Thomas Ash

Hi all,

I started this thread to clear up the definition of something which seems to be slightly unclearly defined (probably because it doesn't exist !)
"The soul", almost universally believed in by the religious, often seems to have no function or definition beyond being "that thing which enables life after death." But what relation, if any, is it supposed to have with you or your conciousness? If it doesn't have any real relation, and is simply a tacked-on appendage that only comes into play when you go into the afterlife, it's hard to see how it would be you surviving death.
Over to you. Does anyone know just what this thing is?

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Take a look at Atheist Ground, my website, to see interesting (hopefully! ) essays on atheism and religion.

johngalt

i checked out your website and really enjoyed it. Great essays!

Thomas Ash

Thanks!

Keith Russell

Thomas, my best efforts at rationally evaluating and examining the evidence I've been presented thus far for the claim that 'souls' exist, is that 'soul' is an invalid concept: a concept which does refers only to itself, but not to anything else in existence.

K

yguy

I'd say you have it backwards. If anything is an appendage, it is consciousness. Take away mind and body, and soul is what's left.

SimplyAtheistic

How so? You haven't even defined what it is! You can explain consciousness as the multitude of neuron stimulation in a complex pattern, consciousness is no big mystery. The soul on the other hand is some metaphysical thing that no one has been able to prove exists or has been able to observe. Hmmmm.
Jake

yguy

That is an illusion produced by the masses intellectually prostrating themselves before the scientific priestcraft. You don't have any idea what consciousness is, even. If it were not big mystery, AI would not be the laughable parody of human intelligence that it is.

Shadowy Man

Can I have your computer?

SimplyAtheistic

Oh I love your logic, and how again is consciousness NOT what I described when it has been shown that this very things controls it? And about the AI, being a computer programmer I know what it takes to make AI. Most AI is centered around a set of rules, and that is not even the type of intelligence found in animals. They have neruons in the brain that fire off in sequences and produce rational thought, images, etc... So the current AI is not that of a human, granted. But lack of technology isn't any excuse to say that we have a soul. When we can completely map the brain and all of its functions, we will be able to program in the EXACT same intelligence of a human into a computer. It will take time, but it will happen. I am STILL waiting for exactly what a soul is and just how on earth you feel justified in saying there even is one. Besides your book of fairytales I see no other evidence.
Jake

Dune

-You can explain consciousness as the multitude of neuron stimulation in a complex pattern, consciousness is no big mystery-

Science currently does not agree with that statement. Memory, intellegence and conciousness have in no way been explained adequately by science.
There is a great deal of muttering about neurochemicals, pre and post synaptic action potentials, peptides and catacholamines plus a lot of hand waving. (which is amusing to watch, by the way)
A friend explained the soul as what defines a person beyond the sum of our chemistry- what in the end differentiates my personality from yours.
::shrugs:: its as good as any so far.