Mind, Body and Soul: What Should You Make of It All? (Part 3)

A family sits by a hospital bed. Their mother has had a serious brain injury. Her eyes open sometimes, but she does not respond when they speak. One of them asks the question that every family in this situation asks: is she still in there?

Questions that philosophers have argued about for centuries become very practical at moments like this. They also arise when we decide how to treat animals, when a chatbot says it has feelings, and when we sit with someone who is dying.

Parts 1 and 2 of this series set out the ideas. This final part looks at the newest evidence from science, what religions teach today and where philosophy now stands. It ends with a fair way to make up your own mind.

Awareness can hide behind silence

In 2024, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study led by Yelena Bodien. It tested 353 adults with disorders of consciousness at six international centres, using brain scans and brain-wave recordings while giving them spoken instructions. Of the 241 people who could not respond to instructions in any visible way, 60, about one in four, showed brain activity suggesting they understood and were following them.

This does not tell us what consciousness is made of. It does show that the outside of a person can be a poor guide to what is happening inside, and that awareness may be present where we least expect it.

At the edge of death

The AWARE II study, led by Sam Parnia and published in the journal Resuscitation in 2023, followed 567 people whose hearts stopped in 25 hospitals in the United States and the United Kingdom. Some survivors described clear experiences during resuscitation, such as observing events without pain or distress. Among patients whose brains were monitored, signs of near-normal brain activity were sometimes recorded up to an hour into resuscitation.

Some people see such reports as evidence that the mind can exist apart from the body. Others see them as the activity of a dying brain. The researchers themselves were careful: they stated that their work has neither proved nor disproved the reality or meaning of these experiences.

Minds in other animals

In April 2024, more than 200 scientists signed the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness. It states that there is strong scientific support for conscious experience in other mammals and in birds, and a realistic possibility of it in all vertebrates and many invertebrates, including insects, crabs and octopuses. It adds that ignoring this possibility in decisions affecting animals is irresponsible.

UK law has moved in the same direction. The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 recognises as sentient all vertebrates other than humans, as well as cephalopods such as octopuses and decapod crustaceans such as crabs and lobsters.

Machines that talk

In 2023, 19 researchers led by Patrick Butlin and Robert Long assessed AI systems against features that the main scientific theories say consciousness requires. They concluded that no current AI systems are conscious, but that there are no obvious technical barriers to building systems that would meet those tests.

The theories are still being tested

As Part 2 described, a large experiment published in Nature in 2025 put the two leading scientific theories of consciousness to a head-to-head test. Neither passed every test. Science has made real progress on how consciousness works in the brain, but it has not yet explained why it exists.

Religions make claims about meaning, morality and what happens after death. These are not claims that a brain scan can confirm or rule out. Here is how some major traditions describe the person today.

Accepting neuroscience and holding religious beliefs are not mutually exclusive. Christian physicalists such as Murphy build the findings of brain science into their theology. At the same time, many philosophers who are not religious accept that consciousness remains unexplained. The lines between camps are less sharp than public arguments suggest.

In the 2020 PhilPapers Survey of professional philosophers, about 52% accepted or leaned towards physicalism and about 32% towards non-physicalism. 62% agreed there is a hard problem of consciousness. Philosophy has not reached a verdict.

Two newer positions try to escape the old stand-off. Illusionism, set out by the philosopher Keith Frankish in 2016, keeps the scientific picture by arguing that our sense of a mysterious inner glow is itself produced by the brain. Panpsychism, defended by Philip Goff and others, goes the other way, and makes consciousness a basic feature of matter. That serious thinkers are moving in opposite directions is itself a sign that the question remains open.

Most thoughtful views fall into one of three broad pictures. Each has real strengths. Each has a hard question it must answer.

You do not have to wait for science or philosophy to finish. Here are four questions that help you find where you stand.

After three parts and 2,400 years of argument, here is what the most up-to-date evidence and thinking suggests a fair-minded reader can take away.

• Your mind and your brain are deeply bound together. Look after your brain through sleep, activity and avoiding harm, and you are looking after your mind, whatever else may be true.
• Consciousness is real, it matters, and it is still not fully understood. That is not a gap that will close easily, and it is fine to say ‘we do not yet know’.
• Awareness can exist where it cannot be seen. Speak to people who cannot respond as if they might hear you. The evidence suggests some of them can.
• Mammals and birds very likely have conscious experiences, and many other animals may too. Leading scientists and UK law now both point that way, and it is reasonable to let that shape how we treat them.
• Be wary of confident claims about AI feelings in either direction. Experts concluded in 2023 that current systems are not conscious, but the question is open for the future.
• Science, religion and philosophy answer different kinds of questions. You can respect the evidence of neuroscience and still hold religious beliefs, or none, about meaning and what lies beyond death.
• Hold your own view with confidence and humility at once. The people who have thought hardest about this still disagree, which means others who see it differently deserve a fair hearing.

The question of what you are may never be fully answered. But asking it well makes you more careful with the people you love, more thoughtful about the creatures you share the world with, and more honest about the limits of what anyone knows. That is a good return on any question.

This content is for general information only and does not constitute legal, financial, medical or professional advice. It describes scientific, religious and philosophical positions for educational purposes and does not endorse or reject any religious or personal belief. For questions about a specific patient’s condition, speak to their medical team.