Souls?

[Cris]

Nisus,

Welcome to sciforums.

The soul is the spirit embodied. I.E. the union of spirit and the body.

How does this spirit/soul interact with the body? What is its purpose? What does it do that the brain cannot?

Interesting how someone would go into great efforts, and lengths to refute something they don't believe exists...if something doesn't exist, why do you need to be convinced that it doesn't exist?

Because theists haven’t been convinced yet.

Why do you need to convince others it doesn't exist?

Because it is an essential ingredient of religion and if it doesn’t exist then all religions are nonsense. Seems like a pretty fundamental issue to me.

Why would you write pages upon pages of reasoning aimed to condition someone not to believe that they are a soul?

Because, surprisingly, many people have the strange idea that they do have a soul.

No identity...

Provided by your brain – no soul is needed.

and no significance outside of life that you deem insignificant...

Why is life insignificant? Without an eternal soul life is extremely precious – it is all we have.

Truely this would be the definition of no soul.

You have a brain, a soul appears to have no purpose.

No person to call your own.

Covered that already, your identity is provided by your brain.

No thoughts to claim as your own.

Thoughts are generated in the brain, no soul is needed.

 

[ellion]

the reaction the hallucination has on your body is material/objective, the actual stimuli on the senses is material/objective.
if we said the hallucinations were wholely material then we'd have to say the god/soul was material, and quite clearly it is not.
therefore the actual vision, dream, the backbone of the hallucination, is subjective/immaterial.
as I said earlier

so you do think that the immaterial has affect on the material?

 

[water]

But the contest is that of ideas not of people.

Dear Raithere,

Here's the core of all your arguments: Ideas are more important than people.

Think about it.

 

[Cris]

Lawdog,

This assumes that good/evil are abstractions of material activity.

Why not?

However, all confess that this is not so.

Who is all? If you mean everyone then clearly that is not true.

"Conscience" , another immaterial reality,

Nothing immaterial has yet been shown to exist. Claiming something immaterial cannot be justified. Conscience is yet another example of abstraction.

is confessed and experience by all humans save those who are ill or mal-formed.

And everyone has a brain. Why would conscious be immaterial?

This assumes that just because material reality effects personality, has some influence on it, or can change it, that personality is therefore material.

Not quite. Personality is entirely the result of material activity.

Yet we know that material reality can effect immaterial reality,

What is immaterial reality? Nothing immaterial has yet to be discovered.

Yet to say that material reality is the only important reality reveals deficiency of understanding physics/metaphysics.

Again it is worth reminding you that nothing other than the material has been shown to exist.

Immaterial reality is effected by material events and states,

How? As Boris has pointed out there appears no way that something immaterial can interact with the material.

but not in all cases governed by such, however in some cases immaterial reality is controlled by material.

How?

Nevetheless, all immaterial reality has its source in the supernatural ground of the non-void.

What is non-void if it is not the material? Are you saying that the supernatural is really the natural?

If it is a living immaterial reality, (rather than say a mere cosmic law like "gravity"), then it is spiritual.

These are imaginary concepts that you have yet to show have any basis in reality, despite your assertions.

 

[ellion]

When you say "me" and "I" are you referring to your physical body, the biological organism? Will "you" cease to function when your body does?

all of "me" is "I",i am referring to myself everything that is me, if i lose a finger i am still me, if i lose an arm, i am still me, if i lose my mind, i am still me. "I" am not my body, my body is mine.

If so, what is it that survives the death of your body?

to be honest, i am not dead at the moment, so any answer i give should be given from this side of life. to give an answer that is not from this isde of life would involve the necessary acceptance that there is another side of life and that the possibility of communion is actual. there is not many people here ready to accept the reality of that.

Your mind? A seed of conscious awareness? Something else? Because, for all appearances a dead person appears to have ceased to function.

the body does cease to function at death. the body is not me, the body is mine.
if the body in totality is a manifestion of the soul, why would the soul need the body to exist outside the body?

 

[wesmorris]

Yes.

An abstract is simply a quality that is perceived to be shared across things. Some have therefore concluded that it is independent of the thing itself, some essential property, an "is-ness" that exists both within and apart from the thing itself. But they are really only generalizations, models or patterns that exist in the mind.

I'm not concluding the abstract has anything to do with the "thing itself" except in an impression from it. The important question here is: What differentiates?

Until programmed to recognize patterns by a being that recognizes patterns, a computer cannot for instance, differentiate between any two real things. It just is. I knows not a one from zero, it just processes them. A computer has no abstract component except in the mind that envisions it. Correction, the computer doesn't eve recognize a pattern at all. It just processes, recognizing nothing. What besides "mind" can employ the concept (abstract) of differentiation? Not the object of the idea, but the idea itself? Certainly it's subjective as you confirm below, but it is also, the idea itself.. the cognition of it, the holding of it in the focus of mind... purely non-phsyical, even though there is a physical thing coaxing it into (abstract/non-physical) existence.

Beauty is not an independent quality, but a set of relationships by which we measure the appearance of a thing. This can be identified in the properties beautiful things share (symmetry, balance, efficiency of form, efficiency of function, color harmonies, etc, depending upon what it is that is being perceived).

I didn't imply it an independent quality, I just said "non-physical" as in, derived from the physical, but in and of itself - not.

But you can't have beauty independent of the mind (or to be more precise, the brain) that perceives it. It's a pattern that exists in the brain, a template by which we measure what we perceive.

Of course, but the cognition of that pattern in and of itself, the experience of it (in the everpresent now)... is non-physical.

 

[ProCop]

You mean if there has been a transfer of knowledge. As far as I'm aware it's a hypothesis without any evidence.

I remember reading something about this regarding monkeys in Japan, they called it the 100th monkey phenomenon. It was fake, a misrepresentation of real research.

http://www.csicop.org/si/9605/monkey.html

~Raithere

I look thoroughly (google) if the experiments (from which the immaterial transfer of knowledge between the rats was suggested) were "debunked" and I have found none. There was't a single suggestion that the research was flawed. The scientists involved: AGAR WILFRED E and W. McDougall are recognized and respected scientists. Your dismissal of any involvement of immateriality concernig the the working of the mind is based on presupposition (that it cannot be envolved) not on a scientific research (if I am mistaken here please provide the info about the research which proves that.)

Anyway, if as you suggest, there was no transfer of knowledge between the rats in the experiment described above the only possibility which remains is that they had the knowledge before they were borned. That points to the existence of a soul-like entity even more than the transfer of knowledge theory.

 

[ProCop]

Can the vague actions of two rats be scientific evidence of a soul? I think I will need more evidence on that one.

I wish you were right because I would've been able to inherit some of Jimi Hendrix's skill, but it hasn't happened.

Well this is tough argument. If we have/posses more knowledge than we use/are aware of why is that? (If one member of a species as the experiment with rats suggests acquires a skill then the other rats acquire the same skill level without the training)...Possibly the skills acquired by others come out as it happens in talented, gifted individuals who somehow can receive these skills ) from other skilled/talented people. That would mean that the talented people possibly have some specificity concerning their "souls" (e.g having very old souls, having more "receptable" soals..) That would mean that talented people posses the skills/knowledge of others (even generations of others). Highly speculative...I recognize that...

 

[Sarkus]

This assumes that just because material reality effects personality, has some influence on it, or can change it, that personality is therefore material.

No - personality IS material. We are not saying that it is material merely because material things can act on it, we are saying that personality is PURELY the result of material interactions and is thus MATERIAL.

Yet we know that material reality can effect immaterial reality....

Who is this "we"? Merely saying it doesn't make it so. No one has proved that "immaterial reality" exists - or that anything immaterial exists. Please do this first, then show how the material can interact with it.

 

[c7ityi_]

Personality is entirely the result of material activity.

But what causes the material activity?

No one has proved that "immaterial reality" exists - or that anything immaterial exists.

No one knows what Material reality is either. They don't even know what it is "made of". Maybe the matter is immaterial (spiritual energy in the mind) instead of "real substance" separated from us.

What makes a seed grow? Some immaterial "will" to evolve. What causes the brain to will or think of something? The immaterial self.

 

[(Q)]

all of "me" is "I",i am referring to myself everything that is me, if i lose a finger i am still me, if i lose an arm, i am still me, if i lose my mind, i am still me. "I" am not my body, my body is mine.

So, if you lose a finger or an arm, do you lose a piece of you soul? If you lost your entire body and were merely a head in a jar, would you still have a soul? If the head were alive and functioning, but you had no senses; sight, smell, hearing, would you still have a soul? If the head were alive but not functioning, would you still have a soul?

 

[Cris]

wes,

Of course, but the cognition of that pattern in and of itself, the experience of it (in the everpresent now)... is non-physical.

How? And you experience beuty with your brain, right? Which is physical. "Beuty" is merely a label we give to that set of qualities and experience. But those qualities and experiences are manifestations of physical conditions.

 

[Cris]

c7,

But what causes the material activity?

Neural networks generated from sensory input from birth and while in the womb, combined with hereditary tendencies, and from environmental and educational conditioning.

What makes a seed grow? Some immaterial "will" to evolve. What causes the brain to will or think of something? The immaterial self.

Lack of full understanding of something does not justify or give evidence for something supernatural.

 

[wesmorris]

wes,

How? And you experience beuty with your brain, right? Which is physical. "Beuty" is merely a label we give to that set of qualities and experience. But those qualities and experiences are manifestations of physical conditions.

Close enough.

And from the physical is manifested the non-physical.

*shrug*

 

[c7ityi_]

Lack of full understanding of something does not justify or give evidence for something supernatural.

but you don't have full understanding about it either. you only have what you've read in books and what you've thought and observed.

are you going to make the same mistake like the people in the past who thought they understood?

 

[ellion]

So, if you lose a finger or an arm, do you lose a piece of you soul?

it is not a loss. there is no losing. there is transformation, the energy that was my finger has been exchanged to alternative expression of spirit.

If you lost your entire body and were merely a head in a jar, would you still have a soul?

you have this the wrong way round. the soul would still have the head (and a jar)

If the head were alive and functioning, but you had no senses; sight, smell, hearing, would you still have a soul?

the soul is not dependent on any of its material expressions. you are seeing things the wrong way round, do you know what i mean? you believe that the soul is dependent on these material things to exist. i believe i know why you think this.

If the head were alive but not functioning, would you still have a soul?

alive but not functioning???? is that alive but not alive? functioning but not functioning?
i would still have (in fact i would still be) my soul if there was nothing left of me on the face of this earth.

 

[Cris]

C7,

but you don't have full understanding about it either. you only have what you've read in books and what you've thought and observed.

are you going to make the same mistake like the people in the past who thought they understood?

I refer to the body of knowledge current established by our species, i.e. science. Not quite sure what else you might mean.

But beyond that consideration must be given to precedent and credibility, e.g. the immaterial has neither.

 

[Cris]

Ellion,

i would still have (in fact i would still be) my soul if there was nothing left of me on the face of this earth.

OK so what is your soul and what does it do and why would it have any value?

Remember that memory, identity, ability to think and feel emotions are all functions made possible by the brain. When the brain dies then all these properties cease to exist. What then is a soul other than a useless null entity?

 

[c7ityi_]

But beyond that consideration must be given to precedent and credibility, e.g. the immaterial has neither.

but the ancient wise greeks like socrates, pythagoras, plato and aristotle believed in a soul and gods. imo they had better understanding of reality than modern science. metaphysics. they were knew more than you and they knew more than today's scientists. why would such great people believe in a soul or god?

maybe you just have misunderstood what a soul is.

they said the world is made of numbers. they didn't believe the world was material. some believed the world was made of forms, just stuff... nothing "real". just illusions in the mind.

 

[Cris]

C7,

why would such great people believe in a soul or god?

Becuase they had no knowledge or concept of neuroscience, hence their mistaken perceptions.

maybe you just have misunderstood what a soul is.

Since its existence and definition is elusive preventing objective quantification of its properties, feel free to express your own imaginative speculations of what this thing might be.

they didn't believe the world was material. some believed the world was made of forms, just stuff... nothing "real". just illusions in the mind.

And as we acquire real knowledge through science we are now able to begin replacing those speculations with reality.

No matter how wise someone might be, without knowledge their speculations will always be suspect. But think how useful they would have been if they had access to modern knowledge.