Crick asserts that since the brain can explain the mind, then there is no need for a soul. But thinking and consciousness is not all that the soul does; hence the traditional distinction between mind and soul. How does one explain the difference between life and non-life, from the smallest bacterium to the largest mammal? The neuronal functionings do not seem to explain the life/non-life problem, while the soul, an anima-ting principle, does. Crick’s assertion would need to further answer the life/non-life problem in order to adequately show that there is no need for soul. He has only shown that there is no need for mind. The need for a soul cannot be explained away by the brain.
Fundamentally, there is a jurisdictional problem at play in this entire debate. The subject of our discourse is man qua man, a subject with immaterial and material elements, intellect and emotions, will and instinct. Modern academia has divided itself into disciplines with very specific jurisdictions and expertise areas, overall a positive development, unless such disciplines fail to interact with one another. Just like the Western intellectual movement towards individualism and the total self-sufficiency and independence of the individual from the group, each discipline has become wholly dependent upon itself, thereby assuming that its methodology—that which distinguishes one discipline from the others—is capable of explaining all of reality. But man is incredibly complex and intricate, an essentially interdisciplinary being. Hence any meaningful discourse on man must incorporate all the disciplines, for ultimately, all disciplines relate essentially to man. Man cannot be explained merely by metaphysics, nor can be explained merely by science. Man must be examined by a dialectic of all the disciplines. Only by such a dialectic can the essentially interdisciplinary being receive an adequate explanation.[1]
