the soul

[Delirium]

Do we have a soul?

If we do what is it, and how would you define it?

This is a question that i really have tried to answer myself but have failed. I'm not talking about a soul in the catholic sense, but do we have somthing more than our mind, or is it just a collection of neurons.

I would like to think that we do not, but at the same time i feel that there is somthing more to us than just the physical.

[eyedrop]

Simple answer: NO

Practically all evidence points to not.

There are not any reproducable experiments you can do that shows it.

Conclusion: NO





I would like to think that we do not, but at the same time i feel that there is somthing more to us than just the physical.

In rational thinking you should discard feelings as much as possible. That your feeling somethin gis not an argument with any substance.

[Noah]

I don't think we have a soul (the kind of soul Christianity and so on say we have).

BUT I think we do have a conscience. By this I mean, a range of different emotions that react with what happens around us and what we see and do so on and can make us sad, happy, worried, nervous and so on. For example when we do something wrong and regret it which results us in feeling bad.

But in all honesty no one can answer 'yes' because there's no science behind the 'soul' that's probably why you failed trying to find out if you have one.

Many thoughts linger in my mind about the 'soul'. Where is the soul?

What does it do? It doesn't really do anything. I was taught at primary school, everytime I did something bad, a black dot went on my soul and when I went to heaven they would be on me and God would count how many black dots there were, so now when I think back it's more of a way for religion to control people.

If I cut myself why doesn't the soul escape? The only things that are inside us are organs, bones, chemicals and so on.

We are nothing more but animals. My RE teacher said our souls go upto heaven when we die. I replied 'Miss, if I kill a bee, does it's soul go to heaven?" She didn't have an answer.

So to conclude I think, as intelligent life, as humans, I think the only reason we ask questions like this is because we have the brain capacity to do so. But really these are questions we could never answer and so far have no backing scientific evidence.

Noah.
Hope this helps.

[Magraheed]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27 2005, 09:20 PM
Simple answer: NO

Practically all evidence points to not.

There are not any reproducable experiments you can do that shows it.

Conclusion: NO





I would like to think that we do not, but at the same time i feel that there is somthing more to us than just the physical.

In rational thinking you should discard feelings as much as possible. That your feeling somethin gis not an argument with any substance.
Just because there is no evidence we have no soul? Thats stupid.

However i agree and believe there is no soul, but im not saying i know for sure. but to say it is not there because there is no evidence is stupid.


=)

[Noah]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27 2005, 10:33 PM

Just because there is no evidence we have no soul? Thats stupid.


May I ask how it's stupid? Why believe or even try to find out about something that has no evidence backing.

[Magraheed]

Just because we as humans cant grasp or understand some knowledge beyond our abillity to know things, does not mean it is not there or untrue, i did not say we should believe, I simple said its stupid to think you know its not there, because in reality we know nothing.

[eyedrop]

However i agree and believe there is no soul, but im not saying i know for sure. but to say it is not there because there is no evidence is stupid.

Well as I said in the first replay: "Practically all evidence points to not." (there being a soul)

When all the evidence points to there being no soul, and we can't produce any evidence on it, then we are as certain as we can be.

And there have been countless of people trying to prove it through the times. And if it would have been the slightest chance of proving it the religions institutions would jump behind it with their great bankbooks.

We don't have got anymore evidence that I will fall if I jump outside a cliff, and yet we say that we know I will fall.

[Magraheed]

I hear what your saying, but what im trying to say is just because we dont know does not mean its not true. Anyway trying to prove something spiritual is allways false, because if its what people say it is, then you cant prove something beyond our human minds. so there is no point in trying to find evidence of it.

[Roses in the Hospital]

Just like God, there's no reason to belive we do, so why should we?

[Magraheed]

There is no reason to believe in my opinion, but you cant say its not there because you dont know.




Anyway this has become a pointless debate

[eyedrop]

Just because we as humans cant grasp or understand some knowledge beyond our abillity to know things, does not mean it is not there or untrue, i did not say we should believe, I simple said its stupid to think you know its not there, because in reality we know nothing.
Yes I agree we know nothing truely about anything, thats because everything we know is learned through methods who depend on axioms. (first hand assumptations)

But it's useless to care about that as the only conclusion we can draw from it is excatly that we know nothing. It's useless to consider when we try to understand anything.

[Magraheed]

Yea man i agree with you there, thats why i said this is pointless, i dont look at things like that im just saying for the last time hahahha that you cant say something is not true just because you have no evidence.

But i agree its pointless for us humans to argue about it, we must try to change things from our human perspective.

[eyedrop]

There is no reason to believe in my opinion, but you cant say its not there because you dont know.

The evidence is piling up so heavily on the other side that we know it as well as we can. If we can't use the word then, when can we use it?

Do you want the word know to have no real world uses? Let's just cut it out of the dictionaries then.

[Magraheed]

Just be quiet, your saying the same thing its pointless to argue about this shit. Im not saying what ive said about a million times again.


Theres human fact and real fact...and real fact is something us humans will never know, but we should go by human fact for things like this because we are human fighting for a human interest.

[Ownthink]

Religious superstitious bullshit brought about by the thing we all love and adore: Christianity.

If we reject Christianity and all of the homophobia and unequality that comes with it, we should likewise reject the other crap it teaches (ie about souls).

[Dimokratia]

It is very dangerous to completely reject the concept of the soul. Although some definitions and theories of it tend toward nilihism, and therefore against Marxism, it does incompass what about humans is truly human. The rejection of the soul problematic on a few levels. First, it becomes very hard to have a conversion with a religious person because of the lack of a common ground. Secondly, It becomes difficult to distingiush humans from machines and animals with presupposing something uniquely human.

Rejecting the concept of a soul out of spite of Christianity, is like one rejecting Marxism out of the spite of Stalin. Both existed before the reign of the other. The Soul is one of the quibble points of Plato and Aristotle, for ____'s sake! It is not a uniquely Western or Christianity belief.

My take is that the soul may or may not be immortal (depending on your definition of immortality) and soul can be described to be all that is human. What is human? Acting in a "human" way, creating a human world, having human relationships, not being simply a statestically predictable object, in a universally causal world. Having a soul is the escape and transdence of pure physicality.

If it follows that "existence precedes essence" or "something cannot come out of nothing," then the spontaneous generation of a thinking and acting soul is rightfully ridicuous. But if a soul can be defined as the thinking and acting part of the human, then maybe the body can be defined as a "soul generating machine." The sum of all the muscles, nerves, neurons, etc and then some. Everything that makes you, you can be defined as the soul of you, the very inner core of unique being. Now saying that you have a soul becomes more akin to "I am an individual" rather than "I am a creature of God."

So claim you don't have a soul all you like, but remember the cliche: You don't truly appriciate something until it is gone.

[Roses in the Hospital]

Religious superstitious bullshit brought about by the thing we all love and adore: Christianity.

Actually Aristotle was the first to put forward the idea of the soul, nearly 400 years before Christianity took off, and it wasn't until Descartes that we got the modern conception of the soul...

[drain.you]

comrade Roses... is right you know,
here is the actual text from aristotle regarding it if you don't believe it.
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/a8so/

I don't believe in the concept of a soul. I just believe we are brains, some braisn more intelligent than others, for instance we are more intelligent than cattle for instance but that doesn't mean that we have a soul and they don't.
A soul is who we are? No. Our brains are who we are.

[eyedrop]

Theres human fact and real fact...and real fact is something us humans will never know, but we should go by human fact for things like this because we are human fighting for a human interest.

And since we will never know the real fact can't we just treat human fact as real as is as close as were ever gonna get?

There is no point caring about absolute truth as it is only some abstract value. Even a computer the size of the the solar system wouldn't have space to write down the names off all things that may be.


Secondly, It becomes difficult to distingiush humans from machines and animals with presupposing something uniquely human.

Here reality meets your worldview, what do you do?

Make up the soul concept so there really are some real differences between machines, animals and humans, instead of accepting what the world suggests. If we put a few extra billions braincells in an animal there are no way to distingiush between it and us.

The main thing that helps us seperate between them now is our ability to think and think abstract. Other than that there is no principled difference.


Actually Aristotle was the first to put forward the idea of the soul, nearly 400 years before Christianity took off, and it wasn't until Descartes that we got the modern conception of the soul...

We have dismissed the idea of the shadow universe from that time. (The one where everyone is chained in a cave and only see the shadow casted by them, by a bon fire, on the cave wall.) Why not the soul too?

[our_mutual_friend]

I'm not sure I totally believe in the Christian version of a soul - something that is marked by bad deeds that you do and so affects your afterlife (whether you believe in one or not). I prefer to see it as a conscience, as has been mentioned before.

But it is common philosophical thought that there are two parts to you - physical and mental.
The physical is what you can touch and see - bones, neurones, bood, cytoplasm, whatever. This is what the body is and is the basic "soul" of existence.
The mental is the collective consciousness of the denizens of the mind - thought processes, feelings etc. It is often believed that it is this collective consciousness which makes you you and controls your body, as it is believed that without this state of consciousness then you would not be able to survive (or you'd just be a zombie :D ) and this is what the centre of your soul is.

So from this perspective it is possible to believe in a soul.
And it's nice to think that when you die your 'soul' goes off and becomes part of the world again. (or that your atoms just go round in one big circle to 'power' the next being)

[KGB5097]

Personally, I belive in existance of the "spirit" after death. What exactally that means, I don't know, but I certianly don't belive that all that awaits us is blackness...

But to each his own, people should be allowed to belive whatever they want in their personal lives.

[Delirium]

I am not speaking of a soul in a religious sense. The soul could be the mind but it seem to me that there must be somthing more to this than just the physical.

Though i am not religious or spiritual, the closest thing i come to in spirituality is the idea mentioned by or mutual friend. when i die i know that my energy (chemical energy) is released and is able to be used by other organisms. Perhaps this is the soul, your collective energy.

[Dimokratia]

About the Immortality of the Soul, I tend to believe in the Egyptian thought about immortality, that is it the memory and works of an individual that make a "soul" immortal. Again, memory and works can be folded into the particular individuality of a person, so therefore it is only what makes us unique that can live on.

Some can understand this better spiritually than intellectually

[drain.you]

I think the only way to continue to exist after death is if you leave a mark on the world, be it a book, a building, a war, a revolution or whatever. When people forget you existed then you cease to exist. I think thats the only way you can live on after death, through a memory, and thats not really living after death anyway.

[Entrails Konfetti]

I have a soul, I sneezed once. And I had to say "god-bless you" so it would get back in my body. :lol:

Anyways, I don't understand how members are drawing up two conclusions on the soul:
1) The ethereal ghost-like thing orginating from theism, which departs your body when you die.
2) Your conscience, you're personality, your values.

Those are two different things. Theists believe that the ethereal ghosty-like thing(soul), will meet its fate due to acts the person did in life (ego).

when I say ego, I mean it as who you are, and not the selfish individualist actions at the expense of everybody else.

I don't believe in a soul; you can't believe in something that isn't proven, or something that may not be provable.

[Commie Rat]

No there is no soul and there is no little 'you' inside you body
in no part of your body are you disconnected from it.
You brain is one big lattice of nuerons, all your emotions all your memories all your subconcecious is a chemical reachtion caused by electicity running along these nuerons

Following this logic of there is no dissconnected part of your body we can also infer that there is no heven nor is there a hell (although that may be closer then we think) as you cannot leave your body in a metaphysical sense.

Psychologicaly OBE's can happen up mostly under the infulence of certain drugs (namely LSD and Datura).

Also if you did have a soul it would be a sentient creatre (as it is 'you') and thus would be alive in a scientiffic sense meaning that it would have to feed breath ect ect ect which would mean that it would need organs to carry out these functions - meaing it would need to be larger then microscopic -
And thus meaning -if the soul was real- we would be able to find it.

[Nathe]

Originally posted by Noah+Nov 27 2005, 10:32 PM--> (Noah @ Nov 27 2005, 10:32 PM)
[email protected] 27 2005, 10:33 PM

Just because there is no evidence we have no soul? Thats stupid.


May I ask how it's stupid? Why believe or even try to find out about something that has no evidence backing.[/b]
"you should not believe that is not necesarilly true or has no empirical evidence" -> that is a self refuting priciple, that statement is not necesarily true, and there is no empirical evidence backing it up.

Commie Rat,

No there is no soul and there is no little 'you' inside you body
in no part of your body are you disconnected from it.
You brain is one big lattice of nuerons, all your emotions all your memories all your subconcecious is a chemical reachtion caused by electicity running along these nuerons

Following this logic of there is no dissconnected part of your body we can also infer that there is no heven nor is there a hell (although that may be closer then we think) as you cannot leave your body in a metaphysical sense.

Psychologicaly OBE's can happen up mostly under the infulence of certain drugs (namely LSD and Datura).

Also if you did have a soul it would be a sentient creatre (as it is 'you') and thus would be alive in a scientiffic sense meaning that it would have to feed breath ect ect ect which would mean that it would need organs to carry out these functions - meaing it would need to be larger then microscopic -
And thus meaning -if the soul was real- we would be able to find it.

wait... you gave a good explination if what you said was true... but didnt actually give any evidence, or argument to back that up. (yes i did contradict myself with what i said before, but i prefer to go with the option of the best evidence, not just no evidence)

i believe that we do have a soul, as in a "me" that trancends the physical, mainly cause of my personal feelings. i just dont get how a few signals floating around my brain contributes to the so many emotions, thoughts and feelings that i experience.

the last part of your argument does not make sense. broaden your mind. something does not have to be material to be alive. that is just a conclusion based on evidence, and then reasoned to the best explination. it is not necesarilly true. i hate people that think science is the be all and end all of knowlege. it is not. something can still be alive and not physical. not to mention that sentience does not necesarilly mean "scientifically living" (true AI)

the idea of a spirit is provable... just not at the moment.

on another note... i find it interesting that so many of us believe that there is no soul.

[Bannockburn]

There is a good chance, when we die, its complete annihilation of consciousness. No heaven, no hell, no Karma, no reincarnation. Nothing. There is no soul. There is no evolving principle, or life cycle. We have one life, this one – so do something about it.

My argument is simple: Consciousness is structured among a material brain. When there is death, the material structure of the brain decays and dissolves like any other material structure. Our bones for example. When our brains dissolves, there is no reason to believe anything would survive after that. Its like a river. The river is bound and structured up among channels and canals. If there is an earthquake, or a mountain would rise up and destroy those same channels or canals, the river simultaneously ceases to exist as well.

There is no difference. When you die, you're dead. You're on this planet once – make the most of it.


the idea of a spirit is provable... just not at the moment.

You can't claim that. It doesn't make any sense. Its open ended and its pure speculation. Its like saying unicorns exist, they just haven't been found. Or, big foot exist, he just hasn't been found. Or, the Loch ness monsder is provable, just not at the moment. Its absurd, and by claiming that, you rely on a future, which may never come.


i believe that we do have a soul, as in a "me" that trancends the physical, mainly cause of my personal feelings. i just dont get how a few signals floating around my brain contributes to the so many emotions, thoughts and feelings that i experience.

transcend the physical? Okay, I'll bite. I have a question however. Transcend to where? Besides, why wouldn't it makes sense. I'll fuck up your head even more. "The self" or "the Soul" is supposed to be an entity that has some kind of permanance. As it, it exist over time. Now, if we are a buch of signals, each any every one of those signals are indendent of every other signals. As a result, the signals aren't even "you", but "you" is an illusion constructed as a process over the course of a lifetime.

[Nathe]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10 2005, 03:14 PM

the idea of a spirit is provable... just not at the moment.

You can't claim that. It doesn't make any sense. Its open ended and its pure speculation. Its like saying unicorns exist, they just haven't been found. Or, big foot exist, he just hasn't been found. Or, the Loch ness monsder is provable, just not at the moment. Its absurd, and by claiming that, you rely on a future, which may never come. (1)


i guess i exadurated abit. i was trying to say that just cause something isnt provable now, dosent mean it isnt provable in the future. as i noticed other people were saying "it isnt provable now, therefore it isnt provable at all."



i believe that we do have a soul, as in a "me" that trancends the physical, mainly cause of my personal feelings. i just dont get how a few signals floating around my brain contributes to the so many emotions, thoughts and feelings that i experience.

transcend the physical? Okay, I'll bite. I have a question however. Transcend to where? Besides, why wouldn't it makes sense. I'll fuck up your head even more. "The self" or "the Soul" is supposed to be an entity that has some kind of permanance. As it, it exist over time. Now, if we are a buch of signals, each any every one of those signals are indendent of every other signals. As a result, the signals aren't even "you", but "you" is an illusion constructed as a process over the course of a lifetime.(2)

i dont know where to... i have a problem with believing that theres the physical and thats it. i see no reason to believe that there is no reality outside of physical reality.
heres some evidence of 'souls'
this is a case of a woman who had do undergo an operation while clinically 'dead' and was brought back to life later.
she could remember intricate parts of her operation, even though she was 'dead' and had no brain activity.

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence01.html

[Commie Rat]

this is a case of a woman who had do undergo an operation while clinically 'dead' and was brought back to life later.
she could remember intricate parts of her operation, even though she was 'dead' and had no brain activity.

Often in traumatic experinces - in sugury when the anathestic wears off, car crashes, rape, ect- our brains fill in the missing peices, of what we expectto happen.

Take for example, in a car crash, time seems to slow down - this is because your brain is filling in everything that you expect to happen and you precive everything to be going slower because you are thinking about it before it happens or you add it in afterwards.

[Nathe]

Originally posted by Commie [email protected] 11 2005, 03:18 AM

this is a case of a woman who had do undergo an operation while clinically 'dead' and was brought back to life later.
she could remember intricate parts of her operation, even though she was 'dead' and had no brain activity.

Often in traumatic experinces - in sugury when the anathestic wears off, car crashes, rape, ect- our brains fill in the missing peices, of what we expectto happen.

Take for example, in a car crash, time seems to slow down - this is because your brain is filling in everything that you expect to happen and you precive everything to be going slower because you are thinking about it before it happens or you add it in afterwards.
no. actually time (seems to) slow down in a car crash because the 'fight or flight' response kicks in, fills your system with adrenalin, which makes your brain work like crazy, and makes everything else seem alot slower (because your working faster).

it was different in this case.
the woman having the operation discribed perfectly, the saw that was used to cut into her skull. it wasnt just filling in memories, it was actually remembering...


For example, if you faint, you fall to the floor, you don’t know what’s happening and the brain isn’t working. The memory systems are particularly sensitive to unconsciousness. So, you won’t remember anything. But, yet, after one of these experiences [an NDE], you come out with clear, lucid memories ... This is a real puzzle for science. I have not yet seen any good scientific explanation which can explain that fact."