I am reading a book called STIFF: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. In chapter eight she talks about the 4,000 year-old "seat-of-the-soul debate." The Egyptians believed the soul (ki) was in the heart. The Babylonians believed the soul was in the liver. The Greek believed the "vital force" soul lived in the heart while the "rational" soul was in the brain. Scientists during the Renaissance decided the soul resided in the first organ to develop in the fetus. One philosopher, trying to answer the which came first the heart or the liver question, dissected a one-month-old fetus, got the answer wrong, and said the liver developed before the heart. In 1761 English physician Robert Whytt, after doing experiments on chickens (don't ask), decided that the soul did not rest in one area of the body but was "diffused throughout." Which jibes with the Asian philosophy of Chi.
Then there was Thomas Edison who believed that, "living beings were animated and controlled by 'life units,' smaller-than-microscopic entities that inhabited each and every cell and, upon death, evacuated the premises, floated around awhile, and eventually to reassembled to animate a new personality..."
O...K.
Right now the medical community pretty much believes the brain is the seat of the soul. I myself believe the soul is diffused throughout the body. But all of this discussion has brought up another question for me. Is a person's personality really the soul shining through?
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