|
 Entropymancer
Registered: 07/16/05
Posts: 10,207
|
|
Lack of evidence for something is not evidence against it.
|
 druglord
Stranger
Registered: 01/14/07
Posts: 90
Last seen: 1 year, 11 days
|
|
Quote:
OrgoneConclusion said:
You did nothing to refute my biological model of decreasing awareness in lock-step with decreasing brain function.
Decreasing awareness of what? Of reality as a human observer perceives it? Of the things that are relevant to other human brains? This "model" is self-referential. Again, you can't measure awareness objectively because it's subjective.
|
druglord
Stranger
Registered: 01/14/07
Posts: 90
Last seen: 1 year, 11 days
|
 Re: soul, spirit... does it exist?  [Re: Entropymancer]
#8092878 - 03/02/08 09:58 AM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Entropymancer said:
Lack of evidence for something is not evidence against it.
Exactly
|
OrgoneConclusion
Rico Suave
Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 35,352
Loc: Candyland
|
Re: soul, spirit... does it exist? [Re: Entropymancer]
#8093011 - 03/02/08 10:55 AM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Entropymancer said:
Lack of evidence for something is not evidence against it.
Thanks for restating the meaningless mystic-head mantra for the thousandth time. 
Non-evidence means: No reason to believe.
Evidence means: Some reason to believe.
See how this works? This is as basic as it gets.
--------------------
|
OrgoneConclusion
Rico Suave
Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 35,352
Loc: Candyland
|
Re: soul, spirit... does it exist? [Re: druglord]
#8093024 - 03/02/08 11:03 AM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Two or more people agreeing with nonsense does not lend any more credence to it.
Too bad budding philosophers cannot take the time to read the all-important sticked threads (all TWO of them).
From the 'Fallacy' thread:
Burden Of Proof
The claim that whatever has not yet been proved false must be true (or vice versa). Essentially the arguer claims that he should win by default if his opponent can't make a strong enough case.
There may be three problems here. First, the arguer claims priority, but can he back up that claim? Second, he is impatient with ambiguity, and wants a final answer right away. And third, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
For example, you can't prove that God does not exist, therefore he does.
--------------------
|
Entropymancer
Registered: 07/16/05
Posts: 10,207
|
|
We're not making that fallacy though. At least I'm not. I'm just saying that I don't think beating someone unconscious proves they don't have a soul  . Maybe I'm missing something. I'm not saying that there is a soul, I'm not saying there's not. All I'm saying is lack of evidence doesn't disprove it; I never made any assertion about it proving the case.
It seems like you're the one making the fallacy. Your hypothesis of a lack of soul has not been proven false, ergo it must be true. That just doesn't compute.
Come on, OC, I expect better reasoning out of you.
(I don't see any reason to believe souls exist, but beating someone unconcous doesn't prove that.)
|
OrgoneConclusion
Rico Suave
Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 35,352
Loc: Candyland
|
Re: soul, spirit... does it exist? [Re: Entropymancer]
#8093055 - 03/02/08 11:17 AM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Interesting that you say I can do better, but you come up with this gem: "but beating someone unconcous doesn't prove that."
I clearly laid out a very logical model for decreasing awareness as related to decreasing brain function, did I not? (Third or fourth time now for those hard-of-reading).
--------------------
|
Entropymancer
Registered: 07/16/05
Posts: 10,207
|
|
You did. But that model doesn't prove anything without introducing some caveats that are clearly unjustified.
For example, that external awareness = soul functioning
|
Entropymancer
Registered: 07/16/05
Posts: 10,207
|
Re: soul, spirit... does it exist? [Re: Entropymancer]
#8093097 - 03/02/08 11:31 AM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Obviously if someone believes in an eternal soul, then it's something that can exist without bodily awareness.
Again, I'm not arguing that this is the case or providing any explanation for how it happens; I don't believe in an eternal soul.
But you make the assumption that external awareness = soul, then use that to prove the soul doesn't exist. Sorry, that's just not good reasoning.
|
Entropymancer
Registered: 07/16/05
Posts: 10,207
|
Re: soul, spirit... does it exist? [Re: Entropymancer]
#8093109 - 03/02/08 11:35 AM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
(sorry to post so many times in a row)
In fact, don't near-death experiences refute your model? Someone with zero external awareness experiencing intense vivid perception/phenomena.
|
OrgoneConclusion
Rico Suave
Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 35,352
Loc: Candyland
|
Re: soul, spirit... does it exist? [Re: Entropymancer]
#8093168 - 03/02/08 11:56 AM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
In fact, don't near-death experiences refute your model?
Near-death is not death as you well know. Now if any of these people brought back information from the external world that would be impossible to gather in other ways, then we would have something. Otherwise it is some unique dream-like state.
Dannion Brinkley, one of the early authors of a personal NDE, wrote a book with some 18 predictions as told to him by Heavenly Beings (this is from a 20 year old memory). Five or six came 'true' (they happened before the book was published) and none of the rest.
--------------------
Edited by OrgoneConclusion (03/02/08 12:31 PM)
|
Entropymancer
Registered: 07/16/05
Posts: 10,207
|
|
Alright, I'll buy that; although most people having near-death experiences are breifly legally dead, it's not really true death.
That wasn't my main issue though.
What I don't understand is where you go the idea that external awareness is tantamount to a soul.
|
Cameron
Too Many Words
Registered: 10/31/07
Posts: 4,437
Loc: Canada
|
Re: soul, spirit... does it exist? [Re: Entropymancer]
#8093455 - 03/02/08 01:47 PM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
I agree that the existence of a soul can't be proven by measuring brain activity and comparing it to 'awareness', because the idea of a soul is something beyond this world and beyond our comprehension. That doesn't prove that a soul exists, obviously, as you guys said.
Personally, I believe that we're just as 'soul-less' as every other living organism here, and when we die, it's lights out. But to each their own.
|
gluke bastid
Stinky Bum
Registered: 12/21/00
Posts: 3,248
Loc: Charm City
Last seen: 8 hours, 11 minutes
|
Re: soul, spirit... does it exist? [Re: Entropymancer]
#8093461 - 03/02/08 01:48 PM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Entropymancer said:
Alright, I'll buy that; although most people having near-death experiences are breifly legally dead, it's not really true death.
That wasn't my main issue though.
What I don't understand is where you go the idea that external awareness is tantamount to a soul.
This is what I have been waiting for as well. I am not about to argue for the existence of souls, but so far all OC has done to "prove" that they don't exist is point out that if you shut the brain down it stops working. Ok. What on earth does ego conciousness have to do with the question of the presence of a soul? OC has proved nothing except that he is impatient for everyone to succumb to his proselytizing.
--------------------
Society in every form is a blessing,
but government at its best is but a necessary evil
- Thomas Paine
|
OrgoneConclusion
Rico Suave
Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 35,352
Loc: Candyland
|
Re: soul, spirit... does it exist? [Re: gluke bastid]
#8093601 - 03/02/08 02:36 PM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
1. Another person who has difficulty reading. I offered nothing as proof.
2. I was not the one who first equated awareness with soul.
--------------------
|
Entropymancer
Registered: 07/16/05
Posts: 10,207
|
|
Quote:
OrgoneConclusion said:
1. Another person who has difficulty reading. I offered nothing as proof.
2. I was not the one who first equated awareness with soul.
Now you're just being asinine, the implication of your model is that awareness = soul. I don't care whether you said it first, it's a clearly unjustified caveat.
I think I speak for most of us when I say I'm completely baffled at what point you're trying to make.
|
MarkostheGnostic
Elder
Registered: 12/10/99
Posts: 9,144
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 10 hours, 45 minutes
|
Re: soul, spirit... does it exist? [Re: HALFemptyJOSH]
#8093687 - 03/02/08 03:09 PM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
My reply would be to refer you to my post in "Where Do Souls Come From?" by Visionary Tools.
--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Sauton - Know Thyself
|
OrgoneConclusion
Rico Suave
Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 35,352
Loc: Candyland
|
Re: soul, spirit... does it exist? [Re: Entropymancer]
#8093709 - 03/02/08 03:17 PM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
I'm completely baffled at what point you're trying to make.
Your bafflement says nothing of my argument. I stated clearly several times using baby steps. I doubt a fourth time will do it.
Hypothesis: awareness continues after death as soul (not my defintion)
Embryos have less awareness than babies.
Babies have less awareness than adults.
Young adults have peak awareness (not wisdom nor judgement).
Very old people have less awareness than young adults.
Dead people by all known observation have zero awareness.
This is a standard 'Mexican hat' (a curve drawn on a graph resembling a rounded hat) mathematical model.
There is not a single verifiable observation that does not link brain function to awareness.
Cannot break it down for you any further.
Here is the amazing part: not one of you has done anything to promote another point of view, just pages of ragging on one who makes an honest attempt at viewing the question.
Good work.
--------------------
|
Entropymancer
Registered: 07/16/05
Posts: 10,207
|
|
I really don't think that's an honest attempt to view the question.
You picked a definition of soul that will give your model the result you want (ie it's tied to consciousness, therfore cannot exist without the brain). So what if someone else put the definition out there first? It sidesteps the question.
Just to be clear, your path of reasoning is the bulk of why I don't believe in an immortal soul. But I don't claim that it exhausts all possibilities, as it clearly ignores the possibility that the soul may be independent of the body (again, I don't believe this, but it's still imminently germane to any discussion of the soul).
|
Veritas
Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,088
|
Re: soul, spirit... does it exist? [Re: Entropymancer]
#8093856 - 03/02/08 04:18 PM (5 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
One cannot prove a negative. The burden of proof is on the one who claims that the soul DOES exist, not on the one who claims that there is no evidence for the existence of a soul.
If someone wants to make a case for the positive (existence), then it may be refuted by someone presenting a model in which the positive is unlikely. (The decreasing awareness due to brain injury model).
The discussion of awareness ending at death was what OC was responding to, and his model was germane to THAT aspect of this topic. Since no one can prove a negative, it is unreasonable to continue to demand that he provide proof of the non-existence of the soul.
BTW: as a point of interest, the oft-repeated (and ironically misunderstood) quote "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," which you paraphrased earlier, is from Carl Sagan's Bullshit Detector Kit. He used that question as an example of a logical fallacy. It is truly ironic that so many people quote it or paraphrase it to prove their points. 
|
|
Images only 
Threaded
Previous
Index
Next
Edit 
Reply 
