What is the theoretical means to falsify it? Actually being unscientific does mean it doesn't exist, to the best of our knowledge, as much as one can be certain of anything.
Do we have soul?
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No, unscientific means:
un·sci·en·tif·ic
1.
not in accordance with scientific principles or methodology.
2.
lacking knowledge of or interest in science.
1.
not in accordance with scientific principles or methodology.
2.
lacking knowledge of or interest in science.
Certainty to not solely reliant upon science, although scientific certainty is.
Again, WOW, just WOW. I am stunned at what you post here. It is well beyond hilariously silly, childish at best. Obviously, you're just trolling and baiting here, so I won't bother feeding the troll anymore.
Btw, stay in school and take some biology classes while you're there.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
As I understand the term, 'null hypothesis' is a phrase taken from statistical inference. It refers to the hypothesis that no statistical correlation exists between occurrances of A and B. The null-hypothesis idea isn't an argument for credulity.
The logic of the null-hypothesis idea seems to run the other way. It's basically saying that there's no reason to think that events A and B are statistically related, until there's some evidence that they are. So the 'null hypothesis' idea seems to me to just be another version of the common-sense dictum: If there's no evidence for something, then there's no evidence for it.
The argument in this thread is about what minds are, in an ontological sense. What kind of being do they possess? Are minds basically functions, events and activities that occur in physical systems of a suitable form, brains in our case? Or are minds a kind of substance in their own right, an additional realm of soul-substance separate and distinct from physical substance? I don't think that there are any easy and automatic default positions on that one.
In my own personal opinion, the lack of any persuasive reason to think that mind- or soul-substance even exists certainly tells against it. And the intimate dependence of cognition and subjective experience on continued effective brain function suggests that the functional account is much more plausible.
Meanwhile others continue to insist that Descartes' cogito, the more recent qualia arguments, or whatever it is do tell us that mind is a separate and distinct realm of being. And there's the continued cultural momentum of the religious traditions, I guess, that often preach a similar message. So there will probably always be people arguing against my rather neurophysiological view of things. That's fine with me.
The logic of the null-hypothesis idea seems to run the other way. It's basically saying that there's no reason to think that events A and B are statistically related, until there's some evidence that they are. So the 'null hypothesis' idea seems to me to just be another version of the common-sense dictum: If there's no evidence for something, then there's no evidence for it.
The argument in this thread is about what minds are, in an ontological sense. What kind of being do they possess? Are minds basically functions, events and activities that occur in physical systems of a suitable form, brains in our case? Or are minds a kind of substance in their own right, an additional realm of soul-substance separate and distinct from physical substance? I don't think that there are any easy and automatic default positions on that one.
In my own personal opinion, the lack of any persuasive reason to think that mind- or soul-substance even exists certainly tells against it. And the intimate dependence of cognition and subjective experience on continued effective brain function suggests that the functional account is much more plausible.
Meanwhile others continue to insist that Descartes' cogito, the more recent qualia arguments, or whatever it is do tell us that mind is a separate and distinct realm of being. And there's the continued cultural momentum of the religious traditions, I guess, that often preach a similar message. So there will probably always be people arguing against my rather neurophysiological view of things. That's fine with me.
Yazata,
What is your personal opinion regarding the soul, and why are you of that opinion?
jan.
What is your personal opinion regarding the soul, and why are you of that opinion?
jan.
That is not to say that it's impossible to technologically achieve something similar to a soul. In the future it may indeed be possible to save one's mind-state and put it in another kind of substrate, like a computer, or an after-life simulation.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
The existence of mind or soul might otoh only lack any third person objective evidence, much as say the color green does or the flavor of sweetness. This is not to say it lacks phenomenal first hand evidence though. Indeed, the application of the concept of empirical evidence at all to something so much a part of us as mentality or subjectivity may be redundant if not misleading. Why would we need evidence for a completely a priori phenomenon? What if mind or soul is like space or time, something so first hand and fundamental that to objectify as a "thing without an observer" it is to reduce it to something it is not?
Bells
Staff member
A common and easy definition..
In psychology, the psyche is the totality of the human mind, conscious, and unconscious. Psychology is the scientific or objective study of the psyche. The word has a long history of use in psychology and philosophy, dating back to ancient times, and has been one of the fundamental concepts for understanding human nature from a scientific point of view.
Emphasis mine.
In Biblical days, before people understood the human brain and its functions, it used to be called the soul. But with the advent of science and the ability to better study and understand the human body, primarily the human brain, we now know what it is.
Where do you think the psyche stems from? What controls your thoughts? What constitutes your mind? Where do your thoughts come from? I'll give you a hint.. It's inside your skull. Starts with a "B".
You needed proof of this?:bugeye:
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It would be like scanning everything that's going on in your brain, your memories and thought patterns, and simulating all of it computationally. Or printing another one with a biological 3D printer. Or reproducing it's structure and functions electronically. We might even be able to install it in a new body and achieve immortality. Or place the copy into a heaven or hell simulation. Or just hold it just in case you are injured or killed.
If defined like this, i would agree.
Althought, i have no belief in any kind of post mortem living counsciousness.
and if you read the rest of the link you provided, you will see the problems of dictating all this subject matter comes under the purview of the brain ... unless you have some (evidenced) breakdown of the function of jungian/freudian concepts in terms of the brain (although I think you will find that people working in cognitive psychology can't retreat from freudian or jungian concepts fast enough ... what to speak of those involved in cognitive science) or even some suave means of neutralizing the conflict between Cognitive psychology vs. cognitive science
(and I mean neutralizing the conflict in terms of evidence as opposed to dumbing down the argument or simply posing an argument that never leaves the theoretical realm of mental speculation)
The very link you provided suggests otherwise.
On the contrary, professionals in the field suggest that the notion of having a "brain in a jar" that can establish all these things you talk of is simply an embellishment of science fiction, and early prototypes of computers that were talked about as if they are or could potentially be some sort of parallel equivalent for consciousness.
IOW regardless of your take on the scenario, there is no evidence for what you claim (or alternatively, a requirement to dumb down the terms of the thesis by suggesting the process of a camera "seeing" and a human eye "seeing" are more or less identical)
Actually you inadvertently provided information that undercuts your ideas on the subject.
:shrug:
Science dictates evidence of claims. Can you account for all human behavior with causative biological correlates?
Bells
Staff member
Where do your thoughts stem from?
It's from your brain. It is your brain that dictates your emotions and yes, your psyche.
You cannot deny that the brain is what drives your emotions. Your neural pathways are biological.
I'm sorry, are you going to claim that the psyche does not stem from the brain?
There is more evidence of the brain and how it functions than there has been to determine people's "souls".
If you wish to deny that you have a brain, I doubt anyone here will disagree. However science has proven the brain's existence and how it functions and which parts of the brain affect what emotions, abilities, talents, learning abilities, memory..
Actually no. Just shows that you cannot read. Unless of course you are going to claim that Freud and Jung believed in souls and think one's psyche and one's thought processes stem from God and one's soul instead of one's brain. If so, good luck with that.
Bells
Staff member
Do you think it cannot be?
Bells,
Bollocks to that...
Brain surgery is perhaps the oldest of the practiced medical arts... Unearthed remains of successful brain operations... the success rate was remarkable, even circa 7,000 B.C.
Scientists have discovered the world’s oldest known case of a successful human brain surgery after unearthing a 4300 year old skull from the site of the ancient Harappan Civilization site in India.
The term ''psyche'' came from the ancient greeks, whose knowledge was the equivilent of children compared to the ancient egyptians, infants compared to ancient babylonians, and embryos compared to vedic knowledge, meaning...
The basic meaning of the Greek word ''psyche'' was "life" in the sense of "breath", formed from the verb (psukhō, "to blow"). Derived meanings included "spirit", "soul", "ghost", and ultimately "self" in the sense of "conscious personality" or "psyche".
How do you know?
Yes. Please provide. Thanks.
jan.
Bollocks to that...
Brain surgery is perhaps the oldest of the practiced medical arts... Unearthed remains of successful brain operations... the success rate was remarkable, even circa 7,000 B.C.
Scientists have discovered the world’s oldest known case of a successful human brain surgery after unearthing a 4300 year old skull from the site of the ancient Harappan Civilization site in India.
The term ''psyche'' came from the ancient greeks, whose knowledge was the equivilent of children compared to the ancient egyptians, infants compared to ancient babylonians, and embryos compared to vedic knowledge, meaning...
The basic meaning of the Greek word ''psyche'' was "life" in the sense of "breath", formed from the verb (psukhō, "to blow"). Derived meanings included "spirit", "soul", "ghost", and ultimately "self" in the sense of "conscious personality" or "psyche".
How do you know?
Yes. Please provide. Thanks.
jan.
Do you think that link evidences all human behavior with causative biological correlates?
(hint)
Niall McLaren emphasizes in his books Humanizing Madness and Humanizing Psychiatry that the major problem with psychiatry is that it lacks a unified model of the mind and has become entrapped in a biological reductionist paradigm. The reasons for this biological shift are intuitive as reductionism has been very effective in other fields of science and medicine. However, despite reductionism's efficacy in explaining the smallest parts of the brain this does not explain the mind, which is where he contends the majority of psychopathology stems from. An example would be that every aspect of a computer can be understood scientifically down to the very last atom, however this does not reveal the program that drives this hardware.
Bells
Staff member
When Jim Jones gave nearly 1000 people poison laced Cool Aid, he was doing God's work? His soul made him do it on God's orders as he claimed at the time?Bells,
Bollocks to that...
Brain surgery is perhaps the oldest of the practiced medical arts... Unearthed remains of successful brain operations... the success rate was remarkable, even circa 7,000 B.C.
Scientists have discovered the world’s oldest known case of a successful human brain surgery after unearthing a 4300 year old skull from the site of the ancient Harappan Civilization site in India.
The term ''psyche'' came from the ancient greeks, whose knowledge was the equivilent of children compared to the ancient egyptians, infants compared to ancient babylonians, and embryos compared to vedic knowledge, meaning...
The basic meaning of the Greek word ''psyche'' was "life" in the sense of "breath", formed from the verb (psukhō, "to blow"). Derived meanings included "spirit", "soul", "ghost", and ultimately "self" in the sense of "conscious personality" or "psyche".
How do you know?
Yes. Please provide. Thanks.
jan.
If you do not believe your brain directs your thoughts, then who does? God? In that case, each time someone kills and says 'God made me do it', then they speak the truth, correct? Or does God only appear to direct one's thoughts when you want him to?
So what directs your thoughts? If you hear a voice in your head telling you to kill your family, will you think it is your God given soul? Or will you think you are mentally ill and in need of psychiatric help?
Do you think it correlates to your soul?lightgigantic said:
What is your soul?
Your immortal essence that rises to heaven on your death? Do you think that is what governs your thoughts and makes you who you are? There is no heaven. Just as there is no God.
If you believe your psyche is your soul, therefore you don't think mental illness exists, correct? Since if one's psyche - ie one's mind - is ill, then it means their soul, what makes them a part of the divine connection to God, that is ill. Since there is no God, believing in a soul makes you... delusional? Which can be inherited, which makes it biological.
Ergo, like for my example to Jan above. If someone hears voices that tells them to kill others, is it their soul? If they believe they hear voices from God, by your reckoning and by Jan's, then they hear God. Since your psyche and your soul is your connection to God, correct? So lets say you hear voices in your head, or your psyche hears voices telling you that it is God and that you must kill others. It is your soul. Does that make you mentally ill? If there is a history of schizophrenia in your family, does it make you divine? Or is it an inherited trait which you have unfortunately inherited which means it is biological?
One of the irony's of theists is how quick they are to distance themselves from people who claim to be carrying out God's will as they believe they have been ordered to by God and instead, you all argue that they must be mentally ill because what they claim cannot be true. Yet you are all so quick to argue souls are real and that your psyche is your soul and your thoughts and beliefs stem from your soul.
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