Conservation of souls?

Discussion in 'Religion' started by James R, Jun 19, 2018.

  1. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    It's kind of like string theory. You can tweak the variables to make our universe quite nicely. But you can tweak them to make any other universe just as easily.
    So, while it may make a great model for our universe, it makes just as great a model for an almost uncountable number of other universes.
    Thus, while technically it might be correct, it is useless.
     
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  3. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    Does a sole have a soul as well?
     
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  5. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Gets the raw end of the deal

    Gets a body

    Think it's been asked here - are there boy / girl and in these enlightened days tranny's?

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  7. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    A sole is a fish, and there's the play.

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  8. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    I believe there is one spirit living many lives.

    If you shine a light behind a piece of paper and start poking holes in that paper, and that paper is infinite, how many points of light can you create?

    Not a problem, James.
     
  9. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    A good number

    But what about the light (souls) that hit the paper and never pass through to be created?

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  10. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    Better yet, does gospel music, rhythm and blues and jazz have soul?

    Yes, yes it is.
     
  11. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    Sure

    The general principle is that life emerges from life.

    It would have to be distinct from simply fiddling with pre-existing forms of life and its systems of reproduction.

    Creating life from matter has enjoyed popular speculation for many hundreds of years. If you look at it during its ebbs and flows, moments of expectation of it being unlocked in the very near future seem to only unlock bigger problems. So there is an ironic sense of advancement running alongside a perennial fruitlessness
     
  12. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    It sounded as though it was both true, and scientifically factual.
    I just wanted to know, from him, if that was the case.

    No.
    My questions weren't directed at you.

    jan.
     
  13. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    What about them?
     
  14. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Are you killing those souls or do they just languish behind the paper and never get a body?

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  15. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    You are equating them with independence from the source. If you could live 7 billion times and more, would it matter if some never happened?

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  16. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Doesn't matter. It's at least theoretically possible, and you can't say that it's impossible. What has been accomplished so far also has little bearing on whether it can be done at some point. But I expect it wouldn't have any impact on religious thinking, since faith is independent of truth or facts.
     
  17. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    In the analogy, the article of clothing is the body, and the body is the soul. The soul "wears" bodies. The soul is the most intimate source of agency and identity.

    The nuts and bolts of how life animates matter. Using the language of physics to explain life consistently falls flat on its face at a certain point.

    Biologists/psychologists have a whole bevy of tools they can use for investigation and analysis of their subjects, that physicists can't. I am not talking about a mere inter-disciplinary variation. I am talking about a completely different world view that has no need to be obedient or even subscribe to the reductionist views of physicists, and still remain "good science". Granted, physics has revolutionized science, but there is no need for psychologists/biologists to come to the end of untangling the hubris that surrounds reductionist views of life in order to function as effective biologists .... and by the same token, physicists also don't have to meet the same ends to function in their fields.

    No, you misunderstood the analogy

    Interrupting the electrical flow produces certain behaviour in a light bulb (it goes dim or extunguishes). However, the same behaviour can be mimicked with constant electrical flow by altering the light bulb (so it goes dim or extinguishes).
    In the same way, attributing the "lights" of the body to physical correlation in no way establishes life as physically emergent.
    When the electricity is cut, fiddling with the bulb has no effect. By the same token, "when our lights go out", fiddling with the body won't turn them back on.

    Being alive is the symptom of the soul. Its no more "magical" than attributing sunshine to the rising sun.

    The soul has no qualitative connection to matter. Granted we now experience life through the medium of matter, but that occurs through a superior agency ... I think we touched on that briefly in your "what does God do" thread.
    The animating force of life is not a material element, hence it doesnt appear in the purview of instruments that record matter.

    That discussion involves understanding God. IOW investigating ourselves requires an investigation of God. I understand that you have limited resources of patience in this regard, so I will try and keep it brief and entertaining.

    Perhaps its like the life of a nerd who takes shelter of computer games to compensate for their poor social skills. The computer and the game are manufactured by "superior agencies" IRL(the nerd neither manufactured or designed it nor powers it). The nerd is also IRL. The games they play are based on themes and narratives and events IRL. The computer and associated components are IRL But because the nerd has some reservation about real life in regards to their identity or role, they spend all their time controlling a pixelated avatar that is designed, facilitated and maintained by superior agency, IRL. In the state of such immersion, they experience (a shadow) of the full gamut of human experience through the trials and tribulations of a series of pixelated avatars. The pixels are real, the computer is real. The nerd is real (and of course real life, the very medium on which the game is based, is real). The grief and jubilation the nerd feels on account of the exploits of various avatars is real. Yet the only part that is not real is the nerds identification with the avatar. Actually they are not the avatars (that they are controlling through the arrangement of superior agencies). IOW the rubber meets the road through the medium of illusion.

    To get back to the computer nerd, if they desire to move the avatar in a particular way, it is orchestrated by superior agency IRL ... on a very elementary level, from the company providing electricity, to the keyboard and computer manufacturer ... to the more refined, immediate level, namely the game manufacturer who set the rules for playability, etc. Throughout all of this, the nerd is but a disempowered seer, who can merely desire. We are in a position of being unlimitedly limited

    ... con't
     
  18. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    con't ....

    My point has been that its the nature of life that it doesnt leave a material fingerprint to trace, so to speak.
    There is nothing wrong with curiousity ... infact you could say the primary purpose of this world is for the living entity to flesh out their curiousities. As such, it has numerous pursuits designed for the express purpose of engaging people for eternity (if that is the direction of their determination).

    Can you analyze the world of matter to enter in to a deeper understanding of things? Sure, the world is your unlimited oyster.
    Can you come to the point of materially isolating a transcendent cause? You would have better chances of locating a missing submarine in your kitchen sink.

    If the idea of God destroys your curiousity about the world, I would argue that you weren't primarily curious about the world at the onset.

    There is nothing impotent about transcendence ... on the contrary, its the predictable constraints of matter that relegate one to impotency.

    As for never hoping to understand, that only becomes the maxim for as long as one's determination is facing the wrong way (which, I agree, would be depressing).

    In the pure sense of the word, its only through philosophy that you can approach substantial truths.
     
  19. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    Its a case of more answers providing more questions. Calling it "a high level of detail" is merely relative to previous levels, while the essential questions remain.

    It was more your reference to the brain, with a vague suggestion of electricity correlating to memories/desire, etc, where things become meaningless. All you are doing is refining the point of location without any real ability to identify the processes involved beyond crude terms that do not deliver anything meaningful (meaningful in the sense of establishing life as some sort of materially reducible phenomena). As far as the mechanism of a spasmodically jerking arm goes, you don't even require that it be attached to a body.

    I would argue that progressing in an understanding occurs at the rate of properly formatted Qs and As. If you are advocating that life is an emergent property of matter as the basis for excluding a view that life itself has some independent agency, I would expect you would have better access to a thorough breakdown of parts and functions.

    In my world, it is not rational to believe in certain claims being evidenced by epistemologies that have inherent limitations, or to misuse epistemologies so that they become compromised vehicles of knowledge.

    Precisely.

    The fact that you included the word (yet) is evidence that you are misusing empirical epistemology.
    Its entire strength and credibility lies in not writing post-dated cheques.


    Yes.
    Or at the very least, material tools cannot approach a transcendent reality.

    On the contrary you are already there.
    Borrowing from the credibility of empiricism to foist your beliefs already entails quite a bit of magic.

    Yes, that is the point of view of science.
    Whether you embody such a view is debatable ... or to be fair, whether it is humanly possible to maintain such a position as a perimeter to contain all one's ideas and beliefs about the world is debatable.

    Sure.
    The world is your oyster.

    ..... well, that's probably a thread unto itself ... but I do agree that at least the original instutions of science grew out of a pure empirical curiousity to observe and investigate.

    Yes, but until you can explain why one would expect transcendent claims to be materially identifiable you are talking about nothing but your belief that we live in a world bereft of transcendent agencies (aka Atheism 101)


    Inasmuch as a kitchen sink is not designed to house a nuclear submarine.
    Bringing the right epistemology to the right problem is basically the essence of philosophy.

    .... and your equating "transcendent" with "beyond human understanding" and "the abandonment of reason" gives your game away.
    I am not saying the kitchen sink (aka empiricism) is useless. I am saying it is limited and bringing it to questions of a certain scale is foolishness.

    The problem is that you periodically hijack the authority of science, moving away from mere observation of the natural world, for the sake of foisting your beliefs ... that's when it becomes politics and approach the topic with an inbuilt false dichotomy ("ok boys, its science or religion. Whats it gonna be?").

    Sure.
     
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2018
  20. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    I guess if one can't differentiate science from science fiction, this will be a difficult subject to approach.
     
  21. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Can you differentiate science from religious fiction?
     
  22. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    Sure, but if you can't differentiate theoretically possible from the possible in science it would be a wasted effort.
     
  23. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Not answering the question but have not got time at the moment to unpack

    May come back but really this thread is boring for a single aspect item

    Lots of aspects in a god thread but this????

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