Since my early childhood, I have wondered what makes me experience the world through this particular body.
My simple question is, why do I not experience the world through EVERYONES body, why don't _I_ experience the world from the perspective of each and every living creature at the same time?
The question gets no less complex by the fact that Time is an illusion according to leading physicists. According to modern science, time is an illusion, and the past and present and future is all the same.
So why don't I experience every event in the universe at once?
Logically I should do so, if there exists no conscioness as an entity or mass, otherwise known as a "soul".
I am perfectly aware of the scientific fact that my actions can be predicted by about 6 seconds before I myself recognize I will be doing the action. This has been shown in numerous scientific experiments.
Scientists then claim this is evidence that consciouness is part of the brain. But I don't see it as such, because it only explains where my thoughts come from, what
it doesn't explain is why I am experiencing only the thoughts inside MY brain, not the ones in other brains. Why am I aware at all and why do I only experience local awareness?
Quote from: "mediumaevum"Since my early childhood, I have wondered what makes me experience the world through this particular body.
Because you are that body.
You are not a unique and beautiful snowflake.
You are made of meat.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"Since my early childhood, I have wondered what makes me experience the world through this particular body.
My simple question is, why do I not experience the world through EVERYONES body, why don't _I_ experience the world from the perspective of each and every living creature at the same time?
The question gets no less complex by the fact that Time is an illusion according to leading physicists. According to modern science, time is an illusion, and the past and present and future is all the same.
So why don't I experience every event in the universe at once?
Logically I should do so, if there exists no conscioness as an entity or mass, otherwise known as a "soul".
I am perfectly aware of the scientific fact that my actions can be predicted by about 6 seconds before I myself recognize I will be doing the action. This has been shown in numerous scientific experiments.
Scientists then claim this is evidence that consciouness is part of the brain. But I don't see it as such, because it only explains where my thoughts come from, what
it doesn't explain is why I am experiencing only the thoughts inside MY brain, not the ones in other brains. Why am I aware at all and why do I only experience local awareness?
This post is so full of errors and fallacies I don't know where to start. So I won't.
Quote from: "Jmpty"Quote from: "mediumaevum"Since my early childhood, I have wondered what makes me experience the world through this particular body.
My simple question is, why do I not experience the world through EVERYONES body, why don't _I_ experience the world from the perspective of each and every living creature at the same time?
The question gets no less complex by the fact that Time is an illusion according to leading physicists. According to modern science, time is an illusion, and the past and present and future is all the same.
So why don't I experience every event in the universe at once?
Logically I should do so, if there exists no conscioness as an entity or mass, otherwise known as a "soul".
I am perfectly aware of the scientific fact that my actions can be predicted by about 6 seconds before I myself recognize I will be doing the action. This has been shown in numerous scientific experiments.
Scientists then claim this is evidence that consciouness is part of the brain. But I don't see it as such, because it only explains where my thoughts come from, what
it doesn't explain is why I am experiencing only the thoughts inside MY brain, not the ones in other brains. Why am I aware at all and why do I only experience local awareness?
This post is so full of errors and fallacies I don't know where to start. So I won't.
That's a bit too easy to dismiss a post by saying so. I don't see any errors. If there are that many errors, you could at least point out 2 or 3 of them.
Also, if you have no intention of answering my questions, why did you write a post at all anyway?
That comment is as worthless as anything can be. It has no value. Why did you take your time to write nonsense, if you don't want to answer my topic with a serious approach?
Quote from: "the_antithesis"Quote from: "mediumaevum"Since my early childhood, I have wondered what makes me experience the world through this particular body.
Because you are that body.
You are not a unique and beautiful snowflake.
You are made of meat.
I don't see how that alone should disqualify me or others from seing the world from the all-knowing perspective.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"I don't see how that alone should disqualify me or others from seing the world from the all-knowing perspective.
You do not see the universe from an all-knowing perspective because you are not everything.
You are just a tiny, insignificant piece and as such have a tiny, insignificant perspective.
Quote from: "the_antithesis"Quote from: "mediumaevum"I don't see how that alone should disqualify me or others from seing the world from the all-knowing perspective.
You do not see the universe from an all-knowing perspective because you are not everything.
You are just a tiny, insignificant piece and as such have a tiny, insignificant perspective.
Is it not correct that according to some quantum physicists, everything is one and the same?
If everything is just the product of a singularity, why don't we see everything at once?
If I am just made of flesh and blood, why do I percieve awareness and consciouness at all?
Consciusness is awareness of of Chuck Norris.
There is a lot more than many are willing to admit about how consciousness works. The typical atheist will only allow for the material part of the brain, because that is fairly well understood. But, how that material actually works, is not well understood.
I think this video may show just how complicated things in our brain are:
[youtube:230huflo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FsH7RK1S2E[/youtube:230huflo]
Note, that towards the end where the scientist casually mentions that his colleagues didn't think his experiment would work. There are a bunch of naysayers out there which will not consider anything other than the physical brain as being able to influence us. Then some guy, like the guy in the video, comes along and shows us something amazing about the brain.
Point being, mediumaevum may be on to something. We may not have the vocabulary to talk about it and we may be prejudiced against it, because of all of the charlatans out there, but I don't see why we should just dismiss mediumaevum's questions as being flawed. In fact, I think it is an interesting topic.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"Is it not correct that according to some quantum physicists, everything is one and the same?
I'm certain our resident physicist will better be able to say where you are misrepresenting quantum physics, but no. Everything is not one and the same, Deepak. If it were, then rape would just be masturbation.
QuoteIf I am just made of flesh and blood, why do I percieve awareness and consciouness at all?
Because meat has evolved sensory organs to better avoid being eaten.
You seem to enjoy asking really stupid questions and pretend they're deep. It's annoying and I'd prefer you to stop it.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"There is a lot more than many are willing to admit about how consciousness works. The typical atheist will only allow for the material part of the brain, because that is fairly well understood. But, how that material actually works, is not well understood.
I think this video may show just how complicated things in our brain are:
Writer posted a YouTube video (//http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FsH7RK1S2E&feature=youtu.be)
Note, that towards the end where the scientist casually mentions that his colleagues didn't think his experiment would work. There are a bunch of naysayers out there which will not consider anything other than the physical brain as being able to influence us. Then some guy, like the guy in the video, comes along and shows us something amazing about the brain.
Point being, mediumaevum may be on to something. We may not have the vocabulary to talk about it and we may be prejudiced against it, because of all of the charlatans out there, but I don't see why we should just dismiss mediumaevum's questions as being flawed. In fact, I think it is an interesting topic.
Oh, good. more wank.
Okay, genius. Before this goes anywhere, please explain how something immaterial interacts with the material.
I would ask you to explain what the immaterial is, but you cannot. So I won't.
I think the_antithesis pretty much said it. You can only experience the perspective of your body because, as you mention science has confirmed, your thoughts and personality come from your brain. The only reason you would expect to see other people's perspectives is if you had this "soul" that is supposedly independent of your body. Why you would expect this from a lack of one, I honestly cannot fathom.
Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"I think the_antithesis pretty much said it. You can only experience the perspective of your body because, as you mention science has confirmed, your thoughts and personality come from your brain. The only reason you would expect to see other people's perspectives is if you had this "soul" that is supposedly independent of your body. Why you would expect this from a lack of one, I honestly cannot fathom.
Either I should experience everything or nothing.
As I only experience something and only locally, I think it is no wonder why people think there is a soul, unless it gets explained why we experience anything at all.
My thoughts come from my brain. But why do I percieve them at all? Why am I aware of these thoughts produced by my brain?
mediumaevum wrote in part:
QuoteMy simple question is, why do I not experience the world through EVERYONES body, why don't _I_ experience the world from the perspective of each and every living creature at the same time?
My thought would be, how could your brain handle that much information and still be able to do the job of taking care of your body? Think about it, do you consciously take every breath, or for that matter regulate your heart beats? Why do we close our eyes when we think really hard about something? It is because of the limits our brain and body impose on us.
mediumaevum wrote in part:
QuoteI am perfectly aware of the scientific fact that my actions can be predicted by about 6 seconds before I myself recognize I will be doing the action. This has been shown in numerous scientific experiments.
It might help the discussion, if you could point us at some of these studies. I seem to remember something about them from my own research, but forget where they were. I also recall a study where a person in one room is seemingly able to communicate with a person in another room. They weren't able to convey ideas, but when a flash occurred in one room, the other person perceived the flash as well. Studies like this are not common and are generally written off as being irrelevant or simply as woo-woo. Still, they are out there somewhere and may indicate somethings are going on which cannot be explained simply by a material brain.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"Either I should experience everything or nothing.
That is fucking stupid.
QuoteAs I only experience something and only locally, I think it is no wonder why people think there is a soul, unless it gets explained why we experience anything at all.
Because you are meat. I've already said this. You just don't seem to be smart enough to acknowledge this, much less accept it.
[quoteMy thoughts come from my brain. But why do I percieve them at all? Why am I aware of these thoughts produced by my brain?[/quote]
Because you are your brain. If you don't believe me, destroy your brain and see if you're still here.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"Quote from: "the_antithesis"Quote from: "mediumaevum"I don't see how that alone should disqualify me or others from seing the world from the all-knowing perspective.
You do not see the universe from an all-knowing perspective because you are not everything.
You are just a tiny, insignificant piece and as such have a tiny, insignificant perspective.
Is it not correct that according to some quantum physicists, everything is one and the same?
No.
(//http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff277/josephpalazzo/Elementaryparticles-II.png) (//http://s243.photobucket.com/user/josephpalazzo/media/Elementaryparticles-II.png.html)
Quote from: "mediumaevum"Either I should experience everything or nothing.
Why is it either/or? Your brain networks through the nervous system, and your nervous system does not extend to the whole universe; nor is there reason to expect it would.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"As I only experience something and only locally, I think it is no wonder why people think there is a soul, unless it gets explained why we experience anything at all.
Because that is what your brain does. This is not a difficult concept.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"My thoughts come from my brain. But why do I perceive them at all? Why am I aware of these thoughts produced by my brain?
Because your brain possesses the internal networking and software to do so.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"There is a lot more than many are willing to admit about how consciousness works. The typical atheist will only allow for the material part of the brain, because that is fairly well understood. But, how that material actually works, is not well understood.
The brain is well-understood but not well understood? :-k #-o
And what exactly is the non-physical part of the brain? :-?
QuoteNote, that towards the end where the scientist casually mentions that his colleagues didn't think his experiment would work. There are a bunch of naysayers out there which will not consider anything other than the physical brain as being able to influence us.
The video does not support your claim at all. It simply shows that one can reconstruct what one is looking at with a map of brain activity. None of this is non-physical.
QuotePoint being, mediumaevum may be on to something.
A sucker is born every day.
QuoteWe may not have the vocabulary to talk about it and we may be prejudiced against it, because of all of the charlatans out there, but I don't see why we should just dismiss mediumaevum's questions as being flawed. In fact, I think it is an interesting topic.
When it isn't fodder for dualism-of-the-gaps.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"Either I should experience everything or nothing.
//http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
Hydra009 wrote in part:
QuoteThe brain is well-understood but not well understood? :-k #-o
And what exactly is the non-physical part of the brain? :-?
The physical parts of the brain are pretty well understood. The interactions of how those parts actually interact are not as well understood. Consider the fact that we are not able to cure depression with drugs all of the time. The drugs we have only work for about half the people taking them. And both with and without drugs psychologists find actually working with patients to "view" the world differently helps. Why is this the case if the brain is just a material organ which can be manipulated as we want physically?
Hydra009 wrote in part:
QuoteThe video does not support your claim at all. It simply shows that one can reconstruct what one is looking at with a map of brain activity. None of this is non-physical.
The point I was trying to make, is that naysayers would have stopped this work if the scientist had listened to them. Trying to explore the metaphysical can help us to understand things better. Consider that chemistry was started by the alchemists and that the astrologers started astronomy. Sometimes it is good to question our paradigms. By so doing we may find new ways of perceiving things which lead to advancements in science. And it is not science to just put down new ideas without any research to support your counter claims.
Hydra009 wrote in part:
QuoteWhen it isn't fodder for dualism-of-the-gaps.
Just because people can misuse new information is no reason not to strive to gain new information. Have you considered that your personal prejudices against religion may be adversely affecting your abilities to rationally consider some ideas? Even if the ideas are flawed, don't you think we should be able to say more exactly why they are flawed? Seems to me one of the first thing we should consider when examining new ideas, is what our personal prejudices are so that we can take them into account while we think about the idea's validity.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Why is this the case if the brain is just a material organ which can be manipulated as we want physically?
Because the brain is a complex system and it is stupid to try to explain a complex system with magic.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"I think the_antithesis pretty much said it. You can only experience the perspective of your body because, as you mention science has confirmed, your thoughts and personality come from your brain. The only reason you would expect to see other people's perspectives is if you had this "soul" that is supposedly independent of your body. Why you would expect this from a lack of one, I honestly cannot fathom.
Either I should experience everything or nothing.
As I only experience something and only locally, I think it is no wonder why people think there is a soul, unless it gets explained why we experience anything at all.
My thoughts come from my brain. But why do I percieve them at all? Why am I aware of these thoughts produced by my brain?
This is the most ridiculous statement so far. Who is this "I" You are referring too, that exists apart from your brain? Or from your thoughts? Think about it for a second. How am I aware of my own thoughts? Um,....whut?
the_antithesis wrote:
QuoteBecause the brain is a complex system and it is stupid to try to explain a complex system with magic.
I'm not trying to explain the brain with magic. What I think should be explored with science, is how our thought processes actually work. Although I know many people may disagree that psychology is a science, at least it tries to understand how the processes of the brain work. I personally don't think psychology is magic or hokum. And psychological studies can help those who are examining the inner material workings of the brain by letting them know what they are looking for. While it is true psychology may be considered to be the alchemy of brain sciences, it still has a useful place in our understanding of how the brain works.
Quote from: "Jmpty"Quote from: "mediumaevum"Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"I think the_antithesis pretty much said it. You can only experience the perspective of your body because, as you mention science has confirmed, your thoughts and personality come from your brain. The only reason you would expect to see other people's perspectives is if you had this "soul" that is supposedly independent of your body. Why you would expect this from a lack of one, I honestly cannot fathom.
Either I should experience everything or nothing.
As I only experience something and only locally, I think it is no wonder why people think there is a soul, unless it gets explained why we experience anything at all.
My thoughts come from my brain. But why do I percieve them at all? Why am I aware of these thoughts produced by my brain?
This is the most ridiculous statement so far. Who is this "I" You are referring too, that exists apart from your brain? Or from your thoughts? Think about it for a second. How am I aware of my own thoughts? Um,....whut?
According to my logic, there should exist only matter and no consciousness or awareness.
Yet cogito ergo sum proves that theory to be false.
I then wonder why.
IF there exists awareness, it should be false, as in Artificial Intelligence that doesn't really own any emotions.
In fact, I am now closer to believe that I am the only human on planet Earth who possess true emotions and everyone else are... biological robots.
How can I be sure that when you show pain, it really does hurt inside you, the same way it would do if I got hurt the same way?
How can I be sure that your reactions are not coded and are purely biochemical coding similar to artificial intelligence or a movie and that you don't really feel anything?
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"The point I was trying to make, is that naysayers would have stopped this work if the scientist had listened to them. Trying to explore the metaphysical can help us to understand things better. Consider that chemistry was started by the alchemists and that the astrologers started astronomy.
No. Chemists started chemistry and astronomers started astronomy. The reason these scientific fields exist at all is because early scientists took a muddled mess of guesswork/superstition, systematized the data and checked it for accuracy.
QuoteTrying to explore the metaphysical can help us to understand things better.
(//http://i.imgur.com/m6zOvud.png)
QuoteSometimes it is good to question our paradigms. By so doing we may find new ways of perceiving things which lead to advancements in science.
The talking point of every charlatan. (And a few who actually did advance science) The key difference between the two is that the real deal can substantiate one's claim, while the charlatan can only pretend.
QuoteJust because people can misuse new information is no reason not to strive to gain new information. Have you considered that your personal prejudices against religion may be adversely affecting your abilities to rationally consider some ideas?
Well, let's see, do I reject the idea that the brain is at least partly non-physical because I'm personally prejudiced against it?
Survey says... X
The correct answer was because because it's a bald assertion with no evidence whatsoever.
Thanks for playing. Buh-bye.
QuoteEven if the ideas are flawed, don't you think we should be able to say more exactly why they are flawed?
Volumes and volumes have already been written. Especially on mediumaevum's ghost in the machine idea (which btw, is something of a dead horse nowadays) but also your self-contradictory non-physical brain idea and oddly nonspecific predilection for "exploring the metaphysical".
[youtube:4f0amyce]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS4PW35-Y00[/youtube:4f0amyce]
Quote from: "mediumaevum"According to my logic, there should exist only matter and no consciousness or awareness.
Yet cogito ergo sum proves that theory to be false.
What is conscious awareness? How do you define conscious awareness? If it's everything you touch, hear, taste, smell, see, and ultimately process into memory, experience, emotions, etc., then conscious awareness is nothing more than electro-chemical reactions in your brain. If that is the case, what need is there for a separate "soul?"
The rest of your post is irrelevant until you can properly define your terms. Please answer this.
Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"Quote from: "mediumaevum"According to my logic, there should exist only matter and no consciousness or awareness.
Yet cogito ergo sum proves that theory to be false.
What is conscious awareness? How do you define conscious awareness? If it's everything you touch, hear, taste, smell, see, and ultimately process into memory, experience, emotions, etc., then conscious awareness is nothing more than electro-chemical reactions in your brain. If that is the case, what need is there for a separate "soul?"
The rest of your post is irrelevant until you can properly define your terms. Please answer this.
I personally define conscious awareness as being aware of your own existence.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"According to my logic, there should exist only matter and no consciousness or awareness.
Since that isn't the case, your logic is wrong. Modus tollens ftw.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"I personally define conscious awareness as being aware of your own existence, not necessarily by senses like touch, hear, taste, smell, see etc. but more like if I close my eyes and lie in a totally quite room where there are nobody else and I am not disturbed, I often see, hear and touch a totally different world. I have no control of my own thoughts, and I even doubt whether they are thoughts at all, as they seem so real.
If you are any type of creature with a nerve center advanced enough to form memories and experience from processed information, then you are going to be aware of your own existence. By the time you get to our level, you have a nerve center advanced enough to self-reflect and use idle processing power to plan, conceptualize, and fit information into a larger picture to make more sense of the world. A by-product of this is that we are capable of asking the question, "Why am I here?"
None of this requires an external structure beyond the brain. So whence cometh the soul?
Quote from: "mediumaevum"According to my logic, there should exist only matter and no consciousness or awareness.
Yet cogito ergo sum proves that theory to be false.
I then wonder why.
IF there exists awareness, it should be false, as in Artificial Intelligence that doesn't really own any emotions.
In fact, I am now closer to believe that I am the only human on planet Earth who possess true emotions and everyone else are... biological robots.
How can I be sure that when you show pain, it really does hurt inside you, the same way it would do if I got hurt the same way?
How can I be sure that your reactions are not coded and are purely biochemical coding similar to artificial intelligence or a movie and that you don't really feel anything?
Wank.
Hydra wrote in part:
QuoteNo. Chemists started chemistry and astronomers started astronomy. The reason these scientific fields exist at all is because early scientists took a muddled mess of guesswork/superstition, systematized the data and checked it for accuracy.
I respectfully disagree. As do many others.
QuoteAlchemy is recognized as a protoscience that contributed to the development of modern chemistry and medicine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy)
Through most of its history, astrology was considered a scholarly tradition. It was accepted in political and academic contexts, and was connected with other studies, such as astronomy, alchemy, meteorology, and medicine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology)
Hydra009 wrote in part:
QuoteThe talking point of every charlatan. (And a few who actually did advance science) The key difference between the two is that the real deal can substantiate one's claim, while the charlatan can only pretend.
This is a statement I can agree with. It is up to us to discern the differences when claims are made.
QuoteQuoteQuote:LTB
Just because people can misuse new information is no reason not to strive to gain new information. Have you considered that your personal prejudices against religion may be adversely affecting your abilities to rationally consider some ideas?
Well, let's see, do I reject the idea that the brain is at least partly non-physical because I'm personally prejudiced against it?
Survey says... X
The correct answer was because because it's a bald assertion with no evidence whatsoever.
Thanks for playing. Buh-bye.
By asserting I said things I didn't, I actually think you proved my hypothesis. Thanks for playing.
Hydra wrote in part:
QuoteVolumes and volumes have already been written. Especially on mediumaevum's ghost in the machine idea (which btw, is something of a dead horse nowadays) but also your self-contradictory non-physical brain idea and oddly nonspecific predilection for "exploring the metaphysical".
What non-physical brain? What I am trying to point out is we don't really have a handle on how the brain does its' thing. By trying to find a "soul" scientists might actually learn better how the brain works. Like how the scientist was able to better determine how we see, in the video I posted, after the naysayers said he couldn't do it.
The brain is a complex device. Looking at it from many different angles is necessary. If we arbitrarily decide some angles are not worth looking at, we may miss things for a very long time. Open your minds and consider if something can't be learned from mediumaevum's seeming ramblings. If you can't do that, then don't tell me you are a free-thinkers. Which admittedly no one has asserted.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"What non-physical brain? What I am trying to point out is we don't really have a handle on how the brain does its' thing. By trying to find a "soul" scientists might actually learn better how the brain works. Like how the scientist was able to better determine how we see, in the video I posted, after the naysayers said he couldn't do it.
The brain is a complex device. Looking at it from many different angles is necessary. If we arbitrarily decide some angles are not worth looking at, we may miss things for a very long time. Open your minds and consider if something can't be learned from mediumaevum's seeming ramblings. If you can't do that, then don't tell me you are a free-thinkers. Which admittedly no one has asserted.
What is a soul? How would one define it? To test for it, it must exist in the physical universe so what is it in the physical universe?
The soul, or the ghost in the machine, is a gap filler. Certain phenomenon are shady at best, and some people believe out of touch with mainstream science, so they jump to a conclusion that the soul must be the missing factor to explain what they otherwise aren't knowledgeable about/there is no explanation for.
Icarus wrote:
QuoteWhat is a soul? How would one define it? To test for it, it must exist in the physical universe so what is it in the physical universe?
Good question. My answer would be the function of the brain which makes us self aware. I don't see it as something like a pituitary gland which can be observed and measured easily. More like the information held in the hard discs of a computer. How we access our memories and process them is what makes us what we are. This would be our soul. IMHO.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Icarus wrote: QuoteWhat is a soul? How would one define it? To test for it, it must exist in the physical universe so what is it in the physical universe?
Good question. My answer would be the function of the brain which makes us self aware. I don't see it as something like a pituitary gland which can be observed and measured easily. More like the information held in the hard discs of a computer. How we access our memories and process them is what makes us what we are. This would be our soul. IMHO.
If it's not a gland or a non-neural cell, you're suggesting there is something in each neuron that is responsible for the soul. It's not an unknown organelle or a chemical as we are aware of most if not all of them in the brain (organelles definitely). The mechanisms are what we're currently working on and the soul couldn't be mechanistic because that would make the soul the brain, not something different. The soul can't be how we access our memories because that's just chemical impulses relaying stored sensory information to our prefrontal cortex (I think it's the prefrontal cortex, I'm not a neuroscientist).
Icarus wrote in part:
QuoteIf it's not a gland or a non-neural cell, you're suggesting there is something in each neuron that is responsible for the soul. It's not an unknown organelle or a chemical as we are aware of most if not all of them in the brain (organelles definitely). The mechanisms are what we're currently working on and the soul couldn't be mechanistic because that would make the soul the brain, not something different. The soul can't be how we access our memories because that's just chemical impulses relaying stored sensory information to our prefrontal cortex (I think it's the prefrontal cortex, I'm not a neuroscientist).
I'm not a neuroscientist either. I think of the brain as a computer. Not the best way I am sure. But consider how a computer accesses memories off of the hard drives. it points at a particular location address and then loads the information into the RAM for quick access to the CPU which outputs in some matter. How does our brain actually address and locate stored information?
Yeah, there are chemical processes going on which undoubtedly effect the way we think, but we are the ones who put on the "addresses" as to where and how we access the stored memories. Now it is not necessarily physical, just like the information on our hard drives is not actually physical. It is just a bunch of bits configured in a specific way and held there by magnetic coding. There are physical connections, but the computer and our brain operate differently depending on how and what software or memories are being used and are stored. The how is the "soul" of a being. Maybe not the dictionary definition, but something I can conceive of. Goes back to the vocabulary thing I talked about earlier.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"I'm not a neuroscientist either. I think of the brain as a computer. Not the best way I am sure. But consider how a computer accesses memories off of the hard drives. it points at a particular location address and then loads the information into the RAM for quick access to the CPU which outputs in some matter. How does our brain actually address and locate stored information?
Yeah, there are chemical processes going on which undoubtedly effect the way we think, but we are the ones who put on the "addresses" as to where and how we access the stored memories. Now it is not necessarily physical, just like the information on our hard drives is not actually physical. It is just a bunch of bits configured in a specific way and held there by magnetic coding. There are physical connections, but the computer and our brain operate differently depending on how and what software or memories are being used and are stored. The how is the "soul" of a being. Maybe not the dictionary definition, but something I can conceive of. Goes back to the vocabulary thing I talked about earlier.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/1234 ... al-neurons (http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/123485-mit-discovers-the-location-of-memories-individual-neurons)
I still don't know what a soul is so I'm having problems understanding how you can conceive of one.
My idea of a soul came from the story of a young girl who had an accident and completely lost her memory. All of it. Not partial amnesia, she had to relearn everything. She had to learn how to talk, walk, feed herself, I mean everything. Once she learned how to talk well enough, she complained to her family that they seemed to think she was the girl they knew before the accident. She knew she occupied the same body, but she didn't think of herself as the other girl. The other girl lost her "soul" in the accident. Now the body had a new "soul" and the girl was a different girl. Not the other girl before the accident.
It would be like if your hard drive got reformatted. You would put new information in, maybe a new operating system. Then you would have to reload programs, leaving some out and adding new ones. While the computer is physically the same, it is a new computer in a way. Does that help at all?
A "soul" is just a possibility. The game of "your so stupid" is childish. Everyone has been respectful and reasonable. Good topic med. And I didnt even like you b4. :). Continue on
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"My idea of a soul came from the story of a young girl who had an accident and completely lost her memory. All of it. Not partial amnesia, she had to relearn everything. She had to learn how to talk, walk, feed herself, I mean everything. Once she learned how to talk well enough, she complained to her family that they seemed to think she was the girl they knew before the accident. She knew she occupied the same body, but she didn't think of herself as the other girl. The other girl lost her "soul" in the accident. Now the body had a new "soul" and the girl was a different girl. Not the other girl before the accident.
It would be like if your hard drive got reformatted. You would put new information in, maybe a new operating system. Then you would have to reload programs, leaving some out and adding new ones. While the computer is physically the same, it is a new computer in a way. Does that help at all?
While that is an interesting story, which I would be interested in hearing the whole thing, that seems to go against the point you are trying to make. Here you've shown that physical damage to the brain causes it to act out of the normal range, not a surprise.
TrueStory wrote:
QuoteWhile that is an interesting story, which I would be interested in hearing the whole thing, that seems to go against the point you are trying to make. Here you've shown that physical damage to the brain causes it to act out of the normal range, not a surprise.
I don't think it goes against the point I am trying to make at all. The "soul" to me is the memories and how we access those memories which make who we are. It is our consciousness. Not the religious "soul" which is pushed at churches, mosques and such. It is not a forever thing living in our heart. It is just how our consciousness works making us who we are.
I do not think science has a good grasp of how all of it works. They just know how it is wired, not how we address and locate memories to do what we do. This is the "soul" which needs to be found and understood in my opinion. The answer may not come from neuroscientists, but maybe from psychologists or astronomers. Maybe some amateur radio operator will come up with an idea which blows us all away. Like that patent clerk did way back when.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"It would be like if your hard drive got reformatted. You would put new information in, maybe a new operating system. Then you would have to reload programs, leaving some out and adding new ones. While the computer is physically the same, it is a new computer in a way. Does that help at all?
The computer is not completely physically the same. The hard drive was reformatted. Computer programs are stored physically on the hard drive. It is physically different.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"TrueStory wrote: QuoteWhile that is an interesting story, which I would be interested in hearing the whole thing, that seems to go against the point you are trying to make. Here you've shown that physical damage to the brain causes it to act out of the normal range, not a surprise.
I don't think it goes against the point I am trying to make at all. The "soul" to me is the memories and how we access those memories which make who we are. It is our consciousness. Not the religious "soul" which is pushed at churches, mosques and such. It is not a forever thing living in our heart. It is just how our consciousness works making us who we are.
I do not think science has a good grasp of how all of it works. They just know how it is wired, not how we address and locate memories to do what we do. This is the "soul" which needs to be found and understood in my opinion. The answer may not come from neuroscientists, but maybe from psychologists or astronomers. Maybe some amateur radio operator will come up with an idea which blows us all away. Like that patent clerk did way back when.
That seems like a fun way to think about it but it doesn't seem to me that a "soul" adds anything to how memory or consciousness actually works. Do you have a good grasp of what science thinks about it? What level of understanding are you looking for?
the_antithesis wrote:
QuoteThe computer is not completely physically the same. The hard drive was reformatted. Computer programs are stored physically on the hard drive. It is physically different.
It's an analogy. Besides, from second to second our brains are physically changing too.
TrueStory wrote:
QuoteThat seems like a fun way to think about it but it doesn't seem to me that a "soul" adds anything to how memory or consciousness actually works. Do you have a good grasp of what science thinks about it? What level of understanding are you looking for?
Another way to look at it, is that I am using the "soul" to mean an individual's memory, consciousness, and how they all work together. Just a shorthand, like saying the CPU, RAM, hard drives, GPU, etc. are a "computer." Which is not what "computer" originally meant.
As far as having a good grasp of what science thinks about it, hell no. What I know I learned by reading a few articles and watching some documentaries. As far as the level I am looking for, I want to know exactly how it works. I know it is unlikely I or anyone else will completely understand how the brain works, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Look how far we have advanced in alchemy, by trying to better understand it.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"TrueStory wrote: QuoteWhile that is an interesting story, which I would be interested in hearing the whole thing, that seems to go against the point you are trying to make. Here you've shown that physical damage to the brain causes it to act out of the normal range, not a surprise.
I don't think it goes against the point I am trying to make at all. The "soul" to me is the memories and how we access those memories which make who we are. It is our consciousness. Not the religious "soul" which is pushed at churches, mosques and such. It is not a forever thing living in our heart. It is just how our consciousness works making us who we are.
I do not think science has a good grasp of how all of it works. They just know how it is wired, not how we address and locate memories to do what we do. This is the "soul" which needs to be found and understood in my opinion. The answer may not come from neuroscientists, but maybe from psychologists or astronomers. Maybe some amateur radio operator will come up with an idea which blows us all away. Like that patent clerk did way back when.
I wonder if what you are looking for is what it is that makes the neural activity coherent. There clearly are times when neural activity lacks in coherence; e.g., epileptic seizures. I have a conjecture about the coherence of mentality arising from synchronized firings of neurons; e.g., the alpha and beta brainwave coherent patterns.
Aside from that conjecture, I also have an intuition that looking at the development of the embryonic to fetal neural system development from the individual cell level to the tissue level to the organ level will give us valuable insights into how the neural system becomes coherent - that coherence being the genesis of coherent mentality. To put it in terms of the personal meaning of that coherence, I wouldn't object to the use of the term "soul" (sans overt religious denotations and connotations).
In a poetic sense, I tend to think of the neural activity that gives rise to the phenomenon of mentality as being a swirl of energy distribution in a sea of energy. What's fascinating about the swirl is that it can model what sensory inputs are "saying" the world is like - the energy swirl creates a model of itself in the world. That model takes on the perspective given to it by the sensory inputs that are the data for creation of the model. It's like the energy swirl gives the universal sea of energy of which it is a part the ability to see itself - but see only through the limited perspective provided by our senses.
It may not be possible to have a universal perspective - maybe to be a coherent swirl of awareness, the perspective has to be from some particular perspective of space and time.
It could be that the spatial/temporally localized energy swirl of mentality is a pattern within a universally coherent pattern of energy (metaphorically, a soul that is in union with all). I don't know how it could be determined that that is the case. I'm not sure what science can tell us about the question of whether or not there is a universally coherent pattern of energy (in which there are subpatterns of energy swirls). It seems as though quantum indeterminacy and things like the Second Law of Thermodynamics might imply an answer one way or the other, but maybe not.
I may have missed the import of your questions. If so, I apologize... but it was fun to think about.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"Is it not correct that according to some quantum physicists, everything is one and the same?
No, it's not correct (although some scientifically illiterate science writer may have said that).
QuoteIf everything is just the product of a singularity, why don't we see everything at once?
For the same reason that, even though you and your brother are products of the same parents, you're not the same people.
QuoteIf I am just made of flesh and blood, why do I percieve awareness and consciouness at all?
We're not quite sure yet.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"My thoughts come from my brain. But why do I percieve them at all? Why am I aware of these thoughts produced by my brain?
Evolution. If your far distant ancestors hadn't evolved the ability, they would have been meat plants, easily grazed by carnivores before they had lived long enough to reproduce.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"I think of the brain as a computer. Not the best way I am sure. But consider how a computer accesses memories off of the hard drives. it points at a particular location address and then loads the information into the RAM for quick access to the CPU which outputs in some matter. How does our brain actually address and locate stored information?
VERY bad analogy. The brain is more like Data Addressable Memory, where the "address" IS the data. But the brain stores the same data redundantly in many places at once, so it's really nothing like a computer.
QuoteNow it is not necessarily physical, just like the information on our hard drives is not actually physical. It is just a bunch of bits configured in a specific way and held there by magnetic coding.
No, the magnetic coding IS the data (the bits are magnetizations of very small domains of ferric material), and it's VERY MUCH physical. Data storage in a computer is 100% physical, whether it's on a hard drive, an optical disk, a memory chip or a punched card. And what happens to "record" the data is a physical process, acting on a physical "thing". There's no "non-physical" part of a computer's "memory".
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Hydra wrote in part: QuoteNo. Chemists started chemistry and astronomers started astronomy. The reason these scientific fields exist at all is because early scientists took a muddled mess of guesswork/superstition, systematized the data and checked it for accuracy.
I respectfully disagree. As do many others.
QuoteAlchemy is recognized as a protoscience that contributed to the development of modern chemistry and medicine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy)
Through most of its history, astrology was considered a scholarly tradition. It was accepted in political and academic contexts, and was connected with other studies, such as astronomy, alchemy, meteorology, and medicine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology)
Apparently, you didn't dig around very much, or you'd notice nuggets like this:
"Boyle appealed to chemists to experiment and asserted that experiments denied the limiting of chemical elements to only the classic four: earth, fire, air, and water. He also pleaded that chemistry should cease to be subservient to medicine or to alchemy, and rise to the status of a science. Importantly,
he advocated a rigorous approach to scientific experiment: he believed all theories must be proved experimentally before being regarded as true. The work contains some of the earliest modern ideas of atoms, molecules, and chemical reaction, and marks the beginning of the history of modern chemistry."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... bert_Boyle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chemistry#Robert_Boyle)
The differences between the two approaches couldn't be more stark.
Read up on the Scientific Revolution. It's quite fascinating. It also runs directly counter to your assertion that "trying to explore the metaphysical can help us to understand things better.". Rather, it was the eschewing of mystical mumbo-jumbo and an insistence on testable hypotheses that lead to great scientific strides.
QuoteWhat non-physical brain?
You objected to the idea that the brain is purely physical: "There are a bunch of naysayers out there which will not consider anything other than the physical brain as being able to influence us."
The antithesis asked you point blank what you mean by that (//http://www.atheistforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=965358#p965358) and you ignored the question.
If I've misinterpreted your position, I'm genuinely sorry, but you certainly seem to be advocating for some sort of dualism where consciousness is at least partially non-physical, hence my strong disagreement.
So I'm only going to ask you this once and only once, where do you think that consciousness comes from?
QuoteWhat I am trying to point out is we don't really have a handle on how the brain does its' thing. By trying to find a "soul" scientists might actually learn better how the brain works.
Why stop there? Why not advance geography while looking for the fountain of youth? Or advance medicine by looking for bad humors? Or advance psychology by delving into blood type superstitions (//http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_types_in_Japanese_culture)?
Do you seriously not notice how ridiculous that argument actually is? :-k
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"My idea of a soul came from the story of a young girl who had an accident and completely lost her memory. All of it. Not partial amnesia, she had to relearn everything. She had to learn how to talk, walk, feed herself, I mean everything. Once she learned how to talk well enough, she complained to her family that they seemed to think she was the girl they knew before the accident. She knew she occupied the same body, but she didn't think of herself as the other girl. The other girl lost her "soul" in the accident.
Only if you define the girl as her memories. Then you're defining "soul"as "memories".
QuoteNow the body had a new "soul" and the girl was a different girl.
That's consistent - the body now had different memories.
QuoteIt would be like if your hard drive got reformatted. You would put new information in, maybe a new operating system. Then you would have to reload programs, leaving some out and adding new ones. While the computer is physically the same, it is a new computer in a way. Does that help at all?
No, since the computer is the same in all ways, only the data it's storing is different. So you've again defined "soul" as "memories".
We have a word for what you're using "soul" for, you're just using the word for "the part of how brains work that I don't understand". It's the soul of the gaps.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"I do not think science has a good grasp of how all of it works. They just know how it is wired, not how we address and locate memories to do what we do. This is the "soul" which needs to be found and understood in my opinion.
So when we didn't understand what lightning was, that was the god we had to find?
You said it yourself, but didn't recognize it. "If we don't understand it, it has to be a god doing it." Or a soul, in this case. Wrong in both cases - lack of understanding isn't evidence that there's some entity that we made up that has to be there. (The whole concept of a "soul" is just a misunderstanding of Genesis 2:7. It means "breath", nothing more. That's what the ancients thought was the difference between living things and non-living things.)
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"As far as having a good grasp of what science thinks about it, hell no. What I know I learned by reading a few articles and watching some documentaries. As far as the level I am looking for, I want to know exactly how it works.
Science doesn't know yet, we're still investigating. But "we don't know" doesn't mean God did it" any more than it means "we have souls".
Science isn't going to look for a soul any more than it's going to look for a god. It's going to look AT minds, and go wherever that takes it.
Quote from: "Colanth"Quote from: "mediumaevum"Is it not correct that according to some quantum physicists, everything is one and the same?
No, it's not correct (although some scientifically illiterate science writer may have said that).
QuoteIf everything is just the product of a singularity, why don't we see everything at once?
For the same reason that, even though you and your brother are products of the same parents, you're not the same people.
1) According to a physics book known as The Fabric of the Cosmos the world is like a hologram and time is an illusion. According to Brian Greene, every even that had happened or will happen is just as real as the now/present. That logically follows that everything is the one and the same thing from the same singularity that casts a "picture" on a screen, what we percieve as the universe.
2) Nobody, to my knowledge, has so far answered what precisely causes Quantum Entanglement. Yes, I know that it happens if the photons are placed very close to each other and stuff like that, but it doesn't explain what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" - that they can communicate instantly without regard to the speed of light.
I say that this can only happen if it is the one and same particle just many places at once. I suggest that the entire world is made up of one single particle no bigger than the smallest particle in the universe, and that every particle is one and the same different places in time and space. Yes, that's for my account.
However, there is a clue to this proved by the Double Slit Experiment too where an electron can be multiple places at once.
QuoteNobody, to my knowledge, has so far answered what precisely causes Quantum Entanglement.
QuoteI say that this can only happen if it is the one and same particle just many places at once.
Argument from Ignorance fallacy.
You can say whatever you like, it isn't worth shit until you give actual empirical evidence that it means something.
Obviously my post was ignored, but I wonder what proponents of the 'soul' have to say when confronted with the accusation that the 'soul' is simply a gap filler. It's ironic that these people themselves are spitting out this and that about science, some information seems to come from reliable sources, yet anything we don't know is merely replaced by the 'soul'. It's a legitimate point I am bringing up and ignoring it doesn't make it magically (no pun intended?) go away.
Science is pushing back superstition further and further, yet superstition fights back by filling gaps of the unknown. These 'soul' proponents, I'm sure, are the 2013 equivalent of people that used to believe that heartbeats were the "footsteps of God" and breath and wind were the "breezes of the divine".
I think we may be having trouble with the fact that words have different meanings. Here is a list which may help.
Quotesoul (noun)
1. the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part.
2. the spiritual part of humans regarded in its moral aspect, or as believed to survive death and be subject to happiness or misery in a life to come: arguing the immortality of the soul.
3. the disembodied spirit of a deceased person: He feared the soul of the deceased would haunt him.
4. the emotional part of human nature; the seat of the feelings or sentiments.
5. a human being; person.
physical (adjective)
1. of or pertaining to the body: physical exercise.
2. of or pertaining to that which is material: the physical universe; the physical sciences.
3. noting or pertaining to the properties of matter and energy other than those peculiar to living matter.
4. pertaining to the physical sciences, especially physics.
5. carnal; sexual: a physical attraction.
energy (noun)
1. the capacity for vigorous activity; available power: I eat chocolate to get quick energy.
2. an adequate or abundant amount of such power: I seem to have no energy these days.
3. Often, energies. a feeling of tension caused or seeming to be caused by an excess of such power: to work off one's energies at tennis.
4. an exertion of such power: She plays tennis with great energy.
5. the habit of vigorous activity; vigor as a characteristic: Foreigners both admire and laugh at American energy.
//http://dictionary.reference.com/
When I am referring to "soul" I am talking about the fourth definition of soul. I am, maybe incorrectly referring to "physical" as being solid matter and thinking of "energy" as being different. Like how we have a radio (matter or physical) and radio waves (energy). Thus, when I am talking about the physical brain, I am talking about the solid physical components, and thinking of the energy elements as a different state. So, what I was thinking was the hard drive of a computer has the material hard drive and it has information maintained with different energy states. It is just an analogy.
I'm not a neuroscientist, nor a physicist. I use language imprecisely. And what I am trying to get across, is that if we look at things in different ways, we may end up with a new understanding of something. Think about brainstorming for a minute. Say you are in a brainstorming meeting for Company A tasked with coming up with ways to improve production, and to get things started someone says, "I'm thinking of pink elephants." The discussion starts and ends up deciding on revising the drug policies for the company to better improve production. Are there naturally occurring pink elephants. Not that I know of. The pink elephants didn't even matter. What mattered is that they got people thinking about things in a way they may not have before.
It seems many here are stuck on the "soul" as being the religious separable, intangible, part of our body. This is the religious prejudice I have been trying to point out. Granted, I have not been as clear as I would have liked, and didn't differentiate what I meant by physical and energy very well, but tried I to clear it up with an analogy. Which some seemingly took exception to. Yes, radio waves, magnetic fields, electromotive force, are all physical. But, they are not what we would normally think of as solid matter either. Because I may be referring to different states of energy, I am not saying that energy is God. I didn't think atheists would have a problem with not seeing God in different states of energy. It seems I was wrong.
frosty wrote in part:
QuoteObviously my post was ignored, but I wonder what proponents of the 'soul' have to say when confronted with the accusation that the 'soul' is simply a gap filler.
I thought your previous post was more directed toward mediumaevum so I didn't answer. I hope my explanation of "soul" explains why I don't see it as a gap filler. It is the consciousness we have as ourselves. Not the "soul" the angels take care of. That being said, yes it is a gap filler because we, I don't understand our consciousness as well as would be desired. I am not suggesting a God given spark of life.
Colanth wrote in part:
QuoteScience doesn't know yet, we're still investigating. But "we don't know" doesn't mean God did it" any more than it means "we have souls".
Science isn't going to look for a soul any more than it's going to look for a god. It's going to look AT minds, and go wherever that takes it.
Where I have said "God did it?" And didn't I explain that when I refer to "soul" and I was talking about consciousness and memories. Maybe scientists are not going looking for God, but they very well may look for different types of energies effecting our consciousness and memories.
I'm not going to address each every person who took the time to post, but I have tried to clear up their concerns with this post. I am not trying to convert you to new-age God worship. I do think you should brainstorm different ideas and see where the ideas take you though. And I would suggest you get over being consumed with the idea of God being implied in everything. Things are the way they are, and that is what they are.
I think it's pretty much proven and known that (electrical) energy in the brain is what generates our consciousness. So in that regard, you're not really suggesting any new approach I think, just the currently understood one.
It seems like since we are conscious, we should be able to understand how we are conscious, right while we are doing it. We should be able to sort of "see" the electrical energy in our brains assemble into something we recognize as meaningful. We should be able to feel it connecting through neurons and branching out through brain tissues as it gels into a thought. But it doesn't happen. We go from a highly organized state of protoplasm to consciousness, with no comprehension of the vital steps inbetween. In the process of experiencing, we bypass the very thing that seems like it should be readily understood.
Psychologically, I think a couple of things turn this into the big mystery we make of it. First consciousness is so important to us that we rely on it exclusively to define ourselves. Our consciousness is the who in "who" we are. It's not our bodies or eyes or the color of our hair. It's the sense of self we experience in our brains. We experience this state even though we might lose an arm or a leg, and even if our hair falls out. It's the thing that will always be with us no matter what happens, at least until we cease to exist.
Second, we become so enamored with this experience of self that we give it special status. And the fact that we can not experience how it happens leads us to fill in the gap between "blob of protoplasm" and "self". Some of us simply can't help but explain it through supernatural explanations.
But we didn't evolve that way. Survival does not require understanding how we are conscious. Being conscious is the trait evolution selected for survival. Understanding the process is all but useless to that end, so here we are experiencing without having much of a clue why it happens. It drives us a little batty. We bring up the subject on the internet. And we sing about it during church services: "Jesus loves me...." as he loves the part of me that experiences consciousness.
Go figure. :-D
Plu wrote:
QuoteI think it's pretty much proven and known that (electrical) energy in the brain is what generates our consciousness. So in that regard, you're not really suggesting any new approach I think, just the currently understood one.
Yes, but there are different types of electrical energy and there are also chemical energies influencing our brain's functions. I am also suggesting other forms of energy may affect our brains in yet not understood ways.
For instance, currently there are scientists studying how magnetic fields effect the brain. There are others who have for years studied the effects different chemicals and molecules have on our brain. Maybe, if a scientist considered how the magnetic fields influence the chemicals and molecules in our brains, we would end up with a better understanding of what is going on. Or maybe looking at a different type of energy not usually considered as having an effect on us. For instance, how does higher or lower blood pressure effect our consciousness? How are the chemicals and molecules effected by higher or lower body temperatures? Can radio waves effect us in yet not understood ways?
There may very well be scientists exploring these different aspects, but I don't think we should rule anything out as far as the functioning of the brain. Except God. Yes, I agree God should be ruled out. God should not be in any of the equations when exploring the brain. There is no God, so God cannot cause anything to happen in our brains. But, maybe by thinking of God, we cause chemical and electrical changes in our brains. That sounds like an interesting study, which I think arguably has been done.
QuoteIt seems like since we are conscious, we should be able to understand how we are conscious, right while we are doing it.
It's really strange for a proces to be able to observe itself. Practically impossible, even. So it's not weird that we can't do it at all; we always need/use outside observers to watch a proces while it's happening.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Plu wrote: QuoteI think it's pretty much proven and known that (electrical) energy in the brain is what generates our consciousness. So in that regard, you're not really suggesting any new approach I think, just the currently understood one.
Yes, but there are different types of electrical energy and there are also chemical energies influencing our brain's functions. I am also suggesting other forms of energy may affect our brains in yet not understood ways.
For instance, currently there are scientists studying how magnetic fields effect the brain. There are others who have for years studied the effects different chemicals and molecules have on our brain. Maybe, if a scientist considered how the magnetic fields influence the chemicals and molecules in our brains, we would end up with a better understanding of what is going on. Or maybe looking at a different type of energy not usually considered as having an effect on us. For instance, how does higher or lower blood pressure effect our consciousness? How are the chemicals and molecules effected by higher or lower body temperatures? Can radio waves effect us in yet not understood ways?
There may very well be scientists exploring these different aspects, but I don't think we should rule anything out as far as the functioning of the brain. Except God. Yes, I agree God should be ruled out. God should not be in any of the equations when exploring the brain. There is no God, so God cannot cause anything to happen in our brains. But, maybe by thinking of God, we cause chemical and electrical changes in our brains. That sounds like an interesting study, which I think arguably has been done.
Now you've moved from using meaningless words like "soul" to extremely specific and testable hypothesises.
That is how science runs. All of these are good examples.
But if someone goes to a scientist and says "maybe the brain works because of the soul", the only reasonable scientific answer to that is "piss off until you convert your nonsense into something we can actually test".
If we had to find scientific evidence for everything, reporting a random failure of a laptop would not lead anyone to investigate the failure, let alone give you money back.
I am not saying this applies for "ghosts" or "souls" etc. I am just pointing out the possibility that IF in case they exist, they are so random that they cannot be testet, the same way you cannot reproduce a random error in machines.
Yet they do happen.
The only reason we can test machines and actually say they have a randomly occuring error, is because we investigate them throughly.
I doubt people with/without supposedly "psychic" abilities would like to stay for a year or more with electrodes placed on their heads or whatever is required of them to prove them right.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"If we had to find scientific evidence for everything, reporting a random failure of a laptop would not lead anyone to investigate the failure, let alone give you money back.
If you did not have to give scientific evidence for random laptop failures, you could walk into a store, say "my laptop is broken" and receive a new one without even having to prove you even own a laptop.
Of course you have to give scientific evidence that your laptop is broken. Something like actually bringing in the laptop, showing what's damaged, and proving that you've bought it from those people.
Quote from: "Plu"Quote from: "mediumaevum"If we had to find scientific evidence for everything, reporting a random failure of a laptop would not lead anyone to investigate the failure, let alone give you money back.
If you did not have to give scientific evidence for random laptop failures, you could walk into a store, say "my laptop is broken" and receive a new one without even having to prove you even own a laptop.
Of course you have to give scientific evidence that your laptop is broken. Something like actually bringing in the laptop, showing what's damaged, and proving that you've bought it from those people.
You tell them the specific error of the laptop, but unlike atheists, the laptop sellers are at least offering the buyer to investigate the issue for a couple of weeks/months.
If I say I have encountered a ghost, you would not consider what I say at all. At least the seller in the store would listen to me what I have to say about the error in my laptop.
That's the big difference.
Millions of people around the globe report sightings of supposedly paranormal phenomena. While it certainly does not tell us that there is indeed something spooky happening, it does tell us that there is something that needs to be investigated.
The millions or billions of cool cash that some people offer to individuals for proving something paranormal, with scientific experiments, help little to nothing, not because the paranormal doesn't exist, but because the paranormal is like a random failure in a laptop: It can't be reproduced by command.
If you tell the seller in the store that your pc once randomly came alive and went all Skynet on you, they'd tell you to go away.
There's a major difference between a plausible problem (a machine crashing) and a completely implausible figment of someone's imagination (a machine suddenly becoming self aware)
Ghosts are entirely in the second category unless you bring in really good evidence of something real happening.
QuoteMillions of people around the globe report sightings of supposedly paranormal phenomena. While it certainly does not tell us that there is indeed something spooky happening, it does tell us that there is something that needs to be investigated.
Yeah, mental disorders. We do investigate those, actually.
Plu wrote in part:
QuoteBut if someone goes to a scientist and says "maybe the brain works because of the soul", the only reasonable scientific answer to that is "piss off until you convert your nonsense into something we can actually test".
Or they could ask, "What do you mean when you say the word soul?" Then try to figure out if what the "soul" is, is testable or not. True, it may just be nonsense. But, on the chance that the energies for which a person may describe a "soul" could lead to something, it would be good to hear the person out.
When Luigi Aloisio Galvani touched a dead frog's leg with an electrical lead and it twitched, consider how it was thought of back when he first did it. It was no doubt considered nonsense because everyone knew muscles were controlled hydraulically.
mediumaevum wrote in part:
QuoteThe millions or billions of cool cash that some people offer to individuals for proving something paranormal, with scientific experiments, help little to nothing, not because the paranormal doesn't exist, but because the paranormal is like a random failure in a laptop: It can't be reproduced by command.
The trouble with that analogy is, we couldn't even come up with a test for the paranormal, even if it was a regularly occurring phenomenon. That being said, we could come up with psychological tests of for the people saying they have witnessed paranormal events. Might yield some interesting results.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Plu wrote in part: QuoteBut if someone goes to a scientist and says "maybe the brain works because of the soul", the only reasonable scientific answer to that is "piss off until you convert your nonsense into something we can actually test".
Or they could ask, "What do you mean when you say the word soul?" Then try to figure out if what the "soul" is, is testable or not. True, it may just be nonsense. But, on the chance that the energies for which a person may describe a "soul" could lead to something, it would be good to hear the person out.
When Luigi Aloisio Galvani touched a dead frog's leg and it twitched, consider how it was thought of back when he first did it. It was no doubt considered nonsense because everyone knew muscles were controlled hydraulically.
They are effectively the same thing except for the attitude, but I personally think that scientists are way too patient with fucking idiots as it is. Basically if you compare amount of time needed to hear out all the idiots vs number of things that the scientists eventually pried out of them, it'd probably be faster to just lock the door and focus on the actual research; you'd discover the same things in the end with less time wasted.
Plu wrote:
QuoteThey are effectively the same thing except for the attitude, but I personally think that scientists are way too patient with fucking idiots as it is. Basically if you compare amount of time needed to hear out all the idiots vs number of things that the scientists eventually pried out of them, it'd probably be faster to just lock the door and focus on the actual research; you'd discover the same things in the end with less time wasted.
I was thinking more along the lines of when the scientists get stuck on a problem. Like my trigonometry instructor told me, "When you get stuck on a problem, just start solving any part of the problem you can. Then the part you are stuck on may become clear to you."
Which gave me an idea. Since investigating why people believe in God, some have suggested there maybe evolutionary reasons for it. As far as the paranormal phenomenon is concerned, I came up with an evolutionary answer. Ghosts and such are scary. When people get scared they get horny. Which is why dates to amusement parks with roller coasters are so popular. Maybe paranormal phenomenon caused those "witnessing" them, to mate more than those who didn't witness them. A little off topic, but it does kind of explain something about our consciousness.
Excuse me, Mr. Mediumaevum:
Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"Quote from: "mediumaevum"I personally define conscious awareness as being aware of your own existence, not necessarily by senses like touch, hear, taste, smell, see etc. but more like if I close my eyes and lie in a totally quite room where there are nobody else and I am not disturbed, I often see, hear and touch a totally different world. I have no control of my own thoughts, and I even doubt whether they are thoughts at all, as they seem so real.
If you are any type of creature with a nerve center advanced enough to form memories and experience from processed information, then you are going to be aware of your own existence. By the time you get to our level, you have a nerve center advanced enough to self-reflect and use idle processing power to plan, conceptualize, and fit information into a larger picture to make more sense of the world. A by-product of this is that we are capable of asking the question, "Why am I here?"
None of this requires an external structure beyond the brain. So whence cometh the soul?
You forgot to respond to this.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Note, that towards the end where the scientist casually mentions that his colleagues didn't think his experiment would work. There are a bunch of naysayers out there which will not consider anything other than the physical brain as being able to influence us. Then some guy, like the guy in the video, comes along and shows us something amazing about the brain.
But he didn't say anything about non-physical stuff happening to the brain. He showed us something amazing, but it's still 100% physical.
Sure, we're only just beginning to understand the very basics of that extraordinarily complex piece of physical tissue called the brain. There's a hell of a lot we don't know. Hence science. Research.
Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"Excuse me, Mr. Mediumaevum:
Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"Quote from: "mediumaevum"I personally define conscious awareness as being aware of your own existence, not necessarily by senses like touch, hear, taste, smell, see etc. but more like if I close my eyes and lie in a totally quite room where there are nobody else and I am not disturbed, I often see, hear and touch a totally different world. I have no control of my own thoughts, and I even doubt whether they are thoughts at all, as they seem so real.
If you are any type of creature with a nerve center advanced enough to form memories and experience from processed information, then you are going to be aware of your own existence. By the time you get to our level, you have a nerve center advanced enough to self-reflect and use idle processing power to plan, conceptualize, and fit information into a larger picture to make more sense of the world. A by-product of this is that we are capable of asking the question, "Why am I here?"
None of this requires an external structure beyond the brain. So whence cometh the soul?
You forgot to respond to this.
I can't/won't.
Quote from: "Atheon"Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Note, that towards the end where the scientist casually mentions that his colleagues didn't think his experiment would work. There are a bunch of naysayers out there which will not consider anything other than the physical brain as being able to influence us. Then some guy, like the guy in the video, comes along and shows us something amazing about the brain.
But he didn't say anything about non-physical stuff happening to the brain. He showed us something amazing, but it's still 100% physical.
I made the exact same point earlier. Didn't stick.
Atheon wrote in part:
QuoteBut he didn't say anything about non-physical stuff happening to the brain. He showed us something amazing, but it's still 100% physical.
Hydra009 wrote:
QuoteI made the exact same point earlier. Didn't stick.
Seems I have to address you guys specifically for you to pay attention.
I wrote on page 4.
QuoteI think we may be having trouble with the fact that words have different meanings. Here is a list which may help.
QuoteQuote:
soul (noun)
1. the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part.
2. the spiritual part of humans regarded in its moral aspect, or as believed to survive death and be subject to happiness or misery in a life to come: arguing the immortality of the soul.
3. the disembodied spirit of a deceased person: He feared the soul of the deceased would haunt him.
4. the emotional part of human nature; the seat of the feelings or sentiments.
5. a human being; person.
physical (adjective)
1. of or pertaining to the body: physical exercise.
2. of or pertaining to that which is material: the physical universe; the physical sciences.
3. noting or pertaining to the properties of matter and energy other than those peculiar to living matter.
4. pertaining to the physical sciences, especially physics.
5. carnal; sexual: a physical attraction.
energy (noun)
1. the capacity for vigorous activity; available power: I eat chocolate to get quick energy.
2. an adequate or abundant amount of such power: I seem to have no energy these days.
3. Often, energies. a feeling of tension caused or seeming to be caused by an excess of such power: to work off one's energies at tennis.
4. an exertion of such power: She plays tennis with great energy.
5. the habit of vigorous activity; vigor as a characteristic: Foreigners both admire and laugh at American energy.
http://dictionary.reference.com/ (http://dictionary.reference.com/)
QuoteWhen I am referring to "soul" I am talking about the fourth definition of soul. I am, maybe incorrectly referring to "physical" as being solid matter and thinking of "energy" as being different. Like how we have a radio (matter or physical) and radio waves (energy). Thus, when I am talking about the physical brain, I am talking about the solid physical components, and thinking of the energy elements as a different state. So, what I was thinking was the hard drive of a computer has the material hard drive and it has information maintained with different energy states. It is just an analogy.
I'm not a neuroscientist, nor a physicist. I use language imprecisely. And what I am trying to get across, is that if we look at things in different ways, we may end up with a new understanding of something. Think about brainstorming for a minute. Say you are in a brainstorming meeting for Company A tasked with coming up with ways to improve production, and to get things started someone says, "I'm thinking of pink elephants." The discussion starts and ends up deciding on revising the drug policies for the company to better improve production. Are there naturally occurring pink elephants. Not that I know of. The pink elephants didn't even matter. What mattered is that they got people thinking about things in a way they may not have before.
It seems many here are stuck on the "soul" as being the religious separable, intangible, part of our body. This is the religious prejudice I have been trying to point out. Granted, I have not been as clear as I would have liked, and didn't differentiate what I meant by physical and energy very well, but tried I to clear it up with an analogy. Which some seemingly took exception to. Yes, radio waves, magnetic fields, electromotive force, are all physical. But, they are not what we would normally think of as solid matter either. Because I may be referring to different states of energy, I am not saying that energy is God. I didn't think atheists would have a problem with not seeing God in different states of energy. It seems I was wrong.
frosty wrote in part:
QuoteQuote:
Obviously my post was ignored, but I wonder what proponents of the 'soul' have to say when confronted with the accusation that the 'soul' is simply a gap filler.
I thought your previous post was more directed toward mediumaevum so I didn't answer. I hope my explanation of "soul" explains why I don't see it as a gap filler. It is the consciousness we have as ourselves. Not the "soul" the angels take care of. That being said, yes it is a gap filler because we, I don't understand our consciousness as well as would be desired. I am not suggesting a God given spark of life.
Colanth wrote in part:
QuoteQuote:
Science doesn't know yet, we're still investigating. But "we don't know" doesn't mean God did it" any more than it means "we have souls".
Science isn't going to look for a soul any more than it's going to look for a god. It's going to look AT minds, and go wherever that takes it.
Where I have said "God did it?" And didn't I explain that when I refer to "soul" and I was talking about consciousness and memories. Maybe scientists are not going looking for God, but they very well may look for different types of energies effecting our consciousness and memories.
I'm not going to address each every person who took the time to post, but I have tried to clear up their concerns with this post. I am not trying to convert you to new-age God worship. I do think you should brainstorm different ideas and see where the ideas take you though. And I would suggest you get over being consumed with the idea of God being implied in everything. Things are the way they are, and that is what they are.
> why don't _I_ experience the world from the perspective of each and every living creature at the same time?
Light strikes the retina of your eyes and causes certain neurons to fire. These conduct the electro-chemical impulses to the visual cortex of your brain, where they are interpreted as vision of external objects. The only neurons connected to your brain are your own, so you don't see, hear, smell, etc., things from any one or any thing else's perspective, only your own.
Consciousness is an illusion provided by the brain that aids in causing survival-enhancing behaviors.
Frank
Quote from: "mediumaevum"I can't/won't.
I'll take that as a concession, in that case.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"Quote from: "Colanth"Quote from: "mediumaevum"Is it not correct that according to some quantum physicists, everything is one and the same?
No, it's not correct (although some scientifically illiterate science writer may have said that).
QuoteIf everything is just the product of a singularity, why don't we see everything at once?
For the same reason that, even though you and your brother are products of the same parents, you're not the same people.
1) According to a physics book known as The Fabric of the Cosmos the world is like a hologram and time is an illusion. According to Brian Greene, every even that had happened or will happen is just as real as the now/present. That logically follows that everything is the one and the same thing from the same singularity that casts a "picture" on a screen, what we percieve as the universe.
Actually, that doesn't logically follow.
Quote2) Nobody, to my knowledge, has so far answered what precisely causes Quantum Entanglement. Yes, I know that it happens if the photons are placed very close to each other and stuff like that, but it doesn't explain what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" - that they can communicate instantly without regard to the speed of light.
Nor could anyone explain, in 1066 CE, what lightning was. That didn't make it something that some god created. "We don't know" is a valid answer in science.
QuoteI say that this can only happen if it is the one and same particle just many places at once.
Remember, "UFO" doesn't stand for "Alien Space Ship" - the first letter stands for "Unknown". "It can only happen" means that you know what's happening and why. Since we don't, your statement is actually the equivalent of "The only thing I can think of is ...", and that's the fallacy known as argumentum ad ignorantiam - argument from ignorance. It's not an argument, it's fallacious illogic.
QuoteI suggest that the entire world is made up of one single particle no bigger than the smallest particle in the universe, and that every particle is one and the same different places in time and space. Yes, that's for my account.
You're entitled to your opinion.
QuoteHowever, there is a clue to this proved by the Double Slit Experiment too where an electron can be multiple places at once.
"Appears to be" isn't "is".
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"For instance, currently there are scientists studying how magnetic fields effect the brain.
Yes, it's been known for more than 100 years that magnetic fields affect electrical flow.
QuoteThere are others who have for years studied the effects different chemicals and molecules have on our brain. Maybe, if a scientist considered how the magnetic fields influence the chemicals and molecules in our brains
Unless you're talking about ferric materials, they don't. There's nothing to study. (Magnetism is a well-understood phenomenon.)
QuoteCan radio waves effect us in yet not understood ways?
How radio waves affect us IS understood. There's no mysterious something lurking there that we haven't discovered yet. Electromagnetic radiation is understood well-enough to be boring.
QuoteI don't think we should rule anything out as far as the functioning of the brain. Except God.
And all other forms of woo.
QuoteYes, I agree God should be ruled out. God should not be in any of the equations when exploring the brain. There is no God, so God cannot cause anything to happen in our brains.
And there is no "soul" - in the commonly accepted meaning, something that can transcend death - so there's no reason to study it.
Emotions? Sure, and they ARE being studied. But not as what a Christian would call a soul.
QuoteBut, maybe by thinking of God, we cause chemical and electrical changes in our brains. That sounds like an interesting study, which I think arguably has been done.
Of course we do. By thinking - it doesn't matter about what - we cause electrical and chemical changes in our brains. That's been studied and it's being studied. But not as "If we think about God it's different", or "there's this "soul" that survives our death".
BTW, the definition of soul, if you care at all about etymology, is "breath".
Quote from: "mediumaevum"If we had to find scientific evidence for everything, reporting a random failure of a laptop would not lead anyone to investigate the failure, let alone give you money back.
I am not saying this applies for "ghosts" or "souls" etc. I am just pointing out the possibility that IF in case they exist, they are so random that they cannot be testet, the same way you cannot reproduce a random error in machines.
Actually you can, since seemingly-random errors aren't random. (The possibility of a cosmic ray hitting a RAM cell on Earth at just the right time to cause an error is so remote that, as a species that will eventually become extinct, we don't have to consider it.)
Tell a programmer that "random error" can't be tested, and he may hurt himself laughing. (Or wishing.)
But if everyone had a soul, they wouldn't be rare - there would be at least 7 billion of them wandering around.
QuoteThe only reason we can test machines and actually say they have a randomly occuring error, is because we investigate them throughly.
But not as in "Let's see if we can find a soul". We investigate the EVIDENCE thoroughly. When it comes to the "soul", there's no evidence to investigate.
QuoteI doubt people with/without supposedly "psychic" abilities would like to stay for a year or more with electrodes placed on their heads or whatever is required of them to prove them right.
Pure chance would get it right much more often than that. If "psychic ability" allows you to get it right once a year, throwing darts is a much better way. (If I thought I had actual psychic ability, I'd sit in Randi's lab for a year or two. At worst, that's $500,000/year salary. Even 4 years wouldn't be minimum wage.) Psychic ability would be a little more than guessing right every year or so. It would be like seeing - either you can or you can't. If someone holds a red card up, either I see red or I don't. I don't see different colors each time, and only once a year or two see red.
Quote from: "mediumaevum"Quote from: "Plu"Quote from: "mediumaevum"If we had to find scientific evidence for everything, reporting a random failure of a laptop would not lead anyone to investigate the failure, let alone give you money back.
If you did not have to give scientific evidence for random laptop failures, you could walk into a store, say "my laptop is broken" and receive a new one without even having to prove you even own a laptop.
Of course you have to give scientific evidence that your laptop is broken. Something like actually bringing in the laptop, showing what's damaged, and proving that you've bought it from those people.
You tell them the specific error of the laptop, but unlike atheists, the laptop sellers are at least offering the buyer to investigate the issue for a couple of weeks/months.
Because there's actual evidence that there's a laptop, there's actual evidence that you bought it from them and there's actual evidence that it's not working.
Psychic claims are like walking into a pet shop, claiming that you bought a time machine from them, it failed to come back from the future, and demanding that they investigate your claim. There's never been any evidence of psychic ability, no claimant is showing any, yet they're demanding that you investigate their claim.
I claim that you owe me $10,000. When can I expect to see payment?
QuoteIf I say I have encountered a ghost, you would not consider what I say at all.
If you present evidence that a ghost exists, we would.
QuoteAt least the seller in the store would listen to me what I have to say about the error in my laptop.
Only if you show evidence that there is a laptop.
QuoteMillions of people around the globe report sightings of supposedly paranormal phenomena.
Yet not one of them, ever, has presented the slightest shred of actual evidence.
QuoteWhile it certainly does not tell us that there is indeed something spooky happening, it does tell us that there is something that needs to be investigated.
It has been. And it's been found that people can be mistaken, that people make things up and that people are less than completely sane. NO scientific investigation has EVER found ANY evidence of ANY paranormal activity. Not even as a side-effect in an investigation of something else.
QuoteThe millions or billions of cool cash that some people offer to individuals for proving something paranormal, with scientific experiments, help little to nothing, not because the paranormal doesn't exist, but because the paranormal is like a random "failure in a laptop: It can't be reproduced by command.
"Random" failures in laptops CAN be reproduced on command - and when the failure is understood well enough to reproduce it, that's when it gets fixed.
But if the paranormal is truly random (and as rare as you claim), it's not all that interesting, because there's no practical use for it. So what if some guy can get a glimpse of which cards some other guy is holding once in a decade? Who cares? I can do better than that by pure guess.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Plu wrote in part: QuoteBut if someone goes to a scientist and says "maybe the brain works because of the soul", the only reasonable scientific answer to that is "piss off until you convert your nonsense into something we can actually test".
Or they could ask, "What do you mean when you say the word soul?"
You said that you use very loose definitions. Scientists don't.
It's like asking a fisherman whether he caught any birds today - and by birds you mean fish.
You could ask a scientist to investigate emotions. Oh, they already do.
QuoteThen try to figure out if what the "soul" is, is testable or not.
We have your definition - emotions. They exist.
Next?
QuoteTrue, it may just be nonsense. But, on the chance that the energies for which a person may describe a "soul" could lead to something, it would be good to hear the person out.
It would be much better if the person used the same language everyone else did.
QuoteWhen Luigi Aloisio Galvani touched a dead frog's leg with an electrical lead and it twitched, consider how it was thought of back when he first did it. It was no doubt considered nonsense because everyone knew muscles were controlled hydraulically.
There was evidence that there was a frog's leg. There was an observation that it twitched.
There's never been any evidence of the common meaning of "soul".
QuoteThe trouble with that analogy is, we couldn't even come up with a test for the paranormal, even if it was a regularly occurring phenomenon.
Sure we can. The test would depend on the claim but if, for example, someone claimed telekinetic ability, we could test for that. Or if he claimed to be able to see at a distance, and could choose where he was seeing, we could test for that.
The problem with all these claims is that when they fail, we get excuses like "too many people were projecting negative energy", or "it doesn't work if it's being measured".
QuoteThat being said, we could come up with psychological tests of for the people saying they have witnessed paranormal events. Might yield some interesting results.
More interesting would be to test people who claim paranormal ability. Millions of people can claim (and have claimed) to see things that couldn't have occurred. Human beings have the ability - proved many times - of making things up.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"As far as the paranormal phenomenon is concerned, I came up with an evolutionary answer. Ghosts and such are scary. When people get scared they get horny. Which is why dates to amusement parks with roller coasters are so popular. Maybe paranormal phenomenon caused those "witnessing" them, to mate more than those who didn't witness them. A little off topic, but it does kind of explain something about our consciousness.
Humans seek reasons. Humans who don't have enough knowledge to actually seek reasons make up reasons. (We KNOW this is true.)
Don't look for complex answers when a simple answer suffices.
Colanth, I was going to answer your comments one by one then realized, I already have twice.
There are still people studying how different energies affect humans, so at least some scientists are convinced we don't know everything.
//http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-03/bending-morality-magnetism
//http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/10/001016073704.htm
//[url=http://globalwindenergyimpact.com/2013/02/20/turbines-are-affecting-people-dr-hazel-lynn/]http://globalwindenergyimpact.com/2013/...azel-lynn/[/url]
Sorry I don't speak archaic. I got my definition from a dictionary.
Soul (noun)
4. the emotional part of human nature; the seat of the feelings or sentiments.
//http://dictionary.reference.com/
Why do you insist on arguing about the Christian soul, when I have tried to make it clear that is not what I have been talking about? It seems to me that you are letting your anti-religious feelings and arguments guide your reading.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"I thought your previous post was more directed toward mediumaevum so I didn't answer. I hope my explanation of "soul" explains why I don't see it as a gap filler. It is the consciousness we have as ourselves. Not the "soul" the angels take care of. That being said, yes it is a gap filler because we, I don't understand our consciousness as well as would be desired. I am not suggesting a God given spark of life.
Well, I admire that you admit that you are simply doing what our ancestors did for thousands of years, which is seek a ghostly answer to that which we cannot comprehend/understand. mediumaevum has made an entire thread of unsubstantiated, hyperbolic claims, and even at some times claims that he simply knows something without scientific evidence for his belief, and that scientific evidence is sometimes not needed for asserting claims
as a matter of fact, which is absolutely ludicrous.
frosty wrote in part:
QuoteWell, I admire that you admit that you are simply doing what our ancestors did for thousands of years, which is seek a ghostly answer to that which we cannot comprehend/understand.
I was not seeking ghostly answers. As I said three times before, I define soul as " the emotional part of human nature; the seat of the feelings or sentiments." And yes I did mess up on my definition of physical, thinking matter and energy as being separate. I'm not looking for ghosts. I am looking for new ways to explore the brain's consciousness.
Sorry to disappoint you.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"frosty wrote in part: QuoteWell, I admire that you admit that you are simply doing what our ancestors did for thousands of years, which is seek a ghostly answer to that which we cannot comprehend/understand.
I was not seeking ghostly answers. As I said three times before, I define soul as " the emotional part of human nature; the seat of the feelings or sentiments." And yes I did mess up on my definition of physical, thinking matter and energy as being separate. I'm not looking for ghosts. I am looking for new ways to explore the brain's consciousness.
Sorry to disappoint you.
Neurochemicals, they exist and there isn't anything soul like about them. You feel them as emotions that are real but you can simulate the experience with drugs. This is being explored as we speak and isn't very new.
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"frosty wrote in part: QuoteWell, I admire that you admit that you are simply doing what our ancestors did for thousands of years, which is seek a ghostly answer to that which we cannot comprehend/understand.
I was not seeking ghostly answers. As I said three times before, I define soul as " the emotional part of human nature; the seat of the feelings or sentiments." And yes I did mess up on my definition of physical, thinking matter and energy as being separate. I'm not looking for ghosts. I am looking for new ways to explore the brain's consciousness.
Sorry to disappoint you.
What? You didn't disappoint me one iota, don't worry about it. I was referring specifically to the part in bold, and I was also addressing the other guy that started the thread. I see you've cherry picked a definition of 'soul' that suits what you are trying to get across (that's alright; lots of people cherry pick definitions on the Internet), but why do you choose to assign the value of a 'soul' to our emotions? I think you would have gotten your point across a lot better if you chose a different word, regardless of it's many possible "definitions".