# brain activity and personhood

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-activity-and-personhood/472421>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [November 12, 2008, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-activity-and-personhood/472421 "2008-11-12T21:18:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![BRP84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@BRP84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BRP84)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-activity-and-personhood/472421/1 "2008-11-12T21:18:32Z")

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Dear Cecil, In your article about abortion, you seem to make the Cartesian mistake of reducing personhood to brain activity. See here for more on this:

[http://www.nd.edu/~afreddos/papers/soul.htm](http://www.nd.edu/~afreddos/papers/soul.htm)

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-activity-and-personhood/472421/2 "2008-11-12T22:13:45Z")

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If we instead define personhood in terms of the possession of a soul, we then need some form of test to tell us whether a given entity has a soul. What test would you propose?