Are humans just complex biochemical machines, mere physical parts of a causally closed materialist universe Are we approaching the so-called Singularity when human consciousness can and will be downloaded into computers Or is there more to the human person--something that might be known as soul or spirit As this book makes clear, the answers to these questions have profound implications to topics such as heroism, creativity, ecology, and the possibility of reason and science. In exploring this important topic, Dickerson engages the ideas of some well-known twentieth- and twenty-first-century espousers of physicalism, including philosopher Daniel Dennett Consciousness Explained, biologist Richard Dawkins The God Delusion, futurist-engineer Raymond Kurzweil The Age of Spiritual Machines, psychologist B. F. Skinner Beyond Freedom and Dignity, and mathematician-philosopher Bertrand Russell Why I Am Not a Christian. Through a careful reading of their works, Dickerson not only provides a fiv