THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE

It is not for me to resolve the philosophical and scientific problem of consciousness and how consciousness emerges and works. Several books have been published for whoever is interested in this question. For my purpose, which is to shed some further light on what I believe to be the moral permissibility of abortion, it is enough to define consciousness as sentience and awareness of internal and external existence, and a sense of selfhood or identity, which I believe is the generally accepted definition. And although the phrase “ghost in the machine” was coined to critique the notion of a duality of mind versus matter, I will only be using it metaphorically. I will hereunder be arguing for the permissibility of at least most abortions (those that are performed prior to 24 weeks along the pregnancy) through the metaphor of “ghost in the machine” taken from both a secular and religious (mainly Catholic) perspective.

There are two main theories about what constitutes personal identity, or what we call the “I” – the religious (I will here consider only Catholicism for brevity’s sake) and the secular. I will treat both in that order.

The religious theory, which is entirely faith-based and lacking any evidence (which is why it requires faith) is that a person’s identity consists of his “soul”, which contemporary Catholic teaching says is created by God and “inserted” inside a human body at conception. The metaphor of “ghost in the machine” may apply here, where the ghost would refer to the “soul” and the machine would refer to the human body. To stick with the metaphor, in Catholic doctrine, the “ghost”, being the soul, enters the “machine”, being the body at conception and leaves it at the death of the “machine” – Christian doctrine claims that the soul then goes to heaven (or hell, as the case may be). Whether the body is discarded forever or reassembled for entry into heaven, the body either way remains a “machine”. I’ll just remark here that I won’t go into the complications a resurrection of a body would entail, for instance whether a soul whose body dies in childhood retains a child’s body for eternity, etc.  In any case, whether or not the soul reunites with a body after death, the body would in any case remain a “machine”, while the person’s true identity, the “ghost”, remains the soul.

How would the above relate to the abortion question? Given that it is a scientific fact that a foetus (an early machine, one might say) is capable of feeling pain after 24 weeks gestation, abortion beyond that date may be opposed for reasons that go against the infliction of unjustified and preventable suffering (although a case could still be made for choosing the “lesser evil” if a continued pregnancy may present a grave danger to the life or health of the mother). However, before the foetus attains sentience, abortion would, according to current Catholic doctrine itself, not harm the foetus’ soul at all. In fact, it might even benefit it, given that current Catholic doctrine states that the death of a foetus or baby guarantees its soul’s entry in heaven – which Catholics believe is a place of extreme bliss that no time spent on Earth could make up for. It is true that Catholic doctrine considers abortion a sin, but that only relates to the parent/s, so you may consider it as the ultimate sacrifice if you wish. The foetus’ soul gets the ultimate prize.

The above, of course, is faith-based and would be only relevant to the religious. Moreover, I would welcome any corrections to my interpretation of that view. So, what would the secular scientific evidence-based view have to say on this, using once again the “ghost in the machine” metaphor?

On the scientific secular view, at conception the “machine” starts getting built, being guided by the “instruction manual” of DNA. The machine keeps growing, and beyond a certain point, deteriorating, just like any machine, until death. However, unlike the case of the religious view, the secular scientific view holds that the “ghost” only appears in the machine when consciousness starts to emerge. The “ghost” in this case only begins to gradually appear beyond 24 weeks of gestation, which is when the brain would be sufficiently developed to gradually form a conscious and sentient identity that will eventually be self-aware. This personal identity is what we mean by the concept of the “I”, which common parlance recognizes as a separate entity (in our metaphor, the “ghost”) when we say “my body”, “my arm”, “my leg” etc. This shows that we consider, even by our use of language, our body or body parts as “tools” or a “machine” that serves the “ghost” we call “I”. This “ghost”, so to speak, is created by the brain and keeps developing and forming a continuous identity through memory, until the brain dies and consciousness and sentience die forever with it.

So, ignoring the concept of an immaterial “soul” that we have already dealt with, and for which there is no evidence anyway, how would abortion impact on the non-religious scientific view? Given that personal identity (the “ghost” in our metaphor) only appears when the brain is sufficiently developed to be able to create consciousness, what we call our “selves”, or the “I”, would not exist at all before at least 24 weeks gestation. This means that abortion before that time only destroys an empty “machine” (the body), but not any “ghost” (the individual person) because at that point the "ghost" would not even exist. Essentially, given the above, abortion before 24 weeks kills no one. It is only beyond 24 weeks where abortion, in this view, becomes a moral issue at all, since it is beyond 24 weeks that the individual identity appears and starts to develop, initially by only gradually attaining sense-perception, and eventually an actual awareness of itself. However, similarly to our treatment of the case according to the religious view, even beyond 24 weeks, a case may still be made for choosing the “lesser evil” in cases where the mother’s life or health are in danger.

In conclusion, on the religious view considered above, abortion until at least 24 weeks cannot harm the individual (soul) and might actually benefit it given the belief in an afterlife, the belief in the innocence of the soul before birth (assuming “original sin” would be “forgiven”), and the belief in a benevolent God. On the secular scientific view, abortion before at least 24 weeks cannot harm a person that does not yet exist, given that the individual (the “I”) only gradually appears beyond that time.

On non-identity and potential personhood, see also "Potential Adam and Potential Eve".