CRTW 201 Wolfe by the Elements

Dr. Fike

Question at Issue:  What effect will the idea of hardwiring (genetic predeterminism) have on the self/soul?

Purpose:  Wolfe seeks to inquire into advances in the science of the brain in order to speculate on the consequences of these advances for our understanding of self/soul.

Context:  What precedes this inquiry are advances in brain science, the death of Freudianism and communism, and the dawn of the biotechnology age.

Alternatives:  The brain is or is not hardwired.  Humans are or are not completely molded by their environment.  Human beings have a soul or not—we are or are not ghosts in machines.  (See the problem?  Black-and-white thinking.)

Point of view:  Wolfe writes from the point of view of a reporter on popular culture and science (he is a novelist by profession).  The essay includes various points of view—scientific, liberal, conservative.  But it excludes key alternatives—religious, philosophical, parapsychological, and metaphysical points of view—that would challenge scientific materialism’s fundamental assumption.  It is not clear whether Wolfe himself believes the science that he summarizes, but the article's implication is that he favors science over faith.

Assumption:  Nature is more important than nurture because we are hardwired.  We are mechanisms.

Information:  Wolfe discusses the occasionally controversial evidence that we are hardwired.  This information ranges from technology (brain imaging) to science (studies of monkeys, twins, alpha males, teenage girls, and murderers) to boys who take Ritalin to Edward O. Wilson and Alexander Solzhinitsyn. 

Concepts:  Along the way, Wolfe presents a panoply of concepts.  Here are the main ones:  self, soul, genetic predeterminism, Darwinism, free will, skepticism, tabula rasa, temperament, nature, nurture, intelligence, IQ, dualism, hardwiring, self-control, and ghostly self.

Conclusion:  If humans are completely hardwired, then the notion of self or soul is no longer relevant.  In other words, “Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died.”

 Implications and Consequences:  Once we reach a consensus that the brain is hardwired (i.e., that consciousness and thought are physical processes), we may develop technology to manipulate it, and once that happens we will move into a posthuman future.