Freethought & Rationalism Archive

crocodile deathroll · 05-27-2003, 06:07 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Aradia
Since some of the posters in this thread seem to be a bit confused about my stance, I'll point it out for everyone:

1) I do not believe in souls.
2) I am not defending the existence of souls, I am defending a model for how souls could work *based on the premise* that they exist.

The subject is "What is a soul", and that is why I came to this thread. I was begging the question of existence in order to answer the question of "What is a soul". I am *not* discussing the actual existence, I am only discussing the mechanism by which a soul *could* work.

So quit trying to debate me like I'm a theist. I'm not, and I don't debate like theists.

Yes I do not believe in "souls" either in a plural sense. IMO the soul is just reality orientated around the observer, so the soul is just a singular entity like space and time are singular entities. You feel you are in the center of your own private little universe. That is an expression of soul, an emergent property of higher complexity.

This singular entity of the "soul" IMO is not responsible for the creation of the universe as a whole so this singular soul is not God, it is not even close.
However "God" by definition has become so ambiguous this emergent property of consciousness in the universe can be construed by a few as "god" but this is stretching tooooo longer bow.

This is why the number of people who believe in "God" have altered little over the past century. It is simply because they have redefined the word.

Gooch's dad · 05-27-2003, 07:45 AM

Just in case this definition hasn't been posted in the 4 pages of this thread that I haven't bothered to read:

Soul: n. 1: The part of the brain capable of believing it is not part of the brain.

-Kelly

Wounded King · 05-27-2003, 07:54 AM

Goober,

For that argument to be valid you need to be able to show that you can make a chip which exactly duplicates the functionality of a neuron. That would be a pretty big achievement. If you found that you couldnt do it would that indicate that the soul does exist?

TTFN,

Wounded

yguy · 05-27-2003, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by PandaJoe
So, you say that a thinking being necessarily is a conscious being,

No. As I pointed out earlier in the thread, to the degree that you are caught up in your thinking, you are UNconscious.

Quote:

and in turn necessarily has a soul. So how do you define thinking? If a being was presented with a series of events that required a response from that being, observed said events, analyzed them, and was able to conclude the best reaction to these events, would you say that this is a thinking being?

I suppose, except that the ability to make the final decision based on the analysis has nothing to do with thought, but everything to do with insight. For instance, you may know how to build bridges, but all that analytical acumen doesn't tell you whether you should build any particular bridge for any particular client.

yguy · 05-27-2003, 08:10 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Goober
Wow, long thread, so I'm just going to jump to the end and have my two cents about consciousness and the brain.

If you were to take a person, and surgically replace one of their neurons with a computer chip that was capable of doing the exact same thing as that neuron, would that person cease to be conscious? Clearly the answer is no.

If you were to then do it to another neuron, would they lose consciousness? Again, I don't see how anyone could argue that they would. Then you could just keep repeating this until all the neurons in their brain are now computer chips. They would still have to be conscious, because at no stage of the process did replacing one neuron with a chip make them cease to be conscious.

So now we can see that it is possible for a brain made entirely of man-made electronic parts, which don't have souls, so souls are not required for consciousness.

The analogy assumes the soul to be dependant on the brain for existence. There are no grounds for such an assumption; and if indeed the soul lives on in some other plane of existence the assumption is obviously false.

Gooch's dad · 05-27-2003, 08:34 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by yguy
The analogy assumes the soul to be dependant on the brain for existence. There are no grounds for such an assumption; and if indeed the soul lives on in some other plane of existence the assumption is obviously false.

There are very solid grounds for assuming that a soul, if it can process information, must be dependent on the brain for existence. The reason is based on the nature of information processing--it requires a physical system which expends energy to locally increase information (negentropic).

Machiavelli · 05-27-2003, 08:55 AM

I think your soul is simply that about you which is not defined by your physical body, nothing more. Does it exist? Or are we nothing more than sophisticated biological machines?

Do you believe that if somehow, your body could be identically duplicated down to the atomic level, that the person that resulted from it would be you in every way? Would you both always respond with the same emotion and reasoning?

I tend to think, perhaps egotistically, that there is something about me that makes me more than a biological machine.

Dune · 05-27-2003, 10:53 AM

Just for Jake-

Science does not know exactly how the brain works. They know that memory has something to do with either NMDA or non-NMDA receptors- but beyond that they do not know. Hence the hand waving. Also, they know that neurotrasmitters exist and the basic physiology of synapses and neurons, however they do not understand how the interaction of DA, 5HT, NE and EPI work to cause a desicion to be made. The basis for pharmacology of depression is evidence of this. If sciene completely understood how mood worked, then they would not need these drugs that have a "rich" pharmacology and could easily determine- quantifiably- how each dose would affect patients depressive states.
Science is a marvelous thing- but do not overestimate its knowledge. Im sure one day, we will know. Just not yet.

SimplyAtheistic · 05-27-2003, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dune
Just for Jake-

Science does not know exactly how the brain works. They know that memory has something to do with either NMDA or non-NMDA receptors- but beyond that they do not know. Hence the hand waving. Also, they know that neurotrasmitters exist and the basic physiology of synapses and neurons, however they do not understand how the interaction of DA, 5HT, NE and EPI work to cause a desicion to be made. The basis for pharmacology of depression is evidence of this. If sciene completely understood how mood worked, then they would not need these drugs that have a "rich" pharmacology and could easily determine- quantifiably- how each dose would affect patients depressive states.
Science is a marvelous thing- but do not overestimate its knowledge. Im sure one day, we will know. Just not yet.

This is true, but we have a basic understanding, and the finer points will soon be understood. The point I was trying to make is that there is no significant peace of the puzzle where we step back and say "Whoa, no idea here, must be a soul". Yguy seems to think that there is, though he lacks a definition and evidence.
Jake

yguy · 05-27-2003, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gooch's dad
There are very solid grounds for assuming that a soul, if it can process information, must be dependent on the brain for existence.

We don't know that a soul CAN process information, at least in the word- or number-crunching sense. In fact, I doubt that it can.

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05-27-2003, 07:45 AM	#112
Gooch's dad Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Madison WI USA Posts: 3,508	Just in case this definition hasn't been posted in the 4 pages of this thread that I haven't bothered to read: Soul: n. 1: The part of the brain capable of believing it is not part of the brain. -Kelly

05-27-2003, 07:54 AM	#113
Wounded King Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Edinburgh Posts: 1,211	Goober, For that argument to be valid you need to be able to show that you can make a chip which exactly duplicates the functionality of a neuron. That would be a pretty big achievement. If you found that you couldnt do it would that indicate that the soul does exist? TTFN, Wounded

05-27-2003, 08:55 AM	#117
Machiavelli Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: South Georgia Posts: 1,676	I think your soul is simply that about you which is not defined by your physical body, nothing more. Does it exist? Or are we nothing more than sophisticated biological machines? Do you believe that if somehow, your body could be identically duplicated down to the atomic level, that the person that resulted from it would be you in every way? Would you both always respond with the same emotion and reasoning? I tend to think, perhaps egotistically, that there is something about me that makes me more than a biological machine.

05-27-2003, 10:53 AM	#118
Dune Junior Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: Oregon Posts: 65	Just for Jake- Science does not know exactly how the brain works. They know that memory has something to do with either NMDA or non-NMDA receptors- but beyond that they do not know. Hence the hand waving. Also, they know that neurotrasmitters exist and the basic physiology of synapses and neurons, however they do not understand how the interaction of DA, 5HT, NE and EPI work to cause a desicion to be made. The basis for pharmacology of depression is evidence of this. If sciene completely understood how mood worked, then they would not need these drugs that have a "rich" pharmacology and could easily determine- quantifiably- how each dose would affect patients depressive states. Science is a marvelous thing- but do not overestimate its knowledge. Im sure one day, we will know. Just not yet.

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