Argument for a soul?

TheAlphaWolf said:
the soul just doesn't add up.
first off, WHAT is a soul? what does it do? does it keep your emotions, thoughts, etc? where is it?
If the soul is this immortal immaterial thing with no substance or anything, then how does it affect the brain? as KennyJC said, personality, thought, memories, emotions, etc. are in the brain. Something immaterial cannot influence something material. For souls to be true the brain would have to completely ignore physics/chemistry.
and why does the soul completely depend upon the brain anyway? what is it about the brain? if there really WAS something immaterial that affected the material world, why does it ONLY affect the brain? it would be a much better design if the soul affected the muscles and everything else instead of the brain, as the brain takes up a lot of the body's energy and is easily damaged. If the soul directly controled the body, there would be no need for a brain, and we could save energy, etc. Heck, why does it even have to be confined to the body? if in essence we ARE just some ghost thing that controls the material world, why even bother somehow controling the brain so that it tells nerves to tell the muscles in my arms/hands to press the stupid buttons that in turn do something I'm not aware of that does some other things that ultimately end up posting the patterns of my muscle contractions/neurons firing on the internet? it just seems so stupid.
How does the brain affect the soul? something material cannot influence something immaterial. How do your thoughts or whatever go to your soul? do they get stored there? why? how?

and why is it that if you damage say the hippocampus of a person, their memories fail? surely a soul shouldn't be affected by the state of the brain. If the memories are stored in the soul, then the soul could just tell the other parts of the brain to act on those memories.
and say you have alzheimer's... and you die... do you still have alzheimer's? is your poor soul somewhere out there trying to figure out what it is because it forgot? I can just see it now... a poor lonely soul traveling the universe in search for something... what? it forgot.

and speaking of forgetting, I forgot what I was going to say next. lol. Stupid "soul".
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You watch too much TV. I never implied the soul is a ghost thing.
The soul doesn't ignore physics. Ever heard of vacuum energy? It's energy that exists even when there is no matter. The soul doesn't depend on the brain, its vice-versa, the brain depends on the soul. The soul doesn't control the body, the brain, or material mind does. Maybe it's like Descartes says, the brain is the physical link with the soul.
 
TheAlphaWolf said:
oh yeah, I was going to reply to

True, we're not EXACTLY sure how we gain consciousness, but we are sure that it's not in one magical step... you don't have it now, now you do!
it's in many steps. At first everything you do is mechanical, then you start being able to act not on instinct, but out of experience, at first you're not conscious, you're just a stupid cell. at first children are not able to recognize themselves in the mirror, then when they are able to they're not able to recognize themselves on tape (video), then blah blah blah.
stages of development. Don't ask me about details, ask a child psychologist or something.
They seem to go agaist the concept of a soul don't they? you either have a soul, or you don't. You don't just "grow a soul" do you?

yet think about this... the brain does develop. You DO grow a brain.

the brain IS the soul... there's no external ghost entity. You're just body/brain.
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Where do you get this ghost entity idea from? Like I said, you watch too much TV. You are the soul, that occupies a body, the soul is ever-lasting and is not made of matter.

How does your example go against the idea of a soul? I don't understand what you're trying to say.
 
Cris said:
Vitalone,

Well it isn’t a doctrine since there does appear to be massive and extensive clinical evidence to support this as actuality.
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A doctrine, meaning principles.

Then that would need a strange definition of “you”, since without memory, personality, emotions, and thoughts, what is left? Let’s imagine it is some form of eternal mystical energy, if so then without any of those real factors its existence is essentially meaningless, it may as well not exist for all practical purposes. And how would something without any senses observe what the material body is doing? How would it remember anything without memory?
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If you woke up tomorrow with a different body, do you still exist? You are the soul, the observer.

The most rational conclusion is that you are your mind since there is nothing to indicate otherwise and no reason to consider anything else.
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This is incorrect. Not everything can be accounted for by the brain, that is why there are so many blank areas on how we gain consciousness.

But here the issue is presented as if there was a clear credible choice, but that isn’t so. The soul concept was derived from incredible ignorance of how the brain operated and when superstitions were rife. We now know there is a direct correlation between brain activity and memory, thoughts, personality, and emotions; traits that were once thought to be the realm of a mystical soul. Why then, in the light of these scientific facts, should we continue with the redundant concept of a soul and assign it even more mystical redundant properties?

The only reason it would seem to propagate the meaningless of a soul is to support ancient institutionalized religions that depend on a soul being true.

The soul is a fiction – let’s move on.
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The soul isn't a ghost body, its you, the observer, that always exists.

There are a lot of blank areas, scientists can't figure out why the brain doesn't account for everything like personality, memory, thoughts, etc...or how we gain consciousness from the brain. To say that the soul is fiction is ignorant.
 
Vitalone,

If you woke up tomorrow with a different body, do you still exist?
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What is the value of such a baseless speculation? Surely to demonstrate a point you would need a real world example? Do you actually have a real example of someone waking up in a different body?

You are the soul, the observer.
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But again what does this mean? Without senses how would such a thing observe and if it could observe what could it do with the information without memory?

“ The most rational conclusion is that you are your mind since there is nothing to indicate otherwise and no reason to consider anything else.
”

… Not everything can be accounted for by the brain, that is why there are so many blank areas on how we gain consciousness.
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Surely you mean we don’t know HOW the brain does these things not that it doesn’t do them – you can’t conclude that it doesn’t do them.

The soul isn't a ghost body, its you, the observer, that always exists.
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Why and what role would it play? Without personality, memory, emotions, or thoughts, it is a null entity- equivalent to something that doesn’t exist.

Why do you think it needs to exist?

There are a lot of blank areas, scientists can't figure out why the brain doesn't account for everything like personality, memory, thoughts, etc...or how we gain consciousness from the brain.
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That’s false. We do know the brain accounts for all these things through endless clinical studies especially on brain damaged patients. I hope what you mean is that scientists have yet to figure out exactly how the brain achieves these properties. Why make any assumptions about fantasy supernatural entities when we have not come close to exhausting the natural yet, especially when there is no precedent for anything supernatural?

To say that the soul is fiction is ignorant.
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No that is false. Unless you can show that souls exists the concept of the soul is an imaginative fiction. That is simple fact.
 
Are you so sure about that? I'm not advocating what people usually describe as a 'soul', but recent studies have shown otherwise.
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source?
I never implied the soul is a ghost thing.
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well then what is it? "the observer"? could you possibly be more vague than that?
The soul doesn't depend on the brain, its vice-versa, the brain depends on the soul.
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if the soul doesn't depend on the brain, then how come if you damage the brain your personality changes, memories disappear, etc?
The soul doesn't control the body, the brain, or material mind does. Maybe it's like Descartes says, the brain is the physical link with the soul.
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then WHAT does it do? c'mon, we first need to know what the hell the soul is! you need to be specific.
How does your example go against the idea of a soul? I don't understand what you're trying to say.
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ok, does your soul grow? does your "observer" become more observant as you grow up or something?


and again, WHAT is the soul and what does it do? where is it? what's the purpose of the soul?

we have to know what you're talking about when you say soul. We can't argue against it if we don't know what it is!
 
Roy

From your first link, Susan Pockett is a well known woo-woo. Her so-called hypothesis states, "consciousness is identical with certain spatiotemporal patterns in the electromagnetic field." She also states in the preface that no one other than herself recognizes the hypothesis as valid, and then goes on to complain that scientists won't take here seriously.

In the second link, we have another woo-woo, McFadden, who has yet another theory along the same principles, but cannot objectively provide anything credible to support it.
 
Roy,

Are you so sure about that? I'm not advocating what people usually describe as a 'soul', but recent studies have shown otherwise. The electromagnetic field created by (or perhaps part of) the brain is not confined to the brain.
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I think you are reading too much into the current hypotheses. The EM fields are generated by brain activity - i.e. they are dependent on the brain actually functioning. So yes these EM fields are confined to the brain.

Of course when the brain stops functioning then the EM fields stop as well. EM or CEMI fields really do not come close to the eternal soul concept espoused by religionists.

As a scientifc hypothesis it will be interesting to see how these fields interact with the underlying massive complex of neurons that still form the basis of brain activity.

Note that these hypotheses have yet to be accepted by any current serious researchers in the field.
 
ah, well. I wasn't really trying to give evidence for "the eternal soul concept espoused by religionists" but it was an interesting concept. I admit I don't really know anything about the authors of those articles. What they do for me is to spur me to learn more about the human mind. I wasn't thinking something like this EM field controls the mind, but is rather in a sort of symbiotic relationship. Do you guys know if there are any other studies showing how this EM field creates a feedback into the brain and can actually affect the thought process? I would be very interested if so, I believe I've read it in more reliable articles that these, but I'm not sure.
 
Roy,

No, I couldn't find anything that goes any further than the concept at this point. But I wouldn't rule out an impact of EM fields. But while the references here propose a positive aspect I could argue that EM effects might be detrimental. Certainly in circuit board design there is a serious effort to place components so that EM interferences does not occur. Perhaps the human brain would be far more efficient without EM effects.

Note that the synapses - the connections between neurons - are not electrical. Perhaps they evolved that way because unwanted EM effects made a purely electrical brain unworkable - pure specualtion that.
 
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Cris said:
Roy,

No, I couldn't find anything that goes any further than the concept at this point. But I wouldn't rule out an impact of EM fields. But while the references here propose a positive aspect I could argue that EM effects might be detrimental. Certainly in circuit board design there is a serious effort to place components so that EM interferences does not occur. Perhaps the human brain would be far more efficient without EM effects.

Note that the synapses - the connections between neurons - are not electrical. Perhaps they evolved that way because unwanted EM effects made a purely electrical brain unworkable - pure specualtion that.
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would the EM field be seperate, or just a side effect of, the actual electricity being sent through neurons. I'm don't really know much about the physiology of the brain. Is this EM field like a static amidst the pathways that are sending signals? I just thought that the electricity used to send signals was what formed the EM field.
 
Whats your problem Roy? First you admit not knowing anything about the brain and then complain when sources of information are given to you.

I suppose you'd much rather just read the sources in which no one knows what they're talking about?
 
(Q) said:
Whats your problem Roy? First you admit not knowing anything about the brain and then complain when sources of information are given to you.

I suppose you'd much rather just read the sources in which no one knows what they're talking about?
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you sent me two generalized sources aimed at kids. The second one is filled with stuff i learned in high school. After looking over the first one again, I found it does actually show a lot of information, though. Thanks, I guess. It just seemed to me like you were being very condescending.
 
KennyJC said:
Do you realize the odds of one religion even having half of the things it claims to be true? And that is if there is a God...
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well, if odds are a factor...why dont you tell me the odds on life creating itself?
 
no matter what we say about odds, the fact is there is still a chance that it could happen and we could be that miniscule chance. even if the odds are 100000000000 to 1 against, there is still that chance that it could happen. life in this universe--even the very existence of this universe--could have hinged upon odds like that. it doesnt matter. what matters is that it did happen.
 
well, if odds are a factor...why dont you tell me the odds on life creating itself?
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Better than that of God creating itself then creating our universe.

Anyway, that is not the point I was making. The point is, even if there is a 'God', religions past, present, future and even the ones that won't be created, only one can be true of a possible infinite amount. How's your luck? Science has already proved parts of your religion wrong (I assume you're Christian).

no matter what we say about odds, the fact is there is still a chance that it could happen and we could be that miniscule chance. even if the odds are 100000000000 to 1 against, there is still that chance that it could happen. life in this universe--even the very existence of this universe--could have hinged upon odds like that. it doesnt matter. what matters is that it did happen.
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Firstly, I think your being generous with odds of 10000000000 to 1.

Secondly, having a world were violence and conflict root from all different religions and that non-secular countries have an unhealthy social problem... all just because they hope their religion is that lucky infinite number to 1... Then I'm more inclined we should learn to bet wiseley and just not be religious at all, for the sake of us all.
 
KennyJC said:
Firstly, I think your being generous with odds of 10000000000 to 1.
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it was just a random seletion of zero's. the real number would be a lot closer to (if not) infinity.

KennyJC said:
Secondly, having a world were violence and conflict root from all different religions and that non-secular countries have an unhealthy social problem... all just because they hope their religion is that lucky infinite number to 1... Then I'm more inclined we should learn to bet wiseley and just not be religious at all, for the sake of us all.
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i'm not arguing with you there.
 
well, if odds are a factor...why dont you tell me the odds on life creating itself?
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100%. Look all around you, life creates life. it's call reproduction.
lol.
Life didn't create itself (not counting reproduction), that's impossible. Only religious people say things can create themselves (god)... or at least somehow existed ...forever in the past and forever in the future.
chemicals created life... which IS a bunch of chemicals... but ... yeah... you know what i mean.
 
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