We are not some high spirits trapped in a lowly biological body. We are the biological body. Humans have always had the desire to leave their sacks of fluids and shit behind and pretended they are something else. Of course, the idea is present in all religions with a notion of after-life, that this life tied to a physical existence is only a pretext to real life. Hinduism avoids the transcendental life by going into an infinite cycle of reincarnation, but the separation of body and soul is present there.

In contemporary times, when all things religious are uncool, people turn to quantum physics and other things that sound lofty enough, as the place where they place their souls. The New Scientist has a new feature probably every month on how “Scientists (the new priests) have discovered the location of consciousness (in quantum mechanics)”.

In Altered Carbon, the sci-fi, the soul is placed in the Stack at the base of the skull, and can thus travel. Bodies are “sleaves”, pieces of clothing the souls put on. 

Bullshit. Forget souls! This is, what it is. Our perception that we are something living inside a physical, biological container comes merely from the fact that we can a) hear our thoughts (some of them) b) our eyes are located on our heads. If our eyes were located in the corner of the room, would we still see ourselves as living in that thing? 

There is no soul. The soul is the production of the machine that we are. It is a concept our brain has created to allow self-reference. You are the person in the room everyone can see except for you. Every day we are comfortable with living with abstract concepts that we don’t place in any one place. We don’t think that concepts have a place where they can live happily ever after after they’ve outlived their purpose. Why the “I”? 

The Boundary of Painting, Art, and Humanity

By stripping down everything unnecessary from my paintings, I’m asking the question, “What is painting?” , “Where does the ‘magic’ happen and when does it stop happening?” By doing so, I’m also prodding the question, “What makes us human?”.  

Is there a difference between a human and a machine? Can a process lead to more than the result of the process? Are humans just biological machines? When asked, almost all people answer “No”. So what is the difference? Where is it located? Is there a ‘soul’ that rises to the clouds when we die? If humans are machines, then machines are humans. And we must ascribe a conscience, a soul, to machines and all objects in general. 

The ability of humans to produce art is often, directly or indirectly, presented as proof of us being more than just biological machines. Of having a soul. If something that is on the edge of being art can become art, doesn’t it mean that we can inject a soul into something that has no soul? If a soulful thing can be produced by purely mechanical means, can a soul be produced in a machine? 

Of course, these questions go back to Duchamp and before him.