Do we have soul?

What is the theoretical means to falsify it? Actually being unscientific does mean it doesn't exist, to the best of our knowledge, as much as one can be certain of anything.

 

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No, unscientific means:

un·sci·en·tif·ic
1.
not in accordance with scientific principles or methodology.
2.
lacking knowledge of or interest in science.​

Certainty to not solely reliant upon science, although scientific certainty is.

 

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Again, WOW, just WOW. I am stunned at what you post here. It is well beyond hilariously silly, childish at best. Obviously, you're just trolling and baiting here, so I won't bother feeding the troll anymore.

Btw, stay in school and take some biology classes while you're there.

 

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As I understand the term, 'null hypothesis' is a phrase taken from statistical inference. It refers to the hypothesis that no statistical correlation exists between occurrances of A and B. The null-hypothesis idea isn't an argument for credulity.

The logic of the null-hypothesis idea seems to run the other way. It's basically saying that there's no reason to think that events A and B are statistically related, until there's some evidence that they are. So the 'null hypothesis' idea seems to me to just be another version of the common-sense dictum: If there's no evidence for something, then there's no evidence for it.

The argument in this thread is about what minds are, in an ontological sense. What kind of being do they possess? Are minds basically functions, events and activities that occur in physical systems of a suitable form, brains in our case? Or are minds a kind of substance in their own right, an additional realm of soul-substance separate and distinct from physical substance? I don't think that there are any easy and automatic default positions on that one.

In my own personal opinion, the lack of any persuasive reason to think that mind- or soul-substance even exists certainly tells against it. And the intimate dependence of cognition and subjective experience on continued effective brain function suggests that the functional account is much more plausible.

Meanwhile others continue to insist that Descartes' cogito, the more recent qualia arguments, or whatever it is do tell us that mind is a separate and distinct realm of being. And there's the continued cultural momentum of the religious traditions, I guess, that often preach a similar message. So there will probably always be people arguing against my rather neurophysiological view of things. That's fine with me.

 

Yazata,

What is your personal opinion regarding the soul, and why are you of that opinion?

jan.

 

That is not to say that it's impossible to technologically achieve something similar to a soul. In the future it may indeed be possible to save one's mind-state and put it in another kind of substrate, like a computer, or an after-life simulation.

 

The existence of mind or soul might otoh only lack any third person objective evidence, much as say the color green does or the flavor of sweetness. This is not to say it lacks phenomenal first hand evidence though. Indeed, the application of the concept of empirical evidence at all to something so much a part of us as mentality or subjectivity may be redundant if not misleading. Why would we need evidence for a completely a priori phenomenon? What if mind or soul is like space or time, something so first hand and fundamental that to objectify as a "thing without an observer" it is to reduce it to something it is not?

 

How would that work ?

Jan.

 

It would be like scanning everything that's going on in your brain, your memories and thought patterns, and simulating all of it computationally. Or printing another one with a biological 3D printer. Or reproducing it's structure and functions electronically. We might even be able to install it in a new body and achieve immortality. Or place the copy into a heaven or hell simulation. Or just hold it just in case you are injured or killed.

 

Yes.

The mind is indeed the brain.

 

Is consciousness our soul?

 

If defined like this, i would agree.
Althought, i have no belief in any kind of post mortem living counsciousness.

 

and if you read the rest of the link you provided, you will see the problems of dictating all this subject matter comes under the purview of the brain ... unless you have some (evidenced) breakdown of the function of jungian/freudian concepts in terms of the brain (although I think you will find that people working in cognitive psychology can't retreat from freudian or jungian concepts fast enough ... what to speak of those involved in cognitive science) or even some suave means of neutralizing the conflict between Cognitive psychology vs. cognitive science

(and I mean neutralizing the conflict in terms of evidence as opposed to dumbing down the argument or simply posing an argument that never leaves the theoretical realm of mental speculation)

The very link you provided suggests otherwise.

On the contrary, professionals in the field suggest that the notion of having a "brain in a jar" that can establish all these things you talk of is simply an embellishment of science fiction, and early prototypes of computers that were talked about as if they are or could potentially be some sort of parallel equivalent for consciousness.

IOW regardless of your take on the scenario, there is no evidence for what you claim (or alternatively, a requirement to dumb down the terms of the thesis by suggesting the process of a camera "seeing" and a human eye "seeing" are more or less identical)

Actually you inadvertently provided information that undercuts your ideas on the subject.

:shrug:

 

Science dictates evidence of claims. Can you account for all human behavior with causative biological correlates?

 

Bells,

Bollocks to that...

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Brain surgery is perhaps the oldest of the practiced medical arts... Unearthed remains of successful brain operations... the success rate was remarkable, even circa 7,000 B.C.

Scientists have discovered the world’s oldest known case of a successful human brain surgery after unearthing a 4300 year old skull from the site of the ancient Harappan Civilization site in India.

The term ''psyche'' came from the ancient greeks, whose knowledge was the equivilent of children compared to the ancient egyptians, infants compared to ancient babylonians, and embryos compared to vedic knowledge, meaning...

The basic meaning of the Greek word ''psyche'' was "life" in the sense of "breath", formed from the verb (psukhō, "to blow"). Derived meanings included "spirit", "soul", "ghost", and ultimately "self" in the sense of "conscious personality" or "psyche".

How do you know?

Yes. Please provide. Thanks.

jan.

 

Do you think that link evidences all human behavior with causative biological correlates?
(hint)

Niall McLaren emphasizes in his books Humanizing Madness and Humanizing Psychiatry that the major problem with psychiatry is that it lacks a unified model of the mind and has become entrapped in a biological reductionist paradigm. The reasons for this biological shift are intuitive as reductionism has been very effective in other fields of science and medicine. However, despite reductionism's efficacy in explaining the smallest parts of the brain this does not explain the mind, which is where he contends the majority of psychopathology stems from. An example would be that every aspect of a computer can be understood scientifically down to the very last atom, however this does not reveal the program that drives this hardware.