The Parts of the Soul That Exist Before Conception
While the soul is immaterial information, it is represented by various material systems. First there is DNA. DNA is both coded information about the design of a creature along with coded information about the process that transforms a fertilized egg through all of the stages from embryo to adult. In addition, DNA is part of the actual processes that allows for cell replication, differentiation and even the physical actions of building proteins and other components of cells and whole living things.
Just prior to conception, just prior to the fertilization of an egg by a sperm, there is a great deal of information carried to this process by the egg and the sperm. Much of this information has to do with the design of the process that constructs a human body from the sea of nutrients and hormones that also may influence the result. Some of the information has to do with things that are accessible to one’s adult intellect. For example, identical twins, separated from birth till adulthood, will often make identical decisions regarding certain arbitrary preferences. We know that there are many ways that the DNA formed at conception has a profound influence on the development of the intellectual part of the soul. A seemingly random process chooses the exact combination of parental DNA that fuses to make a new individual. However, what is not random is the fact that all of the DNA comes from one or the other of the parents. It is easy to see many characteristics of a parent in looking at a child. It is reasonable to expect that part of the soul of a child is inherited from its parents through genetic information. This information exists in the parents, the grandparents and all of this information comes from ancestors of the child (with the exception of mutations). While the combination that the child gets is not determined, what is clear is that in general, we may say that the child does not normally get any genetic information other than what was present in his or her ancestors.
Because information is not the same as physical objects, one is not constrained to replicate the medium when replicating information. We can take information from a floppy disk and transfer it into computer memory (RAM) and later transfer it onto a CD-ROM. Bits are represented by the orientation of magnetic domains on a floppy disk, by physical or optical deformation in a CD and by electrostatic charges in RAM. One can think about the process of development from a fertilized egg to an embryo to a newborn to an adult from the informational viewpoint. We will try to expand on that concept.
DNA is highly organized information that allows for at least nine different functions:
1. Information storage
2. Information merging, so that offsprings inherit from both parents
3. Information replication when cells divide
4. Information controlled growth with cell differentiation
5. Enabling conversion of an informational design into a body of an adult living thing
6. Biological chemistry, e.g. protein synthesis.
7. Making available accessible information to the mind of the living thing.
8. Passing on to heirs information that was evolutionarily useful even though it was not expressed in the current creature, e.g. 2 brown eyed parents can conceive a blue eyed offspring
9. Enabling the process of inheritable mutation that allows for the evolution of new species
Let us imagine a fairly complete list of Dewey Decimal system numbers. Further, imagine two libraries where each library must have exactly one appropriate book for each different Dewey Decimal number. The two libraries need not have the same book for a given Dewey Decimal number although they might. Now a child can obtain a new library by choosing and copying just one book for each Dewey Decimal number, either from the father’s library or from the mother’s library. The child’s library will have a complete set of books, one for each Dewey Decimal number, but about half of the books would be from the father’s library and the rest from the mother’s library.
Aside from information that was in either the father’s library or in the mother’s library, the child’s library may also have new information. While the child’s library will have nothing new in any of the books, the juxtaposition of books from the two libraries may have some amount of information that was not in either library. For example, under the category “tools” the father’s library may have had a book that discusses how to use woodworking tools and the mother’s library may have a book on how to use gardening tools. Under the category of furniture, the mother’s library might have a book on designs of various kinds of wooden furniture and cabinets while the father’s library might have a similar book on the designs of various metal and plastic furniture. Neither library has sufficient information to allow using woodworking tool to make a cabinet, but the two together (the father’s woodworking tools book and the mother’s wood furniture design book) have the all the necessary information. Conversely, if one inherits the same information from each of two parents or incompatible information, then the combination of some of the books may have less information than the sum of the information in each of the books. Thus combining information involves mechanisms that may preserve, add and subtract information. There are many different analogies that can usefully add to our comprehension of how information is involved in living creatures and that can add to our understanding of the soul from an informational viewpoint.
In what follows, we will show how the soul can survive the death of the body. We will explain characteristics of a disembodied soul. We will explain exactly what is necessary for a soul to re-inhabit a different body. We will explain exactly what is required for a static soul to be able to exist intact though in a suspended state without a body. Further, we will be able to understand exactly how a soul could think and communicate with humans, despite the fact that the soul no longer had an ordinary corporeal body. We will be able to think clearly about what will be possible in the future as opposed to what might not be possible today. Some things may appear to be forever impossible and we will be able to know what facts underlie our belief in their impossibility. Finally, we will answer in a definitive way, essentially all questions about reincarnation.
Before we can gain a clearer understanding about the soul, we must first gain familiarity with ideas common to both the soul and to computer systems. A computer can be a relatively simple kind of machine that uses certain principles in order to work with information. In a similar though more complex way, the brain-body also works with information. When we commit something to long term memory, it is somewhat similar to a computer system adding information to a database. Of course, we have ways of retrieving things from our memories that use processes quite different from what is currently done in computer systems. The point is only this: by understanding how the computer works with information we will be in a good position to understand further explanations as to what the soul is and how it works. We have relegated our short tutorial “How the Computer Works with Information" to Appendix A.
