To answer this question, at first we must choose if we believe in the existence of the soul, as traditionally conceived, that is, an immaterial substance which together with our material bodies compound this living being of ours.
If the answer is that humans are an interplay of souls and bodies, it is meant the assumption of a dual perspective as solution to the mind-body problem. Rene Descartes was the philosopher who in the 17th century systematized dualism as the most rational way to approach this difficult subject.
On the other hand, monist solutions have been asserting for centuries that there's no need to believe in something immaterial that, always interacting with our bodies, make us live. Spinoza, another great philosopher of that same century, rejected dualism and for him our mental processes result from physical functions of our brains.
A major hindrance to this kind of monism has always been, by one side, the huge complexity of our brains. But not only that. There is an unavoidable dual methodological path to the study of the human mind and/or of our brains (the whole of emotions, perceptions, thinking processes and so on), namely:
1)PSYCHOLOGICAL PATH. Empirical data may be collected a)from individual reports on one's subjective life, b) from behavior patterns, and also c) using the phenomenological apprehension of the human mind. What matters for us in this trial to answer the proposed question (soul or brains?) is the fact that the main tool is derived from communication through language. This may give rise to the belief in the immateriality of our minds, be it justified or not.
2)NEUROLOGICAL PATH: The neuro-physiological processes involved in our mental life, that is,the neural events concomitants of mind contents is here the main data to gather.
Such a dual methodological path has always been confused with an ontological dichotomy, that is, it is easy to take the methodological limitation as a proof of the existence of two different substances. This seems to be Descartes's error.
My final answer is NO, neuroscience has not killed the belief in the soul! The Cartesian view of the mind-body problem still subsists among those who prefer a dual approach to solve this puzzle. The believers in an immaterial soul may now have some more reasons to doubt it, but no definitive answer is available! Consciousness remains one of the biggest mysteries that scientists and philosophers still face.
Nobody can definitely get rid of the belief in some supernatural force that could make us live.The mind-body problem, according to Kant, is another question that will never have any definitive rational answer! Its solution is out of the reach of our pure reason.
It is a metaphysical problem.
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