Do we have soul?

Discussion in 'Religion' started by Saint, Dec 28, 2013.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,968
    Bells,

    Jim Jones was an atheist.

    Bells, stop digressing.

    When you visualise in your mind an apple, is there an actual apple in your head?

    Good question. Maybe you should attempt to find the answer.

    How do you know there is no God (appreciate the upper-case distinction)?

    You really should calm down. Thus far you've simplified and trashed two or three serious genres.

    Like I intimated, the ancient greeks weren't as adept in this subject matter as other cultures,

    That's one possibility of what constitutes the soul.
    Do you have any others?

    You make it sound like theism is some sort of club or organisation.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    jan.
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    At this stage it only really matters why we think there are serious problems with your earlier assertions about evidence, the psyche and the brain.

    We are not only discussing "psyche" and your assertion that this is a term encapsulated by the term "brain", but also your suggestion that it is ludicrous to suggest anything else since its an evidenced claim.

    I pointed out earlier, if that's the case, you have to explain why there is a distinction between cognitive psychology (ie the field where you are likely to encounter the term "psyche") and cognitive science (ie the field that works with establishing cause of behavior with brain organization).

    You didn't answer that.


    I put the same question in a simpler format, instead asking you if the link you provided, namely biological psychiatry, is a field capable of evidencing biological causes for all sorts of human behaviour (tagged with a hint that suggests if you really want to argue in favor of it, you certainly have a lot of work ahead of you ....).

    Again, you didn't answer that.


    I think from here you either have to either provide evidence for your claim by answering these sorts of questions or back down from what you said earlier.


    The point of bringing all these subjects to your attention is that there are many aspects of the totality of the human mind, conscious, and unconscious that are not reconcilable with a mere biological analysis of the brain as the only valid subject of investigation.
    To suggest otherwise is simply to be grossly ignorant of the subject matter.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. Baldeee Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,226
    Strictly speaking this (what I have bolded above) is an unsupported claim on your part.
    If you had qualified it as currently being the case then you would be correct.
    But you can not speak for the absolute position that you claim without some support for the impossibility of it.
    To suggest otherwise at the moment, sure.

    But then there comes the matter of what one deems rational or not.
    Yes, there is a gap in our capability to analyse, to interpret.
    But is it rational to conclude/accept the idea of a non-corporeal soul before accepting that current technology and understanding is insufficient to be able to answer the question conclusively (i.e. either that it is all just the brain or that it is impossible to be just the brain).

    The lack of evidence for being anything other than the brain at best allows for the possibility that it is something else.
    But it is a further untenable step, in my view, to go from accepting it as a possibility (on the basis of a lack of evidence to the contrary) to claiming it as the truth.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Yazata Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,902
    This thread is about whether or not people have souls. That's a separate question from Sciforums' never-ending atheist v. theist battle over whether or not 'God' exists. It's possible to believe in the existence of souls without believing in a monotheistic-style God. Millions of people fit that description.

    Right, that's the question.

    Soul theories imagine the existence of some mysterious animating substance, which has been variously conceived as either physical or non-physical, that animates, gives life to, or somehow embodies and accounts for reason and subjective experience in living beings. There are many different varieties of soul beliefs, all around the world, in different periods.

    Originally the soul was conceived as the animating principle of living things, typically conceived as a substance whose presence made living things alive and whose absence meant that they were dead. It's what made animals move under their own power, unlike stones. That's why the ancient Greek philosopher Thales famously said that magnets have souls. Magnets possess the power to make small pieces of metal spontaneously move.

    Sometimes this mysterious soul-stuff was imagined as if it was physical. The ancients often associated it with the breath. We hear of gods "breathing life" into inanimate things. When one's breath finally left one's body for the last time, one died. That's why ghosts have traditionally been imagined as vapors and it's what the word 'spirit' originally meant.

    People are typically most interested in other people, and what we think of as the more psychological qualities of human life were associated with the presence of soul substance as well, human soul substance in particular. A whole hierarchy of different kinds of souls was imagined, from simple vegetable souls at one end, to human or even divine souls at the other. Moral behavior that's subject to praise or condemnation was thought to be the result of the action of the human soul, as was humanity's distinctive property of reason. So if somebody threw a rock at somebody else, the thrower was blamed instead of the rock, because the thrower was thought to possess the mysterious inner controller that the rock lacked.

    Eventually the idea of the soul was exalted to the point where it was imagined as entirely non-physical, separate from this lowly world of matter and from the fleshly body that it rode like a horseman. Some theologies even pictured the soul as a little glowing fragment of the divine, fallen to earth, seeking to ascend once again to its heavenly source.

    Dualistic philosophers such as Descartes in the 17th century started referring to the soul as 'mind' and imagined it as a separate and distinct non-physical substance that accounts for human subjectivity. And the idea is seemingly still implicit in the contemporary 'qualia' theories that insist that phenomenal qualities like 'red' are things, stuff of some sort, and what's more a kind of stuff that finds no place in physical science's inventory of being. And so the argument goes, all physicalistic accounts of the mind and human subjectivity (and of reality itself) must therefore be wrong.

    That doesn't necessarily follow. It's possible for those who believe in souls to imagine spiritual, cognitive or emotional diseases, alongside physiological ones.
     
  8. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    Atm we are discussing the problems of bells assertion of what she believes is an evidenced premise : namely that the psyche is a topic already dealt with in our analysis of the brain.
     
  9. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,855
    No, it is our consciousness.
     
  10. Baldeee Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,226
    Sure, you can dismiss issues raised with your own position.
    Sweep it under the carpet if you want.
    Hopefully everyone will ignore it before you can be bothered to address them, though.

    Is that the way sciforums works?
    That unsupported claims are okay, and to be ignored, as long as they are in response to someone else's position?
    And we are not allowed to raise issue with them.
    Nor expect those issues to be addressed?
     
  11. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    It's more that the way discussion works is that you progress through one point at a time.
    Syne made the point that issues of psyche pertain to issues of the soul. Q declared that these issues pertain to the brain. Syne requested that he evidence that claim. Bells responded that it is plainly evidenced. I responded that if that's the case she would have to explain why the distinction between cognitive science and psychology suggests otherwise.

    Are we to interpret both her and your sudden attempt to derail the flow of discussion as an admission that there is no evidence for the before mentioned claims?
     
  12. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    Which, you say, is the brain.

    :shrug:
     
  13. Baldeee Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,226
    You are incapable of addressing multiple points?
    Of holding multiple conversations in the same thread?
    And that gives you an excuse to evade issues raised against your comments... because you are still dealing with the previous point (which gave rise to your comments that I raised issue with)?
    This is rather pathetic of you.
    And I hope not symptomatic of the wider forum.
    And bells can respond to you in her own good time.
    But in your discussion you made the claim that " that there are many aspects of the totality of the human mind, conscious, and unconscious that are not reconcilable with a mere biological analysis of the brain as the only valid subject of investigation."
    I.e. in responding to bells you raised a claim.
    You have failed to support that claim.
    Why should you be able to raise unsupported claims, irrespective of whether bells is able to support hers, and not have it challenged the way you are challenging bells?
    I am not attempting to derail anything.
    I am attempting to get you to support a claim that you have made in the course of the discussion.
    You are attempting to evade that issue.
    Yet it is the same issue in principle that you are raising with bells.

    Why do you consider an effort to get you to adhere to the same standards you require of others as an attempt to derail the flow of discussion?

    You are being disturbingly hypocritical.

    Are we to take your hypocrisy as an admission that there is no evidence for your before mentioned claim?
     
  14. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    It's more that I am reluctant to follow the red herrings of people displaying the same diversionary points as the ones we are in the middle of dispersing.

    Cognitive psychology does evidence that claim.
    If you disagree, feel free to explain how it is not distinct from cognitive science in terms of methodology, analysis etc.
     
  15. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,855
    Do you have a problem with that fact?
     
  16. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,855
    And, we have been waiting patiently for Syne to produce anything to support his claim, but instead, he believes we need to provide evidence the brain is biological, which is obviously common knowledge, except to Syne.

    Who cares? Why is that an issue? How does that change anything?
     
  17. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    Only that you seem reluctant as hell to explain why it is a so called fact.
    :shrug:
     
  18. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    And yet he was a religious leader.



    It is a simple question.

    If someone commits a murder and says their soul made them do it, what is to blame? Who is to blame? What actually drove them to the crime? The divine spirit that is their own? Or their brain? How do you differentiate between the two? When you read a book, what allows you to understand the words and know their meaning? Your soul or your brain? What about right from wrong? How do you know the difference between the two? Did you learn it from those around you and did your brain learn to differentiate between the two and understand consequences for one's actions, etc? Or did your soul already know this right from the get go?


    See, when I visualise an apple, I am visualising something that actually exists. That I can and have touched, licked, smelled, bitten into, chewed, swallowed, tasted, thrown, picked from a tree, grown from seed (science experiment in high school). What allows me to understand it is an apple and not a pumpkin? My brain. Because I had learned very early in my childhood to know and understand the difference between an apple and a pumpkin.

    When you visualise a soul or your soul, is there an actual spirit in your body? Can you see it? Hear it? Touch it and smell it?

    I don't have a soul. I have a functioning brain. Do you have one?

    Because there is no evidence of a god. Does your soul speak to god? Does god answer?

    What does god sound like? What does your soul sound like in your head?

    It is a simple question. Why can't you answer it?

    Yes, it is amazing how much of a role education has in understanding things..

    If someone commits a crime and says god made them do it, who faces trial? If someone kills another and says their soul did it and they did not, can the soul be tried? Can the divine commit crimes?


    For some, it is.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    [HR][/HR]

    And as I said, if someone said their soul directed them to raping or murdering their spouse, you wouldn't buy it, would you?

    I believe it is our brain that directs our thoughts and actions.

    And as I pointed out, the working of the brain is biological and affects "cognitive psychology". Surely you cannot deny that.

    No it cannot account for all behaviour. Human behaviour is also based on how your brain accumulates, organises and processes information for particular stimuli and even scenarios. Please provide evidence that you have a sou.

    But you cannot blame that on the soul either. The spirit or inner divine being.. It's how your brain works. You cannot truly divorce the biological. It is deeply intertwined.

    For example, when you read things like 'feed your soul'. Is it feeding your divine spirit that is your soul? Or is it triggering certain pleasure parts of your brain that makes you happy? For example, when you are walking and you smell something that reminds you of your childhood, cookies baking or your grandmother's perfume, and it immediately relaxes you and makes you feel happy with no explanation. Is that your soul? Or your brain having been triggered by a happy memory?

    And to just say 'it's your soul' is tantamount to 'god did it'.
     
  19. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    then if wrong doing is merely a biological deficiency, what on earth do you hope to accomplish by punishment?

    IOW why is it that all the avenues of dealing with human behaviour (eg criminal justice, education, etc) deal practically exclusively with cognitive psychology as opposed to cognitive science?


    And as I pointed out, there remains a marked division between cognitive science and psychology ... like for instance the use of the word "psyche" ... or even the applications of criminal justice and education if you want to retreat from your earlier statements. Surely you cannot deny that


    Then straight off the bat we can throw out your earlier statements that suggest otherwise

    Noted how you are now talking about merely "some aspects of human behavior" as opposed to playing it as the be all and end all of discussion on the topic


    If you can't evidence your classification of the term "psyche" as something incorporated in the discipline of cognitive science, you have more immediate shortcomings afoot.



    the whole point of cognitive psychology is that at a certain point there is a gap between reductionism and consciousness ... and that gap spells the limit of what you can and cannot claim in the name of evidencing the brain as the final last word in consciousness

    Scientifically speaking, the fact that you only find effective answers to these sorts of questions in cognitive psychology should be a clear hint exactly where the limits of cognitive science lie.


    Incorrect.
    The division between cognitive science and psychology certainly has no requirement for introducing the subject of god.

    If you don't believe me, just look at the distinctions between cognitive science and psychology given in the previous link .... a link which seems to be yet another one of these packets of information that you haven't, can't and won't read.

    :shrug:
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2014
  20. Baldeee Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,226
    And you do so by committing the same fallacy that you are accusing the other person of.
    And then cry foul when you are called out on it.
    Hypocrisy.
    Please give support.
    Forgive me for not taking your word for it, but please do actually explain where and how it does evidence the claim.
    It is mostly distinct.
    But the fact that there are two methodologies does not equate to the impossibility of one eventually establishing the same as both currently do.

    So are you actually able to support the claim of impossibility that you made?
    Or are you just going to run with your hypocrisy?
     
  21. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    so you agree that bells is not evidencing her claim?


    Already given in the link : cognitive psychology vs cognitive science

    If they establish the same idea, feel free to explain the claims of cognitive psychology in terms of biological processes of the brain.
    Extra brownie points if you explain why the link describes them in the context of "vs"
    :shrug:

    The claim that you are ignorantly pretending cognitive science is effectively non-different from cognitive psychology is not hypocritical
    :shrug:
     
  22. Baldeee Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,226
    That is between you and bells.
    Where precisely do you think the link supports your claim that it is impossible?
    The link merely describes the differences.
    Not that through one or the other it is impossible to establish matters.
    I have not said that they yet can.
    That is your miscomprehension and/or strawman.
    You have claimed that it is impossible.
    Please support the claim.
    Because they are different schools of thought / method.
    E.g. "Driving vs Walking"
    They might both get you from A to B.
    Is your intention to argue for impossibility you claim on the strength of the use by wiki of "vs"?
    I am not saying that it is effectively non-different.
    That is again your strawman.
    Different methods can lead to the same result.
    It does not make the methods non-different.
     
  23. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    You too, since it seems you are simply picking up where she left off.


    impossible?
    what are you talking about?
    I said the link supports that the claim is not evidenced.


    WTF?

    I claimed that cognitive psychology, by definition, doesn't deal with the biological functioning of the brain.
    Because they are different schools of thought / method.
    Once again, not sure what you are talking about in the name of impossibility ... or even that you have read the paragraph for that matter ...

    So feel free to explain what methods of cognitive science approach the topic of psyche.
    :shrug:
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page