Goober

Hmmmm. You're right, I hadn't thought about non-theistic philosphies like Buddhism. You are absolutely correct to say that it would not be sufficient evidence to completely prove the existence of god, although of course it would still be evidence. That raises some interesting questions though, because if the existence of the soul was proven what would be the best explanation for it? I can't think of a purely naturalistic explanantion for it, because there would be no mechanism that would allow their evolution. Would you come up with an ad hoc explanation and use occams razor to justify it? I must admit I don't know very much about Buddhist philosphies on the subject, which is why I didn't consider it. Do buddhists believe that bacteria have souls? What about viruses, which aren't even really considered to be living? If life formed abiotically according to modern scientific theories, when did the first souls arise? Did they already exist? Why did the first primitive living things start to get souls, as opposed to the simple molecules from which they arose? What would happen if it was shown that souls existed but only people had them? A theistic god concept could explain this as such a god could create the universe, allow it to develop and allow life to evolve whenever it deemed that life was sufficiently advanced to warrant a soul. Does that mean the existence of the soul would be better evidence for a theist god (admittedly a bit of a 'god of the gaps') than a deistic god or buddhism. Would occum's razor rule out such a god, since it could also be invoked to explain the existence of the universe?

Does Buddhism require the existence of a soul? (in general, I am aware that Buddhist views vary greatly) Doesn't Buddhism teach that nothing is eternal - so how does that work with souls? Then again what reincarnates if not the soul? I must admit that I hadn't considered Buddhism in this, and I don't know very much about Buddhist ideas on the subject. Perhaps a new thread in another place would be the place to discuss buddhist ideas and what science has to say about them.

I must admit that if anyone could prove that souls existed, it would be enough evidence for me to seriously reconsider my atheism and become at least agnostic or a weak theist, although I definitely wouldn't become christian or anything. How about any of you? How would you ever explain it, if it could be proved?

In my original post I was actually refering to major religions like Christianity and Islam which do require the existence of a soul (and an afterlife). If souls don't exist then these religions are definitely false. I probably should have made that more clear. Perhaps I should have put this in 'General religious discussion'.

I'm approaching this question from a scientific viewpoint, so this isn't really a conundrum. My point was that if you wanted scientific evidence for the existence of god, the perfect thing to look for would be the existence of a soul. "If you can't prove it doesn't exist, it isn't rational to conclude that it doesn't" is totally unscientific, and Diana as you so rightly pointed out anyone who says this can be sent on a hunt for evidence for their non-belief in the leprechauns in their backyards.

I haven't ever seen any evidence for a soul, and I think the brain is perfectly sufficent for explaining conciousness, which is why I dont believe that souls exist. If we don't have souls, religions such as christianity are going have a lot of explaining to do. Are there any christians who disagree with this? Do you have any evidence for your belief in souls, or is it just another thing to take 'on faith'? This applies even more strongly to you, JTVrocher, if your idea of a god is inseperable from the soul. Do you have any justification or are you happy to admit that you just have to believe in it without evidence?

Damn, I ask a lot of questions.

Inconnu

Are there still people who believe humans are not animals?
Unless souls also evolved, evolution pretty much disproves them, or at least renders them irrelevant. Is a neanderthal soul as good as a modern one?

Jobar

My own opinion is that 'soul' is an ancient word for what we now call 'consciousness'. Just as 'spirit' means 'breath', what we have here is a distorted relic of an ancient interpretation of life and personality.

I too consider myself a pantheist- but the words we try to use to describe a pantheistic reality are old, and crude, and require considerable reinterpretation to allow them to jibe with the modern scientific understanding of reality. I do feel that such reinterpretation is not so extreme as to invalidate the original ideas, however.

Just as 'God' and 'Tao' are not synonyms but do have some points of similarity, the Western theological concept of 'soul' is in ways similar to the Hindu concept of 'atman' (roughly, the facet of the world-soul (Brahman) which each human being possesses.) If we can view this world-soul as the self-organizing tendency of matter, or the lawfullness (in the sense of physical laws) of observed reality, then it's easy to say that each of us has a soul which is an aspect or facet of this world-soul. Physics bears this out; we are no different matter than the matter which makes up the farthest stars, and the more 'in tune' we are with our environment, the happier and more fulfilled we are as human beings.

I've written a lot about this; for those interested, I direct you to the following threads.
Here
here
here
here
and here.
Oh, and this one is particularly good, I think. In it, I try to show one of our regular theist posters how pantheism is different from monotheism.

WinAce

Memories and personality are encoded in the brain, as can be conclusively demonstrated by damaging it and seeing the effects (Alzheimer's disease, corpus callosi, etc.)

Now, given that destroying a tiny fraction of the brain knocks out a tiny fraction of the mind, does it really take a degree in rocket science to put 2 and 2 together and realize what happens when the entire brain is destroyed?

As I see it, mind-body dualism was falsified decades, if not centuries ago.

Conchobar

I definitely think that the soul hypothesis belongs here because as I will try to posit, it leads to the invention of god(s) and the delusion of immortality. I have posted this previously.

Primitive mankind as he/she began to think more and more, and observe the world around them, they had curiosity about how things worked. We still have that curiosity. They wanted to know how springs bubbled up, rivers flowed, volcanoes erupted, rain fell, and the Sun appeared to move across the sky. They wanted to know how we flexed and extended our hands, how we thought and talked.

Since they had no knowledge of chemistry, electricity, electrochemical circuits, they could not rely on a science thousands of years in the future.

They knew that "something" made the spring bubble, and the fingers flex. Something made us think, and when we dreamed, that something could even travel to other places and times. They felt that this something was independent in its action. You could not order it to do this or that. It did what "It wanted." They assumed it was conscious. They called these somethings, spirits (souls).

Spirits moved the springs to gush water. Spirits moved the clouds and made them rain. Obviously a spirit in our body made our arms move, our fingers flex, our legs walk. This spirit's consciousness must also be our consciousness. When we sleep, it can escape our bodies and go elsewhere. This spirit was responsible for all that we do, including thinking. When it permanently leaves our body that is death.

Now we know that all of the above can be explained on purely natural mechanisms. We know the pathways of consciousness in the brain. We know our on-off switch is the Ascending Reticular Activating System, which activates the diencephalon and the septal nuclei to make us alert and aware. Connections to the temporo-limbic lobe convey our emotions/affect, to primary sensory areas (visual, auditory, tactile) for perception, to association areas for identification and processing of those perceptions, to the pre-motor cortex to plan complex movements then to the motor cortex to activate the necessary muscles. Spect MRI has mapped though patterns, speech patterns, and even emotional and mystical experiences in the brain. There is no work left over for the soul.

How is this connected to god? Over time, mankind noted that spirits were in trees, rivers, springs, clouds, animals, and even rocks. But we are also lumpers more than splitters. Mankind began to merge the many spirits into groups of greater spirits or gods. Akenaten of Egypt who merged them all into one God, Aten the Sun God reached the apex of the trend. Moses likely was influenced by Akenaten's heresy. He merged all of the male and female Hebrew Gods into one JHWH. Older Jewish manuscripts document the last stages of polytheism, with the plural Elohim.

So the soul, which has essentially lost all meaning in human behaviour, is essential for two reasons. It is part of the complex reasoning (using the term loosely) in creating God. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly is our delusional hope for immortality. We all want to live forever, but we know the body dies. So we can only be immortal if we have that ethereal something in us that outlasts the "mortal body."

This is why humans cling so tenaciously to the soul concept, immortality. And this leads to God and the Bible being defended so savagely from criticism. It contains all of the excuses for believing in spirits, souls, god, and immortality. Some Atheistic gomeral trying to destroy your immortality is the greatest possible threat.

Conchobar

Goober

Exactly, and without mind-body dualism then Christianity (and a lot of other religions) are left looking pretty stupid.

I'm sure there are plenty of Christians who would argue that people are not animals due to man's special significance to god or some other rubbish, despite the fact that there is no evidence to suggest we are not animals.

Keith Russell

Goober said:
So here's my challenge - prove that souls exist, and you'll have proved that religion is justified. Science could not explain the existence of the soul.

Wait a moment.

If I proved the existence of a soul, I would be 'doing' science. Science would then be able to explain the soul's existence, and such an explanation would separate the soul--now explained--from 'God' and 'religion', which would still have to rely on the old standby--arbitrary, 'blind' faith.

Nice try. Thanks for playing.

K

Goober

So religion could never have scientific evidence for it, and can only be supported by blind faith? How the hell did you arrive at that conclusion?

If someone found scientific evidence that proved the existence of god would you say "If I proved the existence of god, I would be 'doing' science. Science would then be able to explain god's existence, and such an explanation would separate god--now explained--from 'religion', which would still have to rely on the old standby--arbitrary, 'blind' faith."

Quick, you better go warn the creationists that by looking for evidence for god, they're disproving their religion!

Zee

interesting topic. I recommend that you go leave your room. Spend a night or two in haunted places. Bring your camera and take random pictures. Bring your tape recorder and turn it on the wole night. And, no, I'm not kidding. I did it and I've seen one of them. A lot of my friends saw those things as well. But because my personal experience does not make a good scientific proof, I reccomend you to bring your camera.

Even better, go and leave the Western world, and live for a few months in a community with strong shamanistic culture, and you will find crazy thing. Now, try to explain this:

In Bali, indonesia, they have a show for tourists called "Barong dance". At the end of the show, the dancers become "possesed", and they stab themselves with cold steel weapons. But the daggers cannot penetrate their skin. To end the "possesion", a hindhu priest will show up and sprinkle the holy water. You can go there and see it with your own eyes, it is a very nice place for a summer vacation.

Go to a charismatic church, and tell me what the hell is going on there. Those people speak in a very weird language, and I'm pretty sure that they are not faking it!

OK, in the future, maybe we will be able to explain it. But today, soul is a very good model.

fishbulb

Maybe you could explain this to me: I saw David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear in front of a live audience. Surely he must have magical powers to accomplish such a feat.

Unless, that is, you suppose that David Copperfield is a skilled illusionist who is capable of using suggestion, misdirection, and backstage manipulation to make it seem as though the statue was gone when, in fact, it was really still there.

I once saw a stage hypnotist convince an audience member that his shoe was a telephone and that a crank caller was constantly calling him on his shoe. The subject proceeded to take off his shoe, answer it, and eventually get very angry at the silent caller on the other end, yelling and cursing into the "phone."

Perhaps this hypnotist had magical powers, but perhaps he was skilled at manipulating susceptible people and putting them in states where they were willing to suspend disbelief and act as though reality was what he suggested it was.

If someone can make a gargantuan statue disappear right in front of people's eyes, and everyone in the audience could swear it had just vanished--even if they know it is just an illusioon--then what makes you think that a little show with daggers and holy water is too difficult to pull off?

If a stage performer who tells you upfront that he is going to hypnotize you and make you do embarrassing things can put an audience member in such a suggestible state that he begins yelling into his shoe, then what makes you think that believers in a church surrounded by other believers and led by a charismatic pastor can't be manipulated via group suggestion into speaking gibberish and believing that they are channeling the voice of God (or whatever they think it is)?