There is no such thing as a soul

[Cris]

stray,

The physical world relates to the brain.
The Spiritual world relates to the soul.

We know the physical world and the brain exist.

The alleged spiritual world and alleged souls have no basis for their claimed existence outside of the human imagination.

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.

Since the alleged spiritual world is indistinguishable from a fantasy then it follows that it is impossible to have an understanding of something that is imaginary.

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

It is true that some people are more knowledgeable than others.

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

To claim an understanding of a fantasy as if it were real is in itself a fantasy.

Some people have a general understanding of both.

Some people lack the training and ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy.

 

[Cris]

Microzoft,

Once you know it, the question of believing it or not, it’s excess.

That sounds confused. A rational belief is one where knowledge is indeed present. To not believe something where knowledge is present is simply irrational. However, the issue is - what knowledge? There is none. So now to believe something without knowledge is also irrational.

The soul is the disciple of God or what ever name one gives the origin of all.

I see nothing other than baseless gibberish.

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,

Programmed brain? Into beyond? Sounds impressive but otherwise meaningless statements. Any good mediation technique allows the mind and the physiology to achieve deeper rest than usual and/or the relief of pent up stress. The relief of stress under such conditions is often accompanied by mental imagery. Any mechanism that allows the brain to undergo altered states, i.e. sleep and dreaming, meditation, drugs, etc., are all indications of normal brain reaction to such conditions. None indicate any evidence of souls.

when the soul is able to see the mortal that is occupying, it is the first step to realize what life is all about.

Baseless gibberish.

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.

I think that says that if one doesn’t believe then one doesn’t believe.

Please probe that there isn’t soul, since once you have probed it, then the answer to your questions will finally rest.

Probe where? The human brain has been dissected in so many ways, and brains have been damaged and injured in almost every conceivable manner and the results examined and even then no one has ever shown evidence or even a clue of such a thing as a soul.

 

[stray dog]

You have no understaning of the Spiritual world,
therefore you can only interpret it as an imaginary fantasy.

 

[Cris]

stray,

You have no understaning of the Spiritual world,
therefore you can only interpret it as an imaginary fantasy.

Then show me how it is anything other than a fantasy.

 

[stray dog]

The Spiritual world is revealed through life's experiences.
You simply have not experienced it yet.

 

[Cris]

stray,

The Spiritual world is revealed through life's experiences.
You simply have not experienced it yet.

I’m 50, have been a devout Christian, and have examined numerous allegedly spiritually based ideas. My objective, scientific and analytical background enables me to see through deceptions, hoaxes, and unsupported claims.

To date I have not seen anything that supports the claims of spirituality or souls, and as I look deeper I find even less of value for such ideas.

If you have achieved such things then how much longer must I live/wait and how can I find such things?

 

[A4Ever]

Cris,

maybe your point of view is important to experience certain things.

I can imagine a Buddhist sitting next to a scientist. After 20 or 30 years, the Buddhist may become enlightened. The scientist will be counting the cracks in the ceiling

 

[spookz]

could someone comment on my post (identity theory). i do not claim to understand it thoroughly but it seems to be relevant to what we are discussing. substitute soul for mind if it pleases you

thanks

 

[Pammy]

There is evidence of soul. And that is love. Unconditional love.

 

[Cris]

Pammy,

Welcome to sciforums.

There is evidence of soul. And that is love. Unconditional love.

That's very soulful.

So how are you defining soul? Is this in the dualist sense? And if so then how does an emotion like love prove a soul exists?

 

[Cris]

A4Ever.

maybe your point of view is important to experience certain things.

Ah yes and I do place great emphasis on actual experience rather than just theorizing. My last real exploration was the Church of Scientology in 2000, almost lost a lot of money on that.

I can imagine a Buddhist sitting next to a scientist. After 20 or 30 years, the Buddhist may become enlightened. The scientist will be counting the cracks in the ceiling

Assuming of course the Buddhist had taken time to listen to the scientist.

 

[Absurd]

Originally posted by spookz
could someone comment on my post (identity theory). i do not claim to understand it thoroughly but it seems to be relevant to what we are discussing. substitute soul for mind if it pleases you

thanks

The gist of Identity Theory (IT) is that every mental property is identical with some physical property, so in effect, mind states are just brain states and "the mind is just the brain". People who are materialists about the mental in general find this view attractive, but it is in fact rather contentious, because of the so-called problem of "multiple realizability", brought up by Putnam in the olden days when he was a pioneering functionalist (see below).

What ITheorists will tell you is that properties of your mental state, like hunger, pain, or "seeing a table" are just the same as properties of your brain state, e.g. the property of having one's neurons arranged and functioning in this way as opposed to arranged in some other way. The standard example of something proponents of IT might say is "pain = C-fibers firing". In practice, of course, this is too simple and serious proponents of IT will not say it, but I trust the point is not lost.

Well multiple realizability is the notion that the same mental state can be "realized" by different sorts of physical stuff. We humans can be in pain, but can't chimps or Martians be in pain, also? If we go with intuition (arguments for multiple realizability tend to be advanced from functionalist premises), the answer seems to be yes. But this does not bode well for IT, for if we assume that Martians do not have C-fibers, pain in Martians is not = to C-fibers firing. If Martian pain is, say, X-fibers firing, instead, then IT gives us a failure of transitivity of identity: pain = C-fibers firing, and pain = X-fibers firing, but C-fibers firing != X-fibers firing.

Functionalism presents the (IMO) more plausible claim that every mental property is identitical with some second-order property, the property of having some role or another in a functional architecture. So the functionalist would deal with the Martian pain problem from above by saying that X-fibers and C-fibers perform the same function, and that this suffices to establish that the mental property that they produce (pain) is the same. The mind is not the brain, functionalists will say, but the brain's functional architecture.

Qualia are another issue, but claiming that some theory or another cannot account for qualia is a tactic that one could employ against virtually any materialist view, not just IT. I personally find the concept rather useless.

 

[spookz]

Originally posted by Absurd
Qualia are another issue, but claiming that some theory or another cannot account for qualia is a tactic that one could employ against virtually any materialist view, not just IT. I personally find the concept rather useless.

useless in the sense of what? does that mean you also think the the leibniz law problem can be disregarded?

 

[Absurd]

Originally posted by spookz
useless in the sense of what? does that mean you also think the the leibniz law problem can be disregarded?

Well, to explain why I find qualia useless, I would first have to explain what qualia are, and since philosophers still argue about that, and I have no particular desire to formulate my own version, that may be difficult.

Qualia are supposed to be something self-evident, something like the experience of "what it is like" to be an organism, or "the way things seem to us", but when invoked in actual theories or arguments, it is clear that qualia are assigned a number of properties that quasi-functionalist types like myself find rather odd. Qualia are supposed to be the instrinsic, "phenomenal" qualities of consciousness that resist explanation even after all the "merely" informational/dispositional properties have been explained (that is, qualia do not inform you of anything, and they do not dispose you to do anything, and no functional account of mind will ever capture them). Qualia are irreducibly private and first-personal (other people get no access to your qualia), and they are directly introspectible (you have perfect access to your qualia).

These are strange things that some people, for some reason, expect me to find in my mind. I do not, so I accuse them of a confused imagination.

And no, Leibniz' law doesn't have anything to do with qualia. It's just a version of the synonymity problem that ITheorists used to concern themselves with before Putnam brought up multiple realizability (i.e. how can brain and mind be identitical if they are not synonymous?).

 

[spookz]

welcome to the forums absurd!



Current definitions of consciousness are either subjective, which makes it an un-testable quality, or use a physical characteristic of consciousness to indicate its presence. The use of a characteristic, the best of which is language production, as a test criterion can be seen to lead to false negative results. The emergent nature of consciousness complicates things by throwing further doubt on many borderline cases. Whilst a number of writers have attempted definitions of consciousness, I have found no proposals for a test. This is not surprising. Given the problems cited,a universal agreed test for consciousness seems only a very remote possibility.It is therefore pertinent to put aside the question of desirabilityand simply ask whether there is any needof a definition of consciousness. It is clear, for instance,that research into the question of consciousness proceeds whether we all agree on a definition or not. In fact, there is probably more impetus to research as a result of the absence of an agreed definition. I find Patricia Churchland's view on this appropriate. To summarise it: there is too much doubt and disagreement over what"consciousness" is meant to include for any definition not to be premature; until we know more about the relationship between psychological events and neurological events, we are not in a proper position to frame the question of consciousness, meaning will be given to our terms only through increased knowledge of the things they describe.Given the enduring "problem" of consciousness, we may even decide that a definition of it is impossible

is this accurate? is this shit still up for discussion? who are the players?

thanks

 

[Absurd]

Originally posted by spookz
welcome to the forums absurd!

Thanks.

is this accurate?

That is probably a bit too harsh. It is the kind of view that one might expect among neuroscientists and artificial intelligence researchers who have little patience for philosophy and just want to get on with their research, but "getting on with their research" isn't philosophy-free. There are no scientific disciplines that don't drag philosophical baggage around everywhere they go, and views about what consciousness is or is not often influence research programmes.

is this shit still up for discussion?

Well, there is certainly no shortage of volunteers to discuss it (the Churchlands being among them). Philosophy of Mind is probably the dominant analytic subdiscipline around today.

who are the players?

I posted a link to David Chalmers' website to the "Articles on Human Thought" thread on the Human Sciences board. That's as good a start as any. I think it is http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/.

 

[doom]

Originally posted by 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.

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

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.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh,i see,so they are vegetated/brain damage/memory problems and suffer like that so i am to appreciatate myself,and feel lucky.

I get it,so how about i kill loads of people and tell all those that are still alive that they are LUCKY i didnt kill them,and that my motive was to show how lucky people are that they are still alive!!

There is no reason to be here,youre just born then you die.

Think about it this way:
when you die it is exactly the same as what it was like BEFORE you were born!!
get it,see before you were born you had no body/brain,and when you die you have no body/brain
so the before and after are the same.
I for one do not remember/feel anything before i was born.

 

[spookz]

doom
keep the faith brother!

 

[IXL777]

Philosophy is the dominant analytic discipline around today.

The problem with this discussion is that your are discussing metaphysical truth's on the basis of earthly reason....

metaphysical philosophy is the dominant discipline,it is clear that qualia are assigned a number of properties that quasi-functionalist types like myself find rather odd. Qualia are supposed to be the instrinsic, "phenomenal" qualities of consciousness that resist explanation even after all the "merely" informational/dispositional properties have been explained (that is, qualia do not inform you of anything, and they do not dispose you to do anything, and no functional account of mind will ever capture them). Qualia are irreducibly private and first-personal (other people get no access to your qualia), and they are directly introspectible (you have perfect access to your qualia).
Qualia come from the intuitive side of the brain and are linked to sound not audible to the human ear...

 

[spookz]

ixl
that kinda shit is very uncool here!