Do Animals Have Souls?

Nisus,

OK this is not right. I couldn't object to anything you just said. Completely agree.
 
Kenny,

Being trapped. Regardless of the quality of an eternal life, just conciously always existing and you have no say in it...

Mortality is great.
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But you don't have a choice. At least with an open ended lifespan there is always suicide so you can choose when.
 
It's hardly eternal life if you are so fragile you could end it for good if you wish. So long as I have a choice, I will turn down any offer of eternal life... even if it is in bliss.

Such a thing does not exist anyway, so I don't suppose I need to worry about it too much.

I realised not too long ago, that mortality is freedom. This is because I wondered to myself what it must be like to be a theist who is utterly convinced they will one day meet their creator in some sort of eternal life, and if they are so sure of this, why aren't they apprehensive? Everlasting life would scare the hell out of me, rather than naively anticipating it.
 
Hmm - ok that's the fictional religionst idea, I was thinking more about the practical possibility of curing the aging problem. You are still mortal but death becomes a voluntary option. You are still liable to accidents, murder, and suicide.

An eternal life in bliss sounds like stagnation of the worst kind.
 
Kenny JC said:
I realised not too long ago, that mortality is freedom.
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i suggest you hold this view as you have yet to understand the freedom that is born of immortality.

This is because I wondered to myself what it must be like to be a theist who is utterly convinced they will one day meet their creator in some sort of eternal life,
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i suggest that you have never fully achieved the perspective of a theist who knows where their death will lead, at best you have acheived the perspective of an atheist trying to justify his lack of understanding of the theist perspective.

and if they are so sure of this, why aren't they apprehensive?
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what makes you apprehensive when you think of your death? for me it will be like going home. what apprehension is there in that? none.

Everlasting life would scare the hell out of me, rather than naively anticipating it.
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what is it that you fear? my geuss is your own existence scares the hell out of you.
 
Chris perhaps not everyone is ready for biological immortality.

I don't think I will see the end results of the research for biological immortality, yet it could some day be a realization of humanity. As soon as mysticism is laid to rest, and the commercial advantage of scientific research is speed through to prolong life, and eventually defeat death. To many it sound like fantasy when a secularist speaks of biological immortality, they don't know that research is being done as we speak, to prolong life, and cure many terminally deseases.

For those interested in what the avatar of Chris represents look here

Face it folkes biological immortality is the future, wether you know of it or not, it will some day be commercially available.

Neo-Tech biological immortality

Godless
 
what makes you apprehensive when you think of your death? for me it will be like going home. what apprehension is there in that? none.
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The problem here is that there's no home! :rolleyes:

You'll be non-existent, there's no heaven nor hell, there's no other existence other than the here & now, you don't have a soul that will survive death, this is a fantasy created by the fear of death. It was ment to subside the hurt of surviving members and loved ones when one dies, and to subside the fears of dying, it's a psychological manipulation based on lies, and deceit. Used very well by religious denominations. The idea stems from way back in ancient Egypt, when Pharohs thought they will survive death, in the realms of heaven, they built great pyramids, and stash all their goodies so they will be wealthy inthe after life. They mommified their bodies for preservation and the such, all these ideas halve really just were modernised by Christian early thinkers but not entirely original of their own.

Godless
 
Godless - yup that pretty much sums up the whole goal of every religion quite nicely.
 
Cris said:
Duendy,

OK but I really don't see a problem here. I can certainly visualize a certain threshold level of neural complexity giving rise to an emmergent property that some have called consciousness. Much like if you place enough small bricks together in the right arrangement you end up with a house.

You could call the house just a collection of bricks which would be true, but you cannot doubt that 'house' is something that is greater than the sum of the parts, i.e. an emergent property.

Consciousness is a term I find imprecise when what we really mean is self-awareness. That is the distinction between just a set of mechanical functions and what we understand as human. Some animals, dogs, and other primates exibit some degree of this property and the main difference between them and us is brain complexity.

How we replicate that complexity in the computing lab is the next fascinating task for humanity.
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you mean how do we 'make consciousness in te lab'???? but how can you even measure consciousness you cant...? so how then an yo 'make' it.
you seem t adhere to te 'mergence teory' of consciousness, but it still fal to explain how rthe sense of subkectivity/meaning can emerge from 'dead' matter no matter how complex

can you rather not understand tat brains are knd of like transformers of consciousness. meaning consciousness is te I N S I D E if realiy, or manifested reality. not 'inside' as te brain is inside a skull, but te inner feeling of mainfest reality....thus stones inner feels, water, leaves, air............
 
Godless said:
Chris perhaps not everyone is ready for biological immortality.

I don't think I will see the end results of the research for biological immortality, yet it could some day be a realization of humanity. As soon as mysticism is laid to rest, and the commercial advantage of scientific research is speed through to prolong life, and eventually defeat death. To many it sound like fantasy when a secularist speaks of biological immortality, they don't know that research is being done as we speak, to prolong life, and cure many terminally deseases.
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Can you explain how mysticism is holding up this project?
 
my thoughts on the 'immortality vs mortalitiy vice versa' thing

dig that whenever you got two SEEMINGLY opposing extremes that this is because your own analytical mind done done the abstracting!....fro deeper tere never WAS no opposition

someone said 'mortality' is freedom. yes i agree, but that freedom DOESN'T cancel out 'immortality'---for what is immortal Is mtter/energyand consciousness

it i true that te idea of everlastingness as theists usually believe would be hell. can you imagine how boring it'd be without death? if fact lifedeathregeration are intrinsice to reality. when you simple moe your arm---imagine seeing it is stills---actually this can sometimes be seen when psychedelisized--....now for ever 'still-motion- THAT is te 'death' of te preceeding still-motion. do you undertand? theliving movment ofte arm IS te death of trajectory....te eath/past is the wake of the cusp of te motiion. so it is ludicrous to believe one can defeat 'death' as tho death is som aprt-abstract entity

also this materilist's dream of extending biological HUMAN..life shows the redictivist ignoreance of the WHOLE....! of the QUALITY of life, not only for oter species, and worldwide community, but for future generations to come

the reason for tis materialstic dream for biological 'immortality' is tat really tey are fearful of death. just like te theists are. tis shows that deep underlying unresolved divisive mythic indoctrination as NOT been resolved in any deep way.......YET!
 
jeeeesus, even I couldn't understand what i posted!!

i will try summarize-----you understood bits of it i am hoping?

mortality is NOT opposed to immortality. Change, life, death, regeneration ISimmortality. immortality is not some static 'everlasting state literalist versions of teistic myth, Western and Eastern wouod have you beleve, in my opinion....HOWEVER there MAY be some form of awared after life, but not as in for ever, for change ISlife.

life and death are like the warp and woof of reality. imagine moving your arm. imagine seeing it in frames of movement. ever frame is the 'death' of te preceeding frame. without death you cannot HAVE life

Life, reality is an organicliving process of which life death regeneration is an intrinsic central core....the materilist's dream now of desiring to extend biological HUMAn life is totally ignore-ant. it doesn't tae into consideration rthe WHOLE community. the more longer living mouths tere are the more respurces dwindle. we alread y can see that only a tiny minority enjpoy the 'benefits' of Western technology'--millions of others are poverty stricken and starving etc

same would be for scientific logevity...it'd be the rich that would want ti, and they would further desertfy nd extinct all other 'mere mortals'!
 
Duendy I really wish sometimes you wrote a bit more CLEARLY it's freaking hard trying to determine what is the fuck your saying.


you mean how do we 'make consciousness in te lab'????
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Artificial Intellegence is making consciousness in the lab.

AI

In Star Treck, is Data a sentient being?.

Data is the perfect example of where AI may be 10 to 20 years from now. Is it consciousness?. First of all you have to have a clear definition of what you specifically mean by consciousness. My dog is consciousous of itself, but does not posses consciousness like humans. So literally what you mean by consciousness is "Human perception".

you seem t adhere to te 'mergence teory' of consciousness, but it still fal to explain how rthe sense of subkectivity/meaning can emerge from 'dead' matter no matter how complex
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The mind is an empty slate at birth, nothing is known to it. A baby does not have self perception as you and I. At birth he/she is not even aware of his/her own image in a mirror, I think perhaps a babies eye sight is not yet developed to focus very well, however in just a few days a wealth of information has been fed to a baby's little mind, and with each passing day, his mind is being programed by his immidiate enviorenment.

Thus your quest to indentify where does consciousness i.e. subjectivity lies, is in the human brain, with out it your nothing but a vegetable.
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Terri Schiabo is a perfect example of brain dead, she didn't have self perception, no consciousness as you identify with, no volitional movements, but yet through the process of modern medicine she was kept alive. But in a sense what is life, without having consciousness?.

can you rather not understand tat brains are knd of like transformers of consciousness. meaning consciousness is te I N S I D E if realiy, or manifested reality.
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Can you undestand that the mind is a reality collecting tool, and that your senses also collect data from reality, thus we have perception of our surroundings, it is with reason how we make sense of what we perceive, it is with logic, that we learn how things actually work, it is with language how we identify that which we perceive. And basically it is with language how we reach to have consciousness as you identify with it.

Consciousness & language

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Can consciousness be measured? Why sure, it's as far and as wide as all the human knowledge collected within the past 100,000 years or so, and furthermore it's still evolving, and shall never stop.

Godless
 
*Can you explain how mysticism is holding up this project?

Stem Cell research is a good example of that.

Religious gurus, always try to stagnate human development. The making illegal of human cloning, that's another way that "religious ethics" stagnated future scientific developments.

Godless
 
Godless said:
*Can you explain how mysticism is holding up this project?

Stem Cell research is a good example of that.

Religious gurus, always try to stagnate human development. The making illegal of human cloning, that's another way that "religious ethics" stagnated future scientific developments.

Godless
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Strange, my home town is a world leader in stem research. I don't think it was only religious gurus who disagreed with this, it's a morality issue, like abortion.
 
Life, reality is an organicliving process of which life death regeneration is an intrinsic central core....the materilist's dream now of desiring to extend biological HUMAn life is totally ignore-ant. it doesn't tae into consideration rthe WHOLE community. the more longer living mouths tere are the more respurces dwindle. we alread y can see that only a tiny minority enjpoy the 'benefits' of Western technology'--millions of others are poverty stricken and starving etc
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It is not ingnorant to prolong human life, it is being done decade by decade, at my age of 43 I'm considered a middle aged man, 200 hundred years ago, I was almost at the end of my life, and very much feeling like it too. It is with the advantage knowledge of medicines, vitamins, and the taking care of oneself, that has prolonged that life. Soon enough there will be discovering ways to slow down the aging process, today we have versions of med's and vitamins that seem to be working toward that goal, and the best news of all, it's is commericially profitable to be involved in the "staying young" market, so can you imagine the "profit" motive of prolonging life, by reducing the aging process to a near hult?.

The millions others that are starving and the such, are there no doubt, who's fault is this? It's their governments fault, it's their own fault, to live were they can't grow food, it's their fault to believe some "god" will come save them, this is the big reason why the US is where it's at and many other countries find themselves where they are. It's how they use or not use their resourcess. If you woult take a tally of most religious countries, you'll find that's the poor countries that are the most religious, you'll find that the overall secularlism that exists within a society is what is driving them toward wealth.

Godless
 
Godless said:
Duendy I really wish sometimes you wrote a bit more CLEARLY it's freaking hard trying to determine what is the fuck your saying.

me)))samehere hehe!


Artificial Intellegence is making consciousness in the lab.

me)))bolloks!

AI

In Star Treck, is Data a sentient being?.

Data is the perfect example of where AI may be 10 to 20 years from now. Is it consciousness?. First of all you have to have a clear definition of what you specifically mean by consciousness. My dog is consciousous of itself, but does not posses consciousness like humans. So literally what you mean by consciousness is "Human perception".

me)))NO. whati mean is that there is energy/matter. and how tis matter/energy FEELS ISconsciousness. that materialism has assumed matter/energy is 'blind', 'dead', but what i am saying is: no it isn't , matte/energy is SENTIENT, and tis sentinece wipes away the long long 'mind/body--mind/brain problem' where the'problem' has been 'how does conasciousness come about??....well it never went anywahere. matter/energy has always been aware/conscious. Our ancient ancestors also had insight into this, which has been termed 'animism'--anothee term is 'panpsychism'....implying , yes your dog is sentinet, so is the rock, so is the river, so is the wind, sois the atom, quark etc. ie., matter-energy is active intelligence



The mind is an empty slate at birth, nothing is known to it. A baby does not have self perception as you and I. At birth he/she is not even aware of his/her own image in a mirror, I think perhaps a babies eye sight is not yet developed to focus very well, however in just a few days a wealth of information has been fed to a baby's little mind, and with each passing day, his mind is being programed by his immidiate enviorenment.

me)))te idea of mind as slate when babies born is only a thoery,an really is very limited theory. also please checkout the modern consciousness research of Dr Stanislav Grof, who sugests via much dats from a wide range of pople, that even foetus is very much aware in mamas womb

Thus your quest to indentify where does consciousness i.e. subjectivity lies, is in the human brain, with out it your nothing but a vegetable.
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me))witout hat? the brain? dont understand? yes ..if i were to hit your head and traumatize you you very well culd end up as a 'vegetable', but tis doesn't prove consciousness is a product of complex matter, it just shows that brainas transformer of consciousness has been damaged.....if i were to take certain chemicals that too alters consciousness

Terri Schiabo is a perfect example of brain dead, she didn't have self perception, no consciousness as you identify with, no volitional movements, but yet through the process of modern medicine she was kept alive. But in a sense what is life, without having consciousness?.

me))how can you KNOW what she was feeling?? tis is central to the Hard Problem in cognitive science. question: 'how do you KNOW whow someone sees, eg ggreen, or tastes vanilla, chocklate..etcetc. there is no way of measuring this.



Can you undestand that the mind is a reality collecting tool, and that your senses also collect data from reality, thus we have perception of our surroundings, it is with reason how we make sense of what we perceive, it is with logic, that we learn how things actually work, it is with language how we identify that which we perceive. And basically it is with language how we reach to have consciousness as you identify with it.

me))))our terminology as 'reality collcting tool' sure makes it sound like a computer. but it is not. it is far far more weirder than that.
bear tis in mind. usually thinkers use current state of the art terninology, symbols, ideas to try andexplian consciosness etc. Descartes spoke of engineerial type contraptions, Freud same, remember universe like a 'machine' in classical science'? so try be aware of the limitatinsof thelanguage you use, othewise they become a 'hidden' premise. an obstacle to insight


Consciousness & language

click

Can consciousness be measured? Why sure, it's as far and as wide as all the human knowledge collected within the past 100,000 years or so, and furthermore it's still evolving, and shall never stop.

me)))but that isnot measuring consciousness!...that is just a set of terms describing the EFFECTSof conscious actiions.

Godless
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))))))))))))))))&((((((((((((((((
 
Strange, my home town is a world leader in stem research. I don't think it was only religious gurus who disagreed with this, it's a morality issue, like abortion.
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This still stems from religious background. Ethics seems to be a church manipulated agenda, in a given society. But think again. Is it ethical to stop completely stem cell research, when it perhaps could save thousands of lives? What is the "moral" question? Is it not amoral to stagnate continued research and save lives, and forms of decease, or have thousand perish when help could have been available. Or is it just "God's will?" Then relion is Amoral.

Godless
 
Godless said:
This still stems from religious background. Ethics seems to be a church manipulated agenda, in a given society. But think again. Is it ethical to stop completely stem cell research, when it perhaps could save thousands of lives? What is the "moral" question? Is it not amoral to stagnate continued research and save lives, and forms of decease, or have thousand perish when help could have been available. Or is it just "God's will?" Then relion is Amoral.

Godless
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So what about these animal rights protestors? Are they all religious gurus?
 
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