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InvisibleDiploidM
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More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul
    #6977562 - 05/28/07 12:04 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

First some context:

Every time I bring up the topic of the soul, the debate goes off topic into the definition of the soul rather than about the beef of what I'm presenting. So, for this thread, let's stipulate to the definition given by dictionary.com:

the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part.

And some background:

There is a part of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex (PC) which is involved in the acquisition of goals and the mediation of emotions. When a neurologically healthy person decides on a goal, getting lunch for example, it is the prefrontal cortex that decides if considering the weather, it's better to walk or drive, take one route or another, pick restaurant A or B, and so on.

The PC is also involved in planning, taking action based on the future consequences of those actions. And maybe most importantly, it allows us to know right from wrong. It gives us the so-called neurological Executive Function.

Now the beef:

In 1848, a guy named Phineas Gage suffered an industrial accident. A metal rod pierced his head at the left cheek and exited through the top, severing the PC from the rest of the brain. Amazingly, he survived and physically recovered.

According to everyone who knew Phineas, prior to the accident he was a nice guy. After the accident, he became belligerent. He got into fights, argued, cursed, and even began beating his wife.

Indeed, his doctor wrote the following about Phineas:

Gage was fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires, at times pertinaciously obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, devising many plans of future operations, which are no sooner arranged than they are abandoned in turn for others appearing more feasible. A child in his intellectual capacity and manifestations, he has the animal passions of a strong man. Previous to his injury, although untrained in the schools, he possessed a well-balanced mind, and was looked upon by those who knew him as a shrewd, smart businessman, very energetic and persistent in executing all his plans of operation. In this regard his mind was radically changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said he was 'no longer Gage.'

No longer Gage. As if to say that the reconfiguration of his brain made him a different person. No soul involved. Just physical brain.

Neurological science today tells us that Phineas began exhibiting this bizarre change in personality as a result of his prefrontal cortex being disconnected from the rest of his brain by the accident.

Before the accident, impulses from the limbic system, the ancient, animalistic part of the brain where emotions originate, were mediated by a  tight coupling to the prefrontal cortex. After the accident, the limbic system was left free to act without the down-regulating action of the PC

What this tells me is that we are 100% a product of our physical brain. If, as claimed by believers, there were a soul somewhere in hyperspace or whatever, and the brain is only a sort of translator connecting our physical existence to our incorporeal one, then damage to the brain might cause some sensory distortion or lack of physical coordination, but not an overt change in basal personality.

The only way the personality could be so affected by brain damage is if personality is wholly produced in the physical brain, and there is no such thing as a soul.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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InvisiblePsychoactive1984
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6977575 - 05/28/07 12:07 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Or the metal rod fractured his soul. :tongue:


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

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Offlinebiggysmall
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6977588 - 05/28/07 12:10 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

i the hole concept of the soul is allitle far fetched..... but if there is such a thing as soul it could have just been that he damaged the part of his brain that helped him make desicions. It seems that the pc is just the part that helps you make the choices of how to act or what to do... he may have still had his personality, but the choices he made reflected badly on himself...
i do not believe that this prooves that there is not or is a soul....

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: biggysmall]
    #6977607 - 05/28/07 12:14 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

but if there is such a thing as soul it could have just been that he damaged the part of his brain that helped him make desicions.

This is non sequitur. The definition of 'soul' implies that it is the origin of decisions. Otherwise, what's its function? When we die and inhabit only our soul, will we lose the ability to make decisions?


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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InvisiblePsychoactive1984
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Registered: 02/06/05
Posts: 3,546
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6977622 - 05/28/07 12:22 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

So supposing that the soul is the agent, and the brain is the framework, I don't see why under these assumption that when we die we lose our sense of identity and decision making capabilities.

I generally think of it as a rather a bogus concept, but matrix-esque in regards to a disconnet of agent processing of conceptualizations versus our body being the communications array.

For the sake of argument, we could say in this scenario that the brain was damaged and the soul couldn't allocate its functions in the regards to its normal faculties. Or we could apply occam's razor.


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Posts: 45,441
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6977626 - 05/28/07 12:24 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

If when we die and inhabit only our soul, will we lose the ability to make decisions?





In heaven, everyone looks identical and there is only one TV channel and the same bowl of gruel every day with shuffleboard at 4PM and lights out at 10PM.

No decisions are necessary.


--------------------

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InvisiblePsychoactive1984
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #6977637 - 05/28/07 12:27 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

to kick it with Jebus or einstein... their should be a decision making component to heaven not a mindless interval of ultimate peace and happiness, otherwise we'll have manic happiness.... its a terrible idea.

I don't want to go to heaven anyhow, your idea of it only furthers my resentment for some life long quest of doing the bidding of bored god, for a trivial reward.


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #6977652 - 05/28/07 12:33 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
Quote:

If when we die and inhabit only our soul, will we lose the ability to make decisions?





In heaven, everyone looks identical and there is only one TV channel and the same bowl of gruel every day with shuffleboard at 4PM and lights out at 10PM.

No decisions are necessary.




Erg...sounds like several "Old Folk's Homes" I've visited.  What have they done to deserve their Sneak Preview?  :tongue:

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Psychoactive1984]
    #6977665 - 05/28/07 12:38 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

For the sake of argument, we could say in this scenario that the brain was damaged and the soul couldn't allocate its functions in the regards to its normal faculties.

Well, when we die, we experience 100% brain damage. By your own logic, we would no longer have the ability to make decisions.

Or we could apply occam's razor.

OK.

We could be an emergent property of the 100 or so types of atoms that exist, and there is nothing more. The End.

Or some hyper-creature for whom there is not the slightest evidence and who is nevertheless so powerful that he could create the universe and design the 100 or so elements such that they could be arranged into physical conduits for non-physical souls, even though it's much simpler to just create souls and not bother with all the sweating and shitting physical bodies, and those bodies allow the physical soul to manifest in a physical world in such a way that there is not the slightest evidence that the non-physical soul even exists... and so on, and so on...

Occam's razor chooses which one?


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6977670 - 05/28/07 12:39 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Just to play Devil's Advocate on this one (as I do not necessarily believe in the soul as defined):

If damage occurs to the steering column in the car I am driving, resulting in poor control of the vehicle by me, does it mean that I do not exist?

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InvisiblePsychoactive1984
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6977690 - 05/28/07 12:45 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

As far as brain damage, well true to a degree however you fail to realize that im simply using the brain as conduit in this thought experiment, once again I don't really believe a soul exists. So the brain goes yet the soul remains intact but the expression of the soul doesn't transcribe itself furthermore in our example as a reult of the fact that it has no physical connection... ratherr it doesn't have an expression in the physical realm till it makes a new one, depends on your basis for the tranmutation of the soul really, so it would be altered to the degree necessary according to your beliefs.


As far as occam's razor goes, the end.


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleLakefingers

Registered: 08/26/05
Posts: 6,440
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6977694 - 05/28/07 12:46 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Once upon a time a philosophy professor I knew was a Christian.
When he got drunk one night he realized his soul was drunk, but
being convicted to science (and not only religion) he realized that
his soul could not be drunk too. He concluded that he couldn't possibly
have a soul. He is now a proponent of physicalism in the philosophical
study of personal identity.

Of course, this was a Revelation and I've painted it up like some sort
of post-Cartesian mechanical thought process.

An epiphenomenalist or parallelist might find some way of saving this
professor's soul. They might throw in the good ol' "the body affects the
soul, but the soul does not affect the body" or some such wordplay. All
messy ways of trying to justify beliefs with rationality.

You are not debating the soul, but only one instance of it (qua definition
at dictionary.com). I'm sure you can find some tricky answers and
outwit most of the people here, but you're not talking about the soul,
but rather one of them.

"What this tells me is that we are 100% a product of our physical brain."

Darn. When I talk about products people always go off track. There are
at least 15 definitions of we; when you say we who and what are you talking
about? Our bodies are caused by our brains? What is the statistical basis
of 100%? And it tells you, but it might not tell the we:s. What, what, what...
And "physical brain" (which you mentioned twice) is a tautology--or
at least you should think so, you who proposes there is no soul.
*Fajita fart.


"If, as claimed by believers, there were a soul somewhere in hyperspace or whatever, and the brain is only a sort of translator connecting our physical existence to our incorporeal one, then damage to the brain might cause some sensory distortion but not an overt change in basal personality."

You laid out a definition of soul. You made a general conclusion from
one instance. Quite inductive. But the "mistake" is that you've now
said that only one group of believers in the soul are allowed to talk
about your argument.

Anyhow, now that I've had my month's share of analytical philosophy...

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Veritas]
    #6977701 - 05/28/07 12:47 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

If damage occurs to the steering column in the car I am driving, resulting in poor control of the vehicle by me, does it mean that I do not exist?

The analogy to a broken steering column exists in neurology. There are degenerative diseases that cause a loss of motor control. The person wills a movement, but some other movement occurs.

This is different than a compete shift in personality from a nice guy to an asshole. You don't will kissing your wife and your damaged brain beats her with a baseball bat instead.

Edit: I thought of a better analogy. A broken steering column won't make you drive to the grocery store when you intended to drive to your mother's house. That's akin to what happened to poor Phineas.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Edited by Diploid (05/28/07 12:53 PM)

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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6977730 - 05/28/07 12:53 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

You don't will kissing your wife and your damaged brain beats her with a baseball bat instead.





*cough* See: OJ


--------------------

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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6977739 - 05/28/07 12:56 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Loss of motor control would result from brain stem damage, not from pre-frontal cortex damage. If the expression (movement) of the personality is controlled by the pre-frontal cortex, why is the steering column metaphor inapplicable?

BTW, you mis-spelled "disbelieve" in your thread title.

Quote:

Edit: I thought of a better analogy. A broken steering column won't make you drive to the grocery store when you intended to drive to your mother's house.




If your car steers to the right every time you attempt to turn left, you could very well end up in a place far from your intended destination.

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Lakefingers]
    #6977782 - 05/28/07 01:08 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

You are not debating the soul, but only one instance of it (qua definition
at dictionary.com)


You're right. But the restriction is necessary, as I said, because without it, the thread will degrade into a debate about the definition of the soul and not about what I intend, the EXISTENCE of the soul.

I know this because I have posted many times on this theme over the years, and without the preface, the discussion always goes where I don't intend.

but you're not talking about the soul, but rather one of them

Aha! Yet another reason to doubt the existence of the soul.

If I say there is a creature living in the Florida Everglades called a Gagalog who no one has ever seen but who many people know about, and when those knowing people are questioned each comes up with a different description contradicting every other knowing person, chances are there is no such thing as a Gagalog.

Gagalogs can't be large and small, white and black, four legged and winged, and vicious and friendly at the same time.

With the same reasoning, I come to the conclusion that a soul with as many different definitions as there are believers likely doesn't exist either.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Veritas]
    #6977801 - 05/28/07 01:12 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

BTW, you mis-spelled "disbelieve" in your thread title.

Yes, I fixed it. TY

If your car steers to the right every time you attempt to turn left, you could very well end up in a place far from your intended destination.

But my point is that Phineas' behavior was not just randomly screwed up (the steering column analog) but very specifically nasty. He didn't do weird things like kissing his wife while burning her with a cigarette.

Instead, he became a "different person" as his doctor suggested. He became just downright mean just like a neurologically healthy person who is mean.

It was a well-coordinated mean behavior which seems to originate where personality originates. That's to say entirely in the brain, not in the soul.

If the behavior originated in the nice guy soul and the damaged brain somehow distorted it, you'd expect random, weird behavior, not coherent mean behavior, which is what was observed.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6977813 - 05/28/07 01:16 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Gagalogs can't be large and small, white and black, four legged and winged, and vicious and friendly at the same time.





You obvioulsy know nothing of the wide variation among gagalogi.


--------------------

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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6977827 - 05/28/07 01:21 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

He consistently steered to the left, so how is this invalid?

BTW, who said that our souls have to be "nice"?  That is not part of the definition you proposed.  The soul could well be neutral, and develop particular personality "habits" over the course of a lifetime.  These habits would be laid down as neurological pathways, and the destruction of those pathways would eliminate the habits.  :shrug:

Again, the distinction could be made that there is a driver (soul) and a vehicle (body).  While the functions of the vehicle are all that may be apparent to us, this in no way proves that the driver does not exist.

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OfflineCosmicStorm
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6977883 - 05/28/07 01:39 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Personally I'm very open minded, I do not follow a certain religion and whatnot.
When I think about that stuff, including souls...I think that arguing about the existence of such a thing is futile, there is absolutely NO way to prove if it exists or not, until you die...and when your dead you cannot tell anyone what happens, if anything happens at all.


--------------------
"Observing spirits on the wall, What are they telling you?" -Death

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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6977917 - 05/28/07 01:48 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Actually, soul refers to the mind-body, the psychosomatic whole which included all the components of mind - those which regulate autonomic processes and those which constitue higher cortical functioning, to which the prefrontal lobes belong. This is modern terminology. Old Testament prayer show us one way in which the person was regarded:

"Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy might."

Here, heart is regarded as the center of one's inner life, or 'spirit,' the soul refers to the complex called 'personality,' and might refers to the physical body. In Greece, some time later, Plato wrote (gleaned from his teacher Scrates) divided the soul into three aspects:

"In order to make the case that individual justice parallels political justice, Socrates must claim that there are precisely three parts of the soul. By cataloging the various human desires, he identifies a rational part of the soul that lusts after truth, a spirited part of the soul that lusts after honor, and an appetitive part of the soul that lusts after everything else, including food, drink, sex, and especially money. These three parts of the soul correspond to the three classes in the just city. The appetite, or money-loving part, is the aspect of the soul most prominent among the producing class; the spirit or honor-loving part is most prominent among the auxiliaries; and reason, or the knowledge-loving part, is dominant in the guardians.

Just relations between the three parts of the soul mirror just relations among the classes of society. In a just person the rational part of the soul rules the other parts, with the spirited part acting as helper to keep the appetitive in line. Compare this to the city where the truth-loving guardians rule, with the honor-loving auxiliaries acting as their helpers to keep the money-loving producers in line. What it means for one part of the soul to β€œrule” the others is for the entire soul to pursue the desires of that part. In a soul ruled by spirit, for instance, the entire soul aims at achieving honor. In a soul ruled by appetite, the entire soul aims at fulfilling these appetites, whether these be for food, drink, sex, fine material goods, or hordes of wealth. In a just soul, the soul is geared entirely toward fulfilling whatever knowledge-loving desires reason produces." (From B&N, Sparknotes on The Republic)

During the writing of New Testament books, the authors drew upon ancient Hebrew thought, and upon contemporary Hellenistic Jewish thought (The author of the Gospel of John seems to have drawn directly from the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria who wrote lots on the Logos). Through Philo, Platonic metaphysics entered the New Testament ideas on the inner life, or in Paul's words, "the inner man."

The inner man of Paul is both the 'soul' [psyche] and the 'spirit' [pneuma]- the spirit represents the aspect of one's inner life which is supposed to be closest to the Logos, the creative, immanent and conscious 'Presence' which suffuses the world [cosmos]. Logos co-exists with cosmos and 'interfaces with one's 'spirit.' These two concepts derive ultimately from ancient Egyptian thought: the 'Ba' and the 'Ka' respectively. When, in the Egyptian Book of [the Dead] Coming Forth By Day, one's 'heart' is weighed against the goddess Maat's feather of Truth on 'Judgement Day,' and one's heart is found to be lighter than the feather, one is admitted into Eternal Life by entering into the god Osirus, and becoming the god. One's 'Ba' (soul) and one's 'Ka' (spirit) are reunited into a 'resurrection body' called the 'Akh' (not Ankh, which means Life or Eternal Life). One can see where Christianity derived its doctrines from.

Nevertheless, with regards to your statement. First it is necessary to obtain a more comprehensive definition than the one you quoted, which paraphrases the uncritical, not to mention erroneous view of the word soul by the common person. Once one establishes a more precise definition, one can make assertions for or against the existence of these inner realities. Such realities are either objects of belief, or they are objects of experience. That we 'are' a living soul, I have already established definitionally. We 'are' a psychosomatic being. What you question is not psychophysical reality, what you question is psychospiritual reality, "whether in the body or out of the body...," to quote St. Paul. Once again, these are either objects of transcendental experience (Gnosis), or they are objects of faith (pistis) in which one not having experienced Gnosis, believes another who has claimed to, and lives one's life based on that faith. The existence of one's psychospiritual existence after the death of the physical body is a further discussion, but as we all know is not able to be demonstrated because it is a reality that transcends space-time and sensate empiricism.

That you yourself experience neither of these categories of apperception is clear, but citing the unfortunate case of Phineas Gage (cited in practically every undergraduate textbook on abnormal psychology) has no bearing on the transcendental aspect of his human makeup. Whereas personality is a major aspect of one's psychosomatic whole, or soul, the soul being "psychoid" - partaking of psychical and physical aspects, and as such interactive and able to be effected,'spirit' is described as being indivisible and impassive - untouched by the vissisitudes of space and time, owing to its transcendental nature. Objecting to the existence of spirit is concommitant to objecting to the existence of the 'Great Spirit,' to wit, God. Nothing new is being said here. You do not believe in or Know God. And your point is, what, because you neither believe or Know, Ultimate Reality doesn't exist? I feel for your cosmic alienation, really...not to experience one's Ultimate Identity grounded in the One; to experience transiency alone without the corresponding transcendent?!! Personally, I don't think I could've endured this existence as long as I have. What would be the point?


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Ξ³Ξ½αΏΆΞΈΞΉ ΟƒΞ±α½Ο„ΟŒΞ½ - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

Edited by MarkostheGnostic (05/28/07 02:08 PM)

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Veritas]
    #6977927 - 05/28/07 01:49 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

what if his original personality was nothing more than the creation of his ego and the damage left him at the will of his id, perhaps a closer relation of soul?

soul..eh...


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Veritas]
    #6977933 - 05/28/07 01:51 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

He consistently steered to the left, so how is this invalid?

It has to do with the complexity and coherence of the behavior.

A broken steering column (steering wheel to tire translation device) causes some random steering. A broken brain (soul to physical body translation device) causes some random behavior. That would the the correct analogy.

This isn't what we see in Phineas. His behavior was a seemingly-unbroken mean behavior. He doesn't twitch randomly as would happen if the soul to body translation was broken. He is specifically well coordinated and mean as fuck to the point of planning mean behavior. That doesn't sound like a broken brain-body linkage but rather a base shift in personality, something the soul, absent damage, shouldn't be able to do.

Extending this to the broken steering column analogy means you steer toward the grocery store but the car goes to your mother's house, making every turn and missing every obstacle along the way. It's not likely and neither is well-coordinated mean behavior arising after the injury if the brain is simply a soul-body translator.

BTW, who said that our souls have to be "nice"?

It doesn't. I'm talking about Phineas Gage. He was nice before the brain damage, and mean but well coordinated and articulate after. To me, that behaviour doesn't follow from a nice soul who's actions are being randomly distorted by a damaged translator brain.

These habits would be laid down as neurological pathways, and the destruction of those pathways would eliminate the habits.

Well, the destruction of neurological pathways as happens in the demyelination of multiple sclerosis, for example, manifests as a RANDOM interference with movement, sensation, visual perception, and even emotion. If there is a soul and if the outward manifestation of that soul occurs along established neurological pathways, then it's reasonable to believe that behavior originating in the soul would be randomly affected. In Phineas' case, that's not what happened. He just became consistently and coherently mean. There was nothing random about it.


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1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: CosmicStorm]
    #6977947 - 05/28/07 01:55 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

I think that arguing about the existence of such a thing is futile, there is absolutely NO way to prove if it exists or not, until you die...and when your dead you cannot tell anyone what happens, if anything happens at all.

All philosophical discussions are futile from that point of view because in the end, Solipsism can't be refuted.

I still think it's worthwhile to talk about these things because even if absolute knowledge of the soul is beyond us, some reasonable conclusions can be drawn, especially as neurological science gets closer and closer to understanding the brain.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6977972 - 05/28/07 02:04 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Hey Diploid I grew up in the 70s and there is no doubt that "I GOT SOUL". :froman:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #6977976 - 05/28/07 02:05 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Nevertheless, with regards to your statement. First it is necessary to obtain a more comprehensive definition than the one you quoted, which paraphrases the uncritical, not to mention erroneous view of the word soul by the common person.

You see, this is the Gagalog problem all over again which pops up every time I try to discuss the soul.

You very matter-of-factly state that my definition is erroneous and provide the definitive definition.

A few posts back, Psychoactive1984 did the same thing, contradicting both you and me.

A few posts from now no doubt a fourth person will post yet another definition, contradicting all three of us.

With so many definitions of a Gagalog and a soul, how can I know which, if any, is correct or that Gagalogs and souls even exist at all?

Would people be willing to eat something called Meatloaf served at a restaurant if every restaurant had a different definition for the word Meat? Probably not. Yet so many are so willing to buy into the soul concept lock, stock, and barrel without any critical thought and despite myriad contradicting definitions.

This is funny to me. :wink:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Icelander]
    #6977981 - 05/28/07 02:07 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

"I GOT SOUL". :froman:

Yeah, brutha! And I was raised on my grandmother's SOUL FOOD!


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6977990 - 05/28/07 02:11 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Yeah Dude, and I got souls on the bottom of my feets. So get with the soul train program and you will be FREE


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Icelander]
    #6977994 - 05/28/07 02:13 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Ice's theme song perhaps:
Quote:

Comin to ya on a dusty road
Good lovin I got a truck load
And when you get it you got something
So dont worry cause Im coming

Im a soul man
Im a soul man
Im a soul man
Im a soul man

Got what I got the hard way
And Ill make it better each and every day
So honey dont you fret
Cause you aint seen nothing yet

Im a soul man
Im a soul man
Play it steve!
Im a soul man
Im a soul man

Listen
I was brought up on a side street
I learned how to love before I could eat
I was educated from good stock
When I start lovin I just cant stop

Im a soul man
Im a soul man
Im a soul man
Im a soul man

Well grab the rope and Ill pull you in
Give you hope and be your only boyfriend
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Im a soul man
Im a soul man




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"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Icelander]
    #6977998 - 05/28/07 02:14 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

My grandma makes a mean pan fried soul, and I'm not talkin 'bout shoes eethu.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6978011 - 05/28/07 02:19 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

There's nothing funny about your impatience, lack of research into the historical creation of a concept, or willingness to base an argument about a substantial topic on a superficial definition of said topic.

Yes, you will have to specify whose concept of soul you are referring to which is why I spread out Egyptian, Jewish and Christian references. Otherwise, we are like four year olds talking our own autistic little monologues in one another's presence - never once having real communication - everyone in their own isolated world. See, I 'am' a soul, I don't 'have' a soul. That would be definitional square one for me.


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Ξ³Ξ½αΏΆΞΈΞΉ ΟƒΞ±α½Ο„ΟŒΞ½ - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #6978034 - 05/28/07 02:24 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

There's nothing funny about your impatience, lack of research into the historical creation of a concept, or willingness to base an argument about a substantial topic on a superficial definition of said topic.

Right. This is the "my definition is better than yours" argument.

Yes, you will have to specify whose concept of soul you are referring to

I did.

which is why I spread out Egyptian, Jewish and Christian references

As if those are the only valid ones.

never once having real communication - everyone in their own isolated world

That's one of my points. There are too many different, contradictory definitions of soul for it to be a real thing. Hell, we can't even agree on a definition enough to discuss it.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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OfflineRogerRabbitV
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #6978046 - 05/28/07 02:28 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Edit: I thought of a better analogy. A broken steering column won't make you drive to the grocery store when you intended to drive to your mother's house.




No, but smoking a bowl first will. :laugh:

I can actually accept the definition of 'soul' as given in the first post.  When I'm deep in thought, I 'feel' the thoughts as coming from my chest area, not my head/brain.

In addition, I've long considered the brain to be a tool that our soul(self) uses to process thoughts into movements, speech, actions, etc., but not the source of the thoughts themselves.  This would also help to understand the 19th century case cited, in that the guy became frustrated over loosing a part of his ability to process thoughts into action.  However, science is not based on a single diagnosis from a century and a half ago.  In the 19th century, many doctors also considered black and white people to be of different species, not races.

The brain acting alone does not explain psychic occurrences, such as thinking of someone just before the phone rings and it's them, or thinking of a long-lost friend, and then a few days later, a letter arrives from that person.  These things happen to everyone, whether or not they wish to chalk it up to psychic awareness or simply coincidence.
RR


--------------------
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semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat

"I've never had a failed experiment.  I've only discovered 10,000 methods which do not work."
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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: RogerRabbit]
    #6978059 - 05/28/07 02:33 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

The brain acting alone does not explain psychic occurrences, such as thinking of someone just before the phone rings and it's them

But probability does.

With countless billions of events going on all the time, some are bound to be interesting coincidences. Meanwhile, you remember the friend calling just as you thought of them, but forget thousands of times you thought of a friend and they didn't call.

This is a well-known phenomenon in statistics. It's called selective sampling. It's nothing new.

Now, predict something in a controlled test and I'll sit up and listen. Of course, at this point most believers will claim that the effect doesn't work when being tested, but it works fine the rest of the time. :shrug:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6978081 - 05/28/07 02:41 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

This is a well-known phenomenon in statistics. It's called selective sampling. It's nothing new.





I knew you were going to write that.


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OfflineRogerRabbitV
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #6978218 - 05/28/07 03:17 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Actually, I've had long lost friends that I hadn't thought of in years, who suddenly made contact just after I had thought of them. And no, I hadn't thought of them at all in years.

I don't pretend to have all the answers, but the odds of these events happening even once in our lifetime is very remote, but for them to happen time and time again points to something else. I just have a hard time with the idea that my brain is aware. After all, is my big toe aware? Are my eyes aware? Of course, these are the things of philosophy that have been discoursed about, talked about, and argued over for years, yet we're still no closer to the answer.
RR


--------------------
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semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat

"I've never had a failed experiment.  I've only discovered 10,000 methods which do not work."
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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: RogerRabbit]
    #6978257 - 05/28/07 03:28 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

If you thought of that friend over the years and later forgot you had thought of them (an entirely plausible scenario) you would ascribe special significance to the one time they happened to call because it would be the only time you stored in long term memory that you'd thought of them over the ears... even though you'd thought of them many times.

I have many times COMPLETELY forgotten about something only to find a wrinkled note that jogged my memory in a shirt pocket that was washed and not worn for years.

This happens all the time. Realizing that yes, it happens to you too, is the first step from irrational belief in an implausible explanation to the likely truth that fallible humans use selective sampling ALL THE TIME and don't even know it.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6978271 - 05/28/07 03:35 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

You miss the point.

RR had some really good friends, so good in fact that he NEVER ONCE EVER thought of them in the intervening years bewteen saying good-bye until seconds before the phone call.

Hope that clairifies.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6978284 - 05/28/07 03:39 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

I don't believe the common notion of a soul. What I do know is that the force that creates our bodies from 2 gametes and continually renews and sustains our bodies every moment without need for any input from our conscious minds is something awesome and wonderful. It is an intelligence that is far more comprehensive, aware, and willfull than our own mind and awareness are even capable of imagining. You can call it the animal brain if you want, sure, a product of billions of years of evolution, I won't disagree with that, but it's still such a wonder, such an expansiveness of the mundane, that it defines the mystical.

What component of ourselves is it that creates and sustains our body and its millions of biological events taking place each moment? These are not orchestrated of the brain entirely. They are a different sort of consciousness. One, as I said before, that is unfathomably more impressive than the machinations or the frontal lobe, or even the more ancient parts of brain that appear to be running the life processes. The part of us that is immutable is not the self. The self is only an expression of the life force. The "soul" notion is an invention of the ego that is generated from such a vastly smaller intelligence than the one that allows ego to exist in the first place--it's this one that is seemingly invincible, though it ultimately doesn't seem concerned with you or I. What is this wondrous force? From where does its vastly capable, pure and unshakable intention originate.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6978296 - 05/28/07 03:42 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

I have many times COMPLETELY forgotten about something only to find a wrinkled note that jogged my memory in a shirt pocket that was washed and not worn for years.





1. Try gingko biloba for that memory problem.

2. You seriously need to update your wardrobe. And no - floral print tropical shirts do NOT count!


--------------------

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Viveka]
    #6978297 - 05/28/07 03:42 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

:thumbup:


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Viveka]
    #6978337 - 05/28/07 03:57 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

You can call it the animal brain if you want, sure, a product of billions of years of evolution, I won't disagree with that, but it's still such a wonder, such an expansiveness of the mundane, that it defines the mystical.

You'll get no argument from me that it is a wonder. Nature is a wonder. But that wonder does not necessarily require a creator or a soul or mysticism.

There are many things that were once considered so amazing that they just HAD to be a product of a creator. The complex molecular biology required for a pancreas to manufacture insulin in a healthy person, for example.

Today, it's a routine function in pharmaceutical labs around the world.

So the bar was raised. Insulin manufacture is no longer a wondrous, spiritual thing but a technological thing.

One day, all those things the brain does that today are ascribed to a supernatural soul will be done by a man-made machine. And then the bar will be raised again because no matter how many times a magical thing is deflated by a technological advance, believers will demand some new magical thing that technology hasn't done yet in order to keep their beliefs viable.

This refusal to accept what the evidence suggests and changing the definition of what is so wondrous that it MUST be supernatural every time the old definition becomes inconvenient is dogma.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #6978343 - 05/28/07 03:58 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

My memory is only partially gone, so maybe I'll just try gingko or biloba, but not both. :tongue:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6978366 - 05/28/07 04:07 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

I pretty much agree with you, only I wonder, where did the intention of life originate.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Viveka]
    #6978387 - 05/28/07 04:12 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

only I wonder, where did the intention of life originate

Intention implies an entity that intended it. A Creator.

Maybe that Creator exists, and maybe not. I think the latter is more likely because if life was intended by a Creator, then it begs the question of what meta-Creator created our Creator, and so on. It seems absurd.

Why can't things just exist without our imposing the anthropomorphic requirement that there has to be an ultimate Creator? In the absence of any evidence for a Creator, this seems the reasonable conclusion.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6978392 - 05/28/07 04:13 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
My memory is only partially gone, so maybe I'll just try gingko or biloba, but not both. :tongue:




You would only eat the lizard part?


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6979355 - 05/28/07 08:36 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Intention is a human concept, yes, but I do not believe the the drive to mantain life, what i'm refering to as an intention, has to be generated by an entity. This is what I find intriguing, that we develop from a zygote, we grow from a seemingly simple to a very complex biological organism, and the same force that acheived this feat maintains every function necessary to support life, completely automatically. I am completely open to the possibility that life arose spontaneously, in fact I'm fairly certain it did, but the wonder still remains, independent of any anthropomorphic judgement about nature. I don't believe a supernatural hierarchy is required to experience wonder. The marvelous complexity and order of what I could find in my own backyard is enough to inspire it.

I have a lot more to say about this topic but I am short on time at the moment.

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InvisibleMoonshoe
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6980182 - 05/28/07 11:14 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

You suggest that the change in personality resulting from brain injury provides an argument against the existance of a soul.

If so, the following should be equally convincing:

Ted was a sweet, loving little boy. He always played nicely with others and shared his toys with his little sister.

But when he grew up and turned 26, he just wasnt the same person. He stayed up all night doing drugs, abused his girlfriend and kicked his dog.

His mother and his family said he just wasnt Ted anymore.

Now, this fact, that personality changes naturally throughout our human lives, or dramatically in the case of brain injury, is a strong argument against the existance of a soul only if we define the soul as nescessarily static, unchanging, and fundamentally a personality.

If however, we view the soul as a dynamic, living thing that changes over time, or if we view it as something beyond or different from what is thought of as personality (as most traditions do) then your story and mine have no particular impact on the probability of the souls existance, one way or the other.



--------------------


Everything I post is fiction.

Edited by Moonshoe (05/28/07 11:28 PM)

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Offlinekotik
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6980223 - 05/28/07 11:22 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
First some context:

Every time I bring up the topic of the soul, the debate goes off topic into the definition of the soul rather than about the beef of what I'm presenting. So, for this thread, let's stipulate to the definition given by dictionary.com:

the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part.





ah, but alas - the very attempt at putting the soul into words, or definitions already leads everything of topic.

the soul is something you have to experience, not read or debate. As wishy washy as that sounds.


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No statements made in any post or message by myself should be construed to mean that I am now, or have ever been, participating in or considering participation in any activities in violation of any local, state, or federal laws. All posts are works of fiction.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Moonshoe]
    #6980280 - 05/28/07 11:32 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

While I agree with you on the fact that there doesn't has to be a fixed definition for the soul since it's something that is to be transcended and felt (at least in my opinion) and also in my opinion is kind of the same as trying to prove free will (which is also felt but one could come up with different explanations for it's non-existence, and which I believe is the manifestation of the soul, of one's awareness) , I don't exactly understand what your example exactly serves for :shrug:

This has a pure psychological explanation. One, in this case Ted, is repressing different feelings, thoughts and emotions (time in which he appears the same to his mother) and then BAM... all these repressed feelings explode which determine him to "dramatically" change. Therefore, it looks to me more like a thought product. The entire construct of personality, IMO, is psychological.


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #6980321 - 05/28/07 11:42 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)



no soul for you!!!


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From dust you are made and to dust you shall return.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: elbisivni]
    #6980335 - 05/28/07 11:45 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Heheh... it's ok I got weed :blazed:
Oh and yes... in case you didn't know... Japanese people don't have souls accordingly to South Park...:lol: could I be Japanese? :shocked:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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Invisibleelbisivni
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #6980341 - 05/28/07 11:46 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

no I'm just being a soul nazi  :hitler:


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InvisibleLakefingers

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6980750 - 05/29/07 03:39 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

If I say there is a creature living in the Florida Everglades called a Gagalog who no one has ever seen but who many people know about, and when those knowing people are questioned each comes up with a different description contradicting every other knowing person, chances are there is no such thing as a Gagalog.

Gagalogs can't be large and small, white and black, four legged and winged, and vicious and friendly at the same time.

With the same reasoning, I come to the conclusion that a soul with as many different definitions as there are believers likely doesn't exist either.


There are different definitions of the pleasure system in the brain,
Muslim, world, table, diploid, tiger, sea lion and even, definition. Is this even less
reason to believe in the existence of these? Derrida's deconstruction
is built upon these difference definitions.

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Offlinedattaswami
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6981405 - 05/29/07 10:14 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
First some context:

Every time I bring up the topic of the soul, the debate goes off topic into the definition of the soul ........com]dictionary.com:[/url]

the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity sep...............
The only way the personality could be so affected by brain damage is if personality is wholly produced in the physical brain, and there is no such thing as a soul.




First of all we should analyse the soul. The soul is made of pure awareness. The vibrations of pure awareness are called as feelings or qualities. Therefore all the characteristic qualities are associated with the soul and are made of pure awareness.

What is pure awareness? It is only a special form of inert energy. When we eat the food, it is oxidised by the oxygen received through the respiratory system. When the food is assimilated in the digestive system, it is oxidised by the Oxygen from the respiratory system, which is carried by the blood in dissolved state through Haemoglobin. The oxidation of food is exothermic reaction and liberates inert heat energy. This inert heat energy is converted into a special form of energy called awareness by the nervous system.

The electricity is produced by the generator and enters the tube light. The electrical energy is converted into light, which is another new form of energy. The heat energy produced by the interaction of digestive and respiratory system is called life energy (Pranamaya kosa). When this heat energy is converted into awareness by nervous system the awareness or mind is produced (Manomaya kosa). This awareness which is in the purest state is called as the soul (or Atman). This awareness is propagated in the form of pulses and these pulses as a bundle is called as Jeeva. The bundle of pulses of awareness is called as simply Jeeva from the point of pulses, is called as Atman from the point of awareness and is also called as Jeevatman from the point of both the pulses and awareness.

The constant propagation of pulses is called as mind (manas). The impressions of strong pulses are called as Chittam. The production of strong of pulses by the interaction of several weak pulses is called as intelligence or determination or Buddhi. The strong pulse that keeps the identity of the body is called as Ahamkara or ego. When you say the word Jeeva, it refers only to Manas, Chittam, Buddhi and Ahamkara (Antahkaranams). Therefore the soul and Jeeva together called as Jeevatma is only a special form of energy i.e., generated by the interaction of digestive, respiratory and nervous systems. Thus Jeeva representing the bundle of characteristics and Atman representing the special form of energy or Soul can be only the items of creation and not the creator. You are worried about the generation of Soul but there need not be any worry because Soul is an item of creation. In this creation there is conversion of matter into energy.

There is conversion of one type of matter into another type of matter through a chemical reaction as done by chemists. There is also conversion of one form of energy into another form of energy as done by physicists. There is conversion of matter into energy as done by technologists and engineers. Now if the Soul is generated, what is there to worry? This topic comes under the realm of creation and is within the boundaries of the creation. Gita says that the Soul is Paraprakruti. Prakruti means creation. Para means the finest part of creation. Therefore the transformation of Soul or division of Soul or generation of Soul is only topic of science and is not a topic of spirituality. Spirituality deals with creator who is beyond the creation. Veda says β€˜Annat Purushah’, which means that the Soul is produced from the food. It is conversion of matter into Soul, which is energy.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: dattaswami]
    #6981418 - 05/29/07 10:23 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

:thumbup:  :yesnod:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6981493 - 05/29/07 10:57 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

If the soul can be defined as universal rather than personal then I can personally make a case for it. Individual souls don't really make sense to me. The watcher who sits behind the individuality and it's programs I could call the soul.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Lakefingers]
    #6981560 - 05/29/07 11:23 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

P.S. Seems like this thread has the same problems as your other threads.
Time for yet another approach?

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: dattaswami]
    #6981805 - 05/29/07 12:23 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

The soul is made of pure awareness. The vibrations of pure awareness are called as feelings or qualities. Therefore all the characteristic qualities are associated with the soul and are made of pure awareness.

Oh joy!

Just like I predicted, here we have a fourth definition contradicting Psychoactive1984, Markos, and me.

Who wants to go next? :rofl:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Lakefingers]
    #6981837 - 05/29/07 12:29 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

it's like trying to have a conversation about hamburgers while trying to define a hamburger as "a Quarter-Pounder with Cheese from McDonald's" (or a "Royal with Cheese" if you live in Paris)

you're the guy from the hamburger train, right? would you like to have a hamburger?


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From dust you are made and to dust you shall return.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: elbisivni]
    #6981845 - 05/29/07 12:33 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Just like I said Diploid, the debate of existance is pointless.

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Invisibleelbisivni
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: daytripper23]
    #6981858 - 05/29/07 12:36 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

no hamburgers then..?


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: elbisivni]
    #6981860 - 05/29/07 12:38 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

elbisivni said:
it's like trying to have a conversation about hamburgers while trying to define a hamburger as "a Quarter-Pounder with Cheese from McDonald's" (or a "Royal with Cheese" if you live in Paris)

you're the guy from the hamburger train, right?  would you like to have a hamburger?




:rofl:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: elbisivni]
    #6981891 - 05/29/07 12:48 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

I'll have a double Gagalog with cheese. Hold the pickles, please. :tongue:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #6982150 - 05/29/07 01:59 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

"I don't exactly understand what your example about ted exactly serves for :shrug:"

That was actually the point. My story about a child growing up and changing personality over time, was not meant to be convincing. It was unconvincing, for me, for the same reasons that diploids argument about the mans brain injury was unconvincing.

We all know that personality changes, naturally and dramatically for thousands of reasons from alcohol intake to drugs to sleeping to brain damage to just growing up.

Do any of us think that because when we intoxicate our brains with booze our personality changes, that means we have no soul?

or course not.

Similarly we dont think that just because each of us lives out many different personalities during one lifetime (think of yourself as a child, a teenager, an adult, a senior) means we have no soul

And for the exact same reasons that these arguments dont challenge our idea of having souls, neither does the story of people with brain damage.

That is because personality is not in most conceptions of the soul. The soul, or Atman, is thought to be something as far above personality as we are above our clothes. Just as we can change our clothes dozens or thousands of times while remaining the same person, the soul can embody itself through the vessel of infinite bodies and infinite personalities while remaining one unbroken form of living energy.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Moonshoe]
    #6982184 - 05/29/07 02:07 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

We are "souls" who have/use minds to control our bodies.

The proof is all around you, you just need to look and see. There is something distinctly different about humans as opposed to animals and inanimate matter.

Animated matter must be animated by something, and if life was simply a combination of chemicals in a brain (or other physical item), wouldn't scientists have located it by now? And that is part of the trick/trap. We live in a universe where all the words of this universe are based on phenomena inside this universe.

Thus describing something outside of it/not native to it is almost an impossibility. And before long, you have people believing that they are just an animal or the combination of certain chemicals.


--------------------
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." ― Plato

"I communicate, therefore I am" - I

"Nature is ancient, but surprises us all." - BjΓΆrk

Edited by Pulsating (05/29/07 02:17 PM)

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Moonshoe]
    #6982212 - 05/29/07 02:16 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

And for the exact same reasons that these arguments dont challenge our idea of having souls, neither does the story of people with brain damage.




Many people claim the soul is the source of conscious or moral compass. The man's brain was damaged and his morals changed overnight disproving, at least, THAT definition or characteristic of the soul


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Moonshoe]
    #6982322 - 05/29/07 02:32 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Thank you for clarifying that :smile:
Yes, I also believe that our soul is independent from any mental construct that we have :mushroom2:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:

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Invisibleelbisivni
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #6982464 - 05/29/07 02:58 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

elbisivni said:
what if his original personality was nothing more than the creation of his ego and the damage left him at the will of his id, perhaps a closer relation of soul?



hmm..that is a half decent and somewhat remotely interesting thought you have there, please allow me to perhaps expand..

I would imagine that our soul (if there is such a thing) equates to our 'essence' if you will, it represents our fundamental energy;  positive or negative, weak or strong..

from the moment of birth our minds become enveloped in ways and meanings, our soul is still there but there have been so many filters applied in our mind that our soul becomes silent.

what you're saying is that having such brain damage may have broken down all of these filters and allowed his soul to take control.  from that point perhaps he can reapply some filters but because of the permanent brain damage I imagine he would have, he would never regain all filters.

:strokebeard:


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6982687 - 05/29/07 03:53 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Thank you very much, Tim. But the word debate does appear up on the notice there. It may turn into more of a dialogue than a debate. I suspect that Steve Pinker and I are perhaps largely of the same mind here, so there's a risk that anybody who's come here expecting a confrontation will go away disappointed by too much agreement. I don't know if this will happen, but if it does, I don't think there's any need to apologize. The adversarial approach to truth isn't necessarily always the best one. On the contrary, when two people disagree strongly, a great deal of time may be wasted. It's been well said that when two opposite points of view are advocated with equal vigor, the truth does not necessarily lie mid-way between them. And in the same way, when two people agree about something, it's just possible that the reason they agree is that they're both right. There's also I suppose the hope that in a dialogue of this sort each speaker may manage to achieve a joint understanding with the other one, better than he would have done on his own.

Is science killing the soul? This is a cunning title, because it cunningly mixes two different meanings of soul. The first and oldest meaning of soul, which I'm going to call Soul One, takes off from one set of definitions. I'm going to quote several related definitions from the Oxford dictionary:

"The principle of life in man or animals -- animate existence."

"The principle of thought and action in man commonly regarded as an entity distinct from the body, the spiritual part of man in contrast to the purely physical."

"The spiritual part of man regarded as surviving after death, and as susceptible of happiness or misery in a future state."

"The disembodied spirit of a deceased person regarded as a separate entity and as invested with some amount of form and personality."


So Soul One refers to a particular theory of life. It's the theory that there is something non-material about life, some non-physical vital principle. It's the theory according to which a body has to be animated by some anima. Vitalized by a vital force. Energized by some mysterious energy. Spiritualized by some mysterious spirit. Made conscious by some mysterious thing or substance called consciousness. You'll notice that all those definitions of Soul One are circular and non-productive. It's no accident. Julian Huxley once satirically likened vitalism to the theory that a railway engine works by "force-locomotif." I don't always agree with Julian Huxley, but here he hit the nail beautifully. In the sense of Soul One, science has either killed the soul or is in the process of doing so.

But there is a second sense of soul, Soul Two, which takes off from another one of the Oxford dictionary's definitions:

"Intellectual or spiritual power. High development of the mental faculties. Also, in somewhat weakened sense, deep feeling, sensitivity."

In this sense, our question tonight means, Is science killing soulfulness? Is it killing esthetic sensitivity, artistic sensibility, creativity? The answer to this question, Is science killing Soul Two?, is a resounding No. The very opposite is the case. But it is a question worth pursuing, because there have been many people, from genuinely great poets all the way down to Brian Appleyard and Fay Weldon, who've given a strong Yes answer to the question, Is science killing the soul? It's Soul Two that Keats and Lamb meant when they thought that Newton had destroyed all the poetry of the rainbow when he unwove it.

"Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven;
We know her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things,
Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mineβ€Ή
Unweave a rainbow . . ."

Well, I've written a book which is one long reply to that particular kind of anti-scientific attitude. In the sense of Soul Two, science doesn't kill the soul, it gives the soul constant and exhilarating re-birth.

Turning back to Soul One -- in the first chapter of Steve Pinker's book How the Mind Works he says, "I want to convince you that our minds are not animated by some godly vapor or single wonder-principle. The mind, like the Apollo spacecraft, is designed to solve many engineering problems, and thus is packed with high-tech systems, each contrived to overcome its own obstacles." In the same paragraph, he moves on to Soul Two when he says, " . . . I believe that the discovery by cognitive science and artificial intelligence of the technical challenges overcome by our mundane mental activity is one of the great revelations of science, an awakening of the imagination comparable to learning that the universe is made up of billions of galaxies or that a drop of pond water teems with microscopic life." Well, awakening of the imagination is a pretty good definition of Soul Two. And in that sense, far from killing the soul, science may prove to be its greatest awakener.

Carl Sagan wrote, shortly before he died,

"How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant'? Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths."

Well it's common enough for people to agree that religions have got the facts all wrong, but "Nevertheless," they go on to say, "you have to admit that religions do provide something that people need. We crave a deeper meaning to life, a deeper, more imaginative understanding of the mystery of existence." Well, in the passage I've just quoted, Sagan seems to be criticizing religions not just for getting it wrong, which many people would accept, but for their deficiencies precisely in the sphere in which they are supposed to retain some residual virtue. Religions are not imaginative, not poetic, not soulful. On the contrary, they are parochial, small-minded, niggardly with the human imagination, precisely where science is generous.

Now, there are, of course many unsolved problems, and scientists are the first to admit this. There are aspects of human subjective consciousness that are deeply mysterious. Neither Steve Pinker nor I can explain human subjective consciousness -- what philosophers call qualia. In How the Mind Works Steve elegantly sets out the problem of subjective consciousness, and asks where it comes from and what's the explanation. Then he's honest enough to say, "Beats the heck out of me." That is an honest thing to say, and I echo it. We don't know. We don't understand it.

There's a cheap debating trick which implies that if, say, science can't explain something, this must mean that some other discipline can. If scientists suspect that all aspects of the mind have a scientific explanation but they can't actually say what that explanation is yet, then of course it's open to you to doubt whether the explanation ever will be forthcoming. That's a perfectly reasonable doubt. But it's not legitimately open to you to substitute a word like soul, or spirit, as if that constituted an explanation. It is not an explanation, it's an evasion. It's just a name for that which we don't understand. The scientist may agree to use the word soul for that which we don't understand, but the scientist adds, "But we're working on it, and one day we hope we shall explain it." The dishonest trick is to use a word like soul or spirit as if it constituted an explanation.

Consciousness is still mysterious. And scientists, I think, all admit it. But we ought to remember that it's not that long ago that life itself was thought to be equally mysterious. I'm going to quote from a book, A Short History of Biology by Charles Singer, a reputable historian of science, published in 1931, where he says, about the gene,

". . . despite interpretations to the contrary, the theory of the gene is not a 'mechanist' theory. The gene is no more comprehensible as a chemical or physical entity than is the cell or, for that matter, the organism itself. . . . If I ask for a living chromosome, that is, for the only effective kind of chromosome, no one can give it to me except in its living surroundings any more than he can give me a living arm or leg. The doctrine of the relativity of functions is as true for the gene as it is for any of the organs of the body. They exist and function only in relation to other organs. Thus the last of the biological theories leaves us where the first started, in the presence of a power called life or psyche which is not only of its own kind but unique in each and all of its exhibitions."

That was 1931. In 1953, Watson and Crick drove a coach and horses through it, blew it out of the water. Genes are isolatable, they can be taken out of bodies, they can be sequenced, they can be put in bottles, they can be written out in a book and stored away in a library, and then at any time in the future they can be simply typed back into a machine and the original gene reconstituted. It could be put back into a living creature where it will work exactly the way it originally did. In the context of the gene, the understanding, the explanation is more or less total. And it was completely unexpected only a few decades ago.

My suspicion, my hunch, my hope, is that the same thing is going to be done for the conscious mind. Probably within the next century. Soul One will finally be killed, and good riddance. But in the process, Soul Two, far from being destroyed, will still be finding new worlds to conquer.

I'm going to end my prepared remarks by saying a little bit about Darwinism, because Darwinism is something which obviously Steve Pinker and I have in common in our approach to science. This, I think, may be the one place where possibly some slight disagreement may emerge. For me, Darwinism is not actually, surprisingly enough, the theory of the selfish gene. It's the theory of the selfish replicator. Darwinism is a much more general idea than the particular version of Darwinism which happens to explain life on this planet. Darwinism in this more general universal sense refers to the differential survival of any kind of self-replicating coded information which has some sort of power or influence over its probability of being replicated. DNA is the main kind of replicating entity that we know on this planet that has that property. When we look at living things on this planet, overwhelmingly the kind of explanation we should be seeking, if we ask what the functional significance is an explanation in terms of the good of the genes. Any adaptation is for the good of the genes which made that adaptation.





Quote:

I'm going to discuss an idea that elicits wildly opposite reactions. Some people find it a shocking claim with radical implications for morals and every value that we hold dear. Other people think that it's a claim that was established a hundred years ago, that the excitement is only in how we work out the details, and that it has few if any implications for our values and ethics. That is the idea that the mind is the physiological activity of the brain, in particular the information processing activity of the brain; that the brain, like other organs, is shaped by the genes; and that in turn, the genome was shaped by natural selection and other evolutionary processes. I am among those who think that this should no longer be a shocking claim, and that the excitement is in fleshing out the details, and showing exactly how our perception, decision-making, and emotions can be tied to the activity of the brain.

Three new sciences are now vividly rooting our mental processes in our biology. Cognitive neuroscience, the attempt to relate thought, perception and emotion to the functioning of the brain, has pretty much killed Soul One, in Richard's sense. It should now be clear to any scientifically literate person that we don't have any need for a ghost in the machine, as Gilbert Ryle memorably put it. Many kinds of evidence show that the mind is an entity in the physical world, part of a causal chain of physical events. If you send an electric current through the brain, you cause the person to have a vivid experience. If a part of the brain dies because of a blood clot or a burst artery or a bullet wound, a part of the person is gone -- the person may lose an ability to see, think, or feel in a certain way, and the entire personality may change. The same thing happens gradually when the brain accumulates a protein called beta-amyloid in the tragic disease known as Alzheimer's. The person -- the soul, if you want -- gradually disappears as the brain decays from this physical process.

We know that every form of mental activity -- every emotion, every thought, every percept -- gives off electrical, magnetic, or metabolic signals that can be recorded with increasing precision by Positron Emission Tomography, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Magnetoencephalography, and other techniques. We know that if you take a knife and section the corpus callosum (which joins the two cerebral hemispheres) you have the equivalent of two minds -- perhaps even two souls -- in the same skull. We know that if you look at the brain under a microscope it has a breathtaking degree of complexity -- on the order of a trillion synapses -- that's fully commensurate with the breathtaking complexity of human thought and experience. We know that when the brain dies, the person goes out of existence. I consider it to be a significant empirical discovery that one cannot communicate with the dead, and excellent evidence that Soul One, in Richard's sense, does not exist.

A second science, behavioral genetics, has shown that there is a fascinating degree of specificity in our genome. You've all heard of the remarkable studies of monozygotic twins reared apart, who are remarkably similar in intelligence, personality, and attitudes -- even in their opinion on the death penalty and their tastes in music and clothing. And just in the past year there have been discoveries of genetic markers, and in some case genes and even gene products, associated with mental traits such as intelligence, spatial cognition, control of speech, the desire to seek sensation, and the tendency to be overly anxious.

The third science that's connecting mind to biology is evolutionary psychology, which takes an approach to understanding the mind that has long been fruitful in understanding the organs of the body. We can't make sense of an organ like the eye without considering it to have a function, or a purpose - not in a mystical, teleological sense, but in the sense of an illusion of engineering. That illusion, we now know, is a consequence of Darwin's process of natural selection. Everyone agrees that the eye is a remarkable bit of natural "engineering," and that may now be explained as a product of natural selection rather than as the handiwork of a cosmic eye-designer or as a massive coincidence in tissue formation. But the eye by itself is useless -- unless it's connected to a brain. The eye does not carry out its function by dumping optical information into a yawning chasm. Rather, the eye is hooked up to parts of the brain -- anatomically speaking, the eye is an extension of the brain -- and those parts contain circuits for analyzing the incoming visual material, for recovering the shapes and colors and motions in the world that gave rise to the stimulation of the eye. The perception of a world of colored 3-D objects, in turn, feeds into a system of categorization, allowing us to make sense of our experience, to impute causes to events, and to remember things in terms of their significant categories. And in turn, those categories themselves would be useless unless they were organized in service of certain goals, goals set by our emotions. Beginning with the eye, we have a chain of causation that leads to the study of faculties of mind, or modules, or subsystems, each of which can be seen as an adaptation akin to the adaptations in the organs of the body. Recent research has shown that aspects of the psyche that were previously considered mysterious, quirky, and idiosyncratic -- such as phobias, an eye for beauty, the tendency to fall in love, a passionate desire for revenge in defense of honor -- turn out to have a subtle evolutionary logic when they are analyzed in the way in which we have always analyzed the organs of the body.

I find these developments to be exhilarating; they are a fulfillment of the ancient imperative to know thyself. They also have important practical implications. Alzheimer's Disease, to cite just one example, will be one of the leading causes of human misery in the industrial world over the next several decades, as we live longer and stop dying of other things. Successful treatment of Alzheimer's will not come from prayer or wishful thinking or reasoning about soul one; it will come from treating memory and personality as biochemical phenomena.

Nonetheless, as I mentioned at the outset, not everyone shares this excitement. Sometimes the reaction of people who learn about these new sciences is uneasy ambivalence. The American author Tom Wolfe wrote an article called "Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died," a mixture of admiration and apprehension over the frontiers of cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. A reviewer of my book How the Mind Works, alluding to the rock and roll band, said that I was describing people as Meat Puppets, and several reviewers, to my puzzlement, asked whether, if I were right, life would be worth living. I am puzzled by these reactions, which are never backed up by argument, only by indignation and high dudgeon. But I'll do my best to recover the values and reasoning that lead to them, and to show why I think they are misguided.

One reason I find the reaction strange is that I can't imagine how anything coming out of the laboratory, computer, or theoretician's notebook could possibly subtract from what is the meaning of life, or Richard's sense of Soul two. Why keep on living if our minds are the physiological activity of the brain? Well, for starters there's natural beauty, and works of great art, and ethical ideals, and love, and bringing up children, and enjoying friends, and discovering how the world works -- I could go on. Why should the worth of any of those activities depend on the existence of a ghost in the machine?

Clearly there can be reasons that some people feel threatened by the idea that the mind is the activity of the brain, and here are my guesses about what they are. One is that since natural selection is not a process that is guaranteed to produce niceness, many typical human motives will not necessarily lead to ethically desirable outcomes. Much of the research in evolutionary psychology has shown that many ignoble motives have some basis in natural selection. An example is the desire, most obvious in men, to defend one's honor and reputation, by violence if necessary. Another is the characteristically male motive to seek a variety of sexual partners. It's easy to work out why those motives evolved, and there is by now an enormous body of evidence that they are widespread among humans. But people reject the explanation because of what they think is the subtext. If these motives are part of our nature, if they come from the natural world, well, everyone knows that natural things are good -- natural childbirth, natural yogurt, and so on -- so that would imply that promiscuity and violence aren't so bad after all. And it implies that since they are "in the genes," they are unchangeable, and attempts to improve the human condition are futile.

I think both parts are wrong -- the first part is so obviously wrong that it has been given a name, the naturalist fallacy, the idea that what we find in nature is good. What we find in nature is not necessarily good; as Richard has put it, the universe is not good or bad, it's indifferent. Certainly violence and philandering and all of the other sins are immoral whether their cause is the genes, or the wiring of the brain, or social conditioning, or anything else. It behooves us to find the causes, but the causes don't change the moral coloring of those acts.

Also, the human mind, I argue, is a complex system of many interacting parts. Even if one motive impels people to do immoral acts, other parts of the mind that can subvert its designs. We can think of the long-term consequences, and we can imagine what society would be like if everyone acted on a particular motive. The part of the mind that has those thoughts can disengage the part of the mind that has less noble motives.

I think a second discomfort with the biological approach to the human mind is the worry that it somehow makes our ideals a sham or less real. Life would be a Potemkin Village, where there's only a facade of value and worth, but really biology is showing that there's nothing behind the facade. For example, if we love our children because the genes for loving children are in the bodies of those children and so the genes are benefiting themselves, doesn't that undermine the purity or the value of that love? If our ethical ideals, our sense of justice and fairness, were selected for because it did our ancestors good in the long run, would that imply that there's no such thing as altruism or justice, that deep down we're really selfish?

I think that this reaction is based on a misreading of Richard's metaphor of the selfish gene. It's not because of what Richard actually said in his book The Selfish Gene, which is crystal clear. But here's how it could be misread: the theory says that one can make powerful predictions about the process of natural selection by imagining that the gene has a selfish motive to make copies of itself. Of course no one ever thought that a gene has real motives in the sense that people have motives, but it this is a valuable way to gain insight about the subtleties of natural selection, especially when it comes to social interactions, and it leads to many correct predictions.

Here is the distortion. People think that genes are our deepest hidden self, our essence, so if our genes are selfish, that means that deep down we're selfish. It's an unholy hybrid of Freud's idea of unconscious motivation and the straightforward modern theory of the natural selection of replicators. Now, I think I'm safe to say that it was not intended by Richard, and it doesn't follow from the logic of the theory. The metaphorical motives of the genes are not somehow a more fundamental or honest version of the real motives of the entire person. Indeed, sometimes the most "selfish" thing a gene can do, in this metaphorical sense of selfish, is to build a brain that is not selfish -- not selfish at an unconscious level, not selfish at any level -- even if the genes are themselves metaphorically selfish. When we love our children we aren't at any level of the brain calculating that it will increase our inclusive fitness. The love can be pure and in and of itself in terms of what's actually happening in the brain. The selfishness of genes explains why we have that pure emotion.

The idea that morality itself would be a fiction if our moral reasoning came out of some evolved moral sense is also a non sequitur. The fear comes from the fact that we know that many aspects of human experience are in some sense figments. The qualitative distinction between red, yellow, green, and blue, for example, is not out in the world; it's just the way our brain imposes arbitrary cuts in the continuous spectrum of the wavelength of light. Well, if the qualitative difference between red and green is a figment -- it's just the way we're built, it doesn't have any external reality -- could right and wrong also be a figment? Would the sense of worth that comes from pursuing justice and fairness be a sham, just a way of tickling our pleasure centers and making us feel good because of the flow of chemicals or the wiring diagram of the brain?

Not at all. This supposed devaluation of morality does not follow from the idea that we have an evolved moral sense. Many of our faculties evolved to mesh with real things in the world. We have a complicated system of depth perception and shape recognition that prevents us from bumping into trees and falling off cliffs. The fact that our ability to recognize an object comes from complicated circuitry of the brain does not mean that there aren't real objects out there. Indeed, the brain evolved in order to give us as accurate a representation as possible of what is objectively out in the world.

That may also be true, at least according to some philosophical arguments, for morality. Many philosophers believe that some abstract entities, such as numbers, have an existence independent of minds. That is, many philosophers and mathematicians believe that the number three is not just a figment in the way that the color red is, but that it has a real existence, which mathematicians discover and explore with their mathematical faculties; they don't invent it. Similarly, many moral philosophers argue that right and wrong have an existence, and that our moral sense evolved to mesh with them. Even if you don't believe that, there's an alternative that would make the moral sense just as real -- namely, that our universal moral sense is constituted so that it can't work unless we believe that right and wrong have an external reality. So if you want to stop short of saying that moral truths exist outside us, you can say that we can't reason other than by assuming that they do. In that case, when we get down to having a moral debate, we still appeal to external standards of right and wrong; we aren't reduced to comparing idiosyncratic emotional or subjective reactions.

The final disquiet, I think, that is elicited by the naturalist or biological approach to the mind, is that it robs us of responsibility. If we act only because of ricocheting molecules in the brain, shaped by the genes which in turn were shaped by natural selection -- if it's billiard balls all the way down and all the way back -- then how can we hold someone responsible for his actions, given that there is no "he" that caused them? I agree this is a fascinating puzzle, but I don't think it has anything particular to do with cognitive neuroscience or behavioral genetics or evolutionary psychology. It's a problem that is raised by any attempt to explain behavior, regardless of the nature of the explanation. You all remember the scene in "West Side Story" in which the gang of juvenile delinquents explains to Sergeant Krupke, "We're depraved on account of we're deprived":

"Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke, You gotta understand, It's just our bringing up-ke, That gets us out of hand. Our mothers all are junkies, Our fathers all are drunks. Golly Moses, naturally we're punks!"

Sondheim's lyrics send up the psychoanalytic and social-science exculpations of bad behavior that were popular in the 1950s, and the non-biological excuses continue. In the 1970s, Dan White was given a light sentence for murdering the mayor of San Francisco because his mind was addled from too much junk food, the infamous Twinkie Defense. In the 1990s, the lawyer for the Menendez brothers argued her way to an acquittal based on her client's diminished responsibility because of childhood sexual abuse. Any time someone explains behavior, biologically or otherwise, a thoughtless observer can imagine that the explanation absolves the actor of responsibility. According to an old saying, to understand is not to forgive. If a moral system locates responsibility in a ghost in the machine, we need to revise the moral system, because the ghost is being exorcised, but we still need the notion of individual responsibility. Any ethical theory that is challenged by some outcome from the laboratory is a defective, or at least an incomplete, ethical theory.

Yesterday I was on the radio with a professor of divinity who said it was crucial that we retain the idea of a unified self, a part of the brain where it all comes together -- the ethical system of two billion people depends on it, he said. I replied there's considerable evidence that the unified self is a fiction -- that the mind is a congeries of parts operating asynchronously, and that it's only an illusion that there's a president in the Oval Office of the brain who oversees the activity of everything. He said, "I hope that's not true, because if it is we'll have to change our ethical system." I think this is an unwise way of doing moral reasoning. He might be right; I suspect that he's wrong; but whether he's right or wrong, we don't want the morality of killing and raping and lying and stealing to depend on what comes out of the psychology lab down the hall. We need our ethical system to be more robust than that -- it's always wrong to kill people, and we need an ethical system for which that's axiomatic.

To conclude -- we look with wry amusement at the debates in cosmology of three or four hundred years ago, in which great moral significance was attached to the debate between the geocentric and heliocentric theories. It was considered not to be just an empirical question of science, but a problem of great moral weight whether the earth went around the sun or the sun went around the earth. Now we look back and see that this was all rather silly. Either one theory is true or the other one is true, and people had to find out which is which. Any notion that meaning, purpose, ethics, morals and so on hinge on that contingent fact of cosmology came from unsound reasoning. I suspect that the idea that meaning, purpose, and morals hinge on a Soul one, a ghost in the machine, will have the same fate. The ghost in the machine has been exorcised, and meaning and values are none the worse for it. Thank you very much.




http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge53.html


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"Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings through many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs" -- Isaiah Berlin

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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Icelander]
    #6983916 - 05/29/07 08:26 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
If the soul can be defined as universal rather than personal then I can personally make a case for it. Individual souls don't really make sense to me. The watcher who sits behind the individuality and it's programs I could call the soul.



My beliefs fall somewhere along those lines. I think an "individual soul" could be said to exist while the person is alive, but at death, it would simply return to its source as one oversoul. There's more to it than that, but that's the best I can explain it.


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OfflineShroomieGirl
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6985620 - 05/30/07 02:12 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Let me start by saying, im very skeptical of the existance of the soul to begin with, and of any/all religions, but hopefully you wont hold that against me (any very religious people), and read what i have to say. I think about these things sometimes, and think there may be a point to it all (or maybe ive jsut been on one too many trips- haha, jk).

Perhaps the soul isnt the director of all actions, feelings, etc, but only an entity (as stated) separate from the body which is "with you" all the time, and the brain isnt a translator- Perhaps the brain is infact, the thing that tells you who to be, and how to be it.

If you think of it that way, the brain tells you what your personality is, and the soul is just something that gives you life, or something that allows you to exist. If reincarnation does exist, maybe your soul is basically just energy, or life, and it follows you until its time to die, and moves on to a new being.

Therefore, the soul may exist, but we will never know. All we know is(beutifully demonstrated by this example) that it does not govern your personality or how you act.

There is so much more to discover about the soul and the human being. I dont think we will know for a while (or ever) what the soul is, or if it does exist. We can only speculate and argue.

Ill keep thinking, and if i come up with a better explaination, ill let you know.


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:bouncysmoke:

I'm ok, really.

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InvisibleLakefingers

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: elbisivni]
    #6985629 - 05/30/07 02:18 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Can I get it with lowfat cheese, no onions and a beet?

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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: ShroomieGirl]
    #6985954 - 05/30/07 06:06 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

A bar of iron is not a magnet until one aligns that bar with the lines of magnetic force of the Earth. Then, if one hits the iron bar with a hammer, temporarily disrupting the structure of the iron, the disruption is able to realign the structure so that the iron bar 'partakes of' the magnetic field of the Earth and becomes a magnet.

The molten iron core of the Earth is magnetic, possibly, by the greater effect of larger forces acting upon the Earth, like the way that the Earth's mass distorts the fabric of space-time resulting in gravity. Drawing thing inward to the core of the planet sets up a flow of energy. A coil of wire wrapped a round an iron bar with electricity running through the wire creates an electromagnet out of the bar.

Physical phenomena oftentimes present me with analogies to metaphysical realities. Spirit to soul is like wire coil to iron bar. Or, space-time continuum is to planetary body like God is to human body (inducing a flow of energy, physical and metaphysical, respectively).

I've often suggested that these metaphysical constructs about self-conscious awareness is more like a 'field effect' than an emergent property of brain cells. The brain may be a receiving device from the 'wireless storehouse' of "Creative Intelligence" (as they call God in Transcendental Meditation).


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Ξ³Ξ½αΏΆΞΈΞΉ ΟƒΞ±α½Ο„ΟŒΞ½ - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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OfflineFrenchSocialist
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Silversoul]
    #6985986 - 05/30/07 06:36 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Silversoul said:
Quote:

Icelander said:
If the soul can be defined as universal rather than personal then I can personally make a case for it. Individual souls don't really make sense to me. The watcher who sits behind the individuality and it's programs I could call the soul.



My beliefs fall somewhere along those lines. I think an "individual soul" could be said to exist while the person is alive, but at death, it would simply return to its source as one oversoul. There's more to it than that, but that's the best I can explain it.




Does this soul have any of these traits as well:

"The principle of life in man or animals -- animate existence."

"The principle of thought and action in man commonly regarded as an entity distinct from the body, the spiritual part of man in contrast to the purely physical."

"The spiritual part of man regarded as surviving after death, and as susceptible of happiness or misery in a future state."

"The disembodied spirit of a deceased person regarded as a separate entity and as invested with some amount of form and personality."

Because if so that falls within the criticisms of Dawkins soul one. And hence the objection that the soul is positing a testable theory of life. Basically in that it is saying there is something non-material about life.


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"Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings through many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs" -- Isaiah Berlin

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OfflineMuppet
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6986079 - 05/30/07 07:31 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

I didn't read this entire thread, but let me give you a little parable here:

Quote:

Mr H. was very good driver
- he'd always use his turn signals
- he'd yeild at yellow lights
- and was alway curteous and respectful of eveyone else on the road

One day Mr H. hit a pot-hole and bent his front axle...not so much so that he couldn't drive it any more, but just enough to where his car would undoubtably veer to the right as he drove (so that he'd have to continuously re-adjust the steering wheel so as to keep from veering off too far to the right)

From an outsider's perspective:
the man that was now driving was a drunken reckloose that couldn't even keep a straight line
(surely this couldn't be Mr H. - he was always so perfect behind the wheel)



does the damage to the axle that makes it impossible for the car to drive straight, somehow negate the desire for the person within to do so?



and more importantly:
does the fact that the car drives differently now prove that there was never a person behind the wheel in the first place?


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:craven:  Ravings of a Madman  :craven:

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Muppet]
    #6986118 - 05/30/07 07:47 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

You're conflating a simple linkage (left/right) with a v-e-r-y complex one (behavior).

If a broken wire in a complex computer hard disk interface bus could cause every "A" you type to become a "B", I'd buy your simplistic explanation. What actually happens is that random gibberish gets written to the disk, ruining the data.

And if all the brain was claimed to do was to coordinate left and right movements willed in the soul and expressed in the body, I'd buy your explanation. That's not what was observed in Phineas' behavior. He didn't just go berserk. He became willfully, premeditatingly mean.

What you're saying amounts to believing that rapists are good people because it's just their brain doing the raping, not their soul.


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Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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InvisibleEllisDSox
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6986186 - 05/30/07 08:16 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

I really don't think consciousness will ever be explained simply in terms of brain chemistry. Regardless of whether the soul exists, I believe in the mind. I think there is an existence of the self in more than a physical sense, similar to the soul. Whether this exists prior to birth or after death, I have no idea, but it's there at least for a fleeting moment while we live.


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Disclaimer: If you have any kind of heart condition, my posts are not for you. You could literally die from reading the first couple of words in any one of them. Scroll down the page, live your life and prosper, but don't read my posts because your heart will probably explode. I am not joking.

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OfflineMuppet
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6986193 - 05/30/07 08:20 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

alright...so I simplified things to make my point more clear

you want something more complex:

Quote:

Mr H. was also a very good banker
- he'd always give you exactly what you wanted
- he never made a mistake on his 'bookwork'
- you'd never be even a penny off when your money was in his hands

The bank's computer system got hacked one day...and suddenly everyone's money was being shipped to Cuba. This was not like Mr H. at all. Surely this wasn't the same man that was so meticulous with their money earlier. Something 'had to' be wrong.



something was wrong - the damn computer went fucken haywire
this doesn't mean that the man maintaining the computer system decided to send everyone's money to cuba

and it certainly doesn't mean that there was no 'man maintaining the machine' who wasn't at least *trying* to make things right

complicating the problem doesn't change the underlying mechinics behind these things







and as far as that last statement you made:

Quote:

Diploid said:
What you're saying amounts to believing that rapists are good people because it's just their brain doing the raping, not their soul.



wrong again

just as Mr H. didn't have to re-adjust his steering wheel (he *could have* let himself veer into the ditch) it was still his choice whether he wanted to allow his faulty front axle to drag him down into a place where he wouldn't even be able to drive any more, or to 'fight' against the malfunction of his vehicle so that he could continue moving right along the same path he'd most like to go (even if meant the ride wouldn't be quite as smooth as it would've been had everything been functioning properly)

problematic brain chemistry is nothing more then a test of strength for the eager soul


--------------------


:craven:  Ravings of a Madman  :craven:

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Muppet]
    #6987434 - 05/30/07 02:35 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

complicating the problem doesn't change the underlying mechinics behind these things

You're still missing my point.

A malfunctioning linkage from soul to body would not manifest as a well-coordinated, intended, and verbally articulate mean behavior. Complicated machines don't break in ways that result in perfect but not-intended behavior.

You can't break a trace on your computer's motherboard, then log into your bank account and get mine by accident instead. It just doesn't happen that way.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6988004 - 05/30/07 05:00 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

We're debating on emulation though, we can' t come to a conclusive decision on the basis of the mind till we find out more. Until we at least have a working emulation of a human brain its relatively senseless to argue this further, we can barely utilize a mouse brain in this manner, its far too complex to come to a definitive conclusion.

We could argue from the stanc of data storage that the soul remains with the body just as data does the hard drive when all is said and done (assuming it doesn't get erased) and make all that applicable to the existance of a soul being retained to the degree the hardware is maintained i.e. mummification and various other funeral rituals preserving the framework of the body... altogether that is senseless though as it doesn't resemble the working model to the degree needed to come to a valid conclusion.


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

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OfflineJackenobi
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Psychoactive1984]
    #6989264 - 05/30/07 09:54 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Psychoactive1984 said:
So supposing that the soul is the agent, and the brain is the framework...




if we are supposing then why not the brain the agent and the soul the framework? framework = morals (interweaving pleasure and idea of good) = consciousness = back to the brain again

pleasant narrative = apparence of a soul as understood by the above terms
unpleasant narrative = hellfire, absence of a feeling that could be notioned as soul

narrative = you

infinite possibility available at any given moment

fall, fall back, balance, mind. Go!


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6989345 - 05/30/07 10:06 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
but if there is such a thing as soul it could have just been that he damaged the part of his brain that helped him make desicions.

This is non sequitur. The definition of 'soul' implies that it is the origin of decisions. Otherwise, what's its function? When we die and inhabit only our soul, will we lose the ability to make decisions?




forgive me for not reading the 100 other posts, so if something along the lines of what I am about to say has been said, then ignore it.

But my belief regarding the soul is a few criteria:
1) you are the soul, and you have a body/brain
2) the body is a vehicle for somewhat of a tangible expression of you (your soul).
3) the brain is the "motherboard" or "operator" that directs the rest of your body.
4) you (soul) communicate to the body through the brain and when a part of the brain becomes damaged, that is an avenue of communication that is shut down, or distorted.
5) it works both ways, that you (soul) will get distorted information or lack of info back from the brain.

so, this PC part of your brain, IMO, handles the communication from and to the soul regarding choice and such, and when that is damaged, atleast some part of the information given, recieved, or both is the cause for abberation.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Jackenobi]
    #6989511 - 05/30/07 10:36 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

The soul is the agent acting in accordance to the framework (experiences, preconcieved notions, etc), so as per the example the brain is messed up (the framework) yet the ability of the soul (the agent that is acting in accordance with the framework) is questioned. The soul is the agent, having the capability to act in accordance with the damaged framework. I dunno if this is any clearer, half of what i say only really makes sense to me :tongue: let me know.

You could easily suggest that the soul is the framework and the brain is the agent but under the guidelines stipulated it doesn't make much sense.


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6990282 - 05/31/07 06:01 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
You're conflating a simple linkage (left/right) with a v-e-r-y complex one (behavior).

If a broken wire in a complex computer hard disk interface bus could cause every "A" you type to become a "B", I'd buy your simplistic explanation. What actually happens is that random gibberish gets written to the disk, ruining the data.

And if all the brain was claimed to do was to coordinate left and right movements willed in the soul and expressed in the body, I'd buy your explanation. That's not what was observed in Phineas' behavior. He didn't just go berserk. He became willfully, premeditatingly mean.

What you're saying amounts to believing that rapists are good people because it's just their brain doing the raping, not their soul.




Ahaa! "I've got it!" [to quote Betty Boop's Grampy] Diploid is a computer mavin, whose signature is of a Horta, a silicon-based life form. Diploid, young chap, are you sadly like the Charles Laughton Quasimodo (Hunchback of Notre Dame) who, bemoans to the gargoyle in his anguished, loveless existence, "Oh, why was I not made of stone, like thee?" Here then is is song to ponder. The tune is unforgettable if you haven't heard it.

In a 'Sensing' type such as yourself, the 'Intuitive' grasp of a non-empirical abstraction is certain to be rejected intellectually, but not so vehemently unless fueled by real emotion. I mean, it's more than just your sarcasm (towards me at least) that drives you. A pure phenomenologist with a sensate bent would not demonstrate such scathing feeling tones. I'm just wondering.

Simon and Garfunkel Lyrics
I Am a Rock


A winter's day
In a deep and dark December
I am alone
Gazing from my window
To the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow

I am a rock
I am an island

I've built walls
A fortress deep and mighty
That none may penetrate
I have no need for friendship
Friendship causes pain
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.

I am a rock
I am an island

Don't talk of love
Well, I've heard the word before
It's sleeping in my memory
I won't disturb the slumber
Of feelings that have died
If I'd never loved,
I never would have cried

I am a rock
I am an island

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room
Safe within my womb
I touch no-one and no-one touches me

I am a rock
I am an island
And the rock feels no pain
And an island never cries

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #6990493 - 05/31/07 08:19 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Ahh Markos,

True to form, you derail another thread to discuss Diploid rather than Soul.

Are you that threatened by anonymous words on a computer screen when they question your world view? Are you that attached to your ideas that anyone who undermines them sets you on the offensive?

Take a step back and see that your attitude clouds your view. For example, you overlay sarcasm where I intend none. You erroneously characterize my personality with certainty even though you've never met me (I'm an N not an S). And you derail threads with personalisms that add nothing but distraction to the discussion.

To what end? What do you get out of this except maybe hypertension?

Your clouded view also leads you to think I have certainty in the things I present. Far from it. I defend my point of view vigorously because that invites opposing points of view. It puts my ideas in a crucible to see if they should be abandoned or if they hold up under scrutiny. You don't see this because the only thing that comes through is a threat to your cherished, inviolate world view as if the threat was to you personally.

Chill out man. This thread attacks an idea. It does not attack Markos. Stop clinging to your ideas as if they are the ultimate and only truth that has to be defended as if your personal life is at stake. That's what fundamentalists do, not smart guys like you. Open your mind and accept that your version of the idea may be right... or it may be wrong and considering those possibilities does not threaten you.

You'll live longer and happier that way. :heart:

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Offlinefireworks_godS
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6990635 - 05/31/07 09:05 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Yes, this forum is not for personalizing discussion in such a manner. Let's keep that in pm's. :smile:


--------------------
:redpanda:
If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you

:heartpump: :bunnyhug: :yinyang:

:yinyang: :levitate: :earth: :levitate: :yinyang:

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Psychoactive1984]
    #6990721 - 05/31/07 09:33 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

i see what you are saying i was just trying to use another perspective.

i think this thread amongst a tripping online populace is going to be very subjective to personal experience, given the fantastical nature of perceptions encountered, good or ill.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Jackenobi]
    #6990776 - 05/31/07 10:03 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

I think its relevant to this debate to discuss the psychology behind both sides of the debate. Really it is the only useful information that can be drawn from this debate, because obviously nobodies going to prove themselves correct on this one. Personally, this is something Ive been wondering about for a little while now.

But maybe the shit would hit the fans. Obviously its not up to me, Im just putting it out there. :sun:

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6992807 - 05/31/07 07:08 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Ah, fair enough. Actually, I am NOT attached to my "ideas," I am attached to an 'attitude' which views subjective experiences as lenses through which Ultimate Reality can be Known. You're an Intuitive type? Really? I am surprised, but glad I was wrong! I am not threatened in my intellect - that is my strong point typologically. As my Lady says, 'my Mercury is in Leo,' or something to that effect. Actually, INTPs extravert Intuition, and  Introvert Thinking. When I meet someone new, I will get an immediate fix on the person Intuitively, and later be able to Think out a synopsis of their personality makeup, but if were to ask me what the person was wearing, for example, I'd probably be at a complete loss to remember.

Also, since ideas take birth in the personalities of individuals, it is difficult for me NOT to see the personal implications of people who put forth ideas. Sometimes I'm wrong like everyone else, but sometimes I'm aware of dynamics that others are not self-aware of. This is why I took training in Jungian analysis, because of my tendency to do this (as did Jung, the paradigmatic INTP).

BTW, I DO have hypertension, but it is currently controlled quite nicely in the 120/80 range  :smirk:. It does not derive from psychological causes.


--------------------
Ξ³Ξ½αΏΆΞΈΞΉ ΟƒΞ±α½Ο„ΟŒΞ½ - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6993886 - 05/31/07 10:51 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

You guys might want to invest in my soul. I hear silver is a hot commodity these days.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: CosmicStorm]
    #6994046 - 05/31/07 11:36 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Who ever said the soul had anything to do with desision making and personality? Of course those are just chemical and electrical process. They are bound to the physical world because they are influenced (or determined) by physical phenomonon. The soul can't really be explained in our language. Smoke some DMT guys...

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: ChiefGreenLeaf]
    #6994201 - 06/01/07 12:49 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

so, do you keep your soul in the sock drawer? or is it under the soap?

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6995003 - 06/01/07 10:23 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
A malfunctioning linkage from soul to body would not manifest as a well-coordinated, intended, and verbally articulate mean behavior. Complicated machines don't break in ways that result in perfect but not-intended behavior.



touche/


--------------------


:craven:  Ravings of a Madman  :craven:

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: ChiefGreenLeaf]
    #6995103 - 06/01/07 10:49 AM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

ChiefGreenLeaf said:
Smoke some DMT guys...




This is the about the lamest excuse for evidence around.


Hey what about beer? That will prove you got soul.:monkeydance:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #6995992 - 06/01/07 02:57 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
This is different than a compete shift in personality from a nice guy to an asshole. You don't will kissing your wife and your damaged brain beats her with a baseball bat instead.

Edit: I thought of a better analogy. A broken steering column won't make you drive to the grocery store when you intended to drive to your mother's house. That's akin to what happened to poor Phineas.




What if the damage to Phineas' brain wasn't damage to the part that allowed the soul to interface with the body, but rather damage to part of the input device that gave information to the soul.

Phineas' soul could have remained intact, but if the inputs into the decision making entity get considerably befuddled, his entire personality could easily be changed. He's still using the same basic decision-making process, but formerly familiar experiences now seem to include vast quantities of new information to Phineas.

Prior to the accident, Phineas was getting two sources of information before he could make a decision: both the prefrontal cortex and his limbic center gave him input. Post-accident the prefrontal cortex stopped giving him information. It may have even been feeding him completely erratic information, something akin to phantom limb syndrome.

To go to the analogy of a car driving to the grocery store when you intended to drive to your mother's house, no a broken steering column won't do that.

But, someone redrawing the glove-compartment map and painting the windshield a nearly-opaque color might result in you driving to the grocery store when you meant to go to your mother's house, even if the rest of the car is working properly.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Economist]
    #6996048 - 06/01/07 03:17 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Why wouldnt there be a soul? I mean, if life can be taken away so easily, then there must be a continuation of part of oneself.

Alls i know is that it never ends. I think the soul is eternal, and it keeps on going, becuase it has always been, and doesnt know anything other than being; therefore, it cannot stop.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: nolongerinuse]
    #6996191 - 06/01/07 03:52 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

new2grow said:
Why wouldnt there be a soul? I mean, if life can be taken away so easily, then there must be a continuation of part of oneself.

Alls i know is that it never ends. I think the soul is eternal, and it keeps on going, becuase it has always been, and doesnt know anything other than being; therefore, it cannot stop.




That's quite a post.:lol: 

There wouldn't be a soul for lots of conceivable reasons and just because it's easy to die that's not a logical reason that there is a soul.

All I know

Yeah right. It seems obvious to me that you don't know, from the amazing logic you put forth.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

Edited by Icelander (06/01/07 03:53 PM)

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Icelander]
    #6996288 - 06/01/07 04:22 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

People who live without a belief in a soul, or in a continuation of existence after 'this' make me feel sad for them.

Alls i know is that, wiat until someone close to you dies. Then just listen....lol just fucking listen! haaaaaaaaaaahahah!

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: nolongerinuse]
    #6996306 - 06/01/07 04:28 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

So you assume that no one on this thread has lost someone close to them?  :confused:  Are you claiming that a belief in the soul and the afterlife is based upon coping with grief?

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: nolongerinuse]
    #6996334 - 06/01/07 04:36 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

"Wait until someone close to you dies" ~  Virgil Earp


--------------------

Edited by OrgoneConclusion (04/02/12 04:32 AM)

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Veritas]
    #6996342 - 06/01/07 04:39 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

No im just saying that that due above that last post of mine obviously is without the belief in a soul. And that he has lost connection to the souls around him..... So for him to wait until someone dear to him dies, then this connection will beome stronger and he will change his opinions.

Coping' with grief' is such a cliche', and i hate that phrase. But no, im not saying that.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: nolongerinuse]
    #6996354 - 06/01/07 04:44 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

And you base this conclusion upon...??

Quote:

Icelander said: (earlier in this thread)
If the soul can be defined as universal rather than personal then I can personally make a case for it. Individual souls don't really make sense to me. The watcher who sits behind the individuality and it's programs I could call the soul.




Again, how does losing someone dear suddenly convert a "non-believer" into a "believer" in the soul and afterlife?

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Veritas]
    #6996392 - 06/01/07 04:52 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Veritas said:
And you base this conclusion upon...??




Orgone.


--------------------

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelive In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #6996404 - 06/01/07 04:54 PM (16 years, 9 months ago)

Was I talking to you, Huckleberry?  :wink:

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #16029986 - 04/01/12 04:23 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
But the restriction is necessary, as I said, because without it, the thread will degrade into a debate about the definition of the soul and not about what I intend, the EXISTENCE of the soul.





Sorry, it just doesn't work like that. How can you expect people to argue the existence of the soul if they don't even agree with how you define it??  You're claiming this as definite proof that there is no soul? I feel like you're skipping over a MASSIVE part of the argument.

Scientists can't agree on a definition of Dark Matter, but they know it exists. Why can't the soul? 

Your flaw is relying WAAAAAYYY too much on language, which is man-made, to summarize something that cannot be encapsulated with words. Similar to describing the color orange to a blind man. You just can't do it with words.


And the PC has nothing to do with the soul IMO, as Descartes said: "The Pineal Gland is the seat of the soul."  It's the only part of the brain that science has not come to a complete understanding of function; hence most people have never even heard of it.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12] * 1
    #16030103 - 04/01/12 04:46 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

You bumped a ~5 year old thread for this travesty of philosophical non-thinking?

NOTHING has 100% universal agreement. That doesn't mean we can't give a working definition for purposes of THIS DISCUSSION, then proceed to discuss it under those parameters.

Philosophy 101: the thought experiment. :flowstone:

Your flaw is relying WAAAAAYYY too much on language

My flaw is in assuming people are smart enough to know what a hypothetical is.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #16032168 - 04/02/12 03:26 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Reality is more complicated than there or not there, the personality is more complicated than there or not there. OBEs are undeniable. It doesn't mean you have a soul, it means you exist in another way, in another reality or part of reality.

There is no arrow of time, you are eternal now.

Shit is weird.

Embrace the wonder and awaken the divine feelings waiting inside you, waiting to interpret your life and surrounds in a new way.

Then die horribly.

Or somehow live forever...

Or switch the frequency and leave this dimension behind.

What does it matter?


--------------------
My solitude...
My shield...
My armour...

TESTED
WITH
FULL
FORCE

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: circastes]
    #16032171 - 04/02/12 03:29 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

If you grab life by the balls and really come alive, you will feel things you've never felt before, and you won't be who you were before afterwards.

If you truly trust yourself and fear your fears, subdue your anger and hostility, work to rid the timidity, balance yourself out, you will kick some serious ass in life just being alive.

Ultimately death is just another event you have to trust yourself through.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: circastes] * 1
    #16032281 - 04/02/12 04:52 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

OBEs are undeniable.

:pope:


--------------------
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: circastes]
    #16032576 - 04/02/12 07:35 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

OBEs are undeniable

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

OBEs are completely deniable because:

1. The region in the brain where they're given rise has been identified by neurologists who can induce them on cue any time they want to, even with the subject still awake.

2. Every single test done under proper observing conditions where cheating can't take place has proved negative.

If you grab life by the :blah:

Based on your other patently false comments, these seriously lack any credibility. :shrug:


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #16032682 - 04/02/12 08:19 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

You can stimulate the part of the brain where you see stuff, and you'll see more stuff. It doesn't mean you don't actually see stuff. :justdontknow:


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: circastes] * 1
    #16032787 - 04/02/12 09:08 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

That's convenient how you ignore the fact that when this has been tested in a way that cheating is not possible, every person claiming OBE has failed miserably. When the test is sloppy and there are ways to cheat, there are lots of positive results, predictably.

And let's nevermind that if you really have OBEs, one simple demonstration for the JREF and you'd be an instant millionaire.

It doesn't mean you don't actually see stuff.

I don't deny people see stuff. I deny that it's anything more than random junk as evidenced by their inability to "see" what's in the room next door.

You can stimulate the part of the brain where you see stuff, and you'll see more stuff.

Yeah well, it's not that simple as you'd like it to be.

There is a structure in the brain that is attributed with the sensation of having an Out of Body Experience. This area of the brain is credited with giving a person the sensation of existing inside their head and is one explanation for why people who recover from anoxia often report OBEs. The area in question is called the Angular Gyrus. It's located in the parietal lobe (top-back) of the brain near where the sense of balance is processed.

The relationship to OBEs was first found while treating a woman for intractable epilepsy. To localize the source of the patient's seizures, doctors implanted electrodes in the her brain. With the patient awake, they probed her brain to map the pathology.

Stimulation of the AG caused various sensations including "sinking into the bed", "falling from a height", "seeing myself lying in bed from above", "floating", and all the other sensations people who claim OBEs report. These effects were instant and pronounced, and they ceased instantly when the stimulation was stopped.

Despite this, the patient was COMPLETELY unable to describe what was in the room next door, even though she was COMPLETELY convinced that she'd been there OBE. :justdontknow:


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #16033692 - 04/02/12 01:19 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

I trend towards monistic idealism. Brain is transceiver of consciousness, not producer. In either case, change the meat, change the output.

So yeah, you're telling me nothing that is incompatible with my belief in a "universal soul." :rolleyes:

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind]
    #16034016 - 04/02/12 02:24 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)



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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind] * 1
    #16034146 - 04/02/12 02:47 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Brain is transceiver of consciousness, not producer.




If you have some strong reasoning for this, then please share - else it is just fanciful and baseless 'thinking'.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Icelander] * 1
    #16034256 - 04/02/12 03:12 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
Quote:

Brain is transceiver of consciousness, not producer.




If you have some strong reasoning for this, then please share - else it is just fanciful and baseless 'thinking'.




Physicalistic theories have not given us a reason why consciousness exists in the first place. From a Darwinian standpoint it just isn't necessary, as can be garnered by a brief survey of the rest of life on Earth. It is only because of consciousness that we have the capability to completely destroy ourselves (in one way or another) and also do things like inflict self-harm or commit suicide. It is only because of consciousness that certain people adopt a misanthropic, nihilistic worldview and refuse to procreate. Like it or not, we have transcended Darwinism (some of us at least). And materialism does not account for this so far as I can tell.

Quote:

Icelander said:





:thumbup: Music ... Another reason why an immaterial consciousness makes sense to me. If we really are nothing but sacks of meat motivated by nothing but survival, why would we need/evolve it?

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #16034261 - 04/02/12 03:13 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
You bumped a ~5 year old thread for this travesty of philosophical non-thinking?

NOTHING has 100% universal agreement. That doesn't mean we can't give a working definition for purposes of THIS DISCUSSION, then proceed to discuss it under those parameters.

Philosophy 101: the thought experiment. :flowstone:

Your flaw is relying WAAAAAYYY too much on language

My flaw is in assuming people are smart enough to know what a hypothetical is.






Wooaaahh, simmer down there killer. Why so offended? I'm just saying you shouldn't expect a good debate after supplying a horrible definition like you did....and then go on to say that everyone else is wrong to boot because they're unable to get any sort of opinion through you're thick skull. 

Philosophy 101: Argue & Persuade, not Dictate & Cry.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16034277 - 04/02/12 03:16 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

midace12 said:


Having 13,000+ posts on a website dedicated to mushrooms does not make you Aristotle.







:lol:

In the words of Patton Oswalt: "Man, I wrote some amazing comments in some lively threads." - saddest last words ever

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind] * 1
    #16034323 - 04/02/12 03:26 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OrgoneConclusion said:

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brain is transceiver of consciousness, not producer.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



If you have some strong reasoning for this, then please share - else it is just fanciful and baseless 'thinking'.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Physicalistic theories have not given us a reason why consciousness exists in the first place. From a Darwinian standpoint it just isn't necessary, as can be garnered by a brief survey of the rest of life on Earth. It is only because of consciousness that we have the capability to completely destroy ourselves (in one way or another) and also do things like inflict self-harm or commit suicide. It is only because of consciousness that certain people adopt a misanthropic, nihilistic worldview and refuse to procreate. Like it or not, we have transcended Darwinism (some of us at least). And materialism does not account for this so far as I can tell.






I read your post twice and could not find a single fact pointing towards your conclusion. Try again.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind]
    #16034330 - 04/02/12 03:27 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

thefloodbehind said:
In the words of Patton Oswalt: "Man, I wrote some amazing comments in some lively threads." - saddest last words ever





Diploid makes more sense if I just accept he/she has no soul.  :wink:

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #16034383 - 04/02/12 03:36 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Why you gotta be such a dick, mang? Lighten up.

I've highlighted my reasons for disbelief in physicalism. The implication here is that consciousness is NOT bound up in the neurons.

In light of my first post, I figured you could put together the pieces, i.e., physical alterations in brain matter DO change consciousness, but because it is a transceiver.

I'm sorry for not being more clear. :sad:

Edited by thefloodbehind (04/03/12 08:54 AM)

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind] * 1
    #16034459 - 04/02/12 03:55 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

A lack of understanding of consciousness no more implies a transceiver than a lack of understanding of rain implies God is crying.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #16034481 - 04/02/12 04:03 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
A lack of understanding of consciousness no more implies a transceiver than a lack of understanding of rain implies God is crying.




I wasn't going to mention this because it isn't scientific, but philosophers like Schopenhauer make arguments for this kind of belief on the grounds that it's consistent with Hindu wisdom.

I've also heard arguments that invoke quantum mechanics, i.e., the brain can't convert possibility waves into actual objects if it itself is an amalgamation of possibility waves.

There are gaps, for certain. But to me the notion of a transceiver seems most plausible, though I concede that it is unverifiable. However, if it weren't, it'd be trivial and we wouldn't be having this conversation. :shrug:

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind] * 2
    #16034506 - 04/02/12 04:10 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

I wasn't going to mention this because it isn't scientific, but philosophers like Schopenhauer make arguments for this kind of belief on the grounds that it's consistent with Hindu wisdom.

But you went ahead and said something silly anyway. :haha:


--------------------
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Icelander]
    #16034525 - 04/02/12 04:16 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
I wasn't going to mention this because it isn't scientific, but philosophers like Schopenhauer make arguments for this kind of belief on the grounds that it's consistent with Hindu wisdom.

But you went ahead and said something silly anyway. :haha:




Huxley would disagree.

:huxleyfacepalm:

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion] * 1
    #16034648 - 04/02/12 04:45 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
A lack of understanding of consciousness no more implies a transceiver than a lack of understanding of rain implies God is crying.



:thumbup:

The arguments from those who believe in souls sound like increasingly desperate pleas to give up investigating consciousness, citing various reasons we'll supposedly never be able to figure it out so we can just attribute it to superstitious beliefs like God and the soul. That's a fallacy, called an argument from ignorance.

If the brain has been exhaustively investigated and no soul has been found, we are safe in saying that there is probably no soul. The evidence of its non-existence is our complete inability to turn up any results upon looking for it. (It's akin to saying "there's beer in my fridge," then looking in my fridge and finding no beer and therefore concluding "oh, I guess I was wrong and there actually isn't any beer." Technically you could claim the beer was invisible and intangible, but that would just be silly, and anyway beer that can't be tasted and touched isn't really beer at all).

Believers try to get around this by asserting that the soul is just the sort of thing which can't be investigated, but then they're just creating a question-begging circle jerk of "You can't prove the soul exists because the soul is something that can't be proven," leaving me to wonder what grounds they have for believing in it themselves, outside of the warm fuzzy feelings it gives them.

Quote:

thefloodbehind said:
Physicalistic theories have not given us a reason why consciousness exists in the first place. From a Darwinian standpoint it just isn't necessary, as can be garnered by a brief survey of the rest of life on Earth. It is only because of consciousness that we have the capability to completely destroy ourselves (in one way or another) and also do things like inflict self-harm or commit suicide. It is only because of consciousness that certain people adopt a misanthropic, nihilistic worldview and refuse to procreate. Like it or not, we have transcended Darwinism (some of us at least). And materialism does not account for this so far as I can tell.



As opposed to spirituality, which... not only doesn't give us any good reason why consciousness exists, but doesn't even try to integrate its beliefs with findings that have passed the rigors of strict empiricism.

In actuality we haven't transcended Darwinism at all. Everything we do either can be seen as beneficial for the individual or the species, or as a holdover from something that once was. When you can survive without eating, drinking or sleeping, then you can claim you've transcended your material form.

Edited by NetDiver (04/02/12 04:55 PM)

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind]
    #16034748 - 04/02/12 05:16 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

thefloodbehind said:
Quote:

Icelander said:
I wasn't going to mention this because it isn't scientific, but philosophers like Schopenhauer make arguments for this kind of belief on the grounds that it's consistent with Hindu wisdom.

But you went ahead and said something silly anyway. :haha:




Huxley would disagree.

:huxleyfacepalm:





And look what happened to him.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: NetDiver]
    #16034760 - 04/02/12 05:19 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

God would just want us to have faith, but do NOT ask how we know what God wants - you have to have extrasuperfaith for that.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: NetDiver]
    #16034775 - 04/02/12 05:22 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Samurai Drifter said:

If the brain has been exhaustively investigated and no soul has been found, we are safe in saying that there is probably no soul. The evidence of its non-existence is our complete inability to turn up any results upon looking for it.




So, what you're waiting for then, as proof, is a picture book with lots of colors and arrows proudly exclaiming "LOOK, HERE IS THE SOUL!" ????

Science knows dark matter exists, but they've been looking for it and can't find it.

If you were able to expand a human brain large enough to walk around inside of it, you would not find consciousness, as in, "oh, there it is".

Quote:

Believers try to get around this by asserting that the soul is just the sort of thing which can't be investigated, but then they're just creating a question-begging circle jerk of "You can't prove the soul exists because the soul is something that can't be proven," leaving me to wonder what grounds they have for believing in it themselves, outside of the warm fuzzy feelings it gives them.





Then post ABSOLUTE PROOF the soul does not exist. Otherwise, you're just arguing perspectives & beliefs. You need proof it exists and you don't have it...whereas I need proof it does not exist and I don't have it.

This issue will NEVER be proven definitely one way or the other, it hasn't for thousands of years, and we're not about to solve it here on the shroomery.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12] * 2
    #16034831 - 04/02/12 05:39 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

I have disproven the soul on here so many times it isn't funny.

Somehow, "I" will continue after my death, but what am I? I am a white American male of a certain height and weight, eye and hair hair color who plays the piano, poker, likes hiking, debating, herb, good food and women. I have a personal history made up of a zillion facts.

This is the only "I" I know. When my body decomposes, I will no longer be a white American male who enjoys anything whatsoever.

The retarded mystical response is usually, "Well, your essence continues," whatever the fuck that means.

No one I have ever talked to (including mystic-heads) has described themselves as 'the part of me I am totally unaware of' because it does not make a lick of sense.

It is the same for NDEs: "I saw my dead father in the white light." Really? Was it your father as a fetus, your father as a decomposing corpse or your father as the essence you have never before seen? If the latter, then he/it would be unrecognizable without human characteristics. Amazingly, people recognize their relatives as their favorite memories of them. This is called: projection.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12] * 1
    #16034934 - 04/02/12 06:01 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

midace12 said:
So, what you're waiting for then, as proof, is a picture book with lots of colors and arrows proudly exclaiming "LOOK, HERE IS THE SOUL!" ????

Science knows dark matter exists, but they've been looking for it and can't find it.

If you were able to expand a human brain large enough to walk around inside of it, you would not find consciousness, as in, "oh, there it is".



Science suspects dark matter exists because assuming so works with calculations explaining the gravitational behavior of celestial objects. Where are the equations that work better when a soul is assumed?

Quote:

Then post ABSOLUTE PROOF the soul does not exist. Otherwise, you're just arguing perspectives & beliefs. You need proof it exists and you don't have it...whereas I need proof it does not exist and I don't have it.



As I said, we have investigated the brain extensively and found no soul. That is enough evidence to make the claim unlikely and place the burden of proof on you. Saying I have to provide absolute proof there is no soul is like saying "Give me ABSOLUTE PROOF there is no invisible unicorn orbiting Jupiter!"

Quote:

This issue will NEVER be proven definitely one way or the other, it hasn't for thousands of years, and we're not about to solve it here on the shroomery.



As far as I'm concerned the issue is already solved, minus a few stubborn superstitious people.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #16034957 - 04/02/12 06:06 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
I have disproven the soul on here so many times it isn't funny.





In that case, there is an entire planet eagerly awaiting your published research.  HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA (oh, wait, you said it isn't funny)....





As far as NDE's go, you should worry less about people claiming they see relatives, and more about science investigating Veridical Perception.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #16034963 - 04/02/12 06:07 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

If it is true that our conscious awareness consists of less than 2% of our brains potential, then that leaves plenty of room for soul.
Quote:

The main, limbic, brain, associates and communicates some ten thousand times faster than does most of the cortex β€” ten thousand times ten thousand β€” ten MILLION β€” times faster than does your conscious verbal mind.


The Soul is the silence, the stream, the inspiration. Music and art is Soul. What does the after life have to do with soul? Philosophy IS science. Anyone can become that eternal soul that you are, just get really loaded if nothing else works. It takes allot of getting loaded. Often times the true self is discovered while very loaded then forgotten as a side effect of having been that loaded. I've written down notes to confirm that I've definitely been enjoying amazing closed eye visuals because I know that I rarely remember them, as in I needed to confirm that yes I do in fact get closed eye visuals.

To claim that soul does not exist is to claim that vibes don't exist, impressions don't exist, enchantment does not exist, inspiration does not exist, intuition does not exist, imagination does not exist, stories cannot be told, songs cannot be sung, visions cannot be had...

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: NetDiver]
    #16034973 - 04/02/12 06:10 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Samurai Drifter said:

As far as I'm concerned the issue is...





There you have it.  As far as you're concerned. I rest my case.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: usulpsychonaut]
    #16034993 - 04/02/12 06:13 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

usulpsychonaut said:
To claim that soul does not exist is to claim that vibes don't exist, impressions don't exist, enchantment does not exist, inspiration does not exist, intuition does not exist, imagination does not exist, stories cannot be told, songs cannot be sung, visions cannot be had...






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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: NetDiver]
    #16035017 - 04/02/12 06:19 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Samurai Drifter said:

In actuality we haven't transcended Darwinism at all. Everything we do either can be seen as beneficial for the individual or the species, or as a holdover from something that once was. When you can survive without eating, drinking or sleeping, then you can claim you've transcended your material form.




Suicide. Art. Love. Not Darwinian so far as I can tell.

Didn't say we've transcended the material world. We've transcended Darwinism, meaning survival is not our sole purpose for living. To contend otherwise is foolishness.

Edited by thefloodbehind (04/02/12 09:54 PM)

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12] * 1
    #16035021 - 04/02/12 06:19 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

midace12 said:
Quote:

Samurai Drifter said:

As far as I'm concerned the issue is...





There you have it.  As far as you're concerned. I rest my case.





No you ignored what he said and skipped to something that would let you off the hook.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16035030 - 04/02/12 06:21 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Thank you for your non-existent counter argument. Standard operating procedure for those with nothing of substance.

A baby photo may give us some insight into your sense of humor, but does not clarify your thinking on the matter.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #16035186 - 04/02/12 06:47 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Icelander, quit cherry picking arguments. That is honestly all you've been doing, PEANUT GALLERY.

Anywho, Icelander, I wasn't letting myself off the hook. I'm simply having fun with this entire issue...because as I said:
Quote:

midace12 said:
This issue will NEVER be proven definitely one way or the other, it hasn't for thousands of years, and we're not about to solve it here on the shroomery.




But see that wasn't acceptable, and in return I got:
Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
I have disproven the soul on here so many times it isn't funny.




In summary, there is no arguing with any of you. All you ever do is fall back on the claim that believing in a soul is "superstitious" and jerk each other off with your bogus science, which has proven nothing in regards to the soul. If it had, we wouldn't be having this conversation....but we are....so it hasn't....yet you claim you have....but you haven't......but Icelander agrees that you have....yet knows you haven't......see where this goes?  Nowhere. Nowhere except ridiculous PHILOSOPHY PENALTY FLAGS...where instead of arguing the subject, you argue the way it is being argued (Icelander...) 

THE FINAL WORD ON THE SOUL:


Believe___      Don't Believe___

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16035312 - 04/02/12 07:10 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Don't tell me what to do son. I'll fucking do whatever I like as far as pointing out how you ignore responses you can't answer.

Such as this.

Science suspects dark matter exists because assuming so works with calculations explaining the gravitational behavior of celestial objects. Where are the equations that work better when a soul is assumed?

And this

 
As I said, we have investigated the brain extensively and found no soul. That is enough evidence to make the claim unlikely and place the burden of proof on you. Saying I have to provide absolute proof there is no soul is like saying "Give me ABSOLUTE PROOF there is no invisible unicorn orbiting Jupiter!"


So put up or shut.  And quit whining.


Edited by Icelander (04/02/12 07:24 PM)

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: usulpsychonaut]
    #16035597 - 04/02/12 08:02 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

usulpsychonaut said:
If it is true that our conscious awareness consists of less than 2% of our brains potential, then that leaves plenty of room for soul.

To claim that soul does not exist is to claim that vibes don't exist, impressions don't exist, enchantment does not exist, inspiration does not exist, intuition does not exist, imagination does not exist, stories cannot be told, songs cannot be sung, visions cannot be had...




The whole "2% of out brains" statement is wrong in many ways, but I'll let you read up on that yourself.

I agree with your main point but I suppose it comes back to semantics... I agree that a person's "soul" could be considered their identity, personality, or creative output but a lot of people also consider the soul to be synonymous with spirit. Something that is separate from the physical self that will continue on after death.

My identity and personality are largely the result of everything I have seen, felt, heard, smelled, tasted, and experienced through my bodily senses. The mind is able to process information in new ways, which is where complicated things like creativity come in to play... but it's hard to deny that the things you experience through your bodily senses are directly responsible for defining who you are.

I would have no "soul" if I had no ears to write music with or eyes and hands to draw pictures with in the first place. I find it hard to believe my soul could continue to exist without my body, when my body was very much responsible for the formation of my soul in the first place.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Subconscious]
    #16035804 - 04/02/12 08:45 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
Don't tell me what to do son. I'll fucking do whatever I like as far as pointing out how you ignore responses you can't answer.





ICELANDER=

Mod Edit: Name calling and personalisms are against the rules in PS&P. If your argument is so weak that you have to resort to calling people names or posting insulting pictures instead of rational debate, then don't post in PS&P.

Try the OTD forum where name calling is the way they debate there.

Read the rest of the rules here before you post again:

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/4526664#4526664

Consider this your warning.


Science suspects dark matter exists because assuming so works with calculations

Great. So this science that you place all your beliefs and faiths in just MAKES SHIT UP when it's wrong.  Good to know.

As I said, we have investigated the brain extensively and found no soul. That is enough evidence to make the claim unlikely and place the burden of proof on you. Saying I have to provide absolute proof there is no soul is like saying "Give me ABSOLUTE PROOF there is no invisible unicorn orbiting Jupiter!"

...who is this "we" you speak of? You haven't investigated shit, you just regurgitate what you hear on the Discovery channel. Extensively?? No, we've investigated Geology extensively, Chemistry extensively, Psychology extensively... Science has not studied the soul what so ever, nor made any effort to "find it". And Neuroscience is very young, and is extremely limited by technology in terms of making breakthroughs, so don't give me this shit that we know all there is to know about the brain. Proof or lack of proof is not a burden to me, maybe to you since you worship science, but never to me. And no, it's NOTHING like asking you to provide proof for such a childish thing as unicorns flying around Jupiter. Analogy Fail.


So again, without an analogy fail, please...post absolute proof the soul does not exist...or kindly STFU because you have nothing to convince me otherwise.

Edited by Diploid (04/02/12 09:06 PM)

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16035881 - 04/02/12 08:59 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Wooaaahh, simmer down there killer. Why so offended?

You're projecting. I'm not offended by little blips of light on a screen created by people I don't know and don't give a shit about. And don't tell me what to do either. It's off topic and won't work in any case. :shrug:

I'm just saying you shouldn't expect a good debate after supplying a horrible definition like you did

There ARE no better definitions because since the soul is an imaginary construct, 100 different people will have 100 different, contradicting definitions. This happens when you try to define the Tooth Fairy too. That's why a hypothetical discussion of her nature requires ground rules in the form of a definition for argument's sake. Without that, every participant is discussing a different topic.

I can't believe I have to explain this to you.

Having 13,000+ posts on a website dedicated to mushrooms does not make you Aristotle.

What does this have to do with the price of tea? The ad hominem is perhaps the single most sophomoric of all the philosophical fallacies. Take your own advice, perhaps?

Quote:

Philosophy 101: Argue & Persuade, not Dictate & Cry.




Then post ABSOLUTE PROOF the soul does not exist.

From your know-it-all posts, I wouldn't have expected such a retarded request. You can't prove that something does not exist. Philosophy 101. Let me know if you want me to explain it in detail for you, but you might do better to search the archives. This has been covered here ad nauseum over the years every time a new guy shows up here with the answer to all the world's problems who somehow doesn't understand the problem with giving proof that something does not exist. :flowstone:

Meanwhile, there is ample evidence suggesting that our brain is all that we are in the form of the case of Phineas Gage. See the OP where I covered it, and which I notice you haven't refuted.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16035913 - 04/02/12 09:08 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

midace12 said:
Quote:

Icelander said:
Don't tell me what to do son. I'll fucking do whatever I like as far as pointing out how you ignore responses you can't answer.





ICELANDER=

Mod Edit: Name calling and personalisms are against the rules in PS&P. If your argument is so weak that you have to resort to calling people names or posting insulting pictures instead of rational debate, then don't post in PS&P.

Try the OTD forum where name calling is the way they debate there.

Read the rest of the rules here before you post again:

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/4526664#4526664

Consider this your warning.


Science suspects dark matter exists because assuming so works with calculations

Great. So this science that you place all your beliefs and faiths in just MAKES SHIT UP when it's wrong.  Good to know.

As I said, we have investigated the brain extensively and found no soul. That is enough evidence to make the claim unlikely and place the burden of proof on you. Saying I have to provide absolute proof there is no soul is like saying "Give me ABSOLUTE PROOF there is no invisible unicorn orbiting Jupiter!"

...who is this "we" you speak of? You haven't investigated shit, you just regurgitate what you hear on the Discovery channel. Extensively?? No, we've investigated Geology extensively, Chemistry extensively, Psychology extensively... Science has not studied the soul what so ever, nor made any effort to "find it". And Neuroscience is very young, and is extremely limited by technology in terms of making breakthroughs, so don't give me this shit that we know all there is to know about the brain. Proof or lack of proof is not a burden to me, maybe to you since you worship science, but never to me. And no, it's NOTHING like asking you to provide proof for such a childish thing as unicorns flying around Jupiter. Analogy Fail.


So again, without an analogy fail, please...post absolute proof the soul does not exist...or kindly STFU because you have nothing to convince me otherwise.




Great post.:thumbup:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16035921 - 04/02/12 09:10 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

midace12,

You need to read the forum rules and follow them if you want to post here. Or feel free to leave if insults and calling people names is the best debate strategy you have.

The rules are sticky at the top of the post list, and here's a direct link:

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/4526664#4526664


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16035990 - 04/02/12 09:28 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

I find it hard to believe that my soul would live on after I'm dead too. But this is much like my manic depression for no reason. It is hard to believe that I exist at all. Since I seem to in fact exist, sitting here typing this out as if the whole reason for the universe to exist and my one true purpose is too type this out, it is just as hard to believe that my soul could ever die.

I think that If I had no soul I would be a lawyer. I would like to go to court everyday and defend criminals. I would love to get paid so much better than I do. That manic depression for no reason that reduces me to being an unemployed artist, that is what western psychology defines as my soul, as far as I can understand from the books I've read.

I would not ague that in fact the eternal soul exists, but past life regression hypnosis is fun, eschatology makes for very enjoyable discussion and when I get really loaded I remember myself as that eternal soul. Now Alan Watts insisted in one of his last interviews that he had absolutely no reason to believe that his soul would survive his physical death, yet he made a living defining that experience of remembering that you are an eternal soul.

This conversation is beside the point. I think to argue either way is idiotic. Obviously the soul does not exist, yet it absolutely does. Philosophy is science, they do not need to compete or make each other obsolete.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: NetDiver]
    #16036246 - 04/02/12 10:24 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Samurai Drifter said:
The arguments from those who believe in souls sound like increasingly desperate pleas to give up investigating consciousness, citing various reasons we'll supposedly never be able to figure it out so we can just attribute it to superstitious beliefs like God and the soul. That's a fallacy, called an argument from ignorance.

If the brain has been exhaustively investigated and no soul has been found, we are safe in saying that there is probably no soul. The evidence of its non-existence is our complete inability to turn up any results upon looking for it. (It's akin to saying "there's beer in my fridge," then looking in my fridge and finding no beer and therefore concluding "oh, I guess I was wrong and there actually isn't any beer." Technically you could claim the beer was invisible and intangible, but that would just be silly, and anyway beer that can't be tasted and touched isn't really beer at all).

Believers try to get around this by asserting that the soul is just the sort of thing which can't be investigated, but then they're just creating a question-begging circle jerk of "You can't prove the soul exists because the soul is something that can't be proven," leaving me to wonder what grounds they have for believing in it themselves, outside of the warm fuzzy feelings it gives them.




As a believer I'd take the contrary position. Prod and poke away till death. Of course, the definition of "soul" seems to be up for grabs and any debate revolving around an ambiguously defined term will turn out a trainwreck. Well, I have a rigorous definiton and the entity defined is indeed immortal, at least in the same way the universe is: a data set or a unique signature present in a data set, a UUID if you will. Between the point a sperm and an egg fuse, and the point whereby that organism ceases operation, there exists a process that exhibits characteristic outputs & inputs.

This process leaves an imprint on the universe that will *never* EVER cease to be due to the conservation of information and the fact that all of us trace out worldvolumes through space. Given such a definition the existence of a soul ceases to be of question, what I suppose would matter is: what happens next? Does this imprint fade into obscure background radiation or does it have a higher purpose? I'd personally side with the latter, to each their own. The simple fact is that ignoring any universe-death scenarios, in 10^20 years it will still be true that Samurai Drifter posted to the Shroomery in 2012. That's where the soul's at: information does not ever die. For comparison, 13.7 billion years ago a big ass explosion took place. People are still talking about it.


--------------------


"Everything there is, and all that there is, is a Pattern of unspeakable proportion. The Pattern contains everything that is, completely fixed in succession, all the minimal particles interconnected in every way that is. Every way that is is not every conceivable way, because not everything that can be conceived is manifest in the pattern."

"THE Human, you, is a miniscule but essential part of that pattern. In it lies complete fulfillment. It will never become something it is not, but it will never need to be anything else." - Wiccan_Seeker

"If boring drudgery was the way of the universe, everything would have killed itself long ago." - Spacerific

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: crkhd]
    #16036274 - 04/02/12 10:33 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

IMO there's no way to know at this point if a soul exists.  I'm waiting for some evidence before investing in a belief one way or another.  My guess is there is none based on the absence of evidence but the evidence might there and  be unrecognizable to me. :satansmoking:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16037338 - 04/03/12 07:58 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Well it seems I've gotten under enough people's skin for one thread. Thank you Diploid for your complete understanding and un-biased remedy. :rolleyes:


Quote:

midace12 said:


THE FINAL WORD ON THE SOUL:

(like it or not)


Believe___      Don't Believe___



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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16037618 - 04/03/12 09:45 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Science has not studied the soul what so ever, nor made any effort to "find it". And Neuroscience is very young, and is extremely limited by technology in terms of making breakthroughs, so don't give me this shit that we know all there is to know about the brain




maybe that is because scientist believe in the brains physical ability to produce reality. leave it to the religious folk to study the soul.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: biggysmall]
    #16037623 - 04/03/12 09:47 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

biggysmall said:
Quote:

Science has not studied the soul what so ever, nor made any effort to "find it". And Neuroscience is very young, and is extremely limited by technology in terms of making breakthroughs, so don't give me this shit that we know all there is to know about the brain




maybe that is because scientist believe in the brains physical ability to produce reality. leave it to the religious folk to study the soul.




that's not true. there are plenty of scientists who are religious/believe in the soul.

science doesn't study the soul ... because it can't. it's methodologically naturalistic and materialistic. it doesn't penetrate the metaphysical. not yet, at least.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind]
    #16037633 - 04/03/12 09:49 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

True, but I'm sure many neuroscientist have little doubt about the functions and direct correlation between the way our brain works , and what we feel , see , hear  ect.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: biggysmall]
    #16037649 - 04/03/12 09:55 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

biggysmall said:
True, but I'm sure many neuroscientist have little doubt about the functions and direct correlation between the way our brain works , and what we feel , see , hear  ect.




that doesn't say anything about "being," though. we also know a lot about how animals' brains operate, but we can't know what it's like to "be" something other than ourselves.

http://www.thebigquestions.com/nagel_bat.pdf

Edited by thefloodbehind (04/03/12 03:56 PM)

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind]
    #16038113 - 04/03/12 12:16 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

science doesn't study the soul ... because it can't. it's methodologically naturalistic and materialistic. it doesn't penetrate the metaphysical. not yet, at least.




Science is performed by *drum roll please* PEOPLE! So in essence you are saying that people cannot study the soul because if there is no interaction with the physical, then there is nothing to study.

Conclusion: soul = fantasy and/or imagination.


--------------------

Edited by OrgoneConclusion (04/03/12 03:04 PM)

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #16038351 - 04/03/12 01:27 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

That's not what I'm saying at all. I never said that there was no interaction of the soul with the physical world (don't know where you got that from ... ?); only that science is methodologically naturalistic/materialistic. It starts with that assumption and works backwards.

This is not a good skeptical approach. And the idea that the soul doesn't interact with the body is entirely contrary to my beliefs, one of which is the ideality of space and time as proposed by Kant, i.e., reality is primarily mental.

He also taught that "knowledge" is only to be had through math and science. This is not to say there aren't unknown metaphysical realities out thereβ€”only that we can't be certain of them. Indeed, Kant was a Christian.

Your response is a non sequitur.

Which perennial conundrum of philosophy will OC solve next?

:dumbass:

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind]
    #16038355 - 04/03/12 01:29 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Anything that interacts with the physical plane can potenitally be studied and measured.


--------------------

Edited by OrgoneConclusion (04/03/12 01:35 PM)

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid] * 1
    #16038442 - 04/03/12 01:50 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

really, one should define 'soul' first, before thinking about where to look for it :shrug:


--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: BlueCoyote]
    #16038788 - 04/03/12 02:58 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

I remember one time when I was about 4 or 5 when my dad was trying to explain to me about how god "talks" to me and he will always have an answer. I kept thinking to myself "how can I tell god apart from my own thoughts?" I think I asked him that and he gave me a dumb answer like "you just know"... I was still confused. Anyway, he would say things about a soul and the more and more I learned about where our emotions came from I knew that the whole soul thing was probably a load of crap.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: lillFish] * 2
    #16038805 - 04/03/12 03:03 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

My dad was a liar too. :lol:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #16039024 - 04/03/12 03:55 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
Anything that interacts with the physical plane can potenitally be studied and measured.




potentially, perhaps. Kant may be wrong on this one. one of his aims with the CPR was to preserve faith in the face of philosophers like Spinoza and Descartes.

but this would necessarily involve a paradigm shift. as i've made clear, science is methodologically materialistic.

Edited by thefloodbehind (04/03/12 04:03 PM)

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind]
    #16039030 - 04/03/12 03:56 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

as i've made clear, science is methodologically materialistic.




And...?

Religion is unsubstantiated fantasy.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #16039067 - 04/03/12 04:02 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
Quote:

as i've made clear, science is methodologically materialistic.




And...?

Religion is unsubstantiated fantasy.




okay. as we're having a philosophical debate right now i don't see how this is immediately relevant. i'm also not religious so your attempt to offend me is one in vain.

at any rate, i disagree with you. religion is a series of metaphors and anthropomorphizations of things we can't readily understand. to me this is self-evident. i guess some people have trouble conceiving of things beyond empirical sense data, though, and as a matter of course regard the noumenal and phenomenal spheres as equivalent. this is pretty bad skepticism in my book. :shrug:

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind]
    #16039095 - 04/03/12 04:07 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

i guess some people have trouble conceiving of things beyond empirical sense data




It is not the matter of conceiving of such things, but in believing that such imagination tells us anything of the external world.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #16039141 - 04/03/12 04:15 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
Quote:

i guess some people have trouble conceiving of things beyond empirical sense data




It is not the matter of conceiving of such things, but in believing that such imagination tells us anything of the external world.




and i don't believe in an "external world." the distinction between subject and object is illusory. as i'm sure you will agree, everything in the universe is composed of the fundamental fabric of space–time. i hold that this is an ideality and am therefore forced to conclude that Mind = World.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind]
    #16039149 - 04/03/12 04:17 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

or, more precisely, World c (is a subset of; using "c" in place of the appropriate symbol) Mind.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind]
    #16039181 - 04/03/12 04:25 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

The external world doesn't care if you believe in it or not.

Don't believe you can fly and jump off a 10 story building -> death.

Believe you can fly and jump off a 10 story building -> death.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion] * 1
    #16039304 - 04/03/12 04:52 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

I read about a cat who survived a 10 story fall once. :cat:


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #16039321 - 04/03/12 04:55 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
The external world doesn't care if you believe in it or not.

Don't believe you can fly and jump off a 10 story building -> death.

Believe you can fly and jump off a 10 story building -> death.




even if there is no afterlife of any kind, not only will i not exist when i die, it'll be as though nothing ever existed at all. Mind = World stands. i just happen to regard consciousness as an exclusive plurality, i.e., the egoic mind is a chimera. indeed, there's no physiological basis for it. this implies that "i" am really a part of something eternal and atemporal.

in your view, i was dead (read: did not exist) before i was born. it makes sense that i'll live after i die. life and death are merely undulations of consciousness.

you seem to think that death is something that will shut me up, as if i'm afraid of it and that it proves the existence of an "external world." it doesn't. it also looks a lot like projection from where i stand.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind]
    #16040049 - 04/03/12 07:32 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

thefloodbehind said:
Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
The external world doesn't care if you believe in it or not.

Don't believe you can fly and jump off a 10 story building -> death.

Believe you can fly and jump off a 10 story building -> death.




even if there is no afterlife of any kind, not only will i not exist when i die, it'll be as though nothing ever existed at all. Mind = World stands. i just happen to regard consciousness as an exclusive plurality, i.e., the egoic mind is a chimera. indeed, there's no physiological basis for it. this implies that "i" am really a part of something eternal and atemporal.

in your view, i was dead (read: did not exist) before i was born. it makes sense that i'll live after i die. life and death are merely undulations of consciousness.

you seem to think that death is something that will shut me up, as if i'm afraid of it and that it proves the existence of an "external world." it doesn't. it also looks a lot like projection from where i stand.




Why does it make sense that you would live after you die because you didn't exist before you were born?


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: 4896744]
    #16040067 - 04/03/12 07:36 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

:thumbup:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: 4896744]
    #16040402 - 04/03/12 08:41 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

is it not clear? being arises from non-being in the instance of birth. why shouldn't the schema hold with respect to the non-being that results from death?

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind]
    #16042137 - 04/04/12 08:55 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

thefloodbehind said:
is it not clear? being arises from non-being in the instance of birth. why shouldn't the schema hold with respect to the non-being that results from death?




Because it is non-being. You don't exist or experience before death because you don't exist. You then exist. And then you die and no longer exist.

After you die, there is no chance that anyone with the same DNA as you will ever be born again.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: 4896744]
    #16042156 - 04/04/12 09:05 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

iThink said:
Quote:

thefloodbehind said:
is it not clear? being arises from non-being in the instance of birth. why shouldn't the schema hold with respect to the non-being that results from death?




Because it is non-being. You don't exist or experience before death because you don't exist. You then exist. And then you die and no longer exist.

After you die, there is no chance that anyone with the same DNA as you will ever be born again.




on the contrary, if the universe is infinite, there is the possibility that i have already existed many times and will exist many more times in the future.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind] * 1
    #16042170 - 04/04/12 09:08 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

True, I don't necessarily discount a cyclical universe, but it is extremely speculative.


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind]
    #16042502 - 04/04/12 10:46 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Infinity doesn't necessarily include all possibilities.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: BlueCoyote]
    #16042606 - 04/04/12 11:15 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)



True. The chance of my banging Erica Durance even in an infinite cyclic universe is still zero. :cryariver:


--------------------

Edited by OrgoneConclusion (04/04/12 11:21 AM)

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: BlueCoyote]
    #16042762 - 04/04/12 11:54 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

BlueCoyote said:
Infinity doesn't necessarily include all possibilities.




necessarily being the key word. it's still possible that it contains all possibles. :nut:

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind] * 1
    #16043068 - 04/04/12 12:55 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Maybe intelligence can make a difference :3rd_eye:

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #16043411 - 04/04/12 02:00 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:


True. The chance of my banging Erica Durance even in an infinite cyclic universe is still zero. :cryariver:





She's a dog without all that makeup.  I almost puked when I saw her in the morning.  You haven't missed much.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: thefloodbehind]
    #16043896 - 04/04/12 03:51 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

necessarily being the key word. it's still possible that it contains all possibles.

Actually, as with so many things in life, the truth is more subtle. Here's a mind-bending example.

Given an unbounded general topological manifold (English translation: infinite space), then consider someone walking in random directions on a 2-dimensional plane in that space. If that person walks for infinite time, then there is a 100% probability that eventually the walker will cross over his starting point. This is a certainty as long as you allot infinite time to the random walk.

However, if the random walk takes place in three dimensions for infinite time, then there is only ~34.054% probability that the walker will eventually cross over his starting point. Even if he walks for all eternity. In four dimensions, the probability drops to ~19.320%. It continues to drop in higher-dimensional spaces.

So in other words, if you were to move around in the universe randomly for all eternity, there is only a ~34.054% chance that you will cross over the point where you started.

Weird, eh? This was proven in the early 1900s. The theorem is too complicated to cover here, but you can see it for yourself at the Wolfram web. It's called Polya's Walk.


--------------------
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1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #16043907 - 04/04/12 03:55 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

I don't think it's proven until someone tries it.


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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #16044153 - 04/04/12 04:59 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

In the 3 dimensional example is the path of described by the walking considered to be a line with only one dimension, length?

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: falcon]
    #16044242 - 04/04/12 05:24 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

In the 3 dimensional example is the path of described by the walking considered to be a line with only one dimension, length?

It doesn't have to be a line. The walk could consist of a curve(s) or compound curve(s) of any length, and/or line segments of any orientation and length, or any combination of those, or any other set of random movements within the space.

Any 3-D random walk if conducted for infinite time will cross its starting point with the given probability.

If the walk is confined to a 2-D plane, then the probability is 100% that it will eventually cross its starting point.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #16044360 - 04/04/12 05:50 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
necessarily being the key word. it's still possible that it contains all possibles.

Actually, as with so many things in life, the truth is more subtle. Here's a mind-bending example.

Given an unbounded general topological manifold (English translation: infinite space), then consider someone walking in random directions on a 2-dimensional plane in that space. If that person walks for infinite time, then there is a 100% probability that eventually the walker will cross over his starting point. This is a certainty as long as you allot infinite time to the random walk.

However, if the random walk takes place in three dimensions for infinite time, then there is only ~34.054% probability that the walker will eventually cross over his starting point. Even if he walks for all eternity. In four dimensions, the probability drops to ~19.320%. It continues to drop in higher-dimensional spaces.

So in other words, if you were to move around in the universe randomly for all eternity, there is only a ~34.054% chance that you will cross over the point where you started.

Weird, eh? This was proven in the early 1900s. The theorem is too complicated to cover here, but you can see it for yourself at the Wolfram web. It's called Polya's Walk.




:psychsplit:

thanks, man. is this the kind of thing taught in an abstract algebra course? i am two classes shy from my math degree and would really enjoy the opportunity to learn more about this sort of stuff.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Icelander]
    #16044372 - 04/04/12 05:54 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
I don't think it's proven until someone tries it.




hahaha. that's part of why tesla disbelieved in einstein's mass–energy equivalence: it has only been verified mathematically.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Icelander]
    #16044453 - 04/04/12 06:11 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Never underestimate the power of alcohol!



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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #16058589 - 04/07/12 08:01 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)



Any opinions on GDV photography???  I've always found it pretty fascinating, that these cameras can show how our bodies interact with fields we can't normally perceive. 

No claim on this being related to the soul what so ever, I'm more just gauging opinions on this science.

From what I know, this field is fairly new, the idea has been around since the 1930's I believe, but the technology has only been around for maybe 15 years? So I'm just wondering if anyone thinks this science should be studied further as a possible explanation for the "soul". I think you can find live videos of GDV photography on YouTube as well, showing "energy fields" interacting with various organisms. Interesting stuff IMHO, I'm in college now and wouldn't mind graduating to a field like this.  ANYTHING BUT ACCOUNTING!!!

Quote:

The world has enough lawyers, but it's hurting for scientists




^Older Brother, Physics Grad Student

Edited by midace12 (04/07/12 08:17 PM)

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16058711 - 04/07/12 08:25 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Nothing to do with the thread, BUT

if you have a joint handy......this could help contemplate the discussion.... (maybe)

[url=

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16058748 - 04/07/12 08:33 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

From what I know, this field is fairly new, the idea has been around since the 1930's I believe, but the technology has only been around for maybe 15 years?

Actually, the first Kirlian was made in the 1930s. Modern technology just makes it easier.

As for it being a soul or [fill in your favorite mumbo jumbo], you'd have to explain why inanimate objects kike keys and coins also exhibit the effect.

Here's what a coin's soul looks like: :shrug:



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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #16058770 - 04/07/12 08:38 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

you'd have to explain why inanimate objects kike keys and coins also exhibit the effect




FYI Non-Jewish keys and coins also exhibit the same effect. :shrug:


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #16058809 - 04/07/12 08:45 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:

Here's what a coin's soul looks like: :shrug:







Hah.....shiiiiiit. That is one lively coin!! Hell man, I just don't know. I won't lie about it, I want to believe in a soul, I want to know part of me is eternal, and I do believe that (specially after a few shroom trips). I also get offended when people of the opposite spectrum try to disprove it so hastily, but that comes with the territory.

But honestly, if this life is all we have, which in the scale of the universe is literally the blink of an eye....what the hell is the point of existence? If it's to perpetuate the species, WHY are we perpetuating the species? What is the point of the species to perpetuate, if inevitably it will exhaust all of its resources by doing so? I know these questions can't be answered completely, but they are just the things I consider when contemplating the Soul. There has to be a bigger picture IMHO.

:peace:


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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #16058826 - 04/07/12 08:48 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

FYI Non-Jewish keys and coins also exhibit the same effect.

Leave me alone! It's the damned spell sheker's fault! :rofl2:


--------------------
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2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16058844 - 04/07/12 08:51 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

I want to believe in a soul, I want to know part of me is eternal

I do too. The idea the the universe is nihilistic and that I am a meaningless blip that will cease to exist in the blink of an eye compared to eternity is deeply unsatisfying. Unfortunately, the universe doesn't have to satisfy me, and I for one would rather know a hard and ugly truth than be pacified by a sugar coated lie.

Your mileage may vary. So go ahead and believe if that makes you happy. But me? Believing the pleasant lie would make me more unhappy than the harsh truth.


--------------------
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1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
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4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #16058900 - 04/07/12 09:02 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
Your mileage may vary. So go ahead and believe if that makes you happy. But me? Believing the pleasant lie would make me more unhappy than the harsh truth.




:thumbup: Respectable insight.


One thing that is undeniable though, is that we will all get the answers we're looking for in the end.  :confused:

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16058928 - 04/07/12 09:08 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

There does not have to be a bigger picture.  You want a bigger picture that's all. And you don't have to know what the answers are and just because you don't know those answers doesn't mean making some up makes more sense.

Buck up and live without meaning. It's fun but it ain't for sissies.:brucelee:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Icelander]
    #16058991 - 04/07/12 09:22 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:

Buck up and live without meaning. It's fun but it ain't for sissies.:brucelee:






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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16059815 - 04/08/12 03:16 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Not CM, he's a meaning making machine.


--------------------
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" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Icelander]
    #16059845 - 04/08/12 03:42 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

So let's say you get your legs cut off. Your still you. Just with no legs. Get your arms cut off...your still you. Apparently someone in China has a patent on a device that can keep a money's head alive independant of its body. Makes sense: as long as you're pumping oxygenated blood into the head, no reason it shouldn't live. So if it were your head, you could still see, hear, and think. Your still you. One step farther: let's say we remove your brain, submerge it in an isotonic solution and pump blood into and out of it. Dialyze the blood to remove waste products, oxygenate it and supplement it with the appropriate nutrients. Your brain lives. You can't see, can't hear, but you can think and reason. You would know what was going on theoretically. Sometimes as a treatment for severe, intractable seizures a hemispherectomy (removal of 1/2 brain at corpus collosum) is performed. No loss of fucntion. So let's remove 1/2 of your brain. Now you are just 1/2 of a brain in vat of fluid hooked up to machines. But theoretically, you're still you. I think abou this sometimes, in relation to where the soul lays. Comments?

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Robert6051]
    #16059848 - 04/08/12 03:44 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Also, what do think about the pineal gland (Descarte called it the "seat of the soul"), DMT??

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Robert6051]
    #16059863 - 04/08/12 03:56 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

And another point, in your original example on the first page of this forum (I can't remember the guys name): it's impossible to understand his perspective, isn't it? To know what that guy is really thinking? Maybe inside his head everything is working perfectly; maybe he can think perfectly. Like some fucked-up global aphasia that messes with your entire personality, but inside, your still you.

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Robert6051]
    #16060279 - 04/08/12 09:02 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

You can't see, can't hear, but you can think and reason.

Ever heard of Locked-in Syncrome?

If there is such a thing as hell, that is it.

One good thing about my parents is that, while irrationally religious, they also are not the type to torture someone they love to keep them alive at every and all expense and by every means available. Even though I've put it in writing in the form of a living will, my parents could legally override my written end-of-life wishes in some instances. One of the few things in life I am grateful for is that they feel the same way as I do about letting go when things get hopeless.

If I ever end up "locked-in", please, please, please!!! pull the plug ASAP.

From the Wiki:

"Locked-in syndrome is a condition in which a patient is aware and awake but cannot move or communicate verbally due to complete paralysis of nearly all voluntary muscles in the body except for the eyes. Total locked-in syndrome is a version of locked-in syndrome where the eyes are paralyzed as well. The term for this disorder was coined by Fred Plum and Jerome Posner in 1966. Locked-in syndrome is also known as cerebromedullospinal disconnection, de-efferented state, pseudocoma, and ventral pontine syndrome.

Locked-in syndrome usually results in quadriplegia and the inability to speak in otherwise cognitively intact individuals. Those with locked-in syndrome may be able to communicate with others through coded messages by blinking or moving their eyes, which are often not affected by the paralysis. The symptoms are similar to those of sleep paralysis. Patients who have locked-in syndrome are conscious and aware with no loss of cognitive function. They can sometimes retain proprioception and sensation throughout their body. Some patients may have the ability to move certain facial muscles, most often some or all of the extraocular eye muscles. Individuals with locked-in syndrome lack coordination between breathing and voice. This restricts them from producing voluntary sounds, even though the vocal cords themselves are not paralysed.
"

Imagine begging to die through coded eye movements and being told by your cheerful, helpful doctor that, sorry, our neurotic society calls that murder and it's illegal. But here, let me roll you over and wipe that shit off your ass so you're more comfortable.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Robert6051]
    #16060296 - 04/08/12 09:10 AM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Also, what do think about the pineal gland

The pineal is a relatively insignificant gland in the big endocrinology picture. It is wholly unremarkable other than it has photosensitive cells. Mystic-heads took it and ran, creating this huge mumbo-jumbo construction over nothing at all.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Offlinemidace12
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #16061157 - 04/08/12 02:10 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
The symptoms are similar to those of sleep paralysis. Patients who have locked-in syndrome are conscious and aware with no loss of cognitive function.




I had this all the time when I was younger, seems to happen less frequently as people age. It's been known as "Old Hag Syndrome" for many years, as most people see a horrific old woman crawling up their bed to devour their soul, unable to move. It certainly is hell though, as most occurrences are paired with an intense feeling of horror and vulnerability, usually with an immense pressure on your chest. Can't move, can't scream out....eventually I got to the point where I would literally launch out of the paralysis, because once you break it, it releases you instantly. I even found that if I put my head back down soon after, it would start to overtake me again, even though I had just flailed out of it and was entirely awake. Turns out I would have to sit up in bed for a few minutes until my brain stopped producing whatever chemical it is that causes paralysis, then I could go back to sleep. (sometimes) 

Freaky shit, though I have heard of some people that learn to somewhat control the experience and have Lucid Dreams and OBE's. I tried it a couple times, but being awake yet paralyzed is too horrific for me, I break out of it ASAP every time.

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16061241 - 04/08/12 02:31 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

That's my ex crawling up there after your soul. I recognize the ugly bitch. (she looks good with her makeup on)  She almost got mine, be careful.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16061969 - 04/08/12 05:50 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Freaky shit, though I have heard of some people that learn to somewhat control the experience and have Lucid Dreams and OBE's.

I used to get sleep paralysis all the time when I was a kid. I still get them now, though not as frequently and I'm pushing 50. The first few FREAKED me out. I imagined I'd entered a coma and would be found like that by my parents waking me for school, then I'd spend the rest of my life like that.

After a few rounds I learned to work it and either wake myself if I wanted, but it's more fun to use it as a bridge into a lucid dream. They can be fun once you realize they're not harmful.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Invisibleteknix
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Diploid]
    #16061974 - 04/08/12 05:51 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
First some context:

Every time I bring up the topic of the soul, the debate goes off topic into the definition of the soul rather than about the beef of what I'm presenting. So, for this thread, let's stipulate to the definition given by dictionary.com:

the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part.

And some background:

There is a part of the brain known as the prefrontal cortex (PC) which is involved in the acquisition of goals and the mediation of emotions. When a neurologically healthy person decides on a goal, getting lunch for example, it is the prefrontal cortex that decides if considering the weather, it's better to walk or drive, take one route or another, pick restaurant A or B, and so on.

The PC is also involved in planning, taking action based on the future consequences of those actions. And maybe most importantly, it allows us to know right from wrong. It gives us the so-called neurological Executive Function.

Now the beef:

In 1848, a guy named Phineas Gage suffered an industrial accident. A metal rod pierced his head at the left cheek and exited through the top, severing the PC from the rest of the brain. Amazingly, he survived and physically recovered.

According to everyone who knew Phineas, prior to the accident he was a nice guy. After the accident, he became belligerent. He got into fights, argued, cursed, and even began beating his wife.

Indeed, his doctor wrote the following about Phineas:

Gage was fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires, at times pertinaciously obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, devising many plans of future operations, which are no sooner arranged than they are abandoned in turn for others appearing more feasible. A child in his intellectual capacity and manifestations, he has the animal passions of a strong man. Previous to his injury, although untrained in the schools, he possessed a well-balanced mind, and was looked upon by those who knew him as a shrewd, smart businessman, very energetic and persistent in executing all his plans of operation. In this regard his mind was radically changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said he was 'no longer Gage.'

No longer Gage. As if to say that the reconfiguration of his brain made him a different person. No soul involved. Just physical brain.

Neurological science today tells us that Phineas began exhibiting this bizarre change in personality as a result of his prefrontal cortex being disconnected from the rest of his brain by the accident.

Before the accident, impulses from the limbic system, the ancient, animalistic part of the brain where emotions originate, were mediated by a  tight coupling to the prefrontal cortex. After the accident, the limbic system was left free to act without the down-regulating action of the PC

What this tells me is that we are 100% a product of our physical brain. If, as claimed by believers, there were a soul somewhere in hyperspace or whatever, and the brain is only a sort of translator connecting our physical existence to our incorporeal one, then damage to the brain might cause some sensory distortion or lack of physical coordination, but not an overt change in basal personality.

The only way the personality could be so affected by brain damage is if personality is wholly produced in the physical brain, and there is no such thing as a soul.




I think that the non-locality seen within the quantum entanglement shows that there is reason to believe that A: matter has memory or B: matter is communicating through some undefined mechanism.

That being said, I have not any evidence that the soul is anything separate, just as the mitochondria is not separate from the cell and the cell is not separate from me.

I do think that there is an awareness that is not "fixed" within the brain or mind,(or even the pre-frontal cortex that you eluded too) that can be taken from autonomous, as most other things. That awareness is the only thing I have ever found that could be a "soul".  As to it's absolute existence or non existence, I would have to be extremely ignorant and arrogant to claim anything about the totality of it.

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16062026 - 04/08/12 06:03 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Can't move, can't scream out....eventually I got to the point where I would literally launch out of the paralysis, because once you break it, it releases you instantly.

When I want to get out of it (which I usually do not), one trick I use is to try to make a sound. I used to try to thrash around hoping the movements would wake me. Obviously that doesn't work since you're paralyzed. But you can still make sounds!

I start humming as loud as I can and it translates into actual humming. After one or two attempts to hum, the sound wakes me up (and freaks out my cat, but that's another thread.) :grin:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Invisibleteknix
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16062068 - 04/08/12 06:12 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

midace12 said:
Quote:

Diploid said:
The symptoms are similar to those of sleep paralysis. Patients who have locked-in syndrome are conscious and aware with no loss of cognitive function.




I had this all the time when I was younger, seems to happen less frequently as people age. It's been known as "Old Hag Syndrome" for many years, as most people see a horrific old woman crawling up their bed to devour their soul, unable to move. It certainly is hell though, as most occurrences are paired with an intense feeling of horror and vulnerability, usually with an immense pressure on your chest. Can't move, can't scream out....eventually I got to the point where I would literally launch out of the paralysis, because once you break it, it releases you instantly. I even found that if I put my head back down soon after, it would start to overtake me again, even though I had just flailed out of it and was entirely awake. Turns out I would have to sit up in bed for a few minutes until my brain stopped producing whatever chemical it is that causes paralysis, then I could go back to sleep. (sometimes) 

Freaky shit, though I have heard of some people that learn to somewhat control the experience and have Lucid Dreams and OBE's. I tried it a couple times, but being awake yet paralyzed is too horrific for me, I break out of it ASAP every time.





There is a way to sleep that may help if you want to try it.

You put your right leg straight and your left foot under your right knee, making a sort of a triangle.

Then put your right palm on the area beneath your belly button, and your left palm under your head.

Or you can sleep on your side or belly. I do something similar If feel a sleep paralysis, sit up real fast and through a punch as fast as I can.

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Offlinemidace12
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Icelander]
    #16062480 - 04/08/12 07:50 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
That's my ex crawling up there after your soul. I recognize the ugly bitch. (she looks good with her makeup on)  She almost got mine, be careful.





I've been keeping her at bay with a few cloves of garlic and a fly swatter. As soon as she finishes putting together my Easy Bake Oven, her ass is on the street.


--------------------

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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: midace12]
    #16062556 - 04/08/12 08:04 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

wise man :manofapproval:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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OfflineRobert6051
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Icelander]
    #16062772 - 04/08/12 08:45 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

I think there are many, many elements of the universe & existence that we simply don't understand or can't comprehend. Take for example outer space: does it go on forever? It can't, right? Nothing can go on forever. So there has to be an "end" to outer space. Something beyond it. But how far does that go? And what's beyond that? It can't go on forever, but it must. A paradox. Either out brains can't understand such a paradox or we're looking at it the wrong way. Same way with our existense. We can speculate all we want. But we have no perspective to understand if we are just cosmic bacteria or more meaningful.
I think DMT, the Rick Strassman book is very interesting: similar experiences of contact with intelligent entities. Pineal gland as a reciever. Multiple other dimensions intertwined with ours. I don't want to accept that this is all there is. Mainly because that's too boring a reality to accept. It's much "funner" to watch Ancient Aliens and prepare for doomsday on Dec. 21st, 2012.
Hey Diploid, did you ever read Camus' "The Stranger? Your kinda book, I think.

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Offlinestumpme
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: Robert6051]
    #16065671 - 04/09/12 02:46 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

I think the thing to point out here is galaxies collide, and the stars within them do not... the fields are forever changed, and blended.


--------------------
just give me a field and a sun ray!

Edited by stumpme (04/09/12 02:47 PM)

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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: More Reasons To Disbelieve In The Existence Of The Soul [Re: stumpme]
    #16065691 - 04/09/12 02:51 PM (11 years, 11 months ago)

Most of the stars do not collide.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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