Gilbert Ryle dismissed dualism as a theory about ‘a ghost in the machine’ where the ‘ghost’ is the mind in the ‘machine’ of the body. Ryle called

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this a category mistake and supported this using the example of a university. When an overseas visitor is shown around a collegiate university town and is shown the colleges, libraries, playing fields and more and then asks ‘But where’s the university?’ he has not appreciated that the university is not separate from its constituent parts. If life is just DNA replication and we can be no more than our genes; all of our ‘mental events’ are really physical events and when we feel emotion it is just the interaction of chemicals in our physical body.

There is a materialist who does not rule out life after death. This is John Hick, we regard him as a soft determinist. John Hick supports resurrection but not in the conventional ways of the dualists. He rejects the idea of the body and soul as two separate entities. Hick treats resurrection as a divine creation in another space of an exact psycho-physical ‘replica’ of the deceased person. Hicks ideas surround his Replica Theory. In the setting out of his theory, Hick constructs a thought experiment to allow us to see that life after death is possible; he tries to show the logical possibility. His thought experiment is such; he asks us to imagine ‘John Smith’ from America suddenly disappearing and an exact replica appearing of him in India. The replica is exact in every detail, from his memories to his stomach content and so his friends accept that this is John Smith despite the mysterious disappearance. Then Hick asks us to imagine that instead of disappearing John Smith dies and the same happens again. We would have to accept that he’d been miraculously recreated in another place. Finally, Hick proposes that when John Smith dies his replica is created in another world. If we accept the first two occurrences we would have to accept this last one.

Hick’s theory requires the postulation of a God. Another matter wholly in itself. Would it not just be easier to go with Dawkins’ straightforward theory which is based on worldly observations? Hick’s replica theory is a convincing thought experiment yet it seems hard to actually believe such a thing could in reality happen. Dawkins bases his theories solely on those things which for the moment we are certain about as there exists many proofs for natural selection and evolution. Dawkins does not require a thought experiment to give him an argument against life after death. Some Christians might even accept Dawkins account of human evolution yet the belief in a life after death imperative for them.

In my opinion, life is not just bytes and bytes of digital information- we are more than our genes. When Dawkins talks about the development of human consciousness he suggests that this has arisen from the advanced evolution of our genes yet this seems to be very hard to imagine. His arguments are convincing yet the absence of a life after death, perhaps due to my theistic roots, seems implausible. Dawkins seems so transfixed on his belief that science will one day come to an answer that he doesn’t see that what he calls consciousness can easily be conceived as the soul. He is so stubborn in his embrace of atheism that he refuses to be in support of any aspect that corresponds with theism.