There is no such thing as a soul

[Microzoft]

I know that there’s soul

Once you know it, the question of believing it or not, it’s excess. The soul is the disciple of God or what ever name one gives the origin of all.

Yoga, is the easiest to use in making the point. Yoga is not a sect, but a mental exercise to pass by the programmed brain into beyond, when the soul is able to see the mortal that is occupying, it is the first step to realize what life is all about.

Those you don’t believe the existence of the soul, air continuous voices that the soul doesn’t exist, yet regardless high low or frequent those voices are, it can not make more negative the already negative presumption. Please probe that there isn’t soul, since once you have probed it, then the answer to your questions will finally rest.

 

[spookz]

Originally posted by matnay
spookz,

"the fact that people persist in believing despite the lack of hard evidence is reason enough for further investigation"

Investigation without preassumption. The idea of souls should not be the starting point. It should be the ending point, if it turns out to lead that way.

elaborate please

 

[matnay]

If God is so powerfull, why couldn't he have just made our physical brains capable of everything that you attribute to an extra metaphysical brain? In other words, what exactly can a soul do that a brain can not? Go to heaven when the physical brain dies maybe? For those of you who are religious:
Maybe our physical brain patterns get transfered to a metaphysical one(soul) at the time of death. That would make more sense. Because during life, the soul need not be there if the physical brain takes care of everything. Or do you doubt that God has the power to create physical "souls"?

 

[spookz]

god? what is that?

i meant elaborate my alleged fallacy of reasoning (Investigation without preassumption). namely

the fact that people persist in believing despite the lack of hard evidence is reason enough for further investigation"

 

[matnay]

spookz,

i meant elaborate my alleged fallacy of reasoning (Investigation without preassumption).

How much more can I elaborate beyond that? It pretty much speaks for itself. Don't assume that we have souls just because that's what we want to believe.

All I'm saying is that we know that we have a brain and that it is very complex. The human brain is the most complex thing known to man. It's reasonable to assume that the brain does not need help from a soul in order to do it's job.

 

[Cris]

stray dog,

A severly disabled person does have an important role in life.

They are here to remind us. Do you appreciate your condition
compared to theirs? Are you thankful for your own consciousness? If I were in a vegitative state, I would still influence others around me. Perhaps others would think of me on occassion and consider their own condition compared to mine.

What this implies is that the individual is not important but the species is. Using this logic we reach scenarios where it is acceptable to sacrifice one person to save many. The problem there is how to determine when to stop, e.g. sacrifice 100 to save a thousand, sacrifice 1 million to save 100 million, etc. Ultimately you reach the idea that a few well-placed nuclear bombs will reduce the overpopulation problem and make the world a better place for those that remain.

But OK that isn’t quite what you had in mind. What you are trying to say is that some souls play a purely altruistic role. But what happens to such a soul when its body dies? If you say it is elevated by some sort of god to an honorable position then that would perhaps seem fair, but wait, what has this soul done to deserve such attention? It certainly has not struggled in a difficult and challenging life, in fact it would have been unaware of its life. If Christianity is the truth then it certainly had never had the chance to accept Jesus as savior and must therefore go to hell. But if such a soul is granted a place in paradise without any effort then having a physical life would not seem to have any relevance. It would then seem more beneficial if everyone was born as vegetables, unable to think or act and hence everyone would end up in heaven.

I can go on with endless idiotic scenarios trying to resolve this fundamental paradox. However, the easiest solution is to simply accept that souls do not exist, their existence and role has no meaningful credibility.

Perhaps others would appreciate life more after having seen my condition. Perhaps this would influence someone to be more kind.

Yes, but through the furtherance of science we should reach a point where such people would be born with a guarantee of a healthy life. Wouldn’t that be of greater benefit to a greater number? Learning how to be more kind at the cost to someone else is very dodgy logic. A better basis for such a morality would be a rational discipline that says that the health, survival, and happiness of everyone is best achieved by happiness and kindness by everyone.

We must continue to study all of the human conditions in order to better understand our reason for being here on Earth at this moment in time.

This assumes there is a reason for existence. Alternatively we need to study such unfortunate conditions so that we can prevent pain and suffering for others that follow.

 

[LaoTzu]

Not Necessarily

Originally posted by spookz
the fact that people persist in believing despite the lack of hard evidence is reason enough for further investigation

I think that's more reason to investigate human desires than the existence of a soul.

Also, who's to say that the investigation hasn't already been concluded? We have found nothing resembling a soul in the human body. As to the bit about chaos:

Quantum uncertainty may demonstrate some sort of emergence in Newtonian-level (people-sized) physics. I'm not sure that it does. In fact, all demonstrations of chaotic behavior I've seen involved either a random input or some kind of partitioned operator (differential equations with Euler methods, etc.), otherwise it's just bland complexity. Quantum physics may be random, but I doubt it, and I assume that it, like most other "laws" of the universe, is continuous in its description of phenomena.

But that's not the important part; the important part is that even Newtonian emergence caused by quantum chaos doesn't necessitate a soul. So what if there's order to electron motion? That means that the behavior is governed by more fundamental rules, not that everyone has an alternate self that lives outside the body. This seems very much like assuming supernatural behaviors exist in magnetism and gravity, and is very non sequitur.

 

[Cris]

matnay,

what is the nature of the brain that we KNOW we have. The grey gooey one attached to your body. That's the one we should investigate.

Awright!!!

Evilpoet,

I do love your links and quotes.

 

[Cris]

matnay,

Maybe our physical brain patterns get transfered to a metaphysical one(soul) at the time of death. That would make more sense. Because during life, the soul need not be there if the physical brain takes care of everything.

Ok but what about the poor unfortunate that contracted Alzheimer’s a few years before dying and at the point of death most of the useful parts of the brain had been destroyed through disease. What then does the soul achieve?

 

[matnay]

Cris,

Ok but what about the poor unfortunate that contracted Alzheimer’s a few years before dying and at the point of death most of the useful parts of the brain had been destroyed through disease. What then does the soul achieve?

Good point. Or retards, babies, etc...

This next question is directed to any religious person willing to take a stab at it. In scientific-like terms, what exactly is the definition of a soul, in your opinion?

 

[spookz]

penrose and tubulins

The idea attracted a few physicists, some consciousness researchers, and a large number of mystics. Quantum physicists, however, largely ignored it as too speculative to be worth testing with numerical calculations. Now Tegmark, a physicist at the University of Pennsylvania, has done the numbers. In the February issue of Physical Review E, Tegmark presents calculations showing just what a terrible environment the brain is for quantum computation.

Combining data about the brain's temperature, the sizes of various proposed quantum objects, and disturbances caused by such things as nearby ions, Tegmark calculated how long microtubules and other possible quantum computers within the brain might remain in superposition before they decohere. His answer: The superpositions disappear in 10**-13 to 10**-20 seconds. Because the fastest neurons tend to operate on a time scale of 10**-3 seconds or so, Tegmark concludes that whatever the brain's quantum nature is, it decoheres far too rapidly for the neurons to take advantage of it.

"If our neurons have anything at all to do with our thinking, if all these electrical firings correspond in any way to our thought patterns, we are not quantum computers," says Tegmark. The problem is that the matter inside our skulls is warm and ever-changing on an atomic scale, an environment that dooms any nascent quantum computation before it can affect our thought patterns. For quantum effects to become important, the brain would have to be a tiny fraction of a degree above absolute zero.

Hameroff is unconvinced. "It's obvious that thermal decoherence is going to be a problem, but I think biology has ways around it," he says. Water molecules in the brain tissue, for instance, might keep tubulin coherent by shielding the microtubules from their environment. "In back-of-the-envelope calculations, I made up those 13 orders of magnitude pretty easily."

Problem with Quantum Mind Theory



wanted
a crackpot scientist of the quantum kind

thanks

 

[spookz]

Originally posted by Cris

What then does the soul achieve?....
--------------------
if the soul is to obtain any benefit from an earthly life then shouldn’t it be able to retain memories and knowledge from such a world? If it loses all this when the brain is destroyed then doesn’t that imply that it ends up with zero knowledge and memory? I.e. it’s entire experience of earthly life becomes null.

the anthropomorphization of the soul might not be neccessary. likewise religious explanations on the purpose of a soul. it could be playing in a very spooky ballpark

Originally posted by Cris

but those are physical things. The soul is being portrayed as non-physical. I.e. if you damage the physical brain then that should have zero effect on the soul. In which case if the soul is the true controlling influence over a human and not the brain then a person should still function normally with considerable brain damage

the brain controls finger movement. sever the related nerves b/w the two and you get paralysis. the brain is the souls interface to the body. if the brain is damaged, why do you still expect the soul to keep functioning as before?

thanks

 

[stray dog]

Cris,

You say that the easy solution is to simply accept that souls do not exist, their exsistence and role have no meaningful
credibility.

I maintain that it would be unwise not to investigate the exsistence of the soul. We should continue to investigate while we are still alive. Have black holes been confirmed as fact?
Is there evidence of black holes after the long debate of this idea being foolish?

Also, I do believe that our reason for living is to help others and to learn how to live in peace. This includes our continued efforts to eradicate sickness, disability, and suffering.

The presence of a soul is a possibility. We have much more to learn about this, and an open mind is was drives scientific understanding. All of our opinions should be evaluated for the benifit of a mutual understanding. Continue to look for the clues, they are out there.

 

[spookz]

Re: Not Necessarily

Originally posted by LaoTzu
I think that's more reason to investigate human desires than the existence of a soul.

Also, who's to say that the investigation hasn't already been concluded? We have found nothing resembling a soul in the human body.

good point! may very well be the case!



what has been investigated? what experiments have been conducted? when/where/how?

 

[LaoTzu]

Wabab

Originally posted by spookz
what has been investigated? what experiments have been conducted? when/where/how?

I don't know of any experiments deliberately conducted in order to find a soul, but those would be inherently biased, I think.

But that isn't necessary. Every experiment done on the human body, from the dissection of cadavers to infectious disease treatment, falls into a related category. I don't think any of them have found evidence of a soul.

(I did hear something about a Japanese experiment saying that a guy weighed a few grams less when he died than he did immediately prior, but I doubt it's true. How would you conduct such an experiment? Also, who's to say that their precision didn't allow for a few grams's difference?)

 

[spookz]

thats funny!(picturing surgeons feverishly looking for the soul)

so what do you propose? did you read the penrose article i posted? your thoughts on that? (microtubules)

 

[Cris]

stray,

You say that the easy solution is to simply accept that souls do not exist, their exsistence and role have no meaningful credibility.

Mainly because the idea isn’t even an hypothesis, it is just a speculation. In the same way that I can dream up the possibility of flying green invisible elephants. I’m not going to waste time investigating them in the same people don’t spend time investigation all the other fantasy ideas that people can imagine.

I maintain that it would be unwise not to investigate the exsistence of the soul. We should continue to investigate while we are still alive.

Then you must start by showing that the idea is more than just an imaginative fantasy.

Have black holes been confirmed as fact? Is there evidence of black holes after the long debate of this idea being foolish?

These are observable phenomena. I don’t understand your analogy.

Also, I do believe that our reason for living is to help others and to learn how to live in peace. This includes our continued efforts to eradicate sickness, disability, and suffering.

These are laudable ideals but they are also secular humanist ideals.

The presence of a soul is a possibility.

No, you can’t claim something is possible until you can show evidence that supports such a possibility. For example given a deck of cards and the game of poker I can predict the possibility and probability of drawing a royal flush. I know it is a finite possibility although rare. Out of all the potential scenarios for explaining the nature of life and the universe, i.e. the equivalent of my deck of cards, can you show that souls represent one of those possibilities? No you can’t, all you have is a speculative idea.

We have much more to learn about this, and an open mind is was drives scientific understanding.

I suspect you believe there is more to learn, because, why? You want this to be true to support a religious inclination, or you cannot face the probability that when you die you will cease to exist, or you have been told that such things exist? And no it is not an open mind that drives scientific understanding, it is evidence, and you have none. It is an open mind that drives us to explore any and all potential scenarios until the probability and credibility of an idea indicates a futile endeavor.

The concept of a soul has existed for millennia and so far no souls have ever been shown to exist. Neuroscience and countless clinical examinations of the human brain are tending towards the brain accounting for all the properties that have been claimed for the soul. It would seem that as we know more then the credibility for a soul recedes even further.

All of our opinions should be evaluated for the benifit of a mutual understanding. Continue to look for the clues, they are out there.

As has been said earlier, a thorough understanding of the human brain looks like our best first identifiable task, and if there is anything leftover after that then perhaps that might lead an investigation into currently the fantasy of souls.

 

[matnay]

Religious folk,

God is impossible to disprove- stick to that.
Souls have already been virtually disproven by science- let it go.

It's time to update religion again for the 21st century. The heart is for pumping blood, the brain is for thinking. Accept the brain for what it obviously is. Have more faith in God's engineering skills(not to mention our scientists).

 

[spookz]

In his 1967 paper, "The Nature of Mental States," Hilary Putnam introduced what is widely considered the most damaging objection to theories of Mind-Brain Type Identity-- indeed, the objection which effectively retired such theories from their privileged position in modern debates concerning the relationship between mind and body. Putnam's argument can be paraphrased as follows: (1) according to the Mind-Brain Type Identity theorist (at least post-Armstrong), for every mental state there is a unique physical-chemical state of the brain such that a life-form can be in that mental state if and only if it is in that physical state. (2) It seems quite plausible to hold, as an empirical hypothesis, that physically possible life-forms can be in the same mental state without having brains in the same unique physical-chemical state. (3) Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the Mind-Brain Type Identity theorist is correct.

In support of the second premise above--the so-called "multiple realizability" hypothesis--Putnam raised the following point: we have good reason to suppose that somewhere in the universe--perhaps on earth, perhaps only in scientific theory (or fiction)--there is a physically possible life-form capable of being in mental state X (e.g., capable of feeling pain) without being in physical-chemical brain state Y (that is, without being in the same physical-chemical brain state correlated with pain in mammals). To follow just one line of thought (advanced by Ned Block and Jerry Fodor in 1972), assuming that the Darwinian doctrine of evolutionary convergence applies to psychology as well as behavior, "psychological similarities across species may often reflect convergent environmental selection rather than underlying physiological similarities." Other empirically verifiable phenomena, such as the plasticity of the brain, also lend support to Putnam's argument against Type Identity. It is important to note, however, that Token Identity theories are fully consistent with the multiple realizability of mental states.

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


The Leibniz Law problem: Leibniz’s law states that if x = y then everything true of x must also be true of y. For example, if Clark Kent = Superman, and Superman loves Lois, then it must be true that Clark loves Lois. The problem for the identity theory is this: Suppose, for example, that it were established that deciding to do X = brain event of type D. Now, decisions can be wise, hasty, stupid, difficult and so on. Therefore according to Leibniz’s law, brain events of type D can be wise, hasty, stupid or difficult. Yet these terms don’t seem to make any sense when applied to events in the brain. Brain events can, for example, last for 4.2 milliseconds or can occur in the cortex, but what does it mean to say that a brain event is wise or hasty? So it seems that mental events cannot be identical with physical events in the brain.
Question: Before it was established that sound is a wave phenomenon, did it make sense to talk about the wavelength of sound?

Qualia: The term “qualia” stands for those qualities of our experience such as bitterness, sweetness or sourness of tastes, or the stinging, burning or throbbing of pains, and so on. The identity theory, it is claimed, only gives a scientific account of the mind in terms of neuron firings and neurotransmitters and the like, but can’t describe the character of our experience. In other words, it can’t account for qualia and is therefore incomplete. To illustrate the point, imagine a future neurophysiologist Mary who has a complete knowledge of the brain mechanisms underlying pain. Unfortunately Mary is one of that small number of people who are congenitally insensitive to pain. Then, although Mary knows all about the physical mechanisms of pain she doesn’t know what it’s actually like to be in pain. Her scientific knowledge, comprehensive as it may be, is fundamentally incomplete because it leaves out the qualia of pain. Mary’s knowledge of physical mechanisms simply doesn’t amount to knowledge of what it is like to feel pain. So the identity theory is incomplete and is therefore an inadequate theory of the mind.
Question: The case of Mary is based on there being two ways of knowing about pain - directly through experience (which Mary couldn’t do), and indirectly by way of neuroscience (which Mary could do). Does the existence of two ways of knowing imply that what is known is different in each case? Compare: If you have the “evening view” of Venus, then for you it’s the evening star. If you have the “morning view” of Venus, then for you it’s the morning star. Though it may be that the evening view is different from the morning view, it turns out that each view is of the same thing, namely Venus.

The mental states of aliens: ET, you remember, wanted to phone home. Suppose, as is likely, that ET’s physical constitution is quite different from ours. Then it seems to make sense to attribute desires to alien beings even if their physical makeup is quite different from ours - they might be silicon based rather than carbon based. But if a silicon based being could have mental states such as desires, thoughts and beliefs, then these mental states can’t be identical with states of the brain as asserted by the identity theory. In other words, it seems that the physical constitution of a mental state - out of neural patternings, for example - is not what is essential to being a mental state.

Identity Theory

The Identity Theory of Mind

more

 

[stray dog]

The physical world relates to the brain.

The Spiritual world relates to the soul.

For those who have no Spiritual world, the matter of the soul is of no concern.

You accept that souls do not exist, if you have no understanding of the Spiritual world.

Some people have a better understanding of the physical world than others.

Some people have a better understanding of the Spiritual world than others.

Some peolple have a general understanding of both.