# Does 'the soul' exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 2, 2003, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085 "2003-06-02T06:59:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/81 "2003-06-09T20:54:47Z")
You know, **blowero** , that actually makes sense. I think I see our difference. My experience is that objective, empirical reality doesn’t exist as a single, fixed, knowable entity. ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/82 "2003-06-09T21:07:59Z")
**SirMuffinMan** to answer the other part of your question, I posted my grand unified theory of the distinction betwixt man & beast a few weeks ago. It boils down to nametags. A lion cannot have another occupation besides “lionness”; he cannot be an apprentice zebra, for example. There is no “trainee” period. I’ve seen critters show love, anger, selfishness, wilfulness; I’ve seen them use tools and create. Never seen a critter put a nametag on himself. ---
**Author:** ![GodlessSkeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5f9b8f/32.png) [@GodlessSkeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GodlessSkeptic)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/83 "2003-06-09T21:30:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\*I may be misunderstanding your argument, but isn’t it possible that life itself is the thing that exists whose existence proves the soul? I realize that’s bad philosophical form, very tautological, but it does describe my experience - and I won’t let my life be defined exclusively by good philosophical form. \*\* Life itself is not evidence for the existence of a soul anymore than sand dunes are evidence for the existence of dune buggies.Even if it is concievable that dune buggies could traverse such terrain, the fact that dunes exist in a desert does not mean there has to be dune buggies.Life can be and has been explained in purely natural terms and , as I said before there is nothing in existence that warrants the inference of “souls”. In your above arguments I could easily replace the words “soul” and “spirit” with “genie” and “unicorn” and the argument would retain the same persuasiveness as it did for “souls” and “spirits”(which is not much). > [@](#): > > **You guys keep trying to get me to put this in your terms, and I have tried but apparently I can’t. That’s okay. Your terms, your logical way of looking at things, is not all there is. It works for you, you like it; fine. If you go through your whole life doing things that way, great. Personally I don’t.** What you are doing here is positing something which is not rationally justified and attempting to rationally justify it by stating that your existential claim is not subject to rational justification.Totally circular.We have no reason, other than emotional and psychological desires to think that there is something “supernatural” which exists outside of the material universe.The aknowledgements of materialism are warranted by observation and confirmed by experimentation.The claims of philosophical _idealists_ and _solopsists_ are not warranted by anything and the claimants get around this by saying these other aspects of reality cannot be warranted by rational and logical means. The problem is that if anything can be said to exist in reality and have ANY sort of effect on our existence, then it MUST leave evidence of doing so, otherwise you would not know the thing existed.A volcano is a comparitively unimportant and small thing(compared to a god or a soul) and yet there is a great deal of evidence to warrant the inference that volcanos exist.If such a thing as a god or a soul exists there should be a proportionate amount of evidence to say so. ---
**Author:** ![GodlessSkeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5f9b8f/32.png) [@GodlessSkeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GodlessSkeptic)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/84 "2003-06-09T22:03:38Z")
> [@](#): > > **I addressed the nature of knowledge earlier, that it is a construct. If you’re already spiritual & you’re comfortable with that, then what is it you want from me? “Verification” is a personal matter & it’s up to you.** All knowledge must start with an observation.It need not be a DIRECT observation but some sort of observation that provokes a suspicion, which in turn becomes a hypothesis and eventually a theory/explanation.After attempts to falsify that theory prove fruitless, we can claim to have obtained knowledge.You cannot have knowledge without “verification”…only _belief_. The few “flat earthers” left in the world have to take great pains to avoid the evidence of a spherical/elipsoid earth.They have to willfully block out observations and use incredible feats of anti-rationality to maintain their belief.They cannot be said to posess “knowledge” of a flat earth…only\* belief\* in such. This is a little different than your claim that souls exist because in the case of the earth we can confirm that our planet exists and it is easy enough to determine what shape it is. We do not, however, know that anything “spiritual” or supernatural exists in the first place so to say that a soul cannot be verified because it is beyond the natural or belonging to a “spiritual” realm, is doubly erroneous. > [@](#): > > \*\*You want things explained in a way that makes perfect sense to you, that doesn’t challenge any of your assumptions about life - well guess what, if it could be done that way it wouldn’t need to be done because you’d already know. \*\* Exactly!Things which do in fact exist are evidenced and knowable in the empirical sense, otherwise we have no basis to say they exist at all.That does not stop one from BELIEVING they exist(as you do) but you cannot claim this as knowledge and if it is BELIEF and not KNOWLEDGE then the rationally justified position is dissent with the existential claim. \ If you want to know something that you don’t already know, then you have to change your assumptions. That’s the case with all learning, isn’t it? \ The thing is that what you call “assumptions”(of materialism?) are not assumptions at all.They are observations.I observe a brick wall in my path.True my eyes could be playing tricks.My perception of the wall could be inacurate.Which is why I experiment and attempt to falsify or confirm what my observation tells me.I try walking _through_ the wall to no avail and eventually concede that the wall in fact exists adn walking around it will be more productive than attempting to walk through it. To posit a soul’s existence is akin to coming upon a doorway and stopping because you think there is an impercieveable wall there.You cannot demonstrate or confirm the wall’s existence and other people walk through the doorway without hindrance adn yet you insist there is a wall there. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/85 "2003-06-10T07:58:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by fessie \* > \*\*You know, **blowero** , that actually makes sense. I think I see our difference. > > My experience is that objective, empirical reality doesn’t exist as a single, fixed, knowable entity. \*\* Hmmm…I don’t know that I’d describe reality that way, either. I suspect that there is an objective reality, one that we can only approximate through our objective senses. And one could say it’s “fixed” in the sense that there isn’t any evidence that reality is transient. In other words, the properties of the universe that we have discovered so far seem to be consistent, and don’t change from day-to-day. And I think objective reality is different from thoughts. For example, if I take L.S.D., and hallucinate that my computer monitor has turned into a dragon, another person observing would be able to confirm that it actually _hadn’t_ turned into a dragon. The objective reality in that case would be that it’s still a computer monitor. So in that case, my thoughts were subjective, not objective. But I’m not sure what you mean by “knowable”. We certainly don’t know everything about the universe, and at this point I don’t think we can even determine if it’s _possible_ to know everything about the universe. So, in my opinion, subjective and objective are two different things, but believing such does not mean I believe I “know everything”. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/86 "2003-06-10T08:07:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by fessie \* > **And priceguy I didn’t say you couldn’t have an opinion about drug addiction, or contain knowledge (in the form of the construct shared by society) - you asked if you could “know” it, which I took to mean direct, experiential, personal, gut-level knowledge. You want to really know something, yeah, you’ve got to do it yourself.** You do appear to feel that we aren’t allowed to argue that there is no proof of a soul unless we believe in a soul, or have knowledge of a soul, or pray, or whatever it is you want us to do. ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/87 "2003-06-10T14:34:48Z")
I guess you’re right, too, \*\*Priceguy[/]. I think my argument all along has boiled down to “You say there is no Z because according to method X you can’t find it/see it/feel it/posit it/argue for its existence. And I’m saying that there are methods beyond X.” I don’t think that’s terribly unreasonable, or arrogant, or condescending, or whatever else it is I’ve been accused of. If method X is all you want, fine. **blowero** I agree with you, I don’t think it’s possible to know everything about the universe. My use of “knowable” was pretty vague there - what I should have described is a “single, fixed entity completely knowable entity with no mysteries.” I think that’s really what I meant. I also think that reality, human reality at least, is quite transient. It’s my understanding that witnesses to an event, an accident, give such different accounts as to be often unusable - and many of them can be persuaded that they saw something else. The thing I wonder is, why would you expect to explain everything using a single method - seems like an unreasonable burden of the method to me, one that can cause the method itself to be called into question when it fails to answer every possibility. Wouldn’t it make more sense to accept multiple methodologies of understanding? I certainly don’t operate my entire life based on my “Z” understanding; I never stated that it alone is enough. The other obvious question I haven’t posited - what about all the people who do believe, who belong to a religious organization or follow a spiritual path on their own? Are they delusional or something? ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/88 "2003-06-10T14:38:18Z")
I guess you’re right, too, \*\*Priceguy[/]. I think my argument all along has boiled down to “You say there is no Z because according to method X you can’t find it/see it/feel it/posit it/argue for its existence. And I’m saying that there are methods beyond X. That in fact the nature of Z requires additional methods.” And I’ve described my methods and experiences at great length, and made suggestions for anyone who’s curious. I don’t think that’s terribly unreasonable, or arrogant, or condescending, or whatever else it is I’ve been accused of. If method X is all you want, fine. I’ve acknowledged that mine is a tautological argument, but I believe that’s the nature of a journey. Sometimes you can’t argue that a place exists except by showing how to get there; people who haven’t gone there still won’t believe that it exists. **blowero** I agree with you, I don’t think it’s possible to know everything about the universe. My use of “knowable” was pretty vague there - what I should have described is a “single, fixed entity completely knowable entity with no mysteries.” I think that’s really what I meant. I also think that reality, human reality at least, is quite transient. It’s my understanding that witnesses to an event, an accident, give such different accounts as to be often unusable - and many of them can be persuaded that they saw something else. The thing I wonder is, why would you expect to explain everything using a single method - seems like an unreasonable burden of the method to me, one that can cause the method itself to be called into question when it fails to answer every possibility. Wouldn’t it make more sense to accept multiple methodologies of understanding? I certainly don’t operate my entire life based on my “Z” understanding; I never stated that it alone is enough. The other obvious question I haven’t posited - what about all the people who do believe, who belong to a religious organization or follow a spiritual path on their own? Are they delusional or something? ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/89 "2003-06-10T14:43:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by fessie \* > \*\*I guess you’re right, too, **Priceguy**. > > I think my argument all along has boiled down to “You say there is no Z because according to method X you can’t find it/see it/feel it/posit it/argue for its existence. And I’m saying that there are methods beyond X. That in fact the nature of Z requires additional methods.”\*\* I haven’t said that there is no Z. What I have said is that there’s no reason to believe that there is a Z, and that any “knowledge” about Z is correctly described as belief. > [@](#): > > **I don’t think that’s terribly unreasonable, or arrogant, or condescending, or whatever else it is I’ve been accused of.** Calling it “knowledge” when it is belief _is_ unreasonable. Your early post about how you’ve known about your soul for so long and never to feel this-and-that was, in my eyes, arrogant and condescending. ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/90 "2003-06-10T17:57:00Z")
**Priceguy** you’re right, my first post was pompous. I shouldn’t have staked a claim by co-opting those experiences as soulful - so much for my attempt at “waxing poetic”. I think there’s been a lot of condescension from the other side of the table as well - “you only ‘believe’ whereas we ‘know’”. Faith and reason, knowledge and belief, empiricism and intuition - the opposites need one another. Good can’t exist without evil. You guys think faith is so fallible - well so is knowledge; it’s largely limited by the means used to collect it. How many planets are there, with how many moons? - it’s not the same answer that I was taught 30 years ago. Empirical experiences are framed by beliefs - look at the records for the mile. At first people didn’t think it was humanly possible to break 5 minutes so no one could & everyone agreed that was “true”. But then once one person showed that it could be done and set a new record & next thing you know, that record was broken, and the next. People believed it was possible and so it was. Or when Yaeger broke the sound barrier - after he went Mach 1, people defined “what’s possible” in a whole new way, had to throw out what they thought they knew about what could be done. They reframed beliefs based on new knowledge, and reframed knowledge as a result of a shift in beliefs. Personally, knowledge has often let me down; intuition hasn’t nearly as much. Clearly YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/91 "2003-06-10T18:06:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by fessie \* > I also think that reality, human reality at least, is quite transient. It’s my understanding that witnesses to an event, an accident, give such different accounts as to be often unusable - and many of them can be persuaded that they saw something else. But I’m wondering why you brush aside the most important question here. You say reality is transient, but qualify your statement by saying “human reality at least”, as if the distinction were inconsequential. But that distinction is the whole point. Do we live in a universe where there is an objective “reality” that is necessarily experienced by us humans through our imperfect senses, OR do we live in a universe where our thoughts _themselves_ are reality, where simply believing a thing causes it to be true? I believe it is the former. > [@](#): > > The thing I wonder is, why would you expect to explain everything using a single method - seems like an unreasonable burden of the method to me, one that can cause the method itself to be called into question when it fails to answer every possibility. Wouldn’t it make more sense to accept multiple methodologies of understanding? I certainly don’t operate my entire life based on my “Z” understanding; I never stated that it alone is enough. Your question doesn’t make any sense until you tell us what this other method is that you are espousing. > [@](#): > > The other obvious question I haven’t posited - what about all the people who do believe, who belong to a religious organization or follow a spiritual path on their own? Are they delusional or something? I think you did bring that up earlier, and Apos pointed out that a large number of people believing something does not necessarily make it true. Look how many people used to believe that the Earth was flat, and located at the center of the universe. Or that the Sun was a chariot that was drawn across the sky each day. You’re trying to taint the idea by using too strong a word. I wouldn’t say “delusional”; I would simply say “mistaken”. Look at it this way: Hindus believe in reincarnation; Christians do not (the soul goes to heaven, not back to earth). So in a sense, you could say Christians believe that Hindus are “delusional”, and vice versa. But they probably wouldn’t word it that way, because “delusional” is an inflammatory word. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/92 "2003-06-10T18:16:48Z")
Essentially, one can’t really “know” that there is a soul until they first “believe” that there is a soul? That just won’t fly. That IS tautalogical in the worst way, and there’s nothing respectable about it. It is no different than saying “I’m right, because you should agree that I’m right, and once you do, you’ll agree that I’m right.” > [@](#): > > You guys think faith is so fallible - well so is knowledge; it’s largely limited by the means used to collect it. But you’re missing a HUGE difference here, in that faith and knowledge are very different sorts of things altogether. Knowledge includes an element of _systematic verification_ of a given belief. Belief is just that… a belief. Both can be wrong, but only one demands that we constantly CHECK for being wrong, and be sure exactly why we think we can substantiate a particular claim: what the evidence is, what the assumptions are, etc. The question is not whether either CAN be faliable, but whether they have some systematic, intelligible system for _checking_ truth. > [@](#): > > Personally, knowledge has often let me down; intuition hasn’t nearly as much. That’s usually becase people use knowledge for empirical tasks, and intuition for heavily interprative personal matters and self-fulfilling phrophecies. Knowledge progresses largely not by people being right, but by people proving old ideas wrong. If faith beliefs often seem more stable it is largely because no one even bothers to risk trying to find ways to test if they are right or wrong. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/93 "2003-06-10T18:30:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by fessie \* > Faith and reason, knowledge and belief, empiricism and intuition - the opposites need one another. Why? > [@](#): > > Good can’t exist without evil. You guys think faith is so fallible - well so is knowledge; it’s largely limited by the means used to collect it. How many planets are there, with how many moons? - it’s not the same answer that I was taught 30 years ago. What you cite as a _failure_ of science is actually its greatest strength. Science is dynamic; when we discover something new, we can revise the old model and incorporate the new knowledge. Faith cannot do so. The scientific view that the Earth rotates around the sun allowed our knowledge to increase by leaps and bounds. The faith-based view that the Earth _has_ to be the center of the universe because God made it so resulted in our being mired in a needlessly complex explanation of rotating spheres that surround the Earth. While it may have comforted people to believe that we were the center of the universe, it did nothing to help explain objective reality. Or imagine if Einstein had clung to the belief that time was immutable, and refused to consider the fallibility of that idea. ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Joe\_Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Random)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/94 "2003-06-10T18:42:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by fessie \* > **You guys think faith is so fallible - well so is knowledge; it’s largely limited by the means used to collect it. How many planets are there, with how many moons? - it’s not the same answer that I was taught 30 years ago.** The difference is that things that we come to know through empirical means are changeable. If we are made aware of new information, what we know is altered. All my experiences of people who believe things based on faith, however, have been such that these people refused to alter their belief when evidence that contradicted it was presented. _That_ is what makes faith more fallible; the fact that it is less adaptable than knowledge. > [@](#): > > **Empirical experiences are framed by beliefs - look at the records for the mile. At first people didn’t think it was humanly possible to break 5 minutes so no one could & everyone agreed that was “true”. But then once one person showed that it could be done and set a new record & next thing you know, that record was broken, and the next. People believed it was possible and so it was.** I’m afraid that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Breaking the record had nothing to do with belief. So what if no one believed that it was possible? It would have been quite possible for someone to beat the record without believeing that they could actually do it. Belief may limit the directions that you choose look in for knowledge, but it can’t change what you find there. > [@](#): > > **Or when Yaeger broke the sound barrier - after he went Mach 1, people defined “what’s possible” in a whole new way, had to throw out what they thought they knew about what could be done. They reframed beliefs based on new knowledge, and reframed knowledge as a result of a shift in beliefs.** You’re half right. They reframed beliefs based on new knowledge. However, knowledge was reframed as a result of an influx of new evidence, which had absolutely nothing to do with belief. The error you’re making is to assume that knowledge and beliefs are two sides of the same coin – that they’re somehow symmetric. Knowledge is based on evidence, whereas belief need not be. A change in knowledge can effect belief, but a change in belief cannot effect knowledge, since belief cannot effect emperical data. The most a change in belief can do is give you ideas for new places or new ways to look for knowledge. It can only change where you look, not what you see when you _do_ look. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/95 "2003-06-10T18:49:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GodlessSkeptic \* > \*\*If there were a “soul” and this soul were the seat or housing of conciousness/mind, then a blow to the head or alzheimers would not affect a man’s thinking. \*\* Only if the soul were the _sole_ mediator of a human being’s thinking. I don’t know anyone who posits that this must necessarily be so. In fact, many of the articles I’ve read which posit the existence of a soul readily acknowledge that both the soul and the human brain influence a person’s thinking. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/96 "2003-06-10T19:10:46Z")
> [@](#): > > In fact, many of the articles I’ve read which posit the existence of a soul readily acknowledge that both the soul and the human brain influence a person’s thinking. No different than readily acknowledging that “foofarbarb” influences the weather. If you can’t say what a thing is, let alone how it works, let alone how it does what it’s supposed to doing, then what’s the point of associating it with a word? ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/97 "2003-06-10T19:42:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by fessie \* > **Priceguy you’re right, my first post was pompous. I shouldn’t have staked a claim by co-opting those experiences as soulful - so much for my attempt at “waxing poetic”.** Apology accepted. > [@](#): > > **I think there’s been a lot of condescension from the other side of the table as well - “you only ‘believe’ whereas we ‘know’”.** What have I said that I know? I’ve never said there is no soul. I’ve never said God does not exist. I’ve said none of these things. I don’t know them, so I don’t say them. > [@](#): > > **Faith and reason, knowledge and belief, empiricism and intuition - the opposites need one another.** Why? > [@](#): > > \*\*Good can’t exist without evil. \*\* So one of faith or knowledge is evil and the other is good? Which is which, may I ask? > [@](#): > > **You guys think faith is so fallible - well so is knowledge; it’s largely limited by the means used to collect it. How many planets are there, with how many moons? - it’s not the same answer that I was taught 30 years ago.** “Believers”, for want of a better word, always drag this into the conversation, as if it were somehow an argument against science and empirical knowledge. This is in fact the very thing that makes science so wonderful: it corrects itself, accepts when it was wrong and makes amends. Faith very, very rarely does. > [@](#): > > **Empirical experiences are framed by beliefs - look at the records for the mile. At first people didn’t think it was humanly possible to break 5 minutes so no one could & everyone agreed that was “true”. But then once one person showed that it could be done and set a new record & next thing you know, that record was broken, and the next.** Exactly. Whereas nothing whatsoever will sway a true believer, his mind firmly locked in a read-only position. > [@](#): > > **Or when Yaeger broke the sound barrier - after he went Mach 1, people defined “what’s possible” in a whole new way, had to throw out what they thought they knew about what could be done. They reframed beliefs based on new knowledge, and reframed knowledge as a result of a shift in beliefs.** Wrong. They changed beliefs due to a shift in knowledge, but not the other way around. Knowledge does not spring from belief. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/98 "2003-06-10T19:47:18Z")
I’d like to play devil’s advocate (which means both sides of this issue will probably dislike me). What if we were back in the year 1600 and I were to tell you that there was such a thing as radio waves. I can’t prove it with what’s around, but somehow I feel there’s such a thing. Who know why believe this; it’s irrelevant; I just do. Good scientists of the day would say I have no reason to believe such a thing exists and I have no way to measure them (or even basic scientific theories that could begin to explain them) so therefore they do not exist. Case closed for the time being. You will say science is grand because it ultimately found/proved electromagnetic radiation. True. Bravo. You can easily substitute 1600 with 2003, and radio waves with souls. I propose there is a whole lotta science we can’t imagine that may well prove “souls” exist. Just like our scientists of 1600 who flippantly dismissed my belief in radio, we could well be their skeptical modern analogs. Time will tell. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/99 "2003-06-10T19:50:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JThunder \* > \*\*Only if the soul were the _sole_ mediator of a human being’s thinking. I don’t know anyone who posits that this must necessarily be so. In fact, many of the articles I’ve read which posit the existence of a soul readily acknowledge that both the soul and the human brain influence a person’s thinking. \*\* Damaging certain brain structures can result in mental retardation. Does that mean the soul becomes mentally retarded when it leaves the body, and no longer has the brain structures on which to rely? How does the soul see where it’s going when it leaves the body? How does it hear? Or can it leave the body at all? If it can’t leave the body, and consciousness is dependent on both it AND the brain, then what exactly does the soul _do_? How is it not redundant? If there is nothing to stop us from multiplying the number of entities that influence thinking, without any evidence, then how do you know that invisible monkeys or giant banana slugs don’t influence thinking? ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085/100 "2003-06-10T19:58:10Z")
**BwanaBob** : If that happens, science will admit its error, incorporate the now empirical knowledge of souls into its arsenal of facts, and move on. So? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-soul-exist/179085.md?page=6)